1288. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 15 March 1807

1288. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 15 March 1807 *
Dear Grosvenor
You will do as you think best about Errata [1] – I had given up the thoughts of any in utter despair, for to enumerate all would I believe fill a whole sheet & to give only a short list when they are so out of all numeration would be impudent. Not to mention that in most instances the emendation can only be conjectural, & in many the blunder is so great that it leaves no ground even for a guess. here follow some which are in the prose-work –
Vol 1. | 361– | for Werter – | read – | Winter | |
444 – | – have | has | |||
V 3 – | 150 – | descended – | ascended | ||
269 – | to be | too | |||
423 – line 1 | – was – | is | |||
434 – Do 1 | – made – | make – |
& in the account of Glover [2] bad language should have been bald language – see how these printers contrive to murder ones meaning!
I gave no directions about sending you a copy – because I conceive you entitled to as many as you please – & to half the profits of the book, be that what it may – (i-e- half the Editors profits, who also <& therefore> one fourth of the whole) be it xxx between three & four pound like the remuneration of Madoc – or between one & two thousand like the guerdon of Walter Scotts Lay [3] – ‘Oh sweet guerdon – better than Remuneration’ [4]
I do not think it was necessary to cancel the 2d sheet of the Preface – but am not sorry it is done. About Amhurst you have seen my opinion [5] – I wish it had not been there – tho its <it> is certainly offensive only in its subject, it may stand. But Ld Chesterfields wit, & the grossness of Gildon & Hinchcliffe must out. [6] I would rather see my name nailed upon the gallows, than prefixed to a book containing them. And that doleful blunder about Wartons Sonnet [7] will cost two leaves – that was a dismal oversight indeed. – Have you look Your second Catalogue is as defective as the rest of the book – not half – not a tithe of the Academical titles are specified. But if I were to find out all the abominations of the books I should make you waste like a Newmarket jockey in training
You tell me nothing about Horace. I was very serious in the advice I gave you about him, whatever you may have thought, – & am fully persuaded that there is nothing else to be done. [8] – It would rejoice me to hear you had found a house – once settled & you will find that you have lost little. Shall I give you an example of true philosophy? – My daughter has this day lost her two cousins [9] – After staring a little when they were gone, & she understood they were not to come back – I can xxxxxx xxxxx play by myself – said she. Presently she began to rejoice at the thoughts that Daniel would come in the evening – (a playmate of Derwents) – but hearing also that he would not come – she answered after another pause – I can do without him.
Well said my true daughter!
God bless you
RS.
Sunday March 15. 1807.
Notes
* Address: To/G. C. Bedford Esqr
Endorsement: 15 March 1807
MS: Bodleian Library, Eng. Lett. c. 24. ALS; 4p.
Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.),
Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 421–423 [in part]. BACK
[2] Richard Glover (1712–1785; DNB) is discussed in the third volume of Southey’s and Bedford’s Specimens of the Later English Poets, 3 vols (London, 1807), p. 329. BACK
[3] The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) went through six editions in three years and sold 27000 copies in ten years. BACK
[5] Nicholas Amhurst (1697–1742; DNB), a poet and political writer, who published the satirical Terræ Filius; or, the Secret History of the University of Oxford (1726). A selection from his works is featured in the Specimens of the Later English Poets, I, pp. 394–398. For Southey’s opinion, see Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 2 January 1807, Letter 1255. BACK
[6] Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773; DNB), Charles Gildon (1665–1723; DNB) and William Hinchcliffe (1692–1742); see Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 14 March 1807, Letter 1286. BACK
[8] For Southey’s advice regarding Horace Bedford, see Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 2 February 1807, Letter 1270. BACK
[9] Derwent and Sara Coleridge. Sarah Coleridge had gone to join her husband and Hartley, who were on their way to Devon. BACK