2271. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 20 June 1813 ⁠* 

Keswick. June 20. 1813.

My dear Grosvenor

You will certainly see me in July, if I am alive & well & no unforeseen obstacle arise. And I think by the middle of the month at latest. It would have been sooner, if my whole house were not disorganized in a mournful way. Ediths brother is dying here: He came down at Xmas to pass a few weeks, broke a blood vessel shortly after his arrival, & is now in the last stage of atrophy, produced by a complication of hepatic & pulmonary diseases. For the last week Edmondson has said that his death might be hourly expected, – still he is alive, & God knows how long he may linger on. [1]  – I have nothing more to grieve me on this occasion than the common feelings of human nature, – but those are enough; & you will not wonder if in the utter absence of all comfort which about the house, & the dislocation of hours, habits & employments which extends to every member of it, – I should neither be able to find place or composure for regular & urg business, however urgent.

I will bring the stag’s-horn.

Day after day I expect in vain a promised letter from the Shuffler. The only chance which I have of not being cheated, is this, that the B’s. will look to gain more by printing my history & getting a share in it, than by playing me a trick now. James B. has requested to print it, in a letter which as yet I have not yet answered, – & indeed this is not my busi this rests with Murray & not with me. It is settled that I write the History of the Peninsular War, recasting what is in the Register: [2]  the terms will probably not be settled till I am in shall be in town.

Meantime I get no money from this fellow. Send me therefore the amount of my next quarter, [3]  & we out of the unborn stock, & replace it when payment is made at your shop.

The best news I can give you de me ipso  [4]  is that Thalaba is going to press for a third edition: [5]  – one among many xxxxxx symptoms that my name is acquiring a savoury odour.

This unaccountable armistice! [6]  & the more unaccountable weakness of the allied army! – See what it is to depend upon the capricious feelings & will of an individual like Alexander! [7]  My comfort is still in Spain, & Minas [8]  dispatches, in a packet of Cadiz papers which reached me yesterday, came like a cordial. We have given him two <pieces of> cannon which were landed at Deva in Asturias, – & with these he goes battering away at the French line of fortified posts, raising all that he takes, & thus clearing the roads & leaving them no shelter between one strong fortress & another. If Lord Wellington advances to Vittoria he will derive considerable aid from this indefatigable man, who really deserves to be called the Scanderbeg [9]  of Spain.

Tell Blanco that if it had not been for this death in the house, which I have long foreseen, I should have pressed him to have been here at this time: – but that I hope & trust he will make his visit in the autumn, – perhaps we may travel together.

God bless you

RS.