3831. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 28 April 1822

Address: To/ G.C. Bedford Esq^re/ Exchequer/ Westminster
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: E/ 1 MY 1/ 182x
Endorsements: 28 April 1822; 28 April 1822
MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 26. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.

My dear G.

Thank you for the half notes.

Edith-May set off yesterday for Harrowgate, being the first time she has ever been from home by herself, except on a visit to Wordsworth – which was like being in another home. I shall join her for the purpose of bringing her back about the end of May. She goes provided with a sketch-book which if the weather permit she will make good use of; for she sketches now so quickly & so well that in this respect I should be very well satisfied with her for a travelling companion.

John May I hope will visit me early in June. And the Dogstar promises to rise here in the autumn. As for Grosvenor Bedford he is a bad fellow & I know not when to expect him. When he thinks of coming there is no being sure of him because Taffy has a house on the way.

⁽¹⁾

An old acquaintance of mine has taken it in his head to write a book against the Vision of Judgement.

⁽²⁾

If any body reads it so much the better for me, but I am afraid he will find that he has chosen a subject about which nobody cares.

Our weather is what April should be. This year we have escaped the usually easterly winds, & the country is a full fortnight earlier than usual in all its appearances.

Osiris tells me you are playing pranks with your diet, which seem not to be by no means suited to your state of health or of feeling. If your deafness is likely to be benefitted by stimulants, I should prefe rather take them in foxx the form of eating & drinking than of potion or pill. – Mountain air & Lake exercise would be the best remedies.

I hope Wynn was angry when he replied to Lord J Russell.

⁽³⁾

– If I had been in town I would have fitted his Ldsp with a leading article in the next days Courier which should have blistered him. Let Lord John carry his plans of reform, & in seven years the Bedford level will become a xx domain for coots & curlews instead of feeding the Geese of Woburn.

⁽⁴⁾

God bless you
RS.

Keswick. 28 Apr. 1822

Notes

1. Possibly a reference to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, whose house at Llangedwin in Denbighshire was closer to London than Keswick, and only a short detour from one of the routes between London and the Lake District.[back]

2. Samuel Tillbrook, Historical and Critical Remarks upon the Modern Hexametrists, and Upon Mr Southey’s Vision of Judgment (1822).[back]

3. Lord John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (1792–1878; Prime Minister 1846–1852, 1865–1866; DNB), Whig politician. He delivered a famous and lengthy speech in the House of Commons on 25 April 1822 in favour of parliamentary reform. Wynn responded for the government but devoted most of his speech to defending his colleagues in the Grenville grouping, who had split from the Whigs in 1817 and joined the government in 1822. Russell had accused them of dishonourable behaviour and of sitting for constituencies with tiny electorates, so they could not be questioned about their change of allegiances in 1822.[back]

4. The Bedford Level is an area of the Fens drained at the expense of the Russell family in the seventeenth century. The main family seat is Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire.[back]

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The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven