The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Part 47

APPENDIX

ESSAYS AND NOTES NOT CERTAIN TO BE LAMB'S, BUT PROBABLY HIS

Sc.r.a.pS OF CRITICISM

(1822)

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre.

_Gray's Elegy_.

There has always appeared to me a vicious mixture of the figurative with the real in this admired pa.s.sage. The first two lines may barely pa.s.s, as not bad. But the _hands_ laid in the earth, must mean the identical five-finger'd organs of the body; and how does this consist with their occupation of _swaying rods_, unless their owner had been a schoolmaster; or _waking lyres_, unless he were literally a harper by profession? Hands that "might have held the plough," would have some sense, for that work is strictly manual; the others only emblematically or pictorially so. Kings now-a-days sway no rods, _alias_ sceptres, except on their coronation day; and poets do not necessarily strum upon the harp or fiddle, as poets. When we think upon dead cold fingers, we may remember the honest squeeze of friendship which they returned heretofore; we cannot but with violence connect their living idea, as opposed to death, with uses to which they must become metaphorical (i.e.

less real than dead things themselves) before we can so with any propriety apply them.

He saw, but, blasted with excess of light, Closed his eyes in endless night.

_Gray's Bard_.

Nothing was ever more violently distorted, than this material fact of Milton's blindness having been occasioned by his intemperate studies, and late hours, during his prosecution of the defence against Salmasius--applied to the dazzling effects of too much mental vision.

His corporal sight was blasted with corporal occupation; his inward sight was not impaired, but rather strengthened, by his task. If his course of studies had turned his brain, there would have been some fitness in the expression.

And since I cannot, I will prove a _villain_, And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

_Soliloquy in Richard III_.

The performers, whom I have seen in this part, seem to mistake the import of the word which I have marked with italics. Richard does not mean, that because he is by shape and temper unfitted for a _courtier_, he is therefore determined to prove, in our sense of the word, a _wicked man_. The word in Shakspeare's time had not pa.s.sed entirely into the modern sense; it was in its pa.s.sage certainly, and indifferently used as such; the beauty of a world of words in that age was in their being less definite than they are now, fixed, and petrified. _Villain_ is here undoubtedly used for a _churl_, or _clown_, opposed to a _courtier_; and the incipient deterioration of the meaning gave the use of it in this place great spirit and beauty. A _wicked man_ does not necessarily hate _courtly pleasures_; a _clown_ is naturally opposed to them. The mistake of this meaning has, I think, led the players into that hard literal conception with which they deliver this pa.s.sage, quite foreign, in my understanding, to the bold gay-faced irony of the soliloquy. Richard, upon the stage, looks round, as if he were literally apprehensive of some dog snapping at him; and announces his determination of procuring a looking-gla.s.s, and employing a tailor, as if he were prepared to put both in practice before he should get home--I apprehend "a world of figures here."

_Howell's Letters_. "The Treaty of the Match 'twixt our Prince [afterwards Charles I.] and the Lady Infanta, is now strongly afoot; she is a very comely Lady, _rather of a Flemish complexion than Spanish, fair hair'd_, and carrieth a most pure mixture of red and white in her Face. She is full and _big-lipp'd, which is held a Beauty rather than a Blemish or any Excess in the Austrian Family, it being a thing incident to most of that Race_; she goes now upon 16, and is of a tallness agreeable to those years." This letter bears date, 5th Jan. 1622. Turn we now to a letter dated 16th May, 1626. The wind was now changed about, the Spanish match broken off, and Charles had become the husband of Henrietta. "I thank you for your late Letter, and the several good Tidings sent me from Wales. In requital I can send you gallant news, for we have now a most n.o.ble new Queen of England, who in true Beauty is beyond the Long-woo'd Infanta; for she was of a _fading Flaxen-hair, Big-lipp'd_, and somewhat Heavy-eyed; but this Daughter of France, this youngest Branch of Bourbon (being but in her Cradle when the Great Henry her Father was put out of the World) is of a more _lovely and lasting Complexion_, a dark brown; she hath Eyes that sparkle like Stars; and for her Physiognomy, she may be said to be a Mirror of Perfection." He hath a rich account, in another letter, of Prince Charles courting this same Infanta. "There are Comedians once a week come to the Palace [at Madrid], where under a great Canopy, the Queen and the Infanta sit in the middle, our Prince and Don Carlos on the Queen's right hand, the king and the little Cardinal on the Infanta's left hand. I have seen the Prince have his eyes immovably fixed upon the Infanta half an hour together in a thoughtful speculative posture, _which sure would needs be tedious, unless affection did sweeten it_."

Again, of the Prince's final departure from that court. "The king and his two Brothers accompanied his Highness to the Escurial some twenty miles off, and would have brought him to the Sea-side, but that the Queen is big, and hath not many days to go. When the King and he parted, there past wonderful great Endearments and Embraces _in divers postures_ between them a long time; and in that place there is a Pillar to be erected as a monument to Posterity." This scene of royal congees a.s.suredly gave rise to the popular, or reformed sign (as Ben Jonson calls it), of _The Salutation_. In the days of Popery, this sign had a more solemn import.

