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Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previously published: Charles Ramos, The Letters of Robert Southey to John May: 1797–1838 (Austin, Texas, 1976), pp. 89-91.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
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In the vexation occasioned by one brother I have forgotten the
other, & never replied to what you said concerning Harrys support at Edinburgh.
To say what you say of continuing to remit him
his quarterly ten pounds I have only to thank you & feel thankful that there
are such men as you in the world. you say you think it reasonable that my Uncle should pay his
necessary lecture expences &c & no farther, these however are
comparatively nothing – his board & lodging make the main cost. You know how
I am circumstanced – I have no debt but to you & that contracted wholly, or
almost wholly, on his account. My historyxxx comminuunt.rs Tyler had
been beforehand & left only fourteen pounds in the executors hands. Of
course I had only to send the statement to Lisbon & there it ended. You may
remember that at that time I told you that my Uncle had directed Thomas to pay Harry fifty pounds yearly –
his income has been increased since that by the settlement of his Chancellors
lease,him <the boy> suffer over-much,
a little sense of suffering will do him good – for his conduct has been very
thoughtless & unfeeling. I have a letter from him written with a sufficient
conviction of his own folly & its consequences. he had borrowed ten guineas
to pay the lecture fees, on a promise to repay them at Xmas – & by Xmas the
six pounds remaining from his journey – & the five he was to receive from
Norwich would be gone I conclude – so that your last supply was inevitably
mortgaged, & he will be pennyless. will a you
had will you therefore remit him ten pounds more. As soon as the
Lectures are over I will send for him here & keep him the summer months –
this will be some saving – & in the winter, if I find him capable of it as
he ought to be, will turn over some reviewing to him that he may begin to live
by the sweat of his brow. Before the next quarter I think my Uncle will make some
arrangement for him.
I shall be glad my dear friend when our correspondence can resume its former pleasanter character – when I can tell you of my own goings on & give you my speculations, unmolested by these family cares which it is somewhat hard to have inherited. parental responsibility requires parental love to counterbalance it – but every duty rewards itself in the performance. – Coleridge is set off for his brothers. he had designed to go to Madeira, but expence deterred him. – my brother Tom is going to the West Indies – this grieves me sorely. he is now first Lieutenant – & if he can stand the climate has a fair chance of promotion.
Lord Strangfords
<Our remembrances to Mrs May.