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THE
LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB

1796—1801
VOLUME II

^^^

THE LETTERS OF

CHARLES LAM lTCl

IN WHICH MANYMUT1I.ATKD WOK!
AND PASSAGES HAVE BEEN HESTORI
TO THEIR ORIGINAL KQRM -

CHARLES LAMB

Etched by James Fagan
wit wftex painting by Meyer

HENRY H. HAKPER.

T,
T v.

AH rights reserved

s/7f7/2s

LETTER I

CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[Postmark May 27, 1796.]

Dear C : 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.

With regard to Allen, — the woman he has
married has some money, I have heard about
£zoo a year, enough for the maintenance of
herself and children, one of whom is a girl nine
years old ! so Allen has dipt betimes into the
cares of a family. I very seldom see him, and do
not know whether he has given up the West-
minster hospital.

When Southey becomes as modest as his pre-
decessor Milton, and publishes his Epics in duo-
decimo, I will read 'em, — a guinea a book is
somewhat exorbitant, nor have I the opportun-
ity 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.

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 em-
ployed about the Evidences of Religion. There
is need of multiplying such books an hundred
fold in this philosophical age to prevent converts
to Atheism, for they seem too tough disputants
to meddle with afterwards. I am sincerely sorry
for Allen, as a family man particularly.

Le Grice is gone to make puns in Cornwall.
He has got a tutorship to a young boy, living
with his mother, a widow lady. He will of
course initiate him quickly in " whatsoever things
are lovely, honorable, and of good report." He
has cut Miss Hunt compleatly, — the poor girl
is very ill on the occasion, but he laughs at it,
and justifies himself by saying, " she does not see
him laugh."

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 mad-
house 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 told.

My Sonnets I have extended to the number

of nine since I saw you, and will some day com-
municate to you.

I am beginning a poem in blank verse, which
if I finish I publish.

White is on the eve of publishing (he took the
hint from Vortigern) Original letters of FalstafF,
Shallow, &c. ; 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 per-
son, 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 a partial eye to see
No blemish : thou to me didst ever shew

Fondest affection, and would'st 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 C , I conclude.

Yours sincerely,

Lamb

Your Condones ad populum are the most elo-
quent politics that ever came in my way.

Write, when convenient — not as a task, for
there is nothing in this letter to answer.

You may inclose under cover to me at the
India house what letters you please, for they come
post free.

We cannot send our remembrances to Mrs.

C , not having seen her, but believe me our

best wishes attend you both.

My civic and poetic comp'ts to Southey if at
Bristol. — Why, he is a very leviathan of bards ;
the small minnow, I.

II. _TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[Probably begun either on Tuesday, May 24, or Tues-
day, May 31, 1796. Postmark? June I.]

I am in such violent pain with the headache
that I am fit for nothing but transcribing, scarce
for that. When I get your poems, and the yoan
of Arc, I will exercise my presumption in giving
you my opinion of 'em. The mail does not come
in before to-morrow (Wednesday) morning. The
following sonnet was composed during a walk
down into Hertfordshire early in last summer: —

*Drowsyhed
I have met with
I think in Spen-
ser. 'Tis an old
thing, but it
rhymes with led
and rhyming
covers a multi-
tude of licenses.

The lord of light shakes offhis drowsyhed.*
Fresh from his couch up springs the lusty

Sun,
And girds himself his mighty race to run.
Meantime, by truant love of rambling led,
I turn my back on thy detested walls,
Proud City, and thy sons I leave behind,
A selfish, sordid, money-getting kind,
Who shut their ears when holy freedom

calls.
I pass not thee so lightly, humble spire,
That mindest me of many a pleasure

gone,
Of merriest days, of love and Islington,
Kindling anew the flames of past desire;
And I shall muse on thee, slow journey-
ing on,
To the green plains of pleasant Hertford-
shire.

The last line is a copy of Bowles's, " to the green
hamlet in the peaceful plain." Your ears are not
so very fastidious ; many people would not like
words so prosaic and familiar in a sonnet as Isling-
ton and Hertfordshire. The next was written
within a day or two of the last, on revisiting a spot
where the scene was laid of my first sonnet that
" mock'd my step with many a lonely glade."

When last I roved these winding wood-walks green,
Green winding walks, and pathways shady-sweet,

Oft-times would Anna seek the silent scene,
Shrouding her beauties in the lone retreat.

No more I hear her footsteps in the shade ;
Her image only in these pleasant ways
Meets me self-wand'ring where in better days

I held free converse with my fair-hair'd maid.

I pass'd the little cottage, which she loved,
The cottage which did once my all contain :
It spake of days that ne'er must come again,

Spake to my heart and much my heart was moved.

" Now fair befall thee, gentle maid," said I,
And from the cottage turn'd me, with a sigh.

The next retains a few lines from a sonnet of
mine, which you once remarked had no " body
of thought" in it. I agree with you, but have
preserved a part of it, and it runs thus. I natter
myself you will like it.

A timid grace sits trembling in her eye,
As loth to meet the rudeness of men's

sight,
Yet shedding a delicious lunar light,
That steeps in kind oblivious extasy
The care-craz'd mind, like some still
melody ;
Speaking most plain the thoughts which

do possess
Her gentle sprite, peace and meek quiet-
ness,
And innocent loves,* and maiden purity.
A look whereof might heal the cruel smart
Of changed friends, or fortune's wrongs
unkind ;
Might to sweet deeds of mercy move the
heart
Of him who hates his brethren of man-
kind.
Turned are those beams from me, who

fondly yet
Past joys, vain loves, and buried hopes
regret.

The next and last I value most of all. 'T was
composed close upon the heels of the last in that

* Cowley uses
this phrase with a
somewhat differ-
ent meaning : I
meant loves of
relatives, friends,
&c.

very wood I had in mind when I wrote " Me-
thinks how dainty sweet."

We were two pretty babes, the youngest she,
The youngest and the loveliest far, I ween,
And Innocence her name. The time has been,

We two did love each other's company;

Time was, we two had wept to have been apart.
But when, with shew of seeming good beguil'd,
I left the garb and manners of a child,

And my first love for man's society,

Defiling with the world my virgin heart,
My loved companion dropt a tear, and fled,
And hid in deepest shades her awful head.

Beloved, who can tell me where Thou art,
In what delicious Eden to be found,
That I may seek thee the wide world around.

Since writing it, I have found in a poem by
Hamilton of Bangour, these two lines to Hap-
piness, —

Nun sober and devout, where art thou fled
To hide in shades thy meek contented head ?

Lines eminently beautiful, but I do not remember
having read 'em previously, for the credit of my
tenth and eleventh lines. Parnell has two lines
(which probably suggested the above) to Content-
ment, —

Whither ah ! whither art thou * An odd epithet for

fled, contentment in a poet so

To hide thy meek contented* poetical as Parnell.
head ?

Cowley's exquisite elegy on the death of his
friend Harvey suggested the phrase of "we
two."

Was there a tree that did not know
The love betwixt us two ?

So much for acknowledged plagiarisms, the
confession of which I know not whether it has
more of vanity or modesty in it. As to my blank
verse I am so dismally slow and sterile of ideas (I
speak from my heart) that I much question if it
will ever come to any issue. I have hitherto only
hammered out a few indepen[den]t unconnected
snatches, not in a capacity to be sent. I am very
ill, and will rest till I have read your poems, for
which I am very thankful. I have one more fa-
vour to beg of you, that you never mention Mr.
May's affair in any sort, much less think of repay-
ing. Are we not flocci-nauci-what-d'ye-call-em-
ists?

We have just learn'd, that my poor brother has
had a sad accident : a large stone blown down
by yesterday's high wind has bruised his leg in
a most shocking manner ; he is under the care of
Cruikshanks. Coleridge, there are 10,000 objec-
tions against my paying you a visit at Bristol —
it cannot be, else — but in this world 'tis better
not to think too much of pleasant possibles, that
we may not be out of humour with present insip-
ids. Should anything bring you to London, you
will recollect No. 7 Little Queen St., Holborn.

I shall be too ill to call on Wordsworth myself,
but will take care to transmit him his poem when
I have read it. I saw Le Grice the day before his
departure, and mentioned incidentally his "teach-

ing the young idea how to shoot" — knowing
him and the probability there is of people having
a propensity to pun in his company you will not
wonder that we both stumbled on the same pun
at once, he eagerly anticipating me, — " he would
teach him to shoot ! " — Poor Le Grice ! if wit
alone could entitle a man to respect, &c. He has
written a very witty little pamphlet lately, satir-
ical upon college declamations ; when I send
White's book, I will add that.

I am sorry there should be any difference be-
tween you and Southey. " Between you two there
should be peace," tho' I must say I have borne
him no good will since he spirited you away from
among us. What is become of Moschus? You
sported some 01 his sublimities, I see, in your
Watchman. Very decent things. So much for to-
night from your afflicted headachey sorethroatey,
humble servant,

C. Lamb

'Tuesday Night. — Of your Watchmen, the Re-
view of Burke was the best prose. I augur' d great
things from the i st number. There is some ex-
quisite 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 favourable moment
and hesitate not to pronounce it sublime. If there

be anything in it approach6 to tumidity (which
I meant not to infer in elaborate: I meant simply
labor'd) 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 the foul spirits disherited
of earth and the strange beatitude which the good
man shall recognise 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 6th No. :

This dark freeze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering Month —

they are exactly such epithets as Burns would have
stumbled on, whose poem on the plough'd-up
daisy you seem to have had in mind. Your com-
plaint that [of] your readers some thought there
was too much, some too little, original matter in
your Nos., 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 ist Sclavonian Song.
The expression in the 2d " more happy to be
unhappy in hell " — is it not very quaint ? Ac-
cept 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 bar-
terers in "human flesh and sinews."

Coleridge, you will rejoice to hear that Cowper
is recovered from his lunacy, and is employ' d
on his translation of the Italian, &c, 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 pro-
viding 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
thro' not without delight. Poor Lovell! my heart
almost accuses me for the light manner I spoke
of him above, not dreaming of his death. My
heart bleeds for your accumulated troubles : God
send you thro' '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 feel-

ings of profound admiration. You may safely rest
your fame on it. The best remain6 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 C. concluding as it did abruptly.
It had more of unity. — The conclusion of your
Religious Musings I fear will entitle you to the re-
proof 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 noviciate tho'
In ministeries of heart-stirring song,

tho' not now new to me, cannot be enough ad-
mired. To speak politely, they are a well turn'd
compliment to Poetry. I hasten to read Joan of
Arc, &c. I have read your lines at the begins of
2d book, 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.

chequing your wild wandrings, 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 de-
lighted us. 'T is a charming poem throughout.
(You have well remarked that "charming, admir-
able, exquisite" are 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, &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. I am glad you re-
sume the Watchman — change the name, leave out
all articles of news, and whatever things are pecul-
iar 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 '11 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 Re-
ligious Musings I felt a transient superiority over
you : I have seen Priestly. 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 doubt-
less read his books, illustrative of the doctrine of
Necessity. Prefixed to a late work of his, in answer
to Paine, there is a preface, given [? giving] an ac-
count of the Man and his services to Men, written
by Lindsey,his dearest friend, — well worth your
reading.

«5

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

III. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[Begun Wednesday, June 8. Dated on address : " Friday,
ioth June," 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 degenerat-
ing 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 sub-
ject 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 possess ' d, 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 2d Book the first forty lines, in particu-
lar, 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

will bear comparison with any in Milton for full-
ness of circumstance and lofty-pacedness of versi-
fication. Southey's similes, tho' 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. South-
ey'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 enthu-
siasts 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," &c, are of kindred excellence with
Gray's "Cold is Cadwallo's tongue," &c. How
famously the Maid bafHes the Doctors, Seraphic
and Irrefragable, " with all their trumpery ! "
126 page, the procession, the appearances of the
Maid, of the Bastard son of Orleans and of Tre-
mouille, 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 strik-
ing and only encumber. The converse which
Joan and Conrade hold on the banks of the
Loire is altogether beautiful. Page 313, the con-
jecture 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
dream' d of. Page 315,1 need only mention those
lines ending with " She saw a serpent gnawing
at her heart " ! ! ! They are good imitative lines
" he toil'd and toil'd, of toil to reap no end, but
endless toil and never ending woe." 347 page,
Cruelty is such as Hogarth might have painted
her. Page 3 6 1 , all the passage about love (where
he seems to confound conjugal love with creating
and persevering love) is very confused and sick-
ens me with a load of useless personifications.
Else that 9th 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 as I conceive to be the
manner of Dante and Ariosto.

The 10th book is the most languid. On the
whole, considering the celerity wherewith the
poem was finish'd, I was astonish'd at the infre-
quency 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, — pass-
ages 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 incon-
siderable, 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.

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
tho', let me thank you again and again in my own
and in 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 ques-
tion. Poor fellow, he is very feverish and light-
headed, but Cruikshanks has pronounced the
symptoms favorable, and gives us every hope
that there will be no need of amputation. God

send, not. We are necessarily confined with him
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 re-
served of manners, no one seeks or cares for my
society and I am left alone. Allen calls only occa-
sionally, as tho' 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 injunc-
tions. Complaints apart, proceed we to our task.
I am called away to tea, thence must wait upon
my brother, so must delay until to-morrow.
Farewell. — Wednesday.

Thursday. — I will first notice what is new to
me. i 3th page. " The thrilling tones that con-
centrate the soul " is a nervous line, and the six
first lines of page 14 are very pretty. The 21st
effusion a perfect thing. That in the manner of
Spenser is very sweet, particularly at the close.
The 35th 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 un-
derstood to mean — a Dametas; 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 4th Epistle that is an exquisite paragraph
and fancy-full of "A stream there is which rolls
in lazy flow," &c, &c. "Murmurs sweet un-
dersong 'mid jasmine bowers " is a sweet line,
and so are the three next. The concluding simile
is far-fetch' d. " Tempest-honord " is a quaintish
phrase.

Of the Monody on H., I will here only notice
these lines as superlatively excellent. That ener-
getic one, " Shall I not praise thee, Scholar, Chris-
tian, friend," like to that beautiful climax of
Shakspeare " King, Hamlet, Royal Dane, Father."
" Yet memory turns from little men to thee ! "
" and sported careless round their fellow child."
The whole, I repeat it, is immensely good.

Yours is a poetical family. I was much sur-
pris'd and pleased to see the signature of Sara to
that elegant composition, the 5th 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 para-
graph in the name of a child of fancy. After all
you can [not] 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 1 9th Effusion, or the 2 8th
or 29th, 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 thro' the winter nights, beguiling
the cares of life with poesy. When you left Lon-
don, 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 con-
versation 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 re-
ligious turn of mind ; but habits are strong things,
and my religious fervors are confined, alas ! to
some fleeting moments of occasional solitary de-
votion. 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 notbe 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
phrensy 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 feel-
ing it is not quite. Indulge me in a few conjec-
tures. What I am going to propose would make
it more compress'd and I think more energic,tho'
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'sfamish'd
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 bis poor unsheltered head

Did Penury her sickly Mildew shed,

And soon 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 in-
deed 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 pro-
posed omitting twenty-four lines. I feel that thus
comprest 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 Pro-
crustes, and introduce among the Sons of Men
a monotony of identical feelings ? I only pro-
pose 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
differ'd. The lines "Friend to the friendless,"
&c, which you may think " rudely disbranched "
from the Chatterton will patch in with the Man of
Ross, where they were once quite at home, with
two more which I recollect —

And o'er the dowried virgin's snowy cheek
Bad bridal love suffuse his blushes meek !

very beautiful. The Pixies is a perfect thing, and
so are the lines on the spring, page 28. The
Epitaph on an Infant, like a Jack of lanthorn, has
danced about (or like Dr. Forster's scholars) out
of the Morn. Chron. into the Watchman, and thence
back into your Collection. It is very pretty,
and you seem to think so, but maybe 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 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 de-
lightful 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 1 9th Effusion. It would have better ended
with "agony of care." The last two lines are ob-
vious and unnecessary and you need not now make
fourteen lines of it, now it is rechristen'd from
a sonnet to an effusion. Schiller might have writ-
ten the 20th 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 Nina-
thoma (1st 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," tho', 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, tho' that is
an epithet adding nothing to the meaning. Slan-
der couching was better than squatting. In The
Man of Ross it was a better line thus, —

" If 'neath this roof thy wine-chear'd 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 sub-
lime. In my 1 2th Effusion I had rather have
seen what I wrote myself, tho' they bear no com-
parison 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 13th, —

How reason reel'd, &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, tho' they
now and then wake a sigh or a tear. " Thinking
on divers things foredone," I charge you, Col.,

spare my ewe lambs, and tho' a gentleman may
borrow six lines in an epic poem (I should
have no objection to borrow 500 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 pro-
posing any improvements (did I think myself
capable of suggesting 'em) in such personal poems
as "Thou bleedest, my poor heart," — 'od so,
I am catch'd, I have already done it, — but that
simile I propose abridging would not change the
feeling or introduce any alien ones. Do you un-
derstand me? In the 28th 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 poems, propino tibi alterandum,cut-up-andum,
abridg-andum, 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, Col., spare
my ewe lambs. I must confess were they mine
I should omit, in editione secundd, Effusions 2-3,
because satiric, and below the dignity of the poet
of Religious Musings, $-7, half of the 8th, that
written in your youth, as far as "Thousand eyes,"
— tho' I part not unreluctantly with that lively
line, —

Chaste Joyance dancing in her bright-blue eyes
27

and one or two more just thereabouts. But I would
substitute for it that sweet poem called " Recol-
lection" in the 5th No. of the Watchman, better
I think than the remainder of this poem, tho'
not differing materially. As the poem now stands
it looks altogether confused. And do not omit
those lines upon the " early blossom," in your 6th
No. of the Watchman, and I would omit the 10th
Effusion, or, what would do better, alter and im-
prove 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 Condones 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 in-
to verse, — if you have nothing else to do. Allen
I am sorry to say is a confirmed Atheist. Stodart, or
Stothard,a cold-hearted, well-bred, conceited dis-
ciple of Godwin, does him no good. His wife
has several daughters (oneof 'em as old as himself).
Surely there is something unnatural in such a mar-
riage. How I sympathise 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 Re-
view, 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. 'T is a selfish but natural wish for me,
cast as I am " on life's wide plain, friend-less."
Are you acquainted with Bowles ? I see, by his
last elegy (written at Bath), you are near neigh-
bours. " And I can think I can see the groves
again — was it the voice of thee — 'T was 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 Russell, &c. — You are
doubtless acquainted with it. — 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 sweet-
en'd, tho', with praises somewhat extravagant) I
perfectly coincide with. Yet I chuse to retain the
word " lunar," — indulge a " lunatic " in his loy-
alty to his mistress the moon. I have just been
reading a most pathetic copy of verses on Sophia
Pringle, who was hanged and burn'd 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 dia-
logue is very simple, full of pastoral beauties, and
will charm you. Many pretty old verses are inter-
spersed. 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 — tho'
if you get anyhow settled before then pray let me
know it immediately : 't would give me such sat-
isfaction. 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

3°

time painfully travell'd thro'. God love you, Cole-
ridge, and prosper you thro' life, tho' mine will be
loss if your lot is to be cast at Bristol or at Not-
tingham or anywhere but London. Our loves to
Mrs. C . C. L.

IV. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

{Apparently a continuation of a letter the first part of
which is missing)

Monday Night [June 13, 1796].

Unfurnished at present with any sheet-filling
subject, I shall continue my letter gradually and
journal-wise. My second thoughts entirely co-
incide with your comments on Joan of Arc, and
I can only wonder at my childish judgment
which overlooked the 1st book and could prefer
the 9th : not that I was insensible to the soberer
beauties of the former, but the latter caught me
with its glare of magic, — the former, however,
left a more pleasing general recollection in my
mind. Let me add, the 1st book was the favour-
ite of my sister — and / now, with Joan, often
"think on Domremi and the fields of Arc." I
must not pass over without acknowledging my
obligations to your full and satisfactory account
of personifications. I have read it again and
again, and it will be a guide to my future taste.
Perhaps I had estimated Southey's merits too
much by number, weight, and measure. I now

agree completely and entirely in your opinion
of the genius of Southey. Your own image of
melancholy is illustrative of what you teach,
and in itself masterly. I conjecture it is " dis-
branched" from one of your embryo " hymns."
When they are mature of birth (were I you) I
should print 'em in one separate volume, with Re-
ligious Musings and your part of the jfoan of Arc.
Birds of the same soaring wing should hold on
their flight in company. Once for all (and by
renewing the subject you will only renew in me
the condemnation of Tantalus), I hope to be
able to pay you a visit (if you are then at Bris-
tol) some time in the latter end of August or
beginning of September for a week or fortnight ;
before that time, office business puts an absolute
veto on my coming.

And if a sigh that speaks regret of happier times appear,
A glimpse of joy that we have met shall shine and dry the
tear.

Of the blank verses I spoke of, the following
lines are the only tolerably complete ones I have
writ out of not more than one hundred and fifty.
That I get on so slowly you may fairly impute
to want of practice in composition, when I de-
clare to you that (the few verses which you have
seen excepted) I have not writ fifty lines since I
left school. It may not be amiss to remark that
my grandmother (on whom the verses are writ-
ten) lived housekeeper in a family the fifty or sixty
last years of her life — that she was a woman of

exemplary piety and goodness — and for many
years before her death was terribly afflicted with
a cancer in her breast which she bore with true
Christian patience. You may think that I have
not kept enough apart the ideas of her heavenly
and her earthly master, but recollect I have de-
signedly given in to her own way of feeling —
and if she had a failing, 't was that she respected
her master's family too much, not reverenced
her Maker too little. The lines begin imper-
fectly, as I may probably connect 'em if I finish
at all, — and if I do, Biggs shall print 'em in a
more economical way than you yours, for (Son-
nets and all) they won't make a thousand lines
as I propose completing 'em, and the substance
must be wire-drawn.

Tuesday Evening, June 14, 1796.

I am not quite satisfied now with the Chat-
terton, 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; 't is 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 (dis-
guised) to his faithless mistress. You will re-
mark 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 neighbour 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
scorn' d me; and in so 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 un-
worthy 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 our woes ;
The vine shall grow, but we shall never see it, &c.

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 serv-
ant. 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 [their]
Maid's Tragedy and some parts of Philaster in
particular, and elsewhere occasionally ; and per-
haps 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 copy-
right. The book itself not a week's work ! To-
day's portion of my journalising 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 'It soar when creation shall sink.

Burns

Thursday [June 1 6, 1796].
I am now in high hopes to be able to visit you,
if perfectly convenient on your part, by the end
of next month — perhaps the last week or fort-
night in July. A change of scene and a change
of faces would do me good, even if that scene
were not to be Bristol, and those faces Coleridge's
and his friends. In the words of Terence, a little
altered, " Tsedet me hujus quotidiani mundi." I
am heartily sick of the every-day scenes of life.
I shall half wish you unmarried (don't show this
to Mrs. C.) for one evening only, to have the
pleasure of smoking with you, and drinking egg-
hot in some little smoky room in a pot-house, for
I know not yet how I shall like you in a decent
room, and looking quite happy. My best love
and respects to Sara notwithstanding.
Yours sincerely,

Charles Lamb

V. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[Probably begun on Wednesday, June 29. p.m., July 1, 1796.]

The first moment I can come I will, but my
hopes of coming yet awhile 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 has grown so entirely helpless (not hav-
ing any use of her limbs) that Mary is necessarily
confined from ever sleeping out, she being her
bedfellow. She thanks you tho' and will accom-
pany 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
5
6
1

1 1

7
12

— Sorely your Dactyls do drag along limp-footed.

— Sad is the measure that hangs a clod round 'em so,

— Meagre, and languid, proclaiming its wretchedness.

— Weary, unsatisfied, not little sick of 'em,

— Cold is my tired heart, I have no charity.

— Painfully traveling thus over the rugged road.

— O begone, Measure, half Latin, half English, then.

— Dismal your Dactyls are, God help ye, rhyming Ones.

I possibly may not come this fortnight — there-
fore all thou hast to do is not to look for me any
particular day, only to write word immediately

if at any time you quit Bristol, lest I come and
Taffy be not at home. I hope I can come in a day
or two. But young Savory of my office is suddenly
taken ill in this very nick of time and I must offi-
ciate for him till he can come to work again. Had
the knave gone sick and died and putrefied at
any other time, philosophy might have afforded
one comfort, but just now I have no patience
with him. Quarles I am as 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 commonplace quo-
tation is heaped upon quotation, I find no men-
tion of such men as Massinger, or Beaumont and
Fletcher, men with whom succeeding dramatic
writers (Otway alone excepted) can bear no man-
ner of comparison. Stupid Knox hath noticed
none of 'em among his extracts.

Thursday. — Mrs. C. 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 prose. The uncertainty
in which I yet stand whether I can come or no
damps my spirits, reduces me a degree below
prosaical, and keeps me in a suspense that fluc-
tuates between hope and fear. Hope is a charm-
ing, lively, blue-eyed wench, and I am always
glad of her company, but could dispense with

the visitor she brings with her, her younger sis-
ter, Fear, a white-liver' d, lily-cheeked, bashful,
palpitating, awkward hussey, 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 im-
prove those lines in your poem on the Prince
and Princess, so I changed them to what you
bid me and left 'em at Perry's. I think 'em alto-
gether good, and do not see why you were solicit-
ous about any alteration.

I have not yet seen, but will make it my busi-
ness to see, to-day's Chronicle, for your verses on
Home Tooke. Dyer stanza'd him in one of the
papers t'other day, but I think unsuccessfully.
Tooke's friends' meeting was I suppose a dinner

of CONDOLENCE.

I am not sorry to find you (for all Sara) im-
mersed in clouds of smoke and metaphysic. 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 those
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.

Friday Evening. — That execrable aristocrat
and knave Richardson has given me an absolute
refusal of leave ! The poor man cannot guess at
my disappointment. Is it not hard, " this dread
dependance on the low-bred mind?" Continue

to write to me, tho',and I must be content

Our loves and best good wishes attend upon you
both. Lamb

Savory did return, but there are two or three
more ill and absent, which was the plea for re-
fusing me. I will never commit my peace of
mind by depending on such a wretch for a favor
in future, so shall never have heart to ask for
holidays again. The man next him in office,
Cartwright, furnished him with the objections.

C. Lamb

note

[The dactyls were Coleridge's only in the third stanza ;
the remainder were Southey's. The poem is known as The
Soldier's Wife, printed in Southey's Poems, 1797, running
thus, —

Weary way-wanderer languid and sick at heart
Travelling painfully over the rugged road,
Wild-visag' d Wanderer ! ah for thy heavy chance !

Sorely thy little one drags by thee bare-footed,
Cold is the baby that hangs at thy bending back,
Meagre and livid and screaming its wretchedness.

Woe-begone mother, half anger, half agony,

As over thy shoulder thou lookest to hush the babe,

Bleakly the blinding snow beats in thy hagged face.

Thy husband will never return from the war again,
Cold is thy hopeless heart even as Charity —
Cold are thy famish' d babes — God help thee, widow'd One.
Bristol, 1795.

Later Southey revised the verses. The Anti-Jacobin had the
following parody of them :

THE SOLDIER'S FRIEND

Come, little drummer boy, lay down your knapsack here:
I am the soldier's friend — here are some books for you ;
Nice clever books, by TOM PAINE, the philanthropist.

Here 's half-a-crown for you — here are some hand-bills too —
Go to the barracks, and give all the soldiers some.
Tell them the sailors are all in a mutiny.

[Exit drummer-boy, 'with hand-bills and
half-crown. — Manet soldier' s friend.

Liberty's friends thus all learn to amalgamate,

Freedom's volcanic explosion prepares itself,

Despots shall bow to the fasces of liberty,

Reason, philosophy, "fiddledum, piddledum,"
Peace and fraternity, higgledy, piggledy,
Higgledy, piggledy, "fiddledum diddledum."

Et caetera, et caetera, et caetera.~\

VI. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

The 5th July, 1796.
TO SARA AND HER SAMUEL

Was it so hard a thing ? I did but ask
A fleeting holy day. One little week,
Or haply two, had bounded my request.

What if the jaded Steer, who all day long
Had borne the heat and labour of the plough,
42

When evening came and her sweet cooling hour,
Should seek to trespass on a neighbour copse,
Where greener herbage waved, or clearer streams
Invited him to slake his burning thirst ?
That man were crabbed, who should say him nay :
That man were churlish, who should drive him thence !

A blessing light upon your heads, ye good,
Ye hospitable pair. I may not come,
To catch on Clifden's heights the summer gale :
I may not come, a pilgrim, to the " vales
Where Avon winds," to taste th' inspiring waves
Which Shakespere drank, our British Helicon :
Or, with mine eye intent on Redcliffe towers,
To drop a tear for that mysterious youth,
Cruelly slighted, who to London walls,
In evil hour, shap'd his disastrous course.

Complaints, begone ; begone, ill-omen'd thoughts —
For yet again, and lo ! from Avon banks
Another " minstrel " cometh ! Youth beloved,
God and good angels guide thee on thy way,
And gentler fortunes wait the friends I love.

C. L.

VII. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

The 6th July, 1796.

Substitute in room of that last confused and
incorrect paragraph, following the words " dis-
astrous course," these lines

v. , J" With better hopes, I trust, from Avon's vales

, - J This other "minstrel" cometh. Youth endear' d,

?■ ■ 1 1 God and good angels guide thee on thy road,

" ' [ And gentler fortunes wait the friends I love.

[Lamb has crossed through the above lines .]
43

Let us prose.

What can I do till you send word what priced
and placed house you should like ? Islington
(possibly) you would not like, to me 't is classical
ground. Knightsbridge is a desirable situation
for the air of the parks. St. George's Fields is
convenient for its contiguity to the Bench.
Chuse ! But are you really coming to town ?
The hope of it has entirely disarmed my petty
disappointment of its nettles. Yet I rejoice so
much on my own account, that I fear I do not feel
enough pure satisfaction on yours. Why, surely,
the joint editorship of the Chronicle must be
a very comfortable and secure living for a man.

But should not you read French, or do you ?
and can you write with sufficient moderation, as
't is call'd, when one suppresses the one half of
what one feels, or could say, on a subject, to chime
in the better with popular lukewarmness? —
White's Letters are near publication. Could you
review 'em, or get 'em reviewed ? Are you not
connected with the Critical Review ? His frontis-
piece is a good conceit: Sir John learning to
dance, to please Madame Page, in dress of doub-
let, etc., forms the upper half; and modern pan-
taloons, with shoes, etc., of the eighteenth cen-
tury, form the lower half — and the whole work
is full of goodly quips and rare fancies, " all deftly
masqued like hoar antiquity," — much superior
to Dr. Kenrick's Falstaff' s Wedding, which you
may have seen. Allen sometimes laughs at su-

perstition, and religion, and the like. A living fell
vacant lately in the gift of the Hospital. White
informed him that he stood a fair chance for it.
He scrupled and scrupled about it, and at last (to
use his own words) " tampered " with Godwin
to know whether the thing was honest or not.
Godwin said nay to it, and Allen rejected the liv-
ing ! Could the blindest poor papist have bowed
more servilely to his priest or casuist ? Why sleep
the Watchman' s answers to that Godwin? I beg
you will not delay to alter, if you mean to keep,
those last lines I sent you. Do that, and read
these for your pains :

TO THE POET COWPER

Cowper, I thank my God that thou art heal'd !
Thine was the sorest malady of all ;
And I am sad to think that it should light
Upon the worthy head ! But thou art heal'd,
And thou art yet, we trust, the destin'd man,
Born to reanimate the lyre, whose chords
Have slumber'd, and have idle lain so long,
To the immortal sounding of whose strings
Did Milton frame the stately-paced verse ;
Among whose wires with lighter ringer playing,
Our elder bard, Spenser, a gentle name,
The Lady Muses' dearest darling child,
Elicited the deftest tunes yet heard
In hall or bower, taking the delicate ear
Of Sydney, and his peerless Maiden Queen.

Thou, then, take up the mighty epic strain,
Cowper, of England's bards, the wisest and the best.
1796.

I have read your climax of praises in those
three reviews. These mighty spouters-out of
panegyric waters have, two of 'em, scattered their
spray even upon me, and the waters are cooling
and refreshing. Prosaically, the monthly re-
viewers have made indeed a large article of it,
and done you justice. The critical have, in their
wisdom, selected not the very best specimens,
and notice not, except as one name on the mus-
ter-roll, the Religious Musings. I suspect Master
Dyer to have been the writer of that article, as
the substance of it was the very remarks and the
very language he used to me one day. I fear you
will not accord entirely with my sentiments of
Cowper, as exprest above (perhaps scarcely just),
but the poor gentleman has just recovered from
his lunacies, and that begets pity, and pity love,
and love admiration, and then it goes hard with
people but they lie !

Have you read the ballad called Leonora, in
the second number of the Monthly Magazi?ie ?
If you have ! ! ! ! There is another fine song,
from the same author (Burger), in the third Num-
ber, of scarce inferior merit ; and (vastly below
these) there are some happy specimens of Eng-
lish hexameters, in an imitation of Ossian, in the
fifth Number. For your dactyls I am sorry you
are so sore about 'em — a very Sir Fretful ! In
good troth, the dactyls are good dactyls, but their
measure is naught. Be not yourself" half anger,
half agony " if I pronounce your darling lines

not to be the best you ever wrote : you have
written much.

For the alterations in those lines, let 'em run
thus:

I may not come a pilgrim to the

banks
Of dvon,lucidstream,to taste the (inspiring wave) was too

wave commonplace.

Which Shakspere drank, our

British Helicon ;
Or, with mine eye, &c, &c.
To muse, in tears, on that mys- (better than " drop a tear " )

terious youth, &c.

Then the last paragraph alter thus :

Complaint, begone ; begone, un- better refer to my own
kind reproof. " complaint " solely than

Take up, my song, take up a half to that and half to Chat-
merrier strain, terton, as in your copy,

For yet again, and lo ! from which creates a confusion,
Avon's vales — " ominous fears," &c.

Another minstrel cometh !
youth endeared,

God and good angels, &c, as
before.

Have a care, good Master poet, of the Statute
de Contumelia. What do you mean by calling
Madame Mara harlot and naughty things ? The
goodness of the verse would not save you in a
court of justice. But are you really coming to
town ?

Coleridge, a gentleman called in London lately
from Bristol, and inquired whether there were
any of the family of a Mr. Chambers living;
this Mr. Chambers, he said, had been the making

of a friend's fortune who wished to make some
return for it. He went away without seeing her.
Now, a Mrs. Reynolds, a very intimate friend
of ours, whom you have seen at our house, is the
only daughter, and all that survives, of Mr. Cham-
bers; and a very little supply would be of service
to her, for she married very unfortunately, and
has parted with her husband.

Pray find out this Mr. Pember (for that was
the gentleman's friend's name) ; he is an attorney,
and lives at Bristol. Find him out, and acquaint
him with the circumstances of the case, and offer
to be the medium of supply to Mrs. Reynolds,
if he chuses to make her a present. She is in
very distrest circumstances. Mr. Pember, attor-
ney, Bristol ; Mr. Chambers lived in the Temple.
Mrs. Reynolds, his daughter, was my school-
mistress, and is in the room at this present writ-
ing. This last circumstance induced me to write
so soon again; I have not further to add; our
loves to Sara. C. Lamb

Thursday.

NOTE

[The passage at the beginning, before " Let us prose," to-
gether with the later passages in the same manner, refers to
the poem in the preceding letter, which in slightly different
form is printed in editions of Lamb as " Lines to Sara and
Her Samuel." In order to complete the letter we have copied
the version printed in the Monthly Magazine, January, 1 797:

LINES ADDRESSED, FROM LONDON, TO SARA AND S. T. C.
AT BRISTOL, IN THE SUMMER OF 1796

Was it so hard a thing ? I did but ask
A fleeting holiday, a little week.

What, if the jaded steer, who, all day long,
Had borne the heat and burthen of the plough,
When ev'ning came, and her sweet cooling hour,
Should seek to wander in a neighbour copse,
Where greener herbage wav'd, or clearer streams
Invited him to slake his burning thirst ?
The man were crabbed who should say him nay ;
The man were churlish who should drive him thence.

A blessing light upon your worthy heads,
Ye hospitable pair! I may not come
To catch, on Clifden' s heights, the summer gale j
I may not come to taste the Avon wave ;
Or, with mine eye intent on Redcliffe tow'rs,
To muse in tears on that mysterious youth,
Cruelly slighted, who, in evil hour,
Shap'd his advent' rous course to London walls!

Complaint, be gone ! and, ominous thoughts, away !
Take up, my Song, take up a merrier strain ;
For yet again, and lo! from Avon's vales,
Another Minstrel cometh. Youth endear' d,
God and good Angels guide thee on thy road,
And gentler fortunes 'wait the friends I love!]

VIII. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[p.m. 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 Bluecoat school has
been very, very kind to us, and we have no other
friend ; but thank God, I am very calm and com-
posed, 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 !

[The following is Coleridge's reply :]

[September 28, 1796.]

Your letter, my friend, struck me with a mighty horror. It
rushed upon me and stupefied my feelings. You bid me write

5°

you a religious letter ; I am not a man who would attempt to
insult the greatness of your anguish by any other consolation.
Heaven knows that in the easiest fortunes there is much dis-
satisfaction and weariness of spirit ; much that calls for the
exercise of patience and resignation ; but in storms, like these,
that shake the dwelling and make the heart tremble, there is
no middle way between despair and the yielding up of the
whole spirit unto the guidance of faith.

And surely it is a matter of joy, that your faith in Jesus
has been preserved ; the Comforter that should relieve you is
not far from you. But as you are a Christian, in the name of
that Saviour who was filled with bitterness and made drunken
with wormwood, I conjure you to have recourse in frequent
prayer to " his God and your God," the God of mercies and
father of all comfort. Your poor father is, I hope, almost
senseless of the calamity ; the unconscious instrument of Di-
vine Providence knows it not, and your mother is in heaven.
It is sweet to be roused from a frightful dream by the song
of birds, and the gladsome rays of the morning. Ah, how
infinitely more sweet to be awakened from the blackness and
amazement of a sudden horror by the glories of God manifest
and the hallelujahs of angels.

As to what regards yourself, I approve altogether of your
abandoning what you justly call vanities. I look upon you as
a man, called by sorrow and anguish and a strange desolation
of hopes into quietness, and a soul set apart and made pecu-
liar to God ; we cannot arrive at any portion of heavenly bliss
without in some measure imitating Christ. And they arrive
at the largest inheritance who imitate the most difficult parts
of his character, and, bowed down and crushed under foot,
cry in fulness of faith, " Father, thy will be done."

I wish above measure to have you for a little while here ;
no visitants shall blow on the nakedness of your feelings ; you
shall be quiet, and your spirit may be healed. I see no pos-
sible objection, unless your father's helplessness prevent you,
and unless you are necessary to him. If this be not the case,
I charge you write me that you will come.

I charge you, my dearest friend, not to dare to encourage
gloom or despair; you are a temporary sharer in human miser-

ies that you may be an eternal partaker of the divine nature.
I charge you, if by any means it be possible, come to me.
I remain, your affectionate,

S. T. Coleridge

NOTE

[The following is the report of the inquest upon Mrs.
Lamb which appeared in the Morning Chronicle for September
26, 1796. The tragedy had occurred on Thursday, Septem-
ber 22 :

On Friday afternoon the Coroner and a respectable Jury sat on the body
of a Lady in the neighbourhood of Holbom, who died in consequence of
a wound from her daughter the preceding day. It appeared by the evi-
dence adduced, that while the family were preparing for dinner, the young
lady seized a case knife laying on the table, and in a menacing manner
pursued a little girl, her apprentice, round the room ; on the eager calls
of her helpless 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 — the dreadful scene presented to him the mother lifeless,
pierced to the heart, on a chair, her daughter yet wildly standing over
her with the fatal knife, and the venerable 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 even-
ing, that her brother early the next morning went in quest of Dr. Pit-
caim — had that gentleman been met with, the fatal catastrophe had, in
all probability, been prevented.

It seems the young Lady had been once before, in her earlier years,
deranged, from the harassing fatigues of too much business. — As her
carriage towards her mother was ever affectionate in the extreme, it is
believed that to the increased attentiveness, which her parents' infirmities
called for by day and night, is to be attributed the present insanity of this
ill-fated young woman.

It has been stated in some of the Morning Papers, that she has an insane
brother also in confinement — this is without foundation.

The Jury of course brought in their Verdict, Lunacy.~\

IX. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[p. m. October 3, 1796.]

My dearest friend, — Your letter was an in-
estimable 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 to our house, is restored to
her senses ; to a dreadful sense and recollection of
what has past, awful to her mind, and impress-
ive (as it must be to the end of life), but temper' d
with religious resignation, and the reasonings
of a sound judgment, which in this early stage
knows how to distinguish between a deed com-
mitted in a transient fit of frenzy and the terrible
guilt of a mother's murther. I have seen her.
I found her this morning calm and serene, far,
very very far, from an indecent forgetful seren-
ity ; she has a most affectionate and tender con-
cern 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 favor-
able 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 fore-
head plaistered over from a wound he had re-
ceived from a daughter dearly loved by him, and
who loved him no less dearly, — my mother a
dead and murder'd corpse in the next room —
yet was I wonderfully supported. I closed not
my eyes in sleep that night, but lay without ter-
rors 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, little disposed (I speak not without ten-
derness 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 drest
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, tho', 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 thro' life wished
nothing but her children's welfare, — indigna-
tion, 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 some-
times of her, for forgetting her so soon. Tran-
quillity 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 conceal-
ment, and love to give a faithful journal of what
passes within me. Our friends have been very

good. Sam Le Grice who was then in town was
with me the first three or four 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 humouring my poor
father. Talk'd with him, read to him, play'd at
cribbage with him (for so short is the old man's
recollection, that he was playing at cards, as
tho' 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 Hospital has been as a
father to me, Mrs. Norris as a mother ; tho' we
had few claims on them. A gentleman, brother
to my godmother, 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 recover'd 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) wholly and solely to my sister's use.
Reckoning this we have, Daddy and I, for our
two selves and an old maid servant to look after

him, when I am out, which will be necessary,
£170 or ;£i8o (rather) a year, out of which we
can spare ^50 or £60 at least for Mary, while
she stays at Islington, where she must and shall
stay during her father's life for his and her com-
fort. 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 Bedlam thought it likely " here it may be
my fate to end my days — " conscious of a cer-
tain 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 Xmas, and this £20 \ 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 unfa-
vourable 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 your
self, you must not abridge yourself of a single
pleasure you have been used to," &c, &c, 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 my-
self with him, and shall manage all my father's
monies 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 dis-
miss immediately both doctor and apothecary,
retaining occasionally an opening draught or so
for a while, and there is a less expensive estab-
lishment 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 Jfbo —
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 let-
ter 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 fool-
ishly speaking) she will be found, I trust, uni-
formly great and amiable ; God keep her in her
present mind, to whom be* thanks and praise for
all His dispensations to mankind.

