diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:33:56 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:33:56 -0700 |
| commit | 4ad77aa293c4b85e2009887f7541e4b33b1d96ff (patch) | |
| tree | d6efda76a3a58deccaede349c9086f96d895a508 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10125-0.txt | 9337 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10125-8.txt | 9762 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10125-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 215000 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10125.txt | 9762 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10125.zip | bin | 0 -> 214900 bytes |
8 files changed, 28877 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10125-0.txt b/10125-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7cd7895 --- /dev/null +++ b/10125-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9337 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10125 *** + +LAUREL-CROWNED LETTERS + +CHARLES LAMB + +It may well be that the "Essays of Elia" will be found to have kept +their perfume, and the LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB to retain their old +sweet savor, when "Sartor Resartus" has about as many readers as +Bulwer's "Artificial Changeling," and nine tenths even of "Don Juan" +lie darkening under the same deep dust that covers the rarely troubled +pages of the "Secchia Rapita." + +A.C. SWINBURNE + +No assemblage of letters, parallel or kindred to that in the hands +of the reader, if we consider its width of range, the fruitful period +over which it stretches, and its typical character, has ever been +produced. + +W.C. HAZLITT ON LAMB'S LETTERS. + +THE BEST LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB + +Edited with an Introduction + +BY EDWARD GILPIN JOHNSON + +A.D. 1892. + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + +LETTER + I. To Samuel Taylor Coleridge + II. To Coleridge + III. To Coleridge + IV. To Coleridge + V. To Coleridge + VI. To Coleridge + VII. To Coleridge + VIII. To Coleridge + IX. To Coleridge + X. To Coleridge + XI. To Coleridge + XII. To Coleridge + XIII. To Coleridge + XIV. To Coleridge + XV. To Robert Southey + XVI. To Southey + XVII. To Southey + XVIII. To Southey + XIX. To Thomas Manning + XX. To Coleridge + XXI. To Manning + XXII. To Coleridge + XXIII. To Manning + XXIV. To Manning + XXV. To Coleridge + XXVI. To Manning + XXVII. To Coleridge + XXVIII. To Coleridge + XXIX. To Manning + XXX. To Manning + XXXI. To Manning + XXXII. To Manning + XXXIII. To Coleridge + XXXIV. To Wordsworth + XXXV. To Wordsworth + XXXVI. To Manning + XXXVII. To Manning + XXXVIII. To Manning + XXXIX. To Coleridge + XL. To Manning + XLI. To Manning + XLII. To Manning + XLIII. To William Godwin + XLIV. To Manning + XLV. To Miss Wordsworth + XLVI. To Manning + XLVII. To Wordsworth + XLVIII. To Manning + XLIX. To Wordsworth + L. To Manning + LI. To Miss Wordsworth + LII. To Wordsworth + LIII. To Wordsworth + LIV. To Wordsworth + LV. To Wordsworth + LVI. To Southey + LVII. To Miss Hutchinson + LVIII. To Manning + LIX. To Manning + LX. To Wordsworth + LXI. To Wordsworth + LXII. To H. Dodwell + LXIII. To Mrs. Wordsworth + LXIV. To Wordsworth + LXV. To Manning + LXVI. To Miss Wordsworth + LXVII. To Coleridge + LXVIII. To Wordsworth + LXIX. To John Clarke + LXX. To Mr. Barren Field + LXXI. To Walter Wilson + LXXII. To Bernard Barton + LXXIII. To Miss Wordsworth + LXXIV. To Mr. and Mrs. Bruton + LXXV. To Bernard Barton + LXXVI. To Miss Hutchinson + LXXVII. To Bernard Barton + LXXVIII. To Mrs. Hazlitt + LXXIX. To Bernard Barton + LXXX. To Bernard Barton + LXXXI. To Bernard Barton + LXXXII. To Bernard Barton + LXXXIII. To Bernard Barton + LXXXIV. To Bernard Barton + LXXXV. To Bernard Barton + LXXXVI. To Wordsworth + LXXXVII. To Bernard Barton + LXXXVIII. To Bernard Barton + LXXXIX. To Bernard Barton + XC. To Southey + XCI. To Bernard Barton + XCII. To J.B. Dibdin + XCIII. To Henry Crabb Robinson + XCIV. To Peter George Patmore + XCV. To Bernard Barton + XCVI. To Thomas Hood + XCVII. To P.G. Patmore + XCVIII. To Bernard Barton + XCIX. To Procter + C. To Bernard Barton + CI. To Mr. Gilman + CII. To Wordsworth + CIII. To Mrs. Hazlitt + CIV. To George Dyer + CV. To Dyer + CVI. To Mr. Moxon + CVII. To Mr. Moxon + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +No writer, perhaps, since the days of Dr. Johnson has been oftener +brought before us in biographies, essays, letters, etc., than Charles +Lamb. His stammering speech, his gaiter-clad legs,--"almost immaterial +legs," Hood called them,--his frail wisp of a body, topped by a head +"worthy of Aristotle," his love of punning, of the Indian weed, and, +alas! of the kindly production of the juniper-berry (he was not, he +owned, "constellated under Aquarius"), his antiquarianism of taste, and +relish of the crotchets and whimsies of authorship, are as familiar to +us almost as they were to the group he gathered round him Wednesdays at +No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, where "a clear fire, a clean hearth, and the +rigor of the game" awaited them. Talfourd has unctuously celebrated +Lamb's "Wednesday Nights." He has kindly left ajar a door through which +posterity peeps in upon the company,--Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, "Barry +Cornwall," Godwin, Martin Burney, Crabb Robinson (a ubiquitous shade, +dimly suggestive of that figment, "Mrs. Harris"), Charles Kemble, Fanny +Kelly ("Barbara S."), on red-letter occasions Coleridge and +Wordsworth,--and sees them discharging the severer offices of the +whist-table ("cards were cards" then), and, later, unbending their minds +over poetry, criticism, and metaphysics. Elia was no Barmecide host, and +the serjeant dwells not without regret upon the solider business of the +evening,--"the cold roast lamb or boiled beef, the heaps of smoking +roasted potatoes, and the vast jug of porter, often replenished from the +foaming pots which the best tap of Fleet Street supplied," hospitably +presided over by "the most quiet, sensible, and kind of women," +Mary Lamb. + +The _terati_ Talfourd's day were clearly hardier of digestion than +their descendants are. Roast lamb, boiled beef, "heaps of smoking +roasted potatoes," pots of porter,--a noontide meal for a hodman,--and +the hour midnight! One is reminded, _à propos_ of Miss Lamb's robust +viands, that Elia somewhere confesses to "an occasional nightmare;" "but +I do not," he adds, "keep a whole stud of them." To go deeper into this +matter, to speculate upon the possible germs, the first vague +intimations to the mind of Coleridge of the weird spectra of "The +Ancient Mariner," the phantasmagoria of "Kubla Khan," would be, perhaps, +over-refining. "Barry Cornwall," too, Lamb tells us, "had his tritons +and his nereids gambolling before him in nocturnal visions." No wonder! + +It is not intended here to re-thresh the straw left by Talfourd, +Fitzgerald, Canon Ainger, and others, in the hope of discovering +something new about Charles Lamb. In this quarter, at least, the wind +shall be tempered to the reader,--shorn as he is by these pages of a +charming letter or two. So far as fresh facts are concerned, the theme +may fairly be considered exhausted. Numberless writers, too, have rung +the changes upon "poor Charles Lamb," "dear Charles Lamb," "gentle +Charles Lamb," and the rest,--the final epithet, by the way being one +that Elia, living, specially resented: + +"For God's sake," he wrote to Coleridge. "don't make me ridiculous any +more by terming me gentle-hearted in print, or do it in better verses. +It did well enough five years ago, when I came to see you, and was moral +coxcomb enough at the time you wrote the lines to feed upon such +epithets; but besides that the meaning of 'gentle' is equivocal at best, +and almost always means poor-spirited, the very quality of gentleness is +abhorrent to such vile trumpetings. My sentiment is long since vanished. +I hope my _virtues_ have done _sucking_. I can scarce think but you +meant it in joke. I hope you did, for I should be ashamed to believe +that you could think to gratify me by such praise, fit only to be a +cordial to some green-sick sonneteer." + +The indulgent pity conventionally bestowed upon Charles Lamb--one of the +most manly, self-reliant of characters, to say nothing of his genius--is +absurdly' misplaced. + +Still farther be it from us to blunt the edge of appetite by sapiently +essaying to "analyze" and account for Lamb's special zest and flavor, as +though his writings, or any others worth the reading, were put together +upon principles of clockwork. We are perhaps over-fond of these arid +pastimes nowadays. It is not the "sweet musk-roses," the "apricocks and +dewberries" of literature that please us best; like Bottom the Weaver, +we prefer the "bottle of hay." What a mockery of right enjoyment our +endless prying and sifting, our hunting of riddles in metaphors, +innuendoes in tropes, ciphers in Shakspeare! Literature exhausted, we +may turn to art, and resolve, say, the Sistine Madonna (I deprecate the +Manes of the "Divine Painter") into some ingenious and recondite rebus. +For such critical chopped-hay--sweeter to the modern taste than honey of +Hybla--Charles Lamb had little relish. "I am, sir," he once boasted to +an analytical, unimaginative proser who had insisted upon _explaining_ +some quaint passage in Marvell or Wither, "I am, sir, a matter-of-lie +man." It was his best warrant to sit at the Muses' banquet. Charles Lamb +was blessed with an intellectual palate as fine as Keats's, and could +enjoy the savor of a book (or of that dainty, "in the whole _mundus +edibilis_ the most delicate," Roast Pig, for that matter) without +pragmatically asking, as the king did of the apple in the dumpling, "how +the devil it got there." His value as a critic is grounded in this +capacity of _naïve_ enjoyment (not of pig, but of literature), of +discerning beauty and making _us_ discern it,--thus adding to the known +treasures and pleasures of mankind. + +Suggestions not unprofitable for these later days lurk in these traits +of Elia the student and critic. How worthy the imitation, for instance, +of those disciples who band together to treat a fine poem (of Browning, +say, or Shelley) as they might a chapter in the Revelation,--speculating +sagely upon the import of the seven seals and the horns of the great +beast, instead of enjoying the obvious beauties of their author. To the +schoolmaster--whose motto would seem too often to be the counsel of the +irate old lady in Dickens, "Give him a meal of chaff!"--Charles Lamb's +critical methods are rich in suggestion. How many ingenuous boys, lads +in the very flush and hey-day of appreciativeness of the epic virtues, +have been parsed, declined, and conjugated into an utter detestation of +the melodious names of Homer and Virgil! Better far for such victims had +they, instead of aspiring to the vanities of a "classical education," +sat, like Keats, unlearnedly at the feet of quaint Chapman, or Dryden, +or even of Mr. Pope. + +Perhaps, by way of preparative to the reading of Charles Lamb's letters, +it will be well to run over once more the leading facts of his life. +First let us glance at his outward appearance. Fortunately there are a +number of capital pieces of verbal portraiture of Elia. + +Referring to the year 1817, "Barry Cornwall" wrote: + + "Persons who had been in the habit of traversing Covent + Garden at that time of night, by extending their walk a few + yards into Russell Street have noticed a small, spare man + clothed in black, who went out every morning, and returned + every afternoon as the hands of the clock moved toward + certain hours. You could not mistake him. He was somewhat + stiff in his manner, and almost clerical in dress, which + indicated much wear. He had a long, melancholy face, with + keen, penetrating eyes; and he walked with a short, resolute + step citywards. He looked no one in the face for more than + a moment, yet contrived to see everything as he went on. + No one who ever studied the human features could pass him + by without recollecting his countenance; it was full of + sensibility, and it came upon you like new thought, which you + could not help dwelling upon afterwards: it gave rise to + meditation, and did you good. This small, half-clerical man + was--Charles Lamb." + +His countenance is thus described by Thomas Hood: + + "His was no common face, none of those willow-pattern + ones which Nature turns out by thousands at her potteries, + but more like a chance specimen of the Chinese ware,--one + to the set; unique, antique, quaint, you might have sworn to + it piecemeal,--a separate affidavit to each feature." + +Mrs. Charles Mathews, wife of the comedian, who met Lamb at a dinner, +gives an amusing account of him:-- + + "Mr. Lamb's first appearance was not prepossessing. His + figure was small and mean, and no man was certainly ever + less beholden to his tailor. His 'bran' new suit of black + cloth (in which he affected several times during the day to + take great pride, and to cherish as a novelty that he had + looked for and wanted) was drolly contrasted with his very + rusty silk stockings, shown from his knees, and his much too + large, thick shoes, without polish. His shirt rejoiced in a wide, + ill-plaited frill, and his very small, tight, white neckcloth was + hemmed to a fine point at the ends that formed part of a little + bow. His hair was black and sleek, but not formal, and + his face the gravest I ever saw, but indicating great intellect, + and resembling very much the portraits of Charles I." + +From this sprightly and not too flattering sketch we may turn to +Serjeant Talfourd's tender and charming portrait,--slightly idealized, +no doubt; for the man of the coif held a brief for his friend, and was a +poet besides:-- + + "Methinks I see him before me now as he appeared then, + and as he continued without any perceptible alteration to me, + during the twenty years of intimacy which followed, and were + closed by his death. A light frame, so fragile that it seemed + as if a breath would overthrow it, clad in clerk-like black, + was surmounted by a head of form and expression the most + noble and sweet. His black hair curled crisply about an + expanded forehead; his eyes, softly brown, twinkled with + varying expression, though the prevalent expression was + sad; and the nose, slightly curved, and delicately carved at + the nostril, with the lower outline of the face delicately oval, + completed a head which was finely placed upon the shoulders, + and gave importance and even dignity to a diminutive and + shadowy stem. Who shall describe his countenance, catch its + quivering sweetness, and fix it forever in words? There are + none, alas! to answer the vain desire of friendship. Deep + thought, striving with humor; the lines of suffering wreathed + into cordial mirth, and a smile of painful sweetness, present + an image to the mind it can as little describe as lose. His + personal appearance and manner are not unjustly characterized + by what he himself says in one of his letters to Manning, [1] + 'a compound of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel.'" + +The writings of Charles Lamb abound in passages of autobiography. "I was +born," he tells us in that delightful sketch, "The Old Benchers of the +Inner Temple," "and passed the first seven years of my life in the +Temple. Its church, its halls, its gardens, its fountain, its river, I +had almost said,--for in those young years what was this king of rivers +to me but a stream that watered our pleasant places?--these are of my +oldest recollections." His father, John Lamb, the "Lovel" of the essay +cited, had come up a little boy from Lincolnshire to enter the service +of Samuel Salt,--one of those "Old Benchers" upon whom the pen of Elia +has shed immortality, a stanch friend and patron to the Lambs, the kind +proprietor of that "spacious closet of good old English reading" upon +whose "fair and wholesome pasturage" Charles and his sister, as +children, "browsed at will." + +John Lamb had married Elizabeth Field, whose mother was for fifty years +housekeeper at the country-seat of the Plumers, Blakesware, in +Hertfordshire, the "Blakesmoor" of the Essays, frequent scene of Lamb's +childish holiday sports,--a spacious mansion, with its park and terraces +and "firry wilderness, the haunt of the squirrel and day-long murmuring +wood-pigeon;" an Eden it must have seemed to the London-bred child, in +whose fancy the dusty trees and sparrows and smoke-grimed fountain of +Temple Court had been a pastoral. Within the cincture of its excluding +garden-walls, wrote Elia in later years, "I could have exclaimed with +that garden-loving poet, [2]-- + + "'Bind me, ye woodbines, in your twines; + Curl me about, ye gadding vines; + And oh, so close your circles lace + That I may never leave this place: + But lest your fetters prove too weak, + Ere I your silken bondage break, + Do you, O brambles, chain me too, + And, courteous briers, nail me through.'" + +At Blakesware, too, was the room whence the spirit of Sarah Battle--that +"gentlewoman born"--winged its flight to a region where revokes and +"luke-warm gamesters" are unknown. + +To John and Elizabeth Lamb were born seven children, only three of whom, +John, Mary, and Charles, survived their infancy. Of the survivors, +Charles was the youngest, John being twelve and Mary ten years his +senior,--a fact to be weighed in estimating the heroism of Lamb's later +life. At the age of seven, Charles Lamb, "son of John Lamb, scrivener, +and Elizabeth, his wife," was entered at the school of Christ's +Hospital,--"the antique foundation of that godly and royal child King +Edward VI." Of his life at this institution he has left us abundant and +charming memorials in the Essays, "Recollections of Christ's Hospital," +and "Christ's Hospital Five-and-thirty Years Ago,"--the latter sketch +corrective of the rather optimistic impressions of the former. + +With his schoolfellows Charles seems to have been, despite his timid and +retiring disposition (he said of himself, "while the others were all +fire and play, he stole along with all the self-concentration of a young +monk"), a decided favorite. "Lamb," wrote C. V. Le Grice, a schoolmate +often mentioned in essay and letter, "was an amiable, gentle boy, very +sensible and keenly observing, indulged by his schoolfellows and by his +master on account of his infirmity of speech.... I never heard his name +mentioned without the addition of Charles, although, as there was no +other boy of the name of Lamb, the addition was unnecessary; but there +was an implied kindness in it, and it was a proof that his gentle +manners excited that kindness." + +For us the most important fact of the Christ's Hospital school-days is +the commencement of Lamb's life-long friendship with Samuel Taylor +Coleridge, two years his senior, and the object of his fervent +hero-worship. Most of us, perhaps, can find the true source of whatever +of notable good or evil we have effected in life in the moulding +influence of one of these early friendships or admirations. It is the +boy's hero, the one he loves and reverences among his schoolfellows,-- +not his taskmaster,--that is his true teacher, the setter of the +broader standards by which he is to abide through life. Happy the man +the feet of whose early idols have not been of clay. + +It was under the quickening influence of the eloquent, precocious genius +of the "inspired charity boy" that Charles Lamb's ideals and ambitions +shaped themselves out of the haze of a child's conceptions. Coleridge at +sixteen was already a poet, his ear attuned to the subtlest melody of +verse, and his hand rivalling, in preluding fragments, the efforts of +his maturer years; he was already a philosopher, rapt in Utopian, +schemes and mantling hopes as enchanting--and as chimerical--as the +pleasure-domes and caves of ice decreed by Kubla Khan; and the younger +lad became his ardent disciple. + +Lamb quitted Christ's Hospital, prematurely, in November, 1787, and the +companionship of the two friends was for a time interrupted. To part +with Coleridge, to exchange the ease and congenial scholastic atmosphere +of the Hospital for the _res angusta domi_, for the intellectual +starvation of a life of counting-house drudgery, must have been a bitter +trial for him. But the shadow of poverty was upon the little household +in the Temple; on the horizon of the future the blackening clouds of +anxieties still graver were gathering; and the youngest child was called +home to share the common burden. + +Charles Lamb was first employed in the South Sea House, where his +brother John [3]--a cheerful optimist, a _dilettante_ in art, genial, +prosperous, thoroughly selfish, in so far as the family fortunes were +concerned an outsider--already held a lucrative post. It was not long +before Charles obtained promotion in the form of a clerkship with the +East India Company,--one of the last kind services of Samuel Salt, who +died in the same year, 1792,--and with the East India Company he +remained for the rest of his working life. + +Upon the death of their generous patron the Lambs removed from the +Temple and took lodgings in Little Queen Street, Holborn; and for +Charles the battle of life may be said to have fairly begun. His work as +a junior clerk absorbed, of course, the greater part of his day and of +his year. Yet there were breathing-spaces: there were the long evenings +with the poets; with Marlowe, Drayton, Drummond of Hawthornden, and +Cowley,--"the sweetest names, which carry a perfume in the mention;" +there were the visits to the play, the yearly vacation jaunts to sunny +Hertfordshire. The intercourse with Coleridge, too, was now occasionally +renewed. The latter had gone up to Cambridge early in 1791, there to +remain--except the period of his six months' dragooning--for the nest +four years. During his visits to London it was the habit of the two +schoolfellows to meet at a tavern near Smithfield, the "Salutation and +Cat" to discuss the topics dear to both: and it was about this time that +Lamb's sonnet to Mrs Siddons, his first appearance in print, was +published in the "Morning Chronicle." + +The year 1796 was a terribly eventful one for the Lambs. There was a +taint of insanity in the family on the father's side, and on May 27, +1796, we find Charles writing to Coleridge these sad words,--doubly sad +for the ring of mockery in them:-- + + "My life has been somewhat diversified of late. The six + weeks that finished last year and began this, your very + humble servant spent very agreeably in a madhouse at + Hoxton. I am got somewhat rational now and don't bite + any one. But mad I was!" [4] + +Charles, thanks to the resolution with which he combated the tendency, +and to the steadying influence of his work at the desk,--despite his +occasional murmurs, his best friend and sheet-anchor in life,--never +again succumbed to the family malady; but from that moment, over his +small household, Madness--like Death in Milton's vision--continually +"shook its dart," and at best only "delayed to strike." [5] + +It was in the September of 1796 that the calamity befell which has +tinged the story of Charles and Mary Lamb with the sombrest hues of the +Greek tragedy. The family were still in the Holborn lodgings,--the +mother an invalid, the father sinking into a second childhood. Mary, in +addition to the burden of ministering to her parents, was working for +their support with her needle. + +At this point it will be well to insert a prefatory word or two as to +the character of Mary Lamb; and here the witnesses are in accord. There +is no jarring of opinion, as in her brother's case; for Charles Lamb has +been sorely misjudged,--often, it must be admitted, with ground of +reason; sometimes by persons who might and should have looked deeper. In +a notable instance, the heroism of his life has been meanly overlooked +by one who preached to mankind with the eloquence of the Prophets the +prime need and virtue of recognizing the hero. If self-abnegation lies +at the root of true heroism, Charles Lamb--that "sorry phenomenon" with +an "insuperable proclivity to gin" [6]--was a greater hero than was +covered by the shield of Achilles. The character of Mary Lamb is quickly +summed Up. She was one of the most womanly of women. "In all its +essential sweetness," says Talfourd, "her character was like her +brother's; while, by a temper more placid, a spirit of enjoyment more +serene, she was enabled to guide, to counsel, to cheer him, and to +protect him on the verge of the mysterious calamity, from the depths of +which she rose so often unruffled to his side. To a friend in any +difficulty she was the most comfortable of advisers, the wisest of +consolers." Hazlitt said that "he never met with a woman who could +reason, and had met with only one thoroughly reasonable,--Mary Lamb." +The writings of Elia are strewn, as we know, with the tenderest tributes +to her worth. "I wish," he says, "that I could throw into a heap the +remainder of our joint existences, that we might share them in equal +division." + +The psychology of madness is a most subtle inquiry. How slight the +mysterious touch that throws the smooth-running human mechanism into a +chaos of jarring elements, that transforms, in the turn of an eyelash, +the mild humanity of the gentlest of beings into the unreasoning +ferocity of the tiger. + +The London "Times" of September 26, 1796, contained the following +paragraph:-- + + "On Friday afternoon the coroner and a jury sat on the + body of a lady in the neighborhood of Holborn, who died in + consequence of a wound from her daughter the preceding day. + It appeared by the evidence adduced that while the family + were preparing for dinner, the young lady seized a case-knife + lying on the table, and in a menacing manner pursued a little + girl, her apprentice, round the room. On the calls of her + infirm mother to forbear, she renounced her first object, and + with loud shrieks approached her parent. The child, by her + cries, quickly brought up the landlord of the house, but too + late. [7] The dreadful scene presented him the mother lifeless, + pierced to the heart, on a chair, her daughter yet wildly standing + over her with the fatal knife, and the old man, her father, + weeping by her side, himself bleeding at the forehead from + the effects of a severe blow he received from one of the forks + she had been madly hurling about the room. + + "For a few days prior to this, the family had observed + some symptoms of insanity in her, which had so much increased + on the Wednesday evening that her brother, early the next + morning, went to Dr. Pitcairn; but that gentleman was not at + home. + + "The jury of course brought in their verdict,--_Lunacy_." + +I need not supply the omitted names of the actors in this harrowing +scene. Mary Lamb was at once placed in the Asylum at Hoxton, and the +victim of her frenzy was laid to rest in the churchyard of St. Andrew's, +Holborn. It became necessary for Charles and his father to make an +immediate change of residence, and they took lodgings at Pentonville. +There is a pregnant sentence in one of Lamb's letters that flashes with +the vividness of lightning into the darkest recesses of those early +troubles and embarrassments. "We are," he wrote to Coleridge, "_in a +manner marked_." + +Charles Lamb after some weeks obtained the release of his sister from +the Hoxton Asylum by formally undertaking her future guardianship,--a +charge which was borne, until Death released the compact, with a +steadfastness, a cheerful renunciation of what men regard as the +crowning blessings of manhood, [8] that has shed a halo more radiant even +than that of his genius about the figure--it was "small and mean," said +sprightly Mrs. Mathews--of the India House clerk. + +As already stated, the mania that had once attacked Charles never +returned; but from the side of Mary Lamb this grimmest of spectres never +departed. "Mary A is again _from home_;" "Mary is _fallen ill_ again:" +how often do such tear-fraught phrases--tenderly veiled, lest! some +chance might bring them to the eye of the blameless sufferer--recur in +the Letters! Brother and sister were ever on the watch for the symptoms +premonitory of the return of this "their sorrow's crown of sorrows." +Upon their little holiday excursions, says Talfourd, a strait-waistcoat, +carefully packed by Miss Lamb herself, was their constant companion. +Charles Lloyd relates that he once met them slowly pacing together a +little footpath in Hoxton fields, both weeping bitterly, and found on +joining them that they were taking their solemn way to the old asylum. +Thus, upon this guiltless pair were visited the sins of their fathers. + +With the tragical events just narrated, the storm of calamity seemed to +have spent its force, and there were thenceforth plenty of days of calm +and of sunshine for Charles Lamb. The stress of poverty was lightened +and finally removed by successive increases of salary at the India +House; the introductions of Coleridge and his own growing repute in the +world of letters gathered about him a circle of friends--Southey, +Wordsworth, Hazlitt, Manning, Barton, and the rest--more congenial, and +certainly more profitable, than the vagrant _intimados_, "to the world's +eye a ragged regiment," who had wasted his substance and his leisure in +the early Temple days. + +Lamb's earliest avowed appearance as an author was in Coleridge's first +volume of poems, published by Cottle, of Bristol, in 1796. "The +effusions signed C.L.," says Coleridge in the preface, "were written by +Mr. Charles Lamb, of the India House. Independently of the signature, +their superior merit would have sufficiently distinguished them." The +"effusions" were four sonnets, two of them--the most noteworthy-- +touching upon the one love-romance of Lamb's life, [9]--his early +attachment to the "fair-haired" Hertfordshire girl, the "Anna" of the +Sonnets, the "Alice W---n" of the Essays. We remember that Ella in +describing the gallery of old family portraits, in the essay, +"Blakesmoor in H---shire," dwells upon "that beauty with the cool, blue, +pastoral drapery, and a lamb, that hung next the great bay window, with +the bright yellow Hertfordshire hair, _so like my Alice_." + +In 1797 Cottle issued a second edition of Coleridge's poems, this time +with eleven additional pieces by Lamb,--making fifteen of his in +all,--and containing verses by their friend Charles Lloyd. "It is +unlikely," observes Canon Ainger, "that this little venture brought any +profit to its authors, or that a subsequent volume of blank verse by +Lamb and Lloyd in the following year proved more remunerative." In 1798 +Lamb, anxious for his sister's sake to add to his slender income, +composed his "miniature romance," as Talfourd calls it, "Rosamund Gray;" +and this little volume, which has not yet lost its charm, proved a +moderate success. Shelley, writing from Italy to Leigh Hunt in 1819, +said of it: "What a lovely thing is his 'Rosamund Gray'! How much +knowledge of the sweetest and deepest part of our nature in it! When I +think of such a mind as Lamb's, when I see how unnoticed remain things +of such exquisite and complete perfection, what should I hope for myself +if I had not higher objects in view than fame?" + +It is rather unpleasant, in view of this generous--if overstrained-- +tribute, to find the object of it referring later to the works of his +encomiast as "thin sown with profit or delight." [10] + +In 1802 Lamb published in a small duodecimo his blank-verse tragedy, +"John Woodvil,"--it had previously been declined by John Kemble as +unsuited to the stage,--and in 1806 was produced at the Drury Lane +Theatre his farce "Mr. H.," the summary failure of which is chronicled +with much humor in the Letters. [11] + +The "Tales from Shakspeare," by Charles and Mary Lamb, were published by +Godwin in 1807, and a second edition was called for in the following +year. Lamb was now getting on surer--and more remunerative--ground; and +in 1808 he prepared for the firm of Longmans his masterly "Specimens of +the English Dramatic Poets contemporary with Shakspeare." Concerning +this work he wrote to Manning:-- + + "Specimens are becoming fashionable. We have Specimens + of Ancient English Poets, Specimens of Modern English + Poets, Specimens of Ancient English Prose Writers, + without end. They used to be called 'Beauties.' You have + seen Beauties of Shakspeare? so have many people that + never saw any beauties _in_ Shakspeare," + +From Charles Lamb's "Specimens" dates, as we know, the revival of the +study of the old English dramatists other than Shakespeare. He was the +first to call attention to the neglected beauties of those great +Elizabethans, Webster, Marlowe, Ford, Dekker, Massinger,--no longer +accounted mere "mushrooms that sprang up in a ring under the great oak +of Arden." [12] + +The opportunity that was to call forth Lamb's special faculty in +authorship came late in life. In January, 1820, Baldwin, Cradock, and +Joy, the publishers, brought out the first number of a new monthly +journal under the name of an earlier and extinct periodical, the "London +Magazine," and in the August number appeared an article, "Recollections +of the South Sea House." over the signature _Elia_. [13] With this +delightful sketch the essayist Elia may be said to have been born. In +none of Lamb's previous writings had there been, more than a hint of +that unique vein,--wise, playful, tender, fantastic, "everything by +starts, and nothing long," exhibited with a felicity of phrase certainly +unexcelled in English prose literature,--that we associate with his +name. The careful reader of the Letters cannot fail to note that it is +_there_ that Lamb's peculiar quality in authorship is first manifest. +There is a letter to Southey, written as early as 1798, that has the +true Elia ring. [14] With the "London Magazine," which was +discontinued in 1826. + +Elia was born, and with it he may be said to have died,--although some +of his later contributions to the "New Monthly" [15] and to the +"Englishman's Magazine" were included in the "Last Essays of Elia," +collected and published in 1833. The first series of Lamb's essays under +the title of Elia had been published in a single volume by Taylor and +Hessey, of the "London Magazine," in 1823. + +The story of Lamb's working life--latterly an uneventful one, broken +chiefly by changes of abode and by the yearly holiday jaunts, +"migrations from the blue bed to the brown"--from 1796, when the +correspondence with Coleridge begins, is told in the letters. For +thirty-three years he served the East India Company, and he served it +faithfully and steadily. There is, indeed, a tradition that having been +reproved on one occasion for coming to the office late in the morning, +he pleaded that he always left it "so very early in the evening." Poets, +we know, often "heard the chimes at midnight" in Elia's day, and the +plea has certainly a most Lamb-like ring. That the Company's directors, +however, were more than content with the service of their literate +clerk, the sequel shows. + +It is manifest in certain letters, written toward the close of 1824 and +in the beginning of 1825, that Lamb's confinement was at last telling +upon him, and that he was thinking of a release from his bondage to the +"desk's dead wood." In February, 1825, he wrote to Barton,-- + + "Your gentleman brother sets my mouth watering after + liberty. Oh that I were kicked out of Leadenhall with + every mark of indignity, and a competence in my fob! The + birds of the air would not be so free as I should. How + I would prance and curvet it, and pick up cowslips, and + ramble about purposeless as an idiot!" + +Later in March we learn that he had signified to the directors his +willingness to resign, + + "I am sick of hope deferred. The grand wheel is in agitation + that is to turn up my fortune; but round it rolls, + and will turn up nothing, I have a glimpse of freedom, of + becoming a gentleman at large, but I am put off from day + to day. I have offered my resignation, and it is neither accepted + nor rejected. Eight weeks am I kept in this fearful + suspense. Guess what an absorbing state I feel it. I am + not conscious of the existence of friends, present or absent. + The East India directors alone can be that thing to me. I + have just learned that nothing will be decided this week. + Why the next? Why any week?" + +But the "grand wheel" was really turning, to some purpose, and a few +days later, April 6, 1825, he joyfully wrote to Barton,-- + + "My spirits are so tumultuary with the novelty of my + recent emancipation that I have scarce steadiness of hand, + much more mind, to compose a letter, I am free, B.B.,--free + as air! + + "'The little bird that wings the sky + Knows no such liberty,' + + I was set free on Tuesday in last week at four o'clock. I + came home forever!" + +The quality of the generosity of the East India directors was not +strained in Lamb's case. It should be recorded as an agreeable +commercial phenomenon that these officials, men of business acting in "a +business matter,"--words too often held to exclude all such Quixotic +matters as sentiment, gratitude, and Christian equity between man and +man,--were not only just, but munificent. [16] From the path of Charles +and Mary Lamb--already beset with anxieties grave enoughthey removed +forever the shadow of want. Lamb's salary at the time of his retirement +was nearly seven hundred pounds a year, and the offer made to him was a +pension of four hundred and fifty, with a deduction of nine pounds a +year for his sister, should she survive him. + +Lamb lived to enjoy his freedom and the Company's bounty nearly nine +years. Soon after his retirement he settled with his sister at Enfield, +within easy reach of his loved London, removing thence to the +neighboring parish of Edmonton,--his last change of residence. +Coleridge's death, in July, 1834, was a heavy blow to him. "When I heard +of the death of Coleridge," he wrote, "it was without grief. It seemed +to me that he had long been on the confines of the next world, that he +had a hunger for eternity. I grieved then that I could not grieve; but +since, I feel how great a part he was of me. His great and dear spirit +haunts me. I cannot think a thought, I cannot make a criticism on men or +books, without an ineffectual turning and reference to him. He was the +proof and touchstone of all my cogitations." Lamb did not long outlive +his old schoolfellow. Walking in the middle of December along the London +road, he stumbled and fell, inflicting a slight wound upon his face. The +injury at first seemed trivial; but soon after, erysipelas appearing, it +became evident that his general health was too feeble to resist. On the +27th of December, 1834, he passed quietly away, whispering in his last +moments the names of his dearest friends. + +Mary Lamb survived her brother nearly thirteen years, dying, at the +advanced age of eighty-two, on May 20, 1847. With increasing years her +attacks had become more frequent and of longer duration, till her mind +became permanently weakened. After leaving Edmonton, she lived chiefly +in a pleasant house in St. John's Wood, surrounded by old books and +prints, under the care of a nurse. Her pension, together with the income +from her brother's savings, was amply sufficient for her support. + +Talfourd, who was present at the burial of Mary Lamb, has eloquently +described the earthly reunion of the brother and sister:-- + +"A few survivors of the old circle, then sadly thinned, attended her +remains to the spot in Edmnonton churchyard where they were laid above +those of her brother. In accordance with Lamb's own feeling, so far as +it could be gathered from his expressions on a subject to which he did +not often or willingly refer, he had been interred in a deep grave, +simply dug and wattled round, but without any affectation of stone or +brickwork to keep the human dust from its kindred earth. So dry, +however, is the soil of the quiet churchyard that the excavated earth +left perfect walls of stiff clay, and permitted us just to catch a +glimpse of the still untarnished edges of the coffin, in which all the +mortal part of one of the most delightful persons who ever lived was +contained, and on which the remains of her he had loved with love +'passing the love of woman' were henceforth to rest,--the last glances +we shall ever have even of that covering,--concealed from us as we +parted by the coffin of the sister. We felt, I believe, after a moment's +strange shuddering, that the reunion was well accomplished; although the +true-hearted son of Admiral Burney, who had known and loved the pair we +quitted from a child, and who had been among the dearest objects of +existence to him, refused to be comforted." + +There are certain handy phrases, the legal-tender of conversation, that +people generally use without troubling themselves to look into their +title to currency. It is often said, for instance, with an air of +deploring a phase of general mental degeneracy, that "letter-writing is +a lost art." And so it is,---not because men nowadays, if they were put +to it, could not, on the average, write as good letters as ever (the +average although we certainly have no Lambs, and perhaps no Walpoles or +Southeys to raise it, would probably be higher), but because the +conditions that call for and develop the epistolary art have largely +passed away. With our modern facility of communication, the letter has +lost the pristine dignity of its function. The earth has dwindled +strangely since the advent of steam and electricity, and in a generation +used to Mr. Edison's devices, Puck's girdle presents no difficulties to +the imagination. In Charles Lamb's time the expression "from Land's End +to John O'Groat's" meant something; to-day it means a few comfortable +hours by rail, a few minutes by telegraph. Wordsworth in the North of +England was to Lamb, so far as the chance of personal contact was +concerned, nearly as remote as Manning in China. Under such conditions a +letter was of course a weighty matter; it was a thoughtful summary of +opinion, a rarely recurring budget of general intelligence, expensive to +send, and paid for by the recipient; and men put their minds and +energies into composing it. "One wrote at that time," says W.C. Hazlitt, +"a letter to an acquaintance in one of the home counties which one would +only write nowadays to a settler in the Colonies or a relative +in India." + +But to whatever conditions or circumstances we may owe the existence of +Charles Lamb's letters, their quality is of course the fruit of the +genius and temperament of the writer. Unpremeditated as the strain of +the skylark, they have almost to excess (were that possible) the prime +epistolary merit of spontaneity. From the brain of the writer to the +sheet before him flows an unbroken Pactolian stream. Lamb, at his best, +ranges with Shakspearian facility the gamut of human emotion, +exclaiming, as it were at one moment, with Jaques, "Motley's the only +wear!"--in the next probing the source of tears. He is as ejaculatory +with his pen as other men are with their tongues. Puns, quotations, +conceits, critical estimates of the rarest insight and suggestiveness, +chase each other over his pages like clouds over a summer sky; and the +whole is leavened with the sterling ethical and aesthetic good sense +that renders Charles Lamb one of the wholesomest of writers. + +As to the plan on which the selections for this volume have been made, +it needs only to be said that, in general, the editor has aimed to +include those letters which exhibit most fully the writer's distinctive +charm and quality. This plan leaves, of course, a residue of +considerable biographical and critical value; but it is believed that to +all who really love and appreciate him, Charles Lamb's "Best Letters" +are those which are most uniquely and unmistakably Charles Lamb's. + +E. G. J. _September_, 1891. + +[1] Letter L. + +[2] Cowley. + +[3] The James Elia of the essay "My Relations." + +[4] Letter I. + +[5] Talfourd's Memoir. + +[6] Carlyle. + +[7] It would seem from Lamb's letter to Coleridge (Letter IV.) that it +was _he_, not the landlord, who appeared thus too late, and who snatched +the knife from the unconscious hand. + +[8] The reader is referred to Lamb's beautiful essay, "Dream Children." + +[9] If we except his passing tenderness for the young Quakeress, Hester +Savory, Lamb admitted that he had never spoken to the lady in his life. + +[10] Letter LXXXIII. + +[11] Letters LXV IL., LXVIII., LXIX. + +[12] W. S. Landor. + +[13] In assuming this pseudonym Lamb borrowed the name of a fellow-clerk +who had served with him thirty years before in the South Sea House,--an +Italian named Elia. The name has probably never been pronounced as Lamb +intended. "_Call him Ellia_," he said in a letter to J. Taylor, +concerning this old acquaintance. + +[14] Letter XVII. + +[15] The rather unimportant series, "Popular Fallacies," appeared in the +"New Monthly." + +[16] In the essay "The Superannuated Man" Lamb describes, with +certain changes and modifications, his retirement from the India House. + + + +I. + + +TO SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. + +_May_ 27, 1796. + +Dear Coleridge,--Make yourself perfectly easy about May. I paid his bill +when I sent your clothes. I was flush of money, and am so still to all +the purposes of a single life; so give yourself no further concern about +it. The money would be superfluous to me if I had it. + +When Southey becomes as modest as his predecessor, Milton, and publishes +his Epics in duodecimo, I will read 'em; a guinea a book is somewhat +exorbitant, nor have I the opportunity of borrowing the work. The +extracts from it in the "Monthly Review," and the short passages in your +"Watchman," seem to me much superior to anything in his partnership +account with Lovell. [1] Your poems I shall procure forthwith. + +There were noble lines in what you inserted in one of your numbers from +"Religious Musings," but I thought them elaborate. I am somewhat glad +you have given up that paper; it must have been dry, unprofitable, and +of dissonant mood to your disposition. I wish you success in all your +undertakings, and am glad to hear you are employed about the "Evidences +of Religion." There is need of multiplying such books a hundred-fold in +this philosophical age, to _prevent_ converts to atheism, for they seem +too tough disputants to meddle with afterwards.... + +Coleridge, I know not what suffering scenes you have gone through at +Bristol. My life has been somewhat diversified of late. The six weeks +that finished last year and began this, your very humble servant spent +very agreeably in a madhouse at Hoxton. I am got somewhat rational now, +and don't bite any one. But mad I was and many a vagary my imagination +played with me,--enough to make a volume, if all were told. My sonnets I +have extended to the number of nine since I saw you, and will some day +communicate to you. I am beginning a poem in blank verse, which, if I +finish, I publish. White [2] is on the eve of publishing (he took the +hint from Vortigern) "Original Letters of Falstaff, Shallow," etc.; a +copy you shall have when it comes out. They are without exception the +best imitations I ever saw. Coleridge, it may convince you of my regards +for you when I tell you my head ran on you in my madness as much almost +as on another person, who I am inclined to think was the more immediate +cause of my temporary frenzy. + +The sonnet I send you has small merit as poetry; but you will be curious +to read it when I tell you it was written in my prison-house in one of +my lucid intervals. + +TO MY SISTER. + + If from my lips some angry accents fell, + Peevish complaint, or harsh reproof unkind, + 'T was but the error of a sickly mind + And troubled thoughts, clouding the purer well + And waters clear of Reason; and for me + Let this my verse the poor atonement be,-- + My verse, which thou to praise wert e'er inclined + Too highly, and with partial eye to see + No blemish. Thou to me didst ever show + Kindest affection; and wouldst oft-times lend + An ear to the desponding love-sick lay, + Weeping my sorrows with me, who repay + But ill the mighty debt of love I owe, + Mary, to thee, my sister and my friend. + +With these lines, and with that sister's kindest remembrances to Cottle, +I conclude. + +Yours sincerely, + +LAMB. + +[1] Southey had just published his "Joan of Arc," in quarto. He and +Lovell had published jointly, two years before, "Poems by Bion and +Moschus." + +[2] A Christ's Hospital schoolfellow, the "Jem" White of the Elia essay, +"The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers." + + + +II. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +(_No month_) 1796. + +_Tuesday night_.--Of your "Watchman," the review of Burke was the best +prose. I augured great things from the first number. There is some +exquisite poetry interspersed. I have re-read the extract from the +"Religious Musings," and retract whatever invidious there was in my +censure of it as elaborate. There are times when one is not in a +disposition thoroughly to relish good writing. I have re-read it in a +more favorable moment, and hesitate not to pronounce it sublime. If +there be anything in it approaching to tumidity (which I meant not to +infer; by "elaborate" I meant simply "labored"), it is the gigantic +hyperbole by which you describe the evils of existing society: "snakes, +lions, hyenas, and behemoths," is carrying your resentment beyond +bounds. The pictures of "The Simoom," of "Frenzy and Ruin," of "The +Whore of Babylon," and "The Cry of Foul Spirits disinherited of Earth," +and "The Strange Beatitude" which the good man shall recognize in +heaven, as well as the particularizing of the children of wretchedness +(I have unconsciously included every part of it), form a variety of +uniform excellence. I hunger and thirst to read the poem complete. That +is a capital line in your sixth number,-- + + "This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering month." + +They are exactly such epithets as Burns would have stumbled on, whose +poem on the ploughed-up daisy you seem to have had in mind. Your +complaint that of your readers some thought there was too much, some too +little, original matter in your numbers, reminds me of poor dead Parsons +in the "Critic." "Too little incident! Give me leave to tell you, sir, +there is too much incident." I had like to have forgot thanking you for +that exquisite little morsel, the first Sclavonian Song. The expression +in the second, "more happy to be unhappy in hell," is it not very +quaint? Accept my thanks, in common with those of all who love good +poetry, for "The Braes of Yarrow." I congratulate you on the enemies you +must have made by your splendid invective against the barterers in human +flesh and sinews. Coleridge, you will rejoice to hear that Cowper is +recovered from his lunacy, and is employed on his translation of the +Italian, etc., poems of Milton for an edition where Fuseli presides as +designer. Coleridge, to an idler like myself, to write and receive +letters are both very pleasant; but I wish not to break in upon your +valuable time by expecting to hear very frequently from you. Reserve +that obligation for your moments of lassitude, when you have nothing +else to do; for your loco-restive and all your idle propensities, of +course, have given way to the duties of providing for a family. The mail +is come in, but no parcel; yet this is Tuesday. Farewell, then, till +to-morrow; for a niche and a nook I must leave for criticisms. By the +way, I hope you do not send your own only copy of "Joan of Arc;" I will +in that case return it immediately. + +Your parcel _is_ come; you have been _lavish_ of your presents. + +Wordsworth's poem I have hurried through, not without delight. Poor +Lovell! my heart almost accuses me for the light manner I lately spoke +of him, not dreaming of his death. My heart bleeds for your accumulated +troubles; God send you through 'em with patience. I conjure you dream +not that I will ever think of being repaid; the very word is galling to +the ears. I have read all your "Religious Musings" with uninterrupted +feelings of profound admiration. You may safely rest your fame on it. +The best remaining things are what I have before read, and they lose +nothing by my recollection of your manner of reciting 'em, for I too +bear in mind "the voice, the look," of absent friends, and can +occasionally mimic their manner for the amusement of those who have seen +'em. Your impassioned manner of recitation I can recall at any time to +mine own heart and to the ears of the bystanders. I rather wish you had +left the monody on Chatterton concluding, as, it did, abruptly. It had +more of unity. The conclusion of your "Religious Musicgs," I fear, will +entitle you to the reproof of your beloved woman, who wisely will not +suffer your fancy to run riot, but bids you walk humbly with your God. +The very last words, "I exercise my young novitiate thought in +ministeries of heart-stirring song," though not now new to me, cannot be +enough admired. To speak politely, they are a well-turned compliment to +poetry. I hasten to read "Joan of Arc," etc. I have read your lines at +the beginning of second book; [1] they are worthy of Milton, but in my +mind yield to your "Religious Musings." I shall read the whole +carefully, and in some future letter take the liberty to particularize +my opinions of it. Of what is new to me among your poems next to the +"Musings," that beginning "My Pensive Sara" gave me most pleasure. The +lines in it I just alluded to are most exquisite; they made my sister +and self smile, as conveying a pleasing picture of Mrs. C. checking your +wild wanderings, which we were so fond of hearing you indulge when among +us. It has endeared us more than anything to your good lady, and your +own self-reproof that follows delighted us. 'T is a charming poem +throughout (you have well remarked that charming, admirable, exquisite +are the words expressive of feelings more than conveying of ideas, else +I might plead very well want of room in my paper as excuse for +generalizing). I want room to tell you how we are charmed with your +verses in the manner of Spenser, etc. I am glad you resume the +"Watchman." Change the name; leave out all articles of news, and +whatever things are peculiar to newspapers, and confine yourself to +ethics, verse, criticism; or, rather, do not confine yourself. Let your +plan be as diffuse as the "Spectator," and I 'll answer for it the work +prospers. If I am vain enough to think I can be a contributor, rely on +my inclinations. Coleridge, in reading your "Religious Musings," I felt +a transient superiority over you. I _have_ seen Priestley. I love to see +his name repeated in your writings. I love and honor him almost +profanely. You would be charmed with his _Sermons_, if you never read +'em. You have doubtless read his books illustrative of the doctrine of +Necessity. Prefixed to a late work of his in answer to Paine, there is a +preface giving an account of the man and his services to men, written by +Lindsey, his dearest friend, well worth your reading. + +_Tuesday Eve_.--Forgive my prolixity, which is yet too brief for all I +could wish to say. God give you comfort, and all that are of your +household! Our loves and best good-wishes to Mrs. C. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Coleridge contributed some four hundred lines to the second book of +Southey's epic. + + + +III. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_June_ 10, 1796. + +With "Joan of Arc" I have been delighted, amazed, I had not presumed to +expect anything of such excellence from Southey. Why, the poem is alone +sufficient to redeem the character of the age we live in from the +imputation of degenerating in poetry, were there no such beings extant +as Burns, and Bowles, Cowper, and ----, ---- fill up the blank how you +please; I say nothing. The subject is well chosen; it opens well. To +become more particular, I will notice in their order a few passages that +chiefly struck me on perusal. Page 26: "Fierce and terrible +Benevolence!" is a phrase full of grandeur and originality, The whole +context made me feel _possessed_, even like Joan herself. Page 28: "It +is most horrible with the keen sword to gore the finely fibred human +frame," and what follows, pleased me mightily. In the second book, the +first forty lines in particular are majestic and high-sounding. Indeed, +the whole vision of the Palace of Ambition and what follows are +supremely excellent. Your simile of the Laplander, "By Niemi's lake, or +Balda Zhiok, or the mossy stone of Solfar-Kapper," [1] will bear +comparison with any in Milton for fulness of circumstance and +lofty-pacedness of versification. Southey's similes, though many of 'em +are capital, are all inferior. In one of his books, the simile of the +oak in the storm occurs, I think, four times. To return: the light in +which you view the heathen deities is accurate and beautiful. Southey's +personifications in this book are so many fine and faultless pictures. I +was much pleased with your manner of accounting for the reason why +monarchs take delight in war. At the 447th line you have placed Prophets +and Enthusiasts cheek by jowl, on too intimate a footing for the dignity +of the former. Necessarian-like-speaking, it is correct. Page 98: "Dead +is the Douglas! cold thy warrior frame, illustrious Buchan," etc., are +of kindred excellence with Gray's "Cold is Cadwallo's tongue," etc. How +famously the Maid baffles the Doctors, Seraphic and Irrefragable, "with +all their trumpery!" Page 126: the procession, the appearances of the +Maid, of the Bastard Son of Orleans, and of Tremouille, are full of fire +and fancy, and exquisite melody of versification. The personifications +from line 303 to 309, in the heat of the battle, had better been +omitted; they are not very striking, and only encumber. The converse +which Joan and Conrade hold on the banks of the Loire is altogether +beautiful. Page 313: the conjecture that in dreams "all things are that +seem," is one of those conceits which the poet delights to admit into +his creed,--a creed, by the way, more marvellous and mystic than ever +Athanasius dreamed of. Page 315: I need only _mention_ those lines +ending with "She saw a serpent gnawing at her heart!" They are good +imitative lines: "he toiled and toiled, of toil to reap no end, but +endless toil and never-ending woe." Page 347: Cruelty is such as Hogarth +might have painted her. Page 361: all the passage about Love (where he +seems to confound conjugal love with creating and preserving love) is +very confused, and sickens me with a load of useless personifications; +else that ninth book is the finest in the volume,--an exquisite +combination of the ludicrous and the terrible. I have never read either, +even in translation, but such I conceive to be the manner of Dante or +Ariosto. The tenth book is the most languid. + +On the whole, considering the celerity wherewith the poem was finished, +I was astonished at the unfrequency of weak lines, I had expected to +find it verbose. Joan, I think, does too little in battle, Dunois +perhaps the same; Conrade too much. The anecdotes interspersed among the +battles refresh the mind very agreeably, and I am delighted with the +very many passages of simple pathos abounding throughout the +poem,--passages which the author of "Crazy Kate" might have written. Has +not Master Southey spoke very slightingly in his preface and +disparagingly of Cowper's Homer? What makes him reluctant to give Cowper +his fame? And does not Southey use too often the expletives "did" and +"does"? They have a good effect at times, but are too inconsiderable, or +rather become blemishes when they mark a style. On the whole, I expect +Southey one day to rival Milton; I already deem him equal to Cowper, and +superior to all living poets besides. What says Coleridge? The "Monody +on Henderson" is _immensely good_; the rest of that little volume is +_readable and above mediocrity?_ [2] I proceed to a more pleasant +task,--pleasant because the poems are yours; pleasant because you impose +the task on me; and pleasant, let me add, because it will confer a +whimsical importance on me to sit in judgment upon your rhymes. First, +though, let me thank you again and again, in my own and my sister's +name, for your invitations. Nothing could give us more pleasure than to +come; but (were there no other reasons) while my brother's leg is so +bad, it is out of the question. Poor fellow! he is very feverish and +light-headed; but Cruikshanks has pronounced the symptoms favourable, +and gives us every hope that there will be no need of amputation. God +send not! We are necessarily confined with him all the afternoon and +evening till very late, so that I am stealing a few minutes to write +to you. + +Thank you for your frequent letters; you are the only correspondent and, +I might add, the only friend I have in the world. I go nowhere, and have +no acquaintance. Slow of speech and reserved of manners, no one seeks or +cares for my society, and I am left alone. Austin calls only +occasionally, as though it were a duty rather, and seldom stays ten +minutes. Then judge how thankful I am for your letters! Do not, however, +burden yourself with the correspondence. I trouble you again so soon +only in obedience to your injunctions. Complaints apart, proceed we to +our task. I am called away to tea,--thence must wait upon my brother; so +must delay till to-morrow. Farewell!--_Wednesday_. + +_Thursday_.--I will first notice what is new to me. Thirteenth page: +"The thrilling tones that concentrate the soul" is a nervous line, and +the six first lines of page 14 are very pretty, the twenty-first +effusion a perfect thing. That in the manner of Spenser is very sweet, +particularly at the close; the thirty-fifth effusion is most +exquisite,--that line in particular, "And, tranquil, muse upon +tranquillity." It is the very reflex pleasure that distinguishes the +tranquillity of a thinking being from that of a shepherd,--a modern one +I would be understood to mean,--a Damoetas; one that keeps other +people's sheep. Certainly, Coleridge, your letter from Shurton Bars has +less merit than most things in your volume; personally it may chime in +best with your own feelings, and therefore you love it best. It has, +however, great merit. In your fourth epistle that is an exquisite +paragraph, and fancy-full, of "A stream there is which rolls in lazy +flow," etc. "Murmurs sweet undersong 'mid jasmin bowers" is a sweet +line, and so are the three next. The concluding simile is far-fetched; +"tempest-honored" is a quaintish phrase. + +Yours is a poetical family. I was much surprised and pleased to see the +signature of Sara to that elegant composition, the fifth epistle. I dare +not _criticise_ the "Religious Musings;" I like not to _select_ any +part, where all is excellent. I can only admire, and thank you for it in +the name of a Christian, as well as a lover of good poetry; only let me +ask, is not that thought and those words in Young, "stands in the +sun,"--or is it only such as Young, in one of his _better moments,_ +might have writ? + + "Believe thou, O my soul, + Life is a vision shadowy of Truth; + And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave, + Shapes of a dream!" + +I thank you for these lines in the name of a necessarian, and for what +follows in next paragraph, in the name of a child of fancy. After all, +you cannot nor ever will write anything with which I shall be so +delighted as what I have heard yourself repeat. You came to town, and I +saw you at a time when your heart was yet bleeding with recent wounds. +Like yourself, I was sore galled with disappointed hope; you had + + "Many an holy lay + That, mourning, soothed the mourner on his way." + +I had ears of sympathy to drink them in, and they yet vibrate pleasant +on the sense. When I read in your little volume your nineteenth +effusion, or the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth, or what you call the +"Sigh," I think I hear _you_ again. I image to myself the little smoky +room at the "Salutation and Cat," where we have sat together through the +winter nights, beguiling the cares of life with poesy. When you left +London, I felt a dismal void in my heart. I found myself cut off, at one +and the same time, from two most dear to me, "How blest with ye the path +could I have trod of quiet life!" In your conversation you had blended +so many pleasant fancies that they cheated me of my grief; but in your +absence the tide of melancholy rushed in again, and did its worst +mischief by overwhelming my reason. I have recovered, but feel a stupor +that makes me indifferent to the hopes and fears of this life. I +sometimes wish to introduce a religious turn of mind; but habits are +strong things, and my religious fervours are confined, alas! to some +fleeting moments of occasional solitary devotion, + +A correspondence, opening with you, has roused me a little from my +lethargy and made me conscious of existence. Indulge me in it; I will +not be very troublesome! At some future time I will amuse you with an +account, as full as my memory will permit, of the strange turn my frenzy +took. I look back upon it at times with, a gloomy kind of envy; for +while it lasted, I had many, many hours of pure happiness. Dream not, +Coleridge, of having tasted all the grandeur and wildness of fancy till +you have gone mad! All now seems to me vapid,--comparatively so. Excuse +this selfish digression. Your "Monody" [3] is so superlatively excellent +that I can only wish it perfect, which I can't help feeling it is not +quite. Indulge me in a few conjectures; what I am going to propose would +make it more compressed and, I think, more energetic, though, I am +sensible, at the expense of many beautiful lines. Let it begin, "Is this +the land of song-ennobled line?" and proceed to "Otway's famished form;" +then, "Thee, Chatterton," to "blaze of Seraphim;" then, "clad in +Nature's rich array," to "orient day;" then, "but soon the scathing +lightning," to "blighted land;" then, "sublime of thought," to "his +bosom glows;" then + + "But soon upon his poor unsheltered head + Did Penury her sickly mildew shed; + Ah! where are fled the charms of vernal grace, + And joy's wild gleams that lightened o'er his face." + +Then "youth of tumultuous soul" to "sigh," as before. The rest may all +stand down to "gaze upon the waves below." What follows now may come +next as detached verses, suggested by the "Monody," rather than a part +of it. They are, indeed, in themselves, very sweet; + + "And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng, + Hanging enraptured on thy stately song!" + +in particular, perhaps. If I am obscure, you may understand me by +counting lines. I have proposed omitting twenty-four lines; I feel that +thus compressed it would gain energy, but think it most likely you will +not agree with me; for who shall go about to bring opinions to the bed +of Procrustes, and introduce among the sons of men a monotony of +identical feelings? I only propose with diffidence. + +Reject you, if you please, with as little remorse as you would the color +of a coat or the pattern of a buckle, where our fancies differed. + +The "Pixies" is a perfect thing, and so are the "Lines on the Spring." +page 28. The "Epitaph on an Infant," like a Jack-o'-lantern, has danced +about (or like Dr. Forster's [4] scholars) out of the "Morning Chronicle" +into the "Watchman," and thence back into your collection. It is very +pretty, and you seem to think so, but, may be, overlooked its chief +merit, that of filling up a whole page, I had once deemed sonnets of +unrivalled use that way, but your Epitaphs, I find, are the more +diffuse. "Edmund" still holds its place among your best verses, "Ah! +fair delights" to "roses round," in your poem called "Absence," recall +(none more forcibly) to my mind the tones in which you recited it, I +will not notice, in this tedious (to you) manner, verses which have been +so long delighful to me, and which you already know my opinion of. Of +this kind are Bowles, Priestley, and that most exquisite and most +Bowles-like of all, the nineteenth effusion. It would have better ended +with "agony of care;" the last two lines are obvious and unnecessary; +and you need not now make fourteen lines of it, now it is rechristened +from a Sonnet to an Effusion. + +Schiller might have written the twentieth effusion; 't is worthy of him +in any sense, I was glad to meet with those lines you sent me when my +sister was so ill; I had lost the copy, and I felt not a little proud at +seeing my name in your verse. The "Complaint of Ninathoma" (first stanza +in particular) is the best, or only good, imitation of Ossian I ever +saw, your "Restless Gale" excepted. "To an Infant" is most sweet; is not +"foodful," though, very harsh? Would not "dulcet" fruit be less harsh, +or some other friendly bi-syllable? In "Edmund," "Frenzy! fierce-eyed +child" is not so well as "frantic," though that is an epithet adding +nothing to the meaning. Slander _couching_ was better than "squatting." +In the "Man of Ross" it _was_ a better line thus,-- + + "If 'neath this roof thy wine-cheered moments pass," + +than as it stands now. Time nor nothing can reconcile me to the +concluding five lines of "Kosciusko;" call it anything you will but +sublime. In my twelfth effusion I had rather have seen what I wrote +myself, though they bear no comparison with your exquisite lines,-- + + "On rose-leaf beds amid your faery bowers," etc. + +I love my sonnets because they are the reflected images of my own +feelings at different times. To instance, in the thirteenth,-- + + "How reason reeled," etc., + +are good lines, but must spoil the whole with me, who know it is only a +fiction of yours, and that the "rude dashings" did in fact not "rock me +to repose." I grant the same objection applies not to the former sonnet; +but still I love my own feelings,--they are dear to memory, though they +now and then wake a sigh or a tear, "Thinking on divers things fordone," +I charge you, Coleridge, spare my ewe-lambs; and though a gentleman may +borrow six lines in an epic poem (I should have no objection to borrow +five hundred, and without acknowledging), still, in a sonnet, a personal +poem, I do not ask my friend the aiding verse; I would not wrong your +feelings by proposing any improvements (did I think myself capable of +suggesting 'era) in such personal poems as "Thou bleedest, my poor +heart,"--'od so,--I am caught,--I have already done it; but that simile +I propose abridging would not change the feeling or introduce any alien +ones. Do you understand me? In the twenty-eighth, however, and in the +"Sigh," and that composed at Clevedon, things that come from the heart +direct, not by the medium of the fancy, I would not suggest an +alteration. + +When my blank verse is finished, or any long fancy poem, "propino tibi +alterandum, cut-up-andum, abridgeandum," just what you will with, it: +but spare my ewe-lambs! That to "Mrs. Siddons' now, you were welcome to +improve, if it had been worth it; but I say unto you again, Coleridge, +spare my ewe-lambs! I must confess, were the mine, I should omit, _in +editione secunda_, effusions two and three, because satiric and below +the dignity of the poet of "Religious Musings," fifth, seventh, half of +the eighth, that "Written in early youth," as far as "thousand +eyes,"--though I part not unreluctantly with that lively line,-- + + "Chaste joyance dancing in her bright blue eyes," + +and one or two just thereabouts. But I would substitute for it that +sweet poem called "Recollection," in the fifth number of the "Watchman," +better, I think, than the remainder of this poem, though not differing +materially; as the poem now stands, it looks altogether confused. And do +not omit those lines upon the "Early Blossom" in your sixth number of +the "Watchman;" and I would omit the tenth effusion, or what would do +better, alter and improve the last four lines. In fact, I suppose, if +they were mine, I should _not_ omit 'em; but your verse is, for the most +part, so exquisite that I like not to see aught of meaner matter mixed +with it. Forgive my petulance and often, I fear, ill-founded criticisms, +and forgive me that I have, by this time, made your eyes and head ache +with my long letter; but I cannot forego hastily the pleasure and pride +of thus conversing with you. You did not tell me whether I was to +include the "Conciones ad Populum" in my remarks on your poems. They are +not unfrequently sublime, and I think you could not do better than to +turn 'em into verse,--if you have nothing else to do. Austin, I am sorry +to say, is a _confirmed_ atheist. Stoddart, a cold-hearted, well-bred, +conceited disciple of Godwin, does him no good. His wife has several +daughters (one of 'em as old as himself). Surely there is something +unnatural in such a marriage. + +How I sympathize with you on the dull duty of a reviewer, and heartily +damn with you Ned Evans and the Prosodist! I shall, however, wait +impatiently for the articles in the "Critical Review" next month, +because they are _yours_. Young Evans (W. Evans, a branch of a family +you were once so intimate with) is come into our office, and sends his +love to you. Coleridge, I devoutly wish that Fortune, who lias made +sport with you so long, may play one freak more, throw you into London +or some spot near it, and there snug-ify you for life. 'Tis a selfish +but natural wish for me, cast as I am on life's wide plain, friendless," +Are you acquainted with Bowles? I see by his last Elegy (written at +Bath) you are near neighbors,--_Thursday_. + +"And I can think I can see the groves again;" "Was it the voice of +thee;" "Turns not the voice of thee, my buried friend;" "Who dries with +her dark locks the tender tear,"--are touches as true to Nature as any +in his other Elegy, written at the Hot Wells, about poor Kassell, etc. +You are doubtless acquainted with it, + +I do not know that I entirely agree with you in your stricture upon my +sonnet "To Innocence," To men whose hearts are not quite deadened by +their commerce with the world, innocence (no longer familiar) becomes an +awful idea. So I felt when I wrote it. Your other censures (qualified +and sweetened, though, with praises somewhat extravagant) I perfectly +coincide with: yet I choose to retain the word "lunar,"--indulge a +"lunatic" in his loyalty to his mistress the moon! I have just been +reading a most pathetic copy of verses on Sophia Pringle, who was hanged +and burned for coining. One of the strokes of pathos (which are very +many, all somewhat obscure) is, "She lifted up her guilty forger to +heaven." A note explains, by "forger," her right hand, with which she +forged or coined the base metal. For "pathos" read "bathos." You have +put me out of conceit with my blank verse by your "Religious Musings." I +think it will come to nothing. I do not like 'em enough to send 'em. I +have just been reading a book, which I may be too partial to, as it was +the delight of my childhood; but I will recommend it to you,--it is +Izaak Walton's "Complete Angler." All the scientific part you may omit +in reading. The dialogue is very simple, full of pastoral beauties, and +will charm you. Many pretty old verses are interspersed. This letter, +which would be a week's work reading only, I do not wish you to answer +in less than a month. I shall be richly content with a letter from you +some day early in July; though, if you get anyhow _settled_ before then, +pray let me know it immediately; 't would give me much satisfaction. +Concerning the Unitarian chapel, the salary is the only scruple that the +most rigid moralist would admit as valid. Concerning the tutorage, is +not the salary low, and absence from your family unavoidable? London is +the only fostering soil for genius. Nothing more occurs just now; so I +will leave you, in mercy, one small white spot empty below, to repose +your eyes upon, fatigued as they must be with the wilderness of words +they have by this time painfully travelled through. God love you, +Coleridge, and prosper you through life! though mine will be loss if +your lot is to be cast at Bristol, or at Nottingham, or anywhere but +London. Our loves to Mrs. C--. C. L. + +[1] Lapland mountains. From Coleridge's "Destiny of Nations." + +[2] The "Monody" referred to was by Cottle, and appeared in a volume of +poems published by him at Bristol in 1795. Coleridge had forwarded the +book to Lamb for his opinion. + +[3] The Monody on Chatterton. + +[4] Dr. Faustus's. + + + +IV. + + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_June_ 14, 1796, + +I am not quite satisfied now with the Chatterton, [1] and with your leave +will try my hand at it again. A master-joiner, you know, may leave a +cabinet to be finished, when his own hands are full. To your list of +illustrative personifications, into which a fine imagination enters, I +will take leave to add the following from Beaumont and Fletcher's "Wife +for a Month;" 'tis the conclusion of a description of a sea-fight: "The +game of _death_ was never played so nobly; the meagre thief grew wanton +in his mischiefs, and his shrunk, hollow eyes smiled on his ruins." +There is fancy in these of a lower order from "Bonduca": "Then did I see +these valiant men of Britain, like boding owls creep into tods of ivy, +and hoot their fears to one another nightly." Not that it is a +personification, only it just caught my eye in a little extract-book I +keep, which is full of quotations from B. and F. in particular, in which +authors I can't help thinking there is a greater richness of poetical +fancy than in any one, Shakspeare excepted. Are you acquainted with +Massinger? At a hazard I will trouble you with a passage from a play of +his called "A Very Woman." The lines are spoken by a lover (disguised) +to his faithless mistress. You will remark the fine effect of the +double endings. + +You will by your ear distinguish the lines, for I write 'em as prose. +"Not far from where my father lives, _a lady_, a neighbor by, blest with +as great a _beauty_ as Nature durst bestow without _undoing_, dwelt, and +most happily, as I thought then, and blest the house a thousand times +she _dwelt_ in. This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, when my first +fire knew no adulterate _incense_, nor I no way to flatter but my +_fondness_; in all the bravery my friends could _show me_, in all the +faith my innocence could _give me_, in the best language my true tongue +could _tell me_, and all the broken sighs my sick heart _lend me_, I +sued and served; long did I serve this _lady_, long was my travail, long +my trade to _win her_; with all the duty of my soul I SERVED HER." "Then +she must love." "She did, but never me: she could not _love me_; she +would not love, she hated,--more, she _scorned me_; and in so a poor and +base a way _abused me_ for all my services, for all my _bounties_, so +bold neglects flung on me." "What out of love, and worthy love, I _gave +her_ (shame to her most unworthy mind!), to fools, to girls, to fiddlers +and her boys she flung, all in disdain of me." One more passage strikes +my eye from B. and F.'s "Palamon and Arcite." One of 'em complains in +prison: "This is all our world; we shall know nothing here but one +another, hear nothing but the clock that tells us our woes; the vine +shall grow, but we shall never see it," etc. Is not the last +circumstance exquisite? I mean not to lay myself open by saying they +exceed Milton, and perhaps Collins in sublimity. But don't you conceive +all poets after Shakspeare yield to 'em in variety of genius? Massinger +treads close on their heels; but you are most probably as well +acquainted with his writings as your humble servant. My quotations, in +that case, will only serve to expose my barrenness of matter. Southey in +simplicity and tenderness is excelled decidedly only, I think, by +Beaumont and F. in his "Maid's Tragedy," and some parts of "Philaster" +in particular, and elsewhere occasionally; and perhaps by Cowper in his +"Crazy Kate," and in parts of his translation, such as the speeches of +Hecuba and Andromache. I long to know your opinion of that translation. +The Odyssey especially is surely very Homeric. What nobler than the +appearance of Phoebus at the beginning of the Iliad,--the lines ending +with "Dread sounding, bounding on the silver bow!" + +I beg you will give me your opinion of the translation; it afforded me +high pleasure. As curious a specimen of translation as ever fell into my +hands, is a young man's in our office, of a French novel. What in the +original was literally "amiable delusions of the fancy," he proposed, to +render "the fair frauds of the imagination." I had much trouble in +licking the book into any meaning at all. Yet did the knave clear fifty +or sixty pounds by subscription and selling the copyright. The book +itself not a week's work! To-day's portion of my journalizing epistle +has been very dull and poverty-stricken. I will here end. + +_Tuesday night_, + +I have been drinking egg-hot and smoking Oronooko (associated +circumstances, which ever forcibly recall to my mind our evenings and +nights at the "Salutation"). My eyes and brain are heavy and asleep, but +my heart is awake; and if words came as ready as ideas, and ideas as +feelings, I could say ten hundred kind things. Coleridge, you know not +my supreme happiness at having one on earth (though counties separate +us) whom I can call a friend. Remember you those tender lines +of Logan?-- + + "Our broken friendships we deplore, + And loves of youth that are no more; + No after friendships e'er can raise + Th' endearments of our early days, + And ne'er the heart such fondness prove, + As when we first began to love." + +I am writing at random, and half-tipsy, what you may not _equally_ +understand, as you will be sober when you read it; but _my_ sober and +_my_ half-tipsy hours you are alike a sharer in. Good night. + + "Then up rose our bard, like a prophet in drink, + Craigdoroch, thou'lt soar when creation shall sink." + +BURNS. + +[1] Coleridge's "Monody" on Chatterton. + + + +V. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_September_ 27, 1796. + +My Dearest Friend,--White, or some of my friends, or the public papers, +by this time may have informed you of the terrible calamities that have +fallen on our family. I will only give you the outlines: My poor dear, +dearest sister, in a fit of insanity, has been the death of her own +mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her +grasp. She is at present in a madhouse, from whence I fear she must be +moved to an hospital. God has preserved to me my senses,--I eat, and +drink, and sleep, and have my judgment, I believe, very sound. My poor +father was slightly wounded, and I am left to take care of him and my +aunt. Mr, Norris, of the Blue-coat School, has been very kind to us, and +we have no other friend; but, thank God, I am very calm and composed, +and able to do the best that remains to do. Write as religious a letter +as possible, but no mention of what is gone and done with. With me "the +former things are passed away," and I have something more to do than +to feel. + +God Almighty have us all in his keeping! + +C. LAMB. + +Mention nothing of poetry. I have destroyed every vestige of past +vanities of that kind. Do as you please, but if you publish, publish +mine (I give free leave) without name or initial, and never send me a +book, I charge you. + +Your own judgment will convince you not to take any notice of this yet +to your dear wife. You look after your family; I have my reason and +strength left to take care of mine. I charge you, don't think of coming +to see me. Write. I will not see you, if you come, God Almighty love you +and all of us! + +C. LAMB. + + + +VI. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_October_ 3, 1796. + +My dearest friend,--Your letter was an inestimable treasure to me. It +will be a comfort to you, I know, to know that our prospects are +somewhat brighter. My poor dear, dearest sister, the unhappy and +unconscious instrument of the Almighty's judgments on our house, is +restored to her senses, to a dreadful sense and recollection of what has +past, awful to her mind and impressive (as it must be to the end of +life), but tempered with religious resignation and the reasonings of a +sound judgment, which in this early stage knows how to distinguish +between a deed committed in a transient fit of frenzy, and the terrible +guilt of a mother's murder. I have seen her. I found her, this morning, +calm and serene; far, very, very far, from an indecent, forgetful +serenity. She has a most affectionate and tender concern for what has +happened. Indeed, from the beginning, frightful and hopeless as her +disorder seemed, I had confidence enough in her strength of mind and +religious principle to look forward to a time when _even she_ might +recover tranquillity. God be praised, Coleridge, wonderful as it is to +tell, I have never once been otherwise than collected and calm; even on +the dreadful day and in the midst of the terrible scene, I preserved a +tranquillity which bystanders may have construed into indifference,--a +tranquillity not of despair. Is it folly or sin in me to say that it was +a religious principle that _most_ supported me? I allow much to other +favorable circumstances. I felt that I had something else to do than to +regret. On that first evening my aunt was lying insensible, to all +appearance like one dying; my father with his poor forehead plastered +over, from a wound he had received from a daughter dearly loved by him, +and who loved him no less dearly; my mother a dead and murdered corpse +in the next room,--yet was I wonderfully supported, I dosed not my eyes +in sleep that night, but lay without terrors and without despair, I have +lost no sleep since, I had been long used not to rest in things of +sense,--had endeavored after a comprehension of mind unsatisfied with +the "ignorant present time;" and _this_ kept me up. I had the whole +weight of the family thrown on me; for my brother, [1] little disposed (I +speak not without tenderness for him) at any time to take care of old +age and infirmities, had now, with his bad leg, an exemption from such +duties; and I was now left alone. + +One little incident may serve to make you understand my way of managing +my mind, Within a day or two after the fatal one, we dressed for dinner +a tongue which we had had salted for some weeks in the house. As I sat +down, a feeling like remorse struck me: this tongue poor Mary got for +me, and can I partake of it now, when she is far away? A thought +occurred and relieved me; if I give in to this way of feeling, there is +not a chair, a room, an object in our rooms, that will not awaken the +keenest griefs; I must rise above such weaknesses. I hope this was not +want of true feeling. I did not let this carry me, though, too far. On +the very second day (I date from the day of horrors), as is usual in +such cases, there were a matter of twenty people, I do think, supping in +our room; they prevailed on me to eat _with them_ (for to eat I never +refused). They were all making merry in the room! Some had come from +friendship, some from busy curiosity, and some from interest. I was +going to partake with them, when my recollection came that my poor dead +mother was lying in the next room,--the very next room; a mother who +through life wished nothing but her children's welfare. Indignation, the +rage of grief, something like remorse, rushed upon my mind. In an agony +of emotion I found my, way mechanically to the adjoining room, and fell +on my knees by the side of her coffin, asking forgiveness of Heaven, and +sometimes of her, for forgetting her so soon. Tranquillity returned, and +it was the only violent emotion that mastered me; and I think it did +me good. + +I mention these things because I hate concealment, and love to give a +faithful journal of what passes within me. Our friends have been very +good. Sam Le Grice, [2] who was then in town, was with me the three or +four first days, and was as a brother to me, gave up every hour of his +time, to the very hurting of his health and spirits, in constant +attendance and humoring my poor father; talked with him, read to him, +played at cribbage with him (for so short is the old man's recollection +that he was playing at cards, as though nothing had happened, while the +coroner's inquest was sitting over the way!). Samuel wept tenderly when +he went away, for his mother wrote him a very severe letter on his +loitering so long in town, and he was forced to go. Mr. Norris, of +Christ's Hospital, has been as a father to me, Mrs. Norris as a mother, +though we had few claims on them. A gentleman, brother to my god-mother, +from whom we never had right or reason to expect any such assistance, +sent my father twenty pounds; and to crown all these God's blessings to +our family at such a time, an old lady, a cousin of my father and +aunt's, a gentlewoman of fortune, is to take my aunt and make her +comfortable for the short remainder of her days. My aunt is recovered, +and as well as ever, and highly pleased at thoughts of going, and has +generously given up the interest of her little money (which was formerly +paid my father for her board) wholely and solely to my sister's use. +Reckoning this, we have, Daddy and I, for oar two selves and an old +maid-servant to look after him when I am out, which will be necessary, +£170, or £180 rather, a year, out of which we can spare £50 or £60 at +least for Mary while she stays at Islington, where she roust and shall +stay during her father's life, for his and her comfort. I know John will +make speeches about it, but she shall not go into an hospital. The good +lady of the madhouse and her daughter, an elegant, sweet-behaved young +lady, love her, and are taken with her amazingly; and I know from her +own mouth she loves them, and longs to be with them as much. Poor thing, +they say she was but the other morning saying she knew she must go to +Bethlem for life; that one of her brothers would have it so, but the +other would wish it not, but be obliged to go with the stream; that she +had often, as she passed Bethlem, thought it likely, "here it may be my +fate to end my days," conscious of a certain flightiness in her poor +head oftentimes, and mindful of more than one severe illness of that +nature before. A legacy of £100 which my father will have at Christmas, +and this £20 I mentioned before, with what is in the house, will much +more than set us clear. If my father, an old servant-maid, and I can't +live, and live comfortably, on £130 or £120 a year, we ought to burn by +slow fires; and I almost would, that Mary might not go into an hospital. + +Let me not leave one unfavorable impression on your mind respecting my +brother. Since this has happened, he has been very kind and brotherly; +but I fear for his mind. He has taken his ease in the world, and is not +fit himself to struggle with difficulties, nor has much accustomed +himself to throw himself into their way; and I know his language is +already, "Charles, you must take care of yourself, you must not abridge +yourself of a single pleasure you have been used to," etc., and in that +style of talking. But you, a necessarian, can respect a difference of +mind, and love what _is amiable_ in a character not perfect. He has been +very good, but I fear for his mind. Thank God, I can unconnect myself +with him, and shall manage all my father's moneys in future myself, if I +take charge of Daddy, which poor John has not even hinted a wish, at any +future time even, to share with me. The lady at this madhouse assures me +that I may dismiss immediately both doctor and apothecary, retaining +occasionally a composing draught or so for a while; and there is a less +expensive establishment in her house, where she will only not have a +room and nurse to herself, for £50 or guineas a year,--the outside would +be £60. You know, by economy, how much more even I shall be able to +spare for her comforts. She will, I fancy, if she stays, make one of the +family rather than of the patients; and the old and young ladies I like +exceedingly, and she loves dearly; and they, as the saying is, take to +her very extraordinarily, if it is extraordinary that people who see my +sister should love her. + +Of all the people I ever saw in the world, my poor sister was most and +thoroughly devoid of the least tincture of selfishness, I will enlarge +upon her qualities, poor dear, dearest soul, in a future letter, for my +own comfort, for I understand her thoroughly; and if I mistake not, in +the most trying situation that a human being can be found in, she will +be found (I speak not with sufficient humility, I fear, but humanly and +foolishly speaking),--she will be found, I trust, uniformly great and +amiable. God keep her in her present mind, to whom be thanks and praise +for all His dispensations to mankind! + +C. LAMB. + +These mentioned good fortunes and change of prospects had almost brought +my mind over to the extreme the very opposite to despair. I was in +danger of making myself too happy. Your letter brought me back to a view +of things which I had entertained from the beginning. I hope (for Mary I +can answer)--but I hope that _I_ shall through life never have less +recollection, nor a fainter impression, of what has happened than I have +now. 'T is not a light thing, nor meant by the Almighty to be received +lightly. I must be serious, circumspect, and deeply religious through +life; and by such means may _both_ of us escape madness in future, if it +so please the Almighty! + +Send me word how it fares with Sara. I repeat it, your letter was, and +will be, an inestimable treasure to me. You have a view of what my +situation demands of me, like my own view, and I trust a just one. + +Coleridge, continue to write, but do not forever offend me by talking of +sending me cash. Sincerely and on my soul, we do not want it. God +love you both! + +I will write again very soon. Do you write directly. + +[1] John Lamb, the "James Elia" of the essay "My Relations." + +[2] A Christ's Hospital schoolfellow. + + + +VII. + + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_October_ 17, 1796. + +My dearest friend,--I grieve from my very soul to observe you in your +plans of life veering about from this hope to the other, and settling +nowhere. Is it an untoward fatality (speaking humanly) that does this +for you,--a stubborn, irresistible concurrence of events,--or lies the +fault, as I fear it does, in your own mind? You seem to be taking up +splendid schemes of fortune only to lay them down again; and your +fortunes are an _ignis fatuus_ that has been conducting you in thought +from Lancaster Court, Strand, to somewhere near Matlock; then jumping +across to Dr. Somebody's, whose son's tutor you were likely to be; and +would to God the dancing demon _may_ conduct you at last in peace and +comfort to the "life and labours of a cottager"! You see from the above +awkward playfulness of fancy that my spirits are not quite depressed. I +should ill deserve God's blessings, which, since the late terrible +event, have come down in mercy upon us, if I indulge in regret or +querulousness. Mary continues serene and cheerful. I have not by me a +little letter she wrote to me; for though I see her almost every day, +yet we delight to write to one another, for we can scarce see each other +but in company with some of the people of the house. I have not the +letter by me, but will quote from memory what she wrote in it: "I have +no bad, terrifying dreams. At midnight, when I happen to awake, the +nurse sleeping by the side of me, with the noise of the poor mad people +around me, I have no fear. The spirit of my mother seems to descend and +smile upon me, and bid me live to enjoy the life and reason which the +Almighty has given me. I shall see her again in heaven; she will then +understand me better. My grandmother, too, will understand me better, +and will then say no more, as she used to do, 'Polly, what are those +poor crazy, moythered brains of yours thinking of always?'" Poor Mary! +my mother indeed _never understood_ her right. She loved her, as she +loved us all, with a mother's love; but in opinion, in feeling and +sentiment and disposition, bore so distant a resemblance to her daughter +that she never understood her right,--never could believe how much _she_ +loved her, but met her caresses, her protestations of filial affection, +too frequently with coldness and repulse. Still, she was a good mother. +God forbid I should think of her but _most_ respectfully, _most_ +affectionately. Yet she would always love my brother above Mary, who was +not worthy of one tenth of that affection which Mary had a right to +claim. But it is my sister's gratifying recollection that every act of +duty and of love she could pay, every kindness (and I speak true, when I +say to the hurting of her health, and most probably in great part to the +derangement of her senses) through a long course of infirmities and +sickness she could show her, she ever did. I will some day, as I +promised, enlarge to you upon my sister's excellences; 't will seem like +exaggeration, but I will do it. At present, short letters suit my state +of mind best. So take my kindest wishes for your comfort and +establishment in life, and for Sara's welfare and comforts with you. God +love you; God love us all! + +C. LAMB. + + + +VIII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_November_ 14, 1796. + +Coleridge, I love you for dedicating your poetry to Bowles. [1] Genius of +the sacred fountain of tears, it was he who led you gently by the hand +through all this valley of weeping, showed you the dark green yew-trees +and the willow shades where, by the fall of waters, you might indulge in +uncomplaining melancholy, a delicious regret for the past, or weave fine +visions of that awful future,-- + + "When all the vanities of life's brief day + Oblivion's hurrying hand hath swept away, + And all its sorrows, at the awful blast + Of the archangel's trump, are but as shadows past." + +I have another sort of dedication in my head for my few things, which I +want to know if you approve of and can insert. [2] I mean to inscribe +them to my sister. It will be unexpected, and it will gire her pleasure; +or do you think it will look whimsical at all? As I have not spoke to +her about it, I can easily reject the idea. But there is a monotony in +the affections which people living together, or as we do now, very +frequently seeing each other, are apt to give in to,--a sort of +indifference in the expression of kindness for each other, which demands +that we should sometimes call to our aid the trickery of surprise. Do +you publish with Lloyd, or without him? In either case my little portion +may come last, and after the fashion of orders to a country +correspondent, I will give directions how I should like to have 'em +done. The title-page to stand thus:-- + + +POEMS + +BY CHARLES LAMB, OF THE INDIA HOUSE. + +Under this title the following motto, which, for want of room, I put +over-leaf, and desire you to insert whether you like it or no. May not a +gentleman choose what arms, mottoes, or armorial bearings the herald +will give him leave, without consulting his republican friend, who might +advise none? May not a publican put up the sign of the Saracen's Head, +even though his undiscerning neighbor should prefer, as more genteel, +the Cat and Gridiron? + +[MOTTO.] + + "This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, + When my first fire knew no adulterate incense, + Nor I no way to flatter but my fondness, + In the best language my true tongue could tell me, + And all the broken sighs my sick heart lend me, + I sued and served. Long did I love this lady." [1] + MASSINGER. + +THE DEDICATION. + + THE FEW FOLLOWING POEMS, + CREATURES OF THE FANCY AND THE FEELING + IN LIFE'S MORE VACANT HOURS, + PRODUCED, FOR THE MOST PART, BY + LOVE IN IDLENESS, + ARE, + WITH ALL A BROTHER'S FONDNESS, + INSCRIBED TO + + MARY ANN LAMB, + + THE AUTHOR'S BEST FRIEND ANB SISTER. + +This is the pomp and paraphernalia of parting, with which I take my +leave of a passion which has reigned so royally (so long) within me; +thus, with its trappings of laureateship, I fling it off, pleased and +satisfied with myself that the weakness troubles me no longer. I am +wedded. Coleridge, to the fortunes of my sister and my poor old father. +Oh, my friend, I think sometimes, could I recall the days that are past, +which among them should I choose? Not, those "merrier days," not the +"pleasant days of hope," not "those wanderings with a fair-hair'd +maid," [2] which I have so often, and so feelingly regretted, but the +days, Coleridge, of a _mother's_ fondness for her _schoolboy_. What +would I give to call her back to earth for _one_ day, on my knees to ask +her pardon for all those little asperities of temper which from time to +time have given her gentle spirit pain. And the day, my friend, I trust +will come; there will be "time enough" for kind offices of love, if +"Heaven's eternal year" be ours. Hereafter, her meek spirit shall not +reproach me. Oh, my friend, cultivate the filial feelings, and let no +man think himself released from the kind "charities" of relationship. +These shall give him peace at the last; these are the best foundation +for every species of benevolence. I rejoice to hear, by certain +channels, that you, my friend, are reconciled with all your relations. +'T is the most kindly and natural species of love, and we have all the +associated train of early feelings to secure its strength and +perpetuity. Send me an account of your health; _indeed_ I am solicitous +about you. God love you and yours! + +C. LAMB. + +[1] From "A Very Woman." + +[2] An allusion to Lamb's first love,--the "Anna" of his sonnets, and +the original, probably, of "Rosamund Gray" and of "Alice W---n" in the +beautiful essay "Dream Children." + +[3] The earliest sonnets of William Lisle Bowles were published in 1789, +the year of Lamb's removal from Christ's Hospital. + +[4] Alluding to the prospective joint volume of poems (by Coleridge, +Lamb, and Charles Lloyd) to be published by Cottle in 1797. This was +Lamb's second serious literary venture, he and Coleridge having issued a +joint volume in 1796. + + + +IX. + +TO COLERIDGE. + +[Fragment.] + +_Dec_. 5, 1796. + +At length I have done with verse-making,--not that I relish other +people's poetry less: theirs comes from 'em without effort; mine is the +difficult operation of a brain scanty of ideas, made more difficult by +disuse. I have been reading "The Task" with fresh delight. I am glad you +love Cowper. I could forgive a man for not enjoying Milton; but I would +not call that man my friend who should be offended with the "divine +chit-chat of Cowper." Write to me. God love you and yours! + +C. L. + + + +X. + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_Dec_. 10, 1796. + +I had put my letter into the post rather hastily, not expecting to have +to acknowledge another from you so soon. This morning's present has made +me alive again. My last night's epistle was childishly querulous: but +you have put a little life into me, and I will thank you for your +remembrance of me, while my sense of it is yet warm; for if I linger a +day or two, I may use the same phrase of acknowledgment, or similar, but +the feeling that dictates it now will be gone; I shall send you a _caput +mortuum_; not a _cor vivens_. Thy "Watchman's," thy bellman's verses, I +do retort upon thee, thou libellous varlet,--why, you cried the hours +yourself, and who made you so proud? But I submit, to show my humility, +most implicitly to your dogmas, I reject entirely the copy of verses you +reject. With regard to my leaving off versifying [1] you have said so +many pretty things, so many fine compliments, Ingeniously decked out in +the garb of sincerity, and undoubtedly springing from a present feeling +somewhat like sincerity, that you might melt the most un-muse-ical soul, +did you not (now for a Rowland compliment for your profusion of +Olivers),--did you not in your very epistle, by the many pretty fancies +and profusion of heart displayed in it, dissuade and discourage me from +attempting anything after you. At present I have not leisure to make +verses, nor anything approaching to a fondness for the exercise. In the +ignorant present time, who can answer for the future man? "At lovers' +perjuries Jove laughs,"--and poets have sometimes a disingenuous way of +forswearing their occupation. This, though, is not my case. The tender +cast of soul, sombred with melancholy and subsiding recollections, is +favorable to the Sonnet or the Elegy; but from-- + + "The sainted growing woof + The teasing troubles keep aloof." + +The music of poesy may charm for a while the importunate, teasing cares +of life; but the teased and troubled man is not in a disposition to make +that music. + +You sent me some very sweet lines relative to Burns; but it was at a +time when, in my highly agitated and perhaps distorted state of mind, I +thought it a duty to read 'em hastily and burn 'em. I burned all my own +verses, all my book of extracts from Beaumont and Fletcher and a +thousand sources; I burned a little journal of my foolish passion which +I had a long time kept,-- + + "Noting, ere they past away, + The little lines of yesterday." + +I almost burned all your letters; I did as bad,--I lent 'em to a friend +to keep out of my brother's sight, should he come and make inquisition +into our papers; for much as he dwelt upon your conversation while you +were among us, and delighted to be with you, it has been, his fashion, +ever since to depreciate and cry you down,--you were the cause of my +madness, you and your damned foolish sensibility and melancholy; and he +lamented with a true brotherly feeling that we ever met,--even as the +sober citizen, when his son went astray upon the mountains of Parnassus, +is said to have cursed wit, and poetry, and Pope. [2] I quote wrong, but +no matter. These letters I lent to a friend to be out of the way for a +season; but I have claimed them in vain, and shall not cease to regret +their loss. Your packets posterior to the date of my misfortunes, +commencing with that valuable consolatory epistle, are every day +accumulating,--they are sacred things with me. + +Publish your _Burns_ [3] when and how you like; it will "be new to +me,"--my memory of it is very confused, and tainted with unpleasant +associations. Burns was the god of my idolatry, as Bowles of yours. I am +jealous of your fraternizing with Bowles, when I think you relish him +more than Burns or my old favorite, Cowper, But you conciliate matters +when you talk of the "divine chit-chat" of the latter; by the expression +I see you thoroughly relish him. I love Mrs. Coleridge for her excuses +an hundred-fold more dearly than if she heaped "line upon line," +out-Hannah-ing Hannah More, and had rather hear you sing "Did a very +little baby" by your family fireside, than listen to you when you were +repeating one of Bowles's sweetest sonnets in your sweet manner, while +we two were indulging sympathy, a solitary luxury, by the fireside at +the "Salutation." Yet have I no higher ideas of heaven. Your company was +one "cordial in this melancholy vale,"--the remembrance of it is a +blessing partly, and partly a curse. When I can abstract myself from +things present, I can enjoy it with a freshness of relish; but it more +constantly operates to an unfavorable comparison with the uninteresting +converse I always and _only_ can partake in. Not a soul loves Bowles +here; scarce one has heard of Burns; few but laugh at me for reading my +Testament,--they talk a language I understand not; I conceal sentiments +that would be a puzzle to them. I can only converse with you by letter, +and with the dead in their books. My sister, indeed, is all I can wish +in a companion; but our spirits are alike poorly, our reading and +knowledge from the selfsame sources, our communication with the scenes +of the world alike narrow. Never having kept separate company, or any +"company _together_;" never having read separate books, and few books +_together_,--what knowledge have we to convey to each other? In our +little range of duties and connections, how few sentiments can take +place without friends, with few books, with a taste for religion rather +than a strong religious habit! We need some support, some +leading-strings to cheer and direct us. You talk very wisely; and be not +sparing of _your advice_. Continue to remember us, and to show us you do +remember us; we will take as lively an interest in what concerns you and +yours. All I can add to your happiness will be sympathy. You can add to +mine _more_; you can teach me wisdom. I am indeed an unreasonable +correspondent: but I was unwilling to let my last night's letter go off +without this qualifier: you will perceive by this my mind is easier, and +you will rejoice. I do not expect or wish you to write till you are +moved; and of course shall not, till you announce to me that event, +think of writing myself. Love to Mrs. Coleridge and David Hartley, and +my kind remembrance to Lloyd, if he is with you. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] See preceding letter. + +[2] Epistle to Arbuthnot:-- + + "Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope, + And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope." + +[3] The lines on him which Coleridge had sent to Lamb, and which the +latter had burned. + + + +XI. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_January_ 5, 1797. + +_Sunday Morning_.--You cannot surely mean to degrade the Joan of Arc +into a pot-girl. [1] You are not going, I hope, to annex to that most +splendid ornament of Southey's poem all this cock-and-a-bull story of +Joan, the publican's daughter of Neufchâtel, with the lamentable episode +of a wagoner, his wife, and six children. The texture will be most +lamentably disproportionate. The first forty or fifty lines of these +addenda are no doubt in their way admirable too; but many would prefer +the Joan of Southey. + +[1] Coleridge, in later years, indorsed Lamb's opinion of this +portion of his contribution to "Joan of Arc." "I was really astonished," +he said, "(1) at the schoolboy, wretched, allegoric machinery; (2) at +the transmogrification of the fanatic virago into a modern novel-pawing +proselyte of the "Age of Reason,"--a Tom Paine in petticoats; (3) at the +utter want of all rhythm in the verse, the monotony and dead plumb-down +of the pauses, and the absence of all bone, muscle, and sinew in the +single lines." + + "On mightiest deeds to brood + Of shadowy vastness, such as made my heart + Throb fast; anon I paused, and in a state + Of half expectance listened to the wind." + + "They wondered at me, who had known me once + A cheerful, careless damsel." + + "The eye, + That of the circling throng and of the visible world, + Unseeing, saw the shapes of holy phantasy." + +I see nothing in your description of the Maid equal to these. There is a +fine originality certainly in those lines,-- + + "For she had lived in this bad world + As in a place of tombs, + And touched not the pollutions of the dead;" + +but your "fierce vivacity" is a faint copy of the "fierce and terrible +benevolence" of Southey; added to this, that it will look like rivalship +in you, and extort a comparison with Southey,--I think to your +disadvantage. And the lines, considered in themselves as an addition to +what you had before written (strains of a far higher mood), are but such +as Madame Fancy loves in some of her more familiar moods,--at such times +as she has met Noll Goldsmith, and walked and talked with him, calling +him "old acquaintance." Southey certainly has no pretensions to vie with +you in the sublime of poetry; but he tells a plain tale better than you. +I will enumerate some woful blemishes, some of 'em sad deviations from +that simplicity which was your aim. "Hailed who might be near" (the +"canvas-coverture moving," by the by, is laughable); "a woman and six +children" (by the way, why not nine children? It would have been just +half as pathetic again); "statues of sleep they seemed;" "frost-mangled +wretch;" "green putridity;" "hailed him immortal" (rather ludicrous +again); "voiced a sad and simple tale" (abominable!); "unprovendered;" +"such his tale;" "Ah, suffering to the height of what was sufffered" (a +most _insufferable line_); "amazements of affright;" "The hot, sore +brain attributes its own hues of ghastliness and torture" (what shocking +confusion of ideas!). + +In these delineations of common and natural feelings, in the familiar +walks of poetry, you seem to resemble Montauban dancing with Roubigné's +tenants [1], "_much of his native loftiness remained in the execution_." + +I was reading your "Religious Musings" the other day, and sincerely I +think it the noblest poem in the language next after the "Paradise +Lost;" and even that was not made the vehicle of such grand truths. +"There is one mind," etc., down to "Almighty's throne," are without a +rival in the whole compass of my poetical reading. + + "Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze + Views all creation." + +I wish I could have written those lines. I rejoice that I am able to +relish them. The loftier walks of Pindus are your proper region. There +you have no compeer in modern times. Leave the lowlands, unenvied, in +possession of such men as Cowper and Southey. Thus am I pouring balsam +into the wounds I may have been inflicting on my poor friend's vanity. + +In your notice of Southey's new volume you omit to mention the most +pleasing of all, the "Miniature." + + "There were + Who formed high hopes and flattering ones of thee, + Young Robert!" + + "Spirit of Spenser! was the wanderer wrong?" + +Fairfax I have been in quest of a long time. Johnson, in his "Life of +Waller," gives a most delicious specimen of him, and adds, in the true +manner of that delicate critic, as well as amiable man, "It may be +presumed that this old version will not be much read after the elegant +translation of my friend Mr. Hoole." I endeavored--I wished to gain some +idea of Tasso from this Mr. Hoole, the great boast and ornament of the +India House, but soon desisted. I found him more vapid than smallest +small beer "sun-vinegared." Your "Dream," down to that exquisite line,-- + + "I can't tell half his adventures," + +is a most happy resemblance of Chaucer. The remainder is so-so. The best +line, I think, is, "He belong'd, I believe, to the witch Melancholy." By +the way, when will our volume come out? Don't delay it till you have +written a new "Joan of Arc." Send what letters you please by me, and in +any way you choose, single or double. The India Company is better +adapted to answer the cost than the generality of my friend's +correspondents,--such poor and honest dogs as John Thelwall +particularly. I cannot say I know Coulson,--at least intimately; I once +supped with him and Austin; I think his manners very pleasing. I will +not tell you what I think of Lloyd, for he may by chance come to see +this letter; and that thought puts a restraint on me. I cannot think +what subject would suit your epic genius,--some philosophical subject, I +conjecture, in which shall be blended the sublime of poetry and of +science. Your proposed "Hymns" will be a fit preparatory study wherewith +"to discipline your young novitiate soul." I grow dull; I'll go walk +myself out of my dulness. + +_Sunday Night_,--You and Sara are very good to think so kindly and so +favorably of poor Mary; I would to God all did so too. But I very much +fear she must not think of coming home in my father's lifetime. It is +very hard upon her, but our circumstances are peculiar, and we must +submit to them, God be praised she is so well as she is. She bears her +situation as one who has no right to complain. My poor old aunt, whom +you have seen, the kindest, goodest creature to me when I was at school; +who used to toddle there to bring me good things, when I, +schoolboy-like, only despised her for it, and used to be ashamed to see +her come and sit herself down on the old coal-hole steps as you went +into the old grammar-school, and open her apron, and bring out her +basin, with some nice thing she had caused to be saved for me, [2]--the +good old creature is now lying on her death-bed. I cannot bear to think +on her deplorable state. To the shock she received on that our evil day, +from which she never completely recovered, I impute her illness. She +says, poor thing, she is glad she is come home to die with me. I was +always her favourite; + + "No after friendship e'er can raise + The endearments of our early days; + Nor e'er the heart such fondness prove, + As when it first began to love." + +[1] In Mackenzie's tale, "Julia de Roubigné." + +[2] See the essay, "Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago." + + + +XII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_January_ 10, 1797. + +I need not repeat my wishes to have my little sonnets printed _verbatim_ +my last way. In particular, I fear lest you should prefer printing my +first sonnet, as you have done more than once, "did the wand of Merlin +wave," it looks so like Mr. Merlin, [1] the ingenious successor of the +immortal Merlin, now living in good health and spirits, and flourishing +in magical reputation, in Oxford Street; and, on my life, one half who +read it would understand it so. + +Do put 'em forth finally, as I have, in various letters, settled it; for +first a man's self is to be pleased, and then his friends,--and of +course the greater number of his friends, if they differ _inter se_. +Thus taste may safely be put to the vote. I do long to see our names +together,--not for vanity's sake, and naughty pride of heart altogether; +for not a living soul I know, or am intimate with, will scarce read the +book,--so I shall gain nothing, _quoad famam_; and yet there is a little +vanity mixes in it, I cannot help denying.--I am aware of the unpoetical +cast of the last six lines of my last sonnet, and think myself +unwarranted in smuggling so tame a thing into the book; only the +sentiments of those six lines are thoroughly congenial to me in my state +of mind, and I wish to accumulate perpetuating tokens of my affection to +poor Mary. That it has no originality in its cast, nor anything in the +feelings but what is common and natural to thousands, nor ought properly +to be called poetry, I see; still, it will tend to keep present to my +mind a view of things which I ought to indulge. These six lines, too, +have not, to a reader, a connectedness with the foregoing. Omit it if +you like,--What a treasure it is to my poor, indolent, and unemployed +mind thus to lay hold on a subject to talk about, though 'tis but a +sonnet, and that of the lowest order! How mournfully inactive I +am!--'Tis night; good night. + +My sister, I thank God, is nigh recovered; she was seriously ill. Do, in +your next letter, and that right soon, give me some satisfaction +respecting your present situation at Stowey. Is it a farm that you have +got? and what does your worship know about farming? + +Coleridge, I want you to write an epic poem. Nothing short of it can +satisfy the vast capacity of true poetic genius. Having one great end to +direct all your poetical faculties to, and on which to lay out your +hopes, your ambition will show you to what you are equal. By the sacred +energies of Milton! by the dainty, sweet, and soothing phantasies of +honey-tongued Spenser! I adjure you to attempt the epic, or do something +more ample than the writing an occasional brief ode or sonnet; something +"to make yourself forever known,--to make the age to come your own." But +I prate; doubtless you meditate something. When you are exalted among +the lords of epic fame, I shall recall with pleasure and exultingly the +days of your humility, when you disdained not to put forth, in the same +volume with mine, your "Religious Musings" and that other poem from the +"Joan of Arc," those promising first-fruits of high renown to come. You +have learning, you have fancy, you have enthusiasm, you have strength +and amplitude of wing enow for flights like those I recommend. In the +vast and unexplored regions of fairy-land there is ground enough unfound +and uncultivated: search there, and realize your favorite Susquehanna +scheme. In all our comparisons of taste, I do not know whether I have +ever heard your opinion of a poet very dear to me,--the +now-out-of-fashion Cowley. Favor me with your judgment of him, and tell +me if his prose essays, in particular, as well as no inconsiderable part +of his verse, be not delicious. I prefer the graceful rambling of his +essays even to the courtly elegance and ease of Addison, abstracting +from this the latter's exquisite humor. + +When the little volume is printed, send me three or four, at all events +not more than six, copies, and tell me if I put you to any additional +expense by printing with you, I have no thought of the kind, and in that +case must reimburse you. + +Priestley, whom I sin in almost adoring, speaks of "such a choice of +company as tends to keep up that, right bent and firmness of mind which +a necessary intercourse with the world would otherwise warp and +relax.... Such fellowship is the true balsam of life; its cement is +infinitely more durable than that of the friendships of the world, and +it looks for its proper fruit and complete gratification to the life +beyond the grave." Is there a possible chance for such an one as I to +realize in this world such friendships? Where am I to look for 'em? What +testimonials shall I bring of my being worthy of such friendship? Alas! +the great and good go together in separate herds, and leave such as I to +lag far, far behind in all intellectual and, far more grievous to say, +in all moral accomplishments. Coleridge, I have not one truly elevated +character among my acquaintance,--not one Christian; not one but +undervalues Christianity. Singly what am I to do? Wesley (have you read +his life?), was _he_ not an elevated character? Wesley has said, +"Religion is not a solitary thing." Alas! it necessarily is so with me, +or next to solitary. 'T is true you write to me. But correspondence by +letter and personal intimacy are very widely different. Do, do write to +me, and do some good to my mind, already how much "warped and relaxed" +by the world! 'T is the conclusion of another evening. Good night; God +have us all in His keeping! + +If you are sufficiently at leisure, oblige me with an account of your +plan of life at Stowey; your literary occupations and prospects,--in +short, make me acquainted with every circumstance which, as relating to +you, can be interesting to me. Are you yet a Berkleyan? Make me one. I +rejoice in being, speculatively, a necessarian. Would to God I were +habitually a practical one! Confirm me in the faith of that great and +glorious doctrine, and keep me steady in the contemplation of it. You +some time since expressed an intention you had of finishing some +extensive work on the Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion. Have +you let that intention go? Or are you doing anything towards it? Make to +yourself other ten talents. My letter is full of nothingness. I talk of +nothing. But I must talk. I love to write to you. I take a pride in it. +It makes me think less meanly of myself. It makes me think myself not +totally disconnected from the better part of mankind. I know I am too +dissatisfied with the beings around me; but I cannot help occasionally +exclaiming, "Woe is me, that I am constrained to dwell with Meshech, and +to have my habitation among the tents of Kedar." I know I am noways +better in practice than my neighors, but I have a taste for religion, an +occasional earnest aspiration after perfection, which they have not. I +gain, nothing by being with such as myself,--we encourage one another in +mediocrity, I am always longing to be with men more excellent than +myself. All this must sound odd to you; but these are my predominant +feelings when I sit down to write to you, and I should put force upon my +mind, were I to reject them, Yet I rejoice, and feel my privilege with +gratitude, when I have been reading some wise book, such as I have just +been reading,--Priestley on Philosophical Necessity,--in the thought +that I enjoy a kind of communion, a kind of friendship even, with the +great and good. Books are to me instead of friends, I wish they did not +resemble the latter in their scarceness. + +And how does little David Hartley? "Ecquid in antiquam virtutem?" Does +his mighty name work wonders yet upon his little frame and opening mind? +I did not distinctly understand you,--you don't mean to make an actual +ploughman of him? Is Lloyd with you yet? Are you intimate with Southey? +What poems is he about to publish? He hath a most prolific brain, and is +indeed a most sweet poet. But how can you answer all the various mass of +interrogation I have put to you in the course of the sheet? Write back +just what you like, only write something, however brief. I have now nigh +finished my page, and got to the end of another evening (Monday +evening), and my eyes are heavy and sleepy, and my brain unsuggestive. I +have just heart enough awake to say good night once more, and God love +you, my dear friend; God love us all! Mary bears an affectionate +remembrance of you. + +CHARLES LAMB. + +[1] A well-known conjuror of the time. + + + +XIII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_February_ 13, 1797. + +Your poem is altogether admirable--parts of it are even exquisite; in +particular your personal account of the Maid far surpasses anything of +the sort in Southey. [1] I perceived all its excellences, on a first +reading, as readily as now you have been removing a supposed film from +my eyes. I was only struck with a certain faulty disproportion in the +matter and the _style_, which I still think I perceive, between these +lines and the former ones. I had an end in view,--I wished to make you +reject the poem, only as being discordant with the other; and, in +subservience to that end, it was politically done in me to over-pass, +and make no mention of, merit which, could you think me capable of +_overlooking_, might reasonably damn forever in your judgment all +pretensions in me to be critical. There, I will be judged by Lloyd +whether I have not made a very handsome recantation. I was in the case +of a man whose friend has asked him his opinion of a certain young lady; +the deluded wight gives judgment against her _in toto_,--don't like her +face, her walk, her manners; finds fault with her eyebrows; can see no +wit in her. His friend looks blank; he begins to smell a rat; wind veers +about; he acknowledges her good sense, her judgment in dress, a certain +simplicity of manners and honesty of heart, something too in her manners +which gains upon you after a short acquaintance;--and then her accurate +pronunciation of the French language, and a pretty, uncultivated taste +in drawing. The reconciled gentleman smiles applause, squeezes him by +the hand, and hopes he will do him the honor of taking a bit of dinner +with Mrs. ---- and him--a plain family dinner--some day next week; "for, +I suppose, you never heard we were married. I'm glad to see you like my +wife, however; you 'll come and see her, ha?" Now am I too proud to +retract entirely? Yet I do perceive I am in some sort straitened; you +are manifestly wedded, to this poem, and what fancy has joined, let no +man separate, I turn me to the "Joan of Arc," second book. + +The solemn openings of it are with sounds which, Lloyd would say, "are +silence to the mind." The deep preluding strains are fitted to initiate +the mind, with a pleasing awe, into the sublimest mysteries of theory +concerning man's nature and his noblest destination,--the philosophy of +a first cause; of subordinate agents in creation superior to man; the +subserviency of pagan worship and pagan faith to the introduction of a +purer and more perfect religion, which you so elegantly describe as +winning, with gradual steps, her difficult way northward from Bethabara. +After all this cometh Joan, a _publican's_ daughter, sitting on an +ale-house _bench_, and marking the _swingings_ of the _signboard_, +finding a poor man, his wife and six children, starved to death with +cold, and thence roused into a state of mind proper to receive visions +emblematical of equality,--which, what the devil Joan had to do with, I +don't know, or indeed with the French and American revolutions; though +that needs no pardon, it is executed so nobly. After all, if you +perceive no disproportion, all argument is vain; I do not so much object +to parts. Again, when you talk of building your fame on these lines in +preference to the "Religious Musings," I cannot help conceiving of you +and of the author of that as two different persons, and I think you a +very vain man. + +I have been re-reading your letter. Much of it I _could_ dispute; but +with the latter part of it, in which you compare the two Joans with +respect to their predispositions for fanaticism, I _toto corde_ +coincide; only I think that Southey's strength rather lies in the +description of the emotions of the Maid under the weight of inspiration. +These (I see no mighty difference between _her_ describing them or _you_ +describing them),--these if you only equal, the previous admirers of his +poem, as is natural, will prefer his; if you surpass, prejudice will +scarcely allow it, and I scarce think you will surpass, though your +specimen at the conclusion (I am in earnest) I think very nigh equals +them. And in an account of a fanatic or of a prophet the description of +her _emotions_ is expected to be most highly finished. By the way, I +spoke far too disparagingly of your lines, and, I am ashamed to say. +purposely, I should like you to specify or particularize; the story of +the "Tottering Eld," of "his eventful years all come and gone," is too +general; why not make him a soldier, or some character, however, in +which he has been witness to frequency of "cruel wrong and strange +distress"? I think I should, When I laughed at the "miserable man +crawling from beneath the coverture," I wonder I did not perceive it was +a laugh of horror,--such as I have laughed at Dante's picture of the +famished Ugolino. Without falsehood, I perceive an hundred, beauties in +your narrative. Yet I wonder you do not perceive something +out-of-the-way, something unsimple and artificial, in the expression, +"voiced a sad tale." I hate made-dishes at the muses' banquet, I believe +I was wrong in most of my other objections. But surely "hailed him +immortal" adds nothing to the terror of the man's death, which it was +your business to heighten, not diminish by a phrase which takes away all +terror from it, I like that line, "They closed their eyes in sleep, nor +knew 'twas death," Indeed, there is scarce a line I do not like, +"_Turbid_ ecstasy" is surely not so good as what you had +written,--"troublous." "Turbid" rather suits the muddy kind of +inspiration which London porter confers. The versification is +throughout, to my ears, unexceptionable, with no disparagement to the +measure of the "Religious Musings," which is exactly fitted to +the thoughts. + +You were building your house on a rock when you rested your fame on that +poem. I can scarce bring myself to believe that I am admitted to a +familiar correspondence, and all the license of friendship, with a man +who writes blank verse like Milton. Now, this is delicate flattery, +_indirect_ flattery. Go on with your "Maid of Orleans," and be content +to be second to yourself. I shall become a convert to it, when +'tis finished. + +This afternoon I attend the funeral of my poor old aunt, who died on +Thursday. I own I am thankful that the good creature has ended all her +days of suffering and infirmity. She was to me the "cherisher of +infancy;" and one must fall on these occasions into reflections, which +it would be commonplace to enumerate, concerning death, "of chance and +change, and fate in human life." Good God, who could have foreseen all +this but four months back! I had reckoned, in particular, on my aunt's +living many years; she was a very hearty old woman. But she was a mere +skeleton before she died; looked more like a corpse that had lain weeks +in the grave, than one fresh dead. "Truly the light is sweet, and a +pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun: but let a man live +many days, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of +darkness, for they shall be many." Coleridge, why are we to live on +after all the strength and beauty of existence are gone, when all the +life of life is fled, as poor Burns expresses it? Tell Lloyd I have had +thoughts of turning Quaker, and have been reading, or am rather just +beginning to read, a most capital book, good thoughts in good language, +William Penn's "No Cross, no Crown;" I like it immensely. Unluckily I +went to one of his meetings, tell hire, in St. John Street, yesterday, +and saw a man under all the agitations and workings of a fanatic, who +believed himself under the influence of some "inevitable presence." This +cured me of Quakerism: I love it in the books of Penn and Woolman, but I +detest the vanity of a man thinking he speaks by the Spirit, when what +he says an ordinary man might say without all that quaking and +trembling. In the midst of his inspiration,--and the effects of it were +most noisy,--was handed into the midst of the meeting a most terrible +blackguard Wapping sailor; the poor man, I believe, had rather have been +in the hottest part of an engagement, for the congregation of +broad-brims, together with the ravings of the prophet, were too much for +his gravity, though I saw even he had delicacy enough not to laugh out. +And the inspired gentleman, though his manner was so supernatural, yet +neither talked, nor professed to talk anything more than good sober +sense, common morality, with, now and then a declaration of not speaking +from himself. Among other things, looking back to this childhood and +early youth, he told the meeting what a graceless young dog he had been, +that in his youth he had a good share of wit. Reader, if thou hadst seen +the gentleman, thou wouldst have sworn that it must indeed have been +many years ago, for his rueful physiognomy would have scared away the +playful goddess from the meeting, where he presided, forever, A wit! a +wit! what could he mean? Lloyd, it minded me of Falkland in the +"Rivals," "Am I full of wit and humor? No, indeed, you are not. Am I the +life and soul of every company I come into? No, it cannot be said you +are." That hard-faced gentleman a wit! Why, Nature wrote on his fanatic +forehead fifty years ago, "Wit never comes, that comes to all." I should +be as scandalized at a _bon-mot_ issuing from his oracle-looking mouth +as to see Cato go down a country-dance. God love you all! You are very +good to submit to be pleased with reading my nothings. 'T is the +privilege of friendship to talk nonsense and to have her nonsense +respected. Yours ever, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] See Letter VIII. + + + +XIV. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_January_ 28, 1798. + +You have writ me many kind letters, and I have answered none of them. I +don't deserve your attentions. An unnatural indifference has been +creeping on me since my last misfortunes, or I should have seized the +first opening of a correspondence with _you_. To you I owe much under +God. In my brief acquaintance with you in London, your conversations won +me to the better cause, and rescued me from the polluting spirit of the +world. I might have been a worthless character without you; as it is, I +do possess a certain improvable portion of devotional feelings, though +when I view myself in the light of divine truth, and not according to +the common measures of human judgment. I am altogether corrupt and +sinful. This is no cant. I am very sincere. + +These last afflictions, [1] Coleridge, have failed to soften and bend my +will. They found me unprepared. My former calamities produced in me a +spirit of humility and a spirit of prayer. I thought they had +sufficiently disciplined me; but the event ought to humble me. If God's +judgments now fail to take away from the the heart of stone, what more +grievous trials ought I not to expect? I have been very querulous, +impatient under the rod, full of little jealousies and heartburnings. I +had wellnigh quarrelled with Charles Lloyd, and for no other reason, I +believe, than that the good creature did all he could to make me happy. +The truth is, I thought he tried to force my mind from its natural and +proper bent: he continually wished me to be from home; he was drawing me +_from_ the consideration of my poor dear Mary's situation, rather than +assisting me to gain a proper view of it with religious consolations. I +wanted to be left to the tendency of my own mind in a solitary state +which, in times past, I knew had led to quietness and a patient bearing +of the yoke. He was hurt that I was not more constantly with him; but he +was living with White,--a man to whom I had never been accustomed to +impart my _dearest feelings_; though from long habits of +friendliness, and many a social and good quality, I loved him very much, +I met company there sometimes,--indiscriminate company. Any society +almost, when I am in affliction, is sorely painful to me. I seem to +breathe more freely, to think more collectedly, to feel more properly +and calmly, when alone. All these things the good creature did with the +kindest intentions in the world, but they produced in me nothing but +soreness and discontent. I became, as he complained, "jaundiced" towards +him.... But he has forgiven me; and his smile, I hope, will draw all +such humors from me. I am recovering, God be praised for it, a +healthiness of mind, something like calmness; but I want more religion, +I am jealous of human helps and leaning-places. I rejoice in your good +fortunes. May God at the last settle you! You have had many and painful +trials; humanly speaking, they are going to end; but we should rather +pray that discipline may attend us through the whole of our lives.... A +careless and a dissolute spirit has advanced upon _me_ with large +strides. Pray God that my present afflictions may be sanctified to me! +Mary is recovering; but I see no opening yet of a situation for her. +Your invitation went to my very heart; but you have a power of exciting +interest, of leading all hearts captive, too forcible to admit of Mary's +being with you. I consider her as perpetually on the brink of madness. I +think you would almost make her dance within an inch of the precipice; +she must be with duller fancies and cooler intellects. I know a young +man of this description who has suited her these twenty years, and may +live to do so still, if we are one day restored to each other. In answer +to your suggestions of occupation for me, I must say that I do not think +my capacity altogether suited for disquisitions of that kind.... I have +read little; I have a very weak memory, and retain little of what I +read; am unused to composition in which any methodizing is required. But +I thank you sincerely for the hint, and shall receive it as far as I am +able,--that is, endeavor to engage my mind in some constant and innocent +pursuit. I know my capacities better than you do. + +Accept my kindest love, and believe me yours, as ever. + +C. L. + +[1] Mary Lamb had fallen ill again. + + + +XV. + + +TO ROBERT SOUTHEY + +(No month, 1798.) + +Dear Southey,--I thank you heartily for the eclogue [1]; it pleases me +mightily, being so full of picture-work and circumstances. I find no +fault in it, unless perhaps that Joanna's ruin is a catastrophe too +trite; and this is not the first or second time you have clothed your +indignation, in verse, in a tale of ruined innocence. The old lady, +spinning in the sun, I hope would not disdain to claim some kindred with +old Margaret. I could almost wish you to vary some circumstances in the +conclusion. A gentleman seducer has so often been described in prose and +verse: what if you had accomplished Joanna's ruin by the clumsy arts and +rustic gifts of some country fellow? I am thinking, I believe, of +the song,-- + + "An old woman clothed in gray, + Whose daughter was charming and young, + And she was deluded away + By Roger's false, flattering tongue." + +A Roger-Lothario would be a novel character; I think you might paint him +very well. You may think this a very silly suggestion, and so indeed it +is; but, in good truth, nothing else but the first words of that foolish +ballad put me upon scribbling my "Rosamund." [2] But I thank you heartily +for the poem. Not having anything of my own to send you in +return,--though, to tell truth, I am at work upon something which, if I +were to cut away and garble, perhaps I might send you an extract or two +that might not displease you; but I will not do that; and whether it +will come to anything, I know not, for I am as slow as a Fleming painter +when I compose anything. I will crave leave to put down a few lines of +old Christopher Marlowe's; I take them from his tragedy, "The Jew of +Malta." The Jew is a famous character, quite out of nature; but when we +consider the terrible idea our simple ancestors had of a Jew, not more +to be discommended for a certain discoloring (I think Addison calls it) +than the witches and fairies of Marlowe's mighty successor. The scene is +betwixt Barabas, the Jew, and Ithamore, a Turkish captive exposed to +sale for a slave. + +BARABAS. + +(_A precious rascal_.) + + "As for myself, I walk abroad o' nights, + And kill sick people groaning under walls; + Sometimes I go about and poison wells; + And now and then, to cherish Christian thieves, + I am content to lose some of my crowns, + That I may, walking in my gallery, + See 'm go pinioned along by my door. + Being young, I studied physic, and began + To practise first upon the Italian; + There I enriched the priests with burials, + And always kept the sexton's arms in ure [3] + With digging graves and ringing dead men's knells. + And after that, was I an engineer, + And in the wars 'twixt France and Germany, + Under pretence of serving Charles the Fifth, + Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems. + Then after that was I an usurer, + And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting, + And tricks belonging unto brokery, + I fill'd the jails with bankrupts in a year, + And with young orphans planted hospitals, + And every moon made some or other mad; + And now and then one hang'd himself for grief, + Pinning upon his breast a long great scroll, + How I with interest tormented him." + +Now hear Ithamore, the other gentle nature, explain how he has spent his +time:-- + +ITHAMORE + +(_A Comical Dog_.) + + "Faith, master, in setting Christian villages on fire, + Chaining of eunuchs, binding galley-slaves. + One time I was an hostler in an inn, + And in the night-time secret would I steal + To travellers' chambers, and there cut their throats. + Once at Jerusalem, where the pilgrims kneel'd, + I strewèd powder on the marble stones, + And therewithal their knees would rankle so, + That I have laugh'd a-good to see the cripples + Go limping home to Christendom on stilts." + +BARABAS. + +"Why, this is something." + +There is a mixture of the ludicrous and the terrible in these lines, +brimful of genius and antique invention, that at first reminded me of +your old description of cruelty in hell, which was in the true +Hogarthian style. I need not tell _you_ that Marlowe was author of that +pretty madrigal, "Come live with me, and be my Love," and of the tragedy +of "Edward II.," in which are certain _lines_ unequalled in our English +tongue. Honest Walton mentions the said madrigal under the denomination +of "certain smooth verses made long since by Kit Marlowe." + +I am glad you have put me on the scent after old Quarles. If I do not +put up those eclogues, and that shortly, say I am no true-nosed hound. I +have had a letter from Lloyd; the young metaphysician of Caius is well, +and is busy recanting the new heresy, metaphysics, for the old dogma +Greek. My sister, I thank you, is quite well. She had a slight attack +the other day, which frightened me a good deal; but it went off +unaccountably. Love and respects to Edith. + +Yours sincerely, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The eclogue was entitled "The Ruined Cottage." + +[2] His romance. "Rosamund Gray." + +[3] Use. + + + +XVI. + + +TO SOUTHEY. + +_November_ 8, 1798. + +I perfectly accord with your opinion of old Wither. Quarles is a wittier +writer, but Wither lays more hold of the heart. Quarles thinks of his +audience when he lectures; Wither soliloquizes in company with a full +heart. What wretched stuff are the "Divine Fancies" of Quarles! Religion +appears to him no longer valuable than it furnishes matter for quibbles +and riddles; he turns God's grace into wantonness. Wither is like an old +friend, whose warm-heartedness and estimable qualities make us wish he +possessed more genius, but at the same time make us willing to dispense +with that want. I always love W., and sometimes admire Q. Still, that +portrait is a fine one; and the extract from "The Shepherds' Hunting" +places him in a starry height far above Quarles, If you wrote that +review in "Crit. Rev.," I am sorry you are so sparing of praise to the +"Ancient Marinere;" [1] so far from calling it, as you do, with some wit +but more severity, "A Dutch Attempt," etc., I call it a right English +attempt, and a successful one, to dethrone German sublimity. You have +selected a passage fertile in unmeaning miracles, but have passed by +fifty passages as miraculous as the miracles they celebrate. I never so +deeply felt the pathetic as in that part,-- + + "A spring of love gush'd from my heart, + And I bless'd them unaware." + +It stung me into high pleasure through sufferings. Lloyd does not like +it; his head is too metaphysical, and your taste too correct,--at least +I must allege something against you both, to excuse my own dotage,-- + +But you allow some elaborate beauties; you should have extracted 'em. +"The Ancient Marinere" plays more tricks with the mind than that last +poem, which is yet one of the finest written. But I am getting too +dogmatical; and before I degenerate into abuse, I will conclude with +assuring you that I am, + +Sincerely yours, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The "Lyrical Ballads" of Wordsworth and Coleridge had just appeared. +The volume contained four pieces, including the "Ancient Mariner," by +Coleridge. + + + +XVII. + + +TO SOUTHEY. + +_November_ 28, 1798. + + * * * * * + I showed my "Witch" and "Dying Lover" to + Dyer [1] last night; but George could not comprehend + how that could be poetry which did not go + upon ten feet, as George and his predecessors had + taught it to do; so George read me some lectures + on the distinguishing qualities of the Ode, the Epigram, + and the Epic, and went home to illustrate his + doctrine by correcting a proof-sheet of his own + Lyrics, George writes odes where the rhymes, like + fashionable man and wife, keep a comfortable distance + of six or eight lines apart, and calls that "observing + the laws of verse," George tells you, before + he recites, that you must listen with great attention, + or you 'll miss the rhymes. I did so, and found + them pretty exact, George, speaking of the dead + Ossian, exclaimeth, "Dark are the poet's eyes," I + humbly represented to him that his own eyes were + dark, and many a living bard's besides, and recommended + "Clos'd are the poet's eyes." But that + would not do, I found there was an antithesis between + the darkness of his eyes and the splendor of + his genius, and I acquiesced. + +Your recipe for a Turk's poison is invaluable and truly Marlowish.... +Lloyd objects to "shutting up the womb of his purse" in my Curse (which +for a Christian witch in a Christian country is not too mild, I hope): +do you object? I think there is a strangeness in the idea, as well as +"shaking the poor like snakes from his door," which suits the speaker. +Witches illustrate, as fine ladies do, from their own familiar objects, +and snakes and shutting up of wombs are in their way. I don't know that +this last charge has been before brought against 'em, nor either the +sour milk or the mandrake babe; but I affirm these be things a witch +would do if she could. + +My tragedy [2] will be a medley (as I intend it to be a medley) of +laughter and tears, prose and verse, and in some places rhyme, songs, +wit, pathos, humor, and if possible, sublimity,--at least, it is not a +fault in my intention if it does not comprehend most of these discordant +colors. Heaven send they dance not the "Dance of Death!" I hear that the +Two Noble Englishmen [3] have parted no sooner than they set foot on +German earth; but I have not heard the reason,--possibly to give +novelists a handle to exclaim, "Ah me, what things are perfect!" I think +I shall adopt your emendation in the "Dying Lover," though I do not +myself feel the objection against "Silent Prayer." + +My tailor has brought me home a new coat lapelled, with a velvet collar. +He assures me everybody wears velvet collars now. Some are born +fashionable, some achieve fashion, and others, like your humble servant, +have fashion thrust upon them. The rogue has been making inroads +hitherto by modest degrees, foisting upon me an additional button, +recommending gaiters; but to come upon me thus in a full tide of luxury, +neither becomes him as a tailor or the ninth of a man. My meek gentleman +was robbed the other day, coming with his wife and family in a one-horse +shay from Hampstead; the villains rifled him of four guineas, some +shillings and halfpence, and a bundle of customers' measures, which they +swore were bank-notes. They did not shoot him, and when they rode off he +addressed them with profound gratitude, making a congee: "Gentlemen, I +wish you good-night; and we are very much obliged to you that you have +not used us ill!" And this is the cuckoo that has the audacity to foist +upon me ten buttons on a side and a black velvet collar,--a cursed ninth +of a scoundrel! + +When you write to Lloyd, he wishes his Jacobin correspondents to address +him as _Mr._ C. L. Love and respects to Edith. I hope she is well. + +Yours sincerely, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] This quaint scholar, a marvel of simplicity and universal optimism, +is a constantly recurring and delightfully humorous character in the +Letters. Lamb and Dyer had been schoolfellows at Christ's Hospital. + +[2] John Woodvil. + +[3] Coleridge and Wordsworth, who started for Germany together. + + + +XVIII. + + +TO SOUTHEY. + +_March_ 20, 1799, + +I am hugely pleased with your "Spider," "your old freemason," as you +call him. The three first stanzas are delicious; they seem to me a +compound of Burns and. Old Quarles, those kind of home-strokes, where +more is felt than strikes the ear,--a terseness, a jocular pathos which +makes one feel in laughter. The measure, too, is novel and pleasing. I +could almost wonder Rob Burns in his lifetime never stumbled upon it. +The fourth stanza is less striking, as being less original. The fifth +falls off. It has no felicity of phrase, no old-fashioned phrase +or feeling. + +"Young hopes, and love's delightful dreams," + +savor neither of Burns nor Quarles; they seem more like shreds of many a +modern sentimental sonnet. The last stanza hath nothing striking in it, +if I except the two concluding lines, which are Burns all over. I wish, +if you concur with me, these things could be looked to. I am sure this +is a kind of writing which comes tenfold better recommended to the +heart, comes there more like a neighbor or familiar, than thousands of +Hamnels and Zillahs and Madelons. I beg you will send me the +"Holly-tree," if it at all resemble this, for it must please me. I have +never seen it. I love this sort of poems, that open a new intercourse +with the most despised of the animal and insect race. I think this vein +may be further opened; Peter Pindar hath very prettily apostrophized a +fly; Burns hath his mouse and his louse; Coleridge, less successfully, +hath made overtures of intimacy to a jackass,--therein only following at +unresembling distance Sterne and greater Cervantes. Besides these, I +know of no other examples of breaking down the partition between us and +our "poor earth-born companions." It is sometimes revolting to be put in +a track of feeling by other people, not one's own immediate thoughts, +else I would persuade you, if I could (I am in earnest), to commence a +series of these animal poems, which might have a tendency to rescue some +poor creatures from the antipathy of mankind. Some thoughts come across +me: for instance, to a rat, to a toad, to a cockchafer, to a +mole,--people bake moles alive by a slow oven-fire to cure consumption. +Rats are, indeed, the most despised and contemptible parts of God's +earth, I killed a rat the other day by punching him to pieces, and feel +a weight of blood upon me to this hour. Toads, you know, are made to +fly, and tumble down and crush all to pieces. Cockchafers are old sport; +then again to a worm, with an apostrophe to anglers,--those patient +tyrants, meek inflictors of pangs intolerable, cool devils; [1] to an +owl; to all snakes, with an apology for their poison; to a cat in boots +or bladders. Your own fancy, if it takes a fancy to these hints, will +suggest many more. A series of such poems, suppose them accompanied with +plates descriptive of animal torments,--cooks roasting lobsters, +fishmongers crimping skates, etc.,--would take excessively, I will +willingly enter into a partnership in the plan with you; I think my +heart and soul would go with it too,--at least, give it a thought. My +plan is but this minute come into my head; but it strikes me +instantaneously as something new, good, and useful, full of pleasure and +full of moral. If old Quarles and Wither could live again, we would +invite them into our firm. Burns hath done his part. + +Poor Sam Le Grice! I am afraid the world and the camp and the university +have spoiled him among them. 'Tis certain he had at one time a strong +capacity of turning out something better. I knew him, and that not long +since, when he had a most warm heart. I am ashamed of the indifference I +have sometimes felt towards him. I think the devil is in one's heart. I +am under obligations to that man for the warmest friendship and +heartiest sympathy, [2] even for an agony of sympathy expressed both by +word and deed, and tears for me when I was in my greatest distress. But +I have forgot that,--as, I fear, he has nigh forgot the awful scenes +which were before his eyes when he served the office of a comforter to +me. No service was too mean or troublesome for him to perform. I can't +think what but the devil, "that old spider," could have suck'd my heart +so dry of its sense of all gratitude. If he does come in your way, +Southey, fail not to tell him that I retain a most affectionate +remembrance of his old friendliness, and an earnest wish to resume our +intercourse. In this I am serious. I cannot recommend him to your +society, because I am afraid whether he be quite worthy of it. But I +have no right to dismiss him from _my_ regard. He was at one time, and +in the worst of times, my own familiar friend, and great comfort to me +then. I have known him to play at cards with my father, meal-times +excepted, literally all day long, in long days too, to save me from +being teased by the old man when I was not able to bear it. + +God bless him for it, and God bless you, Southey! + +C. L. + +[1] Leigh Hunt says: "Walton says that an angler does no hurt but to +fish; and this he counts as nothing.... Now, fancy a Genius fishing for +us. Fancy him baiting a great hook with pickled salmon, and, twitching +up old Izaac Walton from the banks of the River Lee, with the hook +through his ear. How he would go up, roaring and screaming, and thinking +the devil had got him! + + "'Other joys + Are but toys.' + + WALTON." + +[2] See Letter VI. + + + +XIX. + + +TO THOMAS MANNING [1]. + +_March_ 1, 1800. + +I hope by this time you are prepared to say the "Falstaff's Letters" are +a bundle of the sharpest, queerest, profoundest humors of any these +juice-drained latter times have spawned. I should have advertised you +that the meaning is frequently hard to be got at,--and so are the future +guineas that now lie ripening and aurifying in the womb of some +undiscovered Potosi; but dig, dig, dig, dig, Manning! I set to with an +unconquerable propulsion to write, with a lamentable want of what to +write. My private goings on are orderly as the movements of the spheres, +and stale as their music to angels' ears. Public affairs, except as they +touch upon me, and so turn into private, I cannot whip up my mind to +feel any interest in, I grieve, indeed, that War and Nature and Mr. +Pitt, that hangs up in Lloyd's best parlour, should have conspired to +call up three necessaries, simple commoners as our fathers knew them, +into the upper house of luxuries,--bread and beer and coals, Manning. +But as to France and Frenchmen, and the Abbé Siéyès and his +constitutions, I cannot make these present times present to me. I read +histories of the past, and I live in them; although, to abstract senses, +they are far less momentous than the noises which keep Europe awake. I +am reading Burnet's "Own Times." Did you ever read that garrulous, +pleasant history? He tells his story like an old man, past political +service, bragging to his sons on winter evenings of the part he took in +public transactions when "his old cap was new." Full of scandal, which +all true history is. No palliatives; but all the stark wickedness that +actually gives the _momentum_ to national actors. Quite the prattle of +age and outlived importance. Truth and sincerity staring out upon you +perpetually in _alto relievo_. Himself a party man, he makes you a party +man. None of the cursed philosophical Humeian indifference, so cold and +unnatural and inhuman! None of the cursed Gibbonian fine writing, so +fine and composite. None of Dr. Robertson's periods with three members. +None of Mr. Roscoe's sage remarks, all so apposite, and coming in so +clever, lest the reader should have had the trouble of drawing an +inference. Burnet's good old prattle I can bring present to my mind; I +can make the Revolution present to me: the French Revolution, by a +converse perversity in my nature, I fling as far _from_ me. To quit this +tiresome subject, and to relieve you from two or three dismal yawns, +which I hear in spirit, I here conclude my more than commonly obtuse +letter,--dull up to the dulness of a Dutch commentator on Shakspeare. My +love to Lloyd and Sophia. + +C. L. + +[1] To this remarkable person we are largely indebted for some of the +best of Lamb's letters. He was mathematical tutor at Caius College, +Cambridge, and in later years became somewhat famous as an explorer of +the remoter parts of China and Thibet. Lamb had been introduced to him, +during a Cambridge visit, by Charles Lloyd, and afterwards told Crabb +Robinson that he was the most "wonderful man" he ever met. An account of +Manning will be found in the memoir prefixed to his "Journey to Lhasa," +in 1811-12. (George Bogle and Thomas Manning's Journey to Thibet and +Lhasa, by C.R. Markham, 1876.) + + + +XX. + + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_May_ 12, 1800, + +My Dear Coleridge,--I don't know why I write, except from the propensity +misery has to tell her griefs. Hetty [1] died on Friday night, about +eleven o'clock, after eight days' illness; Mary, in consequence of +fatigue and anxiety, is fallen ill again, and I was obliged to remove +her yesterday. I am left alone in a house with nothing but Hetty's dead +body to keep me company. To-morrow I bury her, and then I shall be quite +alone, with nothing but a cat to remind me that the house has been full +of living beings like myself. My heart is quite sunk, and I don't know +where to look for relief. Mary will get better again; but her constantly +being liable to such relapses is dreadful; nor is it the least of our +evils that her case and all our story is so well known around us. We are +in a manner _marked_. Excuse my troubling you; but I have nobody by me +to speak to me. I slept out last night, not being able to endure the +change and the stillness. But I did not sleep well, and I must come back +to my own bed. I am going to try and get a friend to come and be with me +to-morrow. I am completely shipwrecked. My head is quite bad. I almost +wish that Mary were dead. God bless you. Love to Sara and Hartley. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The Lambs' old servant. + + + +XXI. + + +TO MANNING. + +Before _June_, 1800. + +Dear Manning,--I feel myself unable to thank you sufficiently for your +kind letter. It was doubly acceptable to me, both for the choice poetry +and the kind, honest prose which it contained. It was just such a letter +as I should have expected from Manning. + +I am in much better spirits than when I wrote last. I have had a very +eligible offer to lodge with a friend in town. He will have rooms to let +at midsummer, by which time I hope my sister will be well enough to join +me. It is a great object to me to live in town, where we shall be much +more _private_, and to quit a house and neighborhood where poor Mary's +disorder, so frequently recurring, has made us a sort of marked people. +We can be nowhere private except in the midst of London. We shall be in +a family where we visit very frequently; only my landlord and I have not +yet come to a conclusion. He has a partner to consult. I am still on the +tremble, for I do not know where we could go into lodgings that would +not be, in many respects, highly exceptionable. Only God send Mary well +again, and I hope all will be well! The prospect, such as it is, has +made me quite happy. I have just time to tell you of it, as I know it +will give you pleasure. Farewell. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XXII. + + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_August_, 6, 1800. + +Dear Coleridge,--I have taken to-day and delivered to Longman and Co., +_Imprimis_: your books, viz., three ponderous German dictionaries, one +volume (I can find no more) of German and French ditto, sundry other +German books unbound, as you left them, Percy's Ancient Poetry, and one +volume of Anderson's Poets. I specify them, that you may not lose any. +_Secundo_: a dressing-gown (value, fivepence), in which you used to sit +and look like a conjuror when you were translating "Wallenstein." A case +of two razors and a shaving-box and strap. This it has cost me a severe +struggle to part with. They are in a brown-paper parcel, which also +contains sundry papers and poems, sermons, _some few Epic_ poems,--one +about Cain and Abel, which came from Poole, etc., and also your tragedy; +with one or two small German books, and that drama in which Got-fader +performs. _Tertio_: a small oblong box containing _all your letters_, +collected from all your waste papers, and which fill the said little +box. All other waste papers, which I judged worth sending, are in the +paper parcel aforesaid. But you will find _all_ your letters in the box +by themselves. Thus have I discharged my conscience and my lumber-room +of all your property, save and except a folio entitled Tyrrell's +"Bibliotheca Politica," which you used to learn your politics out of +when you wrote for the Post,--_mutatis mutandis, i. e._, applying past +inferences to modern _data_. I retain that, because I am sensible I am +very deficient in the politics myself; and I have torn up--don't be +angry; waste paper has risen forty per cent, and I can't afford to buy +it--all Bonaparte's Letters, Arthur Young's Treatise on Corn, and one or +two more light-armed infantry, which I thought better suited the +flippancy of London discussion than the dignity of Keswick thinking. +Mary says you will be in a passion about them when you come to miss +them; but you must study philosophy. Read Albertus Magnus de Chartis +Amissis five times over after phlebotomizing,--'t is Burton's +recipe,--and then be angry with an absent friend if you can. Sara is +obscure. Am I to understand by her letter that she sends a _kiss_ to +Eliza Buckingham? Pray tell your wife that a note of interrogation on +the superscription of a letter is highly ungrammatical! She proposes +writing my name _Lambe? Lamb_ is quite enough. I have had the +Anthology, and like only one thing in it,--_Lewti_; but of that the +last stanza is detestable, the rest most exquisite! The epithet +_enviable_ would dash the finest poem. For God's sake (I never was more +serious), don't make me ridiculous any more by terming me gentle-hearted +in print, or do it in better verses. [1] It did well enough five years +ago, when I came to see you, and was moral coxcomb enough at the time +you wrote the lines, to feed upon such epithets: but, besides that, the +meaning of "gentle" is equivocal at best, and almost always means +"poor-spirited;" the very quality of gentleness is abhorrent to such +vile trumpetings. My _sentiment_ is long since vanished. I hope my +_virtues_ have done _sucking_. I can scarce think but you meant it in +joke. I hope you did, for I should be ashamed to think you could think +to gratify me by such praise, fit only to be a cordial to some +green-sick sonneteer. + +[1] An allusion to Coleridge's lines, "This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison," +wherein he styles Lamb "my gentle-hearted Charles." + + + +XXIII. + + +TO MANNING. + +_August_, 1800. + +Dear Manning,--I am going to ask a favor of you, and am at a loss how to +do it in the most delicate mariner. For this purpose I have been looking +into Pliny's Letters, who is noted to have had the best grace in begging +of all the ancients (I read him in the elegant translation of Mr. +Melmoth); but not finding any case there exactly similar with mine, I am +constrained to beg in my own barbarian way. To come to the point, then, +and hasten into the middle of things, have you a copy of your Algebra [1] +to give away? I do not ask it for myself; I have too much reverence for +the Black Arts ever to approach thy circle, illustrious Trismegist! But +that worthy man and excellent poet, George Dyer, made me a visit +yesternight on purpose to borrow one, supposing, rationally enough, I +must say, that you had made me a present of one before this; the +omission of which I take to have proceeded only from negligence: but it +is a fault. I could lend him no assistance. You must know he is just now +diverted from the pursuit of BELL LETTERS by a paradox, which he has +heard his friend Frend [2] (that learned mathematician) maintain, that +the negative quantities of mathematicians were _merae nugae_,--things +scarcely _in rerum naturâ_, and smacking too much of mystery for +gentlemen of Mr. Frend's clear Unitarian capacity. However, the dispute, +once set a-going, has seized violently on George's pericranick; and it +is necessary for his health that he should speedily come to a resolution +of his doubts. He goes about teasing his friends with his new +mathematics; he even frantically talks of purchasing Manning's Algebra, +which shows him far gone, for, to my knowledge, he has not been master +of seven shillings a good time. George's pockets and ----'s brains are +two things in nature which do not abhor a vacuum.... Now, if you could +step in, in this trembling suspense of his reason, and he should find on +Saturday morning, lying for him at the Porter's Lodge, Clifford's +Inn.--his safest address,--Manning's Algebra, with a neat manuscriptum +in the blank leaf, running thus, "FROM THE AUTHOR!" it might save his +wits and restore the unhappy author to those studies of poetry and +criticism which are at present suspended, to the infinite regret of the +whole literary world. N.B.--Dirty books, smeared leaves, and dogs' ears +will be rather a recommendation than otherwise. N.B.--He must have the +book as soon as possible, or nothing can withhold him from madly +purchasing the book on tick.... Then shall we see him sweetly restored +to the chair of Longinus,--to dictate in smooth and modest phrase the +laws of verse; to prove that Theocritus first introduced the Pastoral, +and Virgil and Pope brought it to its perfection; that Gray and Mason +(who always hunt in couples in George's brain) have shown a great deal +of poetical fire in their lyric poetry; that Aristotle's rules are not +to be servilely followed, which George has shown to have imposed great +shackles upon modern genius. His poems, I find, are to consist of two +vols., reasonable octavo; and a third book will exclusively contain +criticisms, in which he asserts he has gone _pretty deeply_ into the +laws of blank verse and rhyme, epic poetry, dramatic and pastoral +ditto,--all which is to come out before Christmas. But above all he has +_touched_ most _deeply_ upon the Drama, comparing the English with the +modern German stage, their merits and defects. Apprehending that his +_studies_ (not to mention his _turn_, which I take to be chiefly towards +the lyrical poetry) hardly qualified him for these disquisitions, I +modestly inquired what plays he had read. I found by George's reply that +he _had_ read Shakspeare, but that was a good while since: he calls him +a great but irregular genius, which I think to be an original and just +remark. (Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Ben Jonson, Shirley, Marlowe, +Ford, and the worthies of Dodsley's Collection,--he confessed he had +read none of them, but professed his _intention_ of looking through them +all, so as to be able to _touch_ upon them in his book.) So Shakspeare, +Otway, and I believe Rowe, to whom he was naturally directed by +Johnson's Lives, and these not read lately, are to stand him in stead of +a general knowledge of the subject. God bless his dear absurd head! + +By the by, did I not write you a letter with something about an +invitation in it?--but let that pass; I suppose it is not agreeable. + +N.B. It would not be amiss if you were to accompany your _present_ with +a dissertation on negative quantities. + +C. L. + +[1] Manning, while at Cambridge, published a work on Algebra. + +[2] The Rev. William Frend, who was expelled from Cambridge for +Unitarianism. + + + +XXIV. + + +TO MANNING. + +1800. + +George Dyer is an Archimedes and an Archimagus and a Tycho Brahé and a +Copernicus; and thou art the darling of the Nine, and midwife to their +wandering babe also! We take tea with that learned poet and critic on +Tuesday night, at half-past five, in his neat library; the repast will +be light and Attic, with criticism. If thou couldst contrive to wheel up +thy dear carcase on the Monday, and after dining with us on tripe, +calves' kidneys, or whatever else the Cornucopia of St. Clare may be +willing to pour out on the occasion, might we not adjourn together to +the Heathen's, thou with thy Black Backs, and I with some innocent +volume of the Bell Letters,--Shenstone, or the like; it would make him +wash his old flannel gown (that has not been washed, to my knowledge, +since it has been _his_,--Oh, the long time!) with tears of joy. Thou +shouldst settle his scruples, and unravel his cobwebs, and sponge off +the sad stuff that weighs upon his dear wounded pia mater; thou shouldst +restore light to his eyes, and him to his friends and the public; +Parnassus should shower her civic crowns upon thee for saving the wits +of a citizen! I thought I saw a lucid interval in George the other +night: he broke in upon my studies just at tea-time, and brought with +him Dr. Anderson, an old gentleman who ties his breeches' knees with +packthread, and boasts that he has been disappointed by ministers. The +Doctor wanted to see _me_; for, I being a poet, he thought I might +furnish him with a copy of verses to suit his "Agricultural Magazine." +The Doctor, in the course of the conversation, mentioned a poem, called +the "Epigoniad," by one Wilkie, an epic poem, in which there is not one +tolerable good line all through, but every incident and speech borrowed +from Homer. + +George had been sitting inattentive seemingly to what was going +on,--hatching of negative quantities,--when, suddenly, the name of his +old friend Homer stung his pericranicks, and, jumping up, he begged to +know where he could meet with Wilkie's work. "It was a curious fact that +there should be such an epic poem and he not know of it; and he _must_ +get a copy of it, as he was going to touch pretty deeply upon the +subject of the epic,--and he was sure there must be some things good in +a poem of eight thousand lines!" I was pleased with this transient +return of his reason and recurrence to his old ways of thinking; it gave +me great hopes of a recovery, which nothing but your book can completely +insure. Pray come on Monday if you _can_, and stay your own time. I have +a good large room, with two beds in it, in the handsomest of which thou +shalt repose a-nights, and dream of spheroides. I hope you will +understand by the nonsense of this letter that I am _not_ melancholy at +the thoughts of thy coming; I thought it necessary to add this, because +you love _precision_. Take notice that our stay at Dyer's will not +exceed eight o'clock, after which our pursuits will be our own. But +indeed I think a little recreation among the Bell Letters and poetry +will do you some service in the interval of severer studies. I hope we +shall fully discuss with George Dyer what I have never yet heard done to +my satisfaction,--the reason of Dr. Johnson's malevolent strictures on +the higher species of the Ode. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XXV. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_August_ 14, 1800. + +My head is playing all the tunes in the world, ringing such peals! It +has just finished the "Merry Christ Church Bells," and absolutely is +beginning "Turn again, Whittington." Buz, buz, buz; bum, bum, bum; +wheeze, wheeze, wheeze; fen, fen, fen; tinky, tinky, tinky; _cr'annch_. +I shall certainly come to be condemned at last. I have been drinking too +much for two days running. I find my moral sense in the last stage of a +consumption, and my religion getting faint. This is disheartening, but I +trust the devil will not overpower me. In the midst of this infernal +torture Conscience is barking and yelping as loud as any of them. I have +sat down to read over again, and I think I do begin to spy out something +with beauty and design in it. I perfectly accede to all your +alterations, and only desire that you had cut deeper, when your hand +was in. + + * * * * * + +Now I am on the subject of poetry, I must announce to you, who, +doubtless, in your remote part of the island, have not heard tidings of +so great a blessing, that George Dyer hath prepared two ponderous +volumes full of poetry and criticism. They impend over the town, and are +threatened to fall in the winter. The first volume contains every sort +of poetry except personal satire, which George, in his truly original +prospectus, renounceth forever, whimsically foisting the intention in +between the price of his book and the proposed number of subscribers. +(If I can, I will get you a copy of his _handbill_.) He has tried his +_vein_ in every species besides,--the Spenserian, Thomsonian, Masonic, +and Akensidish more especially. The second volume is all criticism; +wherein he demonstrates to the entire satisfaction of the literary +world, in a way that must silence all reply forever, that the pastoral +was introduced by Theocritus and polished by Virgil and Pope; that Gray +and Mason (who always hunt in couples in George's brain) have a good +deal of poetical fire and true lyric genius; that Cowley was ruined by +excess of wit (a warning to all moderns); that Charles Lloyd, Charles +Lamb, and William Wordsworth, in later days, have struck the true chords +of poesy. Oh, George, George, with a head uniformly wrong and a heart +uniformly right, that I had power and might equal to my wishes; then +would I call the gentry of thy native island, and they should come in +troops, flocking at the sound of thy prospectus-trumpet, and crowding +who shall be first to stand in thy list of subscribers! I can only put +twelve shillings into thy pocket (which, I will answer for them, will +not stick there long) out of a pocket almost as bare as thine. Is it not +a pity so much fine writing should be erased? But, to tell the truth, I +began to scent that I was getting into that sort of style which Longinus +and Dionysius Halicarnassus fitly call "the affected." + +C. L. + + + +XXVI. + + +TO MANNING. + +_August_ 22, 1800. + +Dear Manning,--You need not imagine any apology necessary. Your fine +hare and fine birds (which just now are dangling by our kitchen blaze) +discourse most eloquent music in your justification. You just nicked my +palate; for, with all due decorum and leave may it be spoken, my worship +hath taken physic to-day, and being low and puling, requireth to be +pampered. Fob! how beautiful and strong those buttered onions come to my +nose! For you must know we extract a divine spirit of gravy from those +materials which, duly compounded with a consistence of bread and cream +(yclept bread-sauce), each to each giving double grace, do mutually +illustrate and set off (as skilful gold-foils to rare jewels) your +partridge, pheasant, woodcock, snipe, teal, widgeon, and the other +lesser daughters of the ark. My friendship, struggling with my carnal +and fleshly prudence (which suggests that a bird a man is the proper +allotment in such cases), yearneth sometimes to have thee here to pick a +wing or so. I question if your Norfolk sauces match our London +culinarie. + +George Dyer has introduced me to the table of an agreeable old +gentleman, Dr. Anderson, who gives hot legs of mutton and grape pies at +his sylvan lodge at Isleworth, where, in the middle of a street, he has +shot up a wall most preposterously before his small dwelling, which, +with the circumstance of his taking several panes of glass out of +bedroom windows (for air), causeth his neighbors to speculate strangely +on the state of the good man's pericranicks. Plainly, he lives under the +reputation of being deranged. George does not mind this circumstance; he +rather likes him the better for it. The Doctor, in his pursuits, joins +agricultural to poetical science, and has set George's brains mad about +the old Scotch writers, Barbour, Douglas's Æneid, Blind Harry, etc. We +returned home in a return postchaise (having dined with the Doctor); and +George kept wondering and wondering, for eight or nine turnpike miles, +what was the name, and striving to recollect the name, of a poet +anterior to Barbour. I begged to know what was remaining of his works. +"There is nothing _extant_ of his works, sir; but by all accounts he +seems to have been a fine genius!" This fine genius, without anything to +show for it or any title beyond George's courtesy, without even a name, +and Barbour and Douglas and Blind Harry now are the predominant sounds +in George's pia mater, and their buzzings exclude politics, criticism, +and algebra,--the late lords of that illustrious lumber-room. Mark, he +has never read any of these bucks, but is impatient till he reads them +_all_, at the Doctor's suggestion. Poor Dyer! his friends should be +careful what sparks they let fall into such inflammable matter. + +Could I have my will of the heathen, I would lock him up from all access +of new ideas; I would exclude all critics that would not swear me first +(upon their Virgil) that they would feed him with nothing but the old, +safe, familiar notions and sounds (the rightful aborigines of his +brain),--Gray, Akenside, and Mason. In these sounds, reiterated as often +as possible, there could be nothing painful, nothing distracting. + +God bless me, here are the birds, smoking hot! + +All that is gross and unspiritual in me rises at the sight! + +Avaunt friendship and all memory of absent friends! + +C. LAMB. + + + +XXVII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_August_ 26, 1800. + +George Dyer is the only literary character I am happily acquainted with. +The oftener I see him, the more deeply I admire him. He is goodness +itself. If I could but calculate the precise date of his death, I would +write a novel on purpose to make George the hero. I could hit him off +to a hair. + +George brought a Dr. Anderson [1] to see me. The Doctor is a very +pleasant old man, a great genius for agriculture, one that ties his +breeches-knees with packthread, and boasts of having had disappointments +from ministers. The Doctor happened to mention an epic poem by one +Wilkie, called the "Epigoniad," in which he assured us there is not one +tolerable line from beginning to end, but all the characters, incidents, +etc., verbally copied from _Homer_. George, who had been sitting quite +inattentive to the Doctor's criticism, no sooner heard the sound of +_Homer_ strike his pericraniks, than up he gets, and declares he must +see that poem immediately: where was it to be had? An epic poem of eight +thousand lines, and _he_ not hear of it! There must be some things good +in it, and it was necessary he should see it, for he had touched pretty +deeply upon that subject in his criticisms on the Epic. George had +touched pretty deeply upon the Lyric, I find; he has also prepared a +dissertation on the Drama, and the comparison of the English and German +theatres. As I rather doubted his competency to do the latter, knowing +that his peculiar _turn_ lies in the lyric species of composition, I +questioned George what English plays he had read. I found that he _had_ +read Shakspeare (whom he calls an original, but irregular, genius), but +it was a good while ago; and he has dipped into Rowe and Otway, I +suppose having found their names in Johnson's Lives at full length; and +upon this slender ground he has undertaken the task. He never seemed +even to have heard of Fletcher, Ford, Marlowe, Massinger, and the +worthies of Dodsley's Collection; but he is to read all these, to +prepare him for bringing out his "Parallel" in the winter. I find he is +also determined to vindicate poetry from the shackles which Aristotle +and some others have imposed upon it,--which is very good-natured of +him, and very necessary just now! Now I am _touching_ so _deeply_ upon +poetry, can I forget that I have just received from Cottle a magnificent +copy of his Guinea Epic. [2] Four-and-twenty books to read in the dog +days! I got as far as the Mad Monk the first day, and fainted. Mr, +Cottle's genius strongly points him to the _Pastoral_, but his +inclinations divert him perpetually from his calling. He imitates +Southey, as Rowe did Shakspeare, with his "Good morrow to ye, good +master Lieutenant," Instead of _a_ man, _a_ woman, _a_ daughter, he +constantly writes "one a man," "one a woman," "one his daughter." +Instead of _the_ king, _the_ hero, he constantly writes, "he the king," +"he the hero,"--two flowers of rhetoric palpably from the "Joan." But +Mr, Cottle soars a higher pitch; and when he _is_ original, it is in a +most original way indeed. His terrific scenes are indefatigable. +Serpents, asps, spiders, ghosts, dead bodies, staircases made of +nothing, with adders' tongues for bannisters,--Good Heaven, what a brain +he must have! He puts as many plums in his pudding as my grandmother +used to do; and, then his emerging from Hell's horrors into light, and +treading on pure flats of this earth--for twenty-three books together! + +C. L. + +[1] See preceding Letter. + +[2] Alfred. + + + +XXVIII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_October_ 9, 1800. + +I suppose you have heard of the death of Amos Cottle. I paid a solemn +visit of condolence to his brother, accompanied by George Dyer, of +burlesque memory. I went, trembling, to see poor Cottle so immediately +upon the event. He was in black, and his younger brother was also in +black. Everything wore an aspect suitable to the respect due to the +freshly dead. For some time after our entrance, nobody spake, till +George modestly put in a question, whether "Alfred" was likely to sell. +This was Lethe to Cottle, and his poor face wet with tears, and his kind +eye brightened up in a moment. Now I felt it was my cue to speak. I had +to thank him for a present of a magnificent copy, and had promised to +send him my remarks,--the least thing I could do; so I ventured to +suggest that I perceived a considerable improvement he had made in his +first book since the state in which he first read it to me. Joseph, who +till now had sat with his knees cowering in by the fireplace, wheeled +about, and with great difficulty of body shifted the same round to the +corner of a table where I was sitting, and first stationing one thigh +over the other, which is his sedentary mood, and placidly fixing his +benevolent face right against mine, waited my observations. At that +moment it came strongly into my mind that I had got Uncle Toby before +me, he looked so kind and so good. I could not say an unkind thing of +"Alfred." So I set my memory to work to recollect what was the name of +Alfred's queen, and with some adroitness recalled the well-known sound +to Cottle's ears of Alswitha. At that moment I could perceive that +Cottle had forgot his brother was so lately become a blessed spirit. In +the language of mathematicians, the author was as 9, the brother as 1. I +felt my cue, and strong pity working at the root, I went to work and +beslabber'd "Alfred" with most unqualified praise, or only qualifying my +praise by the occasional polite interposition of an exception taken +against trivial faults, slips, and human imperfections, which, by +removing the appearance of insincerity, did but in truth heighten the +relish. Perhaps I might have spared that refinement, for Joseph was in a +humor to hope and believe _all things_. What I said was beautifully +supported, corroborated, and confirmed by the stupidity of his brother +on my left hand, and by George on my right, who has an utter incapacity +of comprehending that there can be anything bad in poetry. All poems are +_good_ poems to George; all men are _fine geniuses_. So what with my +actual memory, of which I made the most, and Cottle's own helping me +out, for I _really_ had forgotten a good deal of "Alfred," I made shift +to discuss the most essential parts entirely to the satisfaction of its +author, who repeatedly declared that he loved nothing better than +_candid_ criticism. Was I a candid greyhound now for all this? or did I +do right? I believe I did. The effect was luscious to my conscience. For +all the rest of the evening Amos was no more heard of, till George +revived the subject by inquiring whether some account should not be +drawn up by the friends of the deceased to be inserted in "Phillips's +Monthly Obituary;" adding, that Amos was estimable both for his head and +heart, and would have made a fine poet if he had lived. To the +expediency of this measure Cottle fully assented, but could not help +adding that he always thought that the qualities of his brother's heart +exceeded those of his head. I believe his brother, when living, had +formed precisely the same idea of him; and I apprehend the world will +assent to both judgments. I rather guess that the brothers were poetical +rivals. I judged so when I saw them together. Poor Cottle, I must leave +him, after his short dream, to muse again upon his poor brother, for +whom I am sure in secret he will yet shed many a tear. Now send me in +return some Greta news. + +C. L. + + + +XXIX. + + +TO MANNING. + +_October_ 16, 1800. + +Dear Manning,--Had you written one week before you did, I certainly +should have obeyed your injunction; you should have seen me before my +letter. I will explain to you my situation. There are six of us in one +department. Two of us (within these four days) are confined with severe +fevers: and two more, who belong to the Tower Militia, expect to have +marching orders on Friday. Now, six are absolutely necessary. I have +already asked and obtained two young hands to supply the loss of the +_feverites;_ and with the other prospect before me, you may believe I +cannot decently ask leave of absence for myself. All I can promise (and +I do promise with the sincerity of Saint Peter, and the contrition of +sinner Peter if I fail) [is] that I will come _the very first spare +week_, and go nowhere till I have been at Cambridge. No matter if you +are in a state of pupilage when I come; for I can employ myself in +Cambridge very pleasantly in the mornings. Are there not libraries, +halls, colleges, books, pictures, statues? I wish you had made London in +your way. There is an exhibition quite uncommon in Europe, which could +not have escaped _your genius_,--a live rattlesnake, ten feet in length, +and the thickness of a big leg. I went to see it last night by +candlelight. We were ushered into a room very little bigger than ours at +Pentonville. A man and woman and four boys live in this room, joint +tenants with nine snakes, most of them such as no remedy has been +discovered for their bite. We walked into the middle, which is formed by +a half-moon of wired boxes, all mansions of snakes,--whip-snakes, +thunder-snakes, pig-nose-snakes, American vipers, and _this monster_. He +lies curled up in folds; and immediately a stranger enters (for he is +used to the family, and sees them play at cards) he set up a rattle like +a watchman's in London, or near as loud, and reared up a head, from the +midst of these folds, like a toad, and shook his head, and showed every +sign a snake can show of irritation. I had the foolish curiosity to +strike the wires with my finger, and the devil flew at me with his +toad-mouth wide open: the inside of his mouth is quite white. I had got +my finger away, nor could he well have bit me with his big mouth, which +would have been certain death in five minutes. But it frightened me so +much that I did not recover my voice for a minute's space. I forgot, in +my fear, that he was secured. You would have forgot too, for 't is +incredible how such a monster can be confined in small gauzy-looking +wires. I dreamed of snakes in the night. I wish to Heaven you could see +it. He absolutely swelled with passion to the bigness of a large thigh. +I could not retreat without infringing on another box, and just behind, +a little devil, not an inch from my back, had got his nose out, with +some difficulty and pain, quite through the bars! He was soon taught +better manners. All the snakes were curious, and objects of terror; but +this monster, like Aaron's serpent, swallowed up the impression of the +rest. He opened his cursed mouth, when he made at me, as wide as his +head was broad. I hallooed out quite loud, and felt pains all over my +body with the fright. + +I have had the felicity of hearing George Dyer read out one book of "The +Farmer's Boy." I thought it rather childish. No doubt, there is +originality in it (which, in your self-taught geniuses, is a most rare +quality, they generally getting hold of some bad models in a scarcity of +books, and forming their taste on them), but no _selection. All_ is, +described. + +Mind, I have only heard read one book. Yours sincerely, + +Philo-Snake, C. L. + + + +XXX. + + +TO MANNING. + +_November_ 3, 1800, + +_Ecquid meditatur Archimedes?