when you wrote those on Bowles, Priestly, play with me, you might as well not come Burke ;-'twas two Christmases ago, and in home at all.' The argument was unanswerthat nice little smoky room at the Salutation, | able, and I set to afresh. I told you I do which is ever now continually presenting not approve of your omissions, neither do itself to my recollection, with all its asso- I quite coincide with you in your arrangeciated train of pipes, tobacco, egg-hot, welsh-ments. I have not time to point out a better, rabbits, metaphysics, and poetry.-Are we and I suppose some self-associations of your never to meet again? How differently I am own have determined their place as they circumstanced now! I have never met with now stand. Your beginning, indeed, with any one-never shall meet with any one- the 'Joan of Arc' lines I coincide entirely who could or can compensate me for the loss with. I love a splendid outset―a magnificent of your society. I have no one to talk all portico,-and the diapason is grand. When these matters about to; I lack friends, II read the 'Religious Musings,' I think how lack books to supply their absence: but these poor, how unelevated, unoriginal, my blank complaints ill become me. Let me compare verse is 'Laugh all that weep,' especially, my present situation, prospects, and state of where the subject demanded a grandeur of mind, with what they were but two months conception; and I ask what business they back—but two months! O my friend, I am have among yours? but friendship covereth in danger of forgetting the awful lessons then a multitude of defects. I want some loppings presented to me! Remind me of them; made in the 'Chatterton;' it wants but a remind me of my duty! Talk seriously with little to make it rank among the finest me when you do write! I thank you, from irregular lyrics I ever read. Have you time my heart I thank you, for your solicitude and inclination to go to work upon it—or is about my sister. She is quite well, but must it too late-or do you think it needs none? not, I fear, come to live with us yet a good Don't reject those verses in one of your while. In the first place, because, at present, Watchmen, 'Dear native brook,' &c.; nor I it would hurt her, and hurt my father, for think those last lines you sent me, in which them to be together: secondly, from a regard 'all effortless' is without doubt to be preto the world's good report, for, I fear, tongues ferred to 'inactive.' If I am writing more will be busy whenever that event takes place. than ordinarily dully, 'tis that I am stupified Some have hinted, one man has pressed it with a tooth-ache. Hang it! do not omit on me, that she should be in perpetual con- | 48, 52, and 53: what you do retain, though, finement: what she hath done to deserve, call sonnets, for heaven's sake, and not or the necessity of such an hardship, I see effusions. Spite of your ingenious anticipanot; do you? I am starving at the India tion of ridicule in your preface, the five last House, near seven o'clock without my lines of 50 are too good to be lost, the rest dinner, and so it has been, and will be, is not much worth. My tooth becomes almost all the week. I get home at night importunate-I must finish. Pray, pray, o'erwearied, quite faint, and then to cards write to me: if you knew with what an with my father, who will not let me enjoy anxiety of joy I open such a long packet as a meal in peace; but I must conform to my you last sent me, you would not grudge situation, and I hope I am, for the most part, giving a few minutes now and then to this not unthankful. intercourse (the only intercourse I fear we two shall ever have)—this conversation with your friend-such I boast to be called. God love you and yours! Write me when you move, lest I direct wrong. Has Sara no poems to publish? Those lines, 129, are probably too light for the volume where the Religious Musings' are, but I remember some very beautiful lines, addressed by somebody at Bristol to somebody in London. God bless you once more. Thursday-night. "C. LAMB."

"I am got home at last, and, after repeated games at cribbage, have got my father's leave to write awhile; with difficulty got it, for when I expostulated about playing any more, he very aptly replied, 'If you won't

it be an offence to make fade do duty as a verb active)

as the following:

"Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade,
Death came with friendly care;
The opening bud to Heaven convey'd,
And bade it blossom there."

In another letter, about this time (De- brotherly feeling that we ever met, even as cember, 1796), Lamb transmitted to Coleridge two Poems for the volume-one a copy of verses "To a Young Lady going out to India," which were not inserted, and are not worthy of preservation; the other, entitled, "The Tomb of Douglas," which was inserted, and which he chiefly valued as a memorial of his impression of Mrs. Siddons' acting in Lady Randolph. The following passage closes the sheet.

"At length I have done with versemaking; not that I relish other people's poetry less; their's comes from 'em without effort, mine is the difficult operation of a brain scanty of ideas, made more difficult by disuse. I have been reading 'The Task' with fresh delight. I am glad you love Cowper: I could forgive a man for not enjoying Milton, but I would not call that man my friend who should be offended with the 'divine chit-chat of Cowper.' Write to me. God love you and yours. C. L."

