April 24 1812: Robert Southey: Huzza!

On April 24, 1812, Robert Southey is writing a letter to his friend,  Grosvenor Charles Bedford. He leaves the envelope open waiting to include a letter that Sarah Coleridge is writing to send to her husband in London. An hour passes and Southey is inspired to write some lines of poetry for the poem he is working on and which would become part of  Roderick, the Last of the Goths. Southey adds a few more lines to his letter to Bedford to express his excitement at being so inspired. Southey's letter is reproduced below. 

Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 24 April 1812 

My dear Grosvenor

One of the inclosed letters will give you Coleridges direction,   – he is in a more accessible position than his late one at Hammersmith. The other conveys certain questions to Blanco concerning events at Seville & Cadiz, upon which I want information which he can give me.

I live in hope of seeing you & the Master of the Rolls also this summer. If you travel leisurely & wish to see all the sights on they way, be sure to make Ludlow in your course, – one of the prettiest places in England, – the Castle is the finest ruin of its kind in the island.

You will soon have another book of Pelayo.  I am disposed to give more time to it, from a suspicion that it might go on better if it went on faster.

_____

This envelope has laid open <about> an hour since the above was written, waiting for Mrs C. epistle. And during that hour the I have had glorious dreams of Pelayo – which will speedily take a substantial form. I was just come to an important part of the road, where all was dark before me, – & now the light shines. Huzza! there is a pleasure in these things above that of getting a good prize in the lottery, – & it is well that I think so. So Good night Grosvenor, for by the Lord I  am in the humour of writing some verses before supper, & will not baulk for the best per sheet-age that ever tempted poor poet to devote himself to prose.

RS.

Friday. April 24. 1812.