odd coincidence of two young men, in one age, carolling their grandmothers. Love-what L[loyd] calls "the feverish and romantic tye "-hath too long domineerd over all the charities of home: the dear domestic tyes of father, brother, husband. The amiable and benevolent Cowper has a beautiful passage in his "Task,"-some natural and painful reflections on his deceased parents: and Hayley's sweet lines to his mother are notoriously the best things he ever wrote. Cowper's lines, some of them, are— 66 How gladly would the man recall to life I cannot but smile to see my Granny so gayly deck'd forth : tho', I think, whoever altered "thy" praises to "her" praises, "thy" honoured memory to "her" honoured memory, did wrong-they best exprest my feelings. There is a pensive state of recollection, in which the mind is disposed to apostrophise the departed objects of its attachment, and, breaking loose from grammatical precision, changes from the 1st to the 3rd, and from the 3rd to the 1st person, just as the random fancy or the feeling directs. Among Lloyd's sonnets, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 11th, are eminently beautiful. I think him too lavish of his expletives; the do's and did's, when they occur too often, bring a quaintness with them along with their simplicity, or rather air of antiquity which the patrons of them seem desirous of conveying. The lines on Friday are very pleasing-" Yet calls itself in pride of Infancy woman or man," &c., "affection's tottering troop "--are prominent beauties. Another time, when my mind were more at ease, I could be more particular in my remarks, and I would postpone them now, only I want some diversion of mind. The Melancholy Man is a charming piece of poetry, only the "whys" (with submission) are too many. Yet the questions are too good to be any of 'em omitted. For those lines of yours, page 18, omitted in magazine, I think the 3 first better retain'd—the 3 last, which are somewhat simple in the most affronting sense of the word, better omitted to this my taste directs me—I have no claim to prescribe to you. "Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies" is an exquisite line, but you knew that when you wrote 'em, and I trifle in pointing such out. Tis altogether 1796 More Criticism 69 "No the sweetest thing to me you ever wrote-tis all honey. wish profaned my overwhelmed heart, Blest hour, it was a Luxury to be "I recognise feelings, which I may taste again, if tranquility has not taken his flight for ever, and I will not believe but I shall be happy, very happy again. The next poem to your friend is very beautiful: need I instance the pretty fancy of "the rock's collected tears -or that original line "pour'd all its healthful greenness on the soul"?—let it be, since you asked me, "as neighbouring fountains each reflect the whole "-tho' that is somewhat harsh; indeed the ending is not so finish'd as the rest, which if you omit in your forthcoming edition, you will do the volume wrong, and the very binding will cry out. Neither shall you omit the 2 following poems. "The hour when we shall meet again," is fine fancy, tis true, but fancy catering in the Service of the feeling-fetching from her stores most splendid banquets to satisfy her. Do not, do not omit it. Your sonnet to the River Otter excludes those equally beautiful lines, which deserve not to be lost, "as the tired savage," &c., and I prefer that copy in your Watchman. I plead for its preference. Another time, I may notice more particularly Lloyd's, Southey's, Dermody's Sonnets. I shrink from them now: my teazing lot makes me too confused for a clear judgment of things, too selfish for sympathy; and these ill-digested, meaningless remarks I have imposed on myself as a task, to lull reflection, as well as to show you I did not neglect reading your valuable present. Return my acknowledgments to Lloyd; you two appear to be about realising an Elysium upon earth, and, no doubt, I shall be happier. Take my best wishes. Remember me most affectionately to Mrs. C., and give little David Hartley-God bless its little heart!-a kiss for me. Bring him up to know the meaning of his Christian name, and what that name (imposed upon him) will demand of him. C. LAMB. God love you! I write, for one thing, to say that I shall write no more till you send me word where you are, for you are so soon to move. My sister is pretty well, thank God. We think of you very often. God bless you: continue to be my correspondent, and I will strive to fancy that this world is not "all barrenness." [The poetical present, as the late Mr. Dykes Campbell pointed out in The Athenæum, June 13, 1891, consisted of Lloyd's Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer, to which Lamb had contributed "The Grandame," and of a little privately-printed collection of poems by Coleridge and Lloyd, which they had intended to publish, but did not. The pamphlet has completely vanished. In addition to these two works the poetical present also comprised another privately-printed collection, a little pamphlet of twentyeight sonnets which Coleridge had arranged for the purpose of binding up with those of Bowles. It included three of Bowles', four of Coleridge's, four of Lamb's, four of Southey's, and the remainder by Dermody, Lloyd, Charlotte Smith, and others. copy of this pamphlet is preserved in the South Kensington Museum. A "The poems you sent me." This would be Lloyd's Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer. When Lamb reprinted "The Grandame" in Coleridge's second edition, 1797, he put back the original text. I now take up Mr. Dykes Campbell's comments on the letter, where it branches off from the Priscilla Farmer volume to the vanished pamphlet of poems by Coleridge and Lloyd :— Beginning with Lloyd's "Melancholy Man" (first printed in the Carlisle volume of 1795), he [Lamb] passes to Coleridge's poem on leaving the honeymoon-cottage at Clevedon, "altogether the sweetest thing to me," says Lamb, "you ever wrote." The verses had appeared in the Monthly Magazine two months before. That Lamb's counsel was followed to some extent may be gathered from a comparison between the text of the magazine and that of 1797 : ... "Once I saw (Hallowing his sabbath-day by quietness) "Once I saw Monthly Magazine. (Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness) Poems, 1797. 1796 Dykes Campbell's Notes 71 It will be observed that Coleridge in 1797 inserted some lines which were not in the magazine. They were probably restored from a MS. copy Lamb had previously seen, and if Coleridge did not cancel all that Lamb wisely counselled, he certainly drew the sting of the "affronting simplicity" by removing the word "little." The comical ambiguity of the Bristol man's exclamation as first reported could hardly have failed to drive Lamb's dull care away for a moment or two. [In]"the next poem to your friend," . . . [Lamb is] speaking of Coleridge's lines "To Charles Lloyd"—those beginning "A mount, not wearisome and bare and steep." In the "forthcoming edition" the poet improved a little the barely tolerated line, making it read,— "As neighb'ring fountains image, each the whole," but did not take Lamb's hint to omit the five which closed the poem. Lamb, however, got his way-perhaps took it when the verses were reprinted in 1803, in the volume he saw through the press for Coleridge. "Neither shall you omit the 2 following poems. 'The hour when we shall meet again' is [only ?] a fine fancy, 'tis true, but fancy catering in the service of the feeling-fetching from her stores most splendid banquets to satisfy her. Do not, do not, omit it." So wrote Lamb of these somewhat slender verses, but his friend had composed them " during illness and in absence,' and Lamb in his own heart-sickness and loneliness detected the reality which underlay the conventionality of expression. The critic slept, and even when he was awake again in 1