Lamb

Coleridge, continue to write ; but do not for
ever 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.

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 / shall
thro' life never have less recollection nor a fainter

impression of what has happened than I have
now; 'tis not a light thing, nor meant by the
Almighty to be received lightly. I must be seri-
ous, circumspect, and deeply religious thro' life ;
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 re-
peat it, your letter was and will be an inestim-
able treasure to me ; you have a view of what my
situation demands of me like my own view ; and
I trust a just one.

NOTE

[A word perhaps on Lamb's salary might be fitting here.
For the first three years, from joining the East India House
on April 5, 1792, he received nothing. This probationary
period over, he was given £\o for the year 1795—1796.
This, however, was raised to £"]Q in 1796 and there were
means of adding to it a little, by extra work and by a small
holiday grant. In 1797 it was ^80, in 1799 .£90, and from
that time until 1 8 14 it rose by ,£10 every second year.]

X.— TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[p. M. 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 irre-
sistible 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 some-
where 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 labors 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 indulged regret or querulousness, —
Mary continues serene and chearful, — I have
not by me a little letter she wrote to me, for,
tho' 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 moyther'd
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 re-
semblance to her daughter that she never under-
stood her right. Never could believe how much
she loved her, but met her caresses, her protesta-
tions of filial affection, too frequently with cold-
ness 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 derange-
ment of her senses), thro' a long course of infirm-
ities and sickness, she could shew her, she ever
did.

I will some day, as I promised, enlarge to you
upon my sister's excellencies : '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 establish-
ment in life, and for Sara's welfare and comforts
with you. God love you ! God love us all !

C. Lamb
62

XL — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

October 24, 1796. [Monday.]

Coleridge, I feel myself much your debtor for
that spirit of confidence and friendship which
dictated your last letter. May your soul find
peace at last in your cottage life ! I only wish
you were but settled. Do continue to write to
me. I read your letters with my sister, and they
give us both abundance of delight. Especially
they please us two, when you talk in a religious
strain, — not but we are offended occasionally
with a certain freedom of expression, a certain
air of mysticism, more consonant to the con-
ceits of pagan philosophy than consistent with
the humility of genuine piety. To instance now
in your last letter you say, " it is by the press
that God hath given finite spirits both ,evil and
good (I suppose you mean simply bad men and
good men) a portion as it were of His omni-
presence!"

Now, high as the human intellect compara-
tively will soar, and wide as its influence, malign
or salutary, can extend, is there not, Coleridge,
a distance between the divine mind and it, which
makes such language blasphemy ? Again, in your
first fine consolatory epistle you say, "you are
a temporary sharer in human misery that you
may be an eternal partaker of the divine nature."
What more than this do those men say who are
for exalting the man Christ Jesus into the second

person of an unknown Trinity, — men, whom
you or I scruple not to call idolaters ? Man, full
of imperfections, at best, and subject to wants
which momentarily remind him of dependence;
man, a weak and ignorant being, " servile " from
his birth " to all the skiey influences," with eyes
sometimes open to discern the right path, but
a head generally too dizzy to pursue it ; man, in
the pride of speculation, forgetting his nature,
and hailing in himself the future God, must make
the angels laugh.

Be not angry with me, Coleridge ; I wish not
to cavil ; I know I cannot instruct you ; I only
wish to remind you of that humility which best
becometh the Christian character. God, in the
New Testament [our best guide), is represented
to us in the kind, condescending, amiable, fa-
miliar light of a parent ; and in my poor mind
'tis best for us so to consider of Him, as our
heavenly Father, and our best Friend, without in-
dulging too bold conceptions of His nature. Let
us learn to think humbly of ourselves, and rejoice
in the appellation of "dear children," "breth-
ren," and " co-heirs with Christ of the pro-
mises," seeking to know no further.

I am not insensible, indeed I am not, of the
value of that first letter of yours, and I shall find
reason to thank you for it again and again long
after that blemish in it is forgotten. It will be
a fine lesson of comfort to us, whenever we read
it ; and read it we often shall, Mary and I.

Accept our loves and best kind wishes for the
welfare of yourself and wife and little one. Nor
let me forget to wish you joy on your birthday
so lately past ; I thought you had been older.
My kind thanks and remembrances to Lloyd.

God love us all, and may He continue to be
the Father and the Friend of the whole human
race!

C. Lamb

Sunday Evening.

XII. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

October 28, 1796.

My dear friend, — I am not ignorant that to be
a partaker of the divine nature is a phrase to be
met with in Scripture : I am only apprehensive
lest we in these latter days, tinctured (some of us
perhaps pretty deeply) with mystical notions and
the pride of metaphysics, might be apt to affix to
such phrases a meaning which the primitive users
of them, the simple fishermen of Galilee for in-
stance, never intended to convey. With that other
part of your apology I am not quite so well satisfied.
You seem to me to have been straining your com-
paring faculties to bring together things infinitely
distant and unlike; the feeble narrow-sphered
operations of the human intellect and the every-
where diffused mind of Deity, the peerless wisdom
of Jehovah. Even the expression appears to me
inaccurate, " portion of omnipresence : " omni-

presence is an attribute whose very essence is un-
limitedness. How can omnipresence be affirmed
of anything in part ? But enough of this spirit of
disputatiousness. Let us attend to the proper busi-
ness of human life, and talk a little together re-
specting our domestic concerns. Do you continue
to make me acquainted with what you were doing,
and how soon you are likely to be settled once for
all.

I have satisfaction in being able to bid you re-
joice with me in my sister's continued reason and
composedness of mind. Let us both be thankful
for it. I continue to visit her very frequently, and
the people of the house are vastly indulgent to
her; she is likely to be as comfortably situated in
all respects as those who pay twice or thrice the
sum. They love her, and she loves them, and
makes herself very useful to them. Benevolence
sets out on her journey with a good heart, and puts
a good face on it, but is apt to limp and grow
feeble, unless she calls in the aid of self-interest
by way of crutch. In Mary's case, as far as respects
those she is with, 't is well that these principles
are so likely to co-operate. I am rather at a loss
sometimes for books for her, — our reading is
somewhat confined, and we have nearly exhausted
our London library. She has her hands too full
of work to read much: but a little she must read;
for reading was her daily bread.

Have you seen Bowles's new poem on Hope?
What character does it bear ? Has he exhausted

his stores of tender plaintiveness? or is he the same
in this last as in all his former pieces? The duties
of the day call me offfrom this pleasant intercourse
with my friend ; so for the present adieu.

Now for the truant borrowing of a few min-
utes from business. Have you met with a new
poem called the Pursuits of Literature ? From
the extracts in the British Review I judge it to be
a very humorous thing ; in particular I remember
what I thought a very happy character of Dr.
Darwin's poetry. Among all your quaint read-
ings did you ever light upon Walton's Complete
Angler? I asked you the question once before ; it
breathes the very spirit of innocence, purity, and
simplicity of heart ; there are many choice old
verses interspersed in it ; it would sweeten a man's
temper at any time to read it ; it would Christian-
ise every discordant angry passion; pray make
yourself acquainted with it. Have you made it
up with Southey yet? Surely one of you two must
have been a very silly fellow, and the other not
much better, to fall out like boarding-school
misses; kiss, shake hands, and make it up.

When will he be delivered of his new epic ?
Madoc, I think, is to be the name of it ; though
that is a name not familiar to my ears. What
progress do you make in your hymns ? What
review are you connected with ? If with any,
why do you delay to notice White's book ? You
are justly offended at its profaneness ; but surely
you have undervalued its wit, or you would have

been more loud in its praises. Do not you think
that in Slender s death and madness there is most
exquisite humour, mingled with tenderness, that
is irresistible, truly Shakspearian ? Be more full
in your mention of it. Poor fellow, he has (very
undeservedly) lost by it ; nor do I see that it is
likely ever to reimburse him the charge of print-
ing, &c. Give it a lift, if you can.

I suppose you know that Allen's wife is dead,
and he, just situated as he was, never the better, as
the worldly people say, for her death, her money
with her children being taken off his hands.

I am just now wondering whether you will
ever come to town again, Coleridge ; 't is among
the things I dare not hope, but can't help wishing.
For myself, I can live in the midst of town lux-
ury and superfluity, and not long for them, and
I can't see why your children might not here-
after do the same. Remember, you are not in
Arcadia when you are in the west of England,
and they may catch infection from the world
without visiting the metropolis. But you seem
to have set your heart upon this same cottage
plan ; and God prosper you in the experiment !
I am at a loss for more to write about ; so 't is
as well that I am arrived at the bottom of my
paper.

God love you, Coleridge ! Our best loves and
tenderest wishes await on you, your Sara, and
your little one.

C. L.
68

XIII. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

November 8, 1796.

My brother, my friend, — I am distrest for
you, believe me I am ; not so much for your
painful, troublesome complaint, which, I trust,
is only for a time, as for those anxieties which
brought it on, and perhaps even now may be
nursing its malignity. Tell me, dearest of my
friends, is your mind at peace, or has anything,
yet unknown to me, happened to give you fresh
disquiet, and steal from you all the pleasant
dreams of future rest ? Are you still (I fear you
are) far from being comfortably settled ? Would
to God it were in my power to contribute to-
wards the bringing of you into the haven where
you would be ! But you are too well skilled in
the philosophy of consolation to need my humble
tribute of advice ; in pain and in sickness, and in
all manner of disappointments, I trust you have
that within you which shall speak peace to your
mind. Make it, I entreat you, one of your puny
comforts that I feel for you and share all your
griefs with you.

I feel as if I were troubling you about little
things, now I am going to resume the subject
of our last two letters ; but it may divert us both
from unpleasanter feelings to make such matters,
in a manner, of importance. Without further
apology, then, it was not that I did not relish,
that I did not in my heart thank you for, those

little pictures of your feelings which you lately
sent me, if I neglected to mention them. You
may remember you had said much the same
things before to me on the same subject in a for-
mer letter, and I considered those last verses as
only the identical thoughts better clothed ; either
way (in prose or verse) such poetry must be wel-
come to me. I love them as I love the Confes-
sions of Rousseau, and for the same reason ; the
same frankness, the same openness of heart, the
same disclosure of all the most hidden and deli-
cate affections of the mind : they make me proud
to be thus esteemed worthy of the place of friend-
confessor, brother-confessor, to a man like Cole-
ridge. This last is, I acknowledge, language too
high for friendship ; but it is also, I declare, too
sincere for flattery.

Now, to put on stilts, and talk magnificently
about trifles, — I condescend, then, to your coun-
sel, Coleridge, and allow my first sonnet (sick
to death am I to make mention of my sonnets,
and I blush to be so taken up with them, indeed
I do) — I allow it to run thus, Fairy Land, &c,
&c, as I last wrote it.

The fragments I now send you I want printed
to get rid of 'em ; for, while they stick burr-like
to my memory, they tempt me to go on with the
idle trade of versifying, which I long — most
sincerely I speak it — I long to leave off", for it
is unprofitable to my soul ; I feel it is ; and these
questions about words, and debates about alter-

7°

ations, take me off, I am conscious, from the pro-
perer business of my life. Take my sonnets once
for all, and do not propose any re-amendments,
or mention them again in any shape to me, I
charge you. I blush that my mind can consider
them as things of any worth. And pray admit
or reject these fragments, as you like or dislike
them, without ceremony. Call 'em Sketches,
Fragments, or what you will, but do not entitle
any of my things Love Sonnets, as I told you to
call 'em ; 't will only make me look little in my
own eyes ; for it is a passion of which I retain
nothing ; 't was a weakness, concerning which I
may say, in the words of Petrarch (whose Life
is now open before me), " if it drew me out of
some vices, it also prevented the growth of many
virtues, filling me with the love of the creature
rather than the Creator, which is the death of
the soul."

Thank God, the folly has left me for ever ;
not even a review of my love verses renews one
wayward wish in me ; and if I am at all solicit-
ous to trim 'em out in their best apparel, it is
because they are to make their appearance in
good company.

Now to my fragments. Lest you have lost
my Grandame, she shall be one. 'T is among the
few verses I ever wrote (that to Mary is another)
which profit me in the recollection. God love
her, — and may we two never love each other
less !

These, Coleridge, are the few sketches I have
thought worth preserving ; how will they relish
thus detached ? Will you reject all or any of
them ? They are thine : do whatsoever thou list-
est with them. My eyes ache with writing long
and late, and I wax wondrous sleepy ; God bless
you and yours, me and mine ! Good night.

C. Lamb

I will keep my eyes open reluctantly a minute
longer to tell you that I love you for those sim-
ple, tender, heart-flowing lines with which you
conclude your last, and in my eyes best, sonnet
(so you call 'em), —

So, for the mother's sake, the child was dear,
And dearer was the mother for the child.

Cultivate simplicity, Coleridge, or rather, I
should say, banish elaborateness ; for simplicity
springs spontaneous from the heart, and carries
into daylight its own modest buds and genuine,
sweet, and clear flowers of expression. I allow
no hot-beds in the gardens of Parnassus. I am
unwilling to go to bed, and leave my sheet un-
filled (a good piece of night-work for an idle
body like me), so will finish with begging you
to send me the earliest account of your com-
plaint, its progress, or (as I hope to God you will
be able to send me) the tale of your recovery, or
at least amendment. My tenderest remembrances
to your Sara.

Once more good night.
72

XIV. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

November 14, 1796.

Coleridge, I love you for dedicating your po-
etry to Bowles. 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
an 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. I mean to inscribe
them to my sister. It will be unexpected, and
it will give 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 some-
times 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 corre-
spondent I will give directions how I should
like to have 'em done. The title-page to stand
thus, —

POEMS
CHIEFLY LOVE SONNETS

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 ar-
morial 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 neighbour 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.

Massinger

THE DEDICATION

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 AND 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 weak-
ness troubles me no longer. I am wedded, Cole-
ridge, 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 wan-
derings with a fair hair'd maid," which I have so
often and so feelingly regretted, but the days,
Coleridge, of a mother's fondness for her school-boy.
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 re-
conciled 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

XV. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

December 2, 1796.

I have delay'd writing thus long, not having by
me my copy of your poems, which I had lent. I
am not satisfied with all your intended omissions.
Why omit 40, 63, 84: above all, let me protest
strongly against your rejecting the Complaint of
Ninathoma, 86. The words, I acknowledge, are
Ossian's, but you have added to them the Music
ofCaril. If a vicarious substitute be wanting, sac-
rifice (and 't will be a piece of self-denial tod) the
Epitaph on an Infant, of which its author seems
so proud, so tenacious. Or, if your heart be set
on perpetuating the four-line-wonder, I'll tell you

what [to] do : sell the copyright of it at once to
a country statuary; commence in this manner
Death's prime poet laureate; and let your verses
be adopted in every village round instead of those
hitherto famous ones, —

Afflictions sore long time I bore ;
Physicians were in vain.

I have seen your last very beautiful poem in the
Monthly Magazine; write thus, and you most gen-
erally have written thus, and I shall never quarrel
with you about simplicity.
With regard to my lines, —

Laugh all that weep, &c,

I would willingly sacrifice them, but my portion
of the volume is so ridiculously little, that in hon-
est truth I can't spare them. As things are, I have
very slight pretensions to participate in the title-
page. — White's book is at length reviewed in
the Monthly; was it your doing or Dyer's, to whom
I sent him? Or rather do you not write in the
Critical1? for I observed in an article of this
month's a line quoted out of that sonnet on Mrs.
Siddons, —

With eager wond'ring and perturb'd delight.

And a line from that sonnet would not readily
have occurred to a stranger. That sonnet, Cole-
ridge, brings afresh to my mind the time when you
wrote those on Bowles, Priestly, Burke. 'T was
two Christmases ago, and in that nice little smoky

room at the Salutation, which is even now con-
tinually presenting itself to my recollection, with
all its associated train of pipes, tobacco, egg-hot,
welsh-rabbits, metaphysics and poetry.

Are we never to meet again ? How differently
I am circumstanced now ! I have never met with
any one, never shall meet with any one, who could
or can compensate me for the loss of your society.
I have no one to talk all these matters about to :
I lack friends ; I lack books to supply their ab-
sence. But these complaints ill become me : let
me compare my present situation, prospects, and
state of mind, with what they were but two
months back — but two months. O my friend,
I am in danger of forgetting the awful lessons
then presented to me: remind me of them; re-
mind me of my duty. Talk seriously with me
when you do write. I thank you, from my heart
I thank you, for your solicitude about my sister.
She is quite well ; but must not, I fear, come to
live with us yet a good while. In the first place,
because at present it would hurt her and hurt
my father for them to be together ; secondly, from
a regard to the world's good report, for I fear,
I fear, tongues will be busy whenever that event
takes place.

Some have hinted, one man has prest it on me,
that she should be in perpetual confinement : what
she hath done to deserve, or the necessity of such
an hardship, I see not ; do you ? I am starving
at the India house, near seven o'clock without my

dinner, and so it has been and will be almost all
the week. I get home at night o'er-wearied, quite
faint, — and then to cards with my father, who
will not let me enjoy a meal in peace ; but I must
conform to my situation, and I hope I am, for
the most part, not unthankful.

I am got home at last, and, after repeated
games at cribbage, have got my father's leave to
write a while ; with difficulty got it, for when
I expostulated about playing any more, he very
aptly replied, " If you won't play with me, you
might as well not come home at all." The argu-
ment was unanswerable, and I set to afresh.

I told you, I do not approve of your omissions.
Neither do I quite coincide with you in your
arrangements : I have not time to point out a bet-
ter, and I suppose some self-associations of your
own have determined their place as they now
stand. Your beginning, indeed, with the 'Joan of
Arc lines I coincide entirely with : I love a splen-
did outset, a magnificent portico; and the diapason
is grand. The Religious Musings — when I read
them, I think how poor, how unelevated, unorig-
inal, my blank verse is, " Laugh all that weep "
especially, where the subj ect demanded a grandeur
of conception ; and I ask what business they have
among yours; but friendship covereth a multi-
tude of defects. Why omit 73 ? At all events,
let me plead for those former pages, — 40, 63,
84, 86. I should like, for old acquaintance' sake,
to spare 62. 119 would have made a figure among

Shenstone's Elegies : you may admit it or reject,
as you please. In the Man of Ross let the old
line stand as it used, " wine-cheer' d moments,"
much better than the lame present one. 94,
change the harsh word " foodful " into " dulcet"
or, if not too harsh, " nourishing." 91, "move-
less : " is that as good as "moping" ? 8, would
it not read better omitting those two lines last but
six about Inspiration ? I want some loppings made
in the Chatterton ; it wants but a little to make it
rank among the finest irregular lyrics I ever read.
Have you time and inclination to go to work upon
it, or is it too late, or do you think it needs none ?

Don't reject those verses in one of your Watch-
men, "Dear native brook," &c; nor, I think,
those last lines you sent me, in which " all effort-
less " is without doubt to be preferred to " inact-
ive." If I am writing more than ordinarily dully,
'tis that I am stupefied with a toothache. 37,
would not the concluding lines of the first para-
graph be well omitted, and it go on " So to sad
sympathies," &c. ? In 40, if you retain it,
"wove " the learned Toil is better than " urge,"
which spoils the personification. Hang it, do not
omit 48, 52, 53. What you do retain, tho', call
sonnets for God's sake, and not effusions, — spite
of your ingenious anticipation of ridicule in your
Preface. The last five lines of 50 are too good
to be lost, the rest is not much worth.

My tooth becomes importunate : I must finish.
Pray, pray, write to me : if you knew with what

an anxiety of joy I open such a long packet as
you last sent me, you would not grudge giving
a few minutes now and then to this intercourse
(the only intercourse, I fear we two shall ever
have), this conversation, with your friend, — such
I boast to be called.

God love you and yours.

Write to me when you move, lest I direct
wrong.

Has Sara no poems to publish? Those lines
129 are probably too light for the volume where
the Religious Musings are ; but I remember some
very beautiful lines addrest by somebody at Bris-
tol to somebody at London.

God bless you once more. C. Lamb

Thursday Night.

XVI. — TO S. T COLERIDGE

[Dated at end: December 5, 1796.]

TO A YOUNG LADY GOING OUT TO INDIA

Hard is the heart, that does not melt with Ruth

When care sits cloudy on the brow of Youth,

When bitter griefs the female bosom swell

And Beauty meditates a fond farewell

To her loved native land, and early home,

In search of peace thro' " stranger climes to roam."

The Muse, with glance prophetic, sees her stand,
Forsaken, silent Lady, on the strand
Of farthest India, sickening at the war
Of waves slow-beating, dull upon the shore,
Stretching, at gloomy intervals, her eye
O'er the wide waters vainly to espy
8l

The long-expected bark, in which to find
Some tidings of a world she has left behind.

In that sad hour shall start the gushing tear
For scenes her childhood loved, now doubly dear,
In that sad hour shall frantic memory awake
Pangs of remorse for slighted England's sake,
And for the sake of many a tender tie
Of love or friendship pass'd too lightly by.
Unwept, unpitied, midst an alien race,
And the cold looks of many a stranger face,
How will her poor heart bleed, and chide the day,
That from her country took her far away.

[Lamb has struck his pen through the foregoing poem.~\

Coleridge, the above has some few decent [lines
in] it, and in the paucity of my portion of your
volume may as well be inserted ; I would also
wish to retain the following if only to perpetu-
ate the memory of so exquisite a pleasure as I
have often received at the performance of the
tragedy of Douglas, when Mrs. Siddons has been
the Lady Randolph. Both pieces may be inserted
between the sonnets and the sketches ; in which
latter, the last leaf but one of them, I beg you
to alter the words "pain and want" to "pain
and grief," this last being a more familiar and
ear-satisfying combination. Do it I beg of you.
To understand the following, if you are not ac-
quainted with the play, you should know that
on the death of Douglas his mother threw her-
self down a rock ; and that at that time Scotland
was busy in repelling the Danes.

THE TOMB OF DOUGLAS

See the Tragedy of that name

When her son, her Douglas, died,
To the steep rock's fearful side
Fast the frantic mother hied.

O'er her blooming warrior dead
Many a tear did Scotland shed,
And shrieks of long and loud lament
From her Grampian hills she sent.

Like one awakening from a trance,

She met the shock of Lochlin's lance. Denmark

On her rude invader foe

Return'd an hundredfold the blow.

Drove the taunting spoiler home :

Mournful thence she took her way

To do observance at the tomb,

Where the son of Douglas [lay].

Round about the tomb did go
In solemn state and order slow,
Silent pace, and black attire,
Earl, or knight, or good esquire,
Whoe'er by deeds of valour done
In battle had high honors won ;
Whoe'er in their pure veins could trace
The blood of Douglas' noble race.

With them the flower of minstrels came,
And to their cunning harps did frame
In doleful numbers piercing rhymes,
Such strains as in the olden times
Had soothed the spirit of Fingal
Echoing thro' his fathers' Hall.

" Scottish maidens, drop a tear
O'er the beauteous Hero's bier.

Brave youth and comely 'bove compare ;
All golden shone his burnish'd hair ;
Valor and smiling courtesy
Played in the sunbeams of his eye.
Closed are those eyes that shone so fair
And stain'd with blood his yellow hair.
Scottish maidens drop a tear
O'er the beauteous Hero's bier."

" Not a tear, I charge you, shed
For the false Glenalvon dead ;
Unpitied let Glenalvon lie,
Foul stains to arms and chivalry."

" Behind his back the traitor came,
And Douglas died without his fame."

[Lamb has struck his pen through the remainder]

Thane or lordling, think no scorn

Of the poor and lowly-born.

In brake obscure or lonely dell

The simple flowret prospers well ;

The gentler virtues cottage-bred,

Thrive best beneath the humble shed.

Low-born hinds, opprest, obscure,

Ye who patiently endure

To bend the knee and bow the head,

And thankful eat another's bread,

Well may ye mourn your best friend dead,

Till life with grief together end :

He would have been the poor man's friend.

Bending, warrior, o'er thy grave,
Young light of Scotland early spent !
Thy country thee shall long lament,
Douglas, " Beautiful and Brave ! "
And oft to after times shall tell,
In life's young prime my Hero fell.

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.

XVII. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE1

[December 10,1796.]

I am sorry I cannot now relish your poetical
present so thoroughly as I feel it deserves ; but
I do not the less thank Lloyd and you for it. In
truth, Coleridge, I am perplexed, and at times
almost cast down. I am beset with perplexities.
The old Hag of a wealthy relation, who took
my aunt off our hands in the beginning of trou-
ble, has found out that she is " indolent and
mulish " — I quote her own words, and that her
attachment to us is so strong, that she can never
be happy apart. The Lady, with delicate Irony,
remarks that, if I am not an Hypocrite ! I shall
rejoyce to receive her again, and that it will be a
means of making me more fond of home to have

1 An autograph facsimile of this letter is given in its chronological
order in the back of Vol. I.

so dear a friend to come home to ! The fact is
she is jealous of my aunt's bestowing any kind
recollections on us while she enjoys the patron-
age of her roof. She says she finds it incon-
sistent with her own " ease and tranquillity," to
keep her any longer, and in fine summons me
to fetch her home. Now, much as I should re-
joyce to transplant the poor old creature from
the chilling air of such patronage, yet I know
how straiten' d we are already, how unable already
to answer any demand, which sickness or any
extraordinary expence may make. I know this,
and all unused as I am to struggle with perplex-
ities, I am somewhat nonplus'd, to say no worse.
This prevents me from a through [thorough]
relish of what Lloyd's kindness and yours have
furnish'd me with. I thank you tho' from my
heart, and feel myself not quite alone in the
earth.

Before I offer, what alone I have to offer, a
few obvious remarks on the poems you sent
me, I can but notice the odd coincidence of two
young men, in one age, carolling their grand-
mothers. Love, — what L[loyd] calls the "fever-
ish and romantic tye," hath too long domi-
neered over all the charities of home : the dear
domestic tyes of father, brother, husband. The
amiable and benevolent Cowper has a beautiful
passage in his Task, — some natural and painful
reflections on his deceased parents : and Hayley's
sweet lines to his mother are notoriously the

best things he ever wrote. Cowper's lines some
of them are —

How gladly would the man recall to life
The boy's neglected sire, — a mother too !
That softer name, perhaps more gladly still,
Might he demand them at the gates of Death.

I cannot but smile to see my granny so gayly
deck'd forth : tho', I think, whoever altered
" thy" praises to "her" praises — "thy" honor'd
memory to " her " honor'd memory, did wrong
— they best exprest my feelings. There is a
pensive state of recollection in which the mind
is disposed to apostrophize the departed objects
of its attachment ; and breaking loose from
grammatical precision changes from the ist to
the 3d, and from the 3d to the ist person, just
as the random fancy or the feeling directs.
Among Lloyd's sonnets, [the] 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th,
[and] nth are eminently beautiful. I think him
too lavish of his expletives ; the dos and dids,
when they occur too often, bring a quaintness
with them along with their simplicity, or rather
air of antiquity, which the patrons of them seem
desirous of conveying.

The lines on Friday are very pleasing : " Yet
calls itself in pride of Infancy woman or man,"
&c. "Affection's tottering troop " are prominent
beauties. Another time when my mind were
more at ease, I would be more particular in my
remarks, and I would postpone them now, only
I want some diversion of mind. The Melancholy

Man is a charming piece of poetry, only the
" whys" with submission are too many. Yet the
questions are too good to be any of 'em omitted.
For those lines of yours, page 18, omitted in
magazine, I think the 3 first better retained —
the 3 last, which are somewhat "simple" in the
most affronting sense of the word, better omitted
— to this my taste directs me — I have no claim
to prescribe to yours. " Their slothful loves and
dainty sympathies " is an exquisite line, but you
knew that when you wrote 'em ! and I trifle in
pointing such out. 'T is altogether the sweetest
thing to me you ever wrote — 'tis all honey " No
wish profaned my overwhelmed heart, — Blest
hour, it was a Luxury to be ! " I recognise feel-
ings, which I may taste again, if tranquillity
have not taken her flight for ever, and I will not
believe but I shall be happy, very happy again.
The next poem to your friend is very beautiful
— need I instance the pretty fancy of " the
rock's collected tears" — or that original line
" pours all its healthful greenness on the soul " ? —
let it be, since you ask me, "as neighb'ring foun-
tains each reflect the whole," tho' that is some-
what harsh — indeed the ending is not so finish'd
as the rest, which if you omit in your forthcom-
ing edition, you will do the volume wrong, and
the very binding will cry out. Neither shall you
omit the two following poems. " The hour
when we shall meet again " — is fine fancy, 'tis
true, but fancy catering in the Service of the

feeling — fetching from her stores most splendid
banquets to satisfy her. Do not, do not omit it.
Your sonnet to the River Otter excludes those
equally beautiful lines, which deserve not to be
lost, "as the tired savage," &c, and I prefer that
copy in your Watchman. I plead for its prefer-
ence.

Another time I may notice more particularly
Lloyd's, Southey's, Dermody's Sonnets. I shrink
from them now : my teasing lot makes me too
confused for a clear judgment of things, too self-
ish for sympathy ; and these ill-digested, mean-
ingless remarks I have imposed on myself as
a task, to lull reflection, as well as to shew you
I did not neglect reading your valuable present.
Return my acknowledgments to Lloyd ; you
two seem to be about realising an Elysium upon
earth, and, no doubt, I shall be happier. Take
my best wishes. Remember me most affection-
ately to Mrs. C, and give little David Hartley
— God bless its little heart ! — a kiss for me.
Bring him up to know the meaning of his
Christian name, and what that name (imposed
upon him) will demand of him.

God love you ! C. Lamb

I write, for one thing, to say that I shall write
no more, till you send me word where you are,
for you are so soon to move. My sister is pretty
well, thank God. We think of you very often.
God bless you, continue to be my correspondent,

and I will strive to fancy that this world is not
" all barrenness."

XVIII. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

December 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 remem-
brance 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, 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 pre-
sent I have not leisure to make verses, nor any-
thing 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 disingenu-
ous way of forswearing their occupation. This,
though, is not my case. The tender cast of soul,
sombred with melancholy and subsiding recollec-
tions, is favourable 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 books of ex-
tracts from Beaumont and Fletcher and a thou-
sand 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 con-
versation 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." 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 con-
solatory epistle, are every day accumulating: they
are sacred things with me.

Publish your Burns when and how you like, it
will be new to me : my memory of it is very con-
fused, and tainted with unpleasant associations.
Burns was the god of my idolatry, as Bowles of
yours. I am jealous of your fraternising with
Bowles, when I think you relish him more than
Burns or my old favourite, Cowper. But you con-
ciliate 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 hun-
dredfold 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 son-
nets in your sweet manner, while we two were
indulging sympathy, a solitary luxury, by the fire-
side 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 bless-
ing 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 unfavourable comparison with the uninterest-
ing 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, in-
deed, is all I can wish in a companion; but our
spirits are alike poorly, our reading and know-
ledge from the self-same sources, our communi-
cation with the scenes of the world alike narrow :
never having kept separate company, or any
" company " " together; " never having read sepa-
rate books, and few books together, — what know-
ledge 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

I will get Nature and Art, — have not seen it
yet, nor any of Jeremy Taylor's works.

XIX. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

January 2, 1797.

Your success in the higher species of the ode
is such as bespeaks you born for achievements of
loftier enterprise than to linger in the lowly train
of songsters and sonneters. Sincerely I think
your ode one of the finest I have read. The open-
ing is in the spirit of the sublimest allegory. The
idea of the " skirts of the departing year, seen

far onwards, waving on the wind " is one of those
noble hints at which the reader's imagination is
apt to kindle into grand conceptions. Do the
words "impetuous " and " solemnize " harmon-
ize well in the same line ? Think and judge.

In the second strophe, there seems to be too
much play of fancy to be consistent with that
continued elevation we are taught to expect from
the strain of the foregoing. The parenthized line
(by the way I abominate parentheses in this kind
of poetry) at the beginning of seventh page, and
indeed all that gradual description of the throes
and pangs of nature in childbirth, I do not much
like, and those four first lines — I mean " tomb
gloom anguish and languish " — rise not above
mediocrity. In the epode, your mighty genius
comes again : " I marked ambition," &c. Thro'
the whole epode indeed you carry along our souls
in a full spring-tide of feeling and imagination.
Here is the Storm of Music, as Cowper expresses
it. Would it not be more abrupt "Why does the
northern Conqueress stay" or " Where does the
northern Conqueress stay"? — this change of
measure, rather than the feebler "Ah ! whither."
" Foul her life and dark her tomb, mighty army
of the dead, dance like deathflies," &c. : here is
genius, here is poetry, rapid, irresistible. The
concluding line, is it not a personification — with-
out use ? " Nee deus intersit " — except indeed
for rhyme's sake.

Would the laws of strophe and antistrophe,

which, if they are as unchangeable, I suppose are
about as wise, [as] the Mede and Persian laws,
admit of expurging that line altogether, and
changing the preceding one to " and he, poor
madman, deem'd it quench'd in endless night " ?
— fond madman or proud madman if you will, but
poor is more contemptuous. If I offer alterations
of my own to your poetry, and admit not yours
in mine, it is upon the principle of a present to a
rich man being graciously accepted, and the same
present to a poor man being considered as in in-
sult. To return : the antistrophe that follows is
not inferior in grandeur or original ; but is I think
not faultless, — e. g., how is Memory alone, when
all the etherial multitude are there ? Reflect.

Again, "storiedst thy sad hours " is harsh, I
need not tell you, but you have gained your
point in expressing much meaning in few words :
" Purple locks and snow-white glories," " mild
Arcadians ever blooming," " seas of milk and
ships of amber," these are things the Muse talks
about when, to borrow H. Walpole's witty phrase,
she is not finely-phrenzied, only a little light-
headed, that 's all. " Purple locks." They may
manage things differently in fairyland, but your
" golden tresses " are more to my fancy. The
spirit of the Earth is a most happy conceit, and
the last line is one of the luckiest I ever heard —
" and stood up beautiful before the cloudy seat." I
cannot enough admire it. 'T is somehow pic-
turesque in the very sound.

The second antistrophe (what is the meaning
of these things ?) is fine and faultless (or to vary
the alliteration and not diminish the affectation)
beautiful and blameless. I only except to the last
line as meaningless after the preceding, and use-
less entirely — besides, why disjoin " nature and
the world " here, when you had confounded both
in their pregnancy : " the common earth and
nature," recollect, a little before — And there is
a dismal superfluity in the unmeaning vocable
" unhurl'd " — the worse, as it is so evidently a
rhyme-fetch. — " Death-like he dozes " is a pro-
saic conceit — indeed all the Epode as far as
"brother's corse" I most heartily commend to
annihilation. The enthusiast of the lyre should
not be so feebly, so tediously, delineative of his
own feelings ; 't is not the way to become " Mas-
ter of our affections." The address to Albion is
very agreeable, and concludes even beautifully :
" speaks safety to his island child " — " S worded "
— epithet /would change for "cruel." The
immediately succeeding lines are prosaic : " mad
avarice " is an unhappy combination ; and " the
coward distance yet with kindling pride " is not
only reprehensible for the antithetical turn, but
as it is a quotation : " safe distance " and " cow-
ard distance " you have more than once had re-
course to before — And the Lyric Muse, in her
enthusiasm, should talk the language of her coun-
try, something removed from common use, some-
thing "recent," unborrowed.

The dreams of destruction " soothing her
fierce solitude," are vastly grand and terrific : still
you weaken the effect by that superfluous and
easily-conceived parenthesis that finishes the page.
The foregoing image, few minds could have
conceived, few tongues could have so cloath'd ;
"mutt" ring destempered triumph" &c. is vastly
fine. I hate imperfect beginnings and endings.

Now your concluding stanza is worthy of so
fine an ode. The beginning was awakening and
striking ; the ending is soothing and solemn —
Are you serious when you ask whether you shall
admit this ode ? it would be strange infatuation to
leave out your Chatterton; mere insanity to re-
ject this. Unless you are fearful that the splen-
did thing may be a means of " eclipsing many
a softer satellite" that twinkles thro' the volume.
Neither omit the annex'd little poem. For my
part, detesting alliterations, I should make the
first line " Away, with this fantastic pride of
woe." Well may you relish Bowles's allegory.
I need only tell you, I have read, and will only
add, that I dislike ambition's name gilded on his
helmet-cap, and that I think, among the more
striking personages you notice, you omitted the
most striking, Remorse ! " He saw the trees —
the sun — then hied him to his cave again" ! ! !
The second stanza of mania is superfluous ; the
first was never exceeded. The second is too me-
thodical ; for her. With all its load of beauties,
I am more affected with the six first stanzas of

the Elegiac poem written during sickness. Tell
me your feelings. If the fraternal sentiment con-
veyed in the following lines will atone for the
total want of anything like merit or genius in it,
I desire you will print it next after my other
sonnet to my sister.

Friend of my earliest years, and childish days,
My joys, my sorrows, thou with me hast shared
Companion dear ; and we alike have fared
Poor pilgrims we, thro' life's unequal ways.
It were unwisely done, should we refuse
To cheer our path, as featly as we may,
Our lonely path to cheer, as travellers use,
With merry song, quaint tale, or roundelay.
And we will sometimes talk past troubles o'er,
Of mercies shewn, and all our sickness heal'd,
And in his judgments God rememb'ring love ;
And we will learn to praise God evermore
For those " Glad tidings of great joy " reveal'd
By that sooth messenger, sent from above.

1797.

If you think the epithet " sooth " quaint, sub-
stitute " blest messenger." I hope you are print-
ing my sonnets, as I directed you — particularly
the second. " Methinks " &c. with my last added
six lines at ye end : and all of 'em as I last made
'em.

This has been a sad long letter of business,
with no room in it for what honest Bunyan
terms heart-work. I have just room left to con-
gratulate you on your removal to Stowey; to
wish success to all your projects ; to " bid fair
peace" be to that house; to send my love and

best wishes, breathed warmly, after your dear
Sara, and her little David Hartley. If Lloyd be
with you, bid him write to me : I feel to whom
I am obliged primarily for two very friendly let-
ters I have received already from him. A dainty
sweet book that Art and Nature is. I am at
present re-re-reading Priestley's examinat of the
Scotch Drs : how the Rogue strings 'em up !
three together! You have no doubt read that
clear, strong, humorous, most entertaining piece
of reasoning. If not, procure it, and be ex-
quisitely amused. I wish I could get more of
Priestley's works. Can you recommend me to
any more books, easy of access, such as circu-
lating shops afford ? God bless you and yours.

Poor Mary is very unwell with a sore throat
and a slight species of scarlet fever. God bless
her too.

Monday Morning, at Office.

XX. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[January 10, 1797.]

I am completely reconciled to that second
strophe, and wa[i]ve all objection. In spite of the
Grecian Lyrists, I persist on [in] thinking your
brief personification of Madness useless ; rever-
ence forbids me to say, impertinent. Golden locks
and snow-white glories are as incongruous as your
former, and if the great Italian painters, of whom
my friend knows about as much as the man in the

100

moon, if these great gentlemen be on your side, I
see no harm in retaining the purple — the glories
that I have observed to encircle the heads of saints
and madonnas in those old paintings have been
mostly of a dirty drab-color ' d yellow — a dull gam-
bogium. Keep your old line : it will excite a con-
fused kind of pleasurable idea in the reader's mind,
not clear enough to be called a conception, nor
just enough, I think, to reduce to painting. It
is a rich line, you say, and riches hide a many
faults.

I maintain that in the second antistrophe you
do disjoin Nature and the world, and contrary to
your con duct in the second strophe. " Nature j oins
her groans," — joins with whom, a God's name,
but the world or earth in line preceding ? But
this is being over-curious, I acknowledge. Nor
did I call the last line useless, I only objected to
" unhurl'd." I cannot be made to like the former
part of that second epode ; I cannot be made to
feel it, as I do the parallel places in Isaiah, Jeremy,
and Daniel. Whether it is that in the present
case the rhyme impairs the efficacy, or that the
circumstances are feigned, and we are conscious
of a made-up lie in the case, and the narrative is
too long-winded to preserve the semblance of
truth ; or that lines 8, 9, 10, 14 in particular, 17
and 1 8 are mean and unenthusiastic ; or that lines
5 to 8 in their change of rhyme shew like art, — I
don't know, but it strikes me as something meant
to affect, and failing in its purpose. Remember

101

my waywardness of feeling is single, and singly
stands opposed to all your friends, and what is one
among many ! This I know, that your quota-
tions from the prophets have never escaped me,
and never fail'd to affect me strongly. I hate that
simile. I am glad you have amended that paren-
thesis in the account of Destruction. I like it well
now. Only utter [? omit] that history of child-
bearing, and all will do well. Let the obnoxious
epode remain, to terrify such of your friends as
are willing to be terrified. I think I would omit
the notes, not as not good per se, but as uncon-
genial with the dignity of the ode.

