2785. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 10 May 1816⁠* 

My dear Grosvenor

The Senhora says that the beginning of your letter has given her the stomach ache for the rest of the evening, – & that she has unluckily no assafelidated snuff to comfort her. It was a wicked trick she says.

There can be no other objection to what Herries suggests, – than the sort of impropriety which may appear in asking permission which you have already taken for granted in or you would not have printed the poem. I wish Herries would present it himself & make the request verbally – suppose that leave were asked to dedicate to her. [1] 

The delay which this will occasion in publishing is so much the better, for undoubtedly the Long men are right in wishing to let the Pilgrimage have the field to itself for a while. [2] Murray even thought it injudicious to publish the Pilgrimage, as in some degree diverting the public eye from Roderick [3]  – but he was wrong. However Longman will <must> not advertise the poem till the day of publication, both for this reason & also because of what Herries has advised,

I cannot alter Dream because of the rhyme. [4] 

If guardant [5]  be wrong it is your friend the Heralds error, [6]  & not mine, – he says Guardant in the paper which you transmitted me

strange means extraordinary, – therefore the fit word. [7] 

Ere now, if you please [8] 

I feel the objection about S^t Paul, & am unable to remove it [9] 

I cannot tell whether skïey be the best orthography, but the word must be, – because it is only in celestial blue that Hope can be clad. [10]  The word is analogically formed

I have not the lea slightest objection to printing the two lines in capitals. Thy kingdom come is certainly meant in that place with an earthly application, – ‘in earth as it is in heaven’. [11]  I am glad you feel these lines as they were written

The L’Envoy is compleatly in keeping with the tone <character> & manner of the poem, – & compleats the Elizabethan tone of the whole. It grew out of my own sense of fitness, – certainly not from any other feeling. [12] 

I assuredly think of this Lay as you do. You may do me good service by reviewing the Carmen, the Odes, the Pilgrimage & the Lay at once, as the Laureates poems; [13]  –

I am glad to have my mind occupied for a while by such things as this. If sympathy were of any avail, no man I believe ever had more of it – I do not think any like event would have affected so many persons with sincere sorrow. I shall soon strike off the beginning of my intended poem – perhaps the last poem of any considerable extent that I shall ever undertake, – the one which will be most generally felt & understood, & perhaps produce most good. Say not a word of this, – for only to you have I hinted it. It will be Herberts monument & mine. [14]  I do not contemplate this undertaking without a kind of pleasure, & I must practise more & more that alchemy which can extract pleasure from each hope & comfort from affliction. But no more.

___

You mistake the L’Envoy if you conceive it as implying any feeling of indifference, – far otherwise, – the book is cast on the waters in fait the belief that it is good, in the hope that it may fare according to its desert, – in the faith that it will be found after many days.

I send you the few notes which are required. The title page I think will look better without my name, the English title implyi designating the author sufficiently. [15]  – My plans of printing verse have been changed more than once in conformity to the advice of others, – my own opinion is that as we spell words in prose as they ought to be written and not as they are pronounced, therefore making no elision in the verb, we ought to do the same in verse. Every body will read pleased & appeared &c as disyllables. In verse however it sometimes happens, tho very rarely, that a syllable usually which is usually quiescent is to be pronounced, – the word beloved is the perhaps that which is most often in this predicament, – I know two poets (no matter what of merit, – they are authorities in such a cases) who wish this were denoted by a mark, & one of them has used the mark of t a long syllable in Latin – for this purpose. [16]  I have preferred the .. the meaning of which any person who reads French or Latin will instantly recognize. As for redd I thought it was you yourself who advised me to write redde a short time since & not caring myself which way it were written I thought to please you. [17]  Red is certainly the lawful spelling – but it has a scarlet look with it, & is therefore to be avoided, – so if you please I will stick to the old mumpsimus. [18] 

Let there be two copies of the Lay bound precisely alike, one for Edith my Governess, & one for the Prince of Cobourgs; [19]  & do you send my Governesss, down in a treasury frank, as carefully as you did the prints. – You will settle with Herries about the mode of presenting, & whether the simpler way will not be for me to write a no few lines with it; as short & as respectful as possible (without asking any permission, or saying any thing about her petty-toes. Something to this effect that I have endeavoured to discharge my duty upon an occasion of great national joy, by producing something worthy to hold a place hereafter in the national literature, – that it had been my pride & my pleasure If we ask leave to dedicate, this can easily be managed by not striking off more than the two title pages than for the two Court-copies till the leave be granted. [20]  Do you determine all this.

They have made a provoking a blunder in printing the Pilgrimage in boards – by placing the half-title to the Proem as if it were a half title to the Book. [21]  When you get your own copy bound see that this is rectified.

Remember me to all at home

God bless you

RS.

10 May. 1816.

If Lord W^m Gordon [22]  is to present it he x Harry will take it to him for that purpose with a letter from me. I am quite upon terms to ask such a favour of him.