The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume V Part 31

By-the-by, I have a sort of recollection that somebody, I think _you_, promised 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 circ.u.mstances, alone in Cold Bath Prison, or in the desert island, just when Prospero & his crew had set off, with Caliban in a cage, to Milan, it would be a treat to me to read that play. Manning has read it, so has Lloyd, and all Lloyd's family; but I could not get him to betray his trust by giving me a sight of it. Lloyd is sadly deficient in some of those virtuous vices. I have just lit upon a most beautiful fiction of h.e.l.l punishments, by the author of "Hurlothrumbo," a mad farce. The inventor imagines that in h.e.l.l 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 precise date of his death, I would write a novel on purpose to make George the hero. I could hit him off to a hair.

George brought a Dr. Anderson to see me. The Doctor is a very pleasant old man, a great genius for agriculture, one that ties his breeches-knees with Packthread, & boasts of having had disappointments from ministers. The Doctor happened to mention an Epic Poem by one Wilkie, called the "Epigoniad," in which he a.s.sured us there is not one tolerable line from beginning to end, but all the characters, incidents, &c., are 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 pericraniks, than up he gets, and declares he must see that poem immediately: where was it to be had? An epic poem of 800 [? 8,000] lines, and _he_ not hear of it! There must be some things good in it, and it was necessary 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 dissertation 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 composition, I questioned George what English plays he had read. I found that he _had_ read Shakspere (whom he calls an original, but irregular, genius), but it was a good while ago; and he has dipt into Rowe and Otway, I suppose having found their names in Johnson's Lives at full length; and upon this slender ground he has undertaken the task. He never seem'd even to have heard of Fletcher, Ford, Marlow, Ma.s.singer, 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 determined to vindicate Poetry from the shackles which Aristotle & 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 Epic.

Four-and-twenty Books to read in the dog-days! I got as far as the Mad Monk the first day, & fainted. Mr. Cottle's genius strongly points him to the _Pastoral_, but his inclinations divert him perpetually from his calling. He imitates Southey, as Rowe did Shakspeare, with his "Good morrow to ye; good master Lieut't." 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 indefatigable. Serpents, asps, spiders, ghosts, dead bodies, staircases made of nothing, with adders' tongues for bannisters--My G.o.d! what a brain he must have! He puts as many plums in his pudding as my Grandmother used to do; and then his emerging from h.e.l.l's horrors into Light, and treading on pure flats of this earth for twenty-three Books together!

C. L.

[The little epigram was by Mary Lamb. It was printed first in the _John Woodvil_ volume in 1802; and again, in a footnote to Lamb's essay "Blakesmoor in H----s.h.i.+re," 1824.

G.o.dwin's return was from his visit to Curran. Coleridge had asked him to break his journey at Keswick.

"Wordsworth's Tragedy"--"The Borderers."

"I would write a novel." Lamb returns to this idea in Letter 91.

One of Dyer's printed criticisms of Shakespeare, in his _Poetics_, some years later might be quoted: "Shakespeare had the inward clothing of a fine mind; the outward covering of solid reading, of critical observation, and the richest eloquence; and compared with these, what are the trappings of the schools?"

"Cottle's Guinea Epic" would be _Alfred, an Epic Poem_, by Joseph Cottle, the publisher.]

LETTER 67

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING

[P.M. August 28, 1800.]

George Dyer is an Archimedes, and an Archimagus, and a Tycho Brahe, and a Copernicus; and thou art the darling of the Nine, and midwife to their wandering 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 carcase on the Monday, and after dining with us on tripe, calves' kidneys, or whatever else the Cornucopia 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_--Oh the long time!) with tears of joy. Thou shouldst settle his scruples and unravel his cobwebs, 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; Parna.s.sus should shower her civic crowns upon thee for saving the wits of a citizen! 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 Dr. Anderson, an old gentleman who ties his breeches' knees with packthread, and boasts that he has been disappointed by ministers. The Doctor 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 Doctor, in the course of the conversation, mentioned a poem called "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 quant.i.ties--when, suddenly, the name of his old friend Homer stung his pericranicks, and, jumping up, he begged to know where he could meet with Wilkie's work. "It was a curious 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 completely 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 recreation 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.

["Thy Black Back"--Manning's Algebra.

Dr. Anderson was James Anderson (1739-1808), the editor, at that time, of _Recreations in Agriculture, Natural History, Arts, and Miscellaneous History_, published in monthly parts. Lamb gave him a copy of verses--three extracts from _John Woodvil_ which were printed in the number for November, 1800, as being "from an unpublished drama by C.

