752. Robert Southey to Mary Barker, 14 January 1803*

Women are subject to four diseases, the growls, the grumbles, the growels, & the gripes, all four great grievous & growing grievances. Edith is now troubled with the last, & so I thought I would tell you of it, & that Thought begot this Epistle, which is therefore the legitimate grandchild of the Gripes, & if it grumbles will take after its family.

Why have you not written? you told me a boy from Penkridge would call for your medicine. Well – I got the physic & wrote a letter, & the boy did not come. so I took the physic & burnt the letter, & this comes to tell you so.

Undutifullest of all Godmothers – for Godmother you are by the rites of the Church, to “Margaret Edith daughter of Robert & Edith Southey,” & Martha was your proxy. Your goddaughter is very well – like my old books ugly but good, a flat-nosed, round-foreheaded, grey-eyed girl, eyes full of good humour & limbs like Doctor Dodd¹ in the most interesting & famous moment of his public life – all alive & kicking. Yes I have made poems about her, sundry poems & good. they would make an interesting volume & might be called A Fathers Effusions. mostly short as Effusions should be, & always true to the feeling that inspired them. Take a specimen –

No one can tell how it came about That instead of a nose, you should have a snout. Margary Margary theres the rub: That your snout should be so snub.Grosvenor Bedford has a dog & his dogs name is Snivel – I have a Daughter & my Daughters name is Drivel! You original sinner You good-tempered grinner.Margary Margary hush-ye-by-by Father is nursing & you must not cry.

There are sundry others rhyming to dirty wench, & [suge?] daughter, & hey-diddle-diddle, which are upon subjects of too private a nature to be given to the public.

Senhora you puzzle me by your hand-writing, a very pretty hand writing but cursedly unintelligible. a cramp-crooked-crow-quill-twelve-o-clock-at-night sort of a hand-writing. the whole six & twenty letters like twins, such a family likeness among them that there is no knowing one from another, not even by their stature, for the tall ones are so bandy-legged that their heads do not overtop the hump backs of their dwarf brethren. I make a hop-step & jump-work at reading it, skipping from the dot of an i to the cross of a t (if they happen to have them) & guessing at all between. Senhora it is a handwriting of the feminine gender – it is penwomanship Senhora!

Now – have you been ill? – or have you been so long silent because you conceived we had taken up wing? – we are still here & still houseless, having been disappointed both of a home at Keswick & at Glamorganshire, when we thought every thing settled. I am hunting in this neighbourhood & so soon as we are settled you shall know, for if you do not come visit us then by the Contunder² I will go to Penkridge & inflict the leg twirl before your fathers³ face.

I have been – alas I am crippled with sore eyes. my poor history⁴ suffers & I suffer. howbeit blind men can write poetry – but blind I must not be, because besides Shakespere the only two poets whom I will not out-do (this modest prophecy goes in a whisper mark you) are the two blind men.⁵ Madoc⁶ is on the anvil & will probably be published next winter. I shall have much to show you when ever you meet – which if we do not in the summer will be your fault.

Ediths love – Mrs Lovells – for myself you know I must be

Dear Madam your obedient humble servant Robert Southey.Kingsdown. Bristol. Jany 14. 1803.