The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part 2: 1798-1803 A Romantic Circles Electronic Edition Southey, Robert, 1774-1843 Lynda Pratt Romantic Circles General Editor, Neil Fraistat General Editor, Steven E. Jones Technical Editor Laura Mandell 2011-08-15 rce309 letterEEd.26.300 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 23. 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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300. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 30 March 1798 Address: To / G. C. Bedford Esqr / Exchequer / London Seal: [partial, illegible] Endorsement: 30 March 1798MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 23Unpublished. My dear Grosvenor

I have a commission to trouble you with. at Number 374 Oxford Street are to be sold certain parsnips, called sugar parsnips, from which, the advertisement states that sugar may be procured by an easy process, & in considerable quantities. the price of the quantity to be sold is half-a-guinea.Pritchett’s Fruit Warehouse, 374 Oxford Street, London, specialised in new, imported species of fruit and vegetables, including the Transylvanian Cattle Cabbage, the German Turnip, and the Great Flemish Carrot. They advertised regularly in the metropolitan press. Adverts for the sugar parsnips – an alternative to slave-produced sugar cane – seem not to have survived. Now some friends of mine wish to try the experiment. Will you call there & purchase them, & leave the direction to Mrs Jardine to be left at Mr Cottles – Wine Street – Bristol. The Jardines owned a small estate at Pickwick, near Bath, and Mrs Jardine was presumably considering planting sugar parsnips there. In 1798, Cottle issued the two-volume Sermons, By the Late Rev. David Jardine, of Bath. Published from the Original Manuscripts, by the Rev. John Prior Estlin. I will pay you when we meet in May, & if you are disposed to try them at Brixton, you may take part & try the experiment at a cheap rate. the mans name is Pritchett. I shall be obliged to you, to do this the first time you go to Soho Square, as this is the season to plant them.

My brother Tom is H.M.S. Mars. Spithead or elsewhere. I thank you for your last.

I shall see you on the 10 of May – & will pass the following Sunday with you at Brixton early in the week after I am bound for Yarmouth. Oh – de Musæo.Grosvenor Charles Bedford’s translation of Musaeus (fl. c. early 6th century), The Loves of Hero and Leander (1797). Of the two copies reserved for me in your hands – I resign one for John May, & you may carry it to Carlisles for him. our garden schemeJohn May and Southey’s plan for a convalescent hospital. is I hope in a fair way.

yrs for ever & ever. RS.

Friday 30 March. 17981798: Inserted in another hand.

I am quite ashamed to have forgotten to send this letter to you on SaturdayI am quite … Saturday: Written on the address leaf.