The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Grosvenor C. Bedford, 20 January 1805
“. . . . . There is a civil office for the inspection
of accounts, and I am adequate to be inspector; so, if you cannot learn that
there be anything more proper, let that be the thing asked: “but consult
Rickman. I have only proceeded on
newspaper authority; and, if the expedition be not ![]()
| 312 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 30. |
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going
to Portugal, would not take the best office any where else. Actual work I
expect, and have seen enough of the last army at Lisbon to know that
commissaries and inspectors have plenty of leisure. Thus much General Moore must know, whether we are to
send forces to Portugal or not; for it depends upon his report, if the papers
lie not. If we do, the place where all the civil operations are carried on is
Lisbon; there the commissaries, &c. remain if the army takes the field;
there I want to go, you know for what purpose. To say that I do not wish to
make money would be talking nonsense; but the mere object of making money would
not take me from home. I can inspect accounts, I can make contracts (for beef
and oats are soon understood), and, doing these, can yet have leisure for my
own pursuits. What efforts I make are more because the thing is prudent than
agreeable.
“Madoc is provokingly delayed. Job once wished
that his enemy had written a book; if he himself had printed one, it would have
tried his patience. I am every day expecting the Great Snake* in a frank from
Duppa. My emblem of the cross,
prefixed to the poem, with the In hoc
signo, and what I have said in the poem of the
Virgin Mary, is more liable to misconstruction than
could be wished. In what light I consider these things, may be seen in the
reviews of the Missions to Bengal and Otaheite. I have just finished another
article for the year upon the South African Missions. The great use of
reviewing is, that it obliges me to think upon subjects
* An engraving of one of the incidents
in Madoc. |
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| Ætat. 30. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 313 |
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on which I had been before content to have very vague
opinions, because there had never been any occasion for examining them; and
this is a very important one.
“It will do me a world of good to see the first
proof-sheet under favour, of the Grand Parleur; I shall
begin to think seriously of the preface. You will find it worth while to go to
Longman, for the sake of seeing the
new publications, which all lie on his table; a good way of knowing what is
going on in the world of typography.
Grosvenor Charles Bedford (1773-1839)
The son of Horace Walpole's correspondent Charles Bedford; he was auditor of the
Exchequer and a friend of Robert Southey who contributed to several of Southey's
publications.
Richard Duppa (1768-1831)
Writer and antiquary; a contributor to the
Literary Gazette; he
published
A Journal of the most remarkable Occurrences that took place in
Rome (1799) and other works.
Thomas Norton Longman (1771-1842)
A leading London publisher whose authors included Southey, Wordsworth, Scott, and
Moore.
Sir John Moore (1761-1809)
A hero of the Peninsular Campaign, killed at the Battle of Corunna; he was the son of Dr.
John Moore, the author of
Zeluco.
John Rickman (1771-1840)
Educated at Magdalen Hall and Lincoln College, Oxford, he was statistician and clerk to
the House of Commons and an early friend of Charles Lamb and Robert Southey.
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Madoc. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1805). A verse romance relating the legendary adventures of a Welsh prince in Wales and
pre-Columbian America.
