The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume V Part 10

That softer name, perhaps more gladly still, Might he demand them at the gates of death."

I cannot but smile to see my Granny so gayly deck'd forth: tho', I think, whoever altered "thy" praises to "her" praises, "thy" honoured memory to "her" honoured memory, did wrong--they best exprest my feelings. There is a pensive state of recollection, in which the mind is disposed to apostrophise the departed objects of its attachment, and, breaking loose from grammatical precision, changes from the 1st to the 3rd, and from the 3rd to the 1st person, just as the random fancy or the feeling directs. Among Lloyd's sonnets, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 11th, are eminently beautiful. I think him too lavish of his expletives; the _do's_ and _did's_, when they occur too often, bring a quaintness with them along with their simplicity, or rather air of antiquity which the patrons of them seem desirous of conveying.

The lines on Friday are very pleasing--"Yet calls itself in pride of Infancy woman or man," &c., "affection's tottering troop"--are prominent beauties. Another time, when my mind were more at ease, I could be more particular in my remarks, and I would postpone them now, only I want some diversion of mind. The _Melancholy Man_ is a charming piece of poetry, only the "whys" (with submission) are too many. Yet the questions are too good to be any of 'em omitted. For those lines of yours, page 18, omitted in magazine, I think the 3 first better retain'd--the 3 last, which are somewhat simple in the most affronting sense of the word, better omitted: to this my taste directs me--I have no claim to prescribe to you. "Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies" is an exquisite line, but you knew _that_ when you wrote 'em, and I trifle in pointing such out. Tis altogether the sweetest thing to me you ever wrote--tis all honey. "No wish profaned my overwhelmed heart, Blest hour, it was a Luxury to be"--I recognise feelings, which I may taste again, if tranquility has not taken his flight for ever, and I will not believe but I shall be happy, very happy again. The next poem to your friend is very beautiful: need I instance the pretty fancy of "the rock's collected tears"--or that original line "pour'd all its healthful greenness on the soul"?--let it be, since you asked me, "as neighbouring fountains each reflect the whole"--tho' that is somewhat harsh; indeed the ending is not so finish'd as the rest, which if you omit in your forthcoming edition, you will do the volume wrong, and the very binding will cry out. Neither shall you omit the 2 following poems. "The hour when we shall meet again," is fine fancy, tis true, but fancy catering in the Service of the feeling--fetching from her stores most splendid banquets to satisfy her. Do not, do not omit it. Your sonnet to the _River Otter_ excludes those equally beautiful lines, which deserve not to be lost, "as the tired savage," &c., and I prefer that copy in your _Watchman_. I plead for its preference.

Another time, I may notice more particularly Lloyd's, Southey's, Dermody's Sonnets. I shrink from them now: my teazing lot makes me too confused for a clear judgment of things, too selfish for sympathy; and these ill-digested, meaningless remarks I have imposed on myself as a task, to lull reflection, as well as to show you I did not neglect reading your valuable present. Return my acknowledgments to Lloyd; you two appear to be about realising an Elysium upon earth, and, no doubt, I shall be happier. Take my best wishes. Remember me most affectionately to Mrs. C., and give little David Hartley--G.o.d bless its little heart!--a kiss for me. Bring him up to know the meaning of his Christian name, and what that name (imposed upon him) will demand of him.

C. LAMB.

G.o.d love you!

I write, for one thing, to say that I shall write no more till you send me word where you are, for you are so soon to move.

My sister is pretty well, thank G.o.d. We think of you very often. G.o.d bless you: continue to be my correspondent, and I will strive to fancy that this world is _not_ "all barrenness."

[The poetical present, as the late Mr. d.y.k.es Campbell pointed out in _The Atheneum_, June 13, 1891, consisted of Lloyd's _Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer_, to which Lamb had contributed "The Grandame," and of a little privately-printed collection of poems by Coleridge and Lloyd, which they had intended to publish, but did not. The pamphlet has completely vanished. In addition to these two works the poetical present also comprised another privately-printed collection, a little pamphlet of twenty-eight sonnets which Coleridge had arranged for the purpose of binding up with those of Bowles. It included three of Bowles', four of Coleridge's, four of Lamb's, four of Southey's, and the remainder by Dermody, Lloyd, Charlotte Smith, and others. A copy of this pamphlet is preserved in the South Kensington Museum.

"The poems you sent me." This would be Lloyd's _Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer_. When Lamb reprinted "The Grandame" in Coleridge's second edition, 1797, he put back the original text.