I need not repeat my wishes to have my little
sonnets printed verbatim my last way. In partic-
ular, 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, the ingenious successor of the immortal
Merlin, now living in good health and spirits, and
nourishing in magical reputation in Oxford Street;
and on my life, one half who read it would under-
stand 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 alto-
gether, for not a livingsoul, I know or am intimate
with, will scarce read the book, — so I shall gain

102

nothing quoad famatn, — and yet there is a little
vanity mixes in it, I cannot help denying.

I am aware of the unpoetical cast of the six
last lines of my last sonnet, and think myself un-
warranted 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 orig-
inality in its cast, nor anything in the feelings, but
what is common and natural to thousands, nor
aught properly 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 trea-
sure it is to my poor indolent and unemployed
mind, thus to lay hold on a subject to talk about,
tho' 'tis but a sonnet and that of the lowest order!
How mournfully inactive I am ! — 'T is 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 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

103

will shew you to what you are equal. By the
sacred energies of Milton, by the dainty sweet
and soothing phantasies of honeytongued Spenser,
I adjure you to attempt the epic. Or do some-
thing more ample than writing an occasional
brief ode or sonnet ; something " to make your-
self 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 unex-
plored regionsof fairyland, there is ground enough
unfound and uncultivated ; search there, and
realize your favourite Susquehanah 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

104

exquisite humour. Why is not your poem on
Burns in the Monthly Magazine f I was much
disappointed. I have a pleasurable but confused
remembrance of it.

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.
My epistle is a model of unconnectedness, but
I have no particular subject to write on, and must
proportion my scribble in some degree to the
increase of postage. It is not quite fair, consider-
ing how burdensome your correspondence from
different quarters must be, to add to it with so
little shew of reason. I will make an end for
this evening. Sunday Even. Farewell.

Priestly, 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 com-
plete gratification to the life beyond the grave."
Is there a possible chance for such an one as me
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

105

herds, and leave such as me 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, " Relig-
ion is not a solitary thing." Alas ! it necessarily is
so with me, or next to solitary. 'Tis 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 cir-
cumstance 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
exprest an intention you had of finishing some
extensive work on the Evidences of Natural and
Revealed Religion. Have you let that intention

106

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 my-
self not totally disconnected from the better part
of mankind. I know, I am too dissatisfied with
the beings around me ; but I cannot help occa-
sionally exclaiming, " Woe is me, that I am con-
strained to dwell with Meshech, and to have my
habitation among the tents of Kedar." I know
I am no ways better in practice than my neigh-
bours ; but I have a taste for religion, an occa-
sional 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 feel-
ings 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, — Priest-
ley 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
107

in antiquam virtutem?" — does his mighty name
work wonders yet upon his little frame and open-
ing mind ? I did not distinctly understand you,
— you don't mean to make an actual ploughman

of him ? Mrs. C is no doubt well ; give my

kindest respects to her. 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 interro-
gation I have put to you in the course of this
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 re-
membrance of you.

Charles Lamb

XXL — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[Dated at end: January 18, 1797.]

Dear Col., — You have learn'd by this time,
with surprise, no doubt, that Lloyd is with me
in town. The emotions I felt on his coming so
unlooked for are not ill expressed in what fol-
lows, and what, if you do not object to them as
too personal, and to the world obscure, or other-

108

wise wanting in worth, I should wish to make
a part of our little volume.

I shall be sorry if that volume comes out, as
it necessarily must do, unless you print those
very schoolboyish verses I sent you on not get-
ting leave to come down to Bristol last summer.
I say I shall be sorry that I have addrest you
in nothing which can appear in our joint volume.

So frequently, so habitually as you dwell on
my thoughts, 't is some wonder those thoughts
came never yet in contact with a poetical mood
— but you dwell in my heart of hearts, and I
love you in all the naked honesty of prose. God
bless you, and all your little domestic circle —
my tenderest remembrances to your beloved Sara,
and a smile and a kiss from me to your dear
dear little David Hartley. The verses I refer to
above, slightly amended, I have sent (forgetting
to ask your leave, tho' indeed I gave them only
your initials) to the Monthly Magazine, where
they may possibly appear next month, and where
I hope to recognise your Poem on Burns.

TO [CHARLES LLOYD] AN UNEXPECTED
VISITOR

Alone, obscure, without a friend,

A cheerless, solitary thing,
Why seeks my Lloyd the stranger out ?

What off'ring can the stranger bring

Of social scenes, home-bred delights,
That him in aught compensate may
109

For Stowey's pleasant winter nights,
For loves and friendships far away ?

In brief oblivion to forego

Friends, such as thine, so justly dear,

And be awhile with me content
To stay, a kindly loiterer, here —

For this a gleam of random joy,

Hath flush'd my unaccustom'd cheek,

And, with an o'er-charg'd bursting heart,
I feel the thanks I cannot speak.

0 ! sweet are all the Muses' lays,

And sweet the charm of matin bird —
'T was long, since these estranged ears
The sweeter voice of friend had heard.

The voice hath spoke : the pleasant sounds

In memory's ear, in after time
Shall live, to sometimes rouse a tear,

And sometimes prompt an honest rhyme.

For when the transient charm is fled,

And when the little week is o'er,
To cheerless, friendless solitude

When I return, as heretofore —

Long, long, within my aching heart,
The grateful sense shall cherish'd be ;

1 '11 think less meanly of myself,

That Lloyd will sometimes think on me.

1797.

O Col., would to God you were in London
with us, or we two at Stowey with you all.
Lloyd takes up his abode at the Bull and Mouth
Inn, — the Cat and Salutation would have had a
charm more forcible for me. " 0 nodes ccenceque

1 10

Deum!" Anglice — Welsh rabbits, punch, and
poesy.

Should you be induced to publish those very
schoolboyish verses, print 'em as they will occur,
if at all, in the Monthly Magazine ; yet I should
feel ashamed that to you I wrote nothing better.
But they are too personal, and almost trifling
and obscure withal. Some lines of mine to
Cowper were in last Monthly Magazine; they
have not body of thought enough to plead for
the retaining of 'em.

My sister's kind love to you all.

C. Lamb

XXII. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[Begun Sunday, February 5, 1797.
Dated on address by mistake: January 5, 1797.]

Sunday morning. — You cannot surely mean to
degrade the "Joan of Arc into a pot girl. You are
not going, I hope, to annex to that most splen-
did 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
waggoner, 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.

On mightiest deeds to brood
Of shadowy vastness, such as made my heart
I I I

Throb fast ; anon I paused, and in a state
Of half expectance listen'd to the wind ;

They wonder' d at me, who had known me once
A cheerless 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 cer-
tainly in those lines —

For she had lived in this bad world

As in a place of tombs,

And touch'd 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 S., — I think to
your disadvantage. And the lines, consider'd 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 walk'd and talk'd with
him, calling him old acquaintance. Southey cer-
tainly 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 woeful blem-
ishes, some of 'em sad deviations from that sim-
plicity which was your aim. " Hail'd who might

I 12

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 seem'd." "Frost-mangled wretch:"
" green putridity : " " hail'd him immortal "
(rather ludicrous again) : " voiced a sad and sim-
ple tale " (abominable !) : " unprovender'd : "
" such his tale : " " Ah ! suffering to the height
of what was suffer'd " (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 resem-
ble Montauban dancing with Roubigne's tenants,
" 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," &c, 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 re-
joice 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

XI3

the lowlands, unenvied, in possession of such men
as Cowper and Southey. Thus am I pouring
balsam into the wounds I may have been inflict-
ing 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 form'd 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 de-
licious 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 trans-
lation of my friend, Mr. Hoole." I endeavour'd
— I wish'd 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

114

any way you choose, single or double. The India
Co. is better adapted to answer the cost than the
generality of my friend's correspondents, — such
poor and honest dogs as John Thelwall, particu-
larly. I cannot say I know Colson, at least inti-
mately. I once supped with him and Allen. 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 pro-
posed Hymns will be a fit preparatory study
wherewith " to discipline your young noviciate
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 favourably 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 sub-
mit 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 fag, when I, school-boy 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
bason, with some nice thing she had caused to
be saved for me ; the good old creature is now
lying on her deathbed. I cannot bear to think
on her deplorable state. To the shock she re-
ceived 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.

Lloyd has kindly left me for a keep-sake 'John
Woolman. You have read it, he says, and like it.
Will you excuse one short extract? I think it
could not have escaped you : — "Small treasure to
a resigned mind is sufficient. How happy is it to
be content with a little, to live in humility, and
feel that in us which breathes out this language,
— Abba! Father!" I am almost ashamed to
patch up a letter in this miscellaneous sort; but
I please myself in the thought that anything from
me will be acceptable to you. I am rather im-
patient, childishly so, to see our names affixed to
the same common volume. Send me two, when
it does come out ; two will be enough, or indeed
one, but two better. I have a dim recollection
that, when in town, you were talking of the

116

origin of evil as a most prolific subject for a long
poem. Why not adopt it, Coleridge ? there
would be room for imagination. Or the descrip-
tion (from a vision or dream, suppose) of an
Utopia in one of the planets (the Moon, for in-
stance) . Or a Five Days' Dream, which shall illus-
trate, in sensible imagery, Hartley's five motives

to conduct : — sensation, imagination, ambition,

4 5

sympathy, theopathy. i st, banquets, music, &c,
effeminacy, — and their insufficiency. 2d, " beds
of hyacinth and roses, where young Adonis oft
reposes ; " " Fortunate Isles ; " "The pagan Ely-
sium," &c, &c. ; poetical pictures ; antiquity as
pleasing to the fancy ; — their emptiness, mad-
ness, etc. 3d, warriors, poets ; some famous, yet
more forgotten, their fame or oblivion now alike
indifferent, pride, vanity, &c. 4th, all manner
of pitiable stories, in Spenser-like verse, — love,
friendship, relationship, &c. 5th, hermits, Christ
and his apostles, martyrs, heaven, &c, &c. An
imagination like yours, from these scanty hints,
may expand into a thousand great ideas, if in-
deed you at all comprehend my scheme, which
I scarce do myself.

Monday morn. — "A London letter. gj4 ■"
Look you, master poet, I have remorse as well
as another man, and my bowels can sound upon
occasion. But I must put you to this charge, for
I cannot keep back my protest, however inef-

117

fectual, against the annexing your latter lines to
those former, — this putting of new wine into
old bottles. This my duty done, I will cease
from writing till you invent some more reason-
able mode of conveyance. Well may the " rag-
ged followers of the nine" set up for flocci-
nauci-what-do-you-call-'em-ists ! And I do not
wonder that in their splendid visions of Utopias
in America they protest against the admission of
those ^//ow-complexioned, copper-color' 6., white-
liver'd gentlemen, who never proved themselves
their friends.

Don't you think your verses on a Young Ass
too trivial a companion for the Religious Mus-
ings ? " Scoundrel monarch," alter that; and the
Man of Ross is scarce admissible as it now stands
curtailed of its fairer half: reclaim its property
from the Chatterton, which it does but encumber,
and it will be a rich little poem. I hope you
expunge great part of the old notes in the new
edition. That, in particular, most barefaced, un-
founded, impudent assertion that Mr. Rogers is
indebted for his story to Loch Lomond, a poem
by Bruce ! I have read the latter. I scarce think
you have. Scarce anything is common to them
both. The poor author of the Pleasures of Mem-
ory was sorely hurt, Dyer says, by the accusation
of unoriginality. He never saw the poem. I long
to read your poem on Burns ; I retain so indis-
tinct a memory of it. In what shape and how
does it come into public ? As you leave ofFwrit-

118

ing poetry till you finish your Hymns, I suppose
you print now all you have got by you. You
have scarce enough unprinted to make a second
volume with Lloyd. Tell me all about it. What
is become of Cowper ? Lloyd told me of some
verses on his mother. If you have them by you,
pray send 'em me. I do so love him ! Never
mind their merit. May be I may like 'em —
as your taste and mine do not always exactly
indentify [identify]. Yours,

Lamb
note

[This is the passage in Religious Musings that Lamb particu-
larly praises :

There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind,
Omnific. His most holy name is Love.
Truth of subliming import ! with the which
Who feeds and saturates his constant soul,
He from his smaller particular orbit flies
With blest outstarting ! From himself he flies,
Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze
Views all creation ; and he loves it all,
And blesses it, and calls it very good !
This is indeed to dwell with the Most High !
Cherubs and rapture-trembling Seraphim
Can press no nearer to the Almighty's throne.]

XXIII. — TO S. T. 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. I perceived all its excellences,
on a first reading, as readily as now you have

119

been removing a supposed film from my eyes.
I was only struck with [a] certain faulty dispro-
portion 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 dis-
cordant 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 rea-
sonably damn forever in your judgment all pre-
tensions 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 man-
ners, — 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 acknow-
ledges 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 lan-
guage and a pretty uncultivated taste in draw-
ing. The reconciled gentleman smiles applause,
squeezes him by the hand, and hopes he will do
him the honour of taking a bit of dinner with

Mrs. and him — a plain family dinner —

1 20

some day next week. " For, I suppose, you never
heard we were married! I 'm glad to see you
like my wife, however ; you '11 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 philo-
sophy of a first cause, of subordinate agents in
creation superior to man, the subserviency of
pagan worship and pagan faith to the introduc-
tion 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 daugh-
ter, 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

121

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 South ey's
strength rather lies in the description of the
emotions of the Maid under the weight of in-
spiration, — these (I see no mighty difference
between ber describing them or you describing
them), these if you only equal, the previous ad-
mirers 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 fin-
ished. By the way, I spoke far too disparagingly
of your lines, and, I am ashamed to say, pur-
posely. I should like you to specify or particu-
larise ; the story of the Tottering Eld, of " his
eventful years all come and gone," is too gen-
eral; why not make him a soldier, or some
character, however, in which he has been wit-

122

ness 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 beau-
ties 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 im-
mortal," 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 't was death." In-
deed, there is scarce a line I do not like. " Tur-
bid 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 disparage-
ment 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

123

like Milton. Now, this is delicate flattery, indi-
rect flattery. Go on with your Maid of Orleans,
and be content to be second to yourself. I shall
become a convert to it when 't is 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 com-
monplace 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 remem-
ber 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 him, in St. John

124

Street, yesterday, and saw a man under all the agi-
tations 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 nei-
ther 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
his childhood and early youth, he told the meet-
ing 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, for ever. A wit! a wit! what
could he mean? Lloyd, it minded me of Falk-

125

land in the Rivals, "Am I full of wit and humour ?
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 scandalised 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 no-
things. 'T is the privilege of friendship to talk
nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected. —
Yours ever,

C. Lamb

XXIV. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

April 7, 1797.

Your last letter was dated the 1 oth February ;
in it you promised to write again the next day.
At least, I did not expect so long, so unfriend-
like, a silence. There was a time, Col., when a
remissness of this sort in a dear friend would have
lain very heavy on my mind, but latterly I have
been too familiar with neglect to feel much from
the semblance of it. Yet, to suspect one's self
overlooked and in the way to oblivion, is a feel-
ing rather humbling ; perhaps, as tending to self-
mortification, not unfavourable to the spiritual
state. Still, as you meant to confer no benefit
on the soul of your friend, you do not stand quite

126

clear from the imputation of unkindliness (a word
by which I mean the diminutive of unkindness).
Lloyd tells me he has been very ill, and was on
the point of leaving you. I addressed a letter to
him at Birmingham : perhaps he got it not, and
is still with you. I hope his ill-health has not
prevented his attending to a request I made in
it, that he would write again very soon to let me
know how he was. I hope to God poor Lloyd
is not very bad, or in a very bad way. Pray satisfy
me about these things. And then David Hartley
was unwell ; and how is the small philosopher,
the minute philosopher ? and David's mother ?
Coleridge, I am not trifling, nor are these mat-
ter-of-fact questions only. You are all very dear
and precious to me ; do what you will, Col., you
may hurt me and vex me by your silence, but
you cannot estrange my heart from you all. I
cannot scatter friendships like chuck-farthings,
nor let them drop from mine hand like hour-
glass sand. I have two or three people in the
world to whom I am more than indifferent, and
I can't afford to whistle them off to the winds.

By the way, Lloyd may have told you about
my sister. I told him. If not, I have taken her
out of her confinement, and taken a room for
her at Hackney, and spend my Sundays, holi-
days, &c, with her. She boards herself. In one
little half year's illness, and in such an illness of
such a nature and of such consequences! to get
her out into the world again, with a prospect of

127

her never being so ill again — this is to be ranked
not among the common blessings of Providence.
May that merciful God make tender my heart,
and make me as thankful, as in my distress I
was earnest, in my prayers. Congratulate me
on an ever-present and never-alienable friend like
her. And do, do insert, if you have not lost, my
dedication. It will have lost half its value by
coming so late. If you really are going on with
that volume, I shall be enabled in a day or two
to send you a short poem to insert. Now, do
answer this. Friendship, and acts of friendship,
should be reciprocal, and free as the air ; a friend
should never be reduced to beg an alms of his
fellow. Yet I will beg an alms; I entreat you
to write, and tell me all about poor Lloyd, and
all of you. God love and preserve you all.

C. Lamb

XXV. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

April 15, 1797.
A VISION OF REPENTANCE

I saw a famous fountain in my dream,
Where shady pathways to a valley led;

A weeping willow lay upon that stream,

And all around the fountain brink were spread

Wide branching trees, with dark green leaf rich clad,

Forming a doubtful twilight desolate and sad.

The place was such, that whoso enter'd in
Disrobed was of every earthly thought,
128

And straight became as one that knew not sin,

Or to the world's first innocence was brought ;
Enseem'd it now, he stood on holy ground,
In sweet and tender melancholy wrapt around.

A most strange calm stole o'er my soothed sprite ;

Long time I stood, and longer had I staid,
When lo ! I saw, saw by the sweet moonlight,

Which came in silence o'er that silent shade,
Where near the fountain something like despair
Made of that weeping willow garlands for her hair.

And eke with painful fingers she inwove
Many an uncouth stem of savage thorn —
" The willow garland, that was for her Love,
And these her bleeding temples would adorn."
With sighs her heart nigh burst — salt tears fast fell,
As mournfully she bended o'er that sacred well.

To whom when I addrest myself to speak,

She lifted up her eyes, and nothing said ;
The delicate red came mantling o'er her cheek,

And gathering up her loose attire, she fled
To the dark covert of that woody shade
And in her goings seem'd a timid gentle maid.

Revolving in my mind what this should mean,

And why that lovely Lady plained so ;
Perplex'd in thought at that mysterious scene,

And doubting if 't were best to stay or go,
I cast mine eyes in wistful gaze around,
When from the shades came slow a small and plaintive sound :

" Psyche am I, who love to dwell
In these brown shades, this woody dell,
Where never busy mortal came,
Till now, to pry upon my shame.

" At thy feet what thou dost see
The Waters of Repentance be,
129

Which, night and day, I must augment

With tears, like a true Penitent,

If haply so my day of grace

Be not yet past ; and this lone place,

O'er-shadowy, dark, excludeth hence

All thoughts but grief and penitence."

" Why dost thou weep, thou gentle maid !
And wherefore in this barren shade
Thy hidden thoughts with sorrow feed ?
Can thing so fair repentance need f "

"O! I have done a deed of shame,
And tainted is my virgin fame,
And stain'd the beauteous maiden white
In which my bridal robes were dight."

" And who the promised spouse declare,
And what those bridal garments were ? "

" Severe and saintly righteousness
Compos'd the clear white bridal dress ;
Jesus, the son of Heaven's high King
Bought with his blood the marriage ring.

" A wretched sinful creature, I
Deem'd lightly of that sacred tie,
Gave to a treacherous world my heart,
And play'd the foolish wanton's part.

" Soon to these murky shades I came
To hide from the Sun's light my shame;
And still I haunt this woody dell,
And bathe me in that healing well,
Whose waters clear have influence
From sin's foul stains the soul to cleanse ;
And night and day I them augment
With tears, like a true Penitent,
Until, due expiation made,
And fit atonement fully paid,
130

The Lord and Bridegroom me present
Where in sweet strains of high consent,
God's throne before, the Seraphim
Shall chaunt the ecstatic marriage hymn."

" Now Christ restore thee soon" I said,
And thenceforth all my dream was fled.

The above you will please to print immedi-
ately before the blank verse fragments. Tell me
if you like it. I fear the latter half is unequal
to the former, in parts of which I think you will
discover a delicacy of pencilling not quite un-
Spenser-like. The latter half aims at the measure,
but has failed to attain the poetry, of Milton in
his Comus and Fletcher in that exquisite thing
ycleped the Faithful Shepherdess, where they both
use eight-syllable lines. But this latter half was
finished in great haste, and as a task, not from that
impulse which affects the name of inspiration.

By the way, I have lit upon Fairfax's Godfrey
of Bullen for half-a-crown. Rejoice with me.

Poor dear Lloyd ! I had a letter from him
yesterday ; his state of mind is truly alarming. He
has, by his own confession, kept a letter of mine
unopened three weeks, afraid, he says, to open
it, lest I should speak upbraidingly to him; and
yet this very letter of mine was in answer to one,
wherein he informed me that an alarming illness
had alone prevented him from writing. You will
pray with me, I know, for his recovery ; for surely,
Coleridge, an exquisiteness of feeling like this
must border on derangement. But I love him

?3"

more and more, and will not give up the hope
of his speedy recovery, as he tells me he is under
Dr. Darwin's regimen.

God bless us all, and shield us from insanity,
which is "the sorest malady of all."

My kind love to your wife and child.

C. Lamb

Pray write, now.

XXVI. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[Tuesday,] June 13, 1797.

I stared with wild wonderment to see thy well-
known hand again. It revived many a pleasing
recollection of an epistolary intercourse, of late
strangely suspended, once the pride of my life.
Before I even opened thy letter, I figured to my-
self a sort of complacency which my little hoard
at home would feel at receiving the newcomer
into the little drawer where I keep my treasures
of this kind. You have done well in writing to
me. The little room (was it not a little one ?) at
the Salutation was already in the way of becoming
a fading idea! it had begun to be classed in my
memory with those " wanderings with a fair-hair'd
maid," in the recollection of which I feel I have
no property. You press me, very kindly do you
press me, to come to Stowey ; obstacles, strong as
death, prevent meat present ; maybe I shall be able
to come before the year is out ; believe me, I will
come as soon as I can, but I dread naming a prob-

132

able time. It depends on fifty things, besides the
expense, which is not nothing. Lloyd wants me
to come and see him ; but, besides that you have
a prior claim on me, I should not feel myself so
much at home with him, till he gets a house of
his own. As to Richardson, caprice may grant
what caprice only refused, and it is no more hard-
ship, rightly considered, to be dependent on him
for pleasure, than to lie at the mercy of the rain
and sunshine for the enjoyment of a holiday : in
either case we are not to look for a suspension of
the laws of nature. "Grill will be Grill." Vide
Spenser.

I could not but smile at the compromise you
make with me for printing Lloyd's poems first ;
but there are in nature, I fear, too many tenden-
cies to envy and jealousy not to justify you in your
apology. Yet, if any one is welcome to pre-emi-
nence from me, it is Lloyd, for he would be the
last to desire it. So pray, let his name uniformly
precede mine, for it would be treating me like a
child to suppose it could give me pain. Yet, alas !
I am not insusceptible of the bad passions. Thank
God, I have the ingenuousness to be ashamed of
them. I am dearly fond of Charles Lloyd; he is
all goodness, and I have too much of the world in
my composition to feel myself thoroughly deserv-
ing of his friendship.

Lloyd tells me that Sheridan put you upon
writing your tragedy. I hope you are only Cole-
ridgeizing when you talk of finishing it in a few

x33

days. Shakspeare was a more modest man ; but
you best know your own power.

Of my last poem you speak slightingly; surely
the longer stanzas were pretty tolerable ; at least
there was one good line in it, —

Thick-shaded trees, with dark green leaf rich clad.

To adopt your own expression, I call this a "rich"
line, a fine full line. And some others I thought
even beautiful. Believe me, my little gentleman
will feel some repugnance at riding behind in the
basket; though, I confess, in pretty good com-
pany. Your picture of idiocy, with the sugar-loaf
head, is exquisite; but are you not too severe upon
our more favoured brethren in fatuity ? Lloyd
tells me how ill your wife and child have been.
I rejoice that they are better. My kindest re-
membrances and those of my sister. I send you a
trifling letter ; but you have only to think that I
have been skimming the superficies of my mind,
and found it only froth. Now, do write again ;
you cannot believe how I long and love always to
hear about you. Yours, most affectionately,

Charles Lamb

Monday Night.

XXVII. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

June 24,1797.

Did you seize the grand opportunity of seeing
Kosciusko while he was at Bristol ? I never saw

*34

a hero ; I wonder how they look. I have been
reading a most curious romance-like work, called
the Life of John Buncle, Esq. 'T is very interest-
ing, and an extraordinary compound of all man-
ner of subjects, from the depth of the ludicrous
to the heights of sublime religious truth. There
is much abstruse science in it above my cut and
an infinite fund of pleasantry. John Buncle is a
famous fine man, formed in Nature's most eccen-
tric hour. I am ashamed of what I write. But
I have no topic to talk of. I see nobody, and
sit, and read or walk, alone, and hear nothing.
I am quite lost to conversation from disuse ; and
out of the sphere of my little family, who, I am
thankful, are dearer and dearer to me every day,
I see no face that brightens up at my approach.
My friends are at a distance ; worldly hopes are
at a low ebb with me, and unworldly thoughts are
not yet familiarised to me, though I occasionally
indulge in them. Still I feel a calm not unlike
content. I fear it is sometimes more akin to
physical stupidity than to a heaven-flowing seren-
ity and peace. What right have I to obtrude all
this upon you ? what is such a letter to you ? and
if I come to Stowey, what conversation can I fur-
nish to compensate my friend for those stores
of knowledge and of fancy, those delightful
treasures of wisdom, which I know he will open
to me ? But it is better to give than to receive ;
and I was a very patient hearer and docile scholar
in our winter evening meetings at Mr. May's ;

135

was I not, Col. ? What I have owed to thee, my
heart can ne'er forget.
God love you and yours.

C. L.

Saturday.

XXVIII. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[End of June] 1797.

I discern a possibility of my paying you a visit
next week. May I, can I, shall I, come so soon ?
Have you room for me, leisure for me ? and are
you all pretty well ? Tell me all this honestly —
immediately.

And by what day coach could I come soonest
and nearest to Stowey ? A few months hence
may suit you better; certainly me, as well. If so,
say so. I long, I yearn, with all the longings of
a child do I desire to see you, to come among
you — to see the young philosopher, to thank
Sara for her last year's invitation in person — to
read your tragedy — to read over together our
little book — to breathe fresh air — to revive in
me vivid images of '" Salutation scenery." There
is a sort of sacrilege in my letting such ideas slip
out of my mind and memory.

Still that Richardson remaineth — a thorn in
the side of Hope, when she would lean towards
Stowey.

Here I will leave off, for I dislike to fill up
this paper, which involves a question so con-

136

nected with my heart and soul, with meaner
matter, or subjects to me less interesting. I can
talk, as I can think, nothing else.

C. Lamb

Thursday.

XXIX. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[No date. Probably July 19 or 26, 1797.]

I am scarcely yet so reconciled to the loss of
you, or so subsided into my wonted uniformity
of feeling, as to sit calmly down to think of you
and write to you. But I reason myself into the
belief that those few and pleasant holidays shall
not have been spent in vain. I feel improvement
in the recollection of many a casual conversation.
The names of Tom Poole, of Wordsworth and
his good sister, with thine and Sara's, are become
" familiar in my mouth as household words."
You would make me very happy, if you think
W. has no objection, by transcribing for me that
inscription of his. I have some scattered sen-
tences ever floating on my memory, teasing me
that I cannot remember more of it. You may
believe I will make no improper use of it. Be-
lieve me I can think now of many subjects on
which I had planned gaining information from
you ; but I forgot my " treasure's worth " while
I possessed it. Your leg is now become to me
a matter of much more importance ; and many
a little thing, which when I was present with you

J37

seemed scarce to inde?it my notice, now presses
painfully on my remembrance.

Is the Patriot come yet ? Are Wordsworth and
his sister gone yet ? I was looking out for John
Thelwall all the way from Bridgewater, and had
I met him, I think it would have moved almost
me to tears. You will oblige me, too, by sending
me my greatcoat, which I left behind in the ob-
livious state the mind is thrown into at parting ;
is it not ridiculous that I sometimes envy that
greatcoat lingering so cunningly behind ? — at
present I have none — so send it me by a Stowey
waggon, if there be such a thing, directing for
C. L., No. 45 Chapel-Street, Pentonville, near
London. But above all, that Inscription ! it will
recall to me the tones of all your voices, and
with them many a remembered kindness to
one who could and can repay you all only by the
silence of a grateful heart. I could not talk much,
while I was with you, but my silence was not
sullenness, nor I hope from any bad motive ;
but, in truth, disuse has made me awkward at it.
I know I behaved myself, particularly at Tom
Poole's, and at Cruikshank's, most like a sulky
child ; but company and converse are strange to
me. It was kind in you all to endure me as you
did.

Are you and your dear Sara — to me also very
dear, because very kind — agreed yet about the
management of little Hartley ? and how go on
the little rogue's teeth ? I will see White to-

morrow, and he shall send you information on
that matter ; but as perhaps I can do it as well
after talking with him, I will keep this letter
open.

My love and thanks to you and all of you.

Wednesday Evening.

C. L.

NOTE

[Lamb spent a week at Nether Stowey in July, 1797.
Coleridge tells Southey of this visit in a letter written in that
month : " Charles Lamb has been with me for a week. He
left me Friday morning. The second day after Wordsworth
(who had just left Racedown, near Crewkerne, for Alfoxden,
near Stowey) came to me, dear Sara accidentally emptied a skillet
of boiling milk on my foot, which confined me during the whole
time of C. Lamb's stay and still prevents me from all walks
longer than a furlong." This is the cause of Lamb's allusion
to Coleridge's leg, and it also produced Coleridge's poem, This
lime-tree bower my prison, addressed to Lamb, which opens as
follows, — the friends in the fourth line being Lamb, Words-
worth, and Dorothy Wordsworth. — E. V. Lucas.]

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
Lam' d by the scathe of fire, lonely and faint,
This lime-tree bower my prison! They, meantime
My Friends, whom I may never meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge
Wander delighted, and look down, perchance,
On that same rifted Dell, where many an ash
Twists its wild limbs beside the ferny rock
Whose plumy ferns forever nod and drip,
Spray' d by the waterfall. But chiefly thou
My gentle-hearted Charles ! thou who had pin'd
And hunger' d after Nature many a year,
In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet bowed soul, through evil and pain
And strange calamity !

XXX. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[p. m., August 24, 1797.]

Poor Charles Lloyd came to me about a fort-
night ago. He took the opportunity of Mr.
Hawkes coming to London, and I think at his
request, to come with him. It seemed to me, and
he acknowledged it, that he had come to gain
a little time and a little peace, before he made up
his mind. He was a good deal perplexed what
to do, wishing earnestly that he had never entered
into engagements which he felt himself unable
to fulfil, but which on Sophia's account he could
not bring himself to relinquish. I could give him
little advice or comfort, and feeling my own in-
ability painfully, eagerly snatched at a proposal
he made me to go to Southey's with him for a
day or two. He then meant to return with me,
who could stay only one night. While there, he
at one time thought of going to consult you, but
changed his intention and stayed behind with
Southey, and wrote an explicit letter to Sophia.
I came away on the Tuesday, and on the Satur-
day following, last Saturday, receiv'd a letter dated
Bath, in which he said he was on his way to Bir-
mingham, that Southey was accompanying him,
and that he went for the purpose of persuading
Sophia to a Scotch marriage —

I greatly feared, that she would never consent
to this, from what Lloyd had told me of her
character. But waited most anxiously the result.

140

el.

Since then I have not had one letter. For God's
sake, if you get any intelligence of or from
Charles Lloyd, communicate it, for I am much
alarmed. C. Lamb

I wrote to Burnett what I write now to you, —
was it from him you heard, or elsewhere ? He said
if he had come to you, he could never have brought
himself to leave you. In all his distress he was
sweetly and exemplarily calm and master of him-
self, and seemed perfectly free from his disorder.
<j[0\ How do you all^atl^

XXXI. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

September 1797.
WRITTEN A TWELVEMONTH AFTER THE EVENTS'

[Friday next, Coleridge, is the day on which my mother died.]

Alas ! how am I chang'd ! Where be the tears,
The sobs, and forc'd suspensions of the breath,
And all the dull desertions of the heart,
With which I hung o'er my dear mother's corse ?
Where be the blest subsidings of the storm
Within, the sweet resignedness of* hope
Drawn heavenward, and strength of filial love,
In which I bow'd me to my Father's will ?
My God, and my Redeemer ! keep not thou
My heart in brute and sensual thanklessness
Seal'd up ; oblivious ever of that dear grace,
And health restor'd to my long-loved Friend,
Long-lov'd, and worthy known. Thou didst not keep

1 An autograph facsimile of this letter is given, in its chronological
order, in the back of Vol. I.

141

Her soul in death! O keep not now, my Lord,

Thy servants in far worse, in spiritual death,

And darkness blacker than those feared shadows

O' the valley all must tread. Lend us thy balms,

Thou dear Physician of the sin-sick soul,

And heal our cleansed bosoms of the wounds

With which the world hath pierc'd us thro' and thro' !

Give us new flesh, new birth. Elect of heav'n

May we become ; in thine Election sure

Contain'd, and to one purpose stedfast drawn,

Our soul's salvation !

Thou and I, dear friend,
With filial recognition sweet, shall know
One day the face of our dear mother in heaven,
And her remember'd looks of love shall greet
With answering looks of love ; her placid smiles
Meet with a smile as placid, and her hand
With drops of fondness wet, nor fear repulse.
Be witness for me, Lord, I do not ask
Those days of vanity to return again,
(Nor fitting me to ask, nor thee to give.)
Vain loves and " wanderings with a fair-hair'd maid,"
(Child of the dust as I am,) who so long
My foolish heart steep'd in Idolatry
And creature-loves. Forgive it, oh my Maker,
If, in a mood of grief, I sin almost
In sometimes brooding on the days long past,
(And from the grave of time wishing them back,)
Days of a mother's fondness to her child,
Her little one. Oh where be now those sports,
And infant play-games ? where the joyous troops
Of children, and the haunts I did so love ?

0 my companions, O ye loved names

Of friend, or playmate dear ; gone are ye now.
Gone divers ways ; to honour and credit some ;
And some, I fear, to ignominy and shame.

1 only am left, with unavailing grief

One parent dead to mourn, and see one live
Of all life's joys bereft and desolate : —
142

Am left with a few friends, and one, above
The rest, found faithful in a length of years,
Contented as I may, to bear me on
To the not unpeaceful evening of a day
Made black by morning storms !

The following I wrote when I had returned
from [Charles] Lloyd, leaving him behind at
Burton, with Southey. To understand some of
it, you must remember that at that time he was
very much perplexed in mind.

A stranger and alone I past those scenes

We past so late together; and my heart

Felt something like desertion, as I look'd

Around me, and the pleasant voice of friend

Was absent, and the cordial look was there

No more to smile on me. I thought on Lloyd —

All he had been to me ! And now I go

Again to mingle with a world impure ?

With men who make a mock of holy things,

Mistaken, and of man's best hope think scorn.

The world does much to warp the heart of man ;

And I may sometimes join its ideot [idiot] laugh :

Of this I now complain not. Deal with me,

Omniscient Father, as thou judgest best,

And in thy season, soften thou my heart —

I pray not for myself. I pray for him

Whose soul is sore perplex'd. Shine thou on him,

Father of lights ! and in the difficult paths

Make plain his way before him : his own thoughts

May he not think, his own ends not pursue j

So shall he best perform thy will on earth.

Greatest and Best, thy will be ever ours !

The former of these poems I wrote with un-
usual celerity t'other morning at office. I expect
you to like it better than anything of mine;
Lloyd does, and I do myself.

You use Lloyd very ill, never writing to him.
I tell you again that his is not a mind with which
you should play tricks. He deserves more ten-
derness from you.

For myself, I must spoil a little passage of
Beaumont and Fletcher to adapt it to my feel-
ings, —

I am Prouder
That I was once your friend, tho' now forgot,
Than to have had another true to me.

If you don't write to me now, as I told Lloyd,
I shall get angry, and call you hard names —
Manchineel, and I don't know what else. I wish
you would send me my greatcoat. The snow
and the rain season is at hand, and I have but
a wretched old coat, once my father's, to keep 'em
off, and that is transitory.

"When time drives flocks from field to fold,
When ways grow foul and blood gets cold,"

I shall remember where I left my coat. Meet
emblem wilt thou be, old Winter, of a friend's
neglect — cold, cold, cold ! Remembrance
where remembrance is due.

C. Lamb

XXXII. — TO S. T. 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

144

been creeping on me since my last misfortunes,
or I should have seized the first opening of a cor-
respondence with you. To you I owe much, un-
der 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,
tho' when I view myself in the light of divine
truth, and not according to the common meas-
ures of human judgment, I am altogether cor-
rupt and sinful. This is no cant. I am very sin-
cere.

These last afflictions, 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 judg-
ments now fail to take away from me the heart
of stone, what more grievous trials ought I not
to expect ? I have been very querulous, impa-
tient under the rod — full of little jealousies and
heart-burnings. I had wellnigh quarrelled with
Charles Lloyd ; and for no other reason, I be-
lieve, 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

145

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 soli-
tary 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, tho' from long habits of friendli-
ness, and many a social and good quality, I loved
him very much. I met company there some-
times— 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 sore-
ness and discontent. I became, as he complained,
"jaundiced" towards him; but he has forgiven
me ; and his smile, I hope, will draw all such
humours 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 hu-
man helps and leaning-places. I rejoice in your
good fortunes. May God at the last settle you !
— You have had many and painful trials ; hu-
manly speaking they are going to end ; but we
should rather pray that discipline may attend

146

us thro' 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

Schools of Germany, whither I am told you are
departing, to the utter dissatisfaction of your native
Devonshire and regret of universal England ; but
to my own individual consolation if thro' the
channel of your wished return, learned Sir, my
friend, may be transmitted to this our island, from
those famous theological wits of Leipsic and
Gottingen, any rays of illumination, in vain to
be derived from the home growth of our English
Halls and Colleges. Finally, wishing, learned Sir,
that you may see Schiller and swing in a wood
(vide Poems) and sit upon a tun, and eat fat hams
of Westphalia,

I remain,
Your friend and docile pupil to instruct,
Charles Lamb

NOTE BY E. V. LUCAS

[Lamb's last letter to Coleridge for two years. See note to
Letter XXXV.

Lamb's reading of Thomas Aquinas probably was at the base
of his theses. William Godwin, in his " History of Know-
ledge, Learning and Taste in Great Britain," which had run
through some years of the New Annual Register, cited, in 1 786,
a number of the more grotesque queries of the old Schoolmen.
Mr. Kegan Paul suggests that Lamb went to Godwin for his
examination paper ; but I should think this very unlikely. Some
of the questions hit Coleridge very hard.

This letter was first printed by Joseph Cottle in his Early
Recollections, 1 837, with the remark : " Mr. Coleridge gave me
this letter, saying, ' These young visionaries will do each other
no good.' " It marks an epoch in Lamb's life, since it brought
about, or, at any rate, clinched, the only quarrel that ever sub-
sisted between Coleridge and himself.

*5°

The story is told in Charles Lamb and the Lloyds. Briefly,
Lloyd had left Coleridge in the spring of 1797 ; a little later,
in a state of much perplexity, he had carried his troubles to
Lamb, and to Southey, between whom and Coleridge no very
cordial feeling had existed for some time, rather than to Cole-
ridge himself, his late mentor. That probably fanned the flame.
The next move came from Coleridge. He printed in the
Monthly Magazine for November, 1797, three sonnets signed
Nehemiah Higginbottom, burlesquing instances of " affectation
of unaffectedness," and " puny pathos " in the poems of him-
self, of Lamb, and of Lloyd, the humour of which Lamb
probably did not much appreciate, since he believed in the feel-
ings expressed in his verse, while Lloyd was certainly unfitted
to esteem it. Coleridge effected even more than he had con-
templated, for Southey took the sonnet upon Simplicity as an
attack upon himself, which did not, however, prevent him, a
little later, from a similar exercise in ponderous humour under
the too similar name of Abel ShufHebottom.

In March, 1798, when a new edition of Coleridge's 1797
Poems was in contemplation, Lloyd wrote to Cottle, the pub-
lisher, asking that he would persuade Coleridge to omit his
(Lloyd's) portion, a request which Coleridge probably resented,
but which gave him the opportunity of replying that no per-
suasion was needed for the omission of verses published at the
earnest request of the author.

Meanwhile a worse offence than all against Coleridge was
perpetrated by Lloyd. In the spring of 1798 was published at
Bristol his novel, Edmund Oliver, dedicated to Lamb, in which
Coleridge's experiences in the army, under the alias of Silas
Tomkyn Comberback, in 1793— 1794, and certain of Cole-
ridge's peculiarities, including his drug habit, were utilised.
Added to this, Lloyd seems to have repeated both to Lamb and
Southey, in distorted form, certain things which Coleridge had
said of them, either in confidence, or, at any rate, with no wish
that they should be repeated ; with the result that Lamb actu-
ally went so far as to take sides with Lloyd against his older
friend. The following extracts from a letter from Coleridge
to Lamb, which I am permitted by Mr. Ernest Hartley Cole-
ridge to print, carry the story a little farther :

151

[Spring of 1798.]

