The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Grosvenor C. Bedford, 6 September 1818
“If you had written to me in extenuation, as you term
it, I should have been as nearly angry with you as anything could make me, for
how could I possibly attribute anything you had said to any motive but the
right one, or wherefore should I be more displeased with you for not liking my
extended epistle more than you were with me for not liking your Dalmatian wine?
The roughness of the one did not suit my palate, nor the asperity of the other
your taste. And what of that? I dare say you think quite as favourably of your
wine as before, and I am not a whit the less satisfied with my style
objurgatory. But let that pass. . . . .
“I have just purchased Gifford’s Ben Jonson. He supposes that the Laureate continues to receive his
tierce of Spanish canary, and recommends him yearly to drink to Old Ben in the first glass. Tell him, if he
will get me reinstated in my proper rights, I will drink to Ben
Jonson not once a year, but once a day, and to him also. By the
manner in which he speaks of Sidney’s Arcadia, I conclude that either he has never read the book, or has
totally forgotten it.
“So you are to have a Palace-yard meeting tomorrow. How
few weeks have elapsed since Hunt was
beaten and blackguarded in the face of the mob till his own miscreants hooted
at him, and yet, you ![]()
| Ætat. 44. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 311 |
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see, he is in full feather again.
The fellow ought to be tried for sedition; he would certainly be found guilty,
for the jury, as yet, would be nothing worse than Burdettites, and, therefore,
disposed to give him his deserts. And, during his confinement, he should be
restricted to prison diet, kept from all intercourse with visitors, and left to
amuse himself with the Bible, the prayer-book, and Drelincourt upon death, or the Whole Duty of Man, for his whole
library. At the end of two years he would come out cured. . . . .
“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.
Charles Drelincourt (1595-1669)
French Protestant theologian, author of
Consolations de l'âme fidèle
contre les frayeurs de la mort (1651).
William Gifford (1756-1826)
Poet, scholar, and editor who began as a shoemaker's apprentice; after Oxford he
published
The Baviad (1794),
The Maeviad
(1795), and
The Satires of Juvenal translated (1802) before becoming
the founding editor of the
Quarterly Review (1809-24).
Henry Hunt [Orator Hunt] (1773-1835)
Political radical and popular agitator who took part in the Spa Fields meeting of 1816;
he was MP for Preston (1830-33).
Ben Jonson (1572-1637)
English dramatist, critic, and epigrammatist, friend of William Shakespeare and John
Donne.
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)
English poet, courtier, and soldier, author of the
Arcadia (1590),
Astrophel and Stella (1591) and
Apology for
Poetry (1595).
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)
Arcadia. (London: William Ponsonbie, 1593). The “New Arcadia“ consisting of the text as Sidney left it; the “Old
Arcadia“ containing additional episodes was not published until the twentieth
century.