The following, of 10th December, 1796, illustrates Lamb's almost wayward admiration of his only friend, and a feeling-how temporary with him!—of vexation with the imperfect sympathies of his elder brother.

TO MR. COLERIDGE.

"You sent me some very sweet lines relative to Burns, but it was at a time when in my highly agitated and perhaps distorted state of mind, I thought it a duty to read 'em hastily and burn 'em. I burned all my own verses; all my book of extracts from Beaumont and Fletcher and a thousand sources: I burned a little journal of my foolish passion which I had a long time kept

'Noting ere they past away

The little lines of yesterday.'

the sober citizen, when his son went astray upon the mountains of Parnassus, is said to have 'cursed wit and Poetry and Pope.' I quote wrong, but no matter. These letters I lent to a friend to be out of the way, for a season, but I have claimed them in vain, and shall not cease to regret their loss. Your packets, posterior to the date of my misfortunes, commencing with that valuable consolatory epistle, are every day accumulating— they are sacred things with me."

The following long letter, bearing date on the outside, 5th January, 1797, is addressed to Mr. Coleridge at Stowey, near Bridgewater, whither he had removed from Bristol, to enjoy the society and protection of his friend Mr. Poole. The original is a curious specimen of clear compressed penmanship; being contained in three sides of a sheet of foolscap.

TO MR. COLERIDGE.

Sunday morning.-You cannot surely mean to degrade the Joan of Arc into a potgirl. You are not going, I hope, to annex to that most splendid ornament of Southey's poem all this cock-and-a-bull story of Joan, the publican's daughter of Neufchatel, with the lamentable episode of a waggoner, his wife, and six children. The texture will be most lamentably disproportionate. The first forty or fifty lines of these addenda are, no doubt, in their way, admirable, too; but many would prefer the Joan of Southey.

'On mightiest deeds to brood

Of shadowy vastness, such as made my heart
Throb fast; anon I paused, and in a state
Of half expectance listened to the wind;'
They wondered at me, who had known me once
A cheerful careless damsel ;'

• The eye,

That of the circling throng and of the visible world

Unseeing, saw the shapes of holy phantasy;'

I see nothing in your description of the Maid equal to these. There is a fine originality certainly in those lines—

I almost burned all your letters,—I did as bad, Ilent 'em to a friend to keep out of my brother's sight, should he come and make inquisition into our papers, for much as he dwelt upon your conversation, while you were among us, and delighted to be with you, it has been his fashion ever since to depreciate and cry you down, you were the cause of my madnessyou and your damned foolish sensibility and melancholy-and he lamented with a true but your 'fierce vivacity' is a faint copy of

For she had lived in this bad world
As in a place of tombs,

And touched not the pollutions of the dead;'

"In your notice of Southey's new volume you omit to mention the most pleasing of all, the 'Miniature'

'There were

Who formed high hopes and flattering ones of thee,
Young Robert!'

Spirit of Spenser !-was the wanderer wrong?'

the fierce and terrible benevolence' of the wounds I may have been inflicting on Southey; added to this, that it will look like my poor friend's vanity. rivalship in you, and extort a comparison with Southey, I think to your disadvantage. And the lines, considered in themselves as an addition to what you had before written, (strains of a far higher mood,) are but such as Madame Fancy loves in some of her more familiar moods, at such times as she has met Noll Goldsmith, and walked and talked with him, calling him 'old acquaintance.' Southey certainly has no pretensions to vie with you in the sublime of poetry ; but he tells a plain tale better than you. I will enumerate some woful blemishes, some of 'em sad deviations from that simplicity which was your aim. 'Hailed who might be near' (the 'canvascoverture moving,' by the by, is laughable); 'a woman and six children' (by the way,why not nine children? It would have been just half as pathetic again): 'statues of sleep they seemed': 'frost-mangled wretch: 'green putridity': 'hailed him immortal' (rather ludicrous again): 'voiced a sad and simple tale' (abominable !): 'improvendered': 'such his tale': 'Ah! suffering to the height of what was suffered' (a most insufferable line): 'amazements of affright': 'the hot sore brain attributes its own hues of ghastliness and torture' (what shocking confusion of ideas)!

"In these delineations of common and natural feelings, in the familiar walks of poetry, you seem to resemble Montauban dancing with Roubigné's tenants, much of his native loftiness remained in the execution.' "I was reading your 'Religious Musings' the other day, and sincerely I think it the noblest poem in the language, next after the 'Paradise Lost,' and even that was not made the vehicle of such grand truths. There is one mind,' &c., down to 'Almighty's throne,' are without a rival in the whole compass of my poetical reading.

'Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze, Views all creation.'

I

"Fairfax I have been in quest of a long time. Johnson, in his 'Life of Waller,' gives a most delicious specimen of him, and adds, in the true manner of that delicate critic, as well as amiable man, 'It may be presumed that this old version will not be much read after the elegant translation of my friend, Mr. Hoole.' I endeavoured-I wished to gain some idea of Tasso from this Mr. Hoole, the great boast and ornament of the India House, but soon desisted. I found him more vapid than smallest small vinegared.' Your 'Dream,' down to that exquisite line

beer 'sun

'I can't tell half his adventures,'

is a most happy resemblance of Chaucer. The remainder is so so. The best line, I think, is, 'He belong'd, I believe, to the witch Melancholy.' By the way, when will our volume come out? Don't delay it till you have written a new Joan of Arc. Send what letters you please by me, and in any way you choose, single or double. The India Company is better adapted to answer the cost than the generality of my friend's correspondents-such poor and honest dogs as John Thelwall, particularly. I cannot say I know Colson, at least intimately; 1 once supped with him and Allen; I think his manners very pleasing. I will not tell you what I think of Lloyd, for he may by chance come to see this letter, and that thought puts a restraint on me. I cannot think what subject would suit your epic genius; some philosophical subject, I conjecture, in which shall be blended the sublime of poetry and of science. Your proposed 'Hymns' will be a fit preparatory study wherewith 'to discipline your young noviciate soul.' I grow dull; I'll go walk myself out of my dulness.

I wish I could have written those lines. rejoice that I am able to relish them. The loftier walks of Pindus are your proper region. There you have no compeer in modern times. Leave the lowlands, unenvied, in possession of such men as Cowper and. Sunday night.-You and Sara are very Southey. Thus am I pouring balsam into good to think so kindly and so favourably of

66

P

poor Mary; I would to God all did so too. imagery, Hartley's five Motives to Conduct : But I very much fear she must not think of -1. Sensation; 2. Imagination; 3. Ambicoming home in my father's lifetime. It is tion; 4. Sympathy; 5. Theopathy:-First. very hard upon her; but our circumstances Banquets, music, &c., effeminacy, and their are peculiar, and we must submit to them. insufficiency. Second. 'Beds of hyacinth and God be praised she is so well as she is. She roses, where young Adonis oft reposes;' bears her situation as one who has no right 'Fortunate Isles ;' 'The pagan Elysium,' to complain. My poor old aunt, whom you &c.; poetical pictures; antiquity as pleasing have seen, the kindest, goodest creature to to the fancy;-their emptiness; madness, me when I was at school; who used to &c. Third. Warriors, Poets; some famous toddle there to bring me good things, when I, yet, more forgotten; their fame or oblivion school-boy like, only despised her for it, and now alike indifferent; pride, vanity, &c. used to be ashamed to see her come and sit Fourth. All manner of pitiable stories, in herself down on the old coal-hole steps as you Spenser-like verse; love; friendship, relawent into the old grammar-school, and open tionship, &c. Fifth. Hermits; Christ and her apron, and bring out her bason, with his apostles; martyrs; heaven, &c. An some nice thing she had caused to be saved for me; the good old creature is now lying on her death-bed. I cannot bear to think on her deplorable state. To the shock she received on that our evil day, from which she never completely recovered, I impute her illness. She says, poor thing, she is glad she is come home to die with me. I was always her favourite:

"No after friendship e'er can raise

The endearments of our early days;
Nor e'er the heart such fondness prove,
As when it first began to love.'

imagination like yours, from these scanty hints, may expand into a thousand great ideas, if indeed you at all comprehend my scheme, which I scarce do myself.

