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Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester, Robert Southey Papers A.S727. Not previously published.
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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You have indeed had a trying season – but I trust it is not now prematurely done when I thank God that it has ended no
worse. the loss of a childth in your case rather a subtraction from future, than from present happiness. it is better to see the
bud wither, than to behold the blossom cankered, or the fruit blighted. You have had so much to apprehend that the real loss is
comparatively little. Your letter did not quite say that Mrs May
I have no connection with the Literary Journalxxxxx <repeated> in print, that the repetition now offends me almost as much as the inanity of the
thing itself. In that the notice they take of poetryxx examination.
this is profitable labour, but not pleasant for one capable of & aspiring to better things. When I am dead, & my works
estimated with no personal reference, it will be regretted that I should ever have been obliged to review dull books & write dull
verses for a newspaper. yet I would not exchange such journey-work for any professional employment.
I shall not defend myself versus the Scotch Review
There certainly is a design in the most part of my poems to force into notice the situation of the poor, & to
represent them as the victims of the present state of society. the object is to make my readers think & feel – as for the old
Antijacobine cry that it is to make the poor rebellious that is too absurd to require answer. the Poor do not read books of poetry upon
fine paper, nor are the poems addressed to their capacities of understanding. the charge which the Scotch critic makes applies to me
far more than to Coleridge & Wordsworth – for it is I who in the language of Mr Canningr Cobbety published. except some of those verses which appeared without a name in the Morning Post & were never collected into
the Anthologya doctrine which I do not hold.
So much for the life & soul of the poetry. as for the body & garb of it I & the Scotchmen differ about that
also – tho in their last number they assert all that I want them to admit, in their Review of Boyds Dante.language
<expression> of natural feeling, natural language must be appropriate, & it should be as little distorted from the natural
sequence as possible. When the Poet himself speaks it is different – my palace-work – my jewelry – my paradise – my music – if these
have not a gala-dress of language, I know not in what Potosi
The single phrases to which they object are not worth defending. I could point out fifty worse instances, for they have overlooked the real defects & blotches in the poem, & some of the passages to which they object are in themselves very good.
xxx this passage they have selected for censure – & here they have left off without adding the line
which finishes the sentence & gives it all its force – “With the dream of his [MS torn] <ghastly eyes”>
My Uncle has been confined with a cold & cough since Xmas – to which, he said in his last letter, he saw no end. This has made me anxious about him – let me hear if you receive any accounts of him. Edith is better than she has for some time been. your goddaughter in excellent health, spirits & temper. a better tempered child I never saw – & her spirits are almost too high – she is all life & motion.
I hope soon to hear of Mrs Mays more certain & more speedy amendment. possibly to see her in April – for it is possible that I may be obliged to visit London Libraries before I can write finish the preface to Amadis
I also read the Iris.
March 9. 1803.