The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume V Part 84

Sir Samuel Romilly (1757-1818), the lawyer and law reformer, was the great opponent of capital punishment for small offences.

In the preface to the 1802 edition of _Lyrical Ballads_, etc., Wordsworth had quoted Dr. Johnson's prosaic lines:--

I put my hat upon my head And walked into the Strand, And there I met another man Whose hat was in his hand.

--contrasting them with these lines from the "Babes in the Wood":--

These pretty Babes with hand in hand Went wandering up and down; But never more they saw the Man Approaching from the Town.

"Peter Pindar." John Wolcot (1738-1819), whom Lamb had met at Henry Rogers', brother of the poet.]

LETTER 218

CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

London, May 6th, 1815.

Dear Southey,--I have received from Longman a copy of "Roderick," with the author's compliments, for which I much thank you. I don't know where I shall put all the n.o.ble presents I have lately received in that way; the "Excursion," Wordsworth's two last vols., and now "Roderick," have come pouring in upon me like some irruption from Helicon. The story of the brave Maccabee was already, you may be sure, familiar to me in all its parts. I have, since the receipt of your present, read it quite through again, and with no diminished pleasure. I don't know whether I ought to say that it has given me more pleasure than any of your long poems. "Kehama" is doubtless more powerful, but I don't feel that firm footing in it that I do in "Roderick;" my imagination goes sinking and floundering in the vast s.p.a.ces of unopened-before systems and faiths; I am put out of the pale of my old sympathies; my moral sense is almost outraged; I can't believe, or with horror am made to believe, such desperate chances against omnipotences, such disturbances of faith to the centre. The more potent the more painful the spell. Jove and his brotherhood of G.o.ds, tottering with the giant a.s.sailings, I can bear, for the soul's hopes are not struck at in such contests; but your Oriental almighties are too much types of the intangible prototype to be meddled with without shuddering. One never connects what are called the attributes with Jupiter. I mention only what diminishes my delight at the wonder-workings of "Kehama," not what impeaches its power, which I confess with trembling.

But "Roderick" is a comfortable poem. It reminds me of the delight I took in the first reading of the "Joan of Arc." It is maturer and better than _that_, though not better to me now than that was then. It suits me better than "Madoc." I am at home in Spain and Christendom. I have a timid imagination, I am afraid. I do not willingly admit of strange beliefs or out-of-the-way creeds or places. I never read books of travel, at least not farther than Paris or Rome. I can just endure Moors, because of their connection as foes with Christians; but Abyssinians, Ethiops, Esquimaux, Dervises, and all that tribe, I hate. I believe I fear them in some manner. A Mahometan turban on the stage, though enveloping some well known face (Mr. Cook or Mr. Maddox, whom I see another day good Christian and English waiters, innkeepers, &c.), does not give me pleasure unalloyed. I am a Christian, Englishman, Londoner, _Templar_. G.o.d help me when I come to put off these snug relations, and to get abroad into the world to come! I shall be like _the crow on the sand_, as Wordsworth has it; but I won't think on it--no need, I hope, yet.

The parts I have been most pleased with, both on 1st and 2nd readings, perhaps, are Florinda's palliation of Roderick's crime, confessed to him in his disguise--the retreat of Palayo's family first discovered,--his being made king--"For acclamation one form must serve, _more solemn for the breach of old observances_." Roderick's vow is extremely fine, and his blessing on the vow of Alphonso:

"Towards the troop he spread his arms, As if the expanded soul diffused itself, And carried to all spirits _with the act_ Its affluent inspiration."

It struck me forcibly that the feeling of these last lines might have been suggested to you by the Cartoon of Paul at Athens. Certain it is that a better motto or guide to that famous att.i.tude can no where be found. I shall adopt it as explanatory of that violent, but dignified motion.

I must read again Landor's "Julian." I have not read it some time. I think he must have failed in Roderick, for I remember nothing of him, nor of any distinct character as a character--only fine-sounding pa.s.sages. I remember thinking also he had chosen a point of time after the event, as it were, for Roderick survives to no use; but my memory is weak, and I will not wrong a fine Poem by trusting to it.

The notes to your poem I have not read again; but it will be a take-downable book on my shelf, and they will serve sometimes at breakfast, or times too light for the text to be duly appreciated.

Though some of 'em, one of the serpent Penance, is serious enough, now I think on't.

Of Coleridge I hear nothing, nor of the Morgans. I hope to have him like a re-appearing star, standing up before me some time when least expected in London, as has been the case whylear.

I am _doing_ nothing (as the phrase is) but reading presents, and walk away what of the day-hours I can get from hard occupation. Pray accept once more my hearty thanks, and expression of pleasure for your remembrance of me. My sister desires her kind respects to Mrs. S. and to all at Keswick.

Yours truly, C. LAMB.

The next Present I look for is the "White Doe." Have you seen Mat.

Betham's "Lay of Marie?" I think it very delicately pretty as to sentiment, &c.

[Southey's _Roderick, the Last of the Goths_, was published in 1814.

