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MS untraced; text is taken from Robert Galloway Kirkpatrick, ‘The Letters of Robert Southey to Mary Barker From 1800 to 1826’ (unpublished PhD, Harvard, 1967), pp. 412-417. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), II, pp. 330–333 [in part].
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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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.
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Two sistersill at Keswick, & ome,
& sundry other things sympathetic of the malady called ome sickness, whereof I ave a touch at the art just now. — There they are, talking away below stairs as appily as possible, & just as if there was no h in the alphabet, & here am I above stairs,
by my own fire in the inner part of the drawing room (Edith will recollect the room)
wishing myself three undred miles off. & feeling very much as I used to do at school when I was thinking
of the olydays. The church clock has just struck seven. — Herbert has got his letter this evening, & is perhaps at this moment preaching it out with all gravity to Wilsey , who will be yet more delighted to listen than he is to read. In a few minutes I
shall be summoned to tea. However I have begun a letter, meaning to scrawl thro it in the course of the evening, (for sufficient
for the day hath been the labour thereof)
First then & foremost of the things which are to be said. I desire that I may have a letter sent off by
Tuesday’s post & directed here that it may reach me on Friday. My present engagements stand thus, — tomorrow dine with Dr
Stanger,
I shall look for Lord William
Of the many things which remain to be done in London, one is to wait upon Smith & have the bust finished.
Senhora, I am really too lazy & too Simorgishpoor I” & I wish it were bed time, & that the days were gone & the nights too which must pass
before I take my seat comfortably in the mail coach, & pack myself up for forty hours. For I want some garlick pie, & the
odour of your snuff box, & to see Wilsey, & to kiss the children, & to make
a noise, & to sit under the shadow of Mrs. Coleridges nose, & to sit by my
own fire side, & to sleep in my own bed, & to resume my own way of life, & to say Aballiboozo-banganeribo
Tuesday last I met Lord St Helens
I hope the early meeting of Parliament will bring Canning to town
time enough for me to see him. — Shall you not delight in seeing Madame Stael next year on her way to Scotland? — she is a
real Lioness. I shall see her again next week, & introduce Duppa to her, he being
what Sharp calls a very presentable person. Duppa is at present very busy & very happy. Some papers have been put into his hands, which as he thinks,
demonstrate the author of Junius, & contain his own memoirs for twenty years of his life written by himself. Part of these
memoirs he is now printing.
And now Senhora good night. Should I learn anything in town tomorrow I will add it in a postscript. As soon as you have had your tea, take your pen ink & paper & write me a letter & tell me all the news of home: & if you send it to the post that night, i.e. Monday, direct it to 28 Queen Anne Street. N.B. you may as well add London, which was forgotten in the direction of the last letter. — My love to all belonging to me, — & God bless you.