The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Grosvenor C. Bedford, 1 December 1804
“Sir Roger
L’Estrange is said, in Cibber’s Lives, to have written a
great number of poetical works, which are highly praised in an extract from
Winstanley. Ubi sunt? God knows, among all the titles
to his works I do not see one which looks as if it belonged to a poem; perhaps
Hill or Heber may help you out: but the sure store-house in all
desperate cases will be the Museum. He has the credit of having written the
famous song ‘Cease rude Boreas’ when in
prison; this, however, is only a tradition, and wants evidence sufficient for
our purpose. There, sir, is a pussagorical answer to your pussechism. . . . . .
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| 308 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 30. |
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If you are in the habit of calling on Vincent, you may do me a service by inquiring
whether a MS. of Giraldus Cambrensis,
designated by Cave, in his Historia Litteraria, as the
Codex Westmonast, be in the Dean and Chapter Library; for this MS. contains a
map of Wales as subsisting in his time, and that being the time in which
Madoc lived, such a map would form a
very fit and very singular addition to the book; and if it be there, I would
wish you to make a formal application on my part for permission to have it
copied and engraved. These bodies corporate are never very accommodating; but
Vincent is bound to be civil on such an occasion, if
he can, lest his refusal should seem to proceed from personal dislike, towards
one whom he must be conscious that he has used unhandsomely, and to the utmost
of his power attempted to injure. God knows I forgive him—ex imo corde. I am too well satisfied with
my own lot, with my present pursuits, and the new and certain hopes which they
present, not to feel thankful, to all those who have in any way contributed to
make me what I am. If he and I had been upon friendly terms, it might have
interested him, who has touched upon Portuguese history himself, to hear of my
progress, and my knowledge might possibly have been of some assistance to him.
I have no kindly feelings towards him; he made a merit of never having struck
me, whereas that merit was mine for never having given him occasion so to do.
It is my nature to be sufficiently susceptible of kindness, and I remember none
from him. Here is a long rigmarole about nothing; the remembrance ![]()
| Ætat. 30. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 309 |
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old times always makes me garrulous, and the failing is
common to most men. . . . .
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.
William Cave (1637-1713)
Educated at St John's College, Cambridge, he was a canon of Windsor and author of
Scriptorum ecclesiasticorum historia literaria (1688).
Giraldus Cambrensis (1146 c.-1223 c.)
The son of an Anglo-Norman baron in Wales, he was a biographer and historian.
Richard Heber (1774-1833)
English book collector, he was the elder half-brother of the poet Reginald Heber and the
friend of Walter Scott: member of the Roxburghe Club and MP for Oxford 1821-1826.
Thomas Hill (1760-1840)
English book-collector who entertained members of Leigh Hunt's circle at his cottage at
Sydenham in Kent. He was a proprietor of the
Monthly Mirror and
later a writer for the
Morning Chronicle. Charles Lamb described him
as “the wettest of dry salters.”
Sir Roger L'Estrange (1616-1704)
Tory pamphleteer and licenser of the press; he published
The
Observator (1681-87) and
The Fables of Aesop (1692).
William Vincent (1739-1815)
Educated at Westminster and Trinity College, he was headmaster of Westminster School
(1788); his
A Defence of Public Education (1801) ran to three
editions. He was Dean of Westminster (1803-15).
William Winstanley (1628-1698)
English poet and biographer; he published
Lives of the Most Famous
English Poets (1687).
