157. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 27 May 1796*

Friday May 27. 1796.

I have written to Wynn & asked him to accompany you. give me due notice of your coming that I may procure you beds as near as possible, if this house be full. I will meet you at the coach.

poor Lovell! — I am in hopes of raising something for his widow by publishing his best pieces — if only enough to buy her a harpsichord. his father afflicted as he is seems to have transferred his affection to her & behaves with a liberal kindness rarely to be found. the poems will make a five shillings volume which I preface — & to which I shall prefix an epistle to Mary Lovell. will you procure me some subscribers? — I have forgotten his foibles & faults — & many a melancholy reflection obtrudes. what I am doing for him — you Bedford may one day perform for me. how short my part in life may be he only knows who assignd it — I must only be anxious to discharge it well.

how does Time mellow down our feelings opinions! little of that ardent enthusiasm which so lately fevered my whole character remains — & what little is suffered I have contracted my sphere of action within the little circle of my own friends — & even my wishes seldom stray beyond it. a little candle will give light enough to a moderate sized room. place it in a church it will only “teach light to counterfeit a gloom”¹ — & in the street — the first wind extinguishes it. do you understand this? or shall I send you to Quarles Emblems?²

Of my situation & employments Wynns letter has probably informed you. I am hardly yet in order.

& whilst that last word was writing arrived the parcel containing what thro all my English wanderings have accompanied me — your letters. aye Grosvenor our correspondence is valuable — for it is the history of the human heart during its most interesting stages — I have now bespoke a letter case — where they shall repose in company with another series — now blessed be God! compleat. my letters to Edith. — Bedford who will be worthy to possess these when we are gone? Odi profanum vulgus³ — must I make a funeral pile by my death bed?

Would that I were so settled as not to look on to another removal . I want a little room to arrange my books in — & some Lares⁴ of my own. shall we not be near one another? aye Bedford as intimate as John Doe & Richard Roe⁵ with whose memoirs I shall be so intimately acquainted.

& there are two other cronies John a Nokes & Jack a Stiles⁶ always like Gyas & Cloanthus⁷ & the two Kings of Brentford hand in hand.⁸ oh I will be a huge lawyer.

With all this bustle you will easily see I have no time for my promised letter yet. nor will I hurry it for it shall be as good as I can make it.

remember me to your father & mother — & Horace & Harry — Wynn told me of Harry musical mechanism! take care of that boy — for I never knew his capabilities equalled.

come soon. my “dearest friend” expects you with almost[MS torn] as much pleasure & impatience as

Robert Southey.