2923. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 19 February 1817⁠* 

My dear Grosvenor

This poor wretched paper-hanger has sent me another letter [1]  because I did not reply to the first. Men are too prone to xxxxx importunity & plea for take offence at importunity, – finding anger a less uncomfortable emotion than pity: this indeed it is, & for that reason I scold my wife & my children [2]  when they hurt themselves. As to this unhappy man I hope you have sent him the two pounds, – it will do him very little good, – but it is really as much as I can afford to give him for the xxxx <the> sake of the name, – & a great deal more than I ever got by it.

If you have seen the New Times you will perceive how wrongly you judged of Stoddart, [3]  – for whom however I beg you will understand that I am no farther interested in than as believing him a man of right principle, very usefully & industriously employed. He sent me the first number; – his talents are just suited to such work, – he can write with equal fluency upon all temporary subjects, always with words at command, in any quantity, & sometimes with considerable force. The tide seems to be turning & if Government will but check the press things will soon right themselves. In this part of the country I hear that travellers (the bagmen) collect their money more easily than in their last rounds, & receive more orders. – A fellow was selling Cobbetts twopenny Register [4]  & other such things at Rydale the other day, – it was, or appeared to be a sailor, & his story was, that he was going to Whitehaven, & a gentleman had given him these to support himself on the road by selling them.

In grief & in uneasiness I have often caught myself examining my own sensations as if the intellectual part should xxxx could separate itself from that in which the affections predominate, & stand aloof, & contemplate it as a surgeon does the sufferings of a patient during an operation. This has happened to me <I have observed> in the severest sorrows that have ever befallen me. – but it in no degree lessens the suffering. And whenever I may have any serious malady this habit, do what I may to subdue it, will tend materially to impede or prevent recovery. But in petty vexations it has its use. – Would they are xxx xxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxx xx xx deserve I was more vexed than I ought to have been about this publication of Wat Tyler: [5]  – for tho I shook off the xxxx first thoughts, or rather immediately began to consider it in the right point of view as a thing utterly unimportant, still there was an uneasiness working like yeast in my abdomen;– & my sleep was disturbed by it for two nights, – by that time it had spent itself, & I should now think nothing more about it, if it were not necessary to determine how to act. Wynn will find the thing more full of fire & brimstone perhaps than he imagines – & yet perhaps the wiser way will be not to notice it & <but> let it pass as a squib, & an imposition. Indeed I could laugh about it with any person who was disposed to laugh with me. I shall hear from him again tomorrow, & probably shall receive a letter from Turner by the same post. Turner has a cool clear head; – I have very little doubt that they will coincide in their opinion, – & be it as it may I shall xxx xxxx xxx it act accordingly

God bless you

RS

19 Feb^y. 1817