3932. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 14 December 1822

Endorsement: 14. Dec^r. 1822.
MS: Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Eng. lett. c. 26. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished.

My dear Grosvenor

I send the Ode

for your perusal – & you may transmit it to Sirius for his, – to be by him sealed & sent to its designation. – For a holydays task I am not dissatisfied with it. And when those which I have by me shall one <one day> be added to those already published,

⁽²⁾

– & printed in due order, they will do me no discredit.

Carlisle’s prescription seems to me likely to be useful. When they tell you that your deafness is nervous, I am inclined to think there is some meaning in that indefinite word, because you hear very much better when tête-a tête than in company.

Your new office

⁽³⁾

I hope brings with it change of business rather than increase of it. It is not I hope of so dignified a nature, that sneezing must be stiffled in your apartments. It would be a pity if Woodford

⁽⁴⁾

should not again have to

Mark the year & mark the day
When Thames shall echo with dismay
The sneeze that thro the Exchequers roofs shall ring, -
Sneeze of the high voiced Poet to the King

– I wish I could send one in a frank, but tho that cannot be I can say

God bless you –
& so farewell
RS.

Keswick 14 Dec. 1822.

Notes

1. ‘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]

2. Carmen Triumphale (1814) was the only one of Southey’s New Year’s odes to have been published by this time (although ‘Ode, Written in December 1814’ had appeared in Minor Poems, 3 vols (London, 1815), II, pp. [225]–238. Southey had originally intended this as his New Year’s ode for 1815, but abandoned his plan on Bedford and Croker’s advice.) His New Year’s odes were not published in one collection until they appeared in Poetical Works, 10 vols (London, 1837–1838), II, p. 248; III, pp. 179–211, 253–257, 263–292; X, pp. 183–188. Even then, they were not grouped together, nor was their origin identified.[back]

3. James Fisher (c. 1758–1821), Chief Clerk in the Auditor’s Office, had died on 15 December 1821. Bedford duly succeeded Fisher as Chief Clerk 1822–1834, relinquishing his post of Clerk of Registers and Issues, which he had held since 1806.[back]

4. E. M. Woodford (dates unknown) was First Assistant Clerk at the Exchequer in 1822 and a junior colleague of Grosvenor Bedford.[back]

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3932. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 14 December 1822

3932. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 14 December 1822

Notes

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven

Lynda Pratt, Ian Packer