Rogers to request him to secure the help of Moore.
"I must confess," said Rogers to Moore, "I heard of the new quarterly
with pleasure, as I thought it might correct an evil we had long
lamented together. Gifford wishes much for contributors, and is
exceedingly anxious that you should assist him as often as you can
afford time.... All this in _confidence_ of course, as the secret is not
my own."
Gifford also endeavoured to secure the assistance of Southey, through
his friend, Mr. Grosvenor Bedford. Southey was requested to write for
the first number an article on the Affairs of Spain. This, however, he
declined to do; but promised to send an article on the subject of
Missionaries.
"Let not Gifford," he wrote to Bedford, in reply to his letter, "suppose
me a troublesome man to deal with, pertinacious about trifles, or
standing upon punctilios of authorship. No, Grosvenor, I am a quiet,
patient, easy-going hack of the mule breed; regular as clockwork in my
pace, sure-footed, bearing the burden which is laid on me, and only
obstinate in choosing my own path. If Gifford could see me by this
fireside, where, like Nicodemus, one candle suffices me in a large room,
he would see a man in a coat 'still more threadbare than his own' when
he wrote his 'Imitation,' working hard and getting little--a bare
maintenance, and hardly that; writing poems and history for posterity
with his whole heart and soul; one daily progressive in learning, not so
learned as he is poor, not so poor as proud, not so proud as happy.
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