profanely."* The same fervour glows in the sectarian piety of the following letter addressed to Coleridge, when fascinated with the idea of a cottage life. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "Oct. 24th, 1796. Coleridge, I feel myself much your debtor for that spirit of confidence and friendship which dictated your last letter. May your soul find peace at last in your cottage life! I only wish you were but settled. Do continue to write to me. I read your letters with my sister, and they give us both abundance of delight. Especially they please us two, when you talk in a religious strain,not but we are offended occasionally with a certain freedom of expression, a certain air of mysticism, more consonant to the conceits of pagan philosophy, than consistent with the humility of genuine piety. To instance now in your last letter-you say, 'it is by the press, that God hath given finite spirits both evil and good (I suppose you mean simply bad men and good men), a portion as it were of His Omnipresence!' Now, high as the human intellect comparatively will soar, and wide as its influence, malign or salutary, can extend, is there not, Coleridge, comfort. "In your absence," he writes, in one of the earliest of his letters,* "I feel a stupor that makes me indifferent to the hopes and fears of this life. I sometimes wish to introduce a religious turn of mind; but habits are strong things, and my religious fervours are confined, alas! to some fleeting moments of occasional solitary devotion. A correspondence opening with you has roused me a little from my lethargy, and made me conscious of existence. Indulge me in it! I will not be very troublesome." And again, a few days after: "You are the only correspondent, and, I might add, the only friend, I have in the world. I go no-where, and have no acquaintance. Slow of speech, and reserved of manners, no one seeks or cares for my society, and I am left alone. Coleridge, I devoutly wish that Fortune, which has made sport with you so long, may play one freak more, throw you into London, or some spot near it, and there snugify you for life. 'Tis a selfish, but natural wish for me, cast as I am on life's wide plain friendless." These appeals, it may well be believed, were not made in vain to one who delighted in the lavish communication of the riches of his own mind even to strangers; but none of the letters of Coleridge to Lamb have been preserved. He had just published his "Religious Musings," and the glittering a distance between the Divine Mind and it, enthusiasm of its language excited Lamb's pious feelings, almost to a degree of pain. "I dare not," says he of this poem, "criticise it. I like not to select any part where all is excellent. I can only admire and thank you for it, in the name of a lover of true poetry 'Believe thou, O my soul, Life is a vision shadowy of truth; which makes such language blasphemy? Again, in your first fine consolatory epistle you say, 'you are a temporary sharer in human misery, that you may be an eternal partaker of the Divine Nature.' What more than this do those men say, who are for exalting the man Christ Jesus into the second person of an unknown Trinity,-men, whom you or I scruple not to call idolaters? Man, full of imperfections, at best, and subject to wants which momentarily remind him of dependence; man, a weak and ignorant being, servile' from his birth to all the skiey influences,' with eyes sometimes open to discern the right path, but a head I thank you for these lines in the name of a necessarian." To Priestley, Lamb repeatedly alludes as to the object of their common admiration. "In reading your Religious generally too dizzy to pursue it; man, in the Musings,' says he, "I felt a transient supe- pride of speculation, forgetting his nature riority over you: I have seen Priestly. I love to see his name repeated in your gious Musings:writings; I love and honour him almost *These and other passages are extracted from letters which are either too personal or not sufficiently interesting for entire publication. *He probably refers to the following lines in the Rell- and hailing in himself the future God, must make the angels laugh. Be not angry with me, Coleridge; I wish not to cavil; I know I cannot instruct you; I only wish to remind you of that humility which best becometh the Christian character. God, in the New Testament (our best guide,) is represented to us in the kind, condescending, amiable, familiar light of a parent: and in my poor mind 'tis best for us so to consider of him, as our heavenly father, and our best friend, without indulging too bold conceptions of his nature. Let us learn to think humbly of ourselves, and rejoice in the appellation of 'dear children,' 'brethren,' and 'co-heirs with Christ of the promises,' seeking to know no further. "I am not insensible, indeed I am not, of the value of that first letter of yours, and I shall find reason to thank you for it again and again long after that blemish in it is forgotten. It will be a fine lesson of comfort to us, whenever we read it; and read it we often shall, Mary and I. "Accept our loves and best kind wishes for the welfare of yourself and wife and little one. Nor let me forget to wish you joy on your birth-day, so lately past; I