134. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, [started before and continued on] 1 September [1795]
134. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, [started before and continued on] 1 September [1795] *
Hope deferred maketh the heart sick. [1] said Solomon. Statius says
quâ non gravior mortalibus addita cura
Spes ubi longa venit [2]
Grosvenor when you have lived upon that cameleon fare so long as I have done — you will acknowledge the wisdom of Solomon & feel the poetry of Statius.
I expect my Uncle daily. his determination is of such consequence to my immediate happiness or even comfort — that I feel heavings of heart strangely uncomfortable. yet have I little to fear. that he will enable me to study either law or physic is more than probable. Grosvenor I shall be happy. there is not one feeling in my heart that militates against happiness.
before Xmas. or a long long vagabond life. by the Lord I will disguise myself & turn butler or footman. if I am not settled & married before Xmas. this I will do. clean shoes — light fires & wait at table by day — by night — rise — or sink into Robert Southey.
If my Joan of Arc succeeds (— & my calm & sober judgement approves the poem—) whatever I write afterward will find a ready sale. the poems are delayed till January for my booksellers convenience. a most worthy little fellow Bedford — whom you must know & love. a poet himself [3] — public too on Tuesday next hot pressd & fine paper — to be had at Robinsons [4] containing John the Baptist Monody on John Henderson &c — & if you buy the volume for the sake of the author — you will find an elegant volume quoad typography — & in the Monody at least some very beautiful lines, Cottle wrote them in the inspiration of friendship to the memory of one he loved [5] — they are of such merit that I should not believe them written by the same person who wrote all the rest did I not positively know it. Coleridge has used the pruning knife with me over them — nil ultra. [6]
———
September 1st. Tuesday.
Grosvenor I have quitted Bristol after lodging there seven months. I had determined on leaving it last night. Edith dined with me & my departure was fixed for five o clock. Mrs Sawier sent to desire our company to tea. I mentioned my intention of setting off — but her cheek was flushd with hope & she turned her head away to hide tears from me — I slept there last night. I do not think any circumstance ever affected me like those tears. it was not a painful sensation — but God preserve me from its repetition! — in the words of the Snorro Sturleson “do you or do you not understand this”? [7]
oh for one of the Nourjahads naps! [8]
———
Grosvenor I have a curiosity for you. two sonnets by James Jennings — seriously intended. upon Metaphor & Personification. [9] he had personified a Catastrophe once & upon my noticing it as bold introduced it here.
Metaphor.
————
Personification.
poor Trauma is famous for Abbreviating words & actually wrote
Oh how my bosom glows with pathic fire
as a happy alternative for pathetic!
after these specimens — you will difficultly believe (what is really the case — that Jennings taken from poetry possesses more than common abilities. that he has without assistance acquired considerable information — learns Latin & a little Greek, & that I have always been pleased with his company & frequently instructed. he is foreman to a Chemist. about 23. — What is most valuable in him is the purity of his moral character.
direct to me Westgate Buildings.
my opinion of French politics.
Notes
* Address: Grosvenor Charles Bedford Esqr/ New Palace Yard/
Westminster./ Single
Stamped: BATH
Postmark: BSE/ 7/ 95
Watermarks: Figure of Britannia; G R
Endorsements: Recd. Septr. 5./ 1795; Ansd. Sept. 16. 1795; 5 Septr 1795
MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22. AL; 4p.
Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 98–100. BACK
[2] Publius Papinius Statius (c. AD 45–96), Thebaid, Book 2, lines 320–321. The Latin translates as: ‘hope, than which the heart can bear no heavier burden, when ’tis long deferred’. BACK
[3] Joseph Cottle, Poems, Containing John the Baptist. Sir Malcolm and Alla, A Tale, ... War a Fragment. With a Monody to John Henderson (1795). BACK
[4] Joseph Cottle’s Poems (1795) were published by Cottle and G. G. and J. Robinson of Paternoster Row in London. The Robinsons were a dynasty of booksellers, printers and publishers, at this time headed by George Robinson II (d. 1801; DNB), George Robinson III (d. 1811; DNB) and John Robinson (1753–1813; DNB). BACK
[5] John Henderson (1757–1788; DNB), student and eccentric, had known Cottle when the latter was a pupil at the school run by Henderson’s father, at Hanham, near Bristol. BACK
[7] The Icelandic historian and antiquarian Snorri Sturluson (1178–1241), author of the prose Edda. Southey is quoting from an account of the Edda in Thomas Percy’s (1729–1811; DNB) translation of Paul Henri Mallet (1730–1807), Northern Antiquities: or, a Description of the Manners, Customs, Religion and Laws of the Ancient Danes, and Other Northern Nations, 2 vols (London, 1770), II, p. 50. BACK
[8] In Frances Sheridan (1724–1766: DNB), The History of Nourjahad (1767), the central character is gifted with a long life, but one interspersed with prolonged periods of sleep. BACK
[9] The sonnets appeared under the signature ‘J.J.’ in the first number of Southey’s Annual Anthology (Bristol, 1799), pp. 148–149. BACK
[10] Jacques-Philippe Ruhl (1737–1795), a deputy for Bas-Rhin to the National Convention, had recently committed suicide. BACK
