2670. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 17 November 1815
2670. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 17 November 1815 *
My dear GrosvenorWe have secured a box for Monday at Drury Lane, [1] No 2 dress circle, taken in Miss Cooksons [2] name. If you can join us you had better take your dinner in Q Anne Street at 4 o clock.
I have written a letter to Gifford which I shall not be able to despatch till tomorrow when the proof may accompany it. [3] I hope he will show it to you, – what effect it may produce heaven knows. – Bring with you the sheets of the article in their original state when you come to Q Anne Street, – they are become curious. It is not unlikely that I may offend Croker by the manner in which (without alluding to him) I have pointed out the impolicy & injustice of his interpolations. If it be so, so it may be. He may say what he pleases in his own person & call black white if he likes it, but it is presuming too much to do this in mine. Fools that these people are! as if there were any living man who is more disposed to render full justice to the D of Wellington than I am, or who had <equally> the will & the power to bestow upon him the highest & most lasting praise! [4]
God bless you
RS.
Streatham. Friday evening. 17 Nov. 1815
Notes
* Address: To/ G. C. Bedford Esqr/ Exchequer/
Westminster.
Postmark: 12 o’clock/ NO 18/ 1815 NT
Endorsement: 17 Novr. 1815
MS: Bodleian Library,
MS Eng. Lett. c. 25. ALS; 2p.
Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey,
4 vols (London, 1856), III, p. 4 [in part]. BACK
[1] The tickets were for Christopher Marlowe (bap. 1564, d. 1593; DNB), Tamerlane and John Poole (1785/6–1872; DNB), Who’s Who, or The Double Imposture, performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, on 20 November 1815. The cast of Tamerlane included Edmund Kean (1787–1833; DNB). BACK
[2] Miss Cookson was possibly a relative of Wordsworth, whose mother was Ann Cookson (1747–1778). BACK
[4] Southey was unhappy with changes made by Croker to his review of Eustache-Auguste Carel (1788–1836), Précis Historique de la Guerre d’Espagne et de Portugal, de 1808 à 1814 (1815); Jean Sarrazin (1770–1848), Histoire de la Guerre d’Espagne et de Portugal, de 1807 à 1814 (1814); General View of the Political State of France, and of the Government of Louis XVIII (1815); An Answer to the Calumniators of Louis XVIII (1815); Official Accounts of the Battle of Waterloo (1815); Lieutenant-General W. A. Scott (dates unknown), Battle of Waterloo (1815), Quarterly Review, 13 (July 1815), 448–526. See Southey to John Murray, [22 November 1815] (Letter 2671) and, for the fullest surviving account of events, Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 15 December 1815 (Letter 2682). In his turn, William Gifford, whilst acknowledging the merit of Southey’s article, observed that Southey had failed to notice several of Croker’s emendations; see the summary of correspondence between Gifford and Murray in Jonathan Cutmore, The Quarterly Review Archive. BACK
