“Yesterday evening I received ‘Roderic, Dernier Roi des Goths, Poëme tradui de l’Anglais de Robert Southey, Esq., Poëte Laureat, par M. le Chevalier * * *.‘ Printed at Versailles and published at Paris by Galignani. It was accompanied by a modest and handsome letter from the translator, M. Chevalier de Sagrie, and by another from Madame St. Anne Holmes, the lady to whom it is dedicated. This lady has formerly favoured me with some letters and with a tragedy of hers, printed at Angers. She is a very clever woman, and writes almost as beautiful a hand as Miss Ponsonby of Llangollen. She is rich, and has lived in high life, and writes a great deal about Sheridan, as having been very intimate with him in his latter years. Me, Mr. Bedford, unworthy as I am, this lady has chosen for her poëte favori, and by her persuasions the Chevalier has translated Roderick into French. This is not all: there is a part of the business which is so truly booksellerish in general, and French in particular, that it would be a sin to withhold it from you, and you shall have it in the very words of my correspondent St. Anne.
“‘There is one part of the business I cannot
pass over in silence: it has shocked me much, and calls for an apology; which
is,—The life of Robert Southey, Esq.,
P.L. It never could have entered my mind to be guilty of, or even to sanction,
such an imperti-
| 60 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
“Grosvenor, whoever writes my life when the subject has an end as well as a beginning, and does not insert this biographical anecdote in it, may certainly expect that I will pull his ears in a true dream, and call him a jackass.
“The Notice sur M.
Southey, which has been thus compounded, has scarcely one single
point accurately stated, as you may suppose, and not a few which are
ridiculously false. N’importe,
as M. Le Bel says, I have laughed heartily at the whole
translation, and bear the translation with a magnanimity which would excite the
astonishment and envy of Wordsworth if
he were here to witness it. I have even gone beyond the Quaker principle of
bearing injuries meekly.
| Ætat. 46. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 61 |
“God bless you!
“What a grand bespattering of abuse I shall have
when the Vision appears!
Your walk at the Proclamation was but a type of it,—only that I am booted
and coated, and of more convenient stature for the service. Pelt away my
boys, pelt away! if you were not busy at that work you would be about
something more mischievous. Abusing me is like flogging a whipping-post.
Harry says I have had so much of
it that he really thinks I begin to like it. This is
| 62 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 46. |
