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Royal Institution, London, Davy MSS. Previously published: John Davy (ed.), Fragmentary Remains, Literary and Scientific, of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart. (London, 1858), pp. 47-48.Dating note: The letter was written from Dublin. Similarities between this and letters to Edith Southey and John May of 16 October 1801 (Letters 616 and 615 respectively), giving Southey’s postal address, suggest that this was written around that time. Southey left Dublin on 23 October 1801.
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.
If you have not seen Danvers on your way to town, you will be
surprized to receive a letter from me dated at Dublin. the wind of fortune has shifted &
driven me here.
It is since we parted at Bristol that I read the Gowrie,
I now remember who the author of Gebir is. he was a contemporary of mine at Oxford – of Trinity, & notorious as a mad Jacobine. his Jacobinism would have made me seek his acquaintance but for his madness. he was obliged to leave the University for shooting at one of the Fellows thro the window. all this I immediately recollected on getting at his name. – how could you compare this mans book with Roughs? the lucid passages of Gebir are all palpable to the eye – they are the master touches of a painter – there is power in them, & passion, & thought & knowledge.
I was travelling in Wales, thro the country of Madoc,little I have heard of the rulers here is very favourable. they are encouragers of
science & literature, laborious in removing old grievances, wash cleaning away the old corruption,
& anxious to improve the country & the people.
Direct to me, if in the course of a week you can find leisure to write under cover to
Right Honble
&c &c &c
I give you the address in its due form. your hand writing Davy I shall be glad to see – still more so to see you when I reach London.
times have changed since we first became intimate, & we also must have changed. you probably more than me, for mine are older &
riper habits. I do not love to think of this – for the world cannot mend the young man whom I knew
before the world knew him [MS torn] very spring & blossom of his genius & his goo[MS torn]