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MS untraced; text is taken from typed copy of letter at National Library of Scotland, MS 20768. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 472–474.Dating note: Curry dates the letter [April, 1808].
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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Your Siege of Copenhagen
In that letter you say that our opinions on the most important of all subjects are not
essentially different: it is in the belief that we agree in some of the most essential points, – that I proceed to speak of things
which I regard with too sacred & deep a feeling ever to expose them to those who might treat it lightly. Many Xian sects, or
societies, seem to me to have been founded upon a strong perception of part of the Xtian system; none to have a clear & steady
comprehension of the whole, perfectly pure & simple as that system is. It is from the words of Christ that I collect it,
setting all creeds, catechisms & commentators, however early aside. To me nothing can be clearer than that Christ Jesus has
expressly forbidden his disciples to possess either riches or authority; that his words are to be received in their plain &
incontrovertible meaning instead of being explained away into nothing; & that they lead to nothing short of a total revolution
in the whole constitution of human governments, & the establishment of a new order of things, in which no man is to exercise
authority over another; none are to be rich & none poor, but all do their part in the general labour & receive their
portion of the produce. The Jewish dispensation in its Jubilee & its year of releaseShemitah in
Hebrew, or ‘Release’, and in this year fields are to be left fallow and debts are cancelled. The seven years are counted in a
cycle, with the fiftieth year being the Jubilee (or Yovel) year, in which according to tradition, there
is no agricultural work, all landed property reverts to its original owner, and slaves are set free.
This, James Grahame, I believe to be the political system of Christ Jesus, & any other system tends to counteract on the morals of Christianity: & little is it to be wondered at that the world is in the lamentable state it is when its main institutions are thus at war with the revealed will of its Maker. Were that will to be obeyed moral evil would be annihilated, & by far the greater part of physical evil with it.
My creed is what I cannot so explicitly lay down. That there was in Christ a far greater portion of the Divine Mind
than has ever been imparted to any other of the sons of men, I believe. It may be that His birth was not after the ordinary manner
of man: but this part of His history has too mythological an appearance, & the whole system of miracles appears to me
untenable. Middleton’s Free Enquiry
I cannot believe in Hell, – I do believe in Purgatory, & almost in the efficacy of prayers for the dead. When our fathers rebelled against the accursed superstitions of the Romish Church they served our faith, something in the same way that your Reformers served the churches. The Papists are beyond all doubt, Idolators in the strictest sense of the word; – but in flying from idolatry what a fearful chasm have we left between man & God! What a void have we made in the Universe! Had the senses & the imagination their wholesome food set before them, – they would not prey upon such garbage as that of the bedeadening & bedarkening sectaries, who are now gaining ground so rapidly as to threaten us with a second age of persecution.
These opinions have not been lightly taken up. Many of them you may perhaps think erroneous, – but you will see
with how little justice I have been reviled as an unbeliever, & an Atheist. I care not what the world may think as yet: they
will know me in due season, if it be God’s will. But I wish you to know me now, because we have many Xtian feelings &
principles in common, whatever may be the difference on other points. I perceive your name in the Prospectus of the Edinburgh
Encyclopoedia,