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 rce732 letterEEd.26.723 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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 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
723. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 5 October [1802] Address: To/ G C Bedford Esqr/ Exchequer / Westminster Postmark: [partial] BRISTOL/ OCT 5Endorsement: 5 Octbr 1801MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 23Unpublished.Dating note: Misdated 1801 by Southey. Dear Grosvenor

I was absent when your last letter arrived – hunting a house in South Wales – for after all Cumberland will not do – & if my present treatySouthey was negotiating a lease on a house called Maes Gwyn, near Neath. end well – you will be a nearer neighbour by a hundred miles.

first to my picture. KeenanJohn Keenan (fl. 1780-1819), Irish painter. He had met Southey in Exeter in 1799. painted it – then lodging at a Mr KleboesUnidentified. (name on the door) Gerard Street – Soho. he means to exhibit it next year. I do not wish it to be engraved – I should object to it – unless Keenan got enough by it to remedy the objection on that account – for he is a worthy man struggling with the world.

next – no by the Lord – something else first. your friend SmithThomas 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. desired me to send him all my operas.i.e. all of Southey’s published works. he returned me a very handsome letter & two ten pound notes.

next then – I shall & will go on with Kehama The Curse of Kehama, published in 1810. Southey had begun drafting Book 2 on 4 June 1802. – & will send you it by letters full – & will begin the first letter forthwith & without delay, & will write you all the primary ideas about it – & you shall have the first letter by Saturday – So help me – Amen. But historySouthey’s unfinished ‘History of Portugal’. has almost monopolized me – & you know I have a money getting jobSouthey’s translation of Amadis of Gaul (1803). in hand – a sixty pound piece of journeywork that massacres a good deal of time else I should have raised my hurricane before now, & made my Glendouver, & ridden my Crocodile, & set my Temple on Fire & perhaps have gone to Hell – & turned Heaven topsy-turvy.Incidents in The Curse of Kehama.

I am sorry about the old house at Brixton. for I have known it long enough to regret its going to a stranger.The Bedfords had presumably sold their house in Brixton, near London, the place where in 1793 Southey had completed the first draft of Joan of Arc.

Oh send me the snake necklace.

Hero & LeanderTragic lovers from Greek mythology whose story had been popular with poets and dramatists. Bedford had published a translation of Musaeus’ (fl. c. early 6th century) The Loves of Hero and Leander (1797). – I will send you piecemeals about them. for I have never had all my books at hand to connect an account – & when you think there are enough they may be tacked together.

I care not so much what you are about – as that you should be about something – some classical business probably of more self-amusement than use. that sort of literature is like the ring in Hyde ParkA part of Hyde Park, London, much used by horses and carriages and a popular recreation place for the fashionable. – I would ride thro it once – & no more. there is nothing to glean there.

You guess right. I do most villainously miscall young Margaret. her usual name is the Doctor. for as Doctor DoddDr William Dodd (1729-1777; DNB), clergyman and man of letters who was hanged for forgery – hence his exit ‘alive & kicking’. made his exit in like manner did she enter – all alive & kicking. the Doddity of her motion discovers itself when she is being washed & dressed, to most advantage. She can make as much noise as I can almost – I sing to her till she cries – N.B. this was <is> a philosophical experiment. tickle her nose with a feather to teach her sensations, & put my thumb in her mouth – because it must be as nice as her own. What a change in a house & in the whole oeconomy does one of these helpless little ones make!

I have been to visit my rich Uncle at Taunton. a strange old man whom I had not seen for six & twenty years. he was very civil, & I was somewhat made melancholy to see a man of good sense & good feeling whose affections & talents are all rusted & ruined & whose death will cost no tear to any living being.

Toms remembrance. Ediths also.

God bless you. RS. Tuesday. Oct 5. 1801.