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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 30–35; Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), I, pp. 182–183 [in part; where it is dated 31 July 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.
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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
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Like the wandering Jew, Bedford, you see I am here
there & every where. now tramping it to Worcester, now peripateticating to Cambridge, & now on saddle equastrian in the land of Cyder. traversing the shores of the Wye & riding listlessly over the spot where once Ariconium
you will impute this dislike of Hierarchy to my being a re-publican & a sinner. had any of the Apostles ten thousand a year? what
said the saviour of mankind concerning dignities & wealth? I could proceed much farther but how this has gone so far I know not.
Frends conduct I despise — that of his persecutors I execrate.
how these very heterodox opinions may coincide with yours I know not. tis best we should differ upon some subjects — but we are nearer upon all than you imagine. not that I am apostatizing — my principles & practice are equally democratic & you are the greatest democrat in your actions that ever gave the lie to his own opinions.
enough of this. is not Gooseberry Pie a more agreable subject.
A Pious Ode.
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a most Horatian ode — ending like him with an heroic tale.
Judge Nares
I have just met with a passage in Rousseau which expresses some of my religious opinions better than I could do it
myself. Je ne trouve point de plus doux hommage a la divinite, que l’admiration enuette qu’excite la contemplation de ses œuvres. Je ne
puis comprendre comment des campagnards, et sur-tout des solitaires, peuvent ne pas avoir de foi; comment leur ame ne s’eleve pas cent
fois le jour avec extase a l’auteur des merveilles qui les frappent. Dans ma chambre je prie plus rarement & séchement, mais a
l’aspect d’un beau paysage, je me sens emu. Une vielle femme, pour toute priere, ne savoit dire que ô! L’eveque lui dit: Bonne femme
continuez de prier ainsi, votre priere vaut mieux que les notres. — cette meilleure priere est aussi la mienne. —
as I put yr brothers letter in the office to day
I took yours out. my silence is accounted for & whenever it happened you may depend upon it some strange occurrence taciturnifies
me. silence is not my — fault shall I say or virtue? three times have I read your letter unable to make head or tail of the latter part
till the third reading & after discovering the sense (enigmatical as the prophecies of Delphi
sitting in the window at Uley last Wednesday with Mr Shepherd & his sister
she is a most agreable lively girl — with that face which a critic would call ugly — but of which a Physiognomist would pronounce more
favourably — a pair <of> eyes well illuminated by sense & the same nose that made such havoc in the seraglio of Soliman.
this journey has deranged my plan of operations for the campaign. poor Joan
wandering over cathedrals is apt to make me melancholy but when I tread upon the rotten relics of royalty I feel proud
& satisfied. I have exalted over the tomb of Jack the dentistnd. he is the
only man whom capricious cruelty amidst its various experiments <ever> tried to make a pop gun off
— I forget his name but Gent. was tacked to it so that his crimes & punishments are easily guessed. upon this I mused for ten miles & it may perhaps furnish some future essay.
I have heard from Edmund Seward. the news from Derby which he sends is good & I am more fully satisfied that democracy is but another word for all that is good when I find him equally democratic with myself. I am come to the end of my paper & recollect a thousand things which I wished to have said — it has already been delayed to mention the day of my departure & still it is impossible to fix. you will certainly see me this week but the weighty business of washing mending & marking — cleaning leather breeches —repairing shoes & getting together linen which has mouldered for six months is so intricate that my head is not mathematical enough to measure out a proper portion of time. as soon as this letter is finished I shall begin another & proceed till Times gentle hand unravels the clue.
Seward has revived the battle of the petticoat by asking whether the German women
so celebrated for their virtues thought long petticoats necessary to decency. the German women are no guides for us in this matter — we
may as well follow the inoffensive manner of Vaillants
this letter was very near coming in my pocket. I should have departed this evening if I could have found room.