Dear Lamb, — Lloyd has informed me through Miss
Wordsworth that you intend no longer to correspond with me.
This has given me little pain ; not that I do not love and
esteem you, but on the contrary because I am confident that
your intentions are pure. You are performing what you deem
a duty, and humanly speaking, have that merit which can be
derived from the performance of a painful duty. Painful, for
you would not without struggles abandon me in behalf of a man
[Lloyd] who, wholly ignorant of all but your name, became
attached to you in consequence of my attachment, caught bis
from my enthusiasm, and learned to love you at my fireside,
when often while I have been sitting and talking of your sor-
rows and afflictions I have stopped my conversations and lifted
up wet eyes and prayed for you. No ! I am confident that
although you do not think as a wise man, you feel as a good
man.

From you I have received little pain, because for you I suffer
little alarm. I cannot say this for your friend; it appears to
me evident that his feelings are vitiated, and that his ideas are
in their combination merely the creatures of those feelings.
I have received letters from him, and the best and kindest wish
which, as a Christian, I can offer in return is that he may feel
remorse. . . .

When I wrote to you that my Sonnet to Simplicity was not
composed with reference to Southey, you answered me (I be-
lieve these were the words) : " It was a lie too gross for the
grossest ignorance to believe; " and I was not angry with you,
because the assertion which the grossest ignorance would
believe a lie the Omniscient knew to be truth. This, however,
makes me cautious not too hastily to affirm the falsehood of an
assertion of Lloyd's that in Edmund Oliver's love-fit, leaving
college, and going into the army, he had no sort of allusion to
or recollection of my love-fit, leaving college, and going into
the army, and that he never thought of my person in the de-
scription of Oliver's person in the first letter of the second
volume. This cannot appear stranger to me than my assertion
did to you, and therefore I will suspend my absolute faith. . . .

I have been unfortunate in my connections. Both you and

152

Lloyd became acquainted with me when your minds were far
from being in a composed or natural state, and you clothed my
image with a suit of notions and feelings which could belong
to nothing human. You are restored to comparative saneness,
and are merely wondering what is become of the Coleridge
with whom you were so passionately in love ; Charles Lloyd's
mind has only changed his disease, and he is now arraying his
ci-devant Angel in a flaming San Benito — the whole ground
of the garment a dark brimstone and plenty of little devils
flourished out in black. Oh, me ! Lamb, " even in laughter
the heart is sad ! " . . .

God bless you and S. T. Coleridge

Here follows Lamb's first letter to Robert Lloyd. Lamb's
first letter is one of advice, apparently in reply to some complaints
of his position addressed to him by Lloyd. A second and longer
letter which, though belonging to August, 1798, may be men-
tioned here, also counsels, commending the use of patience
and humility. Lamb is here seen in the character of a spiritual
adviser. The letter is unique in his correspondence.

Robert Lloyd was a younger brother of Charles Lloyd, and
Lamb had probably met him when on his visit to Birmingham
in the summer. The boy, then not quite twenty, was appren-
ticed to a Quaker draper at Saffron Walden in Essex.]

XXXIV. — TO ROBERT LLOYD

[? July, 1 798.]

My dear Robert, — I am a good deal occupied
with a calamity near home, but not so much as
to prevent my thinking about you with the warm-
est affection. You are among my very dearest
friends. I know you will feel deeply, when you
hear that my poor sister is unwell again, — one
of her old disorders ; but I trust it will hold no
longer than her former illnesses have done. Do

IS3

not imagine, Robert, that I sink under this mis-
fortune, — I have been season' d to such events,
and think I could bear anything tolerably well.
My own health is left me, and my good spirits,
and I have some duties to perform — these duties
shall be my object.

I wish, Robert, you could find an object — I
know the painfulness of vacuity, all its achings
and inexplicable longings. I wish to God I could
recommend any plan to you. Stock your mind
well with religious knowledge; discipline it to
wait with patience for duties, that may be your
lot in life ; prepare yourself not to expect too

much out of yourself ; read and. think This

is all commonplace advice, I know — I know
too, that it is easy to give advice, which in like
circumstances we might not follow ourselves.
You must depend upon yourself — there will
come a time, when you will wonder you were
not more content — I know you will excuse my
saying any more, —

Be assur'd of my kindest warmest
affection — C. Lamb

XXXV. — TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

Saturday, July 28, 1798.

I am ashamed that I have not thanked you be-
fore this for the Joan of Arc, but I did not know
your address, and it did not occur to me to write
through Cottle. The poem delighted me, and

JS4

the notes amused me, but methinks she of
Neufchatel, in the print, holds her sword too
" like a dancer."

I sent your notice to Phillips, particularly re-
questing an immediate insertion, but I suppose it
came too late.

I am sometimes curious to know what pro-
gress you make in that same Calendar : whether
you insert the nine worthies and Whittington?
what you do or how you can manage when two
saints meet and quarrel for precedency ? Martle-
mas, and Candlemas, and Christmas, are glorious
themes for a writer like you, antiquity-bitten,
smit with the love of boars' heads and rosemary ;
but how you can ennoble the ist of April I know
not.

By the way I had a thing to say, but a certain
false modesty has hitherto prevented me : per-
haps I can best communicate my wish by a hint,
— my birthday is on the i oth of February, New
Style ; but if it interferes with any remarkable
event, why rather than my country should lose
her fame, I care not if I put my nativity back
eleven days. Fine family patronage for your Cal-
endar, if that old lady of prolific memory were
living, who lies (or lyes) in some church in
London (saints forgive me, but I have forgot what
church), attesting that enormous legend of as
many children as days in the year. I marvel her
impudence did not grasp at a leap-year. Three
hundred and sixty-five dedications, and all in a

family: you might spit in spirit on the oneness
of Maecenas' patronage !

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to the eternal regret
of his native Devonshire, emigrates to West-
phalia. " Poor Lamb (these were his last words),
if he wants any knowledge, he may apply to me,"
— in ordinary cases, I thanked him, I have an
Encyclopedia at hand, but on such an occasion
as going over to a German university, I could
not refrain from sending him the following pro-
positions, to be by him defended or oppugned
(or both) at Leipsic or Gottingen.

[These queries are found in Letter xxxm, and need not be
repeated here.]

Samuel Taylor C. hath not deigned an answer;
was it impertinent of me to avail myself of that
offered source of knowledge ?

Lloyd is returned to town from Ipswich where
he has been with his brother. He has brought
home three acts of a play which I have not yet
read. The scene for the most part laid in a
brothel. O tempora, O mores ! but as friend
Coleridge said when he was talking bawdy to
Miss , " to the pure all things are pure."

Wishing Madoc may be born into the world
with as splendid promise as the second birth
or purification of the Maid of Neufchatel, —
I remain yours sincerely,

C. Lamb

I hope Edith is better ; my kindest remem-
156

brances to her. You have a good deal of trifling
to forgive in this letter.

NOTE

[This is Lamb's first letter to Southey that has been pre-
served. Probably others came before it. Southey now becomes
Lamb's chief correspondent for some months. In Canon
Ainger's transcript the letter ends with "Love and remem-
brances to Cottle."]

XXXVI. — TO ROBERT LLOYD"

August, 1798.

My dear Robert, — Mary is better, and I trust
that she will yet be restored to me. I am in
good spirits, so do not be anxious about me : —
I hope you get reconciled to your situation. The
worst in it is that you have no friend to talk to ;
but wait in patience, and you will in good time
make friends. The having a friend is not indis-
pensably necessary to virtue or happiness. Re-
ligion removes those barriers of sentiment which
partition us from the disinterested love of our
brethren — we are commanded to love our ene-
mies, to do good to those that hate us. How
much more is it our duty then to cultivate a for-
bearance and complaisance towards those who
only differ from us in dispositions and ways of
thinking. There is always, without very unusual
care there must always be, something of self in

1 An autograph facsimile of this letter is given, in its chronological
order, in the back of Vol. I.

*S7

friendship : we love our friend because he is like
ourselves. Can consequences altogether unmix'd
and pure be reasonably expected from such a
source — do not even the publicans and sinners

the same ? Say, that you love a friend for his

moral qualities, — is it not rather because those
qualities resemble what you fancy your own ?

this then is not without danger. The

only true cement of a valuable friendship, the
only thing that even makes it not sinful, is when
two friends propose to become mutually of bene-
fit to each other in a moral or religious way. But
even this friendship is perpetually liable to the
mixture of something not pure — we love our
friend, because he is ours : so we do our money,
our wit, our knowledge, our virtue. And wher-
ever this sense of appropriation and property enters,
so much is to be subtracted from the value of
that friendship or that virtue. Our duties are to
do good expecting nothing again, to bear with
contrary dispositions, to be candid and forgiving,
not to crave and long after a communication of
sentiment and feeling, but rather to avoid dwell-
ing upon those feelings, however good, because
they are our own. A man may be intemperate
and selfish, who indulges in good feelings, for the
mere pleasure they give him. I do not wish to
deter you from making a friend, a true friend,
and such a friendship where the parties are not
blind to each other's faults, is very useful and
valuable. I perceive a tendency in you to this

iS8

error, Robert. I know you have chosen to take
up an high opinion of my moral worth. But I
say it before God, and I do not lie, you are mis-
taken in me. I could not bear to lay open all
my failings to you, for the sentiment of shame
would be too pungent. Let this be as an exam-
ple to you.

Robert, friends fall off, friends mistake us, they
change, they grow unlike us, they go away, they
die ; but God is everlasting and uncapable of
change, and to Him we may look with chearful,
unpresumptuous hope, while we discharge the
duties of life in situations more untowardly than
yours. You complain of the impossibility of im-
proving yourself, but be assur'd that the oppor-
tunity of improvement lies more in the mind
than the situation. Humble yourself before God,
cast out the selfish principle, wait in patience, do
good in every way you can to all sorts of people,
never be easy to neglect a duty tho' a small one,
praise God for all, and see His hand in all things,
and He will in time raise you up many friends —
or be Himself instead an unchanging Friend.

God bless you.

C. Lamb

XXXVII. — TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

October 18, 1798.

Dear Southey, — I have at last been so fortun-
ate as to pick up Wither's Emblems for you, that

159

" old book and quaint," as the brief author of
Rosamund Gray hath it ; it is in a most detestable
state of preservation, and the cuts are of a fainter
impression than I have seen. Some child, the
curse of antiquaries and bane of bibliopolical
rarities, hath been dabbling in some of them with
its paint and dirty fingers, and in particular hath
a little sullied the author's own portraiture, which
I think valuable, as the poem that accompanies
it is no common one ; this last excepted, the
Emblems are far inferior to old Quarles. I once
told you otherwise, but I had not then read old
Q^ with attention. I have picked up, too, another
copy of Quarles for ninepence ! ! ! O temporal O
lectores! — so that if you have lost or parted with
your own copy, say so, and I can furnish you,
for you prize these things more than I do. You
will be amused, I think, with honest Wither's
" supersedeas to all them whose custom it is,
without any deserving, to importune authors to
give unto them their books." I am sorry 'tis
imperfect, as the lottery board annexed to it also
is. Methinks you might modernise and elegant-
ise this supersedeas, and place it in front of your
Joan of Arc, as a gentle hint to Messrs. Park,
&c. One of the happiest emblems and comical-
est cuts is the owl and little chirpers, page 63.

Wishing you all amusement, which your true
emblem-fancier can scarce fail to find in even
bad emblems, I remain your caterer to com-
mand, C. Lamb

160

Love and respects to Edith. I hope she
well. How does your Calendar prosper ?

XXXVIII. — TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

[October 29, 1798.]

Dear Southey, — I thank you heartily for the
eclogue ; 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 circum-
stances 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 grey,

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. But I thank you

161

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 dis-
please 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 Marlow'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 discom-
mended for a certain discolouring (I think
Addison calls it) than the witches and fairies of
Marlow's mighty successor. The scene is be-
twixt Barabas, the Jew, and Ithamore, a Turkish
captive exposed to sale for a slave.

BARABAS

{A precious rascal)

As for myself, I walk abroad a-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,
162

And always kept the sexton's arms in ure

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 [helping] 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 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 at an inn,

And in the night-time secretly would I steal

To travellers' chambers, and there cut their throats.

Once at Jerusalem, where the pilgrims kneel'd,

I strowed 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 an-

163

tique 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 Marlow 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 " cer-
tain smooth verses made long since by Kit
Marlow."

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 meta-
physician 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 un-
accountably. Love and respects to Edith.
Yours sincerely,

C. Lamb

XXXIX. — TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

November 3, 1798.

I have read your Eclogue repeatedly, and
cannot call it bald, or without interest ; the cast
of it and the design are completely original, and
may set people upon thinking. It is as poetical

164

as the subject requires, which asks no poetry ;
but it is defective in pathos. The woman's own
story is the tamest part of it ; I should like
you to remould that : it too much resembles the
young maid's history ; both had been in service.
Even the omission would not injure the poem :
after the words " growing wants," you might,
not unconnectedly, introduce "look at that
little chub " down to " welcome one." And,
decidedly, I would have you end it somehow
thus, —

Give them at least this evening good meal.

[Gives her money.
Now, fare thee well ; hereafter you have taught me
To give sad meaning to the village bells, &c.

which would leave a stronger impression (as
well as more pleasingly recall the beginning of
the Eclogue) than the present commonplace
reference to a better world, which the woman
"must have heard at church." I should like
you too a good deal to enlarge the most strik-
ing part, as it might have been, of the poem —
" Is it idleness ?" &c. : that affords a good field
for dwelling on sickness, and inabilities, and old
age. And you might also a good deal enrich
the piece with a picture of a country wedding.
The woman might very well, in a transient fit of
oblivion, dwell upon the ceremony and circum-
stances of her own nuptials six years ago, the
smugness of the bridegroom, the feastings, the
cheap merriment, the welcomings, and the secret

165

envyings of the maidens; then dropping all
this, recur to her present lot.

I do not know that I can suggest anything
else, or that I have suggested anything new or
material. I do not much prefer this Eclogue to
the last. Both are inferior to the former.

And when he came to shake me by the hand,
And spake as kindly to me as he used,
I hardly knew his voice —

is the only passage that affected me. When
servants speak their language ought to be plain,
and not much raised above the common, else I
should find fault with the bathos of this pass-
age,—

And when I heard the bell strike out,

I thought (what ?) that I had never heard it toll

So dismally before.

I like the destruction of the martens' old
nests hugely, having just such a circumstance in
my memory. I shall be very glad to see your
remaining Eclogue, if not too much trouble,
as you give me reason to expect it will be the
second best. I shall be very glad to see some
more poetry, though, I fear, your trouble in
transcribing will be greater than the service my
remarks may do them.

Yours affectionately,

C. Lamb

I cut my letter short because I am called off
to business.

166

XL. — TO ROBERT 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 solilo-
quises 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 will-
ing to dispense with that want. I always love
Wither, and sometimes admire Quarles. Still
that portrait poem is a fine one ; and the ex-
tract from The Shepherds' Hunting places him in
a starry height far above Quarles. If you wrote
that review in the Critical Review, I am sorry you
are so sparing of praise to the Ancient Marinere ;
so far from calling it, as you do, with some wit,
but more severity, "A Dutch Attempt," &c,
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, —

167

" A spring of love gush'd from my heart,
And I bless'd them unaware " —

It stung me into high pleasure through suffer-
ings. 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 ex-
cuse my own dotage, —

" So lonely 't was, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be ! " &c, &c.

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

I am going to meet Lloyd at Ware on Satur-
day, to return on Sunday. Have you any com-
mands or commendations to the metaphysician ?
I shall be very happy if you will dine or spend
any time with me in your way through the great
ugly city ; but I know you have other ties upon
you in these parts.

Love and respects to Edith, and friendly re-
membrances to Cottle.

168

XLL — TO ROBERT LLOYD1

London, November 13, 1798.

Now 'tis Robert's turn.

My dear Robert, — One passage in your Let-
ter a little displeas'd me. The rest was nothing
but kindness, which Robert's letters are ever
brimful of. You say that " this world to you
seems drain' d of all its sweets ! " — At first I had
hoped you only meant to insinuate the high price
of Sugar ! but I am afraid you meant more.
O Robert, I don't know what you call sweet.
Honey and the honeycomb, roses and violets, are
yet in the earth. The sun and moon yet reign
in Heaven, and the lesser lights keep up their
pretty twinklings. Meats and drinks, sweet sights
and sweet smells, a country walk, spring and au-
tumn, follies and repentance, quarrels and recon-
cilements, have all a sweetness by turns — good
humour and good nature, friends at home that
love you, and friends abroad that miss you — you
possess all these things, and more innumerable :
and these are all sweet things. You may extract
honey from everything; do not go a gathering
after gall. The Bees are wiser in their genera-
tion than the race of sonnet writers and com-
plainers : Bowleses and Charlotte Smiths, and all
that tribe, who can see no joys, but what are past,
and fill people's heads with notions of the un-

1 An autograph facsimile of this letter is given, in its chronological
order, in the back of Vol. I.

169

satisfying nature of earthly comforts. I assure
you I find this world a very pretty place. My
kind love to all your sisters and to Thomas —
he never writes to me — and tell Susanna I for-
give her. C. Lamb

XLIL — TO ROBERT LLOYD

November 20, 1798.

As the little copy of verses I sent gave Priscilla
and Robert some pleasure, I now send them
another little tale, which is all I can send, for my
stock will be exhausted.

'T is a tale of witchcraft, told by an old Stew-
ard in the family to Margaret, the ward of Sir
Walter Woodvil. Who Sir Walter is, you may
come to know bye and bye, when I have finished
a Poem, from which this and the other are
extracts, and all the extracts I can make without
mutilating. [See poem in Letter xliii to
Southey, which need not be repeated here.]

A mandrake [45th line of poem] is a root re-
sembling the human form, as sometimes a carrot
does, and the old superstition is, that when the
mandrake is torn out of the earth a dreadful
shriek is heard, which makes all who hear it go
mad. 'T is a fatal poison besides.

I will here conclude my tiny portion of prose
with hoping you may like the story, and my
kind remembrances to all. C. Lamb

Write soon, Robert.

170

XLIIL — TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

[Probably November, 1798.]

The following is a second extract from my
tragedy that is to be, — 't is narrated by an old
steward to Margaret, orphan ward of Sir Walter
Woodvil ; this, and the Dying Lover I gave you,
are the only extracts I can give without muti-
lation. I expect you to like the old woman's
curse, —

Old Steward. — One summer night, Sir Walter, as it
chanc'd,
Was pacing to and fro in the avenue
That westward fronts our house,
Among those aged oaks, said to have been planted
Three hundred years ago
By a neighb'ring Prior of the Woodvil name,
But so it was,

Being overtask't in thought, he heeded not
The importune suitor who stood by the gate,
And begg'd an alms.

Some say he shov'd her rudely from the gate
With angry chiding ; but I can never think
(Sir Walter's nature hath a sweetness in it)
That he would use a woman — an old woman —
With such discourtesy ;
For old she was who begg'd an alms of him.
Well, he refus'd her;
Whether for importunity, I know not,
Or that she came between his meditations.
But better had he met a lion in the streets
Than this old woman that night;
For she was one who practis'd the black arts,
And served the devil — being since burn'd for witchcraft.
She look'd at him like one that meant to blast him,
And with a frightful noise

I7I

('T was partly like a woman's voice,

And partly like the hissing of a snake)

She nothing said but this (Sir Walter told the words) :

" A mischief, mischief, mischief,

And a nine-times killing curse,
By day and by night, to the caitive wight
Who shakes the poor like snakes from his door,

And shuts up the womb of his purse;
And a mischief, mischief, mischief,

And a ninefold withering curse, —
For that shall come to thee, that will render thee

Both all that thou fear'st, and worse."

These words four times repeated, she departed,
Leaving Sir Walter like a man beneath
Whose feet a scaffolding had suddenly fall'n :
So he describ'd it.

Margaret. — A terrible curse !

Old Steward. — O Lady, such bad things are told of that old
woman,
As, namely, that the milk she gave was sour,
And the babe who suck'd her shrivel'd like a mandrake;
And things besides, with a bigger horror in them,
Almost, I think, unlawful to be told !

Margaret. — Then must I never hear them. But proceed,
And say what follow'd on the witch's curse.

Old Steward. — Nothing immediate ; but some nine months
after,
Young Stephen Woodvil suddenly fell sick,
And none could tell what ail'd him : for he lay,
And pin'd, and pin'd, that all his hair came off;
And he, that was full-flesh'd, became as thin
As a two-months' babe that hath been starved in the nursing;
And sure, I think,
He bore his illness like a little child,
With such rare sweetness of dumb melancholy
He strove to clothe his agony in smiles,
Which he would force up in his poor, pale cheeks,

172

Like ill-tim'd guests that had no proper business there ;

And when they ask'd him his complaint, he laid

His hand upon his heart to show the place

Where Satan came to him a nights, he said,

And prick'd him with a pin.

And hereupon Sir Walter call'd to mind

The beggar witch that stood in the gateway,

And begg'd an alms —

Margaret. — I do not love to credit tales of magic.
Heav'n's music, which is order, seems unstrung;
And this brave world,
Creation's beauteous work, unbeautified,
Disorder' d, marr'd, where such strange things are acted.

This is the extract I bragg'd of, as superior to
that I sent you from Mario w. Perhaps you smile;
but I should like your remarks on the above, as
you are deeper witch-read than I.

XLIV. — TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

November 28, 1798.

I can have no objection to your printing Mystery
of God with my name and all due acknowledg-
ments for the honour and favour of the commu-
nication ; indeed, 't is a poem that can dishonour
no name. Now, that is in the true strain of mod-
ern modesto-vanitas. But for the sonnet, I heartily
wish it, as I thought it was, forgotten. If the
exact circumstances under which I wrote could be
known or told, it would be an interesting sonnet;
but to an indifferent reader it must appear a very
bald thing, certainly inadmissible in a compilation.
I wish you could affix a different name to the

J73

volume ; there is a contemptible book, a wretched
assortment of vapid feelings, entitled Pratt's Glean-
ings, which hath damned and impropriated the
title for ever. Pray think of some other. The
gentleman is better known (better had he re-
mained unknown) by an Ode to Benevolence, writ-
ten and spoken for and at the annual dinner of the
Humane Society, who walk in procession once
a-year, with all the objects of their charity before
them, to return God thanks for giving them such
benevolent hearts.

I like Bishop Bruno; but not so abundantly as
your Witch Ballad, which is an exquisite thing of
its kind.

I showed my Witch and Dying Lover to Dyer
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 doc-
trine by correcting a proof-sheet of his own lyr-
ics. George writes odes where the rhymes, like
fashionable man and wife, keep a comfortable dis-
tance 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 '11 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

174

his own eyes were dark [Plight], 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 splendour of his genius ; and I
acquiesced.

Your recipe for a Turk's poison is invaluable and
truly Mario wish. . . . 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 the
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 man-
drake babe ; but I affirm these be things a witch
would do if she could.

My tragedy 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,
humour, and, if possible, sublimity ; at least, it is
not a fault in my intention, if it does not compre-
hend most of these discordant colours. Heaven
send they dance not the Dance of Death! I hear
that the Two Noble Englishmen have parted no
sooner than they set foot on German earth, but I
have not heard the reason — possibly, to give nov-
elists an handle to exclaim, " Ah me ! what things

ITS

are perfect ?" I think I shall adopt your emenda-
tion 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 nor 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
rirled him of four guineas, some shillings and half-
pence,and a bundle of customers' measures, which
they swore were bank-notes. They did not shoot
him, and when they rode off he addrest them
with profound gratitude, making la congee : " Gen-
tlemen, 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 had the
audacity to foist upon me ten buttons on a side
and a black velvet collar, — a damn'd ninth of
a scoundrel !

When you write to Lloyd, he wishes his Jaco-
bin correspondents to address him as Mr. C. L.
Love and respects to Edith. I hope she is well.

Yours sincerely, C. Lamb

176

XLV. — TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

December 27, 1798.

Dear Southey, — Your friend John May has
formerly made kind offers to Lloyd of serving
me in the India house by the interest of his friend
Sir Francis Baring — It is not likely that I shall
ever put his goodness to the test on my own ac-
count, for my prospects are very comfortable.
But I know a man, a young man, whom he
could serve thro' the same channel, and I think
would be disposed to serve if he were acquainted
with his case. This poor fellow (whom I know
just enough of to vouch for his strict integrity
and worth) has lost two or three employments
from illness, which he cannot regain ; he was
once insane, and from the distressful uncertainty
of his livelihood has reason to apprehend a re-
turn of that malady. He has been for some time
dependent on a woman whose lodger he formerly
was, but who can ill afford to maintain him, and
I know that on Christmas night last he actually
walk'd about the streets all night, rather than
accept of her bed, which she offer' d him, and
offer' d herself to sleep in the kitchen, and that
in consequence of that severe cold he is labour-
ing under a bilious disorder, besides a depression
of spirits, which incapacitates him from exertion
when he most needs it. For God's sake, Southey,
if it does not go against you to ask favors, do it
now, — ask it as for me ; but do not do a violence

177

to your feelings, because he does not know of
this application, and will suffer no disappoint-
ment. What I meant to say was this, — there
are in the India house what are called extra clerks,
not on the establishment, like me, but employed
in extra business, by-jobs, — these get about ^50
a year, or rather more, but never rise, — a direct-
or can put in at any time a young man in this
office, and it is by no means consider'd so great
a favor as making an establish'd clerk. He would
think himself as rich as an emperor if he could
get such a certain situation, and be relieved from
those disquietudes which I do fear may one day
bring back his distemper.

You know John May better than I do, but
I know enough to believe that he is a good
man; he did make me that offer I have men-
tion'd, but you will perceive that such an offer
cannot authorize me in applying for another
person.

But I cannot help writing to you on the sub-
ject, for the young man is perpetually before
my eyes, and I should feel it a crime not to strain
all my petty interest to do him service, tho' I
put my own delicacy to the question by so do-
ing. I have made one other unsuccessful attempt
already.

At all events I will thank you to write, for I
am tormented with anxiety.

I suppose you have somewhere heard that poor
Mary Dollin has poisoned herself, after some in-

178

terviews with John Reid, the ci-devant Alphonso
of her days of hope.

How is Edith ? C. Lamb

XLVL — TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

January 21, 1799.

I am requested by Lloyd to excuse his not
replying to a kind letter received from you. He
is at present situated in most distressful family
perplexities, which I am not at liberty to ex-
plain ; but they are such as to demand all the
strength of his mind, and quite exclude any at-
tention to foreign objects. His brother Robert
(the flower of his family) hath eloped from the
persecutions of his father, and has taken shelter
with me. What the issue of his adventure will be,
I know not. He hath the sweetness of an angel
in his heart, combined with admirable firmness
of purpose ; an uncultivated, but very original,
and, I think, superior genius. But this step of his
is but a small part of their family troubles.

I am to blame for not writing to you before
on my own account; but I know you can dispense
with the expressions of gratitude, or I should
have thanked you before for all May's kindness.
He has liberally supplied the person I spoke to
you of with money, and had procured him a
situation just after himself had lighted upon a
similar one and engaged too far to recede. But
May's kindness was the same, and my thanks to

179

you and him are the same. May went about on
this business as if it had been his own. But you
knew John May before this : so I will be silent.
I shall be very glad to hear from you when
convenient. I do not know how your Calendar
and other affairs thrive ; but, above all, I have
not heard a great while of your Madoc, — the
opus magnum. I would willingly send you some-
thing to give a value to this letter ; but I have
only one slight passage to send you, scarce worth
the sending, which I want to edge in somewhere
into my play, which, by the way, hath not
received the addition of ten lines, besides, since
I saw you. A father, old Walter Woodvil (the
witch's protege), relates this of his son John, who
"fought in adverse armies," being a royalist, and
his father a parliamentary man, —

I saw him in the day of Worcester fight,

Whither he came at twice seven years,

Under the discipline of the Lord Falkland

(His uncle by the mother's side,

Who gave his youthful politics a bent

Quite from the principles of his father's house) ;

There did I see this valiant Lamb of Mars,

This sprig of honour, this unbearded John,

This veteran in green years, this sprout, this Woodvil

(With dreadless ease guiding a fire-hot steed,

Which seem'd to scorn the manage of a boy),

Prick forth with such a mirth into the field,

To mingle rivalship and acts of war

Even with the sinewy masters of the art, —

You would have thought the work of blood had been

A play-game merely, and the rabid Mars

Had put his harmful hostile nature off",

180

To instruct raw youth in images of war,
And practice of the unedged players' foils.
The rough fanatic and blood-practised soldiery
Seeing such hope and virtue in the boy,
Disclosed their ranks to let him pass unhurt,
Checking their swords' uncivil injuries,
As loth to mar that curious workmanship
Of Valour's beauty pourtray'd in his face.

Lloyd objects to "pourtrayed in his face," —
do you ? I like the line.

I shall clap this in somewhere. I think there
is a spirit through the lines; perhaps the 7th, 8th,
and 9th owe their origin to Shakspeare, though
no image is borrowed.

He says in " Henry the Fourth " —

This infant Hotspur,
Mars in swathing clothes.

But pray did Lord Falkland die before Worces-
ter fight? In that case I must make bold to
unclify some other nobleman.
Kind love and respects to Edith.

C. Lamb

XLVIL — TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

[Late January or early February, 1799.]

Dear Southey, — Lloyd will now be able to
give you an account of himself, so to him I leave
you for satisfaction. Great part of his troubles
are lightened by the partial recovery of his sis-
ter, who had been alarmingly ill with similar
diseases to his own. The other part of the family

181

troubles sleeps for the present, but I fear will
awake at some future time to confound and dis-
unite. He will probably tell you all about it.
Robert still continues here with me ; his father
has proposed nothing, but would willingly lure
him back with fair professions. But Robert is
endowed with a wise fortitude, and in this busi-
ness has acted quite from himself, and wisely
acted. His parents must come forward in the
end. I like reducing parents to a sense of unduti-
fulness. I like confounding the relations of life.
Pray let me see you when you come to town,
and contrive to give me some of your company.
I thank you heartily for your intended pre-
sents, but do by no means see the necessity you
are under of burthening yourself thereby. You
have read old Wither's Supersedeas to small pur-
pose. You object to my pauses being at the
end of my lines. I do not know any great diffi-
culty I should find in diversifying or changing
my blank verse ; but I go upon the model of
Shakspere in my Play, and endeavour after a
colloquial ease and spirit, something like him.
I could so easily imitate Milton's versification ;
but my ear and feeling would reject it, or any
approaches to it, in the drama. I do not know
whether to be glad or sorry that witches have
been detected aforetimes in shutting up of wombs.
I certainly invented that conceit, and its coinci-
dence with fact is incidental [? accidental], for
I never heard it. I have not seen those verses

182

on Col. Despard : I do not read any newspapers.
Are they short, to copy without much trouble'?
I should like to see them.

I just send you a few rhymes from my play,
the only rhymes in it, — a forest-liver giving an
account of his amusements, —

What sports have you in the forest ?

Not many, — some few, — as thus,

To see the sun to bed, and see him rise,

Like some hot amourist with glowing eyes,

Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him,

With all his fires and travelling glories round him :

Sometimes the moon on soft night-clouds to rest,

Like beauty nestling in a young man's breast,

And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keep

Admiring silence, while those lovers sleep :

Sometimes outstretch'd in very idleness,

Nought doing, saying little, thinking less,

To view the leaves, thin dancers upon air,

Go eddying round ; and small birds how they fare,

When mother Autumn fills their beaks with corn,

Filch'd from the careless Amalthea's horn;

And how the woods berries and worms provide,

Without their pains, when earth hath nought beside

To answer their small wants ;

To view the graceful deer come trooping by,

Then pause, and gaze, then turn they know not why,

Like bashful younkers in society ;

To mark the structure of a plant or tree ;

And all fair things of earth, how fair they be ! &c, &c.

I love to anticipate charges of unoriginality :
the first line is almost Shakspere's, —

To have my love to bed and to arise.

Midsummer Night's Dream.

I think there is a sweetness in the versification
183

not unlike some rhymes in that exquisite play,
and the last line but three is yours, —

An eye
That met the gaze, or turn'd it knew not why.

Rosamund' s Epistle.

I shall anticipate all my play, and have nothing
to shew you.

An idea for Leviathan, —

Commentators on Job have been puzzled to
find out a meaning for Leviathan, — 't is a whale,
say some ; a crocodile, say others. In my simple
conjecture, Leviathan is neither more nor less
than the Lord Mayor of London for the time
being.

Rosamund sells well in London, maugre the
non-reviewal of it.

I sincerely wish you better health, and better
health to Edith. Kind remembrances to her.

C. Lamb

If you come to town by Ash Wensday [Feb-
ruary 6], you will certainly see Lloyd here —
I expect him by that time.

My sister Mary was never in better health or
spirits than now.

XLVIII. — TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

March 15, 1799.

Dear Southey, — I have received your little
volume, for which I thank you, though I do

184

not entirely approve of this sort of intercourse,
where the presents are all one side. I have read
the last eclogue again with great pleasure. It
hath gained considerably by abridgment, and
now I think it wants nothing but enlargement.
You will call this one of tyrant Procrustes' criti-
cisms, to cut and pull so to his own standard ;
but the old lady is so great a favourite with me,
I want to hear more of her ; and of Joanna you
have given us still less. But the picture of the
rustics leaning over the bridge, and the old lady
travelling abroad on a summer evening to see
her garden watered, are images so new and true,
that I decidedly prefer this Ruin'd Cottage to any
poem in the book. Indeed I think it the only one
that will bear comparison with your Hymn to the
Penates in a former volume.

I compare dissimilar things, as one would a
rose and a star for the pleasure they give us, or
as a child soon learns to choose between a cake
and a rattle ; for dissimilars have mostly some
points of comparison. The next best poem, I
think, is the first eclogue ; 't is very complete,
and abounding in little pictures and realities.
The remainder eclogues, excepting only the
Funeral, I do not greatly admire. I miss one,
which had at least as good a title to publication
as the Witch, or the Sailor s Mother. You call'd
it the Last of the Family. The Old Woman of
Berkeley comes next ; in some humours I would
give it the preference above any. But who the

185

devil is Matthew of Westminster ? You are as
familiar with these antiquated monastics, as Swe-
denborg, or, as his followers affect to call him,
the Baron, with his invisibles. But you have
raised a very comic effect out of the true narra-
tive of Matthew of Westminster. 'T is surprising
with how little addition you have been able to
convert with so little alteration his incidents,
meant for terror, into circumstances and food for
the spleen. The Parody is not so successful ; it
has one famous line indeed, which conveys the
finest death-bed image I ever met with, —

The doctor whisper'd the nurse, and the surgeon knew what
he said.

But the offering the bride three times bears
not the slightest analogy or proportion to the
fiendish noises three times heard ! In Jaspar,
the circumstance of the great light is very affect-
ing. But I had heard you mention it before.
The Rose is the only insipid piece in the volume ;
it hath neither thorns nor sweetness, and, besides,
sets all chronology and probability at defiance.

Cousin Margaret, you know, I like. The allu-
sions to the Pilgrim's Progress are particularly
happy, and harmonise tacitly and delicately with
old cousins and aunts. To familiar faces we do
associate familiar scenes and accustomed objects ;
but what hath Apollidon and his sea-nymphs to
do in these affairs ? Apolyon I could have borne,
though he stands for the devil ; but who is Apol-
lidon ? I think you are too apt to conclude

186

faintly, with some cold moral, as in the end of
the poem called 'The Victory, —

Be thou her comforter, who art the widow's friend ;

a single commonplace line of comfort, which
bears no proportion in weight or number to the
many lines which describe suffering. This is to
convert religion into mediocre feelings, which
should burn and glow and tremble. A moral
should be wrought into the body and soul, the
matter and tendency, of a poem, not tagged to
the end, like a " God send the good ship into
harbour," at the conclusion of our bills of lading.
The finishing of the Sailor is also imperfect. Any
dissenting minister may say and do as much.

These remarks, I know, are crude and un-
wrought; but I do not lay claim to much accurate
thinking. I never judge system-wise of things,
but fasten upon particulars. After all, there is
a great deal in the book that I must, for time,
leave unmentioned, to deserve my thanks for its
own sake, as well as for the friendly remem-
brances implied in the gift. I again return you
my thanks.

Pray present my love to Edith. C. L.

XLIX. — TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

March 20, 1799.

I am hugely pleased with your Spider, "your
old freemason," as you call him. The three first

187

stanzas are delicious ; they seem to me a com-
pound 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,

savour 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 neighbour or familiar, than thousands of Ham-
uels 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 apostro-
phised a fly; Burns hath his mouse and his louse ;
Coleridge, less successfully, hath made overtures
of intimacy to a jackass, therein only following

188

at unresembling distance Sterne and greater Cer-
vantes. 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 immedi-
ate 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 knoware 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 ; 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 accom-
panied with plates descriptive of animal torments,
cooks roasting lobsters, fishmongers crimping
skates, &c, &c, would take excessively. I will
willingly enter into a partnership in the plan with
you: I think my heart and soul would go with

189

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.

I the other day threw off an extempore epitaph
on Ensign Peacock of the 3rd Regt. of the Royal
East India Volunteers, who like other boys in
this scarlet tainted age was ambitious of playing
at soldiers, but dying in the first flash of his val-
our was at the particular instance of his relations
buried with military honours ! like any veteran
scarr'd or chopt from Blenheim or Ramilies.
(He was buried in sash and gorget.)

MARMOR LOQUITUR

Here lies a Volunteer so fine,
Who died of a decline,
As you or I, may do one day ;
Reader, think of this, I pray ;
And I humbly hope you '11 drop a tear
For my poor Royal Volunteer.
He was as brave as brave could be,
Nobody was so brave as he ;
He would have died in Honor's bed,
Only he died at home instead.
Well may the Royal Regiment swear,
They never had such a Volunteer.
But whatsoever they may say,
Death is a man that will have his way :
Tho' he was but an ensign in this world of pain ;
In the next we hope he '11 be a captain.
190

And without meaning to make any reflection on his mentals,
He begg'd to be buried in regimentals.

Sed hae sunt lamentabilis nugae — but 't is as good
as some epitaphs you and I have read together in
Christ-Church-yard.

Poor Sam Le Grice ! I am afraid the world,
and the camp, and the university, have spoilt 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 friend-
ship and heartiest sympathy, even for an agony
of sympathy exprest 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 for-
got 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.

191

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.

L. — TO ROBERT LLOYD

[? September — October 1799.]

My dear Robert, — I suppose by this time you
have returned from Worcester with Uncle Ne-
hemiah. You neglected to inform me whether
Charles is yet at Birmingham]. I have heard
here, that he is returned to Cambridge. Give him
a gentle tap on the shoulder to remind him how
truly acceptable a letter from him would be. I
have nothing to write about.

Thomson remains with me. He is perpetually
getting into mental vagaries. He is in Love and
tosses and tumbles about in his bed, like a man in
a barrel of spikes. He is more sociable ; but I am
heartily sick of his domesticating with me ; he
wants so many sympathies of mine, and I want his,
that we are daily declining into civility. I shall be
truly glad when he is gone. I find 't is a dangerous
experiment to grow too familiar. Some natures
cannot bear it without converting into indifference

192

— I know but one being that I could ever consent to
live perpetually with, and that is Robert. But Rob-
ert must go whither prudence and paternal regu-
lations indicate a way. I shall not soon forget you
— do not fear that — nor grow cool towards Rob-
ert. My not writing is no proof of these disloyal-
ties. Perhaps I am unwell, or vexed, or spleen'd,
or something, when I should otherwise write.

Assure Charles of my unalterable affection, and
present my warmest wishes for his and Sophia's
happiness. How goes on Priscilla ? I am much
pleased with his Poems in the Anthology — one in
particular. The other is a kind and no doubt just
tribute to Robert and Olivia ; but I incline to opin-
ion that these domestic addresses should not always
be made public. I have, I know, more than once
exposed my own secretest feelings of that nature,
but I am sorry that I did. — Nine out often readers
laugh at them. When a man dies leaving the name
of a great Author behind him, any unpublished
relicks which let one into his domestic retire-
ments are greedily gathered up, which in his life-
time, and before his fame had ripened, would by
many be considered as impertinent. But if Robert
and his sister were gratify' d with seeing their
brother's heart in print, let the rest of the world
go hang. They may prefer the remaining trump-
ery of the Anthology.

All I mean to say is, I think I perceive an in-
delicacy in thus exposing one's virtuous feelings
to criticism. But of delicacy Charles is at least as

IQ3

true a judge as myself. Pray request him to let
me somehow have a sight of his novel. I declined
offering it here for sale for good reasons as I
thought — being unknown to Booksellers, and not
made for making bargains — but for that reason
I am not to be punished with not seeing the book.
I shall count it a kindness if Chas. will send me
the manuscript, whichshall certainly be returned.
[Remainder of letter missing.]

LI. — TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

October 31, 1799.

Dear Southey, — I have but just got your let-
ter, being returned from Herts, where I have
passed a few red-letter days with much pleasure.
I would describe the county to you, as you have
done by Devonshire, but, alas ! I am a poor pen
at that same. I could tell you of an old house
with a tapestry bed-room, the " Judgment of Sol-
omon " composing one panel, and " Actaeon spy-
ing Diana naked" the other. I could tell of an
old marble hall, with Hogarth's prints and the
Roman Caesars in marble hung round. I could
tell of a wilderness, and of a village church, and
where the bones of my honoured grandam lie;
but there are feelings which refuse to be trans-
lated, sulky aborigines, which will not be natural-
ised in another soil. Of this nature are old family
faces and scenes of infancy.

I have given your address, and the books you
194

want, to the Arches ; they will send them as soon
as they can get them, but they do not seem quite
familiar to their names. I have seen Gebor!
Gebor aptly so denominated from Geborish, quasi
Gibberish. But Gebor hath some lucid intervals.
I remember darkly one beautiful simile veiled in
uncouth phrases about the youngest daughter of
the Ark.

