1809 The Perfect Wife 423 beautiful. Do remember my Dodsley; and pray do write, or let some of you write. Clarkson tells me you are in a smoky house. Have you cured it? It is hard to cure anything of smoking. Our little poems are but humble, but they have no name. You must read them, remembering they were task-work; and perhaps you will admire the number of subjects, all of children, picked out by an old Bachelor and an old Maid. Many parents would not have found so many. Have you read "Cœlebs?" It has reached eight editions in so many weeks; yet literally it is one of the very poorest sort of common novels, with the draw-back of dull religion in it. Had the religion been high and flavoured, it would have been something. I borrowed this "Coelebs in Search of a Wife " of a very careful, neat lady, and returned it with this stuff written in the beginning : "If ever I marry a wife I'd marry a landlord's daughter, And drink cold brandy-and-water.' I don't expect you can find time from your "Friend" to write to me much, but write something, for there has been a long silence. You know Holcroft is dead. Godwin is well. He has written a very pretty, absurd book about sepulchres. He was affronted because I told him it was better than Hervey, but not so good as Sir T. Browne. This letter is all about books; but my head aches, and I hardly know what I write ; but I could not let "The Friend" pass without a congratulatory epistle. I won't criticise till it comes to a volume. Tell me how I shall send my packet to you?-by what conveyance? -by Longman, Short-man, or how? Give my kindest remembrances to Wordsworth. Tell him he must give me a book. My kind love to Mrs. W. and to Dorothy separately and conjointly. I wish you could all come and see me in my God bless you all. new rooms. C. L. [The first number of The Friend was dated June 1, 1809. Lamb's Dramatic Specimens had been reviewed in the Annual Review for 1808, with discrimination and approval (see Vol. IV. of my large edition), but whether or not by Coleridge I do not know. Wordsworth's book was his pamphlet on the "Convention of Cintra." The Juvenile Poetry was Poetry for Children. Entirely Original. By the author of Mrs. Leicester's School. In two volumes, 1809. Mrs. Leicester's School, 1809, had been published a little before. Wordsworth's favourite tale was Arabella Hardy's "The Sea Voyage." I know nothing of the annotated copy of Sidney's Arcadia. Daniel's Poetical Works, 12mo, 1718, two volumes, with marginalia by Lamb and Coleridge, is still preserved. The copy of Hannah More's Calebs in Search of a Wife, 1809, with Lamb's verses, is not, I think, now known. Southey's missionary article was in the first number of the Quarterly, February, 1809. Hervey wrote Meditations among the Tombs; Sir Thomas Browne, Urn Burial. Here should come four letters from Lamb to Charles Lloyd, Senior. They are all printed in Charles Lamb and the Lloyds. The first, dated June 13, 1809, contains an interesting criticism of a translation of the twenty-fourth book of the Iliad, which Charles Lloyd, the father of Robert Lloyd, had made. Lamb says that what he misses, and misses also in Pope, is a savage-like plainness of speaking. "The heroes in Homer are not half civilized--they utter all the cruel, all the selfish, all the mean thoughts even of their nature, which it is the fashion of our great men to keep in." Mr. Lloyd had translated άoidoùs (line 720) “minstrels." Lamb says "minstrels I suspect to be a word bringing merely English or English ballad feelings to the Mind. It expresses the thing and something more, as to say Sarpedon was a Gentleman, or as somebody translated Paul's address, 'Ye men of Athens,'' Gentlemen of Athens.'" The second letter, dated June 19, 1809, continues the subject. Lamb writes: "I am glad to see you venture made and maid for rhymes. 'Tis true their sound is the same. But the mind occupied in revolving the different meaning of two words so literally the same, is diverted from the objection which the mere Ear would make, and to the mind it is rhyme enough." In the third letter, dated July 31, 1809, Lamb remarks of translators of Homer, that Cowper delays one as much, walking over a Bowling Green, as Milton does, travelling over steep Alpine heights. The fourth letter, undated, accompanies criticisms of Mr. Lloyd's translation of the Odyssey, Books 1 and 2. Mr. Lloyd had translated Boûs 'Heλíolo (Book 1, line 8) "Bullocks of the Sun.” Lamb wrote: 66 OXEN of the Sun, I conjure. Bullocks is too Smithfield and sublunary a Word. Oxen of the Sun, or of Apollo, but in any case not Bullocks." With a letter to Robert Lloyd, belonging to this year, Lamb sends Poetry for Children, and states that the poem "The Beggar Man" is by his brother, John Lamb.] 1809 "The Convention of Cintra" 425 DEAR LETTER 183 CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE Monday, Oct. 30th, 1809. EAR Coleridge,-I have but this moment received your letter, dated the 9th instant, having just come off a journey from Wiltshire, where I have been with Mary on a visit to Hazlitt. The journey has been of infinite service to her. We have had nothing but sunshiny days and daily walks from eight to twenty miles a-day; have seen Wilton, Salisbury, Stonehenge, &c. Her illness lasted but six weeks; it left her weak, but the country has made us whole. We came back to our Hogarth Room—I have made several acquisitions since you saw them, and found Nos. 8, 9, 10 of "The. Friend." The account of Luther in the Warteburg is as fine as anything I ever read. God forbid that a man who has such things to say should be silenced for want of £100. This Custom-and-Duty Age would have made the Preacher on the Mount take out a licence, and St. Paul's Epistles would not have been missible without a