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National Art Library, London, MS Forster 48 D.32 MS 12. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), II, pp. 216–219.
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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I was reading Count Julianor Ermenagild
or Theodomir – are of the same measure, & the other may return to his original station which I am glad to hear of. This is a
grand passage which you have sent me, – a mixture of the pathetic & the lofty & the profound which is not to be found in
any other living writer, & in very few of those who are xxxxxx immortal.
There is nothing in the play so obscure as the two concluding <last> lines & half
will be.
The chance it would have for representation lies in Kembles vanity.had would fancy that C Julian is a character just calculated to display his talents – no doubt he would bring it
out. This I can try for you when I go to town with perfect secresy – Longman has
some property in Covent Garden, – thro him I can ensure the piece a reading – which is something with such great men as managers,
– & by accompanying it with a note to Kemble I may possibly at least excite his attention to it. As for his understanding the
power & might & majesty that the tragedy manifests it is not to be expected from a man who can act in such trash as
Cato
The Cato has only been endured, because having originally escaped the damnation which it deserved, it would have been
against all precedent to have damned it now. – I very much doubt the success of C. Julian, less from its want of pageantry, than
because of its excellencies. Long experience has made me think as meanly of the public taste as you did when you wrote the preface
to Gebir:quit quiet tears – to be decided upon by such a crew as the dramatic critics of London. God help
me what a crew they are! fellows whose habitual profligacy absolutely incapacitates them from understanding any thing
of which refers to the principles of goodness in human nature.
However if you wish it I will consign your play to Kemble, take all the man & manage all the
correspondence between him & you as to alterations, – if the business should proceed so far. And should this attempt fail I
can submit it to the Edinburgh theatre thro Walter Scott.
I fill up the sheet with an epitaph