1296. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 25 March 1807*
25 March 1807Dear Grosvenor
Our Fathers1 resolve upon a fourth Volume.2 Send me therefore forthwith all the biographies & specimens <of those> who were the reprobate in your scheme of election. As his Honour will also alas be his Honour no longer,3 & it will be too huge a parcel to lay before the Imperial Abbot,4 you had better transmit it thro Longman, who has other materials to send me. I will lay as little load as possible upon your shoulders in this business, – to what I cannot help laying on you will I know bend your back like Issachar, & patiently Dapple-ize for one who is more like the Knight than the Squire.5 Pray – pray, no delay in sending the papers.
And now we must have Henderson6 at last Mr Bedford.
Wynn has offered me in this last dying scramble 600 £ a year in the West Indies. you may guess my answer.7 I did not think he could have had leisure to think of me – It is a strange business, – I abhominate the rabble who come in, but am as hostile to the Catholicks as old George himself. – Oh what a damned trade is politicks. He talks of something else in his letter of which – if it take place – you will hear sooner than I shall – Grosvenor whenever you come here, & see how happy I am with a certain income of only 160 £ a year which my utmost exertions cannot double, – you will I think be convinced that a man may be very happy without being very rich.
Pray send the papers without delay. The speedy emission of a volume into the world is of more consequence to me in the very weighty concern of my ways & means – than – I think – you have always been aware of when the Printer & his Devil were looking after you, – a hint this for expecting the cancels.
God bless you RS.
Wednesday March 25. 1807.
Notes
Address: To/ G. C. Bedford Esqr/ Exchequer/ Westminster/
Single
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: E/ MAR 28/ 1807
Endorsement: 25 March 1807
MS: Bodleian Library, Eng. Lett.
c. 24. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished. Back
1. The publishing firm of Longmans, so called by Southey because of their premises in Paternoster Row (‘Paternoster’ meaning ‘our father’), London. Back
2. Of the Specimens of the Later English Poets (1807). This did not appear. Back
3. Wynn, losing his place in government, would lose his privilege of franking mail. Back
4. Another possessor of franking privileges: Charles Abbot, Speaker of the House of Commons; Rickman was his secretary. Back
5. In Genesis 49:1–27, Issachar is likened to ‘a strong ass lying down between the sheepfolds: and he saw that settled life was good, and the land was pleasant; he put his shoulder to the burden, and became a slave under forced labour’. Dapple, Bedford’s nickname, was to do the donkey-work for a fourth, supplementary volume of the Specimens of the Later English Poets (1807). This did not appear. Back
6. Perhaps John Henderson (1757–1788; DNB), the Bristol child prodigy of whom Southey knew because he had had a hand in the education of Joseph Cottle. Henderson published no volume of verse, but a ‘specimen of [his] talent for Poetry’ was included in Walter Churchey (1747–1805; DNB), Poems and Imitations of the British Poets, with Odes, Miscellanies, and Notes (London, 1789), pp. 830–831. Back
7. Wynn had offered Southey a position in St Lucia, on the government payroll. For Southey’s refusal, see Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, [25 March 1807], Letter 1298. Back