Material from the Romantic Circles Website may not be downloaded, reproduced or disseminated in any manner without authorization unless it is for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, and/or classroom use as provided by the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended.
Unless otherwise noted, all Pages and Resources mounted on Romantic Circles are copyrighted by the author/editor and may be shared only in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Except as expressly permitted by this statement, redistribution or republication in any medium requires express prior written consent from the author/editors and advance notification of Romantic Circles. Any requests for authorization should be forwarded to Romantic Circles:>
By their use of these texts and images, users agree to the following conditions:
Users are not permitted to download these texts and images in order to mount them on their own servers. It is not in our interest or that of our users to have uncontrolled subsets of our holdings available elsewhere on the Internet. We make corrections and additions to our edited resources on a continual basis, and we want the most current text to be the only one generally available to all Internet users. Institutions can, of course, make a link to the copies at Romantic Circles, subject to our conditions of use.
. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), II, pp. 405–407 [in part; dated 1 May 1815].
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.
I give you joy of your journey & I give myself joy of your return, for tho we are even now three hundred miles apart, & tho a fortnight might easily have past without any communication between us, yet the knowledge that you were not in England, made me feel that something in the system of my microcosm was changed, & as it were out of order.
During your absence I have been as usual making progress, & consuming ink & quill barrel xxxx at the
regular rate. Eighteen inscriptions are now written, & Longman will probably
be making up his mind at this time whether to print them in quarto, or in a smaller form.xx no memoir in my Magazines. I will make out a list at the end of this
letter. Tell me from what branch of Cromwells family the Franklands are descended.Xx Major Nicholas
I have pleased myself well in most of these poems, & diversified them with some skill. I may praise my
poems <myself> to you, as I do my beauty < xxxxxxx> to my daughter Isabel, when we agree that she is my Beauty Bell, & I am her Beauty Pappa.
They are not in their nature things that can be popular, but I do not doubt that those who are capable of appreciating them, will think
them good, & that they will hold a respectable place among my works hereafter. Sometimes I half resolve to say something in a proud
preface respecting the Laureateship,pride worthy pride, or indeed
with any worthy feelings, the what is called the public has little sympathy. Sometimes too I think of dedicating them, but
cannot determine to whom. The D of Wellington obviously occurs; –
& it is as obvious that there is something like flattery in inscribing a book to whim which is all to his
honour “praise & glory”. Sometimes I think of doing it in some verses to the memory of Perceval, – & this seems the favourite idea. Sometimes to the Army, &
or to the British people. Perhaps it will end in no dedication at all. Sometimes I have a half mind towards Canning, – upon this point that I trust his voice will soon be heard as powerfully in
behalf of another war, as just, as inevitable &c –. If you see any fitness or unfitness in any of these embryo intentions tell me.
Your opinion will have, as you well know, much weight.
Ten o clock & I must go to the Senhoras to supper – Good night.
May 1. 1815. Shedaw is this day eleven years old
Tuesday evening
You being my First Lord of the Treasury & Chancellor of the Exchequer will you leave 4 £ with Rickman for Robert Lovell.
I shall not see you before the fall of the year unless you pay your devoirs to the Mountains. I have too much before me
to allow of rambling, Gifford has one article in his hands & must have that
upon Ld Wellington for which I am to be paid so ridiculously,That is I mean that upon the mere question of profit
& loss, this is very imprudent work.
A Mr Locker who knows Croker & who was Ld Exmouths
Thank you for the Canada paper: of which more hereafter.
Hartley is to be at Oxford on the 12th he has a
post-mastership at Merton, worth not less than 50 £. upon which with 40 from his Uncles at Ottery,& 10 from his godfather Poole, & 5 from poor Cottle, it is
supposed he may live f with frugality. If more be necessary, it will be forthcoming, but And to his disgrace the father, quietly reconciles himself, & talks of what he will do, –
just as x a man would who could rely upon his own intentions & efforts. Hartley has luckily a cousin
The Moon goes on as you could wish, & makes excellent progress in Greek.
Remember me to all at home. I shall look for a letter from you tomorrow.