3868. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 12 July 1822

Address: To/ G. C. Bedford Esq^re/ Exchequer/ Westminster
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: E/ 1x JY 15/ 18x2
Endorsements: 12. July 1822./ Lightfoot at Keswick.; 12. July 1822
MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 26. ALS; 4p.
Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), V, pp. 117–119 [in part].

My dear G.

My old friend Lightfoot is with me, xx whose library you assisted me in making an inventory of, to whom we wrote a joint letter concerning Snivel & the Bow Begum,

⁽¹⁾

– & whom I had not seen since we parted upon leaving Oxford, eight & twenty years ago. The communication between us had never been broken. I had a great regard for him, & talked of him often & oftener thought of him: & as you may suppose, the more I became known & talked of in the world, the larger part I occupied in his thoughts. So at length he mustered up resolution to make a journey hither from Crediton during his midsummer holydays, – being master of the grammar school there.

⁽²⁾

He declares me to be less altered in appearance & manners than any man whom he ever saw. I should not have known him, – & yet he has worn better than I have, but he is thinner & altogether less than when he was a young man, & his face has lengthened, partly because he has lost some of his hair. His life has been laborious, uniform, succesful, & singularly happy. After leaving college he became usher at a school in his native county for five years,

⁽³⁾

– engaged to marry there,

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& (a little by virtue of that engagement, his wife being distantly related to Courtenays father, then Bp of Exeter,

⁽⁵⁾

– but still more by virtue of his excellent character) was elected master of the Grammar School at Crediton,

⁽⁶⁾

– an old foundation but then in a decayed state. He restored the school, married about a year after he had settled there, has now five children,

⁽⁷⁾

the eldest a youth of good promise, excellent conduct at Oxford, & has realized enough to make him quite at ease, concerning it a provision for his family.

⁽⁸⁾

I have scarcely ever seen a man so thoroughly happy, & thankful for his lot in life. And well may he be so, having never had anxiety enough to break his rest a single night!

He trembled like an aspen leaf at meeting me. A journey to Cumberland is to him as formidable a thing as it would be for me to set off for Jerusalem, so little has he been used to locomotion. And he has shocked Edith May by wishing that the mountains would descend to fill up the lakes & vales xxx because then I should return to the South, & be within reach of him.

The only thing short of this which would be likely to remove me from this country, would be if upon Giffords giving up the management of the QR it were to be offered me, & made worth my acceptance. In that case I should probably from prudential reasons think it proper to accept the offer & fix myself within ten or twelve miles of town. But this is not likely & I am not sure that it would be desirable

I am very much better, but have still a hacking cough which has made a lodgement in my chest

We have been talking over old times, the Installation,

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inter alia,

⁽¹⁰⁾

the grease at the gates of the Theatre,

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Duppas appearance when he came out of it his too-solid flesh resolved into a dew,

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– the piece of dried thumb, – & the Pot of Abomination whose contents we catalogued with such precision.

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I wish you were with us. He talks of departing on Tuesday, but as the rain has confined us for three days to the house, this time must be postponed prolonged. He will take back with him recollections for many an after day, & he will leave me the better for his visit. Indeed he has won the heart of all my family, from my Lady-Mare down to Cupn.

What a pleasure there <it> is in declining life to see the friends of our youth, such as we should wish them to be, – & how infinitely greater will be the pleasure of meeting them in another world, when progression in beatitude will be the only change!

God bless you my dear Grosvenor
RS

Keswick 12 July. 1822

Notes

1. Snivel and the Bow-Begum were dogs owned by Bedford. The joint letter to Lightfoot does not seem to survive, though the same subject was addressed in Southey to Tom Southey, [late October/early November–]14 December 1793, The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part One, Letter 65. The only surviving joint letter by Southey and Bedford to Lightfoot is that of 27–30 September 1793, Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part One, Letter 59.[back]

2. Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Crediton, founded in 1547.[back]

3. Lightfoot was an usher at Kingsbridge Grammar School in Devon 1795–1800.[back]

4. Nicholas Lightfoot married Bridget Prideaux (1768–1856) on 13 July 1801.[back]

5. Reginald Courtney (1741–1803; DNB), Bishop of Exeter 1797–1803.[back]

6. Lightfoot was appointed Master of Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Crediton, in March 1800.[back]

7. John Prideaux Lightfoot; Frances Jane Lightfoot (1806–1882); Catherine Anne Lightfoot (1808–1898); Bridget Mary Lightfoot (1810–1889); Nicholas Francis Lightfoot (1811–1881), Vicar of Cadbury 1846–1855, Rector of Islip 1855–1881.[back]

8. Although Lightfoot’s stipend had at first been only £20 p.a., his admission of boarding pupils, and improvements in the school's endowments, gave him a respectable, if not secure, income. In 1818 he received a stipend of £50 as headmaster, plus a house and an allowance for taxes. He was also paid £5 p.a. for each day pupil and charged 30 guineas p.a. for boarding pupils (of whom he had 37 in 1811). In addition, the Governors of the school had presented him to the nearby Rectory of Kennerleigh in 1807, with a stipend of £100 p.a. Nicholas Carlisle, A Concise Description of the Endowed Grammar Schools in England and Wales, 2 vols (London, 1818), I, pp. 254–265.[back]

9. The installation, on 1 July 1793, of William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland (1738–1809; DNB), Prime Minister 1783, 1807–1809, as Chancellor of the University of Oxford.[back]

10. ‘among other things’.[back]

11. The Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford (built 1664–1669), used for major university ceremonies, including Portland’s installation in 1793.[back]

12. Hamlet, Act 1, scene 2, lines 129–130: ‘O that this too too solid flesh would melt,/ Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!’[back]

13. Southey is referring here to some long-standing jokes from his and Lightfoot’s student days; see Southey to Nicholas Lightfoot, 22 December 1793, Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part One, Letter 75.[back]

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