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British Library, Add MS 47890. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 227–230.
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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Southey’s spelling has not been regularized.
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This letter will go by post to tell you that another is – or ought to be on the road by parcel – with Thalaba the
long-expected.King George, which
sailed between Falmouth and Lisbon.
My Uncles absence will lessen our enjoyments & increase our expences. He
goes over to take a small living in his own gift.
Your letter reached me. Of poor Amos Cottles death
I have read Alfred.contundo. Joseph did not know the meaning of the word – & what idea he annexed to it would
puzzle Hartleyxx induce him to hang himself. About the Poem I am most orthodoxly calvinistic &
believe it will be condemned to eternity.
Tell Betty
Our tour is delayed to Spring. the wet season has commenced & we cannot now venture. I am better – but in that
fluctuating state of health which is far from indicating recovery. & yet so much better than I was in England that the difference
in my own feelings would compensate for the loss of all I should lose by settling here – if that were in my power. It has been rather
suggested to me than advised
______
Never poor fellow was tempted in so subtle a shape by Beelzebub as I am. some he hath assailed as a roaring lion.but my misdeeds lie mostly on the other side – & yet I do spare when I long to spend. Could I now but
mortgage my brains – raise some fifty pounds which should be expended wholly upon the property, & pledge the first-fruits in
payment – verily it is mortifying & bitterly mortifying. I am about to erect a building – the plan is before me – & the
materials in my own marble quarry – but I want money for mortar & rubbish. – this morning I have been xxxx sinning both ways – & now wish that I had spent less money – & bought more books. Lisbon is enormously &
almost incredibly expensive. my expenditure is lessened a third at least by my
Uncles assistance. & this does not level it below the standard of London life.
About George.for nor is it likely
that many masters will have patience with his uncommon dullness.
If you wish to see the last half of B. 11 & the first half of B. 12