2467. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 7 August 1814 ⁠* 

Keswick. 7 August. 1814

My dear G.

My only reason for putting the dedication in Latin was that I knew not how to render in English the ‘in perpetuam amicitiæ memoriam’. [1]  The objection to latinizing Grosvenor is, I think, overstrained. [2]  Almost every name has some meaning – Roderick for instance is Rode-rich, – consilio pollens, [3]  but Rodericus is the proper Latin. If it be in English it must run simply thus

To –

G. C. B.

this poem is inscribed

by his old schoolfellow & friend

R. S.

– if it be in Latin I should like after the G. C. B to insert if I were more sure of the Latinity

olim condiscipulo et semper amico [4] 

Chuse you between them, – for my own part I prefer the Latin, because it is <only> for things of this kind only that I have felt ever felt our language x ill adapted, – but my reason for the preference professing it here but the reason of my preference in this instance is the in perpetuam &c – a foreign tongue here gives something of the same kind of license as a mask. [5] 

Some of your remarks upon these last books have been profitably attended to. About Mahommeds coffin you will find that I have Mohammedan authority. [6]  Their notion is that it is supported by angels, – the vulgar opinion supposed a loadstone, – I make it a constant miracle of his own working. If there had been need I could easily have shown in a note that infidelity was in fashion among the Moors of this age. <The Ommiade Caliphs [7]  were mostly unbelievers themselves.> The xx tone of the speech cannot be mistaken, – its use was to introduce some of those appropriate allusions of which the poem stands in need, the time in which it is laid being barren of costume.

I have My ear is always accustomed to hear humble not umble [8]  – & by writing a humble this pronunciation is plainly expected

The string of names [9]  has some use; the number giving an impression of the importance of Julians forces, & the names themselves being carefully chosen to show to learned eyes the mungrel nature of the composition of the army, being Greek Roman, Gothic & Sueve & Vandal.

I will substitute wretch for Beast <or Blind> if you like it better. The only question is which is the more natur dramatic; that is to say the more natural

In the first book there is all bloody all abominable things, [10]  which is what you remember. There was also yea & hallowed them on, but this was expunged & transplanted to the place where you recognize it.

____

If Gifford lets you review Roderick [11]  you may notice that it is a poem sui generis, [12]  – which is the same indeed with all my poems, except Joan of Arc [13]  (that as far as story goes, being almost without invention, & in its battles &c very much selon les regles. [14] ) Heroic poems have usually been things of mere imitation, & therefore worthless. But as time changes what delighted one age becomes would no longer delight another. We admire Homer deservedly (& undeservedly too, as might very easily be shown by a good analysis of the two poems), – but if Homer were living t now, he would write very differently: book after book of butchery, however skilfully performed is unsuitable to the European state of mind at present, & the raw head & bloody-bone-monsters of the Odyssey are not better. In this age & xxx Homer would address himself more to our feelings & reflecting faculties.

If you say any thing of my stile & ‘the school’ as it is called, there would have been a good opportunity if some egregious nonsense upon this subject had not got into the last number of the Quarterly. [15]  The history of my style is simply this. In all young poets it is & ever must be, mere imitation. We imitate what we admire, & as we admire (when young) in wholesale, defects become the easiest objects of imitation. Thus they who imitate Milton succeed in writing something very stiff, very pedantic & anti-English. My favourite poet was Spenser but at the age when of what might be termed poetical puberty when the voice of song began to be fixed, I had Bowles by heart. – Perhaps I have read more poetry than any man living, – much Italian, much French, – almost every thing Spanish, Portugueze Latin & English, & in former times a proper share of Greek. But for many years I had entirely laid it aside till within these few months. My mature style aims at nothing but to express in pure English what I have to say: – xxx I profess nothing but to avoid the barbarisms & nonsense which have so long past current in verse. Briefly, the subject being such as seems good to me, & the manner of treating it my own, I <endeavour to> write <in> such English as would bear the assay of Q Elizabeths [16]  mint: & it is in this, & in this only, that the resemblance between my poetry & Wordsworths exists. Whether we write well or ill in other respects, all that we write is English, & this cannot be said of Scott, Ld Byron, Campbell [17]  &c &c –. It may be good for nothing, but it is not bad in itself; – the sense may be worthless, but it is not nonsense.

Ballantyne was instructed to preserve the mss for you: I hope he has done so, & that I may get it back from him in time to send it to you by Atra Nox, [18]  who is I suppose somewhere between Lancaster & Keswick at this time, in woeful weather.

Make the corrections in the Odes. [19] 

My Bust [20]  was broken xxx x on the way – the head however remaining with no other injury than the loss of part of the scalp. I have proposed to erect it upon a mop stick in the pea-garden, & accommodate it with one of my old hats, – where it may serve to frighten away the birds.

Oliver Goffe was christened after his godfather Oliver Cromwell, & thereby came by one of the finest names in our language. I marvel at your disliking it. Would you like Oliver Newman better for the title? [21]  for Newman he will call himself, for the sake of concealment, methodisticé, or rather quakericé in reference to his new birth. If you object of this remember the Οΰτις [22]  of Homer & Euripides.

RS.