667. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 30 March 1802 ⁠* 

Dear Grosvenor

I had wondered at your silence – which Corrys servant made longer than it else had been – bringing me your letter only yesterday. you gave me no direction. by which I conclude none is needful – yet the want expectation of that formality has kept me from writing sooner. – You ask about my printer – foolish man not to remember that he lived upon S^t Augustine Back. he now lives in Crane Court – Fleet Street – London. [1]  at Bath I can give you no employment on my account – & in plain truth can send you very little from London worth the expence even of Secretarian pen & paper. the Southey Gazette is happily barren of intelligence – unless you will hear with interest that I yesterday bought the Scriptores Rerum Hispanicarum [2]  after long search – that the day before my Boots came home from the coblers – that the gold leaf which Carlisle stuft into my hollow tooth is all come out – & that I have torn my best pantaloons. So life is passing on – & the growth of my history [3]  satisfies me that is not passing altogether unprofitably. One acquaintance drops in today – another tomorrow – xx the friends whom I have here look in often – & I have rather too much society than too little. Yet I am not quite the comfortabell man I would wish to be. the lamentable rambling to which I am doomed for God knows how long, prevents my striking root anywhere, & we are the better as well as the happier for local attachments. Now do I look round & can fix in hope upon no spot which I like better than another except for its mere natural advantages. Tis a Res damnabilis [4]  Bedford to have no family ties that one cares about.

And so much for the Azure Fiends [5]  whom I shall now take the liberty of turning out of the room –.

I am busy at the Museum [6]  copying unpublished Poems of Chatterton – the which forthwith go to Press. [7]  Soon I go with Edith to pass two or three days at Cheshunt. & by the close of next month my intention is to make my bow – & away for my holydays to Bristol – that I may be as near Danvers & his mother as possible – my strongest family-like feeling seems to have grown there.

M^rs Warner is only known to me by good report – very good report. her husband without knowing much, I know well, if he did not write bad books every body would allow him talents. [8]  he is an excellent natured man, & has been exemplary in his domestic duties. I like him the better for his opinions – but I like <him> best of all because he is the friend of James Losh who is quite my ideal of the perfect man. I wish I were at Bath with you – twould do me good all over from my eyes <Eye gates> down to the very end of Tripe passage – to have one walk over Combe down. Tom & I have often walked there before we were both upon the world. & have you been to Bradford? [9]  & to Farley Castle? [10]  & to Claverton? [11]  & to Wick? [12]  – Oh that I could catch that son of a bitch old Time – & give him warm water, & antimonial powders, & ipecacuanha [13]  till he brought up again the last nine years – not that I want them all – but I do wish there was a house at Bath wherein I had a home feeling – & may wish that it were possible ever again to feel as I have felt returning from school along the Bristol road – Eheu fugaces Posthume Posthume [14]  – the years might go now may go & be damned to them – but I wish so many good things did not go with them – the pleasures & the feelings & the ties of youth –

_______

Blessings on the Moors & the Spaniards & the Portugueze & the Saints I yet find an active & lively interest in my pursuits. I have made some progress in what promises to be a good chapter about the Moorish period – & I have finished the first six reigns [15]  – & am now more than half way thro a noble black letter Chronicle of Alonso xi [16]  to collate with the seventh. The life of the Cid [17]  will be a fit frame for a picture of the manners of his time – & a curious picture it will be. putting what all that is important in my text, & all that is quaint in my notes I shall make a good book.

Rickman is in town. he has taken possession of his house – & eke of what he calls his Scaramouch dress. [18] 

Ride Grosvenor, & walk, & bathe & drink water & drink wine, & eat, & get well & grow into good spirits & write me a letter.

Robert Southey.

March 30. 1802.