thought you had been older. My kind thanks and remembrances to Lloyd. quite so well satisfied. You seem to me to have been straining your comparing faculties to bring together things infinitely distant and unlike; the feeble narrow-sphered operations of the human intellect; and the everywhere diffused mind of Deity, the peerless wisdom of Jehovah. Even the expression appears to me inaccurate - portion of omnipresence omnipresence is an attribute whose very essence is unlimitedness. How can omnipresence be affirmed of anything in part? But enough of this spirit of disputatiousness. Let us attend to the proper business of human life, and talk a little together respecting our domestic concerns. Do you continue to make me acquainted with what you are doing, and how soon you are likely to be settled once for all. "Have you seen Bowle's new poem on 'Hope?' What character does it bear? Has he exhausted his stores of tender plaintiveness? or is he the same in this last as in all his former pieces? The duties of the day call me off from this pleasant intercourse with my friend-so for the present adieu. Now for the truant borrowing of a few minutes from business. Have you met with a new poem called the Pursuits of Literature?' from the extracts in the 'British Review' I judge it to be a very humorous thing, in particular I remember what I thought a very happy character of Dr. Darwin's poetry. Among all your quaint readings did you ever light upon 'Walton's Complete Angler?' I asked you the question once before; it breathes the very spirit of innocence, purity, and simplicity of heart; there are many choice old verses interespe-spersed in it; it would sweeten a man's temper "God love us all, and may He continue to be the father and the friend of the whole human race! "Sunday Evening." "C. LAMB. The next letter, commencing in a similar strain, diverges to literary topics, and cially alludes to "Walton's Angler,”— -a book which Lamb always loved as it were a living friend. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "Oct. 28th, 1796. at any time to read it; it would Christianise every discordant angry passion; pray make yourself acquainted with it. Have you made it up with Southey yet? Surely one of you two must have been a very silly fellow, and the other not much better, to fall out like boarding school misses; kiss, shake hands, and make it up. "My dear friend, I am not ignorant that to be a partaker of the Divine Nature is a phrase to be met with in Scripture: I am only apprehensive, lest we in these latter "When will he be delivered of his new days, tinctured (some of us perhaps pretty epic? Madoc, I think, is to be the name of deeply) with mystical notions and the pride it, though that is a name not familiar to my of metaphysics, might be apt to affix to such ears. What progress do you make in your phrases a meaning, which the primitive users hymns? What' Review' are you connected of them, the simple fisher of Galilee for with? if with any, why do you delay to notice instance, never intended to convey. With White's book? You are justly offended at that other part of your apology I am not its profaneness, but surely you have under valued its wit, or you would have been more loud in its praises. Do not you think that in Slender's death and madness there is most exquisite humour, mingled with tenderness, that is irresistible, truly Skaksperian? Be more full in your mention of it. Poor fellow, he has (very undeservedly) lost by it, nor do I see that it is likely ever to reimburse him the charge of printing, &c. Give it a lift, if you can. I am just now wondering whether you will ever come to town again, Coleridge; 'tis among the things I dare not hope, but can't help wishing. For myself, I can live in the midst of town luxury and superfluity, and not long for them, and I can't see why your children might not hereafter do the same. Remember, you are not in Arcadia, when you are in the west of England, and they may catch infection from the world without visiting the metropolis. But you seem to have set your heart upon this same cottage plan, and God prosper you in the experiment! I am at a loss for more to write about, so 'tis as well that I am arrived at the bottom of my paper. "God love you, Coleridge !-our best loves and tenderest wishes await on you, your Sara, and your little one. "C. L." Having been encouraged by Coleridge to entertain the thought of publishing his verses, he submitted the poem called "The Grandame" to his friend, with the following letter:: TO MR. COLERIDGE. "Monday night. read it again and again, and it will be a guide to my future taste. Perhaps I had estimated Southey's merits too much by number, weight and measure. I now agree completely and entirely in your opinion of the genius of Southey. Your own image of melancholy is illustrative of what you teach, and in itself masterly. I conjecture it is 'disbranched' from one of your embryo 'hymns.' When they are mature of birth (were I you) I should print 'em in one separate volume, with 'Religious Musings,' and your part of the 'Joan of Arc.' Birds of the same soaring wing should hold on their flight in company. Once for all (and by renewing the subject you will only renew in me the condemnation of Tantalus), I hope to be able to