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National Library of Wales, MS 4812D. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), III, pp. 30–31[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.
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The intelligence in your letter has given me more pleasure than I have often felt. In spite of modern
metaphysico-politico-Philosophicide I do not believe that God Almighty’s first commandment is an obsolete statute yetxxxx one for being a husband & a father.
I shall be in London about the time when you are leaving it, & remain there a just month – so that you will
probably be there the latter end of the time. It is long since we have met, & now that I certainly am going abroad again in the
autumn, & have some reason for hoping I may stay there,
After this next meeting God knows when we shall see each other again, for I shall certainly go in the Autumn. However reasonable my expectations may be they ought not to influence my plans, nor ought I to wait & wait for a better opportunity of doing that – in doing which no opportunity & no time should be lost. So Fortune may find me at Lisbon, if she please to favour me – but I will not delay my voyage in the hope of her company. There is however a cloud hanging over Lisbon. If any attempt is made against Gibraltar that port must previously be shut against us, & if there be not Bonaparte may chuse to do it just to show his power. The terrible means of resentment in our power might deter a cooler man, but cannot be calculated upon as preventatives in this case. We might take Brazil, & famish Lisbon: – he would not care so he could say that the English should drink no more port wine till they chose to ask his leave.
Where is your house? When marriage does not estrange a man from his friends it introduces an order into his abode &
a certain set of arrangements xxxxx of which the benefit extends to them. You have a way of having your breakfast in a tray,
which is something more than uncomfortable; it is even anti-comfortable. I look upon it as one of the good effects of this change of
administration that that tray will be discarded.
God bless you. I believe I might venture to whisper some family news in your ear, but one does not like to be
disappointed in these things – & my hopes may be premature.by & by in due x time, according to an old promise, to enter into certain engagements
against the World the Flesh & the Devil.
th Feby