"I have hit off the following in imitation of old English poetry, which, I imagine, I am a dab at. The measure is unmeasureable; but it most resembles that beautiful ballad the Old and Young Courtier; and in its feature of taking the extremes of two situations for just parallel, it resembles the old poetry certainly. If I could but stretch out the circumstances to twelve more verses, i. e. if I had as much genius as the writer of that old song, I think it would be excellent. It was to follow an imitation of Burton in prose, which you have not seen. But fate and wisest Stewart' say No.+ aries, one volume (I can find no more) of the last stanza is detestable, the rest most German and French ditto, sundry other exquisite !—the epithet enviable would dash German books unbound, as you left them, the finest poem. For God's sake (I never 'Percy's Ancient Poetry,' and one volume of was more serious), don't make me ridiculous 'Anderson's Poets.' I specify them, that any more by terming me gentle-hearted in you may not lose any. Secundo: a dressing- print, or do it in better verses. It did well gown (value, fivepence) in which you used to enough five years ago when I came to see sit and look like a conjuror, when you were you, and was moral coxcomb enough at the translating Wallenstein. A case of two time you wrote the lines, to feed upon such razors, and a shaving-box and strap. This epithets; but, besides that, the meaning of it has cost me a severe struggle to part with. gentle is equivocal at best, and almost always They are in a brown-paper parcel, which means poor-spirited; the very quality of also contains sundry papers and poems, gentleness is abhorrent to such vile trumpetsermons, some few Epic Poems,-one about ings. My sentiment is long since vanished. Cain and Abel, which came from Poole, I hope my virtues have done sucking. I can &c., &c., and also your tragedy; with one or scarce think but you meant it in joke. I hope two small German books, and that drama in you did, for I should be ashamed to think which Got-fader performs. Tertio: a small you could think to gratify me by such praise, oblong box containing all your letters, collected fit only to be a cordial to some green-sick from all your waste papers, and which fill sonneteer.* 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 updon't be angry, waste paper has risen forty per cent., and I can't afford to buy it—all 'Buonaparte's Letters,' 'Arthur Young's Treatise on Corn,' and one or two more lightarmed 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 phlebotomising, 'tis 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 B? Pray tell your wife that a note of interrogation on the superscription of a letter is highly ungrammatical-she proposes writing my name Lamb? Lambe is quite enough. I have had the Anthology, and like only one thing in it, Lewti; but of that "I can send you 200 pens and six quires of paper immediately, if they will answer the carriage by coach. It would be foolish to pack 'em up cum multis libris et cæteris,— they would all spoil. I only wait your commands to coach them. I would pay fiveand-forty thousand carriages to read W.'s This refers to a poem of Coleridge's, composed in 1797, and published in the Anthology of the year 1800, under the title of "This Lime-tree Bower my Prison," addressed to "Charles Lamb, of the India House, taking more pleasure in the country than Coleridge's London," in which Lamb is thus apostrophised, as other visitors- a compliment which even then he scarcely merited :— -But thou, methinks most glad, My gentle-hearted Charles! For thou hast pined noticing the difference of rich and poor, in the ways of a rich noble's palace and a poor workhouse." The quaint and pathetic poem, entitled "A Ballad, tragedy, of which I have heard so much and seen so little-only what I saw at Stowey. Pray give me an order in writing on Longman for 'Lyrical Ballads.' I have the first volume, and, truth to tell, six shillings is a broad shot. I cram all I can in, to save a multiplying of letters,-those pretty comets with swinging tails. "I'll just crowd in God bless you! "John Woodvil" was "C. LAMB." now -e, sure, of the author but hunger about me, and whom found I closeted with Mary but a friend of this Miss W—, one Miss Bor By; I don't know how she spells her name. I just came in 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 printed, although not published till a year afterwards; probably withheld in the hope of its representation on the stage. A copy was sent to Coleridge for Wordsworth, with the following letter or cluster of letters, written at several times. The ladies referred to, in the exquisite description of Coleridge's blue- macaroons-a stocking friends, are beyond the reach of feeling its application; nor will it be detected by the most apprehensive of their surviving friends. