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British Library, Add MS 30927. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), II, pp. 348–350 [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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I fear it is a long time since you have heard from me. My days are so filled up that many things are necessarily left
undone. Roderickth book, & I know last night I finished the 16th. I shall put the printer to work upon the notes most probably
while I compleat the poem. The extent will be 20 or 21. You see I am in soundings, & it will not be long before I shall be in sight
of land. – Meantime that I may be ready with my exercise I have laid down the timbers of a poem upon the Young Princess’s marriage, it
will consist of three parts, – of which the first is written; & the second begun.among whom will be Liberty, Religion, Old Ocean (a friend of yours)
& a brother of his who wields the sword instead of the trident, Clarkson,
Dr Bell, & to bring up the rear Death. – persons who may without any
startling incongruity meet in a dream. – Should I go on as I have begun it is likely to be a striking poem.
The Doctor is in the press with his book upon
Consumption.
The new edition of Thalaba
It will not be difficult to make your history
At different periods certain chapters or introductions will be required upon subjects which a chronological arrangement
of mere facts cannot include. Thus at the beginning there should be as compleat <an> account of the as can be
collected of the state of the inhabitants at the time of the discovery. The negroes will afford matter for another chapter, the slave
trade for another & finally a chapter upon the present state & future prospects of these islands. I see very distinctly in what
manner the book may be made better than any of its kind, & remain a model for such works. The notes should all be translated; &
the original added where there is a neccessity for producing the actual words of an author as authenticated evidence, – or if it be
desirable for any peculiarity of expression.
I have suspected that Rochefort is the original of Davis, – but on the other hand the translation was certainly made
from an anonymous work, & I cannot discover that Rochefort ever published an edition without his name.t Dominicn <man of> indefatigable observation. You judge too hardly in calling him a vile plagiarist; – his historical
retrospects are abstracts from Du Tertre,xxstaff Falstaffthe his being a friar. After he left the
W Indies he was stationed for some years in Italy & wrote eight volumes more respecting that country which are exceedingly
curious.
You must bring your papers here & take a spell at Herrera,are is much about Cuba in
the proceedings of the Cortes.xxx next month the leaves will be out, & the water fit for bathing.
I expect daily to hear of the Bust, – casts could not be made while the frost lasted.
My nephew & namesake is not yet out of his squabship. The others are in good kissing trim, & I wish they were all nearer, or that the communication were more direct. – As for getting a ship you may rest assured that official applications never produce any thing better than official answers: – in your case I think they are much better let alone.