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.
Duke University Library, Southey papers. Previously published: John Wood Warter, Selections From the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 15–20 [a fuller version than exists in the Duke MS. This text is reproduced in Appendix 1].Dating note: Southey misdates this letter as 3 April 1791, but the postmark and the events described confirm the year as 1793.
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.
early the next morning we rose after a curious division of the bed for we slept together he took all the bed & I took all the
cloaths but we did not need rocking — over Camden downs to Broadway — the hill above the town presented me with a most delightful view
equally rich & far more extensive than that from Madams courts hill, yet not so very beautifully
diversied — you see the fertile vale of Evesham — the town of the same name — Broadway just below — & at a distance the smoke of
Pershore & Worcester. Malvern hills melting into distance. a man of Exeter
I have since visited Abberley Bewdley Kidderminster & Malvern each well worth seeing but it is difficult to
describe so many assemblies of houses in a different manner — since our arrival here the snow has fallen & from the aspect I am
inclined to hope we shall be weather bound till the last moment. Arthur Youngs
T Lamb promised me Mr xx Lettices travelsrs L will come it will give me much
pleasure to procure lodgings for her. such sights do not chance every day. Tom
should have a sample of collegiate life in order to prize his mode of education the more. in truth there is little good learnt at
Oxford & much evil — society eternally of men unfits one for any thing else — at Westminster friends were near — but at Oxford a
man can never learn refinement. a company of all men is at all times bad — there it is abominable — his plan of study is hard but he
deserves more praise than I can give — I hope Mrs L will come but in any case Tom must.
the state of French affairs pleases you I hope. peace! peace! is all I wish for. but why should I
give my sentiments? yours are more deeply founded upon experience nor does it become a young mad headed enthusiast to judge of these
matters. time may alter my opinions — I do not much think it will. let those opinions be what they will you will not despise me for
them. I had some more lines to have sent but as they might not exactly have accorded with what is politically good they are suppressed.
my best respects & wishes to all, friends at Rye.
will you once more favour me with a letter to Oxford? I have no friend to advice me with respect to my conduct & your advice will be good.
I must be at Oxford Saturday week next.