The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Grosvenor C. Bedford, 10 November 1836
“Bedminster, Nov. 10. 1836.
“My dear G.,
“Right glad should I be to feel myself sufficiently at
rest and at leisure for writing at full length to you; but little rest shall I
have, and as little leisure, till we meet in London some six weeks hence.
“We left home on Monday the 24th, crossed the ![]()
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Mersey, and got to Chester the next evening, and the next
day reached Lord Kenyon’s to dinner.
Gredington (his house) is in Flintshire, not far from old Bangor, where the
monks were massacred, and one of the small meres which are not uncommon in
Cheshire touches upon his grounds. The view is very splendid: Welsh mountains
in the distance, stretching far and wide, and the fore and middle ground
undulated and richly wooded. There we remained till Friday morning, and then
posted to Sweeny Hall, near Oswestry, were Mr.
Parker had a party to meet me at dinner. I called there on
Davies’s mother and his two
sisters, who are just such women as the mother and sisters of so thoroughly
worthy a man ought to be. The former lives in a comfortable cottage which he
purchased for his father some years ago, the two others are married; and the
pleasure of seeing these good people, and of seeing with what delight they
heard me talk of Davies, would have overpaid me for my journey.
“Saturday we reached Mr.
Warter’s (near Shrewsbury) to dinner, staid there Sunday,
and on Monday proceeded to Birmingham, from whence we took chaise for Mr. Egerton Bagot’s at Pipe Hayes. . . .
.
“Two mornings were fully occupied in reading Cowper’s letters with him, and
transcribing such as had hitherto been withheld.
“At four on Wednesday the chaise which I had ordered at
Birmingham arrived, and took us to the Hen and Chickens. We then flew (that is
to say, went in a fly) about a mile out of that town, to drink tea with ![]()
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Mr. Riland, a clergyman, who married a
sister of Robert Wolsely (your
contemporary at Westminster), and who has now and then communicated with me by
letter. We had a pleasant evening; after which we returned, like dutiful
chickens, to rest under the Hen’s wings.
“Thursday, we came to Bristol, and took up our quarters
here at Bedminster with Cottle. Here I
have been to the church which I used to attend with my mother and grandmother
more than half a hundred years ago; and I have shown Cuthbert my grandmother’s
house,—what was once my garden of Eden. At church I was placed in a seat
exactly opposite the spot on which our pew had stood; but the whole interior of
the church had been altered. A few monuments only remained as they had been.
November 8. Tuesday, we walked with Landor about the finest parts of the neighbourhood; but the
house which I inhabited for one year at Westbury, and in which I wrote more
verses than in any other year of my life, has been pulled down. Yesterday I
took the North Pole* to Corston, and went into the house in which I had been at
school fifty-five years ago.
“We go on Saturday to visit Bowles at Bremhill, and shall stay there till Wednesday.
“To-day I have a letter from home with accounts not on
the whole unfavourable;—but upon which I must not allow myself to dwell.
Right glad shall be, or rather right thankful, (for gladness and I have
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little to do with each other now) to find myself at home
again. I am well, thank God, and my spirits seldom fail; but I do not sleep
better than at home, and lose that after-dinner nap, which has for some time
been my soundest and most refreshing sleep. On the whole, however, I expect to
find myself the better for this journey, when I return to remain by the wreck.
You will not wonder that I am anxious to be there again, and that I have a
satisfaction in being there—miserable as it is—which it is
impossible to feel any where else.
“God bless you, my dear Grosvenor!
“Our love to Miss
Page.”
Egerton Arden Bagot (1777-1861)
Of Pype Hayes, Warwickshire, the son Sir Walter Bagot (d. 1806); he was educated at
Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford.
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.
William Lisle Bowles (1762-1850)
English poet and critic; author of
Fourteen Sonnets, elegiac and
descriptive, written during a Tour (1789), editor of the
Works
of Alexander Pope, 10 vols (1806), and writer of pamphlets contributing to the
subsequent Pope controversy.
Joseph Cottle (1770-1853)
Bristol bookseller and poet; he published the
Lyrical Ballads,
several heroic poems that attracted Byron's derision, and
Early
Recollections, chiefly relating to the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 2 vols
(1837).
William Cowper (1731-1800)
English poet, author of
Olney Hymns (1779),
John
Gilpin (1782), and
The Task (1785); Cowper's delicate
mental health attracted as much sympathy from romantic readers as his letters, edited by
William Hayley, did admiration.
Thomas Davies (1844 fl.)
Secretary and amanuensis to the educationist Andrew Bell; he retired to a farm near
Keswick. Cuthbert Southey refers to him as the “late” Mr. Davies in
Life of Robert Southey (1849-1850).
George Kenyon, second baron Kenyon (1776-1855)
Son of the first baron (d. 1802); he was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and was an
ultra-tory peer opposed to Catholic emancipation.
Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)
English poet and man of letters, author of the epic
Gebir (1798)
and
Imaginary Conversations (1824-29). He resided in Italy from 1815
to 1835.
Mary Page (1837 fl.)
The cousin of Grosvenor Bedford and member of his household; Robert Southey knew her from
1791.
Thomas Netherton Parker (1772 c.-1848)
Of Sweeney Hall, near Oswestry, Shropshire, the son of John Parker; he was educated at
Oriel College, Oxford.
John Riland (1778-1863)
Educated at St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford, he married Maria, daughter of Sir Wm. Wolesley,
Bart., and was curate of Yoxall, in Staffordshire. He was a religious
controversialist.
Charles Cuthbert Southey (1819-1888)
Son of Robert Southey whose
Life and Correspondence (1849-1850) he
edited. Educated at Queen's College, Oxford, he was curate of Plumbland in Cumberland,
vicar of Kingsbury Episcopi, Somerset (1855-79) and Askham, near Penrith (1885).
John Wood Warter (1806-1878)
Educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford, he was a clergyman, antiquary,
and the friend and editor of Robert Southey, whose daughter Edith he married in
1834.
Robert Wolseley (1767 c.-1815)
The son of Sir William Wolseley, baronet; he was educated at Westminster School and
entered clerical orders.
