The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume V Part 4

"Then up rose our bard, like a prophet in drink, Craigdoroch, thou'lt soar when creation shall sink."

BURNS.

_Thursday_ [June 16, 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 fortnight 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, "Taedet 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.

[Coleridge's image of melancholy will be found in the lines "Melancholy--a fragment." It was published in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, and in a note Coleridge said that the verses were printed in the _Morning Chronicle_ in 1794. They were really printed in the _Morning Post_, December 12, 1797. Coleridge had probably sent them to Lamb in MS. The "hymns" came to nothing.

"The following lines." Lamb's poem "The Grandame" was presumably included in this letter. See Vol. IV. Mary Field, Lamb's grandmother, died July 31, 1792, aged seventy-nine, and was buried in Widford churchyard. She had been for many years housekeeper in the Plumer family at Blakesware. On William Plumer's moving to Gilston, a neighbouring seat, in 1767, she had sole charge of the Blakesware mansion, where her grandchildren used to visit her. Compare Lamb's _Elia_ essays "Blakesmoor in H----s.h.i.+re" and "Dream-Children,"

N. Biggs was the printer of Coleridge's _Poems_, 1797.

Lamb had begun his amendment of Coleridge's "Monody on the Death of Chatterton" in his letter of June 10. Coleridge's ill.u.s.trative personifications, here referred to, are in that poem. The extract book from which Lamb copied his quotations from Beaumont and Fletcher and Ma.s.singer was, he afterwards tells us, destroyed; but similar volumes, which he filled later, are preserved. Many of his extracts he included in his _Dramatic Specimens_.

Writing to Charles Lloyd, sen., in 1809, Lamb says of Cowper as a translator of Homer that he "delays you ... walking over a Bowling Green."

Canon Ainger possessed a copy of the book translated by Lamb's fellow-clerk. It was called _Sentimental Tablets of the Good Pamphile_.

"Translated from the French of M. Gorjy by P. S. Dupuy of the East India House, 1795." Among the subscribers' names were Thomas Bye (5 copies), Ball, Evans, Savory (2 copies), and Lamb himself.]

LETTER 5

CHARLES LAMB 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 a while yet hang on a ticklish thread. The coach I come by is immaterial as I shall so easily by your direction find ye out. My mother is grown so entirely helpless (not having any use of her limbs) that Mary is necessarily confined from ever sleeping out, she being her bed fellow.

She thanks you tho' and will accompany me in spirit. Most exquisite are the lines from Withers. Your own lines introductory to your poem on Self run smoothly and pleasurably, and I exhort you to continue 'em. What shall I say to your Dactyls? They are what you would call good per se, but a parody on some of 'em is just now suggesting itself, and you shall have it rough and unlicked. I mark with figures the lines parodied.

4.--Sorely your Dactyls do drag along lim'p-footed.

5.--Sad is the measure that han'gs a clod round 'em so, 6.--Meagre, and lan'guid, proclaiming its wretchedness.

1.--Weary, unsatisfied, not little sic'k of 'em.

11.--Cold is my tired heart, i have no charity.

2.--Painfully trav'lling thus over the rugged road.

7.--o begone, Measure, half Latin, half En'glish, then.

12.--Dismal your Dactyls are, G.o.d help ye, rhyming Ones.

I _possibly_ may not come this fortnight--therefore all thou hast to do is not to look for me any particular day, only to write word 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 officiate 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 common place quotation is heaped upon quotation, I find no mention of such men as Ma.s.singer, or B.

and Fl, men with whom succeeding Dramatic Writers (Otway alone excepted) can bear no manner of comparison. Stupid Knox hath noticed none of 'em among his extracts.

Thursday.--Mrs. C. 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 fluctuates between hope and fear. Hope is a charming, lively, blue-eyed wench, and I am always glad of her company, but could dispense with the visitor she brings with her, her younger sister, Fear, a white-liver'd, lilly-cheeked, bashful, palpitating, awkward hussey, that hangs like a green girl at her sister's ap.r.o.nstrings, and will go with her whithersoever _she_ goes. For the life and soul of me I could not improve those lines in your poem on the Prince and Princess, so I changed them to what you bid me and left 'em at Perry's. I think 'em altogether good, and do not see why you were sollicitous about _any_ alteration. I have not yet seen, but will make it my business to see, to-day's _Chronicle_, for your verses on Horne Took. 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) immersed in clouds of smoke and metaphysic. You know I had a sneaking kindness for this last n.o.ble 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 2 or 3 more ill and absent, which was the plea for refusing 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.

[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. Later Southey revised the verses. _The Anti-Jacobin_ had a parody of them.

Young Savory was probably a relative of Hester Savory, whom we shall meet later. He entered the East India House on the same day that Lamb did.

We do not know what were the lines from Wither which Coleridge had sent to Lamb; but Lamb himself eventually did much to bring him and the elder bards into more general fame--in the _Dramatic Specimens_, 1808, and in the essay "On the Poetical Works of George Wither," in the _Works_, 1818.

Stupid Knox was Vicesimus Knox (1752-1821), the editor of _Elegant Extracts_ in many forms.

"Her ... sweet little poem." Sara Coleridge's verses no longer exist.

See Lamb's next letter for his poetical reply.

Coleridge's poem on the Prince and Princess, "On a Late Connubial Rupture in High Life," was not accepted by Perry, of the _Morning Chronicle_. It appeared in the _Monthly Magazine_, September, 1796. The "Verses addressed to J. Horne Tooke and the company who met on June 28, 1796, to celebrate his poll at the Westminster Election" were not printed in the _Morning Chronicle_. Tooke had opposed Charles James Fox, who polled 5,160 votes, and Sir Alan Gardner, who polled 4,814, against his own 2,819.

Dyer was George Dyer (1755-1841), an old Christ's Hospitaller (but before Lamb and Coleridge's time), of whom we shall see much--Lamb's famous "G.D."

William Richardson was Accountant-General of the East India House at that time; Charles Cartwright, his Deputy.]

LETTER 6

CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE

The 5th July, 1796. [P.M. Same date.]

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, When Evening came and her sweet cooling hour, Should seek to trespa.s.s 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, G.o.d and good angels guide thee on thy way, And gentler fortunes wait the friends I love.

C.L.