229. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, [c. 30 June 1797]

229. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, [c. 30 June 1797] *
My dear Grosvenor
Will you be good enough to buy for me the two three following books at Whites — Fleet Street. [1] they are in his catalogue for 1796 — & probably still unsold as not being in general requisition.
No. | 1930. | St Louis & Oeuvres Poetiques de la Moyne. [2] | s7 — 6 |
9908. | Il Conquisto di Granata, di Graziani. [3] | s2 — 6 | |
4325. | Guerra de Granada contra los Moriscos. por D. Diego de Mendoza. [4] | s10 — d6. |
you or your brother have my direction — & if you will send them by the Poole Mail which goes from the Bell & Crown — Holborn — near Grays Inn — they will reach me safely. & you & your brother may write by the parcel. when the Member for Old Sarum takes his seat we shall a different mode of franking.
It is no small proof of self denial Grosvenor that I am now writing to you. I received yesterday Chapelains Pucelle from John May — & have as yet read only five books of the twelve. I will not make any remarks upon it. I shall draw out such an account of it as I have done of La Hermosura de Angelica [5] & prefix to the next edition of my Joan of Arc, [6] for which I shall now prepare without farther delay. I would not begin before I had read Chapelain. it was probable that many historical facts might be found in him which had escaped me, born 150 years after the publication of his book in a foreign country. this I do not find the case. but you shall see my Analysis & extracts & judge for yourself of the merits of Chapelain. he has no x notes. an inexcusable fault.
I called on the old Lady Strathmore [7] Tuesday last. the old woman is not that learned lady she is imagined. she sets up for a good Spanish & Italian scholar, & has gained credit for it — I am told she speaks both languages fluently — but of the literature of either people she knows very little indeed — your boarding school picks up as much from her Italian Master. her house is finely situated & looks over a fine sweep of land & water richly intermingled.
I slept little in the Mail — tis too rough a cradle to be rocked in. my walk from Ringwood was 8 miles — a long way for one with stiff knees swoln feet & blistered heels. every thing here is very quiet — I am very happy — & want only time. if I could but study Law while I am asleep now — oh for some blessed Mail Coach way of travelling that blackguard road! — however I know something about it now — & perhaps ten years hence Grosvenor — we may throw some little light upon the Law. — you know how we will officiate in our robes at the sacrifice — & then burn them too.
Still foul weather — I love England daily less & less. Eutopia must have a better climate Grosvenor — & we must drink Claret from our own vineyards in our own orange gardens. but when! —
I thought to have written to Horace this morning but Biddlecombe has been with me thi delayed yours & left no time. I shall write to him tomorrow. tell him this & tell him likewise to write that his letter may come with the books.
Danvers has seen Kosciusko. [8] he called upon him — & Kosciusko appeared highly gratified with the visit — he was drawing & observed “you spend time & I endeavour to kill it!” Sam Reed [9] went with Danvers. when they took leave of him he seemd affected & loth to part with them pressing them by the hand with no common earnestness. you know not how I envy them this.
God bless you Grosvenor.
Yrs affectionately
Robert Southey.
Notes
* Address: Grosvenor Charles Bedford/ New Palace Yard/ Westminster
Stamped:
RINGWOOD
Postmark: AJU/ 30/ 97
Watermark: Crown and anchor with G R underneath
Endorsements: 29 June 1797; Recd June 30. 1797
MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 23. ALS; 4p.
Unpublished. BACK
[2] Pierre Le Moyne (1602–1672), author of the epic poem St Louis (1653) and Les Oeuvres Poetiques (1671). Southey owned a copy of the latter; see A. N. L. Munby (gen. ed.), Sale Catalogues of Libraries of Eminent Persons, vol. 9 Poets and Men of Letters, ed. Roy Park (London, 1974), p. 178. BACK
[4] Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1503–1575), Guerra de Granada: Hecha por El Rey de España Don Felipe II, Nuestro Señor, Contra los Moriscos de Aguel Reyno, Sus Rebeldes ; Historia Escrita en Quatro Libros (1674). Southey owned a copy; see A. N. L. Munby (gen. ed.), Sale Catalogues of Libraries of Eminent Persons, vol. 9 Poets and Men of Letters, ed. Roy Park (London, 1974), p. 266. BACK
[5] Southey’s analysis of Lope Felix de Vega Carpio (1562–1635), La Hermosura de Angelica (1602) was published in Letters Written During a Short Residence in Spain and Portugal (Bristol, 1797), pp. 131–66. BACK
[6] Southey’s analysis of Jean Chapelain (1595–1674), La Pucelle ou la France Délivrée (1656) was published in Joan of Arc, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Bristol, 1798), I, pp. 23–79. BACK
[7] Mary Eleanor Bowes (1749–1800; DNB), heiress, botanist and author of a five act play, The Siege of Jerusalem (1769). Her first husband was John Lyon (1737–1776), 9th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, her second the fortune-hunter Andrew Robinson Stoney (1747–1810). In 1789, her abusive marriage to Stoney ended in an acrimonious and scandalous divorce. BACK