saw

Ninathoma (first stanza in particular) is the come from the heart direct, not by the best, or only good imitation, of Ossian I ever medium of the fancy, I would not suggest an - your Restless Gale' excepted. To alteration. When my blank verse is finished, an Infant' is most sweet; is not 'foodful,' or any long fancy poem, 'propino tibi alterthough, very harsh? Would not dulcet' andum, cut-up-andum, abridgandum,' just fruit be less harsh, or some other friendly what you will with it; but spare my ewebi-syllable? In 'Edmund,' 'Frenzy! fierce- lambs! That to Mrs. Siddons,' now, you eyed child' is not so well as 'frantic,' though were welcome to improve, if it had been that is an epithet adding nothing to the meaning. Slander couching was better than 'squatting.' In the Man of Ross' it was a better line thus:

"If 'neath this roof thy wine-cheered moments pass,'

than as it stands now. Time nor nothing can reconcile me to the concluding five lines of 'Kosciusko;' call it anything you will but sublime. In my twelfth effusion I had rather have seen what I wrote myself, though they bear no comparison with your exquisite

lines

'On rose-leafed-beds amid your faery bowers,' &c.

"I love my sonnets because they are the reflected images of my own feelings at different times. To instance, in the

thirteenth

"How reason reeled,' &c.,

worth it; but I say unto you again, Coleridge, spare my ewe-lambs! I must confess were they mine, I should omit, in editione secundá, effusions two and three, because satiric, and below the dignity of the poet of Religious Musings,' fifth, seventh, half of the eighth, that 'Written in early youth,' as far as 'thousand eyes,'-though I part not unreluctantly with that lively line

'Chaste joyance dancing in her bright blue eyes,' and one would substitute for it that sweet poem or two just thereabouts. But I called 'Recollection,' in the fifth number of the Watchman, better, I think, than the remainder of this poem, though not differing materially; as the poem now stands, it looks altogether confused; and do not omit those lines upon the 'Early Blossom,' in your sixth number of the Watchman; and I would omit the tenth effusion, or what would are good lines, but must spoil the whole with do better, alter and improve the last four me, who know it is only a fiction of yours, lines. In fact, I suppose, if they were mine, and that the 'rude dashings' did in fact not I should not omit 'em; but your verse is, for 'rock me to repose.' I grant the same the most part, so exquisite, that I like not objection applies not to the former sonnet; to see aught of meaner matter mixed with it. but still I love my own feelings; they are Forgive my petulance, and often, I fear, illdear to memory, though they now and then founded criticisms, and forgive me that I wake a sigh or a tear. Thinking on divers have, by this time, made your eyes and head things foredone, I charge you, Coleridge, ache with my long letter; but I cannot spare my ewe-lambs; and though a gentle- forego hastily the pleasure and pride of thus man may borrow six lines in an epic poem (I conversing with you. You did not tell me should have no objection to borrow five whether I was to include the Conciones ad hundred, and without acknowledging), still, Populum' in my remarks on your poems. in a sonnet, a personal poem, I do not ask They are not unfrequently sublime, and I my friend the aiding verse;' I would not think you could not do better than to turn wrong your feelings, by proposing any 'em into verse if you have nothing else to improvements (did I think myself capable do. A-, I am sorry to say, is a confirmed of suggesting 'em) in such personal poems as Atheist; S, a cold-hearted, well-bred, 'Thou bleedest, my poor heart,'-'od so,-I conceited disciple of Godwin, does him no am caught- I have already done it; but that simile I propose abridging, would not change the feeling or introduce any alien ones. Do you understand me? In the twenty-eighth, however, and in the Sigh,' and that composed at Clevedon, things that

good.