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "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 W; 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 W, 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 W- -, 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 of stairs in - broke be impolite. Her lodgings are up two pair Street. Tea and coffee, and kind of cake I much love. We sat down. Presently Miss Bthe silence, by declaring herself quite of a different opinion from D'Israeli, who supposes the differences of human intellect to be the mere effect of organisation. 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 has 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 'She folded her arms beneath her cloak, The trouble to you will be small, and the B's friends, has found fault with one of and the lines,— Miss More's metaphors. Miss More has been at some pains to vindicate herself,-in the opinion of Miss B, 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 By or Be advised Mary to take two of them home; she thought it might afford her some pleasure to compare I 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. 'Or is he a shadow?' "If I do not write, impute it to the long postage, of which you have so much cause to complain. I have scribbled over a queer letter, as I find by perusal, but it means no mis chief. "I am, and will be, yours ever, in sober sadness, "C. L. your "Write German as plain as sunshine, for that must correct itself. You know I am homo unius linguæ; in English, illiterate, a dunce, a ninny." TO MR. COLERIDGE. "Aug. 26th, 1800. "How do you like this little epigram? It is not my writing nor had I any finger in it. If you concur with me in thinking it very to name the author to you. I will just hint elegant and very original, I shall be tempted that it is almost or quite a first attempt. [Here Miss Lamb's little poem of Helen was introduced.] "By-the-by, I have a sort of recollection that somebody, I think you, promised me a be very glad of it just now; for I have got sight of Wordsworth's Tragedy. I should Manning with me, and should like to read it with him. But this, I confess, is a refinement. Under any circumstances, alone, in Cold-Bath prison, or in the desert island, just when Prospero and his crew had set off, with Caliban in a cage, to Milan, it would be a treat to me to read that play. Manning has read it, so has Lloyd, and all Lloyd's family; but I could not get him to betray his trust by giving me a sight of it. Lloyd is sadly And elsewhere,deficient in some of those virtuous vices. "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." The tragedy which Lamb was thus anxious to read, has been perseveringly withheld from the world. A fine passage, quoted in one of Hazlitt's prose essays, makes us share in his earnest curiosity : "Action is momentary-a word, a blow The motion of a muscle-this way or that; Wordsworth's genius is perhaps more fitly employed in thus tracing out the springs of heroic passion, and developing the profound elements of human character, than in following them out through their exhibition in violent contest or majestic repose. Surely he may now afford to gratify the world! 'What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Of Attic taste, with wine,† whence we may rise To hear the lute well touch'd, or artful voice Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?' "Indeed the poets are full of this pleasing morality, 'Veni cito, Domine Manning!' "Think upon it. Excuse the paper, it is all I have. "C. LAMB." Lamb now meditated a removal to the home-place of his best and most solemn thoughts-the Temple; and thus announced it in a letter to Manning. TO MR. MANNING. "You masters of logic ought to know (logic is nothing more than a knowledge of words, as the Greek etymon implies), that all words are no more to be taken in a literal sense at all times than a promise given to a tailor. When I exprest an apprehension that you were mortally offended, I meant no more than by the application of a certain formula of efficacious sounds, which had done in similar cases before, to rouse a sense of The next is a short but characteristic letter decency in you, and a remembrance of what to Manning. TO MR. MANNING. "Aug. 11th, 1800. "My dear fellow, (N.B. mighty familiar of late!) for me to come to Cambridge now is one of Heaven's impossibilities. Metaphysicians tell us, even it can work nothing which implies a contradiction. I can explain this by telling you that I am engaged to do double duty (this hot weather!) for a man who has taken advantage of this very weather to go and cool himself in 'green retreats' all the month of