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British Library, Add MS 30928. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 250-253.
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
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I was not altogether wrong in supposing that no inconvenience would have arisen to any other person if I had been
spared the fatigue of a voyage to Dublin. the unexpected conclusion of peacer
You know it was my intention to embark from Whitehaven – or Workington in a collier. the way of the wind, & the
uncertainty of the passage made me change my intention & I got to Parkgate.r Ottleyr Knox,r Solomonr Brodum.he I had left the room he asked if I was not a
medical gentleman. –
Wednesday morning I reached Dublin & found Rickman, who is no little personage in Ireland. he was engaged to dine with a Dr Lindsay,now got a hook & eye of
acquaintance with him. to day after breakfasting with Rickman I am returned to
write my letters – to Edith I had of course dispatched a bulletin of my arrival
before. – I know nothing of my own situation farther, but that my labour will be easy work, be it much or little, & that I suppose
myself to be, according to the language of the world, in a good way. my time will be spent from Xmas till June in London, the rest of
the year, in Dublin. Of the government I am led to believe every thing that is good – at least
they have every temptation to do good.
The country that I passed is destitute of trees as if there existed an instinctive dread of the gallows in the people.
indeed most of the <young> trees in the kingdom had been cut down to make pikes. I am disgusted by seeing barefooted women, in
their caps, trolloping thro the streets. cars drawn by one horse are the only carriages of burden, & over this the posteriors of
the horse so project as if they were designed to catch all chance manure by the way. one little town I past, of ancient importance,
Swords, its castle & church which had a bell round tower by its square one, formed an uncommon picture. it was famous of late years
as a potwalloping borough,is tomorrow morning! – I must wish you good night!
I am anxious to hear of Peggy. How is Mrs Danvers? – & my Mother? she shall have my next letter to Bristol. this contains all my present stock of information.
write to me under cover thus
Right Honble
Isaac this is the form.
&c &c &c
Dublin