stamp. Oh, that you may find means to go on! But alas! where is Sir G. Beaumont ? Sotheby? What is become of the rich Auditors in Albemarle Street? Your letter has saddened me. I am so tired with my journey, being up all night, I have neither things nor words in my power. I believe I expressed my admiration of the pamphlet. Its power over me was like that which Milton's pamphlets must have had on his contemporaries, who were tuned to them. What a piece of prose ! Do you hear if it is read at all? I am out of the world of readers. I hate all that do read, for they read nothing but reviews and new books. I gather myself up unto the old things. I have put up shelves. You never saw a book-case in more true harmony with the contents, than what I've nailed up in a room, which, though new, has more aptitudes for growing old than you shall often see-as one sometimes gets a friend in the middle of life, who becomes an old friend in a short time. My rooms are luxurious; one is for prints and one for books; a Summer and a Winter parlour. When shall I ever see you in them? C. L. [Hazlitt has given some account of the Lambs' visit to Winterslow, but the passage belongs probably to the year following. In his essay "On the Conversation of Authors" he likens Lamb in the country to "the most capricious poet Ovid among the Goths." "The country people thought him an oddity, and did not understand his jokes. It would be strange if they had, for he did not make any, while he stayed. But when he crossed the country to Oxford, then he spoke a little. He and the old colleges were hailfellow well met; and in the quadrangles he walked gowned." Again, in "A Farewell to Essay-writing," Hazlitt says: "I used to walk out at this time with Mr. and Miss Lamb of an evening, to look at the Claude Lorraine skies over our heads melting from azure into purple and gold, and to gather mushrooms, that sprang up at our feet, to throw into our hashed mutton." Lamb's Hogarths were framed in black. It must have been about this time that he began his essay "On the Genius of Hogarth," which was printed in The Reflector in 1811 (see Vol. I.). The Friend lasted until No. XXVII., March 15, 1810. The account of Luther was in No. VIII., October 5, 1809. Coleridge had not been supported financially as he had hoped, and had already begun to think of stopping the paper. Sir George Howland Beaumont (1753-1827), of Coleorton, the friend and patron of men of genius, had helped, with Sotheby, in the establishment of The Friend, and was instrumental subsequently in procuring a pension for Coleridge. William Sotheby (1757-1833), the translator and author, had received subscriptions for Coleridge's lectures. "The rich Auditors in Albemarle Street"-those who had listened to Coleridge's lectures at the Royal Institution. "The pamphlet." Presumably Wordsworth's "Convention of Cintra." "You never saw a book-case." Leigh Hunt wrote of Lamb's books in the essay "My Books," in The Literary Examiner :— 66 It looks like what it is, a selection made at precious intervals from the book-stalls;-now a Chaucer at nine and twopence; now a Montaigne or a Sir Thomas Browne at two shillings; now a Jeremy Taylor, a Spinoza; an old English Dramatist, Prior, and Sir Philip Sidney; and the books are "neat as imported." The very perusal of the backs is a discipline of humanity." There Mr. Southey takes his place again with an old Radical friend: there Jeremy Collier is at peace with Dryden: there the lion, Martin Luther, lies down with the Quaker lamb, Sewel: there Guzman d'Alfarache thinks himself fit company for Sir Charles Grandison, and has his claims admitted. Even the "high fantastical Duchess of Newcastle, with her laurel on her head, is received with grave honours, and not the less for declining to trouble herself with the constitutions of her maids.] MY Y dear Sarah-The dear, quiet, lazy, delicious month we spent with you is remembered by me with such regret, that I feel quite discontent & Winterslow-sick. I assure you, I never passed such a pleasant time in the country in my life, both in the house & out of it, the card playing quarrels, and a few gaspings for breath after your swift footsteps up the high hills excepted, and those drawbacks are not unpleasant in the recollection. We have got some salt butter to make our toast seem like yours, and we have tried to eat meat suppers, but that would not do, for we left our appetites behind us; and the dry loaf, which offended you, now comes in at night unaccompanied ; but, sorry am I to add, it is soon followed by the pipe and the gin bottle. We smoked the very first night of our arrival. Great news! I have just been interrupted by Mr. Daw, who comes to tell me he was yesterday elected a Royal Academician. He said none of his own friends voted for him; he got it by strangers, who were pleased with his picture of Mrs. White. Charles says he does not believe Northcote ever voted for the admission of any one. Though a very cold day, Daw was in a prodigious sweat, for joy at his good fortune. More great news! my beautiful green curtains were put up yesterday, and all the doors listed with green baize, and four new boards put to the coal-hole, and fastening hasps put to the window, and my died Manning silk cut out. Yesterday was an eventful day: for yesterday too Martin Burney was to be examined by Lord Eldon, previous to his being admitted as an Attorney; but he has not yet been here to announce his success. I carried the baby-caps to Mrs. [John] Hazlitt; she was much pleased, and vastly thankful. Mr. [John] H. got fiftyfour guineas at Rochester, and has now several pictures in hand. I am going to tell you a secret, for says she would be sorry to have it talked of. One night came home from the ale-house, bringing with him a great, rough, ill |