34. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 6 December 1792*

Thursday evening.College Green. Dec. 6. 1792.

The heat of temper occasioned by political madness must plead in excuse of my last letter — never will I venture in writing upon the subject again. vox audita perit litera scripta manet¹ — & so if you will burn my paper upon suicide you will destroy the only monument of your friends sophistical impiety. tomorrow sees the rough copy demolished — I should be glad the one you have were to meet the same fate but perhaps you may like to keep it as a memento of my boyish faults & a check upon future vanity — when some over officious friends put a Doctor of Divinity² to argue me into quitting the Flagellant — after I had answered all he could say his last resource was to mention the uneasiness my relations would feel at the continuance. I instantly yielded though not without observing that no self-motive should ever have prevailed — the Reverend Doctor sneered at the romantic affectation of a boy. till that moment I had only felt the character with pleasure — I then owned it with pride.

the same boyish sentiments made me forget Strachey & myself when I last wrote —. there was a time when I loved Strachey as if he had been my brother but it was when the natural purity & sensibility of <his> character were neither obscured by vanity nor hardened by his wish for the applause of those whom he despised. at that period he entertained the same sentiments for me. but when G S was willing to do every idle blockheads exercise & contented himself with doing good exercises & neglecting every other study, the applause of the Doctor & the Dunces made him above that friend who was always friendly enough to tell him of his faults. Grif Lloyd³ thought him the cleverest fellow in school — Jack Shepherd⁴ lookd up to him as an oracle & the Kings Scholars with the virtuous Hook made him their confident — (by the by I have a story of Hook presently.) the only notice he had for some time taken of me was his contemptuous jests till the commencement of the Flagellant.⁵ his behaviour then is well know to you your brotherCollinsCombeLamb & Rough. what a character Stracheys would make for a number said I to Lamb one night — talking to him the next day upon <the subject> L repeated what I had said. S immediately comes to me glowing with anger. (it was in school) I understand said he you intend drawing my character for the Flagellant — if you do I only say that I will immediately send your name to the <news>paper & act up the work. I was hurt & could not help telling him that if he had been as much my friend as formerly he never could have believed my intentions were such. “but Strachey do not think I am intimidated by your threats. whatever you can do in injury of the Fl. I can despise.” I felt afterwards angry with myself & was more than once upon the point of apologizing — but it would have looked like fear. after my retreat from Westminster his significant smiles & shrugs might have intimated the real cause to anyone — that however was of no object to me the expulsion was a thing I could only glory in. after this I did wrong ever to write to Strachey — still however if you think my letter wrong I will apologize for it — I will own myself to blame but never never desire his correspondence. I have not answerd his letter — the destined answer lies in my portfolio to prove perhaps one day that it was not conscious faultiness that held me silent. if the same fortune hitherto attendant upon me & mine, should every bring this head to the block, some hireling scribbler in ripping up my faults & follies will not pass over this.

I have been reading Eheu fugaces⁶ & your translation this moment together. the three last stanzas are certainly best but altogether it is in my opinion very good — tho ‘th’unpardoning God’ I do not like the epithet is rather prosaic — (you see I will point out what appears to me as faulty) a better may easily be found. & now as I have picked your bone take mine to pick cum notis Sancti Basilii.⁷

Ille & nefasti te posuit die &c⁸

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Unlucky was I ween that doltOld Gray⁹ who reard thee from a colt —Oft by thy dam unlucky jadeHe in the mire & dirt was laidNor he alone — for one & allWho rode have met with many a fall —Unlucky too the grooms who deckThe horse to break the riders neckFor Memory pictures in my mindThat hour when I got up behind.¹⁰ Some evil Dæmons envious powerPresided at thy natal hourSome evil Dæmon sure thee spedTo pitch thy master on his head¹¹ And turnd thy wandring eyes aboutTo fall & fling poor Tom Lamb out.¹²

Your Bessey¹³ still will dread that dayThat saw her midst old Oceans swayResolvd to tempt his rage no moreShe fears but for her friends on shore.

The German hireling ¹⁴ fears to fightExposd to France & Freedoms mightProud Prussias disciplind hussarTrembles again to meet the warFrance only dreads the despots chainAnd chuses Deaths or Freedoms reign.

Death unprovokd & unforeseenStalks sternly oer the smiling sceneHe grasps his unsuspecting preyAnd sweeps whole nations in his sway.

Well¹⁵ nigh my friend in Plutos reign¹⁶ Hadst thou beheld the dark domainWell nigh hadst seen in sable rowThe well wiggd Counsellors belowAnd stalking thro the realms of nightHadst seen poor Gualbertus¹⁷ spriteWhere fearless he complains to Jove¹⁸ How stupid boys are floggd aboveThere Milton might he hear thy lyrePour forth the flow of godlike fireAnd rear thy Cromwells¹⁹ praise & singHow falln how mean a tyrant KingWhilst listning crowds in silence hearAnd Truths unheard before appear.But chief to hear thy patriot songHampden & Sidney²⁰ move alongAnd Brutus²¹ bends thy soul to knowAnd Nature listens in ROUSSEAU.What wonder? when the Cherub quireFrom their celestial song respireAnd bend their frenzied heads to hearAnd more exalted strains revereThe very Ghosts forget their woeSo grand thy godlike numbers flow.Een I oer whose ill fated headHer deepest viel has Sorrow spreadAmid dark Fortunes sharpest showerForget that Fortune for an hourAnd lost amid the blaze of dayForget my very woes away.²²

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I have neither <heard> of or from Lamb since & am much alarmed at a silence so very uncommon.²³

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the classics will soon by published Lucan²⁴ particularly I suppose in usum republicæ.²⁵

Hook has been standing candidate for the gallows at Oxford — he attempted a rape upon a servant girl at a time when he owns himself clapped. her master heard her cries & rescued her but for two days she remained dangerously ill. Hook gave her a new gown by way of recompense when had they acted justly it would have given him a chance for a halter. I always disliked him for his impudence this brazen faced endowment however carries him thro every thing.

— I have read 12 Satires of Juvenal²⁶ with a vast deal of pleasure — the 8th is the only one which my head (desirous of levelling all to my system) has imitated — but as I have no wish to fall under the inquisitorial jurisdiction of our new Star chamber — to lose my hand nose & ears like Lilburne²⁷ or the Englishman whom Elizabeth punishd for writing against her intended marriage with Anjou²⁸ — or to run away like Ridgeway²⁹ — my poor imitation must lie in my desk. however this hand may dabble in politics for my own private satisfaction it shall fill no more letters with it & if you see any production of mine upon the subject it will only be an ode to the shade of Milton which I have in embryo. Juvenal is a grand nervous Satirist — your refined criticks prefer the sneering strokes of Horace³⁰ — for me I think otherwise — Johnsons London & Vanity of Human Wishes³¹ are two of the noblest compositions in our language — the satire of the first is already become obsolete & some centuries hence posterity will believe the supple French Fop only a creation of some drunken Englishmans brain. the last will retain its original beauty even if 1600 years hence some future Bard should imitate Johnson in some future language.

You say there is some grief & some anger in Stracheys letter — the grief has escaped my search though I read it more than once — to use your own expression I must look upon him as a faded flower & regret most the loss of its worth.

I much fear my intended journey to Rye will be very unpleasantly set aside — my fathers health is very precarious & in spite of the hopes with which I have long imposed upon myself I cannot help seeing that he declines rapidly. whether it be apathy or philosophy I know not, but some such passion it must be that enables me to turn from domestic distress & look on to happiness as well private as public. Reflection however will intrude sometimes

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there Bedford — my defence of suicide is flaming

yours

Robert Southey.