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Bristol Reference Library, SR4 pb Southey MSS B19688; MS survives as a copy in an unknown hand in a volume of MS poems, letters and other material relating to the family of Bertha Southey and Herbert Hill. Previously published: [Anon.], ‘Inedited Letter of Robert Southey’, Notes and Queries, 2.26 (28 June 1856), p. 505. Also in the Autographic Mirror, 4 vols (1864–1866), II, p. 161.
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.
You will not I trust, Sir, think me obtrusive, if I return thanks
to you as well as to Grosvenor for the volume with which he has favoured me.
We know too many instances of promising talents cut off in the bud, but I remember no instance in any way resembling this. The good sense, the careful research the playful temper which the letters display are truly delightful; and the picture of filial and fatherly affection might be held up as the ideal of all that can be desired between parent & child.
Books are more durable than marbles; & while this volume
lasts exists, Barré will be known and admired. That he would have attained
a distinguished reputation if a longer life had been granted him I cannot doubt.
Perhaps under any other circumstances he would not have been so entirely laid
open to the world; and if he had not been made known so well, however
distinguished his attainments, he would never have been admired or lamented so
much.
You, Sir, have the consolation of reflecting that everything
which the wisest and fondest parent would do for the welfare and happiness of
his child was done, and of knowing that what death has taken away death will
restore. One who has felt this latter consolation may be allowed to touch upon
it.