I shall have nothing to communicate, I fear,
to the Anthology. You shall have some fragments
of my play, if you desire them, but I think I
would rather print it whole. Have you seen it,
or shall I lend you a copy ? I want your opinion
of it.

I must get to business, so farewell. My kind
remembrances to Edith.

C. Lamb

LII. — TO THOMAS MANNING

December, 1799.

Dear Manning, — The particular kindness,
even up to a degree of attachment, which I have
experienced from you, seems to claim some dis-
tinct acknowledgment on my part. I could not
content myself with a bare remembrance to you,
conveyed in some letter to Lloyd.

Will it be agreeable to you, if I occasionally
recruit your memory of me, which must else soon
fade, if you consider the brief intercourse we have
had ? I am not likely to prove a troublesome

195

correspondent. My scribbling days are past.
I shall have no sentiments to communicate, but
as they spring up from some living and worthy
occasion.

I look forward with great pleasure to the per-
formance of your promise, that we should meet
in London early in the ensuing year. The cen-
tury must needs commence auspiciously for me,
that brings with it Manning's friendship, as an
earnest of its after gifts.

I should have written before, but for a trouble-
some inflammation in one of my eyes, brought on
by night travelling with the coach windows some-
times up.

What more I have to say shall be reserved for
a letter to Lloyd. I must not prove tedious to you
in my first outside [outset], lest I should affright
you by my ill-judged loquacity.

I am, yours most sincerely,

C. Lamb

NOTE

[This is the first letter that has been preserved in the im-
portant correspondence between Lamb and Manning. Lamb
first met Manning at Cambridge, in the autumn of 1799,
when on a visit to Charles Lloyd. Much of Manning's his-
tory will be unfolded as the letters proceed, but here it should
be stated that he was born on November 8, 1772, and was
thus a little more than two years older than Lamb. He was
at this time acting as private tutor in mathematics at Cam-
bridge, among his pupils being Charles Lloyd, of Caius, Man-
ning's own college. Manning, however, did not take his de-
gree, owing to an objection to oaths and tests.]

I96

LIII. — TO ROBERT LLOYD

17 December, '99.

Dear Rab, — Thy presents will be most accept-
able, whenever they come, both for thy sake, and
for the liquor, which is a beverage I most admire.
Wine makes me hot, and brandy makes me drunk,
but porter warms without intoxication ; and ele-
vates, yet not too much above the point of tran-
quillity. But I hope Robert will come himself,
before the tap is out. He may be assured, that his
good honest company is the most valuable present,
after all, he can make us. These cold nights crave
something, beside porter; good English mirth
and heart's ease. Rob must contrive to pass some
of his Christmas with us, or at least drink in the
century with a welcome.

I have not seen your father or Priscilla since.
Your father was in one of his best humours (I
have seldom seen him in one not good), — and
after dinner, while we were sitting comfortably
before the parlour fire, after our wine, he beck-
oned me suddenly out of the room. I, expecting
some secrets, followed him, but it was only to go
and sit with him in the old forsaken compting
house; which he declared to be the pleasantest
spot in the house to him, and told me how much
business used to be done there in former days.
Your father whimsically mixes the good man and
the man of business in his manners, but he is not
less a good man for being a man of business.

197

He has conceived great hopes of thy one day
uniting both characters, and I joyfully expect the
same.

I hope to see Priscilla, for the first time, some
day the end of this week, but think it at least
dubious, as she stays in town but one day, I think
your father said.

I wonder Rob could think I should take his
presents in evil part. I am sure from him they
are the genuine result of a sincere friendship, not
immediately knowing how better to express it-
self. I shall enjoy them with tenfold gust, as be-
ing his presents. At the same time, I must remind
him that such expressions, if too thickly repeated,
would be in danger of proving oppressive.

I am not fond of presents all on one side, and
Rob knows I have little to present to him, ex-
cept the assurances of an undiminished and an
undiminishable friendship. Rob will take as a
hint what his friend does not mean as an affront
— I hope our friendship will stand firm, with-
out the help of scaffolding.

At the same time I am determined to enjoy
Robert's present, and to drink his health in his
own porter, and I hope he will be able to par-
take with us. Bread and cheese and a hearty sym-
pathy may prove no bad supplement to Robert's
good old English beverage. Charles has not writ-
ten to me since I saw him. I trust he goes on
as comfortably as I witness'd. — No husband and
wife can be happier than Sophia and your brother

198

appear to be in each other's company. Robert
must marry next — I look to see him get the
start of Wordsworth and Priscilla, whom yet I
wish to see united.

Farewell, dearest Rab,

C. L.

Mary joins with me in remembrances to Rob-
ert, and in expectation of the coming beverage —
Do you think you shall be able to come ? —
Monday night, just porter time.

LIV. — TO THOMAS MANNING

December 28, 1799.

Dear Manning, — Having suspended my cor-
respondence a decent interval, as knowing that
even good things may be taken to satiety, a wish
cannot but recur to learn whether you be still
well and happy. Do all things continue in the
state I left them in Cambridge ? I dined with
him in town and breakfasted with him and Pris-
cilla, who you may tell Charles has promised to
come and see me when she returns [to] Clapham.
I will write to Charles on Monday.

Do your night parties still flourish ? and do you
continue to bewilder your company with your
thousand faces, running down thro' all the keys
of Idiotism (like Lloyd over his perpetual harp-
sichord), from the smile and the glimmer of half-
sense and quarter-sense, to the grin and the hanging

199

lip of Betty Foy's own Johnny ? And does the
face-dissolving curfew sound at twelve ? How
unlike the great originals were your petty ter-
rors in the postscript ! not fearful enough to
make a fairy shudder, or a Lilliputian fine lady,
eight months full of child, miscarry. Yet one
of them, which had more beast than the rest,
I thought faintly resembled one of your brutifica-
tions. But, seriously, I long to see your own
honest Manning-face again. I did not mean a
pun, — your man's face, you will be apt to say,
I know your wicked will to pun. I cannot now
write to Lloyd and you too ; so you must convey
as much interesting intelligence as this may con-
tain, or be thought to contain, to him and Sophia,
with my dearest love and remembrances.

By the bye, I think you and Sophia both in-
correct with regard to the title of the play. Al-
lowing your objection (which is not necessary,
as pride may be, and is in real life often, cured
by misfortunes not directly originating from its
own acts, as Jeremy Taylor will tell you a naughty
desire is sometimes sent to cure it ; I know you
read these practical divines) ; — but allowing your
objection, does not the betraying of his father's
secret directly spring from pride ? — from the
pride of wine, and a full heart, and a proud over-
stepping of the ordinary rules of morality, and
contempt of the prejudices of mankind, which
are not to bind superior souls — "as trust in the
matter of secrets all ties of blood, &c, &c, keep-

200

ing of promises , the feeble mind's religion, bind-
ing our morning knowledge to the performance of
what last night's ignorance spake " — does he not
prate, that " Great Spirits " must do more than
die for their friend ? Does not the pride of wine
incite him to display some evidence of friend-
ship, which its own irregularity shall make great ?
This I know, that I meant his punishment not
alone to be a cure for his daily and habitual
pride, but the direct consequence and appropriate
punishment of a particular act of pride.

If you do not understand it so, it is my fault
in not explaining my meaning.

I have not seen Coleridge since, and scarcely
expect to see him, — perhaps he has been at
Cambridge.

Need I turn over to blot a fresh clean half-
sheet, merely to say, what I hope you are sure
of without my repeating it, that I would have
you consider me, dear Manning,
Your sincere friend,

C. Lamb

What is your proper address ?

Is Mr. Lloyd at Cambridge ? He talked uncer-
tainly of going. I dined with him in town, and
breakfasted with him and Priscilla, who, you may
tell Charles, has promised to come and see me
when she returns from Clapham. I will write
to Charles on Monday.

201

LV. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

January 2, 1800.

Dear Coleridge, — Now I write, I cannot miss
this opportunity of acknowledging the obliga-
tions myself, and the readers in general of that
luminous paper, the Morning Post, are under to
you for the very novel and exquisite manner in
which you combined political with grammatical
science, in your yesterday's dissertation on Mr.
Wyndham's unhappy composition. It must have
been the death-blow to that ministry. I expect
Pitt and Grenville to resign. More especially the
delicate and Cottrellian grace with which you
officiated, with a ferula for a white wand, as gen-
tleman usher to the word " also," which it seems
did not know its place.

I expect Manning of Cambridge in town to-
night; will you fulfil your promise of meeting
him at my house? He is a man of a thousand.
Give me a line to say what day, whether Satur-
day, Sunday, Monday, &c, and if Sara and the
Philosopher can come. I am afraid if I did not
at intervals call upon you, I should never see you.
But I forget, the affairs of the nation engross your
time and your mind.

Farewell, C. L.

NOTE

[The first letter that has been preserved of the second
period of Lamb's correspondence with Coleridge, which was
to last until the end.]

202

LVI. — TO THOMAS MANNING

February 13, 1800.

Dear Manning, — Olivia is a good girl, and if
you turn to my letter you will find that this very
plea you set up to vindicate Lloyd, I had made
use of as a reason why he should never have em-
ployed Olivia to make a copy of such a letter !
— a letter I could not have sent to my enemy's
bitch, if she had thought proper to seek me in the
way of marriage. But you see it in one view, I in
another. Rest you merry in your opinion ! Opin-
ion is a species of property; and though I am
always desirous to share with my friend to a cer-
tain extent, I shall ever like to keep some tenets,
and some property, properly my own.

Some day, Manning, when we meet, substitut-
ing Corydon and fair Amaryllis, for Charles
Lloyd and Mary Hayes, we will discuss together
this question of moral feeling, " In what cases,
and how far, sincerity is a virtue." I do not
mean Truth, a good Olivia-like creature, God
bless her, who, meaning no offence, is always
ready to give an answer when she is asked why
she did so and so ; but a certain forward-talking
half-brother of hers, Sincerity, that amphibious
gentleman, who is so ready to perk up his obnox-
ious sentiments unasked into your notice, as Midas
would his ears into your face, uncalled for. But
I despair of doing anything by a letter in the way
of explaining or coming to explanations.

203

A good wish, or a pun, or a piece of secret his-
tory, may be well enough that way convey'd ;
nay, it has been known, that intelligence of a tur-
key hath been conveyed by that medium without
much ambiguity.

Godwin I am a good deal pleased with. He
is a well-behaved, decent man ; nothing very bril-
liant about him or imposing, as you may suppose;
quite another guess sort of gentleman from what
your Anti-jacobin Christians imagine him. I
was well pleased to find he has neither horns nor
claws ; quite a tame creature, I assure you : a mid-
dle-sized man, both in stature and in understand-
ing ; whereas, from his noisy fame, you would
expect to find a Briareus Centimanus, or a Tityus
tall enough to pull Jupiter from his heavens.

I begin to think you atheists not quite so tall
a species! Coleridge inquires after you pretty
often. I wish to be the Pandar to bring you to-
gether again once before I day [die]. When we
die, you and I must part; the sheep, you know,
take the right-hand sign-post, and the goats the
left. Stript of its allegory, you must know the
sheep are /, and the Apostles, and the martyrs,
and the Popes, and Bishop Taylor, and Bishop
Horsley, and Coleridge, &c, &c. The goats are
the atheists, and adulterers, and fornicators, and

dumb dogs, and Godwin, and M g, and that

Thyestaean crew ! Yaw ! how my saintship sick-
ens at the idea!

You shall have my play and the FalstafF's
204

Letters in a day or two. I will write to Ll[oyd]
by this day's Post.

Pray, is it a part of your sincerity to show my
letters to Lloyd ? for, really, gentlemen ought to
explain their virtues upon a first acquaintance,
to prevent mistakes.

God bless you, Manning. Take my trifling
as trifling; and believe me, seriously and deeply,
Your well-wisher and friend,

C. L.

LVII. — TO THOMAS MANNING1

[February, 1800.]

Lloyd's letter to Miss Hays I look upon to be
a most curious specimen of the apologetic style.
How a man could write such a letter to a woman,
and dream that there was in it any tendency to
soothe or conciliate, from no analogous operations
in my own wrong brain can I explain. " Mary
Hays, I said that I believed that you were in love
with me." " I had heard several times repeated
that you had loved both Godwin and friend, more-
over I had heard several times repeated that all
your first novel was but a transcript of letters sent
by yourself to the latter gentleman. I have been
told this so often that it seems to my mind like
a general report. I have heard it in all places."
" Dr. Reid and I were laughing in the wantonness

1 A facsimile of this letter is given, in its chronological order, in the
back of Vol. I.

205

in which our sex too often indulges at the con-
sequence of your theories, and I most wickedly
&c.'d." (In God's name, how came he and the
Dr. so graciously familiar, just after he had discov-
ered the Dr.'s complete worthlessness and wick-
edness?) "I most wickedly exprest myself as if
I thought you would in conduct demonstrate all
that you proposed in speculation ! I did not say
this grossly." (Wheugh ! Wheugh ! what a deli-
cate invention, how to call a woman a whore, and
not be indictable in the Spiritual Courts ! ) "In
the confounding medley of ordinary conversation,
I have interwoven my abhorrence of your princi-
ples with a glanced contempt for your personal
character." But " in spite of all these inconsist-
encies I am your friend, and for the future, if
we maintain our intercourse, will prove to you
by conduct how severely I condemn the past."
C. Lloyd must have a damned " spite to incon-
sistencies," if he can reconcile this language to
the ordinary Meaning of the term apology.

Now, Manning, seriously, what do you think
of this letter ? does it appear that Coleridge has
added one jot to what Miss Hays might fairly re-
present from Lloyd's own confession ? You doubt
whether Southey ever exprest himself so strongly
on this subject. I suppose you refer to Coleridge's
account of him. I can tell you that Southey did
express himself in very harsh terms of Lloyd's con-
duct, when he was last in town. He came fresh
from Miss Hays, who had given him all the story,

206

as I find she tells everybody ! and told Southey that
she despised Lloyd. I am not sure that Southey
was not in a humour, after this representation, to
say all that Coleridge declared he did say. Par-
ticularly, if he saw this letter, which I believe he
did.

Now, do not imagine that Coleridge has pre-
judiced my mind in this at all. The truth is, I
write from my own single judgment, and when I
shewed the letter to Coleridge, he read it in silence,
or only once muttered the word " indelicate," —
But I should not have been easy in concealing my
true sentiment from you. My whole moral sense
is up in arms against the letter. To my apprehen-
sion, it is shockingly and nauseously indelicate, and
I perceive an aggravation or multiplication of the
indelicacy, in Lloyd's getting his sister Olivia to
transcribe it, — an ignorant Quaker girl, I mean
ignorant in the best sense, who ought not to know
that such a thing was possible or in rerum natura,
that a woman should court a man ; and a dear sister,
who least of all should apprehend such an omen
realiz'd in her own brother. Manning, do not
misapprehend me, I would not say so much to
Lloyd's own self, for this plainreason that I should
not be able to convince him, and I would not cause
unnecessary pain. Yet as much of this as your
discretion and tenderness will give leave, you have
my full leave to shew him ; but I could not let you
remain ignorant of so big a part of my nature as
now rises up against this ill-judged letter, particu-

207

larly as I am doubtful whether you may not see
it in a quite different light.

So much for Lloyd's amours with Mary Hays,
which would notform an unentertaining romance.
From this time they are no concern of mine. I
will sum up the controversy in the words of Cole-
ridge, all he has since said to me, — " Miss Hayes
has acted like a fool, and Charles Lloyd not very
wisely." I cannot but smile at Lloyd's beginning
to find out that Coleridge can tell lyes. He brings
a serious charge against him, that he told Cald-
well he had no engagements with the newspapers !
As long as Lloyd or I have known Coleridge so
long have we known him in the daily and hourly
habit of quizzing the world by lyes, most unac-
countable and most disinterested fictions. With
a correct knowledge of these inaccuracies on both
sides, I am still desirous of keeping on kind terms
with Lloyd, and I am to sup with Coleridge to-
night ; Godwin will be there — whom I am rather
curious to see — and Col. to partake with me
of Manning's bounty to-morrow.

By the way, I am anxious to get specimens of
all English turkeys. Pray, send me at your leisure
separate specimens from every county in Great
Britain, including Wales, as I hate nationalities.
The Irish turkeys I will let alone, till the union is
determined.

To sum up my inferences from the above facts,
I am determined to live a merry life in the midst
of sinners. I try to consider all men as such, and

208

to pitch my expectations from human nature as
low as possible. In this view, all unexpected vir-
tues are Godsends and beautiful exceptions. Only
let young Love beware, when he sets out in his pro-
gress thro' life, how he forms erroneous concep-
tions of finding all saints ! To conclude, the bless-
ing of St. Peter's Master rest upon you and all
honest anglers ! C. Lamb

Coleridge has conceived a most high (quasre if
just) opinion of you, most illustrious Archimedes.
Philosopher Godwin dines with me on your tur-
key this day. I expect the roof to fall and crush
the atheist. I have been drunk two nights run-
ning at Coleridge's. How my head burns !

The turkey is just come, — the largest I ever
saw.

NOTE

[Mary Hayes was a friend of Mary Wollstonecraft, and also
of Southey and Coleridge. She wrote a novel, Memoirs of Emma
Courtney, which Lloyd says contained her own love-letters to
Godwin and Froud, and also Female Biography, or Memoirs of
Illustrious and Celebrated Women. Lloyd and she had been very
intimate. A passage from a letter of Coleridge to Southey,
dated January 25, 1800, bears upon the present situation:
" Miss Hayes I have seen. Charles Lloyd's conduct has been
atrocious beyond what you stated. Lamb himself confessed to
me that during the time in which he kept up his ranting, senti-
mental correspondence with Miss Hayes, he frequently read
her letters in company, as a subject for laughter, and then sate
down and answered them quite a la Rousseau ! Poor Lloyd !
Every hour new-creates him ; he is his own posterity in a per-
petually flowing series, and his body unfortunately retaining an
external identity, their mutual contradictions and disagreeings

209

are united under one name, and of course are called lies, treach-
ery, and rascality ! " — E. V. Lucas.]

LVIIL — TO THOMAS MANNING

[March i, 1800.]

I hope by this time you are prepared to say,
the " Falstaff's Letters" are a bundle of the sharp-
est, queerest, profoundest humours, 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 fu-
ture 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 move-
ments 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 can-
not whip my mind up 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 Frenchman, and
the Abbe Sieyes and his constitutions, I cannot
make these present times present to me. I read his-
tories of the past, and I live in them ; although, to

210

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, brag-
ging 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 perpet-
ually in alto relievo. Himself a party man — he
makes you a party man. None of the damned
philosophical Humeian indifference, so cold and
unnatural and inhuman. None of the damned
Gibbonian fine writing, so fine and composite.
None of Mr. 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 con-
verse perversity in my nature, I fling as far from
me. To quit this damned 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 to Sophia. C. L.
211

LIX. — TO THOMAS MANNING

March 17, 1800.

Dear Manning, — I am living in a continuous
feast. Coleridge has been with me now for nigh
three weeks, and the more I see of him in the quo-
tidian undress and relaxation of his mind, the more
cause I see to love him, and believe him a very good
man, and all those foolish impressions to the con-
trary fly offlike morning slumbers. He is engaged
in translations, which I hope will keep him this
month to come. He is uncommonly kind and
friendly to me. He ferrets me day and night to
do something. He tends me, amidst all his own
worrying and heart-oppressing occupations, as
a gardener tends his young tulip. Marry come up ;
what a pretty similitude, and how like your hum-
ble servant ! He has lugged me to the brink of
engaging to a newspaper, and has suggested to
me, for a first plan, the forgery of a supposed
manuscript of Burton, the Anatomist of Mel-
ancholy. I have even written the introductory
letter; and, if I can pick up a few guineas this way,
I feel they will be most refreshing, bread being so
dear. If I go on with it, I will apprise you of it,
as you may like to see my things! and the tulip,
of all flowers, loves to be admired most.

Pray pardon me, if my letters do not come very
thick. I am so taken up with one thing or other,
that I cannot pick out (I will not say time, but)
fitting times to write to you. My dear loveto Lloyd

212

and Sophia, and pray split this thin letter into
three parts, and present them with the two biggest
in my name.

They are my oldest friends, but ever the new
friend driveth out the old, as the ballad sings ! God
bless you all three ! I would hear from Ll[oyd]
if I could.

C.L.

Flour has just fallen nine shillings a sack ! we
shall be all too rich.

Tell Charles I have seen his mamma, and am
almost fallen in love with her, since I mayn't with
Olivia. She is so fine and graceful, a complete Ma-
tron-Lady-Quaker. She has given me two little
books. Olivia grows a charming girl — full of
feeling, and thinner than she was; but I have not
time to fall in love !

Mary presents her general compliments. She keeps
in fine health.

Huzza boys ! and down with the Atheists !

NOTE

[Coleridge, having sent his wife and Hartley into the coun-
try, had, for a while, taken up his abode with Lamb at Penton-
ville, and given up the Morning Post in order to proceed with
his translation of Schiller's Wallenstein. Lamb's forgery of
Burton, together with those mentioned in the next letter, which
were never printed by Stuart, for whom they were written, was
included in the °John Woodvil volume, 1802, among the " Cu-
rious Fragments, extracted from a commonplace book, which
belonged to Robert Burton, the famous Author of The Anat-
omy of Melancholy." — E. V. Lucas.]

213

LX.— TO THOMAS MANNING

April 5, 1800.

C. L.'s Moral Sense presents her comp's to
Doctor Manning, is very thankful for his med-
ical advice, but is happy to add that her disorder
has died of itself.

Dr. Manning, Coleridge has left us, to go into
the North, on a visit to his God Wordsworth.
With him have flown all my splendid prospects
of Engagement with the Morning Post, all my
visionary guineas, the deceitful wages of Unborn
Scandal. In truth, I wonder you took it up so
seriously. All my intention was but to make a
little sport with such public and fair game as
Mr. Pitt, Mr. Wilberforce, Mrs. Fitzherbert, the
Devil, &c. — gentry dipt in Styx all over, whom
no Paper Javelin-lings can touch. To have made
free with these cattle, where was the Harm?
't would have been but giving a polish to Lamp-
black, not nigrifying a negro primarily. After
all, I cannot but regret my Involuntary Virtue.
Damn Virtue that 's thrust upon us. It behaves
itself with such constraint, till conscience opens
the window and lets out the Goose. I had struck
off" two imitations of Burton, quite abstracted
from any modern allusions, which [it] was my
intent only to lug in from time to time to make
'em Popular.

Stuart has got these, with an introductory Let-
ter; but, not hearing from him, I have ceased

214

from my labours, but I write to him to-day to
get a final answer. I am afraid they won't do for
a paper. Burton is a scarce gentleman, not much
known, else I had done 'em pretty well.

I have also hit off a few lines in the name of
Burton, being a Conceit of Diabolic Possession.
Burton was a man often assail'd by deep'st mel-
ancholy, and at other times much given to laugh-
ing and jesting, as is the way with melancholy
men. I will send them you : they were almost
extempore, and no great things ; but you will
indulge them. Rob[ert] Lloyd is come to town.
He is a good fellow, with the best heart, but his
feelings are shockingly wwsane. Priscilla medi-
tates going to see Pizarro at Drury Lane to-night
(from her uncle's), under cover of coming to dine
with me . . . heu temporal heu mores I — I have
barely time to finish, as I expect her and Robin
every minute.

Yours as usual,

C. L.

LXL — TO THOMAS MANNING1

[April, 1800.]

I don't know whether you ever dipt into Bur-
ton's Anatomy. His manner is to shroud and
carry off his feelings under a cloud of learned
words. He has written but one Poem, which is

1 An autograph facsimile of this letter is given, in its chronological
order, in the back of Vol. I,

215

prefix'd to his Anatomy and called The Abstract
of Melancholy . Most likely you have seen it. It
is in the last edition of the Elegant Extracts. It
begins, " When I go musing all alone, thinking
of divers things foredone." — So that I have col-
lected my imitation rather from his prose Book,
than any poetry. I call it

A CONCEIPT OF DIABOLICAL POSSESSION

Bv myself walking,
To myself talking,
While as I ruminate
On my untoward fate,
Scarcely seem I
Alone sufficiently ;
Black thoughts continually
Crowding my privacy,
Thev come unbidden,
Like foes at a wedding,
Thrusting their faces
In better guests' places,
Peevish and malecontent,
Clownish impertinents,
Dashing the merriments ; —
So in like fashion
Dim cogitations
Follow and haunt me,
Striving to daunt me,
In my heart festering,
In my ears whispering,

Thy friends are treacherous,
Thy foes are dangerous,
Thy dreams ominous.

Fierce Anthropophagi,
Spectra, Diaboli,
What scared St. Anthony,
Shapes undefined,
With my fears twined,
Hobgoblins, Lemures,
Dreams of Antipodes,
Night-riding Incubi,
Troubling the fantasy,
All dire illusions,
Causing confusions,
Figments heretical,
Scruples fantastical,
Doubts diabolical,
Abaddon vexeth me,
Mahu ' perplexeth me,
Lucifer teareth me,

fesu, Maria, libera nos ab

bis tentationibus, orat, implorat,

R. Burton Peccator.

1 The name of a great devil.
2l6

To this I will add a little song, which I para-
phras'd for Coleridge from Schiller (which by
the bye, is better than Schiller's ballad, a huge
deal).

The clouds are black'ning, the storms threatening,

And ever the forest maketh a moan,
Billows are breaking, the Damsel's heart aching,

Thus by herself she singeth alone,
Weeping right plenteously.
The world is empty, the heart is dead surely,
In this world plainly all seemeth amiss,
To thy breast, Holy One, take now thy little one,
I have had earnest of all earth's bliss,
Living right lovingly.

The manner in both is so antique, that I
should despair of many folks liking them.

You may perhaps never have met with Percy's
Re licks of Ancient English Poetry; — if you have,
and are acquainted with the following poem, no
harm is done ; if not, I send you a treat ; — that's
all. It is in Scotch, and a very old Ballad. I
anglicise it as I write it, for my own convenience.

EDWARD, EDWARD

(I change my mind, I will give it you in its
own old Scottish shape. The rhimes else will be

lost.)

Why does your Brand ' so drop with bluid,

Edward, Edward ?
Why does your Brand so drop with Bluid ?
And why so sad gang ye, O ?
1 Sword.
217

O ! I have kill'd my hawk so gude,

Mother, Mother.
O ! I have kill'd my hawk so gude,

And I had no more but he, O !

Your hawk's bluid was never so red,

Edward, Edward.
Your hawk's bluid was never so red,
My dear son, I tell thee, O !

O ! I have kill'd my red-roan steed,

Mother, Mother,
O ! I have kill'd my red-roan steed,

That erst was so fair and free, O !

Your steed was auld, and ye ha' got more,

Edward, Edward ;

Your steed was auld. and ye ha' got more,

Some other dule ye drie, O.

O ! I have kill'd my Father dear,
Mother, Mother ;

0 ! I have kill'd my Father dear,

Alas ! and woe is me, O !

And whatten penance will ye do for that,

Edward, Edward ?
And whatten penance will ye do for that ?
My dear son, now tell me, O !

1 '11 set my feet in yonder Boat,

Mother, Mother,
I '11 set my feet in yonder Boat,

And I '11 far over the sea, O !

And what will you do with your towers and your hall ?

Edward ! Edward !
And what will you do with your towers and your hall,
That were so fair to see, O ?
2l8

I '11 let them stand till they down fall,

Mother! Mother!
I '11 let them stand till they down fall,

For here never more must I be, O !

And what will you leave to your bairns and your wife ?

Edward ! Edward !
And what will you leave to your bairns and your wife,
When you go over the sea, O ?

The World's room, let them beg through life ?

Mother, Mother,
The World's room, let them beg thro' life,
For them never more will I see, O !

And what will ye leave to your own mother dear ?

Edward, Edward,
And what will ye leave to your own mother dear ?
My dear son, now tell me, O !

The curse of hell frae me shall ye hear,

Mother, Mother;
The curse of Hell frae me shall ye hear,
Sic counsels ye gave me, O !

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By which I mean to say, that Edward, Edward
is the very first dramatic poem in the English
language. If you deny that, 1 511 make you eat
your words. C. Lamb

LXII. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[Probably April 16 or 17, 1800.]

I send you, in this parcel, my play, which I
beg you to present in my name, with my respect

219

and love, to Wordsworth and his sister. You
blame us for giving your direction to Miss Wes-
ley ; 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 real-
ities. 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 encour-
aged that mopsey, Miss Wesley, to dance after you,
in the hope of having her nonsense put into a non-
sensical 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, hun-
gry 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 Benjey ; 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

220

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 pro-
mised 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 differ-
ent opinion from D' Israeli, who supposes the dif-
ferences 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 con-
ceived 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 ex-
planation that took place occasioned some embar-
rassment and much wondering. She then fell
into an insulting conversation about the compara-
tive 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

221

a manner. But I was stopped by a round assertion,
that no good poetry had appeared since Dr. John-
son'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 edu-
cation, which I had never read. It seems Dr.
Gregory, another of Miss Benjey's friends, has
found fault with one of Miss More's metaphors.
Miss More has been at some pains to vindicate her-
self— in the opinion of Miss Benjey, 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 opin-
ion 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 Benjey 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

222

have been preparing for the occasion. I crowd
cotton in my ears. I read all the reviews and mag-
azines of the past month against the dreadful
meeting, and I hope by these means to cut a toler-
able 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

Land of Shadows.
Shadow-month the 16th or 17th, 1800.

Coleridge, I find loose among your papers a
copy of Christabel. It wants about thirty lines;
you will very much oblige me by sending me the
beginning as far as that line, —

And the spring comes slowly up this way ;

and the intermediate lines between, —

The lady leaps up suddenly,
The lovely Lady Christabel ;

and the lines, —

She folded her arms beneath her cloak,

And stole to the other side of the oak.

223

The trouble to you will be small, and the benefit
to us very great! A pretty antithesis ! A figure in
speech I much applaud.

Godwin has called upon us. He spent one even-
ing here. Was very friendly. Kept us up till mid-
night. Drank punch, and talked about you. He
seems, above all men, mortified at your going
away. Suppose you were to write to that good-
natured heathen — " 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 mischief.

I am, and will be, yours ever, in sober sadness,

C. L.

Write your German as plain as sunshine, for that
must correct itself. You know I am homo unius
linguae: in English, illiterate, a dunce, a ninny.

LXIII. — TO ROBERT LLOYD

[April 23, 1800.]

My dear Robert, — I acknowledge I have been
sadly remiss of late. If I descend to any excuse
(and all excuses that come short of a direct denial
of a charge are poor creatures at best), it must be
taken from my state of mind for some time past,
which has been stupid rather, and unfilled with
any object, than occupied, as you may imagine,
with any favourite idea to the exclusion of friend

224

Robert. You, who are subject to all the varieties
of the mind, will give me credit in this.

I am sadly sorry that you are relapsing into your
old complaining strain. I wish I could adapt my
consolations to your disease, but alas, I have none
to offer which your own mind, and the sugges-
tions of books, cannot better supply . Are you the
first whose situation hath not been exactly squar'd
to his ideas ? or rather, will you find me that man,
who does not complain of the one thing wanting ?
that thing obtained, another wish will start up.
While this eternal craving of the mind keeps up
its eternal hunger, no feast that my palate knows
of will satisfy that hunger, till we come to drink
the new wine (whatever it be) in the kingdom
of the Father.

See what trifles disquiet us. You are unhappy
because your parents expect you to attend meet-
ings. I don't know much of quakers' meetings,
but I believe I may moderately reckon them to
take up the space of six hours in the week : Six
hours to please your parents — and that time not
absolutely lost. Your mind remains; you may
think and plan, remember and foresee, and do all
human acts of mind sitting as well as walking.
You are quiet at meeting ; one likes to be so some-
times. You may advantageously crowd your day's
devotions into that space : nothing you see or hear
there can be unfavorable to it : you are for that
time at least exempt from the counting-house, and
your parents cannot chide you there. Surely at so

225

small an expense you cannot grudge to observe the
5th Commandment. I decidedly consider your
refusal as a breach of that God-descended precept
— Honour and observe thy parents in all lawful
things.

Silent worship cannot be Unlawful. There is
no Idolatry, no invocation of saints, no bowing
before the consecrated wafer, in all this — no-
thing which a wise man would refuse, or a good
man fear to do. What is it ? Sitting a few hours
in a week with certain good people, who call that
worship. You subscribe to no articles. If your
mind wanders, it is no crime in you, who do not
give credit to these infusions of the Spirit. They
sit in a temple, you sit as in a room adjoining — ■
only do not disturb their pious work with grab-
bling, nor your own necessary peace with heart-
burnings at your not-ill-meaning parents, nor a
silly contempt of the work which is going on be-
fore you. I know that if my parents were to live
again, I would do more things to please them,
than merely sitting still six hours in a week. Per-
haps I enlarge too much on this affair, but indeed
your objection seems to me ridiculous, and involv-
ing in it a principle of frivolous and vexatious
resistance.

You have often borne with my freedoms, bear
with me once more in this. If I did not love you,
I should not trouble myself whether you went
to meeting or not — whether you conform'd or
not to the will of your father.

226

I am now called offto dinner before one o'clock.
Being a holyday, we dine early, for Mary and me
to have a long walk afterwards.

My kindest remembrance to Charles. God
give him all joy and quiet.

Mary sends her Love.

C. L.

LXIV. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

Monday, May 12, 1800.

My dear Coleridge, — I don't know why I
write, except from the propensity misery has
to tell her griefs. Hetty 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 no-
thing 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

227

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

LXV. — TO THOMAS MANNING

May 17, 1800.

Dear Manning, — I am quite out of spirits,
and feel as if I should never recover them. But
why should not this pass away ? I am foolish,
but judge of me by my situation. Our servant is
dead, and my sister is ill — so ill as to make a re-
moval to a place of confinement absolutely neces-
sary. I have been left alone in a house where but
ten days since living beings were, and noises of
life were heard. I have made the experiment and
find I cannot bear it any longer. Last night I
went to sleep at White's, with whom I am to be
till I can find a settlement. I have given up my
house, and must look out for lodgings.

I expect Mary will get better before many
weeks are gone, — but at present I feel my daily
and hourly prop has fallen from me. I totter and
stagger with weakness, for nobody can supply her
place to me. White has all kindness, but not sym-
pathy. R. Lloyd, my only correspondent, you

228

except, is a good being, but a weak one. I know
not where to look but to you. If you will suffer
me to weary your shoulders with part of my
burthen — I shall write again to let you know
how I go on. Meantime a letter from you would
be a considerable relief to me.
Believe me, yours most sincerely,

C. L.

LXVI. — TO THOMAS MANNING

[p. m., May 20, 1800.]

Dear Manning, — I feel myself unable to thank
you sufficiently for your kind letter. It was dou-
bly 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 neighbourhood 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 con-

229

elusion. 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

LXVIL — TO THOMAS MANNING

Sunday [No date. ? May 25, 1800.]

Dear Manning, — I am a letter in your debt,
but I am scarcely rich enough (in spirits) to pay
you. — I am writing at an inn on the Ware Road,
in the neighbourhood of which I am going to
pass two days, being Whitsuntide. — Excuse the
pen, 't is the best I can get. — Poor Mary is very
bad yet. I went yesterday hoping I should see her
getting well, then I might have come into the
country more chearful, but I could not get to see
her. This has been a sad damp. Indeed I never
in my life have been more wretched than I was
all day yesterday.

I am glad I am going away from business for
a little while, for my head has been hot and ill.
I shall be very much alone where I am going,
which always revives me. I hope you will ac-
cept of this worthless memento, which I merely

230

send as a token that I am in your debt. I will
write upon my return, on Thursday at farthest.
I return on Wednesday.

God bless you.

I was afraid you would think me forgetful,
and that made me scribble this jumble.

[Mr. Dobell has a letter to Manning belonging to this
period, in which Lamb returns to the subject of poverty :

" You dropt a word whether in jest or earnest, as if you
would join me in some work, such as a review or series of
papers, essays, or anything. — Were you serious ? I want
home occupation, and I more want money. Had you any
scheme, or was it, as G. Dyer says, en passant ? If I don't
have a legacy left me shortly I must get into pay with some
newspaper for small gains. Mutton is twelvepence a pound."
E. V. Lucas.]

LXVIIL — TO JOHN MATHEW GUTCH

[No date. 1800.]

Dear Gutch, — Anderson is not come home,
and I am almost afraid to tell you what has
happen' d, lest it should seem to have hap-
pen'd by my fault in not writing for you home
sooner.

This morning Henry, the eldest lad, was miss-
ing. We suppos'd he was only gone out on a
morning's stroll, and that he would return, but
he did not return and we discovered that he had
opened your desk before he went, and I suppose
taken all the money he could find, for on diligent
search I could find none, and on opening your

231

letter to Anderson, which I thought necessary to
get at the key, I learn that you had a good deal
of money there.

Several people have been here after you to-day,
and the boys seem quite frightened, and do not
know what to do. In particular, one gentleman
wants to have some writings finished by Tuesday.
For God's sake set out by the first coach. Mary
has been crying all day about it, and I am now
just going to some law stationer in the neighbour-
hood, that the eldest boy has recommended, to
get him to come and be in the house for a day or
so, to manage. I cannot think what detains
Anderson. His sister is quite frightened about
him. I am very sorry I did not write yesterday,
but Henry persuaded me to wait till he could
ascertain when some job must be done (at the
furthest) for Mr. Foulkes, and as nothing had
occurr'd besides I did not like to disturb your
pleasure. I now see my error, and shall be
heartily ashamed to see you.

[This is as far as the letter goes on the first page.
We then turn over, and find (as Gutch, to his immense
relief, found before us} written right across both
pages:]

A Bite!!!

Anderson is come home, and the wheels of thy
business are going on as ever. The boy is honest,
and I am thy friend.

And how does the coach-maker's daughter ?
232

Thou art her phaeton, her gig, and her sociable.
Commend me to Rob.

C. Lamb

Saturday.

NOTE

[This letter is the first example extant of Lamb's tendency
to hoaxing. Gutch was at that time courting a Miss Wheeley,
the daughter of a Birmingham coachbuilder. It was while he
was in Birmingham that Lamb wrote the letter. Anderson was
his partner in business. Rob would be Robert Lloyd, then at
Birmingham again. This, and one other, are the only letters
of Lamb to Gutch that escaped destruction. — E. V. Lucas.]

LXIX. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

June 22, 1800.

By some fatality, unusual with me, I have mis-
laid the list of books which you want. Can you,
from memory, easily supply me with another ?

I confess to Statius, and I detained him wil-
fully, 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. 'T is one of
those heresies that is very pregnant. Pray, rest
more satisfied with the portion of learning which

233

you have got, and disturb my peaceful ignorance
as little as possible with such sort of commissions.

Did you never observe an appearance well
known by the name of the man in the moon ?
Some scandalous old maids have set on foot a
report that it is Endymion. Dr. Stoddart talks
of going out King's Advocate to Malta. He has
studied the Civil and Canon Law just three
canon months, to my knowledge. Fiat justitia,
mat coelum.

Your theory about the first awkward step a
man makes being the consequence of learning to
dance is not universal. We have known many
youths bred up at Christ's, who never learned to
dance, yet the world imputes to them no very
graceful motions. I remember there was little
Hudson, the immortal precentor of St. Paul's,
to teach us our quavers ; but, to the best of my
recollection, there was no master of motions
when we were at Christ's.

Farewell, in haste. C. L.

LXX. — TO ROBERT LLOYD

[July 22, 1800.]

Dear Robert, — My mind has been so barren
and idle of late, that I have done nothing. I have
received many a summons from you, and have
repeatedly sat down to write, and broke off from
despair of sending you anything worthy your
acceptance. I have had such a deadness about

234

me. Man delights not me, nor woman neither.
I impute it in part or altogether to the stupefy-
ing effect which continued fine weather has upon
me. I want some rains, or even snow and intense
cold winter nights, to bind me to my habitation,
and make me value it as a home — a sacred
character which it has not attained with me
hitherto. I cannot read or write when the sun
shines. I can only walk.

I must tell you, that since I wrote last I have
been two days at Oxford, on a visit (long put off)
to Gutch's family (my Landlord). I was much
gratifyed with the Colleges and Libraries, and
what else of Oxford I could see in so short a time.
In the All Souls' Library is a fine head of Bishop
Taylor, which was one great inducement to my
Oxford visit. In the Bodleian are many Portraits
of illustrious Dead, the only species of painting
I value at a farthing. But an indubitable good
Portrait of a great man is worth a pilgrimage to
go and see. Gutch's family is a very fine one,
consisting of well grown sons and daughters,
and all likely and well favor' d. What is called
a Happy family. That is, according to my inter-
pretation, a numerous assemblage of young men
and women, all fond of each other to a certain
degree, and all happy together, but where the
very number forbids any two of them to get close
enough to each other to share secrets and be
friends. That close intercourse can only exist
(commonly, I think) in a family of two or three.

235

I do not envy large families. The fraternal af-
fection by diffusion and multi-participation is
ordinarily thin and weak. They don't get near
enough to each other.

I expected to have had an account of Sophia's
being brought to bed before this time. But I
remain in confidence that you will send me the
earliest news. I hope it will be happy. Cole-
ridge is settled at Keswick, so that the probabil-
ity is that he will be once again united with
your brother. Such men as he and Wordsworth
would exclude solitude in the Hebrides or Thule.

Pray have you seen the new Edition of Burns
including his posthumous works ? — I want very
much to get a sight of it, but cannot afford to buy
it. My Oxford journey, though very moderate,
having pared away all superfluities.

Will you accept of this short letter, accom-
panied with professions of deepest regard for you.
Yours unalterably, C. Lamb

LXXI. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[Early in August] 1800.

