415. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 5 June 1799 ⁠* 

Wednesday June 5. 99.

My dear Grosvenor

Heer is de koele June. [1]  we have a March wind howling & a March fire burning. it is a diabolus diei. [2] 

My journey was like the new method of cutting for the stone, memorized in my Letters. [3]  but I learnt one piece of information which you may profit by – that on Sunday nights they put the new horses into the Mail always – because as they carry no letters, an accident is of less consequence as to the delay it occasions. this nearly broke our necks for we narrowly escaped an overturn. so I travel no more on a Sunday night in the Mail.

I found Edith better – but my Mother is very unwell, so as to give me serious apprehensions.

Carlisle came Saturday afternoon & went away Sunday. he brought with him such trout! tell Horace such trout!

I am the better for my journey, & inclined to attribute it to the greater quantity of wine I drank at Brixton than I had previously done. therefore I have supplied the æther by the grape-juice – & exchanged the table-spoon for the corkscrew.

I find Printers faith as bad as Punic faith. [4]  new types have been promised from London for some weeks & are not yet arrived – therefore I am still out of the press. I pray you forget not to send me the old man woman who was circularized

[Southey inserts sketch of a large O]

who saw her own back, whose head was like the title page of a Jews prayer book, who was an emblem of eternity, the Omikron of old women. [5]  you will make a good ballad of this quaint tale. it is for subjects allied to humour or oddity that you possess most powers. witness the Barbers [6]  & Pretty Grange. [7]  find such subjects & you will find pleasure in writing in proportion as you feel your own strength. I will at my first leisure transcribe for you S^t Anthony & the Devil. [8] 

The time of removal is so near at hand that I begin to wish every thing were settled & over. this is a place which I leave with some reluctance, after taking root here for 25 years, & now our society is so infinitely mended. Davy, the Pneumatic Institution [9]  Experimentalist is a first rate man, conversible on all subjects & learnable-from, (which by the by is as fine a Germanly compounded word as you may expect to see. I am going to breathe some wonder-working gas [10]  which excites all possible mental & muscular energy & induces almost a delirium of pleasurable sensations without any subsequent dejection.

We had a rare tempest yesterday in honour of his Majestys birth day, [11]  & I thought of you & your Horse & the Grand Review. I will get the Fox Glove receipt for you, which I forgot to ask for when last I saw Davy. remember me with all thankfulness for three weeks hospitality to your father & mother. – & to your brothers both. Snivel [12]  is not susceptible of a compliment or I would not forget her because she did not forget me.

I was fortunate enough to meet Sharpe of whom you said so much on the Sunday that I left Brixton. I was with Johnson in the Kings Bench [13]  when he came in; I mist his name as he entered but was quite surprized at the novelty & good sense of all his remarks. he talked on many subjects, & on all with a strength & justness of thought which I have seldom seen found. this meeting pleased me much – & I wish much to see more of Sharpe. he seems a man whom it would be impossible not to profit by. he talked of Combe [14]  – who is in the Kings Bench. you said that Combe wrote books which were not known to be his. [15]  Sharpe mentioned as his – Lord Lyttletons Letters. [16]  many of Sternes Letters. [17]  & Æneas Andersons account of China. [18] 

God bless you.

yrs affectionately

Robert Southey