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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. 377–379.
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 General and Dr. Bell
were dining with me yesterday when your letter arrived, and they did not leave
me till after ten o’clock; this was unfortunate, as it prevented me from
immediately writing to James.
I have written to him by this day’s post, endeavouring, as far as I could, to
convince him that the degree, and not the honour, is the essential object of his
studies; that such honours are not worth much in the University, and worth
nothing anywhere else; and that the opinion of what he could have done, if he had attempted it, will be of as much use to him
as an actual honour, in case of taking pupils, or standing for a fellowship:
which I verily believe.
What shall I say about your present? I could be angry with you if
anger had any effect upon the incorrigible. The box arrived on Wednesday while I
was at the Island. The two Edithsboss!” I cut myself, of course,
in all this confusion; and the father and children with their treasures, and the
razor, and the lather, and just blood enough to give effect to the scene, would
have made a good comic picture. But indeed, Neville, you are too bountiful.
I hope you will see my brother Harry frequently, now you have been fellow-travellers among the mountains. He has a thoroughly good heart of his own, an admirable temper, and, with very considerable talents, a larger portion of practical good sense than has fallen to my lot, – one of those men whom you love and respect the more the better you know him. You will be glad to hear that he is likely to give me a new sister, – a very interesting woman, whose mother I have known nineteen years, and always considered as the model of whatever is most lovely and excellent in womankind. They were a Lisbon family, but for some years past have lived at Champion Hill. The father has long been lingering in a slow consumption, from which there is little or no hope of his recovery. In point of fortune the connection, on Harry’s part, is exactly what I should wish it to be – neither ambitious nor imprudent.
I am charged with more thanks for you than would have filled this whole sheet; and Bel, moreover, says she “will send you a kiss.” Imagine, therefore, all joyful expressions of thankfulness from the young, and all warm thanks and affectionate remembrances from the elders. God bless you.
One word more, my dear Neville. Do not let me see your
letters marked at the post office in red ink for the
future. I do not like my friends to pay for my gratification.