3577. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 8 December 1820⁠* 

8 Dec. 1820.

My dear G.

I am heartily glad to see you writing once more in a healthful tone. Your letter on this account has done me as much good as a bottle of honest Rhenish, or better Moselle would have done, – & you know how well those wines agree with me, & I with them.

My vision grows, grows, grows, & will get beyond 600 lines, which in this lengthy measure contain as much matter as 1000 in blank verse. [1]  It cuts into a dozen sections, – breathing places being very agreable for short-winded persons, in long-winded poems. Every day for the last week I have expected to finish it. Today I took a holiday, partly because a parcel arrived, & I had letters to write, & partly because I had applied it too closely, as I found in my sleep.

You may have it in ordinary quarto if you like the size better. The foolscap seems to me, tho an unusual form in this country, a good one, & especially for long-lined verse. Profit or loss is out of the question. It will pay its expences & not much more. But it will be talked of, & abused & ridiculed, which is all well, – & it will do me credit both now & hereafter, – which is better. – You shall have the first portion of it in a few days

God bless you

RS.