2449. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 22 June 1814 ⁠* 

22 June 1814.

My dear Grosvenor

I expected the termination which your letter communicates. [1]  A prolongation of life could only have been feebleness & pain to himself, & fear & suffering to all around him. The passage now has been short & easy, – & what more could xxxxx have <be> prayed for than thus to fall asleep in ripe old age?

If I were to look round the world & ask myself what man there is in it whom I should miss the most if he were removed, – you would be the man. Excepting Wynn you are the oldest friend I have, & with no one has by my communication been so uninterruptedly frequent. For many very many years there has never occurred a day in which some circumstance or other has not brought you to my mind. Brixton is perhaps the most important scene of my literary life, – x whenever I arrive at that sort of canonization which Poets as well as Saints must die before they can attain, y the summer house there (if it be standing) will be given as a vignette to one of the chapters of my life Memoirs – With the recollections of that time, [2]  – & of many others, your fathers memory is blended, – & among all your friends I venture to say that none knew him better, or xxxxx him or valued him more. The only mistake which Nature made was in not making him a Prince. But his elements were happily mixt, & when a tale touched him there was a look in his eye which I shall never forget.

Remember me most kindly to your mother & Henry & believe me

ever most affectionately yours

Robert Southey.

A momentary recollection has just brought an April smile [3]  upon my cheek, – the letter which you wrote to Wynn upon an occasion like this, & the use to which the Welsh God Almighty in reversion applied it.