pay you a visit (if you are then at Bristol) some time in the latter end of August or beginning of September, for a week or fortnight—before that time, office business puts an absolute veto on my coming. And if a sigh that speaks regret of happier times appear, A glimpse of joy that we have met shall shine and dry the tear.' Of the blank verses I spoke of, the following lines are the only tolerably complete ones I have writ out of not more than one hundred and fifty. That I get on so slowly you may fairly impute to want of practice in composition, when I declare to you that (the few verses which you have seen excepted) I have not writ fifty lines since I left school. It may not be amiss to remark that my grandmother (on whom the verses are written) "Unfurnished at present with any sheet-lived housekeeper in a family the fifty or filling subject, I shall continue my letter sixty last years of her life-that she was a gradually and journal-wise. My second woman of exemplary piety and goodnessthoughts entirely coincide with your com- and for many years before her death was ments on 'Joan of Arc,' and I can only terribly afflicted with a cancer in her breast wonder at my childish judgment which over-which she bore with true Christian patience. looked the 1st book and could prefer the 9th: You may think that I have not kept enough not that I was insensible to the soberer apart the ideas of her heavenly and her beauties of the former, but the latter caught earthly master, but recollect I have designme with its glare of magic,-the former, how-edly given in to her own way of feeling-and ever, left a more pleasing general recollection if she had a failing, 'twas that she respected in my mind. Let me add, the 1st book was her master's family too much, not reverenced the favourite of my sister-and I now, with her Maker too little. The lines begin imperJoan, often think on Domremi and the fields fectly, as I may probably connect 'em if I of Arc.' I must not pass over without acknow- finish at all,-and if I do, Biggs shall print ledging my obligations to your full and satis-'em, in a more economical way than you factory account of personifications. I have yours, for (sonnets and all) they won't make a thousand lines as I propose completing 'em, and the substance must be wire-drawn." The following letter, written at intervals, will give an insight into Lamb's spirit at this time, in its lighter and gayer moods. It would seem that his acquaintance with the old English dramatists had just commenced with Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger : TO MR. COLERIDGE. "Tuesday evening. "To your list of illustrative personifications, into which a fine imagination enters, I will take leave to add the following from Beaumont and Fletcher's Wife for a Month;' 'tis the conclusion of a description of a seafight: The game of death was never played so nobly; the meagre thief grew wanton in his mischiefs, and his shrunk hollow eyes smiled on his ruins.' There is fancy in these of a lower order, from 'Bonduca;'-'Then did I see these valiant men of Britain, like boding owls creep into tods of ivy, and hoot their fears to one another nightly.' Not that it is a personification; only it just caught my eye in a little extract book I keep, which is full of quotations from B. and F. in particular, in which authors I can't help thinking there is a greater richness of poetical fancy than in any one, Shakspeare excepted. Are you acquainted with Massinger? At a hazard I will trouble you with a passage from a play of his called 'A very Woman.' The lines are spoken by a lover (disguised) to his faithless mistress. You will remark the fine effect of the double endings. You will by your ear distinguish the lines, for I write 'em as prose. Not far from where my father lives, a lady, a neighbour by, blest with as great a beauty as nature durst bestow with out undoing, dwelt, and most happily, as I thought then, and blest the house a thousand times she dwelt in. This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, when my first fire knew no adulterate incense, nor I no way to flatter but my fondness; in all the bravery my friends could show me, in all the faith my innocence could give me, in the best language my true tongue could tell me, and all the broken sighs my sick heart lend me, I sued and served; long did I serve this lady, long was my travail, long my trade to win her; with all the duty of my soul I Served her.' 'Then she must love.' 'She did, but never me: she could not love me; she would not love, she hated, more, she scorn'd me; and in so poor and base a way abused me for all my services, for all my bounties, so bold neglects flung on me.'-'What out of love, and worthy love I gave her, (shame to her most unworthy mind,) to fools, to girls, to fiddlers and her boys she flung, all in disdain of me.' One more passage strikes my eye from B. and F.'s 'Palamon and Arcite.' One of 'em complains in prison: 'This is all our world: we shall know nothing here but one another; hear nothing but the clock that tells us our woes; the vine shall grow, but we shall never see it,' &c.