4015. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 11 May 1823

Address: To/ G.C. Bedford Esq^re/ Exchequer/ Westminster
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: E/ 14 MY 14/ 1823
Endorsement: 11 May 1823.
MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 26. ALS; 4p.
Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), III, pp. 391–392 [in part].

Keswick 11 May. 1823

My dear Grosvenor

I have been so eagerly at work since the seeds arrived that I did not even allow myself time to thank you for them – tho the act of writing to you is always a sort of relaxation & refreshment. With regard to these said Quasheys

⁽¹⁾

(which I believe is their name, – first cousins to the Squash Pumpkin) the best way of dressing them is to stew them in cream. Young cucumbers might be as good, but cucumbers are not so easily raised. This gourd is raised with less trouble, & produces much more abundantly than any other culinary plant. One plant which we raised from your last years seeds produced a gourd which exceeded in bitterness any thing I xx ever tasted: insomuch that I concluded it at once to be the very identical fruit of Zaccoums bitter tree <to eat of> which, according to the Mohammedans is part of the punishment of the damned

⁽²⁾

What is become of Gifford & the QR? I shall be put to my shifts sorely, if it be delayed much longer.

⁽³⁾

It is frightful to think of what I have to do before I can start for London! But I am in deep water, & must swim for it. My Book of the Church

⁽⁴⁾

was intended to be one duodecimo volume, – it will be two octavos. I send off by this post the third sheet of the second volume, & am 50 pages ahead of the printer

⁽⁵⁾

6 of my pages making one printed sheet. But I have yet 100 pages to write – vae mihi!

⁽⁶⁾

I should think nothing of this, if I did not wish to be in town at this time, & were not in danger of wanting the produce – before it arises. The Book however is a good ticket in the wheel,

⁽⁷⁾

– much more likely, I think, to produce permanent profit, than any which I have yet sent into the world. If I were a clergyman, most certainly it would make my fortune.

What do you think my daughter says? that she will wear in a broche that relic of poor Snivel

⁽⁸⁾

which I have religiously preserved (now) thirty years(!) – if you or I will give her a very handsome one to wear it in, – & she consents that on the inner side of the broche – locket or shrine there be this inscription Oh rare Snivel! – I have a lock of your hair which is of the same date.

We have had delightful weather. This is the first thoroughly wet day for many weeks.

I have two barrels of cyder in my cellar, & one of strong beer, – thanks to Lightfoot & John May.

God bless you
RS.

Notes

1. ‘Quashey’ was usually used as a term for the pumpkin, a type of squash, but Southey may be using it here for another type of squash, the marrow.[back]

2. Thalaba the Destroyer (1801), Book 7, lines 175–176. Southey derived this reference from the Qur’an, 17: 60, 37: 62–68, 44: 43–46, 56: 52.[back]

3. Southey’s review of Henri Grégoire (1750–1831), ‘Histoire de la Théophilantropie, depuis sa Naissance jusqu’à son Extinction’, part of Grégoire’s Histoire des Sectes Religieuse, qui, Depuis de Commencement du Siecle Dernier Jusqu’a l’Epoque Actuelle, sont Nées, se sont Modifiées, se sont Éteintes dans le Quatre Parties du Monde, 2 vols (Paris, 1814), II, pp. 55–171, Quarterly Review, 28 (January 1823), 493–536, published 8 July 1823. The book was no. 2838 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.[back]

4. Southey’s The Book of the Church (1824).[back]

5. Charles Roworth (c. 1765–1851), a printer based at Bell-yard, Temple Bar, London.[back]

6. ‘Woe is me!’[back]

7. ‘Wheels’ were the boxes from which tickets in the state lotteries (held 1694–1826) were drawn, so Southey saw his The Book of the Church (1824) as a hopeful entry in the lottery of trying to write a best-selling publication.[back]

8. Bedford’s dog, when he and Southey were boys.[back]

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4015. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 11 May 1823

4015. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 11 May 1823

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven

Lynda Pratt, Ian Packer