The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume V Part 43

I will tell you more about Chapman and his peculiarities in my next. I am much interested in him.

Yours ever affectionately, and Pi-Pos's.

C.L.

[Coleridge was just now contributing political essays as well as verse to the _Morning Post_. "Once a Jacobin always a Jacobin" appeared on October 21, 1802. These were afterwards reprinted in _Essays on His Own Times_. _Ad populum_ is a reminder of Coleridge's first political essays, the _Conciones ad Populum_ of 1795.

"Goody Two Shoes"--One of Newbery's most famous books for children, sometimes attributed to Goldsmith, though, I think, wrongly.

Mrs. Barbauld (1743-1825) was the author of _Hymns in Prose for Children_, and she contributed to her brother John Aikin's _Evenings at Home_, both very popular books. Lamb, who afterwards came to know Mrs.

Barbauld, described her and Mrs. Inchbald as the two bald women. Mrs.

Sarah Trimmer (1741-1810) was the author of many books for children; she lives by the _Story of the Robins_.

The translation for Stuart either was not made or not accepted; nor did Coleridge carry out the project of the parallel of Buonaparte with Cromwell. Hallam, however, did so in his _Const.i.tutional History of England_, unfavourably to Cromwell.

George Chapman's _Odyssey_ was paraphrased by Lamb in his _Adventures of Ulysses_, 1808. Lamb either did not return to the subject with Coleridge, or his "next letter" has been lost.]

LETTER 102

CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE

Nov. 4th, 1802.

Observe, there comes to you, by the Kendal waggon to-morrow, the ill.u.s.trious 5th of November, a box, containing the Miltons, the strange American Bible, with White's brief note, to which you will attend; Baxter's "Holy Commonwealth," for which you stand indebted to me 3s.

6d.; an odd volume of Montaigne, being of no use to me, I having the whole; certain books belonging to Wordsworth, as do also the strange thick-hoofed shoes, which are very much admired at in London. All these sundries I commend to your most strenuous looking after. If you find the Miltons in certain parts dirtied and soiled with a crumb of right Gloucester blacked in the candle (my usual supper), or peradventure a stray ash of tobacco wafted into the crevices, look to that pa.s.sage more especially: depend upon it, it contains good matter. I have got your little Milton which, as it contains Salmasius--and I make a rule of never hearing but one side of the question (why should I distract myself?)--I shall return to you when I pick up the _Latina opera_. The first Defence is the greatest work among them, because it is uniformly great, and such as is befitting the very mouth of a great nation speaking for itself. But the second Defence, which is but a succession of splendid episodes slightly tied together, has one pa.s.sage which if you have not read, I conjure you to lose no time, but read it; it is his consolations in his blindness, which had been made a reproach to him. It begins whimsically, with poetical flourishes about Tiresias and other blind worthies (which still are mainly interesting as displaying his singular mind, and in what degree poetry entered into his daily soul, not by fits and impulses, but engrained and innate); but the concluding page, i.e. of _this pa.s.sage_ (not of the _Defensio_) which you will easily find, divested of all brags and flourishes, gives so rational, so true an enumeration of his comforts, so human, that it cannot be read without the deepest interest. Take one touch of the religious part:--"Et sane haud ultima Dei cura caeci--(_we blind folks_, I understand it not _nos_ for _ego_;)--sumus; qui nos, quominus quicquam aliud praeter ipsum cernere valemus, eo clementius atque benignius respicere dignatur. Vae qui illudit nos, vae qui laedit, execratione publica devovendo; nos ab injuriis hominum non modo incolumes, sed pene sacros divina lex reddidit, divinus favor: nee tam _oculorum hebetudine_ quam _coelestium alarum umbra_ has n.o.bis fecisse tenebras videtur, factas ill.u.s.trare rursus interiore ac longe praestabiliore lumine haud raro solet. Huc refero, quod et amici officiosius nunc etiam quam solebant, colunt, observant, adsunt; quod et nonnulli sunt, quibusc.u.m Pyladeas atque Theseas alternare voces verorum amicorum liceat.

"Vade gubernaculum mei pedis.

Da manum ministro amico.

Da collo manum tuam, ductor autem viae ero tibi ego."

All this, and much more, is highly pleasing to know. But you may easily find it;--and I don't know why I put down so many words about it, but for the pleasure of writing to you and the want of another topic.

Yours ever, C. LAMB.

To-morrow I expect with anxiety S.T.C.'s letter to Mr. Fox.

[Lamb refers to Milton's _Defensio Secunda pro Populo Anglicano contra Alexandrum Morum Ecclesiasten_. The following is a translation of the Latin pa.s.sage by Robert Fellowes:--

And indeed, in my blindness, I enjoy in no inconsiderable degree the favour of the Deity; who regards me with more tenderness and compa.s.sion in proportion as I am able to behold nothing but himself. Alas! for him who insults me, who maligns and merits public execration! For the divine law not only shields me from injury, but almost renders me too sacred to attack; not indeed so much from the privation of my sight, as from the overshadowing of those heavenly wings, which seem to have occasioned this obscurity; and which, when occasioned, he is wont to illuminate with an interior light, more precious and more pure. To this I ascribe the more tender a.s.siduities of my friends, their soothing attentions, their kind visits, their reverential observances; among whom there are some with whom I may interchange the Pyladean and Thesean dialogue of inseparable friends.

_Orest_. Proceed, and be rudder of my feet, by showing me the most endearing love. [Eurip. in _Orest_.]

And in another place--

"Lend your hand to your devoted friend, Throw your arm round my neck, and I will conduct you on the way."

Coleridge's first letter to Charles James Fox was printed in the _Morning Post_ for November 4, 1802, his second on November 9.]