_ What is Euclid doing? What has happened +to learned Trismegist? Doth he take it in ill part that his humble +friend did not comply with his courteous invitation? Let it suffice, I +could not come. Are impossibilities nothing?--be they abstractions of +the intellects, or not (rather) most sharp and mortifying realities? +nuts in the Will's mouth too hard for her to crack? brick and stone +walls in her way, which she can by no means eat through? sore lets, +_impedimenta viarum_, no thoroughfares? _racemi nimium alte pendentes?_? +Is the phrase classic? I allude to the grapes in Aesop, which cost the +fox a strain, and gained the world an aphorism. Observe the +superscription of this letter. In adapting the size of the letters which +constitute _your_ name and Mr. _Crisp's_ name respectively, I had an eye +to your different stations in life. 'Tis really curious, and must be +soothing to an _aristocrat_ I wonder it has never been hit on before my +time. I have made an acquisition latterly of a _pleasant hand_, one +Rickman, [1] to whom I was introduced by George Dyer,--not the most +flattering auspices under which one man can be introduced to another. +George brings all sorts of people together, setting up a sort of +agrarian law, or common property, in matter of society; but for once he +has done me a great pleasure, while he was only pursuing a principle, as +_ignes fatui may_ light you home. This Rickman lives in our Buildings, +immediately opposite our house; the finest fellow to drop in a' nights, +about nine or ten o'clock,--cold bread-and-cheese time,--just in the +_wishing_ time of the night, when you _wish_ for somebody to come in, +without a distinct idea of a probable anybody. Just in the nick, neither +too early to be tedious, nor too late to sit a reasonable time. He is a +most pleasant hand,--a fine, rattling fellow, has gone through life +laughing at solemn apes; himself hugely literate, oppressively full of +information in all stuff of conversation, from matter of fact to +Xenophon and Plato; can talk Greek with Porson, politics with Thelwall, +conjecture with George Dyer, nonsense with me, and anything with +anybody; a great farmer, somewhat concerned in an agricultural magazine; +reads no poetry but Shakspeare, very intimate with Southey, but never +reads his poetry; relishes George Dyer, thoroughly penetrates into the +ridiculous wherever found, understands the _first time_ (a great +desideratum in common minds),--you need never twice speak to him; does +not want explanations, translations, limitations, as Professor Godwin +does when you make an assertion; _up_ to anything, _down_ to everything, +--whatever _sapit hominem_. A perfect _man_. All this farrago, which +must perplex you to read, and has put me to a little trouble to +_select_, only proves how impossible it is to describe a _pleasant +hand_. You must see Rickman to know him, for he is a species in one,--a +new class; an exotic, any slip of which I am proud to put in my +garden-pot. The clearest-headed fellow; fullest of matter, with least +verbosity. If there be any alloy in my fortune to have met with such a +man, it is that he commonly divides his time between town and country, +having some foolish family ties at Christchurch, by which means he can +only gladden our London hemisphere with returns of light. He is now +going for six weeks. + +[1] John Rickman, clerk-assistant at the table of the House of Commons, +an eminent statistician, and the intimate friend of Lamb, Southey, and +others of their set. + + + +XXXI. + + +TO MANNING. + +_November_ 28, 1800 + +Dear Manning,--I have received a very kind invitation from Lloyd and +Sophia to go and spend a month with them at the Lakes. Now, it +fortunately happens (which is so seldom the case) that I have spare cash +by me enough to answer the expenses of so long a journey; and I am +determined to get away from the office by some means. + +The purpose of this letter is to request of you (my dear friend) that +you will not take it unkind if I decline my proposed visit to Cambridge +_for the present_. Perhaps I shall be able to take Cambridge _in my +way_, going or coming. I need not describe to you the expectations which +such an one as myself, pent up all my life in a dirty city, have formed +of a tour to the Lakes. Consider Grasmere! Ambleside! Wordsworth! +Coleridge! Hills, woods, lakes, and mountains, to the devil! I will eat +snipes with thee, Thomas Manning. Only confess, confess, a _bite_. + +P.S.--I think you named the 16th; but was it not modest of Lloyd to send +such an invitation! It shows his knowledge of _money_ and _time_. I +would be loth to think he meant + + "Ironic satire sidelong sklented + On my poor pursie." [1] + +For my part, with reference to my friends northward, I must confess that +I am not romance-bit about _Nature_. The earth and sea and sky (when all +is said) is but as a house to dwell in. If the inmates be courteous, and +good liquors flow like the conduits at an old coronation, if they can +talk sensibly and feel properly, I have no need to stand staring upon +the gilded looking-glass (that strained my friend's purse-strings in the +purchase), nor his five-shilling print over the mantelpiece of old Nabbs +the carrier (which only betrays his false taste). Just as important to +me (in a sense) is all the furniture of my world,--eye-pampering, but +satisfies no heart. Streets, streets, streets, markets, theatres, +churches, Covent Gardens, shops sparkling with pretty faces of +industrious milliners, neat sempstresses, ladles cheapening, gentlemen +behind counters lying, authors in the street with spectacles, George +Dyers (you may know them by their gait), lamps lit at night, +pastry-cooks' and silversmiths' shops, beautiful Quakers of Pentonville, +noise of coaches, drowsy cry of mechanic watchman at night, with bucks +reeling home drunk; if you happen to wake at midnight, cries of "Fire!" +and "Stop, thief!" inns of court, with their learned air, and halls, and +butteries, just like Cambridge colleges; old book-stalls, Jeremy +Taylors, Burtons on Melancholy, and Religio Medicis on every stall. +These are thy pleasures, O London with-the-many-sins! O City abounding +in--, for these may Keswick and her giant brood go hang! + +C. L. + +[1] Burns. + + + +XXXII. + + +TO MANNING. + +_December_ 27, 1800. + +At length George Dyer's phrenitis has come to a crisis; he is raging and +furiously mad. I waited upon the Heathen, Thursday was a se'nnight; the +first symptom which struck my eye and gave me incontrovertible proof of +the fatal truth was a pair of nankeen pantaloons four times too big for +him, which the said Heathen did pertinaciously affirm to be new. + +They were absolutely ingrained with the accumulated dirt of ages; but he +affirmed them to be clean. He was going to visit a lady that was nice +about those things, and that's the reason he wore nankeen that day. And +then he danced, and capered, and fidgeted, and pulled up his pantaloons, +and hugged his intolerable flannel vestment closer about his poetic +loins; anon he gave it loose to the zephyrs which plentifully insinuate +their tiny bodies through every crevice, door, window, or wainscot, +expressly formed for the exclusion of such impertinents. Then he caught +at a proof-sheet, and catched up a laundress's bill instead; made a dart +at Bloomfield's Poems, and threw them in agony aside. I could not bring +him to one direct reply; he could not maintain his jumping mind in a +right line for the tithe of a moment by Clifford's Inn clock. He must go +to the printer's immediately,--the most unlucky accident; he had struck +off five hundred impressions of his Poems, which were ready for delivery +to subscribers, and the Preface must all be expunged. There were eighty +pages of Preface, and not till that morning had he discovered that in +the very first page of said Preface he had set out with a principle of +criticism fundamentally wrong, which vitiated all his following +reasoning. The Preface must be expunged, although it cost him £30,--the +lowest calculation, taking in paper and printing! In vain have his real +friends remonstrated against this Midsummer madness; George is as +obstinate as a Primitive Christian, and wards and parries off all our +thrusts with one unanswerable fence,--"Sir, it's of great consequence +that the _world_ is not _misled!_" + + * * * * * + +Man of many snipes, I will sup with thee, _Deo volente ei diabolo +nolente_, on Monday night the 5th of January, in the new year, and crush +a cup to the infant century. + +A word or two of my progress. Embark at six o'clock in the morning, with +a fresh gale, on a Cambridge one-decker; very cold till eight at night; +land at St. Mary's lighthouse, muffins and coffee upon table (or any +other curious production of Turkey or both Indies), snipes exactly at +nine, punch to commence at ten, with _argument_; difference of opinion +is expected to take place about eleven; perfect unanimity, with some +haziness and dimness, before twelve. N. B.--My single affection is not +so singly wedded to snipes; but the curious and epicurean eye would also +take a pleasure in beholding a delicate and well-chosen assortment of +teals, ortolans, the unctuous and palate-soothing flesh, of geese wild +and tame, nightingales' brains, the sensorium of a young sucking-pig, or +any other Christmas dish, which I leave to the judgment of you and the +cook of Gonville. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XXXIII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +(End of 1800) + +I send you, in this parcel, my play, which I beg you to present in my +name, with my respect and love, to Wordsworth and his sister. You blame +us for giving your direction to Miss Wesley; the woman has been ten +times after us about it, and we gave it her at last, under the idea that +no further harm would ensue, but she would _once_ write to you, and you +would bite your lips and forget to answer it, and so it would end. You +read us a dismal homily upon "Realities." We know quite as well as you +do what are shadows and what are realities. You, for instance, when you +are over your fourth or fifth jorum, chirping about old school +occurrences, are the best of realities. Shadows are cold, thin things, +that have no warmth or grasp in them. Miss Wesley and her friend, and a +tribe of authoresses, that come after you here daily, and, in defect of +you, hive and cluster upon us, are the shadows. You encouraged that +mopsey, Miss Wesley, to dance after you, in the hope of having her +nonsense put into a nonsensical Anthology. We have pretty well shaken +her off, by that simple expedient of referring her to you; but there are +more burrs in the wind. I came home t'other day from business, hungry as +a hunter, to dinner, with nothing, I am sure, of _the author but hunger_ +about me, and whom found I closeted with Mary but a friend of this Miss +Wesley, one Miss Benje, or Bengey, [1]--I don't know how she spells her +name, I just came is time enough, I believe, luckily, to prevent them +from exchanging vows of eternal friendship. It seems she is one of your +authoresses, that you first foster, and then upbraid us with. But I +forgive you. "The rogue has given me potions to make me love him." Well; +go she would not, nor step a step over our threshold, till we had +promised to come and drink tea with her next night, I had never seen her +before, and could not tell who the devil it was that was so familiar. We +went, however, not to be impolite. Her lodgings are up two pairs of +stairs in East Street, Tea and coffee and macaroons--a kind of cake--I +much love. We sat down. Presently Miss Benje broke the silence by +declaring herself quite of a different opinion from D'lsraeli, who +supposes the differences of human intellect to be the mere effect of +organization. She begged to know my opinion. I attempted to carry it off +with a pun upon organ; but that went off very flat. She immediately +conceived a very low opinion of my metaphysics; and turning round to +Mary, put some question to her in French,--possibly having heard that +neither Mary nor I understood French. The explanation that took place +occasioned some embarrassment and much wondering. She then fell into an +insulting conversation about the comparative genius and merits of all +modern languages, and concluded with asserting that the Saxon was +esteemed the purest dialect in Germany. From thence she passed into the +subject of poetry, where I, who had hitherto sat mute and a hearer only, +humbly hoped I might now put in a word to some advantage, seeing that it +was my own trade in a manner. But I was stopped by a round assertion +that no good poetry had appeared since Dr. Johnson's time. It seems the +Doctor had suppressed many hopeful geniuses that way by the severity of +his critical strictures in his "Lives of the Poets." I here ventured to +question the fact, and was beginning to appeal to _names_; but I was +assured "it was certainly the case." Then we discussed Miss More's book +on education, which I had never read. It seems Dr. Gregory, another of +Miss Bengey's friends, has found fault with one of Miss More's +metaphors. Miss More has been at some pains to vindicate herself,--in +the opinion of Miss Bengey, not without success. It seems the Doctor is +invariably against the use of broken or mixed metaphor, which he +reprobates against the authority of Shakspeare himself. We next +discussed the question whether Pope was a poet. I find Dr. Gregory is of +opinion he was not, though Miss Seward does not at all concur with him +in this. We then sat upon the comparative merits of the ten translations +of "Pizarro," and Miss Bengey, or Benje, advised Mary to take two of +them home; she thought it might afford her some pleasure to compare them +_verbatim_; which we declined. It being now nine o'clock, wine and +macaroons were again served round, and we parted, with a promise to go +again next week, and meet the Miss Porters, who, it seems, have heard +much of Mr. Coleridge, and wish to meet _us_, because we are _his_ +friends. I have been preparing for the occasion. I crowd cotton in my +ears. I read all the reviews and magazines of the past month against the +dreadful meeting, and I hope by these means to cut a tolerable +second-rate figure. + +Pray let us have no more complaints about shadows. We are in a fair way, +_through you_, to surfeit sick upon them. + +Our loves and respects to your host and hostess. Our dearest love to +Coleridge. + +Take no thought about your proof-sheets; they shall be done as if +Woodfall himself did them. Pray send us word of Mrs. Coleridge and +little David Hartley, your little reality. + +Farewell, dear Substance. Take no umbrage at anything I have written. + +C. LAMB, _Umbra_. + +[1] Miss Elizabeth Benger. See "Dictionary of Nationai Biography," +iv. 221. + + + +XXXIV. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_January_, 1801. + +Thanks for your letter and present. I had already borrowed your second +volume. [1] What pleases one most is "The Song of Lucy.". _Simon's sickly +Daughter_, in "The Sexton," made me _cry_. Next to these are the +description of these continuous echoes in the story of "Joanna's Laugh," +where the mountains and all the scenery absolutely seem alive; and that +fine Shakspearian character of the "happy man" in the "Brothers,"-- + + "That creeps about the fields, + Following his fancies by the hour, to bring + Tears down his cheek, or solitary smiles + Into his face, until the setting sun + Write Fool upon his forehead!" + +I will mention one more,--the delicate and curious feeling in the wish +for the "Cumberland Beggar" that he may have about him the melody of +birds, although he hear them not. Here the mind knowingly passes a +fiction upon herself, first substituting her own feeling for the +Beggar's, and in the same breath detecting the fallacy, will not part +with the wish. The "Poet's Epitaph" is disfigured, to my taste, by the +common satire upon parsons and lawyers in the beginning, and the coarse +epithet of "pin-point," in the sixth stanza. All the rest is eminently +good, and your own. I will just add that it appears to me a fault in the +"Beggar" that the instructions conveyed in it are too direct, and like a +lecture: they don't slide into the mind of the reader while he is +imagining no such matter. An intelligent reader finds a sort of insult +in being told, "I will teach you how to think upon this subject." This +fault, if I am right, is in a ten-thousandth worse degree to be found in +Sterne, and in many novelists and modern poets, who continually put a +sign-post up to show where you are to feel. They set out with assuming +their readers to be stupid,--very different from "Robinson Crusoe," the +"Vicar of Wakefield," "Roderick Random," and other beautiful, bare +narratives. There is implied, an unwritten compact between author and +reader: "I will tell you a story, and I suppose you will understand it." +Modern novels, "St. Leons" and the like, are full of such flowers as +these,--"Let not my reader suppose;" "Imagine, if you can, modest," etc, +I will here have done with praise and blame, I have written so much only +that you may not think I have passed over your book without +observation.... I am sorry that Coleridge has christened his "Ancient +Marinere," a "Poet's Reverie;" it is as bad as Bottom the Weaver's +declaration that he is not a lion, but only the scenical representation +of a lion. What new idea is gained by this title but one subversive of +all credit--which the tale should force upon us--of its truth! + +For me, I was never so affected with any human tale. After first reading +it, I was totally possessed with it for many days. I dislike all the +miraculous part of it; but the feelings of the man under the operation +of such scenery, dragged me along like Tom Pipe's magic whistle. I +totally differ from your idea that the "Marinere" should have had a +character and a profession. This is a beauty in "Gulliver's Travels," +where the mind is kept in a placid state of little wonderments; but the +"Ancient Marinere" undergoes such trials as overwhelm and bury all +individuality or memory of what he was,--like the state of a man in a +bad dream, one terrible peculiarity of which is, that all consciousness +of personality is gone. Your other observation is, I think as well, a +little unfounded: the "Marinere," from being conversant in supernatural +events, _has_ acquired a supernatural and strange cast of _phrase_, eye, +appearance, etc., which frighten the "wedding guest." You will excuse my +remarks, because I am hurt and vexed that you should think it necessary, +with a prose apology, to open the eyes of dead men that cannot see. + +To sum up a general opinion of the second volume, I do not feel any one +poem in it so forcibly as the "Ancient Marinere" and "The Mad Mother," +and the "Lines at Tintern Abbey" in the first. + +C. L. + +[1] Of the "Lyrical Ballads" then just published. For certain results of +Lamb's strictures in this letter, see Letter xxxvii. + + + +XXXV. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_January_ 30, 1801. + +I ought before this to have replied to your very kind invitation into +Cumberland. With you and your sister I could gang anywhere; but I am +afraid whether I shall ever be able to afford so desperate a journey. +Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never +see a mountain in my life. I have passed all my days in London, until I +have formed as many and intense local attachments as any of you +mountaineers can have done with dead nature. The lighted shops of the +Strand and Fleet Street; the innumerable trades, tradesmen, and +customers; coaches, wagons, playhouses; all the bustle and wickedness +round about Covent Garden; the very women of the town; the watchmen, +drunken scenes, rattles; life awake, if you awake, at all hours of the +night; the impossibility of being dull in Fleet Street; the crowds, the +very dirt and mud, the sun shining upon houses and pavements; the +print-shops, the old-book stalls, parsons cheapening books; +coffee-houses, steams of soups from kitchens; the pantomimes, London +itself a pantomime and a masquerade,--all these things work themselves +into my mind, and feed me without a power of satiating me. The wonder of +these sights impels me into night-walks about her crowded streets, and I +often shed tears in the motley Strand from fulness of joy at so much +life. All these emotions must be strange to you; so are your rural +emotions to me. But consider what must I have been doing all my life, +not to have lent great portions of my heart with usury to such scenes? + +My attachments are all local, purely local,--I have no passion (or have +had none since I was in love, and then it was the spurious engendering +of poetry and books) to groves and valleys. The rooms where I was bom, +the furniture which has been before my eyes all my life, a bookcase +which has followed me about like a faithful dog (only exceeding him in +knowledge), wherever I have moved; old chairs, old tables; streets, +squares, where I have sunned myself; my old school,--these are my +mistresses. Have I not enough without your mountains? I do not envy you. +I should pity you, did I not know that the mind will make friends with +anything. Your sun and moon, and skies and hills and lakes, affect me no +more or scarcely come to be in more venerable characters, than as a +gilded room with tapestry and tapers, where I might live with handsome +visible objects. I consider the clouds above me but as a roof +beautifully painted, but unable to satisfy the mind, and at last, like +the pictures of the apartment of a connoisseur, unable to afford him any +longer a pleasure. So fading upon me, from disuse, have been the +beauties of Nature, as they have been confidently called; so ever fresh +and green and warm are all the inventions of men and assemblies of men +In this great city. I should certainly have laughed with dear Joanna. + +Give my kindest love _and my sister's_ to D. and yourself. And a kiss +from me to little Barbara Lewthwaite. [1] Thank you for liking my play! + +C.L. + + + +XXXVI. + + +TO MANNING. + +_February_, 1801. + +I am going to change my lodgings, having received a hint that it would +be agreeable, at our Lady's next feast. I have partly fixed upon most +delectable rooms, which look out (when you stand a-tiptoe) over the +Thames and Surrey Hills, at the upper end of King's Bench Walks, in the +Temple. There I shall have all the privacy of a house without the +encumbrance; and shall be able to lock my friends out as often as I +desire to hold free converse with my immortal mind; for my present +lodgings resemble a minister's levee, I have so increased my +acquaintance (as they call 'em), since I have resided in town. Like the +country mouse, that had tasted a little of urban manners, I long to be +nibbling my own cheese by my dear self without mousetraps and +time-traps. By my new plan, I shall be as airy, up four pair of stairs, +as in the country; and in a garden, in the midst of enchanting, more +than Mahometan paradise, London, whose dirtiest drab-frequented alley, +and her lowest-bowing tradesman, I would not exchange for Skiddaw, +Helvellyn, James, Walter, and the parson into the bargain. Oh, her lamps +of a night; her rich goldsmiths, print-shops, toy-shops, mercers, +hardwaremen, pastrycooks; St. Paul's Churchyard; the Strand; Exeter +'Change; Charing Cross, with a man _upon_ a black horse! These are thy +gods, O London! Ain't you mightily moped on the banks of the Cam? Had +not you better come and set up here? You can't think what a difference. +All the streets and pavements are pure gold, I warrant you,--at least, I +know an alchemy that turns her mud into that metal: a mind that loves to +be at home in crowds. + +'Tis half-past twelve o'clock, and all sober people ought to be a-bed. +Between you and me, the L. Ballads are but drowsy performances. + +C. LAMB (as you may guess). + +[1] The child in Wordsworth's "The Pet Lamb." + + + +XXXVII. + + +TO MANNING. + +_February_ 15, 1801. + +I had need be cautious henceforward what opinion I give of the "Lyrical +Ballads." All the North of England are in a turmoil. Cumberland and +Westmoreland have already declared a state of war. I lately received +from Wordsworth a copy of the second volume, accompanied by an +acknowledgment of having received from me many months since a copy of a +certain tragedy, with excuses for not having made any acknowledgment +sooner, it being owing to an "almost insurmountable aversion from +letter-writing." This letter I answered in due form and time, and +enumerated several of the passages which had most affected me, adding, +unfortunately, that no single piece had moved me so forcibly as the +"Ancient Mariner," "The Mad Mother," or the "Lines at Tintern Abbey." +The Post did not sleep a moment. I received almost instantaneously a +long letter of four sweating pages from my Reluctant Letter-Writer, the +purport of which was that he was sorry his second volume had not given +me more pleasure (Devil a hint did I give that it had _not pleased me_), +and "was compelled to wish that my range of sensibility was more +extended, being obliged to believe that I should receive large influxes +of happiness and happy thoughts" (I suppose from the L. B.),--with a +deal of stuff about a certain Union of Tenderness and Imagination, +which, in the sense he used Imagination, was not the characteristic of +Shakspeare, but which Milton possessed in a degree far exceeding other +Poets; which union, as the highest species of poetry, and chiefly +deserving that name, "he was most proud to aspire to;" then illustrating +the said union by two quotations from his own second volume (which I had +been so unfortunate as to miss.) First specimen; A father addresses +his son:-- + + "When thou + First camest into the World, as it befalls + To new-born infants, thou didst sleep away + Two days; _and blessings from thy father's tongue + Then fell upon thee_." + +The lines were thus undermarked, and then followed, "This passage, as +combining in an extraordinary degree that union of tenderness and +imagination which I am speaking of, I consider as one of the best I +ever wrote." + +Second specimen: A youth, after years of absence, revisits his native +place, and thinks (as most people do) that there has been strange +alteration in his absence,-- + + "And that the rocks + And everlasting hills themselves were changed." + +You see both these are good poetry; but after one has been reading +Shakspeare twenty of the best years of one's life, to have a fellow +start up and prate about some unknown quality which Shakspeare possessed +in a degree inferior to Milton and _somebody else_! This was not to be +_all_ my castigation. Coleridge, who had not written to me for some +months before, starts up from his bed of sickness to reprove me for my +tardy presumption; four long pages, equally sweaty and more tedious, +came from him, assuring me that when the works of a man of true genius, +such as W. undoubtedly was, do not please me at first sight, I should +expect the fault to lie "in me, and not in them," etc. What am I to do +with such people? I certainly shall write them a very merry letter. +Writing to _you_, I may say that the second volume has no such pieces as +the three I enumerated. It is full of original thinking and an observing +mind; but it does not often make you laugh or cry. It too artfully aims +at simplicity of expression. And you sometimes doubt if simplicity be +not a cover for poverty. The best piece in it I will send you, being +_short_. I have grievously offended my friends in the North by declaring +my undue preference; but I need not fear you. + + "She dwelt among the untrodden ways + Beside the Springs of Dove,-- + A maid whom there were few (_sic_) to praise, + And very few to love. + + "A violet, by a mossy stone + Half hidden from the eye, + Fair as a star when only one + Is shining in the sky. + + "She lived unknown; and few could know + When Lucy ceased to be; + But she is in the grave, and oh, + The difference to me!" + +This is choice and genuine, and so are many, many more. But one does +riot like to have 'em rammed down one's throat. "Pray take it,--it's +very good; let me help you,--eat faster." + + + +XXXVIII. + + +TO MANNING, + +_September_ 24, 1802 + +My Dear Manning,--Since the date of my last tetter, I have been a +traveller, A strong desire seized me of visiting remote regions. My +first impulse was to go aod see Paris. It was a trivial objection to my +aspiring mind that I did not understand a word of the language, since I +certainly intend some time in my life to see Paris, and equally +certainly never intend to learn the language; therefore that could be no +objection. However, I am very glad I did not go, because you had left +Paris (I see) before I could have set out. I believe Stoddart promising +to go with me another year prevented that plan. My next scheme (for to +my restless, ambitious mind London was become a bed of thorns) was to +visit the far-famed peak in Derbyshire, where the Devil sits, they say, +without breeches. _This_ my purer mind rejected as indelicate. And my +final resolve was a tour to the Lakes. I set out with Mary to Keswick, +without giving Coleridge any notice; for my time, being precious, did +not admit of it. He received us with all the hospitality tality in the +world, and gave up his time to show us all the wonders of the country. +He dwells upon a small hill by the side of Keswick, in a comfortable +house, quite enveloped on all sides by a net of mountains,--great +floundering bears and monsters they seemed, all couchant and asleep. We +got in in the evening, travelling in a post-chaise from Penrith, in the +midst of a gorgeous sunshine, which transmuted all the mountains into +colors, purple, etc. We thought we had got into fairy-land. But that +went off (as it never came again; while we stayed, we had no more fine +sunsets); and we entered Coleridge's comfortable study just in the dusk, +when the mountains were all dark, with clouds upon their heads. Such an +impression I never received from objects of sight before, nor do I +suppose that I can ever again. Glorious creatures, fine old fellows, +Skiddaw, etc. I never shall forget ye, how ye lay about that night, like +an intrenchment; gone to bed, as it seemed for the night, but promising +that ye were to be seen in the morning. Coleridge had got a blazing fire +in his study, which is a large, antique, ill-shaped room, with an +old-fashioned organ, never played upon, big enough for a church, shelves +of scattered folios, an Æolian harp, and an old sofa, half-bed, etc.; +and all looking out upon the last fading view of Skiddaw and his +broad-breasted brethren. What a night! Here we stayed three full weeks, +in which time I visited Wordsworth's cottage, where we stayed a day or +two with the Clarksons (good people and most hospitable, at whose house +we tarried one day and night), and saw Lloyd. The Wordsworths were gone +to Calais. They have since been in London, and passed much time with us; +he has now gone into Yorkshire to be married. So we have seen Keswick, +Grasmere, Ambleside, Ulswater (where the Clarksons live), and a place at +the other end of Ulswater,--I forget the name, [1]--to which we travelled +on a very sultry day, over the middle of Helvellyn. We have clambered up +to the top of Skiddaw, and I have waded up the bed of Lodore. In fine, I +have satisfied myself that there is such a thing as that which tourists +call _romantic_, which I very much suspected before; they make such a +spluttering about it, and toss their splendid epithets around them, till +they give as dim a light as at four o'clock next morning the lamps do +after an illumination. Mary was excessively tired when she got about +half way up Skiddaw; but we came to a cold rill (than which nothing can +be imagined more cold, running over cold stones), and with the +reinforcement of a draught of cold water she surmounted it most +manfully. Oh, its fine black head, and the bleak air atop of it, with a +prospect of mountains all about and about, making you giddy; and then +Scotland afar off, and the border countries so famous in song and +ballad! It was a day that will stand out like a mountain, I am sure, in +my life. But I am returned (I have now been come home near three weeks; +I was a month out), and you cannot conceive the degradation I felt at +first, from being accustomed to wander free as air among mountains, and +bathe in rivers without being controlled by any one, to come home and +_work_. I felt very _little_. I had been dreaming I was a very great +man. But that is going off, and I find I shall conform in time to that +state of life to which it has pleased God to call me. Besides, after +all, Fleet Street and the Strand are better places to live in for good +and all than amidst Skiddaw. Still, I turn back to those great places +where I wandered about, participating in their greatness. After all, I +could not _live_ in Skiddaw. I could spend a year,--two, three years +among them; but I must have a prospect of seeing Fleet Street at the end +of that time, or I should mope and pine away, I know. Still, Skiddaw is +a fine creature. + +My habits are changing, I think,--_i.e._, from drunk to sober. Whether I +shall be happier or not, remains to be proved. I shall certainly be more +happy in a morning; but whether I shall not sacrifice the fat and the +marrow and the kidneys,--_i.e._, the night,--glorious, care-drowning +night, that heals all our wrongs, pours wine into our mortifications, +changes the scene from indifferent and flat to bright and brilliant? O +Manning, if I should have formed a diabolical resolution, by the time +you come to England, of not admitting any spirituous liquors into my +house, will you be my guest on such shameworthy terms? Is life, with +such limitations, worth trying? The truth is, that my liquors bring a +nest of friendly harpies about my house, who consume me. This is a +pitiful tale to be read at St. Gothard; but it is just now nearest +my heart. + +[1] Patterdale. + + + +XXXIX. + + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_October_ 23, 1802. + +I read daily your political essays. I was particularly pleased with +"Once a Jacobin;" though the argument is obvious enough, the style was +less swelling than your things sometimes are, and it was plausible _ad +populum_. A vessel has just arrived from Jamaica with the news of poor +Sam Le Grice's death. He died at Jamaica of the yellow fever. His course +was rapid, and he had been very foolish; but I believe there was more of +kindness and warmth in him than in almost any other of our +schoolfellows. The annual meeting of the Blues is to-morrow, at the +London Tavern, where poor Sammy dined with them two years ago, and +attracted the notice of all by the singular foppishness of his dress. +When men go off the stage so early, it scarce seems a noticeable thing +in their epitaphs, whether they had been wise or silly in +their lifetime. + +I am glad the snuff and Pi-pos's books please. "Goody Two Shoes" is +almost out of print. Mrs. Barbauld's stuff has banished all the old +classics of the nursery; and the shopman at Newberry's hardly deigned to +reach them off an old exploded corner of a shelf, when Mary asked for +them. Mrs. B.'s and Mrs. Trimmer's nonsense lay in piles about. +Knowledge insignificant and vapid as Mrs. B.'s books convey, it seems, +must come to the child in the _shape_ of _knowledge_, and his empty +noddle must be turned with conceit of his own powers when he has learned +that a horse is an animal, and Billy is better than a horse, and such +like; instead of that beautiful interest in wild tales which made the +child a man, while all the time he suspected himself to be no bigger +than a child. Science has succeeded to poetry no less in the little +walks of children than with men. Is there no possibility of averting +this sore evil? Think what you would have been now, if instead of being +fed with tales and old wives' fables in childhood, you had been crammed +with geography and natural history! + +Hang them!--I mean the cursed Barbauld crew, those blights and blasts of +all that is human in man and child. + +As to the translations, let me do two or three hundred lines, and then +do you try the nostrums upon Stuart in any way you please. If they go +down, I will bray more. In fact, if I got or could but get £50 a year +only, in addition to what I have, I should live in affluence. + +Have you anticipated it, or could not you give a parallel of Bonaparte +with Cromwell, particularly as to the contrast in their deeds affecting +_foreign_ States? Cromwell's interference for the Albigenses, +B[onaparte]'s against the Swiss. Then religion would come in; and Milton +and you could rant about our countrymen of that period. This is a hasty +suggestion, the more hasty because I want my supper. I have just +finished Chapman's Homer. Did you ever read it? It has most the +continuous power of interesting you all along, like a rapid original, of +any, and in the uncommon excellence of the more finished parts goes +beyond Fairfax or any of 'em. The metre is fourteen syllables, and +capable of all sweetness and grandeur, Cowper's ponderous blank verse +detains you every step with some heavy Miltonism; Chapman gallops off +with you his own free pace. Take a simile, for example. The council +breaks up,-- + + "Being abroad, the earth was overlaid + With fleckers to them, that came forth; as when of frequent + bees + Swarms rise out of a hollow rock, repairing the degrees + Of _their egression endlessly,--with ever rising new_ + From forth their sweet nest; as their store, still as it faded, + grew, + +"_And never would cease sending forth her dusters to the spring_. +They still crowd out so: this flock here, that there, belaboring +The loaded flowers. So," etc. + +What _endless egression of phrases_ the dog commands! + +Take another.--Agamemnon, wounded, bearing hiss wound, heroically for +the sake of the army (look below) to a woman in labor:-- + + "He with his lance, sword, mighty stones, poured his heroic wreak + On other squadrons of the foe, whiles yet warm blood did break + Thro' his cleft veins: but when the wound was quite exhaust and crude, + The eager anguish did approve his princely fortitude. + As when most sharp and bitter pangs distract a laboring dame, + Which the divine Ilithiæ, that rule the painful frame + Of human childbirth, pour on her; the Ilithiæ that are + The daughters of Saturnia; with whose extreme repair + The woman in her travail strives to take the worst it gives; + With thought, _it must be, 'tis love's fruit, the end for which + she lives; + The mean to make herself new born, what comforts_ will redound! + So," etc. + +I will tell you more about Chapman and his peculiarities in my next. I +am much interested in him. + +Yours ever affectionately, and Pi-Pos's, + +C. L. + + + +XL. + + +TO MANNING. + +_November_, 1802. + +My Dear Manning,--I must positively write, or I shall miss you at +Toulouse. I sit here like a decayed minute-hand (I lie; _that_ does not +_sit_), and being myself the exponent of no time, take no heed how the +clocks about me are going. You possibly by this time may have explored +all Italy, and toppled, unawares, into Etna, while you went too near +those rotten-jawed, gap-toothed, old worn-out chaps of hell,--while I am +meditating a quiescent letter to the honest postmaster at Toulouse. But +in case you should not have been _felo de se_, this is to tell you that +your letter was quite to my palate; in particular your just remarks upon +Industry, cursed Industry (though indeed you left me to explore the +reason), were highly relishing. + +I've often wished I lived in the Golden Age, before doubt, and +propositions, and corollaries, got into the world. _Now_, as Joseph +Cottle, a Bard of Nature, sings, going up Malvern Hills,-- + + "How steep, how painful the ascent! + It needs the evidence of _close deduction_ + To know that ever I shall gain the top." + +You must know that Joe is lame, so that he had some reason for so +singing. These two lines, I assure you, are taken _totidem literis_ from +a very _popular_ poem. Joe is also an epic poet as well as a +descriptive, and has written a tragedy, though both his drama and +epopoiea are strictly _descriptive_, and chiefly of the _beauties of +nature_, for Toe thinks _man_, with all his passions and frailties, not: +a proper subject of the _drama_. Joe's tragedy hath the following +surpassing speech in it. Some king is told that his enemy has engaged +twelve archers to come over in a boat from an enemy's country and +way-lay him; he thereupon pathetically exclaims,-- + + "_Twelve_, dost thou say? Curse on those dozen villains!" + +Cottle read two or three acts out to as, very gravely on both sides, +till he came to this heroic touch,--and then he asked what we laughed +at? I had no more muscles that day. A poet that chooses to read out his +own verses has but a limited power over you. There is a bound where his +authority ceases. + + + +XLI. + + +TO MANNING. + +_February_ 19, 1803. + +My Dear Manning,--The general scope of your letter afforded no +indications of insanity, but some particular points raised a scruple. +For God's sake, don't think any more of "Independent Tartary." [1] What +are you to do among such Ethiopians? Is there no _lineal descendant_ of +Prester John? Is the chair empty? Is the sword unswayed? Depend upon it, +they'll never make you their king as long as any branch of that great +stock is remaining. I tremble for your Christianity. They will certainly +circumcise you. Read Sir John Mandeville's travels to cure you, or come +over to England. There is a Tartar man now exhibiting at Exeter 'Change. +Come and talk with him, and hear what he says first. Indeed, he is no +very favorable specimen of his countrymen! But perhaps the best thing +you can do is to _try_ to get the idea out of your head. For this +purpose repeat to yourself every night, after you have said your +prayers, the words "Independent Tartary, Independent Tartary," two or +three times, and associate with them the _idea_ of oblivion ('t is +Hartley's method with obstinate memories); or say "Independent, +Independent, have I not already got an _independence_?" That was a +clever way of the old Puritans,--pun-divinity. My dear friend, think +what a sad pity it would be to bury such _parts_ in heathen countries, +among nasty, unconversable, horse-belching, Tartar people! Some say they +are cannibals; and then conceive a Tartar fellow _eating_ my friend, and +adding the _cool malignity_ of mustard and vinegar! I am afraid 't is +the reading of Chaucer has misled you; his foolish stories about +Cambuscan and the ring, and the horse of brass. Believe me, there are no +such things,--'t is all the poet's _invention_; but if there were such +darling things as old Chaucer sings, I would _up_ behind you on the +horse of brass, and frisk off for Prester John's country. But these are +all tales; a horse of brass never flew, and a king's daughter never +talked with birds! The Tartars really are a cold, insipid, smouchy set. +You'll be sadly moped (if you are not eaten) among them. Pray _try_ and +cure yourself. Take hellebore (the counsel is Horace's; 't was none of +my thought _originally_). Shave yourself oftener. Eat no saffron, for +saffron-eaters contract a terrible Tartar-like yellow. Pray to avoid the +fiend. Eat nothing that gives the heartburn. _Shave the upper lip_. Go +about like an European. Read no book of voyages (they are nothing but +lies); only now and then a romance, to keep the fancy _under_. Above +all, don't go to any sights of _wild beasts. That has been your ruin_. +Accustom yourself to write familiar letters on common subjects to your +friends in England, such as are of a moderate understanding. And think +about common things more. I supped last night with Rickman, and met a +merry _natural_ captain, who pleases himself vastly with once having +made a pun at Otaheite in the O. language. 'Tis the same man who said +Shakspeare he liked, because he was so _much of the gentleman_. Rickman +is a man "absolute in all numbers." I think I may one day bring you +acquainted, if you do not go to Tartary first; for you'll never come +back. Have a care, my dear friend, of Anthropophagi! their stomachs are +always craving. 'Tis terrible to be weighed out at fivepence a pound. To +sit at table (the reverse of fishes in Holland), not as a guest, but +as a meat! + +God bless you! do come to England. Air and exercise may do great things. +Talk with some minister. Why not your father? + +God dispose all for the best! I have discharged my duty. + +Your sincere friend, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Manning had evidently written to Lamb as to his cherished +project of exploring remoter China and Thibet. + + + +XLII. + + +TO MANNING. + +_February_, 1803. + +Not a sentence, not a syllable, of Trismegistus shall be lost through my +neglect. I am his word-banker, his storekeeper of puns and syllogisms. +You cannot conceive (and if Trismegistus cannot, no man can) the strange +joy which I felt at the receipt of a letter from Paris. It seemed to +give me a learned importance which placed me above all who had not +Parisian correspondents. Believe that I shall carefully husband every +scrap, which will save you the trouble of memory when you come back. You +cannot write things so trifling, let them only be about Paris, which I +shall not treasure. In particular, I must have parallels of actors and +actresses. I must be told if any building in Paris is at all comparable +to St. Paul's, which, contrary to the usual mode of that part of our +nature called admiration, I have looked up to with unfading wonder every +morning at ten o'clock, ever since it has lain in my way to business. At +noon I casually glance upon it, being hungry; and hunger has not much +taste for the fine arts. Is any night-walk comparable to a walk from St. +Paul's to Charing Cross, for lighting and paving, crowds going and +coming without respite, the rattle of coaches, and the cheerfulness of +shops? Have you seen a man guillotined yet? is it as good as hanging? +Are the women _all_ painted, and the men _all_ monkeys? or are there not +a _few_ that look like _rational_ of _both sexes_? Are you and the First +Consul _thick_? All this expense of ink I may fairly put you to, as your +letters will not be solely for my proper pleasure, but are to serve as +memoranda and notices, helps for short memory, a kind of Rumfordizing +recollection, for yourself on your return. Your letter was just what a +letter should be,--crammed and very funny. Every part of it pleased me, +till you came to Paris, and your philosophical indolence or indifference +stung me. You cannot stir from your rooms till you know the language! +What the devil! are men nothing but word-trumpets? Are men all tongue +and ear? Have these creatures, that you and I profess to know _something +about_, no faces, gestures, gabble; no folly, no absurdity, no induction +of French education upon the abstract idea of men and women; no +similitude nor dissimilitude to English? Why, thou cursed Smellfungus! +your account of your landing and reception, and Bullen (I forget how you +spell it,--it was spelt my way in Harry the Eighth's time), was exactly +in that minute style which strong impressions INSPIRE (writing to a +Frenchman, I write as a Frenchman would). It appears to me as if I +should die with joy at the first landing in a foreign country. It is the +nearest pleasure which a grown man can substitute for that unknown one, +which he can never know,--the pleasure of the first entrance into life +from the womb. I daresay, in a short time, my habits would come back +like a "stronger man" armed, and drive out that new pleasure; and I +should soon sicken for known objects. Nothing has transpired here that +seems to me of sufficient importance to send dry-shod over the water; +but I suppose you will want to be told some news. The best and the worst +to me is, that I have given up two guineas a week at the "Post," and +regained my health and spirits, which were upon the wane. I grew sick, +and Stuart unsatisfied. _Ludisti satis, tempus abire est_; I must cut +closer, that's all. Mister Fell--or as you, with your usual +facetiousness and drollery, call him, Mr. Fell--has stopped short in the +middle of his play. Some _friend_ has told him that it has not the least +merit in it. Oh that I had the rectifying of the Litany! I would put in +a _Libera nos (Scriptores videlicet) ab amicis_! That's all the news. _A +propos_ (is it pedantry, writing to a Frenchman, to express myself +sometimes by a French word, when an English one would not do as well? +Methinks my thoughts fall naturally into it)-- + +In all this time I have done but one thing which I reckon tolerable, and +that I will transcribe, because it may give you pleasure, being a +picture of _my_ humors. You will find it in my last page. It absurdly is +a first number of a series, thus strangled in its birth. + +More news! The Professor's Rib [1] has come out to be a disagreeable +woman, so much so as to drive me and some more old cronies from his +house. He must not wonder if people are shy of coming to see him because +of the _Snakes_. + +C. L. + +[1] Mrs. Godwin + + + +XLIII. + + +TO WILLIAM GODWIN. + +_November_ 10, 1803. + +Dear Godwin,--You never made a more unlucky and perverse mistake than to +suppose that the reason of my not writing that cursed thing was to be +found in your book. I assure you most sincerely that I have been greatly +delighted with "Chaucer." [1] I may be wrong, but I think there is one +considerable error runs through it, which is a conjecturing spirit, a +fondness for filling out the picture by supposing what Chaucer did and +how he felt, where the materials are scanty. So far from meaning to +withhold from you (out of mistaken tenderness) this opinion of mine, I +plainly told Mrs. Godwin that I did find a _fault_, which I should +reserve naming until I should see you and talk it over. This she may +very well remember, and also that I declined naming this fault until she +drew it from me by asking me if there was not too much fancy in the +work. I then confessed generally what I felt, but refused to go into +particulars until I had seen you. I am never very fond of saying things +before third persons, because in the relation (such is human nature) +something is sure to be dropped. If Mrs. Godwin has been the cause of +your misconstruction, I am very angry, tell her; yet it is not an anger +unto death. I remember also telling Mrs. G. (which she may have _dropt_) +that I was by turns considerably more delighted than I expected. But I +wished to reserve all this until I saw you. I even had conceived an +expression to meet you with, which was thanking you for some of the most +exquisite pieces of criticism I had ever read in my life. In particular, +I should have brought forward that on "Troilus and Cressida" and +Shakspeare, which, it is little to say, delighted me and instructed me +(if not absolutely _instructed_ me, yet put into _full-grown sense_ many +conceptions which had arisen in me before in my most discriminating +moods). All these things I was preparing to say, and bottling them up +till I came, thinking to please my friend and host the author, when lo! +this deadly blight intervened. + +I certainly ought to make great allowances for your misunderstanding me. +You, by long habits of composition and a greater command gained over +your own powers, cannot conceive of the desultory and uncertain way in +which I (an author by fits) sometimes cannot put the thoughts of a +common letter into sane prose. Any work which I take upon myself as an +engagement will act upon me to torment; _e.g._, when I have undertaken, +as three or four times I have, a school-boy copy of verses for Merchant +Taylors' boys, at a guinea a copy, I have fretted over them in perfect +inability to do them, and have made my sister wretched with my +wretchedness for a week together. The same, till by habit I have +acquired a mechanical command, I have felt in making paragraphs. As to +reviewing, in particular, my head is so whimsical a head that I cannot, +after reading another man's book, let it have been never so pleasing, +give any account of it in any methodical way, I cannot follow his train. +Something like this you must have perceived of me in conversation. Ten +thousand times I have confessed to you, talking of my talents, my utter +inability to remember in any comprehensive way what I read. I can +vehemently applaud, or perversely stickle, at _parts_; but I cannot +grasp at a whole. This infirmity (which is nothing to brag of) may be +seen in my two little compositions, the tale and my play, in both which +no reader, however partial, can find any story. I wrote such stuff about +Chaucer, and got into such digressions, quite irreducible into 1 1/5 +column of a paper, that I was perfectly ashamed to show it you. However, +it is become a serious matter that I should convince you I neither slunk +from the task through a wilful deserting neglect, or through any (most +imaginary on your part) distaste of "Chaucer;" and I will try my hand +again,--I hope with better luck. My health is bad, and my time taken up; +but all I can spare between this and Sunday shall be employed for you, +since you desire it: and if I bring you a crude, wretched paper on +Sunday, you must burn it, and forgive me; if it proves anything better +than I predict, may it be a peace-offering of sweet incense between us! + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Godwin's "Life of Chaucer,"--a work, says Canon Ainger, consisting +of "four fifths ingenious guessing to one fifth of material having any +historic basis." + + + +XLIV. + + +TO MANNING. + +_February_ 24, 1805. + +Dear Manning,--I have been very unwell since I saw you. A sad depression +of spirits, a most unaccountable nervousness; from which I have been +partially relieved by an odd accident. You knew Dick Hopkins, the +swearing scullion of Caius? This fellow, by industry and agility, has +thrust himself into the important situations (no sinecures, believe me) +of cook to Trinity Hall and Caius College; and the generous creature has +contrived, with the greatest delicacy imaginable, to send me a present +of Cambridge brawn. What makes it the more extraordinary is, that the +man never saw me in his life that I know of. I suppose he has _heard_ of +me. I did not immediately recognize the donor; but one of Richard's +cards, which had accidentally fallen into the straw, detected him in a +moment, Dick, you know, was always remarkable for flourishing. His card +imports that "orders [to wit, for brawn] from any part of England, +Scotland, or Ireland, will be duly executed," etc. At first I thought of +declining the present; but Richard knew my blind side when he pitched +upon brawn. 'Tis of all my hobbies the supreme in the eating way. He +might have sent sops from the pan, skimmings, crumpets, chips, hog's +lard, the tender brown judiciously scalped from a fillet of veal +(dexterously replaced by a salamander), the tops of asparagus, fugitive +livers, runaway gizzards of fowls, the eyes of martyred pigs, tender +effusions of laxative woodcocks, the red spawn of lobsters, leverets' +ears, and such pretty filchings common to cooks; but these had been +ordinary presents, the everyday courtesies of dishwashers to their +sweethearts. Brawn was a noble thought. It is not every common +gullet-fancier that can properly esteem it. It is like a picture of one +of the choice old Italian masters. Its gusto is of that hidden sort. As +Wordsworth sings of a modest poet, "you must love him, ere to you he +will seem worthy of your love," so brawn, you must taste it, ere to you +it will seem to have any taste at all. But 'tis nuts to the +adept,--those that will send out their tongues and feelers to find it +out. It will be wooed, and not unsought be won. Now, ham-essence, +lobsters, turtle, such popular minions, absolutely _court you_, lay +themselves out to strike you at first smack, like one of David's +pictures (they call him _Darveed_), compared with the plain +russet-coated wealth of a Titian or a Correggio, as I illustrated above. +Such are the obvious glaring heathen virtues of a corporation dinner, +compared with the reserved collegiate worth of brawn. Do me the favour +to leave off the business which you may be at present upon, and go +immediately to the kitchens of Trinity and Caius, and make my most +respectful compliments to Mr. Richard Hopkins, and assure him that his +brawn is most excellent, and that I am moreover obliged to him for his +innuendo about salt water and bran, which I shall not fail to improve. I +leave it to you whether you shall choose to pay him the civility of +asking him to dinner while you stay in Cambridge, or in whatever other +way you may best like to show your gratitude to _my friend_. Richard +Hopkins, considered in many points of view, is a very extraordinary +character. Adieu. I hope to see you to supper in London soon, where we +will taste Richard's brawn, and drink his health in a cheerful but +moderate cup. We have not many such men in any rank of life as Mr. R. +Hopkins. Crisp the barber, of St. Mary's, was just such another. I +wonder _he_ never sent me any little token,--some chestnuts, or a puff, +or two pound of hair just to remember him by; gifts are like nails. +_Præsens ut absens_, that is, your _present_ makes amends for +your absence. + +Yours, + +C. LAMB. + + + +XLV. + + +TO MISS WORDSWORTH. + +_June_ 14, 1805. + +My Dear Miss Wordsworth,--I have every reason to suppose that this +illness, like all Mary's former ones, will be but temporary. But I +cannot always feel so. Meantime she is dead to me, and I miss a prop. +All my strength Is gone, and I am like a fool, bereft of her +co-operation. I dare not think, iest I should think wrong; so used am I +to look up to her in the least and the biggest perplexity. To say all +that I know of her, would be more than I think anybody could believe or +ever understand; and when I hope to have her well again with me, it +would be sinning against her feelings to go about to praise her; for I +can conceal nothing that I do from her. She is older and wiser and +better than I, and all my wretched imperfections I cover to myself by +resolutely thinking on her goodness. She would share life and death, +heaven and hell, with me. She lives but for me; and I know I have been +wasting and teasing her life for five years past incessantly with my +cursed ways of going on. But even in this upbraiding of myself I am +offending against her, for I know that she has cleaved to me for better, +for worse; and if the balance has been against her hitherto, it was a +noble trade. I am stupid, and lose myself in what I write. I write +rather what answers to my feelings (which are sometimes sharp enough) +than express my present ones, for I am only flat and stupid. I am sure +you will excuse my writing any more, I am so very poorly. + +I cannot resist transcribing three or four lines which poor Mary made +upon a picture (a Holy Family) which we saw at an auction only one week +before she left home. They are sweet lines, and upon a sweet picture. +But I send them only as the last memorial of her. + +VIRGIN AND CHILD, L. DA VINCI. + + "Maternal Lady, with thy virgin-grace, + Heaven-born thy Jesus seemeth, sure, + And thou a virgin pure. + Lady most perfect, when thy angel face + Men look upon, they wish to be + A Catholic, Madonna fair, to worship thee." + +You had her lines about the "Lady Blanch." You have not had some which +she wrote upon a copy of a girl from Titian, which I had hung up where +that print of Blanch and the Abbess (as she beautifully interpreted two +female figures from L. da Vinci) had hung in our room. 'Tis light +and pretty. + + "Who art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the place + Of Blanch, the lady of the matchless grace? + Come, fair and pretty, tell to me + Who in thy lifetime thou mightst be? + Thou pretty art and fair, + But with the Lady Blanch thou never must compare. + No need for Blanch her history to tell, + Whoever saw her face, they there did read it well; + But when I look on thee, I only know + There lived a pretty maid some hundred years ago," + +This is a little unfair, to tell so much about ourselves, and to advert +so little to your letter, so full of comfortable tidings of you all But +my own cares press pretty close upon me, and you can make allowance. +That you may go on gathering strength and peace is my next wish to +Mary's recovery. + +I had almost forgot your repeated invitation. Supposing that Mary will +be well and able, there is another _ability_ which you may guess at, +which I cannot promise myself. In prudence we ought not to come. This +illness will make it still more prudential to wait. It is not a balance +of this way of spending our money against another way, but an absolute +question of whether we shall stop now, or go on wasting away the little +we have got beforehand, which my evil conduct has already encroached +upon one-half. My best love, however, to you all, and to that most +friendly creature. Mrs. Clarkson, and better health to her, when you see +or write to her. + +CHARLES LAMB. + + + +XLVI. [1] + + +TO MANNING. + +_May_ 10, 1806. + +My Dear Manning,--I didn't know what your going was till I shook a last +fist with you, and then 'twas just like having shaken hands with a +wretch on the fatal scaffold, and when you are down the ladder, you can +never stretch out to him again. Mary says you are dead, and there's +nothing to do but to leave it to time to do for us in the end what it +always does for those who mourn for people in such a case. But she'll +see by your letter you are not quite dead. A little kicking and agony, +and then--Martin Burney _took me out_ a walking that evening, and we +talked of Manning; and then I came home and smoked for you, and at +twelve o'clock came home Mary and Monkey Louisa from the play, and there +was more talk and more smoking, and they all seemed first-rate +characters, because they knew a certain person. But what's the use of +talking about 'em? By the time you'll have made your escape from the +Kalmuks, you'll have stayed so long I shall never be able to bring to +your mind who Mary was, who will have died about a year before, nor who +the Holcrofts were! Me perhaps you will mistake for Phillips, or +confound me with Mr. Dawe, because you saw us together. Mary (whom you +seem to remember yet) is not quite easy that she had not a formal +parting from you. I wish it had so happened. But you must bring her a +token, a shawl or something, and remember a sprightly little mandarin +for our mantelpiece, as a companion to the child I am going to purchase +at the museum. She says you saw her writings about the other day, and +she wishes you should know what they are. She is doing for Godwin's +bookseller twenty of Shakspeare's plays, to be made into children's +tales. Six are already done by her; to wit: "The Tempest," "Winter's +Tale," "Midsummer Night's Dream," "Much Ado," "Two Gentlemen of Verona," +and "Cymbeline;" and "The Merchant of Venice" is in forwardness. I have +done "Othello" and "Macbeth," and mean to do all the tragedies. I think +it will be popular among the little people, besides money. It's to bring +in sixty guineas. Mary has done them capitally, I think you'd think. [2] +These are the humble amusements we propose, while you are gone to plant +the cross of Christ among barbarous pagan anthropophagi. _Quam homo +homini præstat!_ but then, perhaps, you'll get murdered, and we shall +die in our beds, with a fair literary reputation. Be sure, if you see +any of those people whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, that +you make a draught of them. It will be very curious. Oh, Manning, I am +serious to sinking almost, when I think that all those evenings, which +you have made so pleasant, are gone perhaps forever. Four years you talk +of, maybe ten; and you may come back and find such alterations! Some +circumstances may grow up to you or to me that may be a bar to the +return of any such intimacy. I daresay all this is hum, and that all +will come back; but indeed we die many deaths before we die, and I am +almost sick when I think that such a hold as I had of you is gone. I +have friends, but some of 'em are changed. Marriage, or some +circumstance, rises up to make them not the same. But I felt sure of +you. And that last token you gave me of expressing a wish to have my +name joined with yours, you know not how it affected me,--like a legacy. + +God bless you in every way you can form a wish! May He give you health, +and safety, and the accomplishment of all your objects, and return you +again to us to gladden some fireside or other (I suppose we shall be +moved from the Temple). I will nurse the remembrance of your steadiness +and quiet, which used to infuse something like itself into our nervous +minds. Mary called you our ventilator. Farewell! and take her best +wishes and mine. Good by. + +C.L. + +[1] Addressed: "Mr, Manning, Passenger on Board the 'Thames,' East +Indiaman, Portsmouth." Manning had set out for Canton. + +[2] Miss Lamb has amusingly described the progress of their labors on +this volume; "You would like to see us, as we often sit writing on one +table (but not on one cushion sitting), like Hermia and Helena, in the +'Midsummer Night's Dream;' or rather like an old literary Darby and +Joan, I taking snuff, and he groaning all the while, and saying he can +make nothing of it, which he always says till he has finished, and then +he finds out that he has made something of it." + + + +XLVII. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_June_, 1806. + +Dear Wordsworth,--We are pleased, you may be sure, with the good news +of Mrs. Wordsworth. [1] Hope all is well over by this time. "A fine boy! +Have you any more?--One more and a girl,--poor copies of me!" _vide_ +"Mr. H.," a farce which the proprietors have done me the honor--But I +set down Mr, Wroughton's own words, N. B.--The ensuing letter was sent +in answer to one which I wrote, begging to know if my piece had any +chance, as I might make alterations, etc, I writing on Monday, there +comes this letter on the Wednesday. Attend. + +[_Copy of a letter from Mr. R. Wroughton_.] + +SIR,--Your piece of "Mr. H.," I am desired to say, is accepted at Drury +Lane Theatre by the proprietors, and if agreeable to you, will be +brought forwards when the proper opportunity serves. The piece shall be +sent to you for your alterations in the course of a few days, as the +same is not in my hands, but with the proprietors, + +I am, sir, your obedient servant, + +RICHARD WROUGHTON. + +[Dated] 66, Gower Street, Wednesday, June 11th, 1806. + +On the following Sunday Mr. Tobin comes. The scent of a manager's letter +brought him. He would have gone farther any day on such a business. I +read the letter to him. He deems it authentic and peremptory. Our +conversation naturally fell upon pieces, different sorts of +pieces,--what is the best way of offering a piece; how far the caprice +of managers is an obstacle in the way of a piece; how to judge of the +merits of a piece; how long a piece may remain in the hands of the +managers before it is acted; and my piece, and your piece, and my poor +brother's piece,--my poor brother was all his life endeavoring to get a +piece accepted. I wrote that in mere wantonness of triumph. Have nothing +more to say about it. The managers, I thank my stars, have decided its +merits forever. They are the best judges of pieces, and it would be +insensible in me to affect a false modesty, after the very flattering +letter which I have received. + +[Illustration: Admit to Boxes. Mr. H. _Ninth Night_ Charles Lamb] + +I think this will be as good a pattern for orders as I can think on. A +little thin flowery border, round, neat, not gaudy, and the Drury Lane +Apollo, with the harp at the top. Or shall I have no Apollo,--simply +nothing? Or perhaps the Comic Muse? + +The same form, only I think without the Apollo, will serve for the pit +and galleries. I think it will be best to write my name at full length; +but then if I give away a great many, that will be tedious. Perhaps _Ch. +Lamb_ will do. + +BOXES, now I think on it, I'll have in capitals; the rest, in a neat +Italian hand. Or better, perhaps, BORES in Old English characters, +like Madoc or Thalaba? + +_A propos_ of Spenser (you will find him mentioned a page or two before, +near enough for an _à propos_), I was discoursing on poetry (as one's +apt to deceive one's self, and when a person is willing to _talk_ of +what one likes, to believe that be also likes the same, as lovers do) +with a young gentleman of my office, who is deep read in Anacreon Moore, +Lord Strangford, and the principal modern poets, and I happened to +mention Epithalamiums, and that I could show him a very fine one of +Spenser's. At the mention of this my gentleman, who is a very fine +gentleman, pricked up his ears and expressed great pleasure, and begged +that I would give him leave to copy it; he did not care how long it was +(for I objected the length), he should be very happy to see _anything by +him_. Then pausing, and looking sad, he ejaculated, "POOR SPENCER!" I +begged to know the reason of his ejaculation, thinking that time had by +this time softened down any calamities which the bard might have +endured. "Why, poor fellow," said he, "he has lost his wife!" "Lost his +wife!" said I, "who are you talking of?" "Why, Spencer!" said he; "I've +read the Monody he wrote on the occasion, and _a very pretty thing it +is_." This led to an explanation (it could be delayed no longer) that +the sound _Spenser_, which, when poetry is talked of, generally excites +an image of an old bard in a ruff, and sometimes with it dim notions of +Sir P. Sidney and perhaps Lord Burleigh, had raised in my gentleman a +quite contrary image of the Honorable William Spencer, who has +translated some things from the German very prettily, which are +published with Lady Di Beauclerk's designs. Nothing like defining of +terms when we talk. What blunders might I have fallen into of quite +inapplicable criticism, but for this timely explanation! + +N.B.--At the beginning of _Edm._ Spenser (to prevent mistakes), I have +copied from my own copy, and primarily from a book of Chalmers's on +Shakspeare, a sonnet of Spenser's never printed among his poems. It is +curious, as being manly, and rather Miltonic, and as a sonnet of +Spenser's with nothing in it about love or knighthood. I have no room +for remembrances, but I hope our doing your commission will prove we do +not quite forget you. + +C. L. + +[1] Wordsworth's son Thomas was born June 16, 1806. + + + +XLVIII. + + +TO MANNING + +_December_ 5, 1806. + +Manning, your letter, dated Hottentots, August the what-was-it? came to +hand. I can scarce hope that mine will have the same luck. China, +Canton,--bless us, how it strains the imagination and makes it ache! I +write under another uncertainty whether it can go to-morrow by a ship +which I have just learned is going off direct to your part of the world, +or whether the despatches may not be sealed up and this have to wait; +for if it is detained here, it will grow staler in a fortnight than in a +five months' voyage coming to you. It will be a point of conscience to +send you none but bran-new news (the latest edition), which will but +grow the better, like oranges, for a sea-voyage. Oh that you should be +so many hemispheres off!--if I speak incorrectly, you can correct me. +Why, the simplest death or marriage that takes place here must be +important to you as news in the old Bastile. There's your friend Tuthill +has got away from France--you remember France? and Tuthill?--ten to one +but he writes by this post, if he don't get my note in time, apprising +him of the vessel sailing. Know, then, that he has found means to obtain +leave from Bonaparte, without making use of any _incredible romantic +pretences_, as some have done, who never meant to fulfil them, to come +home; and I have seen him here and at Holcroft's. An't you glad about +Tuthill? Now then be sorry for Holcroft, whose new play, called "The +Vindictive Man," was damned about a fortnight since. It died in part of +its own weakness, and in part for being choked up with bad actors. The +two principal parts were destined to Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Bannister; but +Mrs. J. has not come to terms with the managers,--they have had some +squabble,--and Bannister shot some of his fingers off by the going off +of a gun. So Miss Duncan had her part, and Mr. De Camp took his. His +part, the principal comic hope of the play, was most unluckily +Goldfinch, taken out of the "Road to Ruin,"--not only the same +character, but the identical Goldfinch; the same as Falstaff is in two +plays of Shakspeare. As the devil of ill-luck would have it, half the +audience did not know that H. had written it, but were displeased at his +stealing from the "Road to Ruin;" and those who might have home a +gentlemanly coxcomb with his "That's your sort," "Go it,"--such as Lewis +is,--did not relish the intolerable vulgarity and inanity of the idea +stripped of his manner. De Camp was hooted, more than hissed,--hooted +and bellowed off the stage before the second act was finished; so that +the remainder of his part was forced to be, with some violence to the +play, omitted. In addition to this, a strumpet was another principal +character,--a most unfortunate choice in this moral day. The audience +were as scandalized as if you were to introduce such a personage to +their private tea-tables. Besides, her action in the play was +gross,--wheedling an old man into marriage. But the mortal blunder of +the play was that which, oddly enough, H. took pride in, and exultingly +told me of the night before it came out, that there were no less than +eleven principal characters in it, and I believe he meant of the men +only, for the play-bill expressed as much, not reckoning one woman and +one--; and true it was, for Mr. Powell, Mr. Raymond, Mr. Bartlett, Mr. +H. Siddons, Mr. Barrymore, etc., to the number of eleven, had all parts +equally prominent, and there was as much of them in quantity and rank as +of the hero and heroine, and most of them gentlemen who seldom appear +but as the hero's friend in a farce,--for a minute or two,--and here +they all had their ten-minute speeches, and one of them gave the +audience a serious account how he was now a lawyer, but had been a poet; +and then a long enumeration of the inconveniences of authorship, +rascally booksellers, reviewers, etc.; which first set the audience +a-gaping. But I have said enough; you will be so sorry that you will not +think the best of me for my detail: but news is news at Canton. Poor H. +I fear will feel the disappointment very seriously in a pecuniary light. +From what I can learn, he has saved nothing. You and I were hoping one +day that he had; but I fear he has nothing but his pictures and books, +and a no very flourishing business, and to be obliged to part with his +long-necked Guido that hangs opposite as you enter, and the game-piece +that hangs in the back drawing-room, and all those Vandykes, etc.! God +should temper the wind to the shorn connoisseur. I hope I need not say +to you that I feel for the weather-beaten author and for all his +household. I assure you his fate has soured a good deal the pleasure I +should have otherwise taken in my own little farce being accepted, and I +hope about to be acted,--it is in rehearsal actually, and I expect it to +come out next week. It is kept a sort of secret, and the rehearsals have +gone on privately, lest by many folks knowing it, the story should come +out, which would infallibly damn it. You remember I had sent it before +you went. Wroughton read it, and was much pleased with it. I speedily +got an answer. I took it to make alterations, and lazily kept it some +months, then took courage and furbished it up in a day or two and took +it. In less than a fortnight I heard the principal part was given to +Elliston, who liked it, and only wanted a prologue, which I have since +done and sent; and I had a note the day before yesterday from the +manager, Wroughton (bless his fat face, he is not a bad actor in some +things), to say that I should be summoned to the rehearsal after the +next, which next was to be yesterday. I had no idea it was so forward. I +have had no trouble, attended no reading or rehearsal, made no interest; +what a contrast to the usual parade of authors! But it is peculiar to +modesty to do all things without noise or pomp! I have some suspicion it +will appear in public on Wednesday next, for W. says in his note, it is +so forward that if wanted it may come out next week, and a new melodrama +is announced for every day till then; and "a new farce is in rehearsal," +is put up in the bills. Now, you'd like to know the subject. The title +is "Mr. H.," no more; how simple, how taking! A great H. sprawling over +the play-bill and attracting eyes at every corner. The story is a +coxcomb appearing at Bath, vastly rich, all the ladies dying for him, +all bursting to know who he is; but he goes by no other name than Mr. +H.,--a curiosity like that of the dames of Strasburg about the man with +the great nose. But I won't tell you any more about it. Yes, I will, but +I can't give you an idea how I have done it. I'll just tell you that +after much vehement admiration, when his true name comes out, +"Hogs-flesh," all the women shun him, avoid him, and not one can be +found to change their name for him,--that's the idea,--how flat it is +here; [1] but how whimsical in the farce! And only think how hard upon me +it is that the ship is despatched to-morrow, and my triumph cannot be +ascertained till the Wednesday after; but all China will ring of it by +and by. N.B. (But this is a secret,) The Professor [2] has got a tragedy +coming out, with the young Roscius in it, in January next, as we +say,--January last it will be with you; and though it is a profound +secret now, as all his affairs are, it cannot be much of one by the time +you read this. However, don't let it go any farther. I understand there +are dramatic exhibitions in China. One would not like to be forestalled. +Do you find in all this stuff I have written anything like those +feelings which one should send my old adventuring friend, that is gone +to wander among Tartars, and may never come again? I don't, but your +going away, and all about you, is a threadbare topic. I have worn it out +with thinking, it has come to me when I have been dull with anything, +till my sadness has seemed more to have come from it than to have +introduced it. I want you, you don't know how much; but if I had you +here in my European garret, we should but talk over such stuff as I have +written, so--Those "Tales from Shakspeare" are near coming out, and Mary +has begun a new work, Mr. Dawe is turned author; he has been in such a +way lately,--Dawe the painter, I mean,--he sits and stands about at +Holcroft's and says nothing, then sighs, and leans his head on his hand. +I took him to be in love, but it seems he was only meditating a +work,--"The Life of Morland:" the young man is not used to composition. +Rickman and Captain Burney are well; they assemble at my house pretty +regularly of a Wednesday, a new institution. Like other great men, I have +a public day,--cribbage and pipes, with Phillips and noisy Martin Burney. + +Good Heaven, what a bit only I've got left! How shall I squeeze all I +know into this morsel! Coleridge is come home, and is going to turn +lecturer on taste at the Royal Institution. I shall get £200 from the +theatre if "Mr. H." has a good run, and I hope £100 for the copyright. +Nothing if it fails; and there never was a more ticklish thing. The +whole depends on the manner in which the name is brought out, which I +value myself on, as a _chef d'oeuvre_. How the paper grows less and +less! In less than two minutes I shall cease to talk to you, and you may +rave to the Great Wall of China. N.B.--Is there such a wall? Is it as +big as Old London Wall by Bedlam? Have you met with a friend of mine +named Ball at Canton? If you are acquainted, remember me kindly to him. +Maybe you'll think I have not said enough of Tuthill and the Holcrofts. +Tuthill is a noble fellow, as far as I can judge. The Holcrofts bear +their disappointment pretty well, but indeed they are sadly mortified. +Mrs. H. is cast down. It was well, if it were but on this account, that +Tuthill is come home. N.B.--If my little thing don't succeed, I shall +easily survive, having, as it were, compared to H.'s venture, but a +sixteenth in the lottery. Mary and I are to sit next the orchestra in +the pit, next the tweedle-dees. She remembers you. You are more to us +than five hundred farces, clappings, etc. + +Come back one day. C. LAMB. + +[1] It was precisely this flatness, this slightness of plot and +catastrophe, that doomed "Mr. H." to failure. See next letter. + +[2] Godwin. His tragedy of "Faulkner" was published in 1808. + + + +XLIX. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_December_, II, 1806. + +Mary's love to all of you; I wouldn't let her write. + +Dear Wordsworth,--"Mr. H." came out last night, and failed. I had many +fears; the subject was not substantial enough. John Bull must have +solider fare than a _letter_. We are pretty stout about it; have had +plenty of condoling friends; but, after all, we had rather it should +have succeeded. You will see the prologue in most of the morning papers. +It was received with such shouts as I never witnessed to a prologue. It +was attempted to be encored. How hard! a thing I did merely as a task, +because it was wanted, and set no great store by; and "Mr. H."! The +quantity of friends we had in the house--my brother and I being in +public offices, etc.--was astonishing; but they yielded at last to a +few hisses. + +A hundred hisses (Damn the word, I write it like kisses,--how +different!)--a hundred hisses outweigh a thousand claps. [1] The former +come more directly from, the heart. Well, 't is withdrawn, and there +is an end. + +Better luck to us, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Lamb was himself in the audience, and is said to have taken a +conspicuous share in the storm of hisses that followed the dropping of +the curtain. + + + +L. + + +TO MANNING. + +_January_ 2, 1810. + +My best room commands a court, in which there are trees and a pump, the +water of which is excellent,--cold with brandy, and not very insipid +without. Here I hope to set up my rest, and not quit till Mr. Powell, +the undertaker, gives me notice that I may have possession of my last +lodging. He lets lodgings for single gentlemen. I sent you a parcel of +books by my last, to give you some idea of the state of European +literature. There comes with this two volumes, done up as letters, of +minor poetry, a sequel to "Mrs. Leicester;" the best you may suppose +mine, the next best are my coadjutor's. You may amuse yourself in +guessing them out; but I must tell you mine are but one third in +quantity of the whole. So much for a very delicate subject. It is hard +to speak of one's self, etc. Holcroft had finished his life when I wrote +to you, and Hazlitt has since finished his life,--I do not mean his own +life, but he has finished a life of Holcroft, which is going to press. +Tuthill is Dr. Tuthill. I continue Mr. Lamb. I have published a little +book for children on titles of honor; and to give them some idea of the +difference of rank and gradual rising, I have made a little scale, +supposing myself to receive the following various accessions of dignity +from the king, who is the fountain of honor,--as at first, 1, Mr. C. +Lamb; 2, C. Lamb, Esq.; 3, Sir C. Lamb, Bart.; 4, Baron Lamb, of +Stamford; 5, Viscount Lamb; 6, Earl Lamb; 7, Marquis Lamb; 8, Duke Lamb. +It would look like quibbling to carry it on farther, and especially as +it is not necessary for children to go beyond the ordinary titles of +sub-regal dignity in our own country, otherwise I have sometimes in my +dreams imagined myself still advancing, as 9th, King Lamb; 10th, Emperor +Lamb; 11th, Pope Innocent,--higher than which is nothing. Puns I have +not made many (nor punch much) since the date of my last; one I cannot +help relating. A constable in Salisbury Cathedral was telling me that +eight people dined at the top of the spire of the cathedral; upon which +I remarked that they must be very sharp-set. But in general I cultivate +the reasoning part of my mind more than the imaginative. I am stuffed +out so with eating turkey for dinner, and another turkey for supper +yesterday (turkey in Europe and turkey in Asia), that I can't jog on. It +is New Year here. That is, it was New Year half a year back, when I was +writing this. Nothing puzzles me more than time and space, and yet +nothing puzzles me less, for I never think about them. The Persian +ambassador is the principal thing talked of now. I sent some people to +see him worship the sun on Primrose Hill at half-past six in the +morning, 28th November; but he did not come,--which makes me think the +old fire-worshippers are a sect almost extinct in Persia. The Persian +ambassador's name is Shaw Ali Mirza. The common people call him Shaw +Nonsense. While I think of it, I have put three letters besides my own +three into the India post for you, from your brother, sister, and +some gentleman whose name I forget. Will they, have they, did they come +safe? The distance you are at, cuts up tenses by the root. I think you +said you did not know Kate *********. I express her by nine stars, +though she is but one. You must have seen her at her father's. Try and +remember her. Coleridge is bringing out a paper in weekly numbers, called +the "Friend," which I would send, if I could; but the difficulty I had in +getting the packets of books out to you before deters me; and you'll +want something new to read when you come home. Except Kate, I have had +no vision of excellence this year, and she passed by like the queen on +her coronation day; you don't know whether you saw her or not. Kate is +fifteen; I go about moping, and sing the old, pathetic ballad I used to +like in my youth,-- + + "She's sweet fifteen, + I'm _one year more._ + +Mrs. Bland sang it in boy's clothes the first time I heard it. I +sometimes think the lower notes in my voice are like Mrs. Bland's. That +glorious singer, Braham, one of my lights, is fled. He was for a season. +He was a rare composition of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel, yet +all these elements mixed up so kindly in him that you could not tell +which predominated; but he is gone, and one Phillips is engaged instead. +Kate is vanished, but Miss Burrell is always to be met with! + + "Queens drop away, while blue-legged Maukin thrives, + And courtly Mildred dies, while country Madge survives." + +That is not my poetry, but Quarles's; but haven't you observed that the +rarest things are the least obvious? Don't show anybody the names in +this letter. I write confidentially, and wish this letter to be +considered as _private,_ Hazlitt has written a _grammar_ for Godwin; +Godwin sells it bound up with a treatise of his own on language; but the +_gray mare is the better horse._ I don't allude to Mrs. Godwin, but to +the word _grammar_, which comes near to _gray mare_, if you observe, in +sound. That figure is called paranomasia in Greek, I am sometimes happy +in it. An old woman begged of me for charity. "Ah, sir," said she, "I +have seen better days!" "So have I, good woman," I replied; but I meant +literally, days not so rainy and overcast as that on which begged,--she +meant more prosperous days. + + + +LI. + + +TO MISS WORDSWORTH. + +_August_, 1810. + +Mary has left a little space for me to fill up with nonsense, as the +geographers used to cram monsters in the voids of the maps, and call it +_Terra Incognita_. She has told you how she has taken to water like a +hungry otter. I too limp after her in lame imitation, [1] but it goes +against me a little at first. I have been acquaintance with it now for +full four days, and it seems a moon. I am full of cramps and +rheumatisms, and cold internally, so that fire won't warm me; yet I bear +all for virtue's sake. Must I then leave you, gin, rum, brandy, +_aqua-vitae_, pleasant, jolly fellows? Damn temperance and he that first +invented it!--some Anti-Noahite. Coleridge has powdered his head, and +looks like Bacchus,--Bacchus ever sleek and young. He is going to turn +sober, but his clock has not struck yet; meantime he pours down goblet +after goblet, the second to see where the first is gone, the third to +see no harm happens to the second, a fourth to say there is another +coming, and a fifth to say he is not sure he is the last. C. L. + +[1] An experiment in total abstinence; it did not last long. + + + +LII. + + +TO WORDSWORTH + +_October_ 19, 1810. + +Dear W.,--Mary has been very ill, which you have heard, I suppose, from +the Montagues. She is very weak and low-spirited now, I was much pleased +with your continuation of the "Essay on Epitaphs," [1] It is the only +sensible thing which has been written on that subject, and it goes to +the bottom. In particular I was pleased with your translation of that +turgid epitaph into the plain feeling under it. It is perfectly a test. +But what is the reason we have no good epitaphs after all? + +A very striking instance of your position might be found in the +churchyard of Ditton-upon-Thames, if you know such a place. +Ditton-upon-Thames has been blessed by the residence of a poet who, for +love or money, I do not well know which, has dignified every gravestone +for the last few years with brand new verses, all different and all +ingenious, with the author's name at the bottom of each. This sweet Swan +of Thames has so artfully diversified his strains and his rhymes that +the same thought never occurs twice,--more justly, perhaps, as no +thought ever occurs at all, there was a physical impossibility that the +same thought should recur, It is long since I saw and read these +inscriptions; but I remember the impression was of a smug usher at his +desk in the intervals of instruction, levelling his pen. Of death, as it +consists of dust and worms, and mourners and uncertainty, he had never +thought; but the word "death" he had often seen separate and conjunct +with other words, till he had learned to speak of all its attributes as +glibly as Unitarian Belsham will discuss you the attributes of the word +"God" in a pulpit, and will talk of infinity with a tongue that dangles +from a skull that never reached in thought and thorough imagination two +inches, or farther than from his hand to his mouth, or from the vestry +to the sounding-board of the pulpit. + +But the epitaphs were trim and sprag, and patent, and pleased the +survivors of Thames Ditton above the old mumpsimus of "Afflictions +sore." ... To do justice, though, it must be owned that even the +excellent feeling which dictated this dirge when new, must have suffered +something in passing through so many thousand applications, many of them +no doubt quite misplaced, as I have seen in Islington churchyard (I +think) an Epitaph to an Infant who died "_Ætatis_ four months," with +this seasonable inscription appended, "Honor thy father and thy mother, +that thy days may be long in the land," etc. Sincerely wishing your +children long life to honor, etc., I remain, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Published in Coleridge's "Friend," Feb. 22, 1810. + + + +LIII. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_August_ 14, 1814. + +Dear Wordsworth,--I cannot tell you how pleased I was at the receipt of +the great armful of poetry which you have sent me: and to get it before +the rest of the world, too! I have gone quite through with it, and was +thinking to have accomplished that pleasure a second time before I wrote +to thank you; but Martin Burney came in the night (while we were out) +and made holy theft of it: but we expect restitution in a day or two. It +is the noblest conversational poem [1] I ever read,--a day in heaven. The +part (or rather main body) which has left the sweetest odor on my memory +(a bad term for the remains of an impression so recent) is the "Tales of +the Churchyard"--the only girl among seven brethren, born out of due +time, and not duly taken away again; the deaf man and the blind man; the +Jacobite and the Hanoverian, whom antipathies reconcile; the +Scarron-entry of the rusticating parson upon his solitude,--these were +all new to me too. My having known the story of Margaret (at the +beginning), a very old acquaintance, even as long back as when I saw you +first at Stowey, did not make her reappearance less fresh. I don't know +what to pick out of this best of books upon the best subjects for +partial naming. That gorgeous sunset is famous; I think it must have +been the identical one we saw on Salisbury Plain five years ago, that +drew Phillips from the card-table, where he had sat from rise of that +luminary to its unequalled setting. But neither he nor I had gifted eyes +to see those symbols of common things glorified, such as the prophets +saw them in that sunset,--the wheel, the potter's clay, the washpot, +the wine-press, the almond-tree rod, the baskets of figs, the +four-fold-visaged head, the throne, and Him that sat thereon. + +One feeling I was particularly struck with, as what I recognized so very +lately at Harrow Church on entering in it after a hot and secular day's +pleasure,--the instantaneous coolness and calming, almost transforming, +properties of a country church just entered; a certain fragrance which +it has, either from its holiness, or being kept shut all the week, or +the air that is let in being pure country,--exactly what you have +reduced into words; but I am feeling that which I cannot express. The +reading your lines about it fixed me for a time a monument in Harrow +Church,--do you know it?--with its fine long spire, white as washed +marble, to be seen, by vantage of its high site, as far as Salisbury +spire itself almost. + +I shall select a day or two very shortly, when I am coolest in brain, to +have a steady second reading, which I feel will lead to many more; for +it will be a stock book with me while eyes or spectacles shall be lent +me. There is a great deal of noble matter about mountain scenery, yet +not so much as to overpower and discountenance a poor Londoner, or +south-countryman entirely,--though Mary seems to have felt it +occasionally a little too powerfully; for it was her remark, during +reading it, that by your system it was doubtful whether a liver in towns +had a soul to be saved. She almost trembled for that invisible part of +us in her. + +Save for a late excursion to Harrow, and a day or two on the banks of +the Thames this summer, rural images were fast fading from my mind, and +by the wise provision of the Regent all that was countrified in the +parks is all but obliterated. The very colour of green is vanished; the +whole surface of Hyde Park is dry, crumbling sand (_Arabia Arenosa_), +not a vestige or hint of grass ever having grown there; booths and +drinking-places go all round it, for a mile and a half, I am +confident,--I might say two miles in circuit; the stench of liquors, +_bad_ tobacco, dirty people and provisions, conquers the air, and we are +all stifled and suffocated in Hyde Park [2]. Order after order has been +issued by Lord Sidmouth in the name of the Regent (acting in behalf of +his royal father) for the dispersion of the varlets; but in vain. The +_vis unita_ of all the publicans in London, Westminster, Marylebone, and +miles round, is too powerful a force to put down. The Regent has raised +a phantom which he cannot lay. There they'll stay probably forever. The +whole beauty of the place is gone,--that lake-look of the Serpentine +(it has got foolish ships upon it); but something whispers to have +confidence in Nature and its revival,-- + + "At the coming of the _milder_ day, + These monuments shall all be overgrown." + +Meantime I confess to have smoked one delicious pipe in one of the +cleanliest and goodliest of the booths,--a tent rather,-- + + "Oh, call it not a booth!" + +erected by the public spirit of Watson, who keeps the "Adam and Eve" at +Pancras (the ale-houses have all emigrated, with their train of bottles, +mugs, cork-screws, waiters, into Hyde Park,--whole ale-houses, with all +their ale!) in company with some of the Guards that had been in France, +and a fine French girl, habited like a princess of banditti, which one +of the dogs had transported from the Garonne to the Serpentine. The +unusual scene in Hyde Park, by candle-light, in open air,--good tobacco, +bottled stout,--made it look like an interval in a campaign, a repose +after battle. I almost fancied scars smarting, and was ready to club a +story with my comrades of some of my lying deeds. After all, the +fireworks were splendid; the rockets in clusters, in trees, and all +shapes, spreading about like young stars in the making, floundering +about in space (like unbroke horses), till some of Newton's calculations +should fix them; but then they went out. Any one who could see 'em, and +the still finer showers of gloomy rain-fire that fell sulkily and +angrily from 'em, and could go to bed without dreaming of the last day, +must be as hardened an atheist as--. + +The conclusion of this epistle getting gloomy, I have chosen this part +to desire _our_ kindest loves to Mrs. Wordsworth and to Dorothea. Will +none of you ever be in London again? + +Again let me thank you for your present, and assure you that fireworks +and triumphs have not distracted me from receiving a calm and noble +enjoyment from it (which I trust I shall often), and I sincerely +congratulate you on its appearance. + +With kindest remembrances to you and household, we remain, yours +sincerely, + +C. LAMB and Sister. + +[1] The Excursion. + +[2] Early in 1814 the London parks were thrown open to the +public, with fireworks, booths, illuminations, etc., in celebration of +the peace between France and England, it was two or three years before +they recovered their usual verdure. + + + +LIV. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +(1815) + +Dear Wordsworth,--You have made me very proud with your successive book +presents. [1] I have been carefully through the two volumes to see that +nothing was omitted which used to be there. I think I miss nothing but a +character in the antithetic manner, which I do not know why you left +out,--the moral to the boys building the giant, the omission whereof +leaves it, in my mind, less complete,--and one admirable line gone (or +something come instead of it), "the stone-chat, and the glancing +sandpiper," which was a line quite alive. I demand these at your hand. I +am glad that you have not sacrificed a verse to those scoundrels. I +would not have had you offer up the poorest rag that lingered upon the +stripped shoulders of little Alice Fell, to have atoned all their +malice; I would not have given 'em a red cloak to save their souls. I am +afraid lest that substitution of a shell (a flat falsification of the +history) for the household implement, as it stood at first, was a kind +of tub thrown out to the beast, or rather thrown out for him. The tub +was a good honest tub in its place, and nothing could fairly be said +against it. You say you made the alteration for the "friendly reader;" +but the "malicious" will take it to himself. Damn 'em! if you give 'em +an inch, etc. The Preface is noble, and such as you should write. I wish +I could set my name to it, _Imprimatur_; but you have set it there +yourself, and I thank you. I had rather be a doorkeeper in your margin +than have their proudest text swelling with my eulogies. The poems in +the volumes which are new to me are so much in the old tone that I +hardly received them as novelties. Of those of which I had no previous +knowledge, the "Four Yew-Trees" and the mysterious company which you +have assembled there most struck me,--"Death the Skeleton, and Time the +Shadow." It is a sight not for every youthful poet to dream of; it is +one of the last results he must have gone thinking on for years for, +"Laodamia" is a very original poem,--I mean original with reference to +your own manner. You have nothing like it, I should have seen it in a +strange place, and greatly admired it, but not suspected its derivation. + +Let me in this place, for I have writ you several letters naming it, +mention that my brother, who is a picture-collector, has picked up an +undoubtable picture of Milton. [2] He gave a few shillings for it, and +could get no history with it, but that some old lady had had it for a +great many years. Its age is ascertainable from the state of the canvas, +and you need only see it to be sure that it is the original of the heads +in the Tonson editions, with which we are all so well familiar. Since I +saw you, I have had a treat in the reading way which conies not every +day,--the Latin poems of V. Bourne, which were quite new to me. What a +heart that man had, all laid out upon town scenes!--a proper +counterpoise to _some people's_ rural extravaganzas. Why I mention him +is, that your "Power of Music" reminded me of his poem of "The +Ballad-singer in the Seven Dials," Do you remember his epigram on the +old woman who taught Newton the A B C, which, after all, he says, he +hesitates not to call Newton's "Principia"? I was lately fatiguing +myself with going through a volume of fine words by Lord +Thurlow,--excellent words; and if the heart could live by words alone, +it could desire no better regales. But what an aching vacuum of matter! +I don't stick at the madness of it, for that is only a consequence of +shutting his eyes and thinking he is in the age of the old Elizabeth +poets. From thence I turned to Bourne. What a sweet, unpretending, +pretty-mannered, _matter-ful_ creature, sucking from every flower, +making a flower of everything, his diction all Latin, and his thoughts +all English! Bless him! Latin wasn't good enough for him. Why wasn't he +content with the language which Gay and Prior wrote in? + +I am almost sorry that you printed extracts from those first poems, or +that you did not print them at length. They do not read to me as they do +altogether. Besides, they have diminished the value of the original +(which I possess) as a curiosity. I have hitherto kept them distinct in +my mind, as referring to a particular period of your life. All the rest +of your poems are so much of a piece they might have been written in the +same week; these decidedly speak of an earlier period. They tell more of +what you had been reading. We were glad to see the poems "by a female +friend." [3] The one on the Wind is masterly, but not new to us. Being +only three, perhaps you might have clapped a D. at the corner, and let +it have past as a printer's mark to the uninitiated, as a delightful +hint to the better instructed. As it is, expect a formal criticism on +the poems of your female friend, and she must expect it. I should have +written before, but I am cruelly engaged, and like to be. On Friday I +was at office from ten in the morning (two hours dinner excepted) to +eleven at night, last night till nine; my business and office business +in general have increased so; I don't mean I am there every night, but I +must expect a great deal of it. I never leave till four, and do not keep +a holiday now once in ten times, where I used to keep all red-letter +days, and some few days besides, which I used to dub Nature's holidays. +I have had my day. I had formerly little to do. So of the little that is +left of life I may reckon two thirds as dead, for time that a man may +call his own is his life; and hard work and thinking about it taint even +the leisure hours,--stain Sunday with work-day contemplations. This is +Sunday; and the headache I have is part late hours at work the two +preceding nights, and part later hours over a consoling pipe afterwards. +But I find stupid acquiescence coming over me. I bend to the yoke, and +it is almost with me and my household as with the man and his consort,-- + + "To them each evening had its glittering star, + And every sabbath-day its golden sun!" [4] + to such straits am I driven for the life of life, Time! + Oh that from that superfluity of holiday-leisure my + youth wasted, "Age might but take some hours youth + wanted not"! N.B.--I have left off spirituous + liquors for four or more months, with a moral certainty + of its lasting. Farewell, dear Wordsworth! + +O happy Paris, seat of idleness and pleasure! From some returned English +I hear that not such a thing as a counting-house is to be seen in her +streets,--scarce a desk. Earthquakes swallow up this mercantile city and +its "gripple merchants," as Drayton hath it, "born to be the curse of +this brave isle"! I invoke this, not on account of any parsimonious +habits the mercantile interest may have, but, to confess truth, because +I am not fit for an office. + +Farewell, in haste, from a head that is too ill to methodize, a stomach +to digest, and all out of tune. Better harmonies await you! + +C. LAMB. + +[1] In 1815 Wordsworth published a new edition of his poems, with the +following title: "Poems by William Wordsworth; including Lyrical +Ballads, and the Miscellaneous Pieces of the Author. With Additional +Poems, a new Preface, and a Supplementary Essay. In two Volumes." The +new poems were "Yarrow Visited," "The Force of Prayer," "The Farmer of +Tilsbury Vale," "Laodamia," "Yew-Trees," "A Night Piece," etc., and it +was chiefly on these that Lamb made his comments. + +[2] John Lamb afterwards gave the picture to Charles, who made it a +wedding present to Mrs. Moxon (Emma Isola), It is now in the National +Portrait Gallery. + +[3] Dorothy Wordsworth. + +[4] Excursion, book v. + + + +LV. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +Excuse this maddish letter; I am too tired to write _in formâ_. + +1815. + +Dear Wordsworth,--The more I read of your two last volumes, the more I +feel it necessary to make my acknowledgments for them in more than one +short letter. The "Night Piece," to which you refer me, I meant fully to +have noticed; but the fact is, I come so fluttering and languid from +business, tired with thoughts of it, frightened with fears of it, that +when I get a few minutes to sit down and scribble (an action of the hand +now seldom natural to me,--I mean voluntary pen-work), I lose all +presential memory of what I had intended to say, and say what I can, +talk about Vincent Bourne or any casual image, instead of that which I +had meditated (by the way, I mast look out V. B. for you). So I had +meant to have mentioned "Yarrow Visited," with that stanza, "But thou +that didst appear so fair:" [1] than which I think no lovelier stanza can +be found in the wide world of poetry. Yet the poem, on the whole, seems +condemned to leave behind it a melancholy of imperfect satisfaction, as +if you had wronged the feeling with which, in what preceded it, you had +resolved never to visit it, and as if the Muse had determined, in the +most delicate manner, to make you, and _scarce make you_, feel it. Else, +it is far superior to the other, which has but one exquisite verse in +it,--the last but one, or the last two: this is all fine, except, +perhaps, that _that_ of "studious ease and generous cares" has a little +tinge of the _less romantic_ about it. "The Farmer of Tilsbury Vale" is +a charming counterpart to "Poor Susan," with the addition, of that +delicacy towards aberrations from the strict path which is so fine in +the "Old Thief and the Boy by his side," which always brings water +into my eyes. + +Perhaps it is the worse for being a repetition; "Susan" stood for the +representative of poor _Rus in Urbe_. There was quite enough to stamp +the moral of the thing never to be forgotten,--"bright volumes of +vapor," etc. The last verse of Susan was to be got rid of, at all +events. It threw a kind of dubiety upon Susan's moral conduct. Susan is +a servant-maid. I see her trundling her mop, and contemplating the +whirling phenomenon through blurred optics; but to term her "a poor +outcast" seems as much as to say that poor Susan was no better than she +should be,--which I trust was not what you meant to express. Robin +Goodfellow supports himself without that _stick_ of a moral which you +have thrown away; but how I can be brought in _felo de omittendo_ for +that ending to the Boy-builders [2] is a mystery. I can't say positively +now, I only know that no line oftener or readier occurs than that +"Light-hearted boys, I will build up a Giant with you." It comes +naturally with a warm holiday and the freshness of the blood. It is a +perfect summer amulet, that I tie round my legs to quicken their motion +when I go out a-maying. (N. B.) I don't often go out a-maying; _must_ is +the tense with me now. Do you take the pun? _Young Romilly_ is divine, +the reasons of his mother's grief being remediless,--I never saw +parental love carried up so high, towering above the other +loves,--Shakspeare had done something for the filial in Cordelia, and, +by implication, for the fatherly too in Lear's resentment; he left it +for you to explore the depths of the maternal heart. + +I get stupid and flat, and flattering; what's the use of telling you +what good things you have written, or--I hope I may add--that I know +them to be good? _A propos_, when I first opened upon the just-mentioned +poem, in a careless tone I said to Mary, as if putting a riddle, "What +is good for a bootless bene?" [3] To which, with infinite presence of +mind (as the jest-book has it) she answered, "A shoeless pea." It was +the first joke she ever made. Joke the second I make. You distinguish +well, in your old preface, between the verses of Dr. Johnson, of the +"Man in the Strand," and that from "The Babes in the Wood," I was +thinking whether, taking your own glorious lines,-- + + "And from the love which was in her soul + For her youthful Romilly," + +which, by the love I bear my own soul, I think have no parallel in any +of the best old ballads, and just altering it to,-- + + "And from the great respect she felt + For Sir Samuel Romilly," + +would not nave explained the boundaries of prose expression and poetic +feeling nearly as well. Excuse my levity on such an occasion. I never +felt deeply in my life if that poem did not make me, both lately, and +when I read it in MS. No alderman ever longed after a haunch of buck +venison more than I for a spiritual taste of that "White Doe" you +promise. I am sure it is superlative, or will be when _dressed_, i. e., +printed. All things read raw to me in MS.; to compare _magna parvis_, I +cannot endure my own writings in that state. The only one which I think +would not very much win upon me in print is "Peter Bell;" but I am not +certain. You ask me about your preface. I like both that and the +supplement, without an exception. The account of what you mean by +imagination is very valuable to me. It will help me to like some things +in poetry better, which is a little humiliating in me to confess. I +thought I could not be instructed in that science (I mean the critical), +as I once heard old obscene, beastly Peter Pindar, in a dispute on +Milton, say he thought that if he had reason to value himself upon one +thing more than another, it was in knowing what good verse was. Who +looked over your proof-sheets and left _ordebo_ in that line of Virgil? + +My brother's picture of Milton is very finely painted,--that is, it +might have been done by a hand next to Vandyke's. It is the genuine +Milton, and an object of quiet gaze for the half-hour at a time. Yet +though I am confident there is no better one of him, the face does not +quite answer to Milton. There is a tinge of _petit_ (or _petite_, how do +you spell it?) querulousness about it; yet, hang it! now I remember +better, there is not,--it is calm, melancholy, and poetical. _One_ of +the copies of the poems you sent has precisely the same pleasant +blending of a sheet of second volume with a sheet of first, I think it +was page 245; but I sent it and had it rectified, It gave me, in the +first impetus of cutting the leaves, just such a cold squelch as going +down a plausible turning and suddenly reading "No thoroughfare." +Robinson's is entire; I wish you would write more criticism about +Spencer, etc. I think I could say something about him myself; but, Lord +bless me! these "merchants and their spicy drugs," which are so +harmonious to sing of, they lime-twig up my poor soul and body till I +shall forget I ever thought myself a bit of a genius! I can't even put a +few thoughts on paper for a newspaper, I engross when I should pen a +paragraph. Confusion blast all mercantile transactions, all traffic, +exchange of commodities, intercourse between nations, all the consequent +civilization, and wealth, and amity, and link of society, and getting +rid of prejudices, and knowledge of the face of the globe; and rot the +very firs of the forest that look so romantic alive, and die into +desks: _Vale_. + +Yours, dear W., and all yours, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] "But thou, that didst appear so fair + To fond imagination, + Dost rival in the light of day + Her dilicate Creation" + +[2] Better known as "Rural Architecture." + +[3] The first line of the poem on Bolton Abbey:-- + + "'What is good for a bootless bene?' + With these dark words begins my fate; + And their meaning is, whence can comfort spring + When Prayer is of no avail?" + + + +LVI. + + +TO SOUTHEY. + +_May_ 6, 1815. + +Dear Southey,--I have received from Longman a copy of "Roderick," with +the author's compliments, for which I much thank you. I don't know where +I shall put all the noble presents I have lately received in that way; +the "Excursion," Wordsworth's two last volumes, and now "Roderick," have +come pouring in upon me like some irruption from Helicon. The story of +the brave Maccabee was already, you may be sure, familiar to me in all +its parts. I have, since the receipt of your present, read it quite +through again, and with no diminished pleasure. I don't know whether I +ought to say that it has given me more pleasure than any of your long +poems. "Kehama" is doubtless more powerful, but I don't feel that firm +footing in it that I do in "Roderick;" my imagination goes sinking and +floundering in the vast spaces of unopened-before systems and faiths; I +am put out of the pale of my old sympathies; my moral sense is almost +outraged; I can't believe, or with horror am made to believe, such +desperate chances against omnipotences, such disturbances of faith to +the centre. The more potent, the more painful the spell. Jove and his +brotherhood of gods, tottering with the giant assailings, I can bear, +for the soul's hopes are not struck at in such contests; but your +Oriental almighties are too much types of the intangible prototype to be +meddled with without shuddering. One never connects what are called the +"attributes" with Jupiter. I mention only what diminishes my delight at +the wonder-workings of "Kehama," not what impeaches its power, which I +confess with trembling. + +But "Roderick" is a comfortable poem. It reminds me of the delight I +took in the first reading of the "Joan of Arc." It is maturer and better +than _that_, though not better to me now than that was then. It suits me +better than "Madoc." I am at home in Spain and Christendom. I have a +timid imagination, I am afraid; I do not willingly admit of strange +beliefs or out-of-the-way creeds or places. I never read books of +travel, at least not farther than Paris or Rome. I can just endure +Moors, because of their connection as foes with Christians; but +Abyssinians, Ethiops, Esquimaux, Dervises, and all that tribe, I hate; I +believe I fear them in some manner. A Mahometan turban on the stage, +though enveloping some well-known face (Mr. Cook or Mr. Maddox, whom I +see another day good Christian and English waiters, innkeepers, etc.), +does not give me pleasure unalloyed. I am a Christian, Englishman, +Londoner, _Templar_, God help me when I come to put off these snug +relations, and to get abroad into the world to come! I shall be like +_the crow on the sand_, as Wordsworth has it; but I won't think on +it,--no need, I hope, yet. + +The parts I have been most pleased with, both on first and second +readings, perhaps, are Florinda's palliation of Roderick's crime, +confessed to him in his disguise; the retreat of Pelayo's family first +discovered; his being made king,--"For acclamation one form must serve, +_more solemn for_ the _breach_ of _old observances_." Roderick's vow is +extremely fine, and his blessing on the vow of Alphonso,-- + + "Towards the troop be spread his arms, + As if the expanded soul diffused itself, + And carried to all spirits, _with the act_, + Its affluent inspiration." + +It struck me forcibly that the feeling of these last lines might have +been suggested to you by the Cartoon of Paul at Athens. Certain it is +that a better motto or guide to that famous attitude can nowhere be +found. I shall adopt it as explanatory of that violent but +dignified motion. + +I must read again Landor's "Julian;" I have not read it some time. I +think he must have failed in Roderick, for I remember nothing of him, +nor of any distinct character as a character,--only fine-sounding +passages. I remember thinking also he had chosen a point of time after +the event, as it were, for Roderick survives to no use; but my memory is +weak, and I will not wrong a fine poem by trusting to it. + +The notes to your poem I have not read again; but it will be a +take-downable book on my shelf, and they will serve sometimes at +breakfast, or times too light for the text to be duly appreciated,-- +though some of 'em, one of the serpent Penance, is serious enough, now I +think on't. + +Of Coleridge I hear nothing, nor of the Morgans. I hope to have him like +a reappearing star, standing up before me some time when least expected +in London, as has been the case whilere. + +I am _doing_ nothing (as the phrase is) but reading presents, and walk +away what of the day-hours I can get from hard occupation. Pray accept +once more my hearty thanks and expression of pleasure for your +remembrance of me. My sister desires her kind respects to Mrs. S. and to +all at Keswick. + +Yours truly, + +C. LAMB. + + + +LVII. + + +TO MISS HUTCHINSON. [1] + +_October_ 19, 1815. + +Dear Miss H.,--I am forced to be the replier to your letter, for Mary +has been ill, and gone from home these five weeks yesterday. She has +left me very lonely and very miserable. I stroll about, but there is no +rest but at one's own fireside; and there is no rest for me there now. I +look forward to the worse half being past, and keep up as well as I can. +She has begun to show some favorable symptoms. The return of her +disorder has been frightfully soon this time, with scarce a six-months' +interval. I am almost afraid my worry of spirits about the E. I. House +was partly the cause of her illness: but one always imputes it to the +cause next at hand,--more probably it conies from some cause we have no +control over or conjecture of. It cuts sad great slices out of the time, +the little time, we shall have to live together. I don't know but the +recurrence of these illnesses might help me to sustain her death, better +than if we had had no partial separations. But I won't talk of death. I +will imagine us immortal, or forget that we are otherwise. By God's +blessing, in a few weeks we may be making our meal together, or sitting +in the front row of the pit at Drury Lane, or taking our evening walk +past the theatres, to look at the outside of them, at least, if not to +be tempted in. Then we forget we are assailable; we are strong for the +time as rocks,--"the wind is tempered to the shorn Lambs." Poor C. Lloyd +and poor Priscilla! I feel I hardly feel enough for him; my own +calamities press about me, and involve me in a thick integument not to +be reached at by other folks' misfortunes. But I feel all I can, all the +kindness I can, towards you all. God bless you! I hear nothing from +Coleridge. + +Yours truly, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Mrs. Wordsworth's sister. + + + +LVIII. + + +TO MANNING. + +_December_ 25, 1815. + +Dear Old Friend and Absentee,--This is Christmas Day, 1815, with us; +what it may be with you I don't know,--the 12th of June next year, +perhaps; and if it should be the consecrated season with you, I don't +see how you can keep it. You have no turkeys; you would not desecrate +the festival by offering up a withered Chinese bantam, instead of the +savoury grand Norfolcian holocaust, that smokes all around my nostrils +at this moment from a thousand firesides. Then what puddings have you? +Where will you get holly to stick in your churches, or churches to stick +your dried tea-leaves (that must be the substitute) in? What memorials +you can have of the holy time, I see not. A chopped missionary or two +may keep up the thin idea of Lent and the wilderness; but what standing +evidence have you of the Nativity? 'Tis our rosy-cheeked, homestalled +divines, whose faces shine to the tune of _unto us a child was +born_,--faces fragrant with the mince-pies of half a century, that alone +can authenticate the cheerful mystery. I feel, I feel my bowels +refreshed with the holy tide; my zeal is great against the unedified +heathen. Down with the Pagodas; down with the idols,--Ching-chong-fo and +his foolish priesthood! Come out of Babylon, oh my friend, for her time +is come, and the child that is native, and the Proselyte of her gates, +shall kindle and smoke together! And in sober sense what makes you so +long from among us, Manning? You must not expect to see the same England +again which you left. + +Empires have been overturned, crowns trodden into dust, the face of the +Western world quite changed; your friends have all got old, those you +left blooming, myself (who am one of the few that remember you)--those +golden hairs which you recollect my taking a pride in, turned to silvery +and gray. Mary has been dead and buried many years; she desired to be +buried in the silk gown you sent her. Rickman, that you remember active +and strong, now walks out supported by a servant-maid and a stick. +Martin Burney is a very old man. The other day an aged woman knocked at +my door and pretended to my acquaintance. It was long before I had the +most distant cognition of her; but at last together we made her out to +be Louisa, the daughter of Mrs. Topham, formerly Mrs. Morton, who had +been Mrs. Reynolds, formerly Mrs. Kenney, whose first husband was +Holcroft, the dramatic writer of the last century. St. Paul's church is +a heap of ruins; the Monument isn't half so high as you knew it, divers +parts being successively taken down which the ravages of time had +rendered dangerous; the horse at Charing Cross is gone, no one knows +whither,--and all this has taken place while you have been settling +whether Ho-hing-tong should be spelled with a-- or a--. For aught I +see, you had almost as well remain where you are, and not come, like a +Struldbrug, into a world where few were born when you went away. Scarce +here and there one will be able to make out your face; all your opinions +will be out of date, your jokes obsolete, your puns rejected with +fastidiousness as wit of the last age. Your way of mathematics has +already given way to a new method which, after all, is, I believe, the +old doctrine of Maclaurin new-vamped up with what he borrowed of the +negative quantity of fluxions from Euler. + +Poor Godwin! I was passing his tomb the other day in Cripplegate +churchyard. There are some verses upon it, written by Miss--, which if +I thought good enough I would send you. He was one of those who would +have hailed your return, not with boisterous shouts and clamors, but +with the complacent gratulations of a philosopher anxious to promote +knowledge, as leading to happiness; but his systems and his theories are +ten feet deep in Cripplegate mould. Coleridge is just dead, having lived +just long enough to close the eyes of Wordsworth, who paid the debt to +nature but a week or two before. Poor Col., but two days before he died +he wrote to a bookseller proposing an epic poem on the "Wandering of +Cain," in twenty-four books. It is said he has left behind him more than +forty thousand treatises in criticism, metaphysics, and divinity: but +few of them in a state of completion. They are now destined, perhaps, to +wrap up spices. You see what mutation the busy hand of Time has +produced, while you have consumed in foolish, voluntary exile that time +which might have gladdened your friends, benefited your country--But +reproaches are useless. Gather up the wretched relics, my friend, as +fast as you can, and come to your old home. I will rub my eyes and try +to recognize you. We will shake withered hands together, and talk of old +things,--of St. Mary's church and the barber's opposite, where the young +students in mathematics used to assemble. Poor Crisp, that kept it +afterwards, set up a fruiterer's shop in Trumpington Street, and for +aught I know resides there still; for I saw the name up in the last +journey I took there with my sister just before she died. I suppose you +heard that I had left the India House and gone into the Fishmongers' +Almshouses over the bridge. I have a little cabin there, small and +homely; but you shall be welcome to it. You like oysters, and to open +them yourself; I'll get you some if you come in oyster time. Marshall, +Godwin's old friend, is still alive, and talks of the faces you used +to make. [1] + +Come as soon as you can. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The reversal of this serio-humorous mingling of fiction and forecast +will be found in the next letter. + + + +LIX. + + +TO MANNING. + +_December_ 26, 1815. + +Dear Manning,--Following your brother's example, I have just ventured +one letter to Canton, and am now hazarding another (not exactly a +duplicate) to St. Helena. The first was full of unprobable romantic +fictions, fitting the remoteness of the mission it goes upon; in the +present I mean to confine myself nearer to truth as you come nearer +home. A correspondence with the uttermost parts of the earth necessarily +involves in it some heat of fancy; it sets the brain agoing; but I can +think on the half-way house tranquilly. Your friends, then, are not all +dead or grown forgetful of you through old age,--as that lying letter +asserted, anticipating rather what must happen if you keep tarrying on +forever on the skirts of creation, as there seemed a danger of your +doing,--but they are all tolerably well, and in full and perfect +comprehension of what is meant by Manning's coming home again. Mrs. +Kenney never let her tongue run riot more than in remembrances of you. +Fanny expends herself in phrases that can only be justified by her +romantic nature. Mary reserves a portion of your silk, not to be buried +in (as the false nuncio asserts), but to make up spick and span into a +bran-new gown to wear when you come. I am the same as when you knew me, +almost to a surfeiting identity. This very night I am going to _leave +off tobacco!_ Surely there must be some other world in which this +unconquerable purpose shall be realized. The soul hath not her generous +aspirings implanted in her in vain. One that you knew, and I think the +only one of those friends we knew much of in common, has died in +earnest. Poor Priscilla! Her brother Robert is also dead, and several of +the grown-up brothers and sisters, in the compass of a very few years. +Death has not otherwise meddled much in families that I know. Not but he +has his horrid eye upon us, and is whetting his infernal feathered dart +every instant, as you see him truly pictured in that impressive moral +picture, "The good man at the hour of death." I have in trust to put in +the post four letters from Diss, and one from Lynn, to St. Helena, which +I hope will accompany this safe, and one from Lynn, and the one before +spoken of from me, to Canton. But we all hope that these letters may be +waste paper. I don't know why I have foreborne writing so long; but it +is such a forlorn hope to send a scrap of paper straggling over wide +oceans. And yet I know when you come home, I shall have you sitting +before me at our fireside just as if you had never been away. In such an +instant does the return of a person dissipate all the weight of +imaginary perplexity from distance of time and space! I'll promise you +good oysters. Cory is dead, that kept the shop opposite St. Dunstan's, +but the tougher materials of the shop survive the perishing frame of its +keeper. Oysters continue to flourish there under as good auspices. Poor +Cory! But if you will absent yourself twenty years together, you must +not expect numerically the same population to congratulate your return +which wetted the sea-beach with their tears when you went away. Have you +recovered the breathless stone-staring astonishment into which you must +have been thrown upon learning at landing that an Emperor of France was +living at St. Helena? What an event in the solitude of the seas,--like +finding a fish's bone at the top of Plinlimmon; but these things are +nothing in our Western world. Novelties cease to affect. Come and try +what your presence can. + +God bless you! Your old friend, + +C. LAMB. + + + +LX. + + +TO WORDSWORTH + +_April_ 9, 1816. + +Dear Wordsworth,--Thanks for the books you have given me, and for all +the books you mean to give me. I will bind up the "Political Sonnets" +and "Ode" according to your suggestion. I have not bound the poems yet; +I wait till people have done borrowing them. I think I shall get a chain +and chain them to my shelves, more _Bodleiano_, and people may come and +read them at chain's length. For of those who borrow, some read slow; +some mean to read but don't read; and some neither read nor meant to +read, but borrow to leave you an opinion of their sagacity. I must do my +money-borrowing friends the justice to say that there is nothing of this +caprice or wantonness of alienation in them; when they borrow my money +they never fail to make use of it, Coleridge has been here about a +fortnight. His health is tolerable at present, though beset with +temptations. In the first place, the Covent Garden Manager has declined +accepting his Tragedy, [1] though (having read it) I see no reason upon +earth why it might not have run a very fair chance, though it certainly +wants a prominent part for a Miss O'Neil or a Mr. Kean. However, he is +going to write to-day to Lord Byron to get it to Drury. Should you see +Mrs. C., who has just written to C. a letter, which I have given him, it +will be as well to say nothing about its fate till some answer is shaped +from Drury. He has two volumes printing together at Bristol, both +finished as far as the composition goes; the latter containing his +fugitive poems, the former his Literary Life. Nature, who conducts every +creature by instinct to its best end, has skilfully directed C. to take +up his abode at a Chemist's Laboratory in Norfolk Street. She might as +well have sent a _Helluo Librorum_ for cure to the Vatican. God keep him +inviolate among the traps and pitfalls! He has done pretty well +as yet. [2] + +Tell Miss Hutchinson my sister is every day wishing to be quietly +sitting down to answer her very kind letter; but while C. stays she can +hardly find a quiet time. God bless him! + +Tell Mrs. Wordsworth her postscripts are always agreeable. They are +legible too. Your manual-graphy is terrible,--dark as Lycophron. +"Likelihood," for instance, is thus typified.... I should not wonder if +the constant making out of such paragraphs is the cause of that weakness +in Mrs. W.'s eyes, as she is tenderly pleased to express it. Dorothy, I +hear, has mounted spectacles; so you have deoculated two of your dearest +relations in life. Well, God bless you, and continue to give you power +to write with a finger of power upon our hearts what you fail to +impress, in corresponding lucidness, upon our outward eyesight! + +Mary's love to all; she is quite well. + +I am called off to do the deposits on Cotton Wool. But why do I relate +this to you, who want faculties to comprehend the great mystery of +deposits, of interest, of warehouse rent, and contingent fund? Adieu! + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Zapolya. + +[2] Lamb alludes, of course, to Coleridge's opium habit. + + + +LXI. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_April_ 26, 1816. + +Dear W.,--I have just finished the pleasing task of correcting the +revise of the poems and letter. [1] I hope they will come out faultless. +One blunder I saw and shuddered at. The hallucinating rascal had printed +_battered_ for _battened_, this last not conveying any distinct sense to +his gaping soul. The Reader (as they call 'em) had discovered it, and +given it the marginal brand; but the substitutory _n_ had not yet +appeared. I accompanied his notice with a most pathetic address to the +printer not to neglect the correction. I know how such a blunder would +"batter at your peace." With regard to the works, the Letter I read with +unabated satisfaction. Such a thing was wanted, called for. The parallel +of Cotton with Burns I heartily approve, Iz. Walton hallows any page in +which his reverend name appears. "Duty archly bending to purposes of +general benevolence" is exquisite. The poems I endeavored not to +understand, but to read them with my eye alone; and I think I succeeded, +(Some people will do that when they come out, you'll say.) As if I were +to luxuriate to-morrow at some picture-gallery I was never at before, +and, going by to-day by chance, found the door open, and having but five +minutes to look about me, peeped in,--just such a _chastised_ peep I +took with my mind at the lines my luxuriating eye was coursing over +unrestrained, riot to anticipate another day's fuller satisfaction. +Coleridge is printing "Christabel," by Lord Byron's recommendation to +Murray, with what he calls a vision, "Kubla Khan," which said vision he +repeats so enchantingly that it irradiates and brings heaven and elysian +bowers into my parlor while he sings or says it; but there is an +observation, "Never tell thy dreams," and I am almost afraid that "Kubla +Khan" is an owl that won't bear daylight. I fear lest it should be +discovered, by the lantern of typography and clear reducting to letters, +no better than nonsense or no sense. When I was young, I used to chant +with ecstasy "MILD ARCADIANS EVER BLOOMING," till somebody told me it +was meant to be nonsense. Even yet I have a lingering attachment to it, +and I think it better than "Windsor Forest," "Dying Christian's +Address," etc. Coleridge has sent his tragedy to D.L.T.; it cannot be +acted this season, and by their manner of receiving I hope he will be +able to alter it to make them accept it for next. He is at present under +the medical care of a Mr. Gilman (Killman?) at Highgate, where he plays +at leaving off laud---m. I think his essentials not touched; he is very +bad, but then he wonderfully picks up another day, and his face, when he +repeats his verses, hath its ancient glory,--an archangel a little +damaged. Will Miss H. pardon our not replying at length to her kind +letter? We are not quiet enough; Morgan is with us every day, going +betwixt Highgate and the Temple. Coleridge is absent but four miles; and +the neighborhood of such a man is as exciting as the presence of fifty +ordinary persons. 'Tis enough to be within the whiff and wind of his +genius for us not to possess our souls in quiet. If I lived with him or +the _Author of the "Excursion,"_ I should, in a very little time, lose +my own identity, and be dragged along in the current of other people's +thoughts, hampered in a net. How cool I sit in this office, with no +possible interruption further than what I may term _material!_ There is +not as much metaphysics in thirty-six of the people here as there is in +the first page of Locke's "Treatise on the Human Understanding," or as +much poetry as in any ten lines of the "Pleasures of Hope," or more +natural "Beggar's Petition." I never entangle myself in any of their +speculations. Interruptions, if I try to write a letter even, I have +dreadful. Just now, within four lines, I was called off for ten minutes +to consult dusty old books for the settlement of obsolete errors. I hold +you a guinea you don't find the chasm where I left off, so excellently +the wounded sense closed again and was healed. + +N.B.--Nothing said above to the contrary, but that I hold the personal +presence of the two mentioned potent spirits at a rate as high as any: +but I pay dearer: what amuses others robs me of myself; my mind is +positively discharged into their greater currents, but flows with a +willing violence. As to your question about work, it is far less +oppressive to me than it was, from circumstances; it takes all the +golden part of the day away, a solid lump, from ten to four; but it does +not kill my peace, as before. Some day or other I shall be in a taking +again. My head aches, and you have had enough, God bless you! + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Wordsworth's "Letter to a Friend of Burns" (London, 1816). + +"Wordsworth had been consulted by a friend of Burns as to the best mode +of vindicating the reputation of the poet, which, it was alleged, had +been much injured by the publication of Dr. Carrie's 'Life and +Correspondence of Burns.'"--AINGER. + + + +LXII. + + +TO H. DODWELL [1] + +_July_, 1816. + +My dear Fellow,--I have been in a lethargy this long while, and +forgotten London, Westminster, Marybone, Paddington,--they all went +clean out of my head, till happening to go to a neighbor's in this good +borough of Calne, for want of whist-players we fell upon _Commerce:_ the +word awoke me to a remembrance of my professional avocations and the +long-continued strife which I have been these twenty-four years +endeavoring to compose between those grand Irreconcilables, Cash and +Commerce; I instantly called for an almanac, which with some difficulty +was procured at a fortune-teller's in the vicinity (for happy holiday +people here, having nothing to do, keep no account of time), and found +that by dint of duty I must attend in Leadenhall on Wednesy morning +next; and shall attend accordingly. Does Master Hannah give maccaroons +still, and does he fetch the Cobbetts from my attic? Perhaps it wouldn't +be too much trouble for him to drop the enclosed up at my aforesaid +chamber, and any letters, etc., with it; but the enclosed should go +without delay. N.B.--He isn't to fetch Monday's Cobbett, but it is to +wait my reading when I come back. Heigh-ho! Lord have mercy upon me, how +many does two and two make? I am afraid I shall make a poor clerk in +future, I am spoiled with rambling among haycocks and cows and pigs. +Bless me! I had like to have forgot (the air is so temperate and +oblivious here) to say I have seen your brother, and hope he is doing +well in the finest spot of the world. More of these things when I +return. Remember me to the gentlemen,--I forget names. Shall I find all +my letters at my rooms on Tuesday? If you forget to send 'em never mind, +for I don't much care for reading and writing now; I shall come back +again by degrees, I suppose, into my former habits. How is Bruce de +Ponthieu, and Porcher and Co.?--the tears come into my eyes when I think +how long I have neglected--. + +Adieu! ye fields, ye shepherds and--herdesses, and dairies and +cream-pots, and fairies and dances upon the green. + +I come, I come. Don't drag me so hard by the hair of my head, Genius of +British India! I know my hour is come, Faustus must give up his soul, O +Lucifer, O Mephistopheles! Can you make out what all this letter is +about? I am afraid to look it over. + +CH. LAMB. + +[1] A fellow-clerk in the India House. This charming letter, written +evidently during a vacation trip, was first published entire in Canon +Ainger's edition (1887) of Lamb's Letters. + + + +LXIII. + + +TO MRS. WORDSWORTH. + +_February_ 18, 1818. + +My Dear Mrs. Wordsworth,--I have repeatedly taken pen in hand to answer +your kind letter. My sister should more properly have done it; but she +having failed, I consider myself answerable for her debts. I am now +trying to do it in the midst of commercial noises, and with a quill +which seems more ready to glide into arithmetical figures and names of +gourds, cassia, cardamoms, aloes, ginger, or tea, than into kindly +responses and friendly recollections. The reason why I cannot write +letters at home is that I am never alone. Plato's--(I write to W.W. +now)--Plato's double-animal parted never longed more to be reciprocally +re-united in the system of its first creation than I sometimes do to be +but for a moment single and separate. Except my morning's walk to the +office, which is like treading on sands of gold for that reason, I am +never so. I cannot walk home from office, but some officious friend +offers his unwelcome courtesies to accompany me. All the morning I am +pestered. I could sit and gravely cast up sums in great books, or +compare sum with sum, and write "paid" against this, and "unpaid" +against t'other, and yet reserve in some corner of my mind "some darling +thoughts all my own,"--faint memory of some passage in a book, or the +tone of an absent friend's voice,--a snatch of Miss Burrell's singing, +or a gleam of Fanny Kelly's divine plain face. The two operations might +be going on at the same time without thwarting, as the sun's two motions +(earth's I mean); or as I sometimes turn round till I am giddy, in my +back parlor, while my sister is walking longitudinally in the front; or +as the shoulder of veal twists round with the spit, while the smoke +wreathes up the chimney. But there are a set of amateurs of the Belies +Lettres,--the gay science,--who come to me as a sort of rendezvous, +putting questions of criticism, of British Institutions, Lalla Rookhs, +etc.,--what Coleridge said at the lecture last night,--who have the form +of reading men, but, for any possible use reading can be to them but to +talk of, might as well have been Ante-Cadmeans born, or have lain +sucking out the sense of an Egyptian hieroglyph as long as the pyramids +will last, before they should find it. These pests worrit me at business +and in all its intervals, perplexing my accounts, poisoning my little +salutary warming-time at the fire, puzzling my paragraphs if I take a +newspaper, cramming in between my own free thoughts and a column of +figures, which had come to an amicable compromise but for them. Their +noise ended, one of them, as I said, accompanies me home, lest I should +be solitary for a moment. He at length takes his welcome leave at the +door; up I go, mutton on table, hungry as hunter, hope to forget my +cares and bury them in the agreeable abstraction of mastication: knock +at the door! In comes Mr. Hazlitt, or Martin Burney, or Morgan +Demi-gorgon, [1] or my brother, or somebody, to prevent my eating +alone,--a process absolutely necessary to my poor wretched digestion. +Oh, the pleasure of eating alone! Eating my dinner alone,--let me think +of it! But in they come, and make it absolutely necessary that I should +open a bottle of orange; for my meat turns into stone when any one dines +with me, if I have not wine. Wine can mollify stones; then that wine +turns into acidity, acerbity, misanthropy, a hatred of my interrupters +(God bless 'em! I love some of 'em dearly); and with the hatred, a still +greater aversion to their going away. Bad is the dead sea they bring +upon me, choking and deadening; but worse is the deader dry sand they +leave me on, if they go before bedtime. Come never, I would say to these +spoilers of my dinner; but if you come, never go! The fact is, this +interruption does not happen very often; but every time it comes by +surprise, that present bane of my life, orange wine, with all its dreary +stifling consequences, follows. Evening company I should always like, +had I any mornings; but I am saturated with human faces (_divine_ +forsooth!) and voices all the golden morning; and five evenings in a +week would be as much as I should covet to be in company; but I assure +you that is a wonderful week in which I can get two, or one, to myself. +I am never C.L., but always C.L. & Co. He who thought it not good for +man to be alone, preserve me from the more prodigious monstrosity of +being never by myself! I forget bed-time; but even there these sociable +frogs clamber up to annoy me. Once a week, generally some singular +evening that, being alone, I go to bed at the hour I ought always to be +a-bed, just close to my bed-room window is the club-room of a +public-house, where a set of singers--I take them to be chorus-singers +of the two theatres (it must be _both of them_)--begin their orgies. +They are a set of fellows (as I conceive) who, being limited by their +talents to the burden of the song at the playhouses, in revenge have got +the common popular airs by Bishop or some cheap composer, arranged for +choruses, that is, to be sang all in chorus,--at least, I never can +catch any of the text of the plain song, nothing but the Babylonish +choral howl at the tail on't, "That fury being quenched,'--the howl I +mean,--a burden succeeds of shouts and clapping and knocking of the +table. At length over-tasked nature drops under it, and escapes for a +few hours into the society of the sweet silent creatures of dreams, +which go away with mocks and mows at cockcrow. And then I think of the +words Christabel's father used (bless me! I have dipt in the wrong ink) +to say every morning by way of variety when he awoke,-- + + "Every knell, the Baron saith, + Wakes us up to a world of death,"-- + +or something like it. All I mean by this senseless interrupted tale is, +that by my central situation I am a little over-companied. Not that I +have any animosity against the good creatures that are so anxious to +drive away the harpy Solitude from me. I like 'em, and cards, and a +cheerful glass; but I mean merely to give you an idea, between office +confinement and after-office society, how little time I can call my own. +I mean only to draw a picture, not to make an inference. I would not, +that I know of, have it otherwise. I only wish sometimes I could +exchange some of my faces and voices for the faces and voices which a +late visitation brought most welcome, and carried away, leaving regret, +but more pleasure,--even a kind of gratitude,--at being so often favored +with that kind northern visitation. My London faces and noises don't +hear me,--I mean no disrespect, or I should explain myself, that instead +of their return 220 times a year, and the return of W. W., etc., seven +times in 104 weeks, some more equal distribution might be found. I have +scarce room to put in Mary's kind love and my poor name. + +C. LAMB. + +W. H[azlitt]. goes on lecturing against W.W., and making copious use of +quotations from said W.W. to give a zest to said lectures. S.T.C. is +lecturing with success. I have not heard either him or H.; but I dined +with S.T.C. at Oilman's a Sunday or two since; and he was well and in +good spirits. I mean to hear some of the course; but lectures are not +much to my taste, whatever the lecturer may be. If _read_, they are +dismal flat, and you can't think why you are brought together to hear a +man read his works, which you could read so much better at leisure +yourself; if delivered extempore, I am always in pain lest the gift of +utterance should suddenly fail the orator in the middle, as it did me at +the dinner given in honor of me at the London Tavern. "Gentlemen," said +I, and there I stopped; the rest my feelings were under the necessity of +supplying. Mrs. Wordsworth _will/_ go on, kindly haunting us with +visions of seeing the lakes once more, which never can be realized. +Between us there is a great gulf, not of inexplicable moral antipathies +and distances, I hope, as there seemed to be between me and that +gentleman concerned in the stamp-office that I so strangely recoiled +from at Haydon's. I think I had an instinct that he was the head of an +office, I hate all such people,--accountants' deputy accountants. The +mere abstract notion of the East India Company, as long as she is +unseen, is pretty, rather poetical; but as she makes herself manifest by +the persons of such beasts, I loathe and detest her as the scarlet +what-do-you-call-her of Babylon. I thought, after abridging us of all +our red-letter days, they had done their worst; but I was deceived in +the length to which heads of offices, those true liberty-haters, can +go,--they are the tyrants, not Ferdinand, nor Nero. By a decree passed +this week, they have abridged us of the immemorially observed custom of +going at one o'clock of a Saturday,--the little shadow of a holiday left +us. Dear W.W., be thankful for liberty. + +[1] John Morgan + + + +LXIV. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +May, 1819. + +Dear Wordsworth.--I received a copy of "Peter Bell" [1] a week ago, and I +hope the author will not be offended if I say I do not much relish it. +The humor, if it is meant for humor, is forced; and then the +price,--sixpence would have been dear for it. Mind, I do not mean _your_ +"Peter Bell," but a "Peter Bell," which preceded it about a week, and is +in every bookseller's shop-window in London, the type and paper nothing +differing from the true one, the preface signed W. W., and the +supplementary preface quoting as the author's words an extract from the +supplementary preface to the "Lyrical Ballads." Is there no law against +these rascals? I would have this Lambert Simnel whipped at the cart's +tail. Who started the spurious "P.B." I have not heard. I should guess, +one of the sneering brothers, the vile Smiths; but I have heard no name +mentioned. "Peter Bell" (not the mock one) is excellent,--for its +matter, I mean. I cannot say the style of it quite satisfies me. It is +too lyrical. The auditors, to whom it is feigned to be told, do not +_arride me_. I had rather it had been told me, the reader, at once. +"Hart-leap Well" is the tale for me; in matter as good as this, in +manner infinitely before it, in my poor judgment. Why did you not add +"The Wagoner"? Have I thanked you, though, yet for "Peter Bell"? I would +not _not have it_ for a good deal of money. Coleridge is very foolish to +scribble about books. + +Neither his tongue nor fingers are very retentive. But I shall not say +anything to him about it. He would only begin a very long story with a +very long face, and I see him far too seldom to tease him with affairs +of business or conscience when I do see him. He never comes near our +house, and when we go to see him he is generally writing or thinking; he +is writing in his study till the dinner comes, and that is scarce over +before the stage summons us away. The mock "P.B." had only this effect +on me, that after twice reading it over in hopes to find something +diverting in it, I reached your two books off the shelf, and set into a +steady reading of them, till I had nearly finished both before I went to +bed,--the two of your last edition, of course, I mean, And in the +morning I awoke determined to take down the "Excursion." I wish the +scoundrel imitator could know this. But why waste a wish on him? I do +not believe that paddling about with a stick in a pond, and fishing up +a dead author, whom _his_ intolerable wrongs had driven to that deed of +desperation, would turn the heart of one of these obtuse literary BELLS. +There is no Cock for such Peters, damn 'em! I am glad this aspiration +came upon the red-ink line. [2] It is more of a bloody curse. I have +delivered over your other presents to Alsager and G. Dyer, A., I am +sure, will value it and be proud of the hand from which it came. To G.D. +a poem is a poem,--his own as good as anybody's, and, God bless him! +anybody's as good as his own; for I do not think he has the most distant +guess of the possibility of one poem being better than another. The +gods, by denying him the very faculty itself of discrimination, have +effectually cut off every seed of envy in his bosom. But with envy they +excited curiosity also; and if you wish the copy again, which you +destined for him, I think I shall be able to find it again for you on +his third shelf, where he stuffs his presentation copies, uncut, in +shape and matter resembling a lump of dry dust; but on carefully +removing that stratum, a thing like a pamphlet will emerge. I have tried +this with fifty different poetical works that have been given G.D. in +return for as many of his own performances; and I confess I never had +any scruple in taking _my own_ again, wherever I found it, shaking the +adherences off; and by this means one copy of 'my works' served for +G.D.,--and, with a little dusting, was made over to my good friend Dr. +Geddes, who little thought whose leavings he was taking when he made me +that graceful bow. By the way, the Doctor is the only one of my +acquaintance who bows gracefully,--my town acquaintance, I mean. How do +you like my way of writing with two inks? I think it is pretty and +motley. Suppose Mrs. W, adopts it, the next time she holds the pen for +you. My dinner waits. I have no time to indulge any longer in these +laborious curiosities. God bless you, and cause to thrive and burgeon +whatsoever you write, and fear no inks of miserable poetasters. + +Yours truly, + +CHARLES LAMB. + +Mary's love. + +[1] Lamb alludes to a parody, ridiculing Wordsworth, by J. Hamilton +Reynolds, The verses were entitled "Peter Bell: A Lyrical Ballad;" and +their drift and spirit may be inferred from the following lines from the +preface: "It is now a period of one-and-twenty years since I first wrote +some of the most perfect compositions (except certain pieces I have +written in my later days) that ever dropped from poetical pen. My heart +hath been right and powerful all its years. I never thought an evil or a +weak thought in my life. It has been my aim and my achievement to deduce +moral thunder from buttercups, daisies, celandines, and (as a poet +scarcely inferior to myself hath it) 'such small deer,'" etc. + +[2] The original letter is actually written in to +inks,--alternate black and red. + + + +LXV. + + +TO MANNING, + +_May_ 28, 1819, + +My Dear M..--I want to know how your brother is, if you have heard +lately. I want to know about you, I wish you were nearer. How are my +cousins, the Gladmans of Wheathampstead, and Farmer Bruton? Mrs. Bruton +is a glorious woman, + +"Hail, Mackery End!" [1] + +This is a fragment of a blank-verse poem which. I once meditated, but +got no farther. The E. I. H. has been thrown into a quandary by the +strange phenomenon of poor Tommy Bye, whom I have known, man and madman, +twenty-seven years, he being elder here than myself by nine years and +more. He was always a pleasant, gossiping, half-headed, muzzy, dozing, +dreaming, walk-about, inoffensive chap, a little too fond of the +creature,--who isn't at times? But Tommy had _not_ brains to work off an +overnight's surfeit by ten o'clock next morning, and unfortunately, in +he wandered the other morning drunk with last night and with a +superfoetation of drink taken in since he set out from bed. He came +staggering under his double burden, like trees in Java, bearing at once +blossom, fruit, and falling fruit, as I have heard you or some other +traveller tell, with his face literally as blue as the bluest firmament. +Some wretched calico that he had mopped his poor oozy front with, had +rendered up its native dye, and the devil a bit would he consent to wash +it, but swore it was characteristic, for he was going to the sale of +indigo; and set up a laugh which I did not think the lungs of mortal man +were competent to. It was like a thousand people laughing, or the Goblin +Page. He imagined afterwards that the whole office had been laughing at +him, so strange did his own sounds strike upon his _non_sensorium. But +Tommy has laughed his last laugh, and awoke the next day to find himself +reduced from an abused income of £600 per annum to one sixth of the sum, +after thirty-six years' tolerably good service. The quality of mercy was +not strained in his behalf; the gentle dews dropped not on him from +heaven. It just came across me that I was writing to Canton. Will you +drop in to-morrow night? Fanny Kelly is coming, if she does not cheat +us. Mrs. _Gold_ is well, but proves "uncoined," as the lovers about +Wheathampstead would say. + +I have not had such a quiet half hour to sit down to a quiet letter for +many years. I have not been interrupted above four times. I wrote a +letter the other day in alternate lines, black ink and red, and you +cannot think how it chilled the flow of ideas. Next Monday is +Whit-Monday. What a reflection! Twelve years ago, and I should have kept +that and the following holiday in the fields a-maying. All of those +pretty pastoral delights are over. This dead, everlasting dead +desk,--how it weighs the spirit of a gentleman down! This dead wood of +the desk instead of your living trees! But then, again, I hate the +joskins, _a name for Hertfordshire bumpkins_. Each state of life has its +inconvenience; but then, again, mine has more than one. Not that I +repine, or grudge, or murmur at my destiny. I have meat and drink, and +decent apparel,--I shall, at least, when I get a new hat, + +A red-haired man just interrupted me. He has broke the current of my +thoughts, I haven't a word to add, I don't know why I send this letter, +but I have had a hankering to hear about you some days. Perhaps it will +go off before your reply comes. If it don't, I assure you no letter was +ever welcomer from, you, from Paris or Macao. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] See the Elia essay, "Mackery End, in H---shire." + + + +LXVI. + + +TO MISS WORDSWORTH. + +_November_ 25, 1819. + +Dear Miss Wordsworth,--You will think me negligent, but I wanted to see +more of Willy [1] before I ventured to express a prediction, Till +yesterday I had barely seen him,--_Virgilium tantum vidi_; but yesterday +he gave us his small company to a bullock's heart, and I can pronounce +him a lad of promise. He is no pedant nor bookworm; so far I can answer. +Perhaps he has hitherto paid too little attention to other men's +inventions, preferring, like Lord Foppington, the "natural sprouts of +his own." But he has observation, and seems thoroughly awake. I am ill +at remembering other people's _bon mots_, but the following are a few. +Being taken over Waterloo Bridge, he remarked that if we had no +mountains, we had a fine river, at least,--which was a touch of the +comparative; but then he added in a strain which augured less for his +future abilities as a political economist, that he supposed they must +take at least a pound a week toll. Like a curious naturalist, he +inquired if the tide did not come up a little salty. This being +satisfactorily answered, he put another question, as to the flux and +reflux; which being rather cunningly evaded than artfully solved by that +she-Aristotle Mary, who muttered something about its getting up an hour +sooner and sooner every day, he sagely replied, "Then it must come to +the same thing at last,"--which was a speech worthy of an infant Halley! +The lion in the 'Change by no means came up to his ideal standard,--so +impossible is it for Nature, in any of her works, to come up to the +standard of a child's imagination! The whelps (lionets) he was sorry to +find were dead; and on particular inquiry, his old friend the +orang-outang had gone the way of all flesh also. The grand tiger was +also sick, and expected in no short time to exchange this transitory +world for another or none. But, again, there was a golden eagle (I do +not mean that of Charing) which did much arride and console him. +William's genius, I take it, leans a little to the figurative; for being +at play at tricktrack (a kind of minor billiard-table which we keep for +smaller wights, and sometimes refresh our own mature fatigues with +taking a hand at), not being able to hit a ball he had iterate aimed at, +he cried out, "I cannot hit that beast." Now, the balls are usually +called men, but he felicitously hit upon a middle term,--a term of +approximation and imaginative reconciliation; a something where the two +ends of the brute matter (ivory) and their human and rather violent +personification into men might meet, as I take it,--illustrative of that +excellent remark in a certain preface about imagination, explaining +"Like a sea-beast that had crawled forth to sun himself!" Not that I +accuse William Minor of hereditary plagiary, or conceive the image to +have come _ex traduce_. Rather he seemeth to keep aloof from any source +of imitation, and purposely to remain ignorant of what mighty poets have +done in this kind before him; for being asked if his father had ever +been on Westminster Bridge, [2] he answered that he did not know! + +It is hard to discern the oak in the acorn, or a temple like St. Paul's +in the first stone which is laid; nor can I quite prefigure what +destination the genius of William Minor hath to take. Some few hints I +have set down, to guide my future observations. He hath the power of +calculation in no ordinary degree for a chit. He combineth figures, +after the first boggle, rapidly; as in the tricktrack board, where the +hits are figured, at first he did not perceive that 15 and 7 made 22; +but by a little use he could combine 8 with 25, and 33 again with +16,--which approacheth something in kind (far let me be from flattering +him by saying in degree) to that of the famous American boy. I am +sometimes inclined to think I perceive the future satirist in him, for +he hath a sub-sardonic smile which bursteth out upon occasion,--as when +he was asked if London were as big as Ambleside; and indeed no other +answer was given, or proper to be given, to so ensnaring and provoking a +question. In the contour of skull certainly I discern something +paternal; but whether in all respects the future man shall transcend his +father's fame, Time, the trier of Geniuses, must decide. Be it +pronounced peremptorily at present that Willy is a well-mannered child, +and though no great student, hath yet a lively eye for things that lie +before him. + +Given in haste from my desk at Leadenhall. Yours, and yours most +sincerely, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Wordsworth's third son. He was at the Charter-house School in +London, and the Lambs had invited him to spend a half holiday with them. + +[2] "William Minor" was evidently forgetful of the exquisite sonnet, +"Composed Upon Westminster Bridge." + + + +LXVII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_March_ 9, 1822. + +Dear C.,--It gives me great satisfaction to hear that the pig turned out +so well, [1]--they are interesting creatures at a certain age; what a +pity such buds should blow out into the maturity of rank bacon! You had +all some of the crackling--and brain sauce; did you remember to rub it +with butter, and gently dredge it a little just before the crisis? Did +the eyes come away kindly, with no Oedipean avulsion? Was the crackling +the color of the ripe pomegranate? Had you no cursed complement of +boiled neck of mutton before it, to blunt the edge of delicate desire? +Did you flesh maiden teeth in it? Not that I sent the pig, or can form +the remotest guess what part Owen could play in the business. I never +knew him give anything away in my life. He would not begin with +strangers. I suspect the pig, after all, was meant for me; but at the +unlucky juncture of time being absent, the present somehow went round to +Highgate. To confess an honest truth, a pig is one of those things I +could never think of sending away. Teals, widgeons, snipes, barn-door +fowl, ducks, geese,--your tame villatic things,--Welsh mutton collars +of brawn, sturgeon, fresh or pickled, your potted char, Swiss cheeses, +French pies, early grapes, muscadines, I impart as freely unto my +friends as to myself. They are but self-extended; but pardon me if I +stop somewhere. Where the fine feeling of benevolence giveth a higher +smack than the sensual rarity, there my friends (or any good man) may +command me; but pigs are pigs, and I myself therein am nearest to +myself. Nay, I should think it an, affront, an undervaluing done to +Nature, who bestowed such a boon upon me, if in a churlish mood I parted +with the precious gift. One of the bitterest pangs I ever felt of +remorse was when a child. My kind old aunt [2] had strained her +pocket-strings to bestow a sixpenny whole plum cake upon me. In my way +home through the Borough, I met a venerable old man, not a mendicant, +but thereabouts,--a look-beggar, not a verbal petitionist; and in the +coxcombry of taught-charity, I gave away the cake to him. I walked on a +little in all the pride of an Evangelical peacock, when of a sudden my +old aunt's kindness crossed me,--the sum it was to her; the pleasure she +had a right to expect that I--not the old impostor--should take in +eating her cake; the cursed ingratitude by which, under the color of a +Christian virtue, I had frustrated her cherished purpose. I sobbed, +wept, and took it to heart so grievously that I think I never suffered +the like; and I was right. It was a piece of unfeeling hypocrisy, and +proved a lesson to me ever after. The cake has long been masticated, +consigned to dunghill with the ashes of that unseasonable pauper. + +But when Providence, who is better to us all than our aunts, gives me a +pig, remembering my temptation and my fall, I shall endeavor to act +towards it more in the spirit of the donor's purpose. + +Yours (short of pig) to command in everything, + +C. L. + +[1] Some one had sent Coleridge a pig, and the gift was erroneously +credited to Lamb. + +[2] Elia: "Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago." + + + +LXVIII. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_March_ 20, 1822. + +My Dear Wordsworth,--A letter from you is very grateful; I have not seen +a Kendal postmark so long. We are pretty well, save colds and +rheumatics, and a certain deadness to everything, which I think I may +date from poor John's loss, and another accident or two at the same +time, that has made me almost bury myself at Dalston, where yet I see +more faces than I could wish. Deaths overset one and put one out long +after the recent grief. Two or three have died, within this last two +twelvemonths, and so many parts of me have been numbed. One sees a +picture, reads an anecdote, starts a casual fancy, and thinks to tell of +it to this person in preference to every other; the person is gone whom +it would have peculiarly suited. It won't do for another. Every +departure destroys a class of sympathies. There's Captain Burney gone! +What fun has whist now? What matters it what you lead, if you can no +longer fancy him looking over you? [1] One never hears anything, but the +image of the particular person occurs with whom alone almost you would +care to share the intelligence,--thus one distributes oneself about; and +now for so many parts of me I have lost the market. Common natures do +not suffice me. Good people, as they are called, won't serve; I want +individuals. I am made up of queer points, and I want so many answering +needles. The going-away of friends does not make the remainder more +precious. It takes so much from them, as there was a common link. A, B, +and C make a party. A dies. B not only loses A, but all A's part in C. C +loses A's part in B, and so the alphabet sickens by subtraction of +interchangeables. I express myself muddily, _capite dolente_. I have a +dulling cold. My theory is to enjoy life; but my practice is against it. +I grow ominously tired of official confinement. Thirty years have I +served the Philistines, and my neck is not subdued to the yoke. You +don't know how wearisome it is to breathe the air of four pent walls +without relief, day after day, all the golden hours of the day between +ten and four, without ease or interposition. _Tædet me harum +quotidianarum formarum_, these pestilential clerk-faces always in one's +dish. Oh for a few years between the grave and the desk! they are the +same, save that at the latter you are the outside machine. The foul +enchanter [Nick?], "letters four do form his name,"--Busirane [2] is his +name in hell,--that has curtailed you of some domestic comforts, hath +laid a heavier hand on me, not in present infliction, but in the taking +away the hope of enfranchisement. I dare not whisper to myself a pension +on this side of absolute incapacitation and infirmity, till years have +sucked me dry,--_Otium cum indignitate_. I had thought in a green old +age (oh, green thought!) to have retired to Ponder's End,--emblematic +name, how beautiful!,--in the Ware Road, there to have made up my +accounts with Heaven and the Company, toddling about between it and +Cheshunt, anon stretching, on some fine Izaak Walton morning, to +Hoddesdon or Amwell, careless as a beggar; but walking, walking ever, +till I fairly walked myself off my legs,--dying walking! The hope is +gone. I sit like Philomel all day (but not singing), with my breast +against this thorn of a desk, with the only hope that some pulmonary +affliction may relieve me. _Vide_ Lord Palmerston's report of the clerks +in the War-office (Debates in this morning's "Times"), by which it +appears, in twenty years as many clerks have been coughed and catarrhed +out of it into their freer graves. Thank you for asking about the +pictures. Milton hangs over my fire-side in Covent Garden (when I am +there); the rest have been sold for an old song, wanting the eloquent +tongue that should have set them off! You have gratified me with liking +my meeting with Dodd. For the Malvolio story,--the thing is become in +verity a sad task, and I eke it out with anything. If I could slip out +of it I should be happy; but our chief-reputed assistants have forsaken +us. The Opium-Eater crossed us once with a dazzling path, and hath as +suddenly left us darkling; and, in short, I shall go on from dull to +worse, because I cannot resist the booksellers' importunity,--the old +plea, you know, of authors; but I believe on my part sincere. Hartley I +do not so often see, but I never see him in unwelcome hour. I thoroughly +love and honor him. I send you a frozen epistle; but it is winter and +dead time of the year with me. May Heaven keep something like spring and +summer up with you, strengthen your eyes, and make mine a little lighter +to encounter with them, as I hope they shall yet and again, before all +are closed! + +Yours, with every kind remembrance, + +C. L. + +[1] Martin Burney was the grimy-fisted whist-player to whom Lamb once +observed, "Martin, if dirt was trumps, what hands you would hold!" + +[2] The enchanter in "The Faerie Queene." + + + +LXIX. + + +TO JOHN CLARE. [1] + +_August_ 31, 1822. + +Dear Clare,--I thank you heartily for your present. I am an inveterate +old Londoner, but while I am among your choice collections I seem to be +native to them and free of the country. The quality of your observation +has astonished me. What have most pleased me have been "Recollections +after a Ramble," and those "Grongar Hill" kind of pieces in +eight-syllable lines, my favourite measure, such as "Cooper Hill" and +"Solitude." In some of your story-telling Ballads the provincial phrases +sometimes startle me. I think you are too profuse with them. In poetry +_slang_ of every kind is to be avoided. There is a rustic Cockneyism, as +little pleasing as ours of London. Transplant Arcadia to Helpstone. The +true rustic style I think is to be found in Shenstone. Would his +"School-mistress," the prettiest of poems, have been better if he had +used quite the Goody's own language? Now and then a home rusticism is +fresh and startling; but when nothing is gained in expression, it is out +of tenor. It may make folks smile and stare; but the ungenial coalition +of barbarous with refined phrases will prevent you in the end from being +so generally tasted as you desire to be. Excuse my freedom, and take the +same liberty with my _puns_. + +I send you two little volumes of my spare hours. They are of all sorts; +there is a Methodist hymn for Sundays, and a farce for Saturday night. +Pray give them a place on your shelf. Pray accept a little volume, of +which I have a duplicate, that I may return in equal number to your +welcome presents. I think I am indebted to you for a sonnet in the +"London" for August. + +Since I saw you I have been in France, and have eaten frogs. The nicest +little rabbity things you ever tasted. Do look about for them. Make Mrs. +Clare pick off the hind-quarters, boil them plain, with parsley and +butter. The fore-quarters are not so good. She may let them hop off by +themselves. + +Yours sincerely, + +CHAS. LAMB. + +[1] The Northamptonshire peasant poet. He had sent Lamb his "The Village +Minstrel, and other Poems." + + + +LXX. + + +TO MR. BARRON FIELD. + +_September_ 22, 1822. + +My Dear F.,--I scribble hastily at office. Frank wants my letter +presently. I and sister are just returned from Paris! [1] We have eaten +frogs. It has been such a treat! You know our monotonous general tenor. +Frogs are the nicest little delicate things,--rabbity flavored. Imagine +a Lilliputian rabbit! They fricassee them; but in my mind, dressed +seethed, plain, with parsley and butter, would have been the decision of +Apicius.... Paris is a glorious, picturesque old city. London looks mean +and new to it, as the town of Washington would, seen after _it._ But +they have no St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey. The Seine, so much +despised by Cockneys, is exactly the size to run through a magnificent +street; palaces a mile long on one side, lofty Edinburgh stone (oh, the +glorious antiques!) houses on the other. The Thames disunites London and +Southwark. I had Talma to supper with me. He has picked up, as I +believe, an authentic portrait of Shakspeare. He paid a broker about £40 +English for it. It is painted on the one half of a pair of bellows,--a +lovely picture, corresponding with the Folio head. The bellows has old +carved _wings_ round it and round the visnomy is inscribed, as near as I +remember, not divided into rhyme,--I found out the rhyme,-- + + "Whom have we here + Stuck on this bellows, + But the Prince of good fellows, + Willy Shakspere?" + +At top,-- + + "O base and coward lack, + To be here stuck!" + +POINS. + +At bottom,-- + + "Nay! rather a glorious lot is to him assign'd, + Who, like the Almighty, rides upon the wind." + +PISTOL, + +This is all in old, carved wooden letters. The countenance smiling, +sweet, and intellectual beyond measure, even as he was immeasurable. It +may be a forgery. They laugh at me, and tell me Ireland is in Paris, and +has been putting off a portrait of the Black Prince. How far old wood +may be imitated I cannot say, Ireland was not found out by his +parchments, but by his poetry. I am confident no painter on either side +the Channel could have painted anything near like the face I saw. Again, +would such a painter and forger have taken £40 for a thing, if +authentic, worth £4000? Talma is not in the secret, for he had not even +found out the rhymes in the first inscription. He is coming over with +it, and my life to Southey's "Thalaba," it will gain universal faith. + +The letter is wanted, and I am wanted. Imagine the blank filled up with +all kind things. + +Our joint, hearty remembrances to both of you. Yours as ever, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The Lambs had visited Paris on the invitation of James Kenney, the +dramatist, who had married a Frenchwoman, and was living at Versailles. + + + +LXXI. + + +TO WALTER WILSON. + +_December_ 16, 1822. + +Dear Wilson,--_Lightning_ I was going to call you. You must have thought +me negligent in not answering your letter sooner. But I have a habit of +never writing letters but at the office; 'tis so much time cribbed out +of the Company; and I am but just got out of the thick of a tea-sale, in +which most of the entry of notes, deposits, etc., usually falls to +my share. + +I have nothing of De Foe's but two or three novels and the "Plague +History." [1] I can give you no information about him. As a slight +general character of what I remember of them (for I have not looked into +them latterly), I would say that in the appearance of _truth,_ in all +the incidents and conversations that occur in them, they exceed any +works of fiction I am acquainted with. It is perfect illusion. The +_author_ never appears in these self-narratives (for so they ought to be +called, or rather auto-biographies), but the _narrator_ chains us down +to an implicit belief in everything he says. There is all the minute +detail of a log-book in it. Dates are painfully pressed upon the memory. +Facts are repeated over and over in varying phrases, till you cannot +choose but believe them. It is like reading evidence given in a court of +justice. So anxious the story-teller seems that the truth should be +clearly comprehended that when he has told us a matter of fact or a +motive, in a line or two farther down he _repeats_ it with his favorite +figure of speech, "I say" so and so, though he had made it abundantly +plain before. This is in imitation of the common people's way of +speaking, or rather of the way in which they are addressed by a master +or mistress who wishes to impress something upon their memories, and has +a wonderful effect upon matter-of-fact readers. Indeed, it is to such +principally that he writes. His style is everywhere beautiful, but plain +and _homely._ "Robinson Crusoe" is delightful to all ranks and classes; +but it is easy to see that it is written in phraseology peculiarly +adapted to the lower conditions of readers,--hence it is an especial +favorite with seafaring men, poor boys, servant-maids, etc. His novels +are capital kitchen-reading, while they are worthy, from their deep +interest, to find a shelf in the libraries of the wealthiest and the +most learned. His passion for _matter-of-fact narrative_ sometimes +betrayed him into a long relation of common incidents, which might +happen to any man, and have no interest but the intense appearance of +truth in them, to recommend them. The whole latter half or two-thirds of +"Colonel Jack" is of this description. The beginning of "Colonel Jack" +is the most affecting natural picture of a young thief that was ever +drawn. His losing the stolen money in the hollow of a tree, and finding +it again when he was in despair, and then being in equal distress at not +knowing how to dispose of it, and several similar touches in the early +history of the Colonel, evince a deep knowledge of human nature, and +putting out of question the superior _romantic_ interest of the latter, +in my mind very much exceed "Crusoe." "Roxana" (first edition) is the +next in interest, though he left out the best part of it in subsequent +editions from a foolish hypercriticism of his friend Southerne. But +"Moll Flanders," the "Account of the Plague," etc., are all of one +family, and have the same stamp of character. Believe me, with friendly +recollections--Brother (as I used to call you), Yours, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Wilson was preparing a Life of De Foe, and had written to Lamb for +guidance. + + + +LXXII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_December_ 23, 1822. + +Dear Sir,--I have been so distracted with business and one thing or +other, I have not had a quiet quarter of an hour for epistolary +purposes. Christmas, too, is come, which always puts a rattle into my +morning skull. It is a visiting, unquiet, unquakerish season. I get more +and more in love with solitude, and proportionately hampered with +company. I hope you have some holidays at this period. I have one +day,--Christmas Day; alas! too few to commemorate the season. All work +and no play dulls me. Company is not play, but many times bard work. To +play, is for a man to do what he pleases, or to do nothing,--to go about +soothing his particular fancies. I have lived to a time of life to have +outlived the good hours, the nine-o'clock suppers, with a bright hour or +two to clear up in afterwards. Now you cannot get tea before that hour, +and then sit gaping, music bothered perhaps, till half-past twelve +brings up the tray; and what you steal of convivial enjoyment after, is +heavily paid for in the disquiet of to-morrow's head. + +I am pleased with your liking "John Woodvil," and amused with your +knowledge of our drama being confined to Shakspeare and Miss Baillie. +What a world of fine territory between Land's End and Johnny Groat's +have you missed traversing! I could almost envy you to have so much to +read. I feel as if I had read all the books I want to read. Oh, to +forget Fielding, Steele, etc., and read 'em new! + +Can you tell me a likely place where I could pick up cheap Fox's +Journal? There are no Quaker circulating libraries? Elwood, too, I must +have. I rather grudge that Southey has taken up the history of your +people; I am afraid he will put in some levity. I am afraid I am not +quite exempt from that fault in certain magazine articles, where I have +introduced mention of them. Were they to do again, I would reform them. +Why should not you write a poetical account of your old worthies, +deducing them from Fox to Woolman? But I remember you did talk of +something of that kind, as a counterpart to the "Ecclesiastical +Sketches." But would not a poem be more consecutive than a string of +sonnets? You have no martyrs _quite to the fire,_ I think, among you, +but plenty of heroic confessors, spirit-martyrs, lamb-lions. Think of +it; it would be better than a series of sonnets on "Eminent Bankers." I +like a hit at our way of life, though it does well for me,--better than +anything short of _all one's time to one's self;_ for which alone I +rankle with envy at the rich. Books are good, and pictures are good, and +money to buy them therefore good; but to buy _time,_--in other +words, life! + +The "compliments of the time" to you, should end my letter; to a Friend, +I suppose, I must say the "sincerity of the season:" I hope they both +mean the same. With excuses for this hastily penned note, believe me, +with great respect, + +C. LAMB. + + + +LXXIII. + + +TO MISS WORDSWORTH. + +Mary perfectly approves of the appropriation of the _feathers,_ and +wishes them peacock's for your fair niece's sake. + +_Christmas_, 1822. + +Dear Miss Wordsworth,--I had just written the above endearing words when +Monkhouse tapped me on the shoulder with an invitation to cold goose +pie, which I was not bird of that sort enough to decline. Mrs. Monkhouse, +I am most happy to say, is better Mary has been tormented with a +rheumatism, which is leaving her, I am suffering from the festivities of +the season. I wonder how my misused carcase holds it out. I have played +the experimental philosopher on it, that's certain. Willy shall be +welcome to a mince-pie and a bout at commerce whenever he comes. He was +in our eye. I am glad you liked my new year's speculations; everybody +likes them, except the author of the "Pleasures of Hope." Disappointment +attend him! How I like to be liked, and _what I do_ to be liked! They +flatter me in magazines, newspapers, and all the minor reviews; the +Quarterlies hold aloof. But they must come into it in time, or their +leaves be waste paper. Salute Trinity Library in my name. Two special +things are worth seeing at Cambridge,--a portrait of Cromwell at Sidney, +and a better of Dr. Harvey (who found out that blood was red) at Dr. +Davy's; you should see them. Coleridge is pretty well; I have not seen, +him, but hear often of him, from Allsop, who sends me hares and +pheasants twice a week; I can hardly take so fast as he gives. I have +almost forgotten butcher's meat as plebeian. Are you not glad the cold +is gone? I find winters not so agreeable as they used to be "when winter +bleak had charms forme," I cannot conjure up a kind similitude for those +snowy flakes. Let them keep to twelfth-cakes! + +Mrs. Paris, our Cambridge friend, has been in town. You do not know the +Watfords in Trampington Street. They are capital people. Ask anybody you +meet, who is the biggest woman in Cambridge, and I 'll hold you a wager +they'll say Mrs. Smith; she broke down two benches in Trinity +Gardens,--one on the confines of St. John's, which occasioned a +litigation between the Societies as to repairing it. In warm weather, +she retires into an ice-cellar (literally!), and dates the returns of +the years from a hot Thursday some twenty years back. She sits in a room +with opposite doors and windows, to let in a thorough draught, which +gives her slenderer friends tooth-aches. She is to be seen in the market +every morning at ten cheapening fowls, which I observe the Cambridge +poulterers are not sufficiently careful to stump. + +Having now answered most of the points contained in your letter, let me +end with assuring you of our very best kindness, and excuse Mary for not +handling the pen on this occasion, especially as it has fallen into so +much better hands! Will Dr. W. accept of my respects at the end of a +foolish letter? + +C. L. + + + +LXXIV. + + +TO MR. AND MRS. BRUTON. [1] + +_January_ 6, 1823. + +The pig was above my feeble praise. It was a dear pigmy. There was some +contention as to who should have the ears; but in spite of his obstinacy +(deaf as these little creatures are to advice), I contrived to get at +one of them. + +It came in boots, too, which I took as a favor. Generally these +petty-toes, pretty toes I are missing: but I suppose he wore them to +look taller. + +He must have been the least of his race. His little foots would have +gone into the silver slipper. I take him to have beec a Chinese and +a female. + +If Evelyn could have seen him, he would never have farrowed two such +prodigious volumes, seeing how much good can be contained in--how small +a compass! + +He crackled delicately. + +I left a blank at the top of my letter, not being determined which to +address it to j so farmer and farmer's wife will please to divide our +thanks. May your granaries be full, and your rats empty, and your +chickens plump, and your envious neighbors lean, and your laborers busy, +and you as idle and as happy as the day is long! + +VIVE L'AGRICULTURE! + + How do you make your pigs so little? + They are vastly engaging at the age. + I was so myself. + Now I am a disagreeable old hog, + A middle-aged gentleman-and-a-half; + My faculties (thank God!) are not much impaired. + +I have my sight, hearing, taste, pretty perfect, and can read the Lord's +Prayer in common type, by the help of a candle, without making many +mistakes.... + +Many happy returns, not of the pig, but of the New Year, to both. Mary, +for her share of the pig and the memoirs, desires to send the same. + +Yours truly, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Hertfordshire connections of the Lambs. + + + +LXXV. