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 rce157 letterEEd.26.157 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. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), I, pp. 275–276 [in part].

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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157. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 27 May 1796 Address: Grosvenor Charles Bedford Esqr/ New Palace Yard/ WestminsterStamped: BRISTOLPostmark: BMA/ 28/ 96Watermark: [Obscured by MS binding]Endorsement: 27 May 1796MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), I, pp. 275–276 [in part]. Friday May 27. 1796.

I have written to Wynn & asked him to accompany you. give me due notice of your coming that I may procure you beds as near as possible, if this house be full. I will meet you at the coach.

poor Lovell! — I am in hopes of raising something for his widow by publishing his best pieces — if only enough to buy her a harpsichord. his father afflicted as he is seems to have transferred his affection to her & behaves with a liberal kindness rarely to be found. the poems will make a five shillings volume which I preface — & to which I shall prefix an epistle to Mary Lovell. will you procure me some subscribers? — I have forgotten his foibles & faults — & many a melancholy reflection obtrudes. what I am doing for him — you Bedford may one day perform for me. how short my part in life may be he only knows who assignd it — I must only be anxious to discharge it well.

how does Time mellow down our feelings opinions! little of that ardent enthusiasm which so lately fevered my whole character remains — & what little is suffered I have contracted my sphere of action within the little circle of my own friends — & even my wishes seldom stray beyond it. a little candle will give light enough to a moderate sized room. place it in a church it will only “teach light to counterfeit a gloom”John Milton (1608–1674; DNB), ‘Il Penseroso’ (1632), line 80. — & in the street — the first wind extinguishes it. do you understand this? or shall I send you to Quarles Emblems?Francis Quarles (1592–1644; DNB), Emblems (1635).

Of my situation & employments Wynns letter has probably informed you. I am hardly yet in order.

& whilst that last word was writing arrived the parcel containing what thro all my English wanderings have accompanied me — your letters. aye Grosvenor our correspondence is valuable — for it is the history of the human heart during its most interesting stages — I have now bespoke a letter case — where they shall repose in company with another series — now blessed be God! compleat. my letters to Edith. — Bedford who will be worthy to possess these when we are gone? Odi profanum vulgusHorace (65–8 BC), Odes, Book 3, no. 1, line 1. The Latin translates as ‘I hate the vulgar rabble’. — must I make a funeral pile by my death bed?

Would that I were so settled as not to look on to another removal . I want a little room to arrange my books in — & some LaresIn Roman mythology, deities who presided over households and families. of my own. shall we not be near one another? aye Bedford as intimate as John Doe & Richard RoeFictitious characters, often used to signify the plaintiff (Doe) and defendant (Roe) in legal suits. with whose memoirs I shall be so intimately acquainted.

& there are two other cronies John a Nokes & Jack a StilesFictitious characters, often used to signify the plaintiff (Nokes) and defendant (Stiles) in legal suits. always like Gyas & CloanthusIn Virgil’s (70–19 BC) Aeneid, two companions of Aeneas. & the two Kings of Brentford hand in hand.Two mythical characters (‘Kings’ of the Essex town of Brentford – a place renowned for its dirtiness), whose existence seems to derive from George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham (1628–1687; DNB), The Rehearsal (1672), a satire on heroic tragedy. A ‘mock’ play within Villiers’s play includes a scene in which the two Kings of Brentford enter hand in hand. In the next century, the phrase entered into wider cultural use; see, for example, William Cowper (1731–1800; DNB), The Task, a Poem, in Six Books (London, 1785), p. 5. oh I will be a huge lawyer.

With all this bustle you will easily see I have no time for my promised letter yet. nor will I hurry it for it shall be as good as I can make it.

remember me to your father & mother — & Horace & Harry — Wynn told me of Harry musical mechanism! take care of that boy — for I never knew his capabilities equalled.

come soon. my “dearest friend” expects you with almost[MS torn] as much pleasure & impatience as

Robert Southey.