I now take up Mr. d.y.k.es Campbell's comments on the letter, where it branches off from the _Priscilla Farmer_ volume to the vanished pamphlet of poems by Coleridge and Lloyd:--

Beginning with Lloyd's "Melancholy Man" (first printed in the Carlisle volume of 1795), he [Lamb] pa.s.ses to Coleridge's poem on leaving the honeymoon-cottage at Clevedon, "altogether the sweetest thing to me,"

says Lamb, "you ever wrote." The verses had appeared in the _Monthly Magazine_ two months before.... That Lamb's counsel was followed to some extent may be gathered from a comparison between the text of the magazine and that of 1797:--

"Once I saw (Hallowing his sabbath-day by quietness) A wealthy son of Commerce saunter by, Bristowa's citizen: he paus'd, and look'd, With a pleas'd sadness, and gazed all around, Then ey'd our Cottage, and gaz'd round again, And said, _it was a blessed little place!_ And we _were_ blessed!"

_Monthly Magazine._

"Once I saw (Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness) A wealthy son of Commerce saunter by, Bristowa's citizen. Methought it calm'd His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse With wiser feelings: for he paus'd, and look'd With a pleas'd sadness, and gaz'd all around, Then ey'd our cottage, and gaz'd round again, And sigh'd and said, _it was a blessed place._ And we _were_ blessed."

_Poems_, 1797.

It will be observed that Coleridge in 1797 inserted some lines which were not in the magazine. They were probably restored from a MS. copy Lamb had previously seen, and if Coleridge did not cancel all that Lamb wisely counselled, he certainly drew the sting of the "affronting simplicity" by removing the word "little." The comical ambiguity of the Bristol man's exclamation as first reported could hardly have failed to drive Lamb's dull care away for a moment or two.

[In] "the next poem to your friend," ... [Lamb is] speaking of Coleridge's lines "To Charles Lloyd"--those beginning

"A mount, not wearisome and bare and steep."

In the "forthcoming edition" the poet improved a little the barely tolerated line, making it read,--

"As neighb'ring fountains image, each the whole,"

but did not take Lamb's hint to omit the five which closed the poem.

Lamb, however, got his way--perhaps took it--when the verses were reprinted in 1803, in the volume he saw through the press for Coleridge.

"Neither shall you omit the 2 following poems. 'The hour when we shall meet again' is [only?] a fine fancy, 'tis true, but fancy catering in the service of the feeling--fetching from her stores most splendid banquets to satisfy her. Do not, do not, omit it."

So wrote Lamb of these somewhat slender verses, but his friend had composed them "during illness and in absence," and Lamb in his own heart-sickness and loneliness detected the reality which underlay the conventionality of expression. The critic slept, and even when he was awake again in 1803 was fain to let the lines be reprinted with only the concession of their worst couplet:--

"While finely-flushing float her kisses meek, Like melted rubies, o'er my pallid cheek."

The second of the "2 following poems" was Coleridge's "Sonnet to the River Otter." The version then before him "excludes," complains Lamb, "those equally beautiful lines which deserve not to be lost, 'as the tir'd savage,' &c., and I prefer the copy in your _Watchman_. I plead for its preference." This pleading ... was not responded to in the way Lamb wanted, but in the appendix to the 1797 volume Coleridge printed the whole of the poem on an "Autumnal Evening," to which the "tir'd savage" properly belonged....

"Lloyd's, Southey's, Dermody's Sonnets." Lamb here refers to the third portion of the poetical present--the twenty-eight sonnets to be bound up with those of Bowles. Thomas Dermody (1775-1802) was an Irish poet of squalidly dissolute life. A collection of his verses appeared in 1792.]

LETTER 18

CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE

Dec. 10th, 1796.

I had put my letter into the post rather hastily, not expecting to have to acknowledge another from you so soon. This morning's present has made me alive again: my last night's epistle was childishly querulous; but you have put a little life into me, and I will thank you for your remembrance of me, while my sense of it is yet warm; for if I linger a day or two I may use the same phrase of acknowledgment, or similar; but the feeling that dictates it now will be gone. I shall send you a _caput mortuum_, not a _cor vivens_. Thy Watchman's, thy bellman's, verses, I do retort upon thee, thou libellous varlet,--why, you cried the hours yourself, and who made you so proud? But I submit, to show my humility, most implicitly to your dogmas. I reject entirely the copy of verses you reject. With regard to my leaving off versifying, you have said so many pretty things, so many fine compliments, ingeniously decked out in the garb of sincerity, and undoubtedly springing from a present feeling somewhat like sincerity, that you might melt the most un-muse-ical soul,--did you not (now for a Rowland compliment for your profusion of Olivers)--did you not in your very epistle, by the many pretty fancies and profusion of heart displayed in it, dissuade and discourage me from attempting anything after you. At present I have not leisure to make verses, nor anything approaching to a fondness for the exercise. In the ignorant present time, who can answer for the future man? "At lovers'

perjuries Jove laughs"--and poets have sometimes a disingenuous way of forswearing their occupation. This though is not my case. The tender cast of soul, sombred with melancholy and subsiding recollections, is favourable to the Sonnet or the Elegy; but from

"The sainted growing woof, The teasing troubles keep aloof."

