599. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 19 August 1801 ⁠* 

My dear Grosvenor

The tone & temper of your letter left me in an uncomfortable mood. certainly I deserved it – but as far as negligence deserves reproof so harsh – but indeed Grosvenor you have been somewhat like the Scotch judge who included all rape robbery x murder & horsestealing under the head of sedition [1]  – so have you suspected negligence of cloaking a cold & fickle & insincere heart. dear dear Grosvenor if by any magic of ear you could hear how often your name passes my lips – or could you see how often I see your figure in my walks – the recollections – & the wishes – but what are these? – an hundred times should I have begun a letter if these had been enough to fill it – if I could have sent you the exquisite laugh when I again saw S^t Augustine & his load [2]  – or the smile when I read Leanders [3]  death in the newspaper – but these are unwriteable things – the gossip & the playfulness & the boyness & the happiness – I was about to write however – in conscience & truth I was – & for an odd reason. I heard a gentleman imitate Henderson [4]  – & there was in that imitation a decisiveness of pronunciation – a rolling every syllable over the tongue, a force & pressure of lip & of palate – that had my eyes been shut I could have half believed you had been reading Shakespeare to me – & I was about to tell you so, because the impression was so strong –

With Drummond [5]  it seems I go not but he & Wynn design to get for me or try to get a better birth – that of Secretary to some Italian Legation – which is permanent – & not personally attached to the Minister. Amen – I love the South, & the possibility highly pleases me & the prospect of advancing fortunes. To England I have no strong tie – the friends whom I love live so wide that I never see two in a place – & for acquaintance they are to be found every where. thus much for the future, for the present I am about to move to Coleridge, who is at the Lakes – & I am labouring somewhat blindly indeed, but all to some purpose – about my ways & means – for the foreign expedition that has restored my health has at the same time picked my pocket – & if I had not good spirits & chearful industry I should be somewhat surly & sad. So I am – I hope most truly & ardently for the last time – pen & inking for supplies & not from pure inclination – I am rather heaping brick & mortar than building – hesitating between this plan & that plan & preparing for both – I rather think it will end in a Romance, in metre Thalaban, in mythology Hindoo – by name the Curse of Kehāma, [6]  on which name you may speculate – & if you have any curiosity to see a crude outline – the undeveloped life-germ of the egg – say so – & you shall <see> the story as it is & the poem as it is to be written piecemeal.

Thus then is my time employed – or thus it ought to be – for how much is dissipated by going here & there – dinnering & tea-taking – & suppering traying or eveninging take which phrase of fashion pleases you – you may guess. – you asked me about Thalaba – owing to my absence the printer dirtily enough did not print any large paper copies – whenever a second be printed you shall have one. I stipulated for twelve copies of the poem – of which you of course had one – you will therefore either write “from his schoolfellow & friend” after your own name in it – or wait till I can write it myself. – did you get a second Anthology? [7]  – & moreover now I am on this subject my first Poems [8]  – instead of being sent into the fire – or the bog as they ought, are now a fourth time sent to press – & now large paper copies are manufacturing to suit the second volume – the which of course shall be forwarded to you –

Grosvenor I perceive no change in myself – nor any symptoms of change – I suffer only in years from what I was – & years make less difference in me than in most men. – alls things considered I feel myself a fortunate & happy man – the future wears a better face that it ever has done – & I have no reason to regret that indifference to fortune which has marked the past – By the by it is unfortunate that you cannot come to the sacrifice of one Law Book – my whole proper stock – whom I design to take up to the top of Mount Etna – for the express purpose of throwing him down, straight to the Devil. Huzza Grosvenor – I was once afraid that I should have a deadly deal of Law to forget whenever I had done with it but my brains – God bless them – never received any – they <it> purged off as it went in – ran thro like water gruel after jalap [9]  – or the Sows Doctor Halfpenny Greens Sows julep [10]  – & I am as ignorant as heart could wish. the tares would not grow –

You will direct to Keswick Cumberland – I set off on Saturday next – & shall be there about Tuesday – & if you could contrive to steal time for a visit to the Lakes you would find me a rare guide.

Rickman is about leaving London, (where he has been labouring at the Population act [11]  – which is his scheme) – to go as Secretary with Abbot [12]  to Ireland. he is an excellent fellow & will be a great man. Tom is off Ireland – scarred I fear sadly in the Copenhagen business, [13]  which had nearly cost him his life – or his eyes.

How & where is Horace? remember me also to your father & mother as one not unmindful of many happy hours passed under their roof.

I have tried to read Pyes Alfred [14]  – which is insomuch worse than Alfred the Pious [15]  as it is not bad enough to be ridiculous. If you have not seen the second volume of Wordsworths Lyrical Ballads I counsel you to buy them, & read aloud the Poems entitled The Brothers, & Michael [16]  – which especially the first – are to my taste excellent. I have never been so much affected & so well as by some passages there. – I should have liked some opinion of Thalaba from you – some fault-finding – to know if enough interest was excited – or if miracles like pantomime-tricks were so rapid as to weary & satiate.

God bless you. Ediths remembrance –

yrs as ever.

Robert Southey.

Wednesday. 19 Aug. 1801.

Yours reached me but yesterday & too late for reply.