The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Grosvenor C. Bedford, 27 April 1824
“Keswick, April 27. 1824.
“Your letter was as welcome as this day’s rain,
when the thirsty ground was gaping for it. Indeed, I should have been uneasy at
your silence, and apprehended that some untoward cause must have occasioned it,
if I had not heard from Edith that you
had supplied her exchequer.
“I should, indeed, have enjoyed the sight of Duppa in the condition which you describe, and
the subsequent process of transformation.* How well I can call to
* Mr.
Bedford’s humorously exaggerated description may
amuse the reader:—“A circumstance occurred here a little while
ago, which I wish you could have witnessed. Henry had set off to dine at Mrs.
Wall’s at the next door. Miss Page and I had finished our meal,
when there sounded a hard knock; when the door opened, a |
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| 174 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 50. |
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mind his appearance on his return from the theatre,
one-and-twenty years ago! Little did I think that day that the next time I was
to enter that theatre would be in a red gown to be bedoctored, and called every
thing that ends in issimus. And yet of the two days, the
former was one of the most cheerful in my life, and the latter, if not the most
melancholy, I think the very loneliest.
“Murray writes
to me that he has put the Book of the
Church to press for a second edition. I make no alterations, except
to correct two slips of the pen and the press: where the Emperor Charles V.
figure presented itself in the dim
after dinner light of the season, whose features were not easily
discernible, when ‘Look at me I what shall I do?’
broke out in accents of despair, and betrayed poor Duppa. On one of the dirtiest days of
this dirty and yet unexhausted winter, he had left Lincoln’s Inn
on foot to meet the gay party at Mrs.
Walls’. A villain of a coachman had driven by him
through a lake of mud in the Strand, and Duppa was
overwhelmed with alluvial soil. A finer fossil specimen of an oddfish
was never seen. He looked like one of the statues of Prometheus in process towards
animation—one half life, the other clay. I sent immediately for
Henry to a consultation in a
case of such emergency. The hour then seven, the invitation for
half-past six; the guests growing cross and silent; the fish spoiling
before the fire; the hostess fidgetty! What could be done! Shirts and
cravats it was easy to find; and soap and water few regular families in
a decent station of life are without. But where were waistcoats of
longitude enough? or coats of the latitude of his shoulders? But,
impranso nihil difficile est: we stuffed him
into a special selection from our joint wardrobes.
Henry rolled round his neck a cravat, in size
and stiffness like a Holland sheet starched, and raised a wall of
collar about his ears that projected like the blinkers of a coach
horse, and kept his vision in an angle of nothing at all with his nose;
would he look to the right or the left, ho must have turned upon the
perpetual pivot of his own derriere. . . . . Thus rigged we launched
him, and fairly he sped, keeping his arms prudently crossed over the
hiatus between waistcoat and breeches, and continually avoiding too
erect a posture, lest he should increase the interstitial space; he was
a fair parallel to what he was upon another awful occasion, when we
both saw him revolving himself into a dew after the crowd of the Oxford
Theatre.”—G. C. B. to
R. S., April 16. 1824. |
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| Ætat. 50. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 175 |
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is called Queen
Catherine’s brother instead of her nephew, and Henry IV. printed for III., and to omit an anecdote
about Gardiner’s death, which
Wynn tells me has been disproved by
Lingard. I do not know what number
Murray printed. But if there should appear a
probability of its obtaining a regular sale, in that case I shall be disposed
to think seriously of composing a similar view of our civil history, and
calling it the Book of the State; with the view of
showing how the course of political events has influenced the condition of
society, and tracing the growth and effect of our institutions; the gradual
disappearance of some evils, and the rise of others. Meantime, however, I have
enough upon my hands, and still more in my head.
“Hudson Gurney
said to me he wished the King would lay his
commands on me to write the history of his father’s reign. I wish he
would; provided he would make my pension a clear 500l.
a-year, to support me while I was writing it; and then I think I could treat
the subject with some credit to myself.
“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.
Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536)
The daughter of King Ferdinand II of Aragon, she was briefly married to Prince Arthur,
afterwards becoming the first consort of his younger brother Henry VIII, who divorced her
in 1533.
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.
Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester (1498 c.-1555)
English prelate and politician; he was bishop of Winchester (1531) and chancellor of
Cambridge University (1540-51); an opponent of Protestant reforms, he was imprisoned during
the reign of Edward VI.
Hudson Gurney (1775-1864)
Descended from Quaker families, he was a banker, poet, and antiquary; he was
vice-president of the Society of Antiquaries (1822-46).
John Lingard (1771-1851)
Roman Catholic historian, educated at Duoai; he published
History of
England (1819-30).
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
Mary Page (1837 fl.)
The cousin of Grosvenor Bedford and member of his household; Robert Southey knew her from
1791.
Edith Southey [née Fricker] (1774-1837)
The daughter of Stephen Fricker, she was the first wife of Robert Southey and the mother
of his children; they married in secret in 1795.
Henry Herbert Southey (1783-1865)
The younger brother of Robert Southey; educated at Edinburgh University, he was physician
to George IV, Gresham Professor of Medicine, and friend of Sir Walter Scott.
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).
