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.
Huntington Library, RS 29. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 300-302; Orlo Williams, Lamb’s Friend the Census-Taker. Life and Letters of John Rickman (Boston and New York, 1912), pp. 84-85 [in part].
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.
George the Second has quarrelled with me in the oddest of all possible ways. he
says I treated him with neglect & contempt in London. & that another person saw it as well as himself. there is reason to
believe he means Lamb, & if it be so Burnett has been making some mistake about him as well as me, taking jest perhaps for sober
earnest. this however is the least part of my offence. I & Coleridge
he says have been the cause of all his unhappiness & what he justly calls idiotism. we never treated him
properly. now treated is here used in the Dispensary sense of the word. “Every human being can influence the mind
of another human being if placed near him, & upon this great truth all the principles of education depend”. xxxxx the Second George laid down this proposition
in Bristol streets at noon day, xxx speaking so loud that every body might hear him, & rolling his
eyes to see who listened. well – now for the xxxxxx minor. but you & Coleridge did not properly influence my mind. & so the syllogism was to end in
a quarrel. that is he gravely desired never to see me while he was in Bristol. his mind was not healthy enough to form a sound result
(tho he was sure he was right) – & if on his recovery from a stomach complaint he found out that he had been mistaken in thinking
thus harshly of me – why he would let me know. All this is truly absurd – but certain old habits of affection make me sorry for it.
damn his fools head – he has been feeding upon Scotch metaphysics & now brings up a crude mouthful at every eructation. he xxxxxx walks tiptoe & talks of his “high moral views of things & principles of action above those
of common men.” common men! by God he is an uncommon one. mad as ever was Don Quixote
Since your last I have been uncomfortably & unsuccessfully employed in seeking a habitation. of the Welsh house I have been disappointed – & shall therefore turn in to the first suitable place that can be found in this neighbourhood. I want a house for my wife, & you a wife for your house: take one! she will double your comforts & not lessen your utility – that is such a one will as you will chuse.
As for my utility God help it! it is often enough put out of its way, not to mention sometimes rambling astray. sore
eyes have played the Devil with me this winter. I have no choice at candlelight but idleness – or what can be done with no exertion of
sight – that is – poetry. so Madocr – the credit of the work – & so you see the mistake was easy. but if you are interrogated about it before
Southwell claims it – say deny me for the author & suspect Sotheby.
I am ready for another box of books before the whole cargo will have a house to receive them. the four blue-paper bound
<small> volumes of Lucenas Vida de S. Francisco Xavier.x – a very great man he was. Herreras four folios.
Margaret grows apace – a grey-eyed, flat nosed girl, all life &
spirits & good humour. strong as a young savage. milk has been her only food, & that almost wholly her mothers. I now wish Edith to wean her – for she herself is unwell. My way of thinking has so much of
optimism in it that I have found xxxxxxxx out all the reasons why girls are more desirable than boys.
if there be any brains in her skull she shall have the full use of them.
I have made the discovery that Robertsona very amusing volumes with the title Works of Supererogation.
Remember me to Mary Lamb & her brother. so soon as I have a house I shall write to tell them that their first summer
journey must be to us. – Chattertonat which
<xx> <wherewith> I shall make mirth for you when we meet. Tom & Ediths remembrance, & Danvers’s. he & his dog Cupid, so christened by me for his huge ugliness, are
my chief companions here.