August. "But for you to come to London instead! -muse upon it, revolve it, cast it about in your mind. I have a bed at your command. You shall drink rum, brandy, gin, aqua-vitæ, usquebaugh, or whiskey a' nights; and for the after-dinner trick, I have eight bottles of genuine port, which, mathematically divided, gives 14 for every day you stay, provided you stay a week. Hear John Milton sing, 'Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause.' Twenty-first Sonnet. was due to me! You masters of logic should advert to this phenomenon in human speech, before you arraign the usage of us dramatic geniuses. Imagination is a good blood mare, and goes well; but the misfortune is, she has too many paths before her. 'Tis true I might have imaged to myself, that you had trundled your frail carcass to Norfolk. I might also, and did imagine, that you had not, but that you were lazy, or inventing new properties in a triangle, and for that purpose moulding and squeezing Landlord Crisp's three-cornered beaver into fantastic experimental forms; or, that Archimedes was meditating to repulse the French, in case of a Cambridge invasion, by a geometric hurling of folios on their red caps; or, peradventure, that you were in extremities, in great wants, and just set out for Trinity-bogs when my letters came. short, my genius! (which is a short word now-a-days, for what-a-great-man-am-I !) In "We, poets! generally give light dinners." No doubt the poet here alludes to port-wine at 38s. the dozen. was absolutely stifled and overlaid with its own riches. Truth is one and poor, like the cruse of Elijah's widow. Imagination is the bold face that multiplies its oil; and thou, the old cracked pipkin, that could not believe it could be put to such purposes. Dull pipkin, to have Elijah for thy cook. Imbecile recipient of so fat a miracle. I send you | George Dyer's Poems, the richest production of the lyrical muse this century can justly boast for Wordsworth's L. B. were published, or at least written, before Christ mas. "Please to advert to pages 291 to 296 for the most astonishing account of where Shakspeare's muse has been all this while. I thought she had been dead, and buried in Stratford Church, with the young man that kept her company,— 'But it seems, like the Devil, be nibbling my own cheese by my dear self, without mouse-traps 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 drabfrequented alley, and her lowest bowing tradesman, I would not exchange for Skiddaw, Helvellyn, James, Walter, and the parson into the bargain. O! her lamps of a night! her rich goldsmiths, print-shops, toyshops, mercers, hardwaremen, pastry-cooks! St. Paul's churchyard! the Strand! Exeter Change! Charing Cross, with the man upon a black horse! These are thy gods, O London! An'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 differAll 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. ence. ""Tis half-past twelve o'clock, and all sober people ought to be a-bed. 66 C. LAMB (as you may guess)." "N.B.-I don't charge anything for the additional manuscript notes, which are the joint productions of myself and a learned translator of Schiller, Stoddart, Esq. "N.B. the 2d.-I should not have blotted The following two letters appear to have your book, but I had sent my own out to be been written during Coleridge's visit to bound, as I was in duty bound. A liberal Wordsworth. criticism upon the several pieces, lyrical, heroical, amatory, and satirical, would be acceptable. So, you don't think there's a Word's-worth of good poetry in the great L. B.! I daren't put the dreaded syllables at their just length, for my back tingles from the northern castigation. "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 tip-toe) 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 Like the country mouse, that had tasted a little of urbane manners, I long to town. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "By some fatality, unusual with me, I have mislaid the list of books which you want. Can you from memory, easily supply me with another? "I confess to Statius, and I detained him wilfully, out of a reverent regard to your style. Statius, they tell me, is turgid. As to that other Latin book, since you know neither its name nor subject, your wants (I crave leave to apprehend) cannot be very urgent. Meanwhile, dream that it is one of the lost Decades of Livy. "Your partiality to me has led you to form an erroneous opinion as to the measure of delight you suppose me to take in obliging. Pray, be careful that it spread no further. 'Tis one of those heresies that is very pregnant. Pray, rest. more satisfied with the portion of learning which you have got, and disturb my peaceful ignorance as little as possible with such sort of commissions. E |