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a good effect at times, but are too incon- tranquillity.' It is the very reflex pleasure siderable, or rather become blemishes, when that distinguishes the tranquillity of a thinkthey mark a style. On the whole, I expect ing being from that of a shepherd, a modern Southey one day to rival Milton: I already one I would be understood to mean, a deem him equal to Cowper, and superior to Damætas, one that keeps other people's all living poets besides. What says Cole- sheep. Certainly, Coleridge, your letter from ridge? The 'Monody on Henderson' is Shurton Bars has less merit than most immensely good, the rest of that little volume things in your volume; personally it may is readable, and above mediocrity. I proceed chime in best with your own feelings, and to a more pleasant task; pleasant because therefore you love it best. It has, however, the poems are yours; pleasant because you great merit. In your fourth epistle that is impose the task on me; and pleasant, let me an exquisite paragraph, and fancy-full, of‘A add, because it will confer a whimsical im- stream there is which rolls in lazy flow,' portance on me, to sit in judgment upon your &c. &c. 'Murmurs sweet undersong 'mid rhymes. First, though, let me thank you jasmin bowers' is a sweet line, and so are again and again, in my own and my sister's the three next. The concluding simile is name, for your invitations; nothing could far-fetched-'tempest-honoured' is a quaintgive us more pleasure than to come, but ish phrase. (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. Allen 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, burthen 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.

"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;' 1 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

"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 twenty-ninth, or what you call the 'Sigh,' I thirty-fifth effusion is most exquisite; that line in particular, 'And, tranquil, muse upon

think I hear you again. I image to myself the little smoky room at the Salutation and

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!'

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 in particular, perhaps. If I am obscure, you grief. But in your absence the tide of may understand me by counting lines: I melancholy rushed in again and did its worst have proposed omitting twenty-four lines: mischief by overwhelming my reason. II feel that thus compressed it would gain have recovered, but feel a stupor that makes energy, but think it most likely you will not me indifferent to the hopes and fears of this agree with me; for who shall go about to life. I sometimes wish to introduce a bring opinions to the bed of Procrustes, and religious turn of mind, but habits are strong introduce among the sons of men a monotony things, and my religious fervours are confined, of identical feelings? I only propose with alas! to some fleeting moments of occasional diffidence. Reject you, if you please, with solitary devotion. A correspondence, opening as little remorse as you would the colour of with you, has roused me a little from my a coat or the pattern of a buckle, where our lethargy and made me conscious of existence. fancies differed. 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' 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

6

'But soon upon his poor unsheltered head
Did Penury her sickly mildew shed;
And soon are fled the charms of early 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

"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'lanthorn, has danced about (or like Dr. Forster's 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, o'erlooked 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 delightful to me, and which you already know my opinion of. Of this kind are Bowles, Priestly, and that most exquisite and most Bowles-like of all, the nineteenth effusion. It would have better ended with

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agony of care: the two last 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: 'tis 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! fierceeyed 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'd-beds amid your faery bowers,' &c.

"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,' &c.,

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 foredone,' 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 'em) 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, abridgandum,' just what you will with it; but spare my ewelambs! 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 they mine, I should omit, in editione secundâ, 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.'

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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, illfounded 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. A- I am sorry to say, is a confirmed Atheist; S-, a cold-hearted, well-bred, conceited disciple of Godwin, does him no good.

"How I sympathise with you on the dull duty of a reviewer, and heartily damn with you Ned E- 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 has 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 neighbours. Thursday.

"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 world '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 burnt 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 it in less than a month. I shall be richly content with a letter from you some day early in July; though, if you get any how settled before then, pray let me know it immediately; 'twould 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.

"Friday, 10th June, 1796."

Coleridge, settled in his melancholy cottage invited Lamb to visit him. The hope

the expectation-the disappointment, are depicted in the following letter, written in the summer of the eventful year 1796.

TO MR. COLERIDGE.

"July 1st, 1796. "The first moment I can come I will; but my hopes of coming yet a while, yet hang on a ticklish thread. The coach I come by is immaterial, as I shall so easily, by your direction, find ye out. My mother is grown so entirely helpless (not having any use of her limbs) that Mary is necessarily confined from ever sleeping out, she being her bedfellow. She thanks you though, and will accompany me, in spirit. Most exquisite are the lines from Withers. Your own lines, introductory to your poem on 'Self,' run smoothly and pleasurably, and I exhort you to continue 'em. What shall I say to your 'Dactyls?' They are what you would call good per se, but a parody on some of 'em is just now suggesting itself, and you shall have it rough and unlicked; I mark with figures the lines parodied :

4.-Sorely your Dactyls do drag along limp-footed.

