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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 24. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), III, pp. 302–305 [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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If I had not heard of you from Gifford at the beginning of the
month I should have been very uneasy about you. Thank you for your letter, & for your serviceable interpolation of the review,x just what I would wish it, only I wish you
would expunge the not call me the most sublime poet of the age,
My xxx abode under Skiddaw will have been more unfavourable to my
first years annalsxxxx channels of information
opened, & because <of> home politics I was very ignorant, never liking them well enough to feel any interest beyond that of
an election feeling. Now that it becomes my business to be better informed I have spared no pains to become so, – & the probability
is that I learn as much political news to my purpose by letter as I should do by <that> intercourse x which would be
compatible with my way of life. – Of three points I have now persuaded <convinced> myself, – that the great
desideratum in our own government is a Premier instead of a Cabinet, – & that a regular opposition is an absurdity which
could not exist any where but in an island without destroying the government, – & that parliamentary reform is the shortest road to
anarchy.
I am sincerely obliged to Gifford for his desire to serve me,
& sincerely glad that I stand in need of no services. Not that I am by any means above being served, or feel any ways uncomfortable
under an obligation. On the contrary I should <hold> myself in the highest degree obliged to any person who would promote Tom for my sake, – but for this we must wait till the First Lord is in power.
I am reviewing Pasleys book,unanswe unanswerable principles will obtain a
higher reputation than ever statesman did before him. My review will be conciliatory towards the husbanding politiciansfeeling irritated <making them angry>. The
blistering plaister for Whitbread & Co goes all into the Register, which is designed to be a perpetual blister for that
Devil’s Advocate.
We start in May for the South. My work at present stands thus 256 pages of the Register printed, about four sheets more
in readiness, leaving yet another full sheet before the Parl. Proc. of the year are compleated, – including however the D of York’s
businessmy pa & this makes room for my own overgrown Annals which I think will exceed the bulk of
the former by nearly one third; in remuneration for which <this> I have – my labour for my pains. However it is well
paid. Abella supplies me well with Spanish papers, – something he has got me
concerning Zaragozaam in return outstep a little the usual pace
of English compliments in return, & am his friend & servant in superlatives – With a good conscience believe me, for I really
like him, & am very sensible of his services. Of course I have sent him my best works, & no doubt my name will soon be in high
odour in the Isle of Leon. It was a mortification to me to hear he was about to return, before I could xx see him in London.
We have dispeeded ourselves of each other in the most cordial terms, & are to continue frequent
correspondents.
I have again taken to Pelayo,ab ovo
& call of the poem &
call it Spain Restored, – for Pelayo cannot appear till xx I have got on a thousand lines. If I cared about xxxx
xx rules this would be a fault, but the structure must depend upon the materials, & I have not too much of Roderick in the
beginning, considering the part he has to play in the end. – I have conceived of another poem, – upon that Philips Warstruck in the review of Holmes’s American Annalswas
<is> more wonderful still – himself, – but tho I am not the Butler,
Have you paid Rickman for shoeing me, & his Honour for the Books?
Xxxxxx Remember me to your father & mother, – the former I hope
is well recovered from his illness. – Sarsaparella for your worshipful self, is I think one of the medicines which had better not be forgotten – for without knowing what it is good for I have some faith in it as xxx being adopted
from savage herbary; – a good school of medicine. – The Capture of the Isle of Francebut We must now look to the Persian Gulph & the Red Sea, –
& take especial care to keep the French out of those important points, – important as to the means they afford of annoying us in
their hands, – or of spreading civilization in ours. Next year I purpose to give a whole chapter to the French xxxxx
intrigues with Persiaof
all you can send.
I most heartily rejoice that the Outs are Outs still.
Not a line from Coleridge yet. Tom & his wife are at Durham – He
waits for her delivery, which is expected late in March, & then goes to sea. Our household is in good order once more