2597. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 10 May 1815 ⁠* 

Why you are a greater villain than I thought you, – a more unpardonable sinner.

Extract from a note from Gifford. May 2. 1815.

“Grosvenor has had a very enviable opportunity. – He will I dare say render you an interesting account of his peregrination.”

There you wretch! Read that! – Here have I been ever since your return daily expecting your news from Ld Wellington & the armies, – & what was to be hoped & what was to be feared, & what was to be expected, &c &c &c, – to say nothing of your dangers by fire & by water, – & the Devil a word have you told me!

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Can you send me some money? – for I am in want thereof. My Egyptian article [1]  is a good mortgage as far as £30: the Wellington one will pay my half yearly bills. [2]  – I am afraid the Quarterly will long continue to be the better for my necessities; – tho I car sorely grudge the time which is bestowed upon such temporary & time-serving compositions. But what with the sudden subtraction of my Edinburgh xxxxxxxx resources, [3]  – the actual loss sustained there, the burthen which for nearly three years C. has thrown upon me, & then this rascally fellow [4]  swindling me out of 30 £ (for it was clearly a deliberate fraud) at the very time when my means were least adequate to the demands upon them; I am put to my shifts more than at any former time. I must have two articles in every number till my history [5]  is finished; – & yet you every temporary avocation necessarily delays that time.

It does not surprize me that you do not like the Inscriptions [6]  tho I differ from you in estimating their merit. When you see more of them you will I think in some degree alter your opinion, & perceive that they are diversified with considerable skill, & written with appropriate precision. I shall look carefully to your criticisms, – the word beleagered which you propose is not applicable; – it means besieged, & the people of Porto were not in a state of siege.

Longman proposes a pocket size, – & the notes to be extended to Biographical memoirs, – which I shall adopt in those cases <only> where there is good matter for them. He then thinks the book likely to be popular. A small edition in 4to he says may be printed if I desire it. I do not desire it. Not that I expect it to be popular, – but in any size – but I would not clog the sale by any foolish preference for a handsome outset. Roderick [7]  is selling well, – that is to say well for a book of mine, but my profits will little exceed 100 £ an edition, – & it will no doubt stick when it reaches a third, – & I am woefully behind hand in their books. A fashionable sale would send me smoothly on to Port Prosperity, – but it is impossible that any such a poem can get into vogue.

A youth of great promise wrote to me some three years ago about his future prospects. I gave him good advice, – & got him placed at Emanuel College, where he was doing as well as could be asked; his family built much upon him, – & with good reason. This fever has cut him off – & he like Kirke White is laid to rest in the Cloister of his own college. His name was Dusautoy, – his father [8]  a half-pay officer with a large family, – of whom this eldest boy was the hope as well as the pride. I have been a good deal affected at his death as you may well suppose.

God bless you

RS.

10 May 1815.