3928. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 7 December 1822

Address: To/ G.C. Bedford Esq^re/ Exchequer./ Westminster
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: E/ 10 DE 10/ 1822
Endorsements: 7. Dec^r. 1822/ ans^d. 12. Dec^r.; [in pencil] Gen^l. Hawker/ Mackenzie/ Herries/ Sir Augustus Fraser
MS: Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Eng. lett. c. 26. ALS; 4p.
Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), III, pp. 352–353.

Keswick. 7 Dec. 1822

My dear Grosvenor

You will deliver me from one of the evils of this world if you will send me some money.

It is a long while since I have heard from you, – or indeed from any person in town. My last news of poor Gifford was a report from my Uncle that he was still very ill, – & the last notice I had of the QR was in a letter from – the Lands end, saying it was all but settled that John Coleridge should become the editor – but this was good authority coming from John May, who is as intimate with him as I am with you. – However desirable it may be might be for me to have obtained a certain income adequate to my expenditure (& God knows desirable it would be!) yet I am perfectly satisfied that I decided rightly in not seeking to obtain the editorship for myself; & of this I believe the few persons by whose judgement I could wish to have my own confirmed, agree with me.

You will tell Murray whither to send a copy of my first volume for Mackenzie,

⁽¹⁾

– there is also <one> placed at your disposal for Gen. Hawker as an acknowledgement for the use of his sketches.

⁽²⁾

– The concluding sheets from p 745 – with the preface &c have never reached me, – if therefore they ever past thro your hands, they have been lost on the way, – which I am sorry for, as they spoil a copy. – I think you will like the Dedication which says a great deal in few words.

⁽³⁾

Sir Wm Knighton presents it for me –

Just now I am out of humour because I am working at the Ode

⁽⁴⁾

– the motto for which ought always to be Odi.

⁽⁵⁾

– You will see my description of Lodore, enlarged & much improved, in an eleemosynary volume edited by Joanna Baillie;

⁽⁶⁾

– where you will see also some stanzas written for Lady Lonsdales Album,

⁽⁷⁾

placed where you will see them not by my choice, but at Miss Baillies desire. The stanza is to my ear singularly pleasing; – the verses not discreditable, xxxxx the utmost that can be expected in compositions of this kind, – which differ from impositions, only as a forced loan does from a tax. That family shows me great civilities, which I acknowledge so much less that I ought to do in the way of visiting them that I was the more ready to show my sense of their attention in this manner.

I am getting on with the B of the Church;

⁽⁸⁾

– which said Book must perform the service of carrying me on my spring journey, & aiding largely the next years ways & means, for I mean, if possible, to keep the proceeds of the History untouched; – that part excepted which will be adventured with Westall upon the drawings from Roderick,

⁽⁹⁾

– a secret (remember) which is strictly confined to you, – no other person whatsoever being acquainted with it by me.

If you do not visit me next summer you ought never to be forgiven. I quite long to have you here, – there are so many things which I should like to show you, & which you would delight in seeing. – Moreover there will be strong beer, worthy of the Gods, – & Lightfoot is going to send me a cask of cyder, which he makes, & which I hope to drink, with great success. If it be as good as himself it cannot be better.

Remember me to Miss Page & Henry -

God bless you
RS.

Notes

1. The first volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832), for Colin Alexander Mackenzie (1778?–1851), a wealthy Scot who was employed on a number of delicate diplomatic missions and may well have been a government spy. In 1815 he was appointed one of the Commissioners of Liquidation, Arbitration and Deposit, who adjudicated on claims by British citizens for loss of property against the French government. Southey dined with him in Paris on 17 and 19 May 1817 and Mackenzie provided information for Southey’s History of the Peninsular War.[back]

2. Major-General Samuel Hawker (1763–1838), who had served in the Peninsular War between 1808 and 1811 as commander of the 14th Light Dragoons. His sketches were used in 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 could be inserted into the first volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).[back]

3. History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (London, 1823–1832), I, p. [iii]: ‘It is with peculiar fitness, as well as with pleasure, that I inscribe to your Majesty [George IV] a History of the most glorious war recorded in the British annals./ When the Regency devolved into your hands, the fortunes of our allies were at their lowest ebb, and neither arts nor efforts were spared for making the spirit of this country sink with them. At that momentous crisis every thing depended, under Providence, upon your single determination; and to that determination Great Britain is beholden for its triumph, and Europe for its deliverance./ To your Majesty, therefore, this faithful History is offered, as a portion of the tribute due to a just, magnanimous, and splendid reign, and as a proof of individual respect and gratitude from/ Your Majesty’s/ Most dutiful subject and servant,/ ROBERT SOUTHEY.’[back]

4. ‘Scotland, an Ode, Written after the King’s Visit to that Country. By Robert Southey, Esq. Poet Laureat’, The Bijou: Or Annual of Literature and the Arts (London, 1828), pp. 81–88. This poem was Southey’s New Year’s ode for 1823 in fulfilment of his obligations as Poet Laureate.[back]

5. ‘I hate’.[back]

6. ‘The Cataract of Lodore, Described in Rhymes for the Nursery, By One of the Lake Poets’, published in Joanna Baillie (ed.), A Collection of Poems, Chiefly Manuscript, And From Living Authors (London, 1823), pp. 280–283.[back]

7. ‘Lines, Written in Lady Lonsdale’s Album, At Lowther Castle, Oct. 13. 1821’, published in Joanna Baillie (ed.), A Collection of Poems, Chiefly Manuscript, And From Living Authors (London, 1823), pp. 50–51. Composed for an album belonging to Augusta, Countess of Lonsdale, when Southey visited her at Lowther Castle.[back]

8. Southey’s The Book of the Church (1824).[back]

9. Southey’s Roderick, the Last of the Goths (1814). Richard Westall (1765–1836; DNB) produced a set of six illustrations, Illustrations of Roderick, the Last of the Goths. A Poem, by Robert Southey, Esq. from the Drawings of R. Westall, R.A. (1824), nos 2627–2628 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library. Longman published them and purchasers could arrange for the engravings to be bound into their copy of Roderick.[back]

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3928. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 7 December 1822

3928. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 7 December 1822

Notes

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven

Lynda Pratt, Ian Packer