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.
MS untraced; text is taken from Robert Galloway Kirkpatrick Jnr, ‘The Letters of Robert Southey to Mary Barker From 1800 to 1826’ (unpublished PhD, Harvard, 1967), pp. 30-33.. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 200–202.
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 Bashaw writes because some five weeks have elapsed since he
hath written – but what hath He of the three tailsthat man” used to do. & besides I have no time for
writing – & also I do’nt like, & likewise it is not my custom –
& eke I approve it not – yea it is altogether idleness – very vanity &
vexation of spirit – waste of ink – abuse of paper – wear & tear of pen.
The Grunter ought to write for me,
& tell you all our goings on. how Mrs
Lovell has had a swelled face – how Bellas
The great Bashaw is just. Mrs Danvers does not take Irish blackguard.
——
You have heard of George
Dyers letter,
I have been historifying successfully
My business with Corry is pretty well wound up – & I am paid off. now then at liberty to fix – you know there is a necessity for fixing. a library & a nursery ought to be stationary. I am resolved to live near Richmond if John May can find me a house. but what is a house without furniture? & how is furniture to be had without money? & how can I get money without writing? Therefore will the Curse of Kehama be forthcoming this next winter. Necessity sends some men to the gallows – some to prison. me it always sends to the press.
Do you go into Wales?if you go you
must make Bristol going or returning in your way – if you do not go, you must make a journey to Bristol expressly. There is much to
be seen about Bristol – & I am here for my last long visit. when once I quit
it I return here no more except for a week or ten days just to see Danvers. the place is unpleasant
to me. there are recollections that poison every path which I used to take with
very different feelings. So if I do not show it you this autumn I shall never do
it. besides you know we do not permit proxy
fare you well. the whole rigmarole of remembrances you will consider as set down in due forms –