LETTER 103

Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning [November, 1802.]

My dear Manning,--I must positively write, or I shall miss you at Toulouse. I sit here like a decayed minute hand (I lie; _that_ does not _sit_), and being myself the exponent of no time, take no heed how the clocks about me are going. You possibly by this time may have explored all Italy, and toppled, unawares, into Etna, while you went too near those rotten-jawed, gap-toothed, old worn-out chaps of h.e.l.l,--while I am meditating a quiescent letter to the honest postmaster at Toulouse. But in case you should not have been _felo de se_, this is to tell you, that your letter was quite to my palate--in particular your just remarks upon Industry, d.a.m.ned Industry (though indeed you left me to explore the reason), were highly relishing.

I've often wished I lived in the Golden Age, when shepherds lay stretched upon flowers, and roused themselves at their leisure,--the genius there is in a man's natural idle face, that has not learned his multiplication table! before doubt, and propositions, and corollaries, got into the world! _Now_, as Joseph Cottle, a Bard of Nature, sings, going up Malvern Hills,

"How steep! how painful the ascent!

It needs the evidence of _close deduction_ To know that ever I shall gain the top."

You must know that Joe is lame, so that he had some reason for so singing. These two lines, I a.s.sure you, are taken _totidem literis_ from a very _popular_ poem. Joe is also an Epic Poet as well as a Descriptive, and has written a tragedy, though both his drama and epopoiea are strictly _descriptive_, and chiefly of the _Beauties of Nature_, for Joe thinks _man_ with all his pa.s.sions and frailties not a proper subject of the _Drama_. Joe's tragedy hath the following surpa.s.sing speech in it. Some king is told that his enemy has engaged twelve archers to come over in a boat from an enemy's country and way-lay him; he thereupon pathetically exclaims--

"_Twelve_, dost thou say? Where be those dozen villains!"

Cottle read two or three acts out to us, very gravely on both sides, till he came to this heroic touch,--and then he asked what we laughed at? I had no more muscles that day. A poet that chooses to read out his own verses has but a limited power over you. There is a bound where his authority ceases.

Apropos: if you should go to Florence or to Rome, inquire what works are extant in gold, silver, bronze, or marble, of Benvenuto Cellini, a Florentine artist, whose Life doubtless, you have read; or, if not, without controversy you must read: so hark ye, send for it immediately from Lane's circulating library. It is always put among the romances, very properly; but you have read it, I suppose. In particular, inquire at Florence for his colossal bronze statue (in the grand square or somewhere) of Perseus. You may read the story in Tooke's "Pantheon."

Nothing material has _transpired_ in these parts. Coleridge has indited a violent philippic against Mr. Fox in the "Morning Post," which is a compound of expressions of humility, gentlemen-ushering-in most arrogant charges. It will do Mr. Fox no real injury among those that know him.

[Manning's letter of September 10 had told Lamb he was on his way to Toulouse.

Cottle's epic was _Alfred_. The quoted lines were added in the twelfth edition. He had also written _John the Baptist_.

"Cellini's Life." Lamb would probably have read the translation by Nugent, 1771. Cellini's Perseus in bronze is in the Loggia de' Lanzi at Florence.]

LETTER 104

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING

[Dated at end: Feb. 19th, 1803.]

My dear Manning,--The general scope of your letter afforded no indications of insanity, but some particular points raised a scruple.

For G.o.d's sake don't think any more of "Independent Tartary." What have you to do among such Ethiopians? Is there no _lineal descendant_ of Prester John?

Is the chair empty? Is the sword unswayed?--depend upon't they'll never make you their king, as long as any branch of that great stock is remaining. I tremble for your Christianity. They'll certainly circ.u.mcise you. Read Sir John Maundevil's travels to cure you, or come over to England.

There is a Tartar-man now exhibiting at Exeter Change. Come and talk with him, and hear what he says first. Indeed, he is no very favorable specimen of his Countrymen! But perhaps the best thing you can do, is to _try_ to get the idea out of your head. For this purpose repeat to yourself every night, after you have said your prayers, the words Independent Tartary, Independent Tartary, two or three times, and a.s.sociate with them the _idea of oblivion_ ('tis Hartley's method with obstinate memories), or say, Independent, Independent, have I not already got an _Independence_? That was a clever way of the old puritans--pun-divinity. My dear friend, think what a sad pity it would be to bury such _parts_ in heathen countries, among nasty, unconversable, horse-belching, Tartar people! Some say, they are Cannibals; and then conceive a Tartar-fellow _eating_ my friend, and adding the _cool malignity_ of mustard and vinegar! I am afraid 'tis the reading of Chaucer has misled you; his foolish stories about Cambuscan and the ring, and the horse of bra.s.s. Believe me, there's no such things, 'tis all the poet's _invention_; but if there were such _darling_ things as old Chaucer sings, I would _up_ behind you on the Horse of Bra.s.s, and frisk off for Prester John's Country. But these are all tales; a Horse of Bra.s.s never flew, and a King's daughter never talked with Birds! The Tartars, really, are a cold, insipid, smouchey set. You'll be sadly moped (if you are not eaten) among them. Pray _try_ and cure yourself. Take h.e.l.lebore (the counsel is Horace's, 'twas none of my thought _originally_). Shave yourself oftener. Eat no saffron, for saffron-eaters contract a terrible Tartar-like yellow. Pray, to avoid the fiend. Eat nothing that gives the heart-burn. _Shave the upper lip_.

Go about like an European. Read no books of voyages (they're nothing but lies): only now and then a Romance, to keep the fancy _under_. Above all, don't go to any sights of _wild beasts_. _That has been your ruin_.