2218. Robert Southey to Henry Herbert Southey, 3 February 1813 ⁠* 

My dear Harry

Your letter has arrived at a time when I am too uncomfortable for any other occupation than answering it. Ediths brother is here, – in a very bad state of health – & yesterday he broke a blood vessel: after bleeding about a pint & half at the mouth the hæmorrhage stopt, – Edmundson bled him afterwards & the blood was in a very inflammatory state, – this evening he seems & feels worse & I am in momentary fear that the hæmorrage will return. – To persons not used to such things the sight is frightful, – & tho I put xxx xxxx xxx endeavoured with some success to allay his apprehensions & his sisters, [1]  – I am myself the worse for the circumstance. Whatever be the event of the present attack, the poor fellow is full of diseases which the yellow fever left behind, & which will most likely bring him to the grave.

I will desire Bedford to send you what xxx more he has of Roderick [2]  – the 5 & 6^th – books will go to London under the same frank-imperial as which carries this. I have begun the 11^th – this is being rather more than half way thro. – Bedford is one of those men who is always <are> more especially than others in the predicament noticed in our liturgy of leaving undone those things which they ought to have done, & – which they intend to do. Hence his inattention to you. My London acquaintances are very numerous, – my friends but few. Elmsley who would have been solicitous to offer you any civilities in his power lives thirteen miles from town at S^t Mary Cray. Wynn is in Wales, & be he where he wherever he is, he is always as Elmsley most happily said of him at Oxford, doing something else. There is no one for whom he has a sincerer regard than he has for me, & yet I have been in London for four or five weeks & he has never asked me to dinner. This apparent indifference or neglect is usual with him, & gives great offence to his Welsh neighbours, who impute it to his Grenville blood. [3]  But it is because he is always in that state of litter, & confusion which you would expect in a man who before he was married used to do begin doing half a hundred things before he put his breeches on, & who used to have books – pen – ink – & paper – breeches, xx galluses, neckcloth, & rolls & butter all upon the breakfast table at the same time.

When I come to London, which I shall work hard to accomplish by the end of April, I will take you to Sotheby [4]  & Sir G Beaumont & Davy, – & bring them to you xx – they keep gay houses at which it is fit that a physician should be seen. That you will succeed I have no doubt whatever, & that, early enough to feel yourself still a young man when you are enjoying success. I am nearly ten years older your senior, & older in habits & feelings, & perhaps constitution than in years: you will be up the ladder before I shall, & yet I hope to enjoy myself at the top.

The last xx xx portion of the Nelson mss. [5]  was sent off yesterday, but the printer [6]  has ten sheets before him. I dedicate it to Croker, more <as much> with a view to Toms interest as for the civilities which he has shown me – indeed they may be called more than mere civilities, for without solicitation he men used all his endeavours to get me the historiographers office. [7]  This book was no scheme of my own, it grew out of the reviewal, – & the reviewal was forced upon me: but I think it is likely to answer Murrays purpose in a future edition, & that it will do me credit. [8]  With the Register [9]  it seems probable that I shall ere long have done. Ballantyne the bookseller is a dirty fellow, & it will be more than I expect if I am able am lucky enough to get out of his hands the 200£ which I have embarked in the concern. [10]  On my next visit to London I must make arrangements to enable me to have done with him. Possibly there will be no eventual Injury, tho certainly some immediate inconveniences but I distinctly feel that my marketable reputation value is on the rise. As for Roderick, [11]  it is not to be looked at as a thing for the market. But I shall not object to contract for a poem more on a level with the general intellect – & it will answer my purpose if a bookseller will give me 500£ for the same quantity as Scott has just got 3000£ for. His decline will not be my rise, I should be sorry indeed if my rise could depend on any such circumstances, – but that he xxx <must> decline is as certain as that there are rules by which composition may be must be tried. He may & probably will produce other poems as good as his first, but it is out of his power to produce better. Perhaps I x may be in the same case, – still there would be a difference, – for he has had little to do with feeling, & less with thought.

The scheme to which I look on as the sheet anchor of my new ways & means, is a view of the revolutions of the last fifty years, in all places & in all things, – under some such title as the Age of George 3. [12]  This is a fresh project – not more then three days old, x the Pisgah-View [13]  is in the highest degree promising, –& there is a good deal of matter in t my various reviewals convertible into this form.

You ask if I remember Paul. [14]  A man of colour, – or something very near <like> it. He was about a year my senior. I knew nothing little of him at school, & nothing after he left it, except that he became so purse-proud as to make himself ridiculous.

In my next I will put look out for you my memoranda about consumption [15]  – Edmundson is bleeding George in the next room, – & we shall have a nervous night, – even if nothing worse. Children all well. God bless you. Your ordinary letters are almost as dear as if they were prescriptions, – but if they are like your last for contents the oftener they arrive the better.

Yrs affectionately

RS.

Feb^y 3. 1813.

When you have done with the six books of Roderick convey them to my Uncle.