Driven from his throne by the Moors, Roderick had disguised himself as a monk under the name of Father Maccabee. _The Curse of Kehama_ had been published in 1810; Madoc in 1805; _Joan of Arc_ (see Letter 3, &c.) in 1796. Southey was now Poet Laureate.

"I never read books of travels." Writing to Dilke, of _The Athenaeum_, for books, some years later, Lamb makes a point of "no natural history or useful learning" being sent--such as Giraffes, Pyramids and Adventures in Central Africa. None the less, as a boy, he tells us, he had read Bruce and applied his Abyssinian methods to the New River (see the _Elia_ essay on Newspapers).

"The crow on the sand." In "The Farmer of Tilsbury Vale":--

As lonely he stood as a crow on the sands.

Verse xii., line 4

Florinda's palliation of Roderick's crime is in Book X.; the retreat of Pelayo's family discovered, in Book XVI.; Pelayo made king, in Book XVIII. Landor's _Count Julian_, published in 1812, dealt with the same story, Florinda, whom Roderick violated, having been the daughter of the Count, a Spanish Goth. Julian devoted himself to Roderick's ruin, even turning traitor for the purpose. Southey's notes are tremendous-- sometimes filling all but a line or two of the page.

"The _White Doe_." Wordsworth's poem _The White Doe of Rylstone_, to be published this year, 1815.

"Matilda Betham's _Lay of Marie_." We shall come to this shortly. The poem was still in MS.]

LETTER 219

CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY Aug. 9th, 1815.

Dear Southey,--Robinson is not on the circuit, as I erroneously stated in a letter to W. W., which travels with this, but is gone to Brussels, Ostend, Ghent, etc. But his friends the Colliers, whom I consulted respecting your friend's fate, remember to have heard him say, that Father Pardo had effected his escape (the cunning greasy rogue), and to the best of their belief is at present in Paris. To my thinking, it is a small matter whether there be one fat friar more or less in the world. I have rather a taste for clerical executions, imbibed from early recollections of the fate of the excellent Dodd. I hear Buonaparte has sued his habeas corpus, and the twelve judges are now sitting upon it at the Rolls.

Your boute-feu (bonfire) must be excellent of its kind. Poet Settle presided at the last great thing of the kind in London, when the pope was burnt in form. Do you provide any verses on this occasion? Your fear for Hartley's intellectuals is just and rational. Could not the Chancellor be pet.i.tioned to remove him? His lordship took Mr. Betty from under the paternal wing. I think at least he should go through a course of matter-of-fact with some sober man after the mysteries. Could not he spend a week at Poole's before he goes back to Oxford? Tobin is dead.

But there is a man in my office, a Mr. Hedges, who proses it away from morning to night, and never gets beyond corporal and material verities.

He'd get these crack-brain metaphysics out of the young gentleman's head as soon as any one I know. When I can't sleep o' nights, I imagine a dialogue with Mr. H. upon any given subject, and go prosing on in fancy with him, till I either laugh or fall asleep. I have literally found it answer. I am going to stand G.o.dfather; I don't like the business; I cannot muster up decorum for these occasions; I shall certainly disgrace the font. I was at Hazlitt's marriage, and had like to have been turned out several times during the ceremony. Any thing awful makes me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral. Yet I can read about these ceremonies with pious and proper feelings. The realities of life only seem the mockeries. I fear I must get cured along with Hartley, if not too inveterate. Don't you think Louis the Desirable is in a sort of quandary?

After all, Bonaparte is a fine fellow, as my barber says, and I should not mind standing bareheaded at his table to do him service in his fall.

They should have given him Hampton Court or Kensington, with a tether extending forty miles round London. Qu. Would not the people have ejected the Brunswicks some day in his favour? Well, we shall see.

C. LAMB.

["Father Pardo." I have not traced this fat friar.

"The excellent Dodd." The Rev. William Dodd (1729-1777), compiler of _The Beauties of Shakespeare_, was hanged for forgery in 1777, when Lamb was two years old. The case caused immense public interest.

"Buonaparte." Waterloo had been fought on June 18.

"Your boute-feu." The bonfire in honour of Waterloo flamed on Skiddaw on August 21. See Southey's description in his letter to his brother, August 23, 1815 (_Life and Correspondence_, Vol. IV., page 120).

"Poet Settle." Elkanah Settle (1648-1724) was chief organiser of the procession on the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's birthday in 1680, when the Pope was burned in effigy.

Hartley Coleridge, now almost nineteen, after having been to school at Ambleside, had been sent to Oxford through the instrumentality of his uncle, Southey. At the time of Lamb's letter he was staying at Calne with his father. Mr. Betty was the Young Roscius, whom we have already seen, who, after retiring from the Phenomenon stage of his career in 1808, had since been to school and to Cambridge upon his earnings, and had now become an adult actor. Poole was Thomas Poole of Nether Stowey, whom we have seen: Coleridge's old and very sensible friend. Tobin would probably be James Webbe Tobin, the brother of the dramatist. He had died in 1814.

"I am going to stand G.o.dfather." To what child I do not know.

"Louis the Desirable"--Louis XVIII., styled by the Royalists "_Le Desire_."]