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. [1] + +_January_ 9, 1823. + +Throw yourself on the world without any rational plan of support beyond +what the chance employ of booksellers would afford you! + +Throw yourself, rather, my dear sir, from the steep Tarpeian rock +slap-dash headlong upon iron spikes. If you had but five consolatory +minutes between the desk and the bed, make much of them, and live a +century in them, rather than turn slave to the booksellers. They are +Turks and Tartars when they have poor authors at their beck. Hitherto +you have been at arm's length from them. Come not within their grasp. I +have known many authors want for bread, some repining, others envying +the blessed security of a counting-house, all agreeing they had rather +have been tailors, weavers,--what not,--rather than the things they +were. I have known some starved, some to go mad, one dear friend +literally dying in a workhouse. You know not what a rapacious, dishonest +set these booksellers are. Ask even Southey, who (a single case almost) +has made a fortune by book-drudgery, what he has found them. Oh, you +know not--may you never know!--the miseries of subsisting by authorship. +'Tis a pretty appendage to a situation like yours or mine, but a +slavery, worse than all slavery, to be a bookseller's dependant, to +drudge your brains for pots of ale and breasts of mutton, to change your +free thoughts and voluntary numbers for ungracious task-work. Those +fellows hate _us_. The reason I take to be that, contrary to other +trades, in which the master gets all the credit (a Jeweller or +silversmith for instance), and the journeyman, who really does the fine +work, is in the background, in _our_ work the world gives all the credit +to us, whom _they_ consider as _their_ journeymen, and therefore do they +hate us, and cheat us, and oppress us, and would wring the blood of as +out, to put another sixpence in their mechanic pouches! I contend that a +bookseller has a _relative honesty_ towards authors, not like his +honesty to the rest of the world. Baldwin, who first engaged me as Elia, +has not paid me up yet (nor any of us without repeated mortifying +appeals). Yet how the knave fawned when I was of service to him! Yet I +daresay the fellow is punctual in settling his milk-score, etc. + +Keep to your bank, and the bank will keep you. Trust not to the public; +you may hang, starve, drown yourself, for anything that worthy +_personage_ cares. I bless every star that Providence, not seeing good +to make me independent, has seen it next good to settle me upon the +stable foundation of Leadenhall. Sit down, good B.B., in the +banking-office; what! is there not from six to eleven P.M. six days in +the week, and is there not all Sunday? Fie! what a superfluity of man's +time, if you could think so,--enough for relaxation, mirth, converse, +poetry, good thoughts, quiet thoughts. Oh, the corroding, torturing, +tormenting thoughts that disturb the brain of the unlucky wight who must +draw upon it for daily sustenance! Henceforth I retract all my foul +complaints of mercantile employment; look upon them as lovers' quarrels. +I was but half in earnest. Welcome, dead timber of a desk, that makes me +live! A little grumbling is a wholesome medicine for the spleen, but in +my inner heart do I approve and embrace this our close, but unharassing, +way of life. I am quite serious. If you can send me Fox, I will not keep +it _six weeks_, and will return it, with warm thanks to yourself and +friend, without blot or dog's-ear. You will much oblige me by +this kindness. + +Yours truly, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The Quaker poet. Mr. Barton was a clerk in the bank of the Messrs. +Alexander, of Woodbridge, in Suffolk. Encouraged by his literary +success, he thought of throwing up his clerkship and trusting to his pen +for a livelihood,--a design from which he was happily diverted by his +friends. + + + +LXXVI. + + +TO MISS HUTCHINSON. + +_April_ 25, 1823. + +Dear Miss H.,--Mary has such an invincible reluctance to any epistolary +exertion that I am sparing her a mortification by taking the pen from +her. The plain truth is, she writes such a mean, detestable hand that +she is ashamed of the formation of her letters. There is an essential +poverty and abjectness in the frame of them. They look like begging +letters. And then she is sure to omit a most substantial word in the +second draught (for she never ventures an epistle without a foul copy +first), which is obliged to be interlined,--which spoils the neatest +epistle, you know. Her figures, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., where she has occasion +to express numerals, as in the date (25th April, 1823), are not figures, +but figurantes; and the combined posse go staggering up and down +shameless, as drunkards in the daytime. It is no better when she rules +her paper. Her lines "are not less erring" than her words; a sort of +unnatural parallel lines, that are perpetually threatening to +meet,--which, you know, is quite contrary to Euclid. Her very blots are +not bold, like this [_here a large blot is inserted_], but poor smears, +half left in and half scratched out, with another smear left in their +place. I like a clear letter; a bold, free hand and a fearless flourish. +Then she has always to go through them (a second operation) to dot her +_i_'s and cross her _t_'s. I don't think she could make a corkscrew if +she tried,--which has such a fine effect at the end or middle of an +epistle, and fills up. + +There is a corkscrew! One of the best I ever drew. [1] By the way, what +incomparable whiskey that was of Monkhouse's! But if I am to write a +letter, let me begin, and not stand flourishing like a fencer at a fair. + +_April_ 25, 1823. + +Dear Miss H.,--It gives me great pleasure [the letter now begins] to +hear that you got down so smoothly, and that Mrs. Monkhouse's spirits +are so good and enterprising. [2] It shows, whatever her posture may be, +that her mind at least is not supine. I hope the excursion will enable +the former to keep pace with its outstripping neighbor. Pray present our +kindest wishes to her and all (that sentence should properly have come +into the postscript; but we airy, mercurial spirits, there is no keeping +us in). "Time" (as was said of one of us) "toils after us in vain." I am +afraid our co-visit with Coleridge was a dream. I shall not get away +before the end or middle of June, and then you will be frog-hopping at +Boulogne. And besides, I think the Gilmans would scarce trust him with +us; I have a malicious knack at cutting of apron-strings. The saints' +days you speak of have long since fled to heaven with Astræa, and the +cold piety of the age lacks fervor to recall them; only Peter left his +key,--the iron one of the two that "shuts amain,"--and that is the +reason I am locked up. Meanwhile, of afternoons we pick up primroses at +Dalston, and Mary corrects me when I call 'em cowslips. God bless you +all, and pray remember me euphoniously to Mr. Gruvellegan. That Lee +Priory must be a dainty bower. Is it built of flints? and does it stand +at Kingsgate? + +[1] Lamb was fond of this flourish, and it is frequently found in his +letters. + +[2] Miss Hutchinson's invalid relative. + + + +LXXVII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_September_ 2, 1823. + +Dear B.B.,--What will you not say to my not writing? You cannot say I do +not write now. Hessey has not used your kind sonnet, nor have I seen it. +Pray send me a copy. Neither have I heard any more of your friend's MS., +which I will reclaim whenever you please. When you come Londonward, you +will find me no longer in Covent Garden: I have a cottage in Colebrook +Row, Islington,--a cottage, for it is detached; a white house, with six +good rooms, The New River (rather elderly by this time) runs (if a +moderate walking pace can be so termed) close to the foot of the house; +and behind is a spacious garden with vines (I assure you), pears, +strawberries, parsnips, leeks, carrots, cabbages, to delight the heart +of old Alcinous. You enter without passage into a cheerful dining-room, +all studded over and rough with old books; and above is a lightsome +drawing-room, three windows, full of choice prints. I feel like a great +lord, never having had a house before. + +The "London," I fear, falls off. I linger among its creaking rafters, +like the last rat; it will topple down if they don't get some +buttresses. They have pulled down three,--Hazlitt, Procter, and their +best stay, kind, light-hearted Wainewright, their Janus. [1] The best is, +neither of our fortunes is concerned in it. + +I heard of you from Mr. Pulham this morning, and that gave a fillip to +my laziness, which has been intolerable; but I am so taken up with +pruning and gardening,--quite a new sort of occupation to me. I have +gathered my jargonels; but my Windsor pears are backward. The former +were of exquisite raciness. I do now sit under my own vine, and +contemplate the growth of vegetable nature. I can now understand in what +sense they speak of father Adam. I recognize the paternity while I watch +my tulips. I almost fell with him, for the first day I turned a drunken +gardener (as he let in the serpent) into my Eden; and he laid about him, +lopping off some choice boughs, etc., which hung over from a neighbor's +garden, and in his blind zeal laid waste a shade which had sheltered +their window from the gaze of passers-by. The old gentlewoman (fury made +her not handsome) could scarcely be reconciled by all my fine words. +There was no buttering her parsnips. She talked of the law. What a lapse +to commit on the first day of my happy "garden state"! + +I hope you transmitted the Fox-Journal to its owner, with suitable +thanks. Mr. Cary, the Dante man, dines with me to-day. He is a mode of a +country parson, lean (as a curate ought to be), modest, sensible, no +obtruder of church dogmas, quite a different man from Southey. You would +like him. Pray accept this for a letter, and believe me, with sincere +regards, yours, + +C.L. + +[1] Wainewright, the notorious poisoner, who, under the name of "Janus +Weathercock," contributed various frothy papers on art and literature to +the "London Magazine." + + + +LXXVIII. + + +TO MRS. HAZLITT. + +_November_, 1823. + +Dear Mrs. H.,--Sitting down to write a letter is such a painful +operation to Mary that you must accept me as her proxy. You have seen +our house. What I now tell you is literally true. Yesterday week, George +Dyer called upon us, at one o'clock (_bright noonday_), on his way to +dine with Mrs. Barbauld at Newington. He sat with Mary about half an +hour, and took leave. The maid saw him go out from her kitchen window, +but suddenly losing sight of him, ran up in a fright to Mary. G.D., +instead of keeping the slip that leads to the gate, had deliberately, +staff in hand, in broad, open day, marched into the New River. [1] He had +not his spectacles on, and you know his absence. Who helped him out, +they can hardly tell; but between 'em they got him out, drenched thro' +and thro'. A mob collected by that time, and accompanied him in. "Send +for the doctor!" they said; and a one-eyed fellow, dirty and drunk, was +fetched from the public-house at the end, where it seem he lurks for the +sake of picking up water-practice, having formerly had a medal from the +Humane Society for some rescue. By his advice the patient was put +between blankets; and when I came home at four to dinner, I found G.D. +a-bed, and raving, light-headed with the brandy-and-water which the +doctor had administered. He sang, laughed, whimpered, screamed, babbled +of guardian angels, would get up and go home; but we kept him there by +force; and by next morning he departed sobered, and seems to have +received no injury. [2] All my friends are open-mouthed about having +paling before the river; but I cannot see that because a ... lunatic +chooses to walk into a river, with his eyes open, at mid-day, I am any +the more likely to be drowned in it, coming home at midnight. + +[1] See Elia-essay, "Amicus Redivivus." + +[2] In the "Athenæum" for 1835 Procter says: "I happened to call at +Lamb's house about ten minutes after this accident; I saw before me a +train of water running from the door to the river. Lamb had gone for a +surgeon; the maid was running about distraught, with dry clothes on one +arm, and the dripping habiliments of the involuntary bather in the +other. Miss Lamb, agitated, and whimpering forth 'Poor Mr. Dyer!' in the +most forlorn voice, stood plunging her hands into the wet pockets of his +trousers, to fish up the wet coin. Dyer himself, an amiable little old +man, who took water _in_ternally and eschewed strong liquors, lay on his +host's bed, hidden by blankets; his head, on which was his short gray +hair, alone peered out; and this, having been rubbed dry by a resolute +hand,--by the maid's, I believe, who assisted at the rescue,--looked as +if bristling with a thousand needles. Lamb, moreover, in his anxiety, +had administered a formidable dose of cognac and water to the sufferer, +and _he_ (used only to the simple element) babbled without cessation." + + + +LXXIX. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_January_ 9, 1824. + +Dear B.B.,--Do you know what it is to succumb under an insurmountable +day-mare,--"a whoreson lethargy," Falstaff calls it,--an indisposition +to do anything or to be anything; a total deadness and distaste; a +suspension of vitality; an indifference to locality; a numb, soporifical +good-for-nothingness; an ossification all over; an oyster-like +insensibility to the passing events; a mind-stupor; a brawny defiance to +the needles of a thrusting-in conscience? Did you ever have a very bad +cold, with a total irresolution to submit to water-gruel processes? This +has been for many weeks my lot and my excuse. My fingers drag heavily +over this paper, and to my thinking it is three-and-twenty furlongs from +here to the end of this demi-sheet. I have not a thing to say; nothing +is of more importance than another. I am flatter than a denial or a +pancake; emptier than Judge Parke's wig when the head is in it; duller +than a country stage when the actors are off it,--a cipher, an o! I +acknowledge life at all only by an occasional convulsional cough and a +permanent phlegmatic pain in the chest. I am weary of the world; life is +weary of me, My day is gone into twilight, and I don't think it worth +the expense of candles. My wick hath a thief in it, but I can't muster +courage to snuff it. I inhale suffocation; I can't distinguish veal from +mutton; nothing interests me. 'T is twelve o'clock, and Thurtell [1] is +just now coming out upon the new drop, Jack Ketch alertly tucking up his +greasy sleeves to do the last office of mortality; yet cannot I elicit a +groan or a moral reflection. If you told me the world will be at an end +to-morrow, I should just say, "Will it?" I have not volition enough left +to dot my _i_'s, much less to comb my eyebrows; my eyes are set in my +head; my brains are gone out to see a poor relation in Moorfields, and +they did not say when they'd come back again; my skull is a Grub Street +attic to let,--not so much as a joint-stool left in it; my hand writes, +not I, from habit, as chickens run about a little when their heads are +off. Oh for a vigorous fit of gout, colic, toothache,--an earwig in my +auditory, a fly in my visual organs; pain is life,--the sharper the more +evidence of life; but this apathy, this death! Did you ever have an +obstinate cold,--a six or seven weeks' unintermitting chill and +suspension of hope, fear, conscience, and everything? Yet do I try all I +can to cure it. I try wine, and spirits, and smoking, and snuff in +unsparing quantities; but they all only seem to make me worse, instead +of better. I sleep in a damp room, but it does me no good; I come home +late o' nights, but do not find any visible amendment! Who shall deliver +me from the body of this death? + +It is just fifteen minutes after twelve. Thurtell is by this time a good +way on his journey, baiting at Scorpion, perhaps. Ketch is bargaining +for his cast coat and waistcoat; and the Jew demurs at first at three +half-crowns, but on consideration that he may get somewhat by showing +'em in the town, finally closes. + +C. L. + +[1] Hanged that day for the murder of Weare. + + + +LXXX. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_January_ 23, 1824. + +My dear sir,--That peevish letter of mine, [1] which was meant to convey +an apology for my incapacity to write, seems to have been taken by you +in too serious a light,--it was only my way of telling you I had a +severe cold. The fact is, I have been insuperably dull and lethargic for +many weeks, and cannot rise to the vigor of a letter, much less an +essay. The "London" must do without me for a time, for I have lost all +interest about it; and whether I shall recover it again I know not. I +will bridle my pen another time, and not tease and puzzle you with my +aridities. I shall begin to feel a little more alive with the spring. + +Winter is to me (mild or harsh) always a great trial of the spirits. I +am ashamed not to have noticed your tribute to Woolman, whom we love so +much; it is done in your good manner. Your friend Tayler called upon me +some time since, and seems a very amiable man. His last story is +painfully fine. His book I "like;" it is only too stuffed with +Scripture, too parsonish. The best thing in it is the boy's own story. +When I say it is too full of Scripture, I mean it is too full of direct +quotations; no book can have too much of silent Scripture in it. But the +natural power of a story is diminished when the uppermost purpose in the +writer seems to be to recommend something else,--namely, Religion. You +know what Horace says of the _Deus intersit_? I am not able to explain +myself,--you must do it for me. My sister's part in the "Leicester +School" (about two thirds) was purely her own; as it was (to the same +quantity) in the "Shakspeare Tales" which bear my name. I wrote only the +"Witch Aunt," the "First Going to Church," and the final story about "A +little Indian girl" in a ship. Your account of my black-balling amused +me. _I think, as Quakers, they did right._ There are some things hard to +be understood. The more I think, the more I am vexed at having puzzled +you with that letter; but I have been so out of letter-writing of late +years that it is a sore effort to sit down to it; and I felt in your +debt, and sat down waywardly to pay you in bad money. Never mind my +dulness; I am used to long intervals of it. The heavens seem brass to +me; then again comes the refreshing shower,-- + + "I have been merry twice and once ere now." + +You said something about Mr. Mitford in a late letter, which I believe I +did not advert to. I shall be happy to show him my Milton (it is all the +show things I have) at any time he will take the trouble of a jaunt to +Islington. I do also hope to see Mr. Tayler there some day. Pray say so +to both. Coleridge's book is in good part printed, but sticks a little +for _more copy_. It bears an unsalable title,--"Extracts from Bishop +Leighton;" but I am confident there will be plenty of good notes in +it,--more of Bishop Coleridge than Leighton in it, I hope; for what is +Leighton? Do you trouble yourself about libel cases? The decision +against Hunt for the "Vision of Judgment" made me sick. What is to +become of the good old talk about our good old king,--his personal +virtues saving us from a revolution, etc.? Why, none that think can +utter it now. It must stink. And the "Vision" is as to himward such a +tolerant, good-humored thing! What a wretched thing a Lord Chief Justice +is, always was, and will be! + +Keep your good spirits up, dear B. B., mine will return; they are at +present in abeyance, but I am rather lethargic than miserable. I don't +know but a good horsewhip would be more beneficial to me than physic. My +head, without aching, will teach yours to ache. It is well I am getting +to the conclusion. I will send a better letter when I am a better man. +Let me thank you for your kind concern for me (which I trust will have +reason soon to be dissipated), and assure you that it gives me pleasure +to hear from you. + +Yours truly, + +C. L. + +[1] Letter LXXIX. + + + +LXXXI. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON + +_April_, 1824. + +Dear B.B.,--I am sure I cannot fill a letter, though I should disfurnish +my skull to fill it; but you expect something, and shall have a notelet. +Is Sunday, not divinely speaking, but humanly and holiday-sically, a +blessing? Without its institution, would our rugged taskmasters have +given us a leisure day so often, think you, as once in a month? or, if +it had not been instituted, might they not have given us every sixth +day? Solve me this problem. If we are to go three times a-day to church, +why has Sunday slipped into the notion of a _holi_day? A HOLY-day, I +grant it. The Puritans, I have read in Southey's book, knew the +distinction. They made people observe Sunday rigorously, would not let a +nurserymaid walk out in the fields with children for recreation on that +day. But _then_ they gave the people a holiday from all sorts of work +every second Tuesday. This was giving to the two Cæsars that which was +_his_ respective. Wise, beautiful, thoughtful, generous legislators! +Would Wilberforce give us our Tuesdays? No; he would turn the six days +into sevenths,-- + + "And those three smiling seasons of the year + Into a Russian winter." + OLD PLAY. + +I am sitting opposite a person who is making strange distortions with +the gout, which is not unpleasant pleasant,--to me, at least. What is +the reason we do not sympathize with pain, short of some terrible +surgical operation? Hazlitt, who boldly says all he feels, avows that +not only he does not pity sick people, but he hates them. I obscurely +recognize his meaning. Pain is probably too selfish a consideration, too +simply a consideration of self-attention. We pity poverty, loss of +friends, etc.,--more complex things, in which the sufferer's feelings +are associated with others. This is a rough thought suggested by the +presence of gout; I want head to extricate it and plane it. What is all +this to your letter? I felt it to be a good one, but my turn, when I +write at all, is perversely to travel out of the record, so that my +letters are anything but answers. So you still want a motto? You must +not take my ironical one, because your book, I take it, is too serious +for it. Bickerstaff might have used it for _his_ lucubrations. What do +you think of (for a title) Religio Tremuli? or Tremebundi? There is +Religio Medici and Laici. But perhaps the volume is not quite Quakerish +enough, or exclusively so, for it. Your own "Vigils" is perhaps the +best. While I have space, let me congratulate with you the return of +spring,--what a summery spring too! All those qualms about the dog and +cray-fish [1] melt before it. I am going to be happy and _vain_ again. + +A hasty farewell, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Lamb had confessed, in a previous letter to Barton, to having once +wantonly set a dog upon a cray-fish. + + + +LXXXII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_May_ 15, 1824. + +Dear B. B.,--I am oppressed with business all day, and company all +night. But I will snatch a quarter of an hour. Your recent acquisitions +of the picture and the letter are greatly to be congratulated. I too +have a picture of my father and the copy of his first love-verses; but +they have been mine long. Blake is a real name, I assure you, and a most +extraordinary man, if he is still living. He is the Robert [William] +Blake whose wild designs accompany a splendid folio edition of the +"Night Thoughts," which you may have seen, in one of which he pictures +the parting of soul and body by a solid mass of human form floating off, +God knows how, from a lumpish mass (fac-simile to itself) left behind on +the dying bed. He paints in water-colors marvellous strange pictures, +visions of his brain, which he asserts that he has seen; they have great +merit. He has _seen_ the old Welsh bards on Snowdon,--he has seen the +beautifullest, the strongest, and the ugliest man, left alone from the +massacre of the Britons by the Romans, and has painted them from memory +(I have seen his paintings), and asserts them to be as good as the +figures of Raphael and Angelo, but not better, as they had precisely the +same retro-visions and prophetic visions with themself [himself]. The +painters in oil (which he will have it that neither of them practised) +he affirms to have been the ruin of art, and affirms that all the while +he was engaged in his Welsh paintings, Titian was disturbing him,-- +Titian the Ill Genius of Oil Painting. His pictures--one in particular, +the Canterbury Pilgrims, far above Stothard--have great merit, but hard, +dry, yet with grace. He has written a Catalogue of them, with a most +spirited criticism on Chaucer, but mystical and full of vision. His +poems have been sold hitherto only in manuscript. I never read them; but +a friend at my desire procured the "Sweep Song." There is one to a +tiger, which I have heard recited, beginning,-- + + "Tiger, Tiger, burning bright, + Thro' the deserts of the night," + +which is glorious, but, alas! I have not the book; for the man is flown, +whither I know not,--to Hades or a madhouse. But I must look on him as +one of the most extraordinary persons of the age. Montgomery's book [1] I +have not much hope from, and the society with the affected name [2] has +been laboring at it for these twenty years, and made few converts. I +think it was injudicious to mix stories, avowedly colored by fiction, +with the sad, true statements from the parliamentary records, etc. But I +wish the little negroes all the good that can come from it. I battered +my brains (not buttered them,--but it is a bad _a_) for a few verses +for them, but I could make nothing of it. You have been luckier. But +Blake's are the flower of the set, you will, I am sure, agree; though +some of Montgomery's at the end are pretty, but the Dream awkwardly +paraphrased from B. + +With the exception of an Epilogue for a Private Theatrical, I have +written nothing new for near six months. It is in vain to spur me on. I +must wait. I cannot write without a genial impulse, and I have none. 'T +is barren all and dearth. No matter; life is something without +scribbling. I have got rid of my bad spirits, and hold up pretty well +this rain-damned May. + +So we have lost another poet. [3] I never much relished his Lordship's +mind, and shall be sorry if the Greeks have cause to miss him. He was to +me offensive, and I never can make out his real _power_, which his +admirers talk of. Why, a, line of Wordsworth's is a lever to lift the +immortal spirit; Byron can only move the spleen. He was at best a +satirist. In any other way, he was mean enough. I daresay I do him +injustice; but I cannot love him, nor squeeze a tear to his memory. He +did not like the world, and he has left it, as Alderman Curtis advised +the Radicals, "if they don't like their country, damn 'em, let 'em leave +it," they possessing no rood of ground in England, and he ten thousand +acres. Byron was better than many Curtises. + +Farewell, and accept this apology for a letter from one who owes you so +much in that kind. + +Yours ever truly, C. L. + +[1] "The Chimney-Sweeper's Friend, and Climbing-Boy's Album,"--a book, +by James Montgomery, setting forth the wrongs of the little +chimney-sweepers, for whose relief a society had been started. + +[2] The Society for Ameliorating the Condition of Infant +Chimney-Sweepers. + +[3] Byron had died on April 19. + + + +LXXXIII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_August_, 1824. + +I can no more understand Shelley than you can; his poetry is "thin sown +with profit or delight." Yet I must point to your notice a sonnet +conceived and expressed with a witty delicacy. It is that addressed to +one who hated him, but who could not persuade him to hate _him_ again. +His coyness to the other's passion--for hate demands a return as much as +love, and starves without it--is most arch and pleasant. Pray, like it +very much. For his theories and nostrums, they are oracular enough, but +I either comprehend 'em not, or there is "miching malice" and mischief +in 'em, but, for the most part, ringing with their own emptiness. +Hazlitt said well of 'em: "Many are the wiser and better for reading +Shakspeare, but nobody was ever wiser or better for reading Shelley." I +wonder you will sow your correspondence on so barren a ground as I am, +that make such poor returns. But my head aches at the bare thought of +letter-writing. I wish all the ink in the ocean dried up, and would +listen to the quills shivering up in the candle flame, like parching +martyrs. The same indisposition to write it is has stopped my "Elias;" +but you will see a futile effort in the next number, [1] "wrung from me +with slow pain." The fact is, my head is seldom cool enough. I am +dreadfully indolent. To have to do anything--to order me a new coat, for +instance, though my old buttons are shelled like beans--is an effort. My +pen stammers like my tongue. What cool craniums those old inditers of +folios must have had, what a mortified pulse! Well, once more I throw +myself on your mercy. Wishing peace in thy new dwelling, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The essay "Blakesmoor in Hertfordshire," in the "London Magazine" +for September, 1824. + + + +LXXXIV. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_December_ 1, 1824. + +Taylor and Hessey, finding their magazine [1] goes off very heavily at +2_s_. 6_d_., are prudently going to raise their price another shilling; +and having already more authors than they want, intend to increase the +number of them. If they set up against the "New Monthly," they must +change their present hands. It is not tying the dead carcase of a review +to a half-dead magazine will do their business. It is like George Dyer +multiplying his volumes to make 'em sell better. When he finds one will +not go off, he publishes two; two stick, he tries three; three hang +fire, he is confident that four will have a better chance. + +And now, my dear sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catastrophe of +yesterday morning prompts a sadder vein. The fate of the unfortunate +Fauntleroy [2] makes me, whether I will or no, to cast reflecting eyes +around on such of my friends as, by a parity of situation, are exposed +to a similarity of temptation. My very style seems to myself to become +more impressive than usual, with the change of theme. Who, that +standeth, knoweth but he may yet fall? Your hands as yet, I am most +willing to believe, have never deviated, into others' property; you +think it impossible that you could ever commit so heinous an offence. +But so thought Fauntleroy once; so have thought many besides him, who at +last have expiated as he hath done. You are as yet upright; but you are +a banker,--at least, the next thing to it. I feel the delicacy of the +subject; but cash must pass through your hands, sometimes to a great +amount. If in an unguarded hour--But I will hope better. Consider the +scandal it will bring upon those of your persuasion. Thousands would go +to see a Quaker hanged, that would be indifferent to the fate of a +Presbyterian or an Anabaptist. Think of the effect it would have on the +sale of your poems alone, not to mention higher considerations! I +tremble, I am sure, at myself, when I think that so many poor victims of +the law, at one time of their life, made as sure of never being hanged +as I, in my presumption, am too ready to do myself. What are we better +than they? Do we come into the world with different necks? Is there any +distinctive mark under our left ears? Are we unstrangulable, I ask you? +Think of these things. I am shocked sometimes at the shape of my own +fingers, not for their resemblance to the ape tribe (which is +something), but for the exquisite adaptation of them to the purposes of +picking fingering, etc. No one that is so framed, I maintain it, but +should tremble. + +C. L. + +[1] Taylor and Hessey succeeded John Scott as editors of the "London +Magazine" (of which they were also publishers), and it was to this +periodical that most of Lamb's Elia Essays were contributed. + +[2] The forger, hanged Nov. 30, 1824. This was the last execution for +this offence. + + + +LXXXV. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_March_ 23, 1825. + +Dear B. B.,--I have had no impulse to write, or attend to any single +object but myself for weeks past,--my single self, I by myself, I. I am +sick of hope deferred. The grand wheel is in agitation that is to turn +up my fortune; but round it rolls, and will turn up nothing. I have a +glimpse of freedom, of becoming a gentleman at large; but I am put off +from day to day. I have offered my resignation, and it is neither +accepted nor rejected. Eight weeks am I kept in this fearful suspense. +Guess what an absorbing stake I feel it. I am not conscious of the +existence of friends present or absent. The East India Directors alone +can be that thing to me or not. I have just learned that nothing will be +decided this week. Why the next? Why any week? It has fretted me into an +itch of the fingers; I rub 'em against paper, and write to you, rather +than not allay this scorbuta. + +While I can write, let me adjure you to have no doubts of Irving. Let +Mr. Mitford drop his disrespect. Irving has prefixed a dedication (of a +missionary subject, first part) to Coleridge, the most beautiful, +cordial, and sincere. He there acknowledges his obligation to S. T. C. +for his knowledge of Gospel truths, the nature of a Christian Church, +etc.,--to the talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (at whose Gamaliel feet he +sits weekly), rather than to that of all the men living. This from him, +the great dandled and petted sectarian, to a religious character so +equivocal in the world's eye as that of S. T. C., so foreign to the +Kirk's estimate,--can this man be a quack? The language is as affecting +as the spirit of the dedication. Some friend told him, "This dedication +will do you no good,"--_i. e._, not in the world's repute, or with your +own people. "That is a reason for doing it," quoth Irving. + +I am thoroughly pleased with him. He is firm, out-speaking, intrepid, +and docile as a pupil of Pythagoras. You must like him. + +Yours, in tremors of painful hope, + +C. LAMB. + + + +LXXXVI. + + +TO WORDSWORTH + +_April_ 6, 1825 + +Dear Wordsworth,--I have been several times meditating a letter to you +concerning the good thing which has befallen me; but the thought of poor +Monkhouse [1] came across me. He was one that I had exulted in the +prospect of congratulating me. He and you were to have been the first +participators; for indeed it has been ten weeks since the first motion +of it. Here am I then, after thirty-three years' slavery, sitting in my +own room at eleven o'clock this finest of all April mornings, a freed +man, with £441 a year for the remainder of my life, live I as long as +John Dennis, who outlived his annuity and starved at ninety: £441; +_i.e., £450_, with a deduction of £9 for a provision secured to my +sister, she being survivor, the pension guaranteed by Act Georgii +Tertii, etc. + +I came home FOREVER on Tuesday in last week. The incomprehensibleness of +my condition overwhelmed me; it was like passing from life into +eternity. Every year to be as long as three, _i.e._, to have three times +as much real time--time that is my own--in it! I wandered about thinking +I was happy, but feeling I was not. But that tumultuousness is passing +off, and I begin to understand the nature of the gift. Holidays, even +the annual month, were always uneasy joys,--their conscious +fugitiveness; the craving after making the most of them. Now, when all +is holiday, there are no holidays. I can sit at home, in rain or shine, +without a restless impulse for walkings. I am daily steadying, and shall +soon find it as natural to me to be my own master as it has been irksome +to have had a master. Mary wakes every morning with an obscure feeling +that some good has happened to us. + +Leigh Hunt and Montgomery, after their releasements, describe the shock +of their emancipation much as I feel mine. But it hurt their frames. I +eat, drink, and sleep sound as ever, I lay no anxious schemes for going +hither and thither, but take things as they occur. Yesterday I +excursioned twenty miles; to-day I write a few letters. Pleasuring was +for fugitive play-days: mine are fugitive only in the sense that life is +fugitive. Freedom and life co-existent! + +At the foot of such a call upon you for gratulation, I am ashamed to +advert to that melancholy event. Monkhouse was a character I learned to +love slowly; but it grew upon me yearly, monthly, daily. What a chasm +has it made in our pleasant parties! His noble, friendly face was always +coming before me, till this hurrying event in my life came, and for the +time has absorbed all interest; in fact, it has shaken me a little. My +old desk companions, with whom I have had such merry hours, seem to +reproach me for removing my lot from among them. They were pleasant +creatures; but to the anxieties of business, and a weight of possible +worse ever impending, I was not equal. Tuthill and Gilman gave me my +certificates; I laughed at the friendly lie implied in them. But my +sister shook her head, and said it was all true. Indeed, this last +winter I was jaded out; winters were always worse than other parts of +the year, because the spirits are worse, and I had no daylight. In +summer I had daylight evenings. The relief was hinted to me from a +superior power when I, poor slave, had not a hope but that I must wait +another seven years with Jacob; and lo! the Rachel which I coveted is +brought to me. + +[1] Wordsworth's cousin, who was ill of consumption in Devonshire. He +died the following year. + + + +LXXXVII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_April_ 6, 1825. + +Dear B.B.,--My spirits are so tumultuary with the novelty of my recent +emancipation that I have scarce steadiness of hand, much more mind, to +compose a letter. I am free, B.B.,--free as air! + + "The little bird that wings the sky + Knows no such liberty." [1] + I was set free on Tuesday in last week at four + o'clock. I came home forever! + +I have been describing my feelings as well as I can to Wordsworth in a +long letter, and don't care to repeat. Take it, briefly, that for a few +days I was painfully oppressed by so mighty a change; but it is becoming +daily more natural to me. I went and sat among 'em all at my old +thirty-three-years' desk yester-morning; and, deuce take me, if I had +not yearnings at leaving all my old pen-and-ink fellows, merry, sociable +lads,--at leaving them in the lurch, fag, fag, fag! The comparison of my +own superior felicity gave me anything but pleasure. + +B.B., I would not serve another seven years for seven hundred thousand +pounds! I have got £441 net for life, sanctioned by Act of Parliament, +with a provision for Mary if she survives me. I will live another fifty +years; or if I live but ten, they will be thirty, reckoning the quantity +of real time in them,--_i.e._, the time that is a man's own, Tell me how +you like "Barbara S.;" [2] will it be received in atonement for the +foolish "Vision"--I mean by the lady? _A propos_, I never saw Mrs. +Crawford in my life; nevertheless, it's all true of somebody. + +Address me, in future, Colebrooke Cottage, Islington, I am really +nervous (but that will wear off), so take this brief announcement. + +Yours truly, + +C.L. + +[1] "The birds that wanton in the air + Know no such liberty." + LOVELACE. + +[2] The Elia essay. Fanny Kelly was the original of "Barbara S." + + + +LXXXVIII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_July_ 2, 1825. + +I am hardly able to appreciate your volume now; [1] but I liked the +dedication much, and the apology for your bald burying grounds. To +Shelley--but _that_ is not new, To the young Vesper-singer, Great +Bealings, Playford, and what not. + +If there be a cavil, it is that the topics of religious consolation, +however beautiful, are repeated till a sort of triteness attends them. +It seems as if you were forever losing Friends' children by death, and +reminding their parents of the Resurrection. Do children die so often +and so good in your parts? The topic taken from the consideration that +they are snatched away from _possible vanities_ seems hardly sound; for +to an Omniscient eye their conditional failings must be one with their +actual. But I am too unwell for theology. + +Such as I am, + +I am yours and A.K.'s truly, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] "Barton's volume of Poems." + + + +LXXXIX. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_August_ 10, 1825. + +We shall be soon again at Colebrooke. + +Dear B.B.,--You must excuse my not writing before, when I tell you we +are on a visit at Enfield, where I do not feel it natural to sit down to +a letter. It is at all times an exertion. I had rather talk with you and +Anne Knight quietly at Colebrooke Lodge over the matter of your last. +You mistake me when you express misgivings about my relishing a series +of Scriptural poems. I wrote confusedly; what I meant to say was, that +one or two consolatory poems on deaths would have had a more condensed +effect than many. Scriptural, devotional topics, admit of infinite +variety. So far from poetry tiring me because religious, I can read, and +I say it seriously, the homely old version of the Psalms in our +Prayer-books for an hour or two together sometimes, without sense of +weariness. + +I did not express myself clearly about what I think a false topic, +insisted on so frequently in consolatory addresses on the death of +infants. I know something like it is in Scripture, but I think humanly +spoken. It is a natural thought, a sweet fallacy, to the survivors, but +still a fallacy. If it stands on the doctrine of this being a +probationary state, it is liable to this dilemma. Omniscience, to whom +possibility must be clear as act, must know of the child what it would +hereafter turn out: if good, then the topic is false to say it is +secured from falling into future wilfulness, vice, etc. If bad, I do not +see how its exemption from certain future overt acts by being snatched +away at all tells in its favor. You stop the arm of a murderer, or +arrest the finger of a pickpurse; but is not the guilt incurred as much +by the intent as if never so much acted? Why children are hurried off, +and old reprobates of a hundred left, whose trial humanly we may think +was complete at fifty, is among the obscurities of providence, The very +notion of a state of probation has darkness in it. The All-knower has no +need of satisfying his eyes by seeing what we will do, when he knows +before what we will do. Methinks we might be condemned before +commission. In these things we grope and flounder; and if we can pick up +a little human comfort that the child taken is snatched from vice (no +great compliment to it, by the by), let us take it. And as to where an +untried child goes, whether to join the assembly of its elders who have +borne the heat of the day,--fire-purified martyrs and torment-sifted +confessors,--what know we? We promise heaven, methinks, too cheaply, and +assign large revenues to minors incompetent to manage them. Epitaphs run +upon this topic of consolation till the very frequency induces a +cheapness. Tickets for admission into paradise are sculptured out a +penny a letter, twopence a syllable, etc. It is all a mystery; and the +more I try to express my meaning (having none that is clear), the more I +flounder. Finally, write what your own conscience, which to you is the +unerring judge, deems best, and be careless about the whimsies of such a +half-baked notionist as I am. We are here in a most pleasant country, +full of walks, and idle to our heart's desire. Taylor has dropped the +"London." It was indeed a dead weight. It had got in the Slough of +Despond. I shuffle off my part of the pack, and stand, like Christian, +with light and merry shoulders. It had got silly, indecorous, pert, and +everything that is bad. Both our kind _remembrances_ to Mrs. K. and +yourself, and strangers'-greeting to Lucy,--is it Lucy, or Ruth?--that +gathers wise sayings in a Book. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XC. + + +TO SOUTHEY. + +_August_ 19, 1825. + +Dear Southey,--You'll know whom this letter comes from by opening +slap-dash upon the text, as in the good old times. I never could come +into the custom of envelopes,--'tis a modern foppery; the Plinian +correspondence gives no hint of such. In singleness of sheet and +meaning, then, I thank you for your little book. I am ashamed to add a +codicil of thanks for your "Book of the Church." I scarce feel competent +to give an opinion of the latter; I have not reading enough of that kind +to venture at it. I can only say the fact, that I have read it with +attention and interest. Being, as you know, not quite a Churchman, I +felt a jealousy at the Church taking to herself the whole deserts of +Christianity, Catholic and Protestant, from Druid extirpation downwards. +I call all good Christians the Church. Capillarians and all. But I am in +too light a humor to touch these matters. May all our churches flourish! +Two things staggered me in the poem (and one of them staggered both of +as): I cannot away with a beautiful series of verses, as I protest they +are, commencing "Jenner," 'Tis like a choice banquet opened with a pill +or an electuary,--physic stuff. T'other is, we cannot make out how Edith +should be no more than ten years old. By 'r Lady, we had taken her to be +some sixteen or upwards. We suppose you have only chosen the round +number for the metre. Or poem and dedication may be both older than they +pretend to,--but then some hint might have been given; for, as it +stands, it may only serve some day to puzzle the parish reckoning. But +without inquiring further (for 'tis ungracious to look into a lady's +years), the dedication is eminently pleasing and tender, and we wish +Edith May Southey joy of it. Something, too, struck us as if we had +heard of the death of John May. A John May's death was a few years since +in the papers. We think the tale one of the quietest, prettiest things +we have seen. You have been temperate in the use of localities, which +generally spoil poems laid in exotic regions. You mostly cannot stir out +(in such things) for humming-birds and fireflies. A tree is a Magnolia, +etc.--Can I but like the truly Catholic spirit? "Blame as thou mayest +the Papist's erring creed,"--which and other passages brought me back to +the old Anthology days and the admonitory lesson to "Dear George" on +"The Vesper Bell," a little poem which retains its first hold upon me +strangely. + +The compliment to the translatress is daintily conceived. Nothing is +choicer in that sort of writing than to bring in some remote, impossible +parallel,--as between a great empress and the inobtrusive, quiet soul +who digged her noiseless way so perseveringly through that rugged +Paraguay mine. How she Dobrizhoffered it all out, it puzzles my slender +Latinity to conjecture. Why do you seem to sanction Landor's unfeeling +allegorizing away of honest Quixote? He may as well say Strap is meant +to symbolize the Scottish nation before the Union, and Random since that +Act of dubious issue; or that Partridge means the Mystical Man, and Lady +Bellaston typifies the Woman upon Many Waters. Gebir, indeed, may mean +the state of the hop markets last month, for anything I know to the +contrary. That all Spain overflowed with romancical books (as Madge +Newcastle calls them) was no reason that Cervantes should not smile at +the matter of them; nor even a reason that, in another mood, he might +not multiply them, deeply as he was tinctured with the essence of them. +Quixote is the father of gentle ridicule, and at the same time the very +depository and treasury of chivalry and highest notions. Marry, when +somebody persuaded Cervantes that he meant only fun, and put him upon +writing that unfortunate Second Part, with the confederacies of that +unworthy duke and most contemptible duchess, Cervantes sacrificed his +instinct to his understanding. + +We got your little book but last night, being at Enfield, to which place +we came about a month since, and are having quiet holidays. Mary walks +her twelve miles a day some days, and I my twenty on others. 'T is all +holiday with me now, you know; the change works admirably. + +For literary news, in my poor way, I have a one-act farce [1] going to be +acted at Haymarket; but when? is the question, 'Tis an extravaganza, and +like enough to follow "Mr. H." "The London Magazine" has shifted its +publishers once more, and I shall shift myself out of it. It is fallen. +My ambition is not at present higher than to write nonsense for the +playhouses, to eke out a something contracted income. _Tempus erat_. +There was a time, my dear Cornwallis, when the muse, etc. But I am now +in Mac Flecknoe's predicament,-- + +"Promised a play, and dwindled to a farce." Coleridge is better (was, at +least, a few weeks since) than he has been for years. His accomplishing +his book at last has been a source of vigor to him. We are on a half +visit to his friend Allsop, at a Mrs. Leishman's, Enfield, but expect to +be at Colebrooke Cottage in a week or so, where, or anywhere, I shall be +always most happy to receive tidings from you. G. Dyer is in the height +of an uxorious paradise. His honeymoon will not wane till he wax cold. +Never was a more happy pair, since Acme and Septimius, and longer. +Farewell, with many thanks, dear S. Our loves to all round your Wrekin. + +Your old friend, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Probably "The Pawnbroker's Daughter," which happily was not destined +to be performed.--AINGER. + + + +XCI. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_March_ 20, 1826. + +Dear B. B.,--You may know my letters by the paper and the folding. For +the former, I live on scraps obtained in charity from an old friend, +whose stationery is a permanent perquisite; for folding, I shall do it +neatly when I learn to tie my neckcloths. I surprise most of my friends +by writing to them on ruled paper, as if I had not got past pothooks and +hangers. Sealing-wax I have none on my establishment; wafers of the +coarsest bran supply its place. When my epistles come to be weighed with +Pliny's, however superior to the Roman in delicate irony, judicious +reflections, etc., his gilt post will bribe over the judges to him. All +the time I was at the E. I. H. I never mended a pen; I now cut 'em to +the stumps, marring rather than mending the primitive goose-quill. I +cannot bear to pay for articles I used to get for nothing. When Adam +laid out his first penny upon nonpareils at some stall in Mesopotamos, I +think it went hard with him, reflecting upon his old goodly orchard, +where he had so many for nothing. When I write to a great man at the +court end, he opens with surprise upon a naked note, such as Whitechapel +people interchange, with no sweet degrees of envelope. I never enclosed +one bit of paper in another, nor understood the rationale of it. Once +only I sealed with borrowed wax, to set Walter Scott a-wondering, signed +with the imperial quartered arms of England, which my friend Field bears +in compliment to his descent, in the female line, from Oliver Cromwell. +It must have set his antiquarian curiosity upon watering. To your +questions upon the currency, I refer you to Mr. Robinson's last speech, +where, if you can find a solution, I cannot. I think this, though,--the +best ministry we ever stumbled upon,--gin reduced four shillings in the +gallon, wine two shillings in the quart! This comes home to men's minds +and bosoms. My tirade against visitors was not meant _particularly_ at +you or Anne Knight. I scarce know what I meant, for I do not just now +feel the grievance. I wanted to make an _article_. So in another thing I +talked of somebody's _insipid wife_ without a correspondent object in my +head; and a good lady, a friend's wife, whom I really _love_ (don't +startle, I mean in a licit way), has looked shyly on me ever since. The +blunders of personal application are ludicrous. I send out a character +every now and then on purpose to exercise the ingenuity of my friends. +"Popular Fallacies" will go on; that word "concluded" is an erratum, I +suppose, for "continued." I do not know how it got stuffed in there. A +little thing without name will also be printed on the Religion of the +Actors; but it is out of your way, so I recommend you, with true +author's hypocrisy, to skip it. We are about to sit down to roast beef, +at which we could wish A. K., B. B., and B. B.'s pleasant daughter to be +humble partakers. So much for my hint at visitors, which was scarcely +calculated for droppers-in from Woodbridge; the sky does not drop such +larks every day. My very kindest wishes to you all three, with my +sister's best love. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XCII. + + +TO J. B. DIBDIN. + +_June_, 1826. + +Dear D.,--My first impulse upon seeing your letter was pleasure at +seeing your old neat hand, nine parts gentlemanly, with a modest dash of +the clerical; my second, a thought natural enough this hot weather: Am I +to answer all this? Why, 't is as long as those to the Ephesians and +Galatians put together: I have counted the words, for curiosity.... I +never knew an enemy to puns who was not an ill-natured man. Your fair +critic in the coach reminds me of a Scotchman, who assured me he did not +see much in Shakspeare. I replied, I daresay _not_. He felt the +equivoke, looked awkward and reddish, but soon returned to the attack by +saying that he thought Burns was as good as Shakspeare. I said that I +had no doubt he was,--to a _Scotchman_. We exchanged no more words that +day.... Let me hear that you have clambered up to Lover's Seat; it is as +fine in that neighborhood as Juan Fernandez,--as lonely, too, when the +fishing-boats are not out; I have sat for hours staring upon a shipless +sea. The salt sea is never as grand as when it is left to itself. One +cock-boat spoils it; a seamew or two improves it. And go to the little +church, which is a very Protestant Loretto, and seems dropped by some +angel for the use of a hermit who was at once parishioner and a whole +parish. It is not too big. Go in the night, bring it away in your +portmanteau, and I will plant it in my garden. It must have been +erected, in the very infancy of British Christianity, for the two or +three first converts, yet with all the appurtenances of a church of the +first magnitude,--its pulpit, its pews, its baptismal font; a cathedral +in a nutshell. The minister that divides the Word there must give +lumping pennyworths. It is built to the text of "two or three assembled +in my name." It reminds me of the grain of mustard-seed. If the glebe +land is proportionate, it may yield two potatoes. Tithes out of it could +be no more split than a hair. Its First fruits must be its Last, for 't +would never produce a couple. It is truly the strait and narrow way, and +few there be (of London visitants) that find it. The still small voice +is surely to be found there, if anywhere. A sounding-board is merely +there for ceremony. It is secure from earthquakes, not more from +sanctity than size, for't would feel a mountain thrown upon it no more +than a taper-worm would. _Go and see, but not without your spectacles_. + + + +XCIII. + + +TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON. + +_January_ 20, 1827. + +Dear Robinson,--I called upon you this morning, and found that you had +gone to visit a dying friend. I had been upon a like errand. Poor +Norris [1] has been lying dying for now almost a week,--such is the +penalty we pay for having enjoyed a strong constitution! Whether he knew +me or not, I know not, or whether he saw me through his poor glazed +eyes; but the group I saw about him I shall not forget. Upon the bed, or +about it, were assembled his wife and two daughters, and poor deaf +Richard, his son, looking doubly stupefied. There they were, and seemed +to have been sitting all the week. I could only reach out a hand to Mrs. +Norris. Speaking was impossible in that mute chamber. By this time I +hope it is all over with him. In him I have a loss the world cannot make +up. He was my friend and my father's friend all the life I can remember. +I seem to have made foolish friendships ever since. Those are +friendships which outlive a second generation. Old as I am waxing, in +his eyes I was still the child he first knew me. To the last he called +me Charley. I have none to call me Charley now. He was the last link +that bound me to the Temple. You are but of yesterday. In him seem to +have died the old plainness of manners and singleness of heart. Letters +he knew nothing of, nor did his reading extend beyond the pages of the +"Gentleman's Magazine." Yet there was a pride of literature about him +from being amongst books (he was librarian), and from some scraps of +doubtful Latin which he had picked up in his office of entering +students, that gave him very diverting airs of pedantry. Can I forget +the erudite look with which, when he had been in vain trying to make out +a black-letter text of Chaucer in the Temple Library, he laid it down +and told me that "in those old books Charley, there is sometimes a deal +of very indifferent spelling;" and seemed to console himself in the +reflection! His jokes--for he had his jokes--are now ended; but they +were old trusty perennials, staples that pleased after _decies +repetita_, and were always as good as new. One song he had, which was +reserved for the night of Christmas Day, which we always spent in the +Temple. It was an old thing, and spoke of the flat-bottoms of our foes +and the possibility of their coming over in darkness, and alluded to +threats of an invasion many years blown over; and when he came to +the part-- + + "We'll still make 'em run, and we'll still make 'em sweat, + In spite of the devil and 'Brussels Gazette,'"-- + +his eyes would sparkle as with the freshness of an impending event. And +what is the "Brussels Gazette" now? I cry while I enumerate these +trifles. "How shall we tell them in a stranger's ear?" His poor good +girls will now have to receive their afflicted mother in an inaccessible +hovel in an obscure village in Herts, where they have been long +struggling to make a school without effect; and poor deaf Richard--and +the more helpless for being so--is thrown on the wide world. + +My first motive in writing, and, indeed, in calling on you, was to ask +if you were enough acquainted with any of the Benchers to lay a plain +statement before them of the circumstances of the family. I almost +fear not, for you are of another hall. But if you can oblige me and my +poor friend, who is now insensible to any favors, pray exert yourself. +You cannot say too much good of poor Norris and his poor wife. + +Yours ever, + +CHARLES LAMB. + +[1] Randal Norris, sub-treasurer of the Inner Temple, an early friend of +the Lambs. + + + +XCIV. + + +TO PETER GEORGE PATMORE. + +LONDRES, _Julie_ 19_th_, 1827. + +Dear P.,--I am so poorly. I have been to a funeral, where I made a pun, +to the consternation of the rest of the mourners. And we had wine. I +can't describe to you the howl which the widow set up at proper +intervals. Dash [1] could; for it was not unlike what he makes. + +The letter I sent you was one directed to the care of Edward White, +India House, for Mrs. Hazlitt. _Which_ Mrs. H. I don't yet know; but +Allsop has taken it to France on speculation. Really it is embarrassing. +There is Mrs. present H., Mrs. late H., and Mrs. John H.; and to which +of the three Mrs. Wigginses it appertains, I know not. I wanted to open +it, but 'tis transportation. + +I am sorry you are plagued about your book. I would strongly recommend +you to take for one story Massinger's "Old Law." It is exquisite. I can +think of no other. + +Dash is frightful this morning. He whines and stands up on his hind +legs. He misses Becky, who is gone to town. I took him to Barnet the +other day, and he couldn't eat his vittles after it. Pray God his +intellectuals be not slipping. + +Mary is gone out for some soles. I suppose 'tis no use to ask you to +come and partake of 'em; else there is a steam vessel. + +I am doing a tragi-comedy in two acts, and have got on tolerably; but it +will be refused, or worse, I never had luck with anything my name +was put to. + +Oh, I am so poorly! I _waked_ it at my cousin's the bookbinder, who is +now with God; or if he is not,'tis no fault of mine. + +We hope the Frank wines do not disagree with Mrs. Patmore. By the way, I +like her. + +Did you ever taste frogs? Get them if you can. They are like little +Lilliput rabbits, only a thought nicer. + +How sick I am!--not of the world, but of the Widow Shrub. She's sworn +under £6,000; but I think she perjured herself. She howls in E _la_, and +I comfort her in B flat. You understand music? + +If you haven't got Massinger, you have nothing to do but go to the first +Bibliothèque you can light upon at Boulogne, and ask for it (Gifford's +edition); and if they haven't got it, you can have "Athalie," par +Monsieur Racine, and make the best of it. But that "Old Law" is +delicious. + +"No shrimps!" (that's in answer to Mary's question about how the soles +are to be done.) + +I am uncertain where this wandering letter may reach you. What you mean +by Poste Restante, God knows. Do you mean I must pay the postage? So I +do,--to Dover. + +We had a merry passage with the widow at the Commons. She was +howling,--part howling, and part giving directions to the proctor,--when +crash! down went my sister through a crazy chair, and made the clerks +grin, and I grinned, and the widow tittered, and then I knew that she +was not inconsolable. Mary was more frightened than hurt. + +She'd make a good match for anybody (by she, I mean the widow). + + "If he bring but a _relict_ away, + He is happy, nor heard to complain." + +SHENSTONE. + +Procter has got a wen growing out at the nape of his neck, which his +wife wants him to have cut off; but I think it rather an agreeable +excrescence,--like his poetry, redundant. Hone has hanged himself for +debt. Godwin was taken up for picking pockets. Moxon has fallen in love +with Emma, our nut-brown maid. Becky takes to bad courses. Her father +was blown up in a steam machine. The coroner found it "insanity." I +should not like him to sit on my letter. + +Do you observe my direction? Is it Gallic, classical? Do try and get +some frogs. You must ask for "grenouilles" (green eels). They don't +understand "frogs," though 't is a common phrase with us. + +If you go through Bulloign (Boulogne), inquire if Old Godfrey is living, +and how he got home from the Crusades. He must be a very old man. + +[1] A dog given to Lamb by Thomas Hood. See letter to Patmore dated +September, 1827. + + + +XCV. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_August_ 10, 1827. + +Dear B. B.,--I have not been able to answer you, for we have had and are +having (I just snatch a moment) our poor quiet retreat, to which we fled +from society, full of company,--some staying with us; and this moment as +I write, almost, a heavy importation of two old ladies has come in. +Whither can I take wing from the oppression of human faces? Would I were +in a wilderness of apes, tossing cocoa-nuts about, grinning and +grinned at! + +Mitford was hoaxing you surely about my engraving; 't is a little +sixpenny thing, [1] too like by half, in which the draughtsman has done +his best to avoid flattery. There have been two editions of it, which I +think are all gone, as they have vanished from the window where they +hung,--a print-shop, corner of Great and Little Queen Streets, Lincoln's +Inn Fields,--where any London friend of yours may inquire for it; for I +am (though you _won't understand it_) at Enfield Chase. We have been +here near three months, and shall stay two more, if people will let us +alone; but they persecute us from village to village. So don't direct to +_Islington_ again till further notice. I am trying my hand at a drama, +in two acts, founded on Crabbe's "Confidant," _mutatis mutandis_. You +like the Odyssey: did you ever read my "Adventures of Ulysses," founded +on Chapman's old translation of it? For children or men. Chapman is +divine, and my abridgment has not quite emptied him of his divinity. +When you come to town I'll show it you. You have well described your +old-fashioned grand paternal hall. Is it not odd that every one's +earliest recollections are of some such place? I had my Blakesware +[Blakesmoor in the "London"]. Nothing fills a child's mind like a large +old mansion; better if un--or partially--occupied,--peopled with the +spirits of deceased members of the county and justices of the quorum. +Would I were buried in the peopled solitudes of one, with my feelings at +seven years old! Those marble busts of the emperors, they seemed as if +they were to stand forever, as they had stood from the living days of +Rome, in that old marble hall, and I too partake of their permanency. +Eternity was, while I thought not of Time. But he thought of me, and +they are toppled down, and corn covers the spot of the noble old +dwelling and its princely gardens, I feel like a grasshopper that, +chirping about the grounds, escaped the scythe only by my littleness. +Even now he is whetting one of his smallest razors to clean wipe me +out, perhaps. Well! + +[Footnote 1:] An etching of Lamb, by Brooke Pulham, which is said to be +the most characteristic likeness of him extant. + + + +XCVI. + + +TO THOMAS HOOD, + +_September_ 18, 1827. + +Dear Hood,--If I have anything in my head, I will send it to Mr. Watts. +Strictly speaking, he should have all my album-verses; but a very +intimate friend importuned me for the trifles, and I believe I forgot +Mr. Watts, or lost sight at the time of his similar "Souvenir." Jamieson +conveyed the farce from me to Mrs. C. Kemble; he will not be in town +before the 27th. + +Give our kind loves to all at Highgate, and tell them that we have +finally torn ourselves outright away from Colebrooke, where I had _no_ +health, and are about to domiciliate for good at Enfield, where I have +experienced _good_. + + "Lord, what good hours do we keep! + How quietly we sleep!" [1] + +See the rest in the "Compleat Angler." + +We have got our books into our new house. I am a dray-horse if I was not +ashamed of the indigested, dirty lumber, as I toppled 'em out of the +cart, and blessed Becky that came with 'em for her having an unstuffed +brain with such rubbish. We shall get in by Michael's Mass. 'T was with +some pain we were evulsed from Colebrooke. + +You may find some of our flesh sticking to the doorposts. To change +habitations is to die to them; and in my time I have died seven deaths. +But I don't know whether every such change does not bring with it a +rejuvenescence. 'T is an enterprise, and shoves back the sense of +death's approximating, which, though not terrible to me, is at all times +particularly distasteful. My house-deaths have generally been +periodical, recurring after seven years; but this last is premature by +half that time. Cut off in the flower of Colebrooke! The Middletonian +stream and all its echoes mourn. Even minnows dwindle. _A parvis +fiunt minimi!_ + +I fear to invite Mrs. Hood to our new mansion, lest she should envy it, +and hate us. But when we are fairly in, I hope she will come and try it. I +heard she and you were made uncomfortable by some unworthy-to-be-cared-for +attacks, and have tried to set up a feeble counteraction through the +"Table Book" of last Saturday. Has it not reached you, that you are +silent about it? Our new domicile is no manor-house, but new, and +externally not inviting, but furnished within with every convenience,-- +capital new locks to every door, capital grates in every room, with +nothing to pay for incoming, and the rent £10 less than the Islington one. + +It was built, a few years since, at £1,100 expense, they tell me, and I +perfectly believe it. And I get it for £35, exclusive of moderate taxes. +We think ourselves most lucky. + +It is not our intention to abandon Regent Street and West End +perambulations (monastic and terrible thought!), but occasionally to +breathe the fresher air of the metropolis. We shall put up a bedroom or +two (all we want) for occasional ex-rustication, where we shall +visit,--not be visited. Plays, too, we'll see,--perhaps our own; Urbani +Sylvani and Sylvan Urbanuses in turns; courtiers for a sport, then +philosophers; old, homely tell-truths and learn-truths in the virtuous +shades of Enfield, liars again and mocking gibers in the coffee-houses +and resorts of London. What can a mortal desire more for his +bi-parted nature? + +Oh, the curds-and-cream you shall eat with us here! + +Oh, the turtle-soup and lobster-salads we shall devour with you there! + +Oh, the old books we shall peruse here! + +Oh, the new nonsense we shall trifle over there! + +Oh, Sir T. Browne, here! + +Oh, Mr. Hood and Mr. Jerdan, there! + +Thine, + +C. (URBANUS) L. (SYLVANUS)--(Elia ambo). + +[1] By Charles Cotton. + + + +XCVII. + + +TO P. G. PATMORE. + +_September_, 1827. + +Dear P.,--Excuse my anxiety, but how is Dash? I should have asked if +Mrs. Patmore kept her rules and was improving; but Dash came uppermost. +The order of our thoughts should be the order of our writing. Goes he +muzzled, or _aperto ore_? Are his intellects sound, or does he wander a +little in _his_ conversation. You cannot be too careful to watch the +first symptoms of incoherence. The first illogical snarl he makes, to +St. Luke's with him! All the dogs here are going mad, if you believe the +overseers; but I protest they seem to me very rational and collected. +But nothing is so deceitful as mad people, to those who are not used to +them. Try him with hot water; if he won't lick it up, it's a sign he +does not like it. Does his tail wag horizontally or perpendicularly? +That has decided the fate of many dogs in Enfield. Is his general +deportment cheerful? I mean when he is pleased, for otherwise there is +no judging. You can't be too careful. Has he bit any of the children +yet? If he has, have them shot, and keep _him_ for curiosity, to see if +it was the hydrophobia. They say all our army in India had it at one +time; but that was in _Hyder_-Ally's time. Do you get paunch for him? +Take care the sheep was sane. You might pull his teeth out (if he would +let you), and then you need not mind if he were as mad as a Bedlamite. + +It would be rather fun to see his odd ways. It might amuse Mrs. P. and +the children. They'd have more sense than he. He'd be like a fool kept +in a family, to keep the household in good humor with their own +understanding. You might teach him the mad dance, set to the mad howl. +_Madge Owlet_ would be nothing to him. "My, how he capers!" (_In the +margin is written "One of the children speaks this_.") ... What I +scratch out is a German quotation, from Lessing, on the bite of rabid +animals; but I remember you don't read German. But Mrs. P. may, so I +wish I had let it stand. The meaning in English is: "Avoid to approach +an animal suspected of madness, as you would avoid fire or a +precipice,"--which I think is a sensible observation. The Germans are +certainly profounder than we. If the slightest suspicion arises in your +breast that all is not right with him, muzzle him and lead him in a +string (common packthread will do; he don't care for twist) to Mr. +Hood's, his quondam master, and he'll take him in at any time. You may +mention your suspicion, or not, as you like, or as you think it may +wound, or not, Mr. H.'s feelings. Hood, I know, will wink at a few +follies in Dash, in consideration of his former sense. Besides, Hood is +deaf, and if you hinted anything, ten to one he would not hear you. +Besides, you will have discharged your conscience, and laid the child at +the right door, as they say. + +We are dawdling our time away very idly and pleasantly at a Mrs. +Leishman's, Chase, Enfield, where, if you come a-hunting, we can give +you cold meat and a tankard. Her husband is a tailor; but that, you +know, does not make her one. I know a jailor (which rhymes), but his +wife was a fine lady. + +Let us hear from you respecting Mrs. P.'s regimen. I send my love in +a-- to Dash. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XCVIII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_October_ 11, 1828. + +A splendid edition of Bunyan's Pilgrim! [1] Why, the thought is enough to +turn one's moral stomach. His cockle-hat and staff transformed to a +smart cocked beaver and a jemmy cane; his amice gray to the last Regent +Street cut; and his painful palmer's pace to the modern swagger! Stop +thy friend's sacrilegious hand. Nothing can be done for B. but to +reprint the old cuts in as homely but good a style as possible,--the +Vanity Fair and the Pilgrims there; the silly-soothness in his +setting-out countenance; the Christian idiocy (in a good sense) of his +admiration of the shepherds on the Delectable mountains; the lions so +truly allegorical, and remote from any similitude to Pidcock's; the +great head (the author's), capacious of dreams and similitudes, dreaming +in the dungeon. Perhaps you don't know my edition, what I had when +a child. + +If you do, can you bear new designs from Martin, enamelled into copper +or silver plate by Heath, accompanied with verses from Mrs. Hemans's +pen? Oh, how unlike his own! + + "Wouldst thou divert thyself from melancholy? + Wouldst thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly? + Wouldst thou read riddles and their explanation? + Or else be drowned in thy contemplation? + Dost thou love picking meat? or wouldst thou see + A man i' the clouds, and hear him speak to thee? + Wouldst thou be in a dream, and yet not sleep? + Or wouldst thou in a moment laugh and weep? + Or wouldst thou lose thyself, and catch no harm, + And find thyself again without a charm? + Wouldst read _thyself_, and read thou knowest not what, + And yet know whether thou art blest or not + By reading the same lines? Oh, then come hither, + And lay my book, thy head, and heart together." + +Show me any such poetry in any one of the fifteen forthcoming +combinations of show and emptiness 'yclept "Annuals." So there's verses +for thy verses; and now let me tell you that the sight of your hand +gladdened me. I have been daily trying to write to you, but [have been] +paralyzed. You have spurred me on this tiny effort, and at intervals I +hope to hear from and talk to you. But my spirits have been in an +oppressed way for a long time, and they are things which must be to you +of faith, for who can explain depression? Yes, I am hooked into the +"Gem," but only for some lines written on a dead infant of the +editor's [2] which being, as it were, his property, I could not refuse +their appearing; but I hate the paper, the type, the gloss, the dandy +plates, the names of contributors poked up into your eyes in first page, +and whisked through all the covers of magazines, the barefaced sort of +emulation, the immodest candidateship. Brought into so little space,--in +those old "Londons," a signature was lost in the wood of matter, the +paper coarse (till latterly, which spoiled them),--in short, I detest to +appear in an Annual. What a fertile genius (and a quiet good soul +withal) is Hood! He has fifty things in hand,--farces to supply the +Adelphi for the season; a comedy for one of the great theatres, just +ready; a whole entertainment by himself for Mathews and Yates to figure +in; a meditated Comic Annual for next year, to be nearly done by +himself. You'd like him very much. + +Wordsworth, I see, has a good many pieces announced in one of 'em, not +our "Gem." W. Scott has distributed himself like a bribe haunch among +'em. Of all the poets, Cary [3] has had the good sense to keep quite +clear of 'em, with clergy-gentlemanly right notions. Don't think I set +up for being proud on this point; I like a bit of flattery, tickling my +vanity, as well as any one. But these pompous masquerades without masks +(naked names or faces) I hate. So there's a bit of my mind. Besides, +they infallibly cheat you,--I mean the booksellers. If I get but a copy, +I only expect it from Hood's being my friend. Coleridge has lately been +here. He too is deep among the prophets, the year-servers,--the mob of +gentleman annuals. But they'll cheat him, I know. And now, dear B. B., +the sun shining out merrily, and the dirty clouds we had yesterday +having washed their own faces clean with their own rain, tempts me to +wander up Winchmore Hill, or into some of the delightful vicinages of +Enfield, which I hope to show you at some time when you can get a few +days up to the great town. Believe me, it would give both of us great +pleasure to show you our pleasant farms and villages. + +We both join in kindest loves to you and yours. + +C. LAMB _redivivus_. + +[1] An _édition de luxe_, illustrated by John Martin, and with an +Introduction by Southey. See Macaulay's review of it. + +[2] Hood's. + +[3] The translator of Dante. + + + +XCIX. + + +TO PROCTER. + +_January_ 22, 1829. + +Don't trouble yourself about the verses. Take 'em coolly as they come. +Any day between this and midsummer will do. Ten lines the extreme. There +is no mystery in my incognita. She has often seen you, though you may +not have observed a silent brown girl, who for the last twelve years has +rambled about our house in her Christmas holidays. She is Italian by +name and extraction. [1] Ten lines about the blue sky of her country will +do, as it's her foible to be proud of it. Item, I have made her a +tolerable Latinist. She is called Emma Isola. I shall, I think, be in +town in a few weeks, when I will assuredly see you. I will put in here +loves to Mrs. Procter and the Anti-Capulets [Montagus], because Mary +tells me I omitted them in my last. I like to see my friends here. I +have put my lawsuit into the hands of an Enfield practitioner,--a plain +man, who seems perfectly to understand it, and gives me hopes of a +favorable result. + +Rumor tells us that Miss Holcroft is married. Who is Baddams? Have I +seen him at Montacute's? I hear he is a great chemist. I am sometimes +chemical myself. A thought strikes me with horror. Pray Heaven he may +not have done it for the sake of trying chemical experiments upon +her,--young female subjects are so scarce! An't you glad about Burke's +case? We may set off the Scotch murders against the Scotch novels,--Hare +the Great Unhanged. [2] + +Martin Burney is richly worth your knowing. He is on the top scale of my +friendship ladder, on which an angel or two is still climbing, and some, +alas! descending. I am out of the literary world at present. Pray, is +there anything new from the admired pen of the author of "The Pleasures +of Hope"? Has Mrs. He-mans (double masculine) done anything pretty +lately? Why sleeps the lyre of Hervey and of Alaric Watts? Is the muse +of L. E. L. silent? Did you see a sonnet of mine in Blackwood's last? [3] +Curious construction! _Elaborata facilitas!_ And now I 'll tell. 'Twas +written for "The Gem;" but the--editors declined it, on the plea that it +would _shock all mothers_; so they published "The Widow" instead. I am +born out of time, I have no conjecture about what the present world +calls delicacy. I thought "Rosamund Gray" was a pretty modest thing. +Hessey assures me that the world would not bear it. I have lived to grow +into an indecent character. When my sonnet was rejected, I exclaimed, +"Damn the age; I will write for Antiquity!" + +_Erratum_ in sonnet. Last line but something, for "tender" read "tend," +The Scotch do not know our law terms, but I find some remains of honest, +plain old writing lurking there still. They were not so mealy mouthed as +to refuse my verses. Maybe, 't is their oatmeal, + +Blackwood sent me £20 for the drama. Somebody cheated me out of it next +day; and my new pair of breeches, just sent home, cracking at first +putting on, I exclaimed, in my wrath, "All tailors are cheats, and all +men are tailors." Then I was better. + +C. L. + +[1] Emma Isola, Lamb's ward, daughter of one of the Esquire Bedells of +Cambridge University, and granddaughter of an Italian refugee. The Lambs +had met her during one of their Cambridge visits, and finally adopted +her. + +[2] Burke and Hare, the Edinburgh resurrection-men. + +[3] The Gypsy's Malison. + + + +C. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. +ENFIELD CHASE SIDE, + +_Saturday, 25th of July_, A.D. 1829, 11 A.M. + +There! a fuller, plumper, juicier date never dropped from Idumean palm. +Am I in the _date_ive case now? If not, a fig for dates,--which is more +than a date is worth. I never stood much affected to these limitary +specialities,--least of all, since the date of my superannuation. + +"What have I with time to do? +Slaves of desks, 't was meant for you." + +Dear B. B.,--Your handwriting has conveyed much pleasure to me in +respect of Lucy's restoration. Would I could send you as good news of +_my_ poor Lucy! [1] But some wearisome weeks I must remain lonely yet. I +have had the loneliest time, near ten weeks, broken by a short +apparition of Emma for her holidays, whose departure only deepened the +returning solitude, and by ten days I have passed in town. But town, +with all my native hankering after it, is not what it was. The streets, +the shops, are left, but all old friends are gone. And in London I was +frightfully convinced of this as I passed houses and places, empty +caskets now. I have ceased to care almost about anybody. The bodies I +cared for are in graves, or dispersed. My old clubs, that lived so long +and flourished so steadily, are crumbled away. When I took leave of our +adopted young friend at Charing Cross,'t was heavy unfeeling rain, and I +had nowhere to go. Home have I none, and not a sympathizing house to +turn to in the great city. Never did the waters of heaven pour down on a +forlorner head. Yet I tried ten days at a sort of a friend's house; but +it was large and straggling,--one of the individuals of my old long knot +of friends, card-players, pleasant companions, that have tumbled to +pieces, into dust and other things; and I got home on Thursday, +convinced that I was better to get home to my hole at Enfield, and hide +like a sick cat in my corner. Less than a month, I hope, will bring home +Mary. She is at Fulham, looking better in her health than ever, but +sadly rambling, and scarce showing any pleasure in seeing me, or +curiosity when I should come again. But the old feelings will come back +again, and we shall drown old sorrows over a game of piquet again. But +it is a tedious cut out of a life of fifty-four, to lose twelve or +thirteen weeks every year or two. And to make me more alone, our +ill-tempered maid is gone, who, with all her airs, was yet a home-piece +of furniture, a record of better days; the young thing that has +succeeded her is good and attentive, but she is nothing. And I have no +one here to talk over old matters with. Scolding and quarrelling have +something of familiarity and a community of interest; they imply +acquaintance; they are of resentment, which is of the family +of dearness. + + * * * * * + +I bragged formerly that I could not have too much time; I have now a +surfeit. With few years to come, the days are wearisome. But weariness +is not eternal. Something will shine out to take the load off that flags +me, which is at present intolerable. I have killed an hour or two in +this poor scrawl. I am a sanguinary murderer of time, and would kill him +inch-meal just now. But the snake is vital. Well, I shall write merrier +anon. 'T is the present copy of my countenance I send, and to complain +is a little to alleviate. May you enjoy yourself as far as the wicked +world will let you, and think that you are not quite alone, as I am! +Health to Lucia and to Anna, and kind remembrances. + +Your forlorn C. L. + +[1] Mary Lamb. + + + +CI. + + +TO MR. GILLMAN. + +_November_ 30, 1829. + +Dear G.,--The excursionists reached home and the good town of Enfield a +little after four, without slip or dislocation. Little has transpired +concerning the events of the back-journey, save that on passing the +house of 'Squire Mellish, situate a stone bow's cast from the hamlet, +Father Westwood [1], with a good-natured wonderment, exclaimed, "I cannot +think what is gone of Mr. Mellish's rooks. I fancy they have taken +flight somewhere; but I have missed them two or three years past." All +this while, according to his fellow-traveller's report, the rookery was +darkening the air above with undiminished population, and deafening all +ears but his with their cawings. But nature has been gently withdrawing +such phenomena from the notice of Thomas Westwood's senses, from the +time he began to miss the rooks. T. Westwood has passed a retired life +in this hamlet of thirty or forty years, living upon the minimum which +is consistent with gentility, yet a star among the minor gentry, +receiving the bows of the tradespeople and courtesies of the alms-women +daily. Children venerate him not less for his external show of gentry +than they wonder at him for a gentle rising endorsation of the person, +not amounting to a hump, or if a hump, innocuous as the hump of the +buffalo, and coronative of as mild qualities. 'T is a throne on which +patience seems to sit,--the proud perch of a self-respecting humility, +stooping with condescension. Thereupon the cares of life have sat, and +rid him easily. For he has thrid the _angustiæ domus_ with dexterity. +Life opened upon him with comparative brilliancy. He set out as a rider +or traveller for a wholesale house, in which capacity he tells of many +hair-breadth escapes that befell him,--one especially, how he rode a mad +horse into the town of Devizes; how horse and rider arrived in a foam, +to the utter consternation of the expostulating hostlers, inn-keepers, +etc. It seems it was sultry weather, piping-hot; the steed tormented +into frenzy with gad-flies, long past being roadworthy: but safety and +the interest of the house he rode for were incompatible things; a fall +in serge cloth was expected; and a mad entrance they made of it. Whether +the exploit was purely voluntary, or partially; or whether a certain +personal defiguration in the man part of this extraordinary centaur +(non-assistive to partition of natures) might not enforce the +conjunction, I stand not to inquire. I look not with 'skew eyes into the +deeds of heroes. The hosier that was burned with his shop in Field Lane, +on Tuesday night, shall have passed to heaven for me like a Marian +Martyr, provided always that he consecrated the fortuitous incremation +with a short ejaculation in the exit, as much as if he had taken his +state degrees of martyrdom _in formâ_ in the market vicinage. There is +adoptive as well as acquisitive sacrifice. Be the animus what it might, +the fact is indisputable, that this composition was seen flying all +abroad, and mine host of Daintry may yet remember its passing through +his town, if his scores are not more faithful than his memory. + + * * * * * + +To come from his heroic character, all the amiable qualities of domestic +life concentre in this tamed Bellerophon. He is excellent over a glass +of grog; just as pleasant without it; laughs when he hears a joke, and +when (which is much oftener) he hears it not; sings glorious old +sea-songs on festival nights; and but upon a slight acquaintance of two +years, Coleridge, is as dear a deaf old man to us as old Norris, rest +his soul! was after fifty. To him and his scanty literature (what there +is of it, _sound_) have we flown from the metropolis and its cursed +annualists, reviewers, authors, and the whole muddy ink press of that +stagnant pool. + +[1] Lamb's landlord. He had driven Mary Lamb over to see Coleridge at +Highgate. The Lambs had been compelled, by the frequent illnesses of +Mary Lamb, to give up their housekeeping at Enfield and to take lodgings +with the Westwoods. + + + +CII. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_January_ 22, 1830. + +And is it a year since we parted from you at the steps of Edmonton +stage? There are not now the years that there used to be. The tale of +the dwindled age of men, reported of successional mankind, is true of +the same man only. We do not live a year in a year now. 'T is a _punctum +stans_. The seasons pass us with indifference. Spring cheers not, nor +winter heightens our gloom: autumn hath foregone its moralities,--they +are "heypass repass," as in a show-box. Yet, as far as last year, occurs +back--for they scarce show a reflex now, they make no memory as +heretofore--'t was sufficiently gloomy. Let the sullen nothing pass. +Suffice it that after sad spirits, prolonged through many of its months, +as it called them, we have cast our skins, have taken a farewell of the +pompous, troublesome trifle called housekeeping, and are settled down +into poor boarders and lodgers at next door with an old couple, the +Baucis and Baucida of dull Enfield. Here we have nothing to do with our +victuals but to eat them, with the garden but to see it grow, with the +tax-gatherer but to hear him knock, with the maid but to hear her +scolded. Scot and lot, butcher, baker, are things unknown to us, save as +spectators of the pageant. We are fed we know not how,--quietists, +confiding ravens. We have the _otium pro dignitate_, a respectable +insignificance. Yet in the self condemned obliviousness, in the +stagnation, some molesting yearnings of life not quite killed rise, +prompting me that there was a London, and that I was of that old +Jerusalem. In dreams I am in Fleet Market; but I wake and cry to sleep +again. I die hard, a stubborn Eloisa in this detestable Paraclete. What +have I gained by health? Intolerable dulness. What by early hours and +moderate meals? A total blank. Oh, never let the lying poets be believed +who 'tice men from the cheerful haunts of streets, or think they mean it +not of a country village. In the ruins of Palmyra I could gird myself up +to solitude, or muse to the snorings of the Seven Sleepers; but to have +a little teasing image of a town about one, country folks that do not +look like country folks, shops two yards square, half-a-dozen apples and +two penn'orth of over-looked gingerbread for the lofty fruiterers of +Oxford Street, and for the immortal book and print stalls a circulating +library that stands still, where the show-picture is a last year's +Valentine, and whither the fame of the last ten Scotch novels has not +yet travelled (marry, they just begin to be conscious of the +"Redgauntlet"), to have a new plastered flat church, and to be wishing +that it was but a cathedral! The very blackguards here are degenerate, +the topping gentry stockbrokers; the passengers too many to insure your +quiet, or let you go about whistling or gaping,--too few to be the fine +indifferent pageants of Fleet Street. Confining, room-keeping, thickest +winter is yet more bearable here than the gaudy months. Among one's +books at one's fire by candle, one is soothed into an oblivion that one +is not in the country; but with the light the green fields return, till +I gaze, and in a calenture can plunge myself into St. Giles's. Oh, let +no native Londoner imagine that health and rest and innocent occupation, +interchange of converse sweet and recreative study, can make the country +anything better than altogether odious and detestable. A garden was the +primitive prison, till man with Promethean felicity and boldness luckily +sinned himself out of it. Thence followed Babylon, Nineveh, Venice, +London; haberdashers, goldsmiths, taverns, playhouses, satires, +epigrams, puns,--these all came in on the town part and the thither side +of innocence. Man found out inventions. From my den I return you +condolence for your decaying sight,--not for anything there is to see in +the country, but for the miss of the pleasure of reading a London +newspaper. The poets are as well to listen to; anything high may--nay, +must be read out; you read it to yourself with an imaginary auditor: but +the light paragraphs must be glid over by the proper eye; mouthing +mumbles their gossamery substance. 'Tis these trifles I should mourn in +fading sight. A newspaper is the single gleam of comfort I receive here; +it comes from rich Cathay with tidings of mankind. Yet I could not +attend to it, read out by the most beloved voice. But your eyes do not +get worse, I gather. Oh, for the collyrium of Tobias enclosed in a +whiting's liver, to send you, with no apocryphal good wishes! The last +long time I heard from you, you had knocked your head against something. +Do not do so; for your head (I do not flatter) is not a knob, or the top +of a brass nail, or the end of a ninepin,--unless a Vulcanian hammer +could fairly batter a "Recluse" out of it; then would I bid the smirched +god knock, and knock lustily, the two-handed skinker! Mary must squeeze +out a line _propriá manu_; but indeed her fingers have been incorrigibly +nervous to letter-writing for a long interval. 'T will please you all to +hear that, though I fret like a lion in a net, her present health and +spirits are better than they have been for some time past; she is +absolutely three years and a half younger, as I tell her, since we have +adopted this boarding plan. + +Our providers are an honest pair, Dame Westwood and her husband,--he, +when the light of prosperity shined on them, a moderately thriving +haberdasher within Bow bells, retired since with something under a +competence; writes himself parcel-gentleman; hath borne parish offices; +sings fine old sea-songs at threescore and ten; sighs only now and then +when he thinks that he has a son on his hands about fifteen, whom he +finds a difficulty in getting out into the world, and then checks a sigh +with muttering, as I once heard him prettily, not meaning to be heard, +"I have married my daughter, however;" takes the weather as it comes; +outsides it to town in severest season; and o' winter nights tells old +stories not tending to literature (how comfortable to author-rid +folks!), and has _one ancedote_, upon which and about forty pounds a +year he seems to have retired in green old age. It was how he was a +rider in his youth, travelling for shops, and once (not to balk his +employer's bargain) on a sweltering day in August, rode foaming into +Dunstable [1] upon a mad horse, to the dismay and expostulatory +wonderment of inn-keepers, ostlers, etc., who declared they would not +have bestrid the beast to win the Derby. Understand the creature galled +to death and desperation by gad-flies, cormorant-winged, worse than +beset Inachus's daughter. This he tells, this he brindles and burnishes, +on a winter's eve; 't is his star of set glory, his rejuvenescence to +descant upon, Far from me be it (_dá avertant!_) to look a gift-story in +the mouth, or cruelly to surmise (as those who doubt the plunge of +Curtius) that the inseparate conjuncture of man and beast, the +centaur-phenomenon that staggered all Dunstable, might have been the +effect of unromantic necessity; that the horse-part carried the +reasoning willy-nilly; that needs must when such a devil drove; that +certain spiral configurations in the frame of Thomas Westwood, +unfriendly to alighting, made the alliance more forcible than voluntary. +Let him enjoy his fame for me, nor let me hint a whisper that shall +dismount Bellerophon. But in case he was an involuntary martyr, yet if +in the fiery conflict he buckled the soul of a constant haberdasher to +him, and adopted his flames, let accident and him share the glory. You +would all like Thomas Westwood. [2] + +How weak is painting to describe a man! Say that he stands four +feet and a nail high by his own yard-measure, which, like the sceptre of +Agamemnon, shall never sprout again, still, you have no adequate idea; +nor when I tell you that his dear hump, which I have favored in the +picture, seems to me of the buffalo,--indicative and repository of mild +qualities, a budget of kindnesses,--still, you have not the man. Knew +you old Norris of the Temple, sixty years ours and our father's friend? +He was not more natural to us than this old Westwood, the acquaintance +of scarce more weeks. Under his roof now ought I to take my rest, but +that back-looking ambition tells me I might yet be a Londoner! Well, if +we ever do move, we have encumbrances the less to impede us; all our +furniture has faded under the auctioneer's hammer, going for nothing, +like the tarnished frippery of the prodigal, and we have only a spoon or +two left to bless us. Clothed we came into Enfield, and naked we must go +out of it. I would live in London shirtless, bookless. Henry Crabb is at +Rome; advices to that effect have reached Bury. But by solemn legacy he +bequeathed at parting (whether he should live or die) a turkey of +Suffolk to be sent every succeeding Christmas to us and divers other +friends. What a genuine old bachelor's action! I fear he will find the +air of Italy too classic. His station is in the Hartz forest; his soul +is be-Goethed. Miss Kelly we never see,--Talfourd not this half year; +the latter flourishes, but the exact number of his children, God forgive +me, I have utterly forgotten: we single people are often out in our +count there. Shall I say two? We see scarce anybody. Can I cram loves +enough to you all in this little O? Excuse particularizing. + +C.L. + +[1] See preceding letter. + +[2] Here was inserted a sketch answering to the description. + + + +CIII. + + +TO MRS. HAZLITT. + +_May_ 24, 1830. + +Mary's love? Yes. Mary Lamb quite well. + +Dear Sarah,--I found my way to Northaw on Thursday and a very good woman +behind a counter, who says also that you are a very good lady, but that +the woman who was with you was naught. We travelled with one of those +troublesome fellow-passengers in a stage-coach that is called a +well-informed man. For twenty miles we discoursed about the properties +of steam, probabilities of carriages by ditto, till all my science, and +more than all, was exhausted, and I was thinking of escaping my torment +by getting up on the outside, when, getting into Bishops Stortford, my +gentleman, spying some farming land, put an unlucky question to +me,--What sort of a crop of turnips I thought we should have this year? +Emma's eyes turned to me to know what in the world I could have to say; +and she burst into a violent fit of laughter, maugre her pale, serious +cheeks, when, with the greatest gravity, I replied that it depended, I +believed, upon boiled legs of mutton. This clenched our conversation; +and my gentleman, with a face half wise, half in scorn, troubled us with +no more conversation, scientific or philosophical, for the remainder of +the journey. + +Ayrton was here yesterday, and as _learned_ to the full as my +fellow-traveller. What a pity that he will spoil a wit and a devilish +pleasant fellow (as he is) by wisdom! He talked on Music; and by having +read Hawkins and Burney recently I was enabled to talk of names, and +show more knowledge than he had suspected I possessed; and in the end he +begged me to shape my thoughts upon paper, which I did after he was +gone, and sent him "Free Thoughts on Some Eminent Composers." + + "Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart, + Just as the whim bites. For my part, + I do not care a farthing candle + For either of them, or for Handel," etc. + +Martin Burney [1] is as odd as ever. We had a dispute about the word +"heir," which I contended was pronounced like "air." He said that might +be in common parlance, or that we might so use it speaking of the +"Heir-at-Law," a comedy; but that in the law-courts it was necessary to +give it a full aspiration, and to say _Hayer_; he thought it might even +vitiate a cause if a counsel pronounced it otherwise. In conclusion, he +"would consult Serjeant Wilde," who gave it against him. Sometimes he +falleth into the water, sometimes into the fire. He came down here, and +insisted on reading Virgil's "Æneid" all through with me (which he did), +because a counsel must know Latin. Another time he read out all the +Gospel of St. John, because Biblical quotations are very emphatic in a +court of justice. A third time he would carve a fowl, which he did very +ill favoredly, because we did not know how indispensable it was for a +barrister to do all those sort of things well. Those little things were +of more consequence than we supposed. So he goes on, harassing about the +way to prosperity, and losing it. With a long head, but somewhat a wrong +one,--harum-scarum. Why does not his guardian angel look to him? He +deserves one,--maybe he has tired him out. + +I am tired with this long scrawl; but I thought in your exile you might +like a letter. Commend me to all the wonders in Derbyshire, and tell the +devil I humbly kiss my hand to him. + +Yours ever, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Martin Burney, originally a solicitor, had lately been called to the +Bar. + + + +CIV. + + +TO GEORGE DYER. + +_December_ 20, 1830. + +Dear Dyer,--I would have written before to thank you for your kind +letter, written with your own hand. It glads us to see your writing. It +will give you pleasure to hear that, after so much illness, we are in +tolerable health and spirits once more. Miss Isola intended to call upon +you after her night's lodging at Miss Buffam's, but found she was too +late for the stage. If she comes to town before she goes home, she will +not miss paying her respects to Mrs. Dyer and you, to whom she desires +best love. Poor Enfield, that has been so peaceable hitherto, that has +caught an inflammatory fever, the tokens are upon her; and a great fire +was blazing last night in the barns and haystacks of a fanner about half +a mile from us. Where will these things end? There is no doubt of its +being the work of some ill-disposed rustic; but how is he to be +discovered? They go to work in the dark with strange chemical +preparations unknown to our forefathers. There is not even a dark +lantern to have a chance of detecting these Guy Fauxes. We are past the +iron age, and are got into the fiery age, undream'd of by Ovid. You are +lucky in Clifford's Inn, where, I think, you have few ricks or stacks +worth the burning. Pray keep as little corn by you as you can, for fear +of the worst. + +It was never good times in England since the poor began to speculate +upon their condition. Formerly they jogged on with as little reflection +as horses; the whistling ploughman went cheek by jowl with his brother +that neighed. Now the biped carries a box of phosphorus in his leather +breeches; and in the dead of night the half-illuminated beast steals his +magic potion into a cleft in a barn, and half the country is grinning +with new fires. Farmer Graystock said something to the touchy rustic +that he did not relish, and he writes his distaste in flames. What a +power to intoxicate his crude brains, just muddlingly awake, to perceive +that something is wrong in the social system; what a hellish faculty +above gunpowder! + +Now the rich and poor are fairly pitted, we shall see who can hang or +burn fastest. It is not always revenge that stimulates these kindlings. +There is a love of exerting mischief. Think of a disrespected clod that +was trod into earth, that was nothing, on a sudden by damned arts +refined into an exterminating angel, devouring the fruits of the earth +and their growers in a mass of fire! What a new existence; what a +temptation above Lucifer's! Would clod be anything but a clod if he +could resist it? Why, here was a spectacle last night for a whole +country,--a bonfire visible to London, alarming her guilty towers, and +shaking the Monument with an ague fit: all done by a little vial of +phosphor in a clown's fob! How he must grin, and shake his empty noddle +in clouds, the Vulcanian epicure! Can we ring the bells backward? Can we +unlearn the arts that pretend to civilize, and then burn the world? +There is a march of Science; but who shall beat the drums for its +retreat? Who shall persuade the boor that phosphor will not ignite? + +Seven goodly stacks of hay, with corn-barns proportionable, lie smoking +ashes and chaff, which man and beast would sputter out and reject like +those apples of asphaltes and bitumen. The food for the inhabitants of +earth will quickly disappear. Hot rolls may say, "Fuimus panes, fuit +quartem-loaf, et ingens gloria Apple-pasty-orum." That the good old +munching system may last thy time and mine, good un-incendiary George, +is the devout prayer of thine, to the last crust, + +CH. LAMB. + + + +CV. + + +TO DYER. + +_February_ 22, 1831. + +Dear Dyer,--Mr. Rogers and Mr. Rogers's friends are perfectly assured +that you never intended any harm by an innocent couplet, and that in the +revivification of it by blundering Barker you had no hand whatever. To +imagine that, at this time of day, Rogers broods over a fantastic +expression of more than thirty years' standing, would be to suppose him +indulging his "Pleasures of Memory" with a vengeance. You never penned a +line which for its own sake you need, dying, wish to blot. You mistake +your heart if you think you _can_ write a lampoon. Your whips are rods +of roses. [1] Your spleen has ever had for its objects vices, not the +vicious,--abstract offences, not the concrete sinner. But you are +sensitive, and wince as much at the consciousness of having committed a +compliment as another man would at the perpetration of an affront. But +do not lug me into the same soreness of conscience with yourself. I +maintain, and will to the last hour, that I never writ of you but _con +amore_; that if any allusion was made to your near-sightedness, it was +not for the purpose of mocking an infirmity, but of connecting it with +scholar-like habits,--for is it not erudite and scholarly to be somewhat +near of sight before age naturally brings on the malady? You could not +then plead the _obrepens senectus_. Did I not, moreover, make it an +apology for a certain _absence_, which some of your friends may have +experienced, when you have not on a sudden made recognition of them in a +casual street-meeting; and did I not strengthen your excuse for this +slowness of recognition by further accounting morally for the present +engagement of your mind in worthy objects? Did I not, in your person, +make the handsomest apology for absent-of-mind people that was ever +made? If these things be not so, I never knew what I wrote or meant by +my writing, and have been penning libels all my life without being aware +of it. Does it follow that I should have expressed myself exactly in the +same way of those dear old eyes of yours _now_,--now that Father Time +has conspired with a hard taskmaster to put a last extinguisher upon +them? I should as soon have insulted the Answerer of Salmasius when he +awoke up from his ended task, and saw no more with mortal vision. But +you are many films removed yet from Milton's calamity. You write +perfectly intelligibly. Marry, the letters are not all of the same size +or tallness; but that only shows your proficiency in the _hands_--text, +german-hand, court-hand, sometimes law-hand, and affords variety. You +pen better than you did a twelvemonth ago; and if you continue to +improve, you bid fair to win the golden pen which is the prize at your +young gentlemen's academy. + + * * * * * + +But don't go and lay this to your eyes. You always wrote +hieroglyphically, yet not to come up to the mystical notations and +conjuring characters of Dr. Parr. You never wrote what I call a +schoolmaster's hand, like Mrs. Clarke; nor a woman's hand, like Southey; +nor a missal hand, like Porson; nor an all-on-the-wrong-side sloping +hand, like Miss Hayes; nor a dogmatic, Mede-and-Persian, peremptory tory +hand, like Rickman: but you wrote what I call a Grecian's hand,--what +the Grecians write (or wrote) at Christ's Hospital; such as Whalley +would have admired, and Boyer [2] have applauded, but Smith or Atwood +[writing-masters] would have horsed you for. Your boy-of-genius hand and +your mercantile hand are various. By your flourishes, I should think you +never learned to make eagles or cork-screws, or flourish the governor's +names in the writing-school; and by the tenor and cut of your letters, I +suspect you were never in it at all. By the length of this scrawl you +will think I have a design upon your optics; but I have writ as large as +I could, out of respect to them,--too large, indeed, for beauty. Mine is +a sort of Deputy-Grecian's hand,--a little better, and more of a worldly +hand, than a Grecian's, but still remote from the mercantile. I don't +know how it is, but I keep my rank in fancy still since school-days; I +can never forget I was a Deputy-Grecian. And writing to you, or to +Coleridge, besides affection, I feel a reverential deference as to +Grecians still [3]. I keep my soaring way above the Great Erasmians, yet +far beneath the other. Alas! what am I now? What is a Leadenhall clerk +or India pensioner to a Deputy-Grecian? How art thou fallen, O Lucifer! +Just room for our loves to Mrs. D., etc. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Talfourd relates an amusing instance of the universal charity of the +kindly Dyer. Lamb once suddenly asked him what he thought of the +murderer Williams,--a wretch who had destroyed two families in Ratcliff +Highway, and then cheated the gallows by committing suicide. "The +desperate attempt," says Talfourd, "to compel the gentle optimist to +speak ill of a mortal creature produced no happier success than the +answer, 'Why, I should think, Mr. Lamb, he must have been rather an +eccentric character.'" + +[2] Whalley and Boyer were masters at Christ's Hospital. + +[3] "Deputy-Grecian," "Grecian," etc., were of course forms, or grades, +at Christ's Hospital. + + + +CVI. + + +TO MR. MOXON [1]. + +_February_, 1832. + +Dear Moxon,--The snows are ankle-deep, slush, and mire, that 't is hard +to get to the post-office, and cruel to send the maid out. 'Tis a slough +of despair, or I should sooner have thanked you for your offer of the +"Life," which we shall very much like to have, and will return duly. I +do not know when I shall be in town, but in a week or two at farthest, +when I will come as far as you, if I can. We are moped to death with +confinement within doors, I send you a curiosity of G. Dyer's tender +conscience. Between thirty and forty years since, George published the +"Poet's Fate," in which were two very harmless lines about Mr. Rogers; +but Mr. R. not quite approving of them, they were left out in a +subsequent edition, 1801. But George has been worrying about them ever +since; if I have heard him once, I have heard him a hundred times +express a remorse proportioned to a consciousness of having been guilty +of an atrocious libel. As the devil would have it, a fool they call +Barker, in his "Parriana" has quoted the identical two lines as they +stood in some obscure edition anterior to 1801, and the withers of poor +George are again wrung, His letter is a gem: with his poor blind eyes it +has been labored out at six sittings. The history of the couplet is in +page 3 of this irregular production, in which every variety of shape and +size that letters can be twisted into is to be found. Do show _his_ part +of it to Mr. Rogers some day. If he has bowels, they must melt at the +contrition so queerly charactered of a contrite sinner. G. was born, I +verily think, without original sin, but chooses to have a conscience, as +every Christian gentleman should have; his dear old face is +insusceptible of the twist they call a sneer, yet he is apprehensive of +being suspected of that ugly appearance. When he makes a compliment, he +thinks he has given an affront,--a name is personality. But show (no +hurry) this unique recantation to Mr. Rogers: 't is like a dirty +pocket-handerchief mucked with tears of some indigent Magdalen. There is +the impress of sincerity in every pot-hook and hanger; and then the gilt +frame to such a pauper picture! It should go into the Museum. + +[1] Lamb's future publisher. He afterwards became the husband +of Lamb's _protégée_, Emma Isola. + + + +CVII. + + +TO MR. MOXON. + +_July_ 24, 1833. + +For God's sake give Emma no more watches; _one_ has turned her head. She +is arrogant and insulting. She said something very unpleasant to our old +clock in the passage, as if he did not keep time; and yet he had made +her no appointment. She takes it out every instant to look at the +moment-hand. She lugs us out into the fields, because there the +bird-boys ask you, "Pray, sir, can you tell us what's o'clock?" and she +answers them punctually. She loses all her time looking to see "what the +time is." I overheard her whispering, "Just so many hours, minutes, +etc., to Tuesday; I think St. George's goes too slow." This little +present of Time,--why, 't is Eternity to her! + +What can make her so fond of a gingerbread watch? + +She has spoiled some of the movements. Between ourselves, she has kissed +away "half-past twelve," which I suppose to be the canonical hour in +Hanover Square. + +Well, if "love me, love my watch," answers, she will keep time to you. + +It goes right by the Horse-Guards. + +Dearest M.,--Never mind opposite nonsense. She does not love you for the +watch, but the watch for you. I will be at the wedding, and keep the +30th July, as long as my poor months last me, as a festival gloriously. + +Yours ever, + +ELIA. + + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Best Letters of Charles Lamb +Edited by Edward Gilpin Johnson + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10125 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d03ed7 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10125 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10125) diff --git a/old/10125-8.txt b/old/10125-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe10cd1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10125-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9762 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Best Letters of Charles Lamb +Edited by Edward Gilpin Johnson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Best Letters of Charles Lamb + +Author: Charles Lamb + +Editor: Edward Gilpin Johnson + +Release Date: November 18, 2003 [EBook #10125] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEST LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Sjaani, Tom Allen and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +LAUREL-CROWNED LETTERS + +CHARLES LAMB + +It may well be that the "Essays of Elia" will be found to have kept +their perfume, and the LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB to retain their old +sweet savor, when "Sartor Resartus" has about as many readers as +Bulwer's "Artificial Changeling," and nine tenths even of "Don Juan" +lie darkening under the same deep dust that covers the rarely troubled +pages of the "Secchia Rapita." + +A.C. SWINBURNE + +No assemblage of letters, parallel or kindred to that in the hands +of the reader, if we consider its width of range, the fruitful period +over which it stretches, and its typical character, has ever been +produced. + +W.C. HAZLITT ON LAMB'S LETTERS. + +THE BEST LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB + +Edited with an Introduction + +BY EDWARD GILPIN JOHNSON + +A.D. 1892. + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + +LETTER + I. To Samuel Taylor Coleridge + II. To Coleridge + III. To Coleridge + IV. To Coleridge + V. To Coleridge + VI. To Coleridge + VII. To Coleridge + VIII. To Coleridge + IX. To Coleridge + X. To Coleridge + XI. To Coleridge + XII. To Coleridge + XIII. To Coleridge + XIV. To Coleridge + XV. To Robert Southey + XVI. To Southey + XVII. To Southey + XVIII. To Southey + XIX. To Thomas Manning + XX. To Coleridge + XXI. To Manning + XXII. To Coleridge + XXIII. To Manning + XXIV. To Manning + XXV. To Coleridge + XXVI. To Manning + XXVII. To Coleridge + XXVIII. To Coleridge + XXIX. To Manning + XXX. To Manning + XXXI. To Manning + XXXII. To Manning + XXXIII. To Coleridge + XXXIV. To Wordsworth + XXXV. To Wordsworth + XXXVI. To Manning + XXXVII. To Manning + XXXVIII. To Manning + XXXIX. To Coleridge + XL. To Manning + XLI. To Manning + XLII. To Manning + XLIII. To William Godwin + XLIV. To Manning + XLV. To Miss Wordsworth + XLVI. To Manning + XLVII. To Wordsworth + XLVIII. To Manning + XLIX. To Wordsworth + L. To Manning + LI. To Miss Wordsworth + LII. To Wordsworth + LIII. To Wordsworth + LIV. To Wordsworth + LV. To Wordsworth + LVI. To Southey + LVII. To Miss Hutchinson + LVIII. To Manning + LIX. To Manning + LX. To Wordsworth + LXI. To Wordsworth + LXII. To H. Dodwell + LXIII. To Mrs. Wordsworth + LXIV. To Wordsworth + LXV. To Manning + LXVI. To Miss Wordsworth + LXVII. To Coleridge + LXVIII. To Wordsworth + LXIX. To John Clarke + LXX. To Mr. Barren Field + LXXI. To Walter Wilson + LXXII. To Bernard Barton + LXXIII. To Miss Wordsworth + LXXIV. To Mr. and Mrs. Bruton + LXXV. To Bernard Barton + LXXVI. To Miss Hutchinson + LXXVII. To Bernard Barton + LXXVIII. To Mrs. Hazlitt + LXXIX. To Bernard Barton + LXXX. To Bernard Barton + LXXXI. To Bernard Barton + LXXXII. To Bernard Barton + LXXXIII. To Bernard Barton + LXXXIV. To Bernard Barton + LXXXV. To Bernard Barton + LXXXVI. To Wordsworth + LXXXVII. To Bernard Barton + LXXXVIII. To Bernard Barton + LXXXIX. To Bernard Barton + XC. To Southey + XCI. To Bernard Barton + XCII. To J.B. Dibdin + XCIII. To Henry Crabb Robinson + XCIV. To Peter George Patmore + XCV. To Bernard Barton + XCVI. To Thomas Hood + XCVII. To P.G. Patmore + XCVIII. To Bernard Barton + XCIX. To Procter + C. To Bernard Barton + CI. To Mr. Gilman + CII. To Wordsworth + CIII. To Mrs. Hazlitt + CIV. To George Dyer + CV. To Dyer + CVI. To Mr. Moxon + CVII. To Mr. Moxon + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +No writer, perhaps, since the days of Dr. Johnson has been oftener +brought before us in biographies, essays, letters, etc., than Charles +Lamb. His stammering speech, his gaiter-clad legs,--"almost immaterial +legs," Hood called them,--his frail wisp of a body, topped by a head +"worthy of Aristotle," his love of punning, of the Indian weed, and, +alas! of the kindly production of the juniper-berry (he was not, he +owned, "constellated under Aquarius"), his antiquarianism of taste, and +relish of the crotchets and whimsies of authorship, are as familiar to +us almost as they were to the group he gathered round him Wednesdays at +No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, where "a clear fire, a clean hearth, and the +rigor of the game" awaited them. Talfourd has unctuously celebrated +Lamb's "Wednesday Nights." He has kindly left ajar a door through which +posterity peeps in upon the company,--Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, "Barry +Cornwall," Godwin, Martin Burney, Crabb Robinson (a ubiquitous shade, +dimly suggestive of that figment, "Mrs. Harris"), Charles Kemble, Fanny +Kelly ("Barbara S."), on red-letter occasions Coleridge and +Wordsworth,--and sees them discharging the severer offices of the +whist-table ("cards were cards" then), and, later, unbending their minds +over poetry, criticism, and metaphysics. Elia was no Barmecide host, and +the serjeant dwells not without regret upon the solider business of the +evening,--"the cold roast lamb or boiled beef, the heaps of smoking +roasted potatoes, and the vast jug of porter, often replenished from the +foaming pots which the best tap of Fleet Street supplied," hospitably +presided over by "the most quiet, sensible, and kind of women," +Mary Lamb. + +The _terati_ Talfourd's day were clearly hardier of digestion than +their descendants are. Roast lamb, boiled beef, "heaps of smoking +roasted potatoes," pots of porter,--a noontide meal for a hodman,--and +the hour midnight! One is reminded, _à propos_ of Miss Lamb's robust +viands, that Elia somewhere confesses to "an occasional nightmare;" "but +I do not," he adds, "keep a whole stud of them." To go deeper into this +matter, to speculate upon the possible germs, the first vague +intimations to the mind of Coleridge of the weird spectra of "The +Ancient Mariner," the phantasmagoria of "Kubla Khan," would be, perhaps, +over-refining. "Barry Cornwall," too, Lamb tells us, "had his tritons +and his nereids gambolling before him in nocturnal visions." No wonder! + +It is not intended here to re-thresh the straw left by Talfourd, +Fitzgerald, Canon Ainger, and others, in the hope of discovering +something new about Charles Lamb. In this quarter, at least, the wind +shall be tempered to the reader,--shorn as he is by these pages of a +charming letter or two. So far as fresh facts are concerned, the theme +may fairly be considered exhausted. Numberless writers, too, have rung +the changes upon "poor Charles Lamb," "dear Charles Lamb," "gentle +Charles Lamb," and the rest,--the final epithet, by the way being one +that Elia, living, specially resented: + +"For God's sake," he wrote to Coleridge. "don't make me ridiculous any +more by terming me gentle-hearted in print, or do it in better verses. +It did well enough five years ago, when I came to see you, and was moral +coxcomb enough at the time you wrote the lines to feed upon such +epithets; but besides that the meaning of 'gentle' is equivocal at best, +and almost always means poor-spirited, the very quality of gentleness is +abhorrent to such vile trumpetings. My sentiment is long since vanished. +I hope my _virtues_ have done _sucking_. I can scarce think but you +meant it in joke. I hope you did, for I should be ashamed to believe +that you could think to gratify me by such praise, fit only to be a +cordial to some green-sick sonneteer." + +The indulgent pity conventionally bestowed upon Charles Lamb--one of the +most manly, self-reliant of characters, to say nothing of his genius--is +absurdly' misplaced. + +Still farther be it from us to blunt the edge of appetite by sapiently +essaying to "analyze" and account for Lamb's special zest and flavor, as +though his writings, or any others worth the reading, were put together +upon principles of clockwork. We are perhaps over-fond of these arid +pastimes nowadays. It is not the "sweet musk-roses," the "apricocks and +dewberries" of literature that please us best; like Bottom the Weaver, +we prefer the "bottle of hay." What a mockery of right enjoyment our +endless prying and sifting, our hunting of riddles in metaphors, +innuendoes in tropes, ciphers in Shakspeare! Literature exhausted, we +may turn to art, and resolve, say, the Sistine Madonna (I deprecate the +Manes of the "Divine Painter") into some ingenious and recondite rebus. +For such critical chopped-hay--sweeter to the modern taste than honey of +Hybla--Charles Lamb had little relish. "I am, sir," he once boasted to +an analytical, unimaginative proser who had insisted upon _explaining_ +some quaint passage in Marvell or Wither, "I am, sir, a matter-of-lie +man." It was his best warrant to sit at the Muses' banquet. Charles Lamb +was blessed with an intellectual palate as fine as Keats's, and could +enjoy the savor of a book (or of that dainty, "in the whole _mundus +edibilis_ the most delicate," Roast Pig, for that matter) without +pragmatically asking, as the king did of the apple in the dumpling, "how +the devil it got there." His value as a critic is grounded in this +capacity of _naïve_ enjoyment (not of pig, but of literature), of +discerning beauty and making _us_ discern it,--thus adding to the known +treasures and pleasures of mankind. + +Suggestions not unprofitable for these later days lurk in these traits +of Elia the student and critic. How worthy the imitation, for instance, +of those disciples who band together to treat a fine poem (of Browning, +say, or Shelley) as they might a chapter in the Revelation,--speculating +sagely upon the import of the seven seals and the horns of the great +beast, instead of enjoying the obvious beauties of their author. To the +schoolmaster--whose motto would seem too often to be the counsel of the +irate old lady in Dickens, "Give him a meal of chaff!"--Charles Lamb's +critical methods are rich in suggestion. How many ingenuous boys, lads +in the very flush and hey-day of appreciativeness of the epic virtues, +have been parsed, declined, and conjugated into an utter detestation of +the melodious names of Homer and Virgil! Better far for such victims had +they, instead of aspiring to the vanities of a "classical education," +sat, like Keats, unlearnedly at the feet of quaint Chapman, or Dryden, +or even of Mr. Pope. + +Perhaps, by way of preparative to the reading of Charles Lamb's letters, +it will be well to run over once more the leading facts of his life. +First let us glance at his outward appearance. Fortunately there are a +number of capital pieces of verbal portraiture of Elia. + +Referring to the year 1817, "Barry Cornwall" wrote: + + "Persons who had been in the habit of traversing Covent + Garden at that time of night, by extending their walk a few + yards into Russell Street have noticed a small, spare man + clothed in black, who went out every morning, and returned + every afternoon as the hands of the clock moved toward + certain hours. You could not mistake him. He was somewhat + stiff in his manner, and almost clerical in dress, which + indicated much wear. He had a long, melancholy face, with + keen, penetrating eyes; and he walked with a short, resolute + step citywards. He looked no one in the face for more than + a moment, yet contrived to see everything as he went on. + No one who ever studied the human features could pass him + by without recollecting his countenance; it was full of + sensibility, and it came upon you like new thought, which you + could not help dwelling upon afterwards: it gave rise to + meditation, and did you good. This small, half-clerical man + was--Charles Lamb." + +His countenance is thus described by Thomas Hood: + + "His was no common face, none of those willow-pattern + ones which Nature turns out by thousands at her potteries, + but more like a chance specimen of the Chinese ware,--one + to the set; unique, antique, quaint, you might have sworn to + it piecemeal,--a separate affidavit to each feature." + +Mrs. Charles Mathews, wife of the comedian, who met Lamb at a dinner, +gives an amusing account of him:-- + + "Mr. Lamb's first appearance was not prepossessing. His + figure was small and mean, and no man was certainly ever + less beholden to his tailor. His 'bran' new suit of black + cloth (in which he affected several times during the day to + take great pride, and to cherish as a novelty that he had + looked for and wanted) was drolly contrasted with his very + rusty silk stockings, shown from his knees, and his much too + large, thick shoes, without polish. His shirt rejoiced in a wide, + ill-plaited frill, and his very small, tight, white neckcloth was + hemmed to a fine point at the ends that formed part of a little + bow. His hair was black and sleek, but not formal, and + his face the gravest I ever saw, but indicating great intellect, + and resembling very much the portraits of Charles I." + +From this sprightly and not too flattering sketch we may turn to +Serjeant Talfourd's tender and charming portrait,--slightly idealized, +no doubt; for the man of the coif held a brief for his friend, and was a +poet besides:-- + + "Methinks I see him before me now as he appeared then, + and as he continued without any perceptible alteration to me, + during the twenty years of intimacy which followed, and were + closed by his death. A light frame, so fragile that it seemed + as if a breath would overthrow it, clad in clerk-like black, + was surmounted by a head of form and expression the most + noble and sweet. His black hair curled crisply about an + expanded forehead; his eyes, softly brown, twinkled with + varying expression, though the prevalent expression was + sad; and the nose, slightly curved, and delicately carved at + the nostril, with the lower outline of the face delicately oval, + completed a head which was finely placed upon the shoulders, + and gave importance and even dignity to a diminutive and + shadowy stem. Who shall describe his countenance, catch its + quivering sweetness, and fix it forever in words? There are + none, alas! to answer the vain desire of friendship. Deep + thought, striving with humor; the lines of suffering wreathed + into cordial mirth, and a smile of painful sweetness, present + an image to the mind it can as little describe as lose. His + personal appearance and manner are not unjustly characterized + by what he himself says in one of his letters to Manning, [1] + 'a compound of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel.'" + +The writings of Charles Lamb abound in passages of autobiography. "I was +born," he tells us in that delightful sketch, "The Old Benchers of the +Inner Temple," "and passed the first seven years of my life in the +Temple. Its church, its halls, its gardens, its fountain, its river, I +had almost said,--for in those young years what was this king of rivers +to me but a stream that watered our pleasant places?--these are of my +oldest recollections." His father, John Lamb, the "Lovel" of the essay +cited, had come up a little boy from Lincolnshire to enter the service +of Samuel Salt,--one of those "Old Benchers" upon whom the pen of Elia +has shed immortality, a stanch friend and patron to the Lambs, the kind +proprietor of that "spacious closet of good old English reading" upon +whose "fair and wholesome pasturage" Charles and his sister, as +children, "browsed at will." + +John Lamb had married Elizabeth Field, whose mother was for fifty years +housekeeper at the country-seat of the Plumers, Blakesware, in +Hertfordshire, the "Blakesmoor" of the Essays, frequent scene of Lamb's +childish holiday sports,--a spacious mansion, with its park and terraces +and "firry wilderness, the haunt of the squirrel and day-long murmuring +wood-pigeon;" an Eden it must have seemed to the London-bred child, in +whose fancy the dusty trees and sparrows and smoke-grimed fountain of +Temple Court had been a pastoral. Within the cincture of its excluding +garden-walls, wrote Elia in later years, "I could have exclaimed with +that garden-loving poet, [2]-- + + "'Bind me, ye woodbines, in your twines; + Curl me about, ye gadding vines; + And oh, so close your circles lace + That I may never leave this place: + But lest your fetters prove too weak, + Ere I your silken bondage break, + Do you, O brambles, chain me too, + And, courteous briers, nail me through.'" + +At Blakesware, too, was the room whence the spirit of Sarah Battle--that +"gentlewoman born"--winged its flight to a region where revokes and +"luke-warm gamesters" are unknown. + +To John and Elizabeth Lamb were born seven children, only three of whom, +John, Mary, and Charles, survived their infancy. Of the survivors, +Charles was the youngest, John being twelve and Mary ten years his +senior,--a fact to be weighed in estimating the heroism of Lamb's later +life. At the age of seven, Charles Lamb, "son of John Lamb, scrivener, +and Elizabeth, his wife," was entered at the school of Christ's +Hospital,--"the antique foundation of that godly and royal child King +Edward VI." Of his life at this institution he has left us abundant and +charming memorials in the Essays, "Recollections of Christ's Hospital," +and "Christ's Hospital Five-and-thirty Years Ago,"--the latter sketch +corrective of the rather optimistic impressions of the former. + +With his schoolfellows Charles seems to have been, despite his timid and +retiring disposition (he said of himself, "while the others were all +fire and play, he stole along with all the self-concentration of a young +monk"), a decided favorite. "Lamb," wrote C. V. Le Grice, a schoolmate +often mentioned in essay and letter, "was an amiable, gentle boy, very +sensible and keenly observing, indulged by his schoolfellows and by his +master on account of his infirmity of speech.... I never heard his name +mentioned without the addition of Charles, although, as there was no +other boy of the name of Lamb, the addition was unnecessary; but there +was an implied kindness in it, and it was a proof that his gentle +manners excited that kindness." + +For us the most important fact of the Christ's Hospital school-days is +the commencement of Lamb's life-long friendship with Samuel Taylor +Coleridge, two years his senior, and the object of his fervent +hero-worship. Most of us, perhaps, can find the true source of whatever +of notable good or evil we have effected in life in the moulding +influence of one of these early friendships or admirations. It is the +boy's hero, the one he loves and reverences among his schoolfellows,-- +not his taskmaster,--that is his true teacher, the setter of the +broader standards by which he is to abide through life. Happy the man +the feet of whose early idols have not been of clay. + +It was under the quickening influence of the eloquent, precocious genius +of the "inspired charity boy" that Charles Lamb's ideals and ambitions +shaped themselves out of the haze of a child's conceptions. Coleridge at +sixteen was already a poet, his ear attuned to the subtlest melody of +verse, and his hand rivalling, in preluding fragments, the efforts of +his maturer years; he was already a philosopher, rapt in Utopian, +schemes and mantling hopes as enchanting--and as chimerical--as the +pleasure-domes and caves of ice decreed by Kubla Khan; and the younger +lad became his ardent disciple. + +Lamb quitted Christ's Hospital, prematurely, in November, 1787, and the +companionship of the two friends was for a time interrupted. To part +with Coleridge, to exchange the ease and congenial scholastic atmosphere +of the Hospital for the _res angusta domi_, for the intellectual +starvation of a life of counting-house drudgery, must have been a bitter +trial for him. But the shadow of poverty was upon the little household +in the Temple; on the horizon of the future the blackening clouds of +anxieties still graver were gathering; and the youngest child was called +home to share the common burden. + +Charles Lamb was first employed in the South Sea House, where his +brother John [3]--a cheerful optimist, a _dilettante_ in art, genial, +prosperous, thoroughly selfish, in so far as the family fortunes were +concerned an outsider--already held a lucrative post. It was not long +before Charles obtained promotion in the form of a clerkship with the +East India Company,--one of the last kind services of Samuel Salt, who +died in the same year, 1792,--and with the East India Company he +remained for the rest of his working life. + +Upon the death of their generous patron the Lambs removed from the +Temple and took lodgings in Little Queen Street, Holborn; and for +Charles the battle of life may be said to have fairly begun. His work as +a junior clerk absorbed, of course, the greater part of his day and of +his year. Yet there were breathing-spaces: there were the long evenings +with the poets; with Marlowe, Drayton, Drummond of Hawthornden, and +Cowley,--"the sweetest names, which carry a perfume in the mention;" +there were the visits to the play, the yearly vacation jaunts to sunny +Hertfordshire. The intercourse with Coleridge, too, was now occasionally +renewed. The latter had gone up to Cambridge early in 1791, there to +remain--except the period of his six months' dragooning--for the nest +four years. During his visits to London it was the habit of the two +schoolfellows to meet at a tavern near Smithfield, the "Salutation and +Cat" to discuss the topics dear to both: and it was about this time that +Lamb's sonnet to Mrs Siddons, his first appearance in print, was +published in the "Morning Chronicle." + +The year 1796 was a terribly eventful one for the Lambs. There was a +taint of insanity in the family on the father's side, and on May 27, +1796, we find Charles writing to Coleridge these sad words,--doubly sad +for the ring of mockery in them:-- + + "My life has been somewhat diversified of late. The six + weeks that finished last year and began this, your very + humble servant spent very agreeably in a madhouse at + Hoxton. I am got somewhat rational now and don't bite + any one. But mad I was!" [4] + +Charles, thanks to the resolution with which he combated the tendency, +and to the steadying influence of his work at the desk,--despite his +occasional murmurs, his best friend and sheet-anchor in life,--never +again succumbed to the family malady; but from that moment, over his +small household, Madness--like Death in Milton's vision--continually +"shook its dart," and at best only "delayed to strike." [5] + +It was in the September of 1796 that the calamity befell which has +tinged the story of Charles and Mary Lamb with the sombrest hues of the +Greek tragedy. The family were still in the Holborn lodgings,--the +mother an invalid, the father sinking into a second childhood. Mary, in +addition to the burden of ministering to her parents, was working for +their support with her needle. + +At this point it will be well to insert a prefatory word or two as to +the character of Mary Lamb; and here the witnesses are in accord. There +is no jarring of opinion, as in her brother's case; for Charles Lamb has +been sorely misjudged,--often, it must be admitted, with ground of +reason; sometimes by persons who might and should have looked deeper. In +a notable instance, the heroism of his life has been meanly overlooked +by one who preached to mankind with the eloquence of the Prophets the +prime need and virtue of recognizing the hero. If self-abnegation lies +at the root of true heroism, Charles Lamb--that "sorry phenomenon" with +an "insuperable proclivity to gin" [6]--was a greater hero than was +covered by the shield of Achilles. The character of Mary Lamb is quickly +summed Up. She was one of the most womanly of women. "In all its +essential sweetness," says Talfourd, "her character was like her +brother's; while, by a temper more placid, a spirit of enjoyment more +serene, she was enabled to guide, to counsel, to cheer him, and to +protect him on the verge of the mysterious calamity, from the depths of +which she rose so often unruffled to his side. To a friend in any +difficulty she was the most comfortable of advisers, the wisest of +consolers." Hazlitt said that "he never met with a woman who could +reason, and had met with only one thoroughly reasonable,--Mary Lamb." +The writings of Elia are strewn, as we know, with the tenderest tributes +to her worth. "I wish," he says, "that I could throw into a heap the +remainder of our joint existences, that we might share them in equal +division." + +The psychology of madness is a most subtle inquiry. How slight the +mysterious touch that throws the smooth-running human mechanism into a +chaos of jarring elements, that transforms, in the turn of an eyelash, +the mild humanity of the gentlest of beings into the unreasoning +ferocity of the tiger. + +The London "Times" of September 26, 1796, contained the following +paragraph:-- + + "On Friday afternoon the coroner and a jury sat on the + body of a lady in the neighborhood of Holborn, who died in + consequence of a wound from her daughter the preceding day. + It appeared by the evidence adduced that while the family + were preparing for dinner, the young lady seized a case-knife + lying on the table, and in a menacing manner pursued a little + girl, her apprentice, round the room. On the calls of her + infirm mother to forbear, she renounced her first object, and + with loud shrieks approached her parent. The child, by her + cries, quickly brought up the landlord of the house, but too + late. [7] The dreadful scene presented him the mother lifeless, + pierced to the heart, on a chair, her daughter yet wildly standing + over her with the fatal knife, and the old man, her father, + weeping by her side, himself bleeding at the forehead from + the effects of a severe blow he received from one of the forks + she had been madly hurling about the room. + + "For a few days prior to this, the family had observed + some symptoms of insanity in her, which had so much increased + on the Wednesday evening that her brother, early the next + morning, went to Dr. Pitcairn; but that gentleman was not at + home. + + "The jury of course brought in their verdict,--_Lunacy_." + +I need not supply the omitted names of the actors in this harrowing +scene. Mary Lamb was at once placed in the Asylum at Hoxton, and the +victim of her frenzy was laid to rest in the churchyard of St. Andrew's, +Holborn. It became necessary for Charles and his father to make an +immediate change of residence, and they took lodgings at Pentonville. +There is a pregnant sentence in one of Lamb's letters that flashes with +the vividness of lightning into the darkest recesses of those early +troubles and embarrassments. "We are," he wrote to Coleridge, "_in a +manner marked_." + +Charles Lamb after some weeks obtained the release of his sister from +the Hoxton Asylum by formally undertaking her future guardianship,--a +charge which was borne, until Death released the compact, with a +steadfastness, a cheerful renunciation of what men regard as the +crowning blessings of manhood, [8] that has shed a halo more radiant even +than that of his genius about the figure--it was "small and mean," said +sprightly Mrs. Mathews--of the India House clerk. + +As already stated, the mania that had once attacked Charles never +returned; but from the side of Mary Lamb this grimmest of spectres never +departed. "Mary A is again _from home_;" "Mary is _fallen ill_ again:" +how often do such tear-fraught phrases--tenderly veiled, lest! some +chance might bring them to the eye of the blameless sufferer--recur in +the Letters! Brother and sister were ever on the watch for the symptoms +premonitory of the return of this "their sorrow's crown of sorrows." +Upon their little holiday excursions, says Talfourd, a strait-waistcoat, +carefully packed by Miss Lamb herself, was their constant companion. +Charles Lloyd relates that he once met them slowly pacing together a +little footpath in Hoxton fields, both weeping bitterly, and found on +joining them that they were taking their solemn way to the old asylum. +Thus, upon this guiltless pair were visited the sins of their fathers. + +With the tragical events just narrated, the storm of calamity seemed to +have spent its force, and there were thenceforth plenty of days of calm +and of sunshine for Charles Lamb. The stress of poverty was lightened +and finally removed by successive increases of salary at the India +House; the introductions of Coleridge and his own growing repute in the +world of letters gathered about him a circle of friends--Southey, +Wordsworth, Hazlitt, Manning, Barton, and the rest--more congenial, and +certainly more profitable, than the vagrant _intimados_, "to the world's +eye a ragged regiment," who had wasted his substance and his leisure in +the early Temple days. + +Lamb's earliest avowed appearance as an author was in Coleridge's first +volume of poems, published by Cottle, of Bristol, in 1796. "The +effusions signed C.L.," says Coleridge in the preface, "were written by +Mr. Charles Lamb, of the India House. Independently of the signature, +their superior merit would have sufficiently distinguished them." The +"effusions" were four sonnets, two of them--the most noteworthy-- +touching upon the one love-romance of Lamb's life, [9]--his early +attachment to the "fair-haired" Hertfordshire girl, the "Anna" of the +Sonnets, the "Alice W---n" of the Essays. We remember that Ella in +describing the gallery of old family portraits, in the essay, +"Blakesmoor in H---shire," dwells upon "that beauty with the cool, blue, +pastoral drapery, and a lamb, that hung next the great bay window, with +the bright yellow Hertfordshire hair, _so like my Alice_." + +In 1797 Cottle issued a second edition of Coleridge's poems, this time +with eleven additional pieces by Lamb,--making fifteen of his in +all,--and containing verses by their friend Charles Lloyd. "It is +unlikely," observes Canon Ainger, "that this little venture brought any +profit to its authors, or that a subsequent volume of blank verse by +Lamb and Lloyd in the following year proved more remunerative." In 1798 +Lamb, anxious for his sister's sake to add to his slender income, +composed his "miniature romance," as Talfourd calls it, "Rosamund Gray;" +and this little volume, which has not yet lost its charm, proved a +moderate success. Shelley, writing from Italy to Leigh Hunt in 1819, +said of it: "What a lovely thing is his 'Rosamund Gray'! How much +knowledge of the sweetest and deepest part of our nature in it! When I +think of such a mind as Lamb's, when I see how unnoticed remain things +of such exquisite and complete perfection, what should I hope for myself +if I had not higher objects in view than fame?" + +It is rather unpleasant, in view of this generous--if overstrained-- +tribute, to find the object of it referring later to the works of his +encomiast as "thin sown with profit or delight." [10] + +In 1802 Lamb published in a small duodecimo his blank-verse tragedy, +"John Woodvil,"--it had previously been declined by John Kemble as +unsuited to the stage,--and in 1806 was produced at the Drury Lane +Theatre his farce "Mr. H.," the summary failure of which is chronicled +with much humor in the Letters. [11] + +The "Tales from Shakspeare," by Charles and Mary Lamb, were published by +Godwin in 1807, and a second edition was called for in the following +year. Lamb was now getting on surer--and more remunerative--ground; and +in 1808 he prepared for the firm of Longmans his masterly "Specimens of +the English Dramatic Poets contemporary with Shakspeare." Concerning +this work he wrote to Manning:-- + + "Specimens are becoming fashionable. We have Specimens + of Ancient English Poets, Specimens of Modern English + Poets, Specimens of Ancient English Prose Writers, + without end. They used to be called 'Beauties.' You have + seen Beauties of Shakspeare? so have many people that + never saw any beauties _in_ Shakspeare," + +From Charles Lamb's "Specimens" dates, as we know, the revival of the +study of the old English dramatists other than Shakespeare. He was the +first to call attention to the neglected beauties of those great +Elizabethans, Webster, Marlowe, Ford, Dekker, Massinger,--no longer +accounted mere "mushrooms that sprang up in a ring under the great oak +of Arden." [12] + +The opportunity that was to call forth Lamb's special faculty in +authorship came late in life. In January, 1820, Baldwin, Cradock, and +Joy, the publishers, brought out the first number of a new monthly +journal under the name of an earlier and extinct periodical, the "London +Magazine," and in the August number appeared an article, "Recollections +of the South Sea House." over the signature _Elia_. [13] With this +delightful sketch the essayist Elia may be said to have been born. In +none of Lamb's previous writings had there been, more than a hint of +that unique vein,--wise, playful, tender, fantastic, "everything by +starts, and nothing long," exhibited with a felicity of phrase certainly +unexcelled in English prose literature,--that we associate with his +name. The careful reader of the Letters cannot fail to note that it is +_there_ that Lamb's peculiar quality in authorship is first manifest. +There is a letter to Southey, written as early as 1798, that has the +true Elia ring. [14] With the "London Magazine," which was +discontinued in 1826. + +Elia was born, and with it he may be said to have died,--although some +of his later contributions to the "New Monthly" [15] and to the +"Englishman's Magazine" were included in the "Last Essays of Elia," +collected and published in 1833. The first series of Lamb's essays under +the title of Elia had been published in a single volume by Taylor and +Hessey, of the "London Magazine," in 1823. + +The story of Lamb's working life--latterly an uneventful one, broken +chiefly by changes of abode and by the yearly holiday jaunts, +"migrations from the blue bed to the brown"--from 1796, when the +correspondence with Coleridge begins, is told in the letters. For +thirty-three years he served the East India Company, and he served it +faithfully and steadily. There is, indeed, a tradition that having been +reproved on one occasion for coming to the office late in the morning, +he pleaded that he always left it "so very early in the evening." Poets, +we know, often "heard the chimes at midnight" in Elia's day, and the +plea has certainly a most Lamb-like ring. That the Company's directors, +however, were more than content with the service of their literate +clerk, the sequel shows. + +It is manifest in certain letters, written toward the close of 1824 and +in the beginning of 1825, that Lamb's confinement was at last telling +upon him, and that he was thinking of a release from his bondage to the +"desk's dead wood." In February, 1825, he wrote to Barton,-- + + "Your gentleman brother sets my mouth watering after + liberty. Oh that I were kicked out of Leadenhall with + every mark of indignity, and a competence in my fob! The + birds of the air would not be so free as I should. How + I would prance and curvet it, and pick up cowslips, and + ramble about purposeless as an idiot!" + +Later in March we learn that he had signified to the directors his +willingness to resign, + + "I am sick of hope deferred. The grand wheel is in agitation + that is to turn up my fortune; but round it rolls, + and will turn up nothing, I have a glimpse of freedom, of + becoming a gentleman at large, but I am put off from day + to day. I have offered my resignation, and it is neither accepted + nor rejected. Eight weeks am I kept in this fearful + suspense. Guess what an absorbing state I feel it. I am + not conscious of the existence of friends, present or absent. + The East India directors alone can be that thing to me. I + have just learned that nothing will be decided this week. + Why the next? Why any week?" + +But the "grand wheel" was really turning, to some purpose, and a few +days later, April 6, 1825, he joyfully wrote to Barton,-- + + "My spirits are so tumultuary with the novelty of my + recent emancipation that I have scarce steadiness of hand, + much more mind, to compose a letter, I am free, B.B.,--free + as air! + + "'The little bird that wings the sky + Knows no such liberty,' + + I was set free on Tuesday in last week at four o'clock. I + came home forever!" + +The quality of the generosity of the East India directors was not +strained in Lamb's case. It should be recorded as an agreeable +commercial phenomenon that these officials, men of business acting in "a +business matter,"--words too often held to exclude all such Quixotic +matters as sentiment, gratitude, and Christian equity between man and +man,--were not only just, but munificent. [16] From the path of Charles +and Mary Lamb--already beset with anxieties grave enoughthey removed +forever the shadow of want. Lamb's salary at the time of his retirement +was nearly seven hundred pounds a year, and the offer made to him was a +pension of four hundred and fifty, with a deduction of nine pounds a +year for his sister, should she survive him. + +Lamb lived to enjoy his freedom and the Company's bounty nearly nine +years. Soon after his retirement he settled with his sister at Enfield, +within easy reach of his loved London, removing thence to the +neighboring parish of Edmonton,--his last change of residence. +Coleridge's death, in July, 1834, was a heavy blow to him. "When I heard +of the death of Coleridge," he wrote, "it was without grief. It seemed +to me that he had long been on the confines of the next world, that he +had a hunger for eternity. I grieved then that I could not grieve; but +since, I feel how great a part he was of me. His great and dear spirit +haunts me. I cannot think a thought, I cannot make a criticism on men or +books, without an ineffectual turning and reference to him. He was the +proof and touchstone of all my cogitations." Lamb did not long outlive +his old schoolfellow. Walking in the middle of December along the London +road, he stumbled and fell, inflicting a slight wound upon his face. The +injury at first seemed trivial; but soon after, erysipelas appearing, it +became evident that his general health was too feeble to resist. On the +27th of December, 1834, he passed quietly away, whispering in his last +moments the names of his dearest friends. + +Mary Lamb survived her brother nearly thirteen years, dying, at the +advanced age of eighty-two, on May 20, 1847. With increasing years her +attacks had become more frequent and of longer duration, till her mind +became permanently weakened. After leaving Edmonton, she lived chiefly +in a pleasant house in St. John's Wood, surrounded by old books and +prints, under the care of a nurse. Her pension, together with the income +from her brother's savings, was amply sufficient for her support. + +Talfourd, who was present at the burial of Mary Lamb, has eloquently +described the earthly reunion of the brother and sister:-- + +"A few survivors of the old circle, then sadly thinned, attended her +remains to the spot in Edmnonton churchyard where they were laid above +those of her brother. In accordance with Lamb's own feeling, so far as +it could be gathered from his expressions on a subject to which he did +not often or willingly refer, he had been interred in a deep grave, +simply dug and wattled round, but without any affectation of stone or +brickwork to keep the human dust from its kindred earth. So dry, +however, is the soil of the quiet churchyard that the excavated earth +left perfect walls of stiff clay, and permitted us just to catch a +glimpse of the still untarnished edges of the coffin, in which all the +mortal part of one of the most delightful persons who ever lived was +contained, and on which the remains of her he had loved with love +'passing the love of woman' were henceforth to rest,--the last glances +we shall ever have even of that covering,--concealed from us as we +parted by the coffin of the sister. We felt, I believe, after a moment's +strange shuddering, that the reunion was well accomplished; although the +true-hearted son of Admiral Burney, who had known and loved the pair we +quitted from a child, and who had been among the dearest objects of +existence to him, refused to be comforted." + +There are certain handy phrases, the legal-tender of conversation, that +people generally use without troubling themselves to look into their +title to currency. It is often said, for instance, with an air of +deploring a phase of general mental degeneracy, that "letter-writing is +a lost art." And so it is,---not because men nowadays, if they were put +to it, could not, on the average, write as good letters as ever (the +average although we certainly have no Lambs, and perhaps no Walpoles or +Southeys to raise it, would probably be higher), but because the +conditions that call for and develop the epistolary art have largely +passed away. With our modern facility of communication, the letter has +lost the pristine dignity of its function. The earth has dwindled +strangely since the advent of steam and electricity, and in a generation +used to Mr. Edison's devices, Puck's girdle presents no difficulties to +the imagination. In Charles Lamb's time the expression "from Land's End +to John O'Groat's" meant something; to-day it means a few comfortable +hours by rail, a few minutes by telegraph. Wordsworth in the North of +England was to Lamb, so far as the chance of personal contact was +concerned, nearly as remote as Manning in China. Under such conditions a +letter was of course a weighty matter; it was a thoughtful summary of +opinion, a rarely recurring budget of general intelligence, expensive to +send, and paid for by the recipient; and men put their minds and +energies into composing it. "One wrote at that time," says W.C. Hazlitt, +"a letter to an acquaintance in one of the home counties which one would +only write nowadays to a settler in the Colonies or a relative +in India." + +But to whatever conditions or circumstances we may owe the existence of +Charles Lamb's letters, their quality is of course the fruit of the +genius and temperament of the writer. Unpremeditated as the strain of +the skylark, they have almost to excess (were that possible) the prime +epistolary merit of spontaneity. From the brain of the writer to the +sheet before him flows an unbroken Pactolian stream. Lamb, at his best, +ranges with Shakspearian facility the gamut of human emotion, +exclaiming, as it were at one moment, with Jaques, "Motley's the only +wear!"--in the next probing the source of tears. He is as ejaculatory +with his pen as other men are with their tongues. Puns, quotations, +conceits, critical estimates of the rarest insight and suggestiveness, +chase each other over his pages like clouds over a summer sky; and the +whole is leavened with the sterling ethical and aesthetic good sense +that renders Charles Lamb one of the wholesomest of writers. + +As to the plan on which the selections for this volume have been made, +it needs only to be said that, in general, the editor has aimed to +include those letters which exhibit most fully the writer's distinctive +charm and quality. This plan leaves, of course, a residue of +considerable biographical and critical value; but it is believed that to +all who really love and appreciate him, Charles Lamb's "Best Letters" +are those which are most uniquely and unmistakably Charles Lamb's. + +E. G. J. _September_, 1891. + +[1] Letter L. + +[2] Cowley. + +[3] The James Elia of the essay "My Relations." + +[4] Letter I. + +[5] Talfourd's Memoir. + +[6] Carlyle. + +[7] It would seem from Lamb's letter to Coleridge (Letter IV.) that it +was _he_, not the landlord, who appeared thus too late, and who snatched +the knife from the unconscious hand. + +[8] The reader is referred to Lamb's beautiful essay, "Dream Children." + +[9] If we except his passing tenderness for the young Quakeress, Hester +Savory, Lamb admitted that he had never spoken to the lady in his life. + +[10] Letter LXXXIII. + +[11] Letters LXV IL., LXVIII., LXIX. + +[12] W. S. Landor. + +[13] In assuming this pseudonym Lamb borrowed the name of a fellow-clerk +who had served with him thirty years before in the South Sea House,--an +Italian named Elia. The name has probably never been pronounced as Lamb +intended. "_Call him Ellia_," he said in a letter to J. Taylor, +concerning this old acquaintance. + +[14] Letter XVII. + +[15] The rather unimportant series, "Popular Fallacies," appeared in the +"New Monthly." + +[16] In the essay "The Superannuated Man" Lamb describes, with +certain changes and modifications, his retirement from the India House. + + + +I. + + +TO SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. + +_May_ 27, 1796. + +Dear Coleridge,--Make yourself perfectly easy about May. I paid his bill +when I sent your clothes. I was flush of money, and am so still to all +the purposes of a single life; so give yourself no further concern about +it. The money would be superfluous to me if I had it. + +When Southey becomes as modest as his predecessor, Milton, and publishes +his Epics in duodecimo, I will read 'em; a guinea a book is somewhat +exorbitant, nor have I the opportunity of borrowing the work. The +extracts from it in the "Monthly Review," and the short passages in your +"Watchman," seem to me much superior to anything in his partnership +account with Lovell. [1] Your poems I shall procure forthwith. + +There were noble lines in what you inserted in one of your numbers from +"Religious Musings," but I thought them elaborate. I am somewhat glad +you have given up that paper; it must have been dry, unprofitable, and +of dissonant mood to your disposition. I wish you success in all your +undertakings, and am glad to hear you are employed about the "Evidences +of Religion." There is need of multiplying such books a hundred-fold in +this philosophical age, to _prevent_ converts to atheism, for they seem +too tough disputants to meddle with afterwards.... + +Coleridge, I know not what suffering scenes you have gone through at +Bristol. My life has been somewhat diversified of late. The six weeks +that finished last year and began this, your very humble servant spent +very agreeably in a madhouse at Hoxton. I am got somewhat rational now, +and don't bite any one. But mad I was and many a vagary my imagination +played with me,--enough to make a volume, if all were told. My sonnets I +have extended to the number of nine since I saw you, and will some day +communicate to you. I am beginning a poem in blank verse, which, if I +finish, I publish. White [2] is on the eve of publishing (he took the +hint from Vortigern) "Original Letters of Falstaff, Shallow," etc.; a +copy you shall have when it comes out. They are without exception the +best imitations I ever saw. Coleridge, it may convince you of my regards +for you when I tell you my head ran on you in my madness as much almost +as on another person, who I am inclined to think was the more immediate +cause of my temporary frenzy. + +The sonnet I send you has small merit as poetry; but you will be curious +to read it when I tell you it was written in my prison-house in one of +my lucid intervals. + +TO MY SISTER. + + If from my lips some angry accents fell, + Peevish complaint, or harsh reproof unkind, + 'T was but the error of a sickly mind + And troubled thoughts, clouding the purer well + And waters clear of Reason; and for me + Let this my verse the poor atonement be,-- + My verse, which thou to praise wert e'er inclined + Too highly, and with partial eye to see + No blemish. Thou to me didst ever show + Kindest affection; and wouldst oft-times lend + An ear to the desponding love-sick lay, + Weeping my sorrows with me, who repay + But ill the mighty debt of love I owe, + Mary, to thee, my sister and my friend. + +With these lines, and with that sister's kindest remembrances to Cottle, +I conclude. + +Yours sincerely, + +LAMB. + +[1] Southey had just published his "Joan of Arc," in quarto. He and +Lovell had published jointly, two years before, "Poems by Bion and +Moschus." + +[2] A Christ's Hospital schoolfellow, the "Jem" White of the Elia essay, +"The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers." + + + +II. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +(_No month_) 1796. + +_Tuesday night_.--Of your "Watchman," the review of Burke was the best +prose. I augured great things from the first number. There is some +exquisite poetry interspersed. I have re-read the extract from the +"Religious Musings," and retract whatever invidious there was in my +censure of it as elaborate. There are times when one is not in a +disposition thoroughly to relish good writing. I have re-read it in a +more favorable moment, and hesitate not to pronounce it sublime. If +there be anything in it approaching to tumidity (which I meant not to +infer; by "elaborate" I meant simply "labored"), it is the gigantic +hyperbole by which you describe the evils of existing society: "snakes, +lions, hyenas, and behemoths," is carrying your resentment beyond +bounds. The pictures of "The Simoom," of "Frenzy and Ruin," of "The +Whore of Babylon," and "The Cry of Foul Spirits disinherited of Earth," +and "The Strange Beatitude" which the good man shall recognize in +heaven, as well as the particularizing of the children of wretchedness +(I have unconsciously included every part of it), form a variety of +uniform excellence. I hunger and thirst to read the poem complete. That +is a capital line in your sixth number,-- + + "This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering month." + +They are exactly such epithets as Burns would have stumbled on, whose +poem on the ploughed-up daisy you seem to have had in mind. Your +complaint that of your readers some thought there was too much, some too +little, original matter in your numbers, reminds me of poor dead Parsons +in the "Critic." "Too little incident! Give me leave to tell you, sir, +there is too much incident." I had like to have forgot thanking you for +that exquisite little morsel, the first Sclavonian Song. The expression +in the second, "more happy to be unhappy in hell," is it not very +quaint? Accept my thanks, in common with those of all who love good +poetry, for "The Braes of Yarrow." I congratulate you on the enemies you +must have made by your splendid invective against the barterers in human +flesh and sinews. Coleridge, you will rejoice to hear that Cowper is +recovered from his lunacy, and is employed on his translation of the +Italian, etc., poems of Milton for an edition where Fuseli presides as +designer. Coleridge, to an idler like myself, to write and receive +letters are both very pleasant; but I wish not to break in upon your +valuable time by expecting to hear very frequently from you. Reserve +that obligation for your moments of lassitude, when you have nothing +else to do; for your loco-restive and all your idle propensities, of +course, have given way to the duties of providing for a family. The mail +is come in, but no parcel; yet this is Tuesday. Farewell, then, till +to-morrow; for a niche and a nook I must leave for criticisms. By the +way, I hope you do not send your own only copy of "Joan of Arc;" I will +in that case return it immediately. + +Your parcel _is_ come; you have been _lavish_ of your presents. + +Wordsworth's poem I have hurried through, not without delight. Poor +Lovell! my heart almost accuses me for the light manner I lately spoke +of him, not dreaming of his death. My heart bleeds for your accumulated +troubles; God send you through 'em with patience. I conjure you dream +not that I will ever think of being repaid; the very word is galling to +the ears. I have read all your "Religious Musings" with uninterrupted +feelings of profound admiration. You may safely rest your fame on it. +The best remaining things are what I have before read, and they lose +nothing by my recollection of your manner of reciting 'em, for I too +bear in mind "the voice, the look," of absent friends, and can +occasionally mimic their manner for the amusement of those who have seen +'em. Your impassioned manner of recitation I can recall at any time to +mine own heart and to the ears of the bystanders. I rather wish you had +left the monody on Chatterton concluding, as, it did, abruptly. It had +more of unity. The conclusion of your "Religious Musicgs," I fear, will +entitle you to the reproof of your beloved woman, who wisely will not +suffer your fancy to run riot, but bids you walk humbly with your God. +The very last words, "I exercise my young novitiate thought in +ministeries of heart-stirring song," though not now new to me, cannot be +enough admired. To speak politely, they are a well-turned compliment to +poetry. I hasten to read "Joan of Arc," etc. I have read your lines at +the beginning of second book; [1] they are worthy of Milton, but in my +mind yield to your "Religious Musings." I shall read the whole +carefully, and in some future letter take the liberty to particularize +my opinions of it. Of what is new to me among your poems next to the +"Musings," that beginning "My Pensive Sara" gave me most pleasure. The +lines in it I just alluded to are most exquisite; they made my sister +and self smile, as conveying a pleasing picture of Mrs. C. checking your +wild wanderings, which we were so fond of hearing you indulge when among +us. It has endeared us more than anything to your good lady, and your +own self-reproof that follows delighted us. 'T is a charming poem +throughout (you have well remarked that charming, admirable, exquisite +are the words expressive of feelings more than conveying of ideas, else +I might plead very well want of room in my paper as excuse for +generalizing). I want room to tell you how we are charmed with your +verses in the manner of Spenser, etc. I am glad you resume the +"Watchman." Change the name; leave out all articles of news, and +whatever things are peculiar to newspapers, and confine yourself to +ethics, verse, criticism; or, rather, do not confine yourself. Let your +plan be as diffuse as the "Spectator," and I 'll answer for it the work +prospers. If I am vain enough to think I can be a contributor, rely on +my inclinations. Coleridge, in reading your "Religious Musings," I felt +a transient superiority over you. I _have_ seen Priestley. I love to see +his name repeated in your writings. I love and honor him almost +profanely. You would be charmed with his _Sermons_, if you never read +'em. You have doubtless read his books illustrative of the doctrine of +Necessity. Prefixed to a late work of his in answer to Paine, there is a +preface giving an account of the man and his services to men, written by +Lindsey, his dearest friend, well worth your reading. + +_Tuesday Eve_.--Forgive my prolixity, which is yet too brief for all I +could wish to say. God give you comfort, and all that are of your +household! Our loves and best good-wishes to Mrs. C. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Coleridge contributed some four hundred lines to the second book of +Southey's epic. + + + +III. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_June_ 10, 1796. + +With "Joan of Arc" I have been delighted, amazed, I had not presumed to +expect anything of such excellence from Southey. Why, the poem is alone +sufficient to redeem the character of the age we live in from the +imputation of degenerating in poetry, were there no such beings extant +as Burns, and Bowles, Cowper, and ----, ---- fill up the blank how you +please; I say nothing. The subject is well chosen; it opens well. To +become more particular, I will notice in their order a few passages that +chiefly struck me on perusal. Page 26: "Fierce and terrible +Benevolence!" is a phrase full of grandeur and originality, The whole +context made me feel _possessed_, even like Joan herself. Page 28: "It +is most horrible with the keen sword to gore the finely fibred human +frame," and what follows, pleased me mightily. In the second book, the +first forty lines in particular are majestic and high-sounding. Indeed, +the whole vision of the Palace of Ambition and what follows are +supremely excellent. Your simile of the Laplander, "By Niemi's lake, or +Balda Zhiok, or the mossy stone of Solfar-Kapper," [1] will bear +comparison with any in Milton for fulness of circumstance and +lofty-pacedness of versification. Southey's similes, though many of 'em +are capital, are all inferior. In one of his books, the simile of the +oak in the storm occurs, I think, four times. To return: the light in +which you view the heathen deities is accurate and beautiful. Southey's +personifications in this book are so many fine and faultless pictures. I +was much pleased with your manner of accounting for the reason why +monarchs take delight in war. At the 447th line you have placed Prophets +and Enthusiasts cheek by jowl, on too intimate a footing for the dignity +of the former. Necessarian-like-speaking, it is correct. Page 98: "Dead +is the Douglas! cold thy warrior frame, illustrious Buchan," etc., are +of kindred excellence with Gray's "Cold is Cadwallo's tongue," etc. How +famously the Maid baffles the Doctors, Seraphic and Irrefragable, "with +all their trumpery!" Page 126: the procession, the appearances of the +Maid, of the Bastard Son of Orleans, and of Tremouille, are full of fire +and fancy, and exquisite melody of versification. The personifications +from line 303 to 309, in the heat of the battle, had better been +omitted; they are not very striking, and only encumber. The converse +which Joan and Conrade hold on the banks of the Loire is altogether +beautiful. Page 313: the conjecture that in dreams "all things are that +seem," is one of those conceits which the poet delights to admit into +his creed,--a creed, by the way, more marvellous and mystic than ever +Athanasius dreamed of. Page 315: I need only _mention_ those lines +ending with "She saw a serpent gnawing at her heart!" They are good +imitative lines: "he toiled and toiled, of toil to reap no end, but +endless toil and never-ending woe." Page 347: Cruelty is such as Hogarth +might have painted her. Page 361: all the passage about Love (where he +seems to confound conjugal love with creating and preserving love) is +very confused, and sickens me with a load of useless personifications; +else that ninth book is the finest in the volume,--an exquisite +combination of the ludicrous and the terrible. I have never read either, +even in translation, but such I conceive to be the manner of Dante or +Ariosto. The tenth book is the most languid. + +On the whole, considering the celerity wherewith the poem was finished, +I was astonished at the unfrequency of weak lines, I had expected to +find it verbose. Joan, I think, does too little in battle, Dunois +perhaps the same; Conrade too much. The anecdotes interspersed among the +battles refresh the mind very agreeably, and I am delighted with the +very many passages of simple pathos abounding throughout the +poem,--passages which the author of "Crazy Kate" might have written. Has +not Master Southey spoke very slightingly in his preface and +disparagingly of Cowper's Homer? What makes him reluctant to give Cowper +his fame? And does not Southey use too often the expletives "did" and +"does"? They have a good effect at times, but are too inconsiderable, or +rather become blemishes when they mark a style. On the whole, I expect +Southey one day to rival Milton; I already deem him equal to Cowper, and +superior to all living poets besides. What says Coleridge? The "Monody +on Henderson" is _immensely good_; the rest of that little volume is +_readable and above mediocrity?_ [2] I proceed to a more pleasant +task,--pleasant because the poems are yours; pleasant because you impose +the task on me; and pleasant, let me add, because it will confer a +whimsical importance on me to sit in judgment upon your rhymes. First, +though, let me thank you again and again, in my own and my sister's +name, for your invitations. Nothing could give us more pleasure than to +come; but (were there no other reasons) while my brother's leg is so +bad, it is out of the question. Poor fellow! he is very feverish and +light-headed; but Cruikshanks has pronounced the symptoms favourable, +and gives us every hope that there will be no need of amputation. God +send not! We are necessarily confined with him all the afternoon and +evening till very late, so that I am stealing a few minutes to write +to you. + +Thank you for your frequent letters; you are the only correspondent and, +I might add, the only friend I have in the world. I go nowhere, and have +no acquaintance. Slow of speech and reserved of manners, no one seeks or +cares for my society, and I am left alone. Austin calls only +occasionally, as though it were a duty rather, and seldom stays ten +minutes. Then judge how thankful I am for your letters! Do not, however, +burden yourself with the correspondence. I trouble you again so soon +only in obedience to your injunctions. Complaints apart, proceed we to +our task. I am called away to tea,--thence must wait upon my brother; so +must delay till to-morrow. Farewell!--_Wednesday_. + +_Thursday_.