The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume I Part 31

This lover of truth never uttered a truer speech. Give me a lie wth a spirit in it.

Air, earth, and ocean, smile immense.----

_Scott_

The bombastic "immense smile of air, &c.," better omitted.

_Ritson_

Qute Miltonic--"enormous bliss"--and both, I presume, alike _caviare_ to the Quaker.

He comes! he comes! in every breeze the power Of philosophic melancholy comes!

His near approach, the sudden-starting tear, The glowing cheek, the mild dejected air, The soften'd feature, and the beating heart, Pierced deep with many a virtuous pang, declare.

_Scott_

This fine picture is greatly injured by a few words. The power should have been said to come "upon the breeze;" not "in every breeze;" an expression which indicates a multiplicity of approaches. If he came "in every breeze," he must have been always coming--

_Ritson_

--and so he was.

----The branching Oronoque Rolls a brown deluge, and the native drives To dwell aloft on life-sufficing trees, At once his dome, his robe, his food, and arms.

Swell'd by a thousand streams, impetuous hurl'd From all the roaring Andes, huge descends The mighty Orellana. _Scarce the Muse Dares stretch her wing_ o'er this enormous ma.s.s Of rus.h.i.+ng water: _scarce she dares attempt_ The sea-like Plata; to whose dread expanse, Continuous depth, and wond'rous length of course, Our floods are rills. With unabated force In silent dignity they sweep along, And traverse realms unknown, and blooming wilds, And fruitful desarts, worlds of solitude, Where the sun smiles, and seasons teem, in vain, Unseen and unenjoy'd. Forsaking these, O'er peopled plains they fair-diffusive flow, And many a nation feed, and circle safe In their fair bosom many a happy isle, The seat of blameless Pan, yet undisturb'd By Christian crimes, and Europe's cruel sons.

Thus pouring on, they proudly seek the deep, Whose vanquish'd tide, recoiling from the shock, Yields to this liquid weight of half the globe, And Ocean trembles for his green domain.

_Scott_

Poets not unfrequently aim at aggrandising their subject, by avowing their inability to describe it. This is a puerile and inadequate expedient. Thomson has here, perhaps inadvertently, descended to this feeble art of exaggeration.

_Ritson_

A magnificent pa.s.sage, in spite of Duns Scotus! The poet says not a word about his "inability to describe," nor seems to be thinking about his readers at all. He is confessing his own feelings, awe-struck with the contemplation of such o'erwhelming objects; in the same spirit with which he designates the den of the "green serpent" in another place--

--Which ev'n imagination fears to tread----

----A dazzling deluge reigns, and all From pole to pole is undistinguish'd blaze.----

_Scott_

From pole to pole, strictly speaking, is improper. _The poet_ meant, "from one part of the horizon to the other."

_Ritson_

From _his_ pole to _thy_ pole was a more downward declension than "from the centre thrice," &c.

_Ohe! jam satis_.

LETTER OF ELIA TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

(1823)

Sir,--You have done me an unfriendly office, without perhaps much considering what you were doing. You have given an ill name to my poor Lucubrations. In a recent Paper on Infidelity, you usher in a conditional commendation of them with an exception; which, preceding the encomium, and taking up nearly the same s.p.a.ce with it, must impress your readers with the notion, that the objectionable parts in them are at least equal in quant.i.ty to the pardonable. The censure is in fact the criticism; the praise--a concession merely. Exceptions usually follow, to qualify praise or blame. But there stands your reproof, in the very front of your notice, in ugly characters, like some bugbear, to frighten all good Christians from purchasing. Through you I am become an object of suspicion to preceptors of youth, and fathers of families. "_A book, which wants only a sounder religious feeling to be as delightful as it is original._" With no further explanation, what must your readers conjecture, but that my little volume is some vehicle for heresy or infidelity? The quotation, which you honour me by subjoining, oddly enough, is of a character, which bespeaks a temperament in the writer the very reverse of _that_ your reproof goes to insinuate. Had you been taxing me with superst.i.tion, the pa.s.sage would have been pertinent to the censure. Was it worth your while to go so far out of your way to affront the feelings of an old friend, and commit yourself by an irrelevant quotation, for the pleasure of reflecting upon a poor child, an exile at Genoa?

I am at a loss what particular Essay you had in view (if my poor ramblings amount to that appellation) when you were in such a hurry to thrust in your objection, like bad news, foremost.--Perhaps the Paper on "Saying Graces" was the obnoxious feature. I have endeavoured there to rescue a voluntary duty--good in place, but never, as I remember, literally commanded--from the charge of an undecent formality. Rightly taken, Sir, that Paper was not against Graces, but Want of Grace; not against the ceremony, but the carelessness and slovenliness so often observed in the performance of it.