-Is not the last circumstance exquisite? I mean not to lay myself open by saying they exceed Milton, and perhaps Collins, in sublimity. But don't you conceive all poets after Shakspeare yield to 'em in variety of genius? Massinger treads close on their heels; but you are most probably as well acquainted with his writings as your humble servant. My quotations, in that case, will only serve to expose my barrenness of matter. Southey in simplicity and tenderness, is excelled decidedly only, I think, by Beaumont and F. in his 'Maid's Tragedy,' and some parts of Philaster' in particular; and elsewhere occasionally; and perhaps by Cowper in his Crazy Kate,' and in parts of his translation; such as the speeches of Hecuba and Andromache. I long to know your opinion of that translation. The Odyssey especially is surely very Homeric. What nobler than the appearance of Phoebus at the beginning of the Iliad the lines ending with Dread sounding, bounding on the silver bow!' "I beg you will give me your opinion of the translation; it afforded me high pleasure. As curious a specimen of translation as ever fell into my hands, is a young man's in our office, of a French novel. What in the original was literally 'amiable delusions of the fancy,' he proposed to render 'the fair frauds of the imagination.' I had much trouble in licking the book into any meaning at all. Yet did the knave clear fifty or sixty pounds by subscription and selling the copyright. The book itself not a week's work! To-day's portion of my journalising epistle has been very dull and poverty-stricken. I will here end." "Tuesday night. "I have been drinking egg-hot and smoking Oronooko, (associated circumstances, which ever forcibly recall to my mind our evenings and nights at the Salutation,) my eyes and brain are heavy and asleep, but my heart is awake; and if words came as ready as ideas, and ideas as feelings, I could say ten hundred kind things. Coleridge, you know not my supreme happiness at having one on earth (though counties separate us) whom I can call a friend. Remember you those tender lines of Logan? 'Our broken friendships we deplore, "I am writing at random, and half-tipsy, what you may not equally understand, as you will be sober when you read it; but my sober and my half-tipsy hours you are alike a sharer in. Good night. 'Then up rose our bard, like a prophet in drink, Craigdoroch, thou'lt soar when creation shall sink.' BURNS." "Thursday. "I am now in high hopes to be able to visit you, if perfectly convenient on your part, by the end of next month-perhaps the last week or fortnight in July. A change of scene and a change of faces would do me good, even if that scene were not to be Bristol, and those faces Coleridge's and his friends'! In the words of Terence, a little altered, Tædet me hujus quotidiani mundi.' I am heartily sick of the every-day scenes of life. I shall half wish you unmarried (don't show this to Mrs. C.) for one evening only, to have the pleasure of smoking with you, and drinking egg-hot in some little smoky room in a pot-house, for I know not yet how I shall like you in a decent room, and looking quite happy. My best love and respects to Sara notwithstanding. "Yours sincerely, "CHARLES LAMB." A proposal by Coleridge to print Lamb's poems with a new edition of his own (an association in which Lloyd was ultimately included) occasioned reciprocal communications of each other's verses, and many questions of small alterations suggested and argued on both sides. I have thought it better to omit much of this verbal criticism, which, not very interesting in itself, is unintelligible without a contemporary reference to the poems which are its subject. The next letter was written on hearing of Coleridge being afflicted with a painful disease. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "Nov. 8th, 1796. "My brother, my friend, I am distrest for you, believe me I am; not so much for your painful, troublesome complaint, which, I trust, is only for a time, as for those anxieties which brought it on, and perhaps even now may be nursing its malignity. Tell me, dearest of my friends, is your mind at peace, or has anything, yet unknown to me, happened to give you fresh disquiet, and steal from you all the pleasant dreams of future rest? Are you still (I fear you are) far from being comfortably settled? Would to God it were in my power to contribute towards the bringing of you into the haven where you would be! But you are too well skilled in the philosophy of consolation to need my humble tribute of advice; in pain, and in sickness, and in all manner of disappointments, I trust you have that within you which shall speak peace to your mind. Make it, I entreat you, one of your puny comforts, that I feel for you, and share all your griefs with you. I feel as if I were troubling you about little things; now I am going to resume the subject of our last two letters, but it may divert us both from unpleasanter feelings to make such matters, in a manner, of importance. Without further apology, then, it was not that I did not relish, that I did not in my heart thank you for those little pictures of your feelings which you lately sent me, if I neglected to mention them. You may remember you had said much the same things before to me on the same subject in a former letter, and I considered those last verses as only the identical thoughts better clothed; either way (in prose |