--I will first notice what is new to me. Thirteenth page: +"The thrilling tones that concentrate the soul" is a nervous line, and +the six first lines of page 14 are very pretty, the twenty-first +effusion a perfect thing. That in the manner of Spenser is very sweet, +particularly at the close; the thirty-fifth effusion is most +exquisite,--that line in particular, "And, tranquil, muse upon +tranquillity." It is the very reflex pleasure that distinguishes the +tranquillity of a thinking being from that of a shepherd,--a modern one +I would be understood to mean,--a Damoetas; one that keeps other +people's sheep. Certainly, Coleridge, your letter from Shurton Bars has +less merit than most things in your volume; personally it may chime in +best with your own feelings, and therefore you love it best. It has, +however, great merit. In your fourth epistle that is an exquisite +paragraph, and fancy-full, of "A stream there is which rolls in lazy +flow," etc. "Murmurs sweet undersong 'mid jasmin bowers" is a sweet +line, and so are the three next. The concluding simile is far-fetched; +"tempest-honored" is a quaintish phrase. + +Yours is a poetical family. I was much surprised and pleased to see the +signature of Sara to that elegant composition, the fifth epistle. I dare +not _criticise_ the "Religious Musings;" I like not to _select_ any +part, where all is excellent. I can only admire, and thank you for it in +the name of a Christian, as well as a lover of good poetry; only let me +ask, is not that thought and those words in Young, "stands in the +sun,"--or is it only such as Young, in one of his _better moments,_ +might have writ? + + "Believe thou, O my soul, + Life is a vision shadowy of Truth; + And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave, + Shapes of a dream!" + +I thank you for these lines in the name of a necessarian, and for what +follows in next paragraph, in the name of a child of fancy. After all, +you cannot nor ever will write anything with which I shall be so +delighted as what I have heard yourself repeat. You came to town, and I +saw you at a time when your heart was yet bleeding with recent wounds. +Like yourself, I was sore galled with disappointed hope; you had + + "Many an holy lay + That, mourning, soothed the mourner on his way." + +I had ears of sympathy to drink them in, and they yet vibrate pleasant +on the sense. When I read in your little volume your nineteenth +effusion, or the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth, or what you call the +"Sigh," I think I hear _you_ again. I image to myself the little smoky +room at the "Salutation and Cat," where we have sat together through the +winter nights, beguiling the cares of life with poesy. When you left +London, I felt a dismal void in my heart. I found myself cut off, at one +and the same time, from two most dear to me, "How blest with ye the path +could I have trod of quiet life!" In your conversation you had blended +so many pleasant fancies that they cheated me of my grief; but in your +absence the tide of melancholy rushed in again, and did its worst +mischief by overwhelming my reason. I have recovered, but feel a stupor +that makes me indifferent to the hopes and fears of this life. I +sometimes wish to introduce a religious turn of mind; but habits are +strong things, and my religious fervours are confined, alas! to some +fleeting moments of occasional solitary devotion, + +A correspondence, opening with you, has roused me a little from my +lethargy and made me conscious of existence. Indulge me in it; I will +not be very troublesome! At some future time I will amuse you with an +account, as full as my memory will permit, of the strange turn my frenzy +took. I look back upon it at times with, a gloomy kind of envy; for +while it lasted, I had many, many hours of pure happiness. Dream not, +Coleridge, of having tasted all the grandeur and wildness of fancy till +you have gone mad! All now seems to me vapid,--comparatively so. Excuse +this selfish digression. Your "Monody" [3] is so superlatively excellent +that I can only wish it perfect, which I can't help feeling it is not +quite. Indulge me in a few conjectures; what I am going to propose would +make it more compressed and, I think, more energetic, though, I am +sensible, at the expense of many beautiful lines. Let it begin, "Is this +the land of song-ennobled line?" and proceed to "Otway's famished form;" +then, "Thee, Chatterton," to "blaze of Seraphim;" then, "clad in +Nature's rich array," to "orient day;" then, "but soon the scathing +lightning," to "blighted land;" then, "sublime of thought," to "his +bosom glows;" then + + "But soon upon his poor unsheltered head + Did Penury her sickly mildew shed; + Ah! where are fled the charms of vernal grace, + And joy's wild gleams that lightened o'er his face." + +Then "youth of tumultuous soul" to "sigh," as before. The rest may all +stand down to "gaze upon the waves below." What follows now may come +next as detached verses, suggested by the "Monody," rather than a part +of it. They are, indeed, in themselves, very sweet; + + "And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng, + Hanging enraptured on thy stately song!" + +in particular, perhaps. If I am obscure, you may understand me by +counting lines. I have proposed omitting twenty-four lines; I feel that +thus compressed it would gain energy, but think it most likely you will +not agree with me; for who shall go about to bring opinions to the bed +of Procrustes, and introduce among the sons of men a monotony of +identical feelings? I only propose with diffidence. + +Reject you, if you please, with as little remorse as you would the color +of a coat or the pattern of a buckle, where our fancies differed. + +The "Pixies" is a perfect thing, and so are the "Lines on the Spring." +page 28. The "Epitaph on an Infant," like a Jack-o'-lantern, has danced +about (or like Dr. Forster's [4] scholars) out of the "Morning Chronicle" +into the "Watchman," and thence back into your collection. It is very +pretty, and you seem to think so, but, may be, overlooked its chief +merit, that of filling up a whole page, I had once deemed sonnets of +unrivalled use that way, but your Epitaphs, I find, are the more +diffuse. "Edmund" still holds its place among your best verses, "Ah! +fair delights" to "roses round," in your poem called "Absence," recall +(none more forcibly) to my mind the tones in which you recited it, I +will not notice, in this tedious (to you) manner, verses which have been +so long delighful to me, and which you already know my opinion of. Of +this kind are Bowles, Priestley, and that most exquisite and most +Bowles-like of all, the nineteenth effusion. It would have better ended +with "agony of care;" the last two lines are obvious and unnecessary; +and you need not now make fourteen lines of it, now it is rechristened +from a Sonnet to an Effusion. + +Schiller might have written the twentieth effusion; 't is worthy of him +in any sense, I was glad to meet with those lines you sent me when my +sister was so ill; I had lost the copy, and I felt not a little proud at +seeing my name in your verse. The "Complaint of Ninathoma" (first stanza +in particular) is the best, or only good, imitation of Ossian I ever +saw, your "Restless Gale" excepted. "To an Infant" is most sweet; is not +"foodful," though, very harsh? Would not "dulcet" fruit be less harsh, +or some other friendly bi-syllable? In "Edmund," "Frenzy! fierce-eyed +child" is not so well as "frantic," though that is an epithet adding +nothing to the meaning. Slander _couching_ was better than "squatting." +In the "Man of Ross" it _was_ a better line thus,-- + + "If 'neath this roof thy wine-cheered moments pass," + +than as it stands now. Time nor nothing can reconcile me to the +concluding five lines of "Kosciusko;" call it anything you will but +sublime. In my twelfth effusion I had rather have seen what I wrote +myself, though they bear no comparison with your exquisite lines,-- + + "On rose-leaf beds amid your faery bowers," etc. + +I love my sonnets because they are the reflected images of my own +feelings at different times. To instance, in the thirteenth,-- + + "How reason reeled," etc., + +are good lines, but must spoil the whole with me, who know it is only a +fiction of yours, and that the "rude dashings" did in fact not "rock me +to repose." I grant the same objection applies not to the former sonnet; +but still I love my own feelings,--they are dear to memory, though they +now and then wake a sigh or a tear, "Thinking on divers things fordone," +I charge you, Coleridge, spare my ewe-lambs; and though a gentleman may +borrow six lines in an epic poem (I should have no objection to borrow +five hundred, and without acknowledging), still, in a sonnet, a personal +poem, I do not ask my friend the aiding verse; I would not wrong your +feelings by proposing any improvements (did I think myself capable of +suggesting 'era) in such personal poems as "Thou bleedest, my poor +heart,"--'od so,--I am caught,--I have already done it; but that simile +I propose abridging would not change the feeling or introduce any alien +ones. Do you understand me? In the twenty-eighth, however, and in the +"Sigh," and that composed at Clevedon, things that come from the heart +direct, not by the medium of the fancy, I would not suggest an +alteration. + +When my blank verse is finished, or any long fancy poem, "propino tibi +alterandum, cut-up-andum, abridgeandum," just what you will with, it: +but spare my ewe-lambs! That to "Mrs. Siddons' now, you were welcome to +improve, if it had been worth it; but I say unto you again, Coleridge, +spare my ewe-lambs! I must confess, were the mine, I should omit, _in +editione secunda_, effusions two and three, because satiric and below +the dignity of the poet of "Religious Musings," fifth, seventh, half of +the eighth, that "Written in early youth," as far as "thousand +eyes,"--though I part not unreluctantly with that lively line,-- + + "Chaste joyance dancing in her bright blue eyes," + +and one or two just thereabouts. But I would substitute for it that +sweet poem called "Recollection," in the fifth number of the "Watchman," +better, I think, than the remainder of this poem, though not differing +materially; as the poem now stands, it looks altogether confused. And do +not omit those lines upon the "Early Blossom" in your sixth number of +the "Watchman;" and I would omit the tenth effusion, or what would do +better, alter and improve the last four lines. In fact, I suppose, if +they were mine, I should _not_ omit 'em; but your verse is, for the most +part, so exquisite that I like not to see aught of meaner matter mixed +with it. Forgive my petulance and often, I fear, ill-founded criticisms, +and forgive me that I have, by this time, made your eyes and head ache +with my long letter; but I cannot forego hastily the pleasure and pride +of thus conversing with you. You did not tell me whether I was to +include the "Conciones ad Populum" in my remarks on your poems. They are +not unfrequently sublime, and I think you could not do better than to +turn 'em into verse,--if you have nothing else to do. Austin, I am sorry +to say, is a _confirmed_ atheist. Stoddart, a cold-hearted, well-bred, +conceited disciple of Godwin, does him no good. His wife has several +daughters (one of 'em as old as himself). Surely there is something +unnatural in such a marriage. + +How I sympathize with you on the dull duty of a reviewer, and heartily +damn with you Ned Evans and the Prosodist! I shall, however, wait +impatiently for the articles in the "Critical Review" next month, +because they are _yours_. Young Evans (W. Evans, a branch of a family +you were once so intimate with) is come into our office, and sends his +love to you. Coleridge, I devoutly wish that Fortune, who lias made +sport with you so long, may play one freak more, throw you into London +or some spot near it, and there snug-ify you for life. 'Tis a selfish +but natural wish for me, cast as I am on life's wide plain, friendless," +Are you acquainted with Bowles? I see by his last Elegy (written at +Bath) you are near neighbors,--_Thursday_. + +"And I can think I can see the groves again;" "Was it the voice of +thee;" "Turns not the voice of thee, my buried friend;" "Who dries with +her dark locks the tender tear,"--are touches as true to Nature as any +in his other Elegy, written at the Hot Wells, about poor Kassell, etc. +You are doubtless acquainted with it, + +I do not know that I entirely agree with you in your stricture upon my +sonnet "To Innocence," To men whose hearts are not quite deadened by +their commerce with the world, innocence (no longer familiar) becomes an +awful idea. So I felt when I wrote it. Your other censures (qualified +and sweetened, though, with praises somewhat extravagant) I perfectly +coincide with: yet I choose to retain the word "lunar,"--indulge a +"lunatic" in his loyalty to his mistress the moon! I have just been +reading a most pathetic copy of verses on Sophia Pringle, who was hanged +and burned for coining. One of the strokes of pathos (which are very +many, all somewhat obscure) is, "She lifted up her guilty forger to +heaven." A note explains, by "forger," her right hand, with which she +forged or coined the base metal. For "pathos" read "bathos." You have +put me out of conceit with my blank verse by your "Religious Musings." I +think it will come to nothing. I do not like 'em enough to send 'em. I +have just been reading a book, which I may be too partial to, as it was +the delight of my childhood; but I will recommend it to you,--it is +Izaak Walton's "Complete Angler." All the scientific part you may omit +in reading. The dialogue is very simple, full of pastoral beauties, and +will charm you. Many pretty old verses are interspersed. This letter, +which would be a week's work reading only, I do not wish you to answer +in less than a month. I shall be richly content with a letter from you +some day early in July; though, if you get anyhow _settled_ before then, +pray let me know it immediately; 't would give me much satisfaction. +Concerning the Unitarian chapel, the salary is the only scruple that the +most rigid moralist would admit as valid. Concerning the tutorage, is +not the salary low, and absence from your family unavoidable? London is +the only fostering soil for genius. Nothing more occurs just now; so I +will leave you, in mercy, one small white spot empty below, to repose +your eyes upon, fatigued as they must be with the wilderness of words +they have by this time painfully travelled through. God love you, +Coleridge, and prosper you through life! though mine will be loss if +your lot is to be cast at Bristol, or at Nottingham, or anywhere but +London. Our loves to Mrs. C--. C. L. + +[1] Lapland mountains. From Coleridge's "Destiny of Nations." + +[2] The "Monody" referred to was by Cottle, and appeared in a volume of +poems published by him at Bristol in 1795. Coleridge had forwarded the +book to Lamb for his opinion. + +[3] The Monody on Chatterton. + +[4] Dr. Faustus's. + + + +IV. + + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_June_ 14, 1796, + +I am not quite satisfied now with the Chatterton, [1] and with your leave +will try my hand at it again. A master-joiner, you know, may leave a +cabinet to be finished, when his own hands are full. To your list of +illustrative personifications, into which a fine imagination enters, I +will take leave to add the following from Beaumont and Fletcher's "Wife +for a Month;" 'tis the conclusion of a description of a sea-fight: "The +game of _death_ was never played so nobly; the meagre thief grew wanton +in his mischiefs, and his shrunk, hollow eyes smiled on his ruins." +There is fancy in these of a lower order from "Bonduca": "Then did I see +these valiant men of Britain, like boding owls creep into tods of ivy, +and hoot their fears to one another nightly." Not that it is a +personification, only it just caught my eye in a little extract-book I +keep, which is full of quotations from B. and F. in particular, in which +authors I can't help thinking there is a greater richness of poetical +fancy than in any one, Shakspeare excepted. Are you acquainted with +Massinger? At a hazard I will trouble you with a passage from a play of +his called "A Very Woman." The lines are spoken by a lover (disguised) +to his faithless mistress. You will remark the fine effect of the +double endings. + +You will by your ear distinguish the lines, for I write 'em as prose. +"Not far from where my father lives, _a lady_, a neighbor by, blest with +as great a _beauty_ as Nature durst bestow without _undoing_, dwelt, and +most happily, as I thought then, and blest the house a thousand times +she _dwelt_ in. This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, when my first +fire knew no adulterate _incense_, nor I no way to flatter but my +_fondness_; in all the bravery my friends could _show me_, in all the +faith my innocence could _give me_, in the best language my true tongue +could _tell me_, and all the broken sighs my sick heart _lend me_, I +sued and served; long did I serve this _lady_, long was my travail, long +my trade to _win her_; with all the duty of my soul I SERVED HER." "Then +she must love." "She did, but never me: she could not _love me_; she +would not love, she hated,--more, she _scorned me_; and in so a poor and +base a way _abused me_ for all my services, for all my _bounties_, so +bold neglects flung on me." "What out of love, and worthy love, I _gave +her_ (shame to her most unworthy mind!), to fools, to girls, to fiddlers +and her boys she flung, all in disdain of me." One more passage strikes +my eye from B. and F.'s "Palamon and Arcite." One of 'em complains in +prison: "This is all our world; we shall know nothing here but one +another, hear nothing but the clock that tells us our woes; the vine +shall grow, but we shall never see it," etc. Is not the last +circumstance exquisite? I mean not to lay myself open by saying they +exceed Milton, and perhaps Collins in sublimity. But don't you conceive +all poets after Shakspeare yield to 'em in variety of genius? Massinger +treads close on their heels; but you are most probably as well +acquainted with his writings as your humble servant. My quotations, in +that case, will only serve to expose my barrenness of matter. Southey in +simplicity and tenderness is excelled decidedly only, I think, by +Beaumont and F. in his "Maid's Tragedy," and some parts of "Philaster" +in particular, and elsewhere occasionally; and perhaps by Cowper in his +"Crazy Kate," and in parts of his translation, such as the speeches of +Hecuba and Andromache. I long to know your opinion of that translation. +The Odyssey especially is surely very Homeric. What nobler than the +appearance of Phoebus at the beginning of the Iliad,--the lines ending +with "Dread sounding, bounding on the silver bow!" + +I beg you will give me your opinion of the translation; it afforded me +high pleasure. As curious a specimen of translation as ever fell into my +hands, is a young man's in our office, of a French novel. What in the +original was literally "amiable delusions of the fancy," he proposed, to +render "the fair frauds of the imagination." I had much trouble in +licking the book into any meaning at all. Yet did the knave clear fifty +or sixty pounds by subscription and selling the copyright. The book +itself not a week's work! To-day's portion of my journalizing epistle +has been very dull and poverty-stricken. I will here end. + +_Tuesday night_, + +I have been drinking egg-hot and smoking Oronooko (associated +circumstances, which ever forcibly recall to my mind our evenings and +nights at the "Salutation"). My eyes and brain are heavy and asleep, but +my heart is awake; and if words came as ready as ideas, and ideas as +feelings, I could say ten hundred kind things. Coleridge, you know not +my supreme happiness at having one on earth (though counties separate +us) whom I can call a friend. Remember you those tender lines +of Logan?-- + + "Our broken friendships we deplore, + And loves of youth that are no more; + No after friendships e'er can raise + Th' endearments of our early days, + And ne'er the heart such fondness prove, + As when we first began to love." + +I am writing at random, and half-tipsy, what you may not _equally_ +understand, as you will be sober when you read it; but _my_ sober and +_my_ half-tipsy hours you are alike a sharer in. Good night. + + "Then up rose our bard, like a prophet in drink, + Craigdoroch, thou'lt soar when creation shall sink." + +BURNS. + +[1] Coleridge's "Monody" on Chatterton. + + + +V. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_September_ 27, 1796. + +My Dearest Friend,--White, or some of my friends, or the public papers, +by this time may have informed you of the terrible calamities that have +fallen on our family. I will only give you the outlines: My poor dear, +dearest sister, in a fit of insanity, has been the death of her own +mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her +grasp. She is at present in a madhouse, from whence I fear she must be +moved to an hospital. God has preserved to me my senses,--I eat, and +drink, and sleep, and have my judgment, I believe, very sound. My poor +father was slightly wounded, and I am left to take care of him and my +aunt. Mr, Norris, of the Blue-coat School, has been very kind to us, and +we have no other friend; but, thank God, I am very calm and composed, +and able to do the best that remains to do. Write as religious a letter +as possible, but no mention of what is gone and done with. With me "the +former things are passed away," and I have something more to do than +to feel. + +God Almighty have us all in his keeping! + +C. LAMB. + +Mention nothing of poetry. I have destroyed every vestige of past +vanities of that kind. Do as you please, but if you publish, publish +mine (I give free leave) without name or initial, and never send me a +book, I charge you. + +Your own judgment will convince you not to take any notice of this yet +to your dear wife. You look after your family; I have my reason and +strength left to take care of mine. I charge you, don't think of coming +to see me. Write. I will not see you, if you come, God Almighty love you +and all of us! + +C. LAMB. + + + +VI. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_October_ 3, 1796. + +My dearest friend,--Your letter was an inestimable treasure to me. It +will be a comfort to you, I know, to know that our prospects are +somewhat brighter. My poor dear, dearest sister, the unhappy and +unconscious instrument of the Almighty's judgments on our house, is +restored to her senses, to a dreadful sense and recollection of what has +past, awful to her mind and impressive (as it must be to the end of +life), but tempered with religious resignation and the reasonings of a +sound judgment, which in this early stage knows how to distinguish +between a deed committed in a transient fit of frenzy, and the terrible +guilt of a mother's murder. I have seen her. I found her, this morning, +calm and serene; far, very, very far, from an indecent, forgetful +serenity. She has a most affectionate and tender concern for what has +happened. Indeed, from the beginning, frightful and hopeless as her +disorder seemed, I had confidence enough in her strength of mind and +religious principle to look forward to a time when _even she_ might +recover tranquillity. God be praised, Coleridge, wonderful as it is to +tell, I have never once been otherwise than collected and calm; even on +the dreadful day and in the midst of the terrible scene, I preserved a +tranquillity which bystanders may have construed into indifference,--a +tranquillity not of despair. Is it folly or sin in me to say that it was +a religious principle that _most_ supported me? I allow much to other +favorable circumstances. I felt that I had something else to do than to +regret. On that first evening my aunt was lying insensible, to all +appearance like one dying; my father with his poor forehead plastered +over, from a wound he had received from a daughter dearly loved by him, +and who loved him no less dearly; my mother a dead and murdered corpse +in the next room,--yet was I wonderfully supported, I dosed not my eyes +in sleep that night, but lay without terrors and without despair, I have +lost no sleep since, I had been long used not to rest in things of +sense,--had endeavored after a comprehension of mind unsatisfied with +the "ignorant present time;" and _this_ kept me up. I had the whole +weight of the family thrown on me; for my brother, [1] little disposed (I +speak not without tenderness for him) at any time to take care of old +age and infirmities, had now, with his bad leg, an exemption from such +duties; and I was now left alone. + +One little incident may serve to make you understand my way of managing +my mind, Within a day or two after the fatal one, we dressed for dinner +a tongue which we had had salted for some weeks in the house. As I sat +down, a feeling like remorse struck me: this tongue poor Mary got for +me, and can I partake of it now, when she is far away? A thought +occurred and relieved me; if I give in to this way of feeling, there is +not a chair, a room, an object in our rooms, that will not awaken the +keenest griefs; I must rise above such weaknesses. I hope this was not +want of true feeling. I did not let this carry me, though, too far. On +the very second day (I date from the day of horrors), as is usual in +such cases, there were a matter of twenty people, I do think, supping in +our room; they prevailed on me to eat _with them_ (for to eat I never +refused). They were all making merry in the room! Some had come from +friendship, some from busy curiosity, and some from interest. I was +going to partake with them, when my recollection came that my poor dead +mother was lying in the next room,--the very next room; a mother who +through life wished nothing but her children's welfare. Indignation, the +rage of grief, something like remorse, rushed upon my mind. In an agony +of emotion I found my, way mechanically to the adjoining room, and fell +on my knees by the side of her coffin, asking forgiveness of Heaven, and +sometimes of her, for forgetting her so soon. Tranquillity returned, and +it was the only violent emotion that mastered me; and I think it did +me good. + +I mention these things because I hate concealment, and love to give a +faithful journal of what passes within me. Our friends have been very +good. Sam Le Grice, [2] who was then in town, was with me the three or +four first days, and was as a brother to me, gave up every hour of his +time, to the very hurting of his health and spirits, in constant +attendance and humoring my poor father; talked with him, read to him, +played at cribbage with him (for so short is the old man's recollection +that he was playing at cards, as though nothing had happened, while the +coroner's inquest was sitting over the way!). Samuel wept tenderly when +he went away, for his mother wrote him a very severe letter on his +loitering so long in town, and he was forced to go. Mr. Norris, of +Christ's Hospital, has been as a father to me, Mrs. Norris as a mother, +though we had few claims on them. A gentleman, brother to my god-mother, +from whom we never had right or reason to expect any such assistance, +sent my father twenty pounds; and to crown all these God's blessings to +our family at such a time, an old lady, a cousin of my father and +aunt's, a gentlewoman of fortune, is to take my aunt and make her +comfortable for the short remainder of her days. My aunt is recovered, +and as well as ever, and highly pleased at thoughts of going, and has +generously given up the interest of her little money (which was formerly +paid my father for her board) wholely and solely to my sister's use. +Reckoning this, we have, Daddy and I, for oar two selves and an old +maid-servant to look after him when I am out, which will be necessary, +£170, or £180 rather, a year, out of which we can spare £50 or £60 at +least for Mary while she stays at Islington, where she roust and shall +stay during her father's life, for his and her comfort. I know John will +make speeches about it, but she shall not go into an hospital. The good +lady of the madhouse and her daughter, an elegant, sweet-behaved young +lady, love her, and are taken with her amazingly; and I know from her +own mouth she loves them, and longs to be with them as much. Poor thing, +they say she was but the other morning saying she knew she must go to +Bethlem for life; that one of her brothers would have it so, but the +other would wish it not, but be obliged to go with the stream; that she +had often, as she passed Bethlem, thought it likely, "here it may be my +fate to end my days," conscious of a certain flightiness in her poor +head oftentimes, and mindful of more than one severe illness of that +nature before. A legacy of £100 which my father will have at Christmas, +and this £20 I mentioned before, with what is in the house, will much +more than set us clear. If my father, an old servant-maid, and I can't +live, and live comfortably, on £130 or £120 a year, we ought to burn by +slow fires; and I almost would, that Mary might not go into an hospital. + +Let me not leave one unfavorable impression on your mind respecting my +brother. Since this has happened, he has been very kind and brotherly; +but I fear for his mind. He has taken his ease in the world, and is not +fit himself to struggle with difficulties, nor has much accustomed +himself to throw himself into their way; and I know his language is +already, "Charles, you must take care of yourself, you must not abridge +yourself of a single pleasure you have been used to," etc., and in that +style of talking. But you, a necessarian, can respect a difference of +mind, and love what _is amiable_ in a character not perfect. He has been +very good, but I fear for his mind. Thank God, I can unconnect myself +with him, and shall manage all my father's moneys in future myself, if I +take charge of Daddy, which poor John has not even hinted a wish, at any +future time even, to share with me. The lady at this madhouse assures me +that I may dismiss immediately both doctor and apothecary, retaining +occasionally a composing draught or so for a while; and there is a less +expensive establishment in her house, where she will only not have a +room and nurse to herself, for £50 or guineas a year,--the outside would +be £60. You know, by economy, how much more even I shall be able to +spare for her comforts. She will, I fancy, if she stays, make one of the +family rather than of the patients; and the old and young ladies I like +exceedingly, and she loves dearly; and they, as the saying is, take to +her very extraordinarily, if it is extraordinary that people who see my +sister should love her. + +Of all the people I ever saw in the world, my poor sister was most and +thoroughly devoid of the least tincture of selfishness, I will enlarge +upon her qualities, poor dear, dearest soul, in a future letter, for my +own comfort, for I understand her thoroughly; and if I mistake not, in +the most trying situation that a human being can be found in, she will +be found (I speak not with sufficient humility, I fear, but humanly and +foolishly speaking),--she will be found, I trust, uniformly great and +amiable. God keep her in her present mind, to whom be thanks and praise +for all His dispensations to mankind! + +C. LAMB. + +These mentioned good fortunes and change of prospects had almost brought +my mind over to the extreme the very opposite to despair. I was in +danger of making myself too happy. Your letter brought me back to a view +of things which I had entertained from the beginning. I hope (for Mary I +can answer)--but I hope that _I_ shall through life never have less +recollection, nor a fainter impression, of what has happened than I have +now. 'T is not a light thing, nor meant by the Almighty to be received +lightly. I must be serious, circumspect, and deeply religious through +life; and by such means may _both_ of us escape madness in future, if it +so please the Almighty! + +Send me word how it fares with Sara. I repeat it, your letter was, and +will be, an inestimable treasure to me. You have a view of what my +situation demands of me, like my own view, and I trust a just one. + +Coleridge, continue to write, but do not forever offend me by talking of +sending me cash. Sincerely and on my soul, we do not want it. God +love you both! + +I will write again very soon. Do you write directly. + +[1] John Lamb, the "James Elia" of the essay "My Relations." + +[2] A Christ's Hospital schoolfellow. + + + +VII. + + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_October_ 17, 1796. + +My dearest friend,--I grieve from my very soul to observe you in your +plans of life veering about from this hope to the other, and settling +nowhere. Is it an untoward fatality (speaking humanly) that does this +for you,--a stubborn, irresistible concurrence of events,--or lies the +fault, as I fear it does, in your own mind? You seem to be taking up +splendid schemes of fortune only to lay them down again; and your +fortunes are an _ignis fatuus_ that has been conducting you in thought +from Lancaster Court, Strand, to somewhere near Matlock; then jumping +across to Dr. Somebody's, whose son's tutor you were likely to be; and +would to God the dancing demon _may_ conduct you at last in peace and +comfort to the "life and labours of a cottager"! You see from the above +awkward playfulness of fancy that my spirits are not quite depressed. I +should ill deserve God's blessings, which, since the late terrible +event, have come down in mercy upon us, if I indulge in regret or +querulousness. Mary continues serene and cheerful. I have not by me a +little letter she wrote to me; for though I see her almost every day, +yet we delight to write to one another, for we can scarce see each other +but in company with some of the people of the house. I have not the +letter by me, but will quote from memory what she wrote in it: "I have +no bad, terrifying dreams. At midnight, when I happen to awake, the +nurse sleeping by the side of me, with the noise of the poor mad people +around me, I have no fear. The spirit of my mother seems to descend and +smile upon me, and bid me live to enjoy the life and reason which the +Almighty has given me. I shall see her again in heaven; she will then +understand me better. My grandmother, too, will understand me better, +and will then say no more, as she used to do, 'Polly, what are those +poor crazy, moythered brains of yours thinking of always?'" Poor Mary! +my mother indeed _never understood_ her right. She loved her, as she +loved us all, with a mother's love; but in opinion, in feeling and +sentiment and disposition, bore so distant a resemblance to her daughter +that she never understood her right,--never could believe how much _she_ +loved her, but met her caresses, her protestations of filial affection, +too frequently with coldness and repulse. Still, she was a good mother. +God forbid I should think of her but _most_ respectfully, _most_ +affectionately. Yet she would always love my brother above Mary, who was +not worthy of one tenth of that affection which Mary had a right to +claim. But it is my sister's gratifying recollection that every act of +duty and of love she could pay, every kindness (and I speak true, when I +say to the hurting of her health, and most probably in great part to the +derangement of her senses) through a long course of infirmities and +sickness she could show her, she ever did. I will some day, as I +promised, enlarge to you upon my sister's excellences; 't will seem like +exaggeration, but I will do it. At present, short letters suit my state +of mind best. So take my kindest wishes for your comfort and +establishment in life, and for Sara's welfare and comforts with you. God +love you; God love us all! + +C. LAMB. + + + +VIII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_November_ 14, 1796. + +Coleridge, I love you for dedicating your poetry to Bowles. [1] Genius of +the sacred fountain of tears, it was he who led you gently by the hand +through all this valley of weeping, showed you the dark green yew-trees +and the willow shades where, by the fall of waters, you might indulge in +uncomplaining melancholy, a delicious regret for the past, or weave fine +visions of that awful future,-- + + "When all the vanities of life's brief day + Oblivion's hurrying hand hath swept away, + And all its sorrows, at the awful blast + Of the archangel's trump, are but as shadows past." + +I have another sort of dedication in my head for my few things, which I +want to know if you approve of and can insert. [2] I mean to inscribe +them to my sister. It will be unexpected, and it will gire her pleasure; +or do you think it will look whimsical at all? As I have not spoke to +her about it, I can easily reject the idea. But there is a monotony in +the affections which people living together, or as we do now, very +frequently seeing each other, are apt to give in to,--a sort of +indifference in the expression of kindness for each other, which demands +that we should sometimes call to our aid the trickery of surprise. Do +you publish with Lloyd, or without him? In either case my little portion +may come last, and after the fashion of orders to a country +correspondent, I will give directions how I should like to have 'em +done. The title-page to stand thus:-- + + +POEMS + +BY CHARLES LAMB, OF THE INDIA HOUSE. + +Under this title the following motto, which, for want of room, I put +over-leaf, and desire you to insert whether you like it or no. May not a +gentleman choose what arms, mottoes, or armorial bearings the herald +will give him leave, without consulting his republican friend, who might +advise none? May not a publican put up the sign of the Saracen's Head, +even though his undiscerning neighbor should prefer, as more genteel, +the Cat and Gridiron? + +[MOTTO.] + + "This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, + When my first fire knew no adulterate incense, + Nor I no way to flatter but my fondness, + In the best language my true tongue could tell me, + And all the broken sighs my sick heart lend me, + I sued and served. Long did I love this lady." [1] + MASSINGER. + +THE DEDICATION. + + THE FEW FOLLOWING POEMS, + CREATURES OF THE FANCY AND THE FEELING + IN LIFE'S MORE VACANT HOURS, + PRODUCED, FOR THE MOST PART, BY + LOVE IN IDLENESS, + ARE, + WITH ALL A BROTHER'S FONDNESS, + INSCRIBED TO + + MARY ANN LAMB, + + THE AUTHOR'S BEST FRIEND ANB SISTER. + +This is the pomp and paraphernalia of parting, with which I take my +leave of a passion which has reigned so royally (so long) within me; +thus, with its trappings of laureateship, I fling it off, pleased and +satisfied with myself that the weakness troubles me no longer. I am +wedded. Coleridge, to the fortunes of my sister and my poor old father. +Oh, my friend, I think sometimes, could I recall the days that are past, +which among them should I choose? Not, those "merrier days," not the +"pleasant days of hope," not "those wanderings with a fair-hair'd +maid," [2] which I have so often, and so feelingly regretted, but the +days, Coleridge, of a _mother's_ fondness for her _schoolboy_. What +would I give to call her back to earth for _one_ day, on my knees to ask +her pardon for all those little asperities of temper which from time to +time have given her gentle spirit pain. And the day, my friend, I trust +will come; there will be "time enough" for kind offices of love, if +"Heaven's eternal year" be ours. Hereafter, her meek spirit shall not +reproach me. Oh, my friend, cultivate the filial feelings, and let no +man think himself released from the kind "charities" of relationship. +These shall give him peace at the last; these are the best foundation +for every species of benevolence. I rejoice to hear, by certain +channels, that you, my friend, are reconciled with all your relations. +'T is the most kindly and natural species of love, and we have all the +associated train of early feelings to secure its strength and +perpetuity. Send me an account of your health; _indeed_ I am solicitous +about you. God love you and yours! + +C. LAMB. + +[1] From "A Very Woman." + +[2] An allusion to Lamb's first love,--the "Anna" of his sonnets, and +the original, probably, of "Rosamund Gray" and of "Alice W---n" in the +beautiful essay "Dream Children." + +[3] The earliest sonnets of William Lisle Bowles were published in 1789, +the year of Lamb's removal from Christ's Hospital. + +[4] Alluding to the prospective joint volume of poems (by Coleridge, +Lamb, and Charles Lloyd) to be published by Cottle in 1797. This was +Lamb's second serious literary venture, he and Coleridge having issued a +joint volume in 1796. + + + +IX. + +TO COLERIDGE. + +[Fragment.] + +_Dec_. 5, 1796. + +At length I have done with verse-making,--not that I relish other +people's poetry less: theirs comes from 'em without effort; mine is the +difficult operation of a brain scanty of ideas, made more difficult by +disuse. I have been reading "The Task" with fresh delight. I am glad you +love Cowper. I could forgive a man for not enjoying Milton; but I would +not call that man my friend who should be offended with the "divine +chit-chat of Cowper." Write to me. God love you and yours! + +C. L. + + + +X. + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_Dec_. 10, 1796. + +I had put my letter into the post rather hastily, not expecting to have +to acknowledge another from you so soon. This morning's present has made +me alive again. My last night's epistle was childishly querulous: but +you have put a little life into me, and I will thank you for your +remembrance of me, while my sense of it is yet warm; for if I linger a +day or two, I may use the same phrase of acknowledgment, or similar, but +the feeling that dictates it now will be gone; I shall send you a _caput +mortuum_; not a _cor vivens_. Thy "Watchman's," thy bellman's verses, I +do retort upon thee, thou libellous varlet,--why, you cried the hours +yourself, and who made you so proud? But I submit, to show my humility, +most implicitly to your dogmas, I reject entirely the copy of verses you +reject. With regard to my leaving off versifying [1] you have said so +many pretty things, so many fine compliments, Ingeniously decked out in +the garb of sincerity, and undoubtedly springing from a present feeling +somewhat like sincerity, that you might melt the most un-muse-ical soul, +did you not (now for a Rowland compliment for your profusion of +Olivers),--did you not in your very epistle, by the many pretty fancies +and profusion of heart displayed in it, dissuade and discourage me from +attempting anything after you. At present I have not leisure to make +verses, nor anything approaching to a fondness for the exercise. In the +ignorant present time, who can answer for the future man? "At lovers' +perjuries Jove laughs,"--and poets have sometimes a disingenuous way of +forswearing their occupation. This, though, is not my case. The tender +cast of soul, sombred with melancholy and subsiding recollections, is +favorable to the Sonnet or the Elegy; but from-- + + "The sainted growing woof + The teasing troubles keep aloof." + +The music of poesy may charm for a while the importunate, teasing cares +of life; but the teased and troubled man is not in a disposition to make +that music. + +You sent me some very sweet lines relative to Burns; but it was at a +time when, in my highly agitated and perhaps distorted state of mind, I +thought it a duty to read 'em hastily and burn 'em. I burned all my own +verses, all my book of extracts from Beaumont and Fletcher and a +thousand sources; I burned a little journal of my foolish passion which +I had a long time kept,-- + + "Noting, ere they past away, + The little lines of yesterday." + +I almost burned all your letters; I did as bad,--I lent 'em to a friend +to keep out of my brother's sight, should he come and make inquisition +into our papers; for much as he dwelt upon your conversation while you +were among us, and delighted to be with you, it has been, his fashion, +ever since to depreciate and cry you down,--you were the cause of my +madness, you and your damned foolish sensibility and melancholy; and he +lamented with a true brotherly feeling that we ever met,--even as the +sober citizen, when his son went astray upon the mountains of Parnassus, +is said to have cursed wit, and poetry, and Pope. [2] I quote wrong, but +no matter. These letters I lent to a friend to be out of the way for a +season; but I have claimed them in vain, and shall not cease to regret +their loss. Your packets posterior to the date of my misfortunes, +commencing with that valuable consolatory epistle, are every day +accumulating,--they are sacred things with me. + +Publish your _Burns_ [3] when and how you like; it will "be new to +me,"--my memory of it is very confused, and tainted with unpleasant +associations. Burns was the god of my idolatry, as Bowles of yours. I am +jealous of your fraternizing with Bowles, when I think you relish him +more than Burns or my old favorite, Cowper, But you conciliate matters +when you talk of the "divine chit-chat" of the latter; by the expression +I see you thoroughly relish him. I love Mrs. Coleridge for her excuses +an hundred-fold more dearly than if she heaped "line upon line," +out-Hannah-ing Hannah More, and had rather hear you sing "Did a very +little baby" by your family fireside, than listen to you when you were +repeating one of Bowles's sweetest sonnets in your sweet manner, while +we two were indulging sympathy, a solitary luxury, by the fireside at +the "Salutation." Yet have I no higher ideas of heaven. Your company was +one "cordial in this melancholy vale,"--the remembrance of it is a +blessing partly, and partly a curse. When I can abstract myself from +things present, I can enjoy it with a freshness of relish; but it more +constantly operates to an unfavorable comparison with the uninteresting +converse I always and _only_ can partake in. Not a soul loves Bowles +here; scarce one has heard of Burns; few but laugh at me for reading my +Testament,--they talk a language I understand not; I conceal sentiments +that would be a puzzle to them. I can only converse with you by letter, +and with the dead in their books. My sister, indeed, is all I can wish +in a companion; but our spirits are alike poorly, our reading and +knowledge from the selfsame sources, our communication with the scenes +of the world alike narrow. Never having kept separate company, or any +"company _together_;" never having read separate books, and few books +_together_,--what knowledge have we to convey to each other? In our +little range of duties and connections, how few sentiments can take +place without friends, with few books, with a taste for religion rather +than a strong religious habit! We need some support, some +leading-strings to cheer and direct us. You talk very wisely; and be not +sparing of _your advice_. Continue to remember us, and to show us you do +remember us; we will take as lively an interest in what concerns you and +yours. All I can add to your happiness will be sympathy. You can add to +mine _more_; you can teach me wisdom. I am indeed an unreasonable +correspondent: but I was unwilling to let my last night's letter go off +without this qualifier: you will perceive by this my mind is easier, and +you will rejoice. I do not expect or wish you to write till you are +moved; and of course shall not, till you announce to me that event, +think of writing myself. Love to Mrs. Coleridge and David Hartley, and +my kind remembrance to Lloyd, if he is with you. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] See preceding letter. + +[2] Epistle to Arbuthnot:-- + + "Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope, + And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope." + +[3] The lines on him which Coleridge had sent to Lamb, and which the +latter had burned. + + + +XI. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_January_ 5, 1797. + +_Sunday Morning_.--You cannot surely mean to degrade the Joan of Arc +into a pot-girl. [1] You are not going, I hope, to annex to that most +splendid ornament of Southey's poem all this cock-and-a-bull story of +Joan, the publican's daughter of Neufchâtel, with the lamentable episode +of a wagoner, his wife, and six children. The texture will be most +lamentably disproportionate. The first forty or fifty lines of these +addenda are no doubt in their way admirable too; but many would prefer +the Joan of Southey. + +[1] Coleridge, in later years, indorsed Lamb's opinion of this +portion of his contribution to "Joan of Arc." "I was really astonished," +he said, "(1) at the schoolboy, wretched, allegoric machinery; (2) at +the transmogrification of the fanatic virago into a modern novel-pawing +proselyte of the "Age of Reason,"--a Tom Paine in petticoats; (3) at the +utter want of all rhythm in the verse, the monotony and dead plumb-down +of the pauses, and the absence of all bone, muscle, and sinew in the +single lines." + + "On mightiest deeds to brood + Of shadowy vastness, such as made my heart + Throb fast; anon I paused, and in a state + Of half expectance listened to the wind." + + "They wondered at me, who had known me once + A cheerful, careless damsel." + + "The eye, + That of the circling throng and of the visible world, + Unseeing, saw the shapes of holy phantasy." + +I see nothing in your description of the Maid equal to these. There is a +fine originality certainly in those lines,-- + + "For she had lived in this bad world + As in a place of tombs, + And touched not the pollutions of the dead;" + +but your "fierce vivacity" is a faint copy of the "fierce and terrible +benevolence" of Southey; added to this, that it will look like rivalship +in you, and extort a comparison with Southey,--I think to your +disadvantage. And the lines, considered in themselves as an addition to +what you had before written (strains of a far higher mood), are but such +as Madame Fancy loves in some of her more familiar moods,--at such times +as she has met Noll Goldsmith, and walked and talked with him, calling +him "old acquaintance." Southey certainly has no pretensions to vie with +you in the sublime of poetry; but he tells a plain tale better than you. +I will enumerate some woful blemishes, some of 'em sad deviations from +that simplicity which was your aim. "Hailed who might be near" (the +"canvas-coverture moving," by the by, is laughable); "a woman and six +children" (by the way, why not nine children? It would have been just +half as pathetic again); "statues of sleep they seemed;" "frost-mangled +wretch;" "green putridity;" "hailed him immortal" (rather ludicrous +again); "voiced a sad and simple tale" (abominable!); "unprovendered;" +"such his tale;" "Ah, suffering to the height of what was sufffered" (a +most _insufferable line_); "amazements of affright;" "The hot, sore +brain attributes its own hues of ghastliness and torture" (what shocking +confusion of ideas!). + +In these delineations of common and natural feelings, in the familiar +walks of poetry, you seem to resemble Montauban dancing with Roubigné's +tenants [1], "_much of his native loftiness remained in the execution_." + +I was reading your "Religious Musings" the other day, and sincerely I +think it the noblest poem in the language next after the "Paradise +Lost;" and even that was not made the vehicle of such grand truths. +"There is one mind," etc., down to "Almighty's throne," are without a +rival in the whole compass of my poetical reading. + + "Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze + Views all creation." + +I wish I could have written those lines. I rejoice that I am able to +relish them. The loftier walks of Pindus are your proper region. There +you have no compeer in modern times. Leave the lowlands, unenvied, in +possession of such men as Cowper and Southey. Thus am I pouring balsam +into the wounds I may have been inflicting on my poor friend's vanity. + +In your notice of Southey's new volume you omit to mention the most +pleasing of all, the "Miniature." + + "There were + Who formed high hopes and flattering ones of thee, + Young Robert!" + + "Spirit of Spenser! was the wanderer wrong?" + +Fairfax I have been in quest of a long time. Johnson, in his "Life of +Waller," gives a most delicious specimen of him, and adds, in the true +manner of that delicate critic, as well as amiable man, "It may be +presumed that this old version will not be much read after the elegant +translation of my friend Mr. Hoole." I endeavored--I wished to gain some +idea of Tasso from this Mr. Hoole, the great boast and ornament of the +India House, but soon desisted. I found him more vapid than smallest +small beer "sun-vinegared." Your "Dream," down to that exquisite line,-- + + "I can't tell half his adventures," + +is a most happy resemblance of Chaucer. The remainder is so-so. The best +line, I think, is, "He belong'd, I believe, to the witch Melancholy." By +the way, when will our volume come out? Don't delay it till you have +written a new "Joan of Arc." Send what letters you please by me, and in +any way you choose, single or double. The India Company is better +adapted to answer the cost than the generality of my friend's +correspondents,--such poor and honest dogs as John Thelwall +particularly. I cannot say I know Coulson,--at least intimately; I once +supped with him and Austin; I think his manners very pleasing. I will +not tell you what I think of Lloyd, for he may by chance come to see +this letter; and that thought puts a restraint on me. I cannot think +what subject would suit your epic genius,--some philosophical subject, I +conjecture, in which shall be blended the sublime of poetry and of +science. Your proposed "Hymns" will be a fit preparatory study wherewith +"to discipline your young novitiate soul." I grow dull; I'll go walk +myself out of my dulness. + +_Sunday Night_,--You and Sara are very good to think so kindly and so +favorably of poor Mary; I would to God all did so too. But I very much +fear she must not think of coming home in my father's lifetime. It is +very hard upon her, but our circumstances are peculiar, and we must +submit to them, God be praised she is so well as she is. She bears her +situation as one who has no right to complain. My poor old aunt, whom +you have seen, the kindest, goodest creature to me when I was at school; +who used to toddle there to bring me good things, when I, +schoolboy-like, only despised her for it, and used to be ashamed to see +her come and sit herself down on the old coal-hole steps as you went +into the old grammar-school, and open her apron, and bring out her +basin, with some nice thing she had caused to be saved for me, [2]--the +good old creature is now lying on her death-bed. I cannot bear to think +on her deplorable state. To the shock she received on that our evil day, +from which she never completely recovered, I impute her illness. She +says, poor thing, she is glad she is come home to die with me. I was +always her favourite; + + "No after friendship e'er can raise + The endearments of our early days; + Nor e'er the heart such fondness prove, + As when it first began to love." + +[1] In Mackenzie's tale, "Julia de Roubigné." + +[2] See the essay, "Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago." + + + +XII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_January_ 10, 1797. + +I need not repeat my wishes to have my little sonnets printed _verbatim_ +my last way. In particular, I fear lest you should prefer printing my +first sonnet, as you have done more than once, "did the wand of Merlin +wave," it looks so like Mr. Merlin, [1] the ingenious successor of the +immortal Merlin, now living in good health and spirits, and flourishing +in magical reputation, in Oxford Street; and, on my life, one half who +read it would understand it so. + +Do put 'em forth finally, as I have, in various letters, settled it; for +first a man's self is to be pleased, and then his friends,--and of +course the greater number of his friends, if they differ _inter se_. +Thus taste may safely be put to the vote. I do long to see our names +together,--not for vanity's sake, and naughty pride of heart altogether; +for not a living soul I know, or am intimate with, will scarce read the +book,--so I shall gain nothing, _quoad famam_; and yet there is a little +vanity mixes in it, I cannot help denying.--I am aware of the unpoetical +cast of the last six lines of my last sonnet, and think myself +unwarranted in smuggling so tame a thing into the book; only the +sentiments of those six lines are thoroughly congenial to me in my state +of mind, and I wish to accumulate perpetuating tokens of my affection to +poor Mary. That it has no originality in its cast, nor anything in the +feelings but what is common and natural to thousands, nor ought properly +to be called poetry, I see; still, it will tend to keep present to my +mind a view of things which I ought to indulge. These six lines, too, +have not, to a reader, a connectedness with the foregoing. Omit it if +you like,--What a treasure it is to my poor, indolent, and unemployed +mind thus to lay hold on a subject to talk about, though 'tis but a +sonnet, and that of the lowest order! How mournfully inactive I +am!--'Tis night; good night. + +My sister, I thank God, is nigh recovered; she was seriously ill. Do, in +your next letter, and that right soon, give me some satisfaction +respecting your present situation at Stowey. Is it a farm that you have +got? and what does your worship know about farming? + +Coleridge, I want you to write an epic poem. Nothing short of it can +satisfy the vast capacity of true poetic genius. Having one great end to +direct all your poetical faculties to, and on which to lay out your +hopes, your ambition will show you to what you are equal. By the sacred +energies of Milton! by the dainty, sweet, and soothing phantasies of +honey-tongued Spenser! I adjure you to attempt the epic, or do something +more ample than the writing an occasional brief ode or sonnet; something +"to make yourself forever known,--to make the age to come your own." But +I prate; doubtless you meditate something. When you are exalted among +the lords of epic fame, I shall recall with pleasure and exultingly the +days of your humility, when you disdained not to put forth, in the same +volume with mine, your "Religious Musings" and that other poem from the +"Joan of Arc," those promising first-fruits of high renown to come. You +have learning, you have fancy, you have enthusiasm, you have strength +and amplitude of wing enow for flights like those I recommend. In the +vast and unexplored regions of fairy-land there is ground enough unfound +and uncultivated: search there, and realize your favorite Susquehanna +scheme. In all our comparisons of taste, I do not know whether I have +ever heard your opinion of a poet very dear to me,--the +now-out-of-fashion Cowley. Favor me with your judgment of him, and tell +me if his prose essays, in particular, as well as no inconsiderable part +of his verse, be not delicious. I prefer the graceful rambling of his +essays even to the courtly elegance and ease of Addison, abstracting +from this the latter's exquisite humor. + +When the little volume is printed, send me three or four, at all events +not more than six, copies, and tell me if I put you to any additional +expense by printing with you, I have no thought of the kind, and in that +case must reimburse you. + +Priestley, whom I sin in almost adoring, speaks of "such a choice of +company as tends to keep up that, right bent and firmness of mind which +a necessary intercourse with the world would otherwise warp and +relax.... Such fellowship is the true balsam of life; its cement is +infinitely more durable than that of the friendships of the world, and +it looks for its proper fruit and complete gratification to the life +beyond the grave." Is there a possible chance for such an one as I to +realize in this world such friendships? Where am I to look for 'em? What +testimonials shall I bring of my being worthy of such friendship? Alas! +the great and good go together in separate herds, and leave such as I to +lag far, far behind in all intellectual and, far more grievous to say, +in all moral accomplishments. Coleridge, I have not one truly elevated +character among my acquaintance,--not one Christian; not one but +undervalues Christianity. Singly what am I to do? Wesley (have you read +his life?), was _he_ not an elevated character? Wesley has said, +"Religion is not a solitary thing." Alas! it necessarily is so with me, +or next to solitary. 'T is true you write to me. But correspondence by +letter and personal intimacy are very widely different. Do, do write to +me, and do some good to my mind, already how much "warped and relaxed" +by the world! 'T is the conclusion of another evening. Good night; God +have us all in His keeping! + +If you are sufficiently at leisure, oblige me with an account of your +plan of life at Stowey; your literary occupations and prospects,--in +short, make me acquainted with every circumstance which, as relating to +you, can be interesting to me. Are you yet a Berkleyan? Make me one. I +rejoice in being, speculatively, a necessarian. Would to God I were +habitually a practical one! Confirm me in the faith of that great and +glorious doctrine, and keep me steady in the contemplation of it. You +some time since expressed an intention you had of finishing some +extensive work on the Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion. Have +you let that intention go? Or are you doing anything towards it? Make to +yourself other ten talents. My letter is full of nothingness. I talk of +nothing. But I must talk. I love to write to you. I take a pride in it. +It makes me think less meanly of myself. It makes me think myself not +totally disconnected from the better part of mankind. I know I am too +dissatisfied with the beings around me; but I cannot help occasionally +exclaiming, "Woe is me, that I am constrained to dwell with Meshech, and +to have my habitation among the tents of Kedar." I know I am noways +better in practice than my neighors, but I have a taste for religion, an +occasional earnest aspiration after perfection, which they have not. I +gain, nothing by being with such as myself,--we encourage one another in +mediocrity, I am always longing to be with men more excellent than +myself. All this must sound odd to you; but these are my predominant +feelings when I sit down to write to you, and I should put force upon my +mind, were I to reject them, Yet I rejoice, and feel my privilege with +gratitude, when I have been reading some wise book, such as I have just +been reading,--Priestley on Philosophical Necessity,--in the thought +that I enjoy a kind of communion, a kind of friendship even, with the +great and good. Books are to me instead of friends, I wish they did not +resemble the latter in their scarceness. + +And how does little David Hartley? "Ecquid in antiquam virtutem?" Does +his mighty name work wonders yet upon his little frame and opening mind? +I did not distinctly understand you,--you don't mean to make an actual +ploughman of him? Is Lloyd with you yet? Are you intimate with Southey? +What poems is he about to publish? He hath a most prolific brain, and is +indeed a most sweet poet. But how can you answer all the various mass of +interrogation I have put to you in the course of the sheet? Write back +just what you like, only write something, however brief. I have now nigh +finished my page, and got to the end of another evening (Monday +evening), and my eyes are heavy and sleepy, and my brain unsuggestive. I +have just heart enough awake to say good night once more, and God love +you, my dear friend; God love us all! Mary bears an affectionate +remembrance of you. + +CHARLES LAMB. + +[1] A well-known conjuror of the time. + + + +XIII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_February_ 13, 1797. + +Your poem is altogether admirable--parts of it are even exquisite; in +particular your personal account of the Maid far surpasses anything of +the sort in Southey. [1] I perceived all its excellences, on a first +reading, as readily as now you have been removing a supposed film from +my eyes. I was only struck with a certain faulty disproportion in the +matter and the _style_, which I still think I perceive, between these +lines and the former ones. I had an end in view,--I wished to make you +reject the poem, only as being discordant with the other; and, in +subservience to that end, it was politically done in me to over-pass, +and make no mention of, merit which, could you think me capable of +_overlooking_, might reasonably damn forever in your judgment all +pretensions in me to be critical. There, I will be judged by Lloyd +whether I have not made a very handsome recantation. I was in the case +of a man whose friend has asked him his opinion of a certain young lady; +the deluded wight gives judgment against her _in toto_,--don't like her +face, her walk, her manners; finds fault with her eyebrows; can see no +wit in her. His friend looks blank; he begins to smell a rat; wind veers +about; he acknowledges her good sense, her judgment in dress, a certain +simplicity of manners and honesty of heart, something too in her manners +which gains upon you after a short acquaintance;--and then her accurate +pronunciation of the French language, and a pretty, uncultivated taste +in drawing. The reconciled gentleman smiles applause, squeezes him by +the hand, and hopes he will do him the honor of taking a bit of dinner +with Mrs. ---- and him--a plain family dinner--some day next week; "for, +I suppose, you never heard we were married. I'm glad to see you like my +wife, however; you 'll come and see her, ha?" Now am I too proud to +retract entirely? Yet I do perceive I am in some sort straitened; you +are manifestly wedded, to this poem, and what fancy has joined, let no +man separate, I turn me to the "Joan of Arc," second book. + +The solemn openings of it are with sounds which, Lloyd would say, "are +silence to the mind." The deep preluding strains are fitted to initiate +the mind, with a pleasing awe, into the sublimest mysteries of theory +concerning man's nature and his noblest destination,--the philosophy of +a first cause; of subordinate agents in creation superior to man; the +subserviency of pagan worship and pagan faith to the introduction of a +purer and more perfect religion, which you so elegantly describe as +winning, with gradual steps, her difficult way northward from Bethabara. +After all this cometh Joan, a _publican's_ daughter, sitting on an +ale-house _bench_, and marking the _swingings_ of the _signboard_, +finding a poor man, his wife and six children, starved to death with +cold, and thence roused into a state of mind proper to receive visions +emblematical of equality,--which, what the devil Joan had to do with, I +don't know, or indeed with the French and American revolutions; though +that needs no pardon, it is executed so nobly. After all, if you +perceive no disproportion, all argument is vain; I do not so much object +to parts. Again, when you talk of building your fame on these lines in +preference to the "Religious Musings," I cannot help conceiving of you +and of the author of that as two different persons, and I think you a +very vain man. + +I have been re-reading your letter. Much of it I _could_ dispute; but +with the latter part of it, in which you compare the two Joans with +respect to their predispositions for fanaticism, I _toto corde_ +coincide; only I think that Southey's strength rather lies in the +description of the emotions of the Maid under the weight of inspiration. +These (I see no mighty difference between _her_ describing them or _you_ +describing them),--these if you only equal, the previous admirers of his +poem, as is natural, will prefer his; if you surpass, prejudice will +scarcely allow it, and I scarce think you will surpass, though your +specimen at the conclusion (I am in earnest) I think very nigh equals +them. And in an account of a fanatic or of a prophet the description of +her _emotions_ is expected to be most highly finished. By the way, I +spoke far too disparagingly of your lines, and, I am ashamed to say. +purposely, I should like you to specify or particularize; the story of +the "Tottering Eld," of "his eventful years all come and gone," is too +general; why not make him a soldier, or some character, however, in +which he has been witness to frequency of "cruel wrong and strange +distress"? I think I should, When I laughed at the "miserable man +crawling from beneath the coverture," I wonder I did not perceive it was +a laugh of horror,--such as I have laughed at Dante's picture of the +famished Ugolino. Without falsehood, I perceive an hundred, beauties in +your narrative. Yet I wonder you do not perceive something +out-of-the-way, something unsimple and artificial, in the expression, +"voiced a sad tale." I hate made-dishes at the muses' banquet, I believe +I was wrong in most of my other objections. But surely "hailed him +immortal" adds nothing to the terror of the man's death, which it was +your business to heighten, not diminish by a phrase which takes away all +terror from it, I like that line, "They closed their eyes in sleep, nor +knew 'twas death," Indeed, there is scarce a line I do not like, +"_Turbid_ ecstasy" is surely not so good as what you had +written,--"troublous." "Turbid" rather suits the muddy kind of +inspiration which London porter confers. The versification is +throughout, to my ears, unexceptionable, with no disparagement to the +measure of the "Religious Musings," which is exactly fitted to +the thoughts. + +You were building your house on a rock when you rested your fame on that +poem. I can scarce bring myself to believe that I am admitted to a +familiar correspondence, and all the license of friendship, with a man +who writes blank verse like Milton. Now, this is delicate flattery, +_indirect_ flattery. Go on with your "Maid of Orleans," and be content +to be second to yourself. I shall become a convert to it, when +'tis finished. + +This afternoon I attend the funeral of my poor old aunt, who died on +Thursday. I own I am thankful that the good creature has ended all her +days of suffering and infirmity. She was to me the "cherisher of +infancy;" and one must fall on these occasions into reflections, which +it would be commonplace to enumerate, concerning death, "of chance and +change, and fate in human life." Good God, who could have foreseen all +this but four months back! I had reckoned, in particular, on my aunt's +living many years; she was a very hearty old woman. But she was a mere +skeleton before she died; looked more like a corpse that had lain weeks +in the grave, than one fresh dead. "Truly the light is sweet, and a +pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun: but let a man live +many days, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of +darkness, for they shall be many." Coleridge, why are we to live on +after all the strength and beauty of existence are gone, when all the +life of life is fled, as poor Burns expresses it? Tell Lloyd I have had +thoughts of turning Quaker, and have been reading, or am rather just +beginning to read, a most capital book, good thoughts in good language, +William Penn's "No Cross, no Crown;" I like it immensely. Unluckily I +went to one of his meetings, tell hire, in St. John Street, yesterday, +and saw a man under all the agitations and workings of a fanatic, who +believed himself under the influence of some "inevitable presence." This +cured me of Quakerism: I love it in the books of Penn and Woolman, but I +detest the vanity of a man thinking he speaks by the Spirit, when what +he says an ordinary man might say without all that quaking and +trembling. In the midst of his inspiration,--and the effects of it were +most noisy,--was handed into the midst of the meeting a most terrible +blackguard Wapping sailor; the poor man, I believe, had rather have been +in the hottest part of an engagement, for the congregation of +broad-brims, together with the ravings of the prophet, were too much for +his gravity, though I saw even he had delicacy enough not to laugh out. +And the inspired gentleman, though his manner was so supernatural, yet +neither talked, nor professed to talk anything more than good sober +sense, common morality, with, now and then a declaration of not speaking +from himself. Among other things, looking back to this childhood and +early youth, he told the meeting what a graceless young dog he had been, +that in his youth he had a good share of wit. Reader, if thou hadst seen +the gentleman, thou wouldst have sworn that it must indeed have been +many years ago, for his rueful physiognomy would have scared away the +playful goddess from the meeting, where he presided, forever, A wit! a +wit! what could he mean? Lloyd, it minded me of Falkland in the +"Rivals," "Am I full of wit and humor? No, indeed, you are not. Am I the +life and soul of every company I come into? No, it cannot be said you +are." That hard-faced gentleman a wit! Why, Nature wrote on his fanatic +forehead fifty years ago, "Wit never comes, that comes to all." I should +be as scandalized at a _bon-mot_ issuing from his oracle-looking mouth +as to see Cato go down a country-dance. God love you all! You are very +good to submit to be pleased with reading my nothings. 'T is the +privilege of friendship to talk nonsense and to have her nonsense +respected. Yours ever, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] See Letter VIII. + + + +XIV. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_January_ 28, 1798. + +You have writ me many kind letters, and I have answered none of them. I +don't deserve your attentions. An unnatural indifference has been +creeping on me since my last misfortunes, or I should have seized the +first opening of a correspondence with _you_. To you I owe much under +God. In my brief acquaintance with you in London, your conversations won +me to the better cause, and rescued me from the polluting spirit of the +world. I might have been a worthless character without you; as it is, I +do possess a certain improvable portion of devotional feelings, though +when I view myself in the light of divine truth, and not according to +the common measures of human judgment. I am altogether corrupt and +sinful. This is no cant. I am very sincere. + +These last afflictions, [1] Coleridge, have failed to soften and bend my +will. They found me unprepared. My former calamities produced in me a +spirit of humility and a spirit of prayer. I thought they had +sufficiently disciplined me; but the event ought to humble me. If God's +judgments now fail to take away from the the heart of stone, what more +grievous trials ought I not to expect? I have been very querulous, +impatient under the rod, full of little jealousies and heartburnings. I +had wellnigh quarrelled with Charles Lloyd, and for no other reason, I +believe, than that the good creature did all he could to make me happy. +The truth is, I thought he tried to force my mind from its natural and +proper bent: he continually wished me to be from home; he was drawing me +_from_ the consideration of my poor dear Mary's situation, rather than +assisting me to gain a proper view of it with religious consolations. I +wanted to be left to the tendency of my own mind in a solitary state +which, in times past, I knew had led to quietness and a patient bearing +of the yoke. He was hurt that I was not more constantly with him; but he +was living with White,--a man to whom I had never been accustomed to +impart my _dearest feelings_; though from long habits of +friendliness, and many a social and good quality, I loved him very much, +I met company there sometimes,--indiscriminate company. Any society +almost, when I am in affliction, is sorely painful to me. I seem to +breathe more freely, to think more collectedly, to feel more properly +and calmly, when alone. All these things the good creature did with the +kindest intentions in the world, but they produced in me nothing but +soreness and discontent. I became, as he complained, "jaundiced" towards +him.... But he has forgiven me; and his smile, I hope, will draw all +such humors from me. I am recovering, God be praised for it, a +healthiness of mind, something like calmness; but I want more religion, +I am jealous of human helps and leaning-places. I rejoice in your good +fortunes. May God at the last settle you! You have had many and painful +trials; humanly speaking, they are going to end; but we should rather +pray that discipline may attend us through the whole of our lives.... A +careless and a dissolute spirit has advanced upon _me_ with large +strides. Pray God that my present afflictions may be sanctified to me! +Mary is recovering; but I see no opening yet of a situation for her. +Your invitation went to my very heart; but you have a power of exciting +interest, of leading all hearts captive, too forcible to admit of Mary's +being with you. I consider her as perpetually on the brink of madness. I +think you would almost make her dance within an inch of the precipice; +she must be with duller fancies and cooler intellects. I know a young +man of this description who has suited her these twenty years, and may +live to do so still, if we are one day restored to each other. In answer +to your suggestions of occupation for me, I must say that I do not think +my capacity altogether suited for disquisitions of that kind.... I have +read little; I have a very weak memory, and retain little of what I +read; am unused to composition in which any methodizing is required. But +I thank you sincerely for the hint, and shall receive it as far as I am +able,--that is, endeavor to engage my mind in some constant and innocent +pursuit. I know my capacities better than you do. + +Accept my kindest love, and believe me yours, as ever. + +C. L. + +[1] Mary Lamb had fallen ill again. + + + +XV. + + +TO ROBERT SOUTHEY + +(No month, 1798.) + +Dear Southey,--I thank you heartily for the eclogue [1]; it pleases me +mightily, being so full of picture-work and circumstances. I find no +fault in it, unless perhaps that Joanna's ruin is a catastrophe too +trite; and this is not the first or second time you have clothed your +indignation, in verse, in a tale of ruined innocence. The old lady, +spinning in the sun, I hope would not disdain to claim some kindred with +old Margaret. I could almost wish you to vary some circumstances in the +conclusion. A gentleman seducer has so often been described in prose and +verse: what if you had accomplished Joanna's ruin by the clumsy arts and +rustic gifts of some country fellow? I am thinking, I believe, of +the song,-- + + "An old woman clothed in gray, + Whose daughter was charming and young, + And she was deluded away + By Roger's false, flattering tongue." + +A Roger-Lothario would be a novel character; I think you might paint him +very well. You may think this a very silly suggestion, and so indeed it +is; but, in good truth, nothing else but the first words of that foolish +ballad put me upon scribbling my "Rosamund." [2] But I thank you heartily +for the poem. Not having anything of my own to send you in +return,--though, to tell truth, I am at work upon something which, if I +were to cut away and garble, perhaps I might send you an extract or two +that might not displease you; but I will not do that; and whether it +will come to anything, I know not, for I am as slow as a Fleming painter +when I compose anything. I will crave leave to put down a few lines of +old Christopher Marlowe's; I take them from his tragedy, "The Jew of +Malta." The Jew is a famous character, quite out of nature; but when we +consider the terrible idea our simple ancestors had of a Jew, not more +to be discommended for a certain discoloring (I think Addison calls it) +than the witches and fairies of Marlowe's mighty successor. The scene is +betwixt Barabas, the Jew, and Ithamore, a Turkish captive exposed to +sale for a slave. + +BARABAS. + +(_A precious rascal_.) + + "As for myself, I walk abroad o' nights, + And kill sick people groaning under walls; + Sometimes I go about and poison wells; + And now and then, to cherish Christian thieves, + I am content to lose some of my crowns, + That I may, walking in my gallery, + See 'm go pinioned along by my door. + Being young, I studied physic, and began + To practise first upon the Italian; + There I enriched the priests with burials, + And always kept the sexton's arms in ure [3] + With digging graves and ringing dead men's knells. + And after that, was I an engineer, + And in the wars 'twixt France and Germany, + Under pretence of serving Charles the Fifth, + Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems. + Then after that was I an usurer, + And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting, + And tricks belonging unto brokery, + I fill'd the jails with bankrupts in a year, + And with young orphans planted hospitals, + And every moon made some or other mad; + And now and then one hang'd himself for grief, + Pinning upon his breast a long great scroll, + How I with interest tormented him." + +Now hear Ithamore, the other gentle nature, explain how he has spent his +time:-- + +ITHAMORE + +(_A Comical Dog_.) + + "Faith, master, in setting Christian villages on fire, + Chaining of eunuchs, binding galley-slaves. + One time I was an hostler in an inn, + And in the night-time secret would I steal + To travellers' chambers, and there cut their throats. + Once at Jerusalem, where the pilgrims kneel'd, + I strewèd powder on the marble stones, + And therewithal their knees would rankle so, + That I have laugh'd a-good to see the cripples + Go limping home to Christendom on stilts." + +BARABAS. + +"Why, this is something." + +There is a mixture of the ludicrous and the terrible in these lines, +brimful of genius and antique invention, that at first reminded me of +your old description of cruelty in hell, which was in the true +Hogarthian style. I need not tell _you_ that Marlowe was author of that +pretty madrigal, "Come live with me, and be my Love," and of the tragedy +of "Edward II.," in which are certain _lines_ unequalled in our English +tongue. Honest Walton mentions the said madrigal under the denomination +of "certain smooth verses made long since by Kit Marlowe." + +I am glad you have put me on the scent after old Quarles. If I do not +put up those eclogues, and that shortly, say I am no true-nosed hound. I +have had a letter from Lloyd; the young metaphysician of Caius is well, +and is busy recanting the new heresy, metaphysics, for the old dogma +Greek. My sister, I thank you, is quite well. She had a slight attack +the other day, which frightened me a good deal; but it went off +unaccountably. Love and respects to Edith. + +Yours sincerely, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The eclogue was entitled "The Ruined Cottage." + +[2] His romance. "Rosamund Gray." + +[3] Use. + + + +XVI. + + +TO SOUTHEY. + +_November_ 8, 1798. + +I perfectly accord with your opinion of old Wither. Quarles is a wittier +writer, but Wither lays more hold of the heart. Quarles thinks of his +audience when he lectures; Wither soliloquizes in company with a full +heart. What wretched stuff are the "Divine Fancies" of Quarles! Religion +appears to him no longer valuable than it furnishes matter for quibbles +and riddles; he turns God's grace into wantonness. Wither is like an old +friend, whose warm-heartedness and estimable qualities make us wish he +possessed more genius, but at the same time make us willing to dispense +with that want. I always love W., and sometimes admire Q. Still, that +portrait is a fine one; and the extract from "The Shepherds' Hunting" +places him in a starry height far above Quarles, If you wrote that +review in "Crit. Rev.," I am sorry you are so sparing of praise to the +"Ancient Marinere;" [1] so far from calling it, as you do, with some wit +but more severity, "A Dutch Attempt," etc., I call it a right English +attempt, and a successful one, to dethrone German sublimity. You have +selected a passage fertile in unmeaning miracles, but have passed by +fifty passages as miraculous as the miracles they celebrate. I never so +deeply felt the pathetic as in that part,-- + + "A spring of love gush'd from my heart, + And I bless'd them unaware." + +It stung me into high pleasure through sufferings. Lloyd does not like +it; his head is too metaphysical, and your taste too correct,--at least +I must allege something against you both, to excuse my own dotage,-- + +But you allow some elaborate beauties; you should have extracted 'em. +"The Ancient Marinere" plays more tricks with the mind than that last +poem, which is yet one of the finest written. But I am getting too +dogmatical; and before I degenerate into abuse, I will conclude with +assuring you that I am, + +Sincerely yours, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The "Lyrical Ballads" of Wordsworth and Coleridge had just appeared. +The volume contained four pieces, including the "Ancient Mariner," by +Coleridge. + + + +XVII. + + +TO SOUTHEY. + +_November_ 28, 1798. + + * * * * * + I showed my "Witch" and "Dying Lover" to + Dyer [1] last night; but George could not comprehend + how that could be poetry which did not go + upon ten feet, as George and his predecessors had + taught it to do; so George read me some lectures + on the distinguishing qualities of the Ode, the Epigram, + and the Epic, and went home to illustrate his + doctrine by correcting a proof-sheet of his own + Lyrics, George writes odes where the rhymes, like + fashionable man and wife, keep a comfortable distance + of six or eight lines apart, and calls that "observing + the laws of verse," George tells you, before + he recites, that you must listen with great attention, + or you 'll miss the rhymes. I did so, and found + them pretty exact, George, speaking of the dead + Ossian, exclaimeth, "Dark are the poet's eyes," I + humbly represented to him that his own eyes were + dark, and many a living bard's besides, and recommended + "Clos'd are the poet's eyes." But that + would not do, I found there was an antithesis between + the darkness of his eyes and the splendor of + his genius, and I acquiesced. + +Your recipe for a Turk's poison is invaluable and truly Marlowish.... +Lloyd objects to "shutting up the womb of his purse" in my Curse (which +for a Christian witch in a Christian country is not too mild, I hope): +do you object? I think there is a strangeness in the idea, as well as +"shaking the poor like snakes from his door," which suits the speaker. +Witches illustrate, as fine ladies do, from their own familiar objects, +and snakes and shutting up of wombs are in their way. I don't know that +this last charge has been before brought against 'em, nor either the +sour milk or the mandrake babe; but I affirm these be things a witch +would do if she could. + +My tragedy [2] will be a medley (as I intend it to be a medley) of +laughter and tears, prose and verse, and in some places rhyme, songs, +wit, pathos, humor, and if possible, sublimity,--at least, it is not a +fault in my intention if it does not comprehend most of these discordant +colors. Heaven send they dance not the "Dance of Death!" I hear that the +Two Noble Englishmen [3] have parted no sooner than they set foot on +German earth; but I have not heard the reason,--possibly to give +novelists a handle to exclaim, "Ah me, what things are perfect!" I think +I shall adopt your emendation in the "Dying Lover," though I do not +myself feel the objection against "Silent Prayer." + +My tailor has brought me home a new coat lapelled, with a velvet collar. +He assures me everybody wears velvet collars now. Some are born +fashionable, some achieve fashion, and others, like your humble servant, +have fashion thrust upon them. The rogue has been making inroads +hitherto by modest degrees, foisting upon me an additional button, +recommending gaiters; but to come upon me thus in a full tide of luxury, +neither becomes him as a tailor or the ninth of a man. My meek gentleman +was robbed the other day, coming with his wife and family in a one-horse +shay from Hampstead; the villains rifled him of four guineas, some +shillings and halfpence, and a bundle of customers' measures, which they +swore were bank-notes. They did not shoot him, and when they rode off he +addressed them with profound gratitude, making a congee: "Gentlemen, I +wish you good-night; and we are very much obliged to you that you have +not used us ill!" And this is the cuckoo that has the audacity to foist +upon me ten buttons on a side and a black velvet collar,--a cursed ninth +of a scoundrel! + +When you write to Lloyd, he wishes his Jacobin correspondents to address +him as _Mr._ C. L. Love and respects to Edith. I hope she is well. + +Yours sincerely, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] This quaint scholar, a marvel of simplicity and universal optimism, +is a constantly recurring and delightfully humorous character in the +Letters. Lamb and Dyer had been schoolfellows at Christ's Hospital. + +[2] John Woodvil. + +[3] Coleridge and Wordsworth, who started for Germany together. + + + +XVIII. + + +TO SOUTHEY. + +_March_ 20, 1799, + +I am hugely pleased with your "Spider," "your old freemason," as you +call him. The three first stanzas are delicious; they seem to me a +compound of Burns and. Old Quarles, those kind of home-strokes, where +more is felt than strikes the ear,--a terseness, a jocular pathos which +makes one feel in laughter. The measure, too, is novel and pleasing. I +could almost wonder Rob Burns in his lifetime never stumbled upon it. +The fourth stanza is less striking, as being less original. The fifth +falls off. It has no felicity of phrase, no old-fashioned phrase +or feeling. + +"Young hopes, and love's delightful dreams," + +savor neither of Burns nor Quarles; they seem more like shreds of many a +modern sentimental sonnet. The last stanza hath nothing striking in it, +if I except the two concluding lines, which are Burns all over. I wish, +if you concur with me, these things could be looked to. I am sure this +is a kind of writing which comes tenfold better recommended to the +heart, comes there more like a neighbor or familiar, than thousands of +Hamnels and Zillahs and Madelons. I beg you will send me the +"Holly-tree," if it at all resemble this, for it must please me. I have +never seen it. I love this sort of poems, that open a new intercourse +with the most despised of the animal and insect race. I think this vein +may be further opened; Peter Pindar hath very prettily apostrophized a +fly; Burns hath his mouse and his louse; Coleridge, less successfully, +hath made overtures of intimacy to a jackass,--therein only following at +unresembling distance Sterne and greater Cervantes. Besides these, I +know of no other examples of breaking down the partition between us and +our "poor earth-born companions." It is sometimes revolting to be put in +a track of feeling by other people, not one's own immediate thoughts, +else I would persuade you, if I could (I am in earnest), to commence a +series of these animal poems, which might have a tendency to rescue some +poor creatures from the antipathy of mankind. Some thoughts come across +me: for instance, to a rat, to a toad, to a cockchafer, to a +mole,--people bake moles alive by a slow oven-fire to cure consumption. +Rats are, indeed, the most despised and contemptible parts of God's +earth, I killed a rat the other day by punching him to pieces, and feel +a weight of blood upon me to this hour. Toads, you know, are made to +fly, and tumble down and crush all to pieces. Cockchafers are old sport; +then again to a worm, with an apostrophe to anglers,--those patient +tyrants, meek inflictors of pangs intolerable, cool devils; [1] to an +owl; to all snakes, with an apology for their poison; to a cat in boots +or bladders. Your own fancy, if it takes a fancy to these hints, will +suggest many more. A series of such poems, suppose them accompanied with +plates descriptive of animal torments,--cooks roasting lobsters, +fishmongers crimping skates, etc.,--would take excessively, I will +willingly enter into a partnership in the plan with you; I think my +heart and soul would go with it too,--at least, give it a thought. My +plan is but this minute come into my head; but it strikes me +instantaneously as something new, good, and useful, full of pleasure and +full of moral. If old Quarles and Wither could live again, we would +invite them into our firm. Burns hath done his part. + +Poor Sam Le Grice! I am afraid the world and the camp and the university +have spoiled him among them. 'Tis certain he had at one time a strong +capacity of turning out something better. I knew him, and that not long +since, when he had a most warm heart. I am ashamed of the indifference I +have sometimes felt towards him. I think the devil is in one's heart. I +am under obligations to that man for the warmest friendship and +heartiest sympathy, [2] even for an agony of sympathy expressed both by +word and deed, and tears for me when I was in my greatest distress. But +I have forgot that,--as, I fear, he has nigh forgot the awful scenes +which were before his eyes when he served the office of a comforter to +me. No service was too mean or troublesome for him to perform. I can't +think what but the devil, "that old spider," could have suck'd my heart +so dry of its sense of all gratitude. If he does come in your way, +Southey, fail not to tell him that I retain a most affectionate +remembrance of his old friendliness, and an earnest wish to resume our +intercourse. In this I am serious. I cannot recommend him to your +society, because I am afraid whether he be quite worthy of it. But I +have no right to dismiss him from _my_ regard. He was at one time, and +in the worst of times, my own familiar friend, and great comfort to me +then. I have known him to play at cards with my father, meal-times +excepted, literally all day long, in long days too, to save me from +being teased by the old man when I was not able to bear it. + +God bless him for it, and God bless you, Southey! + +C. L. + +[1] Leigh Hunt says: "Walton says that an angler does no hurt but to +fish; and this he counts as nothing.... Now, fancy a Genius fishing for +us. Fancy him baiting a great hook with pickled salmon, and, twitching +up old Izaac Walton from the banks of the River Lee, with the hook +through his ear. How he would go up, roaring and screaming, and thinking +the devil had got him! + + "'Other joys + Are but toys.' + + WALTON." + +[2] See Letter VI. + + + +XIX. + + +TO THOMAS MANNING [1]. + +_March_ 1, 1800. + +I hope by this time you are prepared to say the "Falstaff's Letters" are +a bundle of the sharpest, queerest, profoundest humors of any these +juice-drained latter times have spawned. I should have advertised you +that the meaning is frequently hard to be got at,--and so are the future +guineas that now lie ripening and aurifying in the womb of some +undiscovered Potosi; but dig, dig, dig, dig, Manning! I set to with an +unconquerable propulsion to write, with a lamentable want of what to +write. My private goings on are orderly as the movements of the spheres, +and stale as their music to angels' ears. Public affairs, except as they +touch upon me, and so turn into private, I cannot whip up my mind to +feel any interest in, I grieve, indeed, that War and Nature and Mr. +Pitt, that hangs up in Lloyd's best parlour, should have conspired to +call up three necessaries, simple commoners as our fathers knew them, +into the upper house of luxuries,--bread and beer and coals, Manning. +But as to France and Frenchmen, and the Abbé Siéyès and his +constitutions, I cannot make these present times present to me. I read +histories of the past, and I live in them; although, to abstract senses, +they are far less momentous than the noises which keep Europe awake. I +am reading Burnet's "Own Times." Did you ever read that garrulous, +pleasant history? He tells his story like an old man, past political +service, bragging to his sons on winter evenings of the part he took in +public transactions when "his old cap was new." Full of scandal, which +all true history is. No palliatives; but all the stark wickedness that +actually gives the _momentum_ to national actors. Quite the prattle of +age and outlived importance. Truth and sincerity staring out upon you +perpetually in _alto relievo_. Himself a party man, he makes you a party +man. None of the cursed philosophical Humeian indifference, so cold and +unnatural and inhuman! None of the cursed Gibbonian fine writing, so +fine and composite. None of Dr. Robertson's periods with three members. +None of Mr. Roscoe's sage remarks, all so apposite, and coming in so +clever, lest the reader should have had the trouble of drawing an +inference. Burnet's good old prattle I can bring present to my mind; I +can make the Revolution present to me: the French Revolution, by a +converse perversity in my nature, I fling as far _from_ me. To quit this +tiresome subject, and to relieve you from two or three dismal yawns, +which I hear in spirit, I here conclude my more than commonly obtuse +letter,--dull up to the dulness of a Dutch commentator on Shakspeare. My +love to Lloyd and Sophia. + +C. L. + +[1] To this remarkable person we are largely indebted for some of the +best of Lamb's letters. He was mathematical tutor at Caius College, +Cambridge, and in later years became somewhat famous as an explorer of +the remoter parts of China and Thibet. Lamb had been introduced to him, +during a Cambridge visit, by Charles Lloyd, and afterwards told Crabb +Robinson that he was the most "wonderful man" he ever met. An account of +Manning will be found in the memoir prefixed to his "Journey to Lhasa," +in 1811-12. (George Bogle and Thomas Manning's Journey to Thibet and +Lhasa, by C.R. Markham, 1876.) + + + +XX. + + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_May_ 12, 1800, + +My Dear Coleridge,--I don't know why I write, except from the propensity +misery has to tell her griefs. Hetty [1] died on Friday night, about +eleven o'clock, after eight days' illness; Mary, in consequence of +fatigue and anxiety, is fallen ill again, and I was obliged to remove +her yesterday. I am left alone in a house with nothing but Hetty's dead +body to keep me company. To-morrow I bury her, and then I shall be quite +alone, with nothing but a cat to remind me that the house has been full +of living beings like myself. My heart is quite sunk, and I don't know +where to look for relief. Mary will get better again; but her constantly +being liable to such relapses is dreadful; nor is it the least of our +evils that her case and all our story is so well known around us. We are +in a manner _marked_. Excuse my troubling you; but I have nobody by me +to speak to me. I slept out last night, not being able to endure the +change and the stillness. But I did not sleep well, and I must come back +to my own bed. I am going to try and get a friend to come and be with me +to-morrow. I am completely shipwrecked. My head is quite bad. I almost +wish that Mary were dead. God bless you. Love to Sara and Hartley. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The Lambs' old servant. + + + +XXI. + + +TO MANNING. + +Before _June_, 1800. + +Dear Manning,--I feel myself unable to thank you sufficiently for your +kind letter. It was doubly acceptable to me, both for the choice poetry +and the kind, honest prose which it contained. It was just such a letter +as I should have expected from Manning. + +I am in much better spirits than when I wrote last. I have had a very +eligible offer to lodge with a friend in town. He will have rooms to let +at midsummer, by which time I hope my sister will be well enough to join +me. It is a great object to me to live in town, where we shall be much +more _private_, and to quit a house and neighborhood where poor Mary's +disorder, so frequently recurring, has made us a sort of marked people. +We can be nowhere private except in the midst of London. We shall be in +a family where we visit very frequently; only my landlord and I have not +yet come to a conclusion. He has a partner to consult. I am still on the +tremble, for I do not know where we could go into lodgings that would +not be, in many respects, highly exceptionable. Only God send Mary well +again, and I hope all will be well! The prospect, such as it is, has +made me quite happy. I have just time to tell you of it, as I know it +will give you pleasure. Farewell. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XXII. + + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_August_, 6, 1800. + +Dear Coleridge,--I have taken to-day and delivered to Longman and Co., +_Imprimis_: your books, viz., three ponderous German dictionaries, one +volume (I can find no more) of German and French ditto, sundry other +German books unbound, as you left them, Percy's Ancient Poetry, and one +volume of Anderson's Poets. I specify them, that you may not lose any. +_Secundo_: a dressing-gown (value, fivepence), in which you used to sit +and look like a conjuror when you were translating "Wallenstein." A case +of two razors and a shaving-box and strap. This it has cost me a severe +struggle to part with. They are in a brown-paper parcel, which also +contains sundry papers and poems, sermons, _some few Epic_ poems,--one +about Cain and Abel, which came from Poole, etc., and also your tragedy; +with one or two small German books, and that drama in which Got-fader +performs. _Tertio_: a small oblong box containing _all your letters_, +collected from all your waste papers, and which fill the said little +box. All other waste papers, which I judged worth sending, are in the +paper parcel aforesaid. But you will find _all_ your letters in the box +by themselves. Thus have I discharged my conscience and my lumber-room +of all your property, save and except a folio entitled Tyrrell's +"Bibliotheca Politica," which you used to learn your politics out of +when you wrote for the Post,--_mutatis mutandis, i. e._, applying past +inferences to modern _data_. I retain that, because I am sensible I am +very deficient in the politics myself; and I have torn up--don't be +angry; waste paper has risen forty per cent, and I can't afford to buy +it--all Bonaparte's Letters, Arthur Young's Treatise on Corn, and one or +two more light-armed infantry, which I thought better suited the +flippancy of London discussion than the dignity of Keswick thinking. +Mary says you will be in a passion about them when you come to miss +them; but you must study philosophy. Read Albertus Magnus de Chartis +Amissis five times over after phlebotomizing,--'t is Burton's +recipe,--and then be angry with an absent friend if you can. Sara is +obscure. Am I to understand by her letter that she sends a _kiss_ to +Eliza Buckingham? Pray tell your wife that a note of interrogation on +the superscription of a letter is highly ungrammatical! She proposes +writing my name _Lambe? Lamb_ is quite enough. I have had the +Anthology, and like only one thing in it,--_Lewti_; but of that the +last stanza is detestable, the rest most exquisite! The epithet +_enviable_ would dash the finest poem. For God's sake (I never was more +serious), don't make me ridiculous any more by terming me gentle-hearted +in print, or do it in better verses. [1] It did well enough five years +ago, when I came to see you, and was moral coxcomb enough at the time +you wrote the lines, to feed upon such epithets: but, besides that, the +meaning of "gentle" is equivocal at best, and almost always means +"poor-spirited;" the very quality of gentleness is abhorrent to such +vile trumpetings. My _sentiment_ is long since vanished. I hope my +_virtues_ have done _sucking_. I can scarce think but you meant it in +joke. I hope you did, for I should be ashamed to think you could think +to gratify me by such praise, fit only to be a cordial to some +green-sick sonneteer. + +[1] An allusion to Coleridge's lines, "This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison," +wherein he styles Lamb "my gentle-hearted Charles." + + + +XXIII. + + +TO MANNING. + +_August_, 1800. + +Dear Manning,--I am going to ask a favor of you, and am at a loss how to +do it in the most delicate mariner. For this purpose I have been looking +into Pliny's Letters, who is noted to have had the best grace in begging +of all the ancients (I read him in the elegant translation of Mr. +Melmoth); but not finding any case there exactly similar with mine, I am +constrained to beg in my own barbarian way. To come to the point, then, +and hasten into the middle of things, have you a copy of your Algebra [1] +to give away? I do not ask it for myself; I have too much reverence for +the Black Arts ever to approach thy circle, illustrious Trismegist! But +that worthy man and excellent poet, George Dyer, made me a visit +yesternight on purpose to borrow one, supposing, rationally enough, I +must say, that you had made me a present of one before this; the +omission of which I take to have proceeded only from negligence: but it +is a fault. I could lend him no assistance. You must know he is just now +diverted from the pursuit of BELL LETTERS by a paradox, which he has +heard his friend Frend [2] (that learned mathematician) maintain, that +the negative quantities of mathematicians were _merae nugae_,--things +scarcely _in rerum naturâ_, and smacking too much of mystery for +gentlemen of Mr. Frend's clear Unitarian capacity. However, the dispute, +once set a-going, has seized violently on George's pericranick; and it +is necessary for his health that he should speedily come to a resolution +of his doubts. He goes about teasing his friends with his new +mathematics; he even frantically talks of purchasing Manning's Algebra, +which shows him far gone, for, to my knowledge, he has not been master +of seven shillings a good time. George's pockets and ----'s brains are +two things in nature which do not abhor a vacuum.... Now, if you could +step in, in this trembling suspense of his reason, and he should find on +Saturday morning, lying for him at the Porter's Lodge, Clifford's +Inn.--his safest address,--Manning's Algebra, with a neat manuscriptum +in the blank leaf, running thus, "FROM THE AUTHOR!" it might save his +wits and restore the unhappy author to those studies of poetry and +criticism which are at present suspended, to the infinite regret of the +whole literary world. N.B.--Dirty books, smeared leaves, and dogs' ears +will be rather a recommendation than otherwise. N.B.--He must have the +book as soon as possible, or nothing can withhold him from madly +purchasing the book on tick.... Then shall we see him sweetly restored +to the chair of Longinus,--to dictate in smooth and modest phrase the +laws of verse; to prove that Theocritus first introduced the Pastoral, +and Virgil and Pope brought it to its perfection; that Gray and Mason +(who always hunt in couples in George's brain) have shown a great deal +of poetical fire in their lyric poetry; that Aristotle's rules are not +to be servilely followed, which George has shown to have imposed great +shackles upon modern genius. His poems, I find, are to consist of two +vols., reasonable octavo; and a third book will exclusively contain +criticisms, in which he asserts he has gone _pretty deeply_ into the +laws of blank verse and rhyme, epic poetry, dramatic and pastoral +ditto,--all which is to come out before Christmas. But above all he has +_touched_ most _deeply_ upon the Drama, comparing the English with the +modern German stage, their merits and defects. Apprehending that his +_studies_ (not to mention his _turn_, which I take to be chiefly towards +the lyrical poetry) hardly qualified him for these disquisitions, I +modestly inquired what plays he had read. I found by George's reply that +he _had_ read Shakspeare, but that was a good while since: he calls him +a great but irregular genius, which I think to be an original and just +remark. (Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Ben Jonson, Shirley, Marlowe, +Ford, and the worthies of Dodsley's Collection,--he confessed he had +read none of them, but professed his _intention_ of looking through them +all, so as to be able to _touch_ upon them in his book.) So Shakspeare, +Otway, and I believe Rowe, to whom he was naturally directed by +Johnson's Lives, and these not read lately, are to stand him in stead of +a general knowledge of the subject. God bless his dear absurd head! + +By the by, did I not write you a letter with something about an +invitation in it?--but let that pass; I suppose it is not agreeable. + +N.B. It would not be amiss if you were to accompany your _present_ with +a dissertation on negative quantities. + +C. L. + +[1] Manning, while at Cambridge, published a work on Algebra. + +[2] The Rev. William Frend, who was expelled from Cambridge for +Unitarianism. + + + +XXIV. + + +TO MANNING. + +1800. + +George Dyer is an Archimedes and an Archimagus and a Tycho Brahé and a +Copernicus; and thou art the darling of the Nine, and midwife to their +wandering babe also! We take tea with that learned poet and critic on +Tuesday night, at half-past five, in his neat library; the repast will +be light and Attic, with criticism. If thou couldst contrive to wheel up +thy dear carcase on the Monday, and after dining with us on tripe, +calves' kidneys, or whatever else the Cornucopia of St. Clare may be +willing to pour out on the occasion, might we not adjourn together to +the Heathen's, thou with thy Black Backs, and I with some innocent +volume of the Bell Letters,--Shenstone, or the like; it would make him +wash his old flannel gown (that has not been washed, to my knowledge, +since it has been _his_,--Oh, the long time!) with tears of joy. Thou +shouldst settle his scruples, and unravel his cobwebs, and sponge off +the sad stuff that weighs upon his dear wounded pia mater; thou shouldst +restore light to his eyes, and him to his friends and the public; +Parnassus should shower her civic crowns upon thee for saving the wits +of a citizen! I thought I saw a lucid interval in George the other +night: he broke in upon my studies just at tea-time, and brought with +him Dr. Anderson, an old gentleman who ties his breeches' knees with +packthread, and boasts that he has been disappointed by ministers. The +Doctor wanted to see _me_; for, I being a poet, he thought I might +furnish him with a copy of verses to suit his "Agricultural Magazine." +The Doctor, in the course of the conversation, mentioned a poem, called +the "Epigoniad," by one Wilkie, an epic poem, in which there is not one +tolerable good line all through, but every incident and speech borrowed +from Homer. + +George had been sitting inattentive seemingly to what was going +on,--hatching of negative quantities,--when, suddenly, the name of his +old friend Homer stung his pericranicks, and, jumping up, he begged to +know where he could meet with Wilkie's work. "It was a curious fact that +there should be such an epic poem and he not know of it; and he _must_ +get a copy of it, as he was going to touch pretty deeply upon the +subject of the epic,--and he was sure there must be some things good in +a poem of eight thousand lines!" I was pleased with this transient +return of his reason and recurrence to his old ways of thinking; it gave +me great hopes of a recovery, which nothing but your book can completely +insure. Pray come on Monday if you _can_, and stay your own time. I have +a good large room, with two beds in it, in the handsomest of which thou +shalt repose a-nights, and dream of spheroides. I hope you will +understand by the nonsense of this letter that I am _not_ melancholy at +the thoughts of thy coming; I thought it necessary to add this, because +you love _precision_. Take notice that our stay at Dyer's will not +exceed eight o'clock, after which our pursuits will be our own. But +indeed I think a little recreation among the Bell Letters and poetry +will do you some service in the interval of severer studies. I hope we +shall fully discuss with George Dyer what I have never yet heard done to +my satisfaction,--the reason of Dr. Johnson's malevolent strictures on +the higher species of the Ode. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XXV. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_August_ 14, 1800. + +My head is playing all the tunes in the world, ringing such peals! It +has just finished the "Merry Christ Church Bells," and absolutely is +beginning "Turn again, Whittington." Buz, buz, buz; bum, bum, bum; +wheeze, wheeze, wheeze; fen, fen, fen; tinky, tinky, tinky; _cr'annch_. +I shall certainly come to be condemned at last. I have been drinking too +much for two days running. I find my moral sense in the last stage of a +consumption, and my religion getting faint. This is disheartening, but I +trust the devil will not overpower me. In the midst of this infernal +torture Conscience is barking and yelping as loud as any of them. I have +sat down to read over again, and I think I do begin to spy out something +with beauty and design in it. I perfectly accede to all your +alterations, and only desire that you had cut deeper, when your hand +was in. + + * * * * * + +Now I am on the subject of poetry, I must announce to you, who, +doubtless, in your remote part of the island, have not heard tidings of +so great a blessing, that George Dyer hath prepared two ponderous +volumes full of poetry and criticism. They impend over the town, and are +threatened to fall in the winter. The first volume contains every sort +of poetry except personal satire, which George, in his truly original +prospectus, renounceth forever, whimsically foisting the intention in +between the price of his book and the proposed number of subscribers. +(If I can, I will get you a copy of his _handbill_.) He has tried his +_vein_ in every species besides,--the Spenserian, Thomsonian, Masonic, +and Akensidish more especially. The second volume is all criticism; +wherein he demonstrates to the entire satisfaction of the literary +world, in a way that must silence all reply forever, that the pastoral +was introduced by Theocritus and polished by Virgil and Pope; that Gray +and Mason (who always hunt in couples in George's brain) have a good +deal of poetical fire and true lyric genius; that Cowley was ruined by +excess of wit (a warning to all moderns); that Charles Lloyd, Charles +Lamb, and William Wordsworth, in later days, have struck the true chords +of poesy. Oh, George, George, with a head uniformly wrong and a heart +uniformly right, that I had power and might equal to my wishes; then +would I call the gentry of thy native island, and they should come in +troops, flocking at the sound of thy prospectus-trumpet, and crowding +who shall be first to stand in thy list of subscribers! I can only put +twelve shillings into thy pocket (which, I will answer for them, will +not stick there long) out of a pocket almost as bare as thine. Is it not +a pity so much fine writing should be erased? But, to tell the truth, I +began to scent that I was getting into that sort of style which Longinus +and Dionysius Halicarnassus fitly call "the affected." + +C. L. + + + +XXVI. + + +TO MANNING. + +_August_ 22, 1800. + +Dear Manning,--You need not imagine any apology necessary. Your fine +hare and fine birds (which just now are dangling by our kitchen blaze) +discourse most eloquent music in your justification. You just nicked my +palate; for, with all due decorum and leave may it be spoken, my worship +hath taken physic to-day, and being low and puling, requireth to be +pampered. Fob! how beautiful and strong those buttered onions come to my +nose! For you must know we extract a divine spirit of gravy from those +materials which, duly compounded with a consistence of bread and cream +(yclept bread-sauce), each to each giving double grace, do mutually +illustrate and set off (as skilful gold-foils to rare jewels) your +partridge, pheasant, woodcock, snipe, teal, widgeon, and the other +lesser daughters of the ark. My friendship, struggling with my carnal +and fleshly prudence (which suggests that a bird a man is the proper +allotment in such cases), yearneth sometimes to have thee here to pick a +wing or so. I question if your Norfolk sauces match our London +culinarie. + +George Dyer has introduced me to the table of an agreeable old +gentleman, Dr. Anderson, who gives hot legs of mutton and grape pies at +his sylvan lodge at Isleworth, where, in the middle of a street, he has +shot up a wall most preposterously before his small dwelling, which, +with the circumstance of his taking several panes of glass out of +bedroom windows (for air), causeth his neighbors to speculate strangely +on the state of the good man's pericranicks. Plainly, he lives under the +reputation of being deranged. George does not mind this circumstance; he +rather likes him the better for it. The Doctor, in his pursuits, joins +agricultural to poetical science, and has set George's brains mad about +the old Scotch writers, Barbour, Douglas's Æneid, Blind Harry, etc. We +returned home in a return postchaise (having dined with the Doctor); and +George kept wondering and wondering, for eight or nine turnpike miles, +what was the name, and striving to recollect the name, of a poet +anterior to Barbour. I begged to know what was remaining of his works. +"There is nothing _extant_ of his works, sir; but by all accounts he +seems to have been a fine genius!" This fine genius, without anything to +show for it or any title beyond George's courtesy, without even a name, +and Barbour and Douglas and Blind Harry now are the predominant sounds +in George's pia mater, and their buzzings exclude politics, criticism, +and algebra,--the late lords of that illustrious lumber-room. Mark, he +has never read any of these bucks, but is impatient till he reads them +_all_, at the Doctor's suggestion. Poor Dyer! his friends should be +careful what sparks they let fall into such inflammable matter. + +Could I have my will of the heathen, I would lock him up from all access +of new ideas; I would exclude all critics that would not swear me first +(upon their Virgil) that they would feed him with nothing but the old, +safe, familiar notions and sounds (the rightful aborigines of his +brain),--Gray, Akenside, and Mason. In these sounds, reiterated as often +as possible, there could be nothing painful, nothing distracting. + +God bless me, here are the birds, smoking hot! + +All that is gross and unspiritual in me rises at the sight! + +Avaunt friendship and all memory of absent friends! + +C. LAMB. + + + +XXVII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_August_ 26, 1800. + +George Dyer is the only literary character I am happily acquainted with. +The oftener I see him, the more deeply I admire him. He is goodness +itself. If I could but calculate the precise date of his death, I would +write a novel on purpose to make George the hero. I could hit him off +to a hair. + +George brought a Dr. Anderson [1] to see me. The Doctor is a very +pleasant old man, a great genius for agriculture, one that ties his +breeches-knees with packthread, and boasts of having had disappointments +from ministers. The Doctor happened to mention an epic poem by one +Wilkie, called the "Epigoniad," in which he assured us there is not one +tolerable line from beginning to end, but all the characters, incidents, +etc., verbally copied from _Homer_. George, who had been sitting quite +inattentive to the Doctor's criticism, no sooner heard the sound of +_Homer_ strike his pericraniks, than up he gets, and declares he must +see that poem immediately: where was it to be had? An epic poem of eight +thousand lines, and _he_ not hear of it! There must be some things good +in it, and it was necessary he should see it, for he had touched pretty +deeply upon that subject in his criticisms on the Epic. George had +touched pretty deeply upon the Lyric, I find; he has also prepared a +dissertation on the Drama, and the comparison of the English and German +theatres. As I rather doubted his competency to do the latter, knowing +that his peculiar _turn_ lies in the lyric species of composition, I +questioned George what English plays he had read. I found that he _had_ +read Shakspeare (whom he calls an original, but irregular, genius), but +it was a good while ago; and he has dipped into Rowe and Otway, I +suppose having found their names in Johnson's Lives at full length; and +upon this slender ground he has undertaken the task. He never seemed +even to have heard of Fletcher, Ford, Marlowe, Massinger, and the +worthies of Dodsley's Collection; but he is to read all these, to +prepare him for bringing out his "Parallel" in the winter. I find he is +also determined to vindicate poetry from the shackles which Aristotle +and some others have imposed upon it,--which is very good-natured of +him, and very necessary just now! Now I am _touching_ so _deeply_ upon +poetry, can I forget that I have just received from Cottle a magnificent +copy of his Guinea Epic. [2] Four-and-twenty books to read in the dog +days! I got as far as the Mad Monk the first day, and fainted. Mr, +Cottle's genius strongly points him to the _Pastoral_, but his +inclinations divert him perpetually from his calling. He imitates +Southey, as Rowe did Shakspeare, with his "Good morrow to ye, good +master Lieutenant," Instead of _a_ man, _a_ woman, _a_ daughter, he +constantly writes "one a man," "one a woman," "one his daughter." +Instead of _the_ king, _the_ hero, he constantly writes, "he the king," +"he the hero,"--two flowers of rhetoric palpably from the "Joan." But +Mr, Cottle soars a higher pitch; and when he _is_ original, it is in a +most original way indeed. His terrific scenes are indefatigable. +Serpents, asps, spiders, ghosts, dead bodies, staircases made of +nothing, with adders' tongues for bannisters,--Good Heaven, what a brain +he must have! He puts as many plums in his pudding as my grandmother +used to do; and, then his emerging from Hell's horrors into light, and +treading on pure flats of this earth--for twenty-three books together! + +C. L. + +[1] See preceding Letter. + +[2] Alfred. + + + +XXVIII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_October_ 9, 1800. + +I suppose you have heard of the death of Amos Cottle. I paid a solemn +visit of condolence to his brother, accompanied by George Dyer, of +burlesque memory. I went, trembling, to see poor Cottle so immediately +upon the event. He was in black, and his younger brother was also in +black. Everything wore an aspect suitable to the respect due to the +freshly dead. For some time after our entrance, nobody spake, till +George modestly put in a question, whether "Alfred" was likely to sell. +This was Lethe to Cottle, and his poor face wet with tears, and his kind +eye brightened up in a moment. Now I felt it was my cue to speak. I had +to thank him for a present of a magnificent copy, and had promised to +send him my remarks,--the least thing I could do; so I ventured to +suggest that I perceived a considerable improvement he had made in his +first book since the state in which he first read it to me. Joseph, who +till now had sat with his knees cowering in by the fireplace, wheeled +about, and with great difficulty of body shifted the same round to the +corner of a table where I was sitting, and first stationing one thigh +over the other, which is his sedentary mood, and placidly fixing his +benevolent face right against mine, waited my observations. At that +moment it came strongly into my mind that I had got Uncle Toby before +me, he looked so kind and so good. I could not say an unkind thing of +"Alfred." So I set my memory to work to recollect what was the name of +Alfred's queen, and with some adroitness recalled the well-known sound +to Cottle's ears of Alswitha. At that moment I could perceive that +Cottle had forgot his brother was so lately become a blessed spirit. In +the language of mathematicians, the author was as 9, the brother as 1. I +felt my cue, and strong pity working at the root, I went to work and +beslabber'd "Alfred" with most unqualified praise, or only qualifying my +praise by the occasional polite interposition of an exception taken +against trivial faults, slips, and human imperfections, which, by +removing the appearance of insincerity, did but in truth heighten the +relish. Perhaps I might have spared that refinement, for Joseph was in a +humor to hope and believe _all things_. What I said was beautifully +supported, corroborated, and confirmed by the stupidity of his brother +on my left hand, and by George on my right, who has an utter incapacity +of comprehending that there can be anything bad in poetry. All poems are +_good_ poems to George; all men are _fine geniuses_. So what with my +actual memory, of which I made the most, and Cottle's own helping me +out, for I _really_ had forgotten a good deal of "Alfred," I made shift +to discuss the most essential parts entirely to the satisfaction of its +author, who repeatedly declared that he loved nothing better than +_candid_ criticism. Was I a candid greyhound now for all this? or did I +do right? I believe I did. The effect was luscious to my conscience. For +all the rest of the evening Amos was no more heard of, till George +revived the subject by inquiring whether some account should not be +drawn up by the friends of the deceased to be inserted in "Phillips's +Monthly Obituary;" adding, that Amos was estimable both for his head and +heart, and would have made a fine poet if he had lived. To the +expediency of this measure Cottle fully assented, but could not help +adding that he always thought that the qualities of his brother's heart +exceeded those of his head. I believe his brother, when living, had +formed precisely the same idea of him; and I apprehend the world will +assent to both judgments. I rather guess that the brothers were poetical +rivals. I judged so when I saw them together. Poor Cottle, I must leave +him, after his short dream, to muse again upon his poor brother, for +whom I am sure in secret he will yet shed many a tear. Now send me in +return some Greta news. + +C. L. + + + +XXIX. + + +TO MANNING. + +_October_ 16, 1800. + +Dear Manning,--Had you written one week before you did, I certainly +should have obeyed your injunction; you should have seen me before my +letter. I will explain to you my situation. There are six of us in one +department. Two of us (within these four days) are confined with severe +fevers: and two more, who belong to the Tower Militia, expect to have +marching orders on Friday. Now, six are absolutely necessary. I have +already asked and obtained two young hands to supply the loss of the +_feverites;_ and with the other prospect before me, you may believe I +cannot decently ask leave of absence for myself. All I can promise (and +I do promise with the sincerity of Saint Peter, and the contrition of +sinner Peter if I fail) [is] that I will come _the very first spare +week_, and go nowhere till I have been at Cambridge. No matter if you +are in a state of pupilage when I come; for I can employ myself in +Cambridge very pleasantly in the mornings. Are there not libraries, +halls, colleges, books, pictures, statues? I wish you had made London in +your way. There is an exhibition quite uncommon in Europe, which could +not have escaped _your genius_,--a live rattlesnake, ten feet in length, +and the thickness of a big leg. I went to see it last night by +candlelight. We were ushered into a room very little bigger than ours at +Pentonville. A man and woman and four boys live in this room, joint +tenants with nine snakes, most of them such as no remedy has been +discovered for their bite. We walked into the middle, which is formed by +a half-moon of wired boxes, all mansions of snakes,--whip-snakes, +thunder-snakes, pig-nose-snakes, American vipers, and _this monster_. He +lies curled up in folds; and immediately a stranger enters (for he is +used to the family, and sees them play at cards) he set up a rattle like +a watchman's in London, or near as loud, and reared up a head, from the +midst of these folds, like a toad, and shook his head, and showed every +sign a snake can show of irritation. I had the foolish curiosity to +strike the wires with my finger, and the devil flew at me with his +toad-mouth wide open: the inside of his mouth is quite white. I had got +my finger away, nor could he well have bit me with his big mouth, which +would have been certain death in five minutes. But it frightened me so +much that I did not recover my voice for a minute's space. I forgot, in +my fear, that he was secured. You would have forgot too, for 't is +incredible how such a monster can be confined in small gauzy-looking +wires. I dreamed of snakes in the night. I wish to Heaven you could see +it. He absolutely swelled with passion to the bigness of a large thigh. +I could not retreat without infringing on another box, and just behind, +a little devil, not an inch from my back, had got his nose out, with +some difficulty and pain, quite through the bars! He was soon taught +better manners. All the snakes were curious, and objects of terror; but +this monster, like Aaron's serpent, swallowed up the impression of the +rest. He opened his cursed mouth, when he made at me, as wide as his +head was broad. I hallooed out quite loud, and felt pains all over my +body with the fright. + +I have had the felicity of hearing George Dyer read out one book of "The +Farmer's Boy." I thought it rather childish. No doubt, there is +originality in it (which, in your self-taught geniuses, is a most rare +quality, they generally getting hold of some bad models in a scarcity of +books, and forming their taste on them), but no _selection. All_ is, +described. + +Mind, I have only heard read one book. Yours sincerely, + +Philo-Snake, C. L. + + + +XXX. + + +TO MANNING. + +_November_ 3, 1800, + +_Ecquid meditatur Archimedes?_ What is Euclid doing? What has happened +to learned Trismegist? Doth he take it in ill part that his humble +friend did not comply with his courteous invitation? Let it suffice, I +could not come. Are impossibilities nothing?--be they abstractions of +the intellects, or not (rather) most sharp and mortifying realities? +nuts in the Will's mouth too hard for her to crack? brick and stone +walls in her way, which she can by no means eat through? sore lets, +_impedimenta viarum_, no thoroughfares? _racemi nimium alte pendentes?_? +Is the phrase classic? I allude to the grapes in Aesop, which cost the +fox a strain, and gained the world an aphorism. Observe the +superscription of this letter. In adapting the size of the letters which +constitute _your_ name and Mr. _Crisp's_ name respectively, I had an eye +to your different stations in life. 'Tis really curious, and must be +soothing to an _aristocrat_ I wonder it has never been hit on before my +time. I have made an acquisition latterly of a _pleasant hand_, one +Rickman, [1] to whom I was introduced by George Dyer,--not the most +flattering auspices under which one man can be introduced to another. +George brings all sorts of people together, setting up a sort of +agrarian law, or common property, in matter of society; but for once he +has done me a great pleasure, while he was only pursuing a principle, as +_ignes fatui may_ light you home. This Rickman lives in our Buildings, +immediately opposite our house; the finest fellow to drop in a' nights, +about nine or ten o'clock,--cold bread-and-cheese time,--just in the +_wishing_ time of the night, when you _wish_ for somebody to come in, +without a distinct idea of a probable anybody. Just in the nick, neither +too early to be tedious, nor too late to sit a reasonable time. He is a +most pleasant hand,--a fine, rattling fellow, has gone through life +laughing at solemn apes; himself hugely literate, oppressively full of +information in all stuff of conversation, from matter of fact to +Xenophon and Plato; can talk Greek with Porson, politics with Thelwall, +conjecture with George Dyer, nonsense with me, and anything with +anybody; a great farmer, somewhat concerned in an agricultural magazine; +reads no poetry but Shakspeare, very intimate with Southey, but never +reads his poetry; relishes George Dyer, thoroughly penetrates into the +ridiculous wherever found, understands the _first time_ (a great +desideratum in common minds),--you need never twice speak to him; does +not want explanations, translations, limitations, as Professor Godwin +does when you make an assertion; _up_ to anything, _down_ to everything, +--whatever _sapit hominem_. A perfect _man_. All this farrago, which +must perplex you to read, and has put me to a little trouble to +_select_, only proves how impossible it is to describe a _pleasant +hand_. You must see Rickman to know him, for he is a species in one,--a +new class; an exotic, any slip of which I am proud to put in my +garden-pot. The clearest-headed fellow; fullest of matter, with least +verbosity. If there be any alloy in my fortune to have met with such a +man, it is that he commonly divides his time between town and country, +having some foolish family ties at Christchurch, by which means he can +only gladden our London hemisphere with returns of light. He is now +going for six weeks. + +[1] John Rickman, clerk-assistant at the table of the House of Commons, +an eminent statistician, and the intimate friend of Lamb, Southey, and +others of their set. + + + +XXXI. + + +TO MANNING. + +_November_ 28, 1800 + +Dear Manning,--I have received a very kind invitation from Lloyd and +Sophia to go and spend a month with them at the Lakes. Now, it +fortunately happens (which is so seldom the case) that I have spare cash +by me enough to answer the expenses of so long a journey; and I am +determined to get away from the office by some means. + +The purpose of this letter is to request of you (my dear friend) that +you will not take it unkind if I decline my proposed visit to Cambridge +_for the present_. Perhaps I shall be able to take Cambridge _in my +way_, going or coming. I need not describe to you the expectations which +such an one as myself, pent up all my life in a dirty city, have formed +of a tour to the Lakes. Consider Grasmere! Ambleside! Wordsworth! +Coleridge! Hills, woods, lakes, and mountains, to the devil! I will eat +snipes with thee, Thomas Manning. Only confess, confess, a _bite_. + +P.S.--I think you named the 16th; but was it not modest of Lloyd to send +such an invitation! It shows his knowledge of _money_ and _time_. I +would be loth to think he meant + + "Ironic satire sidelong sklented + On my poor pursie." [1] + +For my part, with reference to my friends northward, I must confess that +I am not romance-bit about _Nature_. The earth and sea and sky (when all +is said) is but as a house to dwell in. If the inmates be courteous, and +good liquors flow like the conduits at an old coronation, if they can +talk sensibly and feel properly, I have no need to stand staring upon +the gilded looking-glass (that strained my friend's purse-strings in the +purchase), nor his five-shilling print over the mantelpiece of old Nabbs +the carrier (which only betrays his false taste). Just as important to +me (in a sense) is all the furniture of my world,--eye-pampering, but +satisfies no heart. Streets, streets, streets, markets, theatres, +churches, Covent Gardens, shops sparkling with pretty faces of +industrious milliners, neat sempstresses, ladles cheapening, gentlemen +behind counters lying, authors in the street with spectacles, George +Dyers (you may know them by their gait), lamps lit at night, +pastry-cooks' and silversmiths' shops, beautiful Quakers of Pentonville, +noise of coaches, drowsy cry of mechanic watchman at night, with bucks +reeling home drunk; if you happen to wake at midnight, cries of "Fire!" +and "Stop, thief!" inns of court, with their learned air, and halls, and +butteries, just like Cambridge colleges; old book-stalls, Jeremy +Taylors, Burtons on Melancholy, and Religio Medicis on every stall. +These are thy pleasures, O London with-the-many-sins! O City abounding +in--, for these may Keswick and her giant brood go hang! + +C. L. + +[1] Burns. + + + +XXXII. + + +TO MANNING. + +_December_ 27, 1800. + +At length George Dyer's phrenitis has come to a crisis; he is raging and +furiously mad. I waited upon the Heathen, Thursday was a se'nnight; the +first symptom which struck my eye and gave me incontrovertible proof of +the fatal truth was a pair of nankeen pantaloons four times too big for +him, which the said Heathen did pertinaciously affirm to be new. + +They were absolutely ingrained with the accumulated dirt of ages; but he +affirmed them to be clean. He was going to visit a lady that was nice +about those things, and that's the reason he wore nankeen that day. And +then he danced, and capered, and fidgeted, and pulled up his pantaloons, +and hugged his intolerable flannel vestment closer about his poetic +loins; anon he gave it loose to the zephyrs which plentifully insinuate +their tiny bodies through every crevice, door, window, or wainscot, +expressly formed for the exclusion of such impertinents. Then he caught +at a proof-sheet, and catched up a laundress's bill instead; made a dart +at Bloomfield's Poems, and threw them in agony aside. I could not bring +him to one direct reply; he could not maintain his jumping mind in a +right line for the tithe of a moment by Clifford's Inn clock. He must go +to the printer's immediately,--the most unlucky accident; he had struck +off five hundred impressions of his Poems, which were ready for delivery +to subscribers, and the Preface must all be expunged. There were eighty +pages of Preface, and not till that morning had he discovered that in +the very first page of said Preface he had set out with a principle of +criticism fundamentally wrong, which vitiated all his following +reasoning. The Preface must be expunged, although it cost him £30,--the +lowest calculation, taking in paper and printing! In vain have his real +friends remonstrated against this Midsummer madness; George is as +obstinate as a Primitive Christian, and wards and parries off all our +thrusts with one unanswerable fence,--"Sir, it's of great consequence +that the _world_ is not _misled!_" + + * * * * * + +Man of many snipes, I will sup with thee, _Deo volente ei diabolo +nolente_, on Monday night the 5th of January, in the new year, and crush +a cup to the infant century. + +A word or two of my progress. Embark at six o'clock in the morning, with +a fresh gale, on a Cambridge one-decker; very cold till eight at night; +land at St. Mary's lighthouse, muffins and coffee upon table (or any +other curious production of Turkey or both Indies), snipes exactly at +nine, punch to commence at ten, with _argument_; difference of opinion +is expected to take place about eleven; perfect unanimity, with some +haziness and dimness, before twelve. N. B.--My single affection is not +so singly wedded to snipes; but the curious and epicurean eye would also +take a pleasure in beholding a delicate and well-chosen assortment of +teals, ortolans, the unctuous and palate-soothing flesh, of geese wild +and tame, nightingales' brains, the sensorium of a young sucking-pig, or +any other Christmas dish, which I leave to the judgment of you and the +cook of Gonville. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XXXIII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +(End of 1800) + +I send you, in this parcel, my play, which I beg you to present in my +name, with my respect and love, to Wordsworth and his sister. You blame +us for giving your direction to Miss Wesley; the woman has been ten +times after us about it, and we gave it her at last, under the idea that +no further harm would ensue, but she would _once_ write to you, and you +would bite your lips and forget to answer it, and so it would end. You +read us a dismal homily upon "Realities." We know quite as well as you +do what are shadows and what are realities. You, for instance, when you +are over your fourth or fifth jorum, chirping about old school +occurrences, are the best of realities. Shadows are cold, thin things, +that have no warmth or grasp in them. Miss Wesley and her friend, and a +tribe of authoresses, that come after you here daily, and, in defect of +you, hive and cluster upon us, are the shadows. You encouraged that +mopsey, Miss Wesley, to dance after you, in the hope of having her +nonsense put into a nonsensical Anthology. We have pretty well shaken +her off, by that simple expedient of referring her to you; but there are +more burrs in the wind. I came home t'other day from business, hungry as +a hunter, to dinner, with nothing, I am sure, of _the author but hunger_ +about me, and whom found I closeted with Mary but a friend of this Miss +Wesley, one Miss Benje, or Bengey, [1]--I don't know how she spells her +name, I just came is time enough, I believe, luckily, to prevent them +from exchanging vows of eternal friendship. It seems she is one of your +authoresses, that you first foster, and then upbraid us with. But I +forgive you. "The rogue has given me potions to make me love him." Well; +go she would not, nor step a step over our threshold, till we had +promised to come and drink tea with her next night, I had never seen her +before, and could not tell who the devil it was that was so familiar. We +went, however, not to be impolite. Her lodgings are up two pairs of +stairs in East Street, Tea and coffee and macaroons--a kind of cake--I +much love. We sat down. Presently Miss Benje broke the silence by +declaring herself quite of a different opinion from D'lsraeli, who +supposes the differences of human intellect to be the mere effect of +organization. She begged to know my opinion. I attempted to carry it off +with a pun upon organ; but that went off very flat. She immediately +conceived a very low opinion of my metaphysics; and turning round to +Mary, put some question to her in French,--possibly having heard that +neither Mary nor I understood French. The explanation that took place +occasioned some embarrassment and much wondering. She then fell into an +insulting conversation about the comparative genius and merits of all +modern languages, and concluded with asserting that the Saxon was +esteemed the purest dialect in Germany. From thence she passed into the +subject of poetry, where I, who had hitherto sat mute and a hearer only, +humbly hoped I might now put in a word to some advantage, seeing that it +was my own trade in a manner. But I was stopped by a round assertion +that no good poetry had appeared since Dr. Johnson's time. It seems the +Doctor had suppressed many hopeful geniuses that way by the severity of +his critical strictures in his "Lives of the Poets." I here ventured to +question the fact, and was beginning to appeal to _names_; but I was +assured "it was certainly the case." Then we discussed Miss More's book +on education, which I had never read. It seems Dr. Gregory, another of +Miss Bengey's friends, has found fault with one of Miss More's +metaphors. Miss More has been at some pains to vindicate herself,--in +the opinion of Miss Bengey, not without success. It seems the Doctor is +invariably against the use of broken or mixed metaphor, which he +reprobates against the authority of Shakspeare himself. We next +discussed the question whether Pope was a poet. I find Dr. Gregory is of +opinion he was not, though Miss Seward does not at all concur with him +in this. We then sat upon the comparative merits of the ten translations +of "Pizarro," and Miss Bengey, or Benje, advised Mary to take two of +them home; she thought it might afford her some pleasure to compare them +_verbatim_; which we declined. It being now nine o'clock, wine and +macaroons were again served round, and we parted, with a promise to go +again next week, and meet the Miss Porters, who, it seems, have heard +much of Mr. Coleridge, and wish to meet _us_, because we are _his_ +friends. I have been preparing for the occasion. I crowd cotton in my +ears. I read all the reviews and magazines of the past month against the +dreadful meeting, and I hope by these means to cut a tolerable +second-rate figure. + +Pray let us have no more complaints about shadows. We are in a fair way, +_through you_, to surfeit sick upon them. + +Our loves and respects to your host and hostess. Our dearest love to +Coleridge. + +Take no thought about your proof-sheets; they shall be done as if +Woodfall himself did them. Pray send us word of Mrs. Coleridge and +little David Hartley, your little reality. + +Farewell, dear Substance. Take no umbrage at anything I have written. + +C. LAMB, _Umbra_. + +[1] Miss Elizabeth Benger. See "Dictionary of Nationai Biography," +iv. 221. + + + +XXXIV. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_January_, 1801. + +Thanks for your letter and present. I had already borrowed your second +volume. [1] What pleases one most is "The Song of Lucy.". _Simon's sickly +Daughter_, in "The Sexton," made me _cry_. Next to these are the +description of these continuous echoes in the story of "Joanna's Laugh," +where the mountains and all the scenery absolutely seem alive; and that +fine Shakspearian character of the "happy man" in the "Brothers,"-- + + "That creeps about the fields, + Following his fancies by the hour, to bring + Tears down his cheek, or solitary smiles + Into his face, until the setting sun + Write Fool upon his forehead!" + +I will mention one more,--the delicate and curious feeling in the wish +for the "Cumberland Beggar" that he may have about him the melody of +birds, although he hear them not. Here the mind knowingly passes a +fiction upon herself, first substituting her own feeling for the +Beggar's, and in the same breath detecting the fallacy, will not part +with the wish. The "Poet's Epitaph" is disfigured, to my taste, by the +common satire upon parsons and lawyers in the beginning, and the coarse +epithet of "pin-point," in the sixth stanza. All the rest is eminently +good, and your own. I will just add that it appears to me a fault in the +"Beggar" that the instructions conveyed in it are too direct, and like a +lecture: they don't slide into the mind of the reader while he is +imagining no such matter. An intelligent reader finds a sort of insult +in being told, "I will teach you how to think upon this subject." This +fault, if I am right, is in a ten-thousandth worse degree to be found in +Sterne, and in many novelists and modern poets, who continually put a +sign-post up to show where you are to feel. They set out with assuming +their readers to be stupid,--very different from "Robinson Crusoe," the +"Vicar of Wakefield," "Roderick Random," and other beautiful, bare +narratives. There is implied, an unwritten compact between author and +reader: "I will tell you a story, and I suppose you will understand it." +Modern novels, "St. Leons" and the like, are full of such flowers as +these,--"Let not my reader suppose;" "Imagine, if you can, modest," etc, +I will here have done with praise and blame, I have written so much only +that you may not think I have passed over your book without +observation.... I am sorry that Coleridge has christened his "Ancient +Marinere," a "Poet's Reverie;" it is as bad as Bottom the Weaver's +declaration that he is not a lion, but only the scenical representation +of a lion. What new idea is gained by this title but one subversive of +all credit--which the tale should force upon us--of its truth! + +For me, I was never so affected with any human tale. After first reading +it, I was totally possessed with it for many days. I dislike all the +miraculous part of it; but the feelings of the man under the operation +of such scenery, dragged me along like Tom Pipe's magic whistle. I +totally differ from your idea that the "Marinere" should have had a +character and a profession. This is a beauty in "Gulliver's Travels," +where the mind is kept in a placid state of little wonderments; but the +"Ancient Marinere" undergoes such trials as overwhelm and bury all +individuality or memory of what he was,--like the state of a man in a +bad dream, one terrible peculiarity of which is, that all consciousness +of personality is gone. Your other observation is, I think as well, a +little unfounded: the "Marinere," from being conversant in supernatural +events, _has_ acquired a supernatural and strange cast of _phrase_, eye, +appearance, etc., which frighten the "wedding guest." You will excuse my +remarks, because I am hurt and vexed that you should think it necessary, +with a prose apology, to open the eyes of dead men that cannot see. + +To sum up a general opinion of the second volume, I do not feel any one +poem in it so forcibly as the "Ancient Marinere" and "The Mad Mother," +and the "Lines at Tintern Abbey" in the first. + +C. L. + +[1] Of the "Lyrical Ballads" then just published. For certain results of +Lamb's strictures in this letter, see Letter xxxvii. + + + +XXXV. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_January_ 30, 1801. + +I ought before this to have replied to your very kind invitation into +Cumberland. With you and your sister I could gang anywhere; but I am +afraid whether I shall ever be able to afford so desperate a journey. +Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never +see a mountain in my life. I have passed all my days in London, until I +have formed as many and intense local attachments as any of you +mountaineers can have done with dead nature. The lighted shops of the +Strand and Fleet Street; the innumerable trades, tradesmen, and +customers; coaches, wagons, playhouses; all the bustle and wickedness +round about Covent Garden; the very women of the town; the watchmen, +drunken scenes, rattles; life awake, if you awake, at all hours of the +night; the impossibility of being dull in Fleet Street; the crowds, the +very dirt and mud, the sun shining upon houses and pavements; the +print-shops, the old-book stalls, parsons cheapening books; +coffee-houses, steams of soups from kitchens; the pantomimes, London +itself a pantomime and a masquerade,--all these things work themselves +into my mind, and feed me without a power of satiating me. The wonder of +these sights impels me into night-walks about her crowded streets, and I +often shed tears in the motley Strand from fulness of joy at so much +life. All these emotions must be strange to you; so are your rural +emotions to me. But consider what must I have been doing all my life, +not to have lent great portions of my heart with usury to such scenes? + +My attachments are all local, purely local,--I have no passion (or have +had none since I was in love, and then it was the spurious engendering +of poetry and books) to groves and valleys. The rooms where I was bom, +the furniture which has been before my eyes all my life, a bookcase +which has followed me about like a faithful dog (only exceeding him in +knowledge), wherever I have moved; old chairs, old tables; streets, +squares, where I have sunned myself; my old school,--these are my +mistresses. Have I not enough without your mountains? I do not envy you. +I should pity you, did I not know that the mind will make friends with +anything. Your sun and moon, and skies and hills and lakes, affect me no +more or scarcely come to be in more venerable characters, than as a +gilded room with tapestry and tapers, where I might live with handsome +visible objects. I consider the clouds above me but as a roof +beautifully painted, but unable to satisfy the mind, and at last, like +the pictures of the apartment of a connoisseur, unable to afford him any +longer a pleasure. So fading upon me, from disuse, have been the +beauties of Nature, as they have been confidently called; so ever fresh +and green and warm are all the inventions of men and assemblies of men +In this great city. I should certainly have laughed with dear Joanna. + +Give my kindest love _and my sister's_ to D. and yourself. And a kiss +from me to little Barbara Lewthwaite. [1] Thank you for liking my play! + +C.L. + + + +XXXVI. + + +TO MANNING. + +_February_, 1801. + +I am going to change my lodgings, having received a hint that it would +be agreeable, at our Lady's next feast. I have partly fixed upon most +delectable rooms, which look out (when you stand a-tiptoe) over the +Thames and Surrey Hills, at the upper end of King's Bench Walks, in the +Temple. There I shall have all the privacy of a house without the +encumbrance; and shall be able to lock my friends out as often as I +desire to hold free converse with my immortal mind; for my present +lodgings resemble a minister's levee, I have so increased my +acquaintance (as they call 'em), since I have resided in town. Like the +country mouse, that had tasted a little of urban manners, I long to be +nibbling my own cheese by my dear self without mousetraps and +time-traps. By my new plan, I shall be as airy, up four pair of stairs, +as in the country; and in a garden, in the midst of enchanting, more +than Mahometan paradise, London, whose dirtiest drab-frequented alley, +and her lowest-bowing tradesman, I would not exchange for Skiddaw, +Helvellyn, James, Walter, and the parson into the bargain. Oh, her lamps +of a night; her rich goldsmiths, print-shops, toy-shops, mercers, +hardwaremen, pastrycooks; St. Paul's Churchyard; the Strand; Exeter +'Change; Charing Cross, with a man _upon_ a black horse! These are thy +gods, O London! Ain't you mightily moped on the banks of the Cam? Had +not you better come and set up here? You can't think what a difference. +All the streets and pavements are pure gold, I warrant you,--at least, I +know an alchemy that turns her mud into that metal: a mind that loves to +be at home in crowds. + +'Tis half-past twelve o'clock, and all sober people ought to be a-bed. +Between you and me, the L. Ballads are but drowsy performances. + +C. LAMB (as you may guess). + +[1] The child in Wordsworth's "The Pet Lamb." + + + +XXXVII. + + +TO MANNING. + +_February_ 15, 1801. + +I had need be cautious henceforward what opinion I give of the "Lyrical +Ballads." All the North of England are in a turmoil. Cumberland and +Westmoreland have already declared a state of war. I lately received +from Wordsworth a copy of the second volume, accompanied by an +acknowledgment of having received from me many months since a copy of a +certain tragedy, with excuses for not having made any acknowledgment +sooner, it being owing to an "almost insurmountable aversion from +letter-writing." This letter I answered in due form and time, and +enumerated several of the passages which had most affected me, adding, +unfortunately, that no single piece had moved me so forcibly as the +"Ancient Mariner," "The Mad Mother," or the "Lines at Tintern Abbey." +The Post did not sleep a moment. I received almost instantaneously a +long letter of four sweating pages from my Reluctant Letter-Writer, the +purport of which was that he was sorry his second volume had not given +me more pleasure (Devil a hint did I give that it had _not pleased me_), +and "was compelled to wish that my range of sensibility was more +extended, being obliged to believe that I should receive large influxes +of happiness and happy thoughts" (I suppose from the L. B.),--with a +deal of stuff about a certain Union of Tenderness and Imagination, +which, in the sense he used Imagination, was not the characteristic of +Shakspeare, but which Milton possessed in a degree far exceeding other +Poets; which union, as the highest species of poetry, and chiefly +deserving that name, "he was most proud to aspire to;" then illustrating +the said union by two quotations from his own second volume (which I had +been so unfortunate as to miss.) First specimen; A father addresses +his son:-- + + "When thou + First camest into the World, as it befalls + To new-born infants, thou didst sleep away + Two days; _and blessings from thy father's tongue + Then fell upon thee_." + +The lines were thus undermarked, and then followed, "This passage, as +combining in an extraordinary degree that union of tenderness and +imagination which I am speaking of, I consider as one of the best I +ever wrote." + +Second specimen: A youth, after years of absence, revisits his native +place, and thinks (as most people do) that there has been strange +alteration in his absence,-- + + "And that the rocks + And everlasting hills themselves were changed." + +You see both these are good poetry; but after one has been reading +Shakspeare twenty of the best years of one's life, to have a fellow +start up and prate about some unknown quality which Shakspeare possessed +in a degree inferior to Milton and _somebody else_! This was not to be +_all_ my castigation. Coleridge, who had not written to me for some +months before, starts up from his bed of sickness to reprove me for my +tardy presumption; four long pages, equally sweaty and more tedious, +came from him, assuring me that when the works of a man of true genius, +such as W. undoubtedly was, do not please me at first sight, I should +expect the fault to lie "in me, and not in them," etc. What am I to do +with such people? I certainly shall write them a very merry letter. +Writing to _you_, I may say that the second volume has no such pieces as +the three I enumerated. It is full of original thinking and an observing +mind; but it does not often make you laugh or cry. It too artfully aims +at simplicity of expression. And you sometimes doubt if simplicity be +not a cover for poverty. The best piece in it I will send you, being +_short_. I have grievously offended my friends in the North by declaring +my undue preference; but I need not fear you. + + "She dwelt among the untrodden ways + Beside the Springs of Dove,-- + A maid whom there were few (_sic_) to praise, + And very few to love. + + "A violet, by a mossy stone + Half hidden from the eye, + Fair as a star when only one + Is shining in the sky. + + "She lived unknown; and few could know + When Lucy ceased to be; + But she is in the grave, and oh, + The difference to me!" + +This is choice and genuine, and so are many, many more. But one does +riot like to have 'em rammed down one's throat. "Pray take it,--it's +very good; let me help you,--eat faster." + + + +XXXVIII. + + +TO MANNING, + +_September_ 24, 1802 + +My Dear Manning,--Since the date of my last tetter, I have been a +traveller, A strong desire seized me of visiting remote regions. My +first impulse was to go aod see Paris. It was a trivial objection to my +aspiring mind that I did not understand a word of the language, since I +certainly intend some time in my life to see Paris, and equally +certainly never intend to learn the language; therefore that could be no +objection. However, I am very glad I did not go, because you had left +Paris (I see) before I could have set out. I believe Stoddart promising +to go with me another year prevented that plan. My next scheme (for to +my restless, ambitious mind London was become a bed of thorns) was to +visit the far-famed peak in Derbyshire, where the Devil sits, they say, +without breeches. _This_ my purer mind rejected as indelicate. And my +final resolve was a tour to the Lakes. I set out with Mary to Keswick, +without giving Coleridge any notice; for my time, being precious, did +not admit of it. He received us with all the hospitality tality in the +world, and gave up his time to show us all the wonders of the country. +He dwells upon a small hill by the side of Keswick, in a comfortable +house, quite enveloped on all sides by a net of mountains,--great +floundering bears and monsters they seemed, all couchant and asleep. We +got in in the evening, travelling in a post-chaise from Penrith, in the +midst of a gorgeous sunshine, which transmuted all the mountains into +colors, purple, etc. We thought we had got into fairy-land. But that +went off (as it never came again; while we stayed, we had no more fine +sunsets); and we entered Coleridge's comfortable study just in the dusk, +when the mountains were all dark, with clouds upon their heads. Such an +impression I never received from objects of sight before, nor do I +suppose that I can ever again. Glorious creatures, fine old fellows, +Skiddaw, etc. I never shall forget ye, how ye lay about that night, like +an intrenchment; gone to bed, as it seemed for the night, but promising +that ye were to be seen in the morning. Coleridge had got a blazing fire +in his study, which is a large, antique, ill-shaped room, with an +old-fashioned organ, never played upon, big enough for a church, shelves +of scattered folios, an Æolian harp, and an old sofa, half-bed, etc.; +and all looking out upon the last fading view of Skiddaw and his +broad-breasted brethren. What a night! Here we stayed three full weeks, +in which time I visited Wordsworth's cottage, where we stayed a day or +two with the Clarksons (good people and most hospitable, at whose house +we tarried one day and night), and saw Lloyd. The Wordsworths were gone +to Calais. They have since been in London, and passed much time with us; +he has now gone into Yorkshire to be married. So we have seen Keswick, +Grasmere, Ambleside, Ulswater (where the Clarksons live), and a place at +the other end of Ulswater,--I forget the name, [1]--to which we travelled +on a very sultry day, over the middle of Helvellyn. We have clambered up +to the top of Skiddaw, and I have waded up the bed of Lodore. In fine, I +have satisfied myself that there is such a thing as that which tourists +call _romantic_, which I very much suspected before; they make such a +spluttering about it, and toss their splendid epithets around them, till +they give as dim a light as at four o'clock next morning the lamps do +after an illumination. Mary was excessively tired when she got about +half way up Skiddaw; but we came to a cold rill (than which nothing can +be imagined more cold, running over cold stones), and with the +reinforcement of a draught of cold water she surmounted it most +manfully. Oh, its fine black head, and the bleak air atop of it, with a +prospect of mountains all about and about, making you giddy; and then +Scotland afar off, and the border countries so famous in song and +ballad! It was a day that will stand out like a mountain, I am sure, in +my life. But I am returned (I have now been come home near three weeks; +I was a month out), and you cannot conceive the degradation I felt at +first, from being accustomed to wander free as air among mountains, and +bathe in rivers without being controlled by any one, to come home and +_work_. I felt very _little_. I had been dreaming I was a very great +man. But that is going off, and I find I shall conform in time to that +state of life to which it has pleased God to call me. Besides, after +all, Fleet Street and the Strand are better places to live in for good +and all than amidst Skiddaw. Still, I turn back to those great places +where I wandered about, participating in their greatness. After all, I +could not _live_ in Skiddaw. I could spend a year,--two, three years +among them; but I must have a prospect of seeing Fleet Street at the end +of that time, or I should mope and pine away, I know. Still, Skiddaw is +a fine creature. + +My habits are changing, I think,--_i.e._, from drunk to sober. Whether I +shall be happier or not, remains to be proved. I shall certainly be more +happy in a morning; but whether I shall not sacrifice the fat and the +marrow and the kidneys,--_i.e._, the night,--glorious, care-drowning +night, that heals all our wrongs, pours wine into our mortifications, +changes the scene from indifferent and flat to bright and brilliant? O +Manning, if I should have formed a diabolical resolution, by the time +you come to England, of not admitting any spirituous liquors into my +house, will you be my guest on such shameworthy terms? Is life, with +such limitations, worth trying? The truth is, that my liquors bring a +nest of friendly harpies about my house, who consume me. This is a +pitiful tale to be read at St. Gothard; but it is just now nearest +my heart. + +[1] Patterdale. + + + +XXXIX. + + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_October_ 23, 1802. + +I read daily your political essays. I was particularly pleased with +"Once a Jacobin;" though the argument is obvious enough, the style was +less swelling than your things sometimes are, and it was plausible _ad +populum_. A vessel has just arrived from Jamaica with the news of poor +Sam Le Grice's death. He died at Jamaica of the yellow fever. His course +was rapid, and he had been very foolish; but I believe there was more of +kindness and warmth in him than in almost any other of our +schoolfellows. The annual meeting of the Blues is to-morrow, at the +London Tavern, where poor Sammy dined with them two years ago, and +attracted the notice of all by the singular foppishness of his dress. +When men go off the stage so early, it scarce seems a noticeable thing +in their epitaphs, whether they had been wise or silly in +their lifetime. + +I am glad the snuff and Pi-pos's books please. "Goody Two Shoes" is +almost out of print. Mrs. Barbauld's stuff has banished all the old +classics of the nursery; and the shopman at Newberry's hardly deigned to +reach them off an old exploded corner of a shelf, when Mary asked for +them. Mrs. B.'s and Mrs. Trimmer's nonsense lay in piles about. +Knowledge insignificant and vapid as Mrs. B.'s books convey, it seems, +must come to the child in the _shape_ of _knowledge_, and his empty +noddle must be turned with conceit of his own powers when he has learned +that a horse is an animal, and Billy is better than a horse, and such +like; instead of that beautiful interest in wild tales which made the +child a man, while all the time he suspected himself to be no bigger +than a child. Science has succeeded to poetry no less in the little +walks of children than with men. Is there no possibility of averting +this sore evil? Think what you would have been now, if instead of being +fed with tales and old wives' fables in childhood, you had been crammed +with geography and natural history! + +Hang them!--I mean the cursed Barbauld crew, those blights and blasts of +all that is human in man and child. + +As to the translations, let me do two or three hundred lines, and then +do you try the nostrums upon Stuart in any way you please. If they go +down, I will bray more. In fact, if I got or could but get £50 a year +only, in addition to what I have, I should live in affluence. + +Have you anticipated it, or could not you give a parallel of Bonaparte +with Cromwell, particularly as to the contrast in their deeds affecting +_foreign_ States? Cromwell's interference for the Albigenses, +B[onaparte]'s against the Swiss. Then religion would come in; and Milton +and you could rant about our countrymen of that period. This is a hasty +suggestion, the more hasty because I want my supper. I have just +finished Chapman's Homer. Did you ever read it? It has most the +continuous power of interesting you all along, like a rapid original, of +any, and in the uncommon excellence of the more finished parts goes +beyond Fairfax or any of 'em. The metre is fourteen syllables, and +capable of all sweetness and grandeur, Cowper's ponderous blank verse +detains you every step with some heavy Miltonism; Chapman gallops off +with you his own free pace. Take a simile, for example. The council +breaks up,-- + + "Being abroad, the earth was overlaid + With fleckers to them, that came forth; as when of frequent + bees + Swarms rise out of a hollow rock, repairing the degrees + Of _their egression endlessly,--with ever rising new_ + From forth their sweet nest; as their store, still as it faded, + grew, + +"_And never would cease sending forth her dusters to the spring_. +They still crowd out so: this flock here, that there, belaboring +The loaded flowers. So," etc. + +What _endless egression of phrases_ the dog commands! + +Take another.--Agamemnon, wounded, bearing hiss wound, heroically for +the sake of the army (look below) to a woman in labor:-- + + "He with his lance, sword, mighty stones, poured his heroic wreak + On other squadrons of the foe, whiles yet warm blood did break + Thro' his cleft veins: but when the wound was quite exhaust and crude, + The eager anguish did approve his princely fortitude. + As when most sharp and bitter pangs distract a laboring dame, + Which the divine Ilithiæ, that rule the painful frame + Of human childbirth, pour on her; the Ilithiæ that are + The daughters of Saturnia; with whose extreme repair + The woman in her travail strives to take the worst it gives; + With thought, _it must be, 'tis love's fruit, the end for which + she lives; + The mean to make herself new born, what comforts_ will redound! + So," etc. + +I will tell you more about Chapman and his peculiarities in my next. I +am much interested in him. + +Yours ever affectionately, and Pi-Pos's, + +C. L. + + + +XL. + + +TO MANNING. + +_November_, 1802. + +My Dear Manning,--I must positively write, or I shall miss you at +Toulouse. I sit here like a decayed minute-hand (I lie; _that_ does not +_sit_), and being myself the exponent of no time, take no heed how the +clocks about me are going. You possibly by this time may have explored +all Italy, and toppled, unawares, into Etna, while you went too near +those rotten-jawed, gap-toothed, old worn-out chaps of hell,--while I am +meditating a quiescent letter to the honest postmaster at Toulouse. But +in case you should not have been _felo de se_, this is to tell you that +your letter was quite to my palate; in particular your just remarks upon +Industry, cursed Industry (though indeed you left me to explore the +reason), were highly relishing. + +I've often wished I lived in the Golden Age, before doubt, and +propositions, and corollaries, got into the world. _Now_, as Joseph +Cottle, a Bard of Nature, sings, going up Malvern Hills,-- + + "How steep, how painful the ascent! + It needs the evidence of _close deduction_ + To know that ever I shall gain the top." + +You must know that Joe is lame, so that he had some reason for so +singing. These two lines, I assure you, are taken _totidem literis_ from +a very _popular_ poem. Joe is also an epic poet as well as a +descriptive, and has written a tragedy, though both his drama and +epopoiea are strictly _descriptive_, and chiefly of the _beauties of +nature_, for Toe thinks _man_, with all his passions and frailties, not: +a proper subject of the _drama_. Joe's tragedy hath the following +surpassing speech in it. Some king is told that his enemy has engaged +twelve archers to come over in a boat from an enemy's country and +way-lay him; he thereupon pathetically exclaims,-- + + "_Twelve_, dost thou say? Curse on those dozen villains!" + +Cottle read two or three acts out to as, very gravely on both sides, +till he came to this heroic touch,--and then he asked what we laughed +at? I had no more muscles that day. A poet that chooses to read out his +own verses has but a limited power over you. There is a bound where his +authority ceases. + + + +XLI. + + +TO MANNING. + +_February_ 19, 1803. + +My Dear Manning,--The general scope of your letter afforded no +indications of insanity, but some particular points raised a scruple. +For God's sake, don't think any more of "Independent Tartary." [1] What +are you to do among such Ethiopians? Is there no _lineal descendant_ of +Prester John? Is the chair empty? Is the sword unswayed? Depend upon it, +they'll never make you their king as long as any branch of that great +stock is remaining. I tremble for your Christianity. They will certainly +circumcise you. Read Sir John Mandeville's travels to cure you, or come +over to England. There is a Tartar man now exhibiting at Exeter 'Change. +Come and talk with him, and hear what he says first. Indeed, he is no +very favorable specimen of his countrymen! But perhaps the best thing +you can do is to _try_ to get the idea out of your head. For this +purpose repeat to yourself every night, after you have said your +prayers, the words "Independent Tartary, Independent Tartary," two or +three times, and associate with them the _idea_ of oblivion ('t is +Hartley's method with obstinate memories); or say "Independent, +Independent, have I not already got an _independence_?" That was a +clever way of the old Puritans,--pun-divinity. My dear friend, think +what a sad pity it would be to bury such _parts_ in heathen countries, +among nasty, unconversable, horse-belching, Tartar people! Some say they +are cannibals; and then conceive a Tartar fellow _eating_ my friend, and +adding the _cool malignity_ of mustard and vinegar! I am afraid 't is +the reading of Chaucer has misled you; his foolish stories about +Cambuscan and the ring, and the horse of brass. Believe me, there are no +such things,--'t is all the poet's _invention_; but if there were such +darling things as old Chaucer sings, I would _up_ behind you on the +horse of brass, and frisk off for Prester John's country. But these are +all tales; a horse of brass never flew, and a king's daughter never +talked with birds! The Tartars really are a cold, insipid, smouchy set. +You'll be sadly moped (if you are not eaten) among them. Pray _try_ and +cure yourself. Take hellebore (the counsel is Horace's; 't was none of +my thought _originally_). Shave yourself oftener. Eat no saffron, for +saffron-eaters contract a terrible Tartar-like yellow. Pray to avoid the +fiend. Eat nothing that gives the heartburn. _Shave the upper lip_. Go +about like an European. Read no book of voyages (they are nothing but +lies); only now and then a romance, to keep the fancy _under_. Above +all, don't go to any sights of _wild beasts. That has been your ruin_. +Accustom yourself to write familiar letters on common subjects to your +friends in England, such as are of a moderate understanding. And think +about common things more. I supped last night with Rickman, and met a +merry _natural_ captain, who pleases himself vastly with once having +made a pun at Otaheite in the O. language. 'Tis the same man who said +Shakspeare he liked, because he was so _much of the gentleman_. Rickman +is a man "absolute in all numbers." I think I may one day bring you +acquainted, if you do not go to Tartary first; for you'll never come +back. Have a care, my dear friend, of Anthropophagi! their stomachs are +always craving. 'Tis terrible to be weighed out at fivepence a pound. To +sit at table (the reverse of fishes in Holland), not as a guest, but +as a meat! + +God bless you! do come to England. Air and exercise may do great things. +Talk with some minister. Why not your father? + +God dispose all for the best! I have discharged my duty. + +Your sincere friend, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Manning had evidently written to Lamb as to his cherished +project of exploring remoter China and Thibet. + + + +XLII. + + +TO MANNING. + +_February_, 1803. + +Not a sentence, not a syllable, of Trismegistus shall be lost through my +neglect. I am his word-banker, his storekeeper of puns and syllogisms. +You cannot conceive (and if Trismegistus cannot, no man can) the strange +joy which I felt at the receipt of a letter from Paris. It seemed to +give me a learned importance which placed me above all who had not +Parisian correspondents. Believe that I shall carefully husband every +scrap, which will save you the trouble of memory when you come back. You +cannot write things so trifling, let them only be about Paris, which I +shall not treasure. In particular, I must have parallels of actors and +actresses. I must be told if any building in Paris is at all comparable +to St. Paul's, which, contrary to the usual mode of that part of our +nature called admiration, I have looked up to with unfading wonder every +morning at ten o'clock, ever since it has lain in my way to business. At +noon I casually glance upon it, being hungry; and hunger has not much +taste for the fine arts. Is any night-walk comparable to a walk from St. +Paul's to Charing Cross, for lighting and paving, crowds going and +coming without respite, the rattle of coaches, and the cheerfulness of +shops? Have you seen a man guillotined yet? is it as good as hanging? +Are the women _all_ painted, and the men _all_ monkeys? or are there not +a _few_ that look like _rational_ of _both sexes_? Are you and the First +Consul _thick_? All this expense of ink I may fairly put you to, as your +letters will not be solely for my proper pleasure, but are to serve as +memoranda and notices, helps for short memory, a kind of Rumfordizing +recollection, for yourself on your return. Your letter was just what a +letter should be,--crammed and very funny. Every part of it pleased me, +till you came to Paris, and your philosophical indolence or indifference +stung me. You cannot stir from your rooms till you know the language! +What the devil! are men nothing but word-trumpets? Are men all tongue +and ear? Have these creatures, that you and I profess to know _something +about_, no faces, gestures, gabble; no folly, no absurdity, no induction +of French education upon the abstract idea of men and women; no +similitude nor dissimilitude to English? Why, thou cursed Smellfungus! +your account of your landing and reception, and Bullen (I forget how you +spell it,--it was spelt my way in Harry the Eighth's time), was exactly +in that minute style which strong impressions INSPIRE (writing to a +Frenchman, I write as a Frenchman would). It appears to me as if I +should die with joy at the first landing in a foreign country. It is the +nearest pleasure which a grown man can substitute for that unknown one, +which he can never know,--the pleasure of the first entrance into life +from the womb. I daresay, in a short time, my habits would come back +like a "stronger man" armed, and drive out that new pleasure; and I +should soon sicken for known objects. Nothing has transpired here that +seems to me of sufficient importance to send dry-shod over the water; +but I suppose you will want to be told some news. The best and the worst +to me is, that I have given up two guineas a week at the "Post," and +regained my health and spirits, which were upon the wane. I grew sick, +and Stuart unsatisfied. _Ludisti satis, tempus abire est_; I must cut +closer, that's all. Mister Fell--or as you, with your usual +facetiousness and drollery, call him, Mr. Fell--has stopped short in the +middle of his play. Some _friend_ has told him that it has not the least +merit in it. Oh that I had the rectifying of the Litany! I would put in +a _Libera nos (Scriptores videlicet) ab amicis_! That's all the news. _A +propos_ (is it pedantry, writing to a Frenchman, to express myself +sometimes by a French word, when an English one would not do as well? +Methinks my thoughts fall naturally into it)-- + +In all this time I have done but one thing which I reckon tolerable, and +that I will transcribe, because it may give you pleasure, being a +picture of _my_ humors. You will find it in my last page. It absurdly is +a first number of a series, thus strangled in its birth. + +More news! The Professor's Rib [1] has come out to be a disagreeable +woman, so much so as to drive me and some more old cronies from his +house. He must not wonder if people are shy of coming to see him because +of the _Snakes_. + +C. L. + +[1] Mrs. Godwin + + + +XLIII. + + +TO WILLIAM GODWIN. + +_November_ 10, 1803. + +Dear Godwin,--You never made a more unlucky and perverse mistake than to +suppose that the reason of my not writing that cursed thing was to be +found in your book. I assure you most sincerely that I have been greatly +delighted with "Chaucer." [1] I may be wrong, but I think there is one +considerable error runs through it, which is a conjecturing spirit, a +fondness for filling out the picture by supposing what Chaucer did and +how he felt, where the materials are scanty. So far from meaning to +withhold from you (out of mistaken tenderness) this opinion of mine, I +plainly told Mrs. Godwin that I did find a _fault_, which I should +reserve naming until I should see you and talk it over. This she may +very well remember, and also that I declined naming this fault until she +drew it from me by asking me if there was not too much fancy in the +work. I then confessed generally what I felt, but refused to go into +particulars until I had seen you. I am never very fond of saying things +before third persons, because in the relation (such is human nature) +something is sure to be dropped. If Mrs. Godwin has been the cause of +your misconstruction, I am very angry, tell her; yet it is not an anger +unto death. I remember also telling Mrs. G. (which she may have _dropt_) +that I was by turns considerably more delighted than I expected. But I +wished to reserve all this until I saw you. I even had conceived an +expression to meet you with, which was thanking you for some of the most +exquisite pieces of criticism I had ever read in my life. In particular, +I should have brought forward that on "Troilus and Cressida" and +Shakspeare, which, it is little to say, delighted me and instructed me +(if not absolutely _instructed_ me, yet put into _full-grown sense_ many +conceptions which had arisen in me before in my most discriminating +moods). All these things I was preparing to say, and bottling them up +till I came, thinking to please my friend and host the author, when lo! +this deadly blight intervened. + +I certainly ought to make great allowances for your misunderstanding me. +You, by long habits of composition and a greater command gained over +your own powers, cannot conceive of the desultory and uncertain way in +which I (an author by fits) sometimes cannot put the thoughts of a +common letter into sane prose. Any work which I take upon myself as an +engagement will act upon me to torment; _e.g._, when I have undertaken, +as three or four times I have, a school-boy copy of verses for Merchant +Taylors' boys, at a guinea a copy, I have fretted over them in perfect +inability to do them, and have made my sister wretched with my +wretchedness for a week together. The same, till by habit I have +acquired a mechanical command, I have felt in making paragraphs. As to +reviewing, in particular, my head is so whimsical a head that I cannot, +after reading another man's book, let it have been never so pleasing, +give any account of it in any methodical way, I cannot follow his train. +Something like this you must have perceived of me in conversation. Ten +thousand times I have confessed to you, talking of my talents, my utter +inability to remember in any comprehensive way what I read. I can +vehemently applaud, or perversely stickle, at _parts_; but I cannot +grasp at a whole. This infirmity (which is nothing to brag of) may be +seen in my two little compositions, the tale and my play, in both which +no reader, however partial, can find any story. I wrote such stuff about +Chaucer, and got into such digressions, quite irreducible into 1 1/5 +column of a paper, that I was perfectly ashamed to show it you. However, +it is become a serious matter that I should convince you I neither slunk +from the task through a wilful deserting neglect, or through any (most +imaginary on your part) distaste of "Chaucer;" and I will try my hand +again,--I hope with better luck. My health is bad, and my time taken up; +but all I can spare between this and Sunday shall be employed for you, +since you desire it: and if I bring you a crude, wretched paper on +Sunday, you must burn it, and forgive me; if it proves anything better +than I predict, may it be a peace-offering of sweet incense between us! + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Godwin's "Life of Chaucer,"--a work, says Canon Ainger, consisting +of "four fifths ingenious guessing to one fifth of material having any +historic basis." + + + +XLIV. + + +TO MANNING. + +_February_ 24, 1805. + +Dear Manning,--I have been very unwell since I saw you. A sad depression +of spirits, a most unaccountable nervousness; from which I have been +partially relieved by an odd accident. You knew Dick Hopkins, the +swearing scullion of Caius? This fellow, by industry and agility, has +thrust himself into the important situations (no sinecures, believe me) +of cook to Trinity Hall and Caius College; and the generous creature has +contrived, with the greatest delicacy imaginable, to send me a present +of Cambridge brawn. What makes it the more extraordinary is, that the +man never saw me in his life that I know of. I suppose he has _heard_ of +me. I did not immediately recognize the donor; but one of Richard's +cards, which had accidentally fallen into the straw, detected him in a +moment, Dick, you know, was always remarkable for flourishing. His card +imports that "orders [to wit, for brawn] from any part of England, +Scotland, or Ireland, will be duly executed," etc. At first I thought of +declining the present; but Richard knew my blind side when he pitched +upon brawn. 