Dear Coleridge, — Soon after I wrote to you
last, an offer was made me by Gutch (you must
remember him, at Christ's ; you saw him slightly
one day with Thomson at our house) — to come
and lodge with him, at his house in Southampton
Buildings Chancery Lane. This was a very com-
fortable offer to me, the rooms being at a reason-

236

able rent, and including the use of an old servant,
besides being infinitely preferable to ordinary
lodgings in our case, as you must perceive. As
Gutch knew all our story, and the perpetual lia-
bility to a recurrence in my sister's disorder, prob-
ably to the end of her life, I certainly think the
offer very generous and very friendly.

I have got three rooms (including servant)
under ^34 a year. Here I soon found myself at
home ; and here in six weeks after Mary was well
enough to join me. So we are once more settled.
I am afraid we are not placed out of the reach of
future interruptions. But I am determined to take
what snatches of pleasure we can between the acts
of our distressful drama. I have passed two days
at Oxford on a visit, which I have long put off,
to Gutch's family. The sight of the Bodleian Li-
brary and above all a fine bust of Bishop Taylor
at All Souls', were particularly gratifying to me.
Unluckily it was not a family where I could take
Mary with me, and I am afraid there is something
of dishonesty in any pleasures I take without her.
She never goes anywhere. I do not know what
I can add to this letter. I hope you are better by
this time ; and I desire to be affectionately re-
member'd to Sara and Hartley.

I expected before this to have had tidings of
another little philosopher. Lloyd's wife is on the
point of favouring the world.

Have you seen the new edition of Burns ? his
posthumous works and letters ? I have only been

237

able to procure the first volume, which contains
his life — very confusedly and badly written, and
interspersed with dull pathological and medical
discussions. It is written by a Dr. Currie. Do you
know the well-meaning Doctor? Alas, ne sutor
ultra crepidam; or, as some readings have it, ne
sutor ultra crepitum, which I thus English, Let not
a suitor presume to fart above once in the presence
of his mistress.

I hope to hear again from you very soon. God-
win is gone to Ireland on a visit to Grattan. Be-
fore he went I past much time with him, and he
has shew'd me particular attentions : N. B. A
thing I much like ! Your books are all safe: only
I have not thought it necessary to fetch away
your last batch, which I understand are at John-
son's, the Bookseller, who has got quite as much
room, and will take as much care of them as my-
self— and you can send for them immediately
from him.

/ wish you would advert to a Letter I sent you at
Grassmere about Christabel, and comply with my re-
quest contained therein.

Love to all friends round Skiddaw.

C. Lamb

LXXII. -TO S. T. COLERIDGE

August 6, 1800.

Dear Coleridge, — I have taken to-day, and
delivered to Longman and Co., Imprimis : your

238

books, viz., three ponderous German diction-
aries, one volume (I can find no more) of Ger-
man and French ditto, sundry other German
books unbound, as you left them, Percy's An-
cient Poetry, and one volume of Anderson's Poets.
I specify them, that you may not lose any. Se-
cundo: 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, &c, &c, 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,

239

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
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 damned passion
about them when you come to miss them ; but
you must study philosophy. Read Albertus Mag-
nus de Chartis Amissis five times over after phle-
botomising,— 'tis Burton's recipe, — and then
be angry with an absent friend if you can.

I have just heard that Mrs. Lloyd is delivered
of a fine boy, and mother and boy are doing well.
Fie on sluggards, what is thy Sara doing ? 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 ungrammat-
ical — she proposes writing my name Lamb ?
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. 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 ;

240

but, besides that, the meaning of gentle is equi-
vocal at best, and almost always means poor-
spirited, the very quality of gentleness is abhor-
rent 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 that you could think to gratify me by
such praise, fit only to be a cordial to some green-
sick sonneteer.

I have hit off the following in imitation of old
English poetry, which, I imagine, I am a dab at.
The measure is unmeasurable ; but it most resem-
bles that beautiful ballad of 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.

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 caeteris, — they would all spoil. I
only wait your commands to coach them. I
would pay five-and-forty thousand carriages to
read W.'s tragedy, of which I have heard so
much and seen so little — only what I saw at

241

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 swingeing
tails.

I '11 just crowd in God bless you !

C. Lamb

Wednesday Night.

LXXIII. — TO THOMAS MANNING

[August 9, 1800.]

Dear Manning, — I suppose you have heard of
Sophia Lloyd's good fortune, and paid the cus-
tomary compliments to the parents. Heaven
keep the new-born infant from star blasting and
moon blasting, from epilepsy, marasmus, and the
devil ! May he live to see many days, and they
good ones ; some friends, and they pretty regular
correspondents ! with as much wit and wisdom as
will eat their bread and cheese together under a
poor roof without quarrelling ! as much good-
ness as will earn heaven if there be such a place
and deserve it if there be not, but, rather than go
to bed solitary, would truckle with the meanest
succubus on her bed of brimstone. Here I must
leave off, my benedictory powers failing me. I
could curse the sheet full ; so much stronger is
corruption than grace in the natural man !

And now, when shall I catch a glimpse of
242

your honest face-to-face countenance again ? —
your fine dogmatical sceptical face by punch-light ?
O ! one glimpse of the human face, and shake of
the human hand, is better than whole reams
of this cold, thin correspondence ; yea, of more
worth than all the letters that have sweated the
fingers of sensibility, from Madame Sevigne and
Balzac (observe my learning!) to Sterne and
Shenstone.

Coleridge is settled with his wife (with a
child in her guts) and the young philosopher at
Keswick, with the Wordsworths. They have
contrived to spawn a new volume of lyrical bal-
lads, which is to see the light in about a month,
and causes no little excitement in the literary
world.

George Dyer too, that good-natured heathen,
is more than nine months gone with his twin
volumes of ode, pastoral, sonnet, elegy, Spenser-
ian, Horatian, Akensidish, and Masonic verse.
Clio prosper the birth ! it will be twelve shillings
out of somebody's pocket. I find he means to
exclude " personal satire," so it appears by his
truly original advertisement. Well, God put it
into the hearts of the English gentry to come in
shoals and subscribe to his poems, for He never
put a kinder heart into flesh of man than George
Dyer's !

Now, farewell, for dinner is at hand and yearn-
ing guts do chide.

C. L.
243

LXXIV. — TO THOMAS MANNING

August ii, 1800.

My dear fellow, — (N.B. mighty familiar of
late !) for me to come to Cambridge now is one
of G — d Almighty's Impossibilities, metaphysi-
cians tell us Even He can work nothing which
implys 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 in stead ! —
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-vitae, Us-
quebaugh, or Whiskey a nights ; and for the
after-dinner-Trick, I have 8 bottles of genuine
Port, which mathematically divided gives one
and one-seventh for every day you stay, provided
you stay a week. Hear John Milton sing, —

Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause.
And elsewhere, —

What neat repast shall feat us, light ' and choice,
Of Attic Taste, with wine,2 whence we may rise

To hear the Lute well touch'd, or artful voice
Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?

* We Poets generally give light dinners.

■ No doubt the Poet here alludes to Port wine — 38 shillings the
dozen.

244

Indeed the poets are full of this pleasing Moral-
ity, —

Vent cito, Domine Manning !

Think upon it. Excuse the paper ; it is all I have.

C. Lamb

LXXV.— TO S. T. COLERIDGE1

Thursday, 14 August [1800].

' Read on, and you '11 come to the Pens.

My head is playing all the tunes in the world,
ringing such peals ! it has just finished the " merry
Xt. Church Bells " and absolutely is beginning
" Turn again Whittington." Buz, buz, buz, bum,
bum, bum, wheeze, wheeze, wheeze, feu, feu, feu,
tinky, tinky, tinky, craunch. I shall certainly
come to be damned at last. I have been getting
drunk two days running. I find my moral sense
in the last stage of a consumption, my religion
burning as blue and faint as the tops of evening
bricks. Hell gapes, and the Devil's great guts cry
"cupboard" forme. In the midst of this infer-
nal larum, Conscience (and be damn'd to her)
barking and yelping as loud as any of them.

I have sat down to read over again your Satire
upon me in the Anthology, and I think I do begin
to spy out something like beauty and design in it.
I perfectly accede to all your alterations, and only
desire that you had cut deeper, when your hand

1 An autograph facsimile of this letter is given, in its chronological
order, in the back of Vol. I.

245

was in. In the next edition of the Anthology
(which Phoebus avert, and those nine other wan-
dering maids also !) please to blot out gentle-hearted,
and substitute drunken dog, ragged-head, seld-
shaven, odd-ey'd, stuttering, or any other epithet
which truly and properly belongs to the Gentle-
man in question. And for Charles, read Tom, or
Bob, or Richard for more delicacy. Damn you, I
was beginning to forgive you, and believe in ear-
nest that the lugging in of my Proper name was
purely unintentional on your part, when looking
back for further conviction, stares me in the face,
Charles Lamb of the India House. Now I am con-
vinced it was all done in Malice, heaped sack-
upon-sack, congregated, studied malice. You
Dog ! your 141st page shall not save you. I own
I was just ready to acknowledge that there is a
something not unlike good poetry in that page,
if you had not run into the unintelligible abstrac-
tion-fit about the manner of the Deity's making
Spirits perceive his presence. God, nor created
thing alive, can receive any honor from such thin,
shew-box, attributes.

By the bye, where did you pick up that scan-
dalous piece of private history about the Angel
and the Duchess of Devonshire ? If it is a fiction
of your own, why truly 'tis a very modest one
for you. Now I do affirm, that Lewti is a very
beautiful Poem. I was in earnest when I praised
it. It describes a silly species of one not the wisest
of passions. Therefore it cannot deeply affect a dis-

246

enthralled mind. But such imagery, such novelty,
such delicacy, and such versification, never got
into an Anthology before. I am only sorry that the
cause of all the passionate complaint is not greater
than the trifling circumstance of Lewti being out
of temper one day. In sober truth, I cannot see
any great merit in the little dialogue called Blen-
heim. It is rather novel and pretty, but the thought
is very obvious, and children's poor prattle, a
thing of easy imitation. Pauper vult videri et
est.

Gualberto certainly has considerable original-
ity, but sadly wants finishing. It is, as it is, one of
the very best in the Book. Next to Lewti I like
the Raven, which has a good deal of humour.
I was pleas' d to see it again, for you once sent it
me, and I have lost the letter which contained it.
Now I am on the subject of Anthologies, I must
say I am sorry the old Pastoral way is fallen into
disrepute. The Gentry, which now endite Sonnets
are certainly the legitimate descendants of the
ancient Shepherds. The same simpering face of
description, the old family face, is visibly con-
tinued in the line. Some of their ancestors' la-
bours are yet to be found in Allan Ramsay's and
Jacob Tonson's [six lines totally obliterated by author\
Miscellanies. But miscellanies decaying, and the
old Pastoral way dying of mere want, their suc-
cessors (driven from their paternal acres) nowa-
days settle and hive upon magazines, anthologies.
This Race of men are uncommonly addicted to

247

superstition. Some of them are Idolaters and wor-
ship the Moon. Others deify qualities, as love,
friendship, sensibility ; or bare accidents, as soli-
tude, grief, and melancholy have their respective
altars and temples among them, as the Heathens
builded theirs to Mors, Febris, Pallororis. They
all agree in ascribing a peculiar sanctity to the
number fourteen. One of their own Legislators
affirmeth that whatever exceeds that number "en-
croacheth upon the province of the Elegy " —
vice versa, whatever " Cometh short of that num-
ber abutteth upon the premises of the Epigram."
I have been able to discover but few Images in
their Temples, which like the caves of Delphos
of old, are famous for giving Echoes. They im-
pute a religious importance to the letter O,
whether because by its roundness it is thought to
typify the Moon, their principal goddess, or for
its analogies to their own labours, all ending
where they began ; or for whatever other high
and mystical reference, I have never been able to
discover ; but I observe they never begin their in-
vocations to their gods without it, except indeed
one insignificant sect among them, who use the
Doric A, pronounced like Ah ! broad, instead.
These boast to have restored the old Dorian
mood.

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

248

two ponderous volumes, full of Poetry and Crit-
icism — they impend over the Town, and are
threaten'd to fall in the winter. The first volume
contains every sort of Poetry, except Personal
Satire (which George in his truly original pro-
spectus renounceth for ever, 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 Spen-
serian, Thompsonian, Masonic, and Akensidish
more especially. The 2d vol. 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 cou-
ples 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 Wm. Words-
worth in later days have struck the true chords
of Poesy. O George, George, with a head uni-
formly 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

249

there long) out of a pocket almost as bare as
thine.

[Six lines here are totally obliterated by author^
Is it not a pity so much fine writing should be
erased — but to tell truth I began to scent that
I was getting into that sort of style which Longi-
nus and Dionysius Halicarn[assus] aptly call the
Affected — But I am suffering from the com-
bined effect of two days' drunkenness, and at such
times it is not very easy to think or express in a
natural series. The only useful object of this letter
is to apprize you that on Saturday I shall transmit
the Pens by the same coach I sent the Parcel.
So enquire them out. You had better write to
Godwin &ne, directing your letter to be forwarded
to him. I don't know his address. You know
your letter must at any rate come to London first.

C. L.

LXXVI. — TO THOMAS MANNING

August 23, 1800.

George Dyer is an Archimedes, and an Archi-
magus, and a Tycho Brahe, and a Corpernicus ;
and thou art the darling of the Nine, and mid-
wife to their wandring 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 car-
case on the Monday, and after dining with us on

250

tripe, calves' kidneys, or whatever else the Cornu-
copia 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 —
O the long Time !) with Tears of joy. Thou
shouldst settle his scruples and unravel his cob-
webs, 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 citi-
zen ! 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 a Dr. An-
derson, an old gentleman who ties his breeches'
knees with packthread, and boasts that he has
been disappointed by ministers. The Dr. 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 Dr., 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

251

of his old friend Homer stung his pericranics,
and, jumping up, he begged to know where he
could meet with Wilkie's works. " It was a cu-
rious 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
1400 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 com-
pletely 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 recrea-
tion 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.

252

LXXVII. — TO THOMAS MANNING

[p. m. August 24, 1800.]

Dear Manning, — I am going to ask a favour
of you, and am at a loss how to do it in the most
delicate manner. 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 ex-
actly 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 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, suppos-
ing, rationally enough I must say, that you had
made me a present of one before this — the omis-
sion 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 the Bell Letters
by a paradox, which he has heard his friend Frend
(that learned mathematician) maintain, that the
negative quantities of mathematicians were merae
nugae, things scarcely in rerum naturd, and smack-
ing too much of mystery for gentlemen of Mr.
Frend's clear Unitarian capacity. However, the

253

dispute once set a-going has seized violently on
George's pericranic ; and it is necessary for his
health that he should speedily come to a resolu-
tion of his doubts. He goes about teasing his
friends with his new mathematics ; he even fran-
tically talks of purchasing Manning's Algebra,
which shews 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 vacu-
um. Now, if you could step in, in this tremb-
ling suspense of his reason, and he should find
on Saturday morning, lying for him at the Port-
er's Lodge, Clifford's Inn, — his safest address,
— Manning's Algebra, with a neat manuscription
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, smear'd leaves, and
dogs' ears, will be rather a recommendation than
otherwise.

N. B. — He must have the book as soon as pos-
sible, or nothing can withhold him from madly
purchasing the book on Tick. Then, shall we
see him sweetly restored to the chair of Longi-
nus, 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

254

Mason (who always hunt in couples in George's
brain) have shewn a great deal of poetical fire in
their lyric poetry ; that Aristotle's rules are not
to be servilely followed, which George has shewn
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 rhime — epic poetry, dramatic
and pastoral ditto — all which is to come out
before Xmas. 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
toward the Lyrical Poetry) hardly qualify' d him
for these disquisitions, I modestly enquired 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 confess'd he
had read none of them, but profest 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

255

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.

NOTE

[" 's brain." In a later letter Lamb uses Judge Park's

wig, when his head is in it, as a simile for emptiness.]

LXXVIIa. — TO MRS. MAY

Dear Madam, — We are all the better for
our pleasant last night. I send the books which
I meant to have called with. With kind re-
spects to yourself, Mrs. [? Mr.] May, and your
mother,

C. Lamb

My ! how hot it is !

NOTE

[No indication of date, but apparently early in the nine-
teenth century. Mrs. May was no doubt the wife of Southey's
friend, John May. — Richard Garnett.]

256

LXXVIIL — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

August 26, 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 elegant
and very original, I shall be tempted to name
the author to you. I will just hint that it is al-
most or quite a first attempt.

HELEN REPENTANT TOO LATE

High-born Helen !

Round your dwelling
These twenty years I 've paced in vain ;

Haughty Beauty,

Your Lover's duty
Has been to glory in his pain.

High-born Helen !

Proudly telling
Stories of your cold disdain,

I starve, I die : —

Now you comply,
And I no longer can complain.

These twenty years

I 've liv'd on tears,
Dwelling for ever on a frown ;

On sighs I 've fed,

Your scorn my bread :
I perish now you kind are grown.

257

Can I, who loved

My Beloved
But for the " scorn was in her eye " ?

Can I be moved

For my Beloved,
When she returns me " sigh for sigh " ?

In stately pride,

By my bedside
High-born Helen's portrait 's hung,

Deaf to my praise ;

My mournful lays
Are nightly to the portrait sung.

To that I weep,

Nor ever sleep,
Complaining all night long to her.

Helen grown old,

No longer cold,
Said, " Tou to all men I prefer "

Godwin returned from Wicklow the week
before last. Tho' he did not reach home till
the Tuesday after, — he has been rambling in
Wales. — He might much better have spent
that time with you. — But you see your invita-
tion would have come too late. He greatly
regrets the occasion he mist of visiting you, but
he intends to revisit Ireland in the next summer,
and then he will certainly take Keswick in his
way.

I dined with the Heathen on Sunday.

By the bye, I have a sort of recollection that
258

somebody, I think you, promis'd me a sight of
Wordsworth's Tragedy. I should be very glad
of it just now ; for I have got Manning with
me and should like to read it with him. But this,
I confess, is a refinement. Under any circum-
stances, alone, in Cold-Bath Prison, or in the
Desart 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. Man-
ning 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
deficient in some of those virtuous vices. I have
just lit upon a most beautiful fiction of hell pun-
ishments by the author of Hurlothrumbo, a mad
farce. The inventor imagines that in Hell there
is a great caldron of hot water, in which a man
can scarce hold his finger, and an immense sieve
over it, into which the probationary souls are put

And all the little Souls

Pop through the riddle-holes !

Mary's love to Mrs. Coleridge. Mine to all.
N. B. I pays no Postage.

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 pre-
cise date of his death, I would write a novel on
purpose to make George the Hero. I could hit
him off to a hair.

259

George brought a Dr. Anderson to see me.
The Dr. 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
happen'd to mention an Epic Poem by one
Wilkie, call'd the Epigoniad, in which he as-
sur'd us there is not one tolerable line from be-
ginning to end, but that all the characters, inci-
dents, &c, 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 pericranicks, than up he gets
and declares he must see that Poem immediately
— where was it to be had ? An Epic Poem of
800 Lines, and he not hear of it ! There must
be some things good in it — and it was neces-
sary he should see it — for he had touched pretty
deeply upon that subject in his criticisms on the
Epic. George has touched pretty deeply upon
the Lyric, I find ; he has also prepared a disser-
tation 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 com-
position, I questioned George what English Plays
he had read. I found that he had read Shak-
speare (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

260

length ; and upon this slender ground he has un-
dertaken the task. He never seem'd 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
determin'd 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 Alfred. 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 in-
clinations 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 in-
defatigable. Serpents, asps, spiders, ghosts, dead
bodies, staircases made of nothing with adders'
tongues for bannisters. My God, what a brain
he must have ! He puts as many plums in his

261

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 23
books together ! C. L.

NOTE

[The poem quoted in above letter is by Mary Lamb. The
printed texts give the stanzas in four lines ; but it is printed
here just as Lamb wrote it. — Ed.]

LXXIX. — TO THOMAS MANNING

September 22, 1800.

Dear Manning, — You needed notimagine any
apology necessary. Your fine hare and fine birds
( which just now are dangling by our kitchen blaze)
discourse most eloquent music in your justifica-
tion. You just nick'd my palate. For, with all
due decorum and leave may it be spoken, my
worship hath taken physic for his body to-day,
and being low and puling, requireth to be pam-
pered. Foh ! how beautiful and strong those but-
tered 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 (y'clept bread
sauce) each to each giving double grace, do mu-
tually illustrate and set off (as skilful gold-foils
to rare jewels) your partridge, pheasant, wood-
cock, snipe, teal, widgeon, and the other lesser
daughters of the ark. My friendship, struggling

262

with my carnal and fleshly prudence (which sug-
gests 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 Nor-
folk sauces match our London culinaric.

George Dyer has introduced me to the Table
of an agreeable old Gent., Dr. Anderson, who
gives hot legs of mutton and grape pies at his
sylvan Lodge at Isleworth — where, in the mid-
dle of a street he has shot up a wall most pre-
posterously before his small Dwelling, which
with the circumstance of his taking several panes
of glass out of bedroom windows (for air) caus-
eth his neighbours to speculate strangely on the
state of the good man's Pericranics. 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 sci-
ence, and has set George's brains mad about the
old Scotch writers, Barbour, Douglas's Eneid,
Blind Harry, &c. We returned home in a re-
turn Postchaise (having din'd 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 begg'd 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

263

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 [books].
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.

Avant friendship ! and all memory of absent
friends! C. Lamb

LXXX. — TO S. T. COLERIDGE

October 9, 1800.

I suppose you have heard of the death of Amos
Cottle. I paid a solemn visit of condolence to

264

his brother, accompany'd with 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 bright-
en' d 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 consider-
able 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 cow-
ering in by the fire-place, 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 benevo-
lent face right against mine, waited my observa-
tions. 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, andwith some adroitness recalled the well-
known sound to Cottle's ears of Alswitha. At

265

that moment I could perceive that Cottle had
forgot his brother was so lately become a blessed
spirit. In the language of mathematicians the Au-
thor was as 9, the brother as i . I felt my cue, and
strong pity working at the root, I went to work,
and beslabber'd Alfred with most unqualify'd
praise, or only qualifying my praise by the occa-
sional politic interposition of an exception taken
against trivial faults, slips, and human imperfec-
tions, which, by removing the appearance of in-
sincerity, did but in truth heighten the relish.
Perhaps I might have spared that refinement, for
Joseph was in a humour to hope and believe all
things. What I said was beautifully supported, cor-
roborated, and confirmed by the stupidity of his
brother on my left hand, and by George on my
right, who has an utter incapacity of compre-
hending that there can be anything bad in Po-
etry. 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 a 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
candied 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 even-
ing Amos was no more heard of, till George
revived the subject by inquiring whether some

266

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 qual-
ities 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 ap-
prehend 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.

LXXXI. — TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

October 13, 1800.1

Dear Wordsworth, — I have not forgot your
commissions. But the truth is (and why should
I not confess it ?), I am not plethorically abound-
ing in cash at this present. Merit, God knows,
is very little rewarded ; but it does not become
me to speak of myself. My motto is "contented
with little, yet wishing for more." Now, the
books you wish for would require some pounds,
which, I am sorry to say, I have not by me ; so

» Should be 1804.

267

I will say at once, if you will give me a draft
upon your town banker for any sum you propose
to lay out, I will dispose of it to the very best of
my skill in choice old books, such as my own
soul loveth. In fact, I have been waiting for the
liquidation of a debt to enable myself to set about
your commission handsomely ; for it is a scurvy
thing to cry, " Give me the money first," and I
am the first of the family of the Lambs that have
done it for many centuries ; but the debt remains
as it was, and my old friend that I accommo-
dated has generously forgot it ! The books which
you want, I calculate at about ^"8. Ben Jonson
is a guinea book. Beaumont and Fletcher, in folio,
the right folio not now to be met with ; the
octavos are about ^3. As to any other dramatists,
I do not know where to find them, except what
are in Dodsley's Old Plays, which are about ^3
also. Massinger I never saw but at one shop, and
it is now gone ; but one of the editions of Dods-
ley contains about a fourth (the best) of his plays.
Congreve, and the rest of King Charles's moral-
ists, are cheap and accessible. The works on Ire-
land I will inquire after ; but I fear Spenser's is
not to be had apart from his poems ; I never saw
it. But you may depend upon my sparing no
pains to furnish you as complete a library of old
poets and dramatists as will be prudent to buy ;
for, I suppose you do not include the ^20 edition
of Hamlet, single play, which Kemble has. Mar-
lowe's plays and poems are totally vanished ; only

268

one edition of Dodsley retains one, and the other
two of his plays : but John Ford is the man after
Shakspeare. Let me know your will and pleas-
ure soon, for I have observed, next to the pleas-
ure of buying a bargain for one's self, is the
pleasure of persuading a friend to buy it. It
tickles one with the image of an imprudency,
without the penalty usually annexed.

C. Lamb

LXXXII. — TO THOMAS 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 can-
not decently ask Leave of absence for myself. All
I can promise (and I do promise, with the sin-
cerity of Saint Peter, and the contrition of Sin-
ner Peter if I fail) is that I will come the very first
spare week, and go nowhere till I have been at
Camb [ridge] . No matter if you are in a state

269

of Pupilage when I come ; for I can employ my-
self in Camb [ridge] very pleasantly in the morn-
ings. Are there not Libraries, Halls, Colleges,
Books, Pictures, Statues ?

I wish to God you had made London in your
way. There is an exhibition quite uncommon in
Europe, which could not have escaped your genius,
— a live Rattle Snake, i o feet in Length, and
of the thickness of a big Leg. I went to see it
last night by candlelight. We were usher'd into
a room very little bigger than ours at Pentonville.
A man and woman and four boys live in this room,
joint Tenants with 9 Snakes, most of them such
as no remedy has been discover' d 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 entered (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 damn'd big mouth,
which would have been certain death in five

270

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 impinging
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 thro' 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
damned mouth, when he made at me, as wide
as his head was broad. I holloo'd 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 de-
scribed.

Mind, I have only heard read one book.
Yours sincerely,

Philo-snake,

C. L.
271

LXXXIIL — TO THOMAS MANNING

November 3, 1800.

Ecquid meditatur Archimedes f What is Euclid
doing ? What hath happened to learned Trisme-
gist ? Doth he take it in ill part, that his Humble
friend did not comply with his courteous invi-
tation ? Let it suffice, / could not come. Are im-
possibilities nothing ? — -be they abstractions of
the intellect ? — 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 thro' ?
sore lets, impedimenta viarum, no-thoroughfares ?
racemi nhnium alte pendentes ? is the phrase classic ?
I allude to the Grapes in i^sop, which cost the
fox a strain, and gained the world an aphorism.
Observe the superscription of this letter. In adapt-
ing 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. 'T is truly
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
band, one Rickman, to whom I was introduced
by George Dyer ! ! ! not the most flattering au-
spices under which one man can be introduced
to another. George brings all sorts of people to-
gether, setting up a sort of Agrarian Law or com-
mon property in matter of society. But for once
he has done me a great pleasure, while he was

272

only pursuing a principle, as ignes fatui may light
you home. This Rickman lives in our Buildings,
immediately opposite our house, — the finest fel-
low to drop in a' nights, about nine or ten o'clock

— cold bread-and-cheese time — just in the wish-
ing 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 in-
formation 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 any-
thing with anybody ; a great farmer, somewhat
concerned in an agricultural magazine ; reads
no poetry but Shakspeare ; very intimate with
Southey, but does not always [read] 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, lim-
itations, 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 de-

273

scribe 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 Lon-
don hemisphere with returns oi light. He is now
going for 6 weeks.

At last I have written to Kemble, to know
the event of my play, which was presented last
Christmas. As I suspected came an answer back,
that the copy was lost and could not be found
— no hint that anybody had to this day ever
looked into it — with a courteous (reasonable !)
request of another copy (if I had one by me),
and a promise of a definitive answer in a week.
I could not resist so facile and moderate [a]
demand ; so scribbled out another, omitting sun-
dry things, such as the witch story, about half
of the forest scene (which is too leisurely for
story), and transposing that damned soliloquy
about England getting drunk, which, like its
reciter, stupidly stood alone, nothing prevenient
or antevenient ; and cleared away a good deal
besides ; and sent this copy, written all out (with
alterations, &c. requiring judgment) in one day and
a half! I sent it last night, and am in weekly

274

expectation of the tolling bell and death-war-
rant.

This is all my Lunnon news. Send me some
from the Banks of Cam, as the Poets delight to
speak, especially George Dyer, who has no other
name nor idea nor definition of Cambridge;
namely, its being a market town, sending mem-
bers to Parliament, never entered into his defin-
ition. It was and is, simply the banks of the
Cam, or the fair Cam, as Oxford is the banks of
the Isis, or the fair Isis.

Yours in all humility, most illustrious Tris-
megist,

C. Lamb

(Read on; there's more at the bottom.)
You ask me about the Farmer's Boy. Don't
you think the fellow who wrote it (who is a
shoemaker) has a poor mind ? Don't you find he
is always silly about poor Giles, and those abject
kind of phrases, which mark a man that looks
up to wealth ? None of Burns's Poet-dignity.
What do you think ? I have just open'd him ;
but he makes me sick.

Dyer knows the shoemaker (a damn'd stupid
hound in company) ; but George introduces and
promises to introduce him indiscriminately to all
his friends and all combinations.

275

LXXXIV. — TO THOMAS 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 for-
tunately 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 am deter-
mined 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 Cambridgeyir the
present. Perhaps I shall be able to take Cam-
bridge 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 !
I hope you will. Hills, woods, lakes, and moun-
tains, to the Eternal Devil. I will eat snipes with
thee, Thomas Manning. Only confess, confess
a Bite.

P. S. I think you named the 1 6th ; 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. — Burns

For my part, with reverence to my friends north-
ward, I must confess that I am not romance-bit

276

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 5-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, mar-
kets, theatres, churches, Covent Gardens, shops
sparkling with pretty faces of industrious milli-
ners, neat sempstresses, ladies cheapening, gen-
tlemen behind counters lying, authors in the
street with spectacles, George Dyers (you may
know them by their gait), lamps lit at night,
pastry-cook and silversmith shops, beautiful
Quakers of Pentonville, noise of coaches, drowsy
cry of mechanic watchmen 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 Melan-
choly, and Religio Medici's on every stall. These
are thy pleasures, O London ! with — the many
— sins. O City, abounding in whores, for these
may Keswick and her Giant Brood go hang !

C. L.
277

LXXXV. — TO WILLIAM GODWIN

Thursday Morning, [December 4, 1800.]

Dear Sir, — I send this speedily after the heels
of Cooper (oh, the dainty expression !) to say that
Mary is obliged to stay at home on Sunday to
receive a female friend, from whom I am equally
glad to escape. So that we shall be by ourselves.
I write, because it may make some difference in
your marketing, &c. C. L.

I am sorry to put you to
pence postage. But I cal-
culate thus: if Mary comes

the expense of two-

she will eat beef, 2 plates .
Batter Pudding 1 do.
Beer, a pint ....
Wine, 3 glasses .

4d.
2d.
2d.
1 1 d. I drink no wine!

Chesnuts, after dinner .

2d.

Tea and supper at mod-

erate calculation .

9d.

.6d.

From which deduct

2d. postage.

2s. 4d.
You are a clear gainer by her not coming.

NOTE

[If the date be correct, this becomes the first extant letter
proper which Lamb sent to the author of Political "Justice.

278

Godwin was then forty-four years old, and had long been busy
upon his tragedy Antonio, in which Lamb had been assisting
with suggestions. In this connection we place here the fol-
lowing document, which, according to Lucas, belongs natur-
ally to an earlier date, but is not harmed by its present
position :]

MINUTE SENT BY C. LAMB TO WILLIAM
GODWIN

[No date. Autumn, 1800.]

Queries. — Whether the best conclusion would
not be a solemn judicial pleading, appointed by
the king, before himself in person of Antonio
as proxy for Roderigo, and Guzman for himself
— the forms and ordering of it to be highly
solemn and grand. For this purpose (allowing
it) the king must be reserved, and not have com-
mitted his royal dignity by descending to pre-
vious conference with Antonio, but must refer
from the beginning to this settlement. He must
sit in dignity as a high royal arbiter. Whether
this would admit of spiritual interpositions, car-
dinals, &c, — appeals to the Pope, and haughty
rejection of his interposition by Antonio — (this
merely by the way.)

The pleadings must be conducted by short
speeches, replies, taunts, and bitter recriminations
by Antonio, in his rough style. In the midst of
the undecided cause, may not a messenger break
up the proceedings by an account of Roderigo's
death (no improbable or far-fetch'd event), and
the whole conclude with an affecting and awful

279

invocation of Antonio upon Roderigo's spirit,
now no longer dependent upon earthly tribunals
or a froward woman's will, &c, &c.

Almanza's daughter is now free, &c.

This might be made very affecting. Better
nothing follow after ; if anything, she must step
forward and resolve to take the veil. In this case,
the whole story of the former nunnery must be
omitted. But, I think, better leave the final con-
clusion to the imagination of the spectator. Prob-
ably the violence of confining her in a convent
is not necessary ; Antonio's own castle would be
sufficient.

To relieve the former part of the play, could
not some sensible images, some work for the eye,
be introduced ? A gallery of pictures, Almanza's
ancestors, to which Antonio might affectingly
point his sister, one by one, with anecdote, &c.

At all events, with the present want of action,
the play must not extend above four acts, unless
it is quite new modell'd. The proposed altera-
tions might all be effected in a few weeks.

Solemn judicial pleadings always go off well,
as in Henry VIII, Merchant of Venice, and per-
haps Othello.

NOTE

[Lamb, said Mr. Paul, writing of this critical Minute, was
so genuinely kind and even affectionate in his criticism that
Godwin did not perceive his real disapproval.

Mr. Swinburne, writing in The Athenceum for May 13,
1876, made an interesting comment upon one of Lamb's sug-
gestions in the foregoing document. It contains, he remarks,

280

" a singular anticipation of one of the most famous passages
in the work of the greatest master of our own age, the scene
of the portraits in ' Hernani : ' 'To relieve the former part
of the play, could not some sensible images, some work for
the eye, be introduced ? A gallery of pictures, Alexander's an-
cestors, to which Antonio might affectingly point his sister, one by
one, with anecdote, &c.' I know of no coincidence more pleas-
antly and strangely notable than this between the gentle genius
of the loveliest among English essayists and the tragic inven-
tion of the loftiest among French poets." — E. V. Lucas.]

LXXXVI. — TO WILLIAM GODWIN

Wednesday Morning, December 10, 1800.

Dear Sir, — I expected a good deal of pleas-
ure from your company to-morrow, but I am
sorry I must beg of you to excuse me. I have
been confined ever since I saw you with one of
the severest colds I ever experienced, occasioned
by being in the night air on Sunday, and on the
following day, very foolishly. I am neither in
health nor spirits to meet company. I hope and
trust I shall get out on Saturday night. You will
add to your many favours, by transmitting to me
as early as possible as many tickets as conveniently
you can spare. Yours truly,

C. L.

I have been plotting how to abridge the Epi-
logue. But I cannot see that any lines can be
spared, retaining the connection, except these
two, which are better out, —

Why should I instance, &c,

The sick man's purpose, &c,

28l

and then the following line must run thus, —

The truth by an example best is shown.

Excuse this important postscript.

LXXXVII. — TO THOMAS MANNING

[Saturday, 4 o'clock p. m. December 13, 1800.]

I have receiv'd your letter this moment, not
having been at the office. I have just time to
scribble down the Epilogue. To your epistle I
will just reply, that I will certainly come to Cam-
bridge before January is out : I '11 come when I
can. You shall have an amended copy of my play
early next week. Mary thanks you ; but her
handwriting is too feminine to be exposed to a
Cambridge gentleman, though I endeavour to
persuade her that you understand algebra, and
must understand her hand.

The play is the man's you wot of; but for God's
sake (who would not like to have so pious a pro-
fessor's work damrid) do not mention it — it is
to come out in a feign'd name, as one Tobin's.
I will omit the introductory lines which connect
it with the Play, and give you the concluding
Tale, which is the mass and bulk of the Epi-
logue. The name is Jack Incident. It is about
promise-breaking — you will see it all, if you
read the papers.

Jack, of dramatic genius justly vain,
Purchas'd a renter's share at Drury Lane;
282

A prudent man in every other matter,

Known at his club-room for an honest hatter;

Humane and courteous, led a civil life,

And has been seldom known to beat his wife;

But Jack is now grown quite another man,

Frequents the green-room, knows the plot and plan

Of each new piece,
And has been seen to talk with Sheridan !
In at the play-house just at six he pops,
And never quits it till the curtain drops,
Is never absent on the author's night,

Knows actresses and actors too by sight ;

So humble, that with Suett he '11 confer,

Or take a pipe with plain Jack Banister ;

Nay, with an author has been known so free,

He once suggested a catastrophe —

In short, John dabbled till his head was turn'd ;

His wife remonstrated, his neighbours mourn'd,

His customers were dropping off apace,

And Jack's affairs began to wear a piteous face.

One night his wife began a curtain lecture;
" My dearest Johnny, husband, spouse, protector,
Take pity on your helpless babes and me,
Save us from ruin, you from bankruptcy —
Look to your business, leave these cursed plays,
And try again your old industrious ways."

Jack who was always scared at the Gazette,
And had some bits of scull uninjur'd yet,
Promis'd amendment, vow'd his wife spake reason,
" He would not see another Play that season — "

Three stubborn fortnights Jack his promise kept,
Was late and early in his shop, eat, slept,
And walk'd and talk'd, like ordinary men ;
No wit, but John the hatter once again —
Visits his club : when lo ! one fatal night
His wife with horror view'd the well-known sight —
John's hat, wig, snuff-box — well she knew his tricks —
And Jack decamping at the hour of six.
Just at the counter's edge a playbill lay,

283

Announcing that Pizarro was the play —
" O Johnny, Johnny, this is your old doing."
Quoth Jack, " Why what the devil storm 's a-brewing ?
About a harmless Play why all this fright ?
I '11 go and see it if it 's but for spite —
Zounds, woman ! Nelson 's ' to be there to-night."

1 A good clap-trap. Nelson has exhibited two or three times at both
theatres — and advertised himself.

Turn over when you have read this.

N. B. — This was intended for Jack Banister
to speak. ; but the sage managers have chosen
Miss Heard, — except Miss Tidswell, the worst
actress ever seen or heard. Now, I remember I
have promised the loan of my play. I will lend
it instantly, and you shall get it ('pon honour!)
by this day week.

I must go and dress for the boxes ! First night !
Finding I have time, I transcribe the rest. Ob-
serve, you have read the last first ; it begins thus :
— - the names I took from a little outline G. gave
me. I have not read the play.

Ladies, ye 've seen how Guzman's consort died,

Poor victim of a Spaniard brother's pride,

When Spanish honour through the world was blown,

And Spanish beauty for the best was known.2

In that romantic, unenlighten'd time,

A breach of promise 3 was a sort of crime —

Which of you handsome English ladies here,

But deems the penance bloody and severe ?

A whimsical old Saragossa 4 fashion,

That a dead father's dying inclination,

Should live to thwart a living daughter's passion,5

2 Four easy lines. s For which the heroine died.
* In Spain ! ! 5 Two neat lines.

284

Unjustly on the sex we * men exclaim,
Rail at your 2 vices, — and commit the same ; —
Man is a promise-breaker from the womb,
And goes a promise-breaker to the tomb —
What need we instance here the lover's vow,
The sick man's purpose, or the great man's bow ? 3
The truth by few examples best is shewn —
Instead of many which are better known,
Take poor 'Jack Incident, that 's dead and gone.
Jack, &c. &c. &c.
1 Or you. 2 Or our, as they have altered it. 3 Antithesis.

Now you have it all — how do you like it ?
I am going to hear it recited ! ! ! C. L.

Don't spill the cream upon this letter.

LXXXVIII. — TO WILLIAM GODWIN

Late o' Sunday, December 14, 1800.

Dear Sir, — I have performed my office in a
slovenly way, but judge for me. I sat down at
6 o'clock, and never left reading (and I read out
to Mary) your play till i o. In this sitting I noted
down lines as they occurred, exactly as you will
read my rough paper. Do not be frightened at
the bulk of my remarks, for they are almost all
upon single lines, which, put together, do not
amount to a hundred, and many of them merely
verbal. I had but one object in view, abridgment
for compression's sake. I have used a dogmatical
language (which is truly ludicrous when the
trivial nature of my remarks is considered), and,
remember, my office was to hunt out faults. You

285

may fairly abridge one half of them, as a fair
deduction for the infirmities of error, and a single
reading, which leaves only fifty objections, most
of them merely against words, on no short play.
Remember, you constituted me executioner, and
a hangman has been seldom seen to be ashamed
of his profession before Master Sheriff. We '11
talk of the beauties (of which I am more than
ever sure) when we meet. Yours truly,

C. L.

I will barely add, as you are on the very point
of printing, that in my opinion neither prologue
nor epilogue should accompany the play. It can
only serve to remind your readers of its fate.
Both suppose an audience, and, that jest being
gone, must convert into burlesque. Nor would
I (but therein custom and decorum must be a
law) print the actors' names. Some things must
be kept out of sight.

I have done, and I have but a few square inches
of paper to fill up. I am emboldened by a little
jorum of punch (vastly good) to say that next
to one man, I am the most hurt at our ill success.
The breast of Hecuba, where she did suckle
Hector, looked not to be more lovely than Mar-
shal's forehead when it spit forth sweat, at Critic-
swords contending. I remember two honest lines
by Marvel (whose poems by the way I am just
going to possess), —

Where every mower's wholesome heat
Smells like an Alexander's sweat.
286

LXXXIX. — TO THOMAS MANNING

December 16, 1800.

