1816 Coleridge's Zapolya 513 I am call'd off to do the deposits on Cotton Wool-but why do I relate this to you who want faculties to comprehend the great mystery of Deposits, of Interest, of Warehouse rent, and Contingent Fund-Adieu. C. LAMB. A longer Letter when C. is gone back into the Country, relating his success, &c.—my judgment of your new Books &c. &c.—I am scarce quiet enough while he stays. Yours again Tuesday 9 Apr. 1816. C. L. [Wordsworth had sent Lamb, presumably in proof (see next letter), Thanksgiving Ode, 18 Jan. 1816, with other short pieces chiefly referring to recent events, 1816-the subject of the ode being the peace that had come upon Europe with the downfall of Napoleon. It follows in the collected works the sonnets to liberty. "More Bodleiano." According to Macray's Annals of the Bodleian Library (second edition, 1890, page 121), books seem to have been chained in the Bodleian Library up to 1751. The process of removing the chains seems to have begun in 1757. In 1761 as many as 1,448 books were unchained at a cost of a d. a piece. A dozen years later discarded chains were sold at the rate of 2d. for a long chain, 1d. for a short one, and if one hankered after a hundred-weight of them, the wish could be gratified on payment of 14s. Many loose chains are still preserved in the library as relics. "For of those who borrow." Lamb's Elia essay, "The Two Races of Men," may have had its germ in this passage. Coleridge came to London from Calne in March bringing with him the manuscript of "Zapolya." He had already had correspondence with Lord Byron concerning a tragedy for Drury Lane, on whose committee Byron had a seat, but he had done nothing towards writing it. "Zapolya" was never acted. It was published in 1817. Coleridge's lodgings were at 43 Norfolk Street, Strand. See next letter for further news of Coleridge at this time.] LETTER 230 CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH [April 26, 1816.] SIR, following Lots of sold PLEASE to state the Weights and Amounts of the Accountant's Office, 26 Apr. 1816 CHAS, LAMB, DEA EAR W. I have just finished the pleasing task of correcting the Revise of the Poems and letter. I hope they will come out faultless. One blunder I saw and shuddered at. The hallucinating rascal had printed battered for battened, this last not conveying any distinct sense to his gaping soul. The Reader (as they call 'em) had discovered it and given it the marginal brand, but the substitutory n had not yet appeared. I accompanied his notice with a most pathetic address to the Printer not to neglect the Correction. I know how such a blunder would "batter at your Peace." [Batter is written batten and corrected to batter in the margin.] With regard to the works, the Letter I read with unabated satisfaction. Such a thing was wanted, called for. The parallel of Cotton with Burns I heartily approve; Iz. Walton hallows any page in which his reverend name appears. "Duty archly bending to purposes of general benevolence" is exquisite. The Poems I endeavored not to understand, but to read them with my eye alone, and I think I succeeded. (Some people will do that when they come out, you'll say.) As if I were to luxuriate to-morrow at some Picture Gallery I was never at before, and going by to day by chance, found the door open, had but 5 minutes to look about me, peeped in, just such a chastised peep I took with my mind at the lines my luxuriating eye was coursing over unrestrained,—not to anticipate another day's fuller satisfaction. Coleridge is printing Xtabel, by Ld Byron's recommendation to Murray, with what he calls a vision, Kubla Khan-which said vision he repeats so enchantingly that it irradiates and brings heaven and Elysian bowers into my parlour while he sings or says it, but there is an observation "Never tell thy dreams,” and I am almost afraid that Kubla Khan is an owl that won't bear day light, I fear lest it should be discovered by the lantern of typography and clear reducting to letters, no better than nonsense or no sense. When I was young I used to chant with extacy Mild Arcadians ever blooming, till somebody told me it was meant to be nonsense. Even yet I have a lingering attachment to it, and think it better than Windsor Forest, Dying Xtian's address &c.-C. has sent his Tragedy to D. L. T.-it cannot be acted this season, and by their manner of receiving it, I hope he will be able to alter it to make them accept it for next. He is at present under the medical care of a Mr. Gilman (Killman ?) a Highgate Apothe 1816 Coleridge and Wordsworth 515 cary, where he plays at leaving off Laud-m. I think his essentials not touched: he is very bad, but then he wonderfully picks up another day, and his face when he repeats his verses hath its ancient glory, an Archangel a little damaged. Will Miss H. pardon our not replying at length to her kind Letter? We are not quiet enough. Morgan is with us every day, going betwixt Highgate and the Temple. Coleridge is absent but 4 miles, and the neighborhood of such a man is as exciting as the presence of 50 ordinary Persons. 