"How I sympathise with you on the dull duty of a reviewer, and heartily damn with you Ned E- and the Prosodist. I shall, however, wait impatiently for the articles in the Critical Review, next month, because

they are yours. Young Evans (W. Evans, a not the salary low, and absence from your branch of a family you were once so intimate with) is come into our office, and sends his love to you! Coleridge! I devoutly wish that Fortune, who has made sport with you so long, may play one freak more, throw you into London, or some spot near it, and there snug-ify you for life. 'Tis a selfish, but natural wish for me, cast as I am on life's wide plain, friendless.' Are you acquainted with Bowles? I see, by his last Elegy, (written at Bath,) you are near neighbours. Thursday.

immediately, if at any time you quit Bristol, | what you bid me, and left 'em at Perry's.† lest I come and Taffy be not at home. II think 'em altogether good, and do not see

hope I can come in a day or two; but young, why you were solicitous about any alteration. S-, of my office, is suddenly taken ill in I have not yet seen, but will make it my this very nick of time, and I must officiate business to see, to-day's Chronicle, for your for him till he can come to work again: had verses on Horne Tooke. Dyer stanza'd him the knave gone sick, and died, and been in one of the papers tother day, but, I think, buried at any other time, philosophy might unsuccessfully. Tooke's friends meeting was, have afforded one comfort, but just now II suppose, a dinner of condolence. I am have no patience with him. Quarles I am as not sorry to find you (for all Sara) immersed great a stranger to as I was to Withers. I in clouds of smoke and metaphysics. You wish you would try and do something to know I had a sneaking kindness for this last bring our elder bards into more general noble science, and you taught me some smatfame. I writhe with indignation when, in tering of it. I look to become no mean probooks of criticism, where common-place quo- ficient under your tuition. Coleridge, what tation is heaped upon quotation, I find no do you mean by saying you wrote to me mention of such men as Massinger, or Beau- about Plutarch and Porphyry? I received mont and Fletcher, men with whom succeed- no such letter, nor remember a syllable of ing dramatic writers (Otway alone excepted)* the matter, yet am not apt to forget any part can bear no manner of comparison. Stupid Knox hath noticed none of 'em among his

extracts.

“Thursday. — Mrs. C― can scarce guess how she has gratified me by her very kind letter and sweet little poem. I feel that I should thank her in rhyme, but she must take my acknowledgment at present, in plain honest prose. The uncertainty in which I yet stand, whether I can come or no, damps my spirits, reduces me a degree below prosaical, and keeps me in a suspense that fluctuates between hope and fear. Hope is a charming, lively, blue-eyed wench, and I am always glad of her company, but could dispense with the visitor she brings with her her younger sister, Fear, a white-livered, lily-cheeked, bashful, palpitating, awkward hussy, that hangs like a green girl, at her sister's apronstrings, and will go with her whithersoever she goes. For the life and soul of me, I could not improve those lines in your poem on the Prince and Princess, so I changed them to

An exception he certainly would not have made a few years afterwards; for he used to mention two pretty lines in the "Orphan,"

"Sweet as the shepherd's pipe upon the mountains, With all his fleecy flock at feed beside him,"

as a redeeming passage amidst mere stage trickeries. The great merit which lies in the construction of

"Venice Preserved," was not in his line of appreciation;

and he thought Thomson's reference to Otway's ladies --"C poor Monimia moans,

And Belvidera pours her soul in love,"

worth both heroines.

of your epistles, least of all, an injunction like that. I will cast about for 'em, tho' I am a sad hand to know what books are worth, and both these worthy gentlemen are alike out of my line. To-morrow I shall be less suspensive, and in better cue to write, so good bye at present.

