The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Grosvenor C. Bedford, 22 September 1797
“Me voici then at Bath! And why had
you not your birthday poem? In plain downright sincere sincerity, I totally
forgot it, till on the morning of the 11th of September, when I found myself on
Poole Heath, walking through desolation*, with that gloomy capability which my
nativity-caster marks as among the prominent features of my character. We left
Burton yesterday morning: the place was very quiet and I was very comfortable,
nor know I when to expect again so pleasant a summer. We live in odd times,
Grosvenor; and even in the best
periods of this bad society, the straightest path is most cursedly crooked.
“I shall be with you in November; send me my Coke, I pray you. I want law food, and though
not over hungry, yet must I eat and execrate like Pistol.
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| Ætat. 23. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 323 |
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. . . . . Something odd came into my head a few hours
since. I was feeling that the love of letter writing had greatly gone from me,
and, enquiring why; my mind is no longer agitated by hopes and fears, no longer
doubtful, no longer possessed with such ardent enthusiasm: it is quiet, and
repels all feelings that would disturb that state. When I write I have nothing
to communicate, for you know all my opinions and feelings; and no incidents can
occur to one settled as I am. . . . .
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 Edward Coke (1552-1634)
Attorney general and speaker of the House of Commons under Queen Elizabeth; he published
Institutes of the Lawes of England, or, A Commentarie upon
Littleton (1628).
