LETTER CCLXXXIX.] [March 20, 1827.] Damnable erratum (can't you notice it?) in the last line but two of the last Extract in No. 9, Garrick Plays "Blushing forth golden hair and glorious red :" A sun-bright line spoil'd. 67. Blush for Blushing. N.B.-The general Number was excellent. Also a few lines higher "Restrained Liberty attain'd is sweet" should have a full stop. 'Tis the end of the old man's speech. These little blemishes kill such delicate things: prose feeds on grosser punctualities. You have now 3 Numbers in hand; one I sent you yesterday. I send no more till Sunday week. P.S.-Omitted above-"Dear Hone." Mr. Hone, No. 22, Belvidere Place, Southwark. Of course C. L. LETTER CCXC.] To B. R. HAYDON. March 1827. Dear Raffaele Haydon-Did the maid tell you I came to see your picture, not on Sunday but the day before? I think the face and bearing of the Bucephalus tamer very noble, his flesh too effeminate or painty. The skin of the female's back kneeling is much more carnous. had small time to pick out praise or blame, for two lordlike Bucks came in, upon whose strictures my presence seemed to impose restraint; I plebeian'd off therefore. I I think I have hit on a subject for you, but can't swear it was never executed-I never heard of its being "Chaucer beating a Franciscan Friar in Fleet Street." Think of the old dresses, houses, etc. "It seemeth that both these learned men (Gower and Chaucer) were of the Inner Temple; for not many years since Master Buckley did see a record in the same house where Geoffry Chaucer was fined two shillings for beating a Franciscan Friar in Fleet Street." Yours in haste (salt fish waiting), C. LAMB. To VINCENT NOVELLO. LETTER CCXCI.] April 1827. Dear Sir-I conjure you, in the name of all the Sylvan Deities, and of the Muses, whom you honour, and they reciprocally love and honour you, rescue this old and passionate Ditty-the very flower of an old, forgotten Pastoral, which, had it been in all parts equal, the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher had been but a second name in this sort of Writing-rescue it from the profane hands of every Common Composer; and in one of your tranquillest moods, when you have most leisure from those sad thoughts which sometimes unworthily beset you-yet a mood in itself not unallied to the better sort of melancholy-laying by, for once, the lofty Organ, with which you shake the Temples, attune, as to the Pipe of Paris himself, to some milder and love-according instrument, this pretty Courtship between Paris and his (thennot-as-yet-forsaken) Enone. Oblige me, and all more knowing Judges of Music and of Poesy, by the adaptation of fit musical numbers, which it only wants, to be the rarest Love Dialogue in our Language. Your Implorer C. L. LETTER CCXCII.] To WILLIAM HONE. [May 1827.] Sir-A correspondent in your last number rather hastily asserts that there is no other authority than Davenport's Tragedy for the poisoning of Matilda by King John. It oddly enough happens, that in the same number appears an extract from a play of Heywood's, of an older date, in two parts, in which play the fact of such poisoning, as well as her identity with Maid Marian, are equally established. Michael Drayton, also, hath a legend confirmatory (so far as poetical authority can go) of the violent manner of her death. But neither he nor Davenport confounds her with Robin's mistress. Besides the named authorities, old Fuller, I think, somewhere relates, as matter of chronicle-history, that old Fitzwater (he is called Fitzwater both in Heywood and in Davenport), being banished after his daughter's murder,—some years subsequently, King John, at a tournament in France, being delighted with the valiant bearing of a combatant in the lists, and enquiring his name, was told it was his old servant, the banished Fitzwater, who desired nothing more heartily than to be reconciled to his liege; and an affecting reconciliation followed. In the common collection, called "Robin Hood's Garland" (I have not seen Ritson's), no mention is made, if I remember, of the nobility of Marian. Is she not the daughter of old Squire Gamwell, of Gamwell Hall? Sorry that I cannot gratify the curiosity of your "disembodied spirit" (who, as such is, methinks, sufficiently "veiled" from our notice) with more authentic testimonies, I rest, Your humble Abstractor, C. L. TO BERNARD BARTON. LETTER CCXCIII.] Enfield, and for some weeks to come, Dear B. B.-One word more of the picture verses, and that for good and all; one line to "His learning seems to lay small stress on " to avoid the unseemly recurrence (ungrammatical also) of 66 seems "in the next line, besides the nonsense of "but" there, as it now stands. And I request you, as a personal favour to me, to erase the last line of all, which I should never have written from myself. The fact is, it was a silly joke of Hood's, who gave me the frame (you judged rightly it was not its own) with the remark that you would like it because it was b-d b-d; and I lugged it in: but I shall be quite hurt if it stands, because tho' you and yours have too good sense to object to it, I would not have a sentence of mine seen that to any foolish ear might seem unrespectful to thee. Let it end at "appalling": the joke is coarse and useless, and hurts the tone of the rest. Take your best "ivoryhandled" and scrape it forth. Your specimen of what you might have written is hardly fair. Had it been a present to me, I should have taken a more sentimental tone but of a trifle from me it was my cue to speak in an underish tone of commendation. Prudent givers (what word for such a nothing) disparage their gifts; 'tis an art we have. So you see you wouldn't have been so wrong taking a higher tone. But enough of nothing. By the by, I suspected M. of being the disparager of the frame: hence a certain line. For the frame, 'tis as the room is where it hangs. It hung up fronting my old cobwebby folios and battered furniture (the fruit piece has resumed its place), and was much better than a spick and span one. But if your room be very neat and your other pictures bright with gilt, it should be so too. I can't judge, not having seen, but my dingy study it suited. Martin's "Belshazzar" (the picture) I have seen. Its architectural effect is stupendous; but the human figures, the squalling contorted little antics that are playing at being frightened, like children at a sham ghost, who half know it to be a mask, are detestable. Then the letters are nothing more than a transparency lighted up, such as a Lord might order to be lit up on a sudden at a Christmas gambol, to scare the ladies. The type is as plain as Baskerville's: they should have been dim, full of mystery, letters to the mind rather than the eye. Rembrandt has painted only Belshazzar and a courtier or two (taking a part of the banquet for the whole), not fribbled out a mob of fine folks. Then everything is so distinct, to the very necklaces, and that foolish little prophet. What one point is there of interest? The ideal of such a subject is, that you the spectator should see nothing but what at the time you would have seen, the hand, and the King,-not to be at leisure to make tailor-remarks on the dresses, or, Dr. Kitchener-like, to examine the good things at table. Just such a confused piece is his "Joshua," frittered into a thousand fragments, little armies here, little armies there you should see only the Sun and Joshua. If I remember, he has not left out that luminary entirely; but for Joshua, I was ten minutes a finding him out. Still he is showy in all that is not the human figure or the preternatural interest: but the first are below a drawing-school girl's attainment, and the last is a phantasmagoric trick,-"Now you shall see what you shall see, dare is Balshazar and dare is Daniel." You have my thoughts of M., and so adieu! C. LAMB. |