3234. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 22 [January] 1819 ⁠* 

My dear Grosvenor

Mine Gott! de Stoacks! [1]  – After this text I have to submit to your judgement th a reasonable query – whether the three per cents being at 78 – & the five per cents at 107 – it be not better to give 214 for 10£ a year, than – 234 for only 9£. It is true there is the chance of the five per cents being paid off, but whenever that may take place, it is hardly likely that ten per cent <20£> should be lost by the transfer, – & till then it does I am <saving that sum in> gaining twenty shillings a year. Use your judgement & buy in accordingly. As for Ballantyne [2]  I am not suprized at any dirtiness in that corner, & too well pleased at having recovered that to this much to be provoked at the defalcation. Still I remain a loser to the amount of about 200£ without the chance of ever recovering a sixpence. – However here is something to begin with, – hardly got, & hardly saved, – & by Gods blessing if I live & do well, in the course of two years I will add to it largely.

Gifford has postponed both my articles, – but if I may judge by his bill of fare they have given way to baser matter. [3]  It is of no consequence, as they happen to be of no length, & I can do without the supply. And as these are ready for the next number I shall not finish the paper which was in hand. [4]  The time may better be employed upon my Opus Majus, [5]  on which I am working almost too sedulously, because the end is in view. 58 sheets printed, – copy for five or six more in Poples hands. This work is so nearly unproductive in the way of profit (perhaps I am perverse enough to pursue it with the better will for that very reason) – that the completion of it will be like paying off a mortgage on ones estate. I shall then become master of so much productive time, – & the Peninsular War will neither <not> require half the labour. [6] 

D^r Bell is here – which is the only news I have for you.

You see I took courage & skipped my exercise this time. – There are two things which I shall propose to Longman when I see him. To reprint the Carmen Triumphale & the Cong: Odes that they may go with my other verse works, – making a little volume like the Lay; [7]  – & by way of experiment to publish one of the longer poems (no matter which to begin with) without notes, in a single small volume, for popular sale, – at 5 or 6 shillings. [8]  This I think would answer well. It would not prevent any persons from buying the better edition, but it would be bought by very many who would never purchase the other.

I have some papers which I cannot tell how to get rid off in any better way, than by sending them to you in a parcel, – the carriage whereof you must charge in your stewards account. They consist of a communication of the flocci-nauci kind [9]  from Sir Howard Douglas, for which I must request you, thro Gifford, to get a potential frank, – & a packet for Wilberforce, – being an abridgement of the History of the Abolition in Portugueze, which will be printed for circulation in Brazil. [10]  The abridgement is made by Koster – & the printing will be undertaken either by the African Association, [11]  or by Wilberforce himself. – Your pencils shall go in the parcel. [12] 

I have a letter half written to Wynn. [13]  – Good night – And now to correct a proof sheet which has arrived this evening –

RS.

Friday 22 [14]  1819

I hope you admire my newly-discovered talents for dealing in the Stocks.