The Best Letters of Charles Lamb Part 3

Reject you, if you please, with as little remorse as you would the color of a coat or the pattern of a buckle, where our fancies differed.

The "Pixies" is a perfect thing, and so are the "Lines on the Spring."

page 28. The "Epitaph on an Infant," like a Jack-o'-lantern, has danced about (or like Dr. Forster's [4] scholars) out of the "Morning Chronicle"

into the "Watchman," and thence back into your collection. It is very pretty, and you seem to think so, but, may be, overlooked its chief merit, that of filling up a whole page, I had once deemed sonnets of unrivalled use that way, but your Epitaphs, I find, are the more diffuse. "Edmund" still holds its place among your best verses, "Ah!

fair delights" to "roses round," in your poem called "Absence," recall (none more forcibly) to my mind the tones in which you recited it, I will not notice, in this tedious (to you) manner, verses which have been so long delighful to me, and which you already know my opinion of. Of this kind are Bowles, Priestley, and that most exquisite and most Bowles-like of all, the nineteenth effusion. It would have better ended with "agony of care;" the last two lines are obvious and unnecessary; and you need not now make fourteen lines of it, now it is rechristened from a Sonnet to an Effusion.

Schiller might have written the twentieth effusion; 't is worthy of him in any sense, I was glad to meet with those lines you sent me when my sister was so ill; I had lost the copy, and I felt not a little proud at seeing my name in your verse. The "Complaint of Ninathoma" (first stanza in particular) is the best, or only good, imitation of Ossian I ever saw, your "Restless Gale" excepted. "To an Infant" is most sweet; is not "foodful," though, very harsh? Would not "dulcet" fruit be less harsh, or some other friendly bi-syllable? In "Edmund," "Frenzy! fierce-eyed child" is not so well as "frantic," though that is an epithet adding nothing to the meaning. Slander _couching_ was better than "squatting."

In the "Man of Ross" it _was_ a better line thus,--

"If 'neath this roof thy wine-cheered moments pa.s.s,"

than as it stands now. Time nor nothing can reconcile me to the concluding five lines of "Kosciusko;" call it anything you will but sublime. In my twelfth effusion I had rather have seen what I wrote myself, though they bear no comparison with your exquisite lines,--

"On rose-leaf beds amid your faery bowers," etc.

I love my sonnets because they are the reflected images of my own feelings at different times. To instance, in the thirteenth,--

"How reason reeled," etc.,

are good lines, but must spoil the whole with me, who know it is only a fiction of yours, and that the "rude dashings" did in fact not "rock me to repose." I grant the same objection applies not to the former sonnet; but still I love my own feelings,--they are dear to memory, though they now and then wake a sigh or a tear, "Thinking on divers things fordone,"

I charge you, Coleridge, spare my ewe-lambs; and though a gentleman may borrow six lines in an epic poem (I should have no objection to borrow five hundred, and without acknowledging), still, in a sonnet, a personal poem, I do not ask my friend the aiding verse; I would not wrong your feelings by proposing any improvements (did I think myself capable of suggesting 'era) in such personal poems as "Thou bleedest, my poor heart,"--'od so,--I am caught,--I have already done it; but that simile I propose abridging would not change the feeling or introduce any alien ones. Do you understand me? In the twenty-eighth, however, and in the "Sigh," and that composed at Clevedon, things that come from the heart direct, not by the medium of the fancy, I would not suggest an alteration.

When my blank verse is finished, or any long fancy poem, "propino tibi alterandum, cut-up-andum, abridgeandum," just what you will with, it: but spare my ewe-lambs! That to "Mrs. Siddons' now, you were welcome to improve, if it had been worth it; but I say unto you again, Coleridge, spare my ewe-lambs! I must confess, were the mine, I should omit, _in editione secunda_, effusions two and three, because satiric and below the dignity of the poet of "Religious Musings," fifth, seventh, half of the eighth, that "Written in early youth," as far as "thousand eyes,"--though I part not unreluctantly with that lively line,--

"Chaste joyance dancing in her bright blue eyes,"

and one or two just thereabouts. But I would subst.i.tute for it that sweet poem called "Recollection," in the fifth number of the "Watchman,"

better, I think, than the remainder of this poem, though not differing materially; as the poem now stands, it looks altogether confused. And do not omit those lines upon the "Early Blossom" in your sixth number of the "Watchman;" and I would omit the tenth effusion, or what would do better, alter and improve the last four lines. In fact, I suppose, if they were mine, I should _not_ omit 'em; but your verse is, for the most part, so exquisite that I like not to see aught of meaner matter mixed with it. Forgive my petulance and often, I fear, ill-founded criticisms, and forgive me that I have, by this time, made your eyes and head ache with my long letter; but I cannot forego hastily the pleasure and pride of thus conversing with you. You did not tell me whether I was to include the "Conciones ad Populum" in my remarks on your poems. They are not unfrequently sublime, and I think you could not do better than to turn 'em into verse,--if you have nothing else to do. Austin, I am sorry to say, is a _confirmed_ atheist. Stoddart, a cold-hearted, well-bred, conceited disciple of G.o.dwin, does him no good. His wife has several daughters (one of 'em as old as himself). Surely there is something unnatural in such a marriage.

