The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Grosvenor C. Bedford, 3 May 1831
“Would that I were more at leisure to converse with
those who are at a distance; but leisure and I seem to have parted company for
ever in this world, and occupation does not bring with it that quiet now which
it used to do in less uneasy times.* Not that I have lost either heart or hope;
for though nothing can be worse than all the manifestations of public feeling
from all sides, I expect that the delusion will in a great degree be removed
when the present excitement has spent itself; and though I have no reliance
whatever upon the good sense of the people, there is yet goodness enough in the
nation to make me trust in full faith that Providence will not deliver us over
to our own evil devices, or rather to those of our rulers. Those who gave
Earl Grey credit for sagacity, believed,
upon his own representations, that time had moderated his opinions, and that he
would always support the interests of
* “If I were in the seventeenth year of my
age instead of the fifty-seventh, I might perhaps like the prospect
of a general revolution in society, looking only at the evils which
it was to sweep away, and the good with which it was to replace
them. But I am old enough to know something of the course on which
we have entered. Anarchy is the first stage—and there the
road divides; one way leading by a circuitous route, and so
difficult a one as to be scarcely practicable, back to the place
from whence we start; the other by a broad and beaten way to
military despotism. The tendency is to a despotism of institutions,
which, when once established, stamps a whole people in its iron
mould and stereotypes them.”—To H.
Taylor, Esq, March 13.
1831. |
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| Ætat. 57. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 147 |
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his order. Provoked at the exposure of his whole
Cabinet’s incapacity, which their budget brought forth, he has thrown
himself upon the Radicals for support, bargained with O’Connell, and stirred up all the
elements of revolution in this kingdom, which has never been in so perilous a
state since the Restoration.
“The poor people here say they shall all be ‘made
quality’ when this ‘grand reform’ is brought about. ‘O
it is a grand thing!’ The word deceives them; for you know, Grosvenor, it ‘stands to feasible’
that reform must be a good thing, and they are not
deceived in supposing that its tendency is to pull down the rich, whatever may
be its consequences to themselves.
“May 14.
“This letter has lain more than a week unfinished in my
desk. To-day’s paper tells me that his Right
Honour* has gained his election; and this I am very glad of,
hoping, however, that the head of the family, or one of those uncles who can so
well afford it, will bear the costs. There is no statesman to whom I ascribe
more of the evils which are gathering round us than Lord Grenville. The Catholic question was an egg laid and
hatched in that family, and Leda’s egg was not prolific of more evils to
Troy than that question has proved, is proving, and will prove to these
kingdoms. . . . .
“I saw Lord —— this
morning: he said ‘we
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| 148 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 57. |
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are going to wreck;’ and I was shocked to see how
ill he looked; twenty years older than when I dined with him at Croker’s in December last. It is not
bodily fatigue, but anxiety, that has produced this change; the clear foresight
of evils which are coming in upon us with the force of a spring-tide before a
high wind. Every one whom I see or hear from is in worse spirits than myself;
for I have an invincible and instinctive hope that the danger will be averted
by God’s mercy. In the present state of the world nothing seems to
proceed according to what would have been thought likely. Who, for example,
could have expected that France would not have been at war before this time, or
that Louis Philippe would have been still
on his uneasy throne? Who would have supposed that Russia would have been
defeated in its attempt to suppress the Poles? or that Austria could have put
down the insurrection in Italy? I say nothing of the madness which King,
Cabinet, and People have manifested at home, because they really seem to be
acting under a judicial visitation of insanity. But I am almost ready to
conclude that we shall weather this storm, because all probabilities and all
appearances are against it. Some unexpected event may occur; the war for which
France has been preparing upon so formidable a scale may break out in time, and
in a way which will render it impossible for our Ministers to remain at peace;
or such a revolution may be effected in that country as will frighten the King
and Ministry here into their senses. Some death may take place which may
derange the Administration; some schism ![]()
| Ætat. 57. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 149 |
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may make it fall
to pieces; the agricultural insurrections and the burnings may begin again, and
act in prevention of a revolution which they would otherwise inevitably follow;
or, perhaps, the cholera morbus may be sent us as a lighter plague than that
which we have chosen for ourselves.
“Be the end of these things what it may, Grosvenor, ‘we’s never live to see’t,’ as an old man of
Grasmere, whom Betty knew, said upon some great changes
which were taking place in his time; ‘but we’s,
may be, hear tell,’, he added; and so say I.
“Further, I say, come to Keswick this year; and
remember, Grosvenor, that you and I have
not many ‘next years’ to talk of, even if life were less precious
than it is.
“I have a great deal to say to you, and a great deal to
show you, if I had you by the fireside, and in the boat, and on the ascent of
Skiddaw, and two or three other mountains, where I would walk beside your
horse, if your own feet were too sensitive to perform their own duty. . . . .
“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.
John Wilson Croker (1780-1857)
Secretary of the Admiralty (1810) and writer for the
Quarterly
Review; he edited an elaborate edition of Boswell's
Life of
Johnson (1831).
William Wyndham Grenville, baron Grenville (1759-1834)
Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, he was a moderate Whig MP, foreign secretary
(1791-1801), and leader and first lord of the treasury in the “All the Talents” ministry
(1806-1807). He was chancellor of Oxford University (1810).
Charles Grey, second earl Grey (1764-1845)
Whig statesman and lover of the Duchess of Devonshire; the second son of the first earl
(d. 1807), he was prime minister (1831-34).
Louis Philippe, king of the French (1773-1850)
The son of Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans; he was King of France 1830-48; he
abdicated following the February Revolution of 1848 and fled to England.
Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847)
Irish politician, in 1823 he founded the Catholic Association to press for Catholic
emancipation.
Sir Henry Taylor (1800-1886)
Poet, writer for the
Quarterly Review, and autobiographer; he was
author of the tragedy
Philip van Artevelde (1834).
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).
