2608. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 2 June 1815 ⁠* 

2^d June. 1815

My dear G.

Thank you for the half-notes. [1]  – Send me your journal. [2] 

The state of Roderick is this. The second edition was 1500 copies (larger than I ever printed of a poem before,) two thirds of this impression being gone, the Long Men of the Row have ordered a third edition of 2000 to be printed without delay. [3]  – Madoc also is gone to press, for an edition of 1000. [4]  These books will have acquired a good mercantile value, – just when they cease to be my property. – What is become of your Review? [5] 

I have worked very hard for this number. The Wellington article, as far as the proofs have yet gone, reads better than I anticipated, – for to whisper a secret in your ear, I wish Murray may not discover that he had offered me a most ridiculous price for it. [6]  In fact it is not, & ought not to be, & cannot be possible that I should write better, or take more pains, in proportion to the price which, I am paid. Those articles ought to be paid best, of which the materials are either entirely home-drawn, – or else of so rare a kind that the writer has a monopoly of them. But for such subjects as Nelson [7]  & this of Wellington, – they give me least trouble, require least thought, & excite in me least interest. I hope the Bibliopole of Albemarle Street will not find this out, – nor his Editor either. It would perhaps provoke you to see how the former writes to me about fame, & reputation &c &c as attached to these things: it only amuses me.

You will receive my poems soon. [8]  The abortion for the New Year looks well in printers characters. [9]  Another secret for your ear – I have found out in studying Pindar, [10]  that I could do something more like him than any body has yet done, – Reginald Heber said in a review that nobody resembled Pindar so much as Walter Scott. [11]  They are about as much like, as a Coronation & a field of turnips; – or an Oratorio & a Gooseberry Pie, –.

I want you here, grievously. Here are some chapters of D^r Daniel Dove [12]  which would delight you.

Somebody has whispered a secret in my ear which I will tell you in Latin not of Ciceros school, but of Swifts. [13] 

Socer ure noces rea das apio ne. [14] 

And thereby hangs a tale about Mrs Coleridge, – which you shall have when you come to compare noses. – From noses to necks is no x easy transition. I have found out an ugly swelling upon my own, – just above the collar bone, & on the right of the wind pipe. Edmondson does not know whether it be the muscle itself that is swoln, – or whether something under it protrudes it. It is not a wen, & it is not an aneurism, which I of course thought of. It is not painful, – but I cannot button my collar, & am ordered to use no muscular exertion that I can avoid. At present he applies discutients. I am <do> not remember any strain. At present it is no inconvenience, nor should I have discovered it but for my shirt collar; – but now that it is discovered my finger goes oftener there than it ought to do. Edmondson rather suspects some hydattids under the muscles: in which case he says they will come to the surface & thus suppurate. If the Devil could take them, without taking me too he should be welcome to them. I have already two settlements of them upon my scalp, & a third beginning there.

God bless you

RS.