The music of poesy may charm for a while the importunate teasing cares of life; but the teased and troubled man is not in a disposition to make that music.

You sent me some very sweet lines relative to Burns, but it was at a time when, in my highly agitated and perhaps distorted state of mind, I thought it a duty to read 'em hastily and burn 'em. I burned all my own verses, all my book of extracts from Beaumont and Fletcher and a thousand sources: I burned a little journal of my foolish pa.s.sion which I had a long time kept--

"Noting ere they past away The little lines of yesterday."

I almost burned all your letters,--I did as bad, I lent 'em to a friend to keep out of my brother's sight, should he come and make inquisition into our papers, for, much as he dwelt upon your conversation while you were among us, and delighted to be with you, it has been his fashion ever since to depreciate and cry you down,--you were the cause of my madness--you and your d.a.m.ned foolish sensibility and melancholy--and he lamented with a true brotherly feeling that we ever met, even as the sober citizen, when his son went astray upon the mountains of Parna.s.sus, is said to have "cursed wit and Poetry and Pope." I quote wrong, but no matter. These letters I lent to a friend to be out of the way for a season; but I have claimed them in vain, and shall not cease to regret their loss. Your packets, posterior to the date of my misfortunes, commencing with that valuable consolatory epistle, are every day acc.u.mulating--they are sacred things with me.

Publish your _Burns_ when and how you like, it will be new to me,--my memory of it is very confused, and tainted with unpleasant a.s.sociations.

Burns was the G.o.d of my idolatry, as Bowles of yours. I am jealous of your fraternising with Bowles, when I think you relish him more than Burns or my old favourite, Cowper. But you conciliate matters when you talk of the "divine chit-chat" of the latter: by the expression I see you thoroughly relish him. I love Mrs. Coleridge for her excuses an hundredfold more dearly than if she heaped "line upon line,"

out-Hannah-ing Hannah More, and had rather hear you sing "Did a very little baby" by your family fire-side, than listen to you when you were repeating one of Bowles's sweetest sonnets in your sweet manner, while we two were indulging sympathy, a solitary luxury, by the fireside at the Salutation. Yet have I no higher ideas of heaven. Your company was one "cordial in this melancholy vale"--the remembrance of it is a blessing partly, and partly a curse.

When I can abstract myself from things present, I can enjoy it with a freshness of relish; but it more constantly operates to an unfavourable comparison with the uninteresting; converse I always and _only_ can partake in. Not a soul loves Bowles here; scarce one has heard of Burns; few but laugh at me for reading my Testament--they talk a language I understand not: I conceal sentiments that would be a puzzle to them. I can only converse with you by letter and with the dead in their books.

My sister, indeed, is all I can wish in a companion; but our spirits are alike poorly, our reading and knowledge from the self-same sources, our communication with the scenes of the world alike narrow: never having kept separate company, or any "company" "_together_"--never having read separate books, and few books _together_--what knowledge have we to convey to each other? In our little range of duties and connexions, how few sentiments can take place, without friends, with few books, with a taste for religion rather than a strong religious habit! We need some support, some leading-strings to cheer and direct us. You talk very wisely, and be not sparing of _your advice_. Continue to remember us, and to show us you do remember us: we will take as lively an interest in what concerns you and yours. All I can add to your happiness, will be sympathy. You can add to mine _more_; you can teach me wisdom. I am indeed an unreasonable correspondent; but I was unwilling to let my last night's letter go off without this qualifier: you will perceive by this my mind is easier, and you will rejoice. I do not expect or wish you to write, till you are moved; and of course shall not, till you announce to me that event, think of writing myself. Love to Mrs. Coleridge and David Hartley, and my kind remembrance to Lloyd, if he is with you.

C. LAMB.

I will get "Nature and Art,"--have not seen it yet--nor any of Jeremy Taylor's works.

[The reference to the bellman's verses (the bellman, or watchman, used to leave verses at the houses on his beat at Easter as a reminder of his deserts) is not quite clear. Lamb evidently had submitted for the new volume some lines which Coleridge would not pa.s.s--possibly the poem in Letter No. 16.

Coleridge some time before had sent to Lamb the very sweet lines relative to Burns, under the t.i.tle, "To a Friend who had Declared His Intention of Writing no more Poetry."

"Did a very little baby." In the Appendix to Vol. I. of the 1847 edition of the _Biog. Lit._, Sara Coleridge writes, concerning children and domestic evenings, "'Did a very little babby make a very great noise?'

is the first line of a nursery song, in which Mr. Coleridge recorded some of his experience on this recondite subject." The song has disappeared.

_Nature and Art_ was Mrs. Inchbald's story, published in 1796. Lamb later became an enthusiast for Jeremy Taylor.]