'Tis of all my hobbies the supreme in the eating way. He +might have sent sops from the pan, skimmings, crumpets, chips, hog's +lard, the tender brown judiciously scalped from a fillet of veal +(dexterously replaced by a salamander), the tops of asparagus, fugitive +livers, runaway gizzards of fowls, the eyes of martyred pigs, tender +effusions of laxative woodcocks, the red spawn of lobsters, leverets' +ears, and such pretty filchings common to cooks; but these had been +ordinary presents, the everyday courtesies of dishwashers to their +sweethearts. Brawn was a noble thought. It is not every common +gullet-fancier that can properly esteem it. It is like a picture of one +of the choice old Italian masters. Its gusto is of that hidden sort. As +Wordsworth sings of a modest poet, "you must love him, ere to you he +will seem worthy of your love," so brawn, you must taste it, ere to you +it will seem to have any taste at all. But 'tis nuts to the +adept,--those that will send out their tongues and feelers to find it +out. It will be wooed, and not unsought be won. Now, ham-essence, +lobsters, turtle, such popular minions, absolutely _court you_, lay +themselves out to strike you at first smack, like one of David's +pictures (they call him _Darveed_), compared with the plain +russet-coated wealth of a Titian or a Correggio, as I illustrated above. +Such are the obvious glaring heathen virtues of a corporation dinner, +compared with the reserved collegiate worth of brawn. Do me the favour +to leave off the business which you may be at present upon, and go +immediately to the kitchens of Trinity and Caius, and make my most +respectful compliments to Mr. Richard Hopkins, and assure him that his +brawn is most excellent, and that I am moreover obliged to him for his +innuendo about salt water and bran, which I shall not fail to improve. I +leave it to you whether you shall choose to pay him the civility of +asking him to dinner while you stay in Cambridge, or in whatever other +way you may best like to show your gratitude to _my friend_. Richard +Hopkins, considered in many points of view, is a very extraordinary +character. Adieu. I hope to see you to supper in London soon, where we +will taste Richard's brawn, and drink his health in a cheerful but +moderate cup. We have not many such men in any rank of life as Mr. R. +Hopkins. Crisp the barber, of St. Mary's, was just such another. I +wonder _he_ never sent me any little token,--some chestnuts, or a puff, +or two pound of hair just to remember him by; gifts are like nails. +_Præsens ut absens_, that is, your _present_ makes amends for +your absence. + +Yours, + +C. LAMB. + + + +XLV. + + +TO MISS WORDSWORTH. + +_June_ 14, 1805. + +My Dear Miss Wordsworth,--I have every reason to suppose that this +illness, like all Mary's former ones, will be but temporary. But I +cannot always feel so. Meantime she is dead to me, and I miss a prop. +All my strength Is gone, and I am like a fool, bereft of her +co-operation. I dare not think, iest I should think wrong; so used am I +to look up to her in the least and the biggest perplexity. To say all +that I know of her, would be more than I think anybody could believe or +ever understand; and when I hope to have her well again with me, it +would be sinning against her feelings to go about to praise her; for I +can conceal nothing that I do from her. She is older and wiser and +better than I, and all my wretched imperfections I cover to myself by +resolutely thinking on her goodness. She would share life and death, +heaven and hell, with me. She lives but for me; and I know I have been +wasting and teasing her life for five years past incessantly with my +cursed ways of going on. But even in this upbraiding of myself I am +offending against her, for I know that she has cleaved to me for better, +for worse; and if the balance has been against her hitherto, it was a +noble trade. I am stupid, and lose myself in what I write. I write +rather what answers to my feelings (which are sometimes sharp enough) +than express my present ones, for I am only flat and stupid. I am sure +you will excuse my writing any more, I am so very poorly. + +I cannot resist transcribing three or four lines which poor Mary made +upon a picture (a Holy Family) which we saw at an auction only one week +before she left home. They are sweet lines, and upon a sweet picture. +But I send them only as the last memorial of her. + +VIRGIN AND CHILD, L. DA VINCI. + + "Maternal Lady, with thy virgin-grace, + Heaven-born thy Jesus seemeth, sure, + And thou a virgin pure. + Lady most perfect, when thy angel face + Men look upon, they wish to be + A Catholic, Madonna fair, to worship thee." + +You had her lines about the "Lady Blanch." You have not had some which +she wrote upon a copy of a girl from Titian, which I had hung up where +that print of Blanch and the Abbess (as she beautifully interpreted two +female figures from L. da Vinci) had hung in our room. 'Tis light +and pretty. + + "Who art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the place + Of Blanch, the lady of the matchless grace? + Come, fair and pretty, tell to me + Who in thy lifetime thou mightst be? + Thou pretty art and fair, + But with the Lady Blanch thou never must compare. + No need for Blanch her history to tell, + Whoever saw her face, they there did read it well; + But when I look on thee, I only know + There lived a pretty maid some hundred years ago," + +This is a little unfair, to tell so much about ourselves, and to advert +so little to your letter, so full of comfortable tidings of you all But +my own cares press pretty close upon me, and you can make allowance. +That you may go on gathering strength and peace is my next wish to +Mary's recovery. + +I had almost forgot your repeated invitation. Supposing that Mary will +be well and able, there is another _ability_ which you may guess at, +which I cannot promise myself. In prudence we ought not to come. This +illness will make it still more prudential to wait. It is not a balance +of this way of spending our money against another way, but an absolute +question of whether we shall stop now, or go on wasting away the little +we have got beforehand, which my evil conduct has already encroached +upon one-half. My best love, however, to you all, and to that most +friendly creature. Mrs. Clarkson, and better health to her, when you see +or write to her. + +CHARLES LAMB. + + + +XLVI. [1] + + +TO MANNING. + +_May_ 10, 1806. + +My Dear Manning,--I didn't know what your going was till I shook a last +fist with you, and then 'twas just like having shaken hands with a +wretch on the fatal scaffold, and when you are down the ladder, you can +never stretch out to him again. Mary says you are dead, and there's +nothing to do but to leave it to time to do for us in the end what it +always does for those who mourn for people in such a case. But she'll +see by your letter you are not quite dead. A little kicking and agony, +and then--Martin Burney _took me out_ a walking that evening, and we +talked of Manning; and then I came home and smoked for you, and at +twelve o'clock came home Mary and Monkey Louisa from the play, and there +was more talk and more smoking, and they all seemed first-rate +characters, because they knew a certain person. But what's the use of +talking about 'em? By the time you'll have made your escape from the +Kalmuks, you'll have stayed so long I shall never be able to bring to +your mind who Mary was, who will have died about a year before, nor who +the Holcrofts were! Me perhaps you will mistake for Phillips, or +confound me with Mr. Dawe, because you saw us together. Mary (whom you +seem to remember yet) is not quite easy that she had not a formal +parting from you. I wish it had so happened. But you must bring her a +token, a shawl or something, and remember a sprightly little mandarin +for our mantelpiece, as a companion to the child I am going to purchase +at the museum. She says you saw her writings about the other day, and +she wishes you should know what they are. She is doing for Godwin's +bookseller twenty of Shakspeare's plays, to be made into children's +tales. Six are already done by her; to wit: "The Tempest," "Winter's +Tale," "Midsummer Night's Dream," "Much Ado," "Two Gentlemen of Verona," +and "Cymbeline;" and "The Merchant of Venice" is in forwardness. I have +done "Othello" and "Macbeth," and mean to do all the tragedies. I think +it will be popular among the little people, besides money. It's to bring +in sixty guineas. Mary has done them capitally, I think you'd think. [2] +These are the humble amusements we propose, while you are gone to plant +the cross of Christ among barbarous pagan anthropophagi. _Quam homo +homini præstat!_ but then, perhaps, you'll get murdered, and we shall +die in our beds, with a fair literary reputation. Be sure, if you see +any of those people whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, that +you make a draught of them. It will be very curious. Oh, Manning, I am +serious to sinking almost, when I think that all those evenings, which +you have made so pleasant, are gone perhaps forever. Four years you talk +of, maybe ten; and you may come back and find such alterations! Some +circumstances may grow up to you or to me that may be a bar to the +return of any such intimacy. I daresay all this is hum, and that all +will come back; but indeed we die many deaths before we die, and I am +almost sick when I think that such a hold as I had of you is gone. I +have friends, but some of 'em are changed. Marriage, or some +circumstance, rises up to make them not the same. But I felt sure of +you. And that last token you gave me of expressing a wish to have my +name joined with yours, you know not how it affected me,--like a legacy. + +God bless you in every way you can form a wish! May He give you health, +and safety, and the accomplishment of all your objects, and return you +again to us to gladden some fireside or other (I suppose we shall be +moved from the Temple). I will nurse the remembrance of your steadiness +and quiet, which used to infuse something like itself into our nervous +minds. Mary called you our ventilator. Farewell! and take her best +wishes and mine. Good by. + +C.L. + +[1] Addressed: "Mr, Manning, Passenger on Board the 'Thames,' East +Indiaman, Portsmouth." Manning had set out for Canton. + +[2] Miss Lamb has amusingly described the progress of their labors on +this volume; "You would like to see us, as we often sit writing on one +table (but not on one cushion sitting), like Hermia and Helena, in the +'Midsummer Night's Dream;' or rather like an old literary Darby and +Joan, I taking snuff, and he groaning all the while, and saying he can +make nothing of it, which he always says till he has finished, and then +he finds out that he has made something of it." + + + +XLVII. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_June_, 1806. + +Dear Wordsworth,--We are pleased, you may be sure, with the good news +of Mrs. Wordsworth. [1] Hope all is well over by this time. "A fine boy! +Have you any more?--One more and a girl,--poor copies of me!" _vide_ +"Mr. H.," a farce which the proprietors have done me the honor--But I +set down Mr, Wroughton's own words, N. B.--The ensuing letter was sent +in answer to one which I wrote, begging to know if my piece had any +chance, as I might make alterations, etc, I writing on Monday, there +comes this letter on the Wednesday. Attend. + +[_Copy of a letter from Mr. R. Wroughton_.] + +SIR,--Your piece of "Mr. H.," I am desired to say, is accepted at Drury +Lane Theatre by the proprietors, and if agreeable to you, will be +brought forwards when the proper opportunity serves. The piece shall be +sent to you for your alterations in the course of a few days, as the +same is not in my hands, but with the proprietors, + +I am, sir, your obedient servant, + +RICHARD WROUGHTON. + +[Dated] 66, Gower Street, Wednesday, June 11th, 1806. + +On the following Sunday Mr. Tobin comes. The scent of a manager's letter +brought him. He would have gone farther any day on such a business. I +read the letter to him. He deems it authentic and peremptory. Our +conversation naturally fell upon pieces, different sorts of +pieces,--what is the best way of offering a piece; how far the caprice +of managers is an obstacle in the way of a piece; how to judge of the +merits of a piece; how long a piece may remain in the hands of the +managers before it is acted; and my piece, and your piece, and my poor +brother's piece,--my poor brother was all his life endeavoring to get a +piece accepted. I wrote that in mere wantonness of triumph. Have nothing +more to say about it. The managers, I thank my stars, have decided its +merits forever. They are the best judges of pieces, and it would be +insensible in me to affect a false modesty, after the very flattering +letter which I have received. + +[Illustration: Admit to Boxes. Mr. H. _Ninth Night_ Charles Lamb] + +I think this will be as good a pattern for orders as I can think on. A +little thin flowery border, round, neat, not gaudy, and the Drury Lane +Apollo, with the harp at the top. Or shall I have no Apollo,--simply +nothing? Or perhaps the Comic Muse? + +The same form, only I think without the Apollo, will serve for the pit +and galleries. I think it will be best to write my name at full length; +but then if I give away a great many, that will be tedious. Perhaps _Ch. +Lamb_ will do. + +BOXES, now I think on it, I'll have in capitals; the rest, in a neat +Italian hand. Or better, perhaps, BORES in Old English characters, +like Madoc or Thalaba? + +_A propos_ of Spenser (you will find him mentioned a page or two before, +near enough for an _à propos_), I was discoursing on poetry (as one's +apt to deceive one's self, and when a person is willing to _talk_ of +what one likes, to believe that be also likes the same, as lovers do) +with a young gentleman of my office, who is deep read in Anacreon Moore, +Lord Strangford, and the principal modern poets, and I happened to +mention Epithalamiums, and that I could show him a very fine one of +Spenser's. At the mention of this my gentleman, who is a very fine +gentleman, pricked up his ears and expressed great pleasure, and begged +that I would give him leave to copy it; he did not care how long it was +(for I objected the length), he should be very happy to see _anything by +him_. Then pausing, and looking sad, he ejaculated, "POOR SPENCER!" I +begged to know the reason of his ejaculation, thinking that time had by +this time softened down any calamities which the bard might have +endured. "Why, poor fellow," said he, "he has lost his wife!" "Lost his +wife!" said I, "who are you talking of?" "Why, Spencer!" said he; "I've +read the Monody he wrote on the occasion, and _a very pretty thing it +is_." This led to an explanation (it could be delayed no longer) that +the sound _Spenser_, which, when poetry is talked of, generally excites +an image of an old bard in a ruff, and sometimes with it dim notions of +Sir P. Sidney and perhaps Lord Burleigh, had raised in my gentleman a +quite contrary image of the Honorable William Spencer, who has +translated some things from the German very prettily, which are +published with Lady Di Beauclerk's designs. Nothing like defining of +terms when we talk. What blunders might I have fallen into of quite +inapplicable criticism, but for this timely explanation! + +N.B.--At the beginning of _Edm._ Spenser (to prevent mistakes), I have +copied from my own copy, and primarily from a book of Chalmers's on +Shakspeare, a sonnet of Spenser's never printed among his poems. It is +curious, as being manly, and rather Miltonic, and as a sonnet of +Spenser's with nothing in it about love or knighthood. I have no room +for remembrances, but I hope our doing your commission will prove we do +not quite forget you. + +C. L. + +[1] Wordsworth's son Thomas was born June 16, 1806. + + + +XLVIII. + + +TO MANNING + +_December_ 5, 1806. + +Manning, your letter, dated Hottentots, August the what-was-it? came to +hand. I can scarce hope that mine will have the same luck. China, +Canton,--bless us, how it strains the imagination and makes it ache! I +write under another uncertainty whether it can go to-morrow by a ship +which I have just learned is going off direct to your part of the world, +or whether the despatches may not be sealed up and this have to wait; +for if it is detained here, it will grow staler in a fortnight than in a +five months' voyage coming to you. It will be a point of conscience to +send you none but bran-new news (the latest edition), which will but +grow the better, like oranges, for a sea-voyage. Oh that you should be +so many hemispheres off!--if I speak incorrectly, you can correct me. +Why, the simplest death or marriage that takes place here must be +important to you as news in the old Bastile. There's your friend Tuthill +has got away from France--you remember France? and Tuthill?--ten to one +but he writes by this post, if he don't get my note in time, apprising +him of the vessel sailing. Know, then, that he has found means to obtain +leave from Bonaparte, without making use of any _incredible romantic +pretences_, as some have done, who never meant to fulfil them, to come +home; and I have seen him here and at Holcroft's. An't you glad about +Tuthill? Now then be sorry for Holcroft, whose new play, called "The +Vindictive Man," was damned about a fortnight since. It died in part of +its own weakness, and in part for being choked up with bad actors. The +two principal parts were destined to Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Bannister; but +Mrs. J. has not come to terms with the managers,--they have had some +squabble,--and Bannister shot some of his fingers off by the going off +of a gun. So Miss Duncan had her part, and Mr. De Camp took his. His +part, the principal comic hope of the play, was most unluckily +Goldfinch, taken out of the "Road to Ruin,"--not only the same +character, but the identical Goldfinch; the same as Falstaff is in two +plays of Shakspeare. As the devil of ill-luck would have it, half the +audience did not know that H. had written it, but were displeased at his +stealing from the "Road to Ruin;" and those who might have home a +gentlemanly coxcomb with his "That's your sort," "Go it,"--such as Lewis +is,--did not relish the intolerable vulgarity and inanity of the idea +stripped of his manner. De Camp was hooted, more than hissed,--hooted +and bellowed off the stage before the second act was finished; so that +the remainder of his part was forced to be, with some violence to the +play, omitted. In addition to this, a strumpet was another principal +character,--a most unfortunate choice in this moral day. The audience +were as scandalized as if you were to introduce such a personage to +their private tea-tables. Besides, her action in the play was +gross,--wheedling an old man into marriage. But the mortal blunder of +the play was that which, oddly enough, H. took pride in, and exultingly +told me of the night before it came out, that there were no less than +eleven principal characters in it, and I believe he meant of the men +only, for the play-bill expressed as much, not reckoning one woman and +one--; and true it was, for Mr. Powell, Mr. Raymond, Mr. Bartlett, Mr. +H. Siddons, Mr. Barrymore, etc., to the number of eleven, had all parts +equally prominent, and there was as much of them in quantity and rank as +of the hero and heroine, and most of them gentlemen who seldom appear +but as the hero's friend in a farce,--for a minute or two,--and here +they all had their ten-minute speeches, and one of them gave the +audience a serious account how he was now a lawyer, but had been a poet; +and then a long enumeration of the inconveniences of authorship, +rascally booksellers, reviewers, etc.; which first set the audience +a-gaping. But I have said enough; you will be so sorry that you will not +think the best of me for my detail: but news is news at Canton. Poor H. +I fear will feel the disappointment very seriously in a pecuniary light. +From what I can learn, he has saved nothing. You and I were hoping one +day that he had; but I fear he has nothing but his pictures and books, +and a no very flourishing business, and to be obliged to part with his +long-necked Guido that hangs opposite as you enter, and the game-piece +that hangs in the back drawing-room, and all those Vandykes, etc.! God +should temper the wind to the shorn connoisseur. I hope I need not say +to you that I feel for the weather-beaten author and for all his +household. I assure you his fate has soured a good deal the pleasure I +should have otherwise taken in my own little farce being accepted, and I +hope about to be acted,--it is in rehearsal actually, and I expect it to +come out next week. It is kept a sort of secret, and the rehearsals have +gone on privately, lest by many folks knowing it, the story should come +out, which would infallibly damn it. You remember I had sent it before +you went. Wroughton read it, and was much pleased with it. I speedily +got an answer. I took it to make alterations, and lazily kept it some +months, then took courage and furbished it up in a day or two and took +it. In less than a fortnight I heard the principal part was given to +Elliston, who liked it, and only wanted a prologue, which I have since +done and sent; and I had a note the day before yesterday from the +manager, Wroughton (bless his fat face, he is not a bad actor in some +things), to say that I should be summoned to the rehearsal after the +next, which next was to be yesterday. I had no idea it was so forward. I +have had no trouble, attended no reading or rehearsal, made no interest; +what a contrast to the usual parade of authors! But it is peculiar to +modesty to do all things without noise or pomp! I have some suspicion it +will appear in public on Wednesday next, for W. says in his note, it is +so forward that if wanted it may come out next week, and a new melodrama +is announced for every day till then; and "a new farce is in rehearsal," +is put up in the bills. Now, you'd like to know the subject. The title +is "Mr. H.," no more; how simple, how taking! A great H. sprawling over +the play-bill and attracting eyes at every corner. The story is a +coxcomb appearing at Bath, vastly rich, all the ladies dying for him, +all bursting to know who he is; but he goes by no other name than Mr. +H.,--a curiosity like that of the dames of Strasburg about the man with +the great nose. But I won't tell you any more about it. Yes, I will, but +I can't give you an idea how I have done it. I'll just tell you that +after much vehement admiration, when his true name comes out, +"Hogs-flesh," all the women shun him, avoid him, and not one can be +found to change their name for him,--that's the idea,--how flat it is +here; [1] but how whimsical in the farce! And only think how hard upon me +it is that the ship is despatched to-morrow, and my triumph cannot be +ascertained till the Wednesday after; but all China will ring of it by +and by. N.B. (But this is a secret,) The Professor [2] has got a tragedy +coming out, with the young Roscius in it, in January next, as we +say,--January last it will be with you; and though it is a profound +secret now, as all his affairs are, it cannot be much of one by the time +you read this. However, don't let it go any farther. I understand there +are dramatic exhibitions in China. One would not like to be forestalled. +Do you find in all this stuff I have written anything like those +feelings which one should send my old adventuring friend, that is gone +to wander among Tartars, and may never come again? I don't, but your +going away, and all about you, is a threadbare topic. I have worn it out +with thinking, it has come to me when I have been dull with anything, +till my sadness has seemed more to have come from it than to have +introduced it. I want you, you don't know how much; but if I had you +here in my European garret, we should but talk over such stuff as I have +written, so--Those "Tales from Shakspeare" are near coming out, and Mary +has begun a new work, Mr. Dawe is turned author; he has been in such a +way lately,--Dawe the painter, I mean,--he sits and stands about at +Holcroft's and says nothing, then sighs, and leans his head on his hand. +I took him to be in love, but it seems he was only meditating a +work,--"The Life of Morland:" the young man is not used to composition. +Rickman and Captain Burney are well; they assemble at my house pretty +regularly of a Wednesday, a new institution. Like other great men, I have +a public day,--cribbage and pipes, with Phillips and noisy Martin Burney. + +Good Heaven, what a bit only I've got left! How shall I squeeze all I +know into this morsel! Coleridge is come home, and is going to turn +lecturer on taste at the Royal Institution. I shall get £200 from the +theatre if "Mr. H." has a good run, and I hope £100 for the copyright. +Nothing if it fails; and there never was a more ticklish thing. The +whole depends on the manner in which the name is brought out, which I +value myself on, as a _chef d'oeuvre_. How the paper grows less and +less! In less than two minutes I shall cease to talk to you, and you may +rave to the Great Wall of China. N.B.--Is there such a wall? Is it as +big as Old London Wall by Bedlam? Have you met with a friend of mine +named Ball at Canton? If you are acquainted, remember me kindly to him. +Maybe you'll think I have not said enough of Tuthill and the Holcrofts. +Tuthill is a noble fellow, as far as I can judge. The Holcrofts bear +their disappointment pretty well, but indeed they are sadly mortified. +Mrs. H. is cast down. It was well, if it were but on this account, that +Tuthill is come home. N.B.--If my little thing don't succeed, I shall +easily survive, having, as it were, compared to H.'s venture, but a +sixteenth in the lottery. Mary and I are to sit next the orchestra in +the pit, next the tweedle-dees. She remembers you. You are more to us +than five hundred farces, clappings, etc. + +Come back one day. C. LAMB. + +[1] It was precisely this flatness, this slightness of plot and +catastrophe, that doomed "Mr. H." to failure. See next letter. + +[2] Godwin. His tragedy of "Faulkner" was published in 1808. + + + +XLIX. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_December_, II, 1806. + +Mary's love to all of you; I wouldn't let her write. + +Dear Wordsworth,--"Mr. H." came out last night, and failed. I had many +fears; the subject was not substantial enough. John Bull must have +solider fare than a _letter_. We are pretty stout about it; have had +plenty of condoling friends; but, after all, we had rather it should +have succeeded. You will see the prologue in most of the morning papers. +It was received with such shouts as I never witnessed to a prologue. It +was attempted to be encored. How hard! a thing I did merely as a task, +because it was wanted, and set no great store by; and "Mr. H."! The +quantity of friends we had in the house--my brother and I being in +public offices, etc.--was astonishing; but they yielded at last to a +few hisses. + +A hundred hisses (Damn the word, I write it like kisses,--how +different!)--a hundred hisses outweigh a thousand claps. [1] The former +come more directly from, the heart. Well, 't is withdrawn, and there +is an end. + +Better luck to us, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Lamb was himself in the audience, and is said to have taken a +conspicuous share in the storm of hisses that followed the dropping of +the curtain. + + + +L. + + +TO MANNING. + +_January_ 2, 1810. + +My best room commands a court, in which there are trees and a pump, the +water of which is excellent,--cold with brandy, and not very insipid +without. Here I hope to set up my rest, and not quit till Mr. Powell, +the undertaker, gives me notice that I may have possession of my last +lodging. He lets lodgings for single gentlemen. I sent you a parcel of +books by my last, to give you some idea of the state of European +literature. There comes with this two volumes, done up as letters, of +minor poetry, a sequel to "Mrs. Leicester;" the best you may suppose +mine, the next best are my coadjutor's. You may amuse yourself in +guessing them out; but I must tell you mine are but one third in +quantity of the whole. So much for a very delicate subject. It is hard +to speak of one's self, etc. Holcroft had finished his life when I wrote +to you, and Hazlitt has since finished his life,--I do not mean his own +life, but he has finished a life of Holcroft, which is going to press. +Tuthill is Dr. Tuthill. I continue Mr. Lamb. I have published a little +book for children on titles of honor; and to give them some idea of the +difference of rank and gradual rising, I have made a little scale, +supposing myself to receive the following various accessions of dignity +from the king, who is the fountain of honor,--as at first, 1, Mr. C. +Lamb; 2, C. Lamb, Esq.; 3, Sir C. Lamb, Bart.; 4, Baron Lamb, of +Stamford; 5, Viscount Lamb; 6, Earl Lamb; 7, Marquis Lamb; 8, Duke Lamb. +It would look like quibbling to carry it on farther, and especially as +it is not necessary for children to go beyond the ordinary titles of +sub-regal dignity in our own country, otherwise I have sometimes in my +dreams imagined myself still advancing, as 9th, King Lamb; 10th, Emperor +Lamb; 11th, Pope Innocent,--higher than which is nothing. Puns I have +not made many (nor punch much) since the date of my last; one I cannot +help relating. A constable in Salisbury Cathedral was telling me that +eight people dined at the top of the spire of the cathedral; upon which +I remarked that they must be very sharp-set. But in general I cultivate +the reasoning part of my mind more than the imaginative. I am stuffed +out so with eating turkey for dinner, and another turkey for supper +yesterday (turkey in Europe and turkey in Asia), that I can't jog on. It +is New Year here. That is, it was New Year half a year back, when I was +writing this. Nothing puzzles me more than time and space, and yet +nothing puzzles me less, for I never think about them. The Persian +ambassador is the principal thing talked of now. I sent some people to +see him worship the sun on Primrose Hill at half-past six in the +morning, 28th November; but he did not come,--which makes me think the +old fire-worshippers are a sect almost extinct in Persia. The Persian +ambassador's name is Shaw Ali Mirza. The common people call him Shaw +Nonsense. While I think of it, I have put three letters besides my own +three into the India post for you, from your brother, sister, and +some gentleman whose name I forget. Will they, have they, did they come +safe? The distance you are at, cuts up tenses by the root. I think you +said you did not know Kate *********. I express her by nine stars, +though she is but one. You must have seen her at her father's. Try and +remember her. Coleridge is bringing out a paper in weekly numbers, called +the "Friend," which I would send, if I could; but the difficulty I had in +getting the packets of books out to you before deters me; and you'll +want something new to read when you come home. Except Kate, I have had +no vision of excellence this year, and she passed by like the queen on +her coronation day; you don't know whether you saw her or not. Kate is +fifteen; I go about moping, and sing the old, pathetic ballad I used to +like in my youth,-- + + "She's sweet fifteen, + I'm _one year more._ + +Mrs. Bland sang it in boy's clothes the first time I heard it. I +sometimes think the lower notes in my voice are like Mrs. Bland's. That +glorious singer, Braham, one of my lights, is fled. He was for a season. +He was a rare composition of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel, yet +all these elements mixed up so kindly in him that you could not tell +which predominated; but he is gone, and one Phillips is engaged instead. +Kate is vanished, but Miss Burrell is always to be met with! + + "Queens drop away, while blue-legged Maukin thrives, + And courtly Mildred dies, while country Madge survives." + +That is not my poetry, but Quarles's; but haven't you observed that the +rarest things are the least obvious? Don't show anybody the names in +this letter. I write confidentially, and wish this letter to be +considered as _private,_ Hazlitt has written a _grammar_ for Godwin; +Godwin sells it bound up with a treatise of his own on language; but the +_gray mare is the better horse._ I don't allude to Mrs. Godwin, but to +the word _grammar_, which comes near to _gray mare_, if you observe, in +sound. That figure is called paranomasia in Greek, I am sometimes happy +in it. An old woman begged of me for charity. "Ah, sir," said she, "I +have seen better days!" "So have I, good woman," I replied; but I meant +literally, days not so rainy and overcast as that on which begged,--she +meant more prosperous days. + + + +LI. + + +TO MISS WORDSWORTH. + +_August_, 1810. + +Mary has left a little space for me to fill up with nonsense, as the +geographers used to cram monsters in the voids of the maps, and call it +_Terra Incognita_. She has told you how she has taken to water like a +hungry otter. I too limp after her in lame imitation, [1] but it goes +against me a little at first. I have been acquaintance with it now for +full four days, and it seems a moon. I am full of cramps and +rheumatisms, and cold internally, so that fire won't warm me; yet I bear +all for virtue's sake. Must I then leave you, gin, rum, brandy, +_aqua-vitae_, pleasant, jolly fellows? Damn temperance and he that first +invented it!--some Anti-Noahite. Coleridge has powdered his head, and +looks like Bacchus,--Bacchus ever sleek and young. He is going to turn +sober, but his clock has not struck yet; meantime he pours down goblet +after goblet, the second to see where the first is gone, the third to +see no harm happens to the second, a fourth to say there is another +coming, and a fifth to say he is not sure he is the last. C. L. + +[1] An experiment in total abstinence; it did not last long. + + + +LII. + + +TO WORDSWORTH + +_October_ 19, 1810. + +Dear W.,--Mary has been very ill, which you have heard, I suppose, from +the Montagues. She is very weak and low-spirited now, I was much pleased +with your continuation of the "Essay on Epitaphs," [1] It is the only +sensible thing which has been written on that subject, and it goes to +the bottom. In particular I was pleased with your translation of that +turgid epitaph into the plain feeling under it. It is perfectly a test. +But what is the reason we have no good epitaphs after all? + +A very striking instance of your position might be found in the +churchyard of Ditton-upon-Thames, if you know such a place. +Ditton-upon-Thames has been blessed by the residence of a poet who, for +love or money, I do not well know which, has dignified every gravestone +for the last few years with brand new verses, all different and all +ingenious, with the author's name at the bottom of each. This sweet Swan +of Thames has so artfully diversified his strains and his rhymes that +the same thought never occurs twice,--more justly, perhaps, as no +thought ever occurs at all, there was a physical impossibility that the +same thought should recur, It is long since I saw and read these +inscriptions; but I remember the impression was of a smug usher at his +desk in the intervals of instruction, levelling his pen. Of death, as it +consists of dust and worms, and mourners and uncertainty, he had never +thought; but the word "death" he had often seen separate and conjunct +with other words, till he had learned to speak of all its attributes as +glibly as Unitarian Belsham will discuss you the attributes of the word +"God" in a pulpit, and will talk of infinity with a tongue that dangles +from a skull that never reached in thought and thorough imagination two +inches, or farther than from his hand to his mouth, or from the vestry +to the sounding-board of the pulpit. + +But the epitaphs were trim and sprag, and patent, and pleased the +survivors of Thames Ditton above the old mumpsimus of "Afflictions +sore." ... To do justice, though, it must be owned that even the +excellent feeling which dictated this dirge when new, must have suffered +something in passing through so many thousand applications, many of them +no doubt quite misplaced, as I have seen in Islington churchyard (I +think) an Epitaph to an Infant who died "_Ætatis_ four months," with +this seasonable inscription appended, "Honor thy father and thy mother, +that thy days may be long in the land," etc. Sincerely wishing your +children long life to honor, etc., I remain, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Published in Coleridge's "Friend," Feb. 22, 1810. + + + +LIII. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_August_ 14, 1814. + +Dear Wordsworth,--I cannot tell you how pleased I was at the receipt of +the great armful of poetry which you have sent me: and to get it before +the rest of the world, too! I have gone quite through with it, and was +thinking to have accomplished that pleasure a second time before I wrote +to thank you; but Martin Burney came in the night (while we were out) +and made holy theft of it: but we expect restitution in a day or two. It +is the noblest conversational poem [1] I ever read,--a day in heaven. The +part (or rather main body) which has left the sweetest odor on my memory +(a bad term for the remains of an impression so recent) is the "Tales of +the Churchyard"--the only girl among seven brethren, born out of due +time, and not duly taken away again; the deaf man and the blind man; the +Jacobite and the Hanoverian, whom antipathies reconcile; the +Scarron-entry of the rusticating parson upon his solitude,--these were +all new to me too. My having known the story of Margaret (at the +beginning), a very old acquaintance, even as long back as when I saw you +first at Stowey, did not make her reappearance less fresh. I don't know +what to pick out of this best of books upon the best subjects for +partial naming. That gorgeous sunset is famous; I think it must have +been the identical one we saw on Salisbury Plain five years ago, that +drew Phillips from the card-table, where he had sat from rise of that +luminary to its unequalled setting. But neither he nor I had gifted eyes +to see those symbols of common things glorified, such as the prophets +saw them in that sunset,--the wheel, the potter's clay, the washpot, +the wine-press, the almond-tree rod, the baskets of figs, the +four-fold-visaged head, the throne, and Him that sat thereon. + +One feeling I was particularly struck with, as what I recognized so very +lately at Harrow Church on entering in it after a hot and secular day's +pleasure,--the instantaneous coolness and calming, almost transforming, +properties of a country church just entered; a certain fragrance which +it has, either from its holiness, or being kept shut all the week, or +the air that is let in being pure country,--exactly what you have +reduced into words; but I am feeling that which I cannot express. The +reading your lines about it fixed me for a time a monument in Harrow +Church,--do you know it?--with its fine long spire, white as washed +marble, to be seen, by vantage of its high site, as far as Salisbury +spire itself almost. + +I shall select a day or two very shortly, when I am coolest in brain, to +have a steady second reading, which I feel will lead to many more; for +it will be a stock book with me while eyes or spectacles shall be lent +me. There is a great deal of noble matter about mountain scenery, yet +not so much as to overpower and discountenance a poor Londoner, or +south-countryman entirely,--though Mary seems to have felt it +occasionally a little too powerfully; for it was her remark, during +reading it, that by your system it was doubtful whether a liver in towns +had a soul to be saved. She almost trembled for that invisible part of +us in her. + +Save for a late excursion to Harrow, and a day or two on the banks of +the Thames this summer, rural images were fast fading from my mind, and +by the wise provision of the Regent all that was countrified in the +parks is all but obliterated. The very colour of green is vanished; the +whole surface of Hyde Park is dry, crumbling sand (_Arabia Arenosa_), +not a vestige or hint of grass ever having grown there; booths and +drinking-places go all round it, for a mile and a half, I am +confident,--I might say two miles in circuit; the stench of liquors, +_bad_ tobacco, dirty people and provisions, conquers the air, and we are +all stifled and suffocated in Hyde Park [2]. Order after order has been +issued by Lord Sidmouth in the name of the Regent (acting in behalf of +his royal father) for the dispersion of the varlets; but in vain. The +_vis unita_ of all the publicans in London, Westminster, Marylebone, and +miles round, is too powerful a force to put down. The Regent has raised +a phantom which he cannot lay. There they'll stay probably forever. The +whole beauty of the place is gone,--that lake-look of the Serpentine +(it has got foolish ships upon it); but something whispers to have +confidence in Nature and its revival,-- + + "At the coming of the _milder_ day, + These monuments shall all be overgrown." + +Meantime I confess to have smoked one delicious pipe in one of the +cleanliest and goodliest of the booths,--a tent rather,-- + + "Oh, call it not a booth!" + +erected by the public spirit of Watson, who keeps the "Adam and Eve" at +Pancras (the ale-houses have all emigrated, with their train of bottles, +mugs, cork-screws, waiters, into Hyde Park,--whole ale-houses, with all +their ale!) in company with some of the Guards that had been in France, +and a fine French girl, habited like a princess of banditti, which one +of the dogs had transported from the Garonne to the Serpentine. The +unusual scene in Hyde Park, by candle-light, in open air,--good tobacco, +bottled stout,--made it look like an interval in a campaign, a repose +after battle. I almost fancied scars smarting, and was ready to club a +story with my comrades of some of my lying deeds. After all, the +fireworks were splendid; the rockets in clusters, in trees, and all +shapes, spreading about like young stars in the making, floundering +about in space (like unbroke horses), till some of Newton's calculations +should fix them; but then they went out. Any one who could see 'em, and +the still finer showers of gloomy rain-fire that fell sulkily and +angrily from 'em, and could go to bed without dreaming of the last day, +must be as hardened an atheist as--. + +The conclusion of this epistle getting gloomy, I have chosen this part +to desire _our_ kindest loves to Mrs. Wordsworth and to Dorothea. Will +none of you ever be in London again? + +Again let me thank you for your present, and assure you that fireworks +and triumphs have not distracted me from receiving a calm and noble +enjoyment from it (which I trust I shall often), and I sincerely +congratulate you on its appearance. + +With kindest remembrances to you and household, we remain, yours +sincerely, + +C. LAMB and Sister. + +[1] The Excursion. + +[2] Early in 1814 the London parks were thrown open to the +public, with fireworks, booths, illuminations, etc., in celebration of +the peace between France and England, it was two or three years before +they recovered their usual verdure. + + + +LIV. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +(1815) + +Dear Wordsworth,--You have made me very proud with your successive book +presents. [1] I have been carefully through the two volumes to see that +nothing was omitted which used to be there. I think I miss nothing but a +character in the antithetic manner, which I do not know why you left +out,--the moral to the boys building the giant, the omission whereof +leaves it, in my mind, less complete,--and one admirable line gone (or +something come instead of it), "the stone-chat, and the glancing +sandpiper," which was a line quite alive. I demand these at your hand. I +am glad that you have not sacrificed a verse to those scoundrels. I +would not have had you offer up the poorest rag that lingered upon the +stripped shoulders of little Alice Fell, to have atoned all their +malice; I would not have given 'em a red cloak to save their souls. I am +afraid lest that substitution of a shell (a flat falsification of the +history) for the household implement, as it stood at first, was a kind +of tub thrown out to the beast, or rather thrown out for him. The tub +was a good honest tub in its place, and nothing could fairly be said +against it. You say you made the alteration for the "friendly reader;" +but the "malicious" will take it to himself. Damn 'em! if you give 'em +an inch, etc. The Preface is noble, and such as you should write. I wish +I could set my name to it, _Imprimatur_; but you have set it there +yourself, and I thank you. I had rather be a doorkeeper in your margin +than have their proudest text swelling with my eulogies. The poems in +the volumes which are new to me are so much in the old tone that I +hardly received them as novelties. Of those of which I had no previous +knowledge, the "Four Yew-Trees" and the mysterious company which you +have assembled there most struck me,--"Death the Skeleton, and Time the +Shadow." It is a sight not for every youthful poet to dream of; it is +one of the last results he must have gone thinking on for years for, +"Laodamia" is a very original poem,--I mean original with reference to +your own manner. You have nothing like it, I should have seen it in a +strange place, and greatly admired it, but not suspected its derivation. + +Let me in this place, for I have writ you several letters naming it, +mention that my brother, who is a picture-collector, has picked up an +undoubtable picture of Milton. [2] He gave a few shillings for it, and +could get no history with it, but that some old lady had had it for a +great many years. Its age is ascertainable from the state of the canvas, +and you need only see it to be sure that it is the original of the heads +in the Tonson editions, with which we are all so well familiar. Since I +saw you, I have had a treat in the reading way which conies not every +day,--the Latin poems of V. Bourne, which were quite new to me. What a +heart that man had, all laid out upon town scenes!--a proper +counterpoise to _some people's_ rural extravaganzas. Why I mention him +is, that your "Power of Music" reminded me of his poem of "The +Ballad-singer in the Seven Dials," Do you remember his epigram on the +old woman who taught Newton the A B C, which, after all, he says, he +hesitates not to call Newton's "Principia"? I was lately fatiguing +myself with going through a volume of fine words by Lord +Thurlow,--excellent words; and if the heart could live by words alone, +it could desire no better regales. But what an aching vacuum of matter! +I don't stick at the madness of it, for that is only a consequence of +shutting his eyes and thinking he is in the age of the old Elizabeth +poets. From thence I turned to Bourne. What a sweet, unpretending, +pretty-mannered, _matter-ful_ creature, sucking from every flower, +making a flower of everything, his diction all Latin, and his thoughts +all English! Bless him! Latin wasn't good enough for him. Why wasn't he +content with the language which Gay and Prior wrote in? + +I am almost sorry that you printed extracts from those first poems, or +that you did not print them at length. They do not read to me as they do +altogether. Besides, they have diminished the value of the original +(which I possess) as a curiosity. I have hitherto kept them distinct in +my mind, as referring to a particular period of your life. All the rest +of your poems are so much of a piece they might have been written in the +same week; these decidedly speak of an earlier period. They tell more of +what you had been reading. We were glad to see the poems "by a female +friend." [3] The one on the Wind is masterly, but not new to us. Being +only three, perhaps you might have clapped a D. at the corner, and let +it have past as a printer's mark to the uninitiated, as a delightful +hint to the better instructed. As it is, expect a formal criticism on +the poems of your female friend, and she must expect it. I should have +written before, but I am cruelly engaged, and like to be. On Friday I +was at office from ten in the morning (two hours dinner excepted) to +eleven at night, last night till nine; my business and office business +in general have increased so; I don't mean I am there every night, but I +must expect a great deal of it. I never leave till four, and do not keep +a holiday now once in ten times, where I used to keep all red-letter +days, and some few days besides, which I used to dub Nature's holidays. +I have had my day. I had formerly little to do. So of the little that is +left of life I may reckon two thirds as dead, for time that a man may +call his own is his life; and hard work and thinking about it taint even +the leisure hours,--stain Sunday with work-day contemplations. This is +Sunday; and the headache I have is part late hours at work the two +preceding nights, and part later hours over a consoling pipe afterwards. +But I find stupid acquiescence coming over me. I bend to the yoke, and +it is almost with me and my household as with the man and his consort,-- + + "To them each evening had its glittering star, + And every sabbath-day its golden sun!" [4] + to such straits am I driven for the life of life, Time! + Oh that from that superfluity of holiday-leisure my + youth wasted, "Age might but take some hours youth + wanted not"! N.B.--I have left off spirituous + liquors for four or more months, with a moral certainty + of its lasting. Farewell, dear Wordsworth! + +O happy Paris, seat of idleness and pleasure! From some returned English +I hear that not such a thing as a counting-house is to be seen in her +streets,--scarce a desk. Earthquakes swallow up this mercantile city and +its "gripple merchants," as Drayton hath it, "born to be the curse of +this brave isle"! I invoke this, not on account of any parsimonious +habits the mercantile interest may have, but, to confess truth, because +I am not fit for an office. + +Farewell, in haste, from a head that is too ill to methodize, a stomach +to digest, and all out of tune. Better harmonies await you! + +C. LAMB. + +[1] In 1815 Wordsworth published a new edition of his poems, with the +following title: "Poems by William Wordsworth; including Lyrical +Ballads, and the Miscellaneous Pieces of the Author. With Additional +Poems, a new Preface, and a Supplementary Essay. In two Volumes." The +new poems were "Yarrow Visited," "The Force of Prayer," "The Farmer of +Tilsbury Vale," "Laodamia," "Yew-Trees," "A Night Piece," etc., and it +was chiefly on these that Lamb made his comments. + +[2] John Lamb afterwards gave the picture to Charles, who made it a +wedding present to Mrs. Moxon (Emma Isola), It is now in the National +Portrait Gallery. + +[3] Dorothy Wordsworth. + +[4] Excursion, book v. + + + +LV. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +Excuse this maddish letter; I am too tired to write _in formâ_. + +1815. + +Dear Wordsworth,--The more I read of your two last volumes, the more I +feel it necessary to make my acknowledgments for them in more than one +short letter. The "Night Piece," to which you refer me, I meant fully to +have noticed; but the fact is, I come so fluttering and languid from +business, tired with thoughts of it, frightened with fears of it, that +when I get a few minutes to sit down and scribble (an action of the hand +now seldom natural to me,--I mean voluntary pen-work), I lose all +presential memory of what I had intended to say, and say what I can, +talk about Vincent Bourne or any casual image, instead of that which I +had meditated (by the way, I mast look out V. B. for you). So I had +meant to have mentioned "Yarrow Visited," with that stanza, "But thou +that didst appear so fair:" [1] than which I think no lovelier stanza can +be found in the wide world of poetry. Yet the poem, on the whole, seems +condemned to leave behind it a melancholy of imperfect satisfaction, as +if you had wronged the feeling with which, in what preceded it, you had +resolved never to visit it, and as if the Muse had determined, in the +most delicate manner, to make you, and _scarce make you_, feel it. Else, +it is far superior to the other, which has but one exquisite verse in +it,--the last but one, or the last two: this is all fine, except, +perhaps, that _that_ of "studious ease and generous cares" has a little +tinge of the _less romantic_ about it. "The Farmer of Tilsbury Vale" is +a charming counterpart to "Poor Susan," with the addition, of that +delicacy towards aberrations from the strict path which is so fine in +the "Old Thief and the Boy by his side," which always brings water +into my eyes. + +Perhaps it is the worse for being a repetition; "Susan" stood for the +representative of poor _Rus in Urbe_. There was quite enough to stamp +the moral of the thing never to be forgotten,--"bright volumes of +vapor," etc. The last verse of Susan was to be got rid of, at all +events. It threw a kind of dubiety upon Susan's moral conduct. Susan is +a servant-maid. I see her trundling her mop, and contemplating the +whirling phenomenon through blurred optics; but to term her "a poor +outcast" seems as much as to say that poor Susan was no better than she +should be,--which I trust was not what you meant to express. Robin +Goodfellow supports himself without that _stick_ of a moral which you +have thrown away; but how I can be brought in _felo de omittendo_ for +that ending to the Boy-builders [2] is a mystery. I can't say positively +now, I only know that no line oftener or readier occurs than that +"Light-hearted boys, I will build up a Giant with you." It comes +naturally with a warm holiday and the freshness of the blood. It is a +perfect summer amulet, that I tie round my legs to quicken their motion +when I go out a-maying. (N. B.) I don't often go out a-maying; _must_ is +the tense with me now. Do you take the pun? _Young Romilly_ is divine, +the reasons of his mother's grief being remediless,--I never saw +parental love carried up so high, towering above the other +loves,--Shakspeare had done something for the filial in Cordelia, and, +by implication, for the fatherly too in Lear's resentment; he left it +for you to explore the depths of the maternal heart. + +I get stupid and flat, and flattering; what's the use of telling you +what good things you have written, or--I hope I may add--that I know +them to be good? _A propos_, when I first opened upon the just-mentioned +poem, in a careless tone I said to Mary, as if putting a riddle, "What +is good for a bootless bene?" [3] To which, with infinite presence of +mind (as the jest-book has it) she answered, "A shoeless pea." It was +the first joke she ever made. Joke the second I make. You distinguish +well, in your old preface, between the verses of Dr. Johnson, of the +"Man in the Strand," and that from "The Babes in the Wood," I was +thinking whether, taking your own glorious lines,-- + + "And from the love which was in her soul + For her youthful Romilly," + +which, by the love I bear my own soul, I think have no parallel in any +of the best old ballads, and just altering it to,-- + + "And from the great respect she felt + For Sir Samuel Romilly," + +would not nave explained the boundaries of prose expression and poetic +feeling nearly as well. Excuse my levity on such an occasion. I never +felt deeply in my life if that poem did not make me, both lately, and +when I read it in MS. No alderman ever longed after a haunch of buck +venison more than I for a spiritual taste of that "White Doe" you +promise. I am sure it is superlative, or will be when _dressed_, i. e., +printed. All things read raw to me in MS.; to compare _magna parvis_, I +cannot endure my own writings in that state. The only one which I think +would not very much win upon me in print is "Peter Bell;" but I am not +certain. You ask me about your preface. I like both that and the +supplement, without an exception. The account of what you mean by +imagination is very valuable to me. It will help me to like some things +in poetry better, which is a little humiliating in me to confess. I +thought I could not be instructed in that science (I mean the critical), +as I once heard old obscene, beastly Peter Pindar, in a dispute on +Milton, say he thought that if he had reason to value himself upon one +thing more than another, it was in knowing what good verse was. Who +looked over your proof-sheets and left _ordebo_ in that line of Virgil? + +My brother's picture of Milton is very finely painted,--that is, it +might have been done by a hand next to Vandyke's. It is the genuine +Milton, and an object of quiet gaze for the half-hour at a time. Yet +though I am confident there is no better one of him, the face does not +quite answer to Milton. There is a tinge of _petit_ (or _petite_, how do +you spell it?) querulousness about it; yet, hang it! now I remember +better, there is not,--it is calm, melancholy, and poetical. _One_ of +the copies of the poems you sent has precisely the same pleasant +blending of a sheet of second volume with a sheet of first, I think it +was page 245; but I sent it and had it rectified, It gave me, in the +first impetus of cutting the leaves, just such a cold squelch as going +down a plausible turning and suddenly reading "No thoroughfare." +Robinson's is entire; I wish you would write more criticism about +Spencer, etc. I think I could say something about him myself; but, Lord +bless me! these "merchants and their spicy drugs," which are so +harmonious to sing of, they lime-twig up my poor soul and body till I +shall forget I ever thought myself a bit of a genius! I can't even put a +few thoughts on paper for a newspaper, I engross when I should pen a +paragraph. Confusion blast all mercantile transactions, all traffic, +exchange of commodities, intercourse between nations, all the consequent +civilization, and wealth, and amity, and link of society, and getting +rid of prejudices, and knowledge of the face of the globe; and rot the +very firs of the forest that look so romantic alive, and die into +desks: _Vale_. + +Yours, dear W., and all yours, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] "But thou, that didst appear so fair + To fond imagination, + Dost rival in the light of day + Her dilicate Creation" + +[2] Better known as "Rural Architecture." + +[3] The first line of the poem on Bolton Abbey:-- + + "'What is good for a bootless bene?' + With these dark words begins my fate; + And their meaning is, whence can comfort spring + When Prayer is of no avail?" + + + +LVI. + + +TO SOUTHEY. + +_May_ 6, 1815. + +Dear Southey,--I have received from Longman a copy of "Roderick," with +the author's compliments, for which I much thank you. I don't know where +I shall put all the noble presents I have lately received in that way; +the "Excursion," Wordsworth's two last volumes, and now "Roderick," have +come pouring in upon me like some irruption from Helicon. The story of +the brave Maccabee was already, you may be sure, familiar to me in all +its parts. I have, since the receipt of your present, read it quite +through again, and with no diminished pleasure. I don't know whether I +ought to say that it has given me more pleasure than any of your long +poems. "Kehama" is doubtless more powerful, but I don't feel that firm +footing in it that I do in "Roderick;" my imagination goes sinking and +floundering in the vast spaces of unopened-before systems and faiths; I +am put out of the pale of my old sympathies; my moral sense is almost +outraged; I can't believe, or with horror am made to believe, such +desperate chances against omnipotences, such disturbances of faith to +the centre. The more potent, the more painful the spell. Jove and his +brotherhood of gods, tottering with the giant assailings, I can bear, +for the soul's hopes are not struck at in such contests; but your +Oriental almighties are too much types of the intangible prototype to be +meddled with without shuddering. One never connects what are called the +"attributes" with Jupiter. I mention only what diminishes my delight at +the wonder-workings of "Kehama," not what impeaches its power, which I +confess with trembling. + +But "Roderick" is a comfortable poem. It reminds me of the delight I +took in the first reading of the "Joan of Arc." It is maturer and better +than _that_, though not better to me now than that was then. It suits me +better than "Madoc." I am at home in Spain and Christendom. I have a +timid imagination, I am afraid; I do not willingly admit of strange +beliefs or out-of-the-way creeds or places. I never read books of +travel, at least not farther than Paris or Rome. I can just endure +Moors, because of their connection as foes with Christians; but +Abyssinians, Ethiops, Esquimaux, Dervises, and all that tribe, I hate; I +believe I fear them in some manner. A Mahometan turban on the stage, +though enveloping some well-known face (Mr. Cook or Mr. Maddox, whom I +see another day good Christian and English waiters, innkeepers, etc.), +does not give me pleasure unalloyed. I am a Christian, Englishman, +Londoner, _Templar_, God help me when I come to put off these snug +relations, and to get abroad into the world to come! I shall be like +_the crow on the sand_, as Wordsworth has it; but I won't think on +it,--no need, I hope, yet. + +The parts I have been most pleased with, both on first and second +readings, perhaps, are Florinda's palliation of Roderick's crime, +confessed to him in his disguise; the retreat of Pelayo's family first +discovered; his being made king,--"For acclamation one form must serve, +_more solemn for_ the _breach_ of _old observances_." Roderick's vow is +extremely fine, and his blessing on the vow of Alphonso,-- + + "Towards the troop be spread his arms, + As if the expanded soul diffused itself, + And carried to all spirits, _with the act_, + Its affluent inspiration." + +It struck me forcibly that the feeling of these last lines might have +been suggested to you by the Cartoon of Paul at Athens. Certain it is +that a better motto or guide to that famous attitude can nowhere be +found. I shall adopt it as explanatory of that violent but +dignified motion. + +I must read again Landor's "Julian;" I have not read it some time. I +think he must have failed in Roderick, for I remember nothing of him, +nor of any distinct character as a character,--only fine-sounding +passages. I remember thinking also he had chosen a point of time after +the event, as it were, for Roderick survives to no use; but my memory is +weak, and I will not wrong a fine poem by trusting to it. + +The notes to your poem I have not read again; but it will be a +take-downable book on my shelf, and they will serve sometimes at +breakfast, or times too light for the text to be duly appreciated,-- +though some of 'em, one of the serpent Penance, is serious enough, now I +think on't. + +Of Coleridge I hear nothing, nor of the Morgans. I hope to have him like +a reappearing star, standing up before me some time when least expected +in London, as has been the case whilere. + +I am _doing_ nothing (as the phrase is) but reading presents, and walk +away what of the day-hours I can get from hard occupation. Pray accept +once more my hearty thanks and expression of pleasure for your +remembrance of me. My sister desires her kind respects to Mrs. S. and to +all at Keswick. + +Yours truly, + +C. LAMB. + + + +LVII. + + +TO MISS HUTCHINSON. [1] + +_October_ 19, 1815. + +Dear Miss H.,--I am forced to be the replier to your letter, for Mary +has been ill, and gone from home these five weeks yesterday. She has +left me very lonely and very miserable. I stroll about, but there is no +rest but at one's own fireside; and there is no rest for me there now. I +look forward to the worse half being past, and keep up as well as I can. +She has begun to show some favorable symptoms. The return of her +disorder has been frightfully soon this time, with scarce a six-months' +interval. I am almost afraid my worry of spirits about the E. I. House +was partly the cause of her illness: but one always imputes it to the +cause next at hand,--more probably it conies from some cause we have no +control over or conjecture of. It cuts sad great slices out of the time, +the little time, we shall have to live together. I don't know but the +recurrence of these illnesses might help me to sustain her death, better +than if we had had no partial separations. But I won't talk of death. I +will imagine us immortal, or forget that we are otherwise. By God's +blessing, in a few weeks we may be making our meal together, or sitting +in the front row of the pit at Drury Lane, or taking our evening walk +past the theatres, to look at the outside of them, at least, if not to +be tempted in. Then we forget we are assailable; we are strong for the +time as rocks,--"the wind is tempered to the shorn Lambs." Poor C. Lloyd +and poor Priscilla! I feel I hardly feel enough for him; my own +calamities press about me, and involve me in a thick integument not to +be reached at by other folks' misfortunes. But I feel all I can, all the +kindness I can, towards you all. God bless you! I hear nothing from +Coleridge. + +Yours truly, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Mrs. Wordsworth's sister. + + + +LVIII. + + +TO MANNING. + +_December_ 25, 1815. + +Dear Old Friend and Absentee,--This is Christmas Day, 1815, with us; +what it may be with you I don't know,--the 12th of June next year, +perhaps; and if it should be the consecrated season with you, I don't +see how you can keep it. You have no turkeys; you would not desecrate +the festival by offering up a withered Chinese bantam, instead of the +savoury grand Norfolcian holocaust, that smokes all around my nostrils +at this moment from a thousand firesides. Then what puddings have you? +Where will you get holly to stick in your churches, or churches to stick +your dried tea-leaves (that must be the substitute) in? What memorials +you can have of the holy time, I see not. A chopped missionary or two +may keep up the thin idea of Lent and the wilderness; but what standing +evidence have you of the Nativity? 'Tis our rosy-cheeked, homestalled +divines, whose faces shine to the tune of _unto us a child was +born_,--faces fragrant with the mince-pies of half a century, that alone +can authenticate the cheerful mystery. I feel, I feel my bowels +refreshed with the holy tide; my zeal is great against the unedified +heathen. Down with the Pagodas; down with the idols,--Ching-chong-fo and +his foolish priesthood! Come out of Babylon, oh my friend, for her time +is come, and the child that is native, and the Proselyte of her gates, +shall kindle and smoke together! And in sober sense what makes you so +long from among us, Manning? You must not expect to see the same England +again which you left. + +Empires have been overturned, crowns trodden into dust, the face of the +Western world quite changed; your friends have all got old, those you +left blooming, myself (who am one of the few that remember you)--those +golden hairs which you recollect my taking a pride in, turned to silvery +and gray. Mary has been dead and buried many years; she desired to be +buried in the silk gown you sent her. Rickman, that you remember active +and strong, now walks out supported by a servant-maid and a stick. +Martin Burney is a very old man. The other day an aged woman knocked at +my door and pretended to my acquaintance. It was long before I had the +most distant cognition of her; but at last together we made her out to +be Louisa, the daughter of Mrs. Topham, formerly Mrs. Morton, who had +been Mrs. Reynolds, formerly Mrs. Kenney, whose first husband was +Holcroft, the dramatic writer of the last century. St. Paul's church is +a heap of ruins; the Monument isn't half so high as you knew it, divers +parts being successively taken down which the ravages of time had +rendered dangerous; the horse at Charing Cross is gone, no one knows +whither,--and all this has taken place while you have been settling +whether Ho-hing-tong should be spelled with a-- or a--. For aught I +see, you had almost as well remain where you are, and not come, like a +Struldbrug, into a world where few were born when you went away. Scarce +here and there one will be able to make out your face; all your opinions +will be out of date, your jokes obsolete, your puns rejected with +fastidiousness as wit of the last age. Your way of mathematics has +already given way to a new method which, after all, is, I believe, the +old doctrine of Maclaurin new-vamped up with what he borrowed of the +negative quantity of fluxions from Euler. + +Poor Godwin! I was passing his tomb the other day in Cripplegate +churchyard. There are some verses upon it, written by Miss--, which if +I thought good enough I would send you. He was one of those who would +have hailed your return, not with boisterous shouts and clamors, but +with the complacent gratulations of a philosopher anxious to promote +knowledge, as leading to happiness; but his systems and his theories are +ten feet deep in Cripplegate mould. Coleridge is just dead, having lived +just long enough to close the eyes of Wordsworth, who paid the debt to +nature but a week or two before. Poor Col., but two days before he died +he wrote to a bookseller proposing an epic poem on the "Wandering of +Cain," in twenty-four books. It is said he has left behind him more than +forty thousand treatises in criticism, metaphysics, and divinity: but +few of them in a state of completion. They are now destined, perhaps, to +wrap up spices. You see what mutation the busy hand of Time has +produced, while you have consumed in foolish, voluntary exile that time +which might have gladdened your friends, benefited your country--But +reproaches are useless. Gather up the wretched relics, my friend, as +fast as you can, and come to your old home. I will rub my eyes and try +to recognize you. We will shake withered hands together, and talk of old +things,--of St. Mary's church and the barber's opposite, where the young +students in mathematics used to assemble. Poor Crisp, that kept it +afterwards, set up a fruiterer's shop in Trumpington Street, and for +aught I know resides there still; for I saw the name up in the last +journey I took there with my sister just before she died. I suppose you +heard that I had left the India House and gone into the Fishmongers' +Almshouses over the bridge. I have a little cabin there, small and +homely; but you shall be welcome to it. You like oysters, and to open +them yourself; I'll get you some if you come in oyster time. Marshall, +Godwin's old friend, is still alive, and talks of the faces you used +to make. [1] + +Come as soon as you can. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The reversal of this serio-humorous mingling of fiction and forecast +will be found in the next letter. + + + +LIX. + + +TO MANNING. + +_December_ 26, 1815. + +Dear Manning,--Following your brother's example, I have just ventured +one letter to Canton, and am now hazarding another (not exactly a +duplicate) to St. Helena. The first was full of unprobable romantic +fictions, fitting the remoteness of the mission it goes upon; in the +present I mean to confine myself nearer to truth as you come nearer +home. A correspondence with the uttermost parts of the earth necessarily +involves in it some heat of fancy; it sets the brain agoing; but I can +think on the half-way house tranquilly. Your friends, then, are not all +dead or grown forgetful of you through old age,--as that lying letter +asserted, anticipating rather what must happen if you keep tarrying on +forever on the skirts of creation, as there seemed a danger of your +doing,--but they are all tolerably well, and in full and perfect +comprehension of what is meant by Manning's coming home again. Mrs. +Kenney never let her tongue run riot more than in remembrances of you. +Fanny expends herself in phrases that can only be justified by her +romantic nature. Mary reserves a portion of your silk, not to be buried +in (as the false nuncio asserts), but to make up spick and span into a +bran-new gown to wear when you come. I am the same as when you knew me, +almost to a surfeiting identity. This very night I am going to _leave +off tobacco!_ Surely there must be some other world in which this +unconquerable purpose shall be realized. The soul hath not her generous +aspirings implanted in her in vain. One that you knew, and I think the +only one of those friends we knew much of in common, has died in +earnest. Poor Priscilla! Her brother Robert is also dead, and several of +the grown-up brothers and sisters, in the compass of a very few years. +Death has not otherwise meddled much in families that I know. Not but he +has his horrid eye upon us, and is whetting his infernal feathered dart +every instant, as you see him truly pictured in that impressive moral +picture, "The good man at the hour of death." I have in trust to put in +the post four letters from Diss, and one from Lynn, to St. Helena, which +I hope will accompany this safe, and one from Lynn, and the one before +spoken of from me, to Canton. But we all hope that these letters may be +waste paper. I don't know why I have foreborne writing so long; but it +is such a forlorn hope to send a scrap of paper straggling over wide +oceans. And yet I know when you come home, I shall have you sitting +before me at our fireside just as if you had never been away. In such an +instant does the return of a person dissipate all the weight of +imaginary perplexity from distance of time and space! I'll promise you +good oysters. Cory is dead, that kept the shop opposite St. Dunstan's, +but the tougher materials of the shop survive the perishing frame of its +keeper. Oysters continue to flourish there under as good auspices. Poor +Cory! But if you will absent yourself twenty years together, you must +not expect numerically the same population to congratulate your return +which wetted the sea-beach with their tears when you went away. Have you +recovered the breathless stone-staring astonishment into which you must +have been thrown upon learning at landing that an Emperor of France was +living at St. Helena? What an event in the solitude of the seas,--like +finding a fish's bone at the top of Plinlimmon; but these things are +nothing in our Western world. Novelties cease to affect. Come and try +what your presence can. + +God bless you! Your old friend, + +C. LAMB. + + + +LX. + + +TO WORDSWORTH + +_April_ 9, 1816. + +Dear Wordsworth,--Thanks for the books you have given me, and for all +the books you mean to give me. I will bind up the "Political Sonnets" +and "Ode" according to your suggestion. I have not bound the poems yet; +I wait till people have done borrowing them. I think I shall get a chain +and chain them to my shelves, more _Bodleiano_, and people may come and +read them at chain's length. For of those who borrow, some read slow; +some mean to read but don't read; and some neither read nor meant to +read, but borrow to leave you an opinion of their sagacity. I must do my +money-borrowing friends the justice to say that there is nothing of this +caprice or wantonness of alienation in them; when they borrow my money +they never fail to make use of it, Coleridge has been here about a +fortnight. His health is tolerable at present, though beset with +temptations. In the first place, the Covent Garden Manager has declined +accepting his Tragedy, [1] though (having read it) I see no reason upon +earth why it might not have run a very fair chance, though it certainly +wants a prominent part for a Miss O'Neil or a Mr. Kean. However, he is +going to write to-day to Lord Byron to get it to Drury. Should you see +Mrs. C., who has just written to C. a letter, which I have given him, it +will be as well to say nothing about its fate till some answer is shaped +from Drury. He has two volumes printing together at Bristol, both +finished as far as the composition goes; the latter containing his +fugitive poems, the former his Literary Life. Nature, who conducts every +creature by instinct to its best end, has skilfully directed C. to take +up his abode at a Chemist's Laboratory in Norfolk Street. She might as +well have sent a _Helluo Librorum_ for cure to the Vatican. God keep him +inviolate among the traps and pitfalls! He has done pretty well +as yet. [2] + +Tell Miss Hutchinson my sister is every day wishing to be quietly +sitting down to answer her very kind letter; but while C. stays she can +hardly find a quiet time. God bless him! + +Tell Mrs. Wordsworth her postscripts are always agreeable. They are +legible too. Your manual-graphy is terrible,--dark as Lycophron. +"Likelihood," for instance, is thus typified.... I should not wonder if +the constant making out of such paragraphs is the cause of that weakness +in Mrs. W.'s eyes, as she is tenderly pleased to express it. Dorothy, I +hear, has mounted spectacles; so you have deoculated two of your dearest +relations in life. Well, God bless you, and continue to give you power +to write with a finger of power upon our hearts what you fail to +impress, in corresponding lucidness, upon our outward eyesight! + +Mary's love to all; she is quite well. + +I am called off to do the deposits on Cotton Wool. But why do I relate +this to you, who want faculties to comprehend the great mystery of +deposits, of interest, of warehouse rent, and contingent fund? Adieu! + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Zapolya. + +[2] Lamb alludes, of course, to Coleridge's opium habit. + + + +LXI. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_April_ 26, 1816. + +Dear W.,--I have just finished the pleasing task of correcting the +revise of the poems and letter. [1] I hope they will come out faultless. +One blunder I saw and shuddered at. The hallucinating rascal had printed +_battered_ for _battened_, this last not conveying any distinct sense to +his gaping soul. The Reader (as they call 'em) had discovered it, and +given it the marginal brand; but the substitutory _n_ had not yet +appeared. I accompanied his notice with a most pathetic address to the +printer not to neglect the correction. I know how such a blunder would +"batter at your peace." With regard to the works, the Letter I read with +unabated satisfaction. Such a thing was wanted, called for. The parallel +of Cotton with Burns I heartily approve, Iz. Walton hallows any page in +which his reverend name appears. "Duty archly bending to purposes of +general benevolence" is exquisite. The poems I endeavored not to +understand, but to read them with my eye alone; and I think I succeeded, +(Some people will do that when they come out, you'll say.) As if I were +to luxuriate to-morrow at some picture-gallery I was never at before, +and, going by to-day by chance, found the door open, and having but five +minutes to look about me, peeped in,--just such a _chastised_ peep I +took with my mind at the lines my luxuriating eye was coursing over +unrestrained, riot to anticipate another day's fuller satisfaction. +Coleridge is printing "Christabel," by Lord Byron's recommendation to +Murray, with what he calls a vision, "Kubla Khan," which said vision he +repeats so enchantingly that it irradiates and brings heaven and elysian +bowers into my parlor while he sings or says it; but there is an +observation, "Never tell thy dreams," and I am almost afraid that "Kubla +Khan" is an owl that won't bear daylight. I fear lest it should be +discovered, by the lantern of typography and clear reducting to letters, +no better than nonsense or no sense. When I was young, I used to chant +with ecstasy "MILD ARCADIANS EVER BLOOMING," till somebody told me it +was meant to be nonsense. Even yet I have a lingering attachment to it, +and I think it better than "Windsor Forest," "Dying Christian's +Address," etc. Coleridge has sent his tragedy to D.L.T.; it cannot be +acted this season, and by their manner of receiving I hope he will be +able to alter it to make them accept it for next. He is at present under +the medical care of a Mr. Gilman (Killman?) at Highgate, where he plays +at leaving off laud---m. I think his essentials not touched; he is very +bad, but then he wonderfully picks up another day, and his face, when he +repeats his verses, hath its ancient glory,--an archangel a little +damaged. Will Miss H. pardon our not replying at length to her kind +letter? We are not quiet enough; Morgan is with us every day, going +betwixt Highgate and the Temple. Coleridge is absent but four miles; and +the neighborhood of such a man is as exciting as the presence of fifty +ordinary persons. 'Tis enough to be within the whiff and wind of his +genius for us not to possess our souls in quiet. If I lived with him or +the _Author of the "Excursion,"_ I should, in a very little time, lose +my own identity, and be dragged along in the current of other people's +thoughts, hampered in a net. How cool I sit in this office, with no +possible interruption further than what I may term _material!_ There is +not as much metaphysics in thirty-six of the people here as there is in +the first page of Locke's "Treatise on the Human Understanding," or as +much poetry as in any ten lines of the "Pleasures of Hope," or more +natural "Beggar's Petition." I never entangle myself in any of their +speculations. Interruptions, if I try to write a letter even, I have +dreadful. Just now, within four lines, I was called off for ten minutes +to consult dusty old books for the settlement of obsolete errors. I hold +you a guinea you don't find the chasm where I left off, so excellently +the wounded sense closed again and was healed. + +N.B.--Nothing said above to the contrary, but that I hold the personal +presence of the two mentioned potent spirits at a rate as high as any: +but I pay dearer: what amuses others robs me of myself; my mind is +positively discharged into their greater currents, but flows with a +willing violence. As to your question about work, it is far less +oppressive to me than it was, from circumstances; it takes all the +golden part of the day away, a solid lump, from ten to four; but it does +not kill my peace, as before. Some day or other I shall be in a taking +again. My head aches, and you have had enough, God bless you! + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Wordsworth's "Letter to a Friend of Burns" (London, 1816). + +"Wordsworth had been consulted by a friend of Burns as to the best mode +of vindicating the reputation of the poet, which, it was alleged, had +been much injured by the publication of Dr. Carrie's 'Life and +Correspondence of Burns.'"--AINGER. + + + +LXII. + + +TO H. DODWELL [1] + +_July_, 1816. + +My dear Fellow,--I have been in a lethargy this long while, and +forgotten London, Westminster, Marybone, Paddington,--they all went +clean out of my head, till happening to go to a neighbor's in this good +borough of Calne, for want of whist-players we fell upon _Commerce:_ the +word awoke me to a remembrance of my professional avocations and the +long-continued strife which I have been these twenty-four years +endeavoring to compose between those grand Irreconcilables, Cash and +Commerce; I instantly called for an almanac, which with some difficulty +was procured at a fortune-teller's in the vicinity (for happy holiday +people here, having nothing to do, keep no account of time), and found +that by dint of duty I must attend in Leadenhall on Wednesy morning +next; and shall attend accordingly. Does Master Hannah give maccaroons +still, and does he fetch the Cobbetts from my attic? Perhaps it wouldn't +be too much trouble for him to drop the enclosed up at my aforesaid +chamber, and any letters, etc., with it; but the enclosed should go +without delay. N.B.--He isn't to fetch Monday's Cobbett, but it is to +wait my reading when I come back. Heigh-ho! Lord have mercy upon me, how +many does two and two make? I am afraid I shall make a poor clerk in +future, I am spoiled with rambling among haycocks and cows and pigs. +Bless me! I had like to have forgot (the air is so temperate and +oblivious here) to say I have seen your brother, and hope he is doing +well in the finest spot of the world. More of these things when I +return. Remember me to the gentlemen,--I forget names. Shall I find all +my letters at my rooms on Tuesday? If you forget to send 'em never mind, +for I don't much care for reading and writing now; I shall come back +again by degrees, I suppose, into my former habits. How is Bruce de +Ponthieu, and Porcher and Co.?--the tears come into my eyes when I think +how long I have neglected--. + +Adieu! ye fields, ye shepherds and--herdesses, and dairies and +cream-pots, and fairies and dances upon the green. + +I come, I come. Don't drag me so hard by the hair of my head, Genius of +British India! I know my hour is come, Faustus must give up his soul, O +Lucifer, O Mephistopheles! Can you make out what all this letter is +about? I am afraid to look it over. + +CH. LAMB. + +[1] A fellow-clerk in the India House. This charming letter, written +evidently during a vacation trip, was first published entire in Canon +Ainger's edition (1887) of Lamb's Letters. + + + +LXIII. + + +TO MRS. WORDSWORTH. + +_February_ 18, 1818. + +My Dear Mrs. Wordsworth,--I have repeatedly taken pen in hand to answer +your kind letter. My sister should more properly have done it; but she +having failed, I consider myself answerable for her debts. I am now +trying to do it in the midst of commercial noises, and with a quill +which seems more ready to glide into arithmetical figures and names of +gourds, cassia, cardamoms, aloes, ginger, or tea, than into kindly +responses and friendly recollections. The reason why I cannot write +letters at home is that I am never alone. Plato's--(I write to W.W. +now)--Plato's double-animal parted never longed more to be reciprocally +re-united in the system of its first creation than I sometimes do to be +but for a moment single and separate. Except my morning's walk to the +office, which is like treading on sands of gold for that reason, I am +never so. I cannot walk home from office, but some officious friend +offers his unwelcome courtesies to accompany me. All the morning I am +pestered. I could sit and gravely cast up sums in great books, or +compare sum with sum, and write "paid" against this, and "unpaid" +against t'other, and yet reserve in some corner of my mind "some darling +thoughts all my own,"--faint memory of some passage in a book, or the +tone of an absent friend's voice,--a snatch of Miss Burrell's singing, +or a gleam of Fanny Kelly's divine plain face. The two operations might +be going on at the same time without thwarting, as the sun's two motions +(earth's I mean); or as I sometimes turn round till I am giddy, in my +back parlor, while my sister is walking longitudinally in the front; or +as the shoulder of veal twists round with the spit, while the smoke +wreathes up the chimney. But there are a set of amateurs of the Belies +Lettres,--the gay science,--who come to me as a sort of rendezvous, +putting questions of criticism, of British Institutions, Lalla Rookhs, +etc.,--what Coleridge said at the lecture last night,--who have the form +of reading men, but, for any possible use reading can be to them but to +talk of, might as well have been Ante-Cadmeans born, or have lain +sucking out the sense of an Egyptian hieroglyph as long as the pyramids +will last, before they should find it. These pests worrit me at business +and in all its intervals, perplexing my accounts, poisoning my little +salutary warming-time at the fire, puzzling my paragraphs if I take a +newspaper, cramming in between my own free thoughts and a column of +figures, which had come to an amicable compromise but for them. Their +noise ended, one of them, as I said, accompanies me home, lest I should +be solitary for a moment. He at length takes his welcome leave at the +door; up I go, mutton on table, hungry as hunter, hope to forget my +cares and bury them in the agreeable abstraction of mastication: knock +at the door! In comes Mr. Hazlitt, or Martin Burney, or Morgan +Demi-gorgon, [1] or my brother, or somebody, to prevent my eating +alone,--a process absolutely necessary to my poor wretched digestion. +Oh, the pleasure of eating alone! Eating my dinner alone,--let me think +of it! But in they come, and make it absolutely necessary that I should +open a bottle of orange; for my meat turns into stone when any one dines +with me, if I have not wine. Wine can mollify stones; then that wine +turns into acidity, acerbity, misanthropy, a hatred of my interrupters +(God bless 'em! I love some of 'em dearly); and with the hatred, a still +greater aversion to their going away. Bad is the dead sea they bring +upon me, choking and deadening; but worse is the deader dry sand they +leave me on, if they go before bedtime. Come never, I would say to these +spoilers of my dinner; but if you come, never go! The fact is, this +interruption does not happen very often; but every time it comes by +surprise, that present bane of my life, orange wine, with all its dreary +stifling consequences, follows. Evening company I should always like, +had I any mornings; but I am saturated with human faces (_divine_ +forsooth!) and voices all the golden morning; and five evenings in a +week would be as much as I should covet to be in company; but I assure +you that is a wonderful week in which I can get two, or one, to myself. +I am never C.L., but always C.L. & Co. He who thought it not good for +man to be alone, preserve me from the more prodigious monstrosity of +being never by myself! I forget bed-time; but even there these sociable +frogs clamber up to annoy me. Once a week, generally some singular +evening that, being alone, I go to bed at the hour I ought always to be +a-bed, just close to my bed-room window is the club-room of a +public-house, where a set of singers--I take them to be chorus-singers +of the two theatres (it must be _both of them_)--begin their orgies. +They are a set of fellows (as I conceive) who, being limited by their +talents to the burden of the song at the playhouses, in revenge have got +the common popular airs by Bishop or some cheap composer, arranged for +choruses, that is, to be sang all in chorus,--at least, I never can +catch any of the text of the plain song, nothing but the Babylonish +choral howl at the tail on't, "That fury being quenched,'--the howl I +mean,--a burden succeeds of shouts and clapping and knocking of the +table. At length over-tasked nature drops under it, and escapes for a +few hours into the society of the sweet silent creatures of dreams, +which go away with mocks and mows at cockcrow. And then I think of the +words Christabel's father used (bless me! I have dipt in the wrong ink) +to say every morning by way of variety when he awoke,-- + + "Every knell, the Baron saith, + Wakes us up to a world of death,"-- + +or something like it. All I mean by this senseless interrupted tale is, +that by my central situation I am a little over-companied. Not that I +have any animosity against the good creatures that are so anxious to +drive away the harpy Solitude from me. I like 'em, and cards, and a +cheerful glass; but I mean merely to give you an idea, between office +confinement and after-office society, how little time I can call my own. +I mean only to draw a picture, not to make an inference. I would not, +that I know of, have it otherwise. I only wish sometimes I could +exchange some of my faces and voices for the faces and voices which a +late visitation brought most welcome, and carried away, leaving regret, +but more pleasure,--even a kind of gratitude,--at being so often favored +with that kind northern visitation. My London faces and noises don't +hear me,--I mean no disrespect, or I should explain myself, that instead +of their return 220 times a year, and the return of W. W., etc., seven +times in 104 weeks, some more equal distribution might be found. I have +scarce room to put in Mary's kind love and my poor name. + +C. LAMB. + +W. H[azlitt]. goes on lecturing against W.W., and making copious use of +quotations from said W.W. to give a zest to said lectures. S.T.C. is +lecturing with success. I have not heard either him or H.; but I dined +with S.T.C. at Oilman's a Sunday or two since; and he was well and in +good spirits. I mean to hear some of the course; but lectures are not +much to my taste, whatever the lecturer may be. If _read_, they are +dismal flat, and you can't think why you are brought together to hear a +man read his works, which you could read so much better at leisure +yourself; if delivered extempore, I am always in pain lest the gift of +utterance should suddenly fail the orator in the middle, as it did me at +the dinner given in honor of me at the London Tavern. "Gentlemen," said +I, and there I stopped; the rest my feelings were under the necessity of +supplying. Mrs. Wordsworth _will/_ go on, kindly haunting us with +visions of seeing the lakes once more, which never can be realized. +Between us there is a great gulf, not of inexplicable moral antipathies +and distances, I hope, as there seemed to be between me and that +gentleman concerned in the stamp-office that I so strangely recoiled +from at Haydon's. I think I had an instinct that he was the head of an +office, I hate all such people,--accountants' deputy accountants. The +mere abstract notion of the East India Company, as long as she is +unseen, is pretty, rather poetical; but as she makes herself manifest by +the persons of such beasts, I loathe and detest her as the scarlet +what-do-you-call-her of Babylon. I thought, after abridging us of all +our red-letter days, they had done their worst; but I was deceived in +the length to which heads of offices, those true liberty-haters, can +go,--they are the tyrants, not Ferdinand, nor Nero. By a decree passed +this week, they have abridged us of the immemorially observed custom of +going at one o'clock of a Saturday,--the little shadow of a holiday left +us. Dear W.W., be thankful for liberty. + +[1] John Morgan + + + +LXIV. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +May, 1819. + +Dear Wordsworth.--I received a copy of "Peter Bell" [1] a week ago, and I +hope the author will not be offended if I say I do not much relish it. +The humor, if it is meant for humor, is forced; and then the +price,--sixpence would have been dear for it. Mind, I do not mean _your_ +"Peter Bell," but a "Peter Bell," which preceded it about a week, and is +in every bookseller's shop-window in London, the type and paper nothing +differing from the true one, the preface signed W. W., and the +supplementary preface quoting as the author's words an extract from the +supplementary preface to the "Lyrical Ballads." Is there no law against +these rascals? I would have this Lambert Simnel whipped at the cart's +tail. Who started the spurious "P.B." I have not heard. I should guess, +one of the sneering brothers, the vile Smiths; but I have heard no name +mentioned. "Peter Bell" (not the mock one) is excellent,--for its +matter, I mean. I cannot say the style of it quite satisfies me. It is +too lyrical. The auditors, to whom it is feigned to be told, do not +_arride me_. I had rather it had been told me, the reader, at once. +"Hart-leap Well" is the tale for me; in matter as good as this, in +manner infinitely before it, in my poor judgment. Why did you not add +"The Wagoner"? Have I thanked you, though, yet for "Peter Bell"? I would +not _not have it_ for a good deal of money. Coleridge is very foolish to +scribble about books. + +Neither his tongue nor fingers are very retentive. But I shall not say +anything to him about it. He would only begin a very long story with a +very long face, and I see him far too seldom to tease him with affairs +of business or conscience when I do see him. He never comes near our +house, and when we go to see him he is generally writing or thinking; he +is writing in his study till the dinner comes, and that is scarce over +before the stage summons us away. The mock "P.B." had only this effect +on me, that after twice reading it over in hopes to find something +diverting in it, I reached your two books off the shelf, and set into a +steady reading of them, till I had nearly finished both before I went to +bed,--the two of your last edition, of course, I mean, And in the +morning I awoke determined to take down the "Excursion." I wish the +scoundrel imitator could know this. But why waste a wish on him? I do +not believe that paddling about with a stick in a pond, and fishing up +a dead author, whom _his_ intolerable wrongs had driven to that deed of +desperation, would turn the heart of one of these obtuse literary BELLS. +There is no Cock for such Peters, damn 'em! I am glad this aspiration +came upon the red-ink line. [2] It is more of a bloody curse. I have +delivered over your other presents to Alsager and G. Dyer, A., I am +sure, will value it and be proud of the hand from which it came. To G.D. +a poem is a poem,--his own as good as anybody's, and, God bless him! +anybody's as good as his own; for I do not think he has the most distant +guess of the possibility of one poem being better than another. The +gods, by denying him the very faculty itself of discrimination, have +effectually cut off every seed of envy in his bosom. But with envy they +excited curiosity also; and if you wish the copy again, which you +destined for him, I think I shall be able to find it again for you on +his third shelf, where he stuffs his presentation copies, uncut, in +shape and matter resembling a lump of dry dust; but on carefully +removing that stratum, a thing like a pamphlet will emerge. I have tried +this with fifty different poetical works that have been given G.D. in +return for as many of his own performances; and I confess I never had +any scruple in taking _my own_ again, wherever I found it, shaking the +adherences off; and by this means one copy of 'my works' served for +G.D.,--and, with a little dusting, was made over to my good friend Dr. +Geddes, who little thought whose leavings he was taking when he made me +that graceful bow. By the way, the Doctor is the only one of my +acquaintance who bows gracefully,--my town acquaintance, I mean. How do +you like my way of writing with two inks? I think it is pretty and +motley. Suppose Mrs. W, adopts it, the next time she holds the pen for +you. My dinner waits. I have no time to indulge any longer in these +laborious curiosities. God bless you, and cause to thrive and burgeon +whatsoever you write, and fear no inks of miserable poetasters. + +Yours truly, + +CHARLES LAMB. + +Mary's love. + +[1] Lamb alludes to a parody, ridiculing Wordsworth, by J. Hamilton +Reynolds, The verses were entitled "Peter Bell: A Lyrical Ballad;" and +their drift and spirit may be inferred from the following lines from the +preface: "It is now a period of one-and-twenty years since I first wrote +some of the most perfect compositions (except certain pieces I have +written in my later days) that ever dropped from poetical pen. My heart +hath been right and powerful all its years. I never thought an evil or a +weak thought in my life. It has been my aim and my achievement to deduce +moral thunder from buttercups, daisies, celandines, and (as a poet +scarcely inferior to myself hath it) 'such small deer,'" etc. + +[2] The original letter is actually written in to +inks,--alternate black and red. + + + +LXV. + + +TO MANNING, + +_May_ 28, 1819, + +My Dear M..--I want to know how your brother is, if you have heard +lately. I want to know about you, I wish you were nearer. How are my +cousins, the Gladmans of Wheathampstead, and Farmer Bruton? Mrs. Bruton +is a glorious woman, + +"Hail, Mackery End!" [1] + +This is a fragment of a blank-verse poem which. I once meditated, but +got no farther. The E. I. H. has been thrown into a quandary by the +strange phenomenon of poor Tommy Bye, whom I have known, man and madman, +twenty-seven years, he being elder here than myself by nine years and +more. He was always a pleasant, gossiping, half-headed, muzzy, dozing, +dreaming, walk-about, inoffensive chap, a little too fond of the +creature,--who isn't at times? But Tommy had _not_ brains to work off an +overnight's surfeit by ten o'clock next morning, and unfortunately, in +he wandered the other morning drunk with last night and with a +superfoetation of drink taken in since he set out from bed. He came +staggering under his double burden, like trees in Java, bearing at once +blossom, fruit, and falling fruit, as I have heard you or some other +traveller tell, with his face literally as blue as the bluest firmament. +Some wretched calico that he had mopped his poor oozy front with, had +rendered up its native dye, and the devil a bit would he consent to wash +it, but swore it was characteristic, for he was going to the sale of +indigo; and set up a laugh which I did not think the lungs of mortal man +were competent to. It was like a thousand people laughing, or the Goblin +Page. He imagined afterwards that the whole office had been laughing at +him, so strange did his own sounds strike upon his _non_sensorium. But +Tommy has laughed his last laugh, and awoke the next day to find himself +reduced from an abused income of £600 per annum to one sixth of the sum, +after thirty-six years' tolerably good service. The quality of mercy was +not strained in his behalf; the gentle dews dropped not on him from +heaven. It just came across me that I was writing to Canton. Will you +drop in to-morrow night? Fanny Kelly is coming, if she does not cheat +us. Mrs. _Gold_ is well, but proves "uncoined," as the lovers about +Wheathampstead would say. + +I have not had such a quiet half hour to sit down to a quiet letter for +many years. I have not been interrupted above four times. I wrote a +letter the other day in alternate lines, black ink and red, and you +cannot think how it chilled the flow of ideas. Next Monday is +Whit-Monday. What a reflection! Twelve years ago, and I should have kept +that and the following holiday in the fields a-maying. All of those +pretty pastoral delights are over. This dead, everlasting dead +desk,--how it weighs the spirit of a gentleman down! This dead wood of +the desk instead of your living trees! But then, again, I hate the +joskins, _a name for Hertfordshire bumpkins_. Each state of life has its +inconvenience; but then, again, mine has more than one. Not that I +repine, or grudge, or murmur at my destiny. I have meat and drink, and +decent apparel,--I shall, at least, when I get a new hat, + +A red-haired man just interrupted me. He has broke the current of my +thoughts, I haven't a word to add, I don't know why I send this letter, +but I have had a hankering to hear about you some days. Perhaps it will +go off before your reply comes. If it don't, I assure you no letter was +ever welcomer from, you, from Paris or Macao. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] See the Elia essay, "Mackery End, in H---shire." + + + +LXVI. + + +TO MISS WORDSWORTH. + +_November_ 25, 1819. + +Dear Miss Wordsworth,--You will think me negligent, but I wanted to see +more of Willy [1] before I ventured to express a prediction, Till +yesterday I had barely seen him,--_Virgilium tantum vidi_; but yesterday +he gave us his small company to a bullock's heart, and I can pronounce +him a lad of promise. He is no pedant nor bookworm; so far I can answer. +Perhaps he has hitherto paid too little attention to other men's +inventions, preferring, like Lord Foppington, the "natural sprouts of +his own." But he has observation, and seems thoroughly awake. I am ill +at remembering other people's _bon mots_, but the following are a few. +Being taken over Waterloo Bridge, he remarked that if we had no +mountains, we had a fine river, at least,--which was a touch of the +comparative; but then he added in a strain which augured less for his +future abilities as a political economist, that he supposed they must +take at least a pound a week toll. Like a curious naturalist, he +inquired if the tide did not come up a little salty. This being +satisfactorily answered, he put another question, as to the flux and +reflux; which being rather cunningly evaded than artfully solved by that +she-Aristotle Mary, who muttered something about its getting up an hour +sooner and sooner every day, he sagely replied, "Then it must come to +the same thing at last,"--which was a speech worthy of an infant Halley! +The lion in the 'Change by no means came up to his ideal standard,--so +impossible is it for Nature, in any of her works, to come up to the +standard of a child's imagination! The whelps (lionets) he was sorry to +find were dead; and on particular inquiry, his old friend the +orang-outang had gone the way of all flesh also. The grand tiger was +also sick, and expected in no short time to exchange this transitory +world for another or none. But, again, there was a golden eagle (I do +not mean that of Charing) which did much arride and console him. +William's genius, I take it, leans a little to the figurative; for being +at play at tricktrack (a kind of minor billiard-table which we keep for +smaller wights, and sometimes refresh our own mature fatigues with +taking a hand at), not being able to hit a ball he had iterate aimed at, +he cried out, "I cannot hit that beast." Now, the balls are usually +called men, but he felicitously hit upon a middle term,--a term of +approximation and imaginative reconciliation; a something where the two +ends of the brute matter (ivory) and their human and rather violent +personification into men might meet, as I take it,--illustrative of that +excellent remark in a certain preface about imagination, explaining +"Like a sea-beast that had crawled forth to sun himself!" Not that I +accuse William Minor of hereditary plagiary, or conceive the image to +have come _ex traduce_. Rather he seemeth to keep aloof from any source +of imitation, and purposely to remain ignorant of what mighty poets have +done in this kind before him; for being asked if his father had ever +been on Westminster Bridge, [2] he answered that he did not know! + +It is hard to discern the oak in the acorn, or a temple like St. Paul's +in the first stone which is laid; nor can I quite prefigure what +destination the genius of William Minor hath to take. Some few hints I +have set down, to guide my future observations. He hath the power of +calculation in no ordinary degree for a chit. He combineth figures, +after the first boggle, rapidly; as in the tricktrack board, where the +hits are figured, at first he did not perceive that 15 and 7 made 22; +but by a little use he could combine 8 with 25, and 33 again with +16,--which approacheth something in kind (far let me be from flattering +him by saying in degree) to that of the famous American boy. I am +sometimes inclined to think I perceive the future satirist in him, for +he hath a sub-sardonic smile which bursteth out upon occasion,--as when +he was asked if London were as big as Ambleside; and indeed no other +answer was given, or proper to be given, to so ensnaring and provoking a +question. In the contour of skull certainly I discern something +paternal; but whether in all respects the future man shall transcend his +father's fame, Time, the trier of Geniuses, must decide. Be it +pronounced peremptorily at present that Willy is a well-mannered child, +and though no great student, hath yet a lively eye for things that lie +before him. + +Given in haste from my desk at Leadenhall. Yours, and yours most +sincerely, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Wordsworth's third son. He was at the Charter-house School in +London, and the Lambs had invited him to spend a half holiday with them. + +[2] "William Minor" was evidently forgetful of the exquisite sonnet, +"Composed Upon Westminster Bridge." + + + +LXVII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_March_ 9, 1822. + +Dear C.,--It gives me great satisfaction to hear that the pig turned out +so well, [1]--they are interesting creatures at a certain age; what a +pity such buds should blow out into the maturity of rank bacon! You had +all some of the crackling--and brain sauce; did you remember to rub it +with butter, and gently dredge it a little just before the crisis? Did +the eyes come away kindly, with no Oedipean avulsion? Was the crackling +the color of the ripe pomegranate? Had you no cursed complement of +boiled neck of mutton before it, to blunt the edge of delicate desire? +Did you flesh maiden teeth in it? Not that I sent the pig, or can form +the remotest guess what part Owen could play in the business. I never +knew him give anything away in my life. He would not begin with +strangers. I suspect the pig, after all, was meant for me; but at the +unlucky juncture of time being absent, the present somehow went round to +Highgate. To confess an honest truth, a pig is one of those things I +could never think of sending away. Teals, widgeons, snipes, barn-door +fowl, ducks, geese,--your tame villatic things,--Welsh mutton collars +of brawn, sturgeon, fresh or pickled, your potted char, Swiss cheeses, +French pies, early grapes, muscadines, I impart as freely unto my +friends as to myself. They are but self-extended; but pardon me if I +stop somewhere. Where the fine feeling of benevolence giveth a higher +smack than the sensual rarity, there my friends (or any good man) may +command me; but pigs are pigs, and I myself therein am nearest to +myself. Nay, I should think it an, affront, an undervaluing done to +Nature, who bestowed such a boon upon me, if in a churlish mood I parted +with the precious gift. One of the bitterest pangs I ever felt of +remorse was when a child. My kind old aunt [2] had strained her +pocket-strings to bestow a sixpenny whole plum cake upon me. In my way +home through the Borough, I met a venerable old man, not a mendicant, +but thereabouts,--a look-beggar, not a verbal petitionist; and in the +coxcombry of taught-charity, I gave away the cake to him. I walked on a +little in all the pride of an Evangelical peacock, when of a sudden my +old aunt's kindness crossed me,--the sum it was to her; the pleasure she +had a right to expect that I--not the old impostor--should take in +eating her cake; the cursed ingratitude by which, under the color of a +Christian virtue, I had frustrated her cherished purpose. I sobbed, +wept, and took it to heart so grievously that I think I never suffered +the like; and I was right. It was a piece of unfeeling hypocrisy, and +proved a lesson to me ever after. The cake has long been masticated, +consigned to dunghill with the ashes of that unseasonable pauper. + +But when Providence, who is better to us all than our aunts, gives me a +pig, remembering my temptation and my fall, I shall endeavor to act +towards it more in the spirit of the donor's purpose. + +Yours (short of pig) to command in everything, + +C. L. + +[1] Some one had sent Coleridge a pig, and the gift was erroneously +credited to Lamb. + +[2] Elia: "Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago." + + + +LXVIII. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_March_ 20, 1822. + +My Dear Wordsworth,--A letter from you is very grateful; I have not seen +a Kendal postmark so long. We are pretty well, save colds and +rheumatics, and a certain deadness to everything, which I think I may +date from poor John's loss, and another accident or two at the same +time, that has made me almost bury myself at Dalston, where yet I see +more faces than I could wish. Deaths overset one and put one out long +after the recent grief. Two or three have died, within this last two +twelvemonths, and so many parts of me have been numbed. One sees a +picture, reads an anecdote, starts a casual fancy, and thinks to tell of +it to this person in preference to every other; the person is gone whom +it would have peculiarly suited. It won't do for another. Every +departure destroys a class of sympathies. There's Captain Burney gone! +What fun has whist now? What matters it what you lead, if you can no +longer fancy him looking over you? [1] One never hears anything, but the +image of the particular person occurs with whom alone almost you would +care to share the intelligence,--thus one distributes oneself about; and +now for so many parts of me I have lost the market. Common natures do +not suffice me. Good people, as they are called, won't serve; I want +individuals. I am made up of queer points, and I want so many answering +needles. The going-away of friends does not make the remainder more +precious. It takes so much from them, as there was a common link. A, B, +and C make a party. A dies. B not only loses A, but all A's part in C. C +loses A's part in B, and so the alphabet sickens by subtraction of +interchangeables. I express myself muddily, _capite dolente_. I have a +dulling cold. My theory is to enjoy life; but my practice is against it. +I grow ominously tired of official confinement. Thirty years have I +served the Philistines, and my neck is not subdued to the yoke. You +don't know how wearisome it is to breathe the air of four pent walls +without relief, day after day, all the golden hours of the day between +ten and four, without ease or interposition. _Tædet me harum +quotidianarum formarum_, these pestilential clerk-faces always in one's +dish. Oh for a few years between the grave and the desk! they are the +same, save that at the latter you are the outside machine. The foul +enchanter [Nick?], "letters four do form his name,"--Busirane [2] is his +name in hell,--that has curtailed you of some domestic comforts, hath +laid a heavier hand on me, not in present infliction, but in the taking +away the hope of enfranchisement. I dare not whisper to myself a pension +on this side of absolute incapacitation and infirmity, till years have +sucked me dry,--_Otium cum indignitate_. I had thought in a green old +age (oh, green thought!) to have retired to Ponder's End,--emblematic +name, how beautiful!,--in the Ware Road, there to have made up my +accounts with Heaven and the Company, toddling about between it and +Cheshunt, anon stretching, on some fine Izaak Walton morning, to +Hoddesdon or Amwell, careless as a beggar; but walking, walking ever, +till I fairly walked myself off my legs,--dying walking! The hope is +gone. I sit like Philomel all day (but not singing), with my breast +against this thorn of a desk, with the only hope that some pulmonary +affliction may relieve me. _Vide_ Lord Palmerston's report of the clerks +in the War-office (Debates in this morning's "Times"), by which it +appears, in twenty years as many clerks have been coughed and catarrhed +out of it into their freer graves. Thank you for asking about the +pictures. Milton hangs over my fire-side in Covent Garden (when I am +there); the rest have been sold for an old song, wanting the eloquent +tongue that should have set them off! You have gratified me with liking +my meeting with Dodd. For the Malvolio story,--the thing is become in +verity a sad task, and I eke it out with anything. If I could slip out +of it I should be happy; but our chief-reputed assistants have forsaken +us. The Opium-Eater crossed us once with a dazzling path, and hath as +suddenly left us darkling; and, in short, I shall go on from dull to +worse, because I cannot resist the booksellers' importunity,--the old +plea, you know, of authors; but I believe on my part sincere. Hartley I +do not so often see, but I never see him in unwelcome hour. I thoroughly +love and honor him. I send you a frozen epistle; but it is winter and +dead time of the year with me. May Heaven keep something like spring and +summer up with you, strengthen your eyes, and make mine a little lighter +to encounter with them, as I hope they shall yet and again, before all +are closed! + +Yours, with every kind remembrance, + +C. L. + +[1] Martin Burney was the grimy-fisted whist-player to whom Lamb once +observed, "Martin, if dirt was trumps, what hands you would hold!" + +[2] The enchanter in "The Faerie Queene." + + + +LXIX. + + +TO JOHN CLARE. [1] + +_August_ 31, 1822. + +Dear Clare,--I thank you heartily for your present. I am an inveterate +old Londoner, but while I am among your choice collections I seem to be +native to them and free of the country. The quality of your observation +has astonished me. What have most pleased me have been "Recollections +after a Ramble," and those "Grongar Hill" kind of pieces in +eight-syllable lines, my favourite measure, such as "Cooper Hill" and +"Solitude." In some of your story-telling Ballads the provincial phrases +sometimes startle me. I think you are too profuse with them. In poetry +_slang_ of every kind is to be avoided. There is a rustic Cockneyism, as +little pleasing as ours of London. Transplant Arcadia to Helpstone. The +true rustic style I think is to be found in Shenstone. Would his +"School-mistress," the prettiest of poems, have been better if he had +used quite the Goody's own language? Now and then a home rusticism is +fresh and startling; but when nothing is gained in expression, it is out +of tenor. It may make folks smile and stare; but the ungenial coalition +of barbarous with refined phrases will prevent you in the end from being +so generally tasted as you desire to be. Excuse my freedom, and take the +same liberty with my _puns_. + +I send you two little volumes of my spare hours. They are of all sorts; +there is a Methodist hymn for Sundays, and a farce for Saturday night. +Pray give them a place on your shelf. Pray accept a little volume, of +which I have a duplicate, that I may return in equal number to your +welcome presents. I think I am indebted to you for a sonnet in the +"London" for August. + +Since I saw you I have been in France, and have eaten frogs. The nicest +little rabbity things you ever tasted. Do look about for them. Make Mrs. +Clare pick off the hind-quarters, boil them plain, with parsley and +butter. The fore-quarters are not so good. She may let them hop off by +themselves. + +Yours sincerely, + +CHAS. LAMB. + +[1] The Northamptonshire peasant poet. He had sent Lamb his "The Village +Minstrel, and other Poems." + + + +LXX. + + +TO MR. BARRON FIELD. + +_September_ 22, 1822. + +My Dear F.,--I scribble hastily at office. Frank wants my letter +presently. I and sister are just returned from Paris! [1] We have eaten +frogs. It has been such a treat! You know our monotonous general tenor. +Frogs are the nicest little delicate things,--rabbity flavored. Imagine +a Lilliputian rabbit! They fricassee them; but in my mind, dressed +seethed, plain, with parsley and butter, would have been the decision of +Apicius.... Paris is a glorious, picturesque old city. London looks mean +and new to it, as the town of Washington would, seen after _it._ But +they have no St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey. The Seine, so much +despised by Cockneys, is exactly the size to run through a magnificent +street; palaces a mile long on one side, lofty Edinburgh stone (oh, the +glorious antiques!) houses on the other. The Thames disunites London and +Southwark. I had Talma to supper with me. He has picked up, as I +believe, an authentic portrait of Shakspeare. He paid a broker about £40 +English for it. It is painted on the one half of a pair of bellows,--a +lovely picture, corresponding with the Folio head. The bellows has old +carved _wings_ round it and round the visnomy is inscribed, as near as I +remember, not divided into rhyme,--I found out the rhyme,-- + + "Whom have we here + Stuck on this bellows, + But the Prince of good fellows, + Willy Shakspere?" + +At top,-- + + "O base and coward lack, + To be here stuck!" + +POINS. + +At bottom,-- + + "Nay! rather a glorious lot is to him assign'd, + Who, like the Almighty, rides upon the wind." + +PISTOL, + +This is all in old, carved wooden letters. The countenance smiling, +sweet, and intellectual beyond measure, even as he was immeasurable. It +may be a forgery. They laugh at me, and tell me Ireland is in Paris, and +has been putting off a portrait of the Black Prince. How far old wood +may be imitated I cannot say, Ireland was not found out by his +parchments, but by his poetry. I am confident no painter on either side +the Channel could have painted anything near like the face I saw. Again, +would such a painter and forger have taken £40 for a thing, if +authentic, worth £4000? Talma is not in the secret, for he had not even +found out the rhymes in the first inscription. He is coming over with +it, and my life to Southey's "Thalaba," it will gain universal faith. + +The letter is wanted, and I am wanted. Imagine the blank filled up with +all kind things. + +Our joint, hearty remembrances to both of you. Yours as ever, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The Lambs had visited Paris on the invitation of James Kenney, the +dramatist, who had married a Frenchwoman, and was living at Versailles. + + + +LXXI. + + +TO WALTER WILSON. + +_December_ 16, 1822. + +Dear Wilson,--_Lightning_ I was going to call you. You must have thought +me negligent in not answering your letter sooner. But I have a habit of +never writing letters but at the office; 'tis so much time cribbed out +of the Company; and I am but just got out of the thick of a tea-sale, in +which most of the entry of notes, deposits, etc., usually falls to +my share. + +I have nothing of De Foe's but two or three novels and the "Plague +History." [1] I can give you no information about him. As a slight +general character of what I remember of them (for I have not looked into +them latterly), I would say that in the appearance of _truth,_ in all +the incidents and conversations that occur in them, they exceed any +works of fiction I am acquainted with. It is perfect illusion. The +_author_ never appears in these self-narratives (for so they ought to be +called, or rather auto-biographies), but the _narrator_ chains us down +to an implicit belief in everything he says. There is all the minute +detail of a log-book in it. Dates are painfully pressed upon the memory. +Facts are repeated over and over in varying phrases, till you cannot +choose but believe them. It is like reading evidence given in a court of +justice. So anxious the story-teller seems that the truth should be +clearly comprehended that when he has told us a matter of fact or a +motive, in a line or two farther down he _repeats_ it with his favorite +figure of speech, "I say" so and so, though he had made it abundantly +plain before. This is in imitation of the common people's way of +speaking, or rather of the way in which they are addressed by a master +or mistress who wishes to impress something upon their memories, and has +a wonderful effect upon matter-of-fact readers. Indeed, it is to such +principally that he writes. His style is everywhere beautiful, but plain +and _homely._ "Robinson Crusoe" is delightful to all ranks and classes; +but it is easy to see that it is written in phraseology peculiarly +adapted to the lower conditions of readers,--hence it is an especial +favorite with seafaring men, poor boys, servant-maids, etc. His novels +are capital kitchen-reading, while they are worthy, from their deep +interest, to find a shelf in the libraries of the wealthiest and the +most learned. His passion for _matter-of-fact narrative_ sometimes +betrayed him into a long relation of common incidents, which might +happen to any man, and have no interest but the intense appearance of +truth in them, to recommend them. The whole latter half or two-thirds of +"Colonel Jack" is of this description. The beginning of "Colonel Jack" +is the most affecting natural picture of a young thief that was ever +drawn. His losing the stolen money in the hollow of a tree, and finding +it again when he was in despair, and then being in equal distress at not +knowing how to dispose of it, and several similar touches in the early +history of the Colonel, evince a deep knowledge of human nature, and +putting out of question the superior _romantic_ interest of the latter, +in my mind very much exceed "Crusoe." "Roxana" (first edition) is the +next in interest, though he left out the best part of it in subsequent +editions from a foolish hypercriticism of his friend Southerne. But +"Moll Flanders," the "Account of the Plague," etc., are all of one +family, and have the same stamp of character. Believe me, with friendly +recollections--Brother (as I used to call you), Yours, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Wilson was preparing a Life of De Foe, and had written to Lamb for +guidance. + + + +LXXII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_December_ 23, 1822. + +Dear Sir,--I have been so distracted with business and one thing or +other, I have not had a quiet quarter of an hour for epistolary +purposes. Christmas, too, is come, which always puts a rattle into my +morning skull. It is a visiting, unquiet, unquakerish season. I get more +and more in love with solitude, and proportionately hampered with +company. I hope you have some holidays at this period. I have one +day,--Christmas Day; alas! too few to commemorate the season. All work +and no play dulls me. Company is not play, but many times bard work. To +play, is for a man to do what he pleases, or to do nothing,--to go about +soothing his particular fancies. I have lived to a time of life to have +outlived the good hours, the nine-o'clock suppers, with a bright hour or +two to clear up in afterwards. Now you cannot get tea before that hour, +and then sit gaping, music bothered perhaps, till half-past twelve +brings up the tray; and what you steal of convivial enjoyment after, is +heavily paid for in the disquiet of to-morrow's head. + +I am pleased with your liking "John Woodvil," and amused with your +knowledge of our drama being confined to Shakspeare and Miss Baillie. +What a world of fine territory between Land's End and Johnny Groat's +have you missed traversing! I could almost envy you to have so much to +read. I feel as if I had read all the books I want to read. Oh, to +forget Fielding, Steele, etc., and read 'em new! + +Can you tell me a likely place where I could pick up cheap Fox's +Journal? There are no Quaker circulating libraries? Elwood, too, I must +have. I rather grudge that Southey has taken up the history of your +people; I am afraid he will put in some levity. I am afraid I am not +quite exempt from that fault in certain magazine articles, where I have +introduced mention of them. Were they to do again, I would reform them. +Why should not you write a poetical account of your old worthies, +deducing them from Fox to Woolman? But I remember you did talk of +something of that kind, as a counterpart to the "Ecclesiastical +Sketches." But would not a poem be more consecutive than a string of +sonnets? You have no martyrs _quite to the fire,_ I think, among you, +but plenty of heroic confessors, spirit-martyrs, lamb-lions. Think of +it; it would be better than a series of sonnets on "Eminent Bankers." I +like a hit at our way of life, though it does well for me,--better than +anything short of _all one's time to one's self;_ for which alone I +rankle with envy at the rich. Books are good, and pictures are good, and +money to buy them therefore good; but to buy _time,_--in other +words, life! + +The "compliments of the time" to you, should end my letter; to a Friend, +I suppose, I must say the "sincerity of the season:" I hope they both +mean the same. With excuses for this hastily penned note, believe me, +with great respect, + +C. LAMB. + + + +LXXIII. + + +TO MISS WORDSWORTH. + +Mary perfectly approves of the appropriation of the _feathers,_ and +wishes them peacock's for your fair niece's sake. + +_Christmas_, 1822. + +Dear Miss Wordsworth,--I had just written the above endearing words when +Monkhouse tapped me on the shoulder with an invitation to cold goose +pie, which I was not bird of that sort enough to decline. Mrs. Monkhouse, +I am most happy to say, is better Mary has been tormented with a +rheumatism, which is leaving her, I am suffering from the festivities of +the season. I wonder how my misused carcase holds it out. I have played +the experimental philosopher on it, that's certain. Willy shall be +welcome to a mince-pie and a bout at commerce whenever he comes. He was +in our eye. I am glad you liked my new year's speculations; everybody +likes them, except the author of the "Pleasures of Hope." Disappointment +attend him! How I like to be liked, and _what I do_ to be liked! They +flatter me in magazines, newspapers, and all the minor reviews; the +Quarterlies hold aloof. But they must come into it in time, or their +leaves be waste paper. Salute Trinity Library in my name. Two special +things are worth seeing at Cambridge,--a portrait of Cromwell at Sidney, +and a better of Dr. Harvey (who found out that blood was red) at Dr. +Davy's; you should see them. Coleridge is pretty well; I have not seen, +him, but hear often of him, from Allsop, who sends me hares and +pheasants twice a week; I can hardly take so fast as he gives. I have +almost forgotten butcher's meat as plebeian. Are you not glad the cold +is gone? I find winters not so agreeable as they used to be "when winter +bleak had charms forme," I cannot conjure up a kind similitude for those +snowy flakes. Let them keep to twelfth-cakes! + +Mrs. Paris, our Cambridge friend, has been in town. You do not know the +Watfords in Trampington Street. They are capital people. Ask anybody you +meet, who is the biggest woman in Cambridge, and I 'll hold you a wager +they'll say Mrs. Smith; she broke down two benches in Trinity +Gardens,--one on the confines of St. John's, which occasioned a +litigation between the Societies as to repairing it. In warm weather, +she retires into an ice-cellar (literally!), and dates the returns of +the years from a hot Thursday some twenty years back. She sits in a room +with opposite doors and windows, to let in a thorough draught, which +gives her slenderer friends tooth-aches. She is to be seen in the market +every morning at ten cheapening fowls, which I observe the Cambridge +poulterers are not sufficiently careful to stump. + +Having now answered most of the points contained in your letter, let me +end with assuring you of our very best kindness, and excuse Mary for not +handling the pen on this occasion, especially as it has fallen into so +much better hands! Will Dr. W. accept of my respects at the end of a +foolish letter? + +C. L. + + + +LXXIV. + + +TO MR. AND MRS. BRUTON. [1] + +_January_ 6, 1823. + +The pig was above my feeble praise. It was a dear pigmy. There was some +contention as to who should have the ears; but in spite of his obstinacy +(deaf as these little creatures are to advice), I contrived to get at +one of them. + +It came in boots, too, which I took as a favor. Generally these +petty-toes, pretty toes I are missing: but I suppose he wore them to +look taller. + +He must have been the least of his race. His little foots would have +gone into the silver slipper. I take him to have beec a Chinese and +a female. + +If Evelyn could have seen him, he would never have farrowed two such +prodigious volumes, seeing how much good can be contained in--how small +a compass! + +He crackled delicately. + +I left a blank at the top of my letter, not being determined which to +address it to j so farmer and farmer's wife will please to divide our +thanks. May your granaries be full, and your rats empty, and your +chickens plump, and your envious neighbors lean, and your laborers busy, +and you as idle and as happy as the day is long! + +VIVE L'AGRICULTURE! + + How do you make your pigs so little? + They are vastly engaging at the age. + I was so myself. + Now I am a disagreeable old hog, + A middle-aged gentleman-and-a-half; + My faculties (thank God!) are not much impaired. + +I have my sight, hearing, taste, pretty perfect, and can read the Lord's +Prayer in common type, by the help of a candle, without making many +mistakes.... + +Many happy returns, not of the pig, but of the New Year, to both. Mary, +for her share of the pig and the memoirs, desires to send the same. + +Yours truly, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Hertfordshire connections of the Lambs. + + + +LXXV. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. [1] + +_January_ 9, 1823. + +Throw yourself on the world without any rational plan of support beyond +what the chance employ of booksellers would afford you! + +Throw yourself, rather, my dear sir, from the steep Tarpeian rock +slap-dash headlong upon iron spikes. If you had but five consolatory +minutes between the desk and the bed, make much of them, and live a +century in them, rather than turn slave to the booksellers. They are +Turks and Tartars when they have poor authors at their beck. Hitherto +you have been at arm's length from them. Come not within their grasp. I +have known many authors want for bread, some repining, others envying +the blessed security of a counting-house, all agreeing they had rather +have been tailors, weavers,--what not,--rather than the things they +were. I have known some starved, some to go mad, one dear friend +literally dying in a workhouse. You know not what a rapacious, dishonest +set these booksellers are. Ask even Southey, who (a single case almost) +has made a fortune by book-drudgery, what he has found them. Oh, you +know not--may you never know!--the miseries of subsisting by authorship. +'Tis a pretty appendage to a situation like yours or mine, but a +slavery, worse than all slavery, to be a bookseller's dependant, to +drudge your brains for pots of ale and breasts of mutton, to change your +free thoughts and voluntary numbers for ungracious task-work. Those +fellows hate _us_. The reason I take to be that, contrary to other +trades, in which the master gets all the credit (a Jeweller or +silversmith for instance), and the journeyman, who really does the fine +work, is in the background, in _our_ work the world gives all the credit +to us, whom _they_ consider as _their_ journeymen, and therefore do they +hate us, and cheat us, and oppress us, and would wring the blood of as +out, to put another sixpence in their mechanic pouches! I contend that a +bookseller has a _relative honesty_ towards authors, not like his +honesty to the rest of the world. Baldwin, who first engaged me as Elia, +has not paid me up yet (nor any of us without repeated mortifying +appeals). Yet how the knave fawned when I was of service to him! Yet I +daresay the fellow is punctual in settling his milk-score, etc. + +Keep to your bank, and the bank will keep you. Trust not to the public; +you may hang, starve, drown yourself, for anything that worthy +_personage_ cares. I bless every star that Providence, not seeing good +to make me independent, has seen it next good to settle me upon the +stable foundation of Leadenhall. Sit down, good B.B., in the +banking-office; what! is there not from six to eleven P.M. six days in +the week, and is there not all Sunday? Fie! what a superfluity of man's +time, if you could think so,--enough for relaxation, mirth, converse, +poetry, good thoughts, quiet thoughts. Oh, the corroding, torturing, +tormenting thoughts that disturb the brain of the unlucky wight who must +draw upon it for daily sustenance! Henceforth I retract all my foul +complaints of mercantile employment; look upon them as lovers' quarrels. +I was but half in earnest. Welcome, dead timber of a desk, that makes me +live! A little grumbling is a wholesome medicine for the spleen, but in +my inner heart do I approve and embrace this our close, but unharassing, +way of life. I am quite serious. If you can send me Fox, I will not keep +it _six weeks_, and will return it, with warm thanks to yourself and +friend, without blot or dog's-ear. You will much oblige me by +this kindness. + +Yours truly, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The Quaker poet. Mr. Barton was a clerk in the bank of the Messrs. +Alexander, of Woodbridge, in Suffolk. Encouraged by his literary +success, he thought of throwing up his clerkship and trusting to his pen +for a livelihood,--a design from which he was happily diverted by his +friends. + + + +LXXVI. + + +TO MISS HUTCHINSON. + +_April_ 25, 1823. + +Dear Miss H.,--Mary has such an invincible reluctance to any epistolary +exertion that I am sparing her a mortification by taking the pen from +her. The plain truth is, she writes such a mean, detestable hand that +she is ashamed of the formation of her letters. There is an essential +poverty and abjectness in the frame of them. They look like begging +letters. And then she is sure to omit a most substantial word in the +second draught (for she never ventures an epistle without a foul copy +first), which is obliged to be interlined,--which spoils the neatest +epistle, you know. Her figures, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., where she has occasion +to express numerals, as in the date (25th April, 1823), are not figures, +but figurantes; and the combined posse go staggering up and down +shameless, as drunkards in the daytime. It is no better when she rules +her paper. Her lines "are not less erring" than her words; a sort of +unnatural parallel lines, that are perpetually threatening to +meet,--which, you know, is quite contrary to Euclid. Her very blots are +not bold, like this [_here a large blot is inserted_], but poor smears, +half left in and half scratched out, with another smear left in their +place. I like a clear letter; a bold, free hand and a fearless flourish. +Then she has always to go through them (a second operation) to dot her +_i_'s and cross her _t_'s. I don't think she could make a corkscrew if +she tried,--which has such a fine effect at the end or middle of an +epistle, and fills up. + +There is a corkscrew! One of the best I ever drew. [1] By the way, what +incomparable whiskey that was of Monkhouse's! But if I am to write a +letter, let me begin, and not stand flourishing like a fencer at a fair. + +_April_ 25, 1823. + +Dear Miss H.,--It gives me great pleasure [the letter now begins] to +hear that you got down so smoothly, and that Mrs. Monkhouse's spirits +are so good and enterprising. [2] It shows, whatever her posture may be, +that her mind at least is not supine. I hope the excursion will enable +the former to keep pace with its outstripping neighbor. Pray present our +kindest wishes to her and all (that sentence should properly have come +into the postscript; but we airy, mercurial spirits, there is no keeping +us in). "Time" (as was said of one of us) "toils after us in vain." I am +afraid our co-visit with Coleridge was a dream. I shall not get away +before the end or middle of June, and then you will be frog-hopping at +Boulogne. And besides, I think the Gilmans would scarce trust him with +us; I have a malicious knack at cutting of apron-strings. The saints' +days you speak of have long since fled to heaven with Astræa, and the +cold piety of the age lacks fervor to recall them; only Peter left his +key,--the iron one of the two that "shuts amain,"--and that is the +reason I am locked up. Meanwhile, of afternoons we pick up primroses at +Dalston, and Mary corrects me when I call 'em cowslips. God bless you +all, and pray remember me euphoniously to Mr. Gruvellegan. That Lee +Priory must be a dainty bower. Is it built of flints? and does it stand +at Kingsgate? + +[1] Lamb was fond of this flourish, and it is frequently found in his +letters. + +[2] Miss Hutchinson's invalid relative. + + + +LXXVII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_September_ 2, 1823. + +Dear B.B.,--What will you not say to my not writing? You cannot say I do +not write now. Hessey has not used your kind sonnet, nor have I seen it. +Pray send me a copy. Neither have I heard any more of your friend's MS., +which I will reclaim whenever you please. When you come Londonward, you +will find me no longer in Covent Garden: I have a cottage in Colebrook +Row, Islington,--a cottage, for it is detached; a white house, with six +good rooms, The New River (rather elderly by this time) runs (if a +moderate walking pace can be so termed) close to the foot of the house; +and behind is a spacious garden with vines (I assure you), pears, +strawberries, parsnips, leeks, carrots, cabbages, to delight the heart +of old Alcinous. You enter without passage into a cheerful dining-room, +all studded over and rough with old books; and above is a lightsome +drawing-room, three windows, full of choice prints. I feel like a great +lord, never having had a house before. + +The "London," I fear, falls off. I linger among its creaking rafters, +like the last rat; it will topple down if they don't get some +buttresses. They have pulled down three,--Hazlitt, Procter, and their +best stay, kind, light-hearted Wainewright, their Janus. [1] The best is, +neither of our fortunes is concerned in it. + +I heard of you from Mr. Pulham this morning, and that gave a fillip to +my laziness, which has been intolerable; but I am so taken up with +pruning and gardening,--quite a new sort of occupation to me. I have +gathered my jargonels; but my Windsor pears are backward. The former +were of exquisite raciness. I do now sit under my own vine, and +contemplate the growth of vegetable nature. I can now understand in what +sense they speak of father Adam. I recognize the paternity while I watch +my tulips. I almost fell with him, for the first day I turned a drunken +gardener (as he let in the serpent) into my Eden; and he laid about him, +lopping off some choice boughs, etc., which hung over from a neighbor's +garden, and in his blind zeal laid waste a shade which had sheltered +their window from the gaze of passers-by. The old gentlewoman (fury made +her not handsome) could scarcely be reconciled by all my fine words. +There was no buttering her parsnips. She talked of the law. What a lapse +to commit on the first day of my happy "garden state"! + +I hope you transmitted the Fox-Journal to its owner, with suitable +thanks. Mr. Cary, the Dante man, dines with me to-day. He is a mode of a +country parson, lean (as a curate ought to be), modest, sensible, no +obtruder of church dogmas, quite a different man from Southey. You would +like him. Pray accept this for a letter, and believe me, with sincere +regards, yours, + +C.L. + +[1] Wainewright, the notorious poisoner, who, under the name of "Janus +Weathercock," contributed various frothy papers on art and literature to +the "London Magazine." + + + +LXXVIII. + + +TO MRS. HAZLITT. + +_November_, 1823. + +Dear Mrs. H.,--Sitting down to write a letter is such a painful +operation to Mary that you must accept me as her proxy. You have seen +our house. What I now tell you is literally true. Yesterday week, George +Dyer called upon us, at one o'clock (_bright noonday_), on his way to +dine with Mrs. Barbauld at Newington. He sat with Mary about half an +hour, and took leave. The maid saw him go out from her kitchen window, +but suddenly losing sight of him, ran up in a fright to Mary. G.D., +instead of keeping the slip that leads to the gate, had deliberately, +staff in hand, in broad, open day, marched into the New River. [1] He had +not his spectacles on, and you know his absence. Who helped him out, +they can hardly tell; but between 'em they got him out, drenched thro' +and thro'. A mob collected by that time, and accompanied him in. "Send +for the doctor!" they said; and a one-eyed fellow, dirty and drunk, was +fetched from the public-house at the end, where it seem he lurks for the +sake of picking up water-practice, having formerly had a medal from the +Humane Society for some rescue. By his advice the patient was put +between blankets; and when I came home at four to dinner, I found G.D. +a-bed, and raving, light-headed with the brandy-and-water which the +doctor had administered. He sang, laughed, whimpered, screamed, babbled +of guardian angels, would get up and go home; but we kept him there by +force; and by next morning he departed sobered, and seems to have +received no injury. [2] All my friends are open-mouthed about having +paling before the river; but I cannot see that because a ... lunatic +chooses to walk into a river, with his eyes open, at mid-day, I am any +the more likely to be drowned in it, coming home at midnight. + +[1] See Elia-essay, "Amicus Redivivus." + +[2] In the "Athenæum" for 1835 Procter says: "I happened to call at +Lamb's house about ten minutes after this accident; I saw before me a +train of water running from the door to the river. Lamb had gone for a +surgeon; the maid was running about distraught, with dry clothes on one +arm, and the dripping habiliments of the involuntary bather in the +other. Miss Lamb, agitated, and whimpering forth 'Poor Mr. Dyer!' in the +most forlorn voice, stood plunging her hands into the wet pockets of his +trousers, to fish up the wet coin. Dyer himself, an amiable little old +man, who took water _in_ternally and eschewed strong liquors, lay on his +host's bed, hidden by blankets; his head, on which was his short gray +hair, alone peered out; and this, having been rubbed dry by a resolute +hand,--by the maid's, I believe, who assisted at the rescue,--looked as +if bristling with a thousand needles. Lamb, moreover, in his anxiety, +had administered a formidable dose of cognac and water to the sufferer, +and _he_ (used only to the simple element) babbled without cessation." + + + +LXXIX. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_January_ 9, 1824. + +Dear B.B.,--Do you know what it is to succumb under an insurmountable +day-mare,--"a whoreson lethargy," Falstaff calls it,--an indisposition +to do anything or to be anything; a total deadness and distaste; a +suspension of vitality; an indifference to locality; a numb, soporifical +good-for-nothingness; an ossification all over; an oyster-like +insensibility to the passing events; a mind-stupor; a brawny defiance to +the needles of a thrusting-in conscience? Did you ever have a very bad +cold, with a total irresolution to submit to water-gruel processes? This +has been for many weeks my lot and my excuse. My fingers drag heavily +over this paper, and to my thinking it is three-and-twenty furlongs from +here to the end of this demi-sheet. I have not a thing to say; nothing +is of more importance than another. I am flatter than a denial or a +pancake; emptier than Judge Parke's wig when the head is in it; duller +than a country stage when the actors are off it,--a cipher, an o! I +acknowledge life at all only by an occasional convulsional cough and a +permanent phlegmatic pain in the chest. I am weary of the world; life is +weary of me, My day is gone into twilight, and I don't think it worth +the expense of candles. My wick hath a thief in it, but I can't muster +courage to snuff it. I inhale suffocation; I can't distinguish veal from +mutton; nothing interests me. 'T is twelve o'clock, and Thurtell [1] is +just now coming out upon the new drop, Jack Ketch alertly tucking up his +greasy sleeves to do the last office of mortality; yet cannot I elicit a +groan or a moral reflection. If you told me the world will be at an end +to-morrow, I should just say, "Will it?" I have not volition enough left +to dot my _i_'s, much less to comb my eyebrows; my eyes are set in my +head; my brains are gone out to see a poor relation in Moorfields, and +they did not say when they'd come back again; my skull is a Grub Street +attic to let,--not so much as a joint-stool left in it; my hand writes, +not I, from habit, as chickens run about a little when their heads are +off. Oh for a vigorous fit of gout, colic, toothache,--an earwig in my +auditory, a fly in my visual organs; pain is life,--the sharper the more +evidence of life; but this apathy, this death! Did you ever have an +obstinate cold,--a six or seven weeks' unintermitting chill and +suspension of hope, fear, conscience, and everything? Yet do I try all I +can to cure it. I try wine, and spirits, and smoking, and snuff in +unsparing quantities; but they all only seem to make me worse, instead +of better. I sleep in a damp room, but it does me no good; I come home +late o' nights, but do not find any visible amendment! Who shall deliver +me from the body of this death? + +It is just fifteen minutes after twelve. Thurtell is by this time a good +way on his journey, baiting at Scorpion, perhaps. Ketch is bargaining +for his cast coat and waistcoat; and the Jew demurs at first at three +half-crowns, but on consideration that he may get somewhat by showing +'em in the town, finally closes. + +C. L. + +[1] Hanged that day for the murder of Weare. + + + +LXXX. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_January_ 23, 1824. + +My dear sir,--That peevish letter of mine, [1] which was meant to convey +an apology for my incapacity to write, seems to have been taken by you +in too serious a light,--it was only my way of telling you I had a +severe cold. The fact is, I have been insuperably dull and lethargic for +many weeks, and cannot rise to the vigor of a letter, much less an +essay. The "London" must do without me for a time, for I have lost all +interest about it; and whether I shall recover it again I know not. I +will bridle my pen another time, and not tease and puzzle you with my +aridities. I shall begin to feel a little more alive with the spring. + +Winter is to me (mild or harsh) always a great trial of the spirits. I +am ashamed not to have noticed your tribute to Woolman, whom we love so +much; it is done in your good manner. Your friend Tayler called upon me +some time since, and seems a very amiable man. His last story is +painfully fine. His book I "like;" it is only too stuffed with +Scripture, too parsonish. The best thing in it is the boy's own story. +When I say it is too full of Scripture, I mean it is too full of direct +quotations; no book can have too much of silent Scripture in it. But the +natural power of a story is diminished when the uppermost purpose in the +writer seems to be to recommend something else,--namely, Religion. You +know what Horace says of the _Deus intersit_? I am not able to explain +myself,--you must do it for me. My sister's part in the "Leicester +School" (about two thirds) was purely her own; as it was (to the same +quantity) in the "Shakspeare Tales" which bear my name. I wrote only the +"Witch Aunt," the "First Going to Church," and the final story about "A +little Indian girl" in a ship. Your account of my black-balling amused +me. _I think, as Quakers, they did right._ There are some things hard to +be understood. The more I think, the more I am vexed at having puzzled +you with that letter; but I have been so out of letter-writing of late +years that it is a sore effort to sit down to it; and I felt in your +debt, and sat down waywardly to pay you in bad money. Never mind my +dulness; I am used to long intervals of it. The heavens seem brass to +me; then again comes the refreshing shower,-- + + "I have been merry twice and once ere now." + +You said something about Mr. Mitford in a late letter, which I believe I +did not advert to. I shall be happy to show him my Milton (it is all the +show things I have) at any time he will take the trouble of a jaunt to +Islington. I do also hope to see Mr. Tayler there some day. Pray say so +to both. Coleridge's book is in good part printed, but sticks a little +for _more copy_. It bears an unsalable title,--"Extracts from Bishop +Leighton;" but I am confident there will be plenty of good notes in +it,--more of Bishop Coleridge than Leighton in it, I hope; for what is +Leighton? Do you trouble yourself about libel cases? The decision +against Hunt for the "Vision of Judgment" made me sick. What is to +become of the good old talk about our good old king,--his personal +virtues saving us from a revolution, etc.? Why, none that think can +utter it now. It must stink. And the "Vision" is as to himward such a +tolerant, good-humored thing! What a wretched thing a Lord Chief Justice +is, always was, and will be! + +Keep your good spirits up, dear B. B., mine will return; they are at +present in abeyance, but I am rather lethargic than miserable. I don't +know but a good horsewhip would be more beneficial to me than physic. My +head, without aching, will teach yours to ache. It is well I am getting +to the conclusion. I will send a better letter when I am a better man. +Let me thank you for your kind concern for me (which I trust will have +reason soon to be dissipated), and assure you that it gives me pleasure +to hear from you. + +Yours truly, + +C. L. + +[1] Letter LXXIX. + + + +LXXXI. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON + +_April_, 1824. + +Dear B.B.,--I am sure I cannot fill a letter, though I should disfurnish +my skull to fill it; but you expect something, and shall have a notelet. +Is Sunday, not divinely speaking, but humanly and holiday-sically, a +blessing? Without its institution, would our rugged taskmasters have +given us a leisure day so often, think you, as once in a month? or, if +it had not been instituted, might they not have given us every sixth +day? Solve me this problem. If we are to go three times a-day to church, +why has Sunday slipped into the notion of a _holi_day? A HOLY-day, I +grant it. The Puritans, I have read in Southey's book, knew the +distinction. They made people observe Sunday rigorously, would not let a +nurserymaid walk out in the fields with children for recreation on that +day. But _then_ they gave the people a holiday from all sorts of work +every second Tuesday. This was giving to the two Cæsars that which was +_his_ respective. Wise, beautiful, thoughtful, generous legislators! +Would Wilberforce give us our Tuesdays? No; he would turn the six days +into sevenths,-- + + "And those three smiling seasons of the year + Into a Russian winter." + OLD PLAY. + +I am sitting opposite a person who is making strange distortions with +the gout, which is not unpleasant pleasant,--to me, at least. What is +the reason we do not sympathize with pain, short of some terrible +surgical operation? Hazlitt, who boldly says all he feels, avows that +not only he does not pity sick people, but he hates them. I obscurely +recognize his meaning. Pain is probably too selfish a consideration, too +simply a consideration of self-attention. We pity poverty, loss of +friends, etc.,--more complex things, in which the sufferer's feelings +are associated with others. This is a rough thought suggested by the +presence of gout; I want head to extricate it and plane it. What is all +this to your letter? I felt it to be a good one, but my turn, when I +write at all, is perversely to travel out of the record, so that my +letters are anything but answers. So you still want a motto? You must +not take my ironical one, because your book, I take it, is too serious +for it. Bickerstaff might have used it for _his_ lucubrations. What do +you think of (for a title) Religio Tremuli? or Tremebundi? There is +Religio Medici and Laici. But perhaps the volume is not quite Quakerish +enough, or exclusively so, for it. Your own "Vigils" is perhaps the +best. While I have space, let me congratulate with you the return of +spring,--what a summery spring too! All those qualms about the dog and +cray-fish [1] melt before it. I am going to be happy and _vain_ again. + +A hasty farewell, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Lamb had confessed, in a previous letter to Barton, to having once +wantonly set a dog upon a cray-fish. + + + +LXXXII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_May_ 15, 1824. + +Dear B. B.,--I am oppressed with business all day, and company all +night. But I will snatch a quarter of an hour. Your recent acquisitions +of the picture and the letter are greatly to be congratulated. I too +have a picture of my father and the copy of his first love-verses; but +they have been mine long. Blake is a real name, I assure you, and a most +extraordinary man, if he is still living. He is the Robert [William] +Blake whose wild designs accompany a splendid folio edition of the +"Night Thoughts," which you may have seen, in one of which he pictures +the parting of soul and body by a solid mass of human form floating off, +God knows how, from a lumpish mass (fac-simile to itself) left behind on +the dying bed. He paints in water-colors marvellous strange pictures, +visions of his brain, which he asserts that he has seen; they have great +merit. He has _seen_ the old Welsh bards on Snowdon,--he has seen the +beautifullest, the strongest, and the ugliest man, left alone from the +massacre of the Britons by the Romans, and has painted them from memory +(I have seen his paintings), and asserts them to be as good as the +figures of Raphael and Angelo, but not better, as they had precisely the +same retro-visions and prophetic visions with themself [himself]. The +painters in oil (which he will have it that neither of them practised) +he affirms to have been the ruin of art, and affirms that all the while +he was engaged in his Welsh paintings, Titian was disturbing him,-- +Titian the Ill Genius of Oil Painting. His pictures--one in particular, +the Canterbury Pilgrims, far above Stothard--have great merit, but hard, +dry, yet with grace. He has written a Catalogue of them, with a most +spirited criticism on Chaucer, but mystical and full of vision. His +poems have been sold hitherto only in manuscript. I never read them; but +a friend at my desire procured the "Sweep Song." There is one to a +tiger, which I have heard recited, beginning,-- + + "Tiger, Tiger, burning bright, + Thro' the deserts of the night," + +which is glorious, but, alas! I have not the book; for the man is flown, +whither I know not,--to Hades or a madhouse. But I must look on him as +one of the most extraordinary persons of the age. Montgomery's book [1] I +have not much hope from, and the society with the affected name [2] has +been laboring at it for these twenty years, and made few converts. I +think it was injudicious to mix stories, avowedly colored by fiction, +with the sad, true statements from the parliamentary records, etc. But I +wish the little negroes all the good that can come from it. I battered +my brains (not buttered them,--but it is a bad _a_) for a few verses +for them, but I could make nothing of it. You have been luckier. But +Blake's are the flower of the set, you will, I am sure, agree; though +some of Montgomery's at the end are pretty, but the Dream awkwardly +paraphrased from B. + +With the exception of an Epilogue for a Private Theatrical, I have +written nothing new for near six months. It is in vain to spur me on. I +must wait. I cannot write without a genial impulse, and I have none. 'T +is barren all and dearth. No matter; life is something without +scribbling. I have got rid of my bad spirits, and hold up pretty well +this rain-damned May. + +So we have lost another poet. [3] I never much relished his Lordship's +mind, and shall be sorry if the Greeks have cause to miss him. He was to +me offensive, and I never can make out his real _power_, which his +admirers talk of. Why, a, line of Wordsworth's is a lever to lift the +immortal spirit; Byron can only move the spleen. He was at best a +satirist. In any other way, he was mean enough. I daresay I do him +injustice; but I cannot love him, nor squeeze a tear to his memory. He +did not like the world, and he has left it, as Alderman Curtis advised +the Radicals, "if they don't like their country, damn 'em, let 'em leave +it," they possessing no rood of ground in England, and he ten thousand +acres. Byron was better than many Curtises. + +Farewell, and accept this apology for a letter from one who owes you so +much in that kind. + +Yours ever truly, C. L. + +[1] "The Chimney-Sweeper's Friend, and Climbing-Boy's Album,"--a book, +by James Montgomery, setting forth the wrongs of the little +chimney-sweepers, for whose relief a society had been started. + +[2] The Society for Ameliorating the Condition of Infant +Chimney-Sweepers. + +[3] Byron had died on April 19. + + + +LXXXIII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_August_, 1824. + +I can no more understand Shelley than you can; his poetry is "thin sown +with profit or delight." Yet I must point to your notice a sonnet +conceived and expressed with a witty delicacy. It is that addressed to +one who hated him, but who could not persuade him to hate _him_ again. +His coyness to the other's passion--for hate demands a return as much as +love, and starves without it--is most arch and pleasant. Pray, like it +very much. For his theories and nostrums, they are oracular enough, but +I either comprehend 'em not, or there is "miching malice" and mischief +in 'em, but, for the most part, ringing with their own emptiness. +Hazlitt said well of 'em: "Many are the wiser and better for reading +Shakspeare, but nobody was ever wiser or better for reading Shelley." I +wonder you will sow your correspondence on so barren a ground as I am, +that make such poor returns. But my head aches at the bare thought of +letter-writing. I wish all the ink in the ocean dried up, and would +listen to the quills shivering up in the candle flame, like parching +martyrs. The same indisposition to write it is has stopped my "Elias;" +but you will see a futile effort in the next number, [1] "wrung from me +with slow pain." The fact is, my head is seldom cool enough. I am +dreadfully indolent. To have to do anything--to order me a new coat, for +instance, though my old buttons are shelled like beans--is an effort. My +pen stammers like my tongue. What cool craniums those old inditers of +folios must have had, what a mortified pulse! Well, once more I throw +myself on your mercy. Wishing peace in thy new dwelling, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The essay "Blakesmoor in Hertfordshire," in the "London Magazine" +for September, 1824. + + + +LXXXIV. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_December_ 1, 1824. + +Taylor and Hessey, finding their magazine [1] goes off very heavily at +2_s_. 6_d_., are prudently going to raise their price another shilling; +and having already more authors than they want, intend to increase the +number of them. If they set up against the "New Monthly," they must +change their present hands. It is not tying the dead carcase of a review +to a half-dead magazine will do their business. It is like George Dyer +multiplying his volumes to make 'em sell better. When he finds one will +not go off, he publishes two; two stick, he tries three; three hang +fire, he is confident that four will have a better chance. + +And now, my dear sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catastrophe of +yesterday morning prompts a sadder vein. The fate of the unfortunate +Fauntleroy [2] makes me, whether I will or no, to cast reflecting eyes +around on such of my friends as, by a parity of situation, are exposed +to a similarity of temptation. My very style seems to myself to become +more impressive than usual, with the change of theme. Who, that +standeth, knoweth but he may yet fall? Your hands as yet, I am most +willing to believe, have never deviated, into others' property; you +think it impossible that you could ever commit so heinous an offence. +But so thought Fauntleroy once; so have thought many besides him, who at +last have expiated as he hath done. You are as yet upright; but you are +a banker,--at least, the next thing to it. I feel the delicacy of the +subject; but cash must pass through your hands, sometimes to a great +amount. If in an unguarded hour--But I will hope better. Consider the +scandal it will bring upon those of your persuasion. Thousands would go +to see a Quaker hanged, that would be indifferent to the fate of a +Presbyterian or an Anabaptist. Think of the effect it would have on the +sale of your poems alone, not to mention higher considerations! I +tremble, I am sure, at myself, when I think that so many poor victims of +the law, at one time of their life, made as sure of never being hanged +as I, in my presumption, am too ready to do myself. What are we better +than they? Do we come into the world with different necks? Is there any +distinctive mark under our left ears? Are we unstrangulable, I ask you? +Think of these things. I am shocked sometimes at the shape of my own +fingers, not for their resemblance to the ape tribe (which is +something), but for the exquisite adaptation of them to the purposes of +picking fingering, etc. No one that is so framed, I maintain it, but +should tremble. + +C. L. + +[1] Taylor and Hessey succeeded John Scott as editors of the "London +Magazine" (of which they were also publishers), and it was to this +periodical that most of Lamb's Elia Essays were contributed. + +[2] The forger, hanged Nov. 30, 1824. This was the last execution for +this offence. + + + +LXXXV. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_March_ 23, 1825. + +Dear B. B.,--I have had no impulse to write, or attend to any single +object but myself for weeks past,--my single self, I by myself, I. I am +sick of hope deferred. The grand wheel is in agitation that is to turn +up my fortune; but round it rolls, and will turn up nothing. I have a +glimpse of freedom, of becoming a gentleman at large; but I am put off +from day to day. I have offered my resignation, and it is neither +accepted nor rejected. Eight weeks am I kept in this fearful suspense. +Guess what an absorbing stake I feel it. I am not conscious of the +existence of friends present or absent. The East India Directors alone +can be that thing to me or not. I have just learned that nothing will be +decided this week. Why the next? Why any week? It has fretted me into an +itch of the fingers; I rub 'em against paper, and write to you, rather +than not allay this scorbuta. + +While I can write, let me adjure you to have no doubts of Irving. Let +Mr. Mitford drop his disrespect. Irving has prefixed a dedication (of a +missionary subject, first part) to Coleridge, the most beautiful, +cordial, and sincere. He there acknowledges his obligation to S. T. C. +for his knowledge of Gospel truths, the nature of a Christian Church, +etc.,--to the talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (at whose Gamaliel feet he +sits weekly), rather than to that of all the men living. This from him, +the great dandled and petted sectarian, to a religious character so +equivocal in the world's eye as that of S. T. C., so foreign to the +Kirk's estimate,--can this man be a quack? The language is as affecting +as the spirit of the dedication. Some friend told him, "This dedication +will do you no good,"--_i. e._, not in the world's repute, or with your +own people. "That is a reason for doing it," quoth Irving. + +I am thoroughly pleased with him. He is firm, out-speaking, intrepid, +and docile as a pupil of Pythagoras. You must like him. + +Yours, in tremors of painful hope, + +C. LAMB. + + + +LXXXVI. + + +TO WORDSWORTH + +_April_ 6, 1825 + +Dear Wordsworth,--I have been several times meditating a letter to you +concerning the good thing which has befallen me; but the thought of poor +Monkhouse [1] came across me. He was one that I had exulted in the +prospect of congratulating me. He and you were to have been the first +participators; for indeed it has been ten weeks since the first motion +of it. Here am I then, after thirty-three years' slavery, sitting in my +own room at eleven o'clock this finest of all April mornings, a freed +man, with £441 a year for the remainder of my life, live I as long as +John Dennis, who outlived his annuity and starved at ninety: £441; +_i.e., £450_, with a deduction of £9 for a provision secured to my +sister, she being survivor, the pension guaranteed by Act Georgii +Tertii, etc. + +I came home FOREVER on Tuesday in last week. The incomprehensibleness of +my condition overwhelmed me; it was like passing from life into +eternity. Every year to be as long as three, _i.e._, to have three times +as much real time--time that is my own--in it! I wandered about thinking +I was happy, but feeling I was not. But that tumultuousness is passing +off, and I begin to understand the nature of the gift. Holidays, even +the annual month, were always uneasy joys,--their conscious +fugitiveness; the craving after making the most of them. Now, when all +is holiday, there are no holidays. I can sit at home, in rain or shine, +without a restless impulse for walkings. I am daily steadying, and shall +soon find it as natural to me to be my own master as it has been irksome +to have had a master. Mary wakes every morning with an obscure feeling +that some good has happened to us. + +Leigh Hunt and Montgomery, after their releasements, describe the shock +of their emancipation much as I feel mine. But it hurt their frames. I +eat, drink, and sleep sound as ever, I lay no anxious schemes for going +hither and thither, but take things as they occur. Yesterday I +excursioned twenty miles; to-day I write a few letters. Pleasuring was +for fugitive play-days: mine are fugitive only in the sense that life is +fugitive. Freedom and life co-existent! + +At the foot of such a call upon you for gratulation, I am ashamed to +advert to that melancholy event. Monkhouse was a character I learned to +love slowly; but it grew upon me yearly, monthly, daily. What a chasm +has it made in our pleasant parties! His noble, friendly face was always +coming before me, till this hurrying event in my life came, and for the +time has absorbed all interest; in fact, it has shaken me a little. My +old desk companions, with whom I have had such merry hours, seem to +reproach me for removing my lot from among them. They were pleasant +creatures; but to the anxieties of business, and a weight of possible +worse ever impending, I was not equal. Tuthill and Gilman gave me my +certificates; I laughed at the friendly lie implied in them. But my +sister shook her head, and said it was all true. Indeed, this last +winter I was jaded out; winters were always worse than other parts of +the year, because the spirits are worse, and I had no daylight. In +summer I had daylight evenings. The relief was hinted to me from a +superior power when I, poor slave, had not a hope but that I must wait +another seven years with Jacob; and lo! the Rachel which I coveted is +brought to me. + +[1] Wordsworth's cousin, who was ill of consumption in Devonshire. He +died the following year. + + + +LXXXVII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_April_ 6, 1825. + +Dear B.B.,--My spirits are so tumultuary with the novelty of my recent +emancipation that I have scarce steadiness of hand, much more mind, to +compose a letter. I am free, B.B.,--free as air! + + "The little bird that wings the sky + Knows no such liberty." [1] + I was set free on Tuesday in last week at four + o'clock. I came home forever! + +I have been describing my feelings as well as I can to Wordsworth in a +long letter, and don't care to repeat. Take it, briefly, that for a few +days I was painfully oppressed by so mighty a change; but it is becoming +daily more natural to me. I went and sat among 'em all at my old +thirty-three-years' desk yester-morning; and, deuce take me, if I had +not yearnings at leaving all my old pen-and-ink fellows, merry, sociable +lads,--at leaving them in the lurch, fag, fag, fag! The comparison of my +own superior felicity gave me anything but pleasure. + +B.B., I would not serve another seven years for seven hundred thousand +pounds! I have got £441 net for life, sanctioned by Act of Parliament, +with a provision for Mary if she survives me. I will live another fifty +years; or if I live but ten, they will be thirty, reckoning the quantity +of real time in them,--_i.e._, the time that is a man's own, Tell me how +you like "Barbara S.;" [2] will it be received in atonement for the +foolish "Vision"--I mean by the lady? _A propos_, I never saw Mrs. +Crawford in my life; nevertheless, it's all true of somebody. + +Address me, in future, Colebrooke Cottage, Islington, I am really +nervous (but that will wear off), so take this brief announcement. + +Yours truly, + +C.L. + +[1] "The birds that wanton in the air + Know no such liberty." + LOVELACE. + +[2] The Elia essay. Fanny Kelly was the original of "Barbara S." + + + +LXXXVIII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_July_ 2, 1825. + +I am hardly able to appreciate your volume now; [1] but I liked the +dedication much, and the apology for your bald burying grounds. To +Shelley--but _that_ is not new, To the young Vesper-singer, Great +Bealings, Playford, and what not. + +If there be a cavil, it is that the topics of religious consolation, +however beautiful, are repeated till a sort of triteness attends them. +It seems as if you were forever losing Friends' children by death, and +reminding their parents of the Resurrection. Do children die so often +and so good in your parts? The topic taken from the consideration that +they are snatched away from _possible vanities_ seems hardly sound; for +to an Omniscient eye their conditional failings must be one with their +actual. But I am too unwell for theology. + +Such as I am, + +I am yours and A.K.'s truly, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] "Barton's volume of Poems." + + + +LXXXIX. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_August_ 10, 1825. + +We shall be soon again at Colebrooke. + +Dear B.B.,--You must excuse my not writing before, when I tell you we +are on a visit at Enfield, where I do not feel it natural to sit down to +a letter. It is at all times an exertion. I had rather talk with you and +Anne Knight quietly at Colebrooke Lodge over the matter of your last. +You mistake me when you express misgivings about my relishing a series +of Scriptural poems. I wrote confusedly; what I meant to say was, that +one or two consolatory poems on deaths would have had a more condensed +effect than many. Scriptural, devotional topics, admit of infinite +variety. So far from poetry tiring me because religious, I can read, and +I say it seriously, the homely old version of the Psalms in our +Prayer-books for an hour or two together sometimes, without sense of +weariness. + +I did not express myself clearly about what I think a false topic, +insisted on so frequently in consolatory addresses on the death of +infants. I know something like it is in Scripture, but I think humanly +spoken. It is a natural thought, a sweet fallacy, to the survivors, but +still a fallacy. If it stands on the doctrine of this being a +probationary state, it is liable to this dilemma. Omniscience, to whom +possibility must be clear as act, must know of the child what it would +hereafter turn out: if good, then the topic is false to say it is +secured from falling into future wilfulness, vice, etc. If bad, I do not +see how its exemption from certain future overt acts by being snatched +away at all tells in its favor. You stop the arm of a murderer, or +arrest the finger of a pickpurse; but is not the guilt incurred as much +by the intent as if never so much acted? Why children are hurried off, +and old reprobates of a hundred left, whose trial humanly we may think +was complete at fifty, is among the obscurities of providence, The very +notion of a state of probation has darkness in it. The All-knower has no +need of satisfying his eyes by seeing what we will do, when he knows +before what we will do. Methinks we might be condemned before +commission. In these things we grope and flounder; and if we can pick up +a little human comfort that the child taken is snatched from vice (no +great compliment to it, by the by), let us take it. And as to where an +untried child goes, whether to join the assembly of its elders who have +borne the heat of the day,--fire-purified martyrs and torment-sifted +confessors,--what know we? We promise heaven, methinks, too cheaply, and +assign large revenues to minors incompetent to manage them. Epitaphs run +upon this topic of consolation till the very frequency induces a +cheapness. Tickets for admission into paradise are sculptured out a +penny a letter, twopence a syllable, etc. It is all a mystery; and the +more I try to express my meaning (having none that is clear), the more I +flounder. Finally, write what your own conscience, which to you is the +unerring judge, deems best, and be careless about the whimsies of such a +half-baked notionist as I am. We are here in a most pleasant country, +full of walks, and idle to our heart's desire. Taylor has dropped the +"London." It was indeed a dead weight. It had got in the Slough of +Despond. I shuffle off my part of the pack, and stand, like Christian, +with light and merry shoulders. It had got silly, indecorous, pert, and +everything that is bad. Both our kind _remembrances_ to Mrs. K. and +yourself, and strangers'-greeting to Lucy,--is it Lucy, or Ruth?--that +gathers wise sayings in a Book. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XC. + + +TO SOUTHEY. + +_August_ 19, 1825. + +Dear Southey,--You'll know whom this letter comes from by opening +slap-dash upon the text, as in the good old times. I never could come +into the custom of envelopes,--'tis a modern foppery; the Plinian +correspondence gives no hint of such. In singleness of sheet and +meaning, then, I thank you for your little book. I am ashamed to add a +codicil of thanks for your "Book of the Church." I scarce feel competent +to give an opinion of the latter; I have not reading enough of that kind +to venture at it. I can only say the fact, that I have read it with +attention and interest. Being, as you know, not quite a Churchman, I +felt a jealousy at the Church taking to herself the whole deserts of +Christianity, Catholic and Protestant, from Druid extirpation downwards. +I call all good Christians the Church. Capillarians and all. But I am in +too light a humor to touch these matters. May all our churches flourish! +Two things staggered me in the poem (and one of them staggered both of +as): I cannot away with a beautiful series of verses, as I protest they +are, commencing "Jenner," 'Tis like a choice banquet opened with a pill +or an electuary,--physic stuff. T'other is, we cannot make out how Edith +should be no more than ten years old. By 'r Lady, we had taken her to be +some sixteen or upwards. We suppose you have only chosen the round +number for the metre. Or poem and dedication may be both older than they +pretend to,--but then some hint might have been given; for, as it +stands, it may only serve some day to puzzle the parish reckoning. But +without inquiring further (for 'tis ungracious to look into a lady's +years), the dedication is eminently pleasing and tender, and we wish +Edith May Southey joy of it. Something, too, struck us as if we had +heard of the death of John May. A John May's death was a few years since +in the papers. We think the tale one of the quietest, prettiest things +we have seen. You have been temperate in the use of localities, which +generally spoil poems laid in exotic regions. You mostly cannot stir out +(in such things) for humming-birds and fireflies. A tree is a Magnolia, +etc.--Can I but like the truly Catholic spirit? "Blame as thou mayest +the Papist's erring creed,"--which and other passages brought me back to +the old Anthology days and the admonitory lesson to "Dear George" on +"The Vesper Bell," a little poem which retains its first hold upon me +strangely. + +The compliment to the translatress is daintily conceived. Nothing is +choicer in that sort of writing than to bring in some remote, impossible +parallel,--as between a great empress and the inobtrusive, quiet soul +who digged her noiseless way so perseveringly through that rugged +Paraguay mine. How she Dobrizhoffered it all out, it puzzles my slender +Latinity to conjecture. Why do you seem to sanction Landor's unfeeling +allegorizing away of honest Quixote? He may as well say Strap is meant +to symbolize the Scottish nation before the Union, and Random since that +Act of dubious issue; or that Partridge means the Mystical Man, and Lady +Bellaston typifies the Woman upon Many Waters. Gebir, indeed, may mean +the state of the hop markets last month, for anything I know to the +contrary. That all Spain overflowed with romancical books (as Madge +Newcastle calls them) was no reason that Cervantes should not smile at +the matter of them; nor even a reason that, in another mood, he might +not multiply them, deeply as he was tinctured with the essence of them. +Quixote is the father of gentle ridicule, and at the same time the very +depository and treasury of chivalry and highest notions. Marry, when +somebody persuaded Cervantes that he meant only fun, and put him upon +writing that unfortunate Second Part, with the confederacies of that +unworthy duke and most contemptible duchess, Cervantes sacrificed his +instinct to his understanding. + +We got your little book but last night, being at Enfield, to which place +we came about a month since, and are having quiet holidays. Mary walks +her twelve miles a day some days, and I my twenty on others. 'T is all +holiday with me now, you know; the change works admirably. + +For literary news, in my poor way, I have a one-act farce [1] going to be +acted at Haymarket; but when? is the question, 'Tis an extravaganza, and +like enough to follow "Mr. H." "The London Magazine" has shifted its +publishers once more, and I shall shift myself out of it. It is fallen. +My ambition is not at present higher than to write nonsense for the +playhouses, to eke out a something contracted income. _Tempus erat_. +There was a time, my dear Cornwallis, when the muse, etc. But I am now +in Mac Flecknoe's predicament,-- + +"Promised a play, and dwindled to a farce." Coleridge is better (was, at +least, a few weeks since) than he has been for years. His accomplishing +his book at last has been a source of vigor to him. We are on a half +visit to his friend Allsop, at a Mrs. Leishman's, Enfield, but expect to +be at Colebrooke Cottage in a week or so, where, or anywhere, I shall be +always most happy to receive tidings from you. G. Dyer is in the height +of an uxorious paradise. His honeymoon will not wane till he wax cold. +Never was a more happy pair, since Acme and Septimius, and longer. +Farewell, with many thanks, dear S. Our loves to all round your Wrekin. + +Your old friend, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Probably "The Pawnbroker's Daughter," which happily was not destined +to be performed.--AINGER. + + + +XCI. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_March_ 20, 1826. + +Dear B. B.,--You may know my letters by the paper and the folding. For +the former, I live on scraps obtained in charity from an old friend, +whose stationery is a permanent perquisite; for folding, I shall do it +neatly when I learn to tie my neckcloths. I surprise most of my friends +by writing to them on ruled paper, as if I had not got past pothooks and +hangers. Sealing-wax I have none on my establishment; wafers of the +coarsest bran supply its place. When my epistles come to be weighed with +Pliny's, however superior to the Roman in delicate irony, judicious +reflections, etc., his gilt post will bribe over the judges to him. All +the time I was at the E. I. H. I never mended a pen; I now cut 'em to +the stumps, marring rather than mending the primitive goose-quill. I +cannot bear to pay for articles I used to get for nothing. When Adam +laid out his first penny upon nonpareils at some stall in Mesopotamos, I +think it went hard with him, reflecting upon his old goodly orchard, +where he had so many for nothing. When I write to a great man at the +court end, he opens with surprise upon a naked note, such as Whitechapel +people interchange, with no sweet degrees of envelope. I never enclosed +one bit of paper in another, nor understood the rationale of it. Once +only I sealed with borrowed wax, to set Walter Scott a-wondering, signed +with the imperial quartered arms of England, which my friend Field bears +in compliment to his descent, in the female line, from Oliver Cromwell. +It must have set his antiquarian curiosity upon watering. To your +questions upon the currency, I refer you to Mr. Robinson's last speech, +where, if you can find a solution, I cannot. I think this, though,--the +best ministry we ever stumbled upon,--gin reduced four shillings in the +gallon, wine two shillings in the quart! This comes home to men's minds +and bosoms. My tirade against visitors was not meant _particularly_ at +you or Anne Knight. I scarce know what I meant, for I do not just now +feel the grievance. I wanted to make an _article_. So in another thing I +talked of somebody's _insipid wife_ without a correspondent object in my +head; and a good lady, a friend's wife, whom I really _love_ (don't +startle, I mean in a licit way), has looked shyly on me ever since. The +blunders of personal application are ludicrous. I send out a character +every now and then on purpose to exercise the ingenuity of my friends. +"Popular Fallacies" will go on; that word "concluded" is an erratum, I +suppose, for "continued." I do not know how it got stuffed in there. A +little thing without name will also be printed on the Religion of the +Actors; but it is out of your way, so I recommend you, with true +author's hypocrisy, to skip it. We are about to sit down to roast beef, +at which we could wish A. K., B. B., and B. B.'s pleasant daughter to be +humble partakers. So much for my hint at visitors, which was scarcely +calculated for droppers-in from Woodbridge; the sky does not drop such +larks every day. My very kindest wishes to you all three, with my +sister's best love. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XCII. + + +TO J. B. DIBDIN. + +_June_, 1826. + +Dear D.,--My first impulse upon seeing your letter was pleasure at +seeing your old neat hand, nine parts gentlemanly, with a modest dash of +the clerical; my second, a thought natural enough this hot weather: Am I +to answer all this? Why, 't is as long as those to the Ephesians and +Galatians put together: I have counted the words, for curiosity.... I +never knew an enemy to puns who was not an ill-natured man. Your fair +critic in the coach reminds me of a Scotchman, who assured me he did not +see much in Shakspeare. I replied, I daresay _not_. He felt the +equivoke, looked awkward and reddish, but soon returned to the attack by +saying that he thought Burns was as good as Shakspeare. I said that I +had no doubt he was,--to a _Scotchman_. We exchanged no more words that +day.... Let me hear that you have clambered up to Lover's Seat; it is as +fine in that neighborhood as Juan Fernandez,--as lonely, too, when the +fishing-boats are not out; I have sat for hours staring upon a shipless +sea. The salt sea is never as grand as when it is left to itself. One +cock-boat spoils it; a seamew or two improves it. And go to the little +church, which is a very Protestant Loretto, and seems dropped by some +angel for the use of a hermit who was at once parishioner and a whole +parish. It is not too big. Go in the night, bring it away in your +portmanteau, and I will plant it in my garden. It must have been +erected, in the very infancy of British Christianity, for the two or +three first converts, yet with all the appurtenances of a church of the +first magnitude,--its pulpit, its pews, its baptismal font; a cathedral +in a nutshell. The minister that divides the Word there must give +lumping pennyworths. It is built to the text of "two or three assembled +in my name." It reminds me of the grain of mustard-seed. If the glebe +land is proportionate, it may yield two potatoes. Tithes out of it could +be no more split than a hair. Its First fruits must be its Last, for 't +would never produce a couple. It is truly the strait and narrow way, and +few there be (of London visitants) that find it. The still small voice +is surely to be found there, if anywhere. A sounding-board is merely +there for ceremony. It is secure from earthquakes, not more from +sanctity than size, for't would feel a mountain thrown upon it no more +than a taper-worm would. _Go and see, but not without your spectacles_. + + + +XCIII. + + +TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON. + +_January_ 20, 1827. + +Dear Robinson,--I called upon you this morning, and found that you had +gone to visit a dying friend. I had been upon a like errand. Poor +Norris [1] has been lying dying for now almost a week,--such is the +penalty we pay for having enjoyed a strong constitution! Whether he knew +me or not, I know not, or whether he saw me through his poor glazed +eyes; but the group I saw about him I shall not forget. Upon the bed, or +about it, were assembled his wife and two daughters, and poor deaf +Richard, his son, looking doubly stupefied. There they were, and seemed +to have been sitting all the week. I could only reach out a hand to Mrs. +Norris. Speaking was impossible in that mute chamber. By this time I +hope it is all over with him. In him I have a loss the world cannot make +up. He was my friend and my father's friend all the life I can remember. +I seem to have made foolish friendships ever since. Those are +friendships which outlive a second generation. Old as I am waxing, in +his eyes I was still the child he first knew me. To the last he called +me Charley. I have none to call me Charley now. He was the last link +that bound me to the Temple. You are but of yesterday. In him seem to +have died the old plainness of manners and singleness of heart. Letters +he knew nothing of, nor did his reading extend beyond the pages of the +"Gentleman's Magazine." Yet there was a pride of literature about him +from being amongst books (he was librarian), and from some scraps of +doubtful Latin which he had picked up in his office of entering +students, that gave him very diverting airs of pedantry. Can I forget +the erudite look with which, when he had been in vain trying to make out +a black-letter text of Chaucer in the Temple Library, he laid it down +and told me that "in those old books Charley, there is sometimes a deal +of very indifferent spelling;" and seemed to console himself in the +reflection! His jokes--for he had his jokes--are now ended; but they +were old trusty perennials, staples that pleased after _decies +repetita_, and were always as good as new. One song he had, which was +reserved for the night of Christmas Day, which we always spent in the +Temple. It was an old thing, and spoke of the flat-bottoms of our foes +and the possibility of their coming over in darkness, and alluded to +threats of an invasion many years blown over; and when he came to +the part-- + + "We'll still make 'em run, and we'll still make 'em sweat, + In spite of the devil and 'Brussels Gazette,'"-- + +his eyes would sparkle as with the freshness of an impending event. And +what is the "Brussels Gazette" now? I cry while I enumerate these +trifles. "How shall we tell them in a stranger's ear?" His poor good +girls will now have to receive their afflicted mother in an inaccessible +hovel in an obscure village in Herts, where they have been long +struggling to make a school without effect; and poor deaf Richard--and +the more helpless for being so--is thrown on the wide world. + +My first motive in writing, and, indeed, in calling on you, was to ask +if you were enough acquainted with any of the Benchers to lay a plain +statement before them of the circumstances of the family. I almost +fear not, for you are of another hall. But if you can oblige me and my +poor friend, who is now insensible to any favors, pray exert yourself. +You cannot say too much good of poor Norris and his poor wife. + +Yours ever, + +CHARLES LAMB. + +[1] Randal Norris, sub-treasurer of the Inner Temple, an early friend of +the Lambs. + + + +XCIV. + + +TO PETER GEORGE PATMORE. + +LONDRES, _Julie_ 19_th_, 1827. + +Dear P.,--I am so poorly. I have been to a funeral, where I made a pun, +to the consternation of the rest of the mourners. And we had wine. I +can't describe to you the howl which the widow set up at proper +intervals. Dash [1] could; for it was not unlike what he makes. + +The letter I sent you was one directed to the care of Edward White, +India House, for Mrs. Hazlitt. _Which_ Mrs. H. I don't yet know; but +Allsop has taken it to France on speculation. Really it is embarrassing. +There is Mrs. present H., Mrs. late H., and Mrs. John H.; and to which +of the three Mrs. Wigginses it appertains, I know not. I wanted to open +it, but 'tis transportation. + +I am sorry you are plagued about your book. I would strongly recommend +you to take for one story Massinger's "Old Law." It is exquisite. I can +think of no other. + +Dash is frightful this morning. He whines and stands up on his hind +legs. He misses Becky, who is gone to town. I took him to Barnet the +other day, and he couldn't eat his vittles after it. Pray God his +intellectuals be not slipping. + +Mary is gone out for some soles. I suppose 'tis no use to ask you to +come and partake of 'em; else there is a steam vessel. + +I am doing a tragi-comedy in two acts, and have got on tolerably; but it +will be refused, or worse, I never had luck with anything my name +was put to. + +Oh, I am so poorly! I _waked_ it at my cousin's the bookbinder, who is +now with God; or if he is not,'tis no fault of mine. + +We hope the Frank wines do not disagree with Mrs. Patmore. By the way, I +like her. + +Did you ever taste frogs? Get them if you can. They are like little +Lilliput rabbits, only a thought nicer. + +How sick I am!--not of the world, but of the Widow Shrub. She's sworn +under £6,000; but I think she perjured herself. She howls in E _la_, and +I comfort her in B flat. You understand music? + +If you haven't got Massinger, you have nothing to do but go to the first +Bibliothèque you can light upon at Boulogne, and ask for it (Gifford's +edition); and if they haven't got it, you can have "Athalie," par +Monsieur Racine, and make the best of it. But that "Old Law" is +delicious. + +"No shrimps!" (that's in answer to Mary's question about how the soles +are to be done.) + +I am uncertain where this wandering letter may reach you. What you mean +by Poste Restante, God knows. Do you mean I must pay the postage? So I +do,--to Dover. + +We had a merry passage with the widow at the Commons. She was +howling,--part howling, and part giving directions to the proctor,--when +crash! down went my sister through a crazy chair, and made the clerks +grin, and I grinned, and the widow tittered, and then I knew that she +was not inconsolable. Mary was more frightened than hurt. + +She'd make a good match for anybody (by she, I mean the widow). + + "If he bring but a _relict_ away, + He is happy, nor heard to complain." + +SHENSTONE. + +Procter has got a wen growing out at the nape of his neck, which his +wife wants him to have cut off; but I think it rather an agreeable +excrescence,--like his poetry, redundant. Hone has hanged himself for +debt. Godwin was taken up for picking pockets. Moxon has fallen in love +with Emma, our nut-brown maid. Becky takes to bad courses. Her father +was blown up in a steam machine. The coroner found it "insanity." I +should not like him to sit on my letter. + +Do you observe my direction? Is it Gallic, classical? Do try and get +some frogs. You must ask for "grenouilles" (green eels). They don't +understand "frogs," though 't is a common phrase with us. + +If you go through Bulloign (Boulogne), inquire if Old Godfrey is living, +and how he got home from the Crusades. He must be a very old man. + +[1] A dog given to Lamb by Thomas Hood. See letter to Patmore dated +September, 1827. + + + +XCV. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_August_ 10, 1827. + +Dear B. B.,--I have not been able to answer you, for we have had and are +having (I just snatch a moment) our poor quiet retreat, to which we fled +from society, full of company,--some staying with us; and this moment as +I write, almost, a heavy importation of two old ladies has come in. +Whither can I take wing from the oppression of human faces? Would I were +in a wilderness of apes, tossing cocoa-nuts about, grinning and +grinned at! + +Mitford was hoaxing you surely about my engraving; 't is a little +sixpenny thing, [1] too like by half, in which the draughtsman has done +his best to avoid flattery. There have been two editions of it, which I +think are all gone, as they have vanished from the window where they +hung,--a print-shop, corner of Great and Little Queen Streets, Lincoln's +Inn Fields,--where any London friend of yours may inquire for it; for I +am (though you _won't understand it_) at Enfield Chase. We have been +here near three months, and shall stay two more, if people will let us +alone; but they persecute us from village to village. So don't direct to +_Islington_ again till further notice. I am trying my hand at a drama, +in two acts, founded on Crabbe's "Confidant," _mutatis mutandis_. You +like the Odyssey: did you ever read my "Adventures of Ulysses," founded +on Chapman's old translation of it? For children or men. Chapman is +divine, and my abridgment has not quite emptied him of his divinity. +When you come to town I'll show it you. You have well described your +old-fashioned grand paternal hall. Is it not odd that every one's +earliest recollections are of some such place? I had my Blakesware +[Blakesmoor in the "London"]. Nothing fills a child's mind like a large +old mansion; better if un--or partially--occupied,--peopled with the +spirits of deceased members of the county and justices of the quorum. +Would I were buried in the peopled solitudes of one, with my feelings at +seven years old! Those marble busts of the emperors, they seemed as if +they were to stand forever, as they had stood from the living days of +Rome, in that old marble hall, and I too partake of their permanency. +Eternity was, while I thought not of Time. But he thought of me, and +they are toppled down, and corn covers the spot of the noble old +dwelling and its princely gardens, I feel like a grasshopper that, +chirping about the grounds, escaped the scythe only by my littleness. +Even now he is whetting one of his smallest razors to clean wipe me +out, perhaps. Well! + +[Footnote 1:] An etching of Lamb, by Brooke Pulham, which is said to be +the most characteristic likeness of him extant. + + + +XCVI. + + +TO THOMAS HOOD, + +_September_ 18, 1827. + +Dear Hood,--If I have anything in my head, I will send it to Mr. Watts. +Strictly speaking, he should have all my album-verses; but a very +intimate friend importuned me for the trifles, and I believe I forgot +Mr. Watts, or lost sight at the time of his similar "Souvenir." Jamieson +conveyed the farce from me to Mrs. C. Kemble; he will not be in town +before the 27th. + +Give our kind loves to all at Highgate, and tell them that we have +finally torn ourselves outright away from Colebrooke, where I had _no_ +health, and are about to domiciliate for good at Enfield, where I have +experienced _good_. + + "Lord, what good hours do we keep! + How quietly we sleep!" [1] + +See the rest in the "Compleat Angler." + +We have got our books into our new house. I am a dray-horse if I was not +ashamed of the indigested, dirty lumber, as I toppled 'em out of the +cart, and blessed Becky that came with 'em for her having an unstuffed +brain with such rubbish. We shall get in by Michael's Mass. 'T was with +some pain we were evulsed from Colebrooke. + +You may find some of our flesh sticking to the doorposts. To change +habitations is to die to them; and in my time I have died seven deaths. +But I don't know whether every such change does not bring with it a +rejuvenescence. 'T is an enterprise, and shoves back the sense of +death's approximating, which, though not terrible to me, is at all times +particularly distasteful. My house-deaths have generally been +periodical, recurring after seven years; but this last is premature by +half that time. Cut off in the flower of Colebrooke! The Middletonian +stream and all its echoes mourn. Even minnows dwindle. _A parvis +fiunt minimi!_ + +I fear to invite Mrs. Hood to our new mansion, lest she should envy it, +and hate us. But when we are fairly in, I hope she will come and try it. I +heard she and you were made uncomfortable by some unworthy-to-be-cared-for +attacks, and have tried to set up a feeble counteraction through the +"Table Book" of last Saturday. Has it not reached you, that you are +silent about it? Our new domicile is no manor-house, but new, and +externally not inviting, but furnished within with every convenience,-- +capital new locks to every door, capital grates in every room, with +nothing to pay for incoming, and the rent £10 less than the Islington one. + +It was built, a few years since, at £1,100 expense, they tell me, and I +perfectly believe it. And I get it for £35, exclusive of moderate taxes. +We think ourselves most lucky. + +It is not our intention to abandon Regent Street and West End +perambulations (monastic and terrible thought!), but occasionally to +breathe the fresher air of the metropolis. We shall put up a bedroom or +two (all we want) for occasional ex-rustication, where we shall +visit,--not be visited. Plays, too, we'll see,--perhaps our own; Urbani +Sylvani and Sylvan Urbanuses in turns; courtiers for a sport, then +philosophers; old, homely tell-truths and learn-truths in the virtuous +shades of Enfield, liars again and mocking gibers in the coffee-houses +and resorts of London. What can a mortal desire more for his +bi-parted nature? + +Oh, the curds-and-cream you shall eat with us here! + +Oh, the turtle-soup and lobster-salads we shall devour with you there! + +Oh, the old books we shall peruse here! + +Oh, the new nonsense we shall trifle over there! + +Oh, Sir T. Browne, here! + +Oh, Mr. Hood and Mr. Jerdan, there! + +Thine, + +C. (URBANUS) L. (SYLVANUS)--(Elia ambo). + +[1] By Charles Cotton. + + + +XCVII. + + +TO P. G. PATMORE. + +_September_, 1827. + +Dear P.,--Excuse my anxiety, but how is Dash? I should have asked if +Mrs. Patmore kept her rules and was improving; but Dash came uppermost. +The order of our thoughts should be the order of our writing. Goes he +muzzled, or _aperto ore_? Are his intellects sound, or does he wander a +little in _his_ conversation. You cannot be too careful to watch the +first symptoms of incoherence. The first illogical snarl he makes, to +St. Luke's with him! All the dogs here are going mad, if you believe the +overseers; but I protest they seem to me very rational and collected. +But nothing is so deceitful as mad people, to those who are not used to +them. Try him with hot water; if he won't lick it up, it's a sign he +does not like it. Does his tail wag horizontally or perpendicularly? +That has decided the fate of many dogs in Enfield. Is his general +deportment cheerful? I mean when he is pleased, for otherwise there is +no judging. You can't be too careful. Has he bit any of the children +yet? If he has, have them shot, and keep _him_ for curiosity, to see if +it was the hydrophobia. They say all our army in India had it at one +time; but that was in _Hyder_-Ally's time. Do you get paunch for him? +Take care the sheep was sane. You might pull his teeth out (if he would +let you), and then you need not mind if he were as mad as a Bedlamite. + +It would be rather fun to see his odd ways. It might amuse Mrs. P. and +the children. They'd have more sense than he. He'd be like a fool kept +in a family, to keep the household in good humor with their own +understanding. You might teach him the mad dance, set to the mad howl. +_Madge Owlet_ would be nothing to him. "My, how he capers!" (_In the +margin is written "One of the children speaks this_.") ... What I +scratch out is a German quotation, from Lessing, on the bite of rabid +animals; but I remember you don't read German. But Mrs. P. may, so I +wish I had let it stand. The meaning in English is: "Avoid to approach +an animal suspected of madness, as you would avoid fire or a +precipice,"--which I think is a sensible observation. The Germans are +certainly profounder than we. If the slightest suspicion arises in your +breast that all is not right with him, muzzle him and lead him in a +string (common packthread will do; he don't care for twist) to Mr. +Hood's, his quondam master, and he'll take him in at any time. You may +mention your suspicion, or not, as you like, or as you think it may +wound, or not, Mr. H.'s feelings. Hood, I know, will wink at a few +follies in Dash, in consideration of his former sense. Besides, Hood is +deaf, and if you hinted anything, ten to one he would not hear you. +Besides, you will have discharged your conscience, and laid the child at +the right door, as they say. + +We are dawdling our time away very idly and pleasantly at a Mrs. +Leishman's, Chase, Enfield, where, if you come a-hunting, we can give +you cold meat and a tankard. Her husband is a tailor; but that, you +know, does not make her one. I know a jailor (which rhymes), but his +wife was a fine lady. + +Let us hear from you respecting Mrs. P.'s regimen. I send my love in +a-- to Dash. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XCVIII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_October_ 11, 1828. + +A splendid edition of Bunyan's Pilgrim! [1] Why, the thought is enough to +turn one's moral stomach. His cockle-hat and staff transformed to a +smart cocked beaver and a jemmy cane; his amice gray to the last Regent +Street cut; and his painful palmer's pace to the modern swagger! Stop +thy friend's sacrilegious hand. Nothing can be done for B. but to +reprint the old cuts in as homely but good a style as possible,--the +Vanity Fair and the Pilgrims there; the silly-soothness in his +setting-out countenance; the Christian idiocy (in a good sense) of his +admiration of the shepherds on the Delectable mountains; the lions so +truly allegorical, and remote from any similitude to Pidcock's; the +great head (the author's), capacious of dreams and similitudes, dreaming +in the dungeon. Perhaps you don't know my edition, what I had when +a child. + +If you do, can you bear new designs from Martin, enamelled into copper +or silver plate by Heath, accompanied with verses from Mrs. Hemans's +pen? Oh, how unlike his own! + + "Wouldst thou divert thyself from melancholy? + Wouldst thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly? + Wouldst thou read riddles and their explanation? + Or else be drowned in thy contemplation? + Dost thou love picking meat? or wouldst thou see + A man i' the clouds, and hear him speak to thee? + Wouldst thou be in a dream, and yet not sleep? + Or wouldst thou in a moment laugh and weep? + Or wouldst thou lose thyself, and catch no harm, + And find thyself again without a charm? + Wouldst read _thyself_, and read thou knowest not what, + And yet know whether thou art blest or not + By reading the same lines? Oh, then come hither, + And lay my book, thy head, and heart together." + +Show me any such poetry in any one of the fifteen forthcoming +combinations of show and emptiness 'yclept "Annuals." So there's verses +for thy verses; and now let me tell you that the sight of your hand +gladdened me. I have been daily trying to write to you, but [have been] +paralyzed. You have spurred me on this tiny effort, and at intervals I +hope to hear from and talk to you. But my spirits have been in an +oppressed way for a long time, and they are things which must be to you +of faith, for who can explain depression? Yes, I am hooked into the +"Gem," but only for some lines written on a dead infant of the +editor's [2] which being, as it were, his property, I could not refuse +their appearing; but I hate the paper, the type, the gloss, the dandy +plates, the names of contributors poked up into your eyes in first page, +and whisked through all the covers of magazines, the barefaced sort of +emulation, the immodest candidateship. Brought into so little space,--in +those old "Londons," a signature was lost in the wood of matter, the +paper coarse (till latterly, which spoiled them),--in short, I detest to +appear in an Annual. What a fertile genius (and a quiet good soul +withal) is Hood! He has fifty things in hand,--farces to supply the +Adelphi for the season; a comedy for one of the great theatres, just +ready; a whole entertainment by himself for Mathews and Yates to figure +in; a meditated Comic Annual for next year, to be nearly done by +himself. You'd like him very much. + +Wordsworth, I see, has a good many pieces announced in one of 'em, not +our "Gem." W. Scott has distributed himself like a bribe haunch among +'em. Of all the poets, Cary [3] has had the good sense to keep quite +clear of 'em, with clergy-gentlemanly right notions. Don't think I set +up for being proud on this point; I like a bit of flattery, tickling my +vanity, as well as any one. But these pompous masquerades without masks +(naked names or faces) I hate. So there's a bit of my mind. Besides, +they infallibly cheat you,--I mean the booksellers. If I get but a copy, +I only expect it from Hood's being my friend. Coleridge has lately been +here. He too is deep among the prophets, the year-servers,--the mob of +gentleman annuals. But they'll cheat him, I know. And now, dear B. B., +the sun shining out merrily, and the dirty clouds we had yesterday +having washed their own faces clean with their own rain, tempts me to +wander up Winchmore Hill, or into some of the delightful vicinages of +Enfield, which I hope to show you at some time when you can get a few +days up to the great town. Believe me, it would give both of us great +pleasure to show you our pleasant farms and villages. + +We both join in kindest loves to you and yours. + +C. LAMB _redivivus_. + +[1] An _édition de luxe_, illustrated by John Martin, and with an +Introduction by Southey. See Macaulay's review of it. + +[2] Hood's. + +[3] The translator of Dante. + + + +XCIX. + + +TO PROCTER. + +_January_ 22, 1829. + +Don't trouble yourself about the verses. Take 'em coolly as they come. +Any day between this and midsummer will do. Ten lines the extreme. There +is no mystery in my incognita. She has often seen you, though you may +not have observed a silent brown girl, who for the last twelve years has +rambled about our house in her Christmas holidays. She is Italian by +name and extraction. [1] Ten lines about the blue sky of her country will +do, as it's her foible to be proud of it. Item, I have made her a +tolerable Latinist. She is called Emma Isola. I shall, I think, be in +town in a few weeks, when I will assuredly see you. I will put in here +loves to Mrs. Procter and the Anti-Capulets [Montagus], because Mary +tells me I omitted them in my last. I like to see my friends here. I +have put my lawsuit into the hands of an Enfield practitioner,--a plain +man, who seems perfectly to understand it, and gives me hopes of a +favorable result. + +Rumor tells us that Miss Holcroft is married. Who is Baddams? Have I +seen him at Montacute's? I hear he is a great chemist. I am sometimes +chemical myself. A thought strikes me with horror. Pray Heaven he may +not have done it for the sake of trying chemical experiments upon +her,--young female subjects are so scarce! An't you glad about Burke's +case? We may set off the Scotch murders against the Scotch novels,--Hare +the Great Unhanged. [2] + +Martin Burney is richly worth your knowing. He is on the top scale of my +friendship ladder, on which an angel or two is still climbing, and some, +alas! descending. I am out of the literary world at present. Pray, is +there anything new from the admired pen of the author of "The Pleasures +of Hope"? Has Mrs. He-mans (double masculine) done anything pretty +lately? Why sleeps the lyre of Hervey and of Alaric Watts? Is the muse +of L. E. L. silent? Did you see a sonnet of mine in Blackwood's last? [3] +Curious construction! _Elaborata facilitas!_ And now I 'll tell. 'Twas +written for "The Gem;" but the--editors declined it, on the plea that it +would _shock all mothers_; so they published "The Widow" instead. I am +born out of time, I have no conjecture about what the present world +calls delicacy. I thought "Rosamund Gray" was a pretty modest thing. +Hessey assures me that the world would not bear it. I have lived to grow +into an indecent character. When my sonnet was rejected, I exclaimed, +"Damn the age; I will write for Antiquity!" + +_Erratum_ in sonnet. Last line but something, for "tender" read "tend," +The Scotch do not know our law terms, but I find some remains of honest, +plain old writing lurking there still. They were not so mealy mouthed as +to refuse my verses. Maybe, 't is their oatmeal, + +Blackwood sent me £20 for the drama. Somebody cheated me out of it next +day; and my new pair of breeches, just sent home, cracking at first +putting on, I exclaimed, in my wrath, "All tailors are cheats, and all +men are tailors." Then I was better. + +C. L. + +[1] Emma Isola, Lamb's ward, daughter of one of the Esquire Bedells of +Cambridge University, and granddaughter of an Italian refugee. The Lambs +had met her during one of their Cambridge visits, and finally adopted +her. + +[2] Burke and Hare, the Edinburgh resurrection-men. + +[3] The Gypsy's Malison. + + + +C. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. +ENFIELD CHASE SIDE, + +_Saturday, 25th of July_, A.D. 1829, 11 A.M. + +There! a fuller, plumper, juicier date never dropped from Idumean palm. +Am I in the _date_ive case now? If not, a fig for dates,--which is more +than a date is worth. I never stood much affected to these limitary +specialities,--least of all, since the date of my superannuation. + +"What have I with time to do? +Slaves of desks, 't was meant for you." + +Dear B. B.,--Your handwriting has conveyed much pleasure to me in +respect of Lucy's restoration. Would I could send you as good news of +_my_ poor Lucy! [1] But some wearisome weeks I must remain lonely yet. I +have had the loneliest time, near ten weeks, broken by a short +apparition of Emma for her holidays, whose departure only deepened the +returning solitude, and by ten days I have passed in town. But town, +with all my native hankering after it, is not what it was. The streets, +the shops, are left, but all old friends are gone. And in London I was +frightfully convinced of this as I passed houses and places, empty +caskets now. I have ceased to care almost about anybody. The bodies I +cared for are in graves, or dispersed. My old clubs, that lived so long +and flourished so steadily, are crumbled away. When I took leave of our +adopted young friend at Charing Cross,'t was heavy unfeeling rain, and I +had nowhere to go. Home have I none, and not a sympathizing house to +turn to in the great city. Never did the waters of heaven pour down on a +forlorner head. Yet I tried ten days at a sort of a friend's house; but +it was large and straggling,--one of the individuals of my old long knot +of friends, card-players, pleasant companions, that have tumbled to +pieces, into dust and other things; and I got home on Thursday, +convinced that I was better to get home to my hole at Enfield, and hide +like a sick cat in my corner. Less than a month, I hope, will bring home +Mary. She is at Fulham, looking better in her health than ever, but +sadly rambling, and scarce showing any pleasure in seeing me, or +curiosity when I should come again. But the old feelings will come back +again, and we shall drown old sorrows over a game of piquet again. But +it is a tedious cut out of a life of fifty-four, to lose twelve or +thirteen weeks every year or two. And to make me more alone, our +ill-tempered maid is gone, who, with all her airs, was yet a home-piece +of furniture, a record of better days; the young thing that has +succeeded her is good and attentive, but she is nothing. And I have no +one here to talk over old matters with. Scolding and quarrelling have +something of familiarity and a community of interest; they imply +acquaintance; they are of resentment, which is of the family +of dearness. + + * * * * * + +I bragged formerly that I could not have too much time; I have now a +surfeit. With few years to come, the days are wearisome. But weariness +is not eternal. Something will shine out to take the load off that flags +me, which is at present intolerable. I have killed an hour or two in +this poor scrawl. I am a sanguinary murderer of time, and would kill him +inch-meal just now. But the snake is vital. Well, I shall write merrier +anon. 'T is the present copy of my countenance I send, and to complain +is a little to alleviate. May you enjoy yourself as far as the wicked +world will let you, and think that you are not quite alone, as I am! +Health to Lucia and to Anna, and kind remembrances. + +Your forlorn C. L. + +[1] Mary Lamb. + + + +CI. + + +TO MR. GILLMAN. + +_November_ 30, 1829. + +Dear G.,--The excursionists reached home and the good town of Enfield a +little after four, without slip or dislocation. Little has transpired +concerning the events of the back-journey, save that on passing the +house of 'Squire Mellish, situate a stone bow's cast from the hamlet, +Father Westwood [1], with a good-natured wonderment, exclaimed, "I cannot +think what is gone of Mr. Mellish's rooks. I fancy they have taken +flight somewhere; but I have missed them two or three years past." All +this while, according to his fellow-traveller's report, the rookery was +darkening the air above with undiminished population, and deafening all +ears but his with their cawings. But nature has been gently withdrawing +such phenomena from the notice of Thomas Westwood's senses, from the +time he began to miss the rooks. T. Westwood has passed a retired life +in this hamlet of thirty or forty years, living upon the minimum which +is consistent with gentility, yet a star among the minor gentry, +receiving the bows of the tradespeople and courtesies of the alms-women +daily. Children venerate him not less for his external show of gentry +than they wonder at him for a gentle rising endorsation of the person, +not amounting to a hump, or if a hump, innocuous as the hump of the +buffalo, and coronative of as mild qualities. 'T is a throne on which +patience seems to sit,--the proud perch of a self-respecting humility, +stooping with condescension. Thereupon the cares of life have sat, and +rid him easily. For he has thrid the _angustiæ domus_ with dexterity. +Life opened upon him with comparative brilliancy. He set out as a rider +or traveller for a wholesale house, in which capacity he tells of many +hair-breadth escapes that befell him,--one especially, how he rode a mad +horse into the town of Devizes; how horse and rider arrived in a foam, +to the utter consternation of the expostulating hostlers, inn-keepers, +etc. It seems it was sultry weather, piping-hot; the steed tormented +into frenzy with gad-flies, long past being roadworthy: but safety and +the interest of the house he rode for were incompatible things; a fall +in serge cloth was expected; and a mad entrance they made of it. Whether +the exploit was purely voluntary, or partially; or whether a certain +personal defiguration in the man part of this extraordinary centaur +(non-assistive to partition of natures) might not enforce the +conjunction, I stand not to inquire. I look not with 'skew eyes into the +deeds of heroes. The hosier that was burned with his shop in Field Lane, +on Tuesday night, shall have passed to heaven for me like a Marian +Martyr, provided always that he consecrated the fortuitous incremation +with a short ejaculation in the exit, as much as if he had taken his +state degrees of martyrdom _in formâ_ in the market vicinage. There is +adoptive as well as acquisitive sacrifice. Be the animus what it might, +the fact is indisputable, that this composition was seen flying all +abroad, and mine host of Daintry may yet remember its passing through +his town, if his scores are not more faithful than his memory. + + * * * * * + +To come from his heroic character, all the amiable qualities of domestic +life concentre in this tamed Bellerophon. He is excellent over a glass +of grog; just as pleasant without it; laughs when he hears a joke, and +when (which is much oftener) he hears it not; sings glorious old +sea-songs on festival nights; and but upon a slight acquaintance of two +years, Coleridge, is as dear a deaf old man to us as old Norris, rest +his soul! was after fifty. To him and his scanty literature (what there +is of it, _sound_) have we flown from the metropolis and its cursed +annualists, reviewers, authors, and the whole muddy ink press of that +stagnant pool. + +[1] Lamb's landlord. He had driven Mary Lamb over to see Coleridge at +Highgate. The Lambs had been compelled, by the frequent illnesses of +Mary Lamb, to give up their housekeeping at Enfield and to take lodgings +with the Westwoods. + + + +CII. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_January_ 22, 1830. + +And is it a year since we parted from you at the steps of Edmonton +stage? There are not now the years that there used to be. The tale of +the dwindled age of men, reported of successional mankind, is true of +the same man only. We do not live a year in a year now. 'T is a _punctum +stans_. The seasons pass us with indifference. Spring cheers not, nor +winter heightens our gloom: autumn hath foregone its moralities,--they +are "heypass repass," as in a show-box. Yet, as far as last year, occurs +back--for they scarce show a reflex now, they make no memory as +heretofore--'t was sufficiently gloomy. Let the sullen nothing pass. +Suffice it that after sad spirits, prolonged through many of its months, +as it called them, we have cast our skins, have taken a farewell of the +pompous, troublesome trifle called housekeeping, and are settled down +into poor boarders and lodgers at next door with an old couple, the +Baucis and Baucida of dull Enfield. Here we have nothing to do with our +victuals but to eat them, with the garden but to see it grow, with the +tax-gatherer but to hear him knock, with the maid but to hear her +scolded. Scot and lot, butcher, baker, are things unknown to us, save as +spectators of the pageant. We are fed we know not how,--quietists, +confiding ravens. We have the _otium pro dignitate_, a respectable +insignificance. Yet in the self condemned obliviousness, in the +stagnation, some molesting yearnings of life not quite killed rise, +prompting me that there was a London, and that I was of that old +Jerusalem. In dreams I am in Fleet Market; but I wake and cry to sleep +again. I die hard, a stubborn Eloisa in this detestable Paraclete. What +have I gained by health? Intolerable dulness. What by early hours and +moderate meals? A total blank. Oh, never let the lying poets be believed +who 'tice men from the cheerful haunts of streets, or think they mean it +not of a country village. In the ruins of Palmyra I could gird myself up +to solitude, or muse to the snorings of the Seven Sleepers; but to have +a little teasing image of a town about one, country folks that do not +look like country folks, shops two yards square, half-a-dozen apples and +two penn'orth of over-looked gingerbread for the lofty fruiterers of +Oxford Street, and for the immortal book and print stalls a circulating +library that stands still, where the show-picture is a last year's +Valentine, and whither the fame of the last ten Scotch novels has not +yet travelled (marry, they just begin to be conscious of the +"Redgauntlet"), to have a new plastered flat church, and to be wishing +that it was but a cathedral! The very blackguards here are degenerate, +the topping gentry stockbrokers; the passengers too many to insure your +quiet, or let you go about whistling or gaping,--too few to be the fine +indifferent pageants of Fleet Street. Confining, room-keeping, thickest +winter is yet more bearable here than the gaudy months. Among one's +books at one's fire by candle, one is soothed into an oblivion that one +is not in the country; but with the light the green fields return, till +I gaze, and in a calenture can plunge myself into St. Giles's. Oh, let +no native Londoner imagine that health and rest and innocent occupation, +interchange of converse sweet and recreative study, can make the country +anything better than altogether odious and detestable. A garden was the +primitive prison, till man with Promethean felicity and boldness luckily +sinned himself out of it. Thence followed Babylon, Nineveh, Venice, +London; haberdashers, goldsmiths, taverns, playhouses, satires, +epigrams, puns,--these all came in on the town part and the thither side +of innocence. Man found out inventions. From my den I return you +condolence for your decaying sight,--not for anything there is to see in +the country, but for the miss of the pleasure of reading a London +newspaper. The poets are as well to listen to; anything high may--nay, +must be read out; you read it to yourself with an imaginary auditor: but +the light paragraphs must be glid over by the proper eye; mouthing +mumbles their gossamery substance. 'Tis these trifles I should mourn in +fading sight. A newspaper is the single gleam of comfort I receive here; +it comes from rich Cathay with tidings of mankind. Yet I could not +attend to it, read out by the most beloved voice. But your eyes do not +get worse, I gather. Oh, for the collyrium of Tobias enclosed in a +whiting's liver, to send you, with no apocryphal good wishes! The last +long time I heard from you, you had knocked your head against something. +Do not do so; for your head (I do not flatter) is not a knob, or the top +of a brass nail, or the end of a ninepin,--unless a Vulcanian hammer +could fairly batter a "Recluse" out of it; then would I bid the smirched +god knock, and knock lustily, the two-handed skinker! Mary must squeeze +out a line _propriá manu_; but indeed her fingers have been incorrigibly +nervous to letter-writing for a long interval. 'T will please you all to +hear that, though I fret like a lion in a net, her present health and +spirits are better than they have been for some time past; she is +absolutely three years and a half younger, as I tell her, since we have +adopted this boarding plan. + +Our providers are an honest pair, Dame Westwood and her husband,--he, +when the light of prosperity shined on them, a moderately thriving +haberdasher within Bow bells, retired since with something under a +competence; writes himself parcel-gentleman; hath borne parish offices; +sings fine old sea-songs at threescore and ten; sighs only now and then +when he thinks that he has a son on his hands about fifteen, whom he +finds a difficulty in getting out into the world, and then checks a sigh +with muttering, as I once heard him prettily, not meaning to be heard, +"I have married my daughter, however;" takes the weather as it comes; +outsides it to town in severest season; and o' winter nights tells old +stories not tending to literature (how comfortable to author-rid +folks!), and has _one ancedote_, upon which and about forty pounds a +year he seems to have retired in green old age. It was how he was a +rider in his youth, travelling for shops, and once (not to balk his +employer's bargain) on a sweltering day in August, rode foaming into +Dunstable [1] upon a mad horse, to the dismay and expostulatory +wonderment of inn-keepers, ostlers, etc., who declared they would not +have bestrid the beast to win the Derby. Understand the creature galled +to death and desperation by gad-flies, cormorant-winged, worse than +beset Inachus's daughter. This he tells, this he brindles and burnishes, +on a winter's eve; 't is his star of set glory, his rejuvenescence to +descant upon, Far from me be it (_dá avertant!_) to look a gift-story in +the mouth, or cruelly to surmise (as those who doubt the plunge of +Curtius) that the inseparate conjuncture of man and beast, the +centaur-phenomenon that staggered all Dunstable, might have been the +effect of unromantic necessity; that the horse-part carried the +reasoning willy-nilly; that needs must when such a devil drove; that +certain spiral configurations in the frame of Thomas Westwood, +unfriendly to alighting, made the alliance more forcible than voluntary. +Let him enjoy his fame for me, nor let me hint a whisper that shall +dismount Bellerophon. But in case he was an involuntary martyr, yet if +in the fiery conflict he buckled the soul of a constant haberdasher to +him, and adopted his flames, let accident and him share the glory. You +would all like Thomas Westwood. [2] + +How weak is painting to describe a man! Say that he stands four +feet and a nail high by his own yard-measure, which, like the sceptre of +Agamemnon, shall never sprout again, still, you have no adequate idea; +nor when I tell you that his dear hump, which I have favored in the +picture, seems to me of the buffalo,--indicative and repository of mild +qualities, a budget of kindnesses,--still, you have not the man. Knew +you old Norris of the Temple, sixty years ours and our father's friend? +He was not more natural to us than this old Westwood, the acquaintance +of scarce more weeks. Under his roof now ought I to take my rest, but +that back-looking ambition tells me I might yet be a Londoner! Well, if +we ever do move, we have encumbrances the less to impede us; all our +furniture has faded under the auctioneer's hammer, going for nothing, +like the tarnished frippery of the prodigal, and we have only a spoon or +two left to bless us. Clothed we came into Enfield, and naked we must go +out of it. I would live in London shirtless, bookless. Henry Crabb is at +Rome; advices to that effect have reached Bury. But by solemn legacy he +bequeathed at parting (whether he should live or die) a turkey of +Suffolk to be sent every succeeding Christmas to us and divers other +friends. What a genuine old bachelor's action! I fear he will find the +air of Italy too classic. His station is in the Hartz forest; his soul +is be-Goethed. Miss Kelly we never see,--Talfourd not this half year; +the latter flourishes, but the exact number of his children, God forgive +me, I have utterly forgotten: we single people are often out in our +count there. Shall I say two? We see scarce anybody. Can I cram loves +enough to you all in this little O? Excuse particularizing. + +C.L. + +[1] See preceding letter. + +[2] Here was inserted a sketch answering to the description. + + + +CIII. + + +TO MRS. HAZLITT. + +_May_ 24, 1830. + +Mary's love? Yes. Mary Lamb quite well. + +Dear Sarah,--I found my way to Northaw on Thursday and a very good woman +behind a counter, who says also that you are a very good lady, but that +the woman who was with you was naught. We travelled with one of those +troublesome fellow-passengers in a stage-coach that is called a +well-informed man. For twenty miles we discoursed about the properties +of steam, probabilities of carriages by ditto, till all my science, and +more than all, was exhausted, and I was thinking of escaping my torment +by getting up on the outside, when, getting into Bishops Stortford, my +gentleman, spying some farming land, put an unlucky question to +me,--What sort of a crop of turnips I thought we should have this year? +Emma's eyes turned to me to know what in the world I could have to say; +and she burst into a violent fit of laughter, maugre her pale, serious +cheeks, when, with the greatest gravity, I replied that it depended, I +believed, upon boiled legs of mutton. This clenched our conversation; +and my gentleman, with a face half wise, half in scorn, troubled us with +no more conversation, scientific or philosophical, for the remainder of +the journey. + +Ayrton was here yesterday, and as _learned_ to the full as my +fellow-traveller. What a pity that he will spoil a wit and a devilish +pleasant fellow (as he is) by wisdom! He talked on Music; and by having +read Hawkins and Burney recently I was enabled to talk of names, and +show more knowledge than he had suspected I possessed; and in the end he +begged me to shape my thoughts upon paper, which I did after he was +gone, and sent him "Free Thoughts on Some Eminent Composers." + + "Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart, + Just as the whim bites. For my part, + I do not care a farthing candle + For either of them, or for Handel," etc. + +Martin Burney [1] is as odd as ever. We had a dispute about the word +"heir," which I contended was pronounced like "air." He said that might +be in common parlance, or that we might so use it speaking of the +"Heir-at-Law," a comedy; but that in the law-courts it was necessary to +give it a full aspiration, and to say _Hayer_; he thought it might even +vitiate a cause if a counsel pronounced it otherwise. In conclusion, he +"would consult Serjeant Wilde," who gave it against him. Sometimes he +falleth into the water, sometimes into the fire. He came down here, and +insisted on reading Virgil's "Æneid" all through with me (which he did), +because a counsel must know Latin. Another time he read out all the +Gospel of St. John, because Biblical quotations are very emphatic in a +court of justice. A third time he would carve a fowl, which he did very +ill favoredly, because we did not know how indispensable it was for a +barrister to do all those sort of things well. Those little things were +of more consequence than we supposed. So he goes on, harassing about the +way to prosperity, and losing it. With a long head, but somewhat a wrong +one,--harum-scarum. Why does not his guardian angel look to him? He +deserves one,--maybe he has tired him out. + +I am tired with this long scrawl; but I thought in your exile you might +like a letter. Commend me to all the wonders in Derbyshire, and tell the +devil I humbly kiss my hand to him. + +Yours ever, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Martin Burney, originally a solicitor, had lately been called to the +Bar. + + + +CIV. + + +TO GEORGE DYER. + +_December_ 20, 1830. + +Dear Dyer,--I would have written before to thank you for your kind +letter, written with your own hand. It glads us to see your writing. It +will give you pleasure to hear that, after so much illness, we are in +tolerable health and spirits once more. Miss Isola intended to call upon +you after her night's lodging at Miss Buffam's, but found she was too +late for the stage. If she comes to town before she goes home, she will +not miss paying her respects to Mrs. Dyer and you, to whom she desires +best love. Poor Enfield, that has been so peaceable hitherto, that has +caught an inflammatory fever, the tokens are upon her; and a great fire +was blazing last night in the barns and haystacks of a fanner about half +a mile from us. Where will these things end? There is no doubt of its +being the work of some ill-disposed rustic; but how is he to be +discovered? They go to work in the dark with strange chemical +preparations unknown to our forefathers. There is not even a dark +lantern to have a chance of detecting these Guy Fauxes. We are past the +iron age, and are got into the fiery age, undream'd of by Ovid. You are +lucky in Clifford's Inn, where, I think, you have few ricks or stacks +worth the burning. Pray keep as little corn by you as you can, for fear +of the worst. + +It was never good times in England since the poor began to speculate +upon their condition. Formerly they jogged on with as little reflection +as horses; the whistling ploughman went cheek by jowl with his brother +that neighed. Now the biped carries a box of phosphorus in his leather +breeches; and in the dead of night the half-illuminated beast steals his +magic potion into a cleft in a barn, and half the country is grinning +with new fires. Farmer Graystock said something to the touchy rustic +that he did not relish, and he writes his distaste in flames. What a +power to intoxicate his crude brains, just muddlingly awake, to perceive +that something is wrong in the social system; what a hellish faculty +above gunpowder! + +Now the rich and poor are fairly pitted, we shall see who can hang or +burn fastest. It is not always revenge that stimulates these kindlings. +There is a love of exerting mischief. Think of a disrespected clod that +was trod into earth, that was nothing, on a sudden by damned arts +refined into an exterminating angel, devouring the fruits of the earth +and their growers in a mass of fire! What a new existence; what a +temptation above Lucifer's! Would clod be anything but a clod if he +could resist it? Why, here was a spectacle last night for a whole +country,--a bonfire visible to London, alarming her guilty towers, and +shaking the Monument with an ague fit: all done by a little vial of +phosphor in a clown's fob! How he must grin, and shake his empty noddle +in clouds, the Vulcanian epicure! Can we ring the bells backward? Can we +unlearn the arts that pretend to civilize, and then burn the world? +There is a march of Science; but who shall beat the drums for its +retreat? Who shall persuade the boor that phosphor will not ignite? + +Seven goodly stacks of hay, with corn-barns proportionable, lie smoking +ashes and chaff, which man and beast would sputter out and reject like +those apples of asphaltes and bitumen. The food for the inhabitants of +earth will quickly disappear. Hot rolls may say, "Fuimus panes, fuit +quartem-loaf, et ingens gloria Apple-pasty-orum." That the good old +munching system may last thy time and mine, good un-incendiary George, +is the devout prayer of thine, to the last crust, + +CH. LAMB. + + + +CV. + + +TO DYER. + +_February_ 22, 1831. + +Dear Dyer,--Mr. Rogers and Mr. Rogers's friends are perfectly assured +that you never intended any harm by an innocent couplet, and that in the +revivification of it by blundering Barker you had no hand whatever. To +imagine that, at this time of day, Rogers broods over a fantastic +expression of more than thirty years' standing, would be to suppose him +indulging his "Pleasures of Memory" with a vengeance. You never penned a +line which for its own sake you need, dying, wish to blot. You mistake +your heart if you think you _can_ write a lampoon. Your whips are rods +of roses. [1] Your spleen has ever had for its objects vices, not the +vicious,--abstract offences, not the concrete sinner. But you are +sensitive, and wince as much at the consciousness of having committed a +compliment as another man would at the perpetration of an affront. But +do not lug me into the same soreness of conscience with yourself. I +maintain, and will to the last hour, that I never writ of you but _con +amore_; that if any allusion was made to your near-sightedness, it was +not for the purpose of mocking an infirmity, but of connecting it with +scholar-like habits,--for is it not erudite and scholarly to be somewhat +near of sight before age naturally brings on the malady? You could not +then plead the _obrepens senectus_. Did I not, moreover, make it an +apology for a certain _absence_, which some of your friends may have +experienced, when you have not on a sudden made recognition of them in a +casual street-meeting; and did I not strengthen your excuse for this +slowness of recognition by further accounting morally for the present +engagement of your mind in worthy objects? Did I not, in your person, +make the handsomest apology for absent-of-mind people that was ever +made? If these things be not so, I never knew what I wrote or meant by +my writing, and have been penning libels all my life without being aware +of it. Does it follow that I should have expressed myself exactly in the +same way of those dear old eyes of yours _now_,--now that Father Time +has conspired with a hard taskmaster to put a last extinguisher upon +them? I should as soon have insulted the Answerer of Salmasius when he +awoke up from his ended task, and saw no more with mortal vision. But +you are many films removed yet from Milton's calamity. You write +perfectly intelligibly. Marry, the letters are not all of the same size +or tallness; but that only shows your proficiency in the _hands_--text, +german-hand, court-hand, sometimes law-hand, and affords variety. You +pen better than you did a twelvemonth ago; and if you continue to +improve, you bid fair to win the golden pen which is the prize at your +young gentlemen's academy. + + * * * * * + +But don't go and lay this to your eyes. You always wrote +hieroglyphically, yet not to come up to the mystical notations and +conjuring characters of Dr. Parr. You never wrote what I call a +schoolmaster's hand, like Mrs. Clarke; nor a woman's hand, like Southey; +nor a missal hand, like Porson; nor an all-on-the-wrong-side sloping +hand, like Miss Hayes; nor a dogmatic, Mede-and-Persian, peremptory tory +hand, like Rickman: but you wrote what I call a Grecian's hand,--what +the Grecians write (or wrote) at Christ's Hospital; such as Whalley +would have admired, and Boyer [2] have applauded, but Smith or Atwood +[writing-masters] would have horsed you for. Your boy-of-genius hand and +your mercantile hand are various. By your flourishes, I should think you +never learned to make eagles or cork-screws, or flourish the governor's +names in the writing-school; and by the tenor and cut of your letters, I +suspect you were never in it at all. By the length of this scrawl you +will think I have a design upon your optics; but I have writ as large as +I could, out of respect to them,--too large, indeed, for beauty. Mine is +a sort of Deputy-Grecian's hand,--a little better, and more of a worldly +hand, than a Grecian's, but still remote from the mercantile. I don't +know how it is, but I keep my rank in fancy still since school-days; I +can never forget I was a Deputy-Grecian. And writing to you, or to +Coleridge, besides affection, I feel a reverential deference as to +Grecians still [3]. I keep my soaring way above the Great Erasmians, yet +far beneath the other. Alas! what am I now? What is a Leadenhall clerk +or India pensioner to a Deputy-Grecian? How art thou fallen, O Lucifer! +Just room for our loves to Mrs. D., etc. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Talfourd relates an amusing instance of the universal charity of the +kindly Dyer. Lamb once suddenly asked him what he thought of the +murderer Williams,--a wretch who had destroyed two families in Ratcliff +Highway, and then cheated the gallows by committing suicide. "The +desperate attempt," says Talfourd, "to compel the gentle optimist to +speak ill of a mortal creature produced no happier success than the +answer, 'Why, I should think, Mr. Lamb, he must have been rather an +eccentric character.'" + +[2] Whalley and Boyer were masters at Christ's Hospital. + +[3] "Deputy-Grecian," "Grecian," etc., were of course forms, or grades, +at Christ's Hospital. + + + +CVI. + + +TO MR. MOXON [1]. + +_February_, 1832. + +Dear Moxon,--The snows are ankle-deep, slush, and mire, that 't is hard +to get to the post-office, and cruel to send the maid out. 'Tis a slough +of despair, or I should sooner have thanked you for your offer of the +"Life," which we shall very much like to have, and will return duly. I +do not know when I shall be in town, but in a week or two at farthest, +when I will come as far as you, if I can. We are moped to death with +confinement within doors, I send you a curiosity of G. Dyer's tender +conscience. Between thirty and forty years since, George published the +"Poet's Fate," in which were two very harmless lines about Mr. Rogers; +but Mr. R. not quite approving of them, they were left out in a +subsequent edition, 1801. But George has been worrying about them ever +since; if I have heard him once, I have heard him a hundred times +express a remorse proportioned to a consciousness of having been guilty +of an atrocious libel. As the devil would have it, a fool they call +Barker, in his "Parriana" has quoted the identical two lines as they +stood in some obscure edition anterior to 1801, and the withers of poor +George are again wrung, His letter is a gem: with his poor blind eyes it +has been labored out at six sittings. The history of the couplet is in +page 3 of this irregular production, in which every variety of shape and +size that letters can be twisted into is to be found. Do show _his_ part +of it to Mr. Rogers some day. If he has bowels, they must melt at the +contrition so queerly charactered of a contrite sinner. G. was born, I +verily think, without original sin, but chooses to have a conscience, as +every Christian gentleman should have; his dear old face is +insusceptible of the twist they call a sneer, yet he is apprehensive of +being suspected of that ugly appearance. When he makes a compliment, he +thinks he has given an affront,--a name is personality. But show (no +hurry) this unique recantation to Mr. Rogers: 't is like a dirty +pocket-handerchief mucked with tears of some indigent Magdalen. There is +the impress of sincerity in every pot-hook and hanger; and then the gilt +frame to such a pauper picture! It should go into the Museum. + +[1] Lamb's future publisher. He afterwards became the husband +of Lamb's _protégée_, Emma Isola. + + + +CVII. + + +TO MR. MOXON. + +_July_ 24, 1833. + +For God's sake give Emma no more watches; _one_ has turned her head. She +is arrogant and insulting. She said something very unpleasant to our old +clock in the passage, as if he did not keep time; and yet he had made +her no appointment. She takes it out every instant to look at the +moment-hand. She lugs us out into the fields, because there the +bird-boys ask you, "Pray, sir, can you tell us what's o'clock?" and she +answers them punctually. She loses all her time looking to see "what the +time is." I overheard her whispering, "Just so many hours, minutes, +etc., to Tuesday; I think St. George's goes too slow." This little +present of Time,--why, 't is Eternity to her! + +What can make her so fond of a gingerbread watch? + +She has spoiled some of the movements. Between ourselves, she has kissed +away "half-past twelve," which I suppose to be the canonical hour in +Hanover Square. + +Well, if "love me, love my watch," answers, she will keep time to you. + +It goes right by the Horse-Guards. + +Dearest M.,--Never mind opposite nonsense. She does not love you for the +watch, but the watch for you. I will be at the wedding, and keep the +30th July, as long as my poor months last me, as a festival gloriously. + +Yours ever, + +ELIA. + + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Best Letters of Charles Lamb +Edited by Edward Gilpin Johnson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEST LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB *** + +***** This file should be named 10125-8.txt or 10125-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/1/2/10125/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Sjaani, Tom Allen and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + + http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/10125-8.zip b/old/10125-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..24db10a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10125-8.zip diff --git a/old/10125.txt b/old/10125.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4022ab3 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10125.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9762 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Best Letters of Charles Lamb +Edited by Edward Gilpin Johnson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Best Letters of Charles Lamb + +Author: Charles Lamb + +Editor: Edward Gilpin Johnson + +Release Date: November 18, 2003 [EBook #10125] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEST LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Sjaani, Tom Allen and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +LAUREL-CROWNED LETTERS + +CHARLES LAMB + +It may well be that the "Essays of Elia" will be found to have kept +their perfume, and the LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB to retain their old +sweet savor, when "Sartor Resartus" has about as many readers as +Bulwer's "Artificial Changeling," and nine tenths even of "Don Juan" +lie darkening under the same deep dust that covers the rarely troubled +pages of the "Secchia Rapita." + +A.C. SWINBURNE + +No assemblage of letters, parallel or kindred to that in the hands +of the reader, if we consider its width of range, the fruitful period +over which it stretches, and its typical character, has ever been +produced. + +W.C. HAZLITT ON LAMB'S LETTERS. + +THE BEST LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB + +Edited with an Introduction + +BY EDWARD GILPIN JOHNSON + +A.D. 1892. + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + +LETTER + I. To Samuel Taylor Coleridge + II. To Coleridge + III. To Coleridge + IV. To Coleridge + V. To Coleridge + VI. To Coleridge + VII. To Coleridge + VIII. To Coleridge + IX. To Coleridge + X. To Coleridge + XI. To Coleridge + XII. To Coleridge + XIII. To Coleridge + XIV. To Coleridge + XV. To Robert Southey + XVI. To Southey + XVII. To Southey + XVIII. To Southey + XIX. To Thomas Manning + XX. To Coleridge + XXI. To Manning + XXII. To Coleridge + XXIII. To Manning + XXIV. To Manning + XXV. To Coleridge + XXVI. To Manning + XXVII. To Coleridge + XXVIII. To Coleridge + XXIX. To Manning + XXX. To Manning + XXXI. To Manning + XXXII. To Manning + XXXIII. To Coleridge + XXXIV. To Wordsworth + XXXV. To Wordsworth + XXXVI. To Manning + XXXVII. To Manning + XXXVIII. To Manning + XXXIX. To Coleridge + XL. To Manning + XLI. To Manning + XLII. To Manning + XLIII. To William Godwin + XLIV. To Manning + XLV. To Miss Wordsworth + XLVI. To Manning + XLVII. To Wordsworth + XLVIII. To Manning + XLIX. To Wordsworth + L. To Manning + LI. To Miss Wordsworth + LII. To Wordsworth + LIII. To Wordsworth + LIV. To Wordsworth + LV. To Wordsworth + LVI. To Southey + LVII. To Miss Hutchinson + LVIII. To Manning + LIX. To Manning + LX. To Wordsworth + LXI. To Wordsworth + LXII. To H. Dodwell + LXIII. To Mrs. Wordsworth + LXIV. To Wordsworth + LXV. To Manning + LXVI. To Miss Wordsworth + LXVII. To Coleridge + LXVIII. To Wordsworth + LXIX. To John Clarke + LXX. To Mr. Barren Field + LXXI. To Walter Wilson + LXXII. To Bernard Barton + LXXIII. To Miss Wordsworth + LXXIV. To Mr. and Mrs. Bruton + LXXV. To Bernard Barton + LXXVI. To Miss Hutchinson + LXXVII. To Bernard Barton + LXXVIII. To Mrs. Hazlitt + LXXIX. To Bernard Barton + LXXX. To Bernard Barton + LXXXI. To Bernard Barton + LXXXII. To Bernard Barton + LXXXIII. To Bernard Barton + LXXXIV. To Bernard Barton + LXXXV. To Bernard Barton + LXXXVI. To Wordsworth + LXXXVII. To Bernard Barton + LXXXVIII. To Bernard Barton + LXXXIX. To Bernard Barton + XC. To Southey + XCI. To Bernard Barton + XCII. To J.B. Dibdin + XCIII. To Henry Crabb Robinson + XCIV. To Peter George Patmore + XCV. To Bernard Barton + XCVI. To Thomas Hood + XCVII. To P.G. Patmore + XCVIII. To Bernard Barton + XCIX. To Procter + C. To Bernard Barton + CI. To Mr. Gilman + CII. To Wordsworth + CIII. To Mrs. Hazlitt + CIV. To George Dyer + CV. To Dyer + CVI. To Mr. Moxon + CVII. To Mr. Moxon + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +No writer, perhaps, since the days of Dr. Johnson has been oftener +brought before us in biographies, essays, letters, etc., than Charles +Lamb. His stammering speech, his gaiter-clad legs,--"almost immaterial +legs," Hood called them,--his frail wisp of a body, topped by a head +"worthy of Aristotle," his love of punning, of the Indian weed, and, +alas! of the kindly production of the juniper-berry (he was not, he +owned, "constellated under Aquarius"), his antiquarianism of taste, and +relish of the crotchets and whimsies of authorship, are as familiar to +us almost as they were to the group he gathered round him Wednesdays at +No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, where "a clear fire, a clean hearth, and the +rigor of the game" awaited them. Talfourd has unctuously celebrated +Lamb's "Wednesday Nights." He has kindly left ajar a door through which +posterity peeps in upon the company,--Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, "Barry +Cornwall," Godwin, Martin Burney, Crabb Robinson (a ubiquitous shade, +dimly suggestive of that figment, "Mrs. Harris"), Charles Kemble, Fanny +Kelly ("Barbara S."), on red-letter occasions Coleridge and +Wordsworth,--and sees them discharging the severer offices of the +whist-table ("cards were cards" then), and, later, unbending their minds +over poetry, criticism, and metaphysics. Elia was no Barmecide host, and +the serjeant dwells not without regret upon the solider business of the +evening,--"the cold roast lamb or boiled beef, the heaps of smoking +roasted potatoes, and the vast jug of porter, often replenished from the +foaming pots which the best tap of Fleet Street supplied," hospitably +presided over by "the most quiet, sensible, and kind of women," +Mary Lamb. + +The _terati_ Talfourd's day were clearly hardier of digestion than +their descendants are. Roast lamb, boiled beef, "heaps of smoking +roasted potatoes," pots of porter,--a noontide meal for a hodman,--and +the hour midnight! One is reminded, _a propos_ of Miss Lamb's robust +viands, that Elia somewhere confesses to "an occasional nightmare;" "but +I do not," he adds, "keep a whole stud of them." To go deeper into this +matter, to speculate upon the possible germs, the first vague +intimations to the mind of Coleridge of the weird spectra of "The +Ancient Mariner," the phantasmagoria of "Kubla Khan," would be, perhaps, +over-refining. "Barry Cornwall," too, Lamb tells us, "had his tritons +and his nereids gambolling before him in nocturnal visions." No wonder! + +It is not intended here to re-thresh the straw left by Talfourd, +Fitzgerald, Canon Ainger, and others, in the hope of discovering +something new about Charles Lamb. In this quarter, at least, the wind +shall be tempered to the reader,--shorn as he is by these pages of a +charming letter or two. So far as fresh facts are concerned, the theme +may fairly be considered exhausted. Numberless writers, too, have rung +the changes upon "poor Charles Lamb," "dear Charles Lamb," "gentle +Charles Lamb," and the rest,--the final epithet, by the way being one +that Elia, living, specially resented: + +"For God's sake," he wrote to Coleridge. "don't make me ridiculous any +more by terming me gentle-hearted in print, or do it in better verses. +It did well enough five years ago, when I came to see you, and was moral +coxcomb enough at the time you wrote the lines to feed upon such +epithets; but besides that the meaning of 'gentle' is equivocal at best, +and almost always means poor-spirited, the very quality of gentleness is +abhorrent to such vile trumpetings. My sentiment is long since vanished. +I hope my _virtues_ have done _sucking_. I can scarce think but you +meant it in joke. I hope you did, for I should be ashamed to believe +that you could think to gratify me by such praise, fit only to be a +cordial to some green-sick sonneteer." + +The indulgent pity conventionally bestowed upon Charles Lamb--one of the +most manly, self-reliant of characters, to say nothing of his genius--is +absurdly' misplaced. + +Still farther be it from us to blunt the edge of appetite by sapiently +essaying to "analyze" and account for Lamb's special zest and flavor, as +though his writings, or any others worth the reading, were put together +upon principles of clockwork. We are perhaps over-fond of these arid +pastimes nowadays. It is not the "sweet musk-roses," the "apricocks and +dewberries" of literature that please us best; like Bottom the Weaver, +we prefer the "bottle of hay." What a mockery of right enjoyment our +endless prying and sifting, our hunting of riddles in metaphors, +innuendoes in tropes, ciphers in Shakspeare! Literature exhausted, we +may turn to art, and resolve, say, the Sistine Madonna (I deprecate the +Manes of the "Divine Painter") into some ingenious and recondite rebus. +For such critical chopped-hay--sweeter to the modern taste than honey of +Hybla--Charles Lamb had little relish. "I am, sir," he once boasted to +an analytical, unimaginative proser who had insisted upon _explaining_ +some quaint passage in Marvell or Wither, "I am, sir, a matter-of-lie +man." It was his best warrant to sit at the Muses' banquet. Charles Lamb +was blessed with an intellectual palate as fine as Keats's, and could +enjoy the savor of a book (or of that dainty, "in the whole _mundus +edibilis_ the most delicate," Roast Pig, for that matter) without +pragmatically asking, as the king did of the apple in the dumpling, "how +the devil it got there." His value as a critic is grounded in this +capacity of _naive_ enjoyment (not of pig, but of literature), of +discerning beauty and making _us_ discern it,--thus adding to the known +treasures and pleasures of mankind. + +Suggestions not unprofitable for these later days lurk in these traits +of Elia the student and critic. How worthy the imitation, for instance, +of those disciples who band together to treat a fine poem (of Browning, +say, or Shelley) as they might a chapter in the Revelation,--speculating +sagely upon the import of the seven seals and the horns of the great +beast, instead of enjoying the obvious beauties of their author. To the +schoolmaster--whose motto would seem too often to be the counsel of the +irate old lady in Dickens, "Give him a meal of chaff!"--Charles Lamb's +critical methods are rich in suggestion. How many ingenuous boys, lads +in the very flush and hey-day of appreciativeness of the epic virtues, +have been parsed, declined, and conjugated into an utter detestation of +the melodious names of Homer and Virgil! Better far for such victims had +they, instead of aspiring to the vanities of a "classical education," +sat, like Keats, unlearnedly at the feet of quaint Chapman, or Dryden, +or even of Mr. Pope. + +Perhaps, by way of preparative to the reading of Charles Lamb's letters, +it will be well to run over once more the leading facts of his life. +First let us glance at his outward appearance. Fortunately there are a +number of capital pieces of verbal portraiture of Elia. + +Referring to the year 1817, "Barry Cornwall" wrote: + + "Persons who had been in the habit of traversing Covent + Garden at that time of night, by extending their walk a few + yards into Russell Street have noticed a small, spare man + clothed in black, who went out every morning, and returned + every afternoon as the hands of the clock moved toward + certain hours. You could not mistake him. He was somewhat + stiff in his manner, and almost clerical in dress, which + indicated much wear. He had a long, melancholy face, with + keen, penetrating eyes; and he walked with a short, resolute + step citywards. He looked no one in the face for more than + a moment, yet contrived to see everything as he went on. + No one who ever studied the human features could pass him + by without recollecting his countenance; it was full of + sensibility, and it came upon you like new thought, which you + could not help dwelling upon afterwards: it gave rise to + meditation, and did you good. This small, half-clerical man + was--Charles Lamb." + +His countenance is thus described by Thomas Hood: + + "His was no common face, none of those willow-pattern + ones which Nature turns out by thousands at her potteries, + but more like a chance specimen of the Chinese ware,--one + to the set; unique, antique, quaint, you might have sworn to + it piecemeal,--a separate affidavit to each feature." + +Mrs. Charles Mathews, wife of the comedian, who met Lamb at a dinner, +gives an amusing account of him:-- + + "Mr. Lamb's first appearance was not prepossessing. His + figure was small and mean, and no man was certainly ever + less beholden to his tailor. His 'bran' new suit of black + cloth (in which he affected several times during the day to + take great pride, and to cherish as a novelty that he had + looked for and wanted) was drolly contrasted with his very + rusty silk stockings, shown from his knees, and his much too + large, thick shoes, without polish. His shirt rejoiced in a wide, + ill-plaited frill, and his very small, tight, white neckcloth was + hemmed to a fine point at the ends that formed part of a little + bow. His hair was black and sleek, but not formal, and + his face the gravest I ever saw, but indicating great intellect, + and resembling very much the portraits of Charles I." + +From this sprightly and not too flattering sketch we may turn to +Serjeant Talfourd's tender and charming portrait,--slightly idealized, +no doubt; for the man of the coif held a brief for his friend, and was a +poet besides:-- + + "Methinks I see him before me now as he appeared then, + and as he continued without any perceptible alteration to me, + during the twenty years of intimacy which followed, and were + closed by his death. A light frame, so fragile that it seemed + as if a breath would overthrow it, clad in clerk-like black, + was surmounted by a head of form and expression the most + noble and sweet. His black hair curled crisply about an + expanded forehead; his eyes, softly brown, twinkled with + varying expression, though the prevalent expression was + sad; and the nose, slightly curved, and delicately carved at + the nostril, with the lower outline of the face delicately oval, + completed a head which was finely placed upon the shoulders, + and gave importance and even dignity to a diminutive and + shadowy stem. Who shall describe his countenance, catch its + quivering sweetness, and fix it forever in words? There are + none, alas! to answer the vain desire of friendship. Deep + thought, striving with humor; the lines of suffering wreathed + into cordial mirth, and a smile of painful sweetness, present + an image to the mind it can as little describe as lose. His + personal appearance and manner are not unjustly characterized + by what he himself says in one of his letters to Manning, [1] + 'a compound of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel.'" + +The writings of Charles Lamb abound in passages of autobiography. "I was +born," he tells us in that delightful sketch, "The Old Benchers of the +Inner Temple," "and passed the first seven years of my life in the +Temple. Its church, its halls, its gardens, its fountain, its river, I +had almost said,--for in those young years what was this king of rivers +to me but a stream that watered our pleasant places?--these are of my +oldest recollections." His father, John Lamb, the "Lovel" of the essay +cited, had come up a little boy from Lincolnshire to enter the service +of Samuel Salt,--one of those "Old Benchers" upon whom the pen of Elia +has shed immortality, a stanch friend and patron to the Lambs, the kind +proprietor of that "spacious closet of good old English reading" upon +whose "fair and wholesome pasturage" Charles and his sister, as +children, "browsed at will." + +John Lamb had married Elizabeth Field, whose mother was for fifty years +housekeeper at the country-seat of the Plumers, Blakesware, in +Hertfordshire, the "Blakesmoor" of the Essays, frequent scene of Lamb's +childish holiday sports,--a spacious mansion, with its park and terraces +and "firry wilderness, the haunt of the squirrel and day-long murmuring +wood-pigeon;" an Eden it must have seemed to the London-bred child, in +whose fancy the dusty trees and sparrows and smoke-grimed fountain of +Temple Court had been a pastoral. Within the cincture of its excluding +garden-walls, wrote Elia in later years, "I could have exclaimed with +that garden-loving poet, [2]-- + + "'Bind me, ye woodbines, in your twines; + Curl me about, ye gadding vines; + And oh, so close your circles lace + That I may never leave this place: + But lest your fetters prove too weak, + Ere I your silken bondage break, + Do you, O brambles, chain me too, + And, courteous briers, nail me through.'" + +At Blakesware, too, was the room whence the spirit of Sarah Battle--that +"gentlewoman born"--winged its flight to a region where revokes and +"luke-warm gamesters" are unknown. + +To John and Elizabeth Lamb were born seven children, only three of whom, +John, Mary, and Charles, survived their infancy. Of the survivors, +Charles was the youngest, John being twelve and Mary ten years his +senior,--a fact to be weighed in estimating the heroism of Lamb's later +life. At the age of seven, Charles Lamb, "son of John Lamb, scrivener, +and Elizabeth, his wife," was entered at the school of Christ's +Hospital,--"the antique foundation of that godly and royal child King +Edward VI." Of his life at this institution he has left us abundant and +charming memorials in the Essays, "Recollections of Christ's Hospital," +and "Christ's Hospital Five-and-thirty Years Ago,"--the latter sketch +corrective of the rather optimistic impressions of the former. + +With his schoolfellows Charles seems to have been, despite his timid and +retiring disposition (he said of himself, "while the others were all +fire and play, he stole along with all the self-concentration of a young +monk"), a decided favorite. "Lamb," wrote C. V. Le Grice, a schoolmate +often mentioned in essay and letter, "was an amiable, gentle boy, very +sensible and keenly observing, indulged by his schoolfellows and by his +master on account of his infirmity of speech.... I never heard his name +mentioned without the addition of Charles, although, as there was no +other boy of the name of Lamb, the addition was unnecessary; but there +was an implied kindness in it, and it was a proof that his gentle +manners excited that kindness." + +For us the most important fact of the Christ's Hospital school-days is +the commencement of Lamb's life-long friendship with Samuel Taylor +Coleridge, two years his senior, and the object of his fervent +hero-worship. Most of us, perhaps, can find the true source of whatever +of notable good or evil we have effected in life in the moulding +influence of one of these early friendships or admirations. It is the +boy's hero, the one he loves and reverences among his schoolfellows,-- +not his taskmaster,--that is his true teacher, the setter of the +broader standards by which he is to abide through life. Happy the man +the feet of whose early idols have not been of clay. + +It was under the quickening influence of the eloquent, precocious genius +of the "inspired charity boy" that Charles Lamb's ideals and ambitions +shaped themselves out of the haze of a child's conceptions. Coleridge at +sixteen was already a poet, his ear attuned to the subtlest melody of +verse, and his hand rivalling, in preluding fragments, the efforts of +his maturer years; he was already a philosopher, rapt in Utopian, +schemes and mantling hopes as enchanting--and as chimerical--as the +pleasure-domes and caves of ice decreed by Kubla Khan; and the younger +lad became his ardent disciple. + +Lamb quitted Christ's Hospital, prematurely, in November, 1787, and the +companionship of the two friends was for a time interrupted. To part +with Coleridge, to exchange the ease and congenial scholastic atmosphere +of the Hospital for the _res angusta domi_, for the intellectual +starvation of a life of counting-house drudgery, must have been a bitter +trial for him. But the shadow of poverty was upon the little household +in the Temple; on the horizon of the future the blackening clouds of +anxieties still graver were gathering; and the youngest child was called +home to share the common burden. + +Charles Lamb was first employed in the South Sea House, where his +brother John [3]--a cheerful optimist, a _dilettante_ in art, genial, +prosperous, thoroughly selfish, in so far as the family fortunes were +concerned an outsider--already held a lucrative post. It was not long +before Charles obtained promotion in the form of a clerkship with the +East India Company,--one of the last kind services of Samuel Salt, who +died in the same year, 1792,--and with the East India Company he +remained for the rest of his working life. + +Upon the death of their generous patron the Lambs removed from the +Temple and took lodgings in Little Queen Street, Holborn; and for +Charles the battle of life may be said to have fairly begun. His work as +a junior clerk absorbed, of course, the greater part of his day and of +his year. Yet there were breathing-spaces: there were the long evenings +with the poets; with Marlowe, Drayton, Drummond of Hawthornden, and +Cowley,--"the sweetest names, which carry a perfume in the mention;" +there were the visits to the play, the yearly vacation jaunts to sunny +Hertfordshire. The intercourse with Coleridge, too, was now occasionally +renewed. The latter had gone up to Cambridge early in 1791, there to +remain--except the period of his six months' dragooning--for the nest +four years. During his visits to London it was the habit of the two +schoolfellows to meet at a tavern near Smithfield, the "Salutation and +Cat" to discuss the topics dear to both: and it was about this time that +Lamb's sonnet to Mrs Siddons, his first appearance in print, was +published in the "Morning Chronicle." + +The year 1796 was a terribly eventful one for the Lambs. There was a +taint of insanity in the family on the father's side, and on May 27, +1796, we find Charles writing to Coleridge these sad words,--doubly sad +for the ring of mockery in them:-- + + "My life has been somewhat diversified of late. The six + weeks that finished last year and began this, your very + humble servant spent very agreeably in a madhouse at + Hoxton. I am got somewhat rational now and don't bite + any one. But mad I was!" [4] + +Charles, thanks to the resolution with which he combated the tendency, +and to the steadying influence of his work at the desk,--despite his +occasional murmurs, his best friend and sheet-anchor in life,--never +again succumbed to the family malady; but from that moment, over his +small household, Madness--like Death in Milton's vision--continually +"shook its dart," and at best only "delayed to strike." [5] + +It was in the September of 1796 that the calamity befell which has +tinged the story of Charles and Mary Lamb with the sombrest hues of the +Greek tragedy. The family were still in the Holborn lodgings,--the +mother an invalid, the father sinking into a second childhood. Mary, in +addition to the burden of ministering to her parents, was working for +their support with her needle. + +At this point it will be well to insert a prefatory word or two as to +the character of Mary Lamb; and here the witnesses are in accord. There +is no jarring of opinion, as in her brother's case; for Charles Lamb has +been sorely misjudged,--often, it must be admitted, with ground of +reason; sometimes by persons who might and should have looked deeper. In +a notable instance, the heroism of his life has been meanly overlooked +by one who preached to mankind with the eloquence of the Prophets the +prime need and virtue of recognizing the hero. If self-abnegation lies +at the root of true heroism, Charles Lamb--that "sorry phenomenon" with +an "insuperable proclivity to gin" [6]--was a greater hero than was +covered by the shield of Achilles. The character of Mary Lamb is quickly +summed Up. She was one of the most womanly of women. "In all its +essential sweetness," says Talfourd, "her character was like her +brother's; while, by a temper more placid, a spirit of enjoyment more +serene, she was enabled to guide, to counsel, to cheer him, and to +protect him on the verge of the mysterious calamity, from the depths of +which she rose so often unruffled to his side. To a friend in any +difficulty she was the most comfortable of advisers, the wisest of +consolers." Hazlitt said that "he never met with a woman who could +reason, and had met with only one thoroughly reasonable,--Mary Lamb." +The writings of Elia are strewn, as we know, with the tenderest tributes +to her worth. "I wish," he says, "that I could throw into a heap the +remainder of our joint existences, that we might share them in equal +division." + +The psychology of madness is a most subtle inquiry. How slight the +mysterious touch that throws the smooth-running human mechanism into a +chaos of jarring elements, that transforms, in the turn of an eyelash, +the mild humanity of the gentlest of beings into the unreasoning +ferocity of the tiger. + +The London "Times" of September 26, 1796, contained the following +paragraph:-- + + "On Friday afternoon the coroner and a jury sat on the + body of a lady in the neighborhood of Holborn, who died in + consequence of a wound from her daughter the preceding day. + It appeared by the evidence adduced that while the family + were preparing for dinner, the young lady seized a case-knife + lying on the table, and in a menacing manner pursued a little + girl, her apprentice, round the room. On the calls of her + infirm mother to forbear, she renounced her first object, and + with loud shrieks approached her parent. The child, by her + cries, quickly brought up the landlord of the house, but too + late. [7] The dreadful scene presented him the mother lifeless, + pierced to the heart, on a chair, her daughter yet wildly standing + over her with the fatal knife, and the old man, her father, + weeping by her side, himself bleeding at the forehead from + the effects of a severe blow he received from one of the forks + she had been madly hurling about the room. + + "For a few days prior to this, the family had observed + some symptoms of insanity in her, which had so much increased + on the Wednesday evening that her brother, early the next + morning, went to Dr. Pitcairn; but that gentleman was not at + home. + + "The jury of course brought in their verdict,--_Lunacy_." + +I need not supply the omitted names of the actors in this harrowing +scene. Mary Lamb was at once placed in the Asylum at Hoxton, and the +victim of her frenzy was laid to rest in the churchyard of St. Andrew's, +Holborn. It became necessary for Charles and his father to make an +immediate change of residence, and they took lodgings at Pentonville. +There is a pregnant sentence in one of Lamb's letters that flashes with +the vividness of lightning into the darkest recesses of those early +troubles and embarrassments. "We are," he wrote to Coleridge, "_in a +manner marked_." + +Charles Lamb after some weeks obtained the release of his sister from +the Hoxton Asylum by formally undertaking her future guardianship,--a +charge which was borne, until Death released the compact, with a +steadfastness, a cheerful renunciation of what men regard as the +crowning blessings of manhood, [8] that has shed a halo more radiant even +than that of his genius about the figure--it was "small and mean," said +sprightly Mrs. Mathews--of the India House clerk. + +As already stated, the mania that had once attacked Charles never +returned; but from the side of Mary Lamb this grimmest of spectres never +departed. "Mary A is again _from home_;" "Mary is _fallen ill_ again:" +how often do such tear-fraught phrases--tenderly veiled, lest! some +chance might bring them to the eye of the blameless sufferer--recur in +the Letters! Brother and sister were ever on the watch for the symptoms +premonitory of the return of this "their sorrow's crown of sorrows." +Upon their little holiday excursions, says Talfourd, a strait-waistcoat, +carefully packed by Miss Lamb herself, was their constant companion. +Charles Lloyd relates that he once met them slowly pacing together a +little footpath in Hoxton fields, both weeping bitterly, and found on +joining them that they were taking their solemn way to the old asylum. +Thus, upon this guiltless pair were visited the sins of their fathers. + +With the tragical events just narrated, the storm of calamity seemed to +have spent its force, and there were thenceforth plenty of days of calm +and of sunshine for Charles Lamb. The stress of poverty was lightened +and finally removed by successive increases of salary at the India +House; the introductions of Coleridge and his own growing repute in the +world of letters gathered about him a circle of friends--Southey, +Wordsworth, Hazlitt, Manning, Barton, and the rest--more congenial, and +certainly more profitable, than the vagrant _intimados_, "to the world's +eye a ragged regiment," who had wasted his substance and his leisure in +the early Temple days. + +Lamb's earliest avowed appearance as an author was in Coleridge's first +volume of poems, published by Cottle, of Bristol, in 1796. "The +effusions signed C.L.," says Coleridge in the preface, "were written by +Mr. Charles Lamb, of the India House. Independently of the signature, +their superior merit would have sufficiently distinguished them." The +"effusions" were four sonnets, two of them--the most noteworthy-- +touching upon the one love-romance of Lamb's life, [9]--his early +attachment to the "fair-haired" Hertfordshire girl, the "Anna" of the +Sonnets, the "Alice W---n" of the Essays. We remember that Ella in +describing the gallery of old family portraits, in the essay, +"Blakesmoor in H---shire," dwells upon "that beauty with the cool, blue, +pastoral drapery, and a lamb, that hung next the great bay window, with +the bright yellow Hertfordshire hair, _so like my Alice_." + +In 1797 Cottle issued a second edition of Coleridge's poems, this time +with eleven additional pieces by Lamb,--making fifteen of his in +all,--and containing verses by their friend Charles Lloyd. "It is +unlikely," observes Canon Ainger, "that this little venture brought any +profit to its authors, or that a subsequent volume of blank verse by +Lamb and Lloyd in the following year proved more remunerative." In 1798 +Lamb, anxious for his sister's sake to add to his slender income, +composed his "miniature romance," as Talfourd calls it, "Rosamund Gray;" +and this little volume, which has not yet lost its charm, proved a +moderate success. Shelley, writing from Italy to Leigh Hunt in 1819, +said of it: "What a lovely thing is his 'Rosamund Gray'! How much +knowledge of the sweetest and deepest part of our nature in it! When I +think of such a mind as Lamb's, when I see how unnoticed remain things +of such exquisite and complete perfection, what should I hope for myself +if I had not higher objects in view than fame?" + +It is rather unpleasant, in view of this generous--if overstrained-- +tribute, to find the object of it referring later to the works of his +encomiast as "thin sown with profit or delight." [10] + +In 1802 Lamb published in a small duodecimo his blank-verse tragedy, +"John Woodvil,"--it had previously been declined by John Kemble as +unsuited to the stage,--and in 1806 was produced at the Drury Lane +Theatre his farce "Mr. H.," the summary failure of which is chronicled +with much humor in the Letters. [11] + +The "Tales from Shakspeare," by Charles and Mary Lamb, were published by +Godwin in 1807, and a second edition was called for in the following +year. Lamb was now getting on surer--and more remunerative--ground; and +in 1808 he prepared for the firm of Longmans his masterly "Specimens of +the English Dramatic Poets contemporary with Shakspeare." Concerning +this work he wrote to Manning:-- + + "Specimens are becoming fashionable. We have Specimens + of Ancient English Poets, Specimens of Modern English + Poets, Specimens of Ancient English Prose Writers, + without end. They used to be called 'Beauties.' You have + seen Beauties of Shakspeare? so have many people that + never saw any beauties _in_ Shakspeare," + +From Charles Lamb's "Specimens" dates, as we know, the revival of the +study of the old English dramatists other than Shakespeare. He was the +first to call attention to the neglected beauties of those great +Elizabethans, Webster, Marlowe, Ford, Dekker, Massinger,--no longer +accounted mere "mushrooms that sprang up in a ring under the great oak +of Arden." [12] + +The opportunity that was to call forth Lamb's special faculty in +authorship came late in life. In January, 1820, Baldwin, Cradock, and +Joy, the publishers, brought out the first number of a new monthly +journal under the name of an earlier and extinct periodical, the "London +Magazine," and in the August number appeared an article, "Recollections +of the South Sea House." over the signature _Elia_. [13] With this +delightful sketch the essayist Elia may be said to have been born. In +none of Lamb's previous writings had there been, more than a hint of +that unique vein,--wise, playful, tender, fantastic, "everything by +starts, and nothing long," exhibited with a felicity of phrase certainly +unexcelled in English prose literature,--that we associate with his +name. The careful reader of the Letters cannot fail to note that it is +_there_ that Lamb's peculiar quality in authorship is first manifest. +There is a letter to Southey, written as early as 1798, that has the +true Elia ring. [14] With the "London Magazine," which was +discontinued in 1826. + +Elia was born, and with it he may be said to have died,--although some +of his later contributions to the "New Monthly" [15] and to the +"Englishman's Magazine" were included in the "Last Essays of Elia," +collected and published in 1833. The first series of Lamb's essays under +the title of Elia had been published in a single volume by Taylor and +Hessey, of the "London Magazine," in 1823. + +The story of Lamb's working life--latterly an uneventful one, broken +chiefly by changes of abode and by the yearly holiday jaunts, +"migrations from the blue bed to the brown"--from 1796, when the +correspondence with Coleridge begins, is told in the letters. For +thirty-three years he served the East India Company, and he served it +faithfully and steadily. There is, indeed, a tradition that having been +reproved on one occasion for coming to the office late in the morning, +he pleaded that he always left it "so very early in the evening." Poets, +we know, often "heard the chimes at midnight" in Elia's day, and the +plea has certainly a most Lamb-like ring. That the Company's directors, +however, were more than content with the service of their literate +clerk, the sequel shows. + +It is manifest in certain letters, written toward the close of 1824 and +in the beginning of 1825, that Lamb's confinement was at last telling +upon him, and that he was thinking of a release from his bondage to the +"desk's dead wood." In February, 1825, he wrote to Barton,-- + + "Your gentleman brother sets my mouth watering after + liberty. Oh that I were kicked out of Leadenhall with + every mark of indignity, and a competence in my fob! The + birds of the air would not be so free as I should. How + I would prance and curvet it, and pick up cowslips, and + ramble about purposeless as an idiot!" + +Later in March we learn that he had signified to the directors his +willingness to resign, + + "I am sick of hope deferred. The grand wheel is in agitation + that is to turn up my fortune; but round it rolls, + and will turn up nothing, I have a glimpse of freedom, of + becoming a gentleman at large, but I am put off from day + to day. I have offered my resignation, and it is neither accepted + nor rejected. Eight weeks am I kept in this fearful + suspense. Guess what an absorbing state I feel it. I am + not conscious of the existence of friends, present or absent. + The East India directors alone can be that thing to me. I + have just learned that nothing will be decided this week. + Why the next? Why any week?" + +But the "grand wheel" was really turning, to some purpose, and a few +days later, April 6, 1825, he joyfully wrote to Barton,-- + + "My spirits are so tumultuary with the novelty of my + recent emancipation that I have scarce steadiness of hand, + much more mind, to compose a letter, I am free, B.B.,--free + as air! + + "'The little bird that wings the sky + Knows no such liberty,' + + I was set free on Tuesday in last week at four o'clock. I + came home forever!" + +The quality of the generosity of the East India directors was not +strained in Lamb's case. It should be recorded as an agreeable +commercial phenomenon that these officials, men of business acting in "a +business matter,"--words too often held to exclude all such Quixotic +matters as sentiment, gratitude, and Christian equity between man and +man,--were not only just, but munificent. [16] From the path of Charles +and Mary Lamb--already beset with anxieties grave enoughthey removed +forever the shadow of want. Lamb's salary at the time of his retirement +was nearly seven hundred pounds a year, and the offer made to him was a +pension of four hundred and fifty, with a deduction of nine pounds a +year for his sister, should she survive him. + +Lamb lived to enjoy his freedom and the Company's bounty nearly nine +years. Soon after his retirement he settled with his sister at Enfield, +within easy reach of his loved London, removing thence to the +neighboring parish of Edmonton,--his last change of residence. +Coleridge's death, in July, 1834, was a heavy blow to him. "When I heard +of the death of Coleridge," he wrote, "it was without grief. It seemed +to me that he had long been on the confines of the next world, that he +had a hunger for eternity. I grieved then that I could not grieve; but +since, I feel how great a part he was of me. His great and dear spirit +haunts me. I cannot think a thought, I cannot make a criticism on men or +books, without an ineffectual turning and reference to him. He was the +proof and touchstone of all my cogitations." Lamb did not long outlive +his old schoolfellow. Walking in the middle of December along the London +road, he stumbled and fell, inflicting a slight wound upon his face. The +injury at first seemed trivial; but soon after, erysipelas appearing, it +became evident that his general health was too feeble to resist. On the +27th of December, 1834, he passed quietly away, whispering in his last +moments the names of his dearest friends. + +Mary Lamb survived her brother nearly thirteen years, dying, at the +advanced age of eighty-two, on May 20, 1847. With increasing years her +attacks had become more frequent and of longer duration, till her mind +became permanently weakened. After leaving Edmonton, she lived chiefly +in a pleasant house in St. John's Wood, surrounded by old books and +prints, under the care of a nurse. Her pension, together with the income +from her brother's savings, was amply sufficient for her support. + +Talfourd, who was present at the burial of Mary Lamb, has eloquently +described the earthly reunion of the brother and sister:-- + +"A few survivors of the old circle, then sadly thinned, attended her +remains to the spot in Edmnonton churchyard where they were laid above +those of her brother. In accordance with Lamb's own feeling, so far as +it could be gathered from his expressions on a subject to which he did +not often or willingly refer, he had been interred in a deep grave, +simply dug and wattled round, but without any affectation of stone or +brickwork to keep the human dust from its kindred earth. So dry, +however, is the soil of the quiet churchyard that the excavated earth +left perfect walls of stiff clay, and permitted us just to catch a +glimpse of the still untarnished edges of the coffin, in which all the +mortal part of one of the most delightful persons who ever lived was +contained, and on which the remains of her he had loved with love +'passing the love of woman' were henceforth to rest,--the last glances +we shall ever have even of that covering,--concealed from us as we +parted by the coffin of the sister. We felt, I believe, after a moment's +strange shuddering, that the reunion was well accomplished; although the +true-hearted son of Admiral Burney, who had known and loved the pair we +quitted from a child, and who had been among the dearest objects of +existence to him, refused to be comforted." + +There are certain handy phrases, the legal-tender of conversation, that +people generally use without troubling themselves to look into their +title to currency. It is often said, for instance, with an air of +deploring a phase of general mental degeneracy, that "letter-writing is +a lost art." And so it is,---not because men nowadays, if they were put +to it, could not, on the average, write as good letters as ever (the +average although we certainly have no Lambs, and perhaps no Walpoles or +Southeys to raise it, would probably be higher), but because the +conditions that call for and develop the epistolary art have largely +passed away. With our modern facility of communication, the letter has +lost the pristine dignity of its function. The earth has dwindled +strangely since the advent of steam and electricity, and in a generation +used to Mr. Edison's devices, Puck's girdle presents no difficulties to +the imagination. In Charles Lamb's time the expression "from Land's End +to John O'Groat's" meant something; to-day it means a few comfortable +hours by rail, a few minutes by telegraph. Wordsworth in the North of +England was to Lamb, so far as the chance of personal contact was +concerned, nearly as remote as Manning in China. Under such conditions a +letter was of course a weighty matter; it was a thoughtful summary of +opinion, a rarely recurring budget of general intelligence, expensive to +send, and paid for by the recipient; and men put their minds and +energies into composing it. "One wrote at that time," says W.C. Hazlitt, +"a letter to an acquaintance in one of the home counties which one would +only write nowadays to a settler in the Colonies or a relative +in India." + +But to whatever conditions or circumstances we may owe the existence of +Charles Lamb's letters, their quality is of course the fruit of the +genius and temperament of the writer. Unpremeditated as the strain of +the skylark, they have almost to excess (were that possible) the prime +epistolary merit of spontaneity. From the brain of the writer to the +sheet before him flows an unbroken Pactolian stream. Lamb, at his best, +ranges with Shakspearian facility the gamut of human emotion, +exclaiming, as it were at one moment, with Jaques, "Motley's the only +wear!"--in the next probing the source of tears. He is as ejaculatory +with his pen as other men are with their tongues. Puns, quotations, +conceits, critical estimates of the rarest insight and suggestiveness, +chase each other over his pages like clouds over a summer sky; and the +whole is leavened with the sterling ethical and aesthetic good sense +that renders Charles Lamb one of the wholesomest of writers. + +As to the plan on which the selections for this volume have been made, +it needs only to be said that, in general, the editor has aimed to +include those letters which exhibit most fully the writer's distinctive +charm and quality. This plan leaves, of course, a residue of +considerable biographical and critical value; but it is believed that to +all who really love and appreciate him, Charles Lamb's "Best Letters" +are those which are most uniquely and unmistakably Charles Lamb's. + +E. G. J. _September_, 1891. + +[1] Letter L. + +[2] Cowley. + +[3] The James Elia of the essay "My Relations." + +[4] Letter I. + +[5] Talfourd's Memoir. + +[6] Carlyle. + +[7] It would seem from Lamb's letter to Coleridge (Letter IV.) that it +was _he_, not the landlord, who appeared thus too late, and who snatched +the knife from the unconscious hand. + +[8] The reader is referred to Lamb's beautiful essay, "Dream Children." + +[9] If we except his passing tenderness for the young Quakeress, Hester +Savory, Lamb admitted that he had never spoken to the lady in his life. + +[10] Letter LXXXIII. + +[11] Letters LXV IL., LXVIII., LXIX. + +[12] W. S. Landor. + +[13] In assuming this pseudonym Lamb borrowed the name of a fellow-clerk +who had served with him thirty years before in the South Sea House,--an +Italian named Elia. The name has probably never been pronounced as Lamb +intended. "_Call him Ellia_," he said in a letter to J. Taylor, +concerning this old acquaintance. + +[14] Letter XVII. + +[15] The rather unimportant series, "Popular Fallacies," appeared in the +"New Monthly." + +[16] In the essay "The Superannuated Man" Lamb describes, with +certain changes and modifications, his retirement from the India House. + + + +I. + + +TO SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. + +_May_ 27, 1796. + +Dear Coleridge,--Make yourself perfectly easy about May. I paid his bill +when I sent your clothes. I was flush of money, and am so still to all +the purposes of a single life; so give yourself no further concern about +it. The money would be superfluous to me if I had it. + +When Southey becomes as modest as his predecessor, Milton, and publishes +his Epics in duodecimo, I will read 'em; a guinea a book is somewhat +exorbitant, nor have I the opportunity of borrowing the work. The +extracts from it in the "Monthly Review," and the short passages in your +"Watchman," seem to me much superior to anything in his partnership +account with Lovell. [1] Your poems I shall procure forthwith. + +There were noble lines in what you inserted in one of your numbers from +"Religious Musings," but I thought them elaborate. I am somewhat glad +you have given up that paper; it must have been dry, unprofitable, and +of dissonant mood to your disposition. I wish you success in all your +undertakings, and am glad to hear you are employed about the "Evidences +of Religion." There is need of multiplying such books a hundred-fold in +this philosophical age, to _prevent_ converts to atheism, for they seem +too tough disputants to meddle with afterwards.... + +Coleridge, I know not what suffering scenes you have gone through at +Bristol. My life has been somewhat diversified of late. The six weeks +that finished last year and began this, your very humble servant spent +very agreeably in a madhouse at Hoxton. I am got somewhat rational now, +and don't bite any one. But mad I was and many a vagary my imagination +played with me,--enough to make a volume, if all were told. My sonnets I +have extended to the number of nine since I saw you, and will some day +communicate to you. I am beginning a poem in blank verse, which, if I +finish, I publish. White [2] is on the eve of publishing (he took the +hint from Vortigern) "Original Letters of Falstaff, Shallow," etc.; a +copy you shall have when it comes out. They are without exception the +best imitations I ever saw. Coleridge, it may convince you of my regards +for you when I tell you my head ran on you in my madness as much almost +as on another person, who I am inclined to think was the more immediate +cause of my temporary frenzy. + +The sonnet I send you has small merit as poetry; but you will be curious +to read it when I tell you it was written in my prison-house in one of +my lucid intervals. + +TO MY SISTER. + + If from my lips some angry accents fell, + Peevish complaint, or harsh reproof unkind, + 'T was but the error of a sickly mind + And troubled thoughts, clouding the purer well + And waters clear of Reason; and for me + Let this my verse the poor atonement be,-- + My verse, which thou to praise wert e'er inclined + Too highly, and with partial eye to see + No blemish. Thou to me didst ever show + Kindest affection; and wouldst oft-times lend + An ear to the desponding love-sick lay, + Weeping my sorrows with me, who repay + But ill the mighty debt of love I owe, + Mary, to thee, my sister and my friend. + +With these lines, and with that sister's kindest remembrances to Cottle, +I conclude. + +Yours sincerely, + +LAMB. + +[1] Southey had just published his "Joan of Arc," in quarto. He and +Lovell had published jointly, two years before, "Poems by Bion and +Moschus." + +[2] A Christ's Hospital schoolfellow, the "Jem" White of the Elia essay, +"The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers." + + + +II. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +(_No month_) 1796. + +_Tuesday night_.--Of your "Watchman," the review of Burke was the best +prose. I augured great things from the first number. There is some +exquisite poetry interspersed. I have re-read the extract from the +"Religious Musings," and retract whatever invidious there was in my +censure of it as elaborate. There are times when one is not in a +disposition thoroughly to relish good writing. I have re-read it in a +more favorable moment, and hesitate not to pronounce it sublime. If +there be anything in it approaching to tumidity (which I meant not to +infer; by "elaborate" I meant simply "labored"), it is the gigantic +hyperbole by which you describe the evils of existing society: "snakes, +lions, hyenas, and behemoths," is carrying your resentment beyond +bounds. The pictures of "The Simoom," of "Frenzy and Ruin," of "The +Whore of Babylon," and "The Cry of Foul Spirits disinherited of Earth," +and "The Strange Beatitude" which the good man shall recognize in +heaven, as well as the particularizing of the children of wretchedness +(I have unconsciously included every part of it), form a variety of +uniform excellence. I hunger and thirst to read the poem complete. That +is a capital line in your sixth number,-- + + "This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering month." + +They are exactly such epithets as Burns would have stumbled on, whose +poem on the ploughed-up daisy you seem to have had in mind. Your +complaint that of your readers some thought there was too much, some too +little, original matter in your numbers, reminds me of poor dead Parsons +in the "Critic." "Too little incident! Give me leave to tell you, sir, +there is too much incident." I had like to have forgot thanking you for +that exquisite little morsel, the first Sclavonian Song. The expression +in the second, "more happy to be unhappy in hell," is it not very +quaint? Accept my thanks, in common with those of all who love good +poetry, for "The Braes of Yarrow." I congratulate you on the enemies you +must have made by your splendid invective against the barterers in human +flesh and sinews. Coleridge, you will rejoice to hear that Cowper is +recovered from his lunacy, and is employed on his translation of the +Italian, etc., poems of Milton for an edition where Fuseli presides as +designer. Coleridge, to an idler like myself, to write and receive +letters are both very pleasant; but I wish not to break in upon your +valuable time by expecting to hear very frequently from you. Reserve +that obligation for your moments of lassitude, when you have nothing +else to do; for your loco-restive and all your idle propensities, of +course, have given way to the duties of providing for a family. The mail +is come in, but no parcel; yet this is Tuesday. Farewell, then, till +to-morrow; for a niche and a nook I must leave for criticisms. By the +way, I hope you do not send your own only copy of "Joan of Arc;" I will +in that case return it immediately. + +Your parcel _is_ come; you have been _lavish_ of your presents. + +Wordsworth's poem I have hurried through, not without delight. Poor +Lovell! my heart almost accuses me for the light manner I lately spoke +of him, not dreaming of his death. My heart bleeds for your accumulated +troubles; God send you through 'em with patience. I conjure you dream +not that I will ever think of being repaid; the very word is galling to +the ears. I have read all your "Religious Musings" with uninterrupted +feelings of profound admiration. You may safely rest your fame on it. +The best remaining things are what I have before read, and they lose +nothing by my recollection of your manner of reciting 'em, for I too +bear in mind "the voice, the look," of absent friends, and can +occasionally mimic their manner for the amusement of those who have seen +'em. Your impassioned manner of recitation I can recall at any time to +mine own heart and to the ears of the bystanders. I rather wish you had +left the monody on Chatterton concluding, as, it did, abruptly. It had +more of unity. The conclusion of your "Religious Musicgs," I fear, will +entitle you to the reproof of your beloved woman, who wisely will not +suffer your fancy to run riot, but bids you walk humbly with your God. +The very last words, "I exercise my young novitiate thought in +ministeries of heart-stirring song," though not now new to me, cannot be +enough admired. To speak politely, they are a well-turned compliment to +poetry. I hasten to read "Joan of Arc," etc. I have read your lines at +the beginning of second book; [1] they are worthy of Milton, but in my +mind yield to your "Religious Musings." I shall read the whole +carefully, and in some future letter take the liberty to particularize +my opinions of it. Of what is new to me among your poems next to the +"Musings," that beginning "My Pensive Sara" gave me most pleasure. The +lines in it I just alluded to are most exquisite; they made my sister +and self smile, as conveying a pleasing picture of Mrs. C. checking your +wild wanderings, which we were so fond of hearing you indulge when among +us. It has endeared us more than anything to your good lady, and your +own self-reproof that follows delighted us. 'T is a charming poem +throughout (you have well remarked that charming, admirable, exquisite +are the words expressive of feelings more than conveying of ideas, else +I might plead very well want of room in my paper as excuse for +generalizing). I want room to tell you how we are charmed with your +verses in the manner of Spenser, etc. I am glad you resume the +"Watchman." Change the name; leave out all articles of news, and +whatever things are peculiar to newspapers, and confine yourself to +ethics, verse, criticism; or, rather, do not confine yourself. Let your +plan be as diffuse as the "Spectator," and I 'll answer for it the work +prospers. If I am vain enough to think I can be a contributor, rely on +my inclinations. Coleridge, in reading your "Religious Musings," I felt +a transient superiority over you. I _have_ seen Priestley. I love to see +his name repeated in your writings. I love and honor him almost +profanely. You would be charmed with his _Sermons_, if you never read +'em. You have doubtless read his books illustrative of the doctrine of +Necessity. Prefixed to a late work of his in answer to Paine, there is a +preface giving an account of the man and his services to men, written by +Lindsey, his dearest friend, well worth your reading. + +_Tuesday Eve_.--Forgive my prolixity, which is yet too brief for all I +could wish to say. God give you comfort, and all that are of your +household! Our loves and best good-wishes to Mrs. C. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Coleridge contributed some four hundred lines to the second book of +Southey's epic. + + + +III. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_June_ 10, 1796. + +With "Joan of Arc" I have been delighted, amazed, I had not presumed to +expect anything of such excellence from Southey. Why, the poem is alone +sufficient to redeem the character of the age we live in from the +imputation of degenerating in poetry, were there no such beings extant +as Burns, and Bowles, Cowper, and ----, ---- fill up the blank how you +please; I say nothing. The subject is well chosen; it opens well. To +become more particular, I will notice in their order a few passages that +chiefly struck me on perusal. Page 26: "Fierce and terrible +Benevolence!" is a phrase full of grandeur and originality, The whole +context made me feel _possessed_, even like Joan herself. Page 28: "It +is most horrible with the keen sword to gore the finely fibred human +frame," and what follows, pleased me mightily. In the second book, the +first forty lines in particular are majestic and high-sounding. Indeed, +the whole vision of the Palace of Ambition and what follows are +supremely excellent. Your simile of the Laplander, "By Niemi's lake, or +Balda Zhiok, or the mossy stone of Solfar-Kapper," [1] will bear +comparison with any in Milton for fulness of circumstance and +lofty-pacedness of versification. Southey's similes, though many of 'em +are capital, are all inferior. In one of his books, the simile of the +oak in the storm occurs, I think, four times. To return: the light in +which you view the heathen deities is accurate and beautiful. Southey's +personifications in this book are so many fine and faultless pictures. I +was much pleased with your manner of accounting for the reason why +monarchs take delight in war. At the 447th line you have placed Prophets +and Enthusiasts cheek by jowl, on too intimate a footing for the dignity +of the former. Necessarian-like-speaking, it is correct. Page 98: "Dead +is the Douglas! cold thy warrior frame, illustrious Buchan," etc., are +of kindred excellence with Gray's "Cold is Cadwallo's tongue," etc. How +famously the Maid baffles the Doctors, Seraphic and Irrefragable, "with +all their trumpery!" Page 126: the procession, the appearances of the +Maid, of the Bastard Son of Orleans, and of Tremouille, are full of fire +and fancy, and exquisite melody of versification. The personifications +from line 303 to 309, in the heat of the battle, had better been +omitted; they are not very striking, and only encumber. The converse +which Joan and Conrade hold on the banks of the Loire is altogether +beautiful. Page 313: the conjecture that in dreams "all things are that +seem," is one of those conceits which the poet delights to admit into +his creed,--a creed, by the way, more marvellous and mystic than ever +Athanasius dreamed of. Page 315: I need only _mention_ those lines +ending with "She saw a serpent gnawing at her heart!" They are good +imitative lines: "he toiled and toiled, of toil to reap no end, but +endless toil and never-ending woe." Page 347: Cruelty is such as Hogarth +might have painted her. Page 361: all the passage about Love (where he +seems to confound conjugal love with creating and preserving love) is +very confused, and sickens me with a load of useless personifications; +else that ninth book is the finest in the volume,--an exquisite +combination of the ludicrous and the terrible. I have never read either, +even in translation, but such I conceive to be the manner of Dante or +Ariosto. The tenth book is the most languid. + +On the whole, considering the celerity wherewith the poem was finished, +I was astonished at the unfrequency of weak lines, I had expected to +find it verbose. Joan, I think, does too little in battle, Dunois +perhaps the same; Conrade too much. The anecdotes interspersed among the +battles refresh the mind very agreeably, and I am delighted with the +very many passages of simple pathos abounding throughout the +poem,--passages which the author of "Crazy Kate" might have written. Has +not Master Southey spoke very slightingly in his preface and +disparagingly of Cowper's Homer? What makes him reluctant to give Cowper +his fame? And does not Southey use too often the expletives "did" and +"does"? They have a good effect at times, but are too inconsiderable, or +rather become blemishes when they mark a style. On the whole, I expect +Southey one day to rival Milton; I already deem him equal to Cowper, and +superior to all living poets besides. What says Coleridge? The "Monody +on Henderson" is _immensely good_; the rest of that little volume is +_readable and above mediocrity?_ [2] I proceed to a more pleasant +task,--pleasant because the poems are yours; pleasant because you impose +the task on me; and pleasant, let me add, because it will confer a +whimsical importance on me to sit in judgment upon your rhymes. First, +though, let me thank you again and again, in my own and my sister's +name, for your invitations. Nothing could give us more pleasure than to +come; but (were there no other reasons) while my brother's leg is so +bad, it is out of the question. Poor fellow! he is very feverish and +light-headed; but Cruikshanks has pronounced the symptoms favourable, +and gives us every hope that there will be no need of amputation. God +send not! We are necessarily confined with him all the afternoon and +evening till very late, so that I am stealing a few minutes to write +to you. + +Thank you for your frequent letters; you are the only correspondent and, +I might add, the only friend I have in the world. I go nowhere, and have +no acquaintance. Slow of speech and reserved of manners, no one seeks or +cares for my society, and I am left alone. Austin calls only +occasionally, as though it were a duty rather, and seldom stays ten +minutes. Then judge how thankful I am for your letters! Do not, however, +burden yourself with the correspondence. I trouble you again so soon +only in obedience to your injunctions. Complaints apart, proceed we to +our task. I am called away to tea,--thence must wait upon my brother; so +must delay till to-morrow. Farewell!--_Wednesday_. + +_Thursday_.--I will first notice what is new to me. Thirteenth page: +"The thrilling tones that concentrate the soul" is a nervous line, and +the six first lines of page 14 are very pretty, the twenty-first +effusion a perfect thing. That in the manner of Spenser is very sweet, +particularly at the close; the thirty-fifth effusion is most +exquisite,--that line in particular, "And, tranquil, muse upon +tranquillity." It is the very reflex pleasure that distinguishes the +tranquillity of a thinking being from that of a shepherd,--a modern one +I would be understood to mean,--a Damoetas; one that keeps other +people's sheep. Certainly, Coleridge, your letter from Shurton Bars has +less merit than most things in your volume; personally it may chime in +best with your own feelings, and therefore you love it best. It has, +however, great merit. In your fourth epistle that is an exquisite +paragraph, and fancy-full, of "A stream there is which rolls in lazy +flow," etc. "Murmurs sweet undersong 'mid jasmin bowers" is a sweet +line, and so are the three next. The concluding simile is far-fetched; +"tempest-honored" is a quaintish phrase. + +Yours is a poetical family. I was much surprised and pleased to see the +signature of Sara to that elegant composition, the fifth epistle. I dare +not _criticise_ the "Religious Musings;" I like not to _select_ any +part, where all is excellent. I can only admire, and thank you for it in +the name of a Christian, as well as a lover of good poetry; only let me +ask, is not that thought and those words in Young, "stands in the +sun,"--or is it only such as Young, in one of his _better moments,_ +might have writ? + + "Believe thou, O my soul, + Life is a vision shadowy of Truth; + And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave, + Shapes of a dream!" + +I thank you for these lines in the name of a necessarian, and for what +follows in next paragraph, in the name of a child of fancy. After all, +you cannot nor ever will write anything with which I shall be so +delighted as what I have heard yourself repeat. You came to town, and I +saw you at a time when your heart was yet bleeding with recent wounds. +Like yourself, I was sore galled with disappointed hope; you had + + "Many an holy lay + That, mourning, soothed the mourner on his way." + +I had ears of sympathy to drink them in, and they yet vibrate pleasant +on the sense. When I read in your little volume your nineteenth +effusion, or the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth, or what you call the +"Sigh," I think I hear _you_ again. I image to myself the little smoky +room at the "Salutation and Cat," where we have sat together through the +winter nights, beguiling the cares of life with poesy. When you left +London, I felt a dismal void in my heart. I found myself cut off, at one +and the same time, from two most dear to me, "How blest with ye the path +could I have trod of quiet life!" In your conversation you had blended +so many pleasant fancies that they cheated me of my grief; but in your +absence the tide of melancholy rushed in again, and did its worst +mischief by overwhelming my reason. I have recovered, but feel a stupor +that makes me indifferent to the hopes and fears of this life. I +sometimes wish to introduce a religious turn of mind; but habits are +strong things, and my religious fervours are confined, alas! to some +fleeting moments of occasional solitary devotion, + +A correspondence, opening with you, has roused me a little from my +lethargy and made me conscious of existence. Indulge me in it; I will +not be very troublesome! At some future time I will amuse you with an +account, as full as my memory will permit, of the strange turn my frenzy +took. I look back upon it at times with, a gloomy kind of envy; for +while it lasted, I had many, many hours of pure happiness. Dream not, +Coleridge, of having tasted all the grandeur and wildness of fancy till +you have gone mad! All now seems to me vapid,--comparatively so. Excuse +this selfish digression. Your "Monody" [3] is so superlatively excellent +that I can only wish it perfect, which I can't help feeling it is not +quite. Indulge me in a few conjectures; what I am going to propose would +make it more compressed and, I think, more energetic, though, I am +sensible, at the expense of many beautiful lines. Let it begin, "Is this +the land of song-ennobled line?" and proceed to "Otway's famished form;" +then, "Thee, Chatterton," to "blaze of Seraphim;" then, "clad in +Nature's rich array," to "orient day;" then, "but soon the scathing +lightning," to "blighted land;" then, "sublime of thought," to "his +bosom glows;" then + + "But soon upon his poor unsheltered head + Did Penury her sickly mildew shed; + Ah! where are fled the charms of vernal grace, + And joy's wild gleams that lightened o'er his face." + +Then "youth of tumultuous soul" to "sigh," as before. The rest may all +stand down to "gaze upon the waves below." What follows now may come +next as detached verses, suggested by the "Monody," rather than a part +of it. They are, indeed, in themselves, very sweet; + + "And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng, + Hanging enraptured on thy stately song!" + +in particular, perhaps. If I am obscure, you may understand me by +counting lines. I have proposed omitting twenty-four lines; I feel that +thus compressed it would gain energy, but think it most likely you will +not agree with me; for who shall go about to bring opinions to the bed +of Procrustes, and introduce among the sons of men a monotony of +identical feelings? I only propose with diffidence. + +Reject you, if you please, with as little remorse as you would the color +of a coat or the pattern of a buckle, where our fancies differed. + +The "Pixies" is a perfect thing, and so are the "Lines on the Spring." +page 28. The "Epitaph on an Infant," like a Jack-o'-lantern, has danced +about (or like Dr. Forster's [4] scholars) out of the "Morning Chronicle" +into the "Watchman," and thence back into your collection. It is very +pretty, and you seem to think so, but, may be, overlooked its chief +merit, that of filling up a whole page, I had once deemed sonnets of +unrivalled use that way, but your Epitaphs, I find, are the more +diffuse. "Edmund" still holds its place among your best verses, "Ah! +fair delights" to "roses round," in your poem called "Absence," recall +(none more forcibly) to my mind the tones in which you recited it, I +will not notice, in this tedious (to you) manner, verses which have been +so long delighful to me, and which you already know my opinion of. Of +this kind are Bowles, Priestley, and that most exquisite and most +Bowles-like of all, the nineteenth effusion. It would have better ended +with "agony of care;" the last two lines are obvious and unnecessary; +and you need not now make fourteen lines of it, now it is rechristened +from a Sonnet to an Effusion. + +Schiller might have written the twentieth effusion; 't is worthy of him +in any sense, I was glad to meet with those lines you sent me when my +sister was so ill; I had lost the copy, and I felt not a little proud at +seeing my name in your verse. The "Complaint of Ninathoma" (first stanza +in particular) is the best, or only good, imitation of Ossian I ever +saw, your "Restless Gale" excepted. "To an Infant" is most sweet; is not +"foodful," though, very harsh? Would not "dulcet" fruit be less harsh, +or some other friendly bi-syllable? In "Edmund," "Frenzy! fierce-eyed +child" is not so well as "frantic," though that is an epithet adding +nothing to the meaning. Slander _couching_ was better than "squatting." +In the "Man of Ross" it _was_ a better line thus,-- + + "If 'neath this roof thy wine-cheered moments pass," + +than as it stands now. Time nor nothing can reconcile me to the +concluding five lines of "Kosciusko;" call it anything you will but +sublime. In my twelfth effusion I had rather have seen what I wrote +myself, though they bear no comparison with your exquisite lines,-- + + "On rose-leaf beds amid your faery bowers," etc. + +I love my sonnets because they are the reflected images of my own +feelings at different times. To instance, in the thirteenth,-- + + "How reason reeled," etc., + +are good lines, but must spoil the whole with me, who know it is only a +fiction of yours, and that the "rude dashings" did in fact not "rock me +to repose." I grant the same objection applies not to the former sonnet; +but still I love my own feelings,--they are dear to memory, though they +now and then wake a sigh or a tear, "Thinking on divers things fordone," +I charge you, Coleridge, spare my ewe-lambs; and though a gentleman may +borrow six lines in an epic poem (I should have no objection to borrow +five hundred, and without acknowledging), still, in a sonnet, a personal +poem, I do not ask my friend the aiding verse; I would not wrong your +feelings by proposing any improvements (did I think myself capable of +suggesting 'era) in such personal poems as "Thou bleedest, my poor +heart,"--'od so,--I am caught,--I have already done it; but that simile +I propose abridging would not change the feeling or introduce any alien +ones. Do you understand me? In the twenty-eighth, however, and in the +"Sigh," and that composed at Clevedon, things that come from the heart +direct, not by the medium of the fancy, I would not suggest an +alteration. + +When my blank verse is finished, or any long fancy poem, "propino tibi +alterandum, cut-up-andum, abridgeandum," just what you will with, it: +but spare my ewe-lambs! That to "Mrs. Siddons' now, you were welcome to +improve, if it had been worth it; but I say unto you again, Coleridge, +spare my ewe-lambs! I must confess, were the mine, I should omit, _in +editione secunda_, effusions two and three, because satiric and below +the dignity of the poet of "Religious Musings," fifth, seventh, half of +the eighth, that "Written in early youth," as far as "thousand +eyes,"--though I part not unreluctantly with that lively line,-- + + "Chaste joyance dancing in her bright blue eyes," + +and one or two just thereabouts. But I would substitute for it that +sweet poem called "Recollection," in the fifth number of the "Watchman," +better, I think, than the remainder of this poem, though not differing +materially; as the poem now stands, it looks altogether confused. And do +not omit those lines upon the "Early Blossom" in your sixth number of +the "Watchman;" and I would omit the tenth effusion, or what would do +better, alter and improve the last four lines. In fact, I suppose, if +they were mine, I should _not_ omit 'em; but your verse is, for the most +part, so exquisite that I like not to see aught of meaner matter mixed +with it. Forgive my petulance and often, I fear, ill-founded criticisms, +and forgive me that I have, by this time, made your eyes and head ache +with my long letter; but I cannot forego hastily the pleasure and pride +of thus conversing with you. You did not tell me whether I was to +include the "Conciones ad Populum" in my remarks on your poems. They are +not unfrequently sublime, and I think you could not do better than to +turn 'em into verse,--if you have nothing else to do. Austin, I am sorry +to say, is a _confirmed_ atheist. Stoddart, a cold-hearted, well-bred, +conceited disciple of Godwin, does him no good. His wife has several +daughters (one of 'em as old as himself). Surely there is something +unnatural in such a marriage. + +How I sympathize with you on the dull duty of a reviewer, and heartily +damn with you Ned Evans and the Prosodist! I shall, however, wait +impatiently for the articles in the "Critical Review" next month, +because they are _yours_. Young Evans (W. Evans, a branch of a family +you were once so intimate with) is come into our office, and sends his +love to you. Coleridge, I devoutly wish that Fortune, who lias made +sport with you so long, may play one freak more, throw you into London +or some spot near it, and there snug-ify you for life. 'Tis a selfish +but natural wish for me, cast as I am on life's wide plain, friendless," +Are you acquainted with Bowles? I see by his last Elegy (written at +Bath) you are near neighbors,--_Thursday_. + +"And I can think I can see the groves again;" "Was it the voice of +thee;" "Turns not the voice of thee, my buried friend;" "Who dries with +her dark locks the tender tear,"--are touches as true to Nature as any +in his other Elegy, written at the Hot Wells, about poor Kassell, etc. +You are doubtless acquainted with it, + +I do not know that I entirely agree with you in your stricture upon my +sonnet "To Innocence," To men whose hearts are not quite deadened by +their commerce with the world, innocence (no longer familiar) becomes an +awful idea. So I felt when I wrote it. Your other censures (qualified +and sweetened, though, with praises somewhat extravagant) I perfectly +coincide with: yet I choose to retain the word "lunar,"--indulge a +"lunatic" in his loyalty to his mistress the moon! I have just been +reading a most pathetic copy of verses on Sophia Pringle, who was hanged +and burned for coining. One of the strokes of pathos (which are very +many, all somewhat obscure) is, "She lifted up her guilty forger to +heaven." A note explains, by "forger," her right hand, with which she +forged or coined the base metal. For "pathos" read "bathos." You have +put me out of conceit with my blank verse by your "Religious Musings." I +think it will come to nothing. I do not like 'em enough to send 'em. I +have just been reading a book, which I may be too partial to, as it was +the delight of my childhood; but I will recommend it to you,--it is +Izaak Walton's "Complete Angler." All the scientific part you may omit +in reading. The dialogue is very simple, full of pastoral beauties, and +will charm you. Many pretty old verses are interspersed. This letter, +which would be a week's work reading only, I do not wish you to answer +in less than a month. I shall be richly content with a letter from you +some day early in July; though, if you get anyhow _settled_ before then, +pray let me know it immediately; 't would give me much satisfaction. +Concerning the Unitarian chapel, the salary is the only scruple that the +most rigid moralist would admit as valid. Concerning the tutorage, is +not the salary low, and absence from your family unavoidable? London is +the only fostering soil for genius. Nothing more occurs just now; so I +will leave you, in mercy, one small white spot empty below, to repose +your eyes upon, fatigued as they must be with the wilderness of words +they have by this time painfully travelled through. God love you, +Coleridge, and prosper you through life! though mine will be loss if +your lot is to be cast at Bristol, or at Nottingham, or anywhere but +London. Our loves to Mrs. C--. C. L. + +[1] Lapland mountains. From Coleridge's "Destiny of Nations." + +[2] The "Monody" referred to was by Cottle, and appeared in a volume of +poems published by him at Bristol in 1795. Coleridge had forwarded the +book to Lamb for his opinion. + +[3] The Monody on Chatterton. + +[4] Dr. Faustus's. + + + +IV. + + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_June_ 14, 1796, + +I am not quite satisfied now with the Chatterton, [1] and with your leave +will try my hand at it again. A master-joiner, you know, may leave a +cabinet to be finished, when his own hands are full. To your list of +illustrative personifications, into which a fine imagination enters, I +will take leave to add the following from Beaumont and Fletcher's "Wife +for a Month;" 'tis the conclusion of a description of a sea-fight: "The +game of _death_ was never played so nobly; the meagre thief grew wanton +in his mischiefs, and his shrunk, hollow eyes smiled on his ruins." +There is fancy in these of a lower order from "Bonduca": "Then did I see +these valiant men of Britain, like boding owls creep into tods of ivy, +and hoot their fears to one another nightly." Not that it is a +personification, only it just caught my eye in a little extract-book I +keep, which is full of quotations from B. and F. in particular, in which +authors I can't help thinking there is a greater richness of poetical +fancy than in any one, Shakspeare excepted. Are you acquainted with +Massinger? At a hazard I will trouble you with a passage from a play of +his called "A Very Woman." The lines are spoken by a lover (disguised) +to his faithless mistress. You will remark the fine effect of the +double endings. + +You will by your ear distinguish the lines, for I write 'em as prose. +"Not far from where my father lives, _a lady_, a neighbor by, blest with +as great a _beauty_ as Nature durst bestow without _undoing_, dwelt, and +most happily, as I thought then, and blest the house a thousand times +she _dwelt_ in. This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, when my first +fire knew no adulterate _incense_, nor I no way to flatter but my +_fondness_; in all the bravery my friends could _show me_, in all the +faith my innocence could _give me_, in the best language my true tongue +could _tell me_, and all the broken sighs my sick heart _lend me_, I +sued and served; long did I serve this _lady_, long was my travail, long +my trade to _win her_; with all the duty of my soul I SERVED HER." "Then +she must love." "She did, but never me: she could not _love me_; she +would not love, she hated,--more, she _scorned me_; and in so a poor and +base a way _abused me_ for all my services, for all my _bounties_, so +bold neglects flung on me." "What out of love, and worthy love, I _gave +her_ (shame to her most unworthy mind!), to fools, to girls, to fiddlers +and her boys she flung, all in disdain of me." One more passage strikes +my eye from B. and F.'s "Palamon and Arcite." One of 'em complains in +prison: "This is all our world; we shall know nothing here but one +another, hear nothing but the clock that tells us our woes; the vine +shall grow, but we shall never see it," etc. Is not the last +circumstance exquisite? I mean not to lay myself open by saying they +exceed Milton, and perhaps Collins in sublimity. But don't you conceive +all poets after Shakspeare yield to 'em in variety of genius? Massinger +treads close on their heels; but you are most probably as well +acquainted with his writings as your humble servant. My quotations, in +that case, will only serve to expose my barrenness of matter. Southey in +simplicity and tenderness is excelled decidedly only, I think, by +Beaumont and F. in his "Maid's Tragedy," and some parts of "Philaster" +in particular, and elsewhere occasionally; and perhaps by Cowper in his +"Crazy Kate," and in parts of his translation, such as the speeches of +Hecuba and Andromache. I long to know your opinion of that translation. +The Odyssey especially is surely very Homeric. What nobler than the +appearance of Phoebus at the beginning of the Iliad,--the lines ending +with "Dread sounding, bounding on the silver bow!" + +I beg you will give me your opinion of the translation; it afforded me +high pleasure. As curious a specimen of translation as ever fell into my +hands, is a young man's in our office, of a French novel. What in the +original was literally "amiable delusions of the fancy," he proposed, to +render "the fair frauds of the imagination." I had much trouble in +licking the book into any meaning at all. Yet did the knave clear fifty +or sixty pounds by subscription and selling the copyright. The book +itself not a week's work! To-day's portion of my journalizing epistle +has been very dull and poverty-stricken. I will here end. + +_Tuesday night_, + +I have been drinking egg-hot and smoking Oronooko (associated +circumstances, which ever forcibly recall to my mind our evenings and +nights at the "Salutation"). My eyes and brain are heavy and asleep, but +my heart is awake; and if words came as ready as ideas, and ideas as +feelings, I could say ten hundred kind things. Coleridge, you know not +my supreme happiness at having one on earth (though counties separate +us) whom I can call a friend. Remember you those tender lines +of Logan?-- + + "Our broken friendships we deplore, + And loves of youth that are no more; + No after friendships e'er can raise + Th' endearments of our early days, + And ne'er the heart such fondness prove, + As when we first began to love." + +I am writing at random, and half-tipsy, what you may not _equally_ +understand, as you will be sober when you read it; but _my_ sober and +_my_ half-tipsy hours you are alike a sharer in. Good night. + + "Then up rose our bard, like a prophet in drink, + Craigdoroch, thou'lt soar when creation shall sink." + +BURNS. + +[1] Coleridge's "Monody" on Chatterton. + + + +V. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_September_ 27, 1796. + +My Dearest Friend,--White, or some of my friends, or the public papers, +by this time may have informed you of the terrible calamities that have +fallen on our family. I will only give you the outlines: My poor dear, +dearest sister, in a fit of insanity, has been the death of her own +mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her +grasp. She is at present in a madhouse, from whence I fear she must be +moved to an hospital. God has preserved to me my senses,--I eat, and +drink, and sleep, and have my judgment, I believe, very sound. My poor +father was slightly wounded, and I am left to take care of him and my +aunt. Mr, Norris, of the Blue-coat School, has been very kind to us, and +we have no other friend; but, thank God, I am very calm and composed, +and able to do the best that remains to do. Write as religious a letter +as possible, but no mention of what is gone and done with. With me "the +former things are passed away," and I have something more to do than +to feel. + +God Almighty have us all in his keeping! + +C. LAMB. + +Mention nothing of poetry. I have destroyed every vestige of past +vanities of that kind. Do as you please, but if you publish, publish +mine (I give free leave) without name or initial, and never send me a +book, I charge you. + +Your own judgment will convince you not to take any notice of this yet +to your dear wife. You look after your family; I have my reason and +strength left to take care of mine. I charge you, don't think of coming +to see me. Write. I will not see you, if you come, God Almighty love you +and all of us! + +C. LAMB. + + + +VI. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_October_ 3, 1796. + +My dearest friend,--Your letter was an inestimable treasure to me. It +will be a comfort to you, I know, to know that our prospects are +somewhat brighter. My poor dear, dearest sister, the unhappy and +unconscious instrument of the Almighty's judgments on our house, is +restored to her senses, to a dreadful sense and recollection of what has +past, awful to her mind and impressive (as it must be to the end of +life), but tempered with religious resignation and the reasonings of a +sound judgment, which in this early stage knows how to distinguish +between a deed committed in a transient fit of frenzy, and the terrible +guilt of a mother's murder. I have seen her. I found her, this morning, +calm and serene; far, very, very far, from an indecent, forgetful +serenity. She has a most affectionate and tender concern for what has +happened. Indeed, from the beginning, frightful and hopeless as her +disorder seemed, I had confidence enough in her strength of mind and +religious principle to look forward to a time when _even she_ might +recover tranquillity. God be praised, Coleridge, wonderful as it is to +tell, I have never once been otherwise than collected and calm; even on +the dreadful day and in the midst of the terrible scene, I preserved a +tranquillity which bystanders may have construed into indifference,--a +tranquillity not of despair. Is it folly or sin in me to say that it was +a religious principle that _most_ supported me? I allow much to other +favorable circumstances. I felt that I had something else to do than to +regret. On that first evening my aunt was lying insensible, to all +appearance like one dying; my father with his poor forehead plastered +over, from a wound he had received from a daughter dearly loved by him, +and who loved him no less dearly; my mother a dead and murdered corpse +in the next room,--yet was I wonderfully supported, I dosed not my eyes +in sleep that night, but lay without terrors and without despair, I have +lost no sleep since, I had been long used not to rest in things of +sense,--had endeavored after a comprehension of mind unsatisfied with +the "ignorant present time;" and _this_ kept me up. I had the whole +weight of the family thrown on me; for my brother, [1] little disposed (I +speak not without tenderness for him) at any time to take care of old +age and infirmities, had now, with his bad leg, an exemption from such +duties; and I was now left alone. + +One little incident may serve to make you understand my way of managing +my mind, Within a day or two after the fatal one, we dressed for dinner +a tongue which we had had salted for some weeks in the house. As I sat +down, a feeling like remorse struck me: this tongue poor Mary got for +me, and can I partake of it now, when she is far away? A thought +occurred and relieved me; if I give in to this way of feeling, there is +not a chair, a room, an object in our rooms, that will not awaken the +keenest griefs; I must rise above such weaknesses. I hope this was not +want of true feeling. I did not let this carry me, though, too far. On +the very second day (I date from the day of horrors), as is usual in +such cases, there were a matter of twenty people, I do think, supping in +our room; they prevailed on me to eat _with them_ (for to eat I never +refused). They were all making merry in the room! Some had come from +friendship, some from busy curiosity, and some from interest. I was +going to partake with them, when my recollection came that my poor dead +mother was lying in the next room,--the very next room; a mother who +through life wished nothing but her children's welfare. Indignation, the +rage of grief, something like remorse, rushed upon my mind. In an agony +of emotion I found my, way mechanically to the adjoining room, and fell +on my knees by the side of her coffin, asking forgiveness of Heaven, and +sometimes of her, for forgetting her so soon. Tranquillity returned, and +it was the only violent emotion that mastered me; and I think it did +me good. + +I mention these things because I hate concealment, and love to give a +faithful journal of what passes within me. Our friends have been very +good. Sam Le Grice, [2] who was then in town, was with me the three or +four first days, and was as a brother to me, gave up every hour of his +time, to the very hurting of his health and spirits, in constant +attendance and humoring my poor father; talked with him, read to him, +played at cribbage with him (for so short is the old man's recollection +that he was playing at cards, as though nothing had happened, while the +coroner's inquest was sitting over the way!). Samuel wept tenderly when +he went away, for his mother wrote him a very severe letter on his +loitering so long in town, and he was forced to go. Mr. Norris, of +Christ's Hospital, has been as a father to me, Mrs. Norris as a mother, +though we had few claims on them. A gentleman, brother to my god-mother, +from whom we never had right or reason to expect any such assistance, +sent my father twenty pounds; and to crown all these God's blessings to +our family at such a time, an old lady, a cousin of my father and +aunt's, a gentlewoman of fortune, is to take my aunt and make her +comfortable for the short remainder of her days. My aunt is recovered, +and as well as ever, and highly pleased at thoughts of going, and has +generously given up the interest of her little money (which was formerly +paid my father for her board) wholely and solely to my sister's use. +Reckoning this, we have, Daddy and I, for oar two selves and an old +maid-servant to look after him when I am out, which will be necessary, +L170, or L180 rather, a year, out of which we can spare L50 or L60 at +least for Mary while she stays at Islington, where she roust and shall +stay during her father's life, for his and her comfort. I know John will +make speeches about it, but she shall not go into an hospital. The good +lady of the madhouse and her daughter, an elegant, sweet-behaved young +lady, love her, and are taken with her amazingly; and I know from her +own mouth she loves them, and longs to be with them as much. Poor thing, +they say she was but the other morning saying she knew she must go to +Bethlem for life; that one of her brothers would have it so, but the +other would wish it not, but be obliged to go with the stream; that she +had often, as she passed Bethlem, thought it likely, "here it may be my +fate to end my days," conscious of a certain flightiness in her poor +head oftentimes, and mindful of more than one severe illness of that +nature before. A legacy of L100 which my father will have at Christmas, +and this L20 I mentioned before, with what is in the house, will much +more than set us clear. If my father, an old servant-maid, and I can't +live, and live comfortably, on L130 or L120 a year, we ought to burn by +slow fires; and I almost would, that Mary might not go into an hospital. + +Let me not leave one unfavorable impression on your mind respecting my +brother. Since this has happened, he has been very kind and brotherly; +but I fear for his mind. He has taken his ease in the world, and is not +fit himself to struggle with difficulties, nor has much accustomed +himself to throw himself into their way; and I know his language is +already, "Charles, you must take care of yourself, you must not abridge +yourself of a single pleasure you have been used to," etc., and in that +style of talking. But you, a necessarian, can respect a difference of +mind, and love what _is amiable_ in a character not perfect. He has been +very good, but I fear for his mind. Thank God, I can unconnect myself +with him, and shall manage all my father's moneys in future myself, if I +take charge of Daddy, which poor John has not even hinted a wish, at any +future time even, to share with me. The lady at this madhouse assures me +that I may dismiss immediately both doctor and apothecary, retaining +occasionally a composing draught or so for a while; and there is a less +expensive establishment in her house, where she will only not have a +room and nurse to herself, for L50 or guineas a year,--the outside would +be L60. You know, by economy, how much more even I shall be able to +spare for her comforts. She will, I fancy, if she stays, make one of the +family rather than of the patients; and the old and young ladies I like +exceedingly, and she loves dearly; and they, as the saying is, take to +her very extraordinarily, if it is extraordinary that people who see my +sister should love her. + +Of all the people I ever saw in the world, my poor sister was most and +thoroughly devoid of the least tincture of selfishness, I will enlarge +upon her qualities, poor dear, dearest soul, in a future letter, for my +own comfort, for I understand her thoroughly; and if I mistake not, in +the most trying situation that a human being can be found in, she will +be found (I speak not with sufficient humility, I fear, but humanly and +foolishly speaking),--she will be found, I trust, uniformly great and +amiable. God keep her in her present mind, to whom be thanks and praise +for all His dispensations to mankind! + +C. LAMB. + +These mentioned good fortunes and change of prospects had almost brought +my mind over to the extreme the very opposite to despair. I was in +danger of making myself too happy. Your letter brought me back to a view +of things which I had entertained from the beginning. I hope (for Mary I +can answer)--but I hope that _I_ shall through life never have less +recollection, nor a fainter impression, of what has happened than I have +now. 'T is not a light thing, nor meant by the Almighty to be received +lightly. I must be serious, circumspect, and deeply religious through +life; and by such means may _both_ of us escape madness in future, if it +so please the Almighty! + +Send me word how it fares with Sara. I repeat it, your letter was, and +will be, an inestimable treasure to me. You have a view of what my +situation demands of me, like my own view, and I trust a just one. + +Coleridge, continue to write, but do not forever offend me by talking of +sending me cash. Sincerely and on my soul, we do not want it. God +love you both! + +I will write again very soon. Do you write directly. + +[1] John Lamb, the "James Elia" of the essay "My Relations." + +[2] A Christ's Hospital schoolfellow. + + + +VII. + + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_October_ 17, 1796. + +My dearest friend,--I grieve from my very soul to observe you in your +plans of life veering about from this hope to the other, and settling +nowhere. Is it an untoward fatality (speaking humanly) that does this +for you,--a stubborn, irresistible concurrence of events,--or lies the +fault, as I fear it does, in your own mind? You seem to be taking up +splendid schemes of fortune only to lay them down again; and your +fortunes are an _ignis fatuus_ that has been conducting you in thought +from Lancaster Court, Strand, to somewhere near Matlock; then jumping +across to Dr. Somebody's, whose son's tutor you were likely to be; and +would to God the dancing demon _may_ conduct you at last in peace and +comfort to the "life and labours of a cottager"! You see from the above +awkward playfulness of fancy that my spirits are not quite depressed. I +should ill deserve God's blessings, which, since the late terrible +event, have come down in mercy upon us, if I indulge in regret or +querulousness. Mary continues serene and cheerful. I have not by me a +little letter she wrote to me; for though I see her almost every day, +yet we delight to write to one another, for we can scarce see each other +but in company with some of the people of the house. I have not the +letter by me, but will quote from memory what she wrote in it: "I have +no bad, terrifying dreams. At midnight, when I happen to awake, the +nurse sleeping by the side of me, with the noise of the poor mad people +around me, I have no fear. The spirit of my mother seems to descend and +smile upon me, and bid me live to enjoy the life and reason which the +Almighty has given me. I shall see her again in heaven; she will then +understand me better. My grandmother, too, will understand me better, +and will then say no more, as she used to do, 'Polly, what are those +poor crazy, moythered brains of yours thinking of always?'" Poor Mary! +my mother indeed _never understood_ her right. She loved her, as she +loved us all, with a mother's love; but in opinion, in feeling and +sentiment and disposition, bore so distant a resemblance to her daughter +that she never understood her right,--never could believe how much _she_ +loved her, but met her caresses, her protestations of filial affection, +too frequently with coldness and repulse. Still, she was a good mother. +God forbid I should think of her but _most_ respectfully, _most_ +affectionately. Yet she would always love my brother above Mary, who was +not worthy of one tenth of that affection which Mary had a right to +claim. But it is my sister's gratifying recollection that every act of +duty and of love she could pay, every kindness (and I speak true, when I +say to the hurting of her health, and most probably in great part to the +derangement of her senses) through a long course of infirmities and +sickness she could show her, she ever did. I will some day, as I +promised, enlarge to you upon my sister's excellences; 't will seem like +exaggeration, but I will do it. At present, short letters suit my state +of mind best. So take my kindest wishes for your comfort and +establishment in life, and for Sara's welfare and comforts with you. God +love you; God love us all! + +C. LAMB. + + + +VIII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_November_ 14, 1796. + +Coleridge, I love you for dedicating your poetry to Bowles. [1] Genius of +the sacred fountain of tears, it was he who led you gently by the hand +through all this valley of weeping, showed you the dark green yew-trees +and the willow shades where, by the fall of waters, you might indulge in +uncomplaining melancholy, a delicious regret for the past, or weave fine +visions of that awful future,-- + + "When all the vanities of life's brief day + Oblivion's hurrying hand hath swept away, + And all its sorrows, at the awful blast + Of the archangel's trump, are but as shadows past." + +I have another sort of dedication in my head for my few things, which I +want to know if you approve of and can insert. [2] I mean to inscribe +them to my sister. It will be unexpected, and it will gire her pleasure; +or do you think it will look whimsical at all? As I have not spoke to +her about it, I can easily reject the idea. But there is a monotony in +the affections which people living together, or as we do now, very +frequently seeing each other, are apt to give in to,--a sort of +indifference in the expression of kindness for each other, which demands +that we should sometimes call to our aid the trickery of surprise. Do +you publish with Lloyd, or without him? In either case my little portion +may come last, and after the fashion of orders to a country +correspondent, I will give directions how I should like to have 'em +done. The title-page to stand thus:-- + + +POEMS + +BY CHARLES LAMB, OF THE INDIA HOUSE. + +Under this title the following motto, which, for want of room, I put +over-leaf, and desire you to insert whether you like it or no. May not a +gentleman choose what arms, mottoes, or armorial bearings the herald +will give him leave, without consulting his republican friend, who might +advise none? May not a publican put up the sign of the Saracen's Head, +even though his undiscerning neighbor should prefer, as more genteel, +the Cat and Gridiron? + +[MOTTO.] + + "This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, + When my first fire knew no adulterate incense, + Nor I no way to flatter but my fondness, + In the best language my true tongue could tell me, + And all the broken sighs my sick heart lend me, + I sued and served. Long did I love this lady." [1] + MASSINGER. + +THE DEDICATION. + + THE FEW FOLLOWING POEMS, + CREATURES OF THE FANCY AND THE FEELING + IN LIFE'S MORE VACANT HOURS, + PRODUCED, FOR THE MOST PART, BY + LOVE IN IDLENESS, + ARE, + WITH ALL A BROTHER'S FONDNESS, + INSCRIBED TO + + MARY ANN LAMB, + + THE AUTHOR'S BEST FRIEND ANB SISTER. + +This is the pomp and paraphernalia of parting, with which I take my +leave of a passion which has reigned so royally (so long) within me; +thus, with its trappings of laureateship, I fling it off, pleased and +satisfied with myself that the weakness troubles me no longer. I am +wedded. Coleridge, to the fortunes of my sister and my poor old father. +Oh, my friend, I think sometimes, could I recall the days that are past, +which among them should I choose? Not, those "merrier days," not the +"pleasant days of hope," not "those wanderings with a fair-hair'd +maid," [2] which I have so often, and so feelingly regretted, but the +days, Coleridge, of a _mother's_ fondness for her _schoolboy_. What +would I give to call her back to earth for _one_ day, on my knees to ask +her pardon for all those little asperities of temper which from time to +time have given her gentle spirit pain. And the day, my friend, I trust +will come; there will be "time enough" for kind offices of love, if +"Heaven's eternal year" be ours. Hereafter, her meek spirit shall not +reproach me. Oh, my friend, cultivate the filial feelings, and let no +man think himself released from the kind "charities" of relationship. +These shall give him peace at the last; these are the best foundation +for every species of benevolence. I rejoice to hear, by certain +channels, that you, my friend, are reconciled with all your relations. +'T is the most kindly and natural species of love, and we have all the +associated train of early feelings to secure its strength and +perpetuity. Send me an account of your health; _indeed_ I am solicitous +about you. God love you and yours! + +C. LAMB. + +[1] From "A Very Woman." + +[2] An allusion to Lamb's first love,--the "Anna" of his sonnets, and +the original, probably, of "Rosamund Gray" and of "Alice W---n" in the +beautiful essay "Dream Children." + +[3] The earliest sonnets of William Lisle Bowles were published in 1789, +the year of Lamb's removal from Christ's Hospital. + +[4] Alluding to the prospective joint volume of poems (by Coleridge, +Lamb, and Charles Lloyd) to be published by Cottle in 1797. This was +Lamb's second serious literary venture, he and Coleridge having issued a +joint volume in 1796. + + + +IX. + +TO COLERIDGE. + +[Fragment.] + +_Dec_. 5, 1796. + +At length I have done with verse-making,--not that I relish other +people's poetry less: theirs comes from 'em without effort; mine is the +difficult operation of a brain scanty of ideas, made more difficult by +disuse. I have been reading "The Task" with fresh delight. I am glad you +love Cowper. I could forgive a man for not enjoying Milton; but I would +not call that man my friend who should be offended with the "divine +chit-chat of Cowper." Write to me. God love you and yours! + +C. L. + + + +X. + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_Dec_. 10, 1796. + +I had put my letter into the post rather hastily, not expecting to have +to acknowledge another from you so soon. This morning's present has made +me alive again. My last night's epistle was childishly querulous: but +you have put a little life into me, and I will thank you for your +remembrance of me, while my sense of it is yet warm; for if I linger a +day or two, I may use the same phrase of acknowledgment, or similar, but +the feeling that dictates it now will be gone; I shall send you a _caput +mortuum_; not a _cor vivens_. Thy "Watchman's," thy bellman's verses, I +do retort upon thee, thou libellous varlet,--why, you cried the hours +yourself, and who made you so proud? But I submit, to show my humility, +most implicitly to your dogmas, I reject entirely the copy of verses you +reject. With regard to my leaving off versifying [1] you have said so +many pretty things, so many fine compliments, Ingeniously decked out in +the garb of sincerity, and undoubtedly springing from a present feeling +somewhat like sincerity, that you might melt the most un-muse-ical soul, +did you not (now for a Rowland compliment for your profusion of +Olivers),--did you not in your very epistle, by the many pretty fancies +and profusion of heart displayed in it, dissuade and discourage me from +attempting anything after you. At present I have not leisure to make +verses, nor anything approaching to a fondness for the exercise. In the +ignorant present time, who can answer for the future man? "At lovers' +perjuries Jove laughs,"--and poets have sometimes a disingenuous way of +forswearing their occupation. This, though, is not my case. The tender +cast of soul, sombred with melancholy and subsiding recollections, is +favorable to the Sonnet or the Elegy; but from-- + + "The sainted growing woof + The teasing troubles keep aloof." + +The music of poesy may charm for a while the importunate, teasing cares +of life; but the teased and troubled man is not in a disposition to make +that music. + +You sent me some very sweet lines relative to Burns; but it was at a +time when, in my highly agitated and perhaps distorted state of mind, I +thought it a duty to read 'em hastily and burn 'em. I burned all my own +verses, all my book of extracts from Beaumont and Fletcher and a +thousand sources; I burned a little journal of my foolish passion which +I had a long time kept,-- + + "Noting, ere they past away, + The little lines of yesterday." + +I almost burned all your letters; I did as bad,--I lent 'em to a friend +to keep out of my brother's sight, should he come and make inquisition +into our papers; for much as he dwelt upon your conversation while you +were among us, and delighted to be with you, it has been, his fashion, +ever since to depreciate and cry you down,--you were the cause of my +madness, you and your damned foolish sensibility and melancholy; and he +lamented with a true brotherly feeling that we ever met,--even as the +sober citizen, when his son went astray upon the mountains of Parnassus, +is said to have cursed wit, and poetry, and Pope. [2] I quote wrong, but +no matter. These letters I lent to a friend to be out of the way for a +season; but I have claimed them in vain, and shall not cease to regret +their loss. Your packets posterior to the date of my misfortunes, +commencing with that valuable consolatory epistle, are every day +accumulating,--they are sacred things with me. + +Publish your _Burns_ [3] when and how you like; it will "be new to +me,"--my memory of it is very confused, and tainted with unpleasant +associations. Burns was the god of my idolatry, as Bowles of yours. I am +jealous of your fraternizing with Bowles, when I think you relish him +more than Burns or my old favorite, Cowper, But you conciliate matters +when you talk of the "divine chit-chat" of the latter; by the expression +I see you thoroughly relish him. I love Mrs. Coleridge for her excuses +an hundred-fold more dearly than if she heaped "line upon line," +out-Hannah-ing Hannah More, and had rather hear you sing "Did a very +little baby" by your family fireside, than listen to you when you were +repeating one of Bowles's sweetest sonnets in your sweet manner, while +we two were indulging sympathy, a solitary luxury, by the fireside at +the "Salutation." Yet have I no higher ideas of heaven. Your company was +one "cordial in this melancholy vale,"--the remembrance of it is a +blessing partly, and partly a curse. When I can abstract myself from +things present, I can enjoy it with a freshness of relish; but it more +constantly operates to an unfavorable comparison with the uninteresting +converse I always and _only_ can partake in. Not a soul loves Bowles +here; scarce one has heard of Burns; few but laugh at me for reading my +Testament,--they talk a language I understand not; I conceal sentiments +that would be a puzzle to them. I can only converse with you by letter, +and with the dead in their books. My sister, indeed, is all I can wish +in a companion; but our spirits are alike poorly, our reading and +knowledge from the selfsame sources, our communication with the scenes +of the world alike narrow. Never having kept separate company, or any +"company _together_;" never having read separate books, and few books +_together_,--what knowledge have we to convey to each other? In our +little range of duties and connections, how few sentiments can take +place without friends, with few books, with a taste for religion rather +than a strong religious habit! We need some support, some +leading-strings to cheer and direct us. You talk very wisely; and be not +sparing of _your advice_. Continue to remember us, and to show us you do +remember us; we will take as lively an interest in what concerns you and +yours. All I can add to your happiness will be sympathy. You can add to +mine _more_; you can teach me wisdom. I am indeed an unreasonable +correspondent: but I was unwilling to let my last night's letter go off +without this qualifier: you will perceive by this my mind is easier, and +you will rejoice. I do not expect or wish you to write till you are +moved; and of course shall not, till you announce to me that event, +think of writing myself. Love to Mrs. Coleridge and David Hartley, and +my kind remembrance to Lloyd, if he is with you. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] See preceding letter. + +[2] Epistle to Arbuthnot:-- + + "Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope, + And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope." + +[3] The lines on him which Coleridge had sent to Lamb, and which the +latter had burned. + + + +XI. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_January_ 5, 1797. + +_Sunday Morning_.--You cannot surely mean to degrade the Joan of Arc +into a pot-girl. [1] You are not going, I hope, to annex to that most +splendid ornament of Southey's poem all this cock-and-a-bull story of +Joan, the publican's daughter of Neufchatel, with the lamentable episode +of a wagoner, his wife, and six children. The texture will be most +lamentably disproportionate. The first forty or fifty lines of these +addenda are no doubt in their way admirable too; but many would prefer +the Joan of Southey. + +[1] Coleridge, in later years, indorsed Lamb's opinion of this +portion of his contribution to "Joan of Arc." "I was really astonished," +he said, "(1) at the schoolboy, wretched, allegoric machinery; (2) at +the transmogrification of the fanatic virago into a modern novel-pawing +proselyte of the "Age of Reason,"--a Tom Paine in petticoats; (3) at the +utter want of all rhythm in the verse, the monotony and dead plumb-down +of the pauses, and the absence of all bone, muscle, and sinew in the +single lines." + + "On mightiest deeds to brood + Of shadowy vastness, such as made my heart + Throb fast; anon I paused, and in a state + Of half expectance listened to the wind." + + "They wondered at me, who had known me once + A cheerful, careless damsel." + + "The eye, + That of the circling throng and of the visible world, + Unseeing, saw the shapes of holy phantasy." + +I see nothing in your description of the Maid equal to these. There is a +fine originality certainly in those lines,-- + + "For she had lived in this bad world + As in a place of tombs, + And touched not the pollutions of the dead;" + +but your "fierce vivacity" is a faint copy of the "fierce and terrible +benevolence" of Southey; added to this, that it will look like rivalship +in you, and extort a comparison with Southey,--I think to your +disadvantage. And the lines, considered in themselves as an addition to +what you had before written (strains of a far higher mood), are but such +as Madame Fancy loves in some of her more familiar moods,--at such times +as she has met Noll Goldsmith, and walked and talked with him, calling +him "old acquaintance." Southey certainly has no pretensions to vie with +you in the sublime of poetry; but he tells a plain tale better than you. +I will enumerate some woful blemishes, some of 'em sad deviations from +that simplicity which was your aim. "Hailed who might be near" (the +"canvas-coverture moving," by the by, is laughable); "a woman and six +children" (by the way, why not nine children? It would have been just +half as pathetic again); "statues of sleep they seemed;" "frost-mangled +wretch;" "green putridity;" "hailed him immortal" (rather ludicrous +again); "voiced a sad and simple tale" (abominable!); "unprovendered;" +"such his tale;" "Ah, suffering to the height of what was sufffered" (a +most _insufferable line_); "amazements of affright;" "The hot, sore +brain attributes its own hues of ghastliness and torture" (what shocking +confusion of ideas!). + +In these delineations of common and natural feelings, in the familiar +walks of poetry, you seem to resemble Montauban dancing with Roubigne's +tenants [1], "_much of his native loftiness remained in the execution_." + +I was reading your "Religious Musings" the other day, and sincerely I +think it the noblest poem in the language next after the "Paradise +Lost;" and even that was not made the vehicle of such grand truths. +"There is one mind," etc., down to "Almighty's throne," are without a +rival in the whole compass of my poetical reading. + + "Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze + Views all creation." + +I wish I could have written those lines. I rejoice that I am able to +relish them. The loftier walks of Pindus are your proper region. There +you have no compeer in modern times. Leave the lowlands, unenvied, in +possession of such men as Cowper and Southey. Thus am I pouring balsam +into the wounds I may have been inflicting on my poor friend's vanity. + +In your notice of Southey's new volume you omit to mention the most +pleasing of all, the "Miniature." + + "There were + Who formed high hopes and flattering ones of thee, + Young Robert!" + + "Spirit of Spenser! was the wanderer wrong?" + +Fairfax I have been in quest of a long time. Johnson, in his "Life of +Waller," gives a most delicious specimen of him, and adds, in the true +manner of that delicate critic, as well as amiable man, "It may be +presumed that this old version will not be much read after the elegant +translation of my friend Mr. Hoole." I endeavored--I wished to gain some +idea of Tasso from this Mr. Hoole, the great boast and ornament of the +India House, but soon desisted. I found him more vapid than smallest +small beer "sun-vinegared." Your "Dream," down to that exquisite line,-- + + "I can't tell half his adventures," + +is a most happy resemblance of Chaucer. The remainder is so-so. The best +line, I think, is, "He belong'd, I believe, to the witch Melancholy." By +the way, when will our volume come out? Don't delay it till you have +written a new "Joan of Arc." Send what letters you please by me, and in +any way you choose, single or double. The India Company is better +adapted to answer the cost than the generality of my friend's +correspondents,--such poor and honest dogs as John Thelwall +particularly. I cannot say I know Coulson,--at least intimately; I once +supped with him and Austin; I think his manners very pleasing. I will +not tell you what I think of Lloyd, for he may by chance come to see +this letter; and that thought puts a restraint on me. I cannot think +what subject would suit your epic genius,--some philosophical subject, I +conjecture, in which shall be blended the sublime of poetry and of +science. Your proposed "Hymns" will be a fit preparatory study wherewith +"to discipline your young novitiate soul." I grow dull; I'll go walk +myself out of my dulness. + +_Sunday Night_,--You and Sara are very good to think so kindly and so +favorably of poor Mary; I would to God all did so too. But I very much +fear she must not think of coming home in my father's lifetime. It is +very hard upon her, but our circumstances are peculiar, and we must +submit to them, God be praised she is so well as she is. She bears her +situation as one who has no right to complain. My poor old aunt, whom +you have seen, the kindest, goodest creature to me when I was at school; +who used to toddle there to bring me good things, when I, +schoolboy-like, only despised her for it, and used to be ashamed to see +her come and sit herself down on the old coal-hole steps as you went +into the old grammar-school, and open her apron, and bring out her +basin, with some nice thing she had caused to be saved for me, [2]--the +good old creature is now lying on her death-bed. I cannot bear to think +on her deplorable state. To the shock she received on that our evil day, +from which she never completely recovered, I impute her illness. She +says, poor thing, she is glad she is come home to die with me. I was +always her favourite; + + "No after friendship e'er can raise + The endearments of our early days; + Nor e'er the heart such fondness prove, + As when it first began to love." + +[1] In Mackenzie's tale, "Julia de Roubigne." + +[2] See the essay, "Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago." + + + +XII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_January_ 10, 1797. + +I need not repeat my wishes to have my little sonnets printed _verbatim_ +my last way. In particular, I fear lest you should prefer printing my +first sonnet, as you have done more than once, "did the wand of Merlin +wave," it looks so like Mr. Merlin, [1] the ingenious successor of the +immortal Merlin, now living in good health and spirits, and flourishing +in magical reputation, in Oxford Street; and, on my life, one half who +read it would understand it so. + +Do put 'em forth finally, as I have, in various letters, settled it; for +first a man's self is to be pleased, and then his friends,--and of +course the greater number of his friends, if they differ _inter se_. +Thus taste may safely be put to the vote. I do long to see our names +together,--not for vanity's sake, and naughty pride of heart altogether; +for not a living soul I know, or am intimate with, will scarce read the +book,--so I shall gain nothing, _quoad famam_; and yet there is a little +vanity mixes in it, I cannot help denying.--I am aware of the unpoetical +cast of the last six lines of my last sonnet, and think myself +unwarranted in smuggling so tame a thing into the book; only the +sentiments of those six lines are thoroughly congenial to me in my state +of mind, and I wish to accumulate perpetuating tokens of my affection to +poor Mary. That it has no originality in its cast, nor anything in the +feelings but what is common and natural to thousands, nor ought properly +to be called poetry, I see; still, it will tend to keep present to my +mind a view of things which I ought to indulge. These six lines, too, +have not, to a reader, a connectedness with the foregoing. Omit it if +you like,--What a treasure it is to my poor, indolent, and unemployed +mind thus to lay hold on a subject to talk about, though 'tis but a +sonnet, and that of the lowest order! How mournfully inactive I +am!--'Tis night; good night. + +My sister, I thank God, is nigh recovered; she was seriously ill. Do, in +your next letter, and that right soon, give me some satisfaction +respecting your present situation at Stowey. Is it a farm that you have +got? and what does your worship know about farming? + +Coleridge, I want you to write an epic poem. Nothing short of it can +satisfy the vast capacity of true poetic genius. Having one great end to +direct all your poetical faculties to, and on which to lay out your +hopes, your ambition will show you to what you are equal. By the sacred +energies of Milton! by the dainty, sweet, and soothing phantasies of +honey-tongued Spenser! I adjure you to attempt the epic, or do something +more ample than the writing an occasional brief ode or sonnet; something +"to make yourself forever known,--to make the age to come your own." But +I prate; doubtless you meditate something. When you are exalted among +the lords of epic fame, I shall recall with pleasure and exultingly the +days of your humility, when you disdained not to put forth, in the same +volume with mine, your "Religious Musings" and that other poem from the +"Joan of Arc," those promising first-fruits of high renown to come. You +have learning, you have fancy, you have enthusiasm, you have strength +and amplitude of wing enow for flights like those I recommend. In the +vast and unexplored regions of fairy-land there is ground enough unfound +and uncultivated: search there, and realize your favorite Susquehanna +scheme. In all our comparisons of taste, I do not know whether I have +ever heard your opinion of a poet very dear to me,--the +now-out-of-fashion Cowley. Favor me with your judgment of him, and tell +me if his prose essays, in particular, as well as no inconsiderable part +of his verse, be not delicious. I prefer the graceful rambling of his +essays even to the courtly elegance and ease of Addison, abstracting +from this the latter's exquisite humor. + +When the little volume is printed, send me three or four, at all events +not more than six, copies, and tell me if I put you to any additional +expense by printing with you, I have no thought of the kind, and in that +case must reimburse you. + +Priestley, whom I sin in almost adoring, speaks of "such a choice of +company as tends to keep up that, right bent and firmness of mind which +a necessary intercourse with the world would otherwise warp and +relax.... Such fellowship is the true balsam of life; its cement is +infinitely more durable than that of the friendships of the world, and +it looks for its proper fruit and complete gratification to the life +beyond the grave." Is there a possible chance for such an one as I to +realize in this world such friendships? Where am I to look for 'em? What +testimonials shall I bring of my being worthy of such friendship? Alas! +the great and good go together in separate herds, and leave such as I to +lag far, far behind in all intellectual and, far more grievous to say, +in all moral accomplishments. Coleridge, I have not one truly elevated +character among my acquaintance,--not one Christian; not one but +undervalues Christianity. Singly what am I to do? Wesley (have you read +his life?), was _he_ not an elevated character? Wesley has said, +"Religion is not a solitary thing." Alas! it necessarily is so with me, +or next to solitary. 'T is true you write to me. But correspondence by +letter and personal intimacy are very widely different. Do, do write to +me, and do some good to my mind, already how much "warped and relaxed" +by the world! 