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.
Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), I, pp. 175–178 [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.
—————————
and surely Bedford the resolution is founded upon Philosophy & common Sense — this season of life undoubtedly is of all others the most qualified for rendering us hapy but these collegiate scholars have no idea of rendering study agreable — the old monastic leaven still infects the whole substance — but reform is a dangerous word. did you never hear of bodies discovered in the ancient tumuli fresh & perfect in appearance which mouldered with a touch? the allusion is just to our universities & schools. had I been properly educated for three years I should have possessd more real learning than I have acquired in twelve.
I am now sitting without fire in a cold day waiting for Wynn to
go upon the Isis “silver slipperd queen”
Horse Cambel prevailed upon me last week to go to the anatomical lecture — the lecture said he is upon bones & there will be nothing any ways offensive. I went with him & found which he had said of the immediate business true. two skeletons dangling over my head did not certainly create any agreable ideas but still there was nothing to disgust. afterwards he led me down stairs & showed me who dreamt of nothing like it half a woman. in the course of my life I never saw any object so horrible anatomy I once intended to study but if it can only be learnt by overcoming every feeling & every idea of refinement ignorance will be my choice. I do not think it possible to forget what Cambel called a pretty subject.
I have looked over my letters & find that since I arrived at Oxford you have written to me once. it is a little
extraordinary that you cannot find one hour to spare in so long a time. but you are busied or you are amused — you either cannot find <want> time or you want inclination. the former I wish to think the latter I am afraid
to believe.
it is some days or weeks since this sheet was begun & the daily expectation of hearing from you has so long delayed it — but expectation is at last tired. unless you write in a few days I know not where you can direct to me as I spend this vacation in rambling over Worcestershire on foot with Seward who lives there. you will hear from me during my perigrinations provided I know whether you are in the land of the living or not.
poor Combe is gone home with a scrophulous eruption all over him.
I miss him very much & as I was his Majestys
privy counsel & the court looks dismal & desolate without him — one of this
college too with whom I spent much time has been called into Cornwall to be with a brother probably by this time dead C Collins is devoted to his books & secluded from his friends — nothing but
study — determined to be intimate with the dead he seems to forget the living. & as for Wynn he is too genteel to visit Balliol
often. I have but few acquaintance & therefore feel the loss of Combe & J
Collins more sensibly but our Balliol party still consists of four & my time passes pleasantly a letter from you now & then
would improve it.
I know not whether you have heard of the Bristol failures. several of the first merchants are ruined & a total stop put to the circulation of country paper. my prophecy was too true. these are the first fruits of war. forgive the few words. God grant us all peace.
my brother is on board the Venus frigate which did lie at Deptford. if you could inform me whether or not she still lies there I should be obliged to you as I to wish to write. he is going to fight for England I wish I could wish him success. there is something very horrid in war. to think what thousands must perish to glut ambition ought to be sufficient for <ever to> quench the dangerous flame. what famine will ensue in France & Holland. Destruction will have a fine feast.
When I walk over these streets what various recollections throng upon me. what scenes Fancy delineates from the hour
when Alfred
Bacons study is demolished so I shall never have the honor of being killed by its fall. c. 1214–1292?; c. 1502–1555;
but we should suppose the best surely amongst the tribe who were secluded from the world there may have been some whose
motives were good amongst so many victims of compulsion & injustice. do you recollect Richardsons
Mayor of Oxford & his men were apprehending them
& our party (only three) though staunch aristocrats were delivering the children. the right worshipful the Mayor collared
Tucker
the morning I passed like a pupil of Rousseau. the evening like an Oxonian.
yrs sincerely.
RS.