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Bodleian Library, Eng. Lett. c. 24. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), III, pp. 231–233 [with omissions].
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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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.
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It would not be easy to tell you all I have suffered since Tuesday night when Herbert was seized with the croop – God be praised the disease seems to be subdued, – but he is still in a state to make me very anxious, – pale with loss of blood, his neck blistered, – & fevered by the fretfulness the blister occasions. The poor child has been so used to have me for his play fellow, – that he will have me for his nurse, – & you may imagine with what feelings I endeavour to amuse him. But thank God he is living & likely to live –
Almost the only wish I ever gave utterance to is that the next hundred years were over. It is not that the uses of
this world seem to me weary stale flat & unprofitable,
I have suffered some sorrow in my time & expect to suffer much more, – but looking at my own heart, I do not
believe that a single pang could have been spared, – My Herbert says to me O you
are dezy naughty – when I hold his hands while his neck is drest – I have as deep a conviction that whatever
affliction I have ever endured, or yet have to endure is dispensed to me in mercy & in love, – as he will have of my motives
for inflicting pain upon him now – if it should please God that he should live to understand them.
I have written to Murray that he must not expect the American article
for the second number
The newspapers tells me that Wynn is alive, xxx
they have better means of information than I have, & therefore I believe them it. From many quarters I hear it
reported that Lds Gray
It is three months before the third Quarterly will appear, & by that time present topics will have become
stale, – but I wish you would let Gifford know that if the subject is not out of
time & it be thought fit to do <notice> it I will right zealously & sincerely undertake a justification
of Freres conduct, which we in this part of the country do entirely approve.
My eldest child is five years old this day.