'T is the conclusion of another evening. Good night; God +have us all in His keeping! + +If you are sufficiently at leisure, oblige me with an account of your +plan of life at Stowey; your literary occupations and prospects,--in +short, make me acquainted with every circumstance which, as relating to +you, can be interesting to me. Are you yet a Berkleyan? Make me one. I +rejoice in being, speculatively, a necessarian. Would to God I were +habitually a practical one! Confirm me in the faith of that great and +glorious doctrine, and keep me steady in the contemplation of it. You +some time since expressed an intention you had of finishing some +extensive work on the Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion. Have +you let that intention go? Or are you doing anything towards it? Make to +yourself other ten talents. My letter is full of nothingness. I talk of +nothing. But I must talk. I love to write to you. I take a pride in it. +It makes me think less meanly of myself. It makes me think myself not +totally disconnected from the better part of mankind. I know I am too +dissatisfied with the beings around me; but I cannot help occasionally +exclaiming, "Woe is me, that I am constrained to dwell with Meshech, and +to have my habitation among the tents of Kedar." I know I am noways +better in practice than my neighors, but I have a taste for religion, an +occasional earnest aspiration after perfection, which they have not. I +gain, nothing by being with such as myself,--we encourage one another in +mediocrity, I am always longing to be with men more excellent than +myself. All this must sound odd to you; but these are my predominant +feelings when I sit down to write to you, and I should put force upon my +mind, were I to reject them, Yet I rejoice, and feel my privilege with +gratitude, when I have been reading some wise book, such as I have just +been reading,--Priestley on Philosophical Necessity,--in the thought +that I enjoy a kind of communion, a kind of friendship even, with the +great and good. Books are to me instead of friends, I wish they did not +resemble the latter in their scarceness. + +And how does little David Hartley? "Ecquid in antiquam virtutem?" Does +his mighty name work wonders yet upon his little frame and opening mind? +I did not distinctly understand you,--you don't mean to make an actual +ploughman of him? Is Lloyd with you yet? Are you intimate with Southey? +What poems is he about to publish? He hath a most prolific brain, and is +indeed a most sweet poet. But how can you answer all the various mass of +interrogation I have put to you in the course of the sheet? Write back +just what you like, only write something, however brief. I have now nigh +finished my page, and got to the end of another evening (Monday +evening), and my eyes are heavy and sleepy, and my brain unsuggestive. I +have just heart enough awake to say good night once more, and God love +you, my dear friend; God love us all! Mary bears an affectionate +remembrance of you. + +CHARLES LAMB. + +[1] A well-known conjuror of the time. + + + +XIII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_February_ 13, 1797. + +Your poem is altogether admirable--parts of it are even exquisite; in +particular your personal account of the Maid far surpasses anything of +the sort in Southey. [1] I perceived all its excellences, on a first +reading, as readily as now you have been removing a supposed film from +my eyes. I was only struck with a certain faulty disproportion in the +matter and the _style_, which I still think I perceive, between these +lines and the former ones. I had an end in view,--I wished to make you +reject the poem, only as being discordant with the other; and, in +subservience to that end, it was politically done in me to over-pass, +and make no mention of, merit which, could you think me capable of +_overlooking_, might reasonably damn forever in your judgment all +pretensions in me to be critical. There, I will be judged by Lloyd +whether I have not made a very handsome recantation. I was in the case +of a man whose friend has asked him his opinion of a certain young lady; +the deluded wight gives judgment against her _in toto_,--don't like her +face, her walk, her manners; finds fault with her eyebrows; can see no +wit in her. His friend looks blank; he begins to smell a rat; wind veers +about; he acknowledges her good sense, her judgment in dress, a certain +simplicity of manners and honesty of heart, something too in her manners +which gains upon you after a short acquaintance;--and then her accurate +pronunciation of the French language, and a pretty, uncultivated taste +in drawing. The reconciled gentleman smiles applause, squeezes him by +the hand, and hopes he will do him the honor of taking a bit of dinner +with Mrs. ---- and him--a plain family dinner--some day next week; "for, +I suppose, you never heard we were married. I'm glad to see you like my +wife, however; you 'll come and see her, ha?" Now am I too proud to +retract entirely? Yet I do perceive I am in some sort straitened; you +are manifestly wedded, to this poem, and what fancy has joined, let no +man separate, I turn me to the "Joan of Arc," second book. + +The solemn openings of it are with sounds which, Lloyd would say, "are +silence to the mind." The deep preluding strains are fitted to initiate +the mind, with a pleasing awe, into the sublimest mysteries of theory +concerning man's nature and his noblest destination,--the philosophy of +a first cause; of subordinate agents in creation superior to man; the +subserviency of pagan worship and pagan faith to the introduction of a +purer and more perfect religion, which you so elegantly describe as +winning, with gradual steps, her difficult way northward from Bethabara. +After all this cometh Joan, a _publican's_ daughter, sitting on an +ale-house _bench_, and marking the _swingings_ of the _signboard_, +finding a poor man, his wife and six children, starved to death with +cold, and thence roused into a state of mind proper to receive visions +emblematical of equality,--which, what the devil Joan had to do with, I +don't know, or indeed with the French and American revolutions; though +that needs no pardon, it is executed so nobly. After all, if you +perceive no disproportion, all argument is vain; I do not so much object +to parts. Again, when you talk of building your fame on these lines in +preference to the "Religious Musings," I cannot help conceiving of you +and of the author of that as two different persons, and I think you a +very vain man. + +I have been re-reading your letter. Much of it I _could_ dispute; but +with the latter part of it, in which you compare the two Joans with +respect to their predispositions for fanaticism, I _toto corde_ +coincide; only I think that Southey's strength rather lies in the +description of the emotions of the Maid under the weight of inspiration. +These (I see no mighty difference between _her_ describing them or _you_ +describing them),--these if you only equal, the previous admirers of his +poem, as is natural, will prefer his; if you surpass, prejudice will +scarcely allow it, and I scarce think you will surpass, though your +specimen at the conclusion (I am in earnest) I think very nigh equals +them. And in an account of a fanatic or of a prophet the description of +her _emotions_ is expected to be most highly finished. By the way, I +spoke far too disparagingly of your lines, and, I am ashamed to say. +purposely, I should like you to specify or particularize; the story of +the "Tottering Eld," of "his eventful years all come and gone," is too +general; why not make him a soldier, or some character, however, in +which he has been witness to frequency of "cruel wrong and strange +distress"? I think I should, When I laughed at the "miserable man +crawling from beneath the coverture," I wonder I did not perceive it was +a laugh of horror,--such as I have laughed at Dante's picture of the +famished Ugolino. Without falsehood, I perceive an hundred, beauties in +your narrative. Yet I wonder you do not perceive something +out-of-the-way, something unsimple and artificial, in the expression, +"voiced a sad tale." I hate made-dishes at the muses' banquet, I believe +I was wrong in most of my other objections. But surely "hailed him +immortal" adds nothing to the terror of the man's death, which it was +your business to heighten, not diminish by a phrase which takes away all +terror from it, I like that line, "They closed their eyes in sleep, nor +knew 'twas death," Indeed, there is scarce a line I do not like, +"_Turbid_ ecstasy" is surely not so good as what you had +written,--"troublous." "Turbid" rather suits the muddy kind of +inspiration which London porter confers. The versification is +throughout, to my ears, unexceptionable, with no disparagement to the +measure of the "Religious Musings," which is exactly fitted to +the thoughts. + +You were building your house on a rock when you rested your fame on that +poem. I can scarce bring myself to believe that I am admitted to a +familiar correspondence, and all the license of friendship, with a man +who writes blank verse like Milton. Now, this is delicate flattery, +_indirect_ flattery. Go on with your "Maid of Orleans," and be content +to be second to yourself. I shall become a convert to it, when +'tis finished. + +This afternoon I attend the funeral of my poor old aunt, who died on +Thursday. I own I am thankful that the good creature has ended all her +days of suffering and infirmity. She was to me the "cherisher of +infancy;" and one must fall on these occasions into reflections, which +it would be commonplace to enumerate, concerning death, "of chance and +change, and fate in human life." Good God, who could have foreseen all +this but four months back! I had reckoned, in particular, on my aunt's +living many years; she was a very hearty old woman. But she was a mere +skeleton before she died; looked more like a corpse that had lain weeks +in the grave, than one fresh dead. "Truly the light is sweet, and a +pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun: but let a man live +many days, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of +darkness, for they shall be many." Coleridge, why are we to live on +after all the strength and beauty of existence are gone, when all the +life of life is fled, as poor Burns expresses it? Tell Lloyd I have had +thoughts of turning Quaker, and have been reading, or am rather just +beginning to read, a most capital book, good thoughts in good language, +William Penn's "No Cross, no Crown;" I like it immensely. Unluckily I +went to one of his meetings, tell hire, in St. John Street, yesterday, +and saw a man under all the agitations and workings of a fanatic, who +believed himself under the influence of some "inevitable presence." This +cured me of Quakerism: I love it in the books of Penn and Woolman, but I +detest the vanity of a man thinking he speaks by the Spirit, when what +he says an ordinary man might say without all that quaking and +trembling. In the midst of his inspiration,--and the effects of it were +most noisy,--was handed into the midst of the meeting a most terrible +blackguard Wapping sailor; the poor man, I believe, had rather have been +in the hottest part of an engagement, for the congregation of +broad-brims, together with the ravings of the prophet, were too much for +his gravity, though I saw even he had delicacy enough not to laugh out. +And the inspired gentleman, though his manner was so supernatural, yet +neither talked, nor professed to talk anything more than good sober +sense, common morality, with, now and then a declaration of not speaking +from himself. Among other things, looking back to this childhood and +early youth, he told the meeting what a graceless young dog he had been, +that in his youth he had a good share of wit. Reader, if thou hadst seen +the gentleman, thou wouldst have sworn that it must indeed have been +many years ago, for his rueful physiognomy would have scared away the +playful goddess from the meeting, where he presided, forever, A wit! a +wit! what could he mean? Lloyd, it minded me of Falkland in the +"Rivals," "Am I full of wit and humor? No, indeed, you are not. Am I the +life and soul of every company I come into? No, it cannot be said you +are." That hard-faced gentleman a wit! Why, Nature wrote on his fanatic +forehead fifty years ago, "Wit never comes, that comes to all." I should +be as scandalized at a _bon-mot_ issuing from his oracle-looking mouth +as to see Cato go down a country-dance. God love you all! You are very +good to submit to be pleased with reading my nothings. 'T is the +privilege of friendship to talk nonsense and to have her nonsense +respected. Yours ever, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] See Letter VIII. + + + +XIV. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_January_ 28, 1798. + +You have writ me many kind letters, and I have answered none of them. I +don't deserve your attentions. An unnatural indifference has been +creeping on me since my last misfortunes, or I should have seized the +first opening of a correspondence with _you_. To you I owe much under +God. In my brief acquaintance with you in London, your conversations won +me to the better cause, and rescued me from the polluting spirit of the +world. I might have been a worthless character without you; as it is, I +do possess a certain improvable portion of devotional feelings, though +when I view myself in the light of divine truth, and not according to +the common measures of human judgment. I am altogether corrupt and +sinful. This is no cant. I am very sincere. + +These last afflictions, [1] Coleridge, have failed to soften and bend my +will. They found me unprepared. My former calamities produced in me a +spirit of humility and a spirit of prayer. I thought they had +sufficiently disciplined me; but the event ought to humble me. If God's +judgments now fail to take away from the the heart of stone, what more +grievous trials ought I not to expect? I have been very querulous, +impatient under the rod, full of little jealousies and heartburnings. I +had wellnigh quarrelled with Charles Lloyd, and for no other reason, I +believe, than that the good creature did all he could to make me happy. +The truth is, I thought he tried to force my mind from its natural and +proper bent: he continually wished me to be from home; he was drawing me +_from_ the consideration of my poor dear Mary's situation, rather than +assisting me to gain a proper view of it with religious consolations. I +wanted to be left to the tendency of my own mind in a solitary state +which, in times past, I knew had led to quietness and a patient bearing +of the yoke. He was hurt that I was not more constantly with him; but he +was living with White,--a man to whom I had never been accustomed to +impart my _dearest feelings_; though from long habits of +friendliness, and many a social and good quality, I loved him very much, +I met company there sometimes,--indiscriminate company. Any society +almost, when I am in affliction, is sorely painful to me. I seem to +breathe more freely, to think more collectedly, to feel more properly +and calmly, when alone. All these things the good creature did with the +kindest intentions in the world, but they produced in me nothing but +soreness and discontent. I became, as he complained, "jaundiced" towards +him.... But he has forgiven me; and his smile, I hope, will draw all +such humors from me. I am recovering, God be praised for it, a +healthiness of mind, something like calmness; but I want more religion, +I am jealous of human helps and leaning-places. I rejoice in your good +fortunes. May God at the last settle you! You have had many and painful +trials; humanly speaking, they are going to end; but we should rather +pray that discipline may attend us through the whole of our lives.... A +careless and a dissolute spirit has advanced upon _me_ with large +strides. Pray God that my present afflictions may be sanctified to me! +Mary is recovering; but I see no opening yet of a situation for her. +Your invitation went to my very heart; but you have a power of exciting +interest, of leading all hearts captive, too forcible to admit of Mary's +being with you. I consider her as perpetually on the brink of madness. I +think you would almost make her dance within an inch of the precipice; +she must be with duller fancies and cooler intellects. I know a young +man of this description who has suited her these twenty years, and may +live to do so still, if we are one day restored to each other. In answer +to your suggestions of occupation for me, I must say that I do not think +my capacity altogether suited for disquisitions of that kind.... I have +read little; I have a very weak memory, and retain little of what I +read; am unused to composition in which any methodizing is required. But +I thank you sincerely for the hint, and shall receive it as far as I am +able,--that is, endeavor to engage my mind in some constant and innocent +pursuit. I know my capacities better than you do. + +Accept my kindest love, and believe me yours, as ever. + +C. L. + +[1] Mary Lamb had fallen ill again. + + + +XV. + + +TO ROBERT SOUTHEY + +(No month, 1798.) + +Dear Southey,--I thank you heartily for the eclogue [1]; it pleases me +mightily, being so full of picture-work and circumstances. I find no +fault in it, unless perhaps that Joanna's ruin is a catastrophe too +trite; and this is not the first or second time you have clothed your +indignation, in verse, in a tale of ruined innocence. The old lady, +spinning in the sun, I hope would not disdain to claim some kindred with +old Margaret. I could almost wish you to vary some circumstances in the +conclusion. A gentleman seducer has so often been described in prose and +verse: what if you had accomplished Joanna's ruin by the clumsy arts and +rustic gifts of some country fellow? I am thinking, I believe, of +the song,-- + + "An old woman clothed in gray, + Whose daughter was charming and young, + And she was deluded away + By Roger's false, flattering tongue." + +A Roger-Lothario would be a novel character; I think you might paint him +very well. You may think this a very silly suggestion, and so indeed it +is; but, in good truth, nothing else but the first words of that foolish +ballad put me upon scribbling my "Rosamund." [2] But I thank you heartily +for the poem. Not having anything of my own to send you in +return,--though, to tell truth, I am at work upon something which, if I +were to cut away and garble, perhaps I might send you an extract or two +that might not displease you; but I will not do that; and whether it +will come to anything, I know not, for I am as slow as a Fleming painter +when I compose anything. I will crave leave to put down a few lines of +old Christopher Marlowe's; I take them from his tragedy, "The Jew of +Malta." The Jew is a famous character, quite out of nature; but when we +consider the terrible idea our simple ancestors had of a Jew, not more +to be discommended for a certain discoloring (I think Addison calls it) +than the witches and fairies of Marlowe's mighty successor. The scene is +betwixt Barabas, the Jew, and Ithamore, a Turkish captive exposed to +sale for a slave. + +BARABAS. + +(_A precious rascal_.) + + "As for myself, I walk abroad o' nights, + And kill sick people groaning under walls; + Sometimes I go about and poison wells; + And now and then, to cherish Christian thieves, + I am content to lose some of my crowns, + That I may, walking in my gallery, + See 'm go pinioned along by my door. + Being young, I studied physic, and began + To practise first upon the Italian; + There I enriched the priests with burials, + And always kept the sexton's arms in ure [3] + With digging graves and ringing dead men's knells. + And after that, was I an engineer, + And in the wars 'twixt France and Germany, + Under pretence of serving Charles the Fifth, + Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems. + Then after that was I an usurer, + And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting, + And tricks belonging unto brokery, + I fill'd the jails with bankrupts in a year, + And with young orphans planted hospitals, + And every moon made some or other mad; + And now and then one hang'd himself for grief, + Pinning upon his breast a long great scroll, + How I with interest tormented him." + +Now hear Ithamore, the other gentle nature, explain how he has spent his +time:-- + +ITHAMORE + +(_A Comical Dog_.) + + "Faith, master, in setting Christian villages on fire, + Chaining of eunuchs, binding galley-slaves. + One time I was an hostler in an inn, + And in the night-time secret would I steal + To travellers' chambers, and there cut their throats. + Once at Jerusalem, where the pilgrims kneel'd, + I strewed powder on the marble stones, + And therewithal their knees would rankle so, + That I have laugh'd a-good to see the cripples + Go limping home to Christendom on stilts." + +BARABAS. + +"Why, this is something." + +There is a mixture of the ludicrous and the terrible in these lines, +brimful of genius and antique invention, that at first reminded me of +your old description of cruelty in hell, which was in the true +Hogarthian style. I need not tell _you_ that Marlowe was author of that +pretty madrigal, "Come live with me, and be my Love," and of the tragedy +of "Edward II.," in which are certain _lines_ unequalled in our English +tongue. Honest Walton mentions the said madrigal under the denomination +of "certain smooth verses made long since by Kit Marlowe." + +I am glad you have put me on the scent after old Quarles. If I do not +put up those eclogues, and that shortly, say I am no true-nosed hound. I +have had a letter from Lloyd; the young metaphysician of Caius is well, +and is busy recanting the new heresy, metaphysics, for the old dogma +Greek. My sister, I thank you, is quite well. She had a slight attack +the other day, which frightened me a good deal; but it went off +unaccountably. Love and respects to Edith. + +Yours sincerely, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The eclogue was entitled "The Ruined Cottage." + +[2] His romance. "Rosamund Gray." + +[3] Use. + + + +XVI. + + +TO SOUTHEY. + +_November_ 8, 1798. + +I perfectly accord with your opinion of old Wither. Quarles is a wittier +writer, but Wither lays more hold of the heart. Quarles thinks of his +audience when he lectures; Wither soliloquizes in company with a full +heart. What wretched stuff are the "Divine Fancies" of Quarles! Religion +appears to him no longer valuable than it furnishes matter for quibbles +and riddles; he turns God's grace into wantonness. Wither is like an old +friend, whose warm-heartedness and estimable qualities make us wish he +possessed more genius, but at the same time make us willing to dispense +with that want. I always love W., and sometimes admire Q. Still, that +portrait is a fine one; and the extract from "The Shepherds' Hunting" +places him in a starry height far above Quarles, If you wrote that +review in "Crit. Rev.," I am sorry you are so sparing of praise to the +"Ancient Marinere;" [1] so far from calling it, as you do, with some wit +but more severity, "A Dutch Attempt," etc., I call it a right English +attempt, and a successful one, to dethrone German sublimity. You have +selected a passage fertile in unmeaning miracles, but have passed by +fifty passages as miraculous as the miracles they celebrate. I never so +deeply felt the pathetic as in that part,-- + + "A spring of love gush'd from my heart, + And I bless'd them unaware." + +It stung me into high pleasure through sufferings. Lloyd does not like +it; his head is too metaphysical, and your taste too correct,--at least +I must allege something against you both, to excuse my own dotage,-- + +But you allow some elaborate beauties; you should have extracted 'em. +"The Ancient Marinere" plays more tricks with the mind than that last +poem, which is yet one of the finest written. But I am getting too +dogmatical; and before I degenerate into abuse, I will conclude with +assuring you that I am, + +Sincerely yours, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The "Lyrical Ballads" of Wordsworth and Coleridge had just appeared. +The volume contained four pieces, including the "Ancient Mariner," by +Coleridge. + + + +XVII. + + +TO SOUTHEY. + +_November_ 28, 1798. + + * * * * * + I showed my "Witch" and "Dying Lover" to + Dyer [1] last night; but George could not comprehend + how that could be poetry which did not go + upon ten feet, as George and his predecessors had + taught it to do; so George read me some lectures + on the distinguishing qualities of the Ode, the Epigram, + and the Epic, and went home to illustrate his + doctrine by correcting a proof-sheet of his own + Lyrics, George writes odes where the rhymes, like + fashionable man and wife, keep a comfortable distance + of six or eight lines apart, and calls that "observing + the laws of verse," George tells you, before + he recites, that you must listen with great attention, + or you 'll miss the rhymes. I did so, and found + them pretty exact, George, speaking of the dead + Ossian, exclaimeth, "Dark are the poet's eyes," I + humbly represented to him that his own eyes were + dark, and many a living bard's besides, and recommended + "Clos'd are the poet's eyes." But that + would not do, I found there was an antithesis between + the darkness of his eyes and the splendor of + his genius, and I acquiesced. + +Your recipe for a Turk's poison is invaluable and truly Marlowish.... +Lloyd objects to "shutting up the womb of his purse" in my Curse (which +for a Christian witch in a Christian country is not too mild, I hope): +do you object? I think there is a strangeness in the idea, as well as +"shaking the poor like snakes from his door," which suits the speaker. +Witches illustrate, as fine ladies do, from their own familiar objects, +and snakes and shutting up of wombs are in their way. I don't know that +this last charge has been before brought against 'em, nor either the +sour milk or the mandrake babe; but I affirm these be things a witch +would do if she could. + +My tragedy [2] will be a medley (as I intend it to be a medley) of +laughter and tears, prose and verse, and in some places rhyme, songs, +wit, pathos, humor, and if possible, sublimity,--at least, it is not a +fault in my intention if it does not comprehend most of these discordant +colors. Heaven send they dance not the "Dance of Death!" I hear that the +Two Noble Englishmen [3] have parted no sooner than they set foot on +German earth; but I have not heard the reason,--possibly to give +novelists a handle to exclaim, "Ah me, what things are perfect!" I think +I shall adopt your emendation in the "Dying Lover," though I do not +myself feel the objection against "Silent Prayer." + +My tailor has brought me home a new coat lapelled, with a velvet collar. +He assures me everybody wears velvet collars now. Some are born +fashionable, some achieve fashion, and others, like your humble servant, +have fashion thrust upon them. The rogue has been making inroads +hitherto by modest degrees, foisting upon me an additional button, +recommending gaiters; but to come upon me thus in a full tide of luxury, +neither becomes him as a tailor or the ninth of a man. My meek gentleman +was robbed the other day, coming with his wife and family in a one-horse +shay from Hampstead; the villains rifled him of four guineas, some +shillings and halfpence, and a bundle of customers' measures, which they +swore were bank-notes. They did not shoot him, and when they rode off he +addressed them with profound gratitude, making a congee: "Gentlemen, I +wish you good-night; and we are very much obliged to you that you have +not used us ill!" And this is the cuckoo that has the audacity to foist +upon me ten buttons on a side and a black velvet collar,--a cursed ninth +of a scoundrel! + +When you write to Lloyd, he wishes his Jacobin correspondents to address +him as _Mr._ C. L. Love and respects to Edith. I hope she is well. + +Yours sincerely, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] This quaint scholar, a marvel of simplicity and universal optimism, +is a constantly recurring and delightfully humorous character in the +Letters. Lamb and Dyer had been schoolfellows at Christ's Hospital. + +[2] John Woodvil. + +[3] Coleridge and Wordsworth, who started for Germany together. + + + +XVIII. + + +TO SOUTHEY. + +_March_ 20, 1799, + +I am hugely pleased with your "Spider," "your old freemason," as you +call him. The three first stanzas are delicious; they seem to me a +compound of Burns and. Old Quarles, those kind of home-strokes, where +more is felt than strikes the ear,--a terseness, a jocular pathos which +makes one feel in laughter. The measure, too, is novel and pleasing. I +could almost wonder Rob Burns in his lifetime never stumbled upon it. +The fourth stanza is less striking, as being less original. The fifth +falls off. It has no felicity of phrase, no old-fashioned phrase +or feeling. + +"Young hopes, and love's delightful dreams," + +savor neither of Burns nor Quarles; they seem more like shreds of many a +modern sentimental sonnet. The last stanza hath nothing striking in it, +if I except the two concluding lines, which are Burns all over. I wish, +if you concur with me, these things could be looked to. I am sure this +is a kind of writing which comes tenfold better recommended to the +heart, comes there more like a neighbor or familiar, than thousands of +Hamnels and Zillahs and Madelons. I beg you will send me the +"Holly-tree," if it at all resemble this, for it must please me. I have +never seen it. I love this sort of poems, that open a new intercourse +with the most despised of the animal and insect race. I think this vein +may be further opened; Peter Pindar hath very prettily apostrophized a +fly; Burns hath his mouse and his louse; Coleridge, less successfully, +hath made overtures of intimacy to a jackass,--therein only following at +unresembling distance Sterne and greater Cervantes. Besides these, I +know of no other examples of breaking down the partition between us and +our "poor earth-born companions." It is sometimes revolting to be put in +a track of feeling by other people, not one's own immediate thoughts, +else I would persuade you, if I could (I am in earnest), to commence a +series of these animal poems, which might have a tendency to rescue some +poor creatures from the antipathy of mankind. Some thoughts come across +me: for instance, to a rat, to a toad, to a cockchafer, to a +mole,--people bake moles alive by a slow oven-fire to cure consumption. +Rats are, indeed, the most despised and contemptible parts of God's +earth, I killed a rat the other day by punching him to pieces, and feel +a weight of blood upon me to this hour. Toads, you know, are made to +fly, and tumble down and crush all to pieces. Cockchafers are old sport; +then again to a worm, with an apostrophe to anglers,--those patient +tyrants, meek inflictors of pangs intolerable, cool devils; [1] to an +owl; to all snakes, with an apology for their poison; to a cat in boots +or bladders. Your own fancy, if it takes a fancy to these hints, will +suggest many more. A series of such poems, suppose them accompanied with +plates descriptive of animal torments,--cooks roasting lobsters, +fishmongers crimping skates, etc.,--would take excessively, I will +willingly enter into a partnership in the plan with you; I think my +heart and soul would go with it too,--at least, give it a thought. My +plan is but this minute come into my head; but it strikes me +instantaneously as something new, good, and useful, full of pleasure and +full of moral. If old Quarles and Wither could live again, we would +invite them into our firm. Burns hath done his part. + +Poor Sam Le Grice! I am afraid the world and the camp and the university +have spoiled him among them. 'Tis certain he had at one time a strong +capacity of turning out something better. I knew him, and that not long +since, when he had a most warm heart. I am ashamed of the indifference I +have sometimes felt towards him. I think the devil is in one's heart. I +am under obligations to that man for the warmest friendship and +heartiest sympathy, [2] even for an agony of sympathy expressed both by +word and deed, and tears for me when I was in my greatest distress. But +I have forgot that,--as, I fear, he has nigh forgot the awful scenes +which were before his eyes when he served the office of a comforter to +me. No service was too mean or troublesome for him to perform. I can't +think what but the devil, "that old spider," could have suck'd my heart +so dry of its sense of all gratitude. If he does come in your way, +Southey, fail not to tell him that I retain a most affectionate +remembrance of his old friendliness, and an earnest wish to resume our +intercourse. In this I am serious. I cannot recommend him to your +society, because I am afraid whether he be quite worthy of it. But I +have no right to dismiss him from _my_ regard. He was at one time, and +in the worst of times, my own familiar friend, and great comfort to me +then. I have known him to play at cards with my father, meal-times +excepted, literally all day long, in long days too, to save me from +being teased by the old man when I was not able to bear it. + +God bless him for it, and God bless you, Southey! + +C. L. + +[1] Leigh Hunt says: "Walton says that an angler does no hurt but to +fish; and this he counts as nothing.... Now, fancy a Genius fishing for +us. Fancy him baiting a great hook with pickled salmon, and, twitching +up old Izaac Walton from the banks of the River Lee, with the hook +through his ear. How he would go up, roaring and screaming, and thinking +the devil had got him! + + "'Other joys + Are but toys.' + + WALTON." + +[2] See Letter VI. + + + +XIX. + + +TO THOMAS MANNING [1]. + +_March_ 1, 1800. + +I hope by this time you are prepared to say the "Falstaff's Letters" are +a bundle of the sharpest, queerest, profoundest humors of any these +juice-drained latter times have spawned. I should have advertised you +that the meaning is frequently hard to be got at,--and so are the future +guineas that now lie ripening and aurifying in the womb of some +undiscovered Potosi; but dig, dig, dig, dig, Manning! I set to with an +unconquerable propulsion to write, with a lamentable want of what to +write. My private goings on are orderly as the movements of the spheres, +and stale as their music to angels' ears. Public affairs, except as they +touch upon me, and so turn into private, I cannot whip up my mind to +feel any interest in, I grieve, indeed, that War and Nature and Mr. +Pitt, that hangs up in Lloyd's best parlour, should have conspired to +call up three necessaries, simple commoners as our fathers knew them, +into the upper house of luxuries,--bread and beer and coals, Manning. +But as to France and Frenchmen, and the Abbe Sieyes and his +constitutions, I cannot make these present times present to me. I read +histories of the past, and I live in them; although, to abstract senses, +they are far less momentous than the noises which keep Europe awake. I +am reading Burnet's "Own Times." Did you ever read that garrulous, +pleasant history? He tells his story like an old man, past political +service, bragging to his sons on winter evenings of the part he took in +public transactions when "his old cap was new." Full of scandal, which +all true history is. No palliatives; but all the stark wickedness that +actually gives the _momentum_ to national actors. Quite the prattle of +age and outlived importance. Truth and sincerity staring out upon you +perpetually in _alto relievo_. Himself a party man, he makes you a party +man. None of the cursed philosophical Humeian indifference, so cold and +unnatural and inhuman! None of the cursed Gibbonian fine writing, so +fine and composite. None of Dr. Robertson's periods with three members. +None of Mr. Roscoe's sage remarks, all so apposite, and coming in so +clever, lest the reader should have had the trouble of drawing an +inference. Burnet's good old prattle I can bring present to my mind; I +can make the Revolution present to me: the French Revolution, by a +converse perversity in my nature, I fling as far _from_ me. To quit this +tiresome subject, and to relieve you from two or three dismal yawns, +which I hear in spirit, I here conclude my more than commonly obtuse +letter,--dull up to the dulness of a Dutch commentator on Shakspeare. My +love to Lloyd and Sophia. + +C. L. + +[1] To this remarkable person we are largely indebted for some of the +best of Lamb's letters. He was mathematical tutor at Caius College, +Cambridge, and in later years became somewhat famous as an explorer of +the remoter parts of China and Thibet. Lamb had been introduced to him, +during a Cambridge visit, by Charles Lloyd, and afterwards told Crabb +Robinson that he was the most "wonderful man" he ever met. An account of +Manning will be found in the memoir prefixed to his "Journey to Lhasa," +in 1811-12. (George Bogle and Thomas Manning's Journey to Thibet and +Lhasa, by C.R. Markham, 1876.) + + + +XX. + + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_May_ 12, 1800, + +My Dear Coleridge,--I don't know why I write, except from the propensity +misery has to tell her griefs. Hetty [1] died on Friday night, about +eleven o'clock, after eight days' illness; Mary, in consequence of +fatigue and anxiety, is fallen ill again, and I was obliged to remove +her yesterday. I am left alone in a house with nothing but Hetty's dead +body to keep me company. To-morrow I bury her, and then I shall be quite +alone, with nothing but a cat to remind me that the house has been full +of living beings like myself. My heart is quite sunk, and I don't know +where to look for relief. Mary will get better again; but her constantly +being liable to such relapses is dreadful; nor is it the least of our +evils that her case and all our story is so well known around us. We are +in a manner _marked_. Excuse my troubling you; but I have nobody by me +to speak to me. I slept out last night, not being able to endure the +change and the stillness. But I did not sleep well, and I must come back +to my own bed. I am going to try and get a friend to come and be with me +to-morrow. I am completely shipwrecked. My head is quite bad. I almost +wish that Mary were dead. God bless you. Love to Sara and Hartley. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The Lambs' old servant. + + + +XXI. + + +TO MANNING. + +Before _June_, 1800. + +Dear Manning,--I feel myself unable to thank you sufficiently for your +kind letter. It was doubly acceptable to me, both for the choice poetry +and the kind, honest prose which it contained. It was just such a letter +as I should have expected from Manning. + +I am in much better spirits than when I wrote last. I have had a very +eligible offer to lodge with a friend in town. He will have rooms to let +at midsummer, by which time I hope my sister will be well enough to join +me. It is a great object to me to live in town, where we shall be much +more _private_, and to quit a house and neighborhood where poor Mary's +disorder, so frequently recurring, has made us a sort of marked people. +We can be nowhere private except in the midst of London. We shall be in +a family where we visit very frequently; only my landlord and I have not +yet come to a conclusion. He has a partner to consult. I am still on the +tremble, for I do not know where we could go into lodgings that would +not be, in many respects, highly exceptionable. Only God send Mary well +again, and I hope all will be well! The prospect, such as it is, has +made me quite happy. I have just time to tell you of it, as I know it +will give you pleasure. Farewell. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XXII. + + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_August_, 6, 1800. + +Dear Coleridge,--I have taken to-day and delivered to Longman and Co., +_Imprimis_: your books, viz., three ponderous German dictionaries, one +volume (I can find no more) of German and French ditto, sundry other +German books unbound, as you left them, Percy's Ancient Poetry, and one +volume of Anderson's Poets. I specify them, that you may not lose any. +_Secundo_: a dressing-gown (value, fivepence), in which you used to sit +and look like a conjuror when you were translating "Wallenstein." A case +of two razors and a shaving-box and strap. This it has cost me a severe +struggle to part with. They are in a brown-paper parcel, which also +contains sundry papers and poems, sermons, _some few Epic_ poems,--one +about Cain and Abel, which came from Poole, etc., and also your tragedy; +with one or two small German books, and that drama in which Got-fader +performs. _Tertio_: a small oblong box containing _all your letters_, +collected from all your waste papers, and which fill the said little +box. All other waste papers, which I judged worth sending, are in the +paper parcel aforesaid. But you will find _all_ your letters in the box +by themselves. Thus have I discharged my conscience and my lumber-room +of all your property, save and except a folio entitled Tyrrell's +"Bibliotheca Politica," which you used to learn your politics out of +when you wrote for the Post,--_mutatis mutandis, i. e._, applying past +inferences to modern _data_. I retain that, because I am sensible I am +very deficient in the politics myself; and I have torn up--don't be +angry; waste paper has risen forty per cent, and I can't afford to buy +it--all Bonaparte's Letters, Arthur Young's Treatise on Corn, and one or +two more light-armed infantry, which I thought better suited the +flippancy of London discussion than the dignity of Keswick thinking. +Mary says you will be in a passion about them when you come to miss +them; but you must study philosophy. Read Albertus Magnus de Chartis +Amissis five times over after phlebotomizing,--'t is Burton's +recipe,--and then be angry with an absent friend if you can. Sara is +obscure. Am I to understand by her letter that she sends a _kiss_ to +Eliza Buckingham? Pray tell your wife that a note of interrogation on +the superscription of a letter is highly ungrammatical! She proposes +writing my name _Lambe? Lamb_ is quite enough. I have had the +Anthology, and like only one thing in it,--_Lewti_; but of that the +last stanza is detestable, the rest most exquisite! The epithet +_enviable_ would dash the finest poem. For God's sake (I never was more +serious), don't make me ridiculous any more by terming me gentle-hearted +in print, or do it in better verses. [1] It did well enough five years +ago, when I came to see you, and was moral coxcomb enough at the time +you wrote the lines, to feed upon such epithets: but, besides that, the +meaning of "gentle" is equivocal at best, and almost always means +"poor-spirited;" the very quality of gentleness is abhorrent to such +vile trumpetings. My _sentiment_ is long since vanished. I hope my +_virtues_ have done _sucking_. I can scarce think but you meant it in +joke. I hope you did, for I should be ashamed to think you could think +to gratify me by such praise, fit only to be a cordial to some +green-sick sonneteer. + +[1] An allusion to Coleridge's lines, "This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison," +wherein he styles Lamb "my gentle-hearted Charles." + + + +XXIII. + + +TO MANNING. + +_August_, 1800. + +Dear Manning,--I am going to ask a favor of you, and am at a loss how to +do it in the most delicate mariner. For this purpose I have been looking +into Pliny's Letters, who is noted to have had the best grace in begging +of all the ancients (I read him in the elegant translation of Mr. +Melmoth); but not finding any case there exactly similar with mine, I am +constrained to beg in my own barbarian way. To come to the point, then, +and hasten into the middle of things, have you a copy of your Algebra [1] +to give away? I do not ask it for myself; I have too much reverence for +the Black Arts ever to approach thy circle, illustrious Trismegist! But +that worthy man and excellent poet, George Dyer, made me a visit +yesternight on purpose to borrow one, supposing, rationally enough, I +must say, that you had made me a present of one before this; the +omission of which I take to have proceeded only from negligence: but it +is a fault. I could lend him no assistance. You must know he is just now +diverted from the pursuit of BELL LETTERS by a paradox, which he has +heard his friend Frend [2] (that learned mathematician) maintain, that +the negative quantities of mathematicians were _merae nugae_,--things +scarcely _in rerum natura_, and smacking too much of mystery for +gentlemen of Mr. Frend's clear Unitarian capacity. However, the dispute, +once set a-going, has seized violently on George's pericranick; and it +is necessary for his health that he should speedily come to a resolution +of his doubts. He goes about teasing his friends with his new +mathematics; he even frantically talks of purchasing Manning's Algebra, +which shows him far gone, for, to my knowledge, he has not been master +of seven shillings a good time. George's pockets and ----'s brains are +two things in nature which do not abhor a vacuum.... Now, if you could +step in, in this trembling suspense of his reason, and he should find on +Saturday morning, lying for him at the Porter's Lodge, Clifford's +Inn.--his safest address,--Manning's Algebra, with a neat manuscriptum +in the blank leaf, running thus, "FROM THE AUTHOR!" it might save his +wits and restore the unhappy author to those studies of poetry and +criticism which are at present suspended, to the infinite regret of the +whole literary world. N.B.--Dirty books, smeared leaves, and dogs' ears +will be rather a recommendation than otherwise. N.B.--He must have the +book as soon as possible, or nothing can withhold him from madly +purchasing the book on tick.... Then shall we see him sweetly restored +to the chair of Longinus,--to dictate in smooth and modest phrase the +laws of verse; to prove that Theocritus first introduced the Pastoral, +and Virgil and Pope brought it to its perfection; that Gray and Mason +(who always hunt in couples in George's brain) have shown a great deal +of poetical fire in their lyric poetry; that Aristotle's rules are not +to be servilely followed, which George has shown to have imposed great +shackles upon modern genius. His poems, I find, are to consist of two +vols., reasonable octavo; and a third book will exclusively contain +criticisms, in which he asserts he has gone _pretty deeply_ into the +laws of blank verse and rhyme, epic poetry, dramatic and pastoral +ditto,--all which is to come out before Christmas. But above all he has +_touched_ most _deeply_ upon the Drama, comparing the English with the +modern German stage, their merits and defects. Apprehending that his +_studies_ (not to mention his _turn_, which I take to be chiefly towards +the lyrical poetry) hardly qualified him for these disquisitions, I +modestly inquired what plays he had read. I found by George's reply that +he _had_ read Shakspeare, but that was a good while since: he calls him +a great but irregular genius, which I think to be an original and just +remark. (Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Ben Jonson, Shirley, Marlowe, +Ford, and the worthies of Dodsley's Collection,--he confessed he had +read none of them, but professed his _intention_ of looking through them +all, so as to be able to _touch_ upon them in his book.) So Shakspeare, +Otway, and I believe Rowe, to whom he was naturally directed by +Johnson's Lives, and these not read lately, are to stand him in stead of +a general knowledge of the subject. God bless his dear absurd head! + +By the by, did I not write you a letter with something about an +invitation in it?--but let that pass; I suppose it is not agreeable. + +N.B. It would not be amiss if you were to accompany your _present_ with +a dissertation on negative quantities. + +C. L. + +[1] Manning, while at Cambridge, published a work on Algebra. + +[2] The Rev. William Frend, who was expelled from Cambridge for +Unitarianism. + + + +XXIV. + + +TO MANNING. + +1800. + +George Dyer is an Archimedes and an Archimagus and a Tycho Brahe and a +Copernicus; and thou art the darling of the Nine, and midwife to their +wandering babe also! We take tea with that learned poet and critic on +Tuesday night, at half-past five, in his neat library; the repast will +be light and Attic, with criticism. If thou couldst contrive to wheel up +thy dear carcase on the Monday, and after dining with us on tripe, +calves' kidneys, or whatever else the Cornucopia of St. Clare may be +willing to pour out on the occasion, might we not adjourn together to +the Heathen's, thou with thy Black Backs, and I with some innocent +volume of the Bell Letters,--Shenstone, or the like; it would make him +wash his old flannel gown (that has not been washed, to my knowledge, +since it has been _his_,--Oh, the long time!) with tears of joy. Thou +shouldst settle his scruples, and unravel his cobwebs, and sponge off +the sad stuff that weighs upon his dear wounded pia mater; thou shouldst +restore light to his eyes, and him to his friends and the public; +Parnassus should shower her civic crowns upon thee for saving the wits +of a citizen! I thought I saw a lucid interval in George the other +night: he broke in upon my studies just at tea-time, and brought with +him Dr. Anderson, an old gentleman who ties his breeches' knees with +packthread, and boasts that he has been disappointed by ministers. The +Doctor wanted to see _me_; for, I being a poet, he thought I might +furnish him with a copy of verses to suit his "Agricultural Magazine." +The Doctor, in the course of the conversation, mentioned a poem, called +the "Epigoniad," by one Wilkie, an epic poem, in which there is not one +tolerable good line all through, but every incident and speech borrowed +from Homer. + +George had been sitting inattentive seemingly to what was going +on,--hatching of negative quantities,--when, suddenly, the name of his +old friend Homer stung his pericranicks, and, jumping up, he begged to +know where he could meet with Wilkie's work. "It was a curious fact that +there should be such an epic poem and he not know of it; and he _must_ +get a copy of it, as he was going to touch pretty deeply upon the +subject of the epic,--and he was sure there must be some things good in +a poem of eight thousand lines!" I was pleased with this transient +return of his reason and recurrence to his old ways of thinking; it gave +me great hopes of a recovery, which nothing but your book can completely +insure. Pray come on Monday if you _can_, and stay your own time. I have +a good large room, with two beds in it, in the handsomest of which thou +shalt repose a-nights, and dream of spheroides. I hope you will +understand by the nonsense of this letter that I am _not_ melancholy at +the thoughts of thy coming; I thought it necessary to add this, because +you love _precision_. Take notice that our stay at Dyer's will not +exceed eight o'clock, after which our pursuits will be our own. But +indeed I think a little recreation among the Bell Letters and poetry +will do you some service in the interval of severer studies. I hope we +shall fully discuss with George Dyer what I have never yet heard done to +my satisfaction,--the reason of Dr. Johnson's malevolent strictures on +the higher species of the Ode. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XXV. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_August_ 14, 1800. + +My head is playing all the tunes in the world, ringing such peals! It +has just finished the "Merry Christ Church Bells," and absolutely is +beginning "Turn again, Whittington." Buz, buz, buz; bum, bum, bum; +wheeze, wheeze, wheeze; fen, fen, fen; tinky, tinky, tinky; _cr'annch_. +I shall certainly come to be condemned at last. I have been drinking too +much for two days running. I find my moral sense in the last stage of a +consumption, and my religion getting faint. This is disheartening, but I +trust the devil will not overpower me. In the midst of this infernal +torture Conscience is barking and yelping as loud as any of them. I have +sat down to read over again, and I think I do begin to spy out something +with beauty and design in it. I perfectly accede to all your +alterations, and only desire that you had cut deeper, when your hand +was in. + + * * * * * + +Now I am on the subject of poetry, I must announce to you, who, +doubtless, in your remote part of the island, have not heard tidings of +so great a blessing, that George Dyer hath prepared two ponderous +volumes full of poetry and criticism. They impend over the town, and are +threatened to fall in the winter. The first volume contains every sort +of poetry except personal satire, which George, in his truly original +prospectus, renounceth forever, whimsically foisting the intention in +between the price of his book and the proposed number of subscribers. +(If I can, I will get you a copy of his _handbill_.) He has tried his +_vein_ in every species besides,--the Spenserian, Thomsonian, Masonic, +and Akensidish more especially. The second volume is all criticism; +wherein he demonstrates to the entire satisfaction of the literary +world, in a way that must silence all reply forever, that the pastoral +was introduced by Theocritus and polished by Virgil and Pope; that Gray +and Mason (who always hunt in couples in George's brain) have a good +deal of poetical fire and true lyric genius; that Cowley was ruined by +excess of wit (a warning to all moderns); that Charles Lloyd, Charles +Lamb, and William Wordsworth, in later days, have struck the true chords +of poesy. Oh, George, George, with a head uniformly wrong and a heart +uniformly right, that I had power and might equal to my wishes; then +would I call the gentry of thy native island, and they should come in +troops, flocking at the sound of thy prospectus-trumpet, and crowding +who shall be first to stand in thy list of subscribers! I can only put +twelve shillings into thy pocket (which, I will answer for them, will +not stick there long) out of a pocket almost as bare as thine. Is it not +a pity so much fine writing should be erased? But, to tell the truth, I +began to scent that I was getting into that sort of style which Longinus +and Dionysius Halicarnassus fitly call "the affected." + +C. L. + + + +XXVI. + + +TO MANNING. + +_August_ 22, 1800. + +Dear Manning,--You need not imagine any apology necessary. Your fine +hare and fine birds (which just now are dangling by our kitchen blaze) +discourse most eloquent music in your justification. You just nicked my +palate; for, with all due decorum and leave may it be spoken, my worship +hath taken physic to-day, and being low and puling, requireth to be +pampered. Fob! how beautiful and strong those buttered onions come to my +nose! For you must know we extract a divine spirit of gravy from those +materials which, duly compounded with a consistence of bread and cream +(yclept bread-sauce), each to each giving double grace, do mutually +illustrate and set off (as skilful gold-foils to rare jewels) your +partridge, pheasant, woodcock, snipe, teal, widgeon, and the other +lesser daughters of the ark. My friendship, struggling with my carnal +and fleshly prudence (which suggests that a bird a man is the proper +allotment in such cases), yearneth sometimes to have thee here to pick a +wing or so. I question if your Norfolk sauces match our London +culinarie. + +George Dyer has introduced me to the table of an agreeable old +gentleman, Dr. Anderson, who gives hot legs of mutton and grape pies at +his sylvan lodge at Isleworth, where, in the middle of a street, he has +shot up a wall most preposterously before his small dwelling, which, +with the circumstance of his taking several panes of glass out of +bedroom windows (for air), causeth his neighbors to speculate strangely +on the state of the good man's pericranicks. Plainly, he lives under the +reputation of being deranged. George does not mind this circumstance; he +rather likes him the better for it. The Doctor, in his pursuits, joins +agricultural to poetical science, and has set George's brains mad about +the old Scotch writers, Barbour, Douglas's AEneid, Blind Harry, etc. We +returned home in a return postchaise (having dined with the Doctor); and +George kept wondering and wondering, for eight or nine turnpike miles, +what was the name, and striving to recollect the name, of a poet +anterior to Barbour. I begged to know what was remaining of his works. +"There is nothing _extant_ of his works, sir; but by all accounts he +seems to have been a fine genius!" This fine genius, without anything to +show for it or any title beyond George's courtesy, without even a name, +and Barbour and Douglas and Blind Harry now are the predominant sounds +in George's pia mater, and their buzzings exclude politics, criticism, +and algebra,--the late lords of that illustrious lumber-room. Mark, he +has never read any of these bucks, but is impatient till he reads them +_all_, at the Doctor's suggestion. Poor Dyer! his friends should be +careful what sparks they let fall into such inflammable matter. + +Could I have my will of the heathen, I would lock him up from all access +of new ideas; I would exclude all critics that would not swear me first +(upon their Virgil) that they would feed him with nothing but the old, +safe, familiar notions and sounds (the rightful aborigines of his +brain),--Gray, Akenside, and Mason. In these sounds, reiterated as often +as possible, there could be nothing painful, nothing distracting. + +God bless me, here are the birds, smoking hot! + +All that is gross and unspiritual in me rises at the sight! + +Avaunt friendship and all memory of absent friends! + +C. LAMB. + + + +XXVII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_August_ 26, 1800. + +George Dyer is the only literary character I am happily acquainted with. +The oftener I see him, the more deeply I admire him. He is goodness +itself. If I could but calculate the precise date of his death, I would +write a novel on purpose to make George the hero. I could hit him off +to a hair. + +George brought a Dr. Anderson [1] to see me. The Doctor is a very +pleasant old man, a great genius for agriculture, one that ties his +breeches-knees with packthread, and boasts of having had disappointments +from ministers. The Doctor happened to mention an epic poem by one +Wilkie, called the "Epigoniad," in which he assured us there is not one +tolerable line from beginning to end, but all the characters, incidents, +etc., verbally copied from _Homer_. George, who had been sitting quite +inattentive to the Doctor's criticism, no sooner heard the sound of +_Homer_ strike his pericraniks, than up he gets, and declares he must +see that poem immediately: where was it to be had? An epic poem of eight +thousand lines, and _he_ not hear of it! There must be some things good +in it, and it was necessary he should see it, for he had touched pretty +deeply upon that subject in his criticisms on the Epic. George had +touched pretty deeply upon the Lyric, I find; he has also prepared a +dissertation on the Drama, and the comparison of the English and German +theatres. As I rather doubted his competency to do the latter, knowing +that his peculiar _turn_ lies in the lyric species of composition, I +questioned George what English plays he had read. I found that he _had_ +read Shakspeare (whom he calls an original, but irregular, genius), but +it was a good while ago; and he has dipped into Rowe and Otway, I +suppose having found their names in Johnson's Lives at full length; and +upon this slender ground he has undertaken the task. He never seemed +even to have heard of Fletcher, Ford, Marlowe, Massinger, and the +worthies of Dodsley's Collection; but he is to read all these, to +prepare him for bringing out his "Parallel" in the winter. I find he is +also determined to vindicate poetry from the shackles which Aristotle +and some others have imposed upon it,--which is very good-natured of +him, and very necessary just now! Now I am _touching_ so _deeply_ upon +poetry, can I forget that I have just received from Cottle a magnificent +copy of his Guinea Epic. [2] Four-and-twenty books to read in the dog +days! I got as far as the Mad Monk the first day, and fainted. Mr, +Cottle's genius strongly points him to the _Pastoral_, but his +inclinations divert him perpetually from his calling. He imitates +Southey, as Rowe did Shakspeare, with his "Good morrow to ye, good +master Lieutenant," Instead of _a_ man, _a_ woman, _a_ daughter, he +constantly writes "one a man," "one a woman," "one his daughter." +Instead of _the_ king, _the_ hero, he constantly writes, "he the king," +"he the hero,"--two flowers of rhetoric palpably from the "Joan." But +Mr, Cottle soars a higher pitch; and when he _is_ original, it is in a +most original way indeed. His terrific scenes are indefatigable. +Serpents, asps, spiders, ghosts, dead bodies, staircases made of +nothing, with adders' tongues for bannisters,--Good Heaven, what a brain +he must have! He puts as many plums in his pudding as my grandmother +used to do; and, then his emerging from Hell's horrors into light, and +treading on pure flats of this earth--for twenty-three books together! + +C. L. + +[1] See preceding Letter. + +[2] Alfred. + + + +XXVIII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_October_ 9, 1800. + +I suppose you have heard of the death of Amos Cottle. I paid a solemn +visit of condolence to his brother, accompanied by George Dyer, of +burlesque memory. I went, trembling, to see poor Cottle so immediately +upon the event. He was in black, and his younger brother was also in +black. Everything wore an aspect suitable to the respect due to the +freshly dead. For some time after our entrance, nobody spake, till +George modestly put in a question, whether "Alfred" was likely to sell. +This was Lethe to Cottle, and his poor face wet with tears, and his kind +eye brightened up in a moment. Now I felt it was my cue to speak. I had +to thank him for a present of a magnificent copy, and had promised to +send him my remarks,--the least thing I could do; so I ventured to +suggest that I perceived a considerable improvement he had made in his +first book since the state in which he first read it to me. Joseph, who +till now had sat with his knees cowering in by the fireplace, wheeled +about, and with great difficulty of body shifted the same round to the +corner of a table where I was sitting, and first stationing one thigh +over the other, which is his sedentary mood, and placidly fixing his +benevolent face right against mine, waited my observations. At that +moment it came strongly into my mind that I had got Uncle Toby before +me, he looked so kind and so good. I could not say an unkind thing of +"Alfred." So I set my memory to work to recollect what was the name of +Alfred's queen, and with some adroitness recalled the well-known sound +to Cottle's ears of Alswitha. At that moment I could perceive that +Cottle had forgot his brother was so lately become a blessed spirit. In +the language of mathematicians, the author was as 9, the brother as 1. I +felt my cue, and strong pity working at the root, I went to work and +beslabber'd "Alfred" with most unqualified praise, or only qualifying my +praise by the occasional polite interposition of an exception taken +against trivial faults, slips, and human imperfections, which, by +removing the appearance of insincerity, did but in truth heighten the +relish. Perhaps I might have spared that refinement, for Joseph was in a +humor to hope and believe _all things_. What I said was beautifully +supported, corroborated, and confirmed by the stupidity of his brother +on my left hand, and by George on my right, who has an utter incapacity +of comprehending that there can be anything bad in poetry. All poems are +_good_ poems to George; all men are _fine geniuses_. So what with my +actual memory, of which I made the most, and Cottle's own helping me +out, for I _really_ had forgotten a good deal of "Alfred," I made shift +to discuss the most essential parts entirely to the satisfaction of its +author, who repeatedly declared that he loved nothing better than +_candid_ criticism. Was I a candid greyhound now for all this? or did I +do right? I believe I did. The effect was luscious to my conscience. For +all the rest of the evening Amos was no more heard of, till George +revived the subject by inquiring whether some account should not be +drawn up by the friends of the deceased to be inserted in "Phillips's +Monthly Obituary;" adding, that Amos was estimable both for his head and +heart, and would have made a fine poet if he had lived. To the +expediency of this measure Cottle fully assented, but could not help +adding that he always thought that the qualities of his brother's heart +exceeded those of his head. I believe his brother, when living, had +formed precisely the same idea of him; and I apprehend the world will +assent to both judgments. I rather guess that the brothers were poetical +rivals. I judged so when I saw them together. Poor Cottle, I must leave +him, after his short dream, to muse again upon his poor brother, for +whom I am sure in secret he will yet shed many a tear. Now send me in +return some Greta news. + +C. L. + + + +XXIX. + + +TO MANNING. + +_October_ 16, 1800. + +Dear Manning,--Had you written one week before you did, I certainly +should have obeyed your injunction; you should have seen me before my +letter. I will explain to you my situation. There are six of us in one +department. Two of us (within these four days) are confined with severe +fevers: and two more, who belong to the Tower Militia, expect to have +marching orders on Friday. Now, six are absolutely necessary. I have +already asked and obtained two young hands to supply the loss of the +_feverites;_ and with the other prospect before me, you may believe I +cannot decently ask leave of absence for myself. All I can promise (and +I do promise with the sincerity of Saint Peter, and the contrition of +sinner Peter if I fail) [is] that I will come _the very first spare +week_, and go nowhere till I have been at Cambridge. No matter if you +are in a state of pupilage when I come; for I can employ myself in +Cambridge very pleasantly in the mornings. Are there not libraries, +halls, colleges, books, pictures, statues? I wish you had made London in +your way. There is an exhibition quite uncommon in Europe, which could +not have escaped _your genius_,--a live rattlesnake, ten feet in length, +and the thickness of a big leg. I went to see it last night by +candlelight. We were ushered into a room very little bigger than ours at +Pentonville. A man and woman and four boys live in this room, joint +tenants with nine snakes, most of them such as no remedy has been +discovered for their bite. We walked into the middle, which is formed by +a half-moon of wired boxes, all mansions of snakes,--whip-snakes, +thunder-snakes, pig-nose-snakes, American vipers, and _this monster_. He +lies curled up in folds; and immediately a stranger enters (for he is +used to the family, and sees them play at cards) he set up a rattle like +a watchman's in London, or near as loud, and reared up a head, from the +midst of these folds, like a toad, and shook his head, and showed every +sign a snake can show of irritation. I had the foolish curiosity to +strike the wires with my finger, and the devil flew at me with his +toad-mouth wide open: the inside of his mouth is quite white. I had got +my finger away, nor could he well have bit me with his big mouth, which +would have been certain death in five minutes. But it frightened me so +much that I did not recover my voice for a minute's space. I forgot, in +my fear, that he was secured. You would have forgot too, for 't is +incredible how such a monster can be confined in small gauzy-looking +wires. I dreamed of snakes in the night. I wish to Heaven you could see +it. He absolutely swelled with passion to the bigness of a large thigh. +I could not retreat without infringing on another box, and just behind, +a little devil, not an inch from my back, had got his nose out, with +some difficulty and pain, quite through the bars! He was soon taught +better manners. All the snakes were curious, and objects of terror; but +this monster, like Aaron's serpent, swallowed up the impression of the +rest. He opened his cursed mouth, when he made at me, as wide as his +head was broad. I hallooed out quite loud, and felt pains all over my +body with the fright. + +I have had the felicity of hearing George Dyer read out one book of "The +Farmer's Boy." I thought it rather childish. No doubt, there is +originality in it (which, in your self-taught geniuses, is a most rare +quality, they generally getting hold of some bad models in a scarcity of +books, and forming their taste on them), but no _selection. All_ is, +described. + +Mind, I have only heard read one book. Yours sincerely, + +Philo-Snake, C. L. + + + +XXX. + + +TO MANNING. + +_November_ 3, 1800, + +_Ecquid meditatur Archimedes?_ What is Euclid doing? What has happened +to learned Trismegist? Doth he take it in ill part that his humble +friend did not comply with his courteous invitation? Let it suffice, I +could not come. Are impossibilities nothing?--be they abstractions of +the intellects, or not (rather) most sharp and mortifying realities? +nuts in the Will's mouth too hard for her to crack? brick and stone +walls in her way, which she can by no means eat through? sore lets, +_impedimenta viarum_, no thoroughfares? _racemi nimium alte pendentes?_? +Is the phrase classic? I allude to the grapes in Aesop, which cost the +fox a strain, and gained the world an aphorism. Observe the +superscription of this letter. In adapting the size of the letters which +constitute _your_ name and Mr. _Crisp's_ name respectively, I had an eye +to your different stations in life. 'Tis really curious, and must be +soothing to an _aristocrat_ I wonder it has never been hit on before my +time. I have made an acquisition latterly of a _pleasant hand_, one +Rickman, [1] to whom I was introduced by George Dyer,--not the most +flattering auspices under which one man can be introduced to another. +George brings all sorts of people together, setting up a sort of +agrarian law, or common property, in matter of society; but for once he +has done me a great pleasure, while he was only pursuing a principle, as +_ignes fatui may_ light you home. This Rickman lives in our Buildings, +immediately opposite our house; the finest fellow to drop in a' nights, +about nine or ten o'clock,--cold bread-and-cheese time,--just in the +_wishing_ time of the night, when you _wish_ for somebody to come in, +without a distinct idea of a probable anybody. Just in the nick, neither +too early to be tedious, nor too late to sit a reasonable time. He is a +most pleasant hand,--a fine, rattling fellow, has gone through life +laughing at solemn apes; himself hugely literate, oppressively full of +information in all stuff of conversation, from matter of fact to +Xenophon and Plato; can talk Greek with Porson, politics with Thelwall, +conjecture with George Dyer, nonsense with me, and anything with +anybody; a great farmer, somewhat concerned in an agricultural magazine; +reads no poetry but Shakspeare, very intimate with Southey, but never +reads his poetry; relishes George Dyer, thoroughly penetrates into the +ridiculous wherever found, understands the _first time_ (a great +desideratum in common minds),--you need never twice speak to him; does +not want explanations, translations, limitations, as Professor Godwin +does when you make an assertion; _up_ to anything, _down_ to everything, +--whatever _sapit hominem_. A perfect _man_. All this farrago, which +must perplex you to read, and has put me to a little trouble to +_select_, only proves how impossible it is to describe a _pleasant +hand_. You must see Rickman to know him, for he is a species in one,--a +new class; an exotic, any slip of which I am proud to put in my +garden-pot. The clearest-headed fellow; fullest of matter, with least +verbosity. If there be any alloy in my fortune to have met with such a +man, it is that he commonly divides his time between town and country, +having some foolish family ties at Christchurch, by which means he can +only gladden our London hemisphere with returns of light. He is now +going for six weeks. + +[1] John Rickman, clerk-assistant at the table of the House of Commons, +an eminent statistician, and the intimate friend of Lamb, Southey, and +others of their set. + + + +XXXI. + + +TO MANNING. + +_November_ 28, 1800 + +Dear Manning,--I have received a very kind invitation from Lloyd and +Sophia to go and spend a month with them at the Lakes. Now, it +fortunately happens (which is so seldom the case) that I have spare cash +by me enough to answer the expenses of so long a journey; and I am +determined to get away from the office by some means. + +The purpose of this letter is to request of you (my dear friend) that +you will not take it unkind if I decline my proposed visit to Cambridge +_for the present_. Perhaps I shall be able to take Cambridge _in my +way_, going or coming. I need not describe to you the expectations which +such an one as myself, pent up all my life in a dirty city, have formed +of a tour to the Lakes. Consider Grasmere! Ambleside! Wordsworth! +Coleridge! Hills, woods, lakes, and mountains, to the devil! I will eat +snipes with thee, Thomas Manning. Only confess, confess, a _bite_. + +P.S.--I think you named the 16th; but was it not modest of Lloyd to send +such an invitation! It shows his knowledge of _money_ and _time_. I +would be loth to think he meant + + "Ironic satire sidelong sklented + On my poor pursie." [1] + +For my part, with reference to my friends northward, I must confess that +I am not romance-bit about _Nature_. The earth and sea and sky (when all +is said) is but as a house to dwell in. If the inmates be courteous, and +good liquors flow like the conduits at an old coronation, if they can +talk sensibly and feel properly, I have no need to stand staring upon +the gilded looking-glass (that strained my friend's purse-strings in the +purchase), nor his five-shilling print over the mantelpiece of old Nabbs +the carrier (which only betrays his false taste). Just as important to +me (in a sense) is all the furniture of my world,--eye-pampering, but +satisfies no heart. Streets, streets, streets, markets, theatres, +churches, Covent Gardens, shops sparkling with pretty faces of +industrious milliners, neat sempstresses, ladles cheapening, gentlemen +behind counters lying, authors in the street with spectacles, George +Dyers (you may know them by their gait), lamps lit at night, +pastry-cooks' and silversmiths' shops, beautiful Quakers of Pentonville, +noise of coaches, drowsy cry of mechanic watchman at night, with bucks +reeling home drunk; if you happen to wake at midnight, cries of "Fire!" +and "Stop, thief!" inns of court, with their learned air, and halls, and +butteries, just like Cambridge colleges; old book-stalls, Jeremy +Taylors, Burtons on Melancholy, and Religio Medicis on every stall. +These are thy pleasures, O London with-the-many-sins! O City abounding +in--, for these may Keswick and her giant brood go hang! + +C. L. + +[1] Burns. + + + +XXXII. + + +TO MANNING. + +_December_ 27, 1800. + +At length George Dyer's phrenitis has come to a crisis; he is raging and +furiously mad. I waited upon the Heathen, Thursday was a se'nnight; the +first symptom which struck my eye and gave me incontrovertible proof of +the fatal truth was a pair of nankeen pantaloons four times too big for +him, which the said Heathen did pertinaciously affirm to be new. + +They were absolutely ingrained with the accumulated dirt of ages; but he +affirmed them to be clean. He was going to visit a lady that was nice +about those things, and that's the reason he wore nankeen that day. And +then he danced, and capered, and fidgeted, and pulled up his pantaloons, +and hugged his intolerable flannel vestment closer about his poetic +loins; anon he gave it loose to the zephyrs which plentifully insinuate +their tiny bodies through every crevice, door, window, or wainscot, +expressly formed for the exclusion of such impertinents. Then he caught +at a proof-sheet, and catched up a laundress's bill instead; made a dart +at Bloomfield's Poems, and threw them in agony aside. I could not bring +him to one direct reply; he could not maintain his jumping mind in a +right line for the tithe of a moment by Clifford's Inn clock. He must go +to the printer's immediately,--the most unlucky accident; he had struck +off five hundred impressions of his Poems, which were ready for delivery +to subscribers, and the Preface must all be expunged. There were eighty +pages of Preface, and not till that morning had he discovered that in +the very first page of said Preface he had set out with a principle of +criticism fundamentally wrong, which vitiated all his following +reasoning. The Preface must be expunged, although it cost him L30,--the +lowest calculation, taking in paper and printing! In vain have his real +friends remonstrated against this Midsummer madness; George is as +obstinate as a Primitive Christian, and wards and parries off all our +thrusts with one unanswerable fence,--"Sir, it's of great consequence +that the _world_ is not _misled!_" + + * * * * * + +Man of many snipes, I will sup with thee, _Deo volente ei diabolo +nolente_, on Monday night the 5th of January, in the new year, and crush +a cup to the infant century. + +A word or two of my progress. Embark at six o'clock in the morning, with +a fresh gale, on a Cambridge one-decker; very cold till eight at night; +land at St. Mary's lighthouse, muffins and coffee upon table (or any +other curious production of Turkey or both Indies), snipes exactly at +nine, punch to commence at ten, with _argument_; difference of opinion +is expected to take place about eleven; perfect unanimity, with some +haziness and dimness, before twelve. N. B.--My single affection is not +so singly wedded to snipes; but the curious and epicurean eye would also +take a pleasure in beholding a delicate and well-chosen assortment of +teals, ortolans, the unctuous and palate-soothing flesh, of geese wild +and tame, nightingales' brains, the sensorium of a young sucking-pig, or +any other Christmas dish, which I leave to the judgment of you and the +cook of Gonville. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XXXIII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +(End of 1800) + +I send you, in this parcel, my play, which I beg you to present in my +name, with my respect and love, to Wordsworth and his sister. You blame +us for giving your direction to Miss Wesley; the woman has been ten +times after us about it, and we gave it her at last, under the idea that +no further harm would ensue, but she would _once_ write to you, and you +would bite your lips and forget to answer it, and so it would end. You +read us a dismal homily upon "Realities." We know quite as well as you +do what are shadows and what are realities. You, for instance, when you +are over your fourth or fifth jorum, chirping about old school +occurrences, are the best of realities. Shadows are cold, thin things, +that have no warmth or grasp in them. Miss Wesley and her friend, and a +tribe of authoresses, that come after you here daily, and, in defect of +you, hive and cluster upon us, are the shadows. You encouraged that +mopsey, Miss Wesley, to dance after you, in the hope of having her +nonsense put into a nonsensical Anthology. We have pretty well shaken +her off, by that simple expedient of referring her to you; but there are +more burrs in the wind. I came home t'other day from business, hungry as +a hunter, to dinner, with nothing, I am sure, of _the author but hunger_ +about me, and whom found I closeted with Mary but a friend of this Miss +Wesley, one Miss Benje, or Bengey, [1]--I don't know how she spells her +name, I just came is time enough, I believe, luckily, to prevent them +from exchanging vows of eternal friendship. It seems she is one of your +authoresses, that you first foster, and then upbraid us with. But I +forgive you. "The rogue has given me potions to make me love him." Well; +go she would not, nor step a step over our threshold, till we had +promised to come and drink tea with her next night, I had never seen her +before, and could not tell who the devil it was that was so familiar. We +went, however, not to be impolite. Her lodgings are up two pairs of +stairs in East Street, Tea and coffee and macaroons--a kind of cake--I +much love. We sat down. Presently Miss Benje broke the silence by +declaring herself quite of a different opinion from D'lsraeli, who +supposes the differences of human intellect to be the mere effect of +organization. She begged to know my opinion. I attempted to carry it off +with a pun upon organ; but that went off very flat. She immediately +conceived a very low opinion of my metaphysics; and turning round to +Mary, put some question to her in French,--possibly having heard that +neither Mary nor I understood French. The explanation that took place +occasioned some embarrassment and much wondering. She then fell into an +insulting conversation about the comparative genius and merits of all +modern languages, and concluded with asserting that the Saxon was +esteemed the purest dialect in Germany. From thence she passed into the +subject of poetry, where I, who had hitherto sat mute and a hearer only, +humbly hoped I might now put in a word to some advantage, seeing that it +was my own trade in a manner. But I was stopped by a round assertion +that no good poetry had appeared since Dr. Johnson's time. It seems the +Doctor had suppressed many hopeful geniuses that way by the severity of +his critical strictures in his "Lives of the Poets." I here ventured to +question the fact, and was beginning to appeal to _names_; but I was +assured "it was certainly the case." Then we discussed Miss More's book +on education, which I had never read. It seems Dr. Gregory, another of +Miss Bengey's friends, has found fault with one of Miss More's +metaphors. Miss More has been at some pains to vindicate herself,--in +the opinion of Miss Bengey, not without success. It seems the Doctor is +invariably against the use of broken or mixed metaphor, which he +reprobates against the authority of Shakspeare himself. We next +discussed the question whether Pope was a poet. I find Dr. Gregory is of +opinion he was not, though Miss Seward does not at all concur with him +in this. We then sat upon the comparative merits of the ten translations +of "Pizarro," and Miss Bengey, or Benje, advised Mary to take two of +them home; she thought it might afford her some pleasure to compare them +_verbatim_; which we declined. It being now nine o'clock, wine and +macaroons were again served round, and we parted, with a promise to go +again next week, and meet the Miss Porters, who, it seems, have heard +much of Mr. Coleridge, and wish to meet _us_, because we are _his_ +friends. I have been preparing for the occasion. I crowd cotton in my +ears. I read all the reviews and magazines of the past month against the +dreadful meeting, and I hope by these means to cut a tolerable +second-rate figure. + +Pray let us have no more complaints about shadows. We are in a fair way, +_through you_, to surfeit sick upon them. + +Our loves and respects to your host and hostess. Our dearest love to +Coleridge. + +Take no thought about your proof-sheets; they shall be done as if +Woodfall himself did them. Pray send us word of Mrs. Coleridge and +little David Hartley, your little reality. + +Farewell, dear Substance. Take no umbrage at anything I have written. + +C. LAMB, _Umbra_. + +[1] Miss Elizabeth Benger. See "Dictionary of Nationai Biography," +iv. 221. + + + +XXXIV. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_January_, 1801. + +Thanks for your letter and present. I had already borrowed your second +volume. [1] What pleases one most is "The Song of Lucy.". _Simon's sickly +Daughter_, in "The Sexton," made me _cry_. Next to these are the +description of these continuous echoes in the story of "Joanna's Laugh," +where the mountains and all the scenery absolutely seem alive; and that +fine Shakspearian character of the "happy man" in the "Brothers,"-- + + "That creeps about the fields, + Following his fancies by the hour, to bring + Tears down his cheek, or solitary smiles + Into his face, until the setting sun + Write Fool upon his forehead!" + +I will mention one more,--the delicate and curious feeling in the wish +for the "Cumberland Beggar" that he may have about him the melody of +birds, although he hear them not. Here the mind knowingly passes a +fiction upon herself, first substituting her own feeling for the +Beggar's, and in the same breath detecting the fallacy, will not part +with the wish. The "Poet's Epitaph" is disfigured, to my taste, by the +common satire upon parsons and lawyers in the beginning, and the coarse +epithet of "pin-point," in the sixth stanza. All the rest is eminently +good, and your own. I will just add that it appears to me a fault in the +"Beggar" that the instructions conveyed in it are too direct, and like a +lecture: they don't slide into the mind of the reader while he is +imagining no such matter. An intelligent reader finds a sort of insult +in being told, "I will teach you how to think upon this subject." This +fault, if I am right, is in a ten-thousandth worse degree to be found in +Sterne, and in many novelists and modern poets, who continually put a +sign-post up to show where you are to feel. They set out with assuming +their readers to be stupid,--very different from "Robinson Crusoe," the +"Vicar of Wakefield," "Roderick Random," and other beautiful, bare +narratives. There is implied, an unwritten compact between author and +reader: "I will tell you a story, and I suppose you will understand it." +Modern novels, "St. Leons" and the like, are full of such flowers as +these,--"Let not my reader suppose;" "Imagine, if you can, modest," etc, +I will here have done with praise and blame, I have written so much only +that you may not think I have passed over your book without +observation.... I am sorry that Coleridge has christened his "Ancient +Marinere," a "Poet's Reverie;" it is as bad as Bottom the Weaver's +declaration that he is not a lion, but only the scenical representation +of a lion. What new idea is gained by this title but one subversive of +all credit--which the tale should force upon us--of its truth! + +For me, I was never so affected with any human tale. After first reading +it, I was totally possessed with it for many days. I dislike all the +miraculous part of it; but the feelings of the man under the operation +of such scenery, dragged me along like Tom Pipe's magic whistle. I +totally differ from your idea that the "Marinere" should have had a +character and a profession. This is a beauty in "Gulliver's Travels," +where the mind is kept in a placid state of little wonderments; but the +"Ancient Marinere" undergoes such trials as overwhelm and bury all +individuality or memory of what he was,--like the state of a man in a +bad dream, one terrible peculiarity of which is, that all consciousness +of personality is gone. Your other observation is, I think as well, a +little unfounded: the "Marinere," from being conversant in supernatural +events, _has_ acquired a supernatural and strange cast of _phrase_, eye, +appearance, etc., which frighten the "wedding guest." You will excuse my +remarks, because I am hurt and vexed that you should think it necessary, +with a prose apology, to open the eyes of dead men that cannot see. + +To sum up a general opinion of the second volume, I do not feel any one +poem in it so forcibly as the "Ancient Marinere" and "The Mad Mother," +and the "Lines at Tintern Abbey" in the first. + +C. L. + +[1] Of the "Lyrical Ballads" then just published. For certain results of +Lamb's strictures in this letter, see Letter xxxvii. + + + +XXXV. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_January_ 30, 1801. + +I ought before this to have replied to your very kind invitation into +Cumberland. With you and your sister I could gang anywhere; but I am +afraid whether I shall ever be able to afford so desperate a journey. +Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never +see a mountain in my life. I have passed all my days in London, until I +have formed as many and intense local attachments as any of you +mountaineers can have done with dead nature. The lighted shops of the +Strand and Fleet Street; the innumerable trades, tradesmen, and +customers; coaches, wagons, playhouses; all the bustle and wickedness +round about Covent Garden; the very women of the town; the watchmen, +drunken scenes, rattles; life awake, if you awake, at all hours of the +night; the impossibility of being dull in Fleet Street; the crowds, the +very dirt and mud, the sun shining upon houses and pavements; the +print-shops, the old-book stalls, parsons cheapening books; +coffee-houses, steams of soups from kitchens; the pantomimes, London +itself a pantomime and a masquerade,--all these things work themselves +into my mind, and feed me without a power of satiating me. The wonder of +these sights impels me into night-walks about her crowded streets, and I +often shed tears in the motley Strand from fulness of joy at so much +life. All these emotions must be strange to you; so are your rural +emotions to me. But consider what must I have been doing all my life, +not to have lent great portions of my heart with usury to such scenes? + +My attachments are all local, purely local,--I have no passion (or have +had none since I was in love, and then it was the spurious engendering +of poetry and books) to groves and valleys. The rooms where I was bom, +the furniture which has been before my eyes all my life, a bookcase +which has followed me about like a faithful dog (only exceeding him in +knowledge), wherever I have moved; old chairs, old tables; streets, +squares, where I have sunned myself; my old school,--these are my +mistresses. Have I not enough without your mountains? I do not envy you. +I should pity you, did I not know that the mind will make friends with +anything. Your sun and moon, and skies and hills and lakes, affect me no +more or scarcely come to be in more venerable characters, than as a +gilded room with tapestry and tapers, where I might live with handsome +visible objects. I consider the clouds above me but as a roof +beautifully painted, but unable to satisfy the mind, and at last, like +the pictures of the apartment of a connoisseur, unable to afford him any +longer a pleasure. So fading upon me, from disuse, have been the +beauties of Nature, as they have been confidently called; so ever fresh +and green and warm are all the inventions of men and assemblies of men +In this great city. I should certainly have laughed with dear Joanna. + +Give my kindest love _and my sister's_ to D. and yourself. And a kiss +from me to little Barbara Lewthwaite. [1] Thank you for liking my play! + +C.L. + + + +XXXVI. + + +TO MANNING. + +_February_, 1801. + +I am going to change my lodgings, having received a hint that it would +be agreeable, at our Lady's next feast. I have partly fixed upon most +delectable rooms, which look out (when you stand a-tiptoe) over the +Thames and Surrey Hills, at the upper end of King's Bench Walks, in the +Temple. There I shall have all the privacy of a house without the +encumbrance; and shall be able to lock my friends out as often as I +desire to hold free converse with my immortal mind; for my present +lodgings resemble a minister's levee, I have so increased my +acquaintance (as they call 'em), since I have resided in town. Like the +country mouse, that had tasted a little of urban manners, I long to be +nibbling my own cheese by my dear self without mousetraps and +time-traps. By my new plan, I shall be as airy, up four pair of stairs, +as in the country; and in a garden, in the midst of enchanting, more +than Mahometan paradise, London, whose dirtiest drab-frequented alley, +and her lowest-bowing tradesman, I would not exchange for Skiddaw, +Helvellyn, James, Walter, and the parson into the bargain. Oh, her lamps +of a night; her rich goldsmiths, print-shops, toy-shops, mercers, +hardwaremen, pastrycooks; St. Paul's Churchyard; the Strand; Exeter +'Change; Charing Cross, with a man _upon_ a black horse! These are thy +gods, O London! Ain't you mightily moped on the banks of the Cam? Had +not you better come and set up here? You can't think what a difference. +All the streets and pavements are pure gold, I warrant you,--at least, I +know an alchemy that turns her mud into that metal: a mind that loves to +be at home in crowds. + +'Tis half-past twelve o'clock, and all sober people ought to be a-bed. +Between you and me, the L. Ballads are but drowsy performances. + +C. LAMB (as you may guess). + +[1] The child in Wordsworth's "The Pet Lamb." + + + +XXXVII. + + +TO MANNING. + +_February_ 15, 1801. + +I had need be cautious henceforward what opinion I give of the "Lyrical +Ballads." All the North of England are in a turmoil. Cumberland and +Westmoreland have already declared a state of war. I lately received +from Wordsworth a copy of the second volume, accompanied by an +acknowledgment of having received from me many months since a copy of a +certain tragedy, with excuses for not having made any acknowledgment +sooner, it being owing to an "almost insurmountable aversion from +letter-writing." This letter I answered in due form and time, and +enumerated several of the passages which had most affected me, adding, +unfortunately, that no single piece had moved me so forcibly as the +"Ancient Mariner," "The Mad Mother," or the "Lines at Tintern Abbey." +The Post did not sleep a moment. I received almost instantaneously a +long letter of four sweating pages from my Reluctant Letter-Writer, the +purport of which was that he was sorry his second volume had not given +me more pleasure (Devil a hint did I give that it had _not pleased me_), +and "was compelled to wish that my range of sensibility was more +extended, being obliged to believe that I should receive large influxes +of happiness and happy thoughts" (I suppose from the L. B.),--with a +deal of stuff about a certain Union of Tenderness and Imagination, +which, in the sense he used Imagination, was not the characteristic of +Shakspeare, but which Milton possessed in a degree far exceeding other +Poets; which union, as the highest species of poetry, and chiefly +deserving that name, "he was most proud to aspire to;" then illustrating +the said union by two quotations from his own second volume (which I had +been so unfortunate as to miss.) First specimen; A father addresses +his son:-- + + "When thou + First camest into the World, as it befalls + To new-born infants, thou didst sleep away + Two days; _and blessings from thy father's tongue + Then fell upon thee_." + +The lines were thus undermarked, and then followed, "This passage, as +combining in an extraordinary degree that union of tenderness and +imagination which I am speaking of, I consider as one of the best I +ever wrote." + +Second specimen: A youth, after years of absence, revisits his native +place, and thinks (as most people do) that there has been strange +alteration in his absence,-- + + "And that the rocks + And everlasting hills themselves were changed." + +You see both these are good poetry; but after one has been reading +Shakspeare twenty of the best years of one's life, to have a fellow +start up and prate about some unknown quality which Shakspeare possessed +in a degree inferior to Milton and _somebody else_! This was not to be +_all_ my castigation. Coleridge, who had not written to me for some +months before, starts up from his bed of sickness to reprove me for my +tardy presumption; four long pages, equally sweaty and more tedious, +came from him, assuring me that when the works of a man of true genius, +such as W. undoubtedly was, do not please me at first sight, I should +expect the fault to lie "in me, and not in them," etc. What am I to do +with such people? I certainly shall write them a very merry letter. +Writing to _you_, I may say that the second volume has no such pieces as +the three I enumerated. It is full of original thinking and an observing +mind; but it does not often make you laugh or cry. It too artfully aims +at simplicity of expression. And you sometimes doubt if simplicity be +not a cover for poverty. The best piece in it I will send you, being +_short_. I have grievously offended my friends in the North by declaring +my undue preference; but I need not fear you. + + "She dwelt among the untrodden ways + Beside the Springs of Dove,-- + A maid whom there were few (_sic_) to praise, + And very few to love. + + "A violet, by a mossy stone + Half hidden from the eye, + Fair as a star when only one + Is shining in the sky. + + "She lived unknown; and few could know + When Lucy ceased to be; + But she is in the grave, and oh, + The difference to me!" + +This is choice and genuine, and so are many, many more. But one does +riot like to have 'em rammed down one's throat. "Pray take it,--it's +very good; let me help you,--eat faster." + + + +XXXVIII. + + +TO MANNING, + +_September_ 24, 1802 + +My Dear Manning,--Since the date of my last tetter, I have been a +traveller, A strong desire seized me of visiting remote regions. My +first impulse was to go aod see Paris. It was a trivial objection to my +aspiring mind that I did not understand a word of the language, since I +certainly intend some time in my life to see Paris, and equally +certainly never intend to learn the language; therefore that could be no +objection. However, I am very glad I did not go, because you had left +Paris (I see) before I could have set out. I believe Stoddart promising +to go with me another year prevented that plan. My next scheme (for to +my restless, ambitious mind London was become a bed of thorns) was to +visit the far-famed peak in Derbyshire, where the Devil sits, they say, +without breeches. _This_ my purer mind rejected as indelicate. And my +final resolve was a tour to the Lakes. I set out with Mary to Keswick, +without giving Coleridge any notice; for my time, being precious, did +not admit of it. He received us with all the hospitality tality in the +world, and gave up his time to show us all the wonders of the country. +He dwells upon a small hill by the side of Keswick, in a comfortable +house, quite enveloped on all sides by a net of mountains,--great +floundering bears and monsters they seemed, all couchant and asleep. We +got in in the evening, travelling in a post-chaise from Penrith, in the +midst of a gorgeous sunshine, which transmuted all the mountains into +colors, purple, etc. We thought we had got into fairy-land. But that +went off (as it never came again; while we stayed, we had no more fine +sunsets); and we entered Coleridge's comfortable study just in the dusk, +when the mountains were all dark, with clouds upon their heads. Such an +impression I never received from objects of sight before, nor do I +suppose that I can ever again. Glorious creatures, fine old fellows, +Skiddaw, etc. I never shall forget ye, how ye lay about that night, like +an intrenchment; gone to bed, as it seemed for the night, but promising +that ye were to be seen in the morning. Coleridge had got a blazing fire +in his study, which is a large, antique, ill-shaped room, with an +old-fashioned organ, never played upon, big enough for a church, shelves +of scattered folios, an AEolian harp, and an old sofa, half-bed, etc.; +and all looking out upon the last fading view of Skiddaw and his +broad-breasted brethren. What a night! Here we stayed three full weeks, +in which time I visited Wordsworth's cottage, where we stayed a day or +two with the Clarksons (good people and most hospitable, at whose house +we tarried one day and night), and saw Lloyd. The Wordsworths were gone +to Calais. They have since been in London, and passed much time with us; +he has now gone into Yorkshire to be married. So we have seen Keswick, +Grasmere, Ambleside, Ulswater (where the Clarksons live), and a place at +the other end of Ulswater,--I forget the name, [1]--to which we travelled +on a very sultry day, over the middle of Helvellyn. We have clambered up +to the top of Skiddaw, and I have waded up the bed of Lodore. In fine, I +have satisfied myself that there is such a thing as that which tourists +call _romantic_, which I very much suspected before; they make such a +spluttering about it, and toss their splendid epithets around them, till +they give as dim a light as at four o'clock next morning the lamps do +after an illumination. Mary was excessively tired when she got about +half way up Skiddaw; but we came to a cold rill (than which nothing can +be imagined more cold, running over cold stones), and with the +reinforcement of a draught of cold water she surmounted it most +manfully. Oh, its fine black head, and the bleak air atop of it, with a +prospect of mountains all about and about, making you giddy; and then +Scotland afar off, and the border countries so famous in song and +ballad! It was a day that will stand out like a mountain, I am sure, in +my life. But I am returned (I have now been come home near three weeks; +I was a month out), and you cannot conceive the degradation I felt at +first, from being accustomed to wander free as air among mountains, and +bathe in rivers without being controlled by any one, to come home and +_work_. I felt very _little_. I had been dreaming I was a very great +man. But that is going off, and I find I shall conform in time to that +state of life to which it has pleased God to call me. Besides, after +all, Fleet Street and the Strand are better places to live in for good +and all than amidst Skiddaw. Still, I turn back to those great places +where I wandered about, participating in their greatness. After all, I +could not _live_ in Skiddaw. I could spend a year,--two, three years +among them; but I must have a prospect of seeing Fleet Street at the end +of that time, or I should mope and pine away, I know. Still, Skiddaw is +a fine creature. + +My habits are changing, I think,--_i.e._, from drunk to sober. Whether I +shall be happier or not, remains to be proved. I shall certainly be more +happy in a morning; but whether I shall not sacrifice the fat and the +marrow and the kidneys,--_i.e._, the night,--glorious, care-drowning +night, that heals all our wrongs, pours wine into our mortifications, +changes the scene from indifferent and flat to bright and brilliant? O +Manning, if I should have formed a diabolical resolution, by the time +you come to England, of not admitting any spirituous liquors into my +house, will you be my guest on such shameworthy terms? Is life, with +such limitations, worth trying? The truth is, that my liquors bring a +nest of friendly harpies about my house, who consume me. This is a +pitiful tale to be read at St. Gothard; but it is just now nearest +my heart. + +[1] Patterdale. + + + +XXXIX. + + +TO COLERIDGE, + +_October_ 23, 1802. + +I read daily your political essays. I was particularly pleased with +"Once a Jacobin;" though the argument is obvious enough, the style was +less swelling than your things sometimes are, and it was plausible _ad +populum_. A vessel has just arrived from Jamaica with the news of poor +Sam Le Grice's death. He died at Jamaica of the yellow fever. His course +was rapid, and he had been very foolish; but I believe there was more of +kindness and warmth in him than in almost any other of our +schoolfellows. The annual meeting of the Blues is to-morrow, at the +London Tavern, where poor Sammy dined with them two years ago, and +attracted the notice of all by the singular foppishness of his dress. +When men go off the stage so early, it scarce seems a noticeable thing +in their epitaphs, whether they had been wise or silly in +their lifetime. + +I am glad the snuff and Pi-pos's books please. "Goody Two Shoes" is +almost out of print. Mrs. Barbauld's stuff has banished all the old +classics of the nursery; and the shopman at Newberry's hardly deigned to +reach them off an old exploded corner of a shelf, when Mary asked for +them. Mrs. B.'s and Mrs. Trimmer's nonsense lay in piles about. +Knowledge insignificant and vapid as Mrs. B.'s books convey, it seems, +must come to the child in the _shape_ of _knowledge_, and his empty +noddle must be turned with conceit of his own powers when he has learned +that a horse is an animal, and Billy is better than a horse, and such +like; instead of that beautiful interest in wild tales which made the +child a man, while all the time he suspected himself to be no bigger +than a child. Science has succeeded to poetry no less in the little +walks of children than with men. Is there no possibility of averting +this sore evil? Think what you would have been now, if instead of being +fed with tales and old wives' fables in childhood, you had been crammed +with geography and natural history! + +Hang them!--I mean the cursed Barbauld crew, those blights and blasts of +all that is human in man and child. + +As to the translations, let me do two or three hundred lines, and then +do you try the nostrums upon Stuart in any way you please. If they go +down, I will bray more. In fact, if I got or could but get L50 a year +only, in addition to what I have, I should live in affluence. + +Have you anticipated it, or could not you give a parallel of Bonaparte +with Cromwell, particularly as to the contrast in their deeds affecting +_foreign_ States? Cromwell's interference for the Albigenses, +B[onaparte]'s against the Swiss. Then religion would come in; and Milton +and you could rant about our countrymen of that period. This is a hasty +suggestion, the more hasty because I want my supper. I have just +finished Chapman's Homer. Did you ever read it? It has most the +continuous power of interesting you all along, like a rapid original, of +any, and in the uncommon excellence of the more finished parts goes +beyond Fairfax or any of 'em. The metre is fourteen syllables, and +capable of all sweetness and grandeur, Cowper's ponderous blank verse +detains you every step with some heavy Miltonism; Chapman gallops off +with you his own free pace. Take a simile, for example. The council +breaks up,-- + + "Being abroad, the earth was overlaid + With fleckers to them, that came forth; as when of frequent + bees + Swarms rise out of a hollow rock, repairing the degrees + Of _their egression endlessly,--with ever rising new_ + From forth their sweet nest; as their store, still as it faded, + grew, + +"_And never would cease sending forth her dusters to the spring_. +They still crowd out so: this flock here, that there, belaboring +The loaded flowers. So," etc. + +What _endless egression of phrases_ the dog commands! + +Take another.--Agamemnon, wounded, bearing hiss wound, heroically for +the sake of the army (look below) to a woman in labor:-- + + "He with his lance, sword, mighty stones, poured his heroic wreak + On other squadrons of the foe, whiles yet warm blood did break + Thro' his cleft veins: but when the wound was quite exhaust and crude, + The eager anguish did approve his princely fortitude. + As when most sharp and bitter pangs distract a laboring dame, + Which the divine Ilithiae, that rule the painful frame + Of human childbirth, pour on her; the Ilithiae that are + The daughters of Saturnia; with whose extreme repair + The woman in her travail strives to take the worst it gives; + With thought, _it must be, 'tis love's fruit, the end for which + she lives; + The mean to make herself new born, what comforts_ will redound! + So," etc. + +I will tell you more about Chapman and his peculiarities in my next. I +am much interested in him. + +Yours ever affectionately, and Pi-Pos's, + +C. L. + + + +XL. + + +TO MANNING. + +_November_, 1802. + +My Dear Manning,--I must positively write, or I shall miss you at +Toulouse. I sit here like a decayed minute-hand (I lie; _that_ does not +_sit_), and being myself the exponent of no time, take no heed how the +clocks about me are going. You possibly by this time may have explored +all Italy, and toppled, unawares, into Etna, while you went too near +those rotten-jawed, gap-toothed, old worn-out chaps of hell,--while I am +meditating a quiescent letter to the honest postmaster at Toulouse. But +in case you should not have been _felo de se_, this is to tell you that +your letter was quite to my palate; in particular your just remarks upon +Industry, cursed Industry (though indeed you left me to explore the +reason), were highly relishing. + +I've often wished I lived in the Golden Age, before doubt, and +propositions, and corollaries, got into the world. _Now_, as Joseph +Cottle, a Bard of Nature, sings, going up Malvern Hills,-- + + "How steep, how painful the ascent! + It needs the evidence of _close deduction_ + To know that ever I shall gain the top." + +You must know that Joe is lame, so that he had some reason for so +singing. These two lines, I assure you, are taken _totidem literis_ from +a very _popular_ poem. Joe is also an epic poet as well as a +descriptive, and has written a tragedy, though both his drama and +epopoiea are strictly _descriptive_, and chiefly of the _beauties of +nature_, for Toe thinks _man_, with all his passions and frailties, not: +a proper subject of the _drama_. Joe's tragedy hath the following +surpassing speech in it. Some king is told that his enemy has engaged +twelve archers to come over in a boat from an enemy's country and +way-lay him; he thereupon pathetically exclaims,-- + + "_Twelve_, dost thou say? Curse on those dozen villains!" + +Cottle read two or three acts out to as, very gravely on both sides, +till he came to this heroic touch,--and then he asked what we laughed +at? I had no more muscles that day. A poet that chooses to read out his +own verses has but a limited power over you. There is a bound where his +authority ceases. + + + +XLI. + + +TO MANNING. + +_February_ 19, 1803. + +My Dear Manning,--The general scope of your letter afforded no +indications of insanity, but some particular points raised a scruple. +For God's sake, don't think any more of "Independent Tartary." [1] What +are you to do among such Ethiopians? Is there no _lineal descendant_ of +Prester John? Is the chair empty? Is the sword unswayed? Depend upon it, +they'll never make you their king as long as any branch of that great +stock is remaining. I tremble for your Christianity. They will certainly +circumcise you. Read Sir John Mandeville's travels to cure you, or come +over to England. There is a Tartar man now exhibiting at Exeter 'Change. +Come and talk with him, and hear what he says first. Indeed, he is no +very favorable specimen of his countrymen! But perhaps the best thing +you can do is to _try_ to get the idea out of your head. For this +purpose repeat to yourself every night, after you have said your +prayers, the words "Independent Tartary, Independent Tartary," two or +three times, and associate with them the _idea_ of oblivion ('t is +Hartley's method with obstinate memories); or say "Independent, +Independent, have I not already got an _independence_?" That was a +clever way of the old Puritans,--pun-divinity. My dear friend, think +what a sad pity it would be to bury such _parts_ in heathen countries, +among nasty, unconversable, horse-belching, Tartar people! Some say they +are cannibals; and then conceive a Tartar fellow _eating_ my friend, and +adding the _cool malignity_ of mustard and vinegar! I am afraid 't is +the reading of Chaucer has misled you; his foolish stories about +Cambuscan and the ring, and the horse of brass. Believe me, there are no +such things,--'t is all the poet's _invention_; but if there were such +darling things as old Chaucer sings, I would _up_ behind you on the +horse of brass, and frisk off for Prester John's country. But these are +all tales; a horse of brass never flew, and a king's daughter never +talked with birds! The Tartars really are a cold, insipid, smouchy set. +You'll be sadly moped (if you are not eaten) among them. Pray _try_ and +cure yourself. Take hellebore (the counsel is Horace's; 't was none of +my thought _originally_). Shave yourself oftener. Eat no saffron, for +saffron-eaters contract a terrible Tartar-like yellow. Pray to avoid the +fiend. Eat nothing that gives the heartburn. _Shave the upper lip_. Go +about like an European. Read no book of voyages (they are nothing but +lies); only now and then a romance, to keep the fancy _under_. Above +all, don't go to any sights of _wild beasts. That has been your ruin_. +Accustom yourself to write familiar letters on common subjects to your +friends in England, such as are of a moderate understanding. And think +about common things more. I supped last night with Rickman, and met a +merry _natural_ captain, who pleases himself vastly with once having +made a pun at Otaheite in the O. language. 'Tis the same man who said +Shakspeare he liked, because he was so _much of the gentleman_. Rickman +is a man "absolute in all numbers." I think I may one day bring you +acquainted, if you do not go to Tartary first; for you'll never come +back. Have a care, my dear friend, of Anthropophagi! their stomachs are +always craving. 'Tis terrible to be weighed out at fivepence a pound. To +sit at table (the reverse of fishes in Holland), not as a guest, but +as a meat! + +God bless you! do come to England. Air and exercise may do great things. +Talk with some minister. Why not your father? + +God dispose all for the best! I have discharged my duty. + +Your sincere friend, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Manning had evidently written to Lamb as to his cherished +project of exploring remoter China and Thibet. + + + +XLII. + + +TO MANNING. + +_February_, 1803. + +Not a sentence, not a syllable, of Trismegistus shall be lost through my +neglect. I am his word-banker, his storekeeper of puns and syllogisms. +You cannot conceive (and if Trismegistus cannot, no man can) the strange +joy which I felt at the receipt of a letter from Paris. It seemed to +give me a learned importance which placed me above all who had not +Parisian correspondents. Believe that I shall carefully husband every +scrap, which will save you the trouble of memory when you come back. You +cannot write things so trifling, let them only be about Paris, which I +shall not treasure. In particular, I must have parallels of actors and +actresses. I must be told if any building in Paris is at all comparable +to St. Paul's, which, contrary to the usual mode of that part of our +nature called admiration, I have looked up to with unfading wonder every +morning at ten o'clock, ever since it has lain in my way to business. At +noon I casually glance upon it, being hungry; and hunger has not much +taste for the fine arts. Is any night-walk comparable to a walk from St. +Paul's to Charing Cross, for lighting and paving, crowds going and +coming without respite, the rattle of coaches, and the cheerfulness of +shops? Have you seen a man guillotined yet? is it as good as hanging? +Are the women _all_ painted, and the men _all_ monkeys? or are there not +a _few_ that look like _rational_ of _both sexes_? Are you and the First +Consul _thick_? All this expense of ink I may fairly put you to, as your +letters will not be solely for my proper pleasure, but are to serve as +memoranda and notices, helps for short memory, a kind of Rumfordizing +recollection, for yourself on your return. Your letter was just what a +letter should be,--crammed and very funny. Every part of it pleased me, +till you came to Paris, and your philosophical indolence or indifference +stung me. You cannot stir from your rooms till you know the language! +What the devil! are men nothing but word-trumpets? Are men all tongue +and ear? Have these creatures, that you and I profess to know _something +about_, no faces, gestures, gabble; no folly, no absurdity, no induction +of French education upon the abstract idea of men and women; no +similitude nor dissimilitude to English? Why, thou cursed Smellfungus! +your account of your landing and reception, and Bullen (I forget how you +spell it,--it was spelt my way in Harry the Eighth's time), was exactly +in that minute style which strong impressions INSPIRE (writing to a +Frenchman, I write as a Frenchman would). It appears to me as if I +should die with joy at the first landing in a foreign country. It is the +nearest pleasure which a grown man can substitute for that unknown one, +which he can never know,--the pleasure of the first entrance into life +from the womb. I daresay, in a short time, my habits would come back +like a "stronger man" armed, and drive out that new pleasure; and I +should soon sicken for known objects. Nothing has transpired here that +seems to me of sufficient importance to send dry-shod over the water; +but I suppose you will want to be told some news. The best and the worst +to me is, that I have given up two guineas a week at the "Post," and +regained my health and spirits, which were upon the wane. I grew sick, +and Stuart unsatisfied. _Ludisti satis, tempus abire est_; I must cut +closer, that's all. Mister Fell--or as you, with your usual +facetiousness and drollery, call him, Mr. Fell--has stopped short in the +middle of his play. Some _friend_ has told him that it has not the least +merit in it. Oh that I had the rectifying of the Litany! I would put in +a _Libera nos (Scriptores videlicet) ab amicis_! That's all the news. _A +propos_ (is it pedantry, writing to a Frenchman, to express myself +sometimes by a French word, when an English one would not do as well? +Methinks my thoughts fall naturally into it)-- + +In all this time I have done but one thing which I reckon tolerable, and +that I will transcribe, because it may give you pleasure, being a +picture of _my_ humors. You will find it in my last page. It absurdly is +a first number of a series, thus strangled in its birth. + +More news! The Professor's Rib [1] has come out to be a disagreeable +woman, so much so as to drive me and some more old cronies from his +house. He must not wonder if people are shy of coming to see him because +of the _Snakes_. + +C. L. + +[1] Mrs. Godwin + + + +XLIII. + + +TO WILLIAM GODWIN. + +_November_ 10, 1803. + +Dear Godwin,--You never made a more unlucky and perverse mistake than to +suppose that the reason of my not writing that cursed thing was to be +found in your book. I assure you most sincerely that I have been greatly +delighted with "Chaucer." [1] I may be wrong, but I think there is one +considerable error runs through it, which is a conjecturing spirit, a +fondness for filling out the picture by supposing what Chaucer did and +how he felt, where the materials are scanty. So far from meaning to +withhold from you (out of mistaken tenderness) this opinion of mine, I +plainly told Mrs. Godwin that I did find a _fault_, which I should +reserve naming until I should see you and talk it over. This she may +very well remember, and also that I declined naming this fault until she +drew it from me by asking me if there was not too much fancy in the +work. I then confessed generally what I felt, but refused to go into +particulars until I had seen you. I am never very fond of saying things +before third persons, because in the relation (such is human nature) +something is sure to be dropped. If Mrs. Godwin has been the cause of +your misconstruction, I am very angry, tell her; yet it is not an anger +unto death. I remember also telling Mrs. G. (which she may have _dropt_) +that I was by turns considerably more delighted than I expected. But I +wished to reserve all this until I saw you. I even had conceived an +expression to meet you with, which was thanking you for some of the most +exquisite pieces of criticism I had ever read in my life. In particular, +I should have brought forward that on "Troilus and Cressida" and +Shakspeare, which, it is little to say, delighted me and instructed me +(if not absolutely _instructed_ me, yet put into _full-grown sense_ many +conceptions which had arisen in me before in my most discriminating +moods). All these things I was preparing to say, and bottling them up +till I came, thinking to please my friend and host the author, when lo! +this deadly blight intervened. + +I certainly ought to make great allowances for your misunderstanding me. +You, by long habits of composition and a greater command gained over +your own powers, cannot conceive of the desultory and uncertain way in +which I (an author by fits) sometimes cannot put the thoughts of a +common letter into sane prose. Any work which I take upon myself as an +engagement will act upon me to torment; _e.g._, when I have undertaken, +as three or four times I have, a school-boy copy of verses for Merchant +Taylors' boys, at a guinea a copy, I have fretted over them in perfect +inability to do them, and have made my sister wretched with my +wretchedness for a week together. The same, till by habit I have +acquired a mechanical command, I have felt in making paragraphs. As to +reviewing, in particular, my head is so whimsical a head that I cannot, +after reading another man's book, let it have been never so pleasing, +give any account of it in any methodical way, I cannot follow his train. +Something like this you must have perceived of me in conversation. Ten +thousand times I have confessed to you, talking of my talents, my utter +inability to remember in any comprehensive way what I read. I can +vehemently applaud, or perversely stickle, at _parts_; but I cannot +grasp at a whole. This infirmity (which is nothing to brag of) may be +seen in my two little compositions, the tale and my play, in both which +no reader, however partial, can find any story. I wrote such stuff about +Chaucer, and got into such digressions, quite irreducible into 1 1/5 +column of a paper, that I was perfectly ashamed to show it you. However, +it is become a serious matter that I should convince you I neither slunk +from the task through a wilful deserting neglect, or through any (most +imaginary on your part) distaste of "Chaucer;" and I will try my hand +again,--I hope with better luck. My health is bad, and my time taken up; +but all I can spare between this and Sunday shall be employed for you, +since you desire it: and if I bring you a crude, wretched paper on +Sunday, you must burn it, and forgive me; if it proves anything better +than I predict, may it be a peace-offering of sweet incense between us! + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Godwin's "Life of Chaucer,"--a work, says Canon Ainger, consisting +of "four fifths ingenious guessing to one fifth of material having any +historic basis." + + + +XLIV. + + +TO MANNING. + +_February_ 24, 1805. + +Dear Manning,--I have been very unwell since I saw you. A sad depression +of spirits, a most unaccountable nervousness; from which I have been +partially relieved by an odd accident. You knew Dick Hopkins, the +swearing scullion of Caius? This fellow, by industry and agility, has +thrust himself into the important situations (no sinecures, believe me) +of cook to Trinity Hall and Caius College; and the generous creature has +contrived, with the greatest delicacy imaginable, to send me a present +of Cambridge brawn. What makes it the more extraordinary is, that the +man never saw me in his life that I know of. I suppose he has _heard_ of +me. I did not immediately recognize the donor; but one of Richard's +cards, which had accidentally fallen into the straw, detected him in a +moment, Dick, you know, was always remarkable for flourishing. His card +imports that "orders [to wit, for brawn] from any part of England, +Scotland, or Ireland, will be duly executed," etc. At first I thought of +declining the present; but Richard knew my blind side when he pitched +upon brawn. 'Tis of all my hobbies the supreme in the eating way. He +might have sent sops from the pan, skimmings, crumpets, chips, hog's +lard, the tender brown judiciously scalped from a fillet of veal +(dexterously replaced by a salamander), the tops of asparagus, fugitive +livers, runaway gizzards of fowls, the eyes of martyred pigs, tender +effusions of laxative woodcocks, the red spawn of lobsters, leverets' +ears, and such pretty filchings common to cooks; but these had been +ordinary presents, the everyday courtesies of dishwashers to their +sweethearts. Brawn was a noble thought. It is not every common +gullet-fancier that can properly esteem it. It is like a picture of one +of the choice old Italian masters. Its gusto is of that hidden sort. As +Wordsworth sings of a modest poet, "you must love him, ere to you he +will seem worthy of your love," so brawn, you must taste it, ere to you +it will seem to have any taste at all. But 'tis nuts to the +adept,--those that will send out their tongues and feelers to find it +out. It will be wooed, and not unsought be won. Now, ham-essence, +lobsters, turtle, such popular minions, absolutely _court you_, lay +themselves out to strike you at first smack, like one of David's +pictures (they call him _Darveed_), compared with the plain +russet-coated wealth of a Titian or a Correggio, as I illustrated above. +Such are the obvious glaring heathen virtues of a corporation dinner, +compared with the reserved collegiate worth of brawn. Do me the favour +to leave off the business which you may be at present upon, and go +immediately to the kitchens of Trinity and Caius, and make my most +respectful compliments to Mr. Richard Hopkins, and assure him that his +brawn is most excellent, and that I am moreover obliged to him for his +innuendo about salt water and bran, which I shall not fail to improve. I +leave it to you whether you shall choose to pay him the civility of +asking him to dinner while you stay in Cambridge, or in whatever other +way you may best like to show your gratitude to _my friend_. Richard +Hopkins, considered in many points of view, is a very extraordinary +character. Adieu. I hope to see you to supper in London soon, where we +will taste Richard's brawn, and drink his health in a cheerful but +moderate cup. We have not many such men in any rank of life as Mr. R. +Hopkins. Crisp the barber, of St. Mary's, was just such another. I +wonder _he_ never sent me any little token,--some chestnuts, or a puff, +or two pound of hair just to remember him by; gifts are like nails. +_Praesens ut absens_, that is, your _present_ makes amends for +your absence. + +Yours, + +C. LAMB. + + + +XLV. + + +TO MISS WORDSWORTH. + +_June_ 14, 1805. + +My Dear Miss Wordsworth,--I have every reason to suppose that this +illness, like all Mary's former ones, will be but temporary. But I +cannot always feel so. Meantime she is dead to me, and I miss a prop. +All my strength Is gone, and I am like a fool, bereft of her +co-operation. I dare not think, iest I should think wrong; so used am I +to look up to her in the least and the biggest perplexity. To say all +that I know of her, would be more than I think anybody could believe or +ever understand; and when I hope to have her well again with me, it +would be sinning against her feelings to go about to praise her; for I +can conceal nothing that I do from her. She is older and wiser and +better than I, and all my wretched imperfections I cover to myself by +resolutely thinking on her goodness. She would share life and death, +heaven and hell, with me. She lives but for me; and I know I have been +wasting and teasing her life for five years past incessantly with my +cursed ways of going on. But even in this upbraiding of myself I am +offending against her, for I know that she has cleaved to me for better, +for worse; and if the balance has been against her hitherto, it was a +noble trade. I am stupid, and lose myself in what I write. I write +rather what answers to my feelings (which are sometimes sharp enough) +than express my present ones, for I am only flat and stupid. I am sure +you will excuse my writing any more, I am so very poorly. + +I cannot resist transcribing three or four lines which poor Mary made +upon a picture (a Holy Family) which we saw at an auction only one week +before she left home. They are sweet lines, and upon a sweet picture. +But I send them only as the last memorial of her. + +VIRGIN AND CHILD, L. DA VINCI. + + "Maternal Lady, with thy virgin-grace, + Heaven-born thy Jesus seemeth, sure, + And thou a virgin pure. + Lady most perfect, when thy angel face + Men look upon, they wish to be + A Catholic, Madonna fair, to worship thee." + +You had her lines about the "Lady Blanch." You have not had some which +she wrote upon a copy of a girl from Titian, which I had hung up where +that print of Blanch and the Abbess (as she beautifully interpreted two +female figures from L. da Vinci) had hung in our room. 'Tis light +and pretty. + + "Who art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the place + Of Blanch, the lady of the matchless grace? + Come, fair and pretty, tell to me + Who in thy lifetime thou mightst be? + Thou pretty art and fair, + But with the Lady Blanch thou never must compare. + No need for Blanch her history to tell, + Whoever saw her face, they there did read it well; + But when I look on thee, I only know + There lived a pretty maid some hundred years ago," + +This is a little unfair, to tell so much about ourselves, and to advert +so little to your letter, so full of comfortable tidings of you all But +my own cares press pretty close upon me, and you can make allowance. +That you may go on gathering strength and peace is my next wish to +Mary's recovery. + +I had almost forgot your repeated invitation. Supposing that Mary will +be well and able, there is another _ability_ which you may guess at, +which I cannot promise myself. In prudence we ought not to come. This +illness will make it still more prudential to wait. It is not a balance +of this way of spending our money against another way, but an absolute +question of whether we shall stop now, or go on wasting away the little +we have got beforehand, which my evil conduct has already encroached +upon one-half. My best love, however, to you all, and to that most +friendly creature. Mrs. Clarkson, and better health to her, when you see +or write to her. + +CHARLES LAMB. + + + +XLVI. [1] + + +TO MANNING. + +_May_ 10, 1806. + +My Dear Manning,--I didn't know what your going was till I shook a last +fist with you, and then 'twas just like having shaken hands with a +wretch on the fatal scaffold, and when you are down the ladder, you can +never stretch out to him again. Mary says you are dead, and there's +nothing to do but to leave it to time to do for us in the end what it +always does for those who mourn for people in such a case. But she'll +see by your letter you are not quite dead. A little kicking and agony, +and then--Martin Burney _took me out_ a walking that evening, and we +talked of Manning; and then I came home and smoked for you, and at +twelve o'clock came home Mary and Monkey Louisa from the play, and there +was more talk and more smoking, and they all seemed first-rate +characters, because they knew a certain person. But what's the use of +talking about 'em? By the time you'll have made your escape from the +Kalmuks, you'll have stayed so long I shall never be able to bring to +your mind who Mary was, who will have died about a year before, nor who +the Holcrofts were! Me perhaps you will mistake for Phillips, or +confound me with Mr. Dawe, because you saw us together. Mary (whom you +seem to remember yet) is not quite easy that she had not a formal +parting from you. I wish it had so happened. But you must bring her a +token, a shawl or something, and remember a sprightly little mandarin +for our mantelpiece, as a companion to the child I am going to purchase +at the museum. She says you saw her writings about the other day, and +she wishes you should know what they are. She is doing for Godwin's +bookseller twenty of Shakspeare's plays, to be made into children's +tales. Six are already done by her; to wit: "The Tempest," "Winter's +Tale," "Midsummer Night's Dream," "Much Ado," "Two Gentlemen of Verona," +and "Cymbeline;" and "The Merchant of Venice" is in forwardness. I have +done "Othello" and "Macbeth," and mean to do all the tragedies. I think +it will be popular among the little people, besides money. It's to bring +in sixty guineas. Mary has done them capitally, I think you'd think. [2] +These are the humble amusements we propose, while you are gone to plant +the cross of Christ among barbarous pagan anthropophagi. _Quam homo +homini praestat!_ but then, perhaps, you'll get murdered, and we shall +die in our beds, with a fair literary reputation. Be sure, if you see +any of those people whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, that +you make a draught of them. It will be very curious. Oh, Manning, I am +serious to sinking almost, when I think that all those evenings, which +you have made so pleasant, are gone perhaps forever. Four years you talk +of, maybe ten; and you may come back and find such alterations! Some +circumstances may grow up to you or to me that may be a bar to the +return of any such intimacy. I daresay all this is hum, and that all +will come back; but indeed we die many deaths before we die, and I am +almost sick when I think that such a hold as I had of you is gone. I +have friends, but some of 'em are changed. Marriage, or some +circumstance, rises up to make them not the same. But I felt sure of +you. And that last token you gave me of expressing a wish to have my +name joined with yours, you know not how it affected me,--like a legacy. + +God bless you in every way you can form a wish! May He give you health, +and safety, and the accomplishment of all your objects, and return you +again to us to gladden some fireside or other (I suppose we shall be +moved from the Temple). I will nurse the remembrance of your steadiness +and quiet, which used to infuse something like itself into our nervous +minds. Mary called you our ventilator. Farewell! and take her best +wishes and mine. Good by. + +C.L. + +[1] Addressed: "Mr, Manning, Passenger on Board the 'Thames,' East +Indiaman, Portsmouth." Manning had set out for Canton. + +[2] Miss Lamb has amusingly described the progress of their labors on +this volume; "You would like to see us, as we often sit writing on one +table (but not on one cushion sitting), like Hermia and Helena, in the +'Midsummer Night's Dream;' or rather like an old literary Darby and +Joan, I taking snuff, and he groaning all the while, and saying he can +make nothing of it, which he always says till he has finished, and then +he finds out that he has made something of it." + + + +XLVII. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_June_, 1806. + +Dear Wordsworth,--We are pleased, you may be sure, with the good news +of Mrs. Wordsworth. [1] Hope all is well over by this time. "A fine boy! +Have you any more?--One more and a girl,--poor copies of me!" _vide_ +"Mr. H.," a farce which the proprietors have done me the honor--But I +set down Mr, Wroughton's own words, N. B.--The ensuing letter was sent +in answer to one which I wrote, begging to know if my piece had any +chance, as I might make alterations, etc, I writing on Monday, there +comes this letter on the Wednesday. Attend. + +[_Copy of a letter from Mr. R. Wroughton_.] + +SIR,--Your piece of "Mr. H.," I am desired to say, is accepted at Drury +Lane Theatre by the proprietors, and if agreeable to you, will be +brought forwards when the proper opportunity serves. The piece shall be +sent to you for your alterations in the course of a few days, as the +same is not in my hands, but with the proprietors, + +I am, sir, your obedient servant, + +RICHARD WROUGHTON. + +[Dated] 66, Gower Street, Wednesday, June 11th, 1806. + +On the following Sunday Mr. Tobin comes. The scent of a manager's letter +brought him. He would have gone farther any day on such a business. I +read the letter to him. He deems it authentic and peremptory. Our +conversation naturally fell upon pieces, different sorts of +pieces,--what is the best way of offering a piece; how far the caprice +of managers is an obstacle in the way of a piece; how to judge of the +merits of a piece; how long a piece may remain in the hands of the +managers before it is acted; and my piece, and your piece, and my poor +brother's piece,--my poor brother was all his life endeavoring to get a +piece accepted. I wrote that in mere wantonness of triumph. Have nothing +more to say about it. The managers, I thank my stars, have decided its +merits forever. They are the best judges of pieces, and it would be +insensible in me to affect a false modesty, after the very flattering +letter which I have received. + +[Illustration: Admit to Boxes. Mr. H. _Ninth Night_ Charles Lamb] + +I think this will be as good a pattern for orders as I can think on. A +little thin flowery border, round, neat, not gaudy, and the Drury Lane +Apollo, with the harp at the top. Or shall I have no Apollo,--simply +nothing? Or perhaps the Comic Muse? + +The same form, only I think without the Apollo, will serve for the pit +and galleries. I think it will be best to write my name at full length; +but then if I give away a great many, that will be tedious. Perhaps _Ch. +Lamb_ will do. + +BOXES, now I think on it, I'll have in capitals; the rest, in a neat +Italian hand. Or better, perhaps, BORES in Old English characters, +like Madoc or Thalaba? + +_A propos_ of Spenser (you will find him mentioned a page or two before, +near enough for an _a propos_), I was discoursing on poetry (as one's +apt to deceive one's self, and when a person is willing to _talk_ of +what one likes, to believe that be also likes the same, as lovers do) +with a young gentleman of my office, who is deep read in Anacreon Moore, +Lord Strangford, and the principal modern poets, and I happened to +mention Epithalamiums, and that I could show him a very fine one of +Spenser's. At the mention of this my gentleman, who is a very fine +gentleman, pricked up his ears and expressed great pleasure, and begged +that I would give him leave to copy it; he did not care how long it was +(for I objected the length), he should be very happy to see _anything by +him_. Then pausing, and looking sad, he ejaculated, "POOR SPENCER!" I +begged to know the reason of his ejaculation, thinking that time had by +this time softened down any calamities which the bard might have +endured. "Why, poor fellow," said he, "he has lost his wife!" "Lost his +wife!" said I, "who are you talking of?" "Why, Spencer!" said he; "I've +read the Monody he wrote on the occasion, and _a very pretty thing it +is_." This led to an explanation (it could be delayed no longer) that +the sound _Spenser_, which, when poetry is talked of, generally excites +an image of an old bard in a ruff, and sometimes with it dim notions of +Sir P. Sidney and perhaps Lord Burleigh, had raised in my gentleman a +quite contrary image of the Honorable William Spencer, who has +translated some things from the German very prettily, which are +published with Lady Di Beauclerk's designs. Nothing like defining of +terms when we talk. What blunders might I have fallen into of quite +inapplicable criticism, but for this timely explanation! + +N.B.--At the beginning of _Edm._ Spenser (to prevent mistakes), I have +copied from my own copy, and primarily from a book of Chalmers's on +Shakspeare, a sonnet of Spenser's never printed among his poems. It is +curious, as being manly, and rather Miltonic, and as a sonnet of +Spenser's with nothing in it about love or knighthood. I have no room +for remembrances, but I hope our doing your commission will prove we do +not quite forget you. + +C. L. + +[1] Wordsworth's son Thomas was born June 16, 1806. + + + +XLVIII. + + +TO MANNING + +_December_ 5, 1806. + +Manning, your letter, dated Hottentots, August the what-was-it? came to +hand. I can scarce hope that mine will have the same luck. China, +Canton,--bless us, how it strains the imagination and makes it ache! I +write under another uncertainty whether it can go to-morrow by a ship +which I have just learned is going off direct to your part of the world, +or whether the despatches may not be sealed up and this have to wait; +for if it is detained here, it will grow staler in a fortnight than in a +five months' voyage coming to you. It will be a point of conscience to +send you none but bran-new news (the latest edition), which will but +grow the better, like oranges, for a sea-voyage. Oh that you should be +so many hemispheres off!--if I speak incorrectly, you can correct me. +Why, the simplest death or marriage that takes place here must be +important to you as news in the old Bastile. There's your friend Tuthill +has got away from France--you remember France? and Tuthill?--ten to one +but he writes by this post, if he don't get my note in time, apprising +him of the vessel sailing. Know, then, that he has found means to obtain +leave from Bonaparte, without making use of any _incredible romantic +pretences_, as some have done, who never meant to fulfil them, to come +home; and I have seen him here and at Holcroft's. An't you glad about +Tuthill? Now then be sorry for Holcroft, whose new play, called "The +Vindictive Man," was damned about a fortnight since. It died in part of +its own weakness, and in part for being choked up with bad actors. The +two principal parts were destined to Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Bannister; but +Mrs. J. has not come to terms with the managers,--they have had some +squabble,--and Bannister shot some of his fingers off by the going off +of a gun. So Miss Duncan had her part, and Mr. De Camp took his. His +part, the principal comic hope of the play, was most unluckily +Goldfinch, taken out of the "Road to Ruin,"--not only the same +character, but the identical Goldfinch; the same as Falstaff is in two +plays of Shakspeare. As the devil of ill-luck would have it, half the +audience did not know that H. had written it, but were displeased at his +stealing from the "Road to Ruin;" and those who might have home a +gentlemanly coxcomb with his "That's your sort," "Go it,"--such as Lewis +is,--did not relish the intolerable vulgarity and inanity of the idea +stripped of his manner. De Camp was hooted, more than hissed,--hooted +and bellowed off the stage before the second act was finished; so that +the remainder of his part was forced to be, with some violence to the +play, omitted. In addition to this, a strumpet was another principal +character,--a most unfortunate choice in this moral day. The audience +were as scandalized as if you were to introduce such a personage to +their private tea-tables. Besides, her action in the play was +gross,--wheedling an old man into marriage. But the mortal blunder of +the play was that which, oddly enough, H. took pride in, and exultingly +told me of the night before it came out, that there were no less than +eleven principal characters in it, and I believe he meant of the men +only, for the play-bill expressed as much, not reckoning one woman and +one--; and true it was, for Mr. Powell, Mr. Raymond, Mr. Bartlett, Mr. +H. Siddons, Mr. Barrymore, etc., to the number of eleven, had all parts +equally prominent, and there was as much of them in quantity and rank as +of the hero and heroine, and most of them gentlemen who seldom appear +but as the hero's friend in a farce,--for a minute or two,--and here +they all had their ten-minute speeches, and one of them gave the +audience a serious account how he was now a lawyer, but had been a poet; +and then a long enumeration of the inconveniences of authorship, +rascally booksellers, reviewers, etc.; which first set the audience +a-gaping. But I have said enough; you will be so sorry that you will not +think the best of me for my detail: but news is news at Canton. Poor H. +I fear will feel the disappointment very seriously in a pecuniary light. +From what I can learn, he has saved nothing. You and I were hoping one +day that he had; but I fear he has nothing but his pictures and books, +and a no very flourishing business, and to be obliged to part with his +long-necked Guido that hangs opposite as you enter, and the game-piece +that hangs in the back drawing-room, and all those Vandykes, etc.! God +should temper the wind to the shorn connoisseur. I hope I need not say +to you that I feel for the weather-beaten author and for all his +household. I assure you his fate has soured a good deal the pleasure I +should have otherwise taken in my own little farce being accepted, and I +hope about to be acted,--it is in rehearsal actually, and I expect it to +come out next week. It is kept a sort of secret, and the rehearsals have +gone on privately, lest by many folks knowing it, the story should come +out, which would infallibly damn it. You remember I had sent it before +you went. Wroughton read it, and was much pleased with it. I speedily +got an answer. I took it to make alterations, and lazily kept it some +months, then took courage and furbished it up in a day or two and took +it. In less than a fortnight I heard the principal part was given to +Elliston, who liked it, and only wanted a prologue, which I have since +done and sent; and I had a note the day before yesterday from the +manager, Wroughton (bless his fat face, he is not a bad actor in some +things), to say that I should be summoned to the rehearsal after the +next, which next was to be yesterday. I had no idea it was so forward. I +have had no trouble, attended no reading or rehearsal, made no interest; +what a contrast to the usual parade of authors! But it is peculiar to +modesty to do all things without noise or pomp! I have some suspicion it +will appear in public on Wednesday next, for W. says in his note, it is +so forward that if wanted it may come out next week, and a new melodrama +is announced for every day till then; and "a new farce is in rehearsal," +is put up in the bills. Now, you'd like to know the subject. The title +is "Mr. H.," no more; how simple, how taking! A great H. sprawling over +the play-bill and attracting eyes at every corner. The story is a +coxcomb appearing at Bath, vastly rich, all the ladies dying for him, +all bursting to know who he is; but he goes by no other name than Mr. +H.,--a curiosity like that of the dames of Strasburg about the man with +the great nose. But I won't tell you any more about it. Yes, I will, but +I can't give you an idea how I have done it. I'll just tell you that +after much vehement admiration, when his true name comes out, +"Hogs-flesh," all the women shun him, avoid him, and not one can be +found to change their name for him,--that's the idea,--how flat it is +here; [1] but how whimsical in the farce! And only think how hard upon me +it is that the ship is despatched to-morrow, and my triumph cannot be +ascertained till the Wednesday after; but all China will ring of it by +and by. N.B. (But this is a secret,) The Professor [2] has got a tragedy +coming out, with the young Roscius in it, in January next, as we +say,--January last it will be with you; and though it is a profound +secret now, as all his affairs are, it cannot be much of one by the time +you read this. However, don't let it go any farther. I understand there +are dramatic exhibitions in China. One would not like to be forestalled. +Do you find in all this stuff I have written anything like those +feelings which one should send my old adventuring friend, that is gone +to wander among Tartars, and may never come again? I don't, but your +going away, and all about you, is a threadbare topic. I have worn it out +with thinking, it has come to me when I have been dull with anything, +till my sadness has seemed more to have come from it than to have +introduced it. I want you, you don't know how much; but if I had you +here in my European garret, we should but talk over such stuff as I have +written, so--Those "Tales from Shakspeare" are near coming out, and Mary +has begun a new work, Mr. Dawe is turned author; he has been in such a +way lately,--Dawe the painter, I mean,--he sits and stands about at +Holcroft's and says nothing, then sighs, and leans his head on his hand. +I took him to be in love, but it seems he was only meditating a +work,--"The Life of Morland:" the young man is not used to composition. +Rickman and Captain Burney are well; they assemble at my house pretty +regularly of a Wednesday, a new institution. Like other great men, I have +a public day,--cribbage and pipes, with Phillips and noisy Martin Burney. + +Good Heaven, what a bit only I've got left! How shall I squeeze all I +know into this morsel! Coleridge is come home, and is going to turn +lecturer on taste at the Royal Institution. I shall get L200 from the +theatre if "Mr. H." has a good run, and I hope L100 for the copyright. +Nothing if it fails; and there never was a more ticklish thing. The +whole depends on the manner in which the name is brought out, which I +value myself on, as a _chef d'oeuvre_. How the paper grows less and +less! In less than two minutes I shall cease to talk to you, and you may +rave to the Great Wall of China. N.B.--Is there such a wall? Is it as +big as Old London Wall by Bedlam? Have you met with a friend of mine +named Ball at Canton? If you are acquainted, remember me kindly to him. +Maybe you'll think I have not said enough of Tuthill and the Holcrofts. +Tuthill is a noble fellow, as far as I can judge. The Holcrofts bear +their disappointment pretty well, but indeed they are sadly mortified. +Mrs. H. is cast down. It was well, if it were but on this account, that +Tuthill is come home. N.B.--If my little thing don't succeed, I shall +easily survive, having, as it were, compared to H.'s venture, but a +sixteenth in the lottery. Mary and I are to sit next the orchestra in +the pit, next the tweedle-dees. She remembers you. You are more to us +than five hundred farces, clappings, etc. + +Come back one day. C. LAMB. + +[1] It was precisely this flatness, this slightness of plot and +catastrophe, that doomed "Mr. H." to failure. See next letter. + +[2] Godwin. His tragedy of "Faulkner" was published in 1808. + + + +XLIX. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_December_, II, 1806. + +Mary's love to all of you; I wouldn't let her write. + +Dear Wordsworth,--"Mr. H." came out last night, and failed. I had many +fears; the subject was not substantial enough. John Bull must have +solider fare than a _letter_. We are pretty stout about it; have had +plenty of condoling friends; but, after all, we had rather it should +have succeeded. You will see the prologue in most of the morning papers. +It was received with such shouts as I never witnessed to a prologue. It +was attempted to be encored. How hard! a thing I did merely as a task, +because it was wanted, and set no great store by; and "Mr. H."! The +quantity of friends we had in the house--my brother and I being in +public offices, etc.--was astonishing; but they yielded at last to a +few hisses. + +A hundred hisses (Damn the word, I write it like kisses,--how +different!)--a hundred hisses outweigh a thousand claps. [1] The former +come more directly from, the heart. Well, 't is withdrawn, and there +is an end. + +Better luck to us, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Lamb was himself in the audience, and is said to have taken a +conspicuous share in the storm of hisses that followed the dropping of +the curtain. + + + +L. + + +TO MANNING. + +_January_ 2, 1810. + +My best room commands a court, in which there are trees and a pump, the +water of which is excellent,--cold with brandy, and not very insipid +without. Here I hope to set up my rest, and not quit till Mr. Powell, +the undertaker, gives me notice that I may have possession of my last +lodging. He lets lodgings for single gentlemen. I sent you a parcel of +books by my last, to give you some idea of the state of European +literature. There comes with this two volumes, done up as letters, of +minor poetry, a sequel to "Mrs. Leicester;" the best you may suppose +mine, the next best are my coadjutor's. You may amuse yourself in +guessing them out; but I must tell you mine are but one third in +quantity of the whole. So much for a very delicate subject. It is hard +to speak of one's self, etc. Holcroft had finished his life when I wrote +to you, and Hazlitt has since finished his life,--I do not mean his own +life, but he has finished a life of Holcroft, which is going to press. +Tuthill is Dr. Tuthill. I continue Mr. Lamb. I have published a little +book for children on titles of honor; and to give them some idea of the +difference of rank and gradual rising, I have made a little scale, +supposing myself to receive the following various accessions of dignity +from the king, who is the fountain of honor,--as at first, 1, Mr. C. +Lamb; 2, C. Lamb, Esq.; 3, Sir C. Lamb, Bart.; 4, Baron Lamb, of +Stamford; 5, Viscount Lamb; 6, Earl Lamb; 7, Marquis Lamb; 8, Duke Lamb. +It would look like quibbling to carry it on farther, and especially as +it is not necessary for children to go beyond the ordinary titles of +sub-regal dignity in our own country, otherwise I have sometimes in my +dreams imagined myself still advancing, as 9th, King Lamb; 10th, Emperor +Lamb; 11th, Pope Innocent,--higher than which is nothing. Puns I have +not made many (nor punch much) since the date of my last; one I cannot +help relating. A constable in Salisbury Cathedral was telling me that +eight people dined at the top of the spire of the cathedral; upon which +I remarked that they must be very sharp-set. But in general I cultivate +the reasoning part of my mind more than the imaginative. I am stuffed +out so with eating turkey for dinner, and another turkey for supper +yesterday (turkey in Europe and turkey in Asia), that I can't jog on. It +is New Year here. That is, it was New Year half a year back, when I was +writing this. Nothing puzzles me more than time and space, and yet +nothing puzzles me less, for I never think about them. The Persian +ambassador is the principal thing talked of now. I sent some people to +see him worship the sun on Primrose Hill at half-past six in the +morning, 28th November; but he did not come,--which makes me think the +old fire-worshippers are a sect almost extinct in Persia. The Persian +ambassador's name is Shaw Ali Mirza. The common people call him Shaw +Nonsense. While I think of it, I have put three letters besides my own +three into the India post for you, from your brother, sister, and +some gentleman whose name I forget. Will they, have they, did they come +safe? The distance you are at, cuts up tenses by the root. I think you +said you did not know Kate *********. I express her by nine stars, +though she is but one. You must have seen her at her father's. Try and +remember her. Coleridge is bringing out a paper in weekly numbers, called +the "Friend," which I would send, if I could; but the difficulty I had in +getting the packets of books out to you before deters me; and you'll +want something new to read when you come home. Except Kate, I have had +no vision of excellence this year, and she passed by like the queen on +her coronation day; you don't know whether you saw her or not. Kate is +fifteen; I go about moping, and sing the old, pathetic ballad I used to +like in my youth,-- + + "She's sweet fifteen, + I'm _one year more._ + +Mrs. Bland sang it in boy's clothes the first time I heard it. I +sometimes think the lower notes in my voice are like Mrs. Bland's. That +glorious singer, Braham, one of my lights, is fled. He was for a season. +He was a rare composition of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel, yet +all these elements mixed up so kindly in him that you could not tell +which predominated; but he is gone, and one Phillips is engaged instead. +Kate is vanished, but Miss Burrell is always to be met with! + + "Queens drop away, while blue-legged Maukin thrives, + And courtly Mildred dies, while country Madge survives." + +That is not my poetry, but Quarles's; but haven't you observed that the +rarest things are the least obvious? Don't show anybody the names in +this letter. I write confidentially, and wish this letter to be +considered as _private,_ Hazlitt has written a _grammar_ for Godwin; +Godwin sells it bound up with a treatise of his own on language; but the +_gray mare is the better horse._ I don't allude to Mrs. Godwin, but to +the word _grammar_, which comes near to _gray mare_, if you observe, in +sound. That figure is called paranomasia in Greek, I am sometimes happy +in it. An old woman begged of me for charity. "Ah, sir," said she, "I +have seen better days!" "So have I, good woman," I replied; but I meant +literally, days not so rainy and overcast as that on which begged,--she +meant more prosperous days. + + + +LI. + + +TO MISS WORDSWORTH. + +_August_, 1810. + +Mary has left a little space for me to fill up with nonsense, as the +geographers used to cram monsters in the voids of the maps, and call it +_Terra Incognita_. She has told you how she has taken to water like a +hungry otter. I too limp after her in lame imitation, [1] but it goes +against me a little at first. I have been acquaintance with it now for +full four days, and it seems a moon. I am full of cramps and +rheumatisms, and cold internally, so that fire won't warm me; yet I bear +all for virtue's sake. Must I then leave you, gin, rum, brandy, +_aqua-vitae_, pleasant, jolly fellows? Damn temperance and he that first +invented it!--some Anti-Noahite. Coleridge has powdered his head, and +looks like Bacchus,--Bacchus ever sleek and young. He is going to turn +sober, but his clock has not struck yet; meantime he pours down goblet +after goblet, the second to see where the first is gone, the third to +see no harm happens to the second, a fourth to say there is another +coming, and a fifth to say he is not sure he is the last. C. L. + +[1] An experiment in total abstinence; it did not last long. + + + +LII. + + +TO WORDSWORTH + +_October_ 19, 1810. + +Dear W.,--Mary has been very ill, which you have heard, I suppose, from +the Montagues. She is very weak and low-spirited now, I was much pleased +with your continuation of the "Essay on Epitaphs," [1] It is the only +sensible thing which has been written on that subject, and it goes to +the bottom. In particular I was pleased with your translation of that +turgid epitaph into the plain feeling under it. It is perfectly a test. +But what is the reason we have no good epitaphs after all? + +A very striking instance of your position might be found in the +churchyard of Ditton-upon-Thames, if you know such a place. +Ditton-upon-Thames has been blessed by the residence of a poet who, for +love or money, I do not well know which, has dignified every gravestone +for the last few years with brand new verses, all different and all +ingenious, with the author's name at the bottom of each. This sweet Swan +of Thames has so artfully diversified his strains and his rhymes that +the same thought never occurs twice,--more justly, perhaps, as no +thought ever occurs at all, there was a physical impossibility that the +same thought should recur, It is long since I saw and read these +inscriptions; but I remember the impression was of a smug usher at his +desk in the intervals of instruction, levelling his pen. Of death, as it +consists of dust and worms, and mourners and uncertainty, he had never +thought; but the word "death" he had often seen separate and conjunct +with other words, till he had learned to speak of all its attributes as +glibly as Unitarian Belsham will discuss you the attributes of the word +"God" in a pulpit, and will talk of infinity with a tongue that dangles +from a skull that never reached in thought and thorough imagination two +inches, or farther than from his hand to his mouth, or from the vestry +to the sounding-board of the pulpit. + +But the epitaphs were trim and sprag, and patent, and pleased the +survivors of Thames Ditton above the old mumpsimus of "Afflictions +sore." ... To do justice, though, it must be owned that even the +excellent feeling which dictated this dirge when new, must have suffered +something in passing through so many thousand applications, many of them +no doubt quite misplaced, as I have seen in Islington churchyard (I +think) an Epitaph to an Infant who died "_AEtatis_ four months," with +this seasonable inscription appended, "Honor thy father and thy mother, +that thy days may be long in the land," etc. Sincerely wishing your +children long life to honor, etc., I remain, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Published in Coleridge's "Friend," Feb. 22, 1810. + + + +LIII. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_August_ 14, 1814. + +Dear Wordsworth,--I cannot tell you how pleased I was at the receipt of +the great armful of poetry which you have sent me: and to get it before +the rest of the world, too! I have gone quite through with it, and was +thinking to have accomplished that pleasure a second time before I wrote +to thank you; but Martin Burney came in the night (while we were out) +and made holy theft of it: but we expect restitution in a day or two. It +is the noblest conversational poem [1] I ever read,--a day in heaven. The +part (or rather main body) which has left the sweetest odor on my memory +(a bad term for the remains of an impression so recent) is the "Tales of +the Churchyard"--the only girl among seven brethren, born out of due +time, and not duly taken away again; the deaf man and the blind man; the +Jacobite and the Hanoverian, whom antipathies reconcile; the +Scarron-entry of the rusticating parson upon his solitude,--these were +all new to me too. My having known the story of Margaret (at the +beginning), a very old acquaintance, even as long back as when I saw you +first at Stowey, did not make her reappearance less fresh. I don't know +what to pick out of this best of books upon the best subjects for +partial naming. That gorgeous sunset is famous; I think it must have +been the identical one we saw on Salisbury Plain five years ago, that +drew Phillips from the card-table, where he had sat from rise of that +luminary to its unequalled setting. But neither he nor I had gifted eyes +to see those symbols of common things glorified, such as the prophets +saw them in that sunset,--the wheel, the potter's clay, the washpot, +the wine-press, the almond-tree rod, the baskets of figs, the +four-fold-visaged head, the throne, and Him that sat thereon. + +One feeling I was particularly struck with, as what I recognized so very +lately at Harrow Church on entering in it after a hot and secular day's +pleasure,--the instantaneous coolness and calming, almost transforming, +properties of a country church just entered; a certain fragrance which +it has, either from its holiness, or being kept shut all the week, or +the air that is let in being pure country,--exactly what you have +reduced into words; but I am feeling that which I cannot express. The +reading your lines about it fixed me for a time a monument in Harrow +Church,--do you know it?--with its fine long spire, white as washed +marble, to be seen, by vantage of its high site, as far as Salisbury +spire itself almost. + +I shall select a day or two very shortly, when I am coolest in brain, to +have a steady second reading, which I feel will lead to many more; for +it will be a stock book with me while eyes or spectacles shall be lent +me. There is a great deal of noble matter about mountain scenery, yet +not so much as to overpower and discountenance a poor Londoner, or +south-countryman entirely,--though Mary seems to have felt it +occasionally a little too powerfully; for it was her remark, during +reading it, that by your system it was doubtful whether a liver in towns +had a soul to be saved. She almost trembled for that invisible part of +us in her. + +Save for a late excursion to Harrow, and a day or two on the banks of +the Thames this summer, rural images were fast fading from my mind, and +by the wise provision of the Regent all that was countrified in the +parks is all but obliterated. The very colour of green is vanished; the +whole surface of Hyde Park is dry, crumbling sand (_Arabia Arenosa_), +not a vestige or hint of grass ever having grown there; booths and +drinking-places go all round it, for a mile and a half, I am +confident,--I might say two miles in circuit; the stench of liquors, +_bad_ tobacco, dirty people and provisions, conquers the air, and we are +all stifled and suffocated in Hyde Park [2]. Order after order has been +issued by Lord Sidmouth in the name of the Regent (acting in behalf of +his royal father) for the dispersion of the varlets; but in vain. The +_vis unita_ of all the publicans in London, Westminster, Marylebone, and +miles round, is too powerful a force to put down. The Regent has raised +a phantom which he cannot lay. There they'll stay probably forever. The +whole beauty of the place is gone,--that lake-look of the Serpentine +(it has got foolish ships upon it); but something whispers to have +confidence in Nature and its revival,-- + + "At the coming of the _milder_ day, + These monuments shall all be overgrown." + +Meantime I confess to have smoked one delicious pipe in one of the +cleanliest and goodliest of the booths,--a tent rather,-- + + "Oh, call it not a booth!" + +erected by the public spirit of Watson, who keeps the "Adam and Eve" at +Pancras (the ale-houses have all emigrated, with their train of bottles, +mugs, cork-screws, waiters, into Hyde Park,--whole ale-houses, with all +their ale!) in company with some of the Guards that had been in France, +and a fine French girl, habited like a princess of banditti, which one +of the dogs had transported from the Garonne to the Serpentine. The +unusual scene in Hyde Park, by candle-light, in open air,--good tobacco, +bottled stout,--made it look like an interval in a campaign, a repose +after battle. I almost fancied scars smarting, and was ready to club a +story with my comrades of some of my lying deeds. After all, the +fireworks were splendid; the rockets in clusters, in trees, and all +shapes, spreading about like young stars in the making, floundering +about in space (like unbroke horses), till some of Newton's calculations +should fix them; but then they went out. Any one who could see 'em, and +the still finer showers of gloomy rain-fire that fell sulkily and +angrily from 'em, and could go to bed without dreaming of the last day, +must be as hardened an atheist as--. + +The conclusion of this epistle getting gloomy, I have chosen this part +to desire _our_ kindest loves to Mrs. Wordsworth and to Dorothea. Will +none of you ever be in London again? + +Again let me thank you for your present, and assure you that fireworks +and triumphs have not distracted me from receiving a calm and noble +enjoyment from it (which I trust I shall often), and I sincerely +congratulate you on its appearance. + +With kindest remembrances to you and household, we remain, yours +sincerely, + +C. LAMB and Sister. + +[1] The Excursion. + +[2] Early in 1814 the London parks were thrown open to the +public, with fireworks, booths, illuminations, etc., in celebration of +the peace between France and England, it was two or three years before +they recovered their usual verdure. + + + +LIV. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +(1815) + +Dear Wordsworth,--You have made me very proud with your successive book +presents. [1] I have been carefully through the two volumes to see that +nothing was omitted which used to be there. I think I miss nothing but a +character in the antithetic manner, which I do not know why you left +out,--the moral to the boys building the giant, the omission whereof +leaves it, in my mind, less complete,--and one admirable line gone (or +something come instead of it), "the stone-chat, and the glancing +sandpiper," which was a line quite alive. I demand these at your hand. I +am glad that you have not sacrificed a verse to those scoundrels. I +would not have had you offer up the poorest rag that lingered upon the +stripped shoulders of little Alice Fell, to have atoned all their +malice; I would not have given 'em a red cloak to save their souls. I am +afraid lest that substitution of a shell (a flat falsification of the +history) for the household implement, as it stood at first, was a kind +of tub thrown out to the beast, or rather thrown out for him. The tub +was a good honest tub in its place, and nothing could fairly be said +against it. You say you made the alteration for the "friendly reader;" +but the "malicious" will take it to himself. Damn 'em! if you give 'em +an inch, etc. The Preface is noble, and such as you should write. I wish +I could set my name to it, _Imprimatur_; but you have set it there +yourself, and I thank you. I had rather be a doorkeeper in your margin +than have their proudest text swelling with my eulogies. The poems in +the volumes which are new to me are so much in the old tone that I +hardly received them as novelties. Of those of which I had no previous +knowledge, the "Four Yew-Trees" and the mysterious company which you +have assembled there most struck me,--"Death the Skeleton, and Time the +Shadow." It is a sight not for every youthful poet to dream of; it is +one of the last results he must have gone thinking on for years for, +"Laodamia" is a very original poem,--I mean original with reference to +your own manner. You have nothing like it, I should have seen it in a +strange place, and greatly admired it, but not suspected its derivation. + +Let me in this place, for I have writ you several letters naming it, +mention that my brother, who is a picture-collector, has picked up an +undoubtable picture of Milton. [2] He gave a few shillings for it, and +could get no history with it, but that some old lady had had it for a +great many years. Its age is ascertainable from the state of the canvas, +and you need only see it to be sure that it is the original of the heads +in the Tonson editions, with which we are all so well familiar. Since I +saw you, I have had a treat in the reading way which conies not every +day,--the Latin poems of V. Bourne, which were quite new to me. What a +heart that man had, all laid out upon town scenes!--a proper +counterpoise to _some people's_ rural extravaganzas. Why I mention him +is, that your "Power of Music" reminded me of his poem of "The +Ballad-singer in the Seven Dials," Do you remember his epigram on the +old woman who taught Newton the A B C, which, after all, he says, he +hesitates not to call Newton's "Principia"? I was lately fatiguing +myself with going through a volume of fine words by Lord +Thurlow,--excellent words; and if the heart could live by words alone, +it could desire no better regales. But what an aching vacuum of matter! +I don't stick at the madness of it, for that is only a consequence of +shutting his eyes and thinking he is in the age of the old Elizabeth +poets. From thence I turned to Bourne. What a sweet, unpretending, +pretty-mannered, _matter-ful_ creature, sucking from every flower, +making a flower of everything, his diction all Latin, and his thoughts +all English! Bless him! Latin wasn't good enough for him. Why wasn't he +content with the language which Gay and Prior wrote in? + +I am almost sorry that you printed extracts from those first poems, or +that you did not print them at length. They do not read to me as they do +altogether. Besides, they have diminished the value of the original +(which I possess) as a curiosity. I have hitherto kept them distinct in +my mind, as referring to a particular period of your life. All the rest +of your poems are so much of a piece they might have been written in the +same week; these decidedly speak of an earlier period. They tell more of +what you had been reading. We were glad to see the poems "by a female +friend." [3] The one on the Wind is masterly, but not new to us. Being +only three, perhaps you might have clapped a D. at the corner, and let +it have past as a printer's mark to the uninitiated, as a delightful +hint to the better instructed. As it is, expect a formal criticism on +the poems of your female friend, and she must expect it. I should have +written before, but I am cruelly engaged, and like to be. On Friday I +was at office from ten in the morning (two hours dinner excepted) to +eleven at night, last night till nine; my business and office business +in general have increased so; I don't mean I am there every night, but I +must expect a great deal of it. I never leave till four, and do not keep +a holiday now once in ten times, where I used to keep all red-letter +days, and some few days besides, which I used to dub Nature's holidays. +I have had my day. I had formerly little to do. So of the little that is +left of life I may reckon two thirds as dead, for time that a man may +call his own is his life; and hard work and thinking about it taint even +the leisure hours,--stain Sunday with work-day contemplations. This is +Sunday; and the headache I have is part late hours at work the two +preceding nights, and part later hours over a consoling pipe afterwards. +But I find stupid acquiescence coming over me. I bend to the yoke, and +it is almost with me and my household as with the man and his consort,-- + + "To them each evening had its glittering star, + And every sabbath-day its golden sun!" [4] + to such straits am I driven for the life of life, Time! + Oh that from that superfluity of holiday-leisure my + youth wasted, "Age might but take some hours youth + wanted not"! N.B.--I have left off spirituous + liquors for four or more months, with a moral certainty + of its lasting. Farewell, dear Wordsworth! + +O happy Paris, seat of idleness and pleasure! From some returned English +I hear that not such a thing as a counting-house is to be seen in her +streets,--scarce a desk. Earthquakes swallow up this mercantile city and +its "gripple merchants," as Drayton hath it, "born to be the curse of +this brave isle"! I invoke this, not on account of any parsimonious +habits the mercantile interest may have, but, to confess truth, because +I am not fit for an office. + +Farewell, in haste, from a head that is too ill to methodize, a stomach +to digest, and all out of tune. Better harmonies await you! + +C. LAMB. + +[1] In 1815 Wordsworth published a new edition of his poems, with the +following title: "Poems by William Wordsworth; including Lyrical +Ballads, and the Miscellaneous Pieces of the Author. With Additional +Poems, a new Preface, and a Supplementary Essay. In two Volumes." The +new poems were "Yarrow Visited," "The Force of Prayer," "The Farmer of +Tilsbury Vale," "Laodamia," "Yew-Trees," "A Night Piece," etc., and it +was chiefly on these that Lamb made his comments. + +[2] John Lamb afterwards gave the picture to Charles, who made it a +wedding present to Mrs. Moxon (Emma Isola), It is now in the National +Portrait Gallery. + +[3] Dorothy Wordsworth. + +[4] Excursion, book v. + + + +LV. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +Excuse this maddish letter; I am too tired to write _in forma_. + +1815. + +Dear Wordsworth,--The more I read of your two last volumes, the more I +feel it necessary to make my acknowledgments for them in more than one +short letter. The "Night Piece," to which you refer me, I meant fully to +have noticed; but the fact is, I come so fluttering and languid from +business, tired with thoughts of it, frightened with fears of it, that +when I get a few minutes to sit down and scribble (an action of the hand +now seldom natural to me,--I mean voluntary pen-work), I lose all +presential memory of what I had intended to say, and say what I can, +talk about Vincent Bourne or any casual image, instead of that which I +had meditated (by the way, I mast look out V. B. for you). So I had +meant to have mentioned "Yarrow Visited," with that stanza, "But thou +that didst appear so fair:" [1] than which I think no lovelier stanza can +be found in the wide world of poetry. Yet the poem, on the whole, seems +condemned to leave behind it a melancholy of imperfect satisfaction, as +if you had wronged the feeling with which, in what preceded it, you had +resolved never to visit it, and as if the Muse had determined, in the +most delicate manner, to make you, and _scarce make you_, feel it. Else, +it is far superior to the other, which has but one exquisite verse in +it,--the last but one, or the last two: this is all fine, except, +perhaps, that _that_ of "studious ease and generous cares" has a little +tinge of the _less romantic_ about it. "The Farmer of Tilsbury Vale" is +a charming counterpart to "Poor Susan," with the addition, of that +delicacy towards aberrations from the strict path which is so fine in +the "Old Thief and the Boy by his side," which always brings water +into my eyes. + +Perhaps it is the worse for being a repetition; "Susan" stood for the +representative of poor _Rus in Urbe_. There was quite enough to stamp +the moral of the thing never to be forgotten,--"bright volumes of +vapor," etc. The last verse of Susan was to be got rid of, at all +events. It threw a kind of dubiety upon Susan's moral conduct. Susan is +a servant-maid. I see her trundling her mop, and contemplating the +whirling phenomenon through blurred optics; but to term her "a poor +outcast" seems as much as to say that poor Susan was no better than she +should be,--which I trust was not what you meant to express. Robin +Goodfellow supports himself without that _stick_ of a moral which you +have thrown away; but how I can be brought in _felo de omittendo_ for +that ending to the Boy-builders [2] is a mystery. I can't say positively +now, I only know that no line oftener or readier occurs than that +"Light-hearted boys, I will build up a Giant with you." It comes +naturally with a warm holiday and the freshness of the blood. It is a +perfect summer amulet, that I tie round my legs to quicken their motion +when I go out a-maying. (N. B.) I don't often go out a-maying; _must_ is +the tense with me now. Do you take the pun? _Young Romilly_ is divine, +the reasons of his mother's grief being remediless,--I never saw +parental love carried up so high, towering above the other +loves,--Shakspeare had done something for the filial in Cordelia, and, +by implication, for the fatherly too in Lear's resentment; he left it +for you to explore the depths of the maternal heart. + +I get stupid and flat, and flattering; what's the use of telling you +what good things you have written, or--I hope I may add--that I know +them to be good? _A propos_, when I first opened upon the just-mentioned +poem, in a careless tone I said to Mary, as if putting a riddle, "What +is good for a bootless bene?" [3] To which, with infinite presence of +mind (as the jest-book has it) she answered, "A shoeless pea." It was +the first joke she ever made. Joke the second I make. You distinguish +well, in your old preface, between the verses of Dr. Johnson, of the +"Man in the Strand," and that from "The Babes in the Wood," I was +thinking whether, taking your own glorious lines,-- + + "And from the love which was in her soul + For her youthful Romilly," + +which, by the love I bear my own soul, I think have no parallel in any +of the best old ballads, and just altering it to,-- + + "And from the great respect she felt + For Sir Samuel Romilly," + +would not nave explained the boundaries of prose expression and poetic +feeling nearly as well. Excuse my levity on such an occasion. I never +felt deeply in my life if that poem did not make me, both lately, and +when I read it in MS. No alderman ever longed after a haunch of buck +venison more than I for a spiritual taste of that "White Doe" you +promise. I am sure it is superlative, or will be when _dressed_, i. e., +printed. All things read raw to me in MS.; to compare _magna parvis_, I +cannot endure my own writings in that state. The only one which I think +would not very much win upon me in print is "Peter Bell;" but I am not +certain. You ask me about your preface. I like both that and the +supplement, without an exception. The account of what you mean by +imagination is very valuable to me. It will help me to like some things +in poetry better, which is a little humiliating in me to confess. I +thought I could not be instructed in that science (I mean the critical), +as I once heard old obscene, beastly Peter Pindar, in a dispute on +Milton, say he thought that if he had reason to value himself upon one +thing more than another, it was in knowing what good verse was. Who +looked over your proof-sheets and left _ordebo_ in that line of Virgil? + +My brother's picture of Milton is very finely painted,--that is, it +might have been done by a hand next to Vandyke's. It is the genuine +Milton, and an object of quiet gaze for the half-hour at a time. Yet +though I am confident there is no better one of him, the face does not +quite answer to Milton. There is a tinge of _petit_ (or _petite_, how do +you spell it?) querulousness about it; yet, hang it! now I remember +better, there is not,--it is calm, melancholy, and poetical. _One_ of +the copies of the poems you sent has precisely the same pleasant +blending of a sheet of second volume with a sheet of first, I think it +was page 245; but I sent it and had it rectified, It gave me, in the +first impetus of cutting the leaves, just such a cold squelch as going +down a plausible turning and suddenly reading "No thoroughfare." +Robinson's is entire; I wish you would write more criticism about +Spencer, etc. I think I could say something about him myself; but, Lord +bless me! these "merchants and their spicy drugs," which are so +harmonious to sing of, they lime-twig up my poor soul and body till I +shall forget I ever thought myself a bit of a genius! I can't even put a +few thoughts on paper for a newspaper, I engross when I should pen a +paragraph. Confusion blast all mercantile transactions, all traffic, +exchange of commodities, intercourse between nations, all the consequent +civilization, and wealth, and amity, and link of society, and getting +rid of prejudices, and knowledge of the face of the globe; and rot the +very firs of the forest that look so romantic alive, and die into +desks: _Vale_. + +Yours, dear W., and all yours, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] "But thou, that didst appear so fair + To fond imagination, + Dost rival in the light of day + Her dilicate Creation" + +[2] Better known as "Rural Architecture." + +[3] The first line of the poem on Bolton Abbey:-- + + "'What is good for a bootless bene?' + With these dark words begins my fate; + And their meaning is, whence can comfort spring + When Prayer is of no avail?" + + + +LVI. + + +TO SOUTHEY. + +_May_ 6, 1815. + +Dear Southey,--I have received from Longman a copy of "Roderick," with +the author's compliments, for which I much thank you. I don't know where +I shall put all the noble presents I have lately received in that way; +the "Excursion," Wordsworth's two last volumes, and now "Roderick," have +come pouring in upon me like some irruption from Helicon. The story of +the brave Maccabee was already, you may be sure, familiar to me in all +its parts. I have, since the receipt of your present, read it quite +through again, and with no diminished pleasure. I don't know whether I +ought to say that it has given me more pleasure than any of your long +poems. "Kehama" is doubtless more powerful, but I don't feel that firm +footing in it that I do in "Roderick;" my imagination goes sinking and +floundering in the vast spaces of unopened-before systems and faiths; I +am put out of the pale of my old sympathies; my moral sense is almost +outraged; I can't believe, or with horror am made to believe, such +desperate chances against omnipotences, such disturbances of faith to +the centre. The more potent, the more painful the spell. Jove and his +brotherhood of gods, tottering with the giant assailings, I can bear, +for the soul's hopes are not struck at in such contests; but your +Oriental almighties are too much types of the intangible prototype to be +meddled with without shuddering. One never connects what are called the +"attributes" with Jupiter. I mention only what diminishes my delight at +the wonder-workings of "Kehama," not what impeaches its power, which I +confess with trembling. + +But "Roderick" is a comfortable poem. It reminds me of the delight I +took in the first reading of the "Joan of Arc." It is maturer and better +than _that_, though not better to me now than that was then. It suits me +better than "Madoc." I am at home in Spain and Christendom. I have a +timid imagination, I am afraid; I do not willingly admit of strange +beliefs or out-of-the-way creeds or places. I never read books of +travel, at least not farther than Paris or Rome. I can just endure +Moors, because of their connection as foes with Christians; but +Abyssinians, Ethiops, Esquimaux, Dervises, and all that tribe, I hate; I +believe I fear them in some manner. A Mahometan turban on the stage, +though enveloping some well-known face (Mr. Cook or Mr. Maddox, whom I +see another day good Christian and English waiters, innkeepers, etc.), +does not give me pleasure unalloyed. I am a Christian, Englishman, +Londoner, _Templar_, God help me when I come to put off these snug +relations, and to get abroad into the world to come! I shall be like +_the crow on the sand_, as Wordsworth has it; but I won't think on +it,--no need, I hope, yet. + +The parts I have been most pleased with, both on first and second +readings, perhaps, are Florinda's palliation of Roderick's crime, +confessed to him in his disguise; the retreat of Pelayo's family first +discovered; his being made king,--"For acclamation one form must serve, +_more solemn for_ the _breach_ of _old observances_." Roderick's vow is +extremely fine, and his blessing on the vow of Alphonso,-- + + "Towards the troop be spread his arms, + As if the expanded soul diffused itself, + And carried to all spirits, _with the act_, + Its affluent inspiration." + +It struck me forcibly that the feeling of these last lines might have +been suggested to you by the Cartoon of Paul at Athens. Certain it is +that a better motto or guide to that famous attitude can nowhere be +found. I shall adopt it as explanatory of that violent but +dignified motion. + +I must read again Landor's "Julian;" I have not read it some time. I +think he must have failed in Roderick, for I remember nothing of him, +nor of any distinct character as a character,--only fine-sounding +passages. I remember thinking also he had chosen a point of time after +the event, as it were, for Roderick survives to no use; but my memory is +weak, and I will not wrong a fine poem by trusting to it. + +The notes to your poem I have not read again; but it will be a +take-downable book on my shelf, and they will serve sometimes at +breakfast, or times too light for the text to be duly appreciated,-- +though some of 'em, one of the serpent Penance, is serious enough, now I +think on't. + +Of Coleridge I hear nothing, nor of the Morgans. I hope to have him like +a reappearing star, standing up before me some time when least expected +in London, as has been the case whilere. + +I am _doing_ nothing (as the phrase is) but reading presents, and walk +away what of the day-hours I can get from hard occupation. Pray accept +once more my hearty thanks and expression of pleasure for your +remembrance of me. My sister desires her kind respects to Mrs. S. and to +all at Keswick. + +Yours truly, + +C. LAMB. + + + +LVII. + + +TO MISS HUTCHINSON. [1] + +_October_ 19, 1815. + +Dear Miss H.,--I am forced to be the replier to your letter, for Mary +has been ill, and gone from home these five weeks yesterday. She has +left me very lonely and very miserable. I stroll about, but there is no +rest but at one's own fireside; and there is no rest for me there now. I +look forward to the worse half being past, and keep up as well as I can. +She has begun to show some favorable symptoms. The return of her +disorder has been frightfully soon this time, with scarce a six-months' +interval. I am almost afraid my worry of spirits about the E. I. House +was partly the cause of her illness: but one always imputes it to the +cause next at hand,--more probably it conies from some cause we have no +control over or conjecture of. It cuts sad great slices out of the time, +the little time, we shall have to live together. I don't know but the +recurrence of these illnesses might help me to sustain her death, better +than if we had had no partial separations. But I won't talk of death. I +will imagine us immortal, or forget that we are otherwise. By God's +blessing, in a few weeks we may be making our meal together, or sitting +in the front row of the pit at Drury Lane, or taking our evening walk +past the theatres, to look at the outside of them, at least, if not to +be tempted in. Then we forget we are assailable; we are strong for the +time as rocks,--"the wind is tempered to the shorn Lambs." Poor C. Lloyd +and poor Priscilla! I feel I hardly feel enough for him; my own +calamities press about me, and involve me in a thick integument not to +be reached at by other folks' misfortunes. But I feel all I can, all the +kindness I can, towards you all. God bless you! I hear nothing from +Coleridge. + +Yours truly, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Mrs. Wordsworth's sister. + + + +LVIII. + + +TO MANNING. + +_December_ 25, 1815. + +Dear Old Friend and Absentee,--This is Christmas Day, 1815, with us; +what it may be with you I don't know,--the 12th of June next year, +perhaps; and if it should be the consecrated season with you, I don't +see how you can keep it. You have no turkeys; you would not desecrate +the festival by offering up a withered Chinese bantam, instead of the +savoury grand Norfolcian holocaust, that smokes all around my nostrils +at this moment from a thousand firesides. Then what puddings have you? +Where will you get holly to stick in your churches, or churches to stick +your dried tea-leaves (that must be the substitute) in? What memorials +you can have of the holy time, I see not. A chopped missionary or two +may keep up the thin idea of Lent and the wilderness; but what standing +evidence have you of the Nativity? 