3842. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 20 May 1822

 

Address: To/ G.C. B
Endorsements: 20 May 1822.; 20 May 1822
MS: Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Eng. lett. c. 26. ALS; 4p.
Unpublished.

My dear G.

I do not know Chantrys

(1)

Sir Francis Chantrey had completed a bust of Wordsworth in 1820. Wordsworth ordered a number of casts, which he presented to friends. The original is now in the Lilly Library, Indiana University.

direction & therefore entrust to your care a letter of thanks for Wordsworths bust which he has given me.

(2)

Southey to [Francis Chantrey], 20 May 1822, Letter 3841.

I had received it as a present from Wordsworth but am now desired to consider it as coming from the artist himself, – a circumstance which of course will give it additional value in my eyes. – It is an exceedingly fine thing – nothing can be better either in likeness or expression.

By the time this reaches you I shall be far on the road to Harrogate. I set off on Wednesday sleep at Kendal & meet Edith May & Miss Hutchinson the next afternoon at Bolton Abbey.

(3)

A ruined twelfth-century Augustinian monastery in North Yorkshire.

My intention is to stay three days at Harrogate, just to see the place & its immediate neighbourhood: & return by Fountains Abbey – Hack-fall & Wensley Dale.

(4)

Fountains is a ruined twelfth-century Cistercian abbey in North Yorkshire; Hackfall is a landscaped wood with grottoes, waterfalls and a fountain; Wensleydale is the upper valley of the River Ure.

Our weather is perfectly delicious. I bathe every day like a river God in the Greta about half a mile above Calverts,

(5)

Greta Bank, about a mile up the river Greta from Greta Hall.

one of the sweetest sheltered spots upon its whole course. I assure you it is no small exertion to go even for ten days from home in this beautiful season which is worth all the rest of the year.

If you do not come to me this summer you deserve to be made a cabinet minister: that is – to be belied blackguarded & badgered xx like his Right Honour. What a quantity of cooling drinks he must require to keep his Welsh blood down when my Saxon pulse rises for him – at the distance of three hundred miles.

I am very near the end of my volume

(6)

The first volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).

– but the Printer

(7)

Thomas Davison (1766–1831).

is slow. – The Dedication which I had partly written to Ld Sidmouth,

(8)

Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth (1757–1844; DNB), Prime Minister 1801–1804, Home Secretary 1812–1822. The History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832) was dedicated to George IV.

may better be prefixed to my Dialogues

(9)

Sir Thomas More: or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society (1829), dedicated to Herbert Hill.

– & I have determined upon something like this

This work is respectfully inscribed
to the Memory
of
Spencer Perceval
a statesman
who in the most arduous times
with a right English spirit
defended the institutions & upheld the honour of his country.

God bless you
RS.

Notes

1. Sir Francis Chantrey had completed a bust of Wordsworth in 1820. Wordsworth ordered a number of casts, which he presented to friends. The original is now in the Lilly Library, Indiana University.[back]
2. Southey to [Francis Chantrey], 20 May 1822, Letter 3841.[back]
3. A ruined twelfth-century Augustinian monastery in North Yorkshire.[back]
4. Fountains is a ruined twelfth-century Cistercian abbey in North Yorkshire; Hackfall is a landscaped wood with grottoes, waterfalls and a fountain; Wensleydale is the upper valley of the River Ure.[back]
5. Greta Bank, about a mile up the river Greta from Greta Hall.[back]
6. The first volume of Southey’s History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).[back]
7. Thomas Davison (1766–1831).[back]
8. Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth (1757–1844; DNB), Prime Minister 1801–1804, Home Secretary 1812–1822. The History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832) was dedicated to George IV.[back]
9. Sir Thomas More: or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society (1829), dedicated to Herbert Hill.[back]
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