We are damn'd !

Not the facetious Epilogue itself could save us.
For, as the Editor of the Morning Post (quick-
sighted Gentleman !) hath this morning truly ob-
served (I beg pardon if I falsify his words ; their
profound sense I am sure I retain), both prologue
and epilogue were worthy of accompanying such
a piece; and indeed (mark the profundity, Mister
Manning) were receiv'd with proper indignation
by such of the audience only, as thought either
worth attending to. Professor, thy glories wax
dim. Again, the incomparable author of the True
Briton declareth in his paper (bearing same date)
that the Epilogue was an indifferent attempt at
humour and character, and failed in both. I for-
bear to mention the other papers, because I have
not read them. O Professor, how different thy
feelings now [quantum mutatus ab illo prof es sore,
qui in agris philosophiae tantas victorias acquisivisti}

— how different thy proud feelings but one little
week ago — thy anticipation of thy nine nights

— those visionary claps, which have soothed thy
soul by day and thy dreams by night !

Calling in accidentally on the Professor while
he was out, I was usher' d into the study; and my
nose quickly (most sagacious always) pointed me
to four Tokens lying loose upon thy Table, Pro-
fessor, which indicated thy violent and Satanical

287

Pride of heart. Imprimis, there caught mine eye
a list of six persons, thy friends, whom thou didst
meditate inviting to a sumpt[u]ous dinner on the
Thursday, anticipating the profits of thy Satur-
day's play to answer charges ; I was in the hon-
our'dfile! Next, a stronger evidence of thy vio-
lent and almost Satanical pride, lay a List of all
the morning papers (from the Morning Chronicle
downwards to the Porcupine} with the places of
their respective offices, where thou wast meditat-
ing to insert, and did[st] insert, an elaborate sketch
of the story of thy Play ; stones in thy Enemy's
hand to bruise thee with, and severely wast thou
bruis'd, O Professor ! nor do I know what oil to
pour into thy wounds. Next (which convinced
me, to a dead conviction, of thy pride, violent and
almost Satanical pride !) lay a list of Books, which
thy untragedy-favour'd pocket could never an-
swer, Dodsley's Old Plays, Malone's Shakspeare
(still harping upon thy Play, thy Philosophy aban-
doned meanwhile to Christians and superstitious
minds) nay I believe (if I can believe my memory)
that the ambitious Encyclopedia itself was part of
thy meditated acquisitions, but many a playbook
was there ; all these visions are damned; and thou,
Professor, must read Shakspeare in future out of
a common Edition ; and, hark ye ! pray read him
to a little better purpose. Last and strongest
against thee (in colours manifest as the Hand
upon Belshazzar's wall) lay a volume of poems
by C. Lloyd and C. Lamb. Thy heart misgave

288

thee, that thy assistant might possibly not have
talent enough to furnish thee an Epilogue ! Man-
ning, all these Things come over my mind ; all
the gratulations that would have thickened upon
him, and even some have glanced aside upon his
humble friend ; the vanity, and the fame, and the
profits (the Professor is ^500 ideal money out
of pocket by this failure, besides ^200 he would
have got for the copyright, and the Professor is
never much beforehand with the world ; what he
gets is all by the sweat of his brow and dint of
brain, for the Professor, though a sure man, is also
a slow) ; and now to muse upon thy alter'd physi-
ognomy, thy pale and squalid appearance (a kind
of blue sickness about the eyelids) and thy crest
fallen, and thy proud demand of ^200 from thy
bookseller changed to an uncertainty of his taking
it [at] all, or giving thee full ^50. The Professor
has won my heart by this his mournful catastro-
phe.

You remember Marshall, who dined with him
at my house ; I met him in the lobby imme-
diately after the damnation of the Professor's play,
and he looked to me like an angel ; his face was
lengthen'd and all over sweat. I never saw such
a care-fraught visage ; I could have hugg'd him,
I loved him so intensely. " From every pore of
him a Perfume fell." I have seen that man in
many situations, and from my soul I think that
a more god-like honest soul exists not in this
world. The Professor's poor nerves trembling

289

with the recent shock, he hurried him away to
my house to supper, and there we comforted him
as well as we could. He came to consult me
about a change of catastrophe ; but alas ! the piece
was condemned long before that crisis. I at first
humour'd him with a specious proposition, but
have since join'd his true friends in advising him
to give it up. He did it with a pang, and is to
print it as bis. L.

XC — TO THOMAS MANNING

[December 27, 1800.]

At length George Dyer's Phrenesis has come
to a crisis ; he is raging and furiously mad. I
waited upon the Heathen Thursday was a se'n-
night. 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 accu-
mulated 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 ca-
pered, 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 thro' every crevice, door, window, or wain-

290

scoat, expressly formed for the exclusion of such
Impertinents. Then he caught at a proof sheet,
and catched up a laundresse'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 Clif-
ford'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 sub-
scribers — and the Preface must all be expunged.
There were 80 Pages of Preface, and not till that
morning he had discovered that in the very first
page of said preface he had set out with a prin-
ciple of criticism fundamentally wrong, which
vitiated all his following reasoning — The preface
must be expunged, altho' 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 obsti-
nate as a primitive Xtian — and wards and parrys
[sic] off all our thrusts with one unanswerable
fence — " Sir, it 's of great consequence that the
world is not mislead [sic\ ! "

As for the other Professor, he has actually be-
gun to dive into Tavernier and Chardin's Persian
Travels for a story, to form a new drama for the
sweet tooth of this fastidious age. Has not Beth-
lehem College a fair action for non-residence
against such professors ? Are Poets so few in this

291

age, that He must write Poetry ? Is morals a sub-
ject so exhausted, that he must quit that line ?
Is the metaphysic Well (without a bottom)
drained dry ? If I can guess at the wicked Pride
of the Professor's heart, I would take a shrewd
wager that he disdains ever again to dip his pen
in Prose. Adieu, ye splendid theories ! Farewell,
dreams of Political Justice ! Lawsuits, where I
was counsel for Archbishop Fenelon versus my
own mother in the famous fire cause !

Vanish from my mind, professors, one and all !
I have metal more attractive on foot.

Man of many snipes, — I will sup with thee
[Deo volente, et 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 light-house, muffins and
coffee upon Table (or any other curious produc-
tion 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 hazi-
ness 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 unc-
tious [sic) and palate-soothing flesh of geese, wild

292

and tame, nightingales' brains, the sensorium of
a young sucking pig, or any other Xmas dish,
which I leave to the judgment of you and the
Cook of Gonville.

C. Lamb

XCL— TO THOMAS MANNING

[Middle December, 1800.]

I send you all of Coleridge's letters to me,
which I have preserved : some of them are upon
the subject of my play. I also send you Kem-
ble's two letters, and the prompter's courteous
epistle, with a curious critique on Pride's Cure,
by a young physician from Edinbro', who mod-
estly suggests quite another kind of a plot. These
are monuments of my disappointment which I
like to preserve.

In Coleridge's letters you will find a good deal
of amusement, to see genuine talent struggling
against a pompous display of it. I also send you
the Professor's letter to me (careful Professor! to
conceal his name even from his correspondent),
ere yet the Professor's pride was cured. Oh mon-
strous and almost satanical pride !

You will carefully keep all (except the Scotch
Doctor's, which burn) in statu quo, till I come to
claim mine own.

C. Lamb

For Mister Manning, Teacher of Mathematics
293

and the Black Arts. There is another letter in
the inside cover of the book opposite the blank
leaf that was.

Mind this goes for a letter. (Acknowledge it
directly, if only in ten words.)

Dear Manning, — (I shall want to hear this
comes safe.) I have scratched out a good deal,
as you will see. Generally, what I have rejected
was either false in feeling, or a violation of char-
acter — mostly of the first sort. I will here just
instance in the concluding few lines of the Dy-
ing Lover s Story, which completely contradicted
his character of silent and unreproachful. I hesi-
tated a good deal what copy to send you, and at
last resolved to send the worst, because you are
familiar with it, and can make it out ; and a
stranger would find so much difficulty in doing
it, that it would give him more pain than pleas-
ure.

This is compounded precisely of the two per-
sons' hands you requested it should be.
Yours sincerely,

C. Lamb

XCII.— TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

[p. m., January 30, 1801.]

Thanks for your letter and present. I had
already borrowed your second volume. What
most please me are, the Song of Lucy. . . . Si-

294

mon's sickly daughter in the Sexton made me cry.
Next to these are the description of the continu-
ous echoes in the story of Joanna's Laugh, where
the mountains and all the scenery absolutely
seem alive ; and that fine Shakesperian 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, altho' he hear them not. Here the
mind knowingly passes a fiction upon herself,
first substituting her own feelings 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 vulgar 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 imagin-
ing 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

295

found in Sterne and many, many novelists and
modern poets, who continually put a sign-post
up to shew where you are to feel. They set out
with assuming their readers to be stupid. Very
different from Robinson Crusoe, the Vicar of Wake-
field, Roderick Random, and other beautiful bare
narratives. There is implied an unwritten com-
pact 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 ! &c.
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 read-
ing 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 Piper's
magic whistle. I totally differ from your idea
that the Marinere should have had a character
and profession. This is a Beauty in Gulliver's

296

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, &c, 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, the Mad Mo-
ther, and the Lines at Tintern Abbey in the first.
I could, too, have wished the Critical Preface had
appeared in a separate treatise. All its dogmas
are true and just, and most of them new, as
criticism. But they associate a diminishing idea
with the poems which follow, as having been
written for experiment on the public taste, more
than having sprung (as they must have done)
from living and daily circumstances. I am pro-
lix, because I am gratifyed in the opportunity
of writing to you, and I don't well know when to
leave off.

297

I ought before this to have reply' d 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 pleas-
ure 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 na-
ture. The lighted shops of the Strand and Fleet
Street, the innumerable trades, tradesmen and
customers, coaches, waggons, playhouses, all the
bustle and wickedness round about Covent Gar-
den, 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 cheap'ning 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

298

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 engender-
ing of poetry and books) to groves and valleys.
The rooms where I was born, the furniture which
has been before my eyes all my life, a book-case
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 of anything. Your sun
and moon and skies and hills and lakes affect me
no more, or scarcely come to me in more vener-
able characters, than as a gilded room with tap-
estry and tapers, where I might live with hand-
some 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 confinedly called ; so
ever fresh and green and warm are all the inven-
tions of men and assemblies of men in this great
city. I should certainly have laughed with dear
Joanna.

299

Give my kindest love, and my sister s, to Dor-
othy and yourself and a kiss from me to little
Barbara Lewthwaite.

C. Lamb

Thank you for liking my play ! !

NOTE

[This is the first — and perhaps the finest — letter from
Lamb to Wordsworth that has been preserved. Wordsworth,
then living with his sister Dorothy at Dove Cottage, Gras-
mere, was nearly thirty-one years of age ; Lamb was nearly
twenty-six. — E. V. Lucas.]

XCIII. — TO ROBERT LLOYD

February 7, 1801.

Dear Robert, — I shall expect you to bring
me a brimful account of the pleasure which Wal-
ton has given you, when you come to town. It
must square with your mind. The delightful
innocence and healthfulness of the Angler's mind
will have blown upon yours like a Zephyr. Don't
you already feel your spirit filled with the scenes?
— the banks of rivers — the cowslip beds — the
pastoral scenes — the neat alehouses — the host-
esses and milkmaids ; as far exceeding Virgil
and Pope, as the Holy Living is beyond Thomas
a Kempis. Are not the eating and drinking joys
painted to the life? do they not inspire you with
an immortal hunger? Are not you ambitious of
being made an Angler ? What edition have you
got ? is it Hawkins's with plates of Piscator &c. ?

300

That sells very dear. I have only been able to
purchase the last edition, without the old plates,
which pleased my childhood; — the plates being
worn out, and the old edition difficult and expens-
ive to procure. — The Complete Angler is the only
Treatise written in Dialogue, that is worth a half-
penny. — Many elegant dialogues have been writ-
ten (such as Bishop Berkeley's Minute Philosopher)
but in all of them the Interlocutors are merely
abstract arguments personify' d ; not living dra-
matic characters, as in Walton ; where everything
is alive, the fishes are absolutely charactered, and
birds and animals are as interesting as men and
women.

I need not be at much pains to get the Holy
Livings — We can procure them in ten minutes
search at any stall or shop in London. By your
engaging one for Priscilla, it should seem she will
be in town. Is that the case ? — I thought she
was fix'd at the Lakes. I perfectly understand the
nature of your solitariness at Birmingham — and
wish I could divide myself, " like a bribed
haunch" between London and it. But courage!
— You will soon be emancipated and (it may be)
have a frequent power of visiting this great place.
Let them talk of lakes and mountains and roman-
tic dales all that fantastic stuff; — give me a ram-
ble by night, in the winter nights in London —
the lamps lit — the pavements of the motley
Strand crowded with to-and-fro passengers — the
shops all brilliant, and stuffed with obliging cus-

301

tomers and obliged tradesmen. Give me the old
bookstalls of London — a walk in the bright
piazzas of Covent Garden. I defy a man to be
dull in such places — perfect Mahometan para-
dises upon earth. I have lent out my heart with
usury to such scenes, from my childhood up —
and have cried with fulness of joy at the multi-
tudinous scenes of life in the crowded streets
of ever dear London. I wish you could fix here.
I don't know if you quite comprehend my low
urban taste ; but depend upon it that a man of
any feeling will have given his heart and his love
in childhood and in boyhood to any scenes where
he has been bred, as well to dirty streets (and
smoky walls as they are called) as to green lanes
where live nibbling sheep, and to the everlasting
hills and the lakes and ocean. A mob of men is
better than a flock of sheep ; and a crowd of
happy faces justling into the playhouse at the hour
of six is a more beautiful spectacle to man than
the shepherd driving his " silly " sheep to fold.

Come to London and learn to sympathize with
my unrural notions. Wordsworth has published
a second volume, Lyrical Ballads. Most of them
very good — but not so good as first volume.
What more can I tell you ? I believe I told you
I have been to see Manning. He is a dainty chiel,
a man of great power, an enchanter almost : far
beyond Coleridge or any man in power of im-
pressing. When he gets you alone, he can act the
wonders of Egypt. Only he is lazy and does not

302

always put forth all his strength ; if he did, I
know no man of genius at all comparable to him.
Yours as ever,

C. L.

XCIV. — TO THOMAS 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 acknow-
ledgment 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
¥ intern 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

3°3

my range of sensibility was more extended, being
obliged to believe that I should receive large in-
fluxes of happiness and happy thoughts " (I sup-
pose from the L[yrica/] B\allads\\. — 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 Shaks-
peare, 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 quota-
tions from his own second volume (which I had
been so unfortunate as to miss).

i st Specimen. — A father addresses his son, —

When thou
First earnest 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 Imagination
and Tenderness which I am speaking of, I con-
sider as one of the best I ever wrote ! "

2d Specimen. — A youth, after years of ab-
sence, 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.

3°4

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 Mil-
ton and somebody else ! ! This was not to be all
my castigation. Coleridge, who had not written
to me some months before, starts up from his bed
of sickness to reprove me for my hardy presump-
tion : 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 suspect the fault to lie " in me and not
in them," &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. 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 think-
ing 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 to praise

And very few to love.

3°5

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 not like to have 'em
rammed down one's throat. " Pray, take it —
it 's very good — let me help you — eat faster."

At length George Dyer's first volume is come
to a birth. One volume of three — subscribers
being allowed by the prospectus to pay for all at
once (tho' it 's very doubtful if the rest ever
come to anything, this having been already some
years getting out). I paid two guineas for you
and myself, which entitle us to the whole. I
will send you your copy, if you are in a great
hurry. Meantime you owe me a guinea. George
skipped about like a scorched pea at the receipt
of so much cash. To give you a specimen of the
beautiful absurdity of the notes, which defy imi-
tation, take one : " Discrimination is not the aim
of the present volume. It will be more strictly
attended to in the next." One of the sonnets
purports to have been written in Bedlam ! This
for a man to own ! The rest are addressed to
Science, Genius, Melancholy — &c. &c. — two,
to the River Cam — an Ode to the Nightingale.

306

Another to Howard, beginning " Spirit of meek
Philanthropy ! " One is entitled The Madman
— " being collected by the author from several
Madhouses." It begins " Yes, yes — 't is He ! "
A long poetical satire is addressed to "John Dis-
ney, D.D. — his wife and daughter ! ! ! "

Now to my own affairs. I have not taken
that thing to Colman, but I have proceeded one
step in the business. I have inquired his address,
and am promised it in a few days. Meantime
three acts and a half are finished galloping, of a
Play on a Persian Story which I must father in
April. But far, very far, from Antonio in com-
position. O Jephtha, Judge of Israel, what a
fool I was !

C. Lamb

PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON & CO.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A.

Oir luur rcior prrss

INDEX

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS

NOTEWORTHY LETTERS

HUMOUR

POEMS

SONNETS

ACROSTICS

CRITICISMS

QUOTATIONS

EXCURSIONS

MISCELLANEOUS

INDEX

Personal Characteristics

Altruism, II, 65

Books, companionship of, II, 107 ; III, 91

Drinking, II, 197; III, 11, 83, 84, 284; V, 125, 225-227,

349» 35°
Drudgery, longing to be free from, II, 37; III, 186; IV, 178,

189, 190, 196, 312
Filial love, II, 54, 55, 61, 75, 76, 141-143
Friends, appreciation of, II, 56, 57, 124 (his aunt Hetty), 133

(Charles Lloyd), 145 (Coleridge), 157-159, 191, 198;

III, 220, 242 ; IV, 72, 73, 177 ; V, 47, 48, 312, 338
Hoaxing, love for, II, 231-233, 276; III, 169-171, 257-261 ;

IV, 61-65; V, 169
Humility, II, 64, 107

Kindness of heart, II, 47, 48, 177, 178; V, 206-208, 338, 339

Loneliness, dread of, II, 227, 228; V, 174, 175, 179, 180, 182

Mankind, love for all, II, 65

Mediocrity, abhorrence of, II, 107

Nature, city preferred to, II, 277, 301, 302 ; III, 83

Necessarian, a, II, 106

Office work, exultation in freedom from, IV, 316, 320, 321, 322,

3H
Palate, pleasures of the, II, 262, 292; III, 169, 170, 320, 337 ;

IV, 174-176, 185, 190, 201, 213, 214, 234, 251 (cheese),
257, 294, 327, 328 (fish), 329, 330; V, 14, 70, 93, 100,
101, 348

Perfection, longings for, II, 107

Punning, love for, II, 223, 284; III, 11, 92, 120, 122, 208,
263, 267, 272, 302, 303 (at Salisbury), 305; IV, 36, 47,
76, 78, 91, 115, 133 (note), 157, 263, 287, 289, 300;

V, 12, 13, 22,1 30, 31, 71, 74, 78, 87, 90, 92, 94, 156,
158, 172, 178, 224, 256, 262, 277, 327

1 " Anoint" : ironically, to beat soundly, to baste. — E, V. Lucas.

311

Religion, II, 23, 53, 54, 60, 63, 64, 106, 107, 145, 147, 154,

157, 159; III, 24
Sarcasm, II, 261, 266

Self-depreciation, II, 105, 145, 148, 159; III, 181 ; V, 97, 98
Shyness, II, 20, 138; IV, 55
Sister, devotion to, II, 5, 53, 54, 59, 61-64, 99, 103, 228 ; III,

180, 181, 285 ; IV, 60 ; V, 180, 182, 244, 309, 332, 335
Smoking, III, 119, 184, 187
Solitude, longings for, IV, 105-107; V, 81
Spiritual adviser, II, 154, 157-159
Sympathy, II, 69, 143; III, 164-166, 167, 168, 175, 179

(note); V, 109, no, 165, 207, 208, 347
Weather, how affected by the, II, 235
Writing, love of simplicity in, II, 72

Noteworthy Letters
Vol. II.

IX, 53, To S. T. Coleridge, October 3, 1796. In answer to

his letter of sympathy of September 28, on the tragic death of

Lamb's mother.
XX, 100, To S. T. Coleridge, January 10, 1797. Coleridge's

style and writings. Longings for true friendships ; religion.
XXXVI, 157, To Robert Lloyd, August, 1798. Friendships;

trust in God.
XLI, 169, To Robert Lloyd, November 13, 1798. The good

things of the world.
LXXXIV, 276, To Thomas Manning, November 28, 1800.

Praise of London.
XCII, 294, To William Wordsworth, January 30, 1801.

Wordsworth's poetry ; London.

Vol. III.

XCVII, 14, To Robert Lloyd, April 16, 1801. Jeremy

Taylor's writings.
CXXIII, 80, To Thomas Manning, September 24, 1802.

Mountains.

Vol. IV.

CCLXXXIV, 138, To Dorothy Wordsworth, November 25,
1819. Visit to Lambs of Wordsworth's son William.
312

CCCXXIX, 174, To S. T. Coleridge, March 9, 1822.
Toothsomeness of a young pig.

Vol. V.

DCIX, 178, To Bernard Barton, July 25, 1829. Loneliness in

London.
DCXX, Pt. I, 196, To William Wordsworth, January 22, 1830.

Contrast between the country (Enfield) and London ; Thomas

Westwood, etc.

Humour

Acrostics, charades, etc., V, 222

Affairs, prying into one's, IV, 96, 97

Albums, V, 113, 153

Algebra, Dyer's longings for Manning's ; his criticisms on poetry,

II, 253-255
Animal poems, II, 188, 189
Aquatic incursion, an, IV, 258, 259
"Archimedes" Manning, nonsense for, III, 184

Bachelorhood, III, 160

Blood, on one afflicted with impure, IV, 115, 116

Brawn, present of, III, 169, 171

Calendar, dedications in a, II, 155
Charles Lamb Talfourd, V, 148, 149
China, a proposal to visit, III, 26-28
Chirography, Lucy Barton's, IV, 305

Mary Lamb's, IV, 232, 233
Christmas in China, impossibility of keeping, IV, 61, 62
Chronologies, going by different, IV, 93
Church, a tiny, V, 29, 30

Cold, effect on the spirits of a severe, IV, 268-270; V, 24, 25
Contented, men who are always, IV, 47
Cottle, poems of, II, 261 ; III, 10 1
Cottles, an evening with Dyer at the, II, 264-267
Country air and that of tobacco, IV, 77
Country, dulness of the, V, 197, 198

Dash, on his dog, V, 86-88

Diseases, IV, 263, 264

Distance and time, on, V, 130, 131

3*3

Dorothy Wordsworth, a variety of pleasantries for, IV, 152-153
Drinking, III, 316; V, 125, 225-227, 349, 350
Dyer, George, poetry of, II, 248, 249

Eccentricities, Dyer's, etc., II, 250-252
"Elia," discovery of personality of, IV, 235
Ensign Peacock, epitaph on, II, 190
Epic poetry, etc., Dyer on, II, 260, 261
Epitaphs, III, 314, 315

Fire-worshippers, III, 303

Fishes, etc., toothsomeness of certain, IV, 327

French, the, IV, 96

Godfather, acting as ; behaviour at marriages and funerals, IV, 44,

45
"Gum-boil" and "Tooth-ache," etc., Ill, 185

Handwriting, varieties of, V, 255-257
Hoaxings, various, IV, 62-65
Honour, tides of, III, 302
Horse, ride on a mad, V, 200-202

Idolaters, literary, II, 248

Incendiarism, V, 246—248

" Independent Tartary," III, 102-105

Inks, alternate-coloured, IV, 127, 128

Isle of Wight, outing at; Capt. Bumey, III, 132-133

Isola Bella, V, 162

Isola Lamb, Miss, V, 224

John B. Dibdin, poem to, V, 32-34
John, the name, V, 90

Languages, merits of different ; poetry, metaphors, etc., II, 221,

222
Latin, letter in, V, 258, 259 ; 261, 262
Latin, on presuming to write ; some compositions of Coleridge, III,

85-87
Latin, on teaching, V, 72, 74, 90
Laziness, IV, 57
Leviathan, meaning of, II, 1 84
Logic and imagination, III, 9, 10
London, charms of, III, 1 2

3*4

May, a cold, V, 25, 26
Measles, V, 145
Mottoes, III, 63, 64
Moving, III, 281

Palate, craze about pleasures of the, II, 262, 263

Phrensy, poetic ; a proposed feast, II, 290-292

Pig, present of a, IV, 174-176, 213, 214

Pigs, IV, 257

Poets laureate, V, 167, 168

Poets, painters encroaching on province of, III, 273

Present, receiving strange-shaped, V, 163

Presents, IV, 46

Punning, III, 267 ; IV, 333

Rheumatism, on, V, 169-171

Scotch writers, craze about, II, 263, 264
Smoking, on, III, 119
Snakes, II, 270, 271
Solicitude, Coleridge's, II, 212
Sophy, "little wife," IV, 188
Stage-coach, incident in a, V, 236
Sunday, a rainy, V, 38-40

" Superfcetation of drink," fate of Tommy Bye overcome by a, IV,
124, 125, 127

Tailor, a, II, 176

Tailors, IV, 22

Theatres, tickets to, III, 229

Theses quaedam theologies, II, 1 48, 1 49

Tobacco, a farewell to, III, 186-190

Variola, V, 146

Versifying, II, 174

Visit, invitation to make a, II, 244

Water-drinking and liquors, III, 3 1 6

Watch, present of a, V, 315, 316

Weather, effect on mind of fine; a "happy family," II, 235

Wedding, a, V, 3 1 8

3*5

Poems by Charles Lamb

A Conceipt of Diabolical Possession, II, 216

Album of Lucy Barton, written for the, IV, 292

A Little Song, paraphrased from Schiller, II, 217

To C. Aders, Esq. (On his Collection of Paintings by the old

German Masters), V, 275
To Charles Lloyd (An unexpected visitor), II, 109
To Charles Lloyd (In anxiety of mind), II, 143
The Dying Lover, II, 171
England, IV, 325

A Farewell to Tobacco, III, 187-190
To a Friend on his Marriage, V, 322
Hester, III, 106
Italy, IV, 326
Jack Incident, II, 282
To John B. Dibdin, V, 32-34
John ffoodvil, extracts from, II, 180, 181, 183
Lines for a Monument (Commemorating the Sudden Death by

Drowning of a Family of Four Sons and Two Daughters), V,

243

Lines on his Aunt Hetty (Sarah Lamb), II, 116
Love will come, V, 3 3 7
Marmor loquitur, II, 1 90

Epitaphs for Mary Druitt (Buried at Wimborne, Dorset, aged 19),
(I) III, 65; (II) III, 114, 123

Mottoes —

Addington, III, 64

Count Romford, IN, 63

Dr. Solomon, III, 63

Frere and Canning, III, 64
To the Poet Cowper, II, 45
Pride's Cure,1 III, 21

To Sara and her Samuel, II, 42, 43 (48 note)
Serenata on Marriage of Charles Cowden Clarke to Victoria Novello,

V, 137, 138
Epitaph to Sir James Mackintosh, III, 26
Suum Cuique, V, 232

1 This poem was so called before it was transformed into "John Woodvil. " I
am to christen it John fVood-u it simply — not Pride'i Cure." II], 43.

3l6

The Tomb of Douglas, II, 83, 84

A Vision of Repentance, II, 128

Lines suggested by a Sight of Walt ham Cross, V, 1 06

To William Ayr ton, IV, 89-91

The Witch, II, 171 (170, 175, 182)

Written a Twelvemonth after the Events? II, 141

The Young Catechist, V, 61

To a Young Lady going out to India, II, 8 1

Poems by Mary Lamb

Dialogue between a Mother and Child, III, 1 5 2

Helen repentant too late, II, 257 ; III, 71

Lines suggested by a Picture of Two Females by Lionardo da Vinci,

III, 152
Lines on the same Picture being removed, III, 182
Lines on the Celebrated Picture by L. da Vinci, called " The Virgin

of the Rocks," III, 182

Sonnets by Charles Lamb

To Edith Southey (Christian Names of Women), V, 296

The Gypsy's Malison, V, 1 59

A Walk to Hertfordshire, II, 7

Innocence, II, 9

To My Sister, II, 5, 99

To Samuel Rogers, Esq. (On the Loss of his Brother), V, 165

On Revisiting a loved Scene, II, 7

Work, IV, 189, 190

Acrostics

To Emma Button, IV, 336

To Grace Joanna Williams, V, 22 1, 228

To Louisa Clare (Williams), V, 219

To Mary Locke, V, 278

To Sarah Locke, V, 278

Criticisms

Addison, Joseph, II, 104

Ainsworth, William Harrison, IV, 181

1 The death of Mrs. Elizabeth Lamb, September 22, 1796.

3*7

Amory, Thomas, The Life of John Bunt le, Esq. , II, 135
Aquinas, Thomas, V, 166, 167, 183

Barbauld, Anna Letitia, III, 94
Barton, Bernard, IV, 284

" Bloomfield, the Suffolk poet, Verses to the memory of"
(in Poetic Vigils), IV, 252, 253, 285

Devotional Verses (" your book "), V, 17

Elephant; The Translation of Enoch, V, 143

A Memorial of James Nayler, IV, 285

Poems ("your book"), IV, 335

Power and Gentleness ; The Present ; Lady Russell; Chalon;
Battle of Gibeon, V, 1 42

"Spiritual Law" (from Devotional Verses), V, 18

Syr Heron ; Flu dyer, V, 144

A Widow's Tale and Other Poems, V, 59-62
Beaumont, Francis, and Fletcher, John, II, 39

Maid's Tragedy; Philaster ; "Palamon and Arcite " (in
The Two Noble Kinsmen), II, 35

Wife for a Month, II, 33
Blake, William, IV, 281-283
Blanchard, Laman, Sonnets, V, 140

Bloomfield, Robert, The Farmer Boy, II, 271, 275; IV, 253
Bourne, Vincent, Poemata, IV, 31, 32

The Seven Dials, IV, 31
Bowles, William Lisle, II, 25, 73 (66, 92)

Elegiac Stanzas; Hope, an Allegorical Sketch, etc., II, 98
Burger, Gottfried August, Leonora, II, 46
Burnet, Gilbert, A History of His Own Times, II, 211
Bums, Robert, II, 12,92, 188
Burton, Robert, The Abstract of Melancholy, II, 216

The Anatomy of Melancholy, II, 215 ; V, 30
Byron, Lord, IV, 146, 196, 283, 284

Calamy, Edmund, V, 173

Cary, Henry Francis, Dante, V, 320

Cervantes, Don Quixote, IV, 344

Chapman, George, Homer's Iliad, III, 96; IV, 166; Odyssey, V,

82
Charron, Pierre, De la Sagesse, IV, 49
Clare, John, Cowper Hill; Recollections after a Ramble ; Solitude,

IV, 184

318

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, II, 20-27, 3Z> 38, 76-81, 87-89, 94-
98, 100-ioz, 112, 113, 118

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, II, 167, 296, 297

Monody on the Death of Chatterton, II, 23, 24, 33, 98

Ode on the Departing Year ("second strophe" etc.), II,
100, 101

Fancy in Nubibus ("sonnet"), IV, 134

Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni, III, 85 (88)

Epitaph on an Infant, II, 25, 76

Joan of Archil, 14, 16-18, 32, 104, 119-123

Kubla Khan, IV, 71

Lewti, II, 246

Lines on a Friend who died of a frenzy fever, etc. (" Ed-
mund"), II, 25

The " Man of Ross," Lines to, III, 125

Once a Jacobin always a Jacobin, HI, 94

My Pensive Sara,2 II, 14

The Raven, II, 1 1 4,3 247

Religious Musings, II, 4, II, 1 3- 15, 21, 30, 46, 79, 81,
104, 113, 119 (note), 122, 123
Coleridge, Sara, The Silver Thimble ("The 5th Epistle"), II,

21.
Collier, John Payne, The Poetical Decameron, IV, 159
Cornwall, Barry, V, 283
Cottle, Joseph, Alfred, an Epic Poem, II, 261

Fall of Cambria, IV, 145

A Monody on John Henderson, II, 19, 21

The Messiah, IV, 136, 145
Cowley, Abraham, II, 9, 104
Cowper, William, II, 19, 92, 114, 119

Homer's Iliad, III, 96, 294; Odyssey, II, 35

The Task, II, 85, 86

Crazy Kate, II, 35

Daniel, Samuel, III, 287

Darley, George, IV, 313. Sylvia, or, The May Queen, V, 165
Defoe, Daniel, Colonel Jack, IV, 207, 224
Moll Flanders, IV, 207

I Coleridge contributed to Southey's Joan of Arc lines 1-450 of Book II, with
the exception of 141-143, 148-222, 266-272, and 286-291. He subsequently
took out his lines, and gave them new shape as the poem, The Destiny of Nations.

* Afterwards called Tie Molian Harp.

8 The " Dream " is The Raven.

3*9

Account of the Plague, IV, 205-207

Robinson Crusoe, IV, 206, 224

Roxana, IV, 207, 223, 224
Dibdin, Charles, The Tbessiad, IV, 306
Dryden, John, See CEdipus (under Nathaniel Lee), III, 21
Dyer, George, Poems, II, 174, 249, 306-307

Fairfax, Edward, Tasso, I, 114; V, 320

Field, Barron, Kangaroo, IV, 148

Fitzgerald, Edward,1 The Meadows in Spring (" A poem I envy "),

V, 267
Fletcher, John, V, 3 1

The Faithful Shepherdess, II, 131

The Spanish Curate ; Chief, or, Little Nightwalker ; Wit
without Money; Lover's Pilgrimage, V, 30
Fletcher, Phineas, Purple Island, III, 14

Godwin, William, Antonio, II, 279, 280, 285, 286, 307

Faulkener ("your story"), III, 29, 36-38
Goethe, Faust, IV, 265

Gray, Thomas, Elegy in a Country Churchyard ,• On a Distant
Prospect of Eton College, V, 22

Hazlitt, William, Spirit of the Age, IV, 31 1
Hesiod, Works and Days, IV, 165
Homer, III, 289-291, 294, 307, 308

Landor, Walter Savage, Count Julian, IV, 42
Gebir, II, 195
Rose Aylmer, V, 281
Lee, Nathaniel, Alexander the Great ; (Edipus (with John Dryden) ;
Massacre of Paris ; Theodosius ; or, The Force of Love ("All
for Love"), III, 21
Lloyd, Jun., Charles, II, 193. Sonnets ; The Melancholy Man, II,

87
Lloyd, Sen., Charles, Certain Epistles (of Horace), III, 324-327 ;

Homer's Iliad, III, 289-295 ; Odyssey, III, 297 (note) ;

Poems, IV, 255
Locke, John, Essay on the Human Understanding, IV, 72

Marlowe, Christopher, Edward II, II, 164
The Jew of Malta, II, 162

1 From Hone's Year Book (April 30, 1831).
320

Massinger, Philip, II, 35, 39. A Very Woman, II, 34
Milton, John, II, 104; III, 294

Com us, II, 131 ; III, 285

Paradise Lost, II, 113; IV, 1 66

Samson Agonist es, III, 285
Montgomery, James,1 The Common Lot, V, 267
More, Hannah, Coelebs in Search of a Wife, III, 288
Moxon, Edward, Christmas, V, 166

Sonnets, V, 324-326

Oilier, Charles, Inesilla, or, The Tempter, IV, 273
Otway, Thomas, The Orphan, Monimia in, III, 21
Pierre and Jaffier in Venice Preserved, III, 2 1

Patrick, Bishop, Parable of the Pilgrim, IV, 49
Penn, William, No Cross, No Crown, II, 1 24
Percy, Thomas, Edward, Edward, II, 217
Pope, Alexander, Homer, IV, 166

Song by Person of Quality ("Mild Arcadians," etc.), IV,

7i
Priestley, Joseph, II, 15, 25, 100, 105, 107

Quarles, Francis, II, 160, 164, 167, 188; IV, 164; V, 18

Reynolds, John Hamilton, Peter Bell, IV, no, 120
Rogers, Samuel, Italy, V, 243

Pleasures of Hope, IV, 73
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, Confessions, II, 70
Russell, J. Fuller, V, 343-345

Sandys, George, Ovid's Metamorphoses, V, 320
Shakespeare, William, II, 181 ; III, 38, 201

Much Ado about Nothing, IV, 146

Richard the Third, III, 21, 22
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, Lines to a Reviewer ("Sonnet"), IV, 290

(note 291)
Shenstone, William, The Schoolmistress, IV, 185
Southey, Robert, II, 19, 35, 108, 112, 114

The Alderman's Funeral, II, 185

Bishop Bruno, II, 174

1 This is the poem Lamb meant by "The Last Man," according to E. V.
Lucas and Canon Ainger.

321

The Battle of Blenheim, II, 247

Book of the Church, IV, 341, 34Z

Life of Bunyan, V, 230

Cousin Margaret, II, 186

"Dialogues" i. e. (Sir Thomas More ; or, Colloquies on the

Progress and Prospects of Society'), V, 175
Hymn to the Penates, II, 185
Jaspar, II, 1 86
Joan if Arc,1 II, 16, 17 ("page 98, etc."), 19, 31, 32,

in, 112, 154
The Curse of Kehama, IV, 40, 41
The Last of the Family, II, 1 85
On my own Miniature Picture, II, 114
The Old Mansion House, II, 185 ("first eclogue")
The Old Woman of Berkeley, II, 174 ("witch ballad"),

185

Roderick, the Last of the Goths, IV, 40-42
The Rose, II, 1 86

The Ruined Cottage, II, 161 ("eclogue"), 185
Sailor's Mother, II, 185
To a Spider, II, 1 87
At Gualierto, II, 247
The Surgeon's Warning, II, 1 86
The Victory, II, 187
The Wedding, II, 164 ("eclogue")
Spenser, Edmund, II, 104 Gabriel Harvey, Sonnet to, III, 205

Tayler, Charles Benjamin, IV, 271

Taylor, Jeremy, III, 57

Life of Christ, III, 17, 18

Measures and Offices of Friendship, III, 1 8

Holy Living and Dying, III, 15-18

Voltaire, Candide, IV, 14

Walton, Izaak, Compleat Angler, II, 30, 67, 164, 300, 30 1 ; IV,

71 ; V, 335, 336
Warner, William, Syrinx; or, A Sevenfold History, IV, 265
Watts, Alaric, Souvenir, IV, 306
Wilson, Walter, Memoirs on the Life and Times of Daniel Defoe, V,

185

1 See Coleridge's "Joan of Arc (note).
322

Wither, George, II, 38, 167

Emblems, II, 159, 160; Supersedeas, II, 160
Wordsworth, Dorothy, Address to a Child, during a boisterous
winter evening ("What way does the wind come from?"),
IV, 32
Wordsworth, William, IV, 284

Artegal and Elidure, IV, 1 44

The Brothers, II, 295

Dion, IV, 144

Essay on Epitaphs, III, 3 1 4

The Excursion, III, 328, 329; IV, 15 ; V, 222

Hart-leap Well, IV, 120

Her eyes are wild ("The Mad Mother "), II, 297, 303

To Joanna, II, 295

The Pass of Kirkstone, IV, 1 44

Laodamia, IV, 31

The Longest Day, IV, 144

Lucy Gray ,• or Solitude, II, 294

Lyrical Ballads, II, 294 ("second volume "), 303; IV,
29 ("book presents")

The Affliction of Margaret, III, 3 29

Power of Music, IV, 3 1

A Night-piece, IV, 34

The Old Cumberland Beggar, II, 295

Peter Bell, IV, 37, 120

Poet's Epitaph, II, 295

The Reverie of Poor Susan, IV, 35

The Force of Prayer ("Young Romilly "), IV, 36

Rural Architecture ("Boy-builders"), IV, 30, 36

To a Sexton, II, 295

"She dwelt among the untrodden ways," II, 305

"Tales of the Churchyard among the Mountains" (from
The Excursion), III, 329

Farmer of Tilsbury Vale, IV, 3 5

Lines at Tin tern Abbey, II, 297, 303

The Two Thieves ; or, The Last Stage of Avarice, IV, 3 5

The Waggoner ("Benjamin"), IV, 126

The White Doe of Ry Is ton, IV, 37

Yarrow Revisited, IV, 34

Tew Trees, IV, 31

323

Quotations

Barton, Bernard, " Bloomfield, the Suffolk poet, Verses to the

memory of" (in Poetic Vigils), IV, 252, 253
Beaumont, Francis and Fletcher, John

Bonduca, II, 34

The Maid's Tragedy, II, 144

Two Noble Kinsmen (" Palamon and Arcite "), II, 35

Wife for a Month, II, 33
Blake, William, The Tiger, IV, 282
Bourne, Vincent, Milestones, V, 1 3 1
Bowles, William Lisle, The Grave of Howard, and Account of

Lazarettos, from, II, 73
Bunyan, John, Lines on Pilgrim's Progress, V, 132
Burns, Robert, The Whistle, II, 37

To W. Simpson Ochiltree, II, 276

Chapman, George, Homer's Iliad, III, 96, 97
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

Rime of the Ancient Mariner, II, 168

Lines on Observing a Blossom on the First of February, II,
12

Monody on the Death of Chatterton, II, 24 ( 2d half of 1 st
quot.), and (2d quot.)

