17. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, [c. 9 July 1792]*
Oh tell it in Askalon tell it in Gath1 And send a description & drawing to BathOer Europes wide realm let the tidings prevailThat the great Doctor Johnson has got a pig tail!!!Let Echo repeat & divulge thro the airThat the great Doctor Johnson has turnd up his hair!Let Bunbury2 paint & engrave a vast storeLet the world see a sight it has neer seen beforeThe Hibernian giant3 must now the day yieldThe monstrous Craws quit to the Doctor the fieldNot one person shall go to see Count Borowlask’4 To see Ouran Outangs no stranger will ask —All the beasts in the strand may be put up to sale5 For the great Doctor Johnson has got a pig tail!Oh tell it in Askalon — tell it in GathAnd send a description & drawing to Bath.
Not such was the wonder America foundWhen first men & horses disbarkd on their groundNot such when Æneas that pious old sinnerSaw the harpies fly off with his ready dressd dinner6 Nor when Nebuchadnezzar was turnd out to grass7 When the Barber found Midas had ears of an ass8 Not such when old Bunbury went sober to bedOr young Wynn washd his hands or combd out his pigs headNot such when by chance Truth was spoken by DoddNot such when the Flagellant cut up the rod — 9 When three armaments rose at one ministers callWhen three armaments ended in nothing at allWhen the old pair of breeches were smelt — or who’d thinkThat a parliament breeches should happen to stink —When first in balloon durst a lunatic sailAs now that the Doctor has got a pigtail!
Let the newspapers now no more talk of Tippoo10 Of the fine fighting Christian or pugilist Jew.11 Let them publish no more Jemmy Boswells12 Scotch witOr the faith of Dundas or the wisdom of Pitt13
Or Merrys14 bright verse like a bubble of airSearch for substance alas & no substance is there —No more let Religion most mildly desireTo see Priestly as well as his house in the fire15 No more Common Sense16 with astonishment lookAt the see given Horsely for Badcocks bought book — 17 No more let Servility fancy he canSuppress by a bull like the Pope rights of man.18 No more Common Sense puzzle over that workThe romantic reflections of Knight erring Burke — 19 No more Freedom wonder at votes held for sale For — the great Dr Johnson has got a pig tail.
Oh had Gray now been living — no more his Bards hair20 Like a meteor had streamd to the wild streaming <troubled> airThe Doctors example would surely prevailAnd Gray draw his Bard with a streaming pig tail!!
Take your pencil dear Bedford I beg & I prayDraw the Doctor & send without any delayDraw this Doctor Adonis21 & paint if you canThe bloom of the youth with the firmness of manOr on horseback or foot or with fine bow & arrowEquippd like Apollo22 to shoot at a sparrow
Oh tell it in Akalon tell it in GathAnd s[MS obscured] scription & drawing to Bath23
so much my dear Bedford for the Drs tail. & now in plain sober prose I am much obliged to you for your ode which I like very much. but why will you translate? it is a servile employment & not worthy of you. you want a metre you say for your next. you know Parnells Fairy tale?24 but I am the worst person to apply to as all my odes are irregular except Ignorance25 which you have. Grays Spring & drownd cat26 are pretty I think — but I am not regular myself & detest regularity.
I hope all your friends are well. make my compliments & thank Mr Reed.27 remember <me> to little Joseph. I wrote him a serious epistle the other day & desir’d an English answer — do make him write — I fear after all he will sink into an editor like Brunck28 unless you can find some means to rowse him — is it not horrible that such a Genius should do nothing but write Latin? if you see Lamb remember me to him & his Majesty I shall write them soon. but my time is much taken up. since ten this morning I have never laid the pen down & it is now past one. this is not idle — but Vincent would say so as all my writings are English. write soon.
Notes
Address: G C Bedford Esqr/ Old Palace Yard/
Westminster
Stamped: BATH
Postmark: BJY/ 9/ 92
Watermark: [Obscured by MS binding; possibly W S]
MS: Bodleian
Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22. AL; 4p.
