1034. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford [10 February 1805] ⁠* 

Dear Grosvenor

The nine months being up, I am daily in hopes of hearing that you are safely delivered of a proof sheet, – & every delay now makes me begin to apprehend a miscarriage. – Seriously loss of time begins to be to me a serious loss, for I had calculated that the book [1]  instead of going to press in spring would have been ready for publication in the winter, – & it will not now be forth-coming till the next. If you find it interfere too much with your own concerns, make no scruple about telling me, – & I can easily transfer it to another friend. My motive for charging you with it was twofold – an old feeling which made me prefer associating my name with yours, – & a hope that you might acquire a habit of literary research, to be directed hereafter to better purposes. But if you feel that to be irksome in which I expected you would have found amusement, – do not be so unfriendly as to go on with an unpleasant undertaking, from any fear of inconveniencing me. You & I have known each other long enough to speak freely. No inconvenience could be so great to me as procrastination, & I could without the smallest difficulty entrust the business to somebody else. If however this be not the case – O bone testudo [2]  – do move those stumps a little faster – for you are not now running a race against the hare – but carrying the hare upon your back. & by the Lord we shall never get to the end of the journey unless I can find some means of spurring you thro that thick shell. Send me a list of the authors still desiderated, & I will cause enquiry to be made at Edinburgh, which may somewhat accelerate us: & go to press without delay, for tho I do not wish you at the Devil – upon my soul I wish the Devil at you.

Madoc will be sent to you early in the next month, if no accidental delay take place – which is not very likely. You will see a very handsome book, & a title page, thanks to Duppa, after my own heart.

I see no news, & shall see none till my neighbour General Peche [3]  gets to town & sends me his paper. so how the world goes on heaven knows, not I – not even whether Bonaparte has swallowed up the Prince of Brazil. [4]  – We are greatly shocked at the loss of the Abergavenny, the Captain of which was Wordsworths brother [5]  – an excellent man, who – tho I knew him not, has often been a guest in this very house. You cannot conceive the impression this dreadful accident has occasioned here where every body has known him from a child.

God bless you; send me a proof sheet via Rickman, & we will have a typographical & bibliographical correspondence during the progress of the work, worthy to be held in everlasting remembrance.

Yrs ut semper [6] 

RS.

Sunday night.