Christabel, II, 223 ; IV, 108

The Destiny of Nations, II, 1 7

Sonnet to a Friend (Charles Lloyd), II, 72

Friendship's Offering for 1834, Lines misquoted from, V,

33°

The Raven ("Dream"), II, 114

Religious Musings, II, 1 4, 22, 1 1 3
Collier, John Payne, The Poetical Decameron (In Third Conversa-
tion), IV, 159
Collins, William, Ode on the Poetical Character, II, 91 (middle)
Cottle, Joseph, On going up Malvern Hills, III, 101

The Messiah, IV, 136, 137

The Monody on Henderson, II, 22 (top)
Cotton Charles, "On the Inconveniences of Old Age," III, 112

"Retirement" (in Compleat Angler), V, 91

Winter (stanzas 21-49), III, 108— III
Cowley, Abraham, Elegy on Harvey, II, 10

324

Cowper, William, To the Rev. Dr. Newton : an Invitation into the
Country ("And if a sigh," etc.) II, 32
On the Loss of the Royal George, III, 113
The Task, from " Winter Walk at Noon," II, 87

Donne, John, Metempsychosis (illustration from), IV, 276
Dryden, John, Mac-Flecknoe, IV, 345

Hamilton of Bangour, "Happiness," in Epistle to the Countess of
Eglinton, II, 9

Landor, Walter Savage, Gebir (altered), IV, 288
Lloyd, Sen., Charles, Homer's Iliad, III, 290, 293

Horace's Epistles, III, 324-326
Logan, John, from Ode on the Death of a Young Lady, II, 36,

116
Lovelace, Richard, To Althea from Prison, IV, 320

Man, Henry, Epigram, IV, 309

Marlowe, Christopher, Faustus (misquotation from), IV, 266

The Rich Jew of Malta, II, 162
Marvell, Andrew, Upon Appleton House, II, 286
Massinger, Philip, A Very Woman, II, 34, 74

Sir Giles Overreach in A New Way to Pay Old Debts, III,
21; To the Ocean, V. 325
Milton, John, from Sonnet to Cyriack Skinner, II, 244 (1st quot.)

Defensio, III, 98, 99

Sonnet to Dr. Lawrence, II, 244 (zd quot.) ; IV, 59
Moxon, Edward, To Emma Moxon, V, 3 26

Parnell, Thomas, Hymn to Contentment, II, 9
Petrarch, II, 71

Pope, Alexander, The Dunciad, IV, 274
Priestley, Joseph, II, 105

Quarles, Francis, An Elegie (misquoted from), III, 305

Raleigh, Sir Walter, Nymph's Reply to the Passionate Shepherd,* II,

144
Rogers, Samuel, Pleasures of Memory, II, 91 (2d quot.)
Russell, J. Fuller, Emily de Wilton, V, 344, 345, 346 (note)

* First line in second quotation.
325

Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich, II, 217
Shakespeare, William,

Henry the Fourth, II, 181

Love's Labour's Lost, II, 144

Macbeth, III, 31

Midsummer Night's Dream, II, 183 ; III, 17

Much Ado about Nothing, IV, 146

The Tempest, III, 284; V, 225, (350)

Twelfth Night, IV, 59
Shenstone, William, Absence, V, 71
Southey, Robert, Joan of Arc, II, III, 112

The Last of the Family, II, 166 (two quots.)

On my own Miniature Picture, II, 114

Roderick, the Last of the Goths, IV, 42

Rosamund to Henry, II, I 84

The Surgeon's Warning, II, 1 86

The Victory, from, II, 187

The Wedding (from "You have taught," etc.), II, 16$
Spenser, Edmund, from Epitaph on Sir Philip Sidney,1 IV, 1 60

Webster, John, from The Duchess of Malfy, IV, 278

From The White Devil, III, 196
Wordsworth, William, The Brothers, II, 295, 304 (2d quot.)

The Excursion, IV, 33

Hart-leap Well, III, 331

Michael, II, 304 (1st quot.)

The Force of Prayer (" Young Romilly "), IV, 37

To the Small Celandine, IV, 34

Excursions

1797 Nether Stowey, II, 136, 139 (note)

1800 Oxford, II, 235, 237

1 80 1 Margate, III, 32

1802 Keswick, Grasmere, Ambleside, Ulswater, III, 82

1803 Isle of Wight, III, 133

1805 Egham, near Harrow, III, 185

1809 Wilton, Salisbury, Stonehenge, III, 298

1 810 Winterslow, near Sarum, III, 309
1815 Cambridge, IV, 50, 53

1 Printed in Spenser's Poems, but author is unknown.
326

1816 Calne (Wiltshire), Bath, Bristol (IV, 135), Marlbro,
Chippenham, Dalston, IV, 74

1820 Cambridge, IV, 147

1 82 1 Margate, IV, 161

1822 Paris, IV, 184, 185, 190, 194

1823 Tunbridge Wells, IV, 241

1823 Hastings, IV, 243

1824 Ware, Watford, IV, 298

1825 Enfield, IV, 339, 345, 346
1827 Enfield, V, 64, 67, 72, 78, etc.
1827 Waltham Cross, V, 106
1833-4 Edmonton, V, 308, etc.

Miscellaneous

Benevolence and Self-interest, II, 66

Church at Hollingdon, The tiny, rural, IV, 244, 287 ; V, 29, 30

" Elia," Dibdin's discovery of personality of, IV, 235 ; First letter

thus signed, CCCVI, to S. T. Coleridge, May 1, 1821, IV,

157; Origin of name, IV, 164
Forest life, Delights of, II, 183
Friendships, II, 36, 93, 105, 127, 128, 157, 159
Hope, and her younger sister, Fear, II, 39
London, Dispraise of, V, 179 ; Longings for, V, 197, 198, 206 ;

Praise of, II, 30, 277, 298, 301, 302 ; III, 12, 72, 83 ; V,

310, 340, 342
Miss Fanny M. Kelly, Proposal of marriage to, IV, 1 3 1
Mountains, How impressed by, III, 77, 81, 82
Mrs. Lamb, Death of, II, 49-52
Paris, IV, 184, 185, 191
Pigs, Praise of, III, 169, 170, 320 ; IV, 174-176, 201, 213, 214,

257, 294; V, 99-101
Quaker worship, II, 26

327

CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX

VOLUME II

Letter

Page

No.

Coleridge

1.4

100

108

119

126

128

132

134

136

137

XBMtrfW 3°

140

141

€t

144

May 27,1796

June 1, 1796

June 10, 1796

June 13, 1796

July 1, 1796

July 5, 1796

July 6, 1796

Sept. 27, 1796

Oct. 3, 1796

Oct. 17, 1796

Oct. 24, 1796

Oct. 28, 1796

Nov. 8, 1796

Nov. 14, 1796

Dec. 2, 1796

Dec. 5, 1796

Dec. 10, 1796

Jan. 2, 1797

Jan. 10, 1797

Jan. 18, 1797

Feb. 5, 1797

Feb. 13, 1797

April 7, 1797

April 15, 1797

June 13, 1797

June 24, 1797

June, 1797

July 26, 1797

August 24, 1797 ^--" tL,#MA4<i

September, 1797

Jan. 28, 1798

329

Letter

Page

No.

148

Coleridge

'53

Robert Lloyd

'54

Robert Southey

•57

Robert Lloyd

'59

Robert Southey

161

164

€«

167

.69

Robert Lloyd

170

171

Robert Southey

"73

"77

179

*€

181

€€

184

187

5°

192

Robert Lloyd

'94

Robert Southey

'95

Manning

'97

Robert Lloyd

'99

Manning

202

Coleridge

203

Manning

205

*«

210

212

€€

114

lIS

219

Coleridge

224

Robert Lloyd

227

Coleridge

228

t€

Manning

229

230

231

John Mathew Gutch,

233

Coleridge

*34

(«

Robert Lloyd

236

Coleridge

238

242

Manning

No date, 1798
July, 1798
July 28, 1798
August, 1798
Oct. 18, 1798
Oct. 29, 1798
Nov. 3, 1798
Nov. 8, 1798
Nov. 13, 1798
Nov. 20, 1798
November, 1798
Nov. 28, 1798
Dec. 27, 1798
Jan. zi, 1799
January, 1799
March 1 5, 1 799
March 20, 1799
October, 1799
Oct. 31, 1799
December, 1799
Dec. 17, 1799
Dec. 28, 1799
Jan. 2, 1800
Feb. 13, 1800
February, 1800
March 1, 1800
March 17, 1800
April 5, 1800
April, 1800
April 16, 1800
April 23, 1800
May 12, 1800
May 17, 1800
May 20, 1 800
May 25, 1800
No date, 1 800
June 22, 1800
July 22, 1 800
August, 1800
Aug. 6, 1 800
Aug. 9, 1 800

33°

Letter

Page

No.

244 To Manning

Aug. n, 1800

245 «

Coleridge

Aug. 14, 1800

250 '

Manning

Aug. 23, 1800

253 '

1 tt

Aug. 24, 1800

77a

256 '

' Mrs. May

No date

257 <

1 Coleridge

Aug. 26, 1800

262 "

Manning

Sept. 22, 1800

264 '

' Coleridge

Oct. 9, 1800

267 «

1 William Wordsworth

Oct. 13, 1800

269 '

' Manning

Oct. 16, 1800

272 «

1 tt

Nov. 3, 1800

276 '

Nov. 28, 1800

278 '

' Godwin

Dec. 4, 1 800

281 '

t tt

Dec. 10, 1800

282 '

' Manning

Dec. 13, 1800

285 '

1 Godwin

Dec. 14, 1800

287 «

Manning

Dec. 16, 1800

290 *

t tt

Dec. 27, 1800

293 «

t tt

December, 1800

294 '

William Wordsworth

Jan. 30, 1 80 1

300 «

Robert Lloyd

Feb. 7, 1 801

303 <

' Manning

Volume III

Feb. 15, 1 80 1

To Manning

February, 1801

tt tt

April, 1801

" Robert Lloyd

April 16, 1 80 1

« Manning

April, 1 801

" Robert Lloyd

June 26, 1 80 1

100

" Godwin

June 29, 1 801

101

" Walter Wilson

Aug. 14, 1 801

102

" Manning

August, 1 80 1

103

tt tt

Aug. 31, 1801

104

" Godwin

Sept. 9, 1 801

105

" John Rickman

Sept. 16, 1 80 1

106

" Godwin

Sept. 17, 1 80 1

107

" John Rickman

Oct. 9, 1 80 1

108

tt tt

Nov. 24, 1 80 1

109

tt tt

November, 1801

5°

tt tt

1801

331

Letter

Page

No.

I 1 1

John Rickman

1801

112

Robert Lloyd

1801

John Rickman

Jan. 9, 1802

114

€t

Jan. 14, 1802

'»S

Jan. 18, 1802

116

Feb. 1, 1802

117

Feb. 4, 1802

118

Feb. 14, 1802

119

Manning

Feb. 15, 1802

120

John Rickman

April 10, 1802

121

Coleridge

Sept. 8, 1802

122

Mrs. Godwin

1802

123

Manning

Sept. 24, 1802

I24

Coleridge

Oct. 9, 1802

125

Oct. 1 1, 1802

126

Oct. 23, 1802

127

Nov. 4, 1 802

128

100

Manning

November, 1 802

129

Feb. 19, 1803

I30

106

March, 1803

131

William Wordsworth

March 5, 1803

132

'IS

Coleridge

March 20, 1 803

'33

April 13, 1803

'34

[20

Manning

May 1, 1803

>35

124

Coleridge

May 27, 1803

136

Mary Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth

, July 9, 1 803

•37

John Rickman

'July 16, 1803

138

July 27, 1803

•39

Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart,

Sept, 21, 1803

140

Godwin

Nov. 8, 1803

141

Nov. 10, 1803

142

Thomas Poole

Feb. 1 4, 1 804

«43

Coleridge

March, 10, 1804

144

Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart,

March, 1804

■45

Robert Lloyd

March 13, 1804

.46

Coleridge

April 4, 1804

«47

Thomas Poole

May 4, 1 804

148

May 5, 1804

149

Dorothy Wordsworth

June 2, 1 804

150

Mary

' Lamb to Sarah Stoddart,

July, 1804

'5'

Robert Lloyd

332

Sept. 13, 1804

Letter Page

No.

152 161

Mary Lamb to Mrs. Coleridge

Oct. 13, 1804

153 I(53

Robert Southey

Nov. 7, 1804

154 ^4

William Wordsworth

Feb. 18, 1805

155 167

Feb. 19, 1805

156 169

Manning

Feb. 23, 1805

157 172

William Wordsworth

March 5, 1805

158 176

March 21, 1805

159 177

April s, 1805

160 i 80

Dorothy Wordsworth

June 14, 1805

161 183

Manning

July 27, 1805

162 184

Wm and Dorothy Wordsworth

, Sept. 28, 1805

163 192

William Hazlitt

Nov. 10, 1805

164 197

Manning

Nov. 15, 1805

165 197

William Hazlitt

Jan. 15, 1806

166 200

John Rickman

Jan. 25, 1806

167 20 1

William Wordsworth

Feb. 1, 1806

168 206

William Hazlitt

Feb. 19, 1 806

169 208

February, 1806

170 209

Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart

, March, 1806

171 214

John Rickman

March, 1806

172 216

William Hazlitt

March 15, 1806

173 218

Manning

May 10, 1806

174 222

Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart,

June 2, 1806

175 227

William Wordsworth

June 26, 1806

176 231

Mary Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth, Aug. 29, 1806

177 23S

" " Coleridge

No date

178 237

Manning

Dec. 5, 1806

179 244

William Wordsworth

Dec. 11, 1806

180 245

Sarah Stoddart

Dec. 1 1, 1806

181 246

Mary Lamb to Mrs. Clarkson

Dec. 23, 1806

182 249

Godwin

1806

183 250

William Wordsworth

Jan. 29, 1807

184 252

Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson

June, 1807

185 254

Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart

October, 1807

186 257

Joseph Hume

Dec. 29, 1807

187 258

tt tt ,

Jan. 12, 1808

188 262

The Rev. W. Hazlitt

Feb. 18, 1808

189 263

Manning

Feb. 26, 1808

190 270

Godwin

March 11, 1808

191 271

Henry Crabb Robinson

March 12, 1808

192 272

George Dyer

333

Dec. 5, 1808

Letter Page

No.

193 273 To Mrs. Hazlitt

Dec. 10, 1808

194 274 Mary and Charles Lamb to

Mrs. Clarkson

Dec. 10, 1808

195 277 To Robert Lloyd

Feb. 25, 1809

196 278 '

* Manning

March 28, 1809

197 284 «

' Henry Crabb Robinson

May, 1809

198 284 '

* Coleridge

June 7, 1809

199 289 '

■ Charles Lloyd, Sr.

June 13, 1809

200 292 "

€ l€

June 19, 1809

201 293 '

t ts

July 31, 1809

202 296 ■

' Robert Lloyd

1809

203 296 ■

• Charles Lloyd, Sr.

1809

204 298 '

' Coleridge

Oct. 30, 1809

205 299 '

' Robert Lloyd

Jan. 1, 1810

206 301 «

' Manning

Jan. 2, 1 8 10

207 306 '

1 Henry Crabb Robinson

Feb. 7, 1 810

208 307 '

' Charles Lloyd, Sr.

March 10, 1 810

209 308 •

' John Mathew Gutch

April 9, 1 8 1 0

210 309 •

■ Basil Montagu

July 12, 1 810

21 1 31 1 '

' William Hazlitt

Aug. 9, 1 810

212 312 <

' Mrs. Clarkson

Sept. 18, 1 8 10

213 313 «

• William Wordsworth

Oct. 19, 1 8 10

214 315 «

' Miss Wordsworth

Nov. 13, 1 8 10

21$ 3>7 '

c t<

Nov. 23, 1 810

216 318 «

' William Hazlitt

Nov. 28, 1 810

217 320 «

' Godwin

No date, 1 8 1 0

218 322 •

• John Morgan

March 8, 1811

219 322 ■

« William Hazlitt

Oct. 2, 1 81 1

220 323 »

■ Charles Lloyd, Sr.

Sept. 8, 1 81 2

221 327 «

' John Dyer Collier

181 2 or 181 3

222 328 '

' John Scott

February, 1814

223 328 '

' William Wordsworth

Aug. 9, 1814

224 333 '

• Coleridge

Volume IV

Aug. 13, 1814

225 9 1

'0 Coleridge

Aug. 26, 1814

226 12 '

' William Wordsworth

Sept. 19, 1 814

227 15 '

• Robert Southey

Oct. 20, 1 814

228 16 N

lary Lamb to Barbara Betham

Nov. 2, 1814

229 21 1

"o John Scott

334

Dec. 12, 1814

Letter

Page

—

No.

230

To William Wordsworth

Dec. 28, 1 814

231

cc tt tt

January, 1 8 1 5

232

" Mr. Sargus

Feb. 23, 181 5

233

" Joseph Hume

No date

234

" William Wordsworth

April 7, 1 8 1 5

235

tt tt tt

April 28, 181 5

236

" Miss Matilda Betham

No date

237

" Robert Southey

May 6, 1 8 1 5

238

tt tt tt

Aug. 9, 1 81 5

239

" William Wordsworth

Aug. 9, 1815

240

Mary and Charles Lamb to Sarah

Hutchinson

Aug. 20, 1 81 5

241

Mary Lamb to Matilda Betham

1815

242

To Matilda Betham

Sept. 30, 181 5

243

tt tt tt

No date

244

" William Ayrton

Oct. 4, 1 81 5

245

tt tt tt

Oct. 14, 181 5

246

" Sarah Hutchinson

Oct. 19, 1 8 1 5

247

" Manning

Dec. 25, 1 815

248

tt tt

Dec. 26, 1 81 5

249

" William Wordsworth

April 9, 1 8 16

250

tt tt tt

April 26, 1 816

251

" Leigh Hunt

May 13, 1 816

252

" Matilda Betham

June 1, 1 816

2S3

" H. Bodwell

July, 1 816

254

" William Wordsworth

Sept. 23, 1 816

2SS

Mary Lamb to Sarah Hutchinson

November, 1 8 1 6

256

To Miss Betham

No date

257

Mary Lamb to Sarah Hutchinson

1816

258

To John Rickman

Dec. 30, 1 816

259

" William Ayrton

April 18, 1 81 7

260

tt tt tt

May 12, 1817

261

To Barron Field

Aug. 31, 1817

262

" James and Louisa Kenney

October, 1 81 7

263

Mary Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth Nov. 21, 181 7

264

102

To William Ayrton

Nov. 25, 1817

265

103

" John Payne Collier

Dec. 10, 18 1 7

266

104

" Benjamin Robert Hayden

Dec. 26, 1 817

267

104

" Mrs. William Wordsworth

Feb. 18, 1818

268

" Charles and James Oilier

May 28, 181 8

269

tt tt tt tt tt

June 18, 1818

335

Letter 1

'age

No.

270

Robert Southey

Oct. 26, 1818

271

Coleridge

Dec. 24, 1818

272

John Chambers

1818

273

W. Wordsworth

April 26, 1 819

274

John Rickman

May 21, 1 8 19

275

Manning

May 28, 1 8 19

276

W. Wordsworth

June 7, 1 819

277 1

Fanny Kelly

July 20, 18 19

278

tt tt

July 20, 1 8 19

279 1

Samuel James Arnold

No date, 1 8 1 9

280

Coleridge

1819

281 1

Thomas Holcroft, Jr.

Autumn, 1 8 1 9

282 1

Joseph Cotde

Nov. 5, 18 19

283

tt tt

1819

284

Dorothy Wordsworth

Nov. 25, 1819

285

Coleridge

Jan. 10, 1 820

286

Allsop

Jan. 10, 1820

287 1

Feb. 15, 1820

288

Dorothy Wordsworth

May 25, 1820

289 1

Allsop

No date

290

Joseph Cottle

May 26, 1820

291 1

Allsop

June, 1820

292

July 13 ,1820

293

Barron Field

Aug. 16, 1820

294

John Scott

Aug. 24, 1820

295

Coleridge

Autumn, 1820

296

Allsop

1820

297

S»

No date

298

Dorothy Wordsworth

Jan. 8, 1 82 1

299 1

Allsop

1821

300

1821

30I

Mrs. William Ayrton

Jan. 23, 1 821

302

Miss Humphreys

Jan. 27, 1 821

303 1

.56

Mrs. William Ayrton

March 15, 1 82 1

304

Allsop

March 30, 1821

3°5

Leigh Hunt

April 18, 1 82 1

306

Coleridge

May 1, 1 82 1

307

.58

James Gillman

May 2, 1 821

308

159

John Payne Collier

May 16, 1821

309

[60

B. W. Procter

Summer, 182 1

310

161

John Taylor

336

June I, 1821

Letter

Page

No.

311 1

William Ayrton

July 17, 1821

312 1

John Taylor

July zi, 1821

313 1

et te

July 30, 1821

3H 1

C. A. Elton

Aug. 12, 1 82 1

3«5 1

Charles C. Clarke

Summer, 1821

316 i

Allen Cunningham

1821

3i7 1

William Ayrton

Aug. 14, 1 821

318

t€

Allsop

Oct. 19, i8zi

3'9 1

t€

Mr. Hessey or Mr. Taylor

Oct. 26, 1 82 1

320 i

William Ayrton

Oct. 27, 1821

321

tt tt

Oct. 30, 1821

322

William Hone

Nov. 9, 1821

323

John Rickman

Nov. 20, 1 82 1

3H-:

[28

172-

•174 Undated notes to Allsop

1821

329

Coleridge

March 9, 1 822

33°

W. Wordsworth

March 20, l8z2

33i

Mrs. Norris

March 26, 1822

332

Godwin

April 13, 1822

333

W. H. Ains worth

May 7, 1822

33+

Godwin

May 16, 1822

335

Mrs. John Lamb

May 22, 1822

336

Mary Lamb

August, 1822

337

John Clare

Aug. 31, 1822

338

186

William Ayrton

Sept. 5, 1822

339

Mrs. Kenney

Sept. 11, 1822

340

Barton

Sept. 1 1, 1822

341

190

Barron Field

Sept. 22, 1822

342

(94

John Howard Payne

Autumn, 1822

343

'95

Barton

Oct. 9, 1822

344

B. R. Haydon

Oct. 9, 1822

345

(97

John Howard Payne

No date

346

198

tt tt tt

Oct. 12, 1822

347

JOO

B. R. Haydon

Oct. 29, 1822

348

ZOO

Sir Walter Scott

Oct. 29, 1822

349

ZOI

Thomas Robinson

Nov. 1 1, 1822

35o

202

John Howard Payne

Nov. 13, 1822

351

204

John Taylor

Dec. 7, 1822

352

so 5

Walter Wilson

Dec. 16, 1822

353

208

Barton

Dec. 23, 1822

354

2IO

John Howard Payne

January, 1823

3SS

212

William Wordsworth

January, 1823

337

Letter Page

No.

356 213

Mr. and Mrs. J. D. Collier

357 2«S

Barton

358 217

John Howard Payne

359 218

William Ayrton

360 219

John Howard Payne

361 220

Barton

362 223

Walter Wilson

363 225

Barton

364 227

William Ayrton

365 227

Barton

366 230

B. W. Procter

367 232

Sarah Hutchinson

368 234

Miss Hutchinson

369 234

Dibdin

37o 237

Barton

37" 239

Dibdin

372 240

William Hone

373 24'

Mary Lamb to Mrs. Randal Norris

374 243

Barton

375 246

376 249

Allsop

377 249

378 250

379 250

380 251

381 251

382 252

* t

383 252

384 252

Barton

385 255

Charles Lloyd

386 256

Allsop

387 256

Rev. H. F. Cary

388 256

Allsop

389 257

Dibdin

390 258

Allsop

391 258

Sarah Hazlitt

392 260

Mrs. Percy Bysshe Shelley

393 261

Robert Southey

394 263

Barton

395 265

W. H. Ainsworth

396 267

338

12th Day, 1823
Jan. 9, 1823
Jan. 23, 1823
Feb. 2, 1823
Feb. 9, 1823
Feb. 17, 1823
Feb. 24, 1823
March 1 1, 1823
No date
April 5, 1823
April 13, 1823
April 25, 1823
No date
1823

May 3, 1823
May 6, 1823
May 19, 1823
June 18, 1823
July 10, 1823
Sept. 2, 1823
Sept. 6, 1823
Sept. 9, 1823
Sept. 10, 1823
Sept. 16, 1823
September, 1823
No date
No date
No date
Sept. 17, 1823
Autumn, 1823
Oct. 4, 1823
Oct. 14, 1823
October, 1823
Oct. 28, 1823
Nov. 7, 1823
November, 1 823
Nov. 12, 1823
Nov. 21, 1823
Nov. 22, 1823
Dec. 9, 1823
Dec. 29, 1823

Letter Page

No.

397 268

William Hone

December, 1823

398 268

Barton

Jan. 9, 1824

399 270

Jan. 23, 1824

400 273

t€

Charles Oilier

Jan. 27, 1824

401 274

Barton

Feb. 25, 1824

402 276

March 24, 1824

403 277

Spring, 1824

404 279

Mrs. T. Allsop

April 13, 1824

405 280

William Hone

April, 1824

406 281

Thomas Hardy

April 24, 1824

407 281

Barton

May 15, 1824

408 284

July 7, 1824

409 285

W. Matter

July 19, 1824

410 286

Dibdin

July 28, 1824

411 287

Thomas Hood

Aug. 10, 1824

412 289

Barton

Aug. 17, 1824

413 291

The Rev. H. F. Carjr

Aug. 19, 1824

414 292

Barton

Sept. 30, 1824

415 294

Mrs. John D. Collier

Nov. 2, 1824

416 295

B. W. Procter

Nov. 1 1, 1824

417 297

H. C. Robinson

Nov. 20, 1824

418 297

Sarah Hutchinson

Nov. 25, 1824

419 299

Leigh Hunt

November, 1 824

420 302

Barton

Dec. 1, 1824

421 306

Alaric A. Watts

Dec. 28, 1824

422 306

Dibdin

Jan. 11, 1825

423 3°7

Allsop

Jan. 17, 1825

424 308

Sarah Hutchinson

Jan. 20, 1825

425 310

Vincent Novello

Jan. 25, 1825

426 310

Dibdin

January, 1825

4Z7 3"

Feb. 8, 1825

428 311

Barton

Feb. 10, 1825

429 313

Manning

February, 1825

43° 3'4

Sarah Hutchinson

March 1, 1825

431 3>4

B. W. Procter

No date

43z 3>S

Barton

March 23, 1825

433 3l6

H. C. Robinson

March 29, 1825

434 3l6

W. Wordsworth

April 6, 1825

435 32o

Barton

April 6, 1825

436 321

Miss Hutchinson

April 18, 1825

437 323

William Hone

May 2, 1825

339

Letter

Page

No.

438

323

W. Wordsworth

439

325

Miss Norris

44°

326

All sop

441

327

t€

Charles Chambers

442

330

Coleridge

443

33'

ffl

Henry Colburn

444

332

Coleridge

445

334

Barton

446

336

John Aitken

447

336

Allsop

449

337

448

337

William Hone

450

338

Allsop

4S«

339

Barton

45*

34'

Robert Southey

453

345

William Hone

454

346

C. C. Clarke

455

346

William Hone

456

347

a tt

457

347

Allsop

458

348

459

348

460

349

Volume V

461

William Hone

462

William Ayrton

463

Allsop

464

1 1

William Hone

465

1 1

tt tt

466

1 1

tt tt

467

Allsop

468

1 2

Manning

469

Charles Oilier

470

tt tt

47i

tt tt

472

tt tt

473

Mr. Hudson

474

Charles Oilier

475 "6

May, 1825
1825

May 29, 1825
May, 1825
June, 1825
June 14, 1825
July 2, 1825
July 2, 1825
July 5, 1825
July, 1825
July 20, 1825
July 25, 1825
August, 1825
Aug. 10, 1 825
Aug. 10, 1825
Aug. 10, 1825
No date
Aug. 12, 1825
August, 1825
No date
Sept. 9, 1825
Sept. 24, 1825
No date

Sept. 30, 1825
October, 1825
Oct. 5, 1825
Oct. 18, 1825
Oct. 24, 1825
Oct. 24, 1825
Dec. 5, 1825
Dec. 10, 1825
December, 1825
Early 1826
January, 1826
Jan. 25, 1826
Feb. 1, 1826
Feb. 4, 1826
1826

340

Letter

Page

No.

476

William Hazlitt

1826

477

Barton

Feb. 7, 1826

478

Charles Oilier

March 16, 1826

479

Barton

March 20, 1826

480

Coleridge

March 22, 1826

481

H. E. Cary

April 3, 1826

482

Charles Oilier

April, 1826

483

Vincent Novello

May 9, 1826

484

Barton

May 16, 1826

485

Coleridge

June I, 1826

486

Louisa Holcroft

June 17, 1826

487

Dibdin

June 30, 1826

488

July 14, 1826

489

Edward Coleridge

July 19, 1826

490

William Wordsworth

Sept. 6, 1826

49 1

Dibdin

Sept. 9, 1826

492

Barton

Sept. 26, 1826

493

No date

494

Moxon

September, 1826

49 S

Barton

No date. Soon
after preceding
letter to Barton

496

Allsop

January, 1827

497

Henry C. Robinson

Jan. 20, 1827

498

S°

tt tt tt

Jan. 20, 1827

499

Allsop

Jan. 25, 1827

500

William Hone

Jan. 27, 1827

501

Henry Crabb Robinson

Jan. 29, 1827

502

tt tt tt

January, 1827

5°3

Allsop

Feb. 2, 1827

504

Charles Cowden Clarke

Feb. 2, 1827

5°5

William Hone

Feb. 5, 1827

506

B. R. Haydon

March, 1827

507

William Hone

March 20, 1827

508

Vincent Novello

April, 1827

509

William Hone

April, 1827

5io

Thomas Hood

May, 1827

Barton

1827

512

William Hone

May, 1827

5«3

tt tt

Endof May, 1827

tt tt

June, 1827

341

Letter Page

-=*

No.

sis

Barton

June 11, 1827

516

<«

Henry Crabb Robinson

June 26, 1827

5«7

William Hone

June, 1827

518

tt tt

Early July, 1827

5i9

Moxon

July 17, 1827

520

P. G. Patmore

July 19, 1 827

5*«

Mrs. Dillon

July 21, 1827

522

Mrs. Percy B. Shelley

July 25, 1827

S23

Edward White

Aug. 1, 1827

524

Mrs. Basil Montagu

Summer, 1827

5^5

Sir John Stoddart

Aug. 9, 1827

526

William Hone

Aug. 10, 1827

5^7

Barton

Aug. 10, 1827

528

Aug. 28, 1827

S*9

William Hone

Sept. 2, 1827

53°

P. G. Patmore

September, 1827

S3»

Dibdin

Sept. 5, 1827

532

Sept. 13, 1827

533

t t

Sept. 1 8, 1827

534

Thomas Hood

Sept. 18, 1827

535

Henry Colburn

Sept. 25, 1827

536

Allsop

Sept. 25, 1827

537

Moxon

Sept. 26, 1827

538

Henry C. Robinson

Oct. 1, 1827

539

Dibdin

Oct. 2, 1827

540

Barron Field

Oct. 4, 1827

54'

H. Dodwell

Oct. 7, 1827

542

103

William Hone

October, 1827

543

103

<< <<

October, 1827

544

105

tt tt

October, 1827

545

105

Thomas Hood

1827

546

i°S

Barton

Late 1827

547

107

Dec. 4, 1827

548

108

Leigh Hunt

December, 1827

549

109

William Hone

Dec. 15, 1827

55o

1 10

Allsop

M'dle Dec. 1827

55'

1 1 1

Dec. 20, 1 827

552

Moxon

Dec. 22, 1827

553

112

Barton

End of 1827

554

>"3

Allsop

Jan. 9, 1828

55 5

114

Moxon

January, 1828

342

Letter I

'age

No.

556

Moxon

557

Charles Cowden Clarke

558

tt tt cc

559 ]

Henry Crabb Robinson

560 1

Moxon

561 1

the Rev. Edward Irving

562 i

Barton

563 >

Allsop

564

William Hone

56S

Moxon

566 i

123

t€

Walter Wilson

567

Thomas N. Talfourd

568

William Wordsworth

569

the Rev. Henry F. Cary

570

B. R. Haydon

571 1

John Rickman

572

Louisa Holcroft

573

John Rickman

574

Barton

575 '

Charles C. Clarke

576 i

Vincent Novello

577

Laman Blanchard

578 1

Thomas Hood

579 1

Moxon

580

Barton

58i

Louisa Holcroft

582

Charles C. Clarke

583

T. N. Talfourd

584

Moxon

585

William Hone

586

George Dyer

587

B. W. Procter

588

cc cc cc

589

'57

cc cc cc

590

Allsop

591

■59

B. W. Procter

592

[61

tt tt tt

593

tt tt a

594

163

Henry Crabb Robinson

595

<6S

Samuel Rogers

596

'65

Barton

Feb. 18, 1828
Feb. 25, 1828
No date
Feb. 26, 1828
March 19, 1828
April 3, 1828
April 21, 1828
May I, 1828
May z, 1828
May 3, 1828
May 17, 1828
May 20, 1828
May, 1828
June 10, 1828
August, 1828
Sept. 11, 1828
Oct. 2, 1828
Oct. 3, 1828
Oct. 11, 1828
October, 1828
Nov. 6, 1828
Nov. 9, 1828
Late autumn, '28
December, 1828
Dec. 5, 1828
Dec. 5, 1828
December, 1828
End of 1828
About 1828
No date
January, 1829
Jan. 19, 1829
Jan. 22, 1829
1829

Jan. 28, 1829
Jan. 29, 1829
Early 1829
Feb. 2, 1829
Feb. 17, '29 (?)
March 22, 1829
March 25, 1829

343

Letter

Page

No.

597

167 To Miss Sarah James

April, 1829

598

168 '

* Henry C. Robinson

April 10, 1829

599

170 '

c tt tt tt

April 17, 1829

6oo

172 '

' George Dyer

April 29, 1829

6oi

173 «

* Thomas Hood

May, 1829

602

173 «

• Moxon

No date

603

174 '

' Walter Wilson

May 28, 1829

604

174 «

' Barton

June 3, 1829

605

.76 -

' William Ayrton

June 10, 1829

606

177 ■

• Allsop

1829

607

177 '

' William Hazlitt, Jr.

June, 1829

608

178 «

' Allsop

July 2, 1829

609

.78 «

' Barton

July 25, 1829

610

182 <

• Allsop

Late July, 1829

611

182 «

' Moxon

Sept. 22, 1829

612

183 '

' James Gillman

Oct. 26, 1829

613

184 «

' Vincent Novello

Nov. 10, 1829

614

i8S «

« Walter Wilson

Nov. 15, 1829

615

188 <

' James Gillman

Nov. 29, 1829

616

188 '

t tt €€

Nov. 30, 1829

617

192 '

' Barton

Dec. 8, 1829

618

'95 *

• Basil Montague

No date

619

.96 •

' James S. Knowles

[In two parts]

No date

6zo

196 I-

— Charles Lamb to W. Wordsworth , _

— Mary Lamb to Miss Wordsworth ■*

620

203 II

621

205 r

^0 Moxon

Feb. 21, 1830

622

!05 '

' Barton

Feb. 25, 1830

623

206 '

' Mrs. Williams

Feb. 26, 1830

624

207 '

€ €€ €€

March 1, 1830

625

209 '

' Sarah Hazlitt

March 4, 1830

626

no '

' Mrs. Williams

March 5, 1830

627

21 1 '

« James Gillman

March 8, 1830

628

114 «

' William Ayrton

March 14, 1830

629

216 '

' Mrs. Williams

March 22, 1830

630

218 •

r M fd

April 2, 1830

631

221 *

« it tt

April 9, 1830

632

223 •

' James Gillman

Early spring,
1830

633

224 '

' James Vale Asbury

344

April, 1830

Letter Page

No.

*°

634 Z25

James Vale Asbury

Undated

635 228

Mrs. Williams

April 21, 1830

636 230

Basil Montague

No date

637 230

Robert Southey

May 10, 1830

638 232

Mozon

May 12, 1830

639 233

Vincent Novello

May 14, 1830

640 233

tt tt

May 20, 1830

641 234

€€

William Hone

May 21, 1830

642 234

tt tt

May 21, 1830

643 235

Sarah Hazlitt

May 24, 1830

644 238

tt tt

June 3, 1830

645 239

William Hone

June 17, 1830

646 239

Barton

June 28, 1830

647 241

William Hone

July 1, 1830

648 241

Mrs. Rickman

1830

649 242

Barton

Aug. 30, 1830

650 243

Samuel Rogers

Oct. 5, 1830

651 243

Vincent Novello

Nov. 8, 1830

652 244

Moxon

Nov. 12, 1830

653 245

December, 1830

654 246

George Dyer

Dec. 20, 1830

655 249

Moxon

Christmas, 1830

656 250

Feb. 3, 1 83 1

657 253

George Dyer

Feb. 22, 1 83 1

658 257

Henry F. Cary

April 13, 1 83 1

659 258

Barton

April 30, 1 83 1

660 261

Henry F, Cary

May 6, 1 83 1

661 263

Moxon

July 14, 1 83 1

662 265

Early August, '3 1

663 267

John Forster

Aug. 4, 1831

664 267

Moxon

1831

665 267

Aug. 5, 1831

666 268

No date

667 268

Sept. 5, 1 83 1

668 269

William Hazlitt, Jr.

Sept. 13, 1 83 1

669 270

Moxon

Oct. 24, 1 831

670 273

Dec. 15, 1 83 1

671 274

J. Hume's Daughters

1832

672 274

Charles W. Dilke

March 5, 1832

673 276

Coleridge

345

April 14, 1832

Letter Page

No.

674 277 To John Forster

675 277 ■

' Moxon [?]

676 278 '

' John Forster

677 279 «

• Moxon

678 279 '

' Walter Wilson

679 280 ■

' Henry C. Robinson

680 280 «

' Walter S. Landor

681 282 «

' Moxon

682 283 «

€ tt

683 285 ■

€ tt

684 285 *

' John Forster

685 286 '

' Louisa Badams

686 288 «

• Moxon

687 289 «

1 fi

688 289 «

* John Forster

689 290 '

t tt «t

690 290 '

' Printer of Atbtnttum

691 290 '

' Moxon

692 291 ■

C tt

693 292 «

' Louisa Badams

694 293 '

■ Moxon

695 293 '

t tt

696 294 '

' T. N. Talfourd

697 295 «

' Moxon

698 296 '

' Charles W. Dilke

699 296 '

' Moxon

700 298 ■

« B. W. Procter

701 299 '

' William Hone

702 299 '

' Moxon

703 300 '

< tt

704 301 '

€ ft

705 302 '

' John Forster

706 302 '

' Moxon

707 303 '

< tt

708 303 '

' Charles W. Dilke

709 304 '

" Mrs. William Ayrton

710 304 «

' Moxon

711 305 '

t tt

712 306 «

' Rev. James Gilman

713 307 '

' John Forster

346

Late April, 1832
June 1, 1832
No date
July 12, 1832
August, 1832
Early Oct., '32
October, 1832
Late 1832
Winter, 1832
December, 1832
Dec. 23, 1832
Dec. 31, 1832
January, 1833
Jan. 3, 1833
No date
No date
January, 1833
Jan. 24, 1833
Feb. 11, 1833
Feb. 15, 1833
February, 1833
No date
February, 1833
1833

February, 1833
Early 1833
No date
March 6, 1833
March 19, 1833
March 30, 1833
Spring, 1833
No date
No date
No date. April

10, 1833 [?]
April, 1833
April 16, 1833
April 25, 1833
April 27, 1833
May 7, 1833
May, 1833

tetter Page

No.

714 307

John Forster

May 12, 1833

715 307

Miss Rickman

May 23, 1833

716 308

William Wordsworth

End of May, ' 3 3

717 311

Sarah Hazlitt

May 31, 1833

-718 311

Matilda Betham

June, 1833

719 312

Miss Mary Betham

June 5, 1833

720 313

Mrs. Norris

July 10, 1833

721 3*3

Edward Moxon

July 14, 1833

722 314

Mrs. Norris

July 18,1833

723 3H

Thomas Allsop

July. 1833

724 3IS

Mr. Tuff

1833

725 315

Edward Moxon

July 24, 1833

726 316

Edward and Emma Moxon

July 31, 1833

727 3l8

Louisa Badams

Aug. 20,1833

-728 319

Miss M. Betham

Aug. 23, 1833

729 320

N. F. Cary

Sept. 9, 1833

730 321

Edward Moxon

Sept 26, 1833

731 322

tt tt

Oct. 17, 1833

732 324

tt tt

Nov. 29, 1833

733 327

Miss Frances Brown

November, 1833

734 327

Charles W. Dilke

Middle Decem-
ber, 1833

735 328

Samuel Rogers

Dec. 21, 1833

736 33°

Charles W. Dilke

No date

737 330

tt CC

No date

738 33i

tt tt

No date

739 33'

Thomas Wood

1834

74° 332

Mary Betham

Jan. 24, 1834

741 333

Edward Moxon

Jan. 28, 1834

742 333

William Hone

Feb. 7, 1834

743 334

Miss Fryer

Feb. 14, 1834

744 336

tt tt

No date

745 338

William Wordsworth

Feb. 22, 1834

746 339

Thomas Manning

May 10, 1834

747 342

Charles C. Clarke

No date. End
of June, 1834

748 343

John Forster

June 25, 1834

749 343

J. Fuller Russell

Summer, 1834

750 346

tt tt

Summer, 1834

751 346

Charles W. Dilke

No date [1834?]

752 347

Rev. James Gillman

347

Aug. 5, 1834

Letter Page

No.

753 348 To J. H. Green

Aug. 26, 1834

754 348 «

' H. F. Cary

Sept. 12, 1834

755 349 '

c tt

October, 1834

756 351 «

€ tt

Oct. 18, 1834

757 35* *

' Mrs. Norris

November, 1834

758 353 '

' Mr. Childs

December, 1834

759 354 *

' Mrs. George Dyer

Dec. 22, 1834

760 3ss '

' William Ayrton

No date

761 356 «

€ tt tt

No date

762 357 «

' J. Badams

No date

348

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Full text of "The letters of Charles Lamb, in which many mutilated words and passages have been restored to their original form; with letters never before published and facsimiles of original ms. letters and poems;"

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