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British Library, Add MS 30928. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 153-157 [in part]; Adolfo Cabral (ed.), Robert Southey: Journals of a Residence in Portugal 1800-1801 and a Visit to France 1838 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 167-169 [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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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.
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You will be expecting me – & will be disappointed at receiving only a letter. I cannot yet depart – in about a month we shall set off – earlier or later by some ten days as may suit a ship – if we find one.
Your letter must have been lost – & it
leaves me in the dark about some things alluded to in that
which has just reached me. I know not why Davy has left
Bristol
My Uncle is removing his books piecemeal as opportunity allows for shipping them. four boxes are consigned to you by the inclosed bill of lading. they are all English – that is English-printed (for some may be Greek or Latin) & in English binding, therefore liable to no duty. If King could house them for me at the Wells it would be better than lodging them in the College Green, as they will be in the latter case almost inaccessible to me. the foreign books we try to smuggle into England, & have succeeded in landing one valuable box. the number of my own books which are now of a very serious value, & also of my Uncles that are lying idle & dead about England, must soon anchor me. they cannot follow me, & I therefore must settle with them.
That you have been so long without a letter
you will probably attribute to the right cause – I &
Waterhouse
When Thalaba is finished have the goodness to
send two copies here by way of Capt
YescombeKing George, which sailed between
Falmouth and Lisbon.
I have just & barely begun the Curse of
Keradou
Write to me once more. we shall not move
before June certainly – & I am hopelessly anxious about
Peggy. the
fox glove seems always to check disease – never to cure it!
– & how goes on Cottle & Dr Burnett? – I think of returning to
Bristol with no small additional satisfaction – for the sake
of shaking George by the hand. poor fellow – he has at last
the means of a bare support. – Harry,
you probably know from my mother, is settled with Mr Martineau
I have said nothing of my own state of health
this long time – because in fact I have long been so
perfectly well as never to think of it. I eat & drink to
what ought to be a prohibited degree of appetite in England,
& sleep like the Stadtholder.Southey, a Coleridge, or
a Cottle’. His mirth was,
undoubtedly, produced by the inclusion of the last
name.did laugh – & will not
Mrs Danvers forgive if me I did swear
also?
Shipped by the Grace of God in good order tho badly written in & upon the good Packet called the Earl Gower – now riding at anchor in the river Tagus. – & so God send the good Ship to her desired port in safety. Amen. May 6. 1801.