66

Friday Evening. That execrable aristocrat and knave R― has given me an absolute refusal of leave. The poor man cannot guess at my disappointment. Is it not hard, this dread dependence on the low-bred mind?' Continue to write to me tho', and I must be content. Our loves and best good wishes attend upon you both. LAMB."

the Editorship of the Morning Chronicle. | Islington, possibly, you would not like; to The poem includes a lamentation over a me 'tis classical ground. Knightsbridge is a fantastical loss-that of a draught of the desirable situation for the air of the parks; Avon "which Shakespeare drank;" some- St. George's Fields is convenient for its conwhat strangely confounding the Avon of tiguity to the Bench. Choose! But are you Stratford with that of Bristol. It may be really coming to town? The hope of it has doubted whether Shakespeare knew the entirely disarmed my petty disappointment taste of the waves of one Avon more than of of its nettles, yet I rejoice so much on my the other, or whether Lamb would not have own account, that I fear I do not feel enough found more kindred with the world's poet pure satisfaction on yours. Why, surely, the in a glass of sack, than in the water of either joint editorship of the Chronicle must be stream. Coleridge must have enjoyed the very comfortable and secure living for a man. misplaced sentiment of his friend, for he was But should not you read French, or do you? singularly destitute of sympathy with local and can you write with sufficient moderation, associations, which he regarded as interfering as 'tis called, when one suppresses the one with the pure and simple impression of great half of what one feels or could say on a subdeeds or thoughts; denied a special interest ject, to chime in the better with popular to the Pass of Thermopyla; and instead of lukewarmness? White's 'Letters' are near subscribing to to purchase "Shakespeare's publication; could you review 'em or get 'em House," would scarcely have admitted the reviewed? Are you not connected with the peculiar sanctity of the spot which enshrines Critical Review? His frontispiece is a good conceit-Sir John learning to dance to please Madam Page, in dress of doublet, &c., from the upper half, and modern pantaloons with shoes, &c., of the eighteenth century, from the lower half; and the whole work is full of goodly quips and rare fancies, all deftly masqued like hoar antiquity'-much superior to Dr. Kenrick's Falstaff's Wedding,' which you have seen. A sometimes laughs at superstition, and religion, and the like. A living fell vacant lately in the gift of the Hospital: White informed him that be stood a fair chance for it. He scrupled

his ashes.

TO SARA AND HER SAMUEL.
"Was it so hard a thing?-I did but ask
A fleeting holiday. One little week,
Or haply two, had bounded my request.

What, if the jaded steer, who all day long
Had borne the heat and labour of the plough,
When evening came, and her sweet cooling hour,
Should seek to trespass on a neighbour copse,
Where greener herbage waved, or clearer streams
Invited him to slake his burning thirst?
That man was crabbed, who should say him nay;

That man were churlish, who should drive him and scrupled about it, and at last, to use his

thence!

A blessing light upon your head, ye good,

Ye hospitable pair! I may not come,

To catch on Clifden's heights the summer gale;
I may not come, a pilgrim, to the banks
Of Avon, lucid stream, to taste the wave
Which Shakespeare drank, our British Helicon :
Or with mine eye intent on Redcliffe towers,
To muse in tears on that mysterious youth,
Cruelly slighted, who to London walls,
In evil hour, shaped his disastrous course.

Complaint begone; begone, unkind reproof:
Take up, my song, take up a merrier strain,
For yet again, and lo! from Avon's vales
Another minstrel' cometh! Youth endear'd,
God and good angels guide thee on thy way,
And gentler fortunes wait the friends I love.

"C. L."

The letter accompanying these verses begins cheerfully thus:

"What can I do till you send word what priced and placed house you should like?

own words, 'tampered' with Godwin to know whether the thing was honest or not. Godwin said nay to it, and A rejected the living! Could the blindest poor papist have bowed more servilely to his priest or casuist? Why sleep the Watchman's answers to that Godwin? I beg you will not delay to alter, if you mean to keep those last lines I sent you. Do that, and read these for your pains: :

TO THE POET COWPER.