Or was it _that_ on the "New Year"--in which I have described the feelings of the merely natural man, on a consideration of the amazing change, which is supposable to take place on our removal from this fleshly scene?--If men would honestly confess their misgivings (which few men will) there are times when the strongest Christians of us, I believe, have reeled under questionings of such staggering obscurity. I do not accuse you of this weakness. There are some who tremblingly reach out shaking hands to the guidance of Faith--Others who stoutly venture into the dark (their Human Confidence their leader, whom they mistake for Faith); and, investing themselves beforehand with Cherubic wings, as they fancy, find their new robes as familiar, and fitting to their supposed growth and stature in G.o.dliness, as the coat they left off yesterday--Some whose hope totters upon crutches--Others who stalk into futurity upon stilts.

The contemplation of a Spiritual World,--which, without the addition of a misgiving conscience, is enough to shake some natures to their foundation--is smoothly got over by others, who shall float over the black billows, in their little boat of No-Distrust, as unconcernedly as over a summer sea. The difference is chiefly const.i.tutional.

One man shall love his friends and his friends' faces; and, under the uncertainty of conversing with them again, in the same manner and familiar circ.u.mstances of sight, speech, &c., as upon earth--in a moment of no irreverent weakness--for a dream-while--no more--would be almost content, for a reward of a life of virtue (if he could ascribe such acceptance to his lame performances), to take up his portion with those he loved, and was made to love, in this good world, which he knows--which was created so lovely, beyond his deservings. Another, embracing a more exalted vision--so that he might receive indefinite additaments of power, knowledge, beauty, glory, &c.--is ready to forego the recognition of humbler individualities of earth, and the old familiar faces. The shapings of our heavens are the modifications of our const.i.tution; and Mr. Feeble Mind, or Mr. Great Heart, is born in every one of us.

Some (and such have been accounted the safest divines) have shrunk from p.r.o.nouncing upon the final state of any man; nor dare they p.r.o.nounce the case of Judas to be desperate. Others (with stronger optics), as plainly as with the eye of flesh, shall behold a _given king_ in bliss, and a _given chamberlain_ in torment; even to the eternising of a cast of the eye in the latter, his own self-mocked and good-humouredly-borne deformity on earth, but supposed to aggravate the uncouth and hideous expression of his pangs in the other place. That one man can presume so far, and that another would with shuddering disclaim such confidences, is, I believe, an effect of the nerves purely.

If in either of these Papers, or elsewhere, I have been betrayed into some levities--not affronting the sanctuary, but glancing perhaps at some of the out-skirts and extreme edges, the debateable land between the holy and the profane regions--(for the admixture of man's inventions, twisting themselves with the name of religion itself, has artfully made it difficult to touch even the alloy, without, in some men's estimation, soiling the fine gold)--If I have sported within the purlieus of serious matter--it was, I dare say, a humour--be not startled, Sir--which I have unwittingly derived from yourself. You have all your life been making a jest of the Devil. Not of the scriptural meaning of that dark essence--personal or allegorical; for the nature is no where plainly delivered. I acquit you of intentional irreverence. But indeed you have made wonderfully free with, and been mighty pleasant upon, the popular idea and attributes of him. A n.o.ble Lord, your brother Visionary, has scarcely taken greater liberties with the material keys, and merely Catholic notion of St. Peter.--You have flattered him in prose: you have chanted him in goodly odes. You have been his Jester; Volunteer Laureat, and self-elected Court Poet to Beelzebub.

You have never ridiculed, I believe, what you thought to be religion, but you are always girding at what some pious, but perhaps mistaken folks, think to be so. For this reason I am sorry to hear, that you are engaged upon a life of George Fox. I know you will fall into the error of intermixing some comic stuff with your seriousness. The Quakers tremble at the subject in your hands. The Methodists are shy of you, upon account of _their_ founder. But, above all, our Popish brethren are most in your debt. The errors of that church have proved a fruitful source to your scoffing vein. Their Legend has been a Golden one to you.

And here, your friends, Sir, have noticed a notable inconsistency. To the imposing rites, the solemn penances, devout austerities of that communion; the affecting though erring piety of their hermits; the silence and solitude of the Chartreux--their crossings, their holy waters--their Virgin, and their saints--to these, they say, you have been indebted for the best feelings, and the richest imagery, of your Epic poetry. You have drawn copious drafts upon Loretto. We thought at one time you were going post to Rome--but that in the facetious commentaries, which it is your custom to append so plentifully, and (some say) injudiciously, to your loftiest performances in this kind, you spurn the uplifted toe, which you but just now seemed to court; leave his holiness in the lurch; and show him a fair pair of Protestant heels under your Romish vestment. When we think you already at the wicket, suddenly a violent cross wind blows you transverse--

ten thousand leagues awry.

Then might we see Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tost And flutter'd into rags; then reliques, beads, Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls, The sport of winds.

You pick up pence by showing the hallowed bones, shrine, and crucifix; and you take money a second time by exposing the trick of them afterwards. You carry your verse to Castle Angelo for sale in a morning; and, swifter than a pedlar can trans.m.u.te his pack, you are at Canterbury with your prose ware before night.

Sir, is it that I dislike you in this merry vein? The very reverse. No countenance becomes an intelligent jest better than your own. It is your grave aspect, when you look awful upon your poor friends, which I would deprecate.