The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part 1: 1791-1797 A Romantic Circles Electronic Edition Southey, Robert, 1774-1843 Lynda Pratt Romantic Circles General Editor, Neil Fraistat General Editor, Steven E. Jones General Editor, Carl Stahmer Technical Editor Laura Mandell 2009-03-15 rce131 letterEEd.26.131 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD March 15, 2009

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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22. Not previously published.

These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer

For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.

A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.

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131. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, [12 July 1795] Address: G C Bedford Esqr./ New Palace Yard/ Westminster./ Only DoubleStamped: BRISTOLPostmark: CJY/ 13/ 95Watermarks: Figure of Britannia; COLES/ 1794Endorsements: Recd 13. July/ 1795; Ansd. & sent same/ day; 13 July 1795MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22Unpublished. My dear Grosvenor

I have forgotten Duppas number in Newman Street. do send him on the enclosed. it is concerning the frontispiece,Southey’s proposed frontispiece to the first edition of Joan of Arc did not materialise, though the poem’s second edition did have a frontispiece. & contains in it some lines which you have not seen. if LoutherbourgPhilippe Jacques de Loutherbourg (1740–1812; DNB), landscape painter and scene designer. can be got to design it it will make a very wild piece.

Drydens denunciation of Time & SpaceJohn Dryden (1631–1700; DNB), Of Dramatick Poesie, an Essay (1668). is by no means so ridiculous as Critics have pretended — I cry out against them most heartily.

Sunday Morning

it is now nearly two years since I sojournd at Brixton. during this period how strange an alteration is there in all my views of life! I am afraid Grosvenor it is with xx life as with a days journey. the prospect looks lovely in the morning — every object glitters in the sun & the birds sing cheerily, as the traveller advances the rough road wearies him & when the evenings mists shadow over the solitary landscape. he comforts himself with the reflection that he shall soon be at the journeys end. but when <of> the companions of our journey some strike off into different paths & some die by the way — when the noon is comfortless & cloudy & the traveller scarcely sees a step forwards — it is better to contemplate the white side of the shield.

I shall soon be with you. perhaps I never spent three months happier than at Brixton — tis a period I love to think of. the wasps — Mr CoyteUnidentified, but the context suggests he was a friend of the Bedford family and that Southey had met Coyte during his stay at Brixton in 1793. — & the imminent danger from my republican neighbour in the ditch , in which <when> I wrote Joan of Arc. — therefore Grosvenor is it a misfortune to love — because he who loves is restless in every company but that of one — oh I could xxxxxxxxxx however I mean to leave care behind me at Bristol — or if I carry the burthen with it will drop off like Christians in the Pilgrims ProgressJohn Bunyan (1628–1688; DNB), The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678–1684). when I see you.

Whatever the Lady might say (was it Mrs D?) in opposition to early marriages I see but little danger arising. either from the chance of inconsistency — the false judgment of youth — or the want of knowledge of the world. affection is gained by the wish to gain it — & how marriage that ought to strengthen that wish can possibly destroy it is perfectly paradoxical to a mind regulated like mine. — by the by I am teaching my Edith — Greek. you will not laugh at me & yet the idea will raise a smile. it is in my opinion better to learn Greek before Latin — if the Lexicon was in English — however a walking Lexicon will remove that difficulty. a man of the world would stare could he hear us tete a tete — αγαθος — αγαθη — αγαθον.The phrases are the equivalent in Greek of the Latin ‘bonus, bona, bonum’ (or in English, ‘good’, ‘better’, ‘best’). A schoolboy learning the language would recite the adjective in all its forms.

Your receipt for melancholy — probatum est.The Latin translates as ‘it is proved’. a wooden bridge near a church about ten o clock on Sunday morning would make an admirable picture of the happiest idleness. now mark the strange concatenation of ideas — thinking of a bridge reminded me of water — of the water where Horace took me to bathe at Carshalton — that walk led to one when you & I saw a fine generous mastiff at Dulwich — & this dog put me in mind of — a little whelp whom I have accepted that he may not be drowned — of the rough black brindled dandy-grey-russet colour — & his name is Cupid.

how wonderfully must the brain be organized to form all these sensations in a twentieth part of the time I wrote them in. how can motion be thought? & yet how can thought be any thing else? is it not as difficult to conceive colour as nothing but motion — & this is demonstrated by Darwin.See the first volume of Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802; DNB), Zoonomia; or, the Laws of Organic Life (1794–1796). — & what consequence is it what it is! all useful knowledge is easily acquired.

I have desired Duppa to get a vignette designed from Elinor.Southey’s ‘Botany-Bay Eclogue’ ‘Elinor’ had first been published anonymously in the Morning Chronicle on 18 September 1794. Richard Duppa did not illustrate the poem.

farewell. remember me to your father & mother affectionately — & give my love to Harry.

write to me. I never hear either of or from Horace.

yrs Robert Southey.