"Cowper, I thank my God that thou art heal'd!
Thine was the sorest malady of all;
And I am sad to think that it should light
Upon the worthy head! But thou art heal'd,
And thou art yet, we trust, the destined man,
Born to reanimate the lyre, whose chords
Have slumber'd, and have idle lain so long;
To the immortal sounding of whose strings
Did Milton frame the stately-paced verse;

Among whose wires with light finger playing,
Our elder bard, Spenser, a gentle name,
The lady Muses' dearest darling child,
Elicited the deftest tunes yet heard

In hall or bower, taking the delicate ear
Of Sidney and his peerless Maiden Queen.

Thou, then, take up the mighty epic strain,

would not save you in a court of justice. But are you really coming to town? Coleridge, a gentleman called in London lately from Bristol, and inquired whether there were any of the family of a Mr. Chambers living: this Mr. Chambers, he said, had been

Cowper, of England's Bards, the wisest and the best. the making of a friend's fortune, who wished

1796.

to make some return for it. He went away without seeing her. Now a Mrs. Reynolds, a very intimate friend of ours, whom you "I have read your climax of praises in have seen at our house, is the only daughter, those three Reviews. These mighty spouters and all that survives, of Mr. Chambers; and out of panegyric waters have, two of 'em, a very little supply would be of service to scattered their spray even upon me, and the her, for she married very unfortunately, and waters are cooling and refreshing. Prosaically, has parted with her husband. Pray find out the Monthly reviewers have made indeed a this Mr. Pember (for that was the gentleman's large article of it, and done you justice. The friend's name); he is an attorney, and lives Critical have, in their wisdom, selected not at Bristol. Find him out, and acquaint him the very best specimens, and notice not, with the circumstances of the case, and offer except as one name on the muster-roll, the to be the medium of supply to Mrs. Reynolds, 'Religious Musings.' I suspect Master Dyer if he chooses to make her a present. She is to have been the writer of that article, as the in very distressed circumstances. Mr. Pember, substance of it was the very remarks and attorney, Bristol. Mr. Chambers lived in the very language he used to me one day. I the Temple; Mrs. Reynolds, his daughter, fear you will not accord entirely with my was my schoolmistress, and is in the room at sentiments of Cowper, as expressed above this present writing. This last circumstance (perhaps scarcely just); but the poor gentle-induced me to write so soon again. I have man has just recovered from his lunacies, not further to add. Our loves to Sara. and that begets pity, and pity love, and love Thursday. admiration; and then it goes hard with people but they lie! Have you read the Ballad called 'Lenora,' in the second number of the Monthly Magazine! If you have!!!! There is another fine song, from the same author (Bürger), in the third number, of scarce inferior merit; and (vastly below these) there are some happy specimens of English hexameters, in an imitation of Ossian, in the fifth number. For your Dactylsam sorry you are so sore about 'em-a very Sir Fretful! In good troth, the Dactyls are good Dactyls, but their measure is naught. Be not yourself' half anger, half agony,' if I pronounce your darling lines not to be the best you ever wrote in all your life -you have written much.

"Have a care, good Master Poet, of the Statute de Contumelia. What do you mean by calling Madame Mara, - harlot and naughty things? The goodness of the verse

"I detest

These scented rooms, where, to a gaudy throng
Heaves the proud harlot her distended breast

In intricacies of laborious song."

Lines composed in a Concert Room, by S. T. C.

CHAPTER II.

C. LAMB."

LETTERS OF LAMB To Coleridge, CHIEFLY RELATING

TO THE DEATH OF MRS. LAMB, AND MISS LAMB'S
SUBSEQUENT CONDITION.

THE autumn of 1796 found Lamb engaged all the morning in task-work at the India House, and all the evening in attempting to amuse his father by playing cribbage; sometimes snatching a few minutes for his only pleasure, writing to Coleridge; while Miss Lamb was worn down to a state of extreme nervous misery, by attention to needlework by day and to her mother by night, until the insanity, which had been manifested more than once, broke out into frenzy, which, on Thursday, 22nd of September, proved fatal to her mother. The following account of the proceedings on the inquest, copied from the "Times" of Monday, 26th September, 1796, supplies the details of this terrible calamity,