Lamb." They were the "Description of a Forest Life," "The General Lover"

("What is it you love?") and "Fragment or Dialogue," better known as "The Dying Lover." All have slight variations from other versions. The most striking is the epithet "lubbar bands of sleep," instead of "lazy bands of sleep," in the "Description of a Forest Life."

Wilkie was William Wilkie (1721-1772), the "Scottish Homer," whose _Epigoniad_ in nine books, based on the fourth book of the _Iliad_, was published in 1757.]

LETTER 68

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING [P.M. Sept. 22, 1800.]

Dear Manning,--You needed not imagine any apology necessary. Your fine hare and fine birds (which just now are dangling by our kitchen blaze) discourse most eloquent music in your justification. You just nicked my palate. For, with all due decorum and leave may it be spoken, my wors.h.i.+p hath taken physic for his body to-day, and being low and puling, requireth to be pampered. Foh! how beautiful and strong those b.u.t.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 mutually ill.u.s.trate and set off (as skilful goldfoils to rare jewels) your partridge, pheasant, woodc.o.c.k, snipe, teal, widgeon, and the other lesser daughters of the ark. My friends.h.i.+p, struggling with my carnal and fleshly prudence (which suggests 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 Norfolk sauces match our London culinaric.

George Dyer has introduced me to the table of an agreeable old gentleman, Dr. Anderson, who gives hot legs of mutton and grape pies at his sylvan lodge at Isleworth, where, in the middle of a street, he has shot up a wall most preposterously before his small dwelling, which, with the circ.u.mstance of his taking several panes of gla.s.s out of bedroom windows (for air), causeth his neighbours to speculate strangely on the state of the good man's pericranicks. Plainly, he lives under the reputation of being deranged. George does not mind this circ.u.mstance; he rather likes him the better for it. The Doctor, in his pursuits, joins agricultural to poetical science, and has set George's brains mad about the old Scotch writers, Harbour, Douglas's Aeneid, Blind Harry, &c. We returned home in a return postchaise (having dined 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 begged 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 t.i.tle 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 ill.u.s.trious lumber-room.

Mark, he has never read any of these bucks, 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.

G.o.d bless me, here are the birds, smoking hot!

All that is gross and unspiritual in me rises at the sight!

Avaunt friends.h.i.+p and all memory of absent friends!

C. LAMB.

["Divine spirit of gravy." This pa.s.sage is the first of Lamb's outbursts of gustatory ecstasy, afterwards to become frequent in his writings.

Here should come a letter, dated October 9, 1800, in the richest spirit of comedy, describing to Coleridge an evening with George Dyer and the Cottles after the death of their brother Amos; and how Lamb, by praising Joseph Cottle's poem, drew away that good man's thoughts from his grief.

"Joseph, who till now had sat with his knees cowering in by the fireplace, wheeled about, and with great difficulty of body s.h.i.+fted 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 benevolent face right against mine, waited my observations. At that moment it came strongly into my mind, that I had got Uncle Toby before me, he looked so kind and so good." The letter, printed in full in other editions, is, I am given to understand, not available for this.]

LETTER 69

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING [P.M. Oct. 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 cannot decently ask leave of absence for myself. All I can promise (and I do promise with the sincerity of Saint Peter, and the contrition of sinner Peter if I fail) that I will come _the very first spare week_, and go nowhere till I have been at Cambridge. No matter if you are in a state of pupilage when I come; for I can employ myself in Cambridge very pleasantly in the mornings. Are there not libraries, halls, colleges, books, pictures, statues? I wish to G.o.d you had made London in your way.

There is an exhibition quite uncommon in Europe, which could not have escaped _your genius_,--a live rattlesnake, ten feet in length, and the thickness of a big leg. I went to see it last night by candlelight. We were ushered into a room very little bigger than ours at Pentonville. A man and woman and four boys live in this room, joint tenants with nine snakes, most of them such as no remedy has been discovered 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 enters (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 d.a.m.n'd big mouth, which would have been certain death in five minutes. But it frightened me so much, that I did not recover my voice for a minute's s.p.a.ce. I forgot, in my fear, that he was secured. You would have forgot too, for 'tis 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 pa.s.sion to the bigness of a large thigh. I could not retreat without infringing 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 through 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 d.a.m.n'd mouth, when he made at me, as wide as his head was broad. I hallooed 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 described.

Mind, I have only heard read one book.

Yours sincerely, Philo-Snake, C. L.

[_The Farmer's Boy_, by Robert Bloomfield, was published in March, 1800, and was immensely popular. Other criticisms upon it by Lamb will be found in this work.