Material from the Romantic Circles Website may not be downloaded, reproduced or disseminated in any manner without authorization unless it is for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, and/or classroom use as provided by the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended.
Unless otherwise noted, all Pages and Resources mounted on Romantic Circles are copyrighted by the author/editor and may be shared only in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Except as expressly permitted by this statement, redistribution or republication in any medium requires express prior written consent from the author/editors and advance notification of Romantic Circles. Any requests for authorization should be forwarded to Romantic Circles:>
By their use of these texts and images, users agree to the following conditions:
Users are not permitted to download these texts and images in order to mount them on their own servers. It is not in our interest or that of our users to have uncontrolled subsets of our holdings available elsewhere on the Internet. We make corrections and additions to our edited resources on a continual basis, and we want the most current text to be the only one generally available to all Internet users. Institutions can, of course, make a link to the copies at Romantic Circles, subject to our conditions of use.
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin. Previously published: Ernest Betham, A House of Letters (London, 1905), pp. 138–139 [paras. 1 and 2], pp. 121–122 [paras 3 and 4; dated ‘[1809–1812]’ and printed with a postscript (‘I sent nobody to give you any other trouble than that of exhibiting the family group, nor have I heard who has taken the pains of going to see them except Bedford and Neville White (Henry’s brother). He thought the last year’s picture of myself a better likeness than this.’) which is in fact the final paragraph of Southey to Betham, 27 December 1809, Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part Three, Letter 1724 ].
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.
All quotation marks and apostrophes have been changed: " for “," for ”, ' for ‘, and ' for ’.
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
Because of web browser variability, all hyphens have been typed on the U.S. keyboard.
Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.
Southey's spelling has not been regularized.
Writing in other hands appearing on these manuscripts has been indicated as such, the content recorded in brackets.
& has been used for the ampersand sign.
£ has been used for £, the pound sign
All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.
Some of our Reformers whose dunghill spirits look to nothing but economy & found their whole principles of
policy upon the rule of Profit & Loss have recommended that the privilege of franking should be abolished.would vote <call out> for its abolishment should be hanged, I should send
an order to his Majestys Halter-Maker to prepare a greater number of hempen necklaces than he is usually in the habit of
manufacturing. – Perhaps you do not know that the ropes used on such occasions are manufactured for the purpose, the noose <or
rather noose-hole> being being made in them, like the eye of a needle, ready to be threaded with the other end. – Franking is
almost the only instance in which an act of government contributes directly to keep up kindly feelings & promote the real
comforts of intellectual life. I could write a long chapter upon this subject, – but I was led to it by thinking that
it was one of the comforts of a frank that it removed all scruples at writing a short letter, – for a few lines I was resolved
upon writing to you only to say that you promised to see us this summer, that we have not forgotten the promise, & are looking
forward with great pleasure to its performance.
We have to show you a little girl whom you have never seen, one whom you will not recognize, & two elder children
I am closely employed upon the Register for 1810.
Edith & her sisters