"Monday morn.-' A London letter-Ninepence half-penny!' Look you, master poet, I have remorse as well as another man, and my bowels can sound upon occasion. But I must put you to this charge, for I cannot keep back my protest, however ineffectual, against the annexing your latter lines to those former-this putting of new wine into old bottles. This my duty done, I will cease "Lloyd has kindly left me, for a keep-sake, from writing till you invent some more 'John Woolman.' You have read it, he says, reasonable mode of conveyance. Well may and like it. Will you excuse one short ex- the 'ragged followers of the Nine!' set up tract? I think it could not have escaped for flocci-nauci-what-do-you-call-'em-ists! and you. Small treasure to a resigned mind is I do not wonder that in their splendid visions sufficient. How happy is it to be content of Utopias in America, they protest against with a little, to live in humility, and feel that the admission of those yellow-complexioned, in us, which breathes out this language-copper-coloured, white-livered gentlemen, who Abba! Father!' I am almost ashamed never prove themselves their friends! Don't to patch up a letter in this miscellaneous sort you think your verses on a Young Ass' -but I please myself in the thought, that too trivial a companion for the 'Religious anything from me will be acceptable to you. Musings?'-scoundrel monarch,' alter that; I am rather impatient, childishly so, to see and the 'Man of Ross' is scarce admissible, our names affixed to the same common as it now stands, curtailed of its fairer half: volume. Send me two, when it does come reclaim its property from the 'Chatterton,' out; two will be enough-or indeed one- which it does but encumber, and it will be but two better. I have a dim recollection a rich little poem. I hope you expunge that, when in town, you were talking of the great part of the old notes in the new ediOrigin of Evil as a most prolific subject for a tion: that, in particular, most barefaced, long poem ;-why not adopt it, Coleridge? unfounded, impudent assertion, that Mr. -there would be room for imagination. Or Rogers is indebted for his story to Loch the description (from a Vision or Dream, Lomond, a poem by Bruce! I have read suppose) of an Utopia in one of the planets the latter. I scarce think you have. Scarce (the moon for instance.) Or a Five Days' anything is common to them both. The Dream, which shall illustrate, in sensible author of the 'Pleasures of Memory' was

she left the asylum and took up her abode for life with her brother Charles. For her sake, at the same time, he abandoned all thoughts of love and marriage; and with an income of scarcely more than 100l. a-year, derived from his clerkship, aided for a little while by the old aunt's small annuity, set out on the journey of life at twenty-two years of age, cheerfully, with his beloved companion, endeared to him the more by her strange calamity, and the constant apprehension of a recurrence of the malady which had caused it!

somewhat hurt, Dyer says, by the accusation was given; at all events, the result was, that of unoriginality. He never saw the poem. I long to read your poem on Burns-I retain so indistinct a memory of it. In what shape and how does it come into public? As you leave off writing poetry till you finish your Hymns, I suppose you print, now, all you have got by you. You have scarce enough unprinted to make a second volume with Lloyd? Tell me all about it. What is become of Cowper? Lloyd told me of some verses on his mother. If you have them by you, pray send 'em me. I do so love him! Never mind their merit. May be I may like 'em, as your taste and mine do not always exactly identify.

Yours,

"C. LAMB."

CHAPTER III.

LETTERS TO COLERIDGE AND MANNING IN LAMB'S FIRST
YEARS OF LIFE WITH HIS SISTER.

[1797 to 1800.]

Of

Soon after the date of this letter, death released the father from his state of imbecility and the son from his wearisome duties. With his life, the annuity he had derived from the old bencher he had served so faithfully, ceased; while the aunt continued to linger still with Lamb in his cheerless lodging. His sister still remained in confinement in the asylum to which she had been consigned on her mother's death-perfectly sensible and calm,—and he was passionately desirous of obtaining her liberty. The surviving members of the family, especially his brother John, who enjoyed a fair income in the South Sea House, opposed her discharge; and painful doubts were suggested by the authorities of the parish, where the terrible occurrence happened, whether they were not bound to institute proceedings, which must have placed her for life at the disposition of the Crown, especially as no medical assurance could be given against the probable recurrence of dangerous frenzy. But Charles came to her deliverance; he satisfied all the parties who had power to oppose her release, by his solemn engagement "Dear Col,-You have learned by this that he would take her under his care for time, with surprise, no doubt, that Lloyd is life; and he kept his word. Whether any with me in town. The emotions I felt on his communication with the Home Secretary coming so unlooked-for, are not ill expressed occurred before her release, I have been in what follows, and what, if you do not unable to ascertain; it was the impression object to them as too personal, and to the of Mr. Lloyd, from whom my own knowledge world obscure, or otherwise wanting in of the circumstances, which the letters do not ascertain, was derived, that a communication took place, on which a similar pledge

THE anxieties of Lamb's new position were assuaged during the spring of 1797, by frequent communications with Coleridge respecting the anticipated volume, and by some additions to his own share in its pages. He was also cheered by the company of Lloyd, who, having resided for a few months with Coleridge, at Stowey, came to London in some perplexity as to his future course. this visit Lamb speaks in the following letter, probably written in January. It contains some verses expressive of his delight at Lloyd's visit, which, although afterwards inserted in the volume, are so well fitted to their frame-work of prose, and so indicative of the feelings of the writer at this crisis of his life, that I may be excused for presenting them with the context.

TO MR. COLERIDGE.

"1797.

worth, I should wish to make a part of our little volume. I shall be sorry if that volume comes out, as it necessarily must do,