3810. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 2 March 1822

Endorsements: R.S. 2 March. 1822.; 2 March. 1822
MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 26. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished.

My dear G.

I did not know Gen. H.

was in France, or, of course, I should never have thought of asking him to select sketches which were to be copied in England. All I can now say <is> that I am much obliged both to him & to your friend for their kind intentions, – & very sorry that Westall should be disappointed.

⁽²⁾

I am grieved at the uncomfortable tone of your letter: & just now am in no condition to answer it, having a sick house, & being myself by no means well. Cuthbert has a bilious fever upon him, which is not called alarming, but is quite sufficient to make me very uneasy, & my eldest daughter is far from well.

I care not how the clean sheets are sent me

⁽³⁾

– Only that as I have told Wynn I had desired you to send them under his cover, – & it is better you should so do than seem to shun him. This is not a healthy feeling, & I wish most earnestly that you would shake it off. A month among the mountains would be of infinite use to you, in putting your spirits & feelings to rights. As for retiring into a hollow tree it was done by an English Saint who for so doing was named Simon Stok.

⁽⁴⁾

But I would neither have you turn Stock or Stone

⁽⁵⁾

His Right Honour is now on a “bed of roses”.

⁽⁶⁾

The only difference it will make between him & me, is that there will be rather less difference in some of our opinions, & he will see some things more as I have been accustomed to see them: – particularly the amiable character of the Opps. – The sooner you can let me have the clean sheets the better, for I shall very shortly want to refer to them.

If you will not promise to bring Miss Page & your brother here I will write to her, & tell her to bring you. You ought to have a Lady Mare to rule you as I have.

⁽⁷⁾

Is not that title as good as Lord Horse? I invented it the other day after a peck.

⁽⁸⁾

God bless you
RS.

2 March. 1822.

Notes

1. Major-General Samuel Hawker (1763–1838), who had served in the Peninsular War between 1808 and 1811 as commander of the 14th Light Dragoons and made a number of sketches in Spain.[back]

2. Westall wished to use Hawker’s sketches for A Series of Views of Spain and Portugal, to Illustrate Mr. Southey’s History of the Peninsular War; Drawn on Stone by W. Westall, A.R.A., from Sketches by General Hawker, Mr. Locker, Mr. Heaphy, &c. Part I, containing Eight Views, illustrating Vol. I (1823). These pictures could be inserted in their appropriate places in the first volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).[back]

3. Proofs of the first volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823).[back]

4. St Simon Stock (13th century), English saint and early Prior-General of the Carmelite Order. One tradition about him states that as a boy he retired to live as a hermit in the hollow trunk of an oak tree.[back]

5. A common phrase, meaning wood or stone. It derives ultimately from Jeremiah 2: 27.[back]

6. Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593; DNB), ‘The Passionate Shepherd to his Love’ (1599), line 9. Wynn had joined the Cabinet as President of the Board of Control.[back]

7. i.e. the unmarried Bedford needed a wife.[back]

8. A pun on the double meaning of ‘peck’: a kiss on the cheek; and, a measure of grain that might be given to a horse.[back]

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The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven