1054. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 6 April 1805 ⁠* 

Dear Grosvenor

He of the long hands tells me the printers have ‘returned to their duty.’ [1]  – that he shall see you shortly, – & will proceed with all dispatch in the specimens, – tidings very agreeable. – Make a Mem. that from the poem of Robert Ferguson, born at Edinburgh 1750–1774 Hyems [2]  transcribes the poems ‘Against repining at Fortune, – Ode to the Gowdspink, & The Farmers Ingle. [3]  I would say of him that – of one who died so young it would be hard & unjust to judge xxxxx severely. that there would have been no lack of talents if his moral stamina had been sounder, & that Burns’s admiration for him & Allan Ramsay seems to have been taken up like his attachment to the Stuarts, as a national prejudice, in this instance strengthened by a natural feeling for the unhappy fate of one whose faults so nearly resembled his own. [4] 

I have some brief things to say about Scotch poetry as to the Language, which will best come in under Allan Ramsay. [5]  the language is no more spoken there than here it is a sort of Rowleyism, composed of all the Scotch words they can collect – as Chatterton raked in glossaries, [6]  – which has this advantage that it passes for wit if you see the author meant to be witty, – because you cannot tell whether he is or no, & allow him to introduce all the beastliest phrases & images in cant language, for which, if they had been in plain English or plain Scotch the book would have been deservedly thrown behind the fire.

M^r Bedford I saw your pamphlet, your secret was kept Sir, but yet it did not escape me, a simple man, living among the mountains – yet one who has intelligences M^r Bedford xxxxx <from quarters> M^r Bedford, which M^r Bedford does not suspect. It is good sense well put. But you did not go the right way to make it produce an effect. there are two ways – that of writing shortly & stingingly in a newspaper – which is the best if followed up, – & that of making a volume with a parody of knowledge, & an ostentation of secret information – of being <behind> the curtain. A pamphlet is lost from its form, tis a child in a crowd. By this time M^r Bedford will perceive that when I publish any thing my bookseller is instructed to forward a copy. But Sir I have the Letter to M^r Pitt on the success of his political experiment. [7] 

Tom has had another escape, having changed his Captain the ship was watering at S^t Kitts when he wrote instead of at Dominica. [8]  had he been there instead of writing to me on the 19^th of Feb^y he would have been that very day made prisoner by the French fleet! [9]  – And now shall I be anxious till that cursed fleet is blocked up safely or demolished. I have a sort of faith that Tom will get on after all, & be Sir Thomas yet before he dies. I have promised him when he is an Admiral & wins a victory that he shall have the best poem made to his praise & glory that ever Admiral xx yet had.

We go on badly in the East, badly in the West & badly in the at home. Grosvenor that same Minister whom you talked civilly to is a cursed Charlatan. the difference between him & Addington [10]  is that he is bottled small beer – & the other was draught small beer this <the> brisker & frothier – but <both> the same meagre & miserable stuff. And what think you of M^r Trotter? & my Lord Brazenface? [11]  – We ought to take the Cape, [12]  & to take Egypt, for unless we have both France will. we ought to colonize both with Sepoys [13]  & Chinese – & to fight garrison the West Indies with Sepoys also. We want ports in the Mediterranean & ought to reclaim Tangiers, & to take Ceuta [14]  – for if Gibralter be besieged it is not to be supposed that Lisbon will be left open to us. [15]  but first & foremost we ought to boot out the miserable dogs of administration who do nothing but disgrace the country, & exhaust the purses & patience of the people. It frets me at the core when I think what England could be if only governed with plain good straight-forward good sense, & that this prate-apace should pass for a politician. [16]  Whoever takes him for a great man – need never laugh at the Egyptians for worshiping a monkey as a God.

You have got Madoc. [17]  the books about Llewelyn – the disinterment of Owen – & the Snake-God, are in their different ways the best parts. [18]  The pervading merit of the second part that while the Aztecas are not made individually hateful, such a general feeling of abhorrence against them is excited as to reconcile the mind to the catastrophe. Perhaps if it reach a second edition, of which the price makes me doubtful, I shall brighten it up with occasional similes. [19]  – I am now correcting Joan of Arc for a third edition a mortifying task to find how much is incorrigibly bad. [20] 

God bless you –

RS.

April 6. 1805.

Let me see the first proof [21]  before it be struck off as that will [MS torn] pattern sheet. the Emperor of the Franks will may be called upon for his sign manual.