The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Grosvenor C. Bedford, 29 December 1828
“I have two things to tell you, each good in its
kind,—the first relating to the moon, the second to myself.
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| Ætat. 53. |
OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. |
341 |
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“It is not likely that you should recollect a poor,
harmless, honest old man, who used to deliver the letters when you were at
Keswick; Joseph Littledale is his name,
and, if you remember him, it will be by a chronic, husky cough, which generally
announced his approach. Poor Littledale has this day
explained the cause of our late rains, which have prevailed for the last five
weeks, by a theory which will probably be as new to you as it is to me.
‘I have observed,’ he says, ‘that, when the
moon is turned upward, we have fine weather after it; but, if it is turned
down, then we have a wet season; and the reason I think is, that when it is
turned down, it holds no water, like a bason, you know, and then down it
all comes.’ There, Grosvenor, it will be a long while before the march of
intellect shall produce a theory as original as this, which I find, upon
inquiry, to be the popular opinion here.
“Next concerning myself. A relation of my friend
Miss Bowles heard at a dinner-party
lately that Mr. Southey had become a
decided Methodist, and was about to make a full avowal of his sentiments in a
poem called the Sinner well
saved.* ‘The title,’ said the speaker,
‘shows plainly what it is. But I have seen it; I have had a peep
at it at the publisher’s, and such a rant!!’
“I am about to begin a paper upon Surtees’ History of the County of Durham for the next Quarterly Review, a subject which requires no
more labour than
* A Roman Catholic legend, taken from the
“Acta Sanctorum,” versified,
and published in the collected edition of his poems, under the title of
“All for Love; or a
Sinner well saved.” |
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| 342 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 53. |
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that of looking through the three folios, and arranging
what matter of general interest they contain in an amusing form; and this is
comparatively easy work. Moreover, I am about a Life of Ignatius Loyola for the Foreign Review. My books having
nearly come to a dead stand-still in their sale, it becomes necessary for me to
raise my supplies by present labour, which, thank God, I am at present very
well able to do. I shall work hard to make provision for a six weeks’
holiday, commencing early in May, when I mean (if we all live and do well, and
alas! Grosvenor, how little is this to
be depended upon!), to remove my women-kind to the Isle of Man for sea air and
bathing if they like it. The island is worth seeing, and there is no place
where we could get at so little expense, or live so cheaply when there. We are
but two stages from Whitehaven, and from thence there is a steam-packet. There
I shall go over the whole island, and write verses when it rains.
“Wednesday, 31.— . . . . . I
did not know that there was a folio edition of South. Six octavo volumes of his sermons were published during
his life, five more after his death, from his manuscripts which had not been
corrected for the press. The Oxford Edition comprises the whole in seven
octavos. One sermon among the posthumous ones is remarkable, because it was
evidently written (probably in his younger days) as a trial of skill, in
imitation of Sir Thomas Brown. . . . .
“God bless you, my dear Grosvenor!
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.
Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682)
English physician and essayist; he was the author of
Religio
medici (1642) and
Pseudodoxia epidemica (1646).
Joseph Littledale (1750 c.-1836)
The bellman and mail-carrier at Keswick in Robert Southey's time.
Robert South (1634-1716)
High-church Restoration divine and chaplain to James II; he was patronized by the Earl of
Clarendon.
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose
works, among them the
Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813),
History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and
The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).
Robert Surtees (1779-1834)
English antiquary and historian educated at Christ Church, Oxford; his county history of
Durham began appearing in 1816. Reginal Heber and Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe were among his
schoolmates and Sir Walter Scott was a friend.
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
