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MS untraced; text is taken from John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856). Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), II, pp. 111–114.
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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Had I not been very busy in clearing off my annual reviewing, I should sooner have told you that Rees has disclaimed for his house and for Hood’s
So far from having any objection that what you propose should appear in the ‘Evangelical Magazine,’ I shall
heartily rejoice if it can be effected. That Magazine is a powerful engine, – the most powerful in this country; unquestionably it
can be of the greatest service to the ‘Remains,’ and it will be doing no little good to those persons who act according to its
directions thus to put something into their hands better than the offal and hog’s wash with which they are dieted. I have a horror
of the presumptuous ignorance and intolerant spirit of that rapidly strengthening sect, and only wish there were more such writers
as Cowper
I am sorry that –––––
Will you inform Mr. Park
The ‘Letters,’ as you may well remember, were printed off in the second edition before I saw Mr. Dashwood; part of
his communication was inserted in the ‘Life’;
The ‘Life of Colonel Hutchinson’ is one of the best books in the English language, or in any other; you must have
read it with peculiar interest as being a Nottingham man. It accorded with all my best feelings and dearest principles; and I had
the satisfaction of reviewing it in the Annual, in such a manner as to produce a letter of thanks from the editor.
For these reverses in Spain I was prepared, and by them I am not cast down, nor indeed led to abate a jot of my
full confidence in the final success of the Spaniards. We have, as usual, done everything in the very worst manner possible, and
have been far more mischievous to the Spaniards as friends than we ever could have been as enemies, by that rascally business in
Portugal, which appears worse and worse the more it is investigated. But the end will be well; this I said before any person had
begun to hope, and this I shall say after every person has ceased to hope, for Joseph will soon be crowned at Madrid, – is
probably by this time.
God bless you. Remember me to James.