1987. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 22 November 1811
1987. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 22 November 1811 *
Nov. 22. 1811.
My dear Grosvenor
Your remaining halves [1] came safe. – I am working very hard for Giffard, – & have half put out my eyes for him over some of my worst written Portugueze MSS. [2] – If articles of this kind were paid for by weight instead of measure, I much question whether one with so much historical knowledge, & such an accumulation of fact was ever brought into the market.
I shall soon finish another section of my poem, [3] xxx in that which follows Pelayo will make his appearance & the action will advance rapidly. My mind is by this time pretty well decided concerning the tone & manner of the next Poem – i.e – Oliver Goffe – my Quaker-heroic. [4] I shall take as wide a range of metre as in Kehama, [5] – but pitch the general key in an undertone, – like the pastoral parts of Spenser. I have a notion of introducing it in a sort of Epistolary Prologue, which very possibly may soon be set about. You must know I am in love with my own conceptions of this story. Perhaps I may give you a second sight of it, whenever I find a leisure hour & inclination for letter writing –
God bless you
RS.
Notes
* Address: To/ G. C. Bedford Esqr./ [in another hand] Exchequer/
J.C.H.
MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 24. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished. BACK
[1] i. e. half-banknotes – a secure way of sending money in the post, by tearing banknotes in half and sending the two halves separately. BACK
[2] The History of the Inquisitions; including the Secret Transactions of those Horrific Tribunals (1810); Letter upon the Mischievous Influence of the Spanish Inquisition as it actually exists in the Provinces under the Spanish Government. Translated from El Español, a periodical Spanish Journal published in London (1811); Narrativa da Perseguição de Hippolyto Joseph Da Costa Pereira Furtado de Mendonça, Natural da Colonia do Sacramento, no Rio-da-Prata, prezo e Processado em Lisboa pelo pretenso Crime de Fra-Maçon, ou Pedreiro Livre (1811), Quarterly Review, 6 (December 1811), 313–357. BACK
