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Bristol Reference Library, B28485. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 198-200.
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 received your letter inclosing ten guineas
for Mrs James.r Burnr Danvers’s No 9.
St James’s Place. Kingsdown
Bristol. it may be trusted to one of the coaches
from the White Horse Cellar
I mention Danvers’s as a
safer direction than my own, because he is an established
resident of some years standing. We are lodged in his
neighbourhood – or rather housed – for we have taken a small
furnished house by the month, just large enough for our
convenience. I took from London one box of historical books,
& here I find a valuable store from Lisbon. the whole
monastic history of Portugal & its colonies, Cistercian,
Franciscan, Dominican & Jesuit.
The Monastic History is to me extremely interesting. the detail of a very odd system. & the biography of a very odd breed of mortals, whose cerebrella I think must have been organized in a different way from mine. Anecdotes of folly or fraud, & not unfrequently of both so blended that they cannot be seperated, perpetually stimulate & waken ones attention in these folios. they have something like the interest of a fairy tale – the manners, opinions & feelings they describe are so utterly out of the sphere of English sympathy. their main historical value is mere accident. A good monk illuminates his own Convent only for the honour & glory of the order, but we see what is passing by, by the light. There is a sort of sportsman-pleasure in this startling information. besides it always comes fairly – it is accidental – not wilfull evidence.
Another part of my employment
As yet I have received no information from
Mr Corry. this does not anyways surprize
me. there can be none till Rickman has had
the good chance to find him alone & at leisure for
conversation. Of the result there is so little doubt that I
am making up – or rather have made up my own plans. &
after weighing maturely & considerately the relative
advantages of the only three dwelling places to which there
exists any motive of preference – Norwich Bristol – &
the neighbourhood of London – I decidedly prefer the last.
because it gives me access to public & private libraries
– & places me within reach of the booksellers, with whom
I may from time to time engage in xxxxxx works of obscure profit. The neighbourhood
of London means your neighbourhood, for the convenience of
finding a house, & the comfort of living in it when
found. The nearness of many acquaintance is a matter of
luxury – but one friend within a half hours walk is among
the necessaries of life. it is as essential almost as air
& water.
You are in a beautiful country – & will I
hope be able to send good accounts of your whole staff. You
did not mention in your last the state of Mrs Mays sister.rs May –