The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 25

They are called _adders_, tell your father, because two and two of them together make four.]

LETTER 351

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[P.M. August 17, 1824.]

Dear B.B.--I congratulate you on getting a house over your head. I find the comfort of it I am sure. At my town lodgings the Mistress was always quarrelling with our maid; and at my place of rustication, the whole family were always beating one another, brothers beating sisters (one a most beautiful girl lamed for life), father beating sons and daughters, and son again beating his father, knocking him fairly down, a scene I never before witnessed, but was called out of bed by the unnatural blows, the parricidal colour of which, tho' my morals could not but condemn, yet my reason did heartily approve, and in the issue the house was quieter for a day or so than I had ever known. I am now all harmony and quiet, even to the sometimes wis.h.i.+ng back again some of the old rufflings. There is something stirring in these civil broils.

The Alb.u.m shall be attended to. If I can light upon a few appropriate rhymes (but rhymes come with difficulty from me now) I shall beg a place in the neat margin of your young housekeeper.

The Prometheus Unbound, is a capital story. The Literal rogue! What if you had ordered Elfrida in _sheets!_ She'd have been sent up, I warrant you. Or bid him clasp his bible (_i.e._ to his bosom)-he'd ha clapt on a bra.s.s clasp, no doubt.--

I can no more understand Sh.e.l.ly than you can. His poetry is "thin sewn with profit or delight." Yet I must point to your notice a sonnet conceivd and expressed with a witty delicacy. It is that addressed to one who hated him, but who could not persuade him to hate _him_ again.

His coyness to the other's pa.s.sion (for hate demands a return as much as Love, and starves without it) is most arch and pleasant. Pray, like it very much.

For his theories and nostrums they are oracular enough, but I either comprehend 'em not, or there is miching malice and mischief in 'em. But for the most part ringing with their own emptiness. Hazlitt said well of 'em--Many are wiser and better for reading Shakspeare, but n.o.body was ever wiser or better for reading Sh----y.

I wonder you will sow your correspondence on so barren a ground as I am, that make such poor returns. But my head akes at the bare thought of letter writing. I wish all the ink in the ocean dried up, and would listen to the quills s.h.i.+vering [? shrivelling] up in the candle flame, like parching martyrs. The same indisposit'n to write it is has stopt my Elias, but you will see a futile Effort in the next No., "wrung from me with slow pain."

The fact is, my head is seldom cool enough. I am dreadfully indolent. To have to do anything-to order me a new coat, for instance, tho' my old b.u.t.tons are sh.e.l.led like beans-- is an effort.

My pen stammers like my tongue. What cool craniums those old enditers of Folios must have had. What a mortify'd pulse. Well, once more I throw myself on your mercy-- Wis.h.i.+ng peace in thy new dwelling-- C. LAMB.

[The Lambs gave up their "country lodgings" at Dalston on moving to Colebrooke Row.

"The alb.u.m." See next letter to Barton.

"The Prometheus Unbound." A bookseller, asked for _Prometheus Unbound_, Sh.e.l.ley's poem, had replied that _Prometheus_ was not to be had "in sheets." _Elfrida_ was a dramatic poem by William Mason, Gray's friend.

This is Sh.e.l.ley's poem (not a sonnet) which Lamb liked:--

LINES TO A REVIEWER

Alas! good friend, what profit can you see In hating such an hateless thing as me?

There is no sport in hate, where all the rage Is on one side. In vain would you a.s.suage Your frowns upon an unresisting smile, In which not even contempt lurks, to beguile Your heart by some faint sympathy of hate.

Oh conquer what you cannot satiate!

For to your pa.s.sion I am far more coy Then ever yet was coldest maid or boy In winter-noon. Of your antipathy If I am the Narcissus, you are free To pine into a sound with hating me.

Hazlitt writes of Sh.e.l.ley in his essay "On Paradox and Commonplace" in _Table Talk_; but he does not make this remark there. Perhaps he said it in conversation.

"The next Number." The "futile Effort" was "Blakesmoor in H----s.h.i.+re" in the _London Magazine_ for September, 1824.

Here should come a note from Lamb to Cary, August 19, 1824, in which Lamb thanks him for his translation of _The Birds_ of Aristophanes and accepts an invitation to dine.]

LETTER 352

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[Dated at end: September 30, 1824.]

Little Book! surnam'd of White; Clean, as yet, and fair to sight; Keep thy attribution right,

Never disproportion'd scrawl; Ugly blot, that's worse than all; On thy maiden clearness fall.

In each Letter, here design'd, Let the Reader emblem'd find Neatness of the Owner's mind.

Gilded margins count a sin; Let thy leaves attraction win By thy Golden Rules within:

Sayings, fetch'd from Sages old; Saws, which Holy Writ unfold, Worthy to be writ in Gold:

Lighter Fancies not excluding; Blameless wit, with nothing rude in, Sometimes mildly interluding

Amid strains of graver measure:-- Virtue's self hath oft her pleasure In sweet Muses' groves of leisure.

Riddles dark, perplexing sense; Darker meanings of offence; What but _shades_, be banish'd hence.

Whitest Thoughts, in whitest dress-- Candid Meanings--best express Mind of quiet Quakeress.

Dear B.B.--"I am ill at these numbers;" but if the above be not too mean to have a place in thy Daughter's Sanctum, take them with pleasure.

I a.s.sume that her Name is Hannah, because it is a pretty scriptural cognomen. I began on another sheet of paper, and just as I had penn'd the second line of Stanza 2 an ugly Blot [_here is a blot_] as big as this, fell, to ill.u.s.trate my counsel.--I am sadly given to blot, and modern blotting-paper gives no redress; it only smears and makes it worse, as for example [_here is a smear_]. The only remedy is scratching out, which gives it a Clerkish look. The most innocent blots are made with red ink, and are rather ornamental. [_Here are two or three blots in red ink._] Marry, they are not always to be distinguished from the effusions of a cut finger.

Well, I hope and trust thy Tick doleru, or however you spell it, is vanished, for I have frightful impressions of that Tick, and do altogether hate it, as an unpaid score, or the Tick of a Death Watch. I take it to be a species of Vitus's dance (I omit the Sanct.i.ty, writing to "one of the men called Friends"). I knew a young Lady who could dance no other, she danced thro' life, and very queer and fantastic were her steps. Heaven bless thee from such measures, and keep thee from the Foul Fiend, who delights to lead after False Fires in the night, Flibbertigibit, that gives the web and the pin &c. I forget what else.--

From my den, as Bunyan has it, 30 Sep. 24. C.L.

[The verses were for the alb.u.m of Barton's daughter, Lucy (afterwards Mrs. Edward FitzGerald). Lucy was her only name. Lamb afterwards printed them in his _Alb.u.m Verses_, 1830.]

LETTER 353

CHARLES LAMB TO MRS. JOHN DYER COLLIER

[Dated at end: November 2, 1824.]

Dear Mrs. Collier--We receive so much pig from your kindness, that I really have not phrase enough to vary successive acknowledg'mts.

I think I shall get a printed form: to serve on all occasions.

To say it was young, crisp, short, luscious, dainty-toed, is but to say what all its predecessors have been. It was eaten on Sunday and Monday, and doubts only exist as to which temperature it eat best, hot or cold.

I incline to the latter. The Petty-feet made a pretty surprising proe-gustation for supper on Sat.u.r.day night, just as I was loathingly in expectation of bren-cheese. I spell as I speak.