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 rce719 letterEEd.26.710 Romantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of Maryland College Park, MD August 15, 2011

Material from the Romantic Circles Website may not be downloaded, reproduced or disseminated in any manner without authorization unless it is for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, and/or classroom use as provided by the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended.

Unless otherwise noted, all Pages and Resources mounted on Romantic Circles are copyrighted by the author/editor and may be shared only in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Except as expressly permitted by this statement, redistribution or republication in any medium requires express prior written consent from the author/editors and advance notification of Romantic Circles. Any requests for authorization should be forwarded to Romantic Circles:>

Romantic Circles c/o Professor Neil Fraistat Department of English University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 fraistat@umd.edu

By their use of these texts and images, users agree to the following conditions: These texts and images may not be used for any commercial purpose without prior written permission from Romantic Circles. These texts and images may not be re-distributed in any forms other than their current ones.

Users are not permitted to download these texts and images in order to mount them on their own servers. It is not in our interest or that of our users to have uncontrolled subsets of our holdings available elsewhere on the Internet. We make corrections and additions to our edited resources on a continual basis, and we want the most current text to be the only one generally available to all Internet users. Institutions can, of course, make a link to the copies at Romantic Circles, subject to our conditions of use.

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.

All quotation marks and apostrophes have been changed: " for “," for ”, ' for ‘, and ' for ’.

Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.

Because of web browser variability, all hyphens have been typed on the U.S. keyboard.

Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.

Southey's spelling has not been regularized.

Writing in other hands appearing on these manuscripts has been indicated as such, the content recorded in brackets.

& has been used for the ampersand sign.

£ has been used for £, the pound sign

All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.

 NINES categories for Genre and Material Form at http://www.performantsoftware.com/nines_wiki/index.php/Submitting_RDF#.3Cnines:genre.3E on 2009-02-26 Architecture Artifacts Bibliography Collection Criticism Letters Drama Life Writing Politics Folklore Ephemera Fiction History Leisure Manuscript Reference Works Humor Education Music nonfiction Paratext Perodical Philosphy Photograph Citation Family Life Poetry Religion Review Visual Art Translation Travel Book History Law Southey Letters: Biographies Southey Letters: Places Laura Mandell XSLT Transforming after latest corrections Laura Mandell XSLT Transforming Averill Buchanan corrections from proofing Averill Buchanan Part II added
710. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, [31 August-]1 September 1802 Address: To/ G. C. Bedford Esqr/ Exchequer./ Westminster/ SinglePostmark: BRISTOL/ SEP; [partial] B/ SEPEndorsement: 1 Septr 1802/ 1 child born? now Edith May Southey MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 23Unpublished. Dear Grosvenor

I told Duppa to tell you I should soon write – & lo if he make not good speed from Salisbury my letter will reach you before him. he has passed a week between this house & Mr SmithsThomas Woodroffe Smith (c. 1747-1811), a wealthy Quaker merchant, who lived at Stockwell Park, Surrey, near the Bedfords. In 1789 he married, as his second wife, Anne Reynolds (dates unknown) of Carshalton. – the guest of one or the other – whereby I have seen something more of your Stockwells friends – who improve greatly upon acquaintance. I wish sincerely that Mrs Smith were in better hands – that surgeon is trifling with her merely to swell his bill. he drenches her with medicine – which cannot possibly be necessary for a blow on the head. besides he is a fellow of no talents & nothing but a coach to recommend him.

You will not be pleased to hear that I design to pitch my tent at Keswick but the reasons are valid. I get part of a house furnished – quite room enough for less than the bare rent of a house elsewhere. & thus save the embarrassing expence of furniture. & the expence of living there is about half the London price. climate is the only objection. a winter in London is more trying & that I have stood. if I ail in Cumberland why I must take ship from Liverpool two years sooner than business xxx would call me to Lisbon.

I did & do design to send you the Curse of Kehama The Curse of Kehama, published in 1810. Southey had begun to draft Book 2 on 4 June 1802. as it proceeds – but the truth is that it does not proceed – for half a book in three months is in fact nothing. I have a job upon handSouthey’s translation of Amadis of Gaul (1803). which wastes a good deal of time – & it goes against me sorely to spare any time from the historySouthey’s uncompleted ‘History of Portugal’. which will pretty evidently be my opus majusThe Latin translates as ‘Greater Work’. in all points of view & upon which I calculate is the foundation of an independance. at this I have worked well since we left London – you saw the rudiments of some remarks upon the religion of Mohammed.Muhammad (570-632), Prophet of Islam. they have been shaped into a chapter of I think fair & prof rememberable reasoning. the life of the CidRodrigo Diaz de Bivar (c. 1040-1099), a Castilian aristocrat and military commander, whose exploits were the subject of numerous poems and tales. I have compleated – & rough hewn that of S. Francisco.St Francis of Assisi (1181/2-1226), founder of the Franciscan order.

––––––––

There broke off my letter – for a better finis – yesterday evening I had a daughter born whom I hope you will one day know by the names of Margaret Edith. all hitherto as well as could be wished.

God bless you R Southey Sept. 1. 1802