60. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 14 [–18] October 1793*

Brixton Causeway. Oct. 14. Monday morning 1793. day before my departureMy dear Grosvenor.

as I do not know when I may again find so excellent an opportunity of beginning — I seize old Time by the forelock & there will I hold him till I want him. so no more at present from your sincere friend. where my letter is destined to be finished I know not but the continuation comes from Reading where I am writing in a small room with a good fire & two London Riders dissertating upon robberies & the most likely places for such adventures. as one of them is at the same table I cannot versify as I intended & had begun so plain prose must tell how I got this far. the Doctor left me at Brentford I proceeded on sad & solitary to Hounslow & there gave one shilling for Sir Launcelot Greaves¹ to amuse me on the road. at Cranford Bridge — thirteen miles from Hyde Park corner I took a dinner. but I found the day growing late & myself unwilling to be fatigued against tomorrow so I first mounted the Maidenhead Stage & then the Reading. as evening approachd got in the last & here I am at a most execrable Inn in not the most agreable of humours.

I know nothing so unpleasant as leaving the friends we love & — yet such is the state of society that life is hardly any thing than continual parting. you are an exception — but observe the general tenour of life — school & college occupy what ought to be <the> happiest ages — then comes business & perhaps the opportunity of happiness when the relish is gone. Universities might certainly be made useful institutions but at present they are pernicious to individuals & to the nation at large. the morality of Oxford you know how to estimate but with respect to the polishing which I know I want but fear I shall never attain — is it to be found there? steel receives its last polish from a womans hand I believe — & my rugged ore requires the same management — this I shall never meet with. three years must be spent in studies which lead to nothing — & the remainder of my life in forming theories of happiness which I never can practises. Edmund Seward says very truly that <a> man who indulges himself in literature merely for self amusement deserves no more respect from the public than the glutton or the voluptuary. this is very true but selfishness is deeply implanted in the human heart so deeply that even the strong hand of Philosophy cannot root it up. you & I may indulge ourselves in theories of reforming the taste & morals of a corrupt age & perhaps our theories are not wholly visionary — but is our disinterestedness such as might prompt us to this against our inclination?

Removd my dear Grosvenor from each friend away In mood most unpleasing I writeReflection assumes her relentless stern sway And my bosom is dark as the night.

When I see the dull shadows arising around And the mists mantling over the plainWhen I hear the keen night blasts so dismal resound My breast seems to seek to complain.

As I traversd along busy Fancy’s keen eye Cast to Brixton the glance of adieuAnd I heavd as I wanderd the sorrowful sigh And I wisht myself present with you.

As the clock pronounced four still at Brixton my eye Saw you look at the unemployd chairAnd I sighd as I fancied that you heavd the sigh When you saw that RS was not there.

As the morning arose & the red orb of day In full splendour illumind aroundI felt my breast warmd by the all chearing ray And my bosom with gratitude bound

More chearful & sprightly I travelld along And inhald the fresh breeze with delightAnd beguild the long way with that excellent song² Of Sir Solomon puffing the light.

So charming I sung & so clear the notes flow That each envious bird fled awayI scared every magpye & frightned each crow And the ravens fled out of my way

Then Death & the Lady³ a ditty so sad I sung loud & charming & shrillAnd then warbled wildly young Harrys the lad And moreover the maid of the mill⁴

But at last Orpheus⁵ like in poetical rage I was forced to be silent for fearFor the horses enchanted that drew the Bath stage Had overthrown it indeed very nearThen pitying the coachman no longer I sungBut trudgd merrily on & held still my sweet tongue.⁶

I soon found the two Riders were Democrats when they began upon politics, so up went your letter & I joined in the discourse. eat a boild rabbit with the one who remaind & got to bed. next morning sketched the gate house of the abbey (which you shall have as soon as I reach Bristol) put a biscuit in my pocket & trudged on. after eighteen miles walking without rest or other food than my biscuit I reachd Dunnington Castle — more fatiguing pilgrimages have certainly been performd by greater fools but none with more devotion. I had the idea of Chaucer⁷ & you were in great danger of a rhapsody. had the merry old Bard resided there now I should certainly have claimed acquaintance & drank some of his old October — but the castle is desolate & I must proceed to Newbury to dinner. I just reachd it as the last coach past thro. mounted the box — made a good dinner & reachd Bath a little before ten last night, Wednesday.

