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National Library of Wales, MS 4812D. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 144–145 [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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I have so many things to say to you that I scarcely know where to begin. It was a great mortification that I could not
make the circuit which I had proposed in my way home, & halt with you by the way; but the state of my daughters health kept us in a state of feverish disquietude, & for the
time first time I felt how serious an evil it was to be at so great a distance from my own fire side. Happily the weather
favoured us, the child grew better as we proceeded, & like a true mountaineer seemed to be revived as soon as the breath of the
mountains reached her. We arrived safely without other accident than that of breaking down in the street at Nottingham, – the only
accident which occurrd during the whole journey at home & abroad.
The infrequency of my letters my dear Wynn God knows is owing to no distaste, – the pressing employments of one who
keeps pace with an increasing expenditure by temporary writings, the quantity which from necessity as well as inclination I have to
read, & the multiplicity of letters which I have to write, are the sufficient causes. You do not know the number of letters which
come to me from perfect strangers, who seem to think a Poet Laureat has as much patronage as a Lord Chancellor, both xxxxxx
unfrequently xxx not unfrequently the writers remind me so strongly of xx my own younger days that I have given
them the best advice I could with earnestness as well as sincerity, & xx more than once been thus led into an occasional
correspondence. The Laureateship itself with me is no sinecure. I am at work in consequence of it at this time. Do not suppose that I
mean to rival Walter Scott. My poem will be in a very different strain. It is in
the sixlined stanza of Gualberto,xx the state of affairs very similar to yours – & the Reproof instead
of answering the particulara at which I shall strike home, will deal in generals, & hold out a picture of the hopes of
mankind. I have written between 2 & 300 lines, & expect to satisfy myself.
I think you must have felt a wish as I did that the Battle should have borne the title, tho it was plain that once it had been named from Waterloo a word so English in its appearance would prevail. But there is a story connected with this.
My last paper in the Quarterly was written before I left England, & I corrected the proof sheets of the whole on my
way thro London to the continent.xxx him to revise it before it should be worked off, & correct any error into which ignorance of
the ground might possibly have led me. It was not however till I had been above a for nearly three weeks in London that I
could procure the proofs, tho I repeatedly applied for them both to Murray &
Gifford, & at last only the latter half of the article was sent me. With
this I was satisfied as it contained the Waterloo part. Imagine my surprize & indignation at finding two huge interpolations placed
so as totally to destroy the effect of a continuous narrative & compleatly spoil the composition. But this was a light objection to
them: – for the object of the first was to deny in the most audacious & insolent terms that the Duke of Wellington had been surprized, & that of the second to deny in the
same manner that any merit whatever was due to the Prussians in the victory!
My blood boiled in me. I wrote to Gifford in temperate but
strong terms.xx most
objectionable parts, & for the sake of the composition to throw such as might be retained without offence to the truth
into to the bottom of the page. I went to Murray, & convinced him
that the character of the Review was at stake, – from him & from G. I
learnt not only what I knew from the first that this passage came from Croker, but what I certainly never could have suspected that it was the Dukes doing thro him, – that the delay in publication had been occasioned while
their precious alterations were made at Paris, & the correspondence xxx took place between that city & Dublin, – in
short that I had been chosen as a fit mouthpiece for conveying falsehood to the public thro an accredited channel. – You may guess what
followed. I insisted upon having the xxxx xxxxx paper put into my hands, struck out their falsehoods, reinserted what had
been expunged to make room for them, & carried my point with a high hand: whereby I shall not doubt have deserved & procured
the ill-will & the respect both of the Duke & his friend. I
saw Croker afterwards at his particular & repeated desire, after having
declined an invitation to dine with. You will easily believe that he carefully avoided all reference to the subject, tho his
conversation was often influenced by it, & that he behaved with the greatest possible civility.
One of the passages which I struck out was a sentence saying that the good sense of Europe had rejected the name of
Belle Alliance for the battle as being xxx in some degree false. – I have since discovered that in the Dukes dispatches he underlined xxx the word Waterloo thus for the same mean motive.
It happens oddly enough that the Peasant who first guided me on my first visit to the field of Battle
urgently requested that I would tell the people in England it ought not to be called Waterloo. – But I shall give in the notes to my
poem such parts of my journal
Morte Arthur after all is to come into the world with an introduction from me.Lewis Goldsmid who was to edite it has decamped with
another mans wife,ambition desire is to have done with reviewing. Roderick is in the press for a fourth edition,
During my stay in London I scarcely ever went out of the circle of my private friends. – I dined in company with
Minachanges freaks of favour & disfavour but in the general & decided
character of his measures. They are thorough Atheists & thorough Atheists, & would x go the full length of their
principles, being I believe all of them – as is indeed the character of the nation, of the same iron mind as Cortes & Pizarro.finer character, – young, & ardent, & speaking of his comrades with an affection which conciliates
affection for himself.
I saw Frere also & had much interesting conversation with
him. And this leads to another point connected with my History.xx at that time between this country & Spain, the P of Peacexxxxxx throw off the yoke of France. Upon this subject I wish you
would procure for me such information as may with propriety be given.
There is but one point in your letter in which I do not agree with you, & that regards the army, – the necessity of
maintaining it appears to x me manifest, & the contingent danger imaginary. Our danger is not from that quarter. If we
are to suffer from the army it will be by their taking part against the government (as in France) in aiding in a mob revolution. In my
judgement we are leading this way insensibly to our rulers & to the main part of the people, – but I fear inevitably. The
foundations of Government are undermined, – the props may last during your life time & mine, but I cannot conceal from myself
xx a conviction that in no
very distant day the whole fabric must fall! God grant that this ominous apprehension may prove false.distant