2963. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, [2 April 1817]

2963. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, [2 April 1817]⁠* 

It is well for you Grosvenor that the Devil does not take me at my word, – for otherwise he would infallibly take you. I have consigned you to him at least a dozen times this day, for not having sent me the mss of my last article, many of the expunged passages & which would have come in with excellent effect, in what I am now writing to Wm Smith. [1]  At this moment I want one paragraph so much, & feel so vexed at not having it that I have lain my writing aside on purpose to abuse you.

Pray, pray, pray send them to me without delay.

The conclusion of Smiths letter by the next post. It is a brief statement of my views, – to which I must add at the end a flourish with the cat of nine tails. – About four pages more. Pople must use a liberal type so as to extend my fourteen or fifteen pages to about twice the number.


Notes

* Address: To/ G. C. Bedford Esqr
Endorsement: 2 April 1817; March. 2 April 1817
MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. d. 47. AL; 2p.
Unpublished.
Dating note: Dating from endorsement. BACK

[1] Southey was working on A Letter to William Smith, Esq., M.P. and wished to draw on the manuscript of his earlier essay on ‘Parliamentary Reform’. He could not use the version of this essay printed in Quarterly Review, 16 (October 1816), 225–278, because it had been censored, much to his annoyance. BACK

People mentioned

Smith, William (1756–1835) (mentioned 2 times)