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.
British Library, Add MS 47890. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849-1850), II, pp. 240-242 [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.
The news in your letter has vexed me – & after my manner set me upon discovering all the consolations that can be extracted from it. first & foremost that if you go as convoy you will not be stationed there. & therefore to sail at this season into warm weather is no such bad thing. If you go to Jamaica you will find a whole lot of letters. unless they have been burnt at the post office. As you will keep a keen look out for all describable things I need give you only one commission – which is that you do use your best endeavour to bring home a few live land crabs for me, that I may endeavour to rear a breed in England.
Do not send off Henry
My review of Miss Baillie was for the Critical.You the rules you lay down will always point out Wm Taylor.
I think it possible Tom that you might collect some interesting
information from the Negroes. by inquiring of any who may wait upon you, if they be at all intelligent concerning their own country,
principally what their superstitions are – as whom do they worship? do they ever see apparitions? where do the dead go? what are their
burial – their birth – their marriage ceremonies. – what their charms or remedies for sickness. What the power of their priests, &
how the priests are chosen, whether from among the people, or if a seperate breed as the Levites & Bramins.
You would have been very useful to me if you had been at the table when I was reviewing Clarkes book & Capt Burneys.
Before this time you ought to have received two letters containing the rest of Edwards rascally history – which I am afraid will destroy all the pleasure you would else
have derived from Ediths handy work.r William Guthrie Bookseller Nicholson Street’.r Martineauxxxxx at
Norwich had debts to the amount of 48£ he now knows not where to look for money. I must borrow to supply him – but I will say to you
that it makes me very indignant to see such a want of common feeling in him as this waste of money denotes when he knows that my Uncle is straitened, & how hardly I earn what little I had can gain. He will succeed in the world, if his own extravagance do not prevent him – but I am afraid
Tom that if brotherhood were to be determined by the heart & affections, you
& I should have but one brother apiece. – Ediths love.