2793. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 19 May 1816
2793. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 19 May 1816*
My dear G
Here are some stanzas to be inserted between Stanzas 3 & 4 of the Epilogue. They go to Pople by this post & I must see a revise of the proof, so that you have time (if no time be lost) to find fault with them. I wrote them to supply the defect of personal good wishes whereof you properly enough complained, – & in this certainly I have not succeeded, – my nature I suppose is not gracious enough. Take them however such as they are. They require a change in the preceding couplet – his song instead of the & who for which. [1]
4
5
6
7
8
9
_____
I have not altered St Paul, – for in truth I do not see how it can be altered without either losing the specific reference to the thing meant, or unsainting poor Paul, which would be a very unfit thing to do. [2]
You must now determine what is the course to be pursued with her poem. I think the shortest way is that somebody should present it as unpublished, & ask permission to dedicate it; – if you determine upon this you must tell Pople not to strike off the title page till he hears from you – in order that the dedication may be struck off at the same time. [3]
God bless you
RS.
Hitherto time has done very little towards healing our spirits. [4] As for my health I cannot yet distinctly distinguish between bodily ailment & the effects of long anxiety, or my present state of mind. To which of these causes a sense of uneasiness in the chest of which I am almost always conscious <is owing> I know not. But you may be sure that I take all imaginable care of myself
19 May 1816.
Notes
* Address: To/ G. C. Bedford Esqre/ Exchequer/ Westminster
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: [partial] E/ 23 MY
Endorsements: 19. May 1816; 19 May 1816/ Recd. 23.
MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 25. ALS;
4p.
Unpublished. BACK
[1] These changes were made and the verses were inserted in The Lay of the Laureate. Carmen Nuptiale (1816), ‘Epilogue’, stanzas 4–8. The changes Southey indicated were made to stanza 3, lines 5–6. BACK
[2] The Lay of the Laureate. Carmen Nuptiale (1816), ‘The Dream’, stanza 68, contains a description of the annual service in June at which 10,000 children educated in Church of England schools sang in St Paul’s Cathedral, London. BACK
[3] Southey refers to the presentation to its intended dedicatee, Princess Charlotte, only child of the Prince Regent, of his poem The Lay of the Laureate. Carmen Nuptiale (1816), written to celebrate her marriage to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (1790–1865; King of the Belgians 1831–1865) on 2 May 1816. Once Princess Charlotte’s permission had been granted a new page was added: ‘TO/ HER ROYAL HIGHNESS/ THE/ PRINCESS CHARLOTTE/ THE FOLLOWING POEM/ IS DEDICATED/ WITH PROFOUND RESPECT/ BY HER ROYAL HIGHNESS’S/ MOST DUTIFUL/ AND/ MOST DEVOTED SERVANT/ ROBERT SOUTHEY/ POET LAUREATE’. BACK
