written compact between author and reader: "I will tell you a story, and I suppose you will understand it." Modern novels, “St. Leon" and the like, are full of such flowers as these "Let not my reader suppose," "Imagine, if you can, &c."-modest! I will here have done with praise and blame. I have written so much, only that you may not think I have passed over your book without observation. I am sorry that Coleridge has christened his "Ancient Mari""a Poet's Reverie ;" it is as bad as Bottom the Weaver's declaration that he is not a lion, but only the scenical representation of a lion. What new idea is gained by his title but one subversive of all credit-which the tale should force upon us,-of its truth? ner For me, I was never so affected with any human tale. After first reading it, I was totally possessed with it for many days. I dislike all the miraculous part of it, but the feelings of the man under the operation of such scenery, dragged me along like Tom Pipe's magic whistle. I totally differ from the idea that the "Mariner" should have had a character and profession. This is a beauty in "Gulliver's Travels," where the mind is kept in a placid state of little wonderments; but the "Ancient Mariner" undergoes such trials as overwhelm and bury all individuality or memory of what he was-like the state of a man in a bad dream, one terrible peculiarity of which is, that all consciousness of personality is gone. Your other observation is, I think as well, a little unfounded: the "Mariner," from being conversant in supernatural events, has acquired a super-nature and strange cast of phrase, eye, appearance, &c., which frighten the "wedding-guest." You will excuse my remarks, because I am hurt and vexed that you should think it necessary, with a prose apology, to open the eyes of dead men that cannot see. To sum up a general opinion of the second volume, I do not 5* feel any one poem in it so forcibly as the " Ancient Mariner," the "Mad Mother," and the "Lines at Tintern Abbey" in the first. The following letter was addressed, on 28th November, 1805, when Lamb was bidding his generous farewell to Tobacco, to Wordsworth, then living in noble poverty with his sister in a cottage by Grassmere, which is as sacred to some of his old admirers as even Shakspeare's House. TO MR. WORDSWORTH. My dear Wordsworth (or Dorothy rather, for to you appertains the biggest part of this answer by right), I will not again deserve reproach by so long a silence. I have kept deluding myself with the idea that Mary would write to you, but she is so lazy, (or I believe the true state of the case, so diffident,) that it must revert to me as usual; though she writes a pretty good style, and has some notion of the force of words, she is not always so certain of the true orthography of them; that, and a poor handwriting (in this age of female calligraphy), often deters her, where no other reason does.* We have neither of us been very well for some weeks past. I am very nervous, and she most so at those times when I am; so that a merry friend, adverting to the noble consolation we were able to afford each other, denominated us, not inaptly, Gum-Boil and Tooth-Ache, for they used to say that a gum-boil is a great relief to a tooth-ache. We have been two tiny excursions this summer for three or four days each, to a place near Harrow, and to Egham, where Cooper's Hill is; and that is the total history of our rustications this year. Alas! how poor a round to Skiddaw and Helvellyn and Borrowdale, and the magnificent sesqui * This is mere banter; Miss Lamb wrote a very good hand. pedalia of the year 1802. Poor old Molly! to have lost her pride, that "last infirmity of noble minds," and her cow. Fate need not have set her wits to such an old Molly. I am heartily sorry for her. Remember us lovingly to her; and in particular remember us to Mrs. Clarkson in the most kind manner. I hope, by "southwards," you mean that she will be at or near London, for she is a great favorite of both of us, and we feel for her health as much as possible for any one to do. She is one of the friendliest, comfortablest women we know, and made our little stay at your cottage one of the pleasantest times we ever past. We were quite strangers to her. Mr. C. is with you too; our kindest separate remembrances to him. As to our special affairs, I am looking about me. I have done nothing since the beginning of last year, when I lost my newspaper job, and having had a long idleness, I must do something, or we shall get very poor. Sometimes I think of a farce, but hitherto all schemes have gone off; an idle bray or two of an evening, vaporing out of a pipe, and going off in the morning; but now I have bid farewell to my "sweet enemy," Tobacco, as you will see in my next page,* I shall perhaps set nobly to work. Hang work! I wish that all the year were holiday; I am sure that indolence-indefeasible indolence-is the true state of man, and business the invention of the old Teazer, whose interference doomed Adam to an apron and set him a hoeing. Pen and ink, and clerks and desks, were the refinements of this old torturer some thousand years after, under pretence of "Commerce allying distant shores, Promoting and diffusing knowledge, good," &c. &c. Yours, &c. *The "Farewell to Tobacco" was transcribed on the next page; but the actual sacrifice was not completed till some years after. CHAPTER V. LETTERS TO HAZLITT, ETC., FROM 1805 TO 1810. ABOUT the year 1805 Lamb was introduced to one, whose society through life was one of his chief pleasures— the great critic and thinker, William Hazlitt-who, at that time, scarcely conscious of his own literary powers, was striving hard to become a painter. At the period of the following letter (which is dated 15th March, 1806,) Hazlitt was residing with his father, an Unitarian minister, at Wem. TO MR. HAZLITT. DEAR H., I am a little surprised at no letter from you. This day week, to wit, Saturday, the 8th of March, 1806, I book'd off by the Wem coach, Bull and Mouth Inn, directed to you, at the Rev. Mr. Hazlitt's, Wem, Shropshire, a parcel containing, besides a book, &c., a rare print which I take to be a Titian; begging the said W. H. to acknowledge the receipt thereof; which he not having done, I conclude the said parcel to be lying at the inn, and may be lost; for which reason, lest you may be a Wales-hunting at this instant, I have authorized any of your family, whosoever first gets this, to open it, that so precious a parcel may not moulder away for want of looking after. What do you in Shropshire when so many fine pictures are a-going a-going every day in London ? Monday I visit the Marquis of Lansdowne's, in Berkeley Square. Catalogue, 2s. 6d. Leonardos in plenty. Some other day this week, I go to see Sir Wm. Young's, in Stratford Place. Hulse's, of Blackheath, are also to be sold this month, and in May, the first private collection in Europe, Welbore Ellis Agar's. And there are you perverting Nature in lying landscapes, filched from old rusty Titians, such as I can scrape up here to send you, with an additament from Shropshire nature thrown in to make the whole look unnatural. I am afraid of your mouth watering when I tell you that Manning and I got into Angerstein's on Wednesday. Mon Dieu! Such Claudes! Four Claudes bought for more than 10,0007. (those who talk of Wilson being equal to Claude are either mainly ignorant or stupid); one of them was perfectly miraculous. What colors short of bona fide sunbeams it could be painted in, I am not earthly colorman enough to say; but I did not think it had been in the possibility of things. Then, a musicpiece of Titian-a thousand-pound picture-five figures standing behind a piano, the sixth playing; none of the heads, M. observed, indicating great men, nor affecting it, but so sweetly disposed; all leaning separate ways, but so easy, like a flock of some divine shepherd; the coloring, like the economy of the picture, so sweet and harmonious-as good as Shakspeare's "Twelfth Night,"-almost, that is. It will give you a love of order, and cure you of restless, fidgety passions for a week after-more musical than the music which it would, but cannot, yet in a manner does, show. I have no room for the rest. Let me say, Angerstein sits in a room-his study, (only that and the library are shown,) when he writes a common letter as I am doing, surrounded with twenty pictures worth 60,0007. What a luxury! Apicius and Heliogabalus, hide your diminished Yours, my dear painter, heads! C. LAMB. |