1192. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 22 June 1806 ⁠* 

Dear Grosvenor

The Printer I suppose wants to finish off the two first volumes. [1]  he may do this with the second, but the first must wait for my Preface – about which I suppose I must now set without farther delay, – so wish me well thro it.

The Contents may run thus – the mere name of each author with a reference to the page in which it first occurs The title x

Specimens

of the

Later English Poets

in three volumes

by

R. S.–

the types like those in Ellis’s Title page, [2]  so that this may be as like it as an open title can be to a full one.

There are two very valid reasons why I should write the biography of Thomas Day: because you grievously mistake the drift of Sandford & Merton, which is written not for the inferior ranks, but for the higher ones. If such books could be in the hands of the poor, & they could comprehend them – all that such men as Day xxxx desire would already be accomplished. [3]  I think very highly of him & must speak of him as I think. Besides this duty in conscience I am intimate with a family nearly connected with Thomas Day, [4]  on which account if my opinion were other than what it is I should not let it appear.

There is nothing more to say about the dead Negro than that he was he – Bryan Edwards [5]  was well ridiculed in some Newspaper verses of no common merit which wherein he was described as one who – Half Penseroso half Allegro [6] 

Writes Sonnets on his own dead Negro. [7] 

the extract from Edwards I marked.

The Biographies for which you write are all very late – but they shall be speedily sent. I see M^rs Robinsons poems are just published in a collected form – if you could see them you might select some happier specimens perhaps. [8] 

This Preface begins to work in me like a leaven of uneasiness which will not rest till the its job is done. There is in the Critical Review for 99 or more likely 1800 – a Review of Andersons edition of the Poets [9]  – look at it, & tell me if there be any sentence in it worth resetting in this Preface, – & if there be transcribe them for me – the book may be had at the Westminster Library, & ten minutes would suffice for reading it & copying what may be worth this trouble –

I shall speak first of our early poetry, & of our metres – then of the total change which had taken place when our Series begins – speak of the various schools of poetry – as Italian – French – Greek & German, & show that we have a school of our own, to which our great writers exclusively belong. This must be done forthwith & left to lie for a months revision – during which time your worship may con it with a pair of hyper-critical spectacles on your nose.

God bless you. I am sorry to hear of your fathers state of health, & somewhat alarmed at it. Not to amend in this season, & at his time of life is to grow worse. Pray remember me to him with something more than the common forms of complimentary remembrance. I never think of Brixton without a feeling akin to that which the recollection of an old home occasions. Once more God bless you –

RS.

Sunday 22 June. 1806.