2441. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 15 June [1814]

2441. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 15 June [1814] ⁠* 

My dear Grosvenor

I gather from the papers that I shall be in time: [1]  – tho not to correct the proofs –

In the Princes ode insert these lines, following

Fear, Sorrow & Repentance following close;
And War, scarce deigning to conceal
Beneath the mantles folds his armed plight,
Dogging her steps with deadly eye intent;
Sure of his victim, & in devlish joy
Laughing behind his <the> mask.
Not thus doth Peace return!
A blessed visitant she comes,
Honour &c –
& presently                 Are in her joyful train

instead of come, becau because of that <what> comes above [2] 

In the next place, Longman will send you 4 copies, that you may convey one to Herries, Courtenay, [3]  & Knox. [4]  So light a thing is easily dropt by you, – & this shortens my list of instructions to the Long Men of the Row.

Let me have these books of Roderick [5]  with as little delay as possible. Perhaps the poem would have been finished if I had not run out of the course for the sake of the odes. The printing gets on rapidly – I send off to night almost all the remaining xxxx notes.

I should have told you that Pople is my London printer, – but I concluded that you would send the mss to Longman, – thro whom it had better pass.

Scripsi Crokero  [6] 

RS.

Wednesday 15 June

Notes

* Address: G. C. B.
Endorsement: 15. June 1814/ Recd. 18. June – the alteration was corrected in the proof but not attended to by the Printer.
MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 25. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished. BACK

[1] The letter deals with arrangements for the publication of Southey’s odes paying tribute to the Prince Regent and celebrating the 1814 visit to London of Alexander I (1777–1825; Emperor of Russia 1801–1825) and Frederick William III (1770–1840), ruler of Prussia since 1797; published as Congratulatory Odes. Odes to His Royal Highness The Prince Regent, His Imperial Majesty The Emperor of Russia, and His Majesty the King of Prussia (1814). Southey was ‘in time’ because the visiting dignities had not yet left Britain. They left Dover for the Continent on 27 June 1814. BACK

[2] The corrections are for ‘Ode to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland’, III; Congratulatory Odes. Odes to His Royal Highness The Prince Regent, His Imperial Majesty The Emperor of Russia, and His Majesty the King of Prussia (London, 1814), p. 8. BACK

[3] Thomas Peregrine Courtenay had previously been a civil servant at the Exchequer, where he probably encountered Grosvenor Bedford. BACK

[4] John William Knox (1784–1862), clergyman, scholar and usher at Westminster School 1806–1821. BACK

[5] MS books of Roderick, the Last of the Goths (1814), sent to Bedford for his criticism. BACK

[6] ‘I will write to Croker’. BACK

Addressee

Bedford, Grosvenor Charles (1773–1839)

People mentioned

Longman, Thomas Norton (1771–1842) (mentioned 2 times)
Courtenay, Thomas Peregrine (1782–1841) (mentioned 1 time)
Pople, William (fl. 1806–1837) (mentioned 1 time)
George IV (1762–1830) (mentioned 1 time)
Croker, John Wilson (1780–1857) (mentioned 1 time)
Herries, John Charles (1778–1855) (mentioned 1 time)
The Collected Letters of Robert Southey, Part Four
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