on Saturday morning I purpose proceeding to Bristol. Oxford I do not visit. you will direct to me as usual & the sooner you write the better. I have some good odes in embryo to fill up this letter — in the interim you shall have the remarks that occurrd upon reading Sir Launcelot Greaves on the road. broad coarse humour seems to be the chief excellence of Smollet incidents almost too gross to please & too strange to be probable happen at every inn his heroes stop at & we are sure to find the sailors dialect & the clowns broad Scotch or broad Yorkshire in the place of humour. when he gets upon those subjects which perhaps none but Rousseau knew how to treat he rhapsodizes about charms angels & Hymens & thinks passion & nonsense mean the same. some strange discovery of birth comes in at the end & all the dramatis personæ are tacked together at the altar. yet with all these faults you are not soon tired of Smollets novels. they insensibly lead you on & if they do not come near the heart certainly play round the head. Humphrey Clinker⁸ strikes me as his best — the characters are less outrè & of course more natural. perhaps the epistolary form of it kept him in some bounds.

I copied these four lines from the hospital at Reading

{Aye whose hours exempt from sorrow flow{Behold the seat of Pain of Want & Woe{Think whilst your hands the intreated alms extend{That what to us ye give to God ye lend.

To the ME at Brixton

———

O thou Myself who now At Brixton rear’st aloft my pretty headPerchance sad emblem what once may be When I am deadO thou the other Me Thou with white face & Paris plaister brainsAttend to this ME’s salutary strains.

Whilome or else Tradition is a liar That celebrated friarSo far renownd by name Friar Bacon⁹ All heads to surpass Of burnishd brassWith necromancing art resolvd to make one.

So wisely judging that a brazen faceIs of much use amongst this mortal raceAnd passes for good sense with many an assHe actually made this head of brass Which could hold conversation And give informationTalk Latin & Hebrew & English & GreekSolve a problem in Euclid¹⁰ Better (Bedford) than ever you didAnd teach dumb people to speak.

But oh thou bodiless ME I do not askThe fates to undertake so hard a task Thro the dark night I would not have thee speak To Horace in Persic or Grosvenor in GreekFor that would make them tremble with affright.So much so that before they could recoverAnd answer as they ought, the sheets might suffer.

No gentle ME — I ask for no such thing But if it please The fates to hear such meek requests as these(And my soft tongueTo please the sisters stern Should many a ditty turnMore sweet than ever Orpheus sung)I would desire that thou mightst learn to singAs well as well can beJust like this Me.

And head of Me If it be agreable to theeTo move the soul to laughter — I would have thee able To sing little Label¹¹ And the farthing rushlight¹² after

And if thy — (soul I was just going to sayTho I don’t know where thy soul could stay)And if thy brains would moveThe softening soul to loveThen I would have thee sing like me that songWhither my Love ah whither art thou gone.¹³

And at the dismal hour of night If thou wouldst then requireTo wake the soul to wild affright — Do just as I desire.Sing how uncivil Death approachd the Lady¹⁴ And how that Uncle goodLeft the poor children in the woodAnd Robin Redbreast buried each poor baby.¹⁵

But Head of me — with all thy tricksFor thy own sake never talk politicsFor in these times of war(Thought horribell)Who can tellBut you may be stuck upon Temple Bar?¹⁶

There shalt thou melt whilst dogs each drop lickFor all the world like a bundle of rags upon a mop stickAnd if the fates decreeThis end for meAs I have now got timeMy epitaph Ill penTo serve me then —And thus I build the lofty rhyme.

Here washd by rainsAre those strange brainsWhich filld a stranger head —In death now stillAnd damp & chillEach limb unnervd lies dead

His legs so longShall stalk alongSo many a mile no moreHis tongue lie stillThat went like a millAnd always ran Reason before.

Here must he stayOne lump of clayThe loathly flesh worms mealAnd now at restHis cold cold breastNor joy nor woe shall feel. ¹⁷

Yes Bedford thus one day this body shall rotCold lifeless & putrid — forgetting — forgot.Yet perhaps even then when I moulder awayCorruption poor fast to original clayWhen each lifeless feature is crumbled to dustFame may see what I was from this odefied bust¹⁸

———

Friday morning.

