2900. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 17 January 1817⁠* 

My dear G.

I hope, & conclude from the temper of your letter, that your beauty is all that has suffered any serious injury in these providential escapes. – A few lines I write in haste, – because this is an opportunity of conveying them. It was desirable to include in the book the matter of certain former articles: & as it is proper to state this in a prefatory advertisement that acknowledgement may cover as much or as little as is convenient. So the present article goes first into the Review, & then great part of it is transferred to the book; – the first part with little alteration; the latter with omissions, & additions, & in a different arrangement. [1] 

The sauces I ought to have told you are sold in little cases, which Burgess will send per wagon, per se. [2] 

It does not surprize me that I guest rightly at the scheme of the Noddles in office – to call them Heads would be paying them an undeserved compliment. What else indeed could they mean? – I wish M Wellesley were in their place.

– Gifford is right about Rectum, & perhaps he will strike out the quotation from

Hobbes also, – if he does he will be wrong. [3] 

My table is covered with sedition. How is it that they suffer these things to be printed without stamps – Cobbett thus sells from 40 to 50,000 per week & is sold at two pence each. [4] 

Remember me to all at home

God bless you

RS

17 Jan^ry. 1817