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Duke University Library, Southey papers. Previously published: John Wood Warter, Selections From the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 3–5 [where it is dated ‘College Green, Bristol, 1792.’].
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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Time has justified all your prophecies with regard to my French friends — the Sans Culottes the Jacobines & the
Fishwomen carry every thing before them — every thing that is respectable every barrier that is sacred is swept away by the
ungovernable torrent — the people have changed tyrants & for the mild irresolute Louis bow to the savage the unrelenting
Pethion.
before I quit the French let one remark that that very National Assembly which you have stigmatised as a rabble of pettifogging attorneys & illiterate barbarians has furnished men who had the courage to preserve their duty at the expence of their lives
And now to descend from Liberty & a Republic to myself — I have been negligent very negligent not only in delaying
to answer your kind letter but in letting Toms last remain so long unnoticed
that I know not where to direct to him — my last met him at Glasgow & from thence I received a very long account from him of all he
had seen which at once amused & instructed me — I am too apt to commit faults in haste & repent at leisure but how this lazy
fit came on I know not — Procrastination is the thief of time
Every day I expect to hear from Dr Randolphwhen I [MS torn]tention of
accepting your kind invitation & quitting it for Mountsfield.
I have been attempting Euclid but without a master I could make no progress — perhaps disgust at the dry study contributed but I did not want perseverance — my brain was so confused with parallels horizontals triangles parallellograms & all the jargon of mathematical precision that after a fortnights hard study I fairly laid it on the shelf & took up my constant study Spenser.
I have now to beg forgiveness for my neglect & that you will inform me (as I really intend to make amends by writing him a very long letter if that be not rather aggravating my fault) where I may direct to Tom
my best respects to Mrs L Mr Lamb & all friends & believe me
my dear Sir
if you will have the goodness to write before the fourteenth of October my direction is at Miss Tylers Bristol