'Tis enough to be within the whiff and wind of his genius, for us not to possess our souls in quiet. If I lived with him or the author of the Excursion, I should in a very little time lose my own identity, and be dragged along in the current of other people's thoughts, hampered in a net. How cool I sit in this office, with no possible interruption further than what I may term material; there is not as much metaphysics in 36 of the people here as there is in the first page of Locke's treatise on the Human understanding, or as much poetry as in any ten lines of the Pleasures of Hope or more natural Beggar's Petition. I never entangle myself in any of their speculations. Interruptions, if I try to write a letter even, I have dreadful. Just now within 4 lines I was call'd off for ten minutes to consult dusty old books for the settlement of obsolete Errors. I hold you a guinea you don't find the Chasm where I left off, so excellently the wounded sense closed again and was healed. N.B. Nothing said above to the contrary but that I hold the personal presence of the two mentioned potent spirits at a rate as high as any, but I pay dearer, what amuses others robs me of myself, my mind is positively discharged into their greater currents, but flows with a willing violence. As to your question about work, it is far less oppressive to me than it was, from circumstances; it takes all the golden part of the day away, a solid lump from ten to four, but it does not kill my peace as before. Some day or other I shall be in a taking again. My head akes and you have had enough. God bless you. C. LAMB. [Lamb had been correcting the proofs of Wordsworth's Letter to a Friend of Burns and his Thanksgiving Ode, with other short Pieces, both published in 1816. In the Letter to a Friend of Robert Burns, which was called forth by the intended republication of Burns' life by Dr. Currie, Wordsworth incidentally compares Burns and Cotton, The phrase which Lamb commends is in the description of " Tam o' Shanter" (page 22)—" This reprobate sits down to his cups, while the storm is roaring, and heaven and earth are in confusion;-the night is driven on by song and tumultuous noise-laughter and jest thicken as the beverage improves upon the palate conjugal fidelity archly bends to the service of general benevolence-selfishness is not absent, but wearing the mask of social cordiality. . . "" Coleridge's Christabel (with Kubla Khan and The Pains of Sleep) was published by Murray in 1816. It ran into a second edition /quickly, but was not too well received. The Edinburgh indeed described it as destitute of one ray of genius. In a letter from Fanny Godwin to Mary Shelley, July 20, 1816, in Dowden's Life of Shelley, we read that "Lamb says Christabel ought never to have been published; and that no one understood it, and Kubla Khan is nonsense. But this was probably idle gossip. Lamb had admired Christabel to the full, but he may have thought its publication in an incomplete state an error. Coleridge was introduced to Mr. James Gillman of the Grove, Highgate, by Dr. Adams of Hatton Garden, to whom he had applied for medical aid. Adams suggested that Gillman should take Coleridge into his house. Gillman arranged on April 11 that Adams should bring Coleridge on the following day. Coleridge went alone and conquered. He promised to begin domestication on the next day, and "I looked with impatience," wrote Gillman in his Life of Coleridge, "for the morrow . . I felt indeed almost spellbound, without the desire of release." Coleridge did not come on the morrow, but two days later. He remained with the Gillmans for the rest of his life. The Pleasures of Hope, by Thomas Campbell; The Beggar's Petition" Pity the sorrows of a poor old man "—by Thomas Moss (1740-1808), a ditty in all the recitation books. Lamb alluded to it in the London Magazine version of his Elia essay, “A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars.' 66 Here should come a brief note from Lamb to Leigh Hunt, dated May 13, 1816, accompanying Falstaff's Letters, etc., and a gift of John Woodvil." This is Lamb's first letter to James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) that has been preserved. He had known Hunt (an old Christ's Hospitaller, but later than Lamb's day) for some years. To his Reflector he contributed a number of essays and humorous letters in 1810-1811; and he had written also for The Examiner in 1812 and during Hunt's imprisonment in 18131815. The Lambs visited him regularly at the Surrey Jail. One of Lamb's most charming poems is inscribed "To T. L. H."— Thornton Leigh Hunt, whom he called his “favourite child."] 1816 A Wiltshire Holiday LETTER 231 CHARLES LAMB TO MATILDA BETHAM 517 [Dated at end: June 1, 1816.] DEAR Miss Betham, I have sent your very pretty lines to Southey in a frank as you requested. Poor S. what a grievous loss he must have had! Mary and I rejoice in the prospect of seeing you soon in town. Let us be among the very first persons you come to see. Believe me that you can have no friends who respect and love you more than ourselves. Pray present our kind remembrances to Barbara, and to all to whom you may think they will be acceptable. Yours very sincerely, C. LAMB. Have you seen Christabel since its publication? E. I. H. June 1 1816. [Southey's eldest son, Herbert, had died in April of this year. Here should come a letter from Lamb to H. Dodwell, of the India House, dated August, 1816, not available for this edition. Lamb writes from Calne, in Wiltshire, where he and his sister were making holiday, staying with the Morgans. He states that he has lost all sense of time, and recollected that he must return to work some day only through the accident of playing Commerce instead of whist.] MY LETTER 232 CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH [P.M. September 23, 1816.] Y dear Wordsworth, It seems an age since we have corresponded, but indeed the interim has been stuffd out with more variety than usually checquers my same-seeming existence. Mercy on me, what a traveller have I been since I wrote you last! what foreign wonders have been explored! I have seen Bath, King Bladud's ancient well, fair Bristol, seed-plot of suicidal Chatterton, Marlbro', Chippenham, Calne, famous for nothing in particular that I know of-but such a vertigo of locomotion has not seized us for years. We spent a month with the Morgans at the last named BoroughAugust-and such a change has the change wrought in us that we could not stomach wholesome Temple air, but are abso |