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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 23. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 364–365.
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.
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
Because of web browser variability, all hyphens have been typed on the U.S. keyboard.
Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.
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.
£ has been used for £, the pound sign
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My Ass John is a John Ass, & he hath taken it in his head as Adam did before him in Paradise, that it is not good
for him to be alone. So that being most heroically in love with some unknown asinine fair one, he set off this morning in quest of her,
like a Prince in the Persian Tales. Now it fell out that at this unhappy time there came a man over the bridge riding upon just such a
beast as the adventurer was seeking. John beheld her, galloped after into the middle of the town, & there attacked the rider, –
Amor vincit omnia
Quid vero faciendum est? quid Diabolus faciam?
Here is a tale for Duppa.
––––––––
You will think I shall never have done troubling you about the Galatea.Galatea, a fifth-rate 32-gun frigate, had, on 14 August 1804, made an unsuccessful attempt
to cut out the French privateer General Ernouf (formerly the British sloop of war Lilly)
lying at the Saintes near Guadeloupe. Of the 90 men sent on the mission, 65 were killed or wounded, and Southey suspected that his
brother was among the dead. The first lieutenant had been reported as dead, but Thomas was absent from the raid because he had been
placed under arrest. Charles Hayman (d. 1804) was made first lieutenant in his stead and died in the attack.x what would how he had received his information, stating to him
mine, & inferring a reasonable belief that Michael Birbeck the Master was safe as well as Tom, which I wished him to communicate to his father.xxxxx threw the poor old man, who it seems is dotingly fond of his son, into an agony of joy – it was like raising him
from the dead he said – But the Doctor, who is an able & excellent good man is afraid that Birbeck is Masters Mate instead of
Master, for the old mans story of his situation is not very clear as he knows nothing of the navy – & if so the news of his death,
which came in a letter from one of his friends at Antigua may be true.xxx single instance of the thousands & tens of thousands falls within our own
immediate knowledge!
It is far the best way to begin printing at once.