The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Grosvenor C. Bedford, 1 June 1824
“You deserve to be rated for saying that nothing is so
cold as friendship, in saying which you belie yourself, and in inferring it as
my opinion from what I said*, you belie me. A friend will not take half the
trouble to do you a trifling service, or afford you a slight gratification,
that an enemy would to do you a petty mischief, annoy your comfort, or injure
your reputation. But this same enemy would not endanger himself for the
pleasure of doing you a serious injury, whereas the friend would go through
fire and water to render you an essential benefit; and if need were, risk his
own life to save yours. Now and then, indeed, there appears a devil-incarnate
who seems to find his only gratification in the exercise of
* “I could not but smile at the mode in
which you speak of the difficulties of getting 200 subscribers to
your brother’s book. Had I said anything half as censoriously
true, how you would have rated me! But true it is there is nothing
so cold as friendship, nothing so animated as
enmity.”—G. C. B.
to R. S., May 13. 1824. |
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| Ætat. 50. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 181 |
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malignity; but these are monsters, and are noted as such.
If I formed an estimate of human nature from what I observed at school, I
should conclude that there was a great deal more evil in it than good; if from
what I have observed in after life, I should draw the contrary inference.
Follies disappear, weaknesses are outgrown, and the discipline of society
corrects more evils than it breeds. You and I, and Wynn, and Elmsley, and
Strachey are very much at this time
what each must always have expected the others to be. But who would have
expected so much abilities from the two A.’s (mischievously as those
abilities are directed)? Who would have thought that B——,
boorish and hoggish as he was, would have become a man of the kindest manners
and gentlest disposition; and that C—— would have figured
as a hero at Waterloo? It is true that opposite examples might be called to
mind; but the balance would be found on the right side.
“I am much gratified by what you tell me from
Mr. Roberts.* Such opinions tend greatly to strengthen
my inclination for setting about a Book of the State;
which, though not capable of so deep and passionate an interest, might be made
not less useful in its direct tendency. The want of books would be an obstacle,
for I am poorly provided with English history, and have very little help within
* “Mr. Roberts is
delighted with the Book
of the Church, and desires me to say that he never read
anything that afforded him so much at once of entertainment, and
information, and general instruction upon any
subject.”—G. C. B.
to R. S., May 13. 1824. |
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| 182 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 50. |
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reach. I should want (and do want for other objects also)
the publications of the Record Committee. They were originally to be purchased;
but they were beyond my means. The sale of them is given up I think (at least
there was a report recommending that it should be discontinued, as producing
little), and the remaining copies must be lying in lumber; and yet, though
there is a pleasant opinion abroad that I can have any thing from Government
which I please to ask for, I might as well whistle for a South wind against
this blast from the East, as ask for a set of these books, well assured as I am
that there is no man living to whom they would be of more use, or who would
make more use of them. My end is not answered by borrowing books of this
description, and I will explain to you why; when a book is my own, I read or
look through it, and mark it as I proceed, and then by very brief references am
enabled to refer to and compose from it at any future time. But if it is a
borrowed book, the time which it costs to provide myself with extracts for
future use may be worth more than the cost of the work; a lesson which I have
learnt of late years at no little price. God bless you!
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.
Peter Elmsley (1774-1825)
Classical scholar educated at Christ Church, Oxford, who published in the
Edinburgh Review and
Quarterly Review.
Southey described him to W. S. Landor as “the fattest under-graduate in your time and
mine.”
George Strachey (1776-1849)
The son of John Strachey (d. 1818); educated at Westminster and Trinity College,
Cambridge, he pursued a legal and civil service career in the East India Company before his
retirement in 1824.
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).
