1073. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 7 June 1805 ⁠* 

Dear Grosvenor –

Send me in your next the famous verse in Fields Bible which the Presbyterians altered, & the date of the Bible. [1]  I have a use for the story, & do not tell anybody that I have asked you for it – for a reason which if you come to the mountains to Garagantuafy, [2]  you will find worth knowing. [3] 

De Anonymis. To put them at the end would be out of chronology – if there are enough to make it worth while I could insert them every twenty years or at some such equal distance [4]  – introducing a half or whole sheet between Hopkins & Dryden as the first of the family. [5]  If this be done you have among the papers which I gave you a ballad upon one of P. Eugenes victories over the Turks – copied from the Europ. Magazine, which should go in as a good specimen of the ballads of that time – indeed I transcribed it for that purpose. [6]  The danger in taking any of these bastards is that they xxxx may have been fathered afterwards, & we not know it.

For Elkanah the Dragon [7]  you may easily find a song out of one of his plays, which to be sure Isaacus has. [8] 

Do not let Biggs spraddle his stanzas straddingly. he usually puts one less in a page than there ought to be. & dont let him stick in his crooked &cs – instead of Falalal–la–la. for they are very ugly & balk both ones eye & ones tongue. Tis a vile trick introduced by the laziness of printers.

Why need you transcribe when Hyems [9]  is at your service? – the Biography of blockheads is of little importance. ‘he published &c’ is enough for any of the obscuri viri [10]  & the articles may go in according to the date of the volume.

I wish Horaces appointment may take place for his own sake & for mine. [11]  it will be a much better shose to read in his rooms than in the public room, because there will be a seat by the fire, & one may chuse ones own time. And for our opus it will be excellent, inasmuch as Hyems may be admitted there.

I do not remember any thing about Nicholas Amhurst, except that he published the Terrae-Filius, which never fell my way. [12]  You may do what you please with all my jokes – Only dont let any stand against the Scotch, because one ought not to tho it is very amusing to make jokes upon Scotland & the Scotchman, one ought not to print them.

If the anonymous be inserted the Magazines should be inspected. that is such as lie in your way. – but there will be always the danger of not knowing that such pieces have been afterwards avowed. What an admirable poem is that Old Batchelor which I inserted in the Anthology! [13] 

Not a word about Butleriography [14]  in your letter! & I the while have dreamt about it both sleeping & waking, – & when broad awake with closed eyes. for alas my eyes are again diseased. I hoped the complaint was gone for ever, & now believe it will never be effectually cured.

I want an Act of Parliament passed. is that all? you say. the case is this. there is now a whole room full of folios, lying at Lisbon for me. collected wholly for my history [15]  & in great part consisting of monastic xxxx history & such things <as> are only of use in such researches as those on which I am employed. To pay sixpence per pound weight for all these is an expence far beyond what I can bear, – & in many instances more than the prime cost, or actual value of the books. – I do believe that a bill for repealing the duty on foreign books might would pass without opposition, – for the amount must be trifling, & it is a direct & cruel tax upon literature. The plea that it x relates to bound books is ridiculous. All old books are bound, you must buy them as you can get them. As it is I have no alternative but that of smuggling them in in small quantities at a time – which I shall do without the slightest scruple. but this is a very slow & tedious operation, & I cannot manage it at London where the greatest part ought to be landed at once.

You mention Tuffin in one of your letters. he is a clever man, very amusing, & one of the great Conversationists of this age. His acquaintance & his friend Sharpes are worth cultivating, – they both know something of every body & of every thing. I want to know the end & aim of this London Institution which Sharpe has been busy about, [16]  whether it has any reference to a project of mine which he & I talked over here last June.

Thank God the French are out of the WIndies. that uneasiness is over. – I am not well, – we have had winds from the E. & N.E. unremittingly for almost three months, & then I always wish myself at Lisbon. I would give up society & my mother tongue for the sake of climate, – ten years in Portugal – or perhaps half the time would give me a new constitution, & in all probability a new lease for my life. But it is no use to fret about ones latitude & longitude.

I have received another letter which was thrown overboard for me in the Atlantic. [17]  Oh for such luck in the lottery – which I am not likely to have – because I never try.

God bless you.

RS.

June 7. 1805. Keswick.