How I sympathize with you on the dull duty of a reviewer, and heartily d.a.m.n with you Ned Evans and the Prosodist! I shall, however, wait impatiently for the articles in the "Critical Review" next month, because they are _yours_. Young Evans (W. Evans, a branch of a family you were once so intimate with) is come into our office, and sends his love to you. Coleridge, I devoutly wish that Fortune, who lias made sport with you so long, may play one freak more, throw you into London or some spot near it, and there snug-ify you for life. 'Tis a selfish but natural wish for me, cast as I am on life's wide plain, friendless,"

Are you acquainted with Bowles? I see by his last Elegy (written at Bath) you are near neighbors,--_Thursday_.

"And I can think I can see the groves again;" "Was it the voice of thee;" "Turns not the voice of thee, my buried friend;" "Who dries with her dark locks the tender tear,"--are touches as true to Nature as any in his other Elegy, written at the Hot Wells, about poor Ka.s.sell, etc.

You are doubtless acquainted with it,

I do not know that I entirely agree with you in your stricture upon my sonnet "To Innocence," To men whose hearts are not quite deadened by their commerce with the world, innocence (no longer familiar) becomes an awful idea. So I felt when I wrote it. Your other censures (qualified and sweetened, though, with praises somewhat extravagant) I perfectly coincide with: yet I choose to retain the word "lunar,"--indulge a "lunatic" in his loyalty to his mistress the moon! I have just been reading a most pathetic copy of verses on Sophia Pringle, who was hanged and burned for coining. One of the strokes of pathos (which are very many, all somewhat obscure) is, "She lifted up her guilty forger to heaven." A note explains, by "forger," her right hand, with which she forged or coined the base metal. For "pathos" read "bathos." You have put me out of conceit with my blank verse by your "Religious Musings." I think it will come to nothing. I do not like 'em enough to send 'em. I have just been reading a book, which I may be too partial to, as it was the delight of my childhood; but I will recommend it to you,--it is Izaak Walton's "Complete Angler." All the scientific part you may omit in reading. The dialogue is very simple, full of pastoral beauties, and will charm you. Many pretty old verses are interspersed. This letter, which would be a week's work reading only, I do not wish you to answer in less than a month. I shall be richly content with a letter from you some day early in July; though, if you get anyhow _settled_ before then, pray let me know it immediately; 't would give me much satisfaction.

Concerning the Unitarian chapel, the salary is the only scruple that the most rigid moralist would admit as valid. Concerning the tutorage, is not the salary low, and absence from your family unavoidable? London is the only fostering soil for genius. Nothing more occurs just now; so I will leave you, in mercy, one small white spot empty below, to repose your eyes upon, fatigued as they must be with the wilderness of words they have by this time painfully travelled through. G.o.d love you, Coleridge, and prosper you through life! though mine will be loss if your lot is to be cast at Bristol, or at Nottingham, or anywhere but London. Our loves to Mrs. C--. C. L.

[1] Lapland mountains. From Coleridge's "Destiny of Nations."

[2] The "Monody" referred to was by Cottle, and appeared in a volume of poems published by him at Bristol in 1795. Coleridge had forwarded the book to Lamb for his opinion.

[3] The Monody on Chatterton.

[4] Dr. Faustus's.

IV.

TO COLERIDGE,

_June_ 14, 1796,

I am not quite satisfied now with the Chatterton, [1] and with your leave will try my hand at it again. A master-joiner, you know, may leave a cabinet to be finished, when his own hands are full. To your list of ill.u.s.trative personifications, into which a fine imagination enters, I will take leave to add the following from Beaumont and Fletcher's "Wife for a Month;" 'tis the conclusion of a description of a sea-fight: "The game of _death_ was never played so n.o.bly; the meagre thief grew wanton in his mischiefs, and his shrunk, hollow eyes smiled on his ruins."

There is fancy in these of a lower order from "Bonduca": "Then did I see these valiant men of Britain, like boding owls creep into tods of ivy, and hoot their fears to one another nightly." Not that it is a personification, only it just caught my eye in a little extract-book I keep, which is full of quotations from B. and F. in particular, in which authors I can't help thinking there is a greater richness of poetical fancy than in any one, Shakspeare excepted. Are you acquainted with Ma.s.singer? At a hazard I will trouble you with a pa.s.sage from a play of his called "A Very Woman." The lines are spoken by a lover (disguised) to his faithless mistress. You will remark the fine effect of the double endings.

You will by your ear distinguish the lines, for I write 'em as prose.