the transition from your letter to the card table was not the most agreable last night — particularly as I was in the writing mood — I met with a fellow of Corpus now doing penance in all the horrors of disease for his faults & follies — Goldesbrough¹⁹ he tells me has got the demiship at Maudlin. what a miserable state is that man in, who has only his fellowship to depend upon. if he marries he loses it & how he can be happy without marriage appears to me a paradox. this is a piece of the scarlet whores petticoat — a lump of the old leaven a remnant of idolatry. it might have been reasonably imagined that when the enormities of nunneries & monasteries (most monstrous institutions) were exposed — that our sage reformers would have provided against their renewal. they ought to have known that the same causes will produce the same effects & when they tolerated matrimony in the clergy they should not have insisted upon celibacy in the universities. In the history of these hot beds of vice I am not well read — but it is probable that when the work of reformation was performd by Rapine — some timeservers who secretly favoured the old Religion presided in the universities & retained thus much of the Babylonian patchwork. the consequences are visible. our fellows are either the most dissolute libertines or good well meaning scholars like Tom Howe sauntering about their respective quadrangles with long faces & keeping them free from the impurities of impudent dogs. Ginger forms a genus of his own & a queer genus it is — distinguishd by the generic marks of everlasting thirst & invincible stupidity to which accomplishment he specifically adds — two eyes like a boild rabbits & the harmonious nasal twang that instead of filling the heart with devotion plays upon the risible muscles of his auditors. for many years these unfortunate animals have been the butt of ridicule whilst the satirist forgets that instead of lashing the victims of the institution he ought to expose the institution itself. Vicesimus Knox²⁰ has touchd pretty freely upon these subjects — but much remains to be done. there is an immense Augean stable that wants cleansing — & the filth that now breeds corruption if properly distributed could become excellent manure & fertlize the whole country. a consummation devoutly to be wishd for²¹ — more to be wishd than expected.

To me the radical defect of the universities appears this — the association of men with only men. the total absence of that sex from whom only we can receive the last polish. the intercourse in this country is much too distant & of course Man becomes more brutal when the tablecloth is removed the women retire with the dishes they have dressed & of Mr Wilkes²² two subjects of conversation the one (bad as it is) is above the drinking party. the women of the present day are not in general possessd of those qualifications which we might desire — but I am inclined to think with our correspondent Cassandra²³ that most of these faults originate in our sex. when they see that unaffected simplicity has no charms in the eyes of fashionable folly they give into fashions which Reason would have condemned & Nature scornd. I might alledge the distance between the sexes as an argument against your assertion that man were <is> in a state of Nature were I so disposed — should we in that best state be pleasd with Hail Politeness Power divine — the curst little rushlight or the horid squalling of a thing imported from Italy? but I am running from my subject into a rage against opera singers — beings to be pitied most certainly — but 999 degrees below the Men Milliners & that is below nothing.

The human mind is formed as capable of excellence now, as it was in those days when Themistocles²⁴ fought Aristides²⁵ lived & Æschylus²⁶ sung. nor are the faculties of Woman impaired or anyways alterd from what they were in Portia²⁷ Arria²⁸ & the mother of the Gracchi²⁹ and yet we seldom see one of these glorious characters arise. there must be a defect somewhere & with respect to one cause — that of education we shall agree. I would not wish my Wife to excel in dancing finger the harpsichord & paint flowers incomparably whilst her knowledge of books was confined to novels & of cookery — to knowing where to place the dishes. she should not be a kitchen wench or a pedant — but I am convinced it would be equally agreable to both were she a companion in my studies & knew how to make a good pudding. as I would not wed a Sycorax³⁰ so neither would I ask a Venus.³¹ good humour & good sense would always be handsome. surely my wishes are not unreasonable — but they will probably never be gratified. thanks to myself I possess the two best requisites for an old batchelor — I can smoke tobacco & play backgammon — in addition to this I will talk politics with the exciseman of my parish & like a true patriot always be shaved at the Barbers. an old Mrs Piozzi³² shall dress my turnips after I have raisd them — I will make my own cyder — & have a flitch of bacon on the rack with my walking sticks, & a good stock of toasting cheese. this is not a very enviable prospect but building Castles in the air for Reason to destroy is an employment I am sick of.

I have denominated my stick the Sans Culotte to which name it has the most undoubted title. in my next you will probably have an ode to it & another to the Me at Bristol — but I must have Snivel³³ finishd & an ode to Tom Paine.³⁴

the Doctor & I made a fine contrast — the drest travelling democrat & the drest Man Millener! he will be very angry at this so tell him that in five minutes I shall <begin> him a very long epistle. I am in momentary expectation of my baggage & you need not be told a little impatient. make my respects to all your good family. Mr & Mrs Deacon — Mrs Colyns³⁵ &c.

a la mode CC you see I have once remembered the rules of Politeness Power divine.

I have pleased myself during the filling of this sheet with the idea that you & Horace are busied in performing the same task. tomorrow I reach Bristol to dinner direct to me as usual.

yours most sincerelyRS.