5. Sad is the measure that hangs a clog round 'em so. 6.-Meagre and languid, proclaiming its wretchedness. 1.-Weary, unsatisfied, not a little sick of 'em. 11. Cold is my tired heart, I have no charity.

2.-Painfully travelling thus over the rugged road. 7.-0 begone, measure, half Latin, half English, then. 12. Dismal your Dactyls are, God help ye, rhyming ones !

"I possibly may not come this fortnight; therefore, all thou hast to do is not to look for me any particular day, only to write word

I am

immediately, if at any time you quit Bristol, what you bid me, and left 'em at Perry's.† lest I come and Taffy be not at home. II think 'em altogether good, and do not see hope I can come in a day or two; but young why you were solicitous about any alteration. S-, of my office, is suddenly taken ill in I have not yet seen, but will make it my this very nick of time, and I must officiate business to see, to-day's Chronicle, for your for him till he can come to work again: had verses on Horne Tooke. Dyer stanza'd him the knave gone sick, and died, and been in one of the papers tother day, but, I think, buried at any other time, philosophy might unsuccessfully. Tooke's friends meeting was, have afforded one comfort, but just now II suppose, a dinner of condolence. have no patience with him. Quarles I am as not sorry to find you (for all Sara) immersed great a stranger to as I was to Withers. I wish you would try and do something to bring our elder bards into more general fame. I writhe with indignation when, in books of criticism, where common-place quotation is heaped upon quotation, I find no mention of such men as Massinger, or Beaumont and Fletcher, men with whom succeeding dramatic writers (Otway alone excepted)* can bear no manner of comparison. Stupid Knox hath noticed none of 'em among his extracts.

"Thursday.-Mrs. C

in clouds of smoke and metaphysics. You know I had a sneaking kindness for this last noble science, and you taught me some smattering of it. I look to become no mean proficient under your tuition. Coleridge, what do you mean by saying you wrote to me about Plutarch and Porphyry? I received no such letter, nor remember a syllable of the matter, yet am not apt to forget any part of your epistles, least of all, an injunction like that. I will cast about for 'em, tho' I am a sad hand to know what books are worth, and both these worthy gentlemen are alike out of my line. To-morrow I shall be less suspensive, and in better cue to write, so good bye at present.

can scarce guess how she has gratified me by her very kind letter and sweet little poem. I feel that I should thank her in rhyme, but she must take my acknowledgment, at present, in plain honest "Friday Evening.-That execrable aristoprose. The uncertainty in which I yet crat and knave R has given me an absostand, whether I can come or no, damps my lute refusal of leave. The poor man cannot spirits, reduces me a degree below prosaical, guess at my disappointment. Is it not hard, and keeps me in a suspense that fluctuates' this dread dependence on the low-bred between hope and fear. Hope is a charming, mind?' Continue to write to me tho', and lively, blue-eyed wench, and I am always I must be content. Our loves and best good glad of her company, but could dispense with wishes attend upon you both. LAMB." the visitor she brings with her her younger sister, Fear, a white-livered, lily-cheeked, bashful, palpitating, awkward hussy, that hangs, like a green girl, at her sister's apronstrings, and will go with her whithersoever she goes. For the life and soul of me, I could not improve those lines in your poem on the Prince and Princess, so I changed them to

• An exception he certainly would not have made a few years afterwards; for he used to mention two pretty lines in the "Orphan,"

"Sweet as the shepherd's pipe upon the mountains, With all his fleecy flock at feed beside him,"

as a redeeming passage amidst mere stage trickeries. The great merit which lies in the construction of “Venice Preserved,” was not in his line of appreciation; and he thought Thomson's reference to Otway's ladies

poor Monimia moans,

And Belvidera pours her soul in love,"

worth both heroines.

"S did return, but there are two or three more ill and absent, which was the plea for refusing me. I shall never have heart to ask for holidays again. The man next him in office, C- furnished him with the objections. C. LAMB."

The little copy of verses in which Lamb commemorated and softened his disappointment, bearing date (a most unusual circumstance with Lamb), 5th July, 1796, was inclosed in a letter of the following day, which refers to a scheme Coleridge had formed of settling in London on an invitation to share

↑ Some" occasional" verses of Coleridge's written to order for the Morning Chronicle.

This was just after the Westminster Election, in which Mr. Tooke was defeated.

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