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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 25, fol. 144–145. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 98–99 [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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Laus Deo!for the either to
be published separately or with it. Coming extra-officially it cannot be offensive, – & being in the press it cannot be suppressed
without losing the price of the printers labour.
As for any such possibilities as those at which you hint, they are so very like impossibilities that I do not know how
to distinguish them. For in the first place you may be sure that if the men in power were ever so well disposed toward me, they would
think me <already> liberally x remunerated for my literary merits: – they cannot know that by gaining a pension of
£200. I was actually a loser of 20 £ a year;n would needs suppose that it was a clear addition to my former means, & that if
I lived decently before, the addition would enable me to live with ease & comfort. Secondly they are never likely to think about me
farther than as I may in pursuing my own principles happen to fall in with their view of things. This happened in the Spanish war,
& would have happened in the Catholic question, if the Quarterly had not been under Cannings influence.my all my feelings, according to my own views of religion; which views differ from those of the
Church which I defend, in material points; – otherwise I should be in that church. But I am too old to bring my own opinions
upon this subject into discussion unnecessarily; but when I am conversing with persons in whose zeal I can sympathize I take scrupulous
care that they may more <not> misunderstand me, & imagine that because we agree in feeling we agree also in points
of faith: But there is no occasion to do this in public. I write religiously because I write as I feel. Not being
of the Church I hold the Church Establishment one of our greatest, perhaps the greatest of our blessings; & conscientiously
recommend all desire to strengthen & support it. Not believing in the inspiration of the Bible,
but believing in the faith which is founded upon it, I hold its general circulation as one of the greatest benefits which can be
conferred upon it <mankind.> Not believing that men are damned for not being Christian I believe
that Christianity is a divine religion, & that it is our duty to diffuse it. See whether whatever I write in my person is not
consistent with this exposition. – The consequence a deal of naturally is that I am le exposed to a double
imputation, of hypocrisy <enthusiasm> from those who believe less, – of irreligion from those who believe more. And
whether they regard me at court in the one light or the other, the effect must be equally prejudicial.
No Grosvenor; I shall never get more from Government than has already been given me, & I am & ought to be well
contented with it: – only they ought to allow me my wine in kind, & dispense with the odes.the dishonour will not be mine. And now I am going to think about my rhymes so farewell for the night.
_____
Friday 30 Dec.
I have been rhyming as doggedly & as dully as if my name xx had been Henry James Pye. Another dogged fit
will, it is to be hoped carry me thro the job, & as the ode will be very much according to rule, & entirely good-for-nothing, I
presume it may be found unobjectionable. As for the otherlabour lost amount of the labour lost. Meantime the xx xx poor Mus-Doc has had the old poem to mumble over – Stanzas 1.-2. 3. 5. 7. 9
– if I recollect rightly. As I have written in regular stanzas I shall dispatch him one by this post to set him his tun tune
– It is really my wish to use all d imaginable civility to the Mus:
Doc: & yet I dare say he thinks me a bothersome fellow as well as an odd one.
And now I have but one thing more to say, which is, – why Diabolus should you think of making any sort of apology for
saying any thing to me? All your reasonings about the ode are so reasonable that I half expected them all, as you may perceive by
referring to a former letter, – except the essential indispensableness of rhyme, – which certainly never by any accident
could have entered my pericranium. For I should have supposed that upon any question of this kind Milton might have been sufficient
authority.
Croker has sent me the Admiralty paper concerning Pensions,s. per day. These measures were announced publicly in January 1815. Southey had advocated similar ideas at
I have had a very flattering letter from Mr Roberts.