Unpublished. Back
1. 2 Samuel 1: 20. Back
2. The artist and caricaturist Henry William Bunbury (1750–1811; DNB), father of Southey’s school friend Charles John Bunbury. Back
3. Charles Byrne (known as O’Brien) (1761–1783; DNB) was 8 feet and 4 inches tall. Back
4. Joseph Boruwlaski (styled Count Boruwlaski) (1739–1837; DNB), travelling performer and memoirist. He was 3 feet 3 inches tall. Back
5. Exeter Change in the Strand, London, where the public could pay to see a menagerie. Back
6. Virgil (70–19 BC), Aeneid, Book 3, lines 219–258. Back
7. Daniel 4: 32 relates how Nebuchadnezzar II, King of Babylon 605–562 BC, received the prophecy that his kingdom would fall and he would ‘eat grass as oxen’. Back
8. In legend, King Midas was given the ears of an ass after offending the god Apollo. Back
9. Southey’s authorship of the fifth issue of The Flagellant (29 March 1792), which claimed flogging was an invention of the devil and parodied the Athanasian creed, caused a scandal and led ultimately to his expulsion from Westminster School. Back
10. Tippu Sultan (1750–1799), Sultan of Mysore 1782–1799, defeated by the East India Company and killed at the battle of Seringapatam, 1799. Back
11. Daniel Mendoza (1763–1836; DNB), famous English boxer. Back
12. James Boswell (1740–1795; DNB), biographer of Samuel Johnson (1709–1784; DNB). Back
13. Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville (1742–1811; DNB), Home Secretary 1791–1794, and political ally of the Prime Minister, William Pitt, the Younger (1759–1806; DNB). Back
14. Robert Merry (1755–1798; DNB), poet whose work had been parodied by Southey in a letter to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, [c. 31 May 1792] (see Letter 11). Back
15. The house, laboratory and library of the scientist and philosopher Joseph Priestley (1733–1804; DNB) were destroyed during the Birmingham riots, July 1791. Back
16. Thomas Paine (1737–1809; DNB), Common Sense (1776), a key tract in support of the American Revolution. Back
17. In 1788, Samuel Horsley (1733–1806; DNB) was appointed Bishop of St David’s. The theologian Samuel Badcock (1747–1788; DNB) had not been paid to write for Horsley, but was reputed to have accepted £500 from Joseph White (c. 1746–1814; DNB) for writing White’s Bampton lectures on Christianity and Islam. Back
18. Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man (1791–1792), had been suppressed by the government earlier in 1792. Back
19. Edmund Burke (1729/30–1797; DNB), politician and author of Reflections Upon the Revolution in France (1790) which had lamented the passing of the age of chivalry. Back
20. Thomas Gray (1716–1771; DNB), ‘The Bard’ (1757). Back
21. In Greek mythology, a handsome young god. Back
22. In Greek mythology, Apollo was, amongst many things, the god of archery. Back
23. These two lines written up the right hand margin of fol. 2 r. Back
24. Thomas Parnell (1679–1718; DNB), ‘A Fairy Tale, in the Ancient English Style’ (1722). It is written in sestets of iambic tetrameter and trimeter. Back
25. Southey’s ode ‘To Ignorance’ was sent to Charles Collins, 16 April 1792 (see Letter 6). Back
26. Thomas Gray (1716–1771; DNB), ‘Ode on the Spring’ (1748) and ‘Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes’ (1748). Back
27. Isaac Reed (1742–1807; DNB), literary scholar and editor of Shakespeare, tried — and failed — to prevent Egerton, the printer of The Flagellant, from revealing Southey’s name to the Westminster School authorities. Back
28. Richard François Philippe Brunck (1729–1803), a French classical scholar notorious for cavalier handling of the texts he edited. Back