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Huntington Library, RS 4. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 217–219.
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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Dr Beddoes’s lectures
I will work & in right willing earnest. we
have in England something like Beguinagesx worked muslins were fashionable, my father who
was a linen draper was often employed to get xxxxxxx <them> worked,
& xxxx as this was done
by the Moravians I have sometimes accompanied my mother to
their dwelling.
There is not much hope x from Hannah More &
the vital Xtians. they would so clog the institution with
chapels & chaplains as to pervert it into a Calvinistic
Nunnery. the Dutchess of Devonshire
The influence of women in society would make
an interesting chapter. among savages, as far as my reading
reaches, they are universally despised. hence, nothing to
humanize & soften. the Spartan females – like the men of
Sparta, seem out of the limits of calculation, – with all
their Helot-enormity
Polygamy enslaves necessarily & voluptualizes the women. so, except in perpetuating the race, they do no good in society – & one might doubt whether they do any good by that – for better is a wilderness than a Turkish province. in a harem vanity & envy will predominate, & each seeks the caresses of the husband to mortify the rest, & the whole of female education there is limited to instructions how to stimulate desire. the perpetual excitements of polygamy probably occasion at least half the libidinous habits attributed to climate. early debility is the consequence, & such men must be slaves.
In Arabia the women are not ashamed to shew their faces to a stranger – because they are not unchaste. polygamy is not common, & I believe the usual vice of the East, almost unknown. voluptuousness is not the characteristic of the Arabs – yet their climate is at least as hot as any part of Persia.
Popular superstitions cannot have occasioned
the despotisms of the East. perhaps no religion is hostile
to improvement (except the Hindoo –) but every religious
establishment. a Mufti is no worse than an Archbishop –
& certainly not so bad as the Pope. xxxxxxx Besides the religion
of Mohammedfrom the or an objection from the Man in the
Moon, who by the by looks of the Chinese breed by his broad
face & his no eyebrows.
I am materially better – yet I think a long
journey & another climate will be materially beneficial
to my health. I have ever been a temperate man, & since
I first perceived my usual state of health declining,
watchful of what affected me either well or otherwise. a
visit to the Western island would involve many voyages – now
at sea I am always emptying my bowels at the fore-door –,
& loathe ship food too much to replenish them. I am I
believe secure of an English passport to France – if I like
to go – & if I can find a woman-companion for Edith, I will
go. but it will not be well to leave her alone among
foreigners while I make my rambles to the right & left
of our halting places. I have a way open to procure the
French passport, & what is more difficult, can settle my
money matters so as to receive cash from Perigord
y. 1800