The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Grosvenor C. Bedford, 3 April 1803
“I have been thinking of Brixton, Grosvenor, for these many days past, when more
painful thoughts would give me leave. An old lady, whom I loved greatly, and
have for the last eight years regarded with something like a filial veneration,
has been carried off by this influenza. She was mother to Danvers, with whom I have so long been on
terms of the closest intimacy. . . . . Your ejection from Brixton has very long
been in my head as one of the evil things to happen in 1803, though it was not
predicted in Moore’s Almanack.
However, I am glad to hear you have got a house, . . . . and still more, that
it is an old house. ![]()
| Ætat. 28. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 205 |
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I love old houses best, for the sake
of the odd closets and cupboards and good thick walls that don’t let the
wind blow in, and little out-of-the-way polyangular rooms with great beams
running across the ceiling,—old heart of oak, that has outlasted half a
score generations; and chimney pieces with the date of the year carved above
them, and huge fire-places that warmed the shins of Englishmen before the house
of Hanover came over. The most delightful associations that ever made me feel,
and think, and fall a-dreaming, are excited by old buildings—not absolute
ruins, but in a state of decline. Even the clipt yews interest me; and if I
found one in any garden that should become mine, in the shape of a peacock, I
should be as proud to keep his tail well spread as the man who first carved
him. In truth, I am more disposed to connect myself by sympathy with the ages
which are past, and by hope with those that are to come, than to vex and
irritate myself by any lively interest about the existing generation.
“Your letter was unusually interesting, and dwells upon
my mind. I could, and perhaps will some day, write an eclogue upon leaving an
old place of residence. What you say of yourself impresses upon me still more
deeply the conviction, that the want of a favourite pursuit is your greatest
source of discomfort and discontent. It is the pleasure of pursuit that makes every man happy; whether the merchant, or the
sportsman, or the collector, the philobibl, or the reader-o-bibl, and maker-o-bibl, like
me,—pursuit at once supplies employment and hope. This is what I have
often preached to you, but perhaps I never told ![]()
| 206 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 28. |
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you what
benefit I myself have derived from resolute employment. When Joan of Arc was in the press, I had as many
legitimate causes for unhappiness as any man need have,—uncertainty for
the future, and immediate want, in the literal and plain meaning of the word. I
often walked the streets at dinner time for want of a dinner, when I had not
eighteen-pence for the ordinary, nor bread and cheese at my lodgings. But do
not suppose that I thought of my dinner when I was walking—my head was
full of what I was composing: when I lay down at night I was planning my poem;
and when I rose up in the morning the poem was the first thought to which I was
awake. The scanty profits of that poem I was then anticipating in my
lodging-house bills for tea, bread and butter, and those little &cs. which
amount to a formidable sum when a man has no resources; but that poem, faulty
as it is, has given me a Baxter’s
shove into my right place in the world.
“So much for the practical effects of Epictetus, to whom I hold myself indebted for
much amendment of character. Now,—when I am not comparatively, but
positively, a happy man, wishing little, and wanting nothing,—my delight
is the certainty that, while I have health and eyesight, I can never want a
pursuit to interest. Subject after subject is chalked out. In hand I have Kehama, Madoc, and a voluminous history; and I have
planned more poems and more histories; so that whenever I am removed to another
state of existence, there will be some valde
lacrymabile hiatus in some of my posthumous works.
“We have all been ill with La Gripe. But the ![]()
| Ætat. 28. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 207 |
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death of my excellent old friend is a real grief, and one
that will long be felt: the pain of amputation is nothing,—it is the loss
of the limb that is the evil. She influenced my every-day thought, and one of
my pleasures was to afford her any of the little amusements, which age and
infirmities can enjoy. . . . . When do I go to London? If I can avoid it, not
so soon as I had thought. The journey, and some unavoidable weariness in
tramping over that overgrown metropolis, half terrifies me;—and then the
thought of certain pleasures, such as seeing Rickman, and Duppa, and
Wynn, and Grosvenor Bedford, and going to the old book-shops, half tempts
me. I am working very hard to fetch up my lee-way; that is, I am making up for
time lost during my ophthalmia. Fifty-four more pages of Amadis, and a preface—no more to
do—huzza! land! land! . . . .
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.
Charles Danvers (1763 c.-1814)
Bristol wine merchant, a friend and correspondant of Robert Southey.
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.
Epictetus (55-135)
Roman Stoic philosopher whose teachings were summarized by Arrian in the
Encheiridion.
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.
Charles Watkin Williams Wynn (1775-1850)
The son of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, fourth baronet; educated at Westminster and Christ
Church, Oxford, Robert Southey's friend and benefactor was a Whig MP for Old Sarum (1797)
and Montgomeryshire (1799-1850). He was president of the Board of Control (1822-28).
Old Moore's Almanack. (London: 1697-). Published under various titles since the seventeenth century, originally by Francis
Moore.
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.
