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National Library of Wales, MS 4812D . Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850),IV, pp. 106–109 [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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I have fished up your last letter in order to reply to it & the depth at which it was found beneath an
accumulation of more weeks correspondence than I dare remember, makes me at once sensible & ashamed of the long lapse of time
since it was received. It would be xxx needless to say that I am much gratified by your general opinion of
Roderick.now we must here understand them those which have the
redundant syllable any where except at the end,) I justify upon principle & precedent,
appealing <referring> to the practise of Shakespere & Milton, as authorities from which there can be no
appeal: the blending two short syllables into the time of one is as well known in versification as what are called binding-notes
are in music.
The descriptive passages are the relief of the poem, – the time in which the action took place x not
affording me any costume available for this purpose. And relief was especially required in a work wherein the passion was pitched
so high. P 191 you have hit a blot.xxxx Bear & Wild-Ass were found at that time
in Spain, – & here they seemed to me characteristically & easily naturally introduced.xxx notice some Mahommedan superstitions which are well suited for poetry.
I cannot abbreviate the scene betw first scene between Julian & Roderick without destroying the
connection:
Your objection to the manner in which Orpas is dismounted has not occurred to others (that is as far as any
objections have reached me) – I thought I had sufficiently mailed force enough, – but however I will endeavour to amend it
to <according to> your xxx judgement.
The words to which you object are one & all legitimate English words, & I believe in those places where
they are used those the same meaning could not be expressed without a periphrasis. – The account of the Spanish towns
&c was for the double purpose of relief, & of distinctly marking the geography; – the auriphrygiatexx word: you need not be told how desirable it
often is to enrich blank verse with sonorous words.
The image of the clouds & the moon
_____
Thus much for Roderick. Shall I ever accomplish another work of equal magnitude? I am an older man in feelings than
in years, & the natural bent of my inclinations x would be never again to attempt one.
The last Register
The prospect of affairs is very unpromising at home. Never did any Ministry stand more in need of reinforcements,
& I know not where they are to look for them. You know how much I abhorred the inequality of the Property Tax; – yet assuredly
I would have had it continued for one or two years longer, that Government might have had every possible facility in winding up
the accounts of so arduous a war: this would have been both just & politick. It has been yielded to a cry produced by a
coalition between the mob & the landed-interest.argum reasons for the bill were
demonstrable to the plainest capacity, & in the measure itself indispensably necessary, xx any thing so
repugnant to the known feeling of the people, & apparently so injurious to the lower classes ought not to
have be tried. If it be persisted in, I x have very little doubt but that the Luddites
Your godson bids fair to walk in the ways of his father: he is now in his ninth
year & knows about as much Greek as a boy in the under fifth: his Latin consists in a decent knowledge of the grammar & a
tolerable copia verborum,xx we are overdoing
him, – for he has plenty of play, & indeed plays at his lessons. He takes it for granted that he must be a poet in his turn,
& in this respect, as far as is possible to judge, nature seems to have been of the same agree with him. Be that as
it may, there is not a happier creature upon this earth, nor could any father desire a child of fairer promise, as far
as to moral & intellectual qualities.
When shall I see you? Alas how little have we seen of each other for many many years! – I might also say since we
used to sit till midnight over your claret at Ch. Ch.
Is there any chance of seeing you here this summer?
I inclose the two suppressed stanzas of the M to Moscow. The whole doggrel in fact grew out of the rhymes to
Moscow; – but I liked Roscoe too well & respected him too much to give it
circulation, much as his political pamphletts deserved exposure in their day.