3902. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 7 October 1822

 

Address: To/ G.C. Bedford Esqre/ Exchequer/ Westminster
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: E/ 10 OC 10/ 1822
Endorsement: 7 Oct. 1822./ Horsemangander – explained; Octor 7. 1822
MS: Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Eng. lett. c. 26. ALS; 3p.
Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), III, pp. 332–333 [in part].

My dear G.

I very much approve your laudable curiosity to know the precise meaning of that noble word horsemangandering.

(1)

See Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 30 September 1822, Letter 3899.

Before I tell you its application, you must be informed of its origin & history. Be it therefore known unto you, that Mrs Coleridge, the whole & sole inventor of the never-to-be-forgotten Lingo-grande (in which by the bye I purpose erelong to compose a second epistle)

(2)

The first ‘epistle’ was Southey to ‘Stumparumper’ [Grosvenor Charles Bedford], 14 September 1821, Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part Six, Letter 3730.

thought proper one day to call my daughter a great horsemangander, thinking I suppose that that appellation contained xx as much unfeminine meaning as could be put into any decent compound. From this substantive the verb has been formed to denote an operation performed by the said daughter upon the said Aunt, – of which I was an astonished spectator. The horsemangander, that is to say Edith May, being tall & strong, <came behind> took the person to be horsemangandered (to wit Mrs C) <& took her> round the waist, under the arms, then jumped with her all the way from the kitchen into the middle of the parlour, the motion of the horsemangandered person at every jump being some thing like that of a paviours rammer,

(3)

A ‘paviour’ is an obsolete word for someone who lays paving stones; a ‘rammer’ was a tool used to pound the stones flat and into place.

& all resistance impossible

Thank you for the half notes. I believe the only demand against me is the Taylors (Hydes

(4)

Hyde (d. 1820) had been Southey’s tailor in London. His successor was J. McCallan & Co., tailors of Leicester Square, London.

successor) for my last years clothes. I will beg you to discharge this when you receive the next pension. And when I come to London you shall introduce me to your cheaper knight of the thimble.

Since Harrys departure I have settled to my work steadily, of which Gifford will see some proof in a day or two. I have also followed Harrys prescription thus far faithfully, & walked enough every day to require a good rubbing down on my return. Exercise has brought me into better condition than I ever expected to recover. The fine weather seems to have departed as soon as I had no longer a companion with whom to enjoy it; it was glorious while the Dog-Star was here & gloriously did we profit by it

God bless you
RS.

Keswick. Oct 7. 1822.

I do not mistranslate beau ideal when I write of the fair ideal of a work of art, a human character, or a commonwealth.

(5)

Southey used this phrase in his review of Sara Coleridge’s An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay (1822), Quarterly Review, 26 (January 1822), 277–323, published 30 March 1822. The book was a translation of Martin Dobrizhoffer (1717–1791), Historia de Abiponibus Equestri, Bellicosaque Paraquariae Natione (1784), no. 843 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library: ‘When Dobrizhoffer had acquired a competent knowledge of the Guarani tongue at Cordoba, he was stationed in one of those Reductions where the Jesuits had realised their fair ideal of a Christian Commonwealth’ (28…

I have no objection to Anglicize a word from any language when we have no equivalent for it, & would therefore write menagery, & naivety but I have a very great objection to see written English interlarded with foreign phrases.

Notes

1. See Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 30 September 1822, Letter 3899.[back]
2. The first ‘epistle’ was Southey to ‘Stumparumper’ [Grosvenor Charles Bedford], 14 September 1821, Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part Six, Letter 3730.[back]
3. A ‘paviour’ is an obsolete word for someone who lays paving stones; a ‘rammer’ was a tool used to pound the stones flat and into place.[back]
4. Hyde (d. 1820) had been Southey’s tailor in London. His successor was J. McCallan & Co., tailors of Leicester Square, London.[back]
5. Southey used this phrase in his review of Sara Coleridge’s An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay (1822), Quarterly Review, 26 (January 1822), 277–323, published 30 March 1822. The book was a translation of Martin Dobrizhoffer (1717–1791), Historia de Abiponibus Equestri, Bellicosaque Paraquariae Natione (1784), no. 843 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library: ‘When Dobrizhoffer had acquired a competent knowledge of the Guarani tongue at Cordoba, he was stationed in one of those Reductions where the Jesuits had realised their fair ideal of a Christian Commonwealth’ (285).[back]
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