2678. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 8 December 1815 ⁠* 

My dear Grosvenor

This is the Age of Collectors, – & on my way down having plenty of leisure for idle thought, I determined to form a Collection in which I think you will take an interest in assisting me. It will be an interesting thing for to form a collection of <get together> all the reviews which have been written upon my operas, – to arrange them chronologically, & preface a blank leaf before each wherein xxxxxxx the name & date of the journal in which it appeared <may be written>, & when I can learn it the name of the author. The collection will make a curious harmony of criticisms, – & will supply good & appropriate matter for the prolegomena to my collected works, – if it should ever be your office to edite them, as in case of survivorship I trust it will. [1] 

It must be done by picking up odd numbers, which will diminish the expence, & to felicitate the search we must make out, from compleat sets when they come in our way, a list of such numbers as contain the articles we want. They may then be sought for as opportunity occurs in catalogues or in booksellers shops. But The merit of a collection consists in the difficulty of forming it, – & in this case the difficulty will be greater than you may perhaps at first imagine, many reviews having been b appeared & vanished since I became an author. Of such defunct journals the following occur to my recollection – The English Review (of which I believe Murrays father was publisher, [2]  & in which my first poems publishd with Lovells were most maliciously reviewed by Polwhele, [3]  – a fact which I learnt from D’Israeli.) the Analytical [4]  – the New Analytical [5]  which only extended to two or three numbers – the Weekly, [6]  – the Annual, [7]  the Imperial, [8]  – one of which Nicholson [9]  published but I forget the name, – the New Review, [10]  the Oxford, [11]  – & there must be others which I do not remember, or perhaps never heard of.

____

Herewith you have my memorial, with a blank address which you may fill up, as I know not how to do it. I have received advice that part of my books are shipped for London, & probably they have arrived by this time. The sooner therefore this application can be made the better. The duty which is such a stigma upon the Government, that it becomes me to make the application, even if they should not have the wisdom to grant it. [12] 

God bless you

RS.

8 Dec. 1815.