"Not far from where my father lives, _a lady_, a neighbor by, blest with as great a _beauty_ as Nature durst bestow without _undoing_, dwelt, and most happily, as I thought then, and blest the house a thousand times she _dwelt_ in. This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, when my first fire knew no adulterate _incense_, nor I no way to flatter but my _fondness_; in all the bravery my friends could _show me_, in all the faith my innocence could _give me_, in the best language my true tongue could _tell me_, and all the broken sighs my sick heart _lend me_, I sued and served; long did I serve this _lady_, long was my travail, long my trade to _win her_; with all the duty of my soul I SERVED HER." "Then she must love." "She did, but never me: she could not _love me_; she would not love, she hated,--more, she _scorned me_; and in so a poor and base a way _abused me_ for all my services, for all my _bounties_, so bold neglects flung on me." "What out of love, and worthy love, I _gave her_ (shame to her most unworthy mind!), to fools, to girls, to fiddlers and her boys she flung, all in disdain of me." One more pa.s.sage strikes my eye from B. and F.'s "Palamon and Arcite." One of 'em complains in prison: "This is all our world; we shall know nothing here but one another, hear nothing but the clock that tells us our woes; the vine shall grow, but we shall never see it," etc. Is not the last circ.u.mstance exquisite? I mean not to lay myself open by saying they exceed Milton, and perhaps Collins in sublimity. But don't you conceive all poets after Shakspeare yield to 'em in variety of genius? Ma.s.singer treads close on their heels; but you are most probably as well acquainted with his writings as your humble servant. My quotations, in that case, will only serve to expose my barrenness of matter. Southey in simplicity and tenderness is excelled decidedly only, I think, by Beaumont and F. in his "Maid's Tragedy," and some parts of "Philaster"

in particular, and elsewhere occasionally; and perhaps by Cowper in his "Crazy Kate," and in parts of his translation, such as the speeches of Hecuba and Andromache. I long to know your opinion of that translation.

The Odyssey especially is surely very Homeric. What n.o.bler than the appearance of Phoebus at the beginning of the Iliad,--the lines ending with "Dread sounding, bounding on the silver bow!"

I beg you will give me your opinion of the translation; it afforded me high pleasure. As curious a specimen of translation as ever fell into my hands, is a young man's in our office, of a French novel. What in the original was literally "amiable delusions of the fancy," he proposed, to render "the fair frauds of the imagination." I had much trouble in licking the book into any meaning at all. Yet did the knave clear fifty or sixty pounds by subscription and selling the copyright. The book itself not a week's work! To-day's portion of my journalizing epistle has been very dull and poverty-stricken. I will here end.

_Tuesday night_,

I have been drinking egg-hot and smoking Oronooko (a.s.sociated circ.u.mstances, which ever forcibly recall to my mind our evenings and nights at the "Salutation"). My eyes and brain are heavy and asleep, but my heart is awake; and if words came as ready as ideas, and ideas as feelings, I could say ten hundred kind things. Coleridge, you know not my supreme happiness at having one on earth (though counties separate us) whom I can call a friend. Remember you those tender lines of Logan?--

"Our broken friendships we deplore, And loves of youth that are no more; No after friendships e'er can raise Th' endearments of our early days, And ne'er the heart such fondness prove, As when we first began to love."

I am writing at random, and half-tipsy, what you may not _equally_ understand, as you will be sober when you read it; but _my_ sober and _my_ half-tipsy hours you are alike a sharer in. Good night.

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

BURNS.

[1] Coleridge's "Monody" on Chatterton.

V.

TO COLERIDGE.

_September_ 27, 1796.

My Dearest Friend,--White, or some of my friends, or the public papers, by this time may have informed you of the terrible calamities that have fallen on our family. I will only give you the outlines: My poor dear, dearest sister, in a fit of insanity, has been the death of her own mother. I was at hand only time enough to s.n.a.t.c.h the knife out of her grasp. She is at present in a madhouse, from whence I fear she must be moved to an hospital. G.o.d has preserved to me my senses,--I eat, and drink, and sleep, and have my judgment, I believe, very sound. My poor father was slightly wounded, and I am left to take care of him and my aunt. Mr, Norris, of the Blue-coat School, has been very kind to us, and we have no other friend; but, thank G.o.d, I am very calm and composed, and able to do the best that remains to do. Write as religious a letter as possible, but no mention of what is gone and done with. With me "the former things are pa.s.sed away," and I have something more to do than to feel.

G.o.d Almighty have us all in his keeping!

C. LAMB.

Mention nothing of poetry. I have destroyed every vestige of past vanities of that kind. Do as you please, but if you publish, publish mine (I give free leave) without name or initial, and never send me a book, I charge you.

Your own judgment will convince you not to take any notice of this yet to your dear wife. You look after your family; I have my reason and strength left to take care of mine. I charge you, don't think of coming to see me. Write. I will not see you, if you come, G.o.d Almighty love you and all of us!

C. LAMB.