The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume IV Part 73

Page 9. _We were two pretty babes, the youngest she._

First printed in the _Monthly Magazine_, July, 1796. "The next and last [wrote Lamb in the letter to Coleridge referred to in the notes on page 310] I value most of all. 'Twas composed close upon the heels of the last ['A timid grace,' page 8], in that very wood I had in mind when I wrote 'Methinks how dainty sweet' [page 5]." It is dated 1795 in Coleridge's _Poems_. In the same letter Lamb adds:--"Since writing it, I have found in a poem by Hamilton of Bangour [William Hamilton, 1704-1754, the Scotch poet, of Bangour, Linlithgows.h.i.+re] these 2 lines to happiness:--

"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 re'd 'em previously, for the credit of my 10th and 11th lines. Parnell [Thomas Parnell, 1679-1718] has 2 lines (which probably suggested the _above_) to Contentment

"Whither ah whither art Thou fled, To hide thy meek contented head.

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

"Was there a tree [about] that did not know The love betwixt us two?--"

When Coleridge printed the sonnet in the pamphlet described on page 310, he appended to the eleventh line the following note:--

Innocence, which, while we possess it, is playful as a babe, becomes AWFUL when it has departed from us. This is the sentiment of the line --a fine sentiment and n.o.bly expressed.

Lamb printed this sonnet twice--in 1797 and 1818.

Page 9. _Childhood._

See note to "The Grandame," page 312. The "turf-clad slope" in line 4 was probably at Blakesware. It is difficult to re-create the scene, for the new house stands a quarter of a mile west of the old one, the site of which is hidden by gra.s.s and trees. Where once were gardens is now meadow land.

Lamb printed this poem twice--in 1797 and 1818.

Page 10. _The Sabbath Bells_.

Lamb printed this poem twice--in 1797 and 1818. Church bells seem always to have had charms for him (see the reference in _John Woodvil_, page 197, and in Susan Yates' story in _Mrs. Leicester's School_ in Vol.

III.). See note to "The Grandame."

Page 10. _Fancy Employed on Divine Subjects._

In the letter of December 5, 1796, quoted below, Lamb remarks concerning this poem: "I beg you to alter the words 'pain and want,' to 'pain and grief' (line 10), this last being a more familiar and ear-satisfying combination. Do it, I beg of you." But the alteration either was not made, or was cancelled later. The reference in lines 6, 7 and 8 is to Revelation xxii. 1, 2. See note to "The Grandame." Lamb printed this poem twice--in 1797 and 1818.

Page 11. _The Tomb of Douglas._

The play on which this poem was founded was the tragedy of "Douglas" by John Home (1722-1808), produced in 1756. Young Norval, or Douglas, the hero, after killing the false Glenalvon, is slain by his stepfather, Lord Randolph, unknowing who he is. On hearing of Norval's death his mother, Lady Randolph, throws herself from a precipice. In the letter to Coleridge of December 5, 1796, quoted above, Lamb also copied out "The Tomb of Douglas," prefixing these remarks:--"I would also wish to retain the following if only to perpetuate 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.... To understand the following, if you are not acquainted with the play, you should know that on the death of Douglas his mother threw herself down a rock; and that at that time Scotland was busy in repelling the Danes."

Coleridge told Southey that Lamb during his derangement at the end of 1795 and beginning of 1796 believed himself at one time to be Young Norval.

Lamb printed this poem, which differs curiously in character from all his other poetical works, only once--in 1797.

Page 12. _To Charles Lloyd._

Lamb copied these lines in a letter to Coleridge on January 18, 1797, remarking:--"You have learned 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 follows, and what if you do not object to them as too personal, and to the world obscure, or otherwise wanting in worth I should wish to make a part of our little volume."

It must be remembered, in reading the poem, that Lamb was still in the shadow of the tragedy in which he lost his mother, and, for a while, his sister, and which had ruined his home. For other lines to Charles Lloyd see page 21. This poem was printed by Lamb twice--in 1797 and 1818.

Page 13. _A Vision of Repentance_.

Writing to Coleridge on June 13, 1797, Lamb says of this Spenserian exercise:--"You speak slightingly. Surely the longer stanzas were pretty tolerable; at least there was one good line in it [line 5]:

"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." Lamb printed the poem twice--in 1797 and 1818.

Page 16. POEMS WRITTEN IN THE YEARS 1795-1798, AND NOT REPRINTED BY LAMB.

Page 16. _Sonnet: The Lord of Life shakes off his drowsihed_.

The _Monthly Magazine_, December, 1797. Signed Charles Lamb.

Lamb sent the first draft of this sonnet to Coleridge in 1796, saying that it was composed "during a walk down into Hertfords.h.i.+re early in last Summer." "The last line," he adds, "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 Islington and Hertfords.h.i.+re." We must take Lamb's word for it; but the late W.J. Craig found for the last line a nearer parallel than Bowles'. In William Vallans' "Tale of the Two Swannes" (1590), which is quoted in Leland's Itinerary, Hearne's edition, is the phrase: "The fruitful fields of pleasant Hertfords.h.i.+re." Lamb quotes his own line in the _Elia_ essay "My Relations."

This sonnet is perhaps the only occasion on which Lamb, even in play, wrote anything against his beloved city.

It may be noted here that this was Lamb's last contribution to the _Monthly Magazine_, which had printed in the preceding number, November, 1797, Coleridge's satirical sonnets, signed Nehemiah Higginbottom, in which Lamb and Lloyd were ridiculed, and which had perhaps some bearing on the coolness that for a while was to subsist between Coleridge and Lamb (see _Charles Lamb and the Lloyds_, 1898, pages 44-47).

Page 16. _To the Poet Cowper_.

The _Monthly Magazine_, December, 1796. Signed C. Lamb.

Lamb wrote these lines certainly as early as July, 1796, for he sends them to Coleridge on the 6th of that month, adding:--

"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!"