4195. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, [1 June 1824]

 

Address: To/ G. C. Bedford Esqre/ Exchequer/ Westminster
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: E/ 4 JU 4/ 1824
Endorsements: 1st 6 June 1824; 1 June 1824.; June 1./ 1824.
MS: Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Eng. lett. c. 26. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.

My dear G.

The cast with its accompaniments is safely arrived.

(1)

Bedford had commissioned a plaster copy of a glass cup he possessed, to present to Southey. Bedford believed the cup to be the work of Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571), Italian goldsmith and sculptor.

Nothing could have been more carefully packed. I observed your directions how to handle the glass, & it now ornaments my workshop, which I dare say is furnished with more curious things than any other wherein the manufactory of verse & prose is so diligently carried on.

Have you seen Landor’s Imaginary Conversations?

(2)

Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen (1824), no. 1600 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.

My copy arrived yesterday, & such sheets only having been sent me during its passage thro the press as were thought by the publisher

(3)

The firm of John Taylor (1781–1864; DNB) and James Augustus Hessey (1785–1870), of 93 Fleet Street, London.

to require castration about a third part of it was new to me. Some things have passed in that part which I should have struck out, especially where Canning is aimed at, & grossly slandered.

(4)

Dialogue XIV of Landor’s Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, 2 vols (London, 1824) I, pp. [229]–248, between the Greek orator Demosthenes (384–322 BC), and the philosopher Eubulides (4th century BC). On pp. 245–248, Canning was portrayed as ‘Anaedestatus’.

If you have not read the book, you have a rich treat to come: so much error, so much intemperance you will rarely meet with, where there is any thing to compensate for such faults, but such manliness of thought & expression, such life & vigour, such thunder & lightening – are I verily believe nowhere else to be found. – Lord Byron would have winced had he lived to read it, – & yet what is said of him

(5)

Dialogue XII of Landor’s Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, 2 vols (London, 1824) I, pp. [154]–165, between Gilbert Burnet (1643–1715; DNB), Bishop of Salisbury 1689–1715 and ‘Humphrey Hardcastle’. On pp. 160–164, Byron was satirised as ‘Mr. George Nelly’, whose recent death was noted.

is now the more impressive because it speaks of him as dead.

I am interrupted –

God bless you
RS.

Notes

1. Bedford had commissioned a plaster copy of a glass cup he possessed, to present to Southey. Bedford believed the cup to be the work of Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571), Italian goldsmith and sculptor.[back]
2. Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen (1824), no. 1600 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.[back]
3. The firm of John Taylor (1781–1864; DNB) and James Augustus Hessey (1785–1870), of 93 Fleet Street, London.[back]
4. Dialogue XIV of Landor’s Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, 2 vols (London, 1824) I, pp. [229]–248, between the Greek orator Demosthenes (384–322 BC), and the philosopher Eubulides (4th century BC). On pp. 245–248, Canning was portrayed as ‘Anaedestatus’.[back]
5. Dialogue XII of Landor’s Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, 2 vols (London, 1824) I, pp. [154]–165, between Gilbert Burnet (1643–1715; DNB), Bishop of Salisbury 1689–1715 and ‘Humphrey Hardcastle’. On pp. 160–164, Byron was satirised as ‘Mr. George Nelly’, whose recent death was noted.[back]
TEI Link
TEI
Volume Editor(s)
Lynda Pratt
Ian Packer