'Tis our rosy-cheeked, homestalled +divines, whose faces shine to the tune of _unto us a child was +born_,--faces fragrant with the mince-pies of half a century, that alone +can authenticate the cheerful mystery. I feel, I feel my bowels +refreshed with the holy tide; my zeal is great against the unedified +heathen. Down with the Pagodas; down with the idols,--Ching-chong-fo and +his foolish priesthood! Come out of Babylon, oh my friend, for her time +is come, and the child that is native, and the Proselyte of her gates, +shall kindle and smoke together! And in sober sense what makes you so +long from among us, Manning? You must not expect to see the same England +again which you left. + +Empires have been overturned, crowns trodden into dust, the face of the +Western world quite changed; your friends have all got old, those you +left blooming, myself (who am one of the few that remember you)--those +golden hairs which you recollect my taking a pride in, turned to silvery +and gray. Mary has been dead and buried many years; she desired to be +buried in the silk gown you sent her. Rickman, that you remember active +and strong, now walks out supported by a servant-maid and a stick. +Martin Burney is a very old man. The other day an aged woman knocked at +my door and pretended to my acquaintance. It was long before I had the +most distant cognition of her; but at last together we made her out to +be Louisa, the daughter of Mrs. Topham, formerly Mrs. Morton, who had +been Mrs. Reynolds, formerly Mrs. Kenney, whose first husband was +Holcroft, the dramatic writer of the last century. St. Paul's church is +a heap of ruins; the Monument isn't half so high as you knew it, divers +parts being successively taken down which the ravages of time had +rendered dangerous; the horse at Charing Cross is gone, no one knows +whither,--and all this has taken place while you have been settling +whether Ho-hing-tong should be spelled with a-- or a--. For aught I +see, you had almost as well remain where you are, and not come, like a +Struldbrug, into a world where few were born when you went away. Scarce +here and there one will be able to make out your face; all your opinions +will be out of date, your jokes obsolete, your puns rejected with +fastidiousness as wit of the last age. Your way of mathematics has +already given way to a new method which, after all, is, I believe, the +old doctrine of Maclaurin new-vamped up with what he borrowed of the +negative quantity of fluxions from Euler. + +Poor Godwin! I was passing his tomb the other day in Cripplegate +churchyard. There are some verses upon it, written by Miss--, which if +I thought good enough I would send you. He was one of those who would +have hailed your return, not with boisterous shouts and clamors, but +with the complacent gratulations of a philosopher anxious to promote +knowledge, as leading to happiness; but his systems and his theories are +ten feet deep in Cripplegate mould. Coleridge is just dead, having lived +just long enough to close the eyes of Wordsworth, who paid the debt to +nature but a week or two before. Poor Col., but two days before he died +he wrote to a bookseller proposing an epic poem on the "Wandering of +Cain," in twenty-four books. It is said he has left behind him more than +forty thousand treatises in criticism, metaphysics, and divinity: but +few of them in a state of completion. They are now destined, perhaps, to +wrap up spices. You see what mutation the busy hand of Time has +produced, while you have consumed in foolish, voluntary exile that time +which might have gladdened your friends, benefited your country--But +reproaches are useless. Gather up the wretched relics, my friend, as +fast as you can, and come to your old home. I will rub my eyes and try +to recognize you. We will shake withered hands together, and talk of old +things,--of St. Mary's church and the barber's opposite, where the young +students in mathematics used to assemble. Poor Crisp, that kept it +afterwards, set up a fruiterer's shop in Trumpington Street, and for +aught I know resides there still; for I saw the name up in the last +journey I took there with my sister just before she died. I suppose you +heard that I had left the India House and gone into the Fishmongers' +Almshouses over the bridge. I have a little cabin there, small and +homely; but you shall be welcome to it. You like oysters, and to open +them yourself; I'll get you some if you come in oyster time. Marshall, +Godwin's old friend, is still alive, and talks of the faces you used +to make. [1] + +Come as soon as you can. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The reversal of this serio-humorous mingling of fiction and forecast +will be found in the next letter. + + + +LIX. + + +TO MANNING. + +_December_ 26, 1815. + +Dear Manning,--Following your brother's example, I have just ventured +one letter to Canton, and am now hazarding another (not exactly a +duplicate) to St. Helena. The first was full of unprobable romantic +fictions, fitting the remoteness of the mission it goes upon; in the +present I mean to confine myself nearer to truth as you come nearer +home. A correspondence with the uttermost parts of the earth necessarily +involves in it some heat of fancy; it sets the brain agoing; but I can +think on the half-way house tranquilly. Your friends, then, are not all +dead or grown forgetful of you through old age,--as that lying letter +asserted, anticipating rather what must happen if you keep tarrying on +forever on the skirts of creation, as there seemed a danger of your +doing,--but they are all tolerably well, and in full and perfect +comprehension of what is meant by Manning's coming home again. Mrs. +Kenney never let her tongue run riot more than in remembrances of you. +Fanny expends herself in phrases that can only be justified by her +romantic nature. Mary reserves a portion of your silk, not to be buried +in (as the false nuncio asserts), but to make up spick and span into a +bran-new gown to wear when you come. I am the same as when you knew me, +almost to a surfeiting identity. This very night I am going to _leave +off tobacco!_ Surely there must be some other world in which this +unconquerable purpose shall be realized. The soul hath not her generous +aspirings implanted in her in vain. One that you knew, and I think the +only one of those friends we knew much of in common, has died in +earnest. Poor Priscilla! Her brother Robert is also dead, and several of +the grown-up brothers and sisters, in the compass of a very few years. +Death has not otherwise meddled much in families that I know. Not but he +has his horrid eye upon us, and is whetting his infernal feathered dart +every instant, as you see him truly pictured in that impressive moral +picture, "The good man at the hour of death." I have in trust to put in +the post four letters from Diss, and one from Lynn, to St. Helena, which +I hope will accompany this safe, and one from Lynn, and the one before +spoken of from me, to Canton. But we all hope that these letters may be +waste paper. I don't know why I have foreborne writing so long; but it +is such a forlorn hope to send a scrap of paper straggling over wide +oceans. And yet I know when you come home, I shall have you sitting +before me at our fireside just as if you had never been away. In such an +instant does the return of a person dissipate all the weight of +imaginary perplexity from distance of time and space! I'll promise you +good oysters. Cory is dead, that kept the shop opposite St. Dunstan's, +but the tougher materials of the shop survive the perishing frame of its +keeper. Oysters continue to flourish there under as good auspices. Poor +Cory! But if you will absent yourself twenty years together, you must +not expect numerically the same population to congratulate your return +which wetted the sea-beach with their tears when you went away. Have you +recovered the breathless stone-staring astonishment into which you must +have been thrown upon learning at landing that an Emperor of France was +living at St. Helena? What an event in the solitude of the seas,--like +finding a fish's bone at the top of Plinlimmon; but these things are +nothing in our Western world. Novelties cease to affect. Come and try +what your presence can. + +God bless you! Your old friend, + +C. LAMB. + + + +LX. + + +TO WORDSWORTH + +_April_ 9, 1816. + +Dear Wordsworth,--Thanks for the books you have given me, and for all +the books you mean to give me. I will bind up the "Political Sonnets" +and "Ode" according to your suggestion. I have not bound the poems yet; +I wait till people have done borrowing them. I think I shall get a chain +and chain them to my shelves, more _Bodleiano_, and people may come and +read them at chain's length. For of those who borrow, some read slow; +some mean to read but don't read; and some neither read nor meant to +read, but borrow to leave you an opinion of their sagacity. I must do my +money-borrowing friends the justice to say that there is nothing of this +caprice or wantonness of alienation in them; when they borrow my money +they never fail to make use of it, Coleridge has been here about a +fortnight. His health is tolerable at present, though beset with +temptations. In the first place, the Covent Garden Manager has declined +accepting his Tragedy, [1] though (having read it) I see no reason upon +earth why it might not have run a very fair chance, though it certainly +wants a prominent part for a Miss O'Neil or a Mr. Kean. However, he is +going to write to-day to Lord Byron to get it to Drury. Should you see +Mrs. C., who has just written to C. a letter, which I have given him, it +will be as well to say nothing about its fate till some answer is shaped +from Drury. He has two volumes printing together at Bristol, both +finished as far as the composition goes; the latter containing his +fugitive poems, the former his Literary Life. Nature, who conducts every +creature by instinct to its best end, has skilfully directed C. to take +up his abode at a Chemist's Laboratory in Norfolk Street. She might as +well have sent a _Helluo Librorum_ for cure to the Vatican. God keep him +inviolate among the traps and pitfalls! He has done pretty well +as yet. [2] + +Tell Miss Hutchinson my sister is every day wishing to be quietly +sitting down to answer her very kind letter; but while C. stays she can +hardly find a quiet time. God bless him! + +Tell Mrs. Wordsworth her postscripts are always agreeable. They are +legible too. Your manual-graphy is terrible,--dark as Lycophron. +"Likelihood," for instance, is thus typified.... I should not wonder if +the constant making out of such paragraphs is the cause of that weakness +in Mrs. W.'s eyes, as she is tenderly pleased to express it. Dorothy, I +hear, has mounted spectacles; so you have deoculated two of your dearest +relations in life. Well, God bless you, and continue to give you power +to write with a finger of power upon our hearts what you fail to +impress, in corresponding lucidness, upon our outward eyesight! + +Mary's love to all; she is quite well. + +I am called off to do the deposits on Cotton Wool. But why do I relate +this to you, who want faculties to comprehend the great mystery of +deposits, of interest, of warehouse rent, and contingent fund? Adieu! + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Zapolya. + +[2] Lamb alludes, of course, to Coleridge's opium habit. + + + +LXI. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_April_ 26, 1816. + +Dear W.,--I have just finished the pleasing task of correcting the +revise of the poems and letter. [1] I hope they will come out faultless. +One blunder I saw and shuddered at. The hallucinating rascal had printed +_battered_ for _battened_, this last not conveying any distinct sense to +his gaping soul. The Reader (as they call 'em) had discovered it, and +given it the marginal brand; but the substitutory _n_ had not yet +appeared. I accompanied his notice with a most pathetic address to the +printer not to neglect the correction. I know how such a blunder would +"batter at your peace." With regard to the works, the Letter I read with +unabated satisfaction. Such a thing was wanted, called for. The parallel +of Cotton with Burns I heartily approve, Iz. Walton hallows any page in +which his reverend name appears. "Duty archly bending to purposes of +general benevolence" is exquisite. The poems I endeavored not to +understand, but to read them with my eye alone; and I think I succeeded, +(Some people will do that when they come out, you'll say.) As if I were +to luxuriate to-morrow at some picture-gallery I was never at before, +and, going by to-day by chance, found the door open, and having but five +minutes to look about me, peeped in,--just such a _chastised_ peep I +took with my mind at the lines my luxuriating eye was coursing over +unrestrained, riot to anticipate another day's fuller satisfaction. +Coleridge is printing "Christabel," by Lord Byron's recommendation to +Murray, with what he calls a vision, "Kubla Khan," which said vision he +repeats so enchantingly that it irradiates and brings heaven and elysian +bowers into my parlor while he sings or says it; but there is an +observation, "Never tell thy dreams," and I am almost afraid that "Kubla +Khan" is an owl that won't bear daylight. I fear lest it should be +discovered, by the lantern of typography and clear reducting to letters, +no better than nonsense or no sense. When I was young, I used to chant +with ecstasy "MILD ARCADIANS EVER BLOOMING," till somebody told me it +was meant to be nonsense. Even yet I have a lingering attachment to it, +and I think it better than "Windsor Forest," "Dying Christian's +Address," etc. Coleridge has sent his tragedy to D.L.T.; it cannot be +acted this season, and by their manner of receiving I hope he will be +able to alter it to make them accept it for next. He is at present under +the medical care of a Mr. Gilman (Killman?) at Highgate, where he plays +at leaving off laud---m. I think his essentials not touched; he is very +bad, but then he wonderfully picks up another day, and his face, when he +repeats his verses, hath its ancient glory,--an archangel a little +damaged. Will Miss H. pardon our not replying at length to her kind +letter? We are not quiet enough; Morgan is with us every day, going +betwixt Highgate and the Temple. Coleridge is absent but four miles; and +the neighborhood of such a man is as exciting as the presence of fifty +ordinary persons. 'Tis enough to be within the whiff and wind of his +genius for us not to possess our souls in quiet. If I lived with him or +the _Author of the "Excursion,"_ I should, in a very little time, lose +my own identity, and be dragged along in the current of other people's +thoughts, hampered in a net. How cool I sit in this office, with no +possible interruption further than what I may term _material!_ There is +not as much metaphysics in thirty-six of the people here as there is in +the first page of Locke's "Treatise on the Human Understanding," or as +much poetry as in any ten lines of the "Pleasures of Hope," or more +natural "Beggar's Petition." I never entangle myself in any of their +speculations. Interruptions, if I try to write a letter even, I have +dreadful. Just now, within four lines, I was called off for ten minutes +to consult dusty old books for the settlement of obsolete errors. I hold +you a guinea you don't find the chasm where I left off, so excellently +the wounded sense closed again and was healed. + +N.B.--Nothing said above to the contrary, but that I hold the personal +presence of the two mentioned potent spirits at a rate as high as any: +but I pay dearer: what amuses others robs me of myself; my mind is +positively discharged into their greater currents, but flows with a +willing violence. As to your question about work, it is far less +oppressive to me than it was, from circumstances; it takes all the +golden part of the day away, a solid lump, from ten to four; but it does +not kill my peace, as before. Some day or other I shall be in a taking +again. My head aches, and you have had enough, God bless you! + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Wordsworth's "Letter to a Friend of Burns" (London, 1816). + +"Wordsworth had been consulted by a friend of Burns as to the best mode +of vindicating the reputation of the poet, which, it was alleged, had +been much injured by the publication of Dr. Carrie's 'Life and +Correspondence of Burns.'"--AINGER. + + + +LXII. + + +TO H. DODWELL [1] + +_July_, 1816. + +My dear Fellow,--I have been in a lethargy this long while, and +forgotten London, Westminster, Marybone, Paddington,--they all went +clean out of my head, till happening to go to a neighbor's in this good +borough of Calne, for want of whist-players we fell upon _Commerce:_ the +word awoke me to a remembrance of my professional avocations and the +long-continued strife which I have been these twenty-four years +endeavoring to compose between those grand Irreconcilables, Cash and +Commerce; I instantly called for an almanac, which with some difficulty +was procured at a fortune-teller's in the vicinity (for happy holiday +people here, having nothing to do, keep no account of time), and found +that by dint of duty I must attend in Leadenhall on Wednesy morning +next; and shall attend accordingly. Does Master Hannah give maccaroons +still, and does he fetch the Cobbetts from my attic? Perhaps it wouldn't +be too much trouble for him to drop the enclosed up at my aforesaid +chamber, and any letters, etc., with it; but the enclosed should go +without delay. N.B.--He isn't to fetch Monday's Cobbett, but it is to +wait my reading when I come back. Heigh-ho! Lord have mercy upon me, how +many does two and two make? I am afraid I shall make a poor clerk in +future, I am spoiled with rambling among haycocks and cows and pigs. +Bless me! I had like to have forgot (the air is so temperate and +oblivious here) to say I have seen your brother, and hope he is doing +well in the finest spot of the world. More of these things when I +return. Remember me to the gentlemen,--I forget names. Shall I find all +my letters at my rooms on Tuesday? If you forget to send 'em never mind, +for I don't much care for reading and writing now; I shall come back +again by degrees, I suppose, into my former habits. How is Bruce de +Ponthieu, and Porcher and Co.?--the tears come into my eyes when I think +how long I have neglected--. + +Adieu! ye fields, ye shepherds and--herdesses, and dairies and +cream-pots, and fairies and dances upon the green. + +I come, I come. Don't drag me so hard by the hair of my head, Genius of +British India! I know my hour is come, Faustus must give up his soul, O +Lucifer, O Mephistopheles! Can you make out what all this letter is +about? I am afraid to look it over. + +CH. LAMB. + +[1] A fellow-clerk in the India House. This charming letter, written +evidently during a vacation trip, was first published entire in Canon +Ainger's edition (1887) of Lamb's Letters. + + + +LXIII. + + +TO MRS. WORDSWORTH. + +_February_ 18, 1818. + +My Dear Mrs. Wordsworth,--I have repeatedly taken pen in hand to answer +your kind letter. My sister should more properly have done it; but she +having failed, I consider myself answerable for her debts. I am now +trying to do it in the midst of commercial noises, and with a quill +which seems more ready to glide into arithmetical figures and names of +gourds, cassia, cardamoms, aloes, ginger, or tea, than into kindly +responses and friendly recollections. The reason why I cannot write +letters at home is that I am never alone. Plato's--(I write to W.W. +now)--Plato's double-animal parted never longed more to be reciprocally +re-united in the system of its first creation than I sometimes do to be +but for a moment single and separate. Except my morning's walk to the +office, which is like treading on sands of gold for that reason, I am +never so. I cannot walk home from office, but some officious friend +offers his unwelcome courtesies to accompany me. All the morning I am +pestered. I could sit and gravely cast up sums in great books, or +compare sum with sum, and write "paid" against this, and "unpaid" +against t'other, and yet reserve in some corner of my mind "some darling +thoughts all my own,"--faint memory of some passage in a book, or the +tone of an absent friend's voice,--a snatch of Miss Burrell's singing, +or a gleam of Fanny Kelly's divine plain face. The two operations might +be going on at the same time without thwarting, as the sun's two motions +(earth's I mean); or as I sometimes turn round till I am giddy, in my +back parlor, while my sister is walking longitudinally in the front; or +as the shoulder of veal twists round with the spit, while the smoke +wreathes up the chimney. But there are a set of amateurs of the Belies +Lettres,--the gay science,--who come to me as a sort of rendezvous, +putting questions of criticism, of British Institutions, Lalla Rookhs, +etc.,--what Coleridge said at the lecture last night,--who have the form +of reading men, but, for any possible use reading can be to them but to +talk of, might as well have been Ante-Cadmeans born, or have lain +sucking out the sense of an Egyptian hieroglyph as long as the pyramids +will last, before they should find it. These pests worrit me at business +and in all its intervals, perplexing my accounts, poisoning my little +salutary warming-time at the fire, puzzling my paragraphs if I take a +newspaper, cramming in between my own free thoughts and a column of +figures, which had come to an amicable compromise but for them. Their +noise ended, one of them, as I said, accompanies me home, lest I should +be solitary for a moment. He at length takes his welcome leave at the +door; up I go, mutton on table, hungry as hunter, hope to forget my +cares and bury them in the agreeable abstraction of mastication: knock +at the door! In comes Mr. Hazlitt, or Martin Burney, or Morgan +Demi-gorgon, [1] or my brother, or somebody, to prevent my eating +alone,--a process absolutely necessary to my poor wretched digestion. +Oh, the pleasure of eating alone! Eating my dinner alone,--let me think +of it! But in they come, and make it absolutely necessary that I should +open a bottle of orange; for my meat turns into stone when any one dines +with me, if I have not wine. Wine can mollify stones; then that wine +turns into acidity, acerbity, misanthropy, a hatred of my interrupters +(God bless 'em! I love some of 'em dearly); and with the hatred, a still +greater aversion to their going away. Bad is the dead sea they bring +upon me, choking and deadening; but worse is the deader dry sand they +leave me on, if they go before bedtime. Come never, I would say to these +spoilers of my dinner; but if you come, never go! The fact is, this +interruption does not happen very often; but every time it comes by +surprise, that present bane of my life, orange wine, with all its dreary +stifling consequences, follows. Evening company I should always like, +had I any mornings; but I am saturated with human faces (_divine_ +forsooth!) and voices all the golden morning; and five evenings in a +week would be as much as I should covet to be in company; but I assure +you that is a wonderful week in which I can get two, or one, to myself. +I am never C.L., but always C.L. & Co. He who thought it not good for +man to be alone, preserve me from the more prodigious monstrosity of +being never by myself! I forget bed-time; but even there these sociable +frogs clamber up to annoy me. Once a week, generally some singular +evening that, being alone, I go to bed at the hour I ought always to be +a-bed, just close to my bed-room window is the club-room of a +public-house, where a set of singers--I take them to be chorus-singers +of the two theatres (it must be _both of them_)--begin their orgies. +They are a set of fellows (as I conceive) who, being limited by their +talents to the burden of the song at the playhouses, in revenge have got +the common popular airs by Bishop or some cheap composer, arranged for +choruses, that is, to be sang all in chorus,--at least, I never can +catch any of the text of the plain song, nothing but the Babylonish +choral howl at the tail on't, "That fury being quenched,'--the howl I +mean,--a burden succeeds of shouts and clapping and knocking of the +table. At length over-tasked nature drops under it, and escapes for a +few hours into the society of the sweet silent creatures of dreams, +which go away with mocks and mows at cockcrow. And then I think of the +words Christabel's father used (bless me! I have dipt in the wrong ink) +to say every morning by way of variety when he awoke,-- + + "Every knell, the Baron saith, + Wakes us up to a world of death,"-- + +or something like it. All I mean by this senseless interrupted tale is, +that by my central situation I am a little over-companied. Not that I +have any animosity against the good creatures that are so anxious to +drive away the harpy Solitude from me. I like 'em, and cards, and a +cheerful glass; but I mean merely to give you an idea, between office +confinement and after-office society, how little time I can call my own. +I mean only to draw a picture, not to make an inference. I would not, +that I know of, have it otherwise. I only wish sometimes I could +exchange some of my faces and voices for the faces and voices which a +late visitation brought most welcome, and carried away, leaving regret, +but more pleasure,--even a kind of gratitude,--at being so often favored +with that kind northern visitation. My London faces and noises don't +hear me,--I mean no disrespect, or I should explain myself, that instead +of their return 220 times a year, and the return of W. W., etc., seven +times in 104 weeks, some more equal distribution might be found. I have +scarce room to put in Mary's kind love and my poor name. + +C. LAMB. + +W. H[azlitt]. goes on lecturing against W.W., and making copious use of +quotations from said W.W. to give a zest to said lectures. S.T.C. is +lecturing with success. I have not heard either him or H.; but I dined +with S.T.C. at Oilman's a Sunday or two since; and he was well and in +good spirits. I mean to hear some of the course; but lectures are not +much to my taste, whatever the lecturer may be. If _read_, they are +dismal flat, and you can't think why you are brought together to hear a +man read his works, which you could read so much better at leisure +yourself; if delivered extempore, I am always in pain lest the gift of +utterance should suddenly fail the orator in the middle, as it did me at +the dinner given in honor of me at the London Tavern. "Gentlemen," said +I, and there I stopped; the rest my feelings were under the necessity of +supplying. Mrs. Wordsworth _will/_ go on, kindly haunting us with +visions of seeing the lakes once more, which never can be realized. +Between us there is a great gulf, not of inexplicable moral antipathies +and distances, I hope, as there seemed to be between me and that +gentleman concerned in the stamp-office that I so strangely recoiled +from at Haydon's. I think I had an instinct that he was the head of an +office, I hate all such people,--accountants' deputy accountants. The +mere abstract notion of the East India Company, as long as she is +unseen, is pretty, rather poetical; but as she makes herself manifest by +the persons of such beasts, I loathe and detest her as the scarlet +what-do-you-call-her of Babylon. I thought, after abridging us of all +our red-letter days, they had done their worst; but I was deceived in +the length to which heads of offices, those true liberty-haters, can +go,--they are the tyrants, not Ferdinand, nor Nero. By a decree passed +this week, they have abridged us of the immemorially observed custom of +going at one o'clock of a Saturday,--the little shadow of a holiday left +us. Dear W.W., be thankful for liberty. + +[1] John Morgan + + + +LXIV. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +May, 1819. + +Dear Wordsworth.--I received a copy of "Peter Bell" [1] a week ago, and I +hope the author will not be offended if I say I do not much relish it. +The humor, if it is meant for humor, is forced; and then the +price,--sixpence would have been dear for it. Mind, I do not mean _your_ +"Peter Bell," but a "Peter Bell," which preceded it about a week, and is +in every bookseller's shop-window in London, the type and paper nothing +differing from the true one, the preface signed W. W., and the +supplementary preface quoting as the author's words an extract from the +supplementary preface to the "Lyrical Ballads." Is there no law against +these rascals? I would have this Lambert Simnel whipped at the cart's +tail. Who started the spurious "P.B." I have not heard. I should guess, +one of the sneering brothers, the vile Smiths; but I have heard no name +mentioned. "Peter Bell" (not the mock one) is excellent,--for its +matter, I mean. I cannot say the style of it quite satisfies me. It is +too lyrical. The auditors, to whom it is feigned to be told, do not +_arride me_. I had rather it had been told me, the reader, at once. +"Hart-leap Well" is the tale for me; in matter as good as this, in +manner infinitely before it, in my poor judgment. Why did you not add +"The Wagoner"? Have I thanked you, though, yet for "Peter Bell"? I would +not _not have it_ for a good deal of money. Coleridge is very foolish to +scribble about books. + +Neither his tongue nor fingers are very retentive. But I shall not say +anything to him about it. He would only begin a very long story with a +very long face, and I see him far too seldom to tease him with affairs +of business or conscience when I do see him. He never comes near our +house, and when we go to see him he is generally writing or thinking; he +is writing in his study till the dinner comes, and that is scarce over +before the stage summons us away. The mock "P.B." had only this effect +on me, that after twice reading it over in hopes to find something +diverting in it, I reached your two books off the shelf, and set into a +steady reading of them, till I had nearly finished both before I went to +bed,--the two of your last edition, of course, I mean, And in the +morning I awoke determined to take down the "Excursion." I wish the +scoundrel imitator could know this. But why waste a wish on him? I do +not believe that paddling about with a stick in a pond, and fishing up +a dead author, whom _his_ intolerable wrongs had driven to that deed of +desperation, would turn the heart of one of these obtuse literary BELLS. +There is no Cock for such Peters, damn 'em! I am glad this aspiration +came upon the red-ink line. [2] It is more of a bloody curse. I have +delivered over your other presents to Alsager and G. Dyer, A., I am +sure, will value it and be proud of the hand from which it came. To G.D. +a poem is a poem,--his own as good as anybody's, and, God bless him! +anybody's as good as his own; for I do not think he has the most distant +guess of the possibility of one poem being better than another. The +gods, by denying him the very faculty itself of discrimination, have +effectually cut off every seed of envy in his bosom. But with envy they +excited curiosity also; and if you wish the copy again, which you +destined for him, I think I shall be able to find it again for you on +his third shelf, where he stuffs his presentation copies, uncut, in +shape and matter resembling a lump of dry dust; but on carefully +removing that stratum, a thing like a pamphlet will emerge. I have tried +this with fifty different poetical works that have been given G.D. in +return for as many of his own performances; and I confess I never had +any scruple in taking _my own_ again, wherever I found it, shaking the +adherences off; and by this means one copy of 'my works' served for +G.D.,--and, with a little dusting, was made over to my good friend Dr. +Geddes, who little thought whose leavings he was taking when he made me +that graceful bow. By the way, the Doctor is the only one of my +acquaintance who bows gracefully,--my town acquaintance, I mean. How do +you like my way of writing with two inks? I think it is pretty and +motley. Suppose Mrs. W, adopts it, the next time she holds the pen for +you. My dinner waits. I have no time to indulge any longer in these +laborious curiosities. God bless you, and cause to thrive and burgeon +whatsoever you write, and fear no inks of miserable poetasters. + +Yours truly, + +CHARLES LAMB. + +Mary's love. + +[1] Lamb alludes to a parody, ridiculing Wordsworth, by J. Hamilton +Reynolds, The verses were entitled "Peter Bell: A Lyrical Ballad;" and +their drift and spirit may be inferred from the following lines from the +preface: "It is now a period of one-and-twenty years since I first wrote +some of the most perfect compositions (except certain pieces I have +written in my later days) that ever dropped from poetical pen. My heart +hath been right and powerful all its years. I never thought an evil or a +weak thought in my life. It has been my aim and my achievement to deduce +moral thunder from buttercups, daisies, celandines, and (as a poet +scarcely inferior to myself hath it) 'such small deer,'" etc. + +[2] The original letter is actually written in to +inks,--alternate black and red. + + + +LXV. + + +TO MANNING, + +_May_ 28, 1819, + +My Dear M..--I want to know how your brother is, if you have heard +lately. I want to know about you, I wish you were nearer. How are my +cousins, the Gladmans of Wheathampstead, and Farmer Bruton? Mrs. Bruton +is a glorious woman, + +"Hail, Mackery End!" [1] + +This is a fragment of a blank-verse poem which. I once meditated, but +got no farther. The E. I. H. has been thrown into a quandary by the +strange phenomenon of poor Tommy Bye, whom I have known, man and madman, +twenty-seven years, he being elder here than myself by nine years and +more. He was always a pleasant, gossiping, half-headed, muzzy, dozing, +dreaming, walk-about, inoffensive chap, a little too fond of the +creature,--who isn't at times? But Tommy had _not_ brains to work off an +overnight's surfeit by ten o'clock next morning, and unfortunately, in +he wandered the other morning drunk with last night and with a +superfoetation of drink taken in since he set out from bed. He came +staggering under his double burden, like trees in Java, bearing at once +blossom, fruit, and falling fruit, as I have heard you or some other +traveller tell, with his face literally as blue as the bluest firmament. +Some wretched calico that he had mopped his poor oozy front with, had +rendered up its native dye, and the devil a bit would he consent to wash +it, but swore it was characteristic, for he was going to the sale of +indigo; and set up a laugh which I did not think the lungs of mortal man +were competent to. It was like a thousand people laughing, or the Goblin +Page. He imagined afterwards that the whole office had been laughing at +him, so strange did his own sounds strike upon his _non_sensorium. But +Tommy has laughed his last laugh, and awoke the next day to find himself +reduced from an abused income of L600 per annum to one sixth of the sum, +after thirty-six years' tolerably good service. The quality of mercy was +not strained in his behalf; the gentle dews dropped not on him from +heaven. It just came across me that I was writing to Canton. Will you +drop in to-morrow night? Fanny Kelly is coming, if she does not cheat +us. Mrs. _Gold_ is well, but proves "uncoined," as the lovers about +Wheathampstead would say. + +I have not had such a quiet half hour to sit down to a quiet letter for +many years. I have not been interrupted above four times. I wrote a +letter the other day in alternate lines, black ink and red, and you +cannot think how it chilled the flow of ideas. Next Monday is +Whit-Monday. What a reflection! Twelve years ago, and I should have kept +that and the following holiday in the fields a-maying. All of those +pretty pastoral delights are over. This dead, everlasting dead +desk,--how it weighs the spirit of a gentleman down! This dead wood of +the desk instead of your living trees! But then, again, I hate the +joskins, _a name for Hertfordshire bumpkins_. Each state of life has its +inconvenience; but then, again, mine has more than one. Not that I +repine, or grudge, or murmur at my destiny. I have meat and drink, and +decent apparel,--I shall, at least, when I get a new hat, + +A red-haired man just interrupted me. He has broke the current of my +thoughts, I haven't a word to add, I don't know why I send this letter, +but I have had a hankering to hear about you some days. Perhaps it will +go off before your reply comes. If it don't, I assure you no letter was +ever welcomer from, you, from Paris or Macao. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] See the Elia essay, "Mackery End, in H---shire." + + + +LXVI. + + +TO MISS WORDSWORTH. + +_November_ 25, 1819. + +Dear Miss Wordsworth,--You will think me negligent, but I wanted to see +more of Willy [1] before I ventured to express a prediction, Till +yesterday I had barely seen him,--_Virgilium tantum vidi_; but yesterday +he gave us his small company to a bullock's heart, and I can pronounce +him a lad of promise. He is no pedant nor bookworm; so far I can answer. +Perhaps he has hitherto paid too little attention to other men's +inventions, preferring, like Lord Foppington, the "natural sprouts of +his own." But he has observation, and seems thoroughly awake. I am ill +at remembering other people's _bon mots_, but the following are a few. +Being taken over Waterloo Bridge, he remarked that if we had no +mountains, we had a fine river, at least,--which was a touch of the +comparative; but then he added in a strain which augured less for his +future abilities as a political economist, that he supposed they must +take at least a pound a week toll. Like a curious naturalist, he +inquired if the tide did not come up a little salty. This being +satisfactorily answered, he put another question, as to the flux and +reflux; which being rather cunningly evaded than artfully solved by that +she-Aristotle Mary, who muttered something about its getting up an hour +sooner and sooner every day, he sagely replied, "Then it must come to +the same thing at last,"--which was a speech worthy of an infant Halley! +The lion in the 'Change by no means came up to his ideal standard,--so +impossible is it for Nature, in any of her works, to come up to the +standard of a child's imagination! The whelps (lionets) he was sorry to +find were dead; and on particular inquiry, his old friend the +orang-outang had gone the way of all flesh also. The grand tiger was +also sick, and expected in no short time to exchange this transitory +world for another or none. But, again, there was a golden eagle (I do +not mean that of Charing) which did much arride and console him. +William's genius, I take it, leans a little to the figurative; for being +at play at tricktrack (a kind of minor billiard-table which we keep for +smaller wights, and sometimes refresh our own mature fatigues with +taking a hand at), not being able to hit a ball he had iterate aimed at, +he cried out, "I cannot hit that beast." Now, the balls are usually +called men, but he felicitously hit upon a middle term,--a term of +approximation and imaginative reconciliation; a something where the two +ends of the brute matter (ivory) and their human and rather violent +personification into men might meet, as I take it,--illustrative of that +excellent remark in a certain preface about imagination, explaining +"Like a sea-beast that had crawled forth to sun himself!" Not that I +accuse William Minor of hereditary plagiary, or conceive the image to +have come _ex traduce_. Rather he seemeth to keep aloof from any source +of imitation, and purposely to remain ignorant of what mighty poets have +done in this kind before him; for being asked if his father had ever +been on Westminster Bridge, [2] he answered that he did not know! + +It is hard to discern the oak in the acorn, or a temple like St. Paul's +in the first stone which is laid; nor can I quite prefigure what +destination the genius of William Minor hath to take. Some few hints I +have set down, to guide my future observations. He hath the power of +calculation in no ordinary degree for a chit. He combineth figures, +after the first boggle, rapidly; as in the tricktrack board, where the +hits are figured, at first he did not perceive that 15 and 7 made 22; +but by a little use he could combine 8 with 25, and 33 again with +16,--which approacheth something in kind (far let me be from flattering +him by saying in degree) to that of the famous American boy. I am +sometimes inclined to think I perceive the future satirist in him, for +he hath a sub-sardonic smile which bursteth out upon occasion,--as when +he was asked if London were as big as Ambleside; and indeed no other +answer was given, or proper to be given, to so ensnaring and provoking a +question. In the contour of skull certainly I discern something +paternal; but whether in all respects the future man shall transcend his +father's fame, Time, the trier of Geniuses, must decide. Be it +pronounced peremptorily at present that Willy is a well-mannered child, +and though no great student, hath yet a lively eye for things that lie +before him. + +Given in haste from my desk at Leadenhall. Yours, and yours most +sincerely, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Wordsworth's third son. He was at the Charter-house School in +London, and the Lambs had invited him to spend a half holiday with them. + +[2] "William Minor" was evidently forgetful of the exquisite sonnet, +"Composed Upon Westminster Bridge." + + + +LXVII. + + +TO COLERIDGE. + +_March_ 9, 1822. + +Dear C.,--It gives me great satisfaction to hear that the pig turned out +so well, [1]--they are interesting creatures at a certain age; what a +pity such buds should blow out into the maturity of rank bacon! You had +all some of the crackling--and brain sauce; did you remember to rub it +with butter, and gently dredge it a little just before the crisis? Did +the eyes come away kindly, with no Oedipean avulsion? Was the crackling +the color of the ripe pomegranate? Had you no cursed complement of +boiled neck of mutton before it, to blunt the edge of delicate desire? +Did you flesh maiden teeth in it? Not that I sent the pig, or can form +the remotest guess what part Owen could play in the business. I never +knew him give anything away in my life. He would not begin with +strangers. I suspect the pig, after all, was meant for me; but at the +unlucky juncture of time being absent, the present somehow went round to +Highgate. To confess an honest truth, a pig is one of those things I +could never think of sending away. Teals, widgeons, snipes, barn-door +fowl, ducks, geese,--your tame villatic things,--Welsh mutton collars +of brawn, sturgeon, fresh or pickled, your potted char, Swiss cheeses, +French pies, early grapes, muscadines, I impart as freely unto my +friends as to myself. They are but self-extended; but pardon me if I +stop somewhere. Where the fine feeling of benevolence giveth a higher +smack than the sensual rarity, there my friends (or any good man) may +command me; but pigs are pigs, and I myself therein am nearest to +myself. Nay, I should think it an, affront, an undervaluing done to +Nature, who bestowed such a boon upon me, if in a churlish mood I parted +with the precious gift. One of the bitterest pangs I ever felt of +remorse was when a child. My kind old aunt [2] had strained her +pocket-strings to bestow a sixpenny whole plum cake upon me. In my way +home through the Borough, I met a venerable old man, not a mendicant, +but thereabouts,--a look-beggar, not a verbal petitionist; and in the +coxcombry of taught-charity, I gave away the cake to him. I walked on a +little in all the pride of an Evangelical peacock, when of a sudden my +old aunt's kindness crossed me,--the sum it was to her; the pleasure she +had a right to expect that I--not the old impostor--should take in +eating her cake; the cursed ingratitude by which, under the color of a +Christian virtue, I had frustrated her cherished purpose. I sobbed, +wept, and took it to heart so grievously that I think I never suffered +the like; and I was right. It was a piece of unfeeling hypocrisy, and +proved a lesson to me ever after. The cake has long been masticated, +consigned to dunghill with the ashes of that unseasonable pauper. + +But when Providence, who is better to us all than our aunts, gives me a +pig, remembering my temptation and my fall, I shall endeavor to act +towards it more in the spirit of the donor's purpose. + +Yours (short of pig) to command in everything, + +C. L. + +[1] Some one had sent Coleridge a pig, and the gift was erroneously +credited to Lamb. + +[2] Elia: "Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago." + + + +LXVIII. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_March_ 20, 1822. + +My Dear Wordsworth,--A letter from you is very grateful; I have not seen +a Kendal postmark so long. We are pretty well, save colds and +rheumatics, and a certain deadness to everything, which I think I may +date from poor John's loss, and another accident or two at the same +time, that has made me almost bury myself at Dalston, where yet I see +more faces than I could wish. Deaths overset one and put one out long +after the recent grief. Two or three have died, within this last two +twelvemonths, and so many parts of me have been numbed. One sees a +picture, reads an anecdote, starts a casual fancy, and thinks to tell of +it to this person in preference to every other; the person is gone whom +it would have peculiarly suited. It won't do for another. Every +departure destroys a class of sympathies. There's Captain Burney gone! +What fun has whist now? What matters it what you lead, if you can no +longer fancy him looking over you? [1] One never hears anything, but the +image of the particular person occurs with whom alone almost you would +care to share the intelligence,--thus one distributes oneself about; and +now for so many parts of me I have lost the market. Common natures do +not suffice me. Good people, as they are called, won't serve; I want +individuals. I am made up of queer points, and I want so many answering +needles. The going-away of friends does not make the remainder more +precious. It takes so much from them, as there was a common link. A, B, +and C make a party. A dies. B not only loses A, but all A's part in C. C +loses A's part in B, and so the alphabet sickens by subtraction of +interchangeables. I express myself muddily, _capite dolente_. I have a +dulling cold. My theory is to enjoy life; but my practice is against it. +I grow ominously tired of official confinement. Thirty years have I +served the Philistines, and my neck is not subdued to the yoke. You +don't know how wearisome it is to breathe the air of four pent walls +without relief, day after day, all the golden hours of the day between +ten and four, without ease or interposition. _Taedet me harum +quotidianarum formarum_, these pestilential clerk-faces always in one's +dish. Oh for a few years between the grave and the desk! they are the +same, save that at the latter you are the outside machine. The foul +enchanter [Nick?], "letters four do form his name,"--Busirane [2] is his +name in hell,--that has curtailed you of some domestic comforts, hath +laid a heavier hand on me, not in present infliction, but in the taking +away the hope of enfranchisement. I dare not whisper to myself a pension +on this side of absolute incapacitation and infirmity, till years have +sucked me dry,--_Otium cum indignitate_. I had thought in a green old +age (oh, green thought!) to have retired to Ponder's End,--emblematic +name, how beautiful!,--in the Ware Road, there to have made up my +accounts with Heaven and the Company, toddling about between it and +Cheshunt, anon stretching, on some fine Izaak Walton morning, to +Hoddesdon or Amwell, careless as a beggar; but walking, walking ever, +till I fairly walked myself off my legs,--dying walking! The hope is +gone. I sit like Philomel all day (but not singing), with my breast +against this thorn of a desk, with the only hope that some pulmonary +affliction may relieve me. _Vide_ Lord Palmerston's report of the clerks +in the War-office (Debates in this morning's "Times"), by which it +appears, in twenty years as many clerks have been coughed and catarrhed +out of it into their freer graves. Thank you for asking about the +pictures. Milton hangs over my fire-side in Covent Garden (when I am +there); the rest have been sold for an old song, wanting the eloquent +tongue that should have set them off! You have gratified me with liking +my meeting with Dodd. For the Malvolio story,--the thing is become in +verity a sad task, and I eke it out with anything. If I could slip out +of it I should be happy; but our chief-reputed assistants have forsaken +us. The Opium-Eater crossed us once with a dazzling path, and hath as +suddenly left us darkling; and, in short, I shall go on from dull to +worse, because I cannot resist the booksellers' importunity,--the old +plea, you know, of authors; but I believe on my part sincere. Hartley I +do not so often see, but I never see him in unwelcome hour. I thoroughly +love and honor him. I send you a frozen epistle; but it is winter and +dead time of the year with me. May Heaven keep something like spring and +summer up with you, strengthen your eyes, and make mine a little lighter +to encounter with them, as I hope they shall yet and again, before all +are closed! + +Yours, with every kind remembrance, + +C. L. + +[1] Martin Burney was the grimy-fisted whist-player to whom Lamb once +observed, "Martin, if dirt was trumps, what hands you would hold!" + +[2] The enchanter in "The Faerie Queene." + + + +LXIX. + + +TO JOHN CLARE. [1] + +_August_ 31, 1822. + +Dear Clare,--I thank you heartily for your present. I am an inveterate +old Londoner, but while I am among your choice collections I seem to be +native to them and free of the country. The quality of your observation +has astonished me. What have most pleased me have been "Recollections +after a Ramble," and those "Grongar Hill" kind of pieces in +eight-syllable lines, my favourite measure, such as "Cooper Hill" and +"Solitude." In some of your story-telling Ballads the provincial phrases +sometimes startle me. I think you are too profuse with them. In poetry +_slang_ of every kind is to be avoided. There is a rustic Cockneyism, as +little pleasing as ours of London. Transplant Arcadia to Helpstone. The +true rustic style I think is to be found in Shenstone. Would his +"School-mistress," the prettiest of poems, have been better if he had +used quite the Goody's own language? Now and then a home rusticism is +fresh and startling; but when nothing is gained in expression, it is out +of tenor. It may make folks smile and stare; but the ungenial coalition +of barbarous with refined phrases will prevent you in the end from being +so generally tasted as you desire to be. Excuse my freedom, and take the +same liberty with my _puns_. + +I send you two little volumes of my spare hours. They are of all sorts; +there is a Methodist hymn for Sundays, and a farce for Saturday night. +Pray give them a place on your shelf. Pray accept a little volume, of +which I have a duplicate, that I may return in equal number to your +welcome presents. I think I am indebted to you for a sonnet in the +"London" for August. + +Since I saw you I have been in France, and have eaten frogs. The nicest +little rabbity things you ever tasted. Do look about for them. Make Mrs. +Clare pick off the hind-quarters, boil them plain, with parsley and +butter. The fore-quarters are not so good. She may let them hop off by +themselves. + +Yours sincerely, + +CHAS. LAMB. + +[1] The Northamptonshire peasant poet. He had sent Lamb his "The Village +Minstrel, and other Poems." + + + +LXX. + + +TO MR. BARRON FIELD. + +_September_ 22, 1822. + +My Dear F.,--I scribble hastily at office. Frank wants my letter +presently. I and sister are just returned from Paris! [1] We have eaten +frogs. It has been such a treat! You know our monotonous general tenor. +Frogs are the nicest little delicate things,--rabbity flavored. Imagine +a Lilliputian rabbit! They fricassee them; but in my mind, dressed +seethed, plain, with parsley and butter, would have been the decision of +Apicius.... Paris is a glorious, picturesque old city. London looks mean +and new to it, as the town of Washington would, seen after _it._ But +they have no St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey. The Seine, so much +despised by Cockneys, is exactly the size to run through a magnificent +street; palaces a mile long on one side, lofty Edinburgh stone (oh, the +glorious antiques!) houses on the other. The Thames disunites London and +Southwark. I had Talma to supper with me. He has picked up, as I +believe, an authentic portrait of Shakspeare. He paid a broker about L40 +English for it. It is painted on the one half of a pair of bellows,--a +lovely picture, corresponding with the Folio head. The bellows has old +carved _wings_ round it and round the visnomy is inscribed, as near as I +remember, not divided into rhyme,--I found out the rhyme,-- + + "Whom have we here + Stuck on this bellows, + But the Prince of good fellows, + Willy Shakspere?" + +At top,-- + + "O base and coward lack, + To be here stuck!" + +POINS. + +At bottom,-- + + "Nay! rather a glorious lot is to him assign'd, + Who, like the Almighty, rides upon the wind." + +PISTOL, + +This is all in old, carved wooden letters. The countenance smiling, +sweet, and intellectual beyond measure, even as he was immeasurable. It +may be a forgery. They laugh at me, and tell me Ireland is in Paris, and +has been putting off a portrait of the Black Prince. How far old wood +may be imitated I cannot say, Ireland was not found out by his +parchments, but by his poetry. I am confident no painter on either side +the Channel could have painted anything near like the face I saw. Again, +would such a painter and forger have taken L40 for a thing, if +authentic, worth L4000? Talma is not in the secret, for he had not even +found out the rhymes in the first inscription. He is coming over with +it, and my life to Southey's "Thalaba," it will gain universal faith. + +The letter is wanted, and I am wanted. Imagine the blank filled up with +all kind things. + +Our joint, hearty remembrances to both of you. Yours as ever, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The Lambs had visited Paris on the invitation of James Kenney, the +dramatist, who had married a Frenchwoman, and was living at Versailles. + + + +LXXI. + + +TO WALTER WILSON. + +_December_ 16, 1822. + +Dear Wilson,--_Lightning_ I was going to call you. You must have thought +me negligent in not answering your letter sooner. But I have a habit of +never writing letters but at the office; 'tis so much time cribbed out +of the Company; and I am but just got out of the thick of a tea-sale, in +which most of the entry of notes, deposits, etc., usually falls to +my share. + +I have nothing of De Foe's but two or three novels and the "Plague +History." [1] I can give you no information about him. As a slight +general character of what I remember of them (for I have not looked into +them latterly), I would say that in the appearance of _truth,_ in all +the incidents and conversations that occur in them, they exceed any +works of fiction I am acquainted with. It is perfect illusion. The +_author_ never appears in these self-narratives (for so they ought to be +called, or rather auto-biographies), but the _narrator_ chains us down +to an implicit belief in everything he says. There is all the minute +detail of a log-book in it. Dates are painfully pressed upon the memory. +Facts are repeated over and over in varying phrases, till you cannot +choose but believe them. It is like reading evidence given in a court of +justice. So anxious the story-teller seems that the truth should be +clearly comprehended that when he has told us a matter of fact or a +motive, in a line or two farther down he _repeats_ it with his favorite +figure of speech, "I say" so and so, though he had made it abundantly +plain before. This is in imitation of the common people's way of +speaking, or rather of the way in which they are addressed by a master +or mistress who wishes to impress something upon their memories, and has +a wonderful effect upon matter-of-fact readers. Indeed, it is to such +principally that he writes. His style is everywhere beautiful, but plain +and _homely._ "Robinson Crusoe" is delightful to all ranks and classes; +but it is easy to see that it is written in phraseology peculiarly +adapted to the lower conditions of readers,--hence it is an especial +favorite with seafaring men, poor boys, servant-maids, etc. His novels +are capital kitchen-reading, while they are worthy, from their deep +interest, to find a shelf in the libraries of the wealthiest and the +most learned. His passion for _matter-of-fact narrative_ sometimes +betrayed him into a long relation of common incidents, which might +happen to any man, and have no interest but the intense appearance of +truth in them, to recommend them. The whole latter half or two-thirds of +"Colonel Jack" is of this description. The beginning of "Colonel Jack" +is the most affecting natural picture of a young thief that was ever +drawn. His losing the stolen money in the hollow of a tree, and finding +it again when he was in despair, and then being in equal distress at not +knowing how to dispose of it, and several similar touches in the early +history of the Colonel, evince a deep knowledge of human nature, and +putting out of question the superior _romantic_ interest of the latter, +in my mind very much exceed "Crusoe." "Roxana" (first edition) is the +next in interest, though he left out the best part of it in subsequent +editions from a foolish hypercriticism of his friend Southerne. But +"Moll Flanders," the "Account of the Plague," etc., are all of one +family, and have the same stamp of character. Believe me, with friendly +recollections--Brother (as I used to call you), Yours, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Wilson was preparing a Life of De Foe, and had written to Lamb for +guidance. + + + +LXXII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_December_ 23, 1822. + +Dear Sir,--I have been so distracted with business and one thing or +other, I have not had a quiet quarter of an hour for epistolary +purposes. Christmas, too, is come, which always puts a rattle into my +morning skull. It is a visiting, unquiet, unquakerish season. I get more +and more in love with solitude, and proportionately hampered with +company. I hope you have some holidays at this period. I have one +day,--Christmas Day; alas! too few to commemorate the season. All work +and no play dulls me. Company is not play, but many times bard work. To +play, is for a man to do what he pleases, or to do nothing,--to go about +soothing his particular fancies. I have lived to a time of life to have +outlived the good hours, the nine-o'clock suppers, with a bright hour or +two to clear up in afterwards. Now you cannot get tea before that hour, +and then sit gaping, music bothered perhaps, till half-past twelve +brings up the tray; and what you steal of convivial enjoyment after, is +heavily paid for in the disquiet of to-morrow's head. + +I am pleased with your liking "John Woodvil," and amused with your +knowledge of our drama being confined to Shakspeare and Miss Baillie. +What a world of fine territory between Land's End and Johnny Groat's +have you missed traversing! I could almost envy you to have so much to +read. I feel as if I had read all the books I want to read. Oh, to +forget Fielding, Steele, etc., and read 'em new! + +Can you tell me a likely place where I could pick up cheap Fox's +Journal? There are no Quaker circulating libraries? Elwood, too, I must +have. I rather grudge that Southey has taken up the history of your +people; I am afraid he will put in some levity. I am afraid I am not +quite exempt from that fault in certain magazine articles, where I have +introduced mention of them. Were they to do again, I would reform them. +Why should not you write a poetical account of your old worthies, +deducing them from Fox to Woolman? But I remember you did talk of +something of that kind, as a counterpart to the "Ecclesiastical +Sketches." But would not a poem be more consecutive than a string of +sonnets? You have no martyrs _quite to the fire,_ I think, among you, +but plenty of heroic confessors, spirit-martyrs, lamb-lions. Think of +it; it would be better than a series of sonnets on "Eminent Bankers." I +like a hit at our way of life, though it does well for me,--better than +anything short of _all one's time to one's self;_ for which alone I +rankle with envy at the rich. Books are good, and pictures are good, and +money to buy them therefore good; but to buy _time,_--in other +words, life! + +The "compliments of the time" to you, should end my letter; to a Friend, +I suppose, I must say the "sincerity of the season:" I hope they both +mean the same. With excuses for this hastily penned note, believe me, +with great respect, + +C. LAMB. + + + +LXXIII. + + +TO MISS WORDSWORTH. + +Mary perfectly approves of the appropriation of the _feathers,_ and +wishes them peacock's for your fair niece's sake. + +_Christmas_, 1822. + +Dear Miss Wordsworth,--I had just written the above endearing words when +Monkhouse tapped me on the shoulder with an invitation to cold goose +pie, which I was not bird of that sort enough to decline. Mrs. Monkhouse, +I am most happy to say, is better Mary has been tormented with a +rheumatism, which is leaving her, I am suffering from the festivities of +the season. I wonder how my misused carcase holds it out. I have played +the experimental philosopher on it, that's certain. Willy shall be +welcome to a mince-pie and a bout at commerce whenever he comes. He was +in our eye. I am glad you liked my new year's speculations; everybody +likes them, except the author of the "Pleasures of Hope." Disappointment +attend him! How I like to be liked, and _what I do_ to be liked! They +flatter me in magazines, newspapers, and all the minor reviews; the +Quarterlies hold aloof. But they must come into it in time, or their +leaves be waste paper. Salute Trinity Library in my name. Two special +things are worth seeing at Cambridge,--a portrait of Cromwell at Sidney, +and a better of Dr. Harvey (who found out that blood was red) at Dr. +Davy's; you should see them. Coleridge is pretty well; I have not seen, +him, but hear often of him, from Allsop, who sends me hares and +pheasants twice a week; I can hardly take so fast as he gives. I have +almost forgotten butcher's meat as plebeian. Are you not glad the cold +is gone? I find winters not so agreeable as they used to be "when winter +bleak had charms forme," I cannot conjure up a kind similitude for those +snowy flakes. Let them keep to twelfth-cakes! + +Mrs. Paris, our Cambridge friend, has been in town. You do not know the +Watfords in Trampington Street. They are capital people. Ask anybody you +meet, who is the biggest woman in Cambridge, and I 'll hold you a wager +they'll say Mrs. Smith; she broke down two benches in Trinity +Gardens,--one on the confines of St. John's, which occasioned a +litigation between the Societies as to repairing it. In warm weather, +she retires into an ice-cellar (literally!), and dates the returns of +the years from a hot Thursday some twenty years back. She sits in a room +with opposite doors and windows, to let in a thorough draught, which +gives her slenderer friends tooth-aches. She is to be seen in the market +every morning at ten cheapening fowls, which I observe the Cambridge +poulterers are not sufficiently careful to stump. + +Having now answered most of the points contained in your letter, let me +end with assuring you of our very best kindness, and excuse Mary for not +handling the pen on this occasion, especially as it has fallen into so +much better hands! Will Dr. W. accept of my respects at the end of a +foolish letter? + +C. L. + + + +LXXIV. + + +TO MR. AND MRS. BRUTON. [1] + +_January_ 6, 1823. + +The pig was above my feeble praise. It was a dear pigmy. There was some +contention as to who should have the ears; but in spite of his obstinacy +(deaf as these little creatures are to advice), I contrived to get at +one of them. + +It came in boots, too, which I took as a favor. Generally these +petty-toes, pretty toes I are missing: but I suppose he wore them to +look taller. + +He must have been the least of his race. His little foots would have +gone into the silver slipper. I take him to have beec a Chinese and +a female. + +If Evelyn could have seen him, he would never have farrowed two such +prodigious volumes, seeing how much good can be contained in--how small +a compass! + +He crackled delicately. + +I left a blank at the top of my letter, not being determined which to +address it to j so farmer and farmer's wife will please to divide our +thanks. May your granaries be full, and your rats empty, and your +chickens plump, and your envious neighbors lean, and your laborers busy, +and you as idle and as happy as the day is long! + +VIVE L'AGRICULTURE! + + How do you make your pigs so little? + They are vastly engaging at the age. + I was so myself. + Now I am a disagreeable old hog, + A middle-aged gentleman-and-a-half; + My faculties (thank God!) are not much impaired. + +I have my sight, hearing, taste, pretty perfect, and can read the Lord's +Prayer in common type, by the help of a candle, without making many +mistakes.... + +Many happy returns, not of the pig, but of the New Year, to both. Mary, +for her share of the pig and the memoirs, desires to send the same. + +Yours truly, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Hertfordshire connections of the Lambs. + + + +LXXV. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. [1] + +_January_ 9, 1823. + +Throw yourself on the world without any rational plan of support beyond +what the chance employ of booksellers would afford you! + +Throw yourself, rather, my dear sir, from the steep Tarpeian rock +slap-dash headlong upon iron spikes. If you had but five consolatory +minutes between the desk and the bed, make much of them, and live a +century in them, rather than turn slave to the booksellers. They are +Turks and Tartars when they have poor authors at their beck. Hitherto +you have been at arm's length from them. Come not within their grasp. I +have known many authors want for bread, some repining, others envying +the blessed security of a counting-house, all agreeing they had rather +have been tailors, weavers,--what not,--rather than the things they +were. I have known some starved, some to go mad, one dear friend +literally dying in a workhouse. You know not what a rapacious, dishonest +set these booksellers are. Ask even Southey, who (a single case almost) +has made a fortune by book-drudgery, what he has found them. Oh, you +know not--may you never know!--the miseries of subsisting by authorship. +'Tis a pretty appendage to a situation like yours or mine, but a +slavery, worse than all slavery, to be a bookseller's dependant, to +drudge your brains for pots of ale and breasts of mutton, to change your +free thoughts and voluntary numbers for ungracious task-work. Those +fellows hate _us_. The reason I take to be that, contrary to other +trades, in which the master gets all the credit (a Jeweller or +silversmith for instance), and the journeyman, who really does the fine +work, is in the background, in _our_ work the world gives all the credit +to us, whom _they_ consider as _their_ journeymen, and therefore do they +hate us, and cheat us, and oppress us, and would wring the blood of as +out, to put another sixpence in their mechanic pouches! I contend that a +bookseller has a _relative honesty_ towards authors, not like his +honesty to the rest of the world. Baldwin, who first engaged me as Elia, +has not paid me up yet (nor any of us without repeated mortifying +appeals). Yet how the knave fawned when I was of service to him! Yet I +daresay the fellow is punctual in settling his milk-score, etc. + +Keep to your bank, and the bank will keep you. Trust not to the public; +you may hang, starve, drown yourself, for anything that worthy +_personage_ cares. I bless every star that Providence, not seeing good +to make me independent, has seen it next good to settle me upon the +stable foundation of Leadenhall. Sit down, good B.B., in the +banking-office; what! is there not from six to eleven P.M. six days in +the week, and is there not all Sunday? Fie! what a superfluity of man's +time, if you could think so,--enough for relaxation, mirth, converse, +poetry, good thoughts, quiet thoughts. Oh, the corroding, torturing, +tormenting thoughts that disturb the brain of the unlucky wight who must +draw upon it for daily sustenance! Henceforth I retract all my foul +complaints of mercantile employment; look upon them as lovers' quarrels. +I was but half in earnest. Welcome, dead timber of a desk, that makes me +live! A little grumbling is a wholesome medicine for the spleen, but in +my inner heart do I approve and embrace this our close, but unharassing, +way of life. I am quite serious. If you can send me Fox, I will not keep +it _six weeks_, and will return it, with warm thanks to yourself and +friend, without blot or dog's-ear. You will much oblige me by +this kindness. + +Yours truly, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The Quaker poet. Mr. Barton was a clerk in the bank of the Messrs. +Alexander, of Woodbridge, in Suffolk. Encouraged by his literary +success, he thought of throwing up his clerkship and trusting to his pen +for a livelihood,--a design from which he was happily diverted by his +friends. + + + +LXXVI. + + +TO MISS HUTCHINSON. + +_April_ 25, 1823. + +Dear Miss H.,--Mary has such an invincible reluctance to any epistolary +exertion that I am sparing her a mortification by taking the pen from +her. The plain truth is, she writes such a mean, detestable hand that +she is ashamed of the formation of her letters. There is an essential +poverty and abjectness in the frame of them. They look like begging +letters. And then she is sure to omit a most substantial word in the +second draught (for she never ventures an epistle without a foul copy +first), which is obliged to be interlined,--which spoils the neatest +epistle, you know. Her figures, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., where she has occasion +to express numerals, as in the date (25th April, 1823), are not figures, +but figurantes; and the combined posse go staggering up and down +shameless, as drunkards in the daytime. It is no better when she rules +her paper. Her lines "are not less erring" than her words; a sort of +unnatural parallel lines, that are perpetually threatening to +meet,--which, you know, is quite contrary to Euclid. Her very blots are +not bold, like this [_here a large blot is inserted_], but poor smears, +half left in and half scratched out, with another smear left in their +place. I like a clear letter; a bold, free hand and a fearless flourish. +Then she has always to go through them (a second operation) to dot her +_i_'s and cross her _t_'s. I don't think she could make a corkscrew if +she tried,--which has such a fine effect at the end or middle of an +epistle, and fills up. + +There is a corkscrew! One of the best I ever drew. [1] By the way, what +incomparable whiskey that was of Monkhouse's! But if I am to write a +letter, let me begin, and not stand flourishing like a fencer at a fair. + +_April_ 25, 1823. + +Dear Miss H.,--It gives me great pleasure [the letter now begins] to +hear that you got down so smoothly, and that Mrs. Monkhouse's spirits +are so good and enterprising. [2] It shows, whatever her posture may be, +that her mind at least is not supine. I hope the excursion will enable +the former to keep pace with its outstripping neighbor. Pray present our +kindest wishes to her and all (that sentence should properly have come +into the postscript; but we airy, mercurial spirits, there is no keeping +us in). "Time" (as was said of one of us) "toils after us in vain." I am +afraid our co-visit with Coleridge was a dream. I shall not get away +before the end or middle of June, and then you will be frog-hopping at +Boulogne. And besides, I think the Gilmans would scarce trust him with +us; I have a malicious knack at cutting of apron-strings. The saints' +days you speak of have long since fled to heaven with Astraea, and the +cold piety of the age lacks fervor to recall them; only Peter left his +key,--the iron one of the two that "shuts amain,"--and that is the +reason I am locked up. Meanwhile, of afternoons we pick up primroses at +Dalston, and Mary corrects me when I call 'em cowslips. God bless you +all, and pray remember me euphoniously to Mr. Gruvellegan. That Lee +Priory must be a dainty bower. Is it built of flints? and does it stand +at Kingsgate? + +[1] Lamb was fond of this flourish, and it is frequently found in his +letters. + +[2] Miss Hutchinson's invalid relative. + + + +LXXVII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_September_ 2, 1823. + +Dear B.B.,--What will you not say to my not writing? You cannot say I do +not write now. Hessey has not used your kind sonnet, nor have I seen it. +Pray send me a copy. Neither have I heard any more of your friend's MS., +which I will reclaim whenever you please. When you come Londonward, you +will find me no longer in Covent Garden: I have a cottage in Colebrook +Row, Islington,--a cottage, for it is detached; a white house, with six +good rooms, The New River (rather elderly by this time) runs (if a +moderate walking pace can be so termed) close to the foot of the house; +and behind is a spacious garden with vines (I assure you), pears, +strawberries, parsnips, leeks, carrots, cabbages, to delight the heart +of old Alcinous. You enter without passage into a cheerful dining-room, +all studded over and rough with old books; and above is a lightsome +drawing-room, three windows, full of choice prints. I feel like a great +lord, never having had a house before. + +The "London," I fear, falls off. I linger among its creaking rafters, +like the last rat; it will topple down if they don't get some +buttresses. They have pulled down three,--Hazlitt, Procter, and their +best stay, kind, light-hearted Wainewright, their Janus. [1] The best is, +neither of our fortunes is concerned in it. + +I heard of you from Mr. Pulham this morning, and that gave a fillip to +my laziness, which has been intolerable; but I am so taken up with +pruning and gardening,--quite a new sort of occupation to me. I have +gathered my jargonels; but my Windsor pears are backward. The former +were of exquisite raciness. I do now sit under my own vine, and +contemplate the growth of vegetable nature. I can now understand in what +sense they speak of father Adam. I recognize the paternity while I watch +my tulips. I almost fell with him, for the first day I turned a drunken +gardener (as he let in the serpent) into my Eden; and he laid about him, +lopping off some choice boughs, etc., which hung over from a neighbor's +garden, and in his blind zeal laid waste a shade which had sheltered +their window from the gaze of passers-by. The old gentlewoman (fury made +her not handsome) could scarcely be reconciled by all my fine words. +There was no buttering her parsnips. She talked of the law. What a lapse +to commit on the first day of my happy "garden state"! + +I hope you transmitted the Fox-Journal to its owner, with suitable +thanks. Mr. Cary, the Dante man, dines with me to-day. He is a mode of a +country parson, lean (as a curate ought to be), modest, sensible, no +obtruder of church dogmas, quite a different man from Southey. You would +like him. Pray accept this for a letter, and believe me, with sincere +regards, yours, + +C.L. + +[1] Wainewright, the notorious poisoner, who, under the name of "Janus +Weathercock," contributed various frothy papers on art and literature to +the "London Magazine." + + + +LXXVIII. + + +TO MRS. HAZLITT. + +_November_, 1823. + +Dear Mrs. H.,--Sitting down to write a letter is such a painful +operation to Mary that you must accept me as her proxy. You have seen +our house. What I now tell you is literally true. Yesterday week, George +Dyer called upon us, at one o'clock (_bright noonday_), on his way to +dine with Mrs. Barbauld at Newington. He sat with Mary about half an +hour, and took leave. The maid saw him go out from her kitchen window, +but suddenly losing sight of him, ran up in a fright to Mary. G.D., +instead of keeping the slip that leads to the gate, had deliberately, +staff in hand, in broad, open day, marched into the New River. [1] He had +not his spectacles on, and you know his absence. Who helped him out, +they can hardly tell; but between 'em they got him out, drenched thro' +and thro'. A mob collected by that time, and accompanied him in. "Send +for the doctor!" they said; and a one-eyed fellow, dirty and drunk, was +fetched from the public-house at the end, where it seem he lurks for the +sake of picking up water-practice, having formerly had a medal from the +Humane Society for some rescue. By his advice the patient was put +between blankets; and when I came home at four to dinner, I found G.D. +a-bed, and raving, light-headed with the brandy-and-water which the +doctor had administered. He sang, laughed, whimpered, screamed, babbled +of guardian angels, would get up and go home; but we kept him there by +force; and by next morning he departed sobered, and seems to have +received no injury. [2] All my friends are open-mouthed about having +paling before the river; but I cannot see that because a ... lunatic +chooses to walk into a river, with his eyes open, at mid-day, I am any +the more likely to be drowned in it, coming home at midnight. + +[1] See Elia-essay, "Amicus Redivivus." + +[2] In the "Athenaeum" for 1835 Procter says: "I happened to call at +Lamb's house about ten minutes after this accident; I saw before me a +train of water running from the door to the river. Lamb had gone for a +surgeon; the maid was running about distraught, with dry clothes on one +arm, and the dripping habiliments of the involuntary bather in the +other. Miss Lamb, agitated, and whimpering forth 'Poor Mr. Dyer!' in the +most forlorn voice, stood plunging her hands into the wet pockets of his +trousers, to fish up the wet coin. Dyer himself, an amiable little old +man, who took water _in_ternally and eschewed strong liquors, lay on his +host's bed, hidden by blankets; his head, on which was his short gray +hair, alone peered out; and this, having been rubbed dry by a resolute +hand,--by the maid's, I believe, who assisted at the rescue,--looked as +if bristling with a thousand needles. Lamb, moreover, in his anxiety, +had administered a formidable dose of cognac and water to the sufferer, +and _he_ (used only to the simple element) babbled without cessation." + + + +LXXIX. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_January_ 9, 1824. + +Dear B.B.,--Do you know what it is to succumb under an insurmountable +day-mare,--"a whoreson lethargy," Falstaff calls it,--an indisposition +to do anything or to be anything; a total deadness and distaste; a +suspension of vitality; an indifference to locality; a numb, soporifical +good-for-nothingness; an ossification all over; an oyster-like +insensibility to the passing events; a mind-stupor; a brawny defiance to +the needles of a thrusting-in conscience? Did you ever have a very bad +cold, with a total irresolution to submit to water-gruel processes? This +has been for many weeks my lot and my excuse. My fingers drag heavily +over this paper, and to my thinking it is three-and-twenty furlongs from +here to the end of this demi-sheet. I have not a thing to say; nothing +is of more importance than another. I am flatter than a denial or a +pancake; emptier than Judge Parke's wig when the head is in it; duller +than a country stage when the actors are off it,--a cipher, an o! I +acknowledge life at all only by an occasional convulsional cough and a +permanent phlegmatic pain in the chest. I am weary of the world; life is +weary of me, My day is gone into twilight, and I don't think it worth +the expense of candles. My wick hath a thief in it, but I can't muster +courage to snuff it. I inhale suffocation; I can't distinguish veal from +mutton; nothing interests me. 'T is twelve o'clock, and Thurtell [1] is +just now coming out upon the new drop, Jack Ketch alertly tucking up his +greasy sleeves to do the last office of mortality; yet cannot I elicit a +groan or a moral reflection. If you told me the world will be at an end +to-morrow, I should just say, "Will it?" I have not volition enough left +to dot my _i_'s, much less to comb my eyebrows; my eyes are set in my +head; my brains are gone out to see a poor relation in Moorfields, and +they did not say when they'd come back again; my skull is a Grub Street +attic to let,--not so much as a joint-stool left in it; my hand writes, +not I, from habit, as chickens run about a little when their heads are +off. Oh for a vigorous fit of gout, colic, toothache,--an earwig in my +auditory, a fly in my visual organs; pain is life,--the sharper the more +evidence of life; but this apathy, this death! Did you ever have an +obstinate cold,--a six or seven weeks' unintermitting chill and +suspension of hope, fear, conscience, and everything? Yet do I try all I +can to cure it. I try wine, and spirits, and smoking, and snuff in +unsparing quantities; but they all only seem to make me worse, instead +of better. I sleep in a damp room, but it does me no good; I come home +late o' nights, but do not find any visible amendment! Who shall deliver +me from the body of this death? + +It is just fifteen minutes after twelve. Thurtell is by this time a good +way on his journey, baiting at Scorpion, perhaps. Ketch is bargaining +for his cast coat and waistcoat; and the Jew demurs at first at three +half-crowns, but on consideration that he may get somewhat by showing +'em in the town, finally closes. + +C. L. + +[1] Hanged that day for the murder of Weare. + + + +LXXX. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_January_ 23, 1824. + +My dear sir,--That peevish letter of mine, [1] which was meant to convey +an apology for my incapacity to write, seems to have been taken by you +in too serious a light,--it was only my way of telling you I had a +severe cold. The fact is, I have been insuperably dull and lethargic for +many weeks, and cannot rise to the vigor of a letter, much less an +essay. The "London" must do without me for a time, for I have lost all +interest about it; and whether I shall recover it again I know not. I +will bridle my pen another time, and not tease and puzzle you with my +aridities. I shall begin to feel a little more alive with the spring. + +Winter is to me (mild or harsh) always a great trial of the spirits. I +am ashamed not to have noticed your tribute to Woolman, whom we love so +much; it is done in your good manner. Your friend Tayler called upon me +some time since, and seems a very amiable man. His last story is +painfully fine. His book I "like;" it is only too stuffed with +Scripture, too parsonish. The best thing in it is the boy's own story. +When I say it is too full of Scripture, I mean it is too full of direct +quotations; no book can have too much of silent Scripture in it. But the +natural power of a story is diminished when the uppermost purpose in the +writer seems to be to recommend something else,--namely, Religion. You +know what Horace says of the _Deus intersit_? I am not able to explain +myself,--you must do it for me. My sister's part in the "Leicester +School" (about two thirds) was purely her own; as it was (to the same +quantity) in the "Shakspeare Tales" which bear my name. I wrote only the +"Witch Aunt," the "First Going to Church," and the final story about "A +little Indian girl" in a ship. Your account of my black-balling amused +me. _I think, as Quakers, they did right._ There are some things hard to +be understood. The more I think, the more I am vexed at having puzzled +you with that letter; but I have been so out of letter-writing of late +years that it is a sore effort to sit down to it; and I felt in your +debt, and sat down waywardly to pay you in bad money. Never mind my +dulness; I am used to long intervals of it. The heavens seem brass to +me; then again comes the refreshing shower,-- + + "I have been merry twice and once ere now." + +You said something about Mr. Mitford in a late letter, which I believe I +did not advert to. I shall be happy to show him my Milton (it is all the +show things I have) at any time he will take the trouble of a jaunt to +Islington. I do also hope to see Mr. Tayler there some day. Pray say so +to both. Coleridge's book is in good part printed, but sticks a little +for _more copy_. It bears an unsalable title,--"Extracts from Bishop +Leighton;" but I am confident there will be plenty of good notes in +it,--more of Bishop Coleridge than Leighton in it, I hope; for what is +Leighton? Do you trouble yourself about libel cases? The decision +against Hunt for the "Vision of Judgment" made me sick. What is to +become of the good old talk about our good old king,--his personal +virtues saving us from a revolution, etc.? Why, none that think can +utter it now. It must stink. And the "Vision" is as to himward such a +tolerant, good-humored thing! What a wretched thing a Lord Chief Justice +is, always was, and will be! + +Keep your good spirits up, dear B. B., mine will return; they are at +present in abeyance, but I am rather lethargic than miserable. I don't +know but a good horsewhip would be more beneficial to me than physic. My +head, without aching, will teach yours to ache. It is well I am getting +to the conclusion. I will send a better letter when I am a better man. +Let me thank you for your kind concern for me (which I trust will have +reason soon to be dissipated), and assure you that it gives me pleasure +to hear from you. + +Yours truly, + +C. L. + +[1] Letter LXXIX. + + + +LXXXI. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON + +_April_, 1824. + +Dear B.B.,--I am sure I cannot fill a letter, though I should disfurnish +my skull to fill it; but you expect something, and shall have a notelet. +Is Sunday, not divinely speaking, but humanly and holiday-sically, a +blessing? Without its institution, would our rugged taskmasters have +given us a leisure day so often, think you, as once in a month? or, if +it had not been instituted, might they not have given us every sixth +day? Solve me this problem. If we are to go three times a-day to church, +why has Sunday slipped into the notion of a _holi_day? A HOLY-day, I +grant it. The Puritans, I have read in Southey's book, knew the +distinction. They made people observe Sunday rigorously, would not let a +nurserymaid walk out in the fields with children for recreation on that +day. But _then_ they gave the people a holiday from all sorts of work +every second Tuesday. This was giving to the two Caesars that which was +_his_ respective. Wise, beautiful, thoughtful, generous legislators! +Would Wilberforce give us our Tuesdays? No; he would turn the six days +into sevenths,-- + + "And those three smiling seasons of the year + Into a Russian winter." + OLD PLAY. + +I am sitting opposite a person who is making strange distortions with +the gout, which is not unpleasant pleasant,--to me, at least. What is +the reason we do not sympathize with pain, short of some terrible +surgical operation? Hazlitt, who boldly says all he feels, avows that +not only he does not pity sick people, but he hates them. I obscurely +recognize his meaning. Pain is probably too selfish a consideration, too +simply a consideration of self-attention. We pity poverty, loss of +friends, etc.,--more complex things, in which the sufferer's feelings +are associated with others. This is a rough thought suggested by the +presence of gout; I want head to extricate it and plane it. What is all +this to your letter? I felt it to be a good one, but my turn, when I +write at all, is perversely to travel out of the record, so that my +letters are anything but answers. So you still want a motto? You must +not take my ironical one, because your book, I take it, is too serious +for it. Bickerstaff might have used it for _his_ lucubrations. What do +you think of (for a title) Religio Tremuli? or Tremebundi? There is +Religio Medici and Laici. But perhaps the volume is not quite Quakerish +enough, or exclusively so, for it. Your own "Vigils" is perhaps the +best. While I have space, let me congratulate with you the return of +spring,--what a summery spring too! All those qualms about the dog and +cray-fish [1] melt before it. I am going to be happy and _vain_ again. + +A hasty farewell, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Lamb had confessed, in a previous letter to Barton, to having once +wantonly set a dog upon a cray-fish. + + + +LXXXII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_May_ 15, 1824. + +Dear B. B.,--I am oppressed with business all day, and company all +night. But I will snatch a quarter of an hour. Your recent acquisitions +of the picture and the letter are greatly to be congratulated. I too +have a picture of my father and the copy of his first love-verses; but +they have been mine long. Blake is a real name, I assure you, and a most +extraordinary man, if he is still living. He is the Robert [William] +Blake whose wild designs accompany a splendid folio edition of the +"Night Thoughts," which you may have seen, in one of which he pictures +the parting of soul and body by a solid mass of human form floating off, +God knows how, from a lumpish mass (fac-simile to itself) left behind on +the dying bed. He paints in water-colors marvellous strange pictures, +visions of his brain, which he asserts that he has seen; they have great +merit. He has _seen_ the old Welsh bards on Snowdon,--he has seen the +beautifullest, the strongest, and the ugliest man, left alone from the +massacre of the Britons by the Romans, and has painted them from memory +(I have seen his paintings), and asserts them to be as good as the +figures of Raphael and Angelo, but not better, as they had precisely the +same retro-visions and prophetic visions with themself [himself]. The +painters in oil (which he will have it that neither of them practised) +he affirms to have been the ruin of art, and affirms that all the while +he was engaged in his Welsh paintings, Titian was disturbing him,-- +Titian the Ill Genius of Oil Painting. His pictures--one in particular, +the Canterbury Pilgrims, far above Stothard--have great merit, but hard, +dry, yet with grace. He has written a Catalogue of them, with a most +spirited criticism on Chaucer, but mystical and full of vision. His +poems have been sold hitherto only in manuscript. I never read them; but +a friend at my desire procured the "Sweep Song." There is one to a +tiger, which I have heard recited, beginning,-- + + "Tiger, Tiger, burning bright, + Thro' the deserts of the night," + +which is glorious, but, alas! I have not the book; for the man is flown, +whither I know not,--to Hades or a madhouse. But I must look on him as +one of the most extraordinary persons of the age. Montgomery's book [1] I +have not much hope from, and the society with the affected name [2] has +been laboring at it for these twenty years, and made few converts. I +think it was injudicious to mix stories, avowedly colored by fiction, +with the sad, true statements from the parliamentary records, etc. But I +wish the little negroes all the good that can come from it. I battered +my brains (not buttered them,--but it is a bad _a_) for a few verses +for them, but I could make nothing of it. You have been luckier. But +Blake's are the flower of the set, you will, I am sure, agree; though +some of Montgomery's at the end are pretty, but the Dream awkwardly +paraphrased from B. + +With the exception of an Epilogue for a Private Theatrical, I have +written nothing new for near six months. It is in vain to spur me on. I +must wait. I cannot write without a genial impulse, and I have none. 'T +is barren all and dearth. No matter; life is something without +scribbling. I have got rid of my bad spirits, and hold up pretty well +this rain-damned May. + +So we have lost another poet. [3] I never much relished his Lordship's +mind, and shall be sorry if the Greeks have cause to miss him. He was to +me offensive, and I never can make out his real _power_, which his +admirers talk of. Why, a, line of Wordsworth's is a lever to lift the +immortal spirit; Byron can only move the spleen. He was at best a +satirist. In any other way, he was mean enough. I daresay I do him +injustice; but I cannot love him, nor squeeze a tear to his memory. He +did not like the world, and he has left it, as Alderman Curtis advised +the Radicals, "if they don't like their country, damn 'em, let 'em leave +it," they possessing no rood of ground in England, and he ten thousand +acres. Byron was better than many Curtises. + +Farewell, and accept this apology for a letter from one who owes you so +much in that kind. + +Yours ever truly, C. L. + +[1] "The Chimney-Sweeper's Friend, and Climbing-Boy's Album,"--a book, +by James Montgomery, setting forth the wrongs of the little +chimney-sweepers, for whose relief a society had been started. + +[2] The Society for Ameliorating the Condition of Infant +Chimney-Sweepers. + +[3] Byron had died on April 19. + + + +LXXXIII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_August_, 1824. + +I can no more understand Shelley than you can; his poetry is "thin sown +with profit or delight." Yet I must point to your notice a sonnet +conceived and expressed with a witty delicacy. It is that addressed to +one who hated him, but who could not persuade him to hate _him_ again. +His coyness to the other's passion--for hate demands a return as much as +love, and starves without it--is most arch and pleasant. Pray, like it +very much. For his theories and nostrums, they are oracular enough, but +I either comprehend 'em not, or there is "miching malice" and mischief +in 'em, but, for the most part, ringing with their own emptiness. +Hazlitt said well of 'em: "Many are the wiser and better for reading +Shakspeare, but nobody was ever wiser or better for reading Shelley." I +wonder you will sow your correspondence on so barren a ground as I am, +that make such poor returns. But my head aches at the bare thought of +letter-writing. I wish all the ink in the ocean dried up, and would +listen to the quills shivering up in the candle flame, like parching +martyrs. The same indisposition to write it is has stopped my "Elias;" +but you will see a futile effort in the next number, [1] "wrung from me +with slow pain." The fact is, my head is seldom cool enough. I am +dreadfully indolent. To have to do anything--to order me a new coat, for +instance, though my old buttons are shelled like beans--is an effort. My +pen stammers like my tongue. What cool craniums those old inditers of +folios must have had, what a mortified pulse! Well, once more I throw +myself on your mercy. Wishing peace in thy new dwelling, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] The essay "Blakesmoor in Hertfordshire," in the "London Magazine" +for September, 1824. + + + +LXXXIV. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_December_ 1, 1824. + +Taylor and Hessey, finding their magazine [1] goes off very heavily at +2_s_. 6_d_., are prudently going to raise their price another shilling; +and having already more authors than they want, intend to increase the +number of them. If they set up against the "New Monthly," they must +change their present hands. It is not tying the dead carcase of a review +to a half-dead magazine will do their business. It is like George Dyer +multiplying his volumes to make 'em sell better. When he finds one will +not go off, he publishes two; two stick, he tries three; three hang +fire, he is confident that four will have a better chance. + +And now, my dear sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catastrophe of +yesterday morning prompts a sadder vein. The fate of the unfortunate +Fauntleroy [2] makes me, whether I will or no, to cast reflecting eyes +around on such of my friends as, by a parity of situation, are exposed +to a similarity of temptation. My very style seems to myself to become +more impressive than usual, with the change of theme. Who, that +standeth, knoweth but he may yet fall? Your hands as yet, I am most +willing to believe, have never deviated, into others' property; you +think it impossible that you could ever commit so heinous an offence. +But so thought Fauntleroy once; so have thought many besides him, who at +last have expiated as he hath done. You are as yet upright; but you are +a banker,--at least, the next thing to it. I feel the delicacy of the +subject; but cash must pass through your hands, sometimes to a great +amount. If in an unguarded hour--But I will hope better. Consider the +scandal it will bring upon those of your persuasion. Thousands would go +to see a Quaker hanged, that would be indifferent to the fate of a +Presbyterian or an Anabaptist. Think of the effect it would have on the +sale of your poems alone, not to mention higher considerations! I +tremble, I am sure, at myself, when I think that so many poor victims of +the law, at one time of their life, made as sure of never being hanged +as I, in my presumption, am too ready to do myself. What are we better +than they? Do we come into the world with different necks? Is there any +distinctive mark under our left ears? Are we unstrangulable, I ask you? +Think of these things. I am shocked sometimes at the shape of my own +fingers, not for their resemblance to the ape tribe (which is +something), but for the exquisite adaptation of them to the purposes of +picking fingering, etc. No one that is so framed, I maintain it, but +should tremble. + +C. L. + +[1] Taylor and Hessey succeeded John Scott as editors of the "London +Magazine" (of which they were also publishers), and it was to this +periodical that most of Lamb's Elia Essays were contributed. + +[2] The forger, hanged Nov. 30, 1824. This was the last execution for +this offence. + + + +LXXXV. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_March_ 23, 1825. + +Dear B. B.,--I have had no impulse to write, or attend to any single +object but myself for weeks past,--my single self, I by myself, I. I am +sick of hope deferred. The grand wheel is in agitation that is to turn +up my fortune; but round it rolls, and will turn up nothing. I have a +glimpse of freedom, of becoming a gentleman at large; but I am put off +from day to day. I have offered my resignation, and it is neither +accepted nor rejected. Eight weeks am I kept in this fearful suspense. +Guess what an absorbing stake I feel it. I am not conscious of the +existence of friends present or absent. The East India Directors alone +can be that thing to me or not. I have just learned that nothing will be +decided this week. Why the next? Why any week? It has fretted me into an +itch of the fingers; I rub 'em against paper, and write to you, rather +than not allay this scorbuta. + +While I can write, let me adjure you to have no doubts of Irving. Let +Mr. Mitford drop his disrespect. Irving has prefixed a dedication (of a +missionary subject, first part) to Coleridge, the most beautiful, +cordial, and sincere. He there acknowledges his obligation to S. T. C. +for his knowledge of Gospel truths, the nature of a Christian Church, +etc.,--to the talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (at whose Gamaliel feet he +sits weekly), rather than to that of all the men living. This from him, +the great dandled and petted sectarian, to a religious character so +equivocal in the world's eye as that of S. T. C., so foreign to the +Kirk's estimate,--can this man be a quack? The language is as affecting +as the spirit of the dedication. Some friend told him, "This dedication +will do you no good,"--_i. e._, not in the world's repute, or with your +own people. "That is a reason for doing it," quoth Irving. + +I am thoroughly pleased with him. He is firm, out-speaking, intrepid, +and docile as a pupil of Pythagoras. You must like him. + +Yours, in tremors of painful hope, + +C. LAMB. + + + +LXXXVI. + + +TO WORDSWORTH + +_April_ 6, 1825 + +Dear Wordsworth,--I have been several times meditating a letter to you +concerning the good thing which has befallen me; but the thought of poor +Monkhouse [1] came across me. He was one that I had exulted in the +prospect of congratulating me. He and you were to have been the first +participators; for indeed it has been ten weeks since the first motion +of it. Here am I then, after thirty-three years' slavery, sitting in my +own room at eleven o'clock this finest of all April mornings, a freed +man, with L441 a year for the remainder of my life, live I as long as +John Dennis, who outlived his annuity and starved at ninety: L441; +_i.e., L450_, with a deduction of L9 for a provision secured to my +sister, she being survivor, the pension guaranteed by Act Georgii +Tertii, etc. + +I came home FOREVER on Tuesday in last week. The incomprehensibleness of +my condition overwhelmed me; it was like passing from life into +eternity. Every year to be as long as three, _i.e._, to have three times +as much real time--time that is my own--in it! I wandered about thinking +I was happy, but feeling I was not. But that tumultuousness is passing +off, and I begin to understand the nature of the gift. Holidays, even +the annual month, were always uneasy joys,--their conscious +fugitiveness; the craving after making the most of them. Now, when all +is holiday, there are no holidays. I can sit at home, in rain or shine, +without a restless impulse for walkings. I am daily steadying, and shall +soon find it as natural to me to be my own master as it has been irksome +to have had a master. Mary wakes every morning with an obscure feeling +that some good has happened to us. + +Leigh Hunt and Montgomery, after their releasements, describe the shock +of their emancipation much as I feel mine. But it hurt their frames. I +eat, drink, and sleep sound as ever, I lay no anxious schemes for going +hither and thither, but take things as they occur. Yesterday I +excursioned twenty miles; to-day I write a few letters. Pleasuring was +for fugitive play-days: mine are fugitive only in the sense that life is +fugitive. Freedom and life co-existent! + +At the foot of such a call upon you for gratulation, I am ashamed to +advert to that melancholy event. Monkhouse was a character I learned to +love slowly; but it grew upon me yearly, monthly, daily. What a chasm +has it made in our pleasant parties! His noble, friendly face was always +coming before me, till this hurrying event in my life came, and for the +time has absorbed all interest; in fact, it has shaken me a little. My +old desk companions, with whom I have had such merry hours, seem to +reproach me for removing my lot from among them. They were pleasant +creatures; but to the anxieties of business, and a weight of possible +worse ever impending, I was not equal. Tuthill and Gilman gave me my +certificates; I laughed at the friendly lie implied in them. But my +sister shook her head, and said it was all true. Indeed, this last +winter I was jaded out; winters were always worse than other parts of +the year, because the spirits are worse, and I had no daylight. In +summer I had daylight evenings. The relief was hinted to me from a +superior power when I, poor slave, had not a hope but that I must wait +another seven years with Jacob; and lo! the Rachel which I coveted is +brought to me. + +[1] Wordsworth's cousin, who was ill of consumption in Devonshire. He +died the following year. + + + +LXXXVII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_April_ 6, 1825. + +Dear B.B.,--My spirits are so tumultuary with the novelty of my recent +emancipation that I have scarce steadiness of hand, much more mind, to +compose a letter. I am free, B.B.,--free as air! + + "The little bird that wings the sky + Knows no such liberty." [1] + I was set free on Tuesday in last week at four + o'clock. I came home forever! + +I have been describing my feelings as well as I can to Wordsworth in a +long letter, and don't care to repeat. Take it, briefly, that for a few +days I was painfully oppressed by so mighty a change; but it is becoming +daily more natural to me. I went and sat among 'em all at my old +thirty-three-years' desk yester-morning; and, deuce take me, if I had +not yearnings at leaving all my old pen-and-ink fellows, merry, sociable +lads,--at leaving them in the lurch, fag, fag, fag! The comparison of my +own superior felicity gave me anything but pleasure. + +B.B., I would not serve another seven years for seven hundred thousand +pounds! I have got L441 net for life, sanctioned by Act of Parliament, +with a provision for Mary if she survives me. I will live another fifty +years; or if I live but ten, they will be thirty, reckoning the quantity +of real time in them,--_i.e._, the time that is a man's own, Tell me how +you like "Barbara S.;" [2] will it be received in atonement for the +foolish "Vision"--I mean by the lady? _A propos_, I never saw Mrs. +Crawford in my life; nevertheless, it's all true of somebody. + +Address me, in future, Colebrooke Cottage, Islington, I am really +nervous (but that will wear off), so take this brief announcement. + +Yours truly, + +C.L. + +[1] "The birds that wanton in the air + Know no such liberty." + LOVELACE. + +[2] The Elia essay. Fanny Kelly was the original of "Barbara S." + + + +LXXXVIII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_July_ 2, 1825. + +I am hardly able to appreciate your volume now; [1] but I liked the +dedication much, and the apology for your bald burying grounds. To +Shelley--but _that_ is not new, To the young Vesper-singer, Great +Bealings, Playford, and what not. + +If there be a cavil, it is that the topics of religious consolation, +however beautiful, are repeated till a sort of triteness attends them. +It seems as if you were forever losing Friends' children by death, and +reminding their parents of the Resurrection. Do children die so often +and so good in your parts? The topic taken from the consideration that +they are snatched away from _possible vanities_ seems hardly sound; for +to an Omniscient eye their conditional failings must be one with their +actual. But I am too unwell for theology. + +Such as I am, + +I am yours and A.K.'s truly, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] "Barton's volume of Poems." + + + +LXXXIX. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_August_ 10, 1825. + +We shall be soon again at Colebrooke. + +Dear B.B.,--You must excuse my not writing before, when I tell you we +are on a visit at Enfield, where I do not feel it natural to sit down to +a letter. It is at all times an exertion. I had rather talk with you and +Anne Knight quietly at Colebrooke Lodge over the matter of your last. +You mistake me when you express misgivings about my relishing a series +of Scriptural poems. I wrote confusedly; what I meant to say was, that +one or two consolatory poems on deaths would have had a more condensed +effect than many. Scriptural, devotional topics, admit of infinite +variety. So far from poetry tiring me because religious, I can read, and +I say it seriously, the homely old version of the Psalms in our +Prayer-books for an hour or two together sometimes, without sense of +weariness. + +I did not express myself clearly about what I think a false topic, +insisted on so frequently in consolatory addresses on the death of +infants. I know something like it is in Scripture, but I think humanly +spoken. It is a natural thought, a sweet fallacy, to the survivors, but +still a fallacy. If it stands on the doctrine of this being a +probationary state, it is liable to this dilemma. Omniscience, to whom +possibility must be clear as act, must know of the child what it would +hereafter turn out: if good, then the topic is false to say it is +secured from falling into future wilfulness, vice, etc. If bad, I do not +see how its exemption from certain future overt acts by being snatched +away at all tells in its favor. You stop the arm of a murderer, or +arrest the finger of a pickpurse; but is not the guilt incurred as much +by the intent as if never so much acted? Why children are hurried off, +and old reprobates of a hundred left, whose trial humanly we may think +was complete at fifty, is among the obscurities of providence, The very +notion of a state of probation has darkness in it. The All-knower has no +need of satisfying his eyes by seeing what we will do, when he knows +before what we will do. Methinks we might be condemned before +commission. In these things we grope and flounder; and if we can pick up +a little human comfort that the child taken is snatched from vice (no +great compliment to it, by the by), let us take it. And as to where an +untried child goes, whether to join the assembly of its elders who have +borne the heat of the day,--fire-purified martyrs and torment-sifted +confessors,--what know we? We promise heaven, methinks, too cheaply, and +assign large revenues to minors incompetent to manage them. Epitaphs run +upon this topic of consolation till the very frequency induces a +cheapness. Tickets for admission into paradise are sculptured out a +penny a letter, twopence a syllable, etc. It is all a mystery; and the +more I try to express my meaning (having none that is clear), the more I +flounder. Finally, write what your own conscience, which to you is the +unerring judge, deems best, and be careless about the whimsies of such a +half-baked notionist as I am. We are here in a most pleasant country, +full of walks, and idle to our heart's desire. Taylor has dropped the +"London." It was indeed a dead weight. It had got in the Slough of +Despond. I shuffle off my part of the pack, and stand, like Christian, +with light and merry shoulders. It had got silly, indecorous, pert, and +everything that is bad. Both our kind _remembrances_ to Mrs. K. and +yourself, and strangers'-greeting to Lucy,--is it Lucy, or Ruth?--that +gathers wise sayings in a Book. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XC. + + +TO SOUTHEY. + +_August_ 19, 1825. + +Dear Southey,--You'll know whom this letter comes from by opening +slap-dash upon the text, as in the good old times. I never could come +into the custom of envelopes,--'tis a modern foppery; the Plinian +correspondence gives no hint of such. In singleness of sheet and +meaning, then, I thank you for your little book. I am ashamed to add a +codicil of thanks for your "Book of the Church." I scarce feel competent +to give an opinion of the latter; I have not reading enough of that kind +to venture at it. I can only say the fact, that I have read it with +attention and interest. Being, as you know, not quite a Churchman, I +felt a jealousy at the Church taking to herself the whole deserts of +Christianity, Catholic and Protestant, from Druid extirpation downwards. +I call all good Christians the Church. Capillarians and all. But I am in +too light a humor to touch these matters. May all our churches flourish! +Two things staggered me in the poem (and one of them staggered both of +as): I cannot away with a beautiful series of verses, as I protest they +are, commencing "Jenner," 'Tis like a choice banquet opened with a pill +or an electuary,--physic stuff. T'other is, we cannot make out how Edith +should be no more than ten years old. By 'r Lady, we had taken her to be +some sixteen or upwards. We suppose you have only chosen the round +number for the metre. Or poem and dedication may be both older than they +pretend to,--but then some hint might have been given; for, as it +stands, it may only serve some day to puzzle the parish reckoning. But +without inquiring further (for 'tis ungracious to look into a lady's +years), the dedication is eminently pleasing and tender, and we wish +Edith May Southey joy of it. Something, too, struck us as if we had +heard of the death of John May. A John May's death was a few years since +in the papers. We think the tale one of the quietest, prettiest things +we have seen. You have been temperate in the use of localities, which +generally spoil poems laid in exotic regions. You mostly cannot stir out +(in such things) for humming-birds and fireflies. A tree is a Magnolia, +etc.--Can I but like the truly Catholic spirit? "Blame as thou mayest +the Papist's erring creed,"--which and other passages brought me back to +the old Anthology days and the admonitory lesson to "Dear George" on +"The Vesper Bell," a little poem which retains its first hold upon me +strangely. + +The compliment to the translatress is daintily conceived. Nothing is +choicer in that sort of writing than to bring in some remote, impossible +parallel,--as between a great empress and the inobtrusive, quiet soul +who digged her noiseless way so perseveringly through that rugged +Paraguay mine. How she Dobrizhoffered it all out, it puzzles my slender +Latinity to conjecture. Why do you seem to sanction Landor's unfeeling +allegorizing away of honest Quixote? He may as well say Strap is meant +to symbolize the Scottish nation before the Union, and Random since that +Act of dubious issue; or that Partridge means the Mystical Man, and Lady +Bellaston typifies the Woman upon Many Waters. Gebir, indeed, may mean +the state of the hop markets last month, for anything I know to the +contrary. That all Spain overflowed with romancical books (as Madge +Newcastle calls them) was no reason that Cervantes should not smile at +the matter of them; nor even a reason that, in another mood, he might +not multiply them, deeply as he was tinctured with the essence of them. +Quixote is the father of gentle ridicule, and at the same time the very +depository and treasury of chivalry and highest notions. Marry, when +somebody persuaded Cervantes that he meant only fun, and put him upon +writing that unfortunate Second Part, with the confederacies of that +unworthy duke and most contemptible duchess, Cervantes sacrificed his +instinct to his understanding. + +We got your little book but last night, being at Enfield, to which place +we came about a month since, and are having quiet holidays. Mary walks +her twelve miles a day some days, and I my twenty on others. 'T is all +holiday with me now, you know; the change works admirably. + +For literary news, in my poor way, I have a one-act farce [1] going to be +acted at Haymarket; but when? is the question, 'Tis an extravaganza, and +like enough to follow "Mr. H." "The London Magazine" has shifted its +publishers once more, and I shall shift myself out of it. It is fallen. +My ambition is not at present higher than to write nonsense for the +playhouses, to eke out a something contracted income. _Tempus erat_. +There was a time, my dear Cornwallis, when the muse, etc. But I am now +in Mac Flecknoe's predicament,-- + +"Promised a play, and dwindled to a farce." Coleridge is better (was, at +least, a few weeks since) than he has been for years. His accomplishing +his book at last has been a source of vigor to him. We are on a half +visit to his friend Allsop, at a Mrs. Leishman's, Enfield, but expect to +be at Colebrooke Cottage in a week or so, where, or anywhere, I shall be +always most happy to receive tidings from you. G. Dyer is in the height +of an uxorious paradise. His honeymoon will not wane till he wax cold. +Never was a more happy pair, since Acme and Septimius, and longer. +Farewell, with many thanks, dear S. Our loves to all round your Wrekin. + +Your old friend, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Probably "The Pawnbroker's Daughter," which happily was not destined +to be performed.--AINGER. + + + +XCI. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_March_ 20, 1826. + +Dear B. B.,--You may know my letters by the paper and the folding. For +the former, I live on scraps obtained in charity from an old friend, +whose stationery is a permanent perquisite; for folding, I shall do it +neatly when I learn to tie my neckcloths. I surprise most of my friends +by writing to them on ruled paper, as if I had not got past pothooks and +hangers. Sealing-wax I have none on my establishment; wafers of the +coarsest bran supply its place. When my epistles come to be weighed with +Pliny's, however superior to the Roman in delicate irony, judicious +reflections, etc., his gilt post will bribe over the judges to him. All +the time I was at the E. I. H. I never mended a pen; I now cut 'em to +the stumps, marring rather than mending the primitive goose-quill. I +cannot bear to pay for articles I used to get for nothing. When Adam +laid out his first penny upon nonpareils at some stall in Mesopotamos, I +think it went hard with him, reflecting upon his old goodly orchard, +where he had so many for nothing. When I write to a great man at the +court end, he opens with surprise upon a naked note, such as Whitechapel +people interchange, with no sweet degrees of envelope. I never enclosed +one bit of paper in another, nor understood the rationale of it. Once +only I sealed with borrowed wax, to set Walter Scott a-wondering, signed +with the imperial quartered arms of England, which my friend Field bears +in compliment to his descent, in the female line, from Oliver Cromwell. +It must have set his antiquarian curiosity upon watering. To your +questions upon the currency, I refer you to Mr. Robinson's last speech, +where, if you can find a solution, I cannot. I think this, though,--the +best ministry we ever stumbled upon,--gin reduced four shillings in the +gallon, wine two shillings in the quart! This comes home to men's minds +and bosoms. My tirade against visitors was not meant _particularly_ at +you or Anne Knight. I scarce know what I meant, for I do not just now +feel the grievance. I wanted to make an _article_. So in another thing I +talked of somebody's _insipid wife_ without a correspondent object in my +head; and a good lady, a friend's wife, whom I really _love_ (don't +startle, I mean in a licit way), has looked shyly on me ever since. The +blunders of personal application are ludicrous. I send out a character +every now and then on purpose to exercise the ingenuity of my friends. +"Popular Fallacies" will go on; that word "concluded" is an erratum, I +suppose, for "continued." I do not know how it got stuffed in there. A +little thing without name will also be printed on the Religion of the +Actors; but it is out of your way, so I recommend you, with true +author's hypocrisy, to skip it. We are about to sit down to roast beef, +at which we could wish A. K., B. B., and B. B.'s pleasant daughter to be +humble partakers. So much for my hint at visitors, which was scarcely +calculated for droppers-in from Woodbridge; the sky does not drop such +larks every day. My very kindest wishes to you all three, with my +sister's best love. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XCII. + + +TO J. B. DIBDIN. + +_June_, 1826. + +Dear D.,--My first impulse upon seeing your letter was pleasure at +seeing your old neat hand, nine parts gentlemanly, with a modest dash of +the clerical; my second, a thought natural enough this hot weather: Am I +to answer all this? Why, 't is as long as those to the Ephesians and +Galatians put together: I have counted the words, for curiosity.... I +never knew an enemy to puns who was not an ill-natured man. Your fair +critic in the coach reminds me of a Scotchman, who assured me he did not +see much in Shakspeare. I replied, I daresay _not_. He felt the +equivoke, looked awkward and reddish, but soon returned to the attack by +saying that he thought Burns was as good as Shakspeare. I said that I +had no doubt he was,--to a _Scotchman_. We exchanged no more words that +day.... Let me hear that you have clambered up to Lover's Seat; it is as +fine in that neighborhood as Juan Fernandez,--as lonely, too, when the +fishing-boats are not out; I have sat for hours staring upon a shipless +sea. The salt sea is never as grand as when it is left to itself. One +cock-boat spoils it; a seamew or two improves it. And go to the little +church, which is a very Protestant Loretto, and seems dropped by some +angel for the use of a hermit who was at once parishioner and a whole +parish. It is not too big. Go in the night, bring it away in your +portmanteau, and I will plant it in my garden. It must have been +erected, in the very infancy of British Christianity, for the two or +three first converts, yet with all the appurtenances of a church of the +first magnitude,--its pulpit, its pews, its baptismal font; a cathedral +in a nutshell. The minister that divides the Word there must give +lumping pennyworths. It is built to the text of "two or three assembled +in my name." It reminds me of the grain of mustard-seed. If the glebe +land is proportionate, it may yield two potatoes. Tithes out of it could +be no more split than a hair. Its First fruits must be its Last, for 't +would never produce a couple. It is truly the strait and narrow way, and +few there be (of London visitants) that find it. The still small voice +is surely to be found there, if anywhere. A sounding-board is merely +there for ceremony. It is secure from earthquakes, not more from +sanctity than size, for't would feel a mountain thrown upon it no more +than a taper-worm would. _Go and see, but not without your spectacles_. + + + +XCIII. + + +TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON. + +_January_ 20, 1827. + +Dear Robinson,--I called upon you this morning, and found that you had +gone to visit a dying friend. I had been upon a like errand. Poor +Norris [1] has been lying dying for now almost a week,--such is the +penalty we pay for having enjoyed a strong constitution! Whether he knew +me or not, I know not, or whether he saw me through his poor glazed +eyes; but the group I saw about him I shall not forget. Upon the bed, or +about it, were assembled his wife and two daughters, and poor deaf +Richard, his son, looking doubly stupefied. There they were, and seemed +to have been sitting all the week. I could only reach out a hand to Mrs. +Norris. Speaking was impossible in that mute chamber. By this time I +hope it is all over with him. In him I have a loss the world cannot make +up. He was my friend and my father's friend all the life I can remember. +I seem to have made foolish friendships ever since. Those are +friendships which outlive a second generation. Old as I am waxing, in +his eyes I was still the child he first knew me. To the last he called +me Charley. I have none to call me Charley now. He was the last link +that bound me to the Temple. You are but of yesterday. In him seem to +have died the old plainness of manners and singleness of heart. Letters +he knew nothing of, nor did his reading extend beyond the pages of the +"Gentleman's Magazine." Yet there was a pride of literature about him +from being amongst books (he was librarian), and from some scraps of +doubtful Latin which he had picked up in his office of entering +students, that gave him very diverting airs of pedantry. Can I forget +the erudite look with which, when he had been in vain trying to make out +a black-letter text of Chaucer in the Temple Library, he laid it down +and told me that "in those old books Charley, there is sometimes a deal +of very indifferent spelling;" and seemed to console himself in the +reflection! His jokes--for he had his jokes--are now ended; but they +were old trusty perennials, staples that pleased after _decies +repetita_, and were always as good as new. One song he had, which was +reserved for the night of Christmas Day, which we always spent in the +Temple. It was an old thing, and spoke of the flat-bottoms of our foes +and the possibility of their coming over in darkness, and alluded to +threats of an invasion many years blown over; and when he came to +the part-- + + "We'll still make 'em run, and we'll still make 'em sweat, + In spite of the devil and 'Brussels Gazette,'"-- + +his eyes would sparkle as with the freshness of an impending event. And +what is the "Brussels Gazette" now? I cry while I enumerate these +trifles. "How shall we tell them in a stranger's ear?" His poor good +girls will now have to receive their afflicted mother in an inaccessible +hovel in an obscure village in Herts, where they have been long +struggling to make a school without effect; and poor deaf Richard--and +the more helpless for being so--is thrown on the wide world. + +My first motive in writing, and, indeed, in calling on you, was to ask +if you were enough acquainted with any of the Benchers to lay a plain +statement before them of the circumstances of the family. I almost +fear not, for you are of another hall. But if you can oblige me and my +poor friend, who is now insensible to any favors, pray exert yourself. +You cannot say too much good of poor Norris and his poor wife. + +Yours ever, + +CHARLES LAMB. + +[1] Randal Norris, sub-treasurer of the Inner Temple, an early friend of +the Lambs. + + + +XCIV. + + +TO PETER GEORGE PATMORE. + +LONDRES, _Julie_ 19_th_, 1827. + +Dear P.,--I am so poorly. I have been to a funeral, where I made a pun, +to the consternation of the rest of the mourners. And we had wine. I +can't describe to you the howl which the widow set up at proper +intervals. Dash [1] could; for it was not unlike what he makes. + +The letter I sent you was one directed to the care of Edward White, +India House, for Mrs. Hazlitt. _Which_ Mrs. H. I don't yet know; but +Allsop has taken it to France on speculation. Really it is embarrassing. +There is Mrs. present H., Mrs. late H., and Mrs. John H.; and to which +of the three Mrs. Wigginses it appertains, I know not. I wanted to open +it, but 'tis transportation. + +I am sorry you are plagued about your book. I would strongly recommend +you to take for one story Massinger's "Old Law." It is exquisite. I can +think of no other. + +Dash is frightful this morning. He whines and stands up on his hind +legs. He misses Becky, who is gone to town. I took him to Barnet the +other day, and he couldn't eat his vittles after it. Pray God his +intellectuals be not slipping. + +Mary is gone out for some soles. I suppose 'tis no use to ask you to +come and partake of 'em; else there is a steam vessel. + +I am doing a tragi-comedy in two acts, and have got on tolerably; but it +will be refused, or worse, I never had luck with anything my name +was put to. + +Oh, I am so poorly! I _waked_ it at my cousin's the bookbinder, who is +now with God; or if he is not,'tis no fault of mine. + +We hope the Frank wines do not disagree with Mrs. Patmore. By the way, I +like her. + +Did you ever taste frogs? Get them if you can. They are like little +Lilliput rabbits, only a thought nicer. + +How sick I am!--not of the world, but of the Widow Shrub. She's sworn +under L6,000; but I think she perjured herself. She howls in E _la_, and +I comfort her in B flat. You understand music? + +If you haven't got Massinger, you have nothing to do but go to the first +Bibliotheque you can light upon at Boulogne, and ask for it (Gifford's +edition); and if they haven't got it, you can have "Athalie," par +Monsieur Racine, and make the best of it. But that "Old Law" is +delicious. + +"No shrimps!" (that's in answer to Mary's question about how the soles +are to be done.) + +I am uncertain where this wandering letter may reach you. What you mean +by Poste Restante, God knows. Do you mean I must pay the postage? So I +do,--to Dover. + +We had a merry passage with the widow at the Commons. She was +howling,--part howling, and part giving directions to the proctor,--when +crash! down went my sister through a crazy chair, and made the clerks +grin, and I grinned, and the widow tittered, and then I knew that she +was not inconsolable. Mary was more frightened than hurt. + +She'd make a good match for anybody (by she, I mean the widow). + + "If he bring but a _relict_ away, + He is happy, nor heard to complain." + +SHENSTONE. + +Procter has got a wen growing out at the nape of his neck, which his +wife wants him to have cut off; but I think it rather an agreeable +excrescence,--like his poetry, redundant. Hone has hanged himself for +debt. Godwin was taken up for picking pockets. Moxon has fallen in love +with Emma, our nut-brown maid. Becky takes to bad courses. Her father +was blown up in a steam machine. The coroner found it "insanity." I +should not like him to sit on my letter. + +Do you observe my direction? Is it Gallic, classical? Do try and get +some frogs. You must ask for "grenouilles" (green eels). They don't +understand "frogs," though 't is a common phrase with us. + +If you go through Bulloign (Boulogne), inquire if Old Godfrey is living, +and how he got home from the Crusades. He must be a very old man. + +[1] A dog given to Lamb by Thomas Hood. See letter to Patmore dated +September, 1827. + + + +XCV. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_August_ 10, 1827. + +Dear B. B.,--I have not been able to answer you, for we have had and are +having (I just snatch a moment) our poor quiet retreat, to which we fled +from society, full of company,--some staying with us; and this moment as +I write, almost, a heavy importation of two old ladies has come in. +Whither can I take wing from the oppression of human faces? Would I were +in a wilderness of apes, tossing cocoa-nuts about, grinning and +grinned at! + +Mitford was hoaxing you surely about my engraving; 't is a little +sixpenny thing, [1] too like by half, in which the draughtsman has done +his best to avoid flattery. There have been two editions of it, which I +think are all gone, as they have vanished from the window where they +hung,--a print-shop, corner of Great and Little Queen Streets, Lincoln's +Inn Fields,--where any London friend of yours may inquire for it; for I +am (though you _won't understand it_) at Enfield Chase. We have been +here near three months, and shall stay two more, if people will let us +alone; but they persecute us from village to village. So don't direct to +_Islington_ again till further notice. I am trying my hand at a drama, +in two acts, founded on Crabbe's "Confidant," _mutatis mutandis_. You +like the Odyssey: did you ever read my "Adventures of Ulysses," founded +on Chapman's old translation of it? For children or men. Chapman is +divine, and my abridgment has not quite emptied him of his divinity. +When you come to town I'll show it you. You have well described your +old-fashioned grand paternal hall. Is it not odd that every one's +earliest recollections are of some such place? I had my Blakesware +[Blakesmoor in the "London"]. Nothing fills a child's mind like a large +old mansion; better if un--or partially--occupied,--peopled with the +spirits of deceased members of the county and justices of the quorum. +Would I were buried in the peopled solitudes of one, with my feelings at +seven years old! Those marble busts of the emperors, they seemed as if +they were to stand forever, as they had stood from the living days of +Rome, in that old marble hall, and I too partake of their permanency. +Eternity was, while I thought not of Time. But he thought of me, and +they are toppled down, and corn covers the spot of the noble old +dwelling and its princely gardens, I feel like a grasshopper that, +chirping about the grounds, escaped the scythe only by my littleness. +Even now he is whetting one of his smallest razors to clean wipe me +out, perhaps. Well! + +[Footnote 1:] An etching of Lamb, by Brooke Pulham, which is said to be +the most characteristic likeness of him extant. + + + +XCVI. + + +TO THOMAS HOOD, + +_September_ 18, 1827. + +Dear Hood,--If I have anything in my head, I will send it to Mr. Watts. +Strictly speaking, he should have all my album-verses; but a very +intimate friend importuned me for the trifles, and I believe I forgot +Mr. Watts, or lost sight at the time of his similar "Souvenir." Jamieson +conveyed the farce from me to Mrs. C. Kemble; he will not be in town +before the 27th. + +Give our kind loves to all at Highgate, and tell them that we have +finally torn ourselves outright away from Colebrooke, where I had _no_ +health, and are about to domiciliate for good at Enfield, where I have +experienced _good_. + + "Lord, what good hours do we keep! + How quietly we sleep!" [1] + +See the rest in the "Compleat Angler." + +We have got our books into our new house. I am a dray-horse if I was not +ashamed of the indigested, dirty lumber, as I toppled 'em out of the +cart, and blessed Becky that came with 'em for her having an unstuffed +brain with such rubbish. We shall get in by Michael's Mass. 'T was with +some pain we were evulsed from Colebrooke. + +You may find some of our flesh sticking to the doorposts. To change +habitations is to die to them; and in my time I have died seven deaths. +But I don't know whether every such change does not bring with it a +rejuvenescence. 'T is an enterprise, and shoves back the sense of +death's approximating, which, though not terrible to me, is at all times +particularly distasteful. My house-deaths have generally been +periodical, recurring after seven years; but this last is premature by +half that time. Cut off in the flower of Colebrooke! The Middletonian +stream and all its echoes mourn. Even minnows dwindle. _A parvis +fiunt minimi!_ + +I fear to invite Mrs. Hood to our new mansion, lest she should envy it, +and hate us. But when we are fairly in, I hope she will come and try it. I +heard she and you were made uncomfortable by some unworthy-to-be-cared-for +attacks, and have tried to set up a feeble counteraction through the +"Table Book" of last Saturday. Has it not reached you, that you are +silent about it? Our new domicile is no manor-house, but new, and +externally not inviting, but furnished within with every convenience,-- +capital new locks to every door, capital grates in every room, with +nothing to pay for incoming, and the rent L10 less than the Islington one. + +It was built, a few years since, at L1,100 expense, they tell me, and I +perfectly believe it. And I get it for L35, exclusive of moderate taxes. +We think ourselves most lucky. + +It is not our intention to abandon Regent Street and West End +perambulations (monastic and terrible thought!), but occasionally to +breathe the fresher air of the metropolis. We shall put up a bedroom or +two (all we want) for occasional ex-rustication, where we shall +visit,--not be visited. Plays, too, we'll see,--perhaps our own; Urbani +Sylvani and Sylvan Urbanuses in turns; courtiers for a sport, then +philosophers; old, homely tell-truths and learn-truths in the virtuous +shades of Enfield, liars again and mocking gibers in the coffee-houses +and resorts of London. What can a mortal desire more for his +bi-parted nature? + +Oh, the curds-and-cream you shall eat with us here! + +Oh, the turtle-soup and lobster-salads we shall devour with you there! + +Oh, the old books we shall peruse here! + +Oh, the new nonsense we shall trifle over there! + +Oh, Sir T. Browne, here! + +Oh, Mr. Hood and Mr. Jerdan, there! + +Thine, + +C. (URBANUS) L. (SYLVANUS)--(Elia ambo). + +[1] By Charles Cotton. + + + +XCVII. + + +TO P. G. PATMORE. + +_September_, 1827. + +Dear P.,--Excuse my anxiety, but how is Dash? I should have asked if +Mrs. Patmore kept her rules and was improving; but Dash came uppermost. +The order of our thoughts should be the order of our writing. Goes he +muzzled, or _aperto ore_? Are his intellects sound, or does he wander a +little in _his_ conversation. You cannot be too careful to watch the +first symptoms of incoherence. The first illogical snarl he makes, to +St. Luke's with him! All the dogs here are going mad, if you believe the +overseers; but I protest they seem to me very rational and collected. +But nothing is so deceitful as mad people, to those who are not used to +them. Try him with hot water; if he won't lick it up, it's a sign he +does not like it. Does his tail wag horizontally or perpendicularly? +That has decided the fate of many dogs in Enfield. Is his general +deportment cheerful? I mean when he is pleased, for otherwise there is +no judging. You can't be too careful. Has he bit any of the children +yet? If he has, have them shot, and keep _him_ for curiosity, to see if +it was the hydrophobia. They say all our army in India had it at one +time; but that was in _Hyder_-Ally's time. Do you get paunch for him? +Take care the sheep was sane. You might pull his teeth out (if he would +let you), and then you need not mind if he were as mad as a Bedlamite. + +It would be rather fun to see his odd ways. It might amuse Mrs. P. and +the children. They'd have more sense than he. He'd be like a fool kept +in a family, to keep the household in good humor with their own +understanding. You might teach him the mad dance, set to the mad howl. +_Madge Owlet_ would be nothing to him. "My, how he capers!" (_In the +margin is written "One of the children speaks this_.") ... What I +scratch out is a German quotation, from Lessing, on the bite of rabid +animals; but I remember you don't read German. But Mrs. P. may, so I +wish I had let it stand. The meaning in English is: "Avoid to approach +an animal suspected of madness, as you would avoid fire or a +precipice,"--which I think is a sensible observation. The Germans are +certainly profounder than we. If the slightest suspicion arises in your +breast that all is not right with him, muzzle him and lead him in a +string (common packthread will do; he don't care for twist) to Mr. +Hood's, his quondam master, and he'll take him in at any time. You may +mention your suspicion, or not, as you like, or as you think it may +wound, or not, Mr. H.'s feelings. Hood, I know, will wink at a few +follies in Dash, in consideration of his former sense. Besides, Hood is +deaf, and if you hinted anything, ten to one he would not hear you. +Besides, you will have discharged your conscience, and laid the child at +the right door, as they say. + +We are dawdling our time away very idly and pleasantly at a Mrs. +Leishman's, Chase, Enfield, where, if you come a-hunting, we can give +you cold meat and a tankard. Her husband is a tailor; but that, you +know, does not make her one. I know a jailor (which rhymes), but his +wife was a fine lady. + +Let us hear from you respecting Mrs. P.'s regimen. I send my love in +a-- to Dash. + +C. LAMB. + + + +XCVIII. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. + +_October_ 11, 1828. + +A splendid edition of Bunyan's Pilgrim! [1] Why, the thought is enough to +turn one's moral stomach. His cockle-hat and staff transformed to a +smart cocked beaver and a jemmy cane; his amice gray to the last Regent +Street cut; and his painful palmer's pace to the modern swagger! Stop +thy friend's sacrilegious hand. Nothing can be done for B. but to +reprint the old cuts in as homely but good a style as possible,--the +Vanity Fair and the Pilgrims there; the silly-soothness in his +setting-out countenance; the Christian idiocy (in a good sense) of his +admiration of the shepherds on the Delectable mountains; the lions so +truly allegorical, and remote from any similitude to Pidcock's; the +great head (the author's), capacious of dreams and similitudes, dreaming +in the dungeon. Perhaps you don't know my edition, what I had when +a child. + +If you do, can you bear new designs from Martin, enamelled into copper +or silver plate by Heath, accompanied with verses from Mrs. Hemans's +pen? Oh, how unlike his own! + + "Wouldst thou divert thyself from melancholy? + Wouldst thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly? + Wouldst thou read riddles and their explanation? + Or else be drowned in thy contemplation? + Dost thou love picking meat? or wouldst thou see + A man i' the clouds, and hear him speak to thee? + Wouldst thou be in a dream, and yet not sleep? + Or wouldst thou in a moment laugh and weep? + Or wouldst thou lose thyself, and catch no harm, + And find thyself again without a charm? + Wouldst read _thyself_, and read thou knowest not what, + And yet know whether thou art blest or not + By reading the same lines? Oh, then come hither, + And lay my book, thy head, and heart together." + +Show me any such poetry in any one of the fifteen forthcoming +combinations of show and emptiness 'yclept "Annuals." So there's verses +for thy verses; and now let me tell you that the sight of your hand +gladdened me. I have been daily trying to write to you, but [have been] +paralyzed. You have spurred me on this tiny effort, and at intervals I +hope to hear from and talk to you. But my spirits have been in an +oppressed way for a long time, and they are things which must be to you +of faith, for who can explain depression? Yes, I am hooked into the +"Gem," but only for some lines written on a dead infant of the +editor's [2] which being, as it were, his property, I could not refuse +their appearing; but I hate the paper, the type, the gloss, the dandy +plates, the names of contributors poked up into your eyes in first page, +and whisked through all the covers of magazines, the barefaced sort of +emulation, the immodest candidateship. Brought into so little space,--in +those old "Londons," a signature was lost in the wood of matter, the +paper coarse (till latterly, which spoiled them),--in short, I detest to +appear in an Annual. What a fertile genius (and a quiet good soul +withal) is Hood! He has fifty things in hand,--farces to supply the +Adelphi for the season; a comedy for one of the great theatres, just +ready; a whole entertainment by himself for Mathews and Yates to figure +in; a meditated Comic Annual for next year, to be nearly done by +himself. You'd like him very much. + +Wordsworth, I see, has a good many pieces announced in one of 'em, not +our "Gem." W. Scott has distributed himself like a bribe haunch among +'em. Of all the poets, Cary [3] has had the good sense to keep quite +clear of 'em, with clergy-gentlemanly right notions. Don't think I set +up for being proud on this point; I like a bit of flattery, tickling my +vanity, as well as any one. But these pompous masquerades without masks +(naked names or faces) I hate. So there's a bit of my mind. Besides, +they infallibly cheat you,--I mean the booksellers. If I get but a copy, +I only expect it from Hood's being my friend. Coleridge has lately been +here. He too is deep among the prophets, the year-servers,--the mob of +gentleman annuals. But they'll cheat him, I know. And now, dear B. B., +the sun shining out merrily, and the dirty clouds we had yesterday +having washed their own faces clean with their own rain, tempts me to +wander up Winchmore Hill, or into some of the delightful vicinages of +Enfield, which I hope to show you at some time when you can get a few +days up to the great town. Believe me, it would give both of us great +pleasure to show you our pleasant farms and villages. + +We both join in kindest loves to you and yours. + +C. LAMB _redivivus_. + +[1] An _edition de luxe_, illustrated by John Martin, and with an +Introduction by Southey. See Macaulay's review of it. + +[2] Hood's. + +[3] The translator of Dante. + + + +XCIX. + + +TO PROCTER. + +_January_ 22, 1829. + +Don't trouble yourself about the verses. Take 'em coolly as they come. +Any day between this and midsummer will do. Ten lines the extreme. There +is no mystery in my incognita. She has often seen you, though you may +not have observed a silent brown girl, who for the last twelve years has +rambled about our house in her Christmas holidays. She is Italian by +name and extraction. [1] Ten lines about the blue sky of her country will +do, as it's her foible to be proud of it. Item, I have made her a +tolerable Latinist. She is called Emma Isola. I shall, I think, be in +town in a few weeks, when I will assuredly see you. I will put in here +loves to Mrs. Procter and the Anti-Capulets [Montagus], because Mary +tells me I omitted them in my last. I like to see my friends here. I +have put my lawsuit into the hands of an Enfield practitioner,--a plain +man, who seems perfectly to understand it, and gives me hopes of a +favorable result. + +Rumor tells us that Miss Holcroft is married. Who is Baddams? Have I +seen him at Montacute's? I hear he is a great chemist. I am sometimes +chemical myself. A thought strikes me with horror. Pray Heaven he may +not have done it for the sake of trying chemical experiments upon +her,--young female subjects are so scarce! An't you glad about Burke's +case? We may set off the Scotch murders against the Scotch novels,--Hare +the Great Unhanged. [2] + +Martin Burney is richly worth your knowing. He is on the top scale of my +friendship ladder, on which an angel or two is still climbing, and some, +alas! descending. I am out of the literary world at present. Pray, is +there anything new from the admired pen of the author of "The Pleasures +of Hope"? Has Mrs. He-mans (double masculine) done anything pretty +lately? Why sleeps the lyre of Hervey and of Alaric Watts? Is the muse +of L. E. L. silent? Did you see a sonnet of mine in Blackwood's last? [3] +Curious construction! _Elaborata facilitas!_ And now I 'll tell. 'Twas +written for "The Gem;" but the--editors declined it, on the plea that it +would _shock all mothers_; so they published "The Widow" instead. I am +born out of time, I have no conjecture about what the present world +calls delicacy. I thought "Rosamund Gray" was a pretty modest thing. +Hessey assures me that the world would not bear it. I have lived to grow +into an indecent character. When my sonnet was rejected, I exclaimed, +"Damn the age; I will write for Antiquity!" + +_Erratum_ in sonnet. Last line but something, for "tender" read "tend," +The Scotch do not know our law terms, but I find some remains of honest, +plain old writing lurking there still. They were not so mealy mouthed as +to refuse my verses. Maybe, 't is their oatmeal, + +Blackwood sent me L20 for the drama. Somebody cheated me out of it next +day; and my new pair of breeches, just sent home, cracking at first +putting on, I exclaimed, in my wrath, "All tailors are cheats, and all +men are tailors." Then I was better. + +C. L. + +[1] Emma Isola, Lamb's ward, daughter of one of the Esquire Bedells of +Cambridge University, and granddaughter of an Italian refugee. The Lambs +had met her during one of their Cambridge visits, and finally adopted +her. + +[2] Burke and Hare, the Edinburgh resurrection-men. + +[3] The Gypsy's Malison. + + + +C. + + +TO BERNARD BARTON. +ENFIELD CHASE SIDE, + +_Saturday, 25th of July_, A.D. 1829, 11 A.M. + +There! a fuller, plumper, juicier date never dropped from Idumean palm. +Am I in the _date_ive case now? If not, a fig for dates,--which is more +than a date is worth. I never stood much affected to these limitary +specialities,--least of all, since the date of my superannuation. + +"What have I with time to do? +Slaves of desks, 't was meant for you." + +Dear B. B.,--Your handwriting has conveyed much pleasure to me in +respect of Lucy's restoration. Would I could send you as good news of +_my_ poor Lucy! [1] But some wearisome weeks I must remain lonely yet. I +have had the loneliest time, near ten weeks, broken by a short +apparition of Emma for her holidays, whose departure only deepened the +returning solitude, and by ten days I have passed in town. But town, +with all my native hankering after it, is not what it was. The streets, +the shops, are left, but all old friends are gone. And in London I was +frightfully convinced of this as I passed houses and places, empty +caskets now. I have ceased to care almost about anybody. The bodies I +cared for are in graves, or dispersed. My old clubs, that lived so long +and flourished so steadily, are crumbled away. When I took leave of our +adopted young friend at Charing Cross,'t was heavy unfeeling rain, and I +had nowhere to go. Home have I none, and not a sympathizing house to +turn to in the great city. Never did the waters of heaven pour down on a +forlorner head. Yet I tried ten days at a sort of a friend's house; but +it was large and straggling,--one of the individuals of my old long knot +of friends, card-players, pleasant companions, that have tumbled to +pieces, into dust and other things; and I got home on Thursday, +convinced that I was better to get home to my hole at Enfield, and hide +like a sick cat in my corner. Less than a month, I hope, will bring home +Mary. She is at Fulham, looking better in her health than ever, but +sadly rambling, and scarce showing any pleasure in seeing me, or +curiosity when I should come again. But the old feelings will come back +again, and we shall drown old sorrows over a game of piquet again. But +it is a tedious cut out of a life of fifty-four, to lose twelve or +thirteen weeks every year or two. And to make me more alone, our +ill-tempered maid is gone, who, with all her airs, was yet a home-piece +of furniture, a record of better days; the young thing that has +succeeded her is good and attentive, but she is nothing. And I have no +one here to talk over old matters with. Scolding and quarrelling have +something of familiarity and a community of interest; they imply +acquaintance; they are of resentment, which is of the family +of dearness. + + * * * * * + +I bragged formerly that I could not have too much time; I have now a +surfeit. With few years to come, the days are wearisome. But weariness +is not eternal. Something will shine out to take the load off that flags +me, which is at present intolerable. I have killed an hour or two in +this poor scrawl. I am a sanguinary murderer of time, and would kill him +inch-meal just now. But the snake is vital. Well, I shall write merrier +anon. 'T is the present copy of my countenance I send, and to complain +is a little to alleviate. May you enjoy yourself as far as the wicked +world will let you, and think that you are not quite alone, as I am! +Health to Lucia and to Anna, and kind remembrances. + +Your forlorn C. L. + +[1] Mary Lamb. + + + +CI. + + +TO MR. GILLMAN. + +_November_ 30, 1829. + +Dear G.,--The excursionists reached home and the good town of Enfield a +little after four, without slip or dislocation. Little has transpired +concerning the events of the back-journey, save that on passing the +house of 'Squire Mellish, situate a stone bow's cast from the hamlet, +Father Westwood [1], with a good-natured wonderment, exclaimed, "I cannot +think what is gone of Mr. Mellish's rooks. I fancy they have taken +flight somewhere; but I have missed them two or three years past." All +this while, according to his fellow-traveller's report, the rookery was +darkening the air above with undiminished population, and deafening all +ears but his with their cawings. But nature has been gently withdrawing +such phenomena from the notice of Thomas Westwood's senses, from the +time he began to miss the rooks. T. Westwood has passed a retired life +in this hamlet of thirty or forty years, living upon the minimum which +is consistent with gentility, yet a star among the minor gentry, +receiving the bows of the tradespeople and courtesies of the alms-women +daily. Children venerate him not less for his external show of gentry +than they wonder at him for a gentle rising endorsation of the person, +not amounting to a hump, or if a hump, innocuous as the hump of the +buffalo, and coronative of as mild qualities. 'T is a throne on which +patience seems to sit,--the proud perch of a self-respecting humility, +stooping with condescension. Thereupon the cares of life have sat, and +rid him easily. For he has thrid the _angustiae domus_ with dexterity. +Life opened upon him with comparative brilliancy. He set out as a rider +or traveller for a wholesale house, in which capacity he tells of many +hair-breadth escapes that befell him,--one especially, how he rode a mad +horse into the town of Devizes; how horse and rider arrived in a foam, +to the utter consternation of the expostulating hostlers, inn-keepers, +etc. It seems it was sultry weather, piping-hot; the steed tormented +into frenzy with gad-flies, long past being roadworthy: but safety and +the interest of the house he rode for were incompatible things; a fall +in serge cloth was expected; and a mad entrance they made of it. Whether +the exploit was purely voluntary, or partially; or whether a certain +personal defiguration in the man part of this extraordinary centaur +(non-assistive to partition of natures) might not enforce the +conjunction, I stand not to inquire. I look not with 'skew eyes into the +deeds of heroes. The hosier that was burned with his shop in Field Lane, +on Tuesday night, shall have passed to heaven for me like a Marian +Martyr, provided always that he consecrated the fortuitous incremation +with a short ejaculation in the exit, as much as if he had taken his +state degrees of martyrdom _in forma_ in the market vicinage. There is +adoptive as well as acquisitive sacrifice. Be the animus what it might, +the fact is indisputable, that this composition was seen flying all +abroad, and mine host of Daintry may yet remember its passing through +his town, if his scores are not more faithful than his memory. + + * * * * * + +To come from his heroic character, all the amiable qualities of domestic +life concentre in this tamed Bellerophon. He is excellent over a glass +of grog; just as pleasant without it; laughs when he hears a joke, and +when (which is much oftener) he hears it not; sings glorious old +sea-songs on festival nights; and but upon a slight acquaintance of two +years, Coleridge, is as dear a deaf old man to us as old Norris, rest +his soul! was after fifty. To him and his scanty literature (what there +is of it, _sound_) have we flown from the metropolis and its cursed +annualists, reviewers, authors, and the whole muddy ink press of that +stagnant pool. + +[1] Lamb's landlord. He had driven Mary Lamb over to see Coleridge at +Highgate. The Lambs had been compelled, by the frequent illnesses of +Mary Lamb, to give up their housekeeping at Enfield and to take lodgings +with the Westwoods. + + + +CII. + + +TO WORDSWORTH. + +_January_ 22, 1830. + +And is it a year since we parted from you at the steps of Edmonton +stage? There are not now the years that there used to be. The tale of +the dwindled age of men, reported of successional mankind, is true of +the same man only. We do not live a year in a year now. 'T is a _punctum +stans_. The seasons pass us with indifference. Spring cheers not, nor +winter heightens our gloom: autumn hath foregone its moralities,--they +are "heypass repass," as in a show-box. Yet, as far as last year, occurs +back--for they scarce show a reflex now, they make no memory as +heretofore--'t was sufficiently gloomy. Let the sullen nothing pass. +Suffice it that after sad spirits, prolonged through many of its months, +as it called them, we have cast our skins, have taken a farewell of the +pompous, troublesome trifle called housekeeping, and are settled down +into poor boarders and lodgers at next door with an old couple, the +Baucis and Baucida of dull Enfield. Here we have nothing to do with our +victuals but to eat them, with the garden but to see it grow, with the +tax-gatherer but to hear him knock, with the maid but to hear her +scolded. Scot and lot, butcher, baker, are things unknown to us, save as +spectators of the pageant. We are fed we know not how,--quietists, +confiding ravens. We have the _otium pro dignitate_, a respectable +insignificance. Yet in the self condemned obliviousness, in the +stagnation, some molesting yearnings of life not quite killed rise, +prompting me that there was a London, and that I was of that old +Jerusalem. In dreams I am in Fleet Market; but I wake and cry to sleep +again. I die hard, a stubborn Eloisa in this detestable Paraclete. What +have I gained by health? Intolerable dulness. What by early hours and +moderate meals? A total blank. Oh, never let the lying poets be believed +who 'tice men from the cheerful haunts of streets, or think they mean it +not of a country village. In the ruins of Palmyra I could gird myself up +to solitude, or muse to the snorings of the Seven Sleepers; but to have +a little teasing image of a town about one, country folks that do not +look like country folks, shops two yards square, half-a-dozen apples and +two penn'orth of over-looked gingerbread for the lofty fruiterers of +Oxford Street, and for the immortal book and print stalls a circulating +library that stands still, where the show-picture is a last year's +Valentine, and whither the fame of the last ten Scotch novels has not +yet travelled (marry, they just begin to be conscious of the +"Redgauntlet"), to have a new plastered flat church, and to be wishing +that it was but a cathedral! The very blackguards here are degenerate, +the topping gentry stockbrokers; the passengers too many to insure your +quiet, or let you go about whistling or gaping,--too few to be the fine +indifferent pageants of Fleet Street. Confining, room-keeping, thickest +winter is yet more bearable here than the gaudy months. Among one's +books at one's fire by candle, one is soothed into an oblivion that one +is not in the country; but with the light the green fields return, till +I gaze, and in a calenture can plunge myself into St. Giles's. Oh, let +no native Londoner imagine that health and rest and innocent occupation, +interchange of converse sweet and recreative study, can make the country +anything better than altogether odious and detestable. A garden was the +primitive prison, till man with Promethean felicity and boldness luckily +sinned himself out of it. Thence followed Babylon, Nineveh, Venice, +London; haberdashers, goldsmiths, taverns, playhouses, satires, +epigrams, puns,--these all came in on the town part and the thither side +of innocence. Man found out inventions. From my den I return you +condolence for your decaying sight,--not for anything there is to see in +the country, but for the miss of the pleasure of reading a London +newspaper. The poets are as well to listen to; anything high may--nay, +must be read out; you read it to yourself with an imaginary auditor: but +the light paragraphs must be glid over by the proper eye; mouthing +mumbles their gossamery substance. 'Tis these trifles I should mourn in +fading sight. A newspaper is the single gleam of comfort I receive here; +it comes from rich Cathay with tidings of mankind. Yet I could not +attend to it, read out by the most beloved voice. But your eyes do not +get worse, I gather. Oh, for the collyrium of Tobias enclosed in a +whiting's liver, to send you, with no apocryphal good wishes! The last +long time I heard from you, you had knocked your head against something. +Do not do so; for your head (I do not flatter) is not a knob, or the top +of a brass nail, or the end of a ninepin,--unless a Vulcanian hammer +could fairly batter a "Recluse" out of it; then would I bid the smirched +god knock, and knock lustily, the two-handed skinker! Mary must squeeze +out a line _propria manu_; but indeed her fingers have been incorrigibly +nervous to letter-writing for a long interval. 'T will please you all to +hear that, though I fret like a lion in a net, her present health and +spirits are better than they have been for some time past; she is +absolutely three years and a half younger, as I tell her, since we have +adopted this boarding plan. + +Our providers are an honest pair, Dame Westwood and her husband,--he, +when the light of prosperity shined on them, a moderately thriving +haberdasher within Bow bells, retired since with something under a +competence; writes himself parcel-gentleman; hath borne parish offices; +sings fine old sea-songs at threescore and ten; sighs only now and then +when he thinks that he has a son on his hands about fifteen, whom he +finds a difficulty in getting out into the world, and then checks a sigh +with muttering, as I once heard him prettily, not meaning to be heard, +"I have married my daughter, however;" takes the weather as it comes; +outsides it to town in severest season; and o' winter nights tells old +stories not tending to literature (how comfortable to author-rid +folks!), and has _one ancedote_, upon which and about forty pounds a +year he seems to have retired in green old age. It was how he was a +rider in his youth, travelling for shops, and once (not to balk his +employer's bargain) on a sweltering day in August, rode foaming into +Dunstable [1] upon a mad horse, to the dismay and expostulatory +wonderment of inn-keepers, ostlers, etc., who declared they would not +have bestrid the beast to win the Derby. Understand the creature galled +to death and desperation by gad-flies, cormorant-winged, worse than +beset Inachus's daughter. This he tells, this he brindles and burnishes, +on a winter's eve; 't is his star of set glory, his rejuvenescence to +descant upon, Far from me be it (_da avertant!_) to look a gift-story in +the mouth, or cruelly to surmise (as those who doubt the plunge of +Curtius) that the inseparate conjuncture of man and beast, the +centaur-phenomenon that staggered all Dunstable, might have been the +effect of unromantic necessity; that the horse-part carried the +reasoning willy-nilly; that needs must when such a devil drove; that +certain spiral configurations in the frame of Thomas Westwood, +unfriendly to alighting, made the alliance more forcible than voluntary. +Let him enjoy his fame for me, nor let me hint a whisper that shall +dismount Bellerophon. But in case he was an involuntary martyr, yet if +in the fiery conflict he buckled the soul of a constant haberdasher to +him, and adopted his flames, let accident and him share the glory. You +would all like Thomas Westwood. [2] + +How weak is painting to describe a man! Say that he stands four +feet and a nail high by his own yard-measure, which, like the sceptre of +Agamemnon, shall never sprout again, still, you have no adequate idea; +nor when I tell you that his dear hump, which I have favored in the +picture, seems to me of the buffalo,--indicative and repository of mild +qualities, a budget of kindnesses,--still, you have not the man. Knew +you old Norris of the Temple, sixty years ours and our father's friend? +He was not more natural to us than this old Westwood, the acquaintance +of scarce more weeks. Under his roof now ought I to take my rest, but +that back-looking ambition tells me I might yet be a Londoner! Well, if +we ever do move, we have encumbrances the less to impede us; all our +furniture has faded under the auctioneer's hammer, going for nothing, +like the tarnished frippery of the prodigal, and we have only a spoon or +two left to bless us. Clothed we came into Enfield, and naked we must go +out of it. I would live in London shirtless, bookless. Henry Crabb is at +Rome; advices to that effect have reached Bury. But by solemn legacy he +bequeathed at parting (whether he should live or die) a turkey of +Suffolk to be sent every succeeding Christmas to us and divers other +friends. What a genuine old bachelor's action! I fear he will find the +air of Italy too classic. His station is in the Hartz forest; his soul +is be-Goethed. Miss Kelly we never see,--Talfourd not this half year; +the latter flourishes, but the exact number of his children, God forgive +me, I have utterly forgotten: we single people are often out in our +count there. Shall I say two? We see scarce anybody. Can I cram loves +enough to you all in this little O? Excuse particularizing. + +C.L. + +[1] See preceding letter. + +[2] Here was inserted a sketch answering to the description. + + + +CIII. + + +TO MRS. HAZLITT. + +_May_ 24, 1830. + +Mary's love? Yes. Mary Lamb quite well. + +Dear Sarah,--I found my way to Northaw on Thursday and a very good woman +behind a counter, who says also that you are a very good lady, but that +the woman who was with you was naught. We travelled with one of those +troublesome fellow-passengers in a stage-coach that is called a +well-informed man. For twenty miles we discoursed about the properties +of steam, probabilities of carriages by ditto, till all my science, and +more than all, was exhausted, and I was thinking of escaping my torment +by getting up on the outside, when, getting into Bishops Stortford, my +gentleman, spying some farming land, put an unlucky question to +me,--What sort of a crop of turnips I thought we should have this year? +Emma's eyes turned to me to know what in the world I could have to say; +and she burst into a violent fit of laughter, maugre her pale, serious +cheeks, when, with the greatest gravity, I replied that it depended, I +believed, upon boiled legs of mutton. This clenched our conversation; +and my gentleman, with a face half wise, half in scorn, troubled us with +no more conversation, scientific or philosophical, for the remainder of +the journey. + +Ayrton was here yesterday, and as _learned_ to the full as my +fellow-traveller. What a pity that he will spoil a wit and a devilish +pleasant fellow (as he is) by wisdom! He talked on Music; and by having +read Hawkins and Burney recently I was enabled to talk of names, and +show more knowledge than he had suspected I possessed; and in the end he +begged me to shape my thoughts upon paper, which I did after he was +gone, and sent him "Free Thoughts on Some Eminent Composers." + + "Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart, + Just as the whim bites. For my part, + I do not care a farthing candle + For either of them, or for Handel," etc. + +Martin Burney [1] is as odd as ever. We had a dispute about the word +"heir," which I contended was pronounced like "air." He said that might +be in common parlance, or that we might so use it speaking of the +"Heir-at-Law," a comedy; but that in the law-courts it was necessary to +give it a full aspiration, and to say _Hayer_; he thought it might even +vitiate a cause if a counsel pronounced it otherwise. In conclusion, he +"would consult Serjeant Wilde," who gave it against him. Sometimes he +falleth into the water, sometimes into the fire. He came down here, and +insisted on reading Virgil's "AEneid" all through with me (which he did), +because a counsel must know Latin. Another time he read out all the +Gospel of St. John, because Biblical quotations are very emphatic in a +court of justice. A third time he would carve a fowl, which he did very +ill favoredly, because we did not know how indispensable it was for a +barrister to do all those sort of things well. Those little things were +of more consequence than we supposed. So he goes on, harassing about the +way to prosperity, and losing it. With a long head, but somewhat a wrong +one,--harum-scarum. Why does not his guardian angel look to him? He +deserves one,--maybe he has tired him out. + +I am tired with this long scrawl; but I thought in your exile you might +like a letter. Commend me to all the wonders in Derbyshire, and tell the +devil I humbly kiss my hand to him. + +Yours ever, + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Martin Burney, originally a solicitor, had lately been called to the +Bar. + + + +CIV. + + +TO GEORGE DYER. + +_December_ 20, 1830. + +Dear Dyer,--I would have written before to thank you for your kind +letter, written with your own hand. It glads us to see your writing. It +will give you pleasure to hear that, after so much illness, we are in +tolerable health and spirits once more. Miss Isola intended to call upon +you after her night's lodging at Miss Buffam's, but found she was too +late for the stage. If she comes to town before she goes home, she will +not miss paying her respects to Mrs. Dyer and you, to whom she desires +best love. Poor Enfield, that has been so peaceable hitherto, that has +caught an inflammatory fever, the tokens are upon her; and a great fire +was blazing last night in the barns and haystacks of a fanner about half +a mile from us. Where will these things end? There is no doubt of its +being the work of some ill-disposed rustic; but how is he to be +discovered? They go to work in the dark with strange chemical +preparations unknown to our forefathers. There is not even a dark +lantern to have a chance of detecting these Guy Fauxes. We are past the +iron age, and are got into the fiery age, undream'd of by Ovid. You are +lucky in Clifford's Inn, where, I think, you have few ricks or stacks +worth the burning. Pray keep as little corn by you as you can, for fear +of the worst. + +It was never good times in England since the poor began to speculate +upon their condition. Formerly they jogged on with as little reflection +as horses; the whistling ploughman went cheek by jowl with his brother +that neighed. Now the biped carries a box of phosphorus in his leather +breeches; and in the dead of night the half-illuminated beast steals his +magic potion into a cleft in a barn, and half the country is grinning +with new fires. Farmer Graystock said something to the touchy rustic +that he did not relish, and he writes his distaste in flames. What a +power to intoxicate his crude brains, just muddlingly awake, to perceive +that something is wrong in the social system; what a hellish faculty +above gunpowder! + +Now the rich and poor are fairly pitted, we shall see who can hang or +burn fastest. It is not always revenge that stimulates these kindlings. +There is a love of exerting mischief. Think of a disrespected clod that +was trod into earth, that was nothing, on a sudden by damned arts +refined into an exterminating angel, devouring the fruits of the earth +and their growers in a mass of fire! What a new existence; what a +temptation above Lucifer's! Would clod be anything but a clod if he +could resist it? Why, here was a spectacle last night for a whole +country,--a bonfire visible to London, alarming her guilty towers, and +shaking the Monument with an ague fit: all done by a little vial of +phosphor in a clown's fob! How he must grin, and shake his empty noddle +in clouds, the Vulcanian epicure! Can we ring the bells backward? Can we +unlearn the arts that pretend to civilize, and then burn the world? +There is a march of Science; but who shall beat the drums for its +retreat? Who shall persuade the boor that phosphor will not ignite? + +Seven goodly stacks of hay, with corn-barns proportionable, lie smoking +ashes and chaff, which man and beast would sputter out and reject like +those apples of asphaltes and bitumen. The food for the inhabitants of +earth will quickly disappear. Hot rolls may say, "Fuimus panes, fuit +quartem-loaf, et ingens gloria Apple-pasty-orum." That the good old +munching system may last thy time and mine, good un-incendiary George, +is the devout prayer of thine, to the last crust, + +CH. LAMB. + + + +CV. + + +TO DYER. + +_February_ 22, 1831. + +Dear Dyer,--Mr. Rogers and Mr. Rogers's friends are perfectly assured +that you never intended any harm by an innocent couplet, and that in the +revivification of it by blundering Barker you had no hand whatever. To +imagine that, at this time of day, Rogers broods over a fantastic +expression of more than thirty years' standing, would be to suppose him +indulging his "Pleasures of Memory" with a vengeance. You never penned a +line which for its own sake you need, dying, wish to blot. You mistake +your heart if you think you _can_ write a lampoon. Your whips are rods +of roses. [1] Your spleen has ever had for its objects vices, not the +vicious,--abstract offences, not the concrete sinner. But you are +sensitive, and wince as much at the consciousness of having committed a +compliment as another man would at the perpetration of an affront. But +do not lug me into the same soreness of conscience with yourself. I +maintain, and will to the last hour, that I never writ of you but _con +amore_; that if any allusion was made to your near-sightedness, it was +not for the purpose of mocking an infirmity, but of connecting it with +scholar-like habits,--for is it not erudite and scholarly to be somewhat +near of sight before age naturally brings on the malady? You could not +then plead the _obrepens senectus_. Did I not, moreover, make it an +apology for a certain _absence_, which some of your friends may have +experienced, when you have not on a sudden made recognition of them in a +casual street-meeting; and did I not strengthen your excuse for this +slowness of recognition by further accounting morally for the present +engagement of your mind in worthy objects? Did I not, in your person, +make the handsomest apology for absent-of-mind people that was ever +made? If these things be not so, I never knew what I wrote or meant by +my writing, and have been penning libels all my life without being aware +of it. Does it follow that I should have expressed myself exactly in the +same way of those dear old eyes of yours _now_,--now that Father Time +has conspired with a hard taskmaster to put a last extinguisher upon +them? I should as soon have insulted the Answerer of Salmasius when he +awoke up from his ended task, and saw no more with mortal vision. But +you are many films removed yet from Milton's calamity. You write +perfectly intelligibly. Marry, the letters are not all of the same size +or tallness; but that only shows your proficiency in the _hands_--text, +german-hand, court-hand, sometimes law-hand, and affords variety. You +pen better than you did a twelvemonth ago; and if you continue to +improve, you bid fair to win the golden pen which is the prize at your +young gentlemen's academy. + + * * * * * + +But don't go and lay this to your eyes. You always wrote +hieroglyphically, yet not to come up to the mystical notations and +conjuring characters of Dr. Parr. You never wrote what I call a +schoolmaster's hand, like Mrs. Clarke; nor a woman's hand, like Southey; +nor a missal hand, like Porson; nor an all-on-the-wrong-side sloping +hand, like Miss Hayes; nor a dogmatic, Mede-and-Persian, peremptory tory +hand, like Rickman: but you wrote what I call a Grecian's hand,--what +the Grecians write (or wrote) at Christ's Hospital; such as Whalley +would have admired, and Boyer [2] have applauded, but Smith or Atwood +[writing-masters] would have horsed you for. Your boy-of-genius hand and +your mercantile hand are various. By your flourishes, I should think you +never learned to make eagles or cork-screws, or flourish the governor's +names in the writing-school; and by the tenor and cut of your letters, I +suspect you were never in it at all. By the length of this scrawl you +will think I have a design upon your optics; but I have writ as large as +I could, out of respect to them,--too large, indeed, for beauty. Mine is +a sort of Deputy-Grecian's hand,--a little better, and more of a worldly +hand, than a Grecian's, but still remote from the mercantile. I don't +know how it is, but I keep my rank in fancy still since school-days; I +can never forget I was a Deputy-Grecian. And writing to you, or to +Coleridge, besides affection, I feel a reverential deference as to +Grecians still [3]. I keep my soaring way above the Great Erasmians, yet +far beneath the other. Alas! what am I now? What is a Leadenhall clerk +or India pensioner to a Deputy-Grecian? How art thou fallen, O Lucifer! +Just room for our loves to Mrs. D., etc. + +C. LAMB. + +[1] Talfourd relates an amusing instance of the universal charity of the +kindly Dyer. Lamb once suddenly asked him what he thought of the +murderer Williams,--a wretch who had destroyed two families in Ratcliff +Highway, and then cheated the gallows by committing suicide. "The +desperate attempt," says Talfourd, "to compel the gentle optimist to +speak ill of a mortal creature produced no happier success than the +answer, 'Why, I should think, Mr. Lamb, he must have been rather an +eccentric character.'" + +[2] Whalley and Boyer were masters at Christ's Hospital. + +[3] "Deputy-Grecian," "Grecian," etc., were of course forms, or grades, +at Christ's Hospital. + + + +CVI. + + +TO MR. MOXON [1]. + +_February_, 1832. + +Dear Moxon,--The snows are ankle-deep, slush, and mire, that 't is hard +to get to the post-office, and cruel to send the maid out. 'Tis a slough +of despair, or I should sooner have thanked you for your offer of the +"Life," which we shall very much like to have, and will return duly. I +do not know when I shall be in town, but in a week or two at farthest, +when I will come as far as you, if I can. We are moped to death with +confinement within doors, I send you a curiosity of G. Dyer's tender +conscience. Between thirty and forty years since, George published the +"Poet's Fate," in which were two very harmless lines about Mr. Rogers; +but Mr. R. not quite approving of them, they were left out in a +subsequent edition, 1801. But George has been worrying about them ever +since; if I have heard him once, I have heard him a hundred times +express a remorse proportioned to a consciousness of having been guilty +of an atrocious libel. As the devil would have it, a fool they call +Barker, in his "Parriana" has quoted the identical two lines as they +stood in some obscure edition anterior to 1801, and the withers of poor +George are again wrung, His letter is a gem: with his poor blind eyes it +has been labored out at six sittings. The history of the couplet is in +page 3 of this irregular production, in which every variety of shape and +size that letters can be twisted into is to be found. Do show _his_ part +of it to Mr. Rogers some day. If he has bowels, they must melt at the +contrition so queerly charactered of a contrite sinner. G. was born, I +verily think, without original sin, but chooses to have a conscience, as +every Christian gentleman should have; his dear old face is +insusceptible of the twist they call a sneer, yet he is apprehensive of +being suspected of that ugly appearance. When he makes a compliment, he +thinks he has given an affront,--a name is personality. But show (no +hurry) this unique recantation to Mr. Rogers: 't is like a dirty +pocket-handerchief mucked with tears of some indigent Magdalen. There is +the impress of sincerity in every pot-hook and hanger; and then the gilt +frame to such a pauper picture! It should go into the Museum. + +[1] Lamb's future publisher. He afterwards became the husband +of Lamb's _protegee_, Emma Isola. + + + +CVII. + + +TO MR. MOXON. + +_July_ 24, 1833. + +For God's sake give Emma no more watches; _one_ has turned her head. She +is arrogant and insulting. She said something very unpleasant to our old +clock in the passage, as if he did not keep time; and yet he had made +her no appointment. She takes it out every instant to look at the +moment-hand. She lugs us out into the fields, because there the +bird-boys ask you, "Pray, sir, can you tell us what's o'clock?" and she +answers them punctually. She loses all her time looking to see "what the +time is." I overheard her whispering, "Just so many hours, minutes, +etc., to Tuesday; I think St. George's goes too slow." This little +present of Time,--why, 't is Eternity to her! + +What can make her so fond of a gingerbread watch? + +She has spoiled some of the movements. Between ourselves, she has kissed +away "half-past twelve," which I suppose to be the canonical hour in +Hanover Square. + +Well, if "love me, love my watch," answers, she will keep time to you. + +It goes right by the Horse-Guards. + +Dearest M.,--Never mind opposite nonsense. She does not love you for the +watch, but the watch for you. I will be at the wedding, and keep the +30th July, as long as my poor months last me, as a festival gloriously. + +Yours ever, + +ELIA. + + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Best Letters of Charles Lamb +Edited by Edward Gilpin Johnson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEST LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB *** + +***** This file should be named 10125.txt or 10125.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/1/2/10125/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Sjaani, Tom Allen and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + + http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/10125.zip b/old/10125.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..19bad61 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10125.zip |