My dear Grosvenor
I am going to Lisbon – & with all speed.
my arrangements are making to leave this place on Monday
fortnight – on my way to Falmouth. climate will I trust cure
me.
You laid by for me a copy of Musæus [1] for my Uncle,
will you be kind enough to get it bound, & send it to me
here? they will bind [MS cut] in London than I could have it
done. [MS cut] good spirits. & I have a definite &
important object in view [MS cut] to write the History of
Portugal, [2] a
work in which I will bestow [Ms cut] labour & which, if
not miserably self-deceivd, I can do as [MS cut] it ought to
be done.
Wynn has been
with me – we went to Berkely together & met The Old
Woman. [3] she muttered God bless ye my
children – God bless ye my children – twice she muttered
these words – & as she
that instant a cart took the wheel of our chaise – & if
St David [4] himself had not miraculously interposed in
the shape of the reins ––––
But I am hugely busy, & allowed myself
only half a sheet. my time & paper running equally short
– So
God bless you Grosvenor –
yrs here, there &
everywhere
Robert Southey.
March 21. 1800.
Notes
* Address: To/ Grosvenor Charles Bedford
Esqr/ Exchequer/ Westminster
Stamped: [partial] TOL
Postmark:
[illegible]
Endorsement: 21 March 1800
MS:
Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 23
Previously
published: Adolfo Cabral (ed.), Robert Southey:
Journals of a Residence in Portugal 1800-1801 and a
Visit to France 1838 (Oxford, 1960), pp.
66–67. BACK
[1] Grosvenor Bedford’s
translation, The Loves of Hero and
Leander (1797). BACK
[2] Southey’s uncompleted ‘History of Portugal’. BACK
[3] The
central figure in ‘A Ballad Shewing How an Old Woman
Rode Double and Who Rode Before Her’,
Poems, 2 vols (Bristol, 1799), II,
pp. [143]–160. BACK
[4] St David (6th century), Bishop and patron
saint of Wales. Southey is referring to the legend that
St Aidan, one of David’s disciples, preserved a pair of
oxen and a cart from harm when they fell over a cliff
into the sea, by making the sign of the cross over
them. BACK
