93. Robert Southey to Horace Walpole Bedford, 7 June 1794

93. Robert Southey to Horace Walpole Bedford, 7 June 1794 *
Balliol. June 7. 1794.
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In return for your ode to Indolence I know nothing better than these strains to her eldest born. they immortalize a man who is the ne plus ultra of folly. one who in the midst of a moral argument when the principles of morality were discussing by one of most extraordinary merit, declared himself to be a very moral man “for by Gd I have not prostituted my body these six months!” as if (said Lovell) such a body could be prostituted! the first ode is by Lovell. the second my own.
Ode to Griggin
Valentine
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Ode to Griggin. [2]
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DIGNUM LAUDE VIRUM MUSA VETAT MORI. [3]
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Orson. [4]
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[MS missing] has stolen it who knew not half its value. that night [MS missing] of Helicon. [5] I wish the person who sleeps in it may find it hot as Lukes iron crown. [6]
Your verses are good but incorrect. the more you write the better will be your verses. send me some more — & write oftener. I am much in the mood for versifying that I was at Brixton. continually at it & satisfied with all.
talking of Helicon I am longing for spruce beer. but between you & I, have a pretty good succedaneum in some strong beer. of which I will lay in another stock against your arrival.
Lightfoot departs on Friday week. alas poor Nicholas! but he lends me his rooms so you <may> wail for him over the pot. I have quarrelld with Jerry Collins. when you & your brother come I shall ask him to meet you some day. if he has sense enough he will come. if he does not ‘his crime will be his punishment.’ [7] aussi bien — n’importe on l’un ou l’autre [8] as a frenchman said in a good story. I will admit any conversation in my company except smut. but where I go — there shall be serious conversation — there shall be opportunity for improvement. on this head we quarrelld — but revenge & malice cannot exist with my principles & when you come I shall ask him with the usual familiarity.
I am sitting without a fire for no other reason but because tis June. tis a bad reason — my legs & hands ache & my fire shall blaze tho twere the Dog days. what think you of Polish politics. [9] (remember calling Levett badger to mob Doyly?) do you not feel interested for Kosciusko? [10] & does not every feeling of Nature militate against — Russia — & Frederic William? [11] [MS missing]
write soon. friends fall off & Oxford grows duller. Seward is gone. & Lightfoot going. so Burnett & I <shall> have only a great unlickd Welch boy [12] for a constant visitor. one with good sense & good nature but like a fresh whelpd cub unlike any thing & who is not included in the second commandment.
one hour to dinner! & I have the voracity of ten tygers. Horace I have foresaid (not foresworn for I swear not) sugar. & my mouth is a stranger to gooseberry pye! never again shall the delicacies which human slavery & human misery produce, pollute the lips of
Robert Southey.
when you sweeten your tea think of this — in my next — more on this subject.
Notes
* Address: [deletion and readdress in another hand]: Horace Walpole Bedford — Esqr/ New
Palace Yard Edward Roberts Esqr./ Westminster
Ealing Middlesex/ Single Sheet./ Post Paid
Stamped: OXFORD
Postmarks: [two partial] AJ/ 9; 2 OCLO/ 11 JU/
A
Watermarks: G R in a circle; figure of Britannia
Endorsement: Recd. June. 9th.
1794
MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22. ALS; 4p.
Unpublished. BACK
[2] A heavily revised version, retitled ‘On a Dull Fellow being Elected to a College Fellowship’, was published anonymously in the Morning Post, 21 March 1798. BACK
[3] Horace (65–8 BC), Odes, Book 4, no. 8, line 28. The Latin translates as ‘the Muse forbids a man to die who deserves praise’. BACK
[6] A symbol of political tyranny. See Oliver Goldsmith (1728?–1774; DNB), ‘The Traveller, or a Prospect of Society. A Poem’ (1764), line 436. George and Luke Dosa were the leaders of an unsuccessful rebellion in Hungary in 1513. As a punishment for proclaiming himself king, George (not, as in Goldsmith’s poem, Luke) had a red-hot iron crown placed on his head. BACK
[7] A paraphrase of John Dryden (1631–1700; DNB), Secret Love, or the Maiden-Queen (1668). For the text, see Secret Love: or, the Maiden Queen (London, 1735), p. 47. BACK