THE MISCELLANY

(1822)

THE CHOICE OF A GRAVE

In Fontenelle's Dialogues of the Dead, Mary Stuart meets Rizzio, and by way of reconciling him to the violence he had suffered, says to him, "I have honoured thy memory so far as to place thee in the tomb of the Kings of Scotland." "How," says the musician, "my body entombed among the Scottish Kings?" "Nothing more true," replies the queen. "And I,"

says Rizzio, "I have been so little sensible of that good fortune, that, believe me, this is the first notice I ever had of it."

I have no sympathy with that feeling, which is now-a-days so much in fashion, for picking out snug spots to be buried in. What is the meaning of such fancies? No man thinks or says, that it will be agreeable to his dead body to be resolved into dust under a willow, or with flowers above it. No--it is, that while alive he has pleasure in such antic.i.p.ations for his c.o.xcomical clay. I do not understand it--there is no _quid pro quo_ in the business to my apprehension. It will not do to reason upon of course; but I can't feel about it. I am to blame, I dare say--but I can only laugh at such under-ground whims. "A good place" in the church-yard!--the boxes!--a front row! but why? No, I cannot understand it: I cannot feel _particular_ on such a subject: any part for me, as a plain man says of a partridge.

WILKS

It is very pleasing to discover redeeming points in characters that have been held up to our detestation. The merest trifles are enough, if they taste but of common humanity. I have never thought very ill of Wilks since I discovered that he was exceedingly fond of South-Down mutton.

But better than this: "My cherries," he says, "are the prey of the blackbirds--and they are most welcome." This is a little trait of character, which, in my mind, covers a mult.i.tude of sins.

MILTON

Milton takes his rank in English literature, according to the station which has been determined on by the critics. But he is not read like Lord Byron, or Mr. Thomas Moore. He is not _popular_; nor perhaps will he ever be. He is known as the Author of "Paradise Lost;" but his "Paradise Regained," "severe and beautiful," is little known. Who knows his Arcades? or Samson Agonistes? or half his minor poems? We are persuaded that, however they may be spoken of with respect, few persons take the trouble to read them. Even Comus, the child of his youth, his "florid son, young" Comus--is not well known; and for the little renown he may possess, he is indebted to the stage. The following lines (_excepting only the first four_) are not printed in the common editions of Milton; nor are they generally known to belong to that divine "Masque;" yet they are in the poet's highest style. We are happy to bring them before such of our readers as are not possessed of Mr. Todd's expensive edition of Milton.

_The Spirit Enters._

Before the starry threshold of Jove's court My mansion is, where those immortal shapes Of bright aerial spirits live insphered In regions mild of calm and serene air, _Amidst th' Hesperian gardens, on whose banks_ _Bedew'd with nectar and celestial songs,_ _Eternal roses grow, and hyacinth, And fruits of golden rind, on whose fair tree_ _The scaly harness'd dragon ever keeps_ _His unenchanted eye: around the verge_ _And sacred limits of this blissful isle,_ _The jealous ocean, that old river, winds_ _His far-extended arms, till with steep fall_ _Half his waste flood the wild Atlantic fills,_ _And half the slow unfathom'd Stygian pool._ _But soft, I was not sent to court your wonder_ _With distant worlds, and strange removed climes._ _Yet thence I come, and oft from thence behold, &c._

Our readers will forgive us for having modernized the spelling. It is the only liberty that we have taken with our great author's magnificent pa.s.sage.

A CHECK TO HUMAN PRIDE

It is rather an unpleasant fact, that the ugliest and awkwardest of brute animals have the greatest resemblance to man: the monkey and the bear. The monkey is ugly too, (so we think,) because he is like man--as the bear is awkward, because the c.u.mbrous action of its huge paws seems to be a preposterous imitation of the motions of the human hands. Men and apes are the only animals that have hairs on the under eye-lid. Let kings know this.

COMIC TALES, ETC.,

BY C. DIBDIN THE YOUNGER

(1825)

In this age of hyper-poetic plights, and talent in a frenzy aping genius, it is consolatory to see a little volume of verse in the good old sober manner of Queen Ann's days, when verse walked high, rather than flew, and sought its nutriment upon this diurnal sphere, not rapt above the moon. To a lover of Chess, who at the same time can relish the Rape of the Lock, the poem which forms the distinguishing feature of this volume cannot fail to impart pleasure. It is a mock heroic of course, descriptive of the Game; and the Homeric parodies are adroit and numerous. The names of the mortal combatants, Blanc, Blanche, Croesieroi, Reinelawne, Sir Garderoi, Sir Gardereene, etc. on one side, with Niger, Nigra, Mitrex, Mitre regina, Sir Rexensor, Sir Reginalde, etc. on the other, are happily conceived, and the strife thickens to the conclusion. The G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses are the Games of Chance, or Mixed Chance, Faro, Whist, Loo, etc. in all their attributes, with old Hazard for their Jupiter, a fine gruff, grumbling Dice-compeller, whose dice-box is to him what the awful Homeric chain was to his Prototype.