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National Library of Scotland, MS 3885. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 95–98 [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.
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
Because of web browser variability, all hyphens have been typed on the U.S. keyboard.
Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.
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.
£ has been used for £, the pound sign
All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.
Are you still engaged with the Lord of the Isles,th your poetical ground: no man can be more sensible of this advantage
than myself, tho I have in every instance been oblige led to forego it.
Longman was to take care that Roderickodeous one.xxxx extraordinary service. I had a ridiculous disappointment x about
the intended marriage of the Princess Charlotte which was so mischievously broken off. Willing to be in time, as soon as I was assured
that the marriage was to be, I fell to work & produced some fifty six-lined stanzas, – being about half of a poem, in the old
manner, which would have done me credit.
I do not like the aspect of affairs abroad. We make war better than we make peace. In war John Bullsone consolidated Italy into one kingdom or commonwealth. A fairer oportunity was
given us than at the peace of Utrecht,moderation
& generosity were the order of the day, & with these words we have suffered ourselves to be fooled. Here
at home the Talents
Jeffrey I hear has written what his admirers call a crushing review of the Excursion.xx its cunning.ha happen to a
xxx bloated toad upon a pavement, if an Elephant should set foot upon it. Just so would this shallow & v
puffed up & venomous coxcomb be pash’d, mash’d, squash’d, spread out & flattened like a pancake under Wordsworths hand.
I saw Canning for an hour or two when he was in the country
& was far more pleased with him than I had expected. He has played his cards ill. In truth I believe that nature made him for
something better than a politician. He is gone to a place where I wish I could go.