of apron-strings. The Saints' days you speak of have long since fled to heaven, with Astræa, and the cold piety of the age lacks fervour to recall them; only Peter left his key-the iron one of the two that "shuts amain ❞— and that is the reason I am locked up. Meanwhile of afternoons we pick up primroses at Dalston, and Mary corrects me when I call 'em cow-slips. God bless you all; and pray remember me euphoniously to Mr. Gruvellegan. That Lee Priory must be a dainty bower. Is it built of flints?—and does it stand at Kingsgate? TO BERNARD BARTON. LETTER CCXVIII.] May 3, 1823. Dear Sir-I am vexed to be two letters in your debt, but I have been quite out of the vein lately. A philosophical treatise is wanting, of the causes of the backwardness with which persons after a certain time of life set about writing a letter. I always feel as if I had nothing to say, and the performance generally justifies the presentiment. Taylor and Hessey did foolishly in not admitting the sonnet. Surely it might have followed the B. B. I agree with you in thinking Bowring's paper better than the former. I will inquire about my letter to the old gentleman, but I expect it to go in, after those to the young gentleman are completed. I do not exactly see why the goose and little goslings should emblematise a Quaker poet that has no children. But, after all, perhaps it is a pelican. The "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin" around it I cannot decipher. The songster of the night pouring out her effusions amid a silent meeting of madge-owlets, would be at least intelligible. A full pause here comes upon me, as if I had not a word more left. I will shake my brain, Once! Twice!—nothing comes up. George Fox recommends waiting on these occasions. I wait. Nothing comes. G. Fox-that sets me off again. I have finished the "Journal," and 400 more pages of the "Doctrinals," which I picked up for 7s. 6d. If I get on at this rate, the society will be in danger of having two Quaker poets to patronise. I am at Dalston now; but if when I go back to Covent Garden I find thy friend has not called for the "Journal," thee must put me in the way of sending it; and if it should happen the lender of it, knowing that volume has not the other, I shall be most happy in his accepting the "Doctrinals," which I shall read but once certainly. It is not a splendid copy, but perfect, save a leaf of Index. I cannot but think that the London drags heavily. I miss Janus. And oh how it misses Hazlitt! too is affronted. Believe me cordially yours, Procter C. LAMB. To J. B. DIBDIN. LETTER CCXIX.] May 6, 1823. Dear Sir-Your verses were very pleasant, and I shall like to see more of them-I do not mean addressed to me. I do not know whether you live in town or country, but if it suits your convenience I shall be glad to see you some evening-say Thursday-at 20 Great Russell Street, Covent Garden. If you can come do not trouble yourself to write. We are old-fashioned people who drink tea at six, or not much later, and give cold mutton and pickle at nine, the good old hour. I assure you (if it suit you) we shall be glad to see you. Yours, etc. C. LAMB. My love to Mr. Railton, the same to Mr. Rankin, to the whole Firm indeed. LETTER CCXX.] To WILLIAM HONE. E. I. H., May 19, '23. Dear Sir-I have been very agreeably entertained with your present, which I found very curious and amusing. What wiseacres our forefathers appear to have been! It should make us thankful, who are grown so rational and polite. I should call to thank you for the book, but go home to Dalston at present. I shall beg your acceptance (when I see you) of my little book. I have Ray's Collections of English Words not generally Used, 1691; and in page 60 ("North Country words ") occurs "Rynt ye"-"by your leave," "stand handsomely." As, "Rynt you, witch," quoth Besse Locket to her mother; Proverb, Cheshire.-Doubtless this is the "Aroint" of Shakspeare. 99 66 In the same collection I find several Shakspearisms. "Rooky" wood: a Northern word for " "reeky,' 'misty," etc. 'Shandy," a north country word for "wild." Sterne was York. 66 Yours obliged, C. LAMB. I am at 14, Kingsland Row, Dalston. Will you take a walk over on Sunday? We dine exactly at 4, and shall be most glad to see you. If I don't hear from you (by note to E. J. Ho.) I will expect you. Mr. Hone, 45, Ludgate Hill. LITER CCXXI.] To CHARLES LLOYD. 1823. Your lines are not to be understood reading on one leg. They are sinuous, and to be won with wrestling. I do assure you in sincerity that nothing you have done has given me greater satisfaction. Your obscurity, where you are dark, which is seldom, is that of too much mean ing, not the painful obscurity which no toil of the reader can dissipate; not the dead vacuum and floundering place in which imagination finds no footing: it is not the dimness of positive darkness, but of distance; and he that reads and not discerns must get a better pair of spectacles. I admire every piece in the collection. I cannot say the : first is best when I do so, the last read rises up in judgment. To your Mother, to your Sister, to Mary dead, they are all weighty with thought and tender with sentiment. Your poetry is like no other. Those cursed dryads and pagan trumperies of modern verse have put me out of conceit of the very name of poetry. Your verses are as good and as wholesome as prose, and I have made a sad blunder if I do not leave you with an impression that your present is rarely valued. CHARLES LAMB. TO BERNARD BARTON. LETTER CCXXII.] July 10, 1823. Dear Sir-I shall be happy to read the MS. and to forward it; but T[aylor] and H[essey] must judge for themselves of publication. If it prove interesting (as I doubt not) I shall not spare to say so, you may depend upon it. Suppose you direct it to Accountant's Office, India House. I am glad you have met with some sweetening circumstances to your unpalatable draught. I have just returned from Hastings, where are exquisite views and walks, and where I have given up my soul to walking, and I am now suffering sedentary contrasts. am a long time reconciling to town after one of these excursions. Home is become strange, and will remain so yet a while; home is the most unforgiving of friends, and I always resents absence; I know its old cordial looks will return, but they are slow in clearing up. That is one of the features of this our galley slavery; that peregrination ended makes things worse. I felt out of water (with all the sea about me) at Hastings; and just as I had learned to domiciliate there, I must come back to find a home which is no home. I abused Hastings, but learned its value. There are spots, inland bays, etc., which realise the notions of Juan Fernandez. The best thing I lit upon by accident was a small country church (by whom or when built unknown), standing bare and single in the midst of a grove, with no house or appearance of habitation within a quarter of a mile, only passages diverging from it through beautiful woods to so many farmhouses. There it stands like the first idea of a church, before parishioners were thought of, nothing but birds for its congregation; or like a hermit's oratory (the hermit dead), or a mausoleum; its effect singularly impressive, like a church found in a desert isle to startle Crusoe with a home image. You must make out a vicar and a congregation from fancy, for surely none come there; yet it wants not its pulpit, and its font, and all the seemly additaments of our worship. Southey has attacked "Elia" on the score of infidelity, in the Quarterly article, "Progress of Infidelity." I had not, nor have seen the Monthly. He might have spared an old friend such a construction of a few careless flights, that meant no harm to religion. If all his unguarded expressions on the subject were to be collected- -! But I love and respect Southey, and will not retort. I hate his review, and his being a reviewer. The hint he has dropped will knock the sale of the book on the head, which was almost at a stop before. Let it stop,-there is corn in Egypt, while there is cash at Leadenhall. You and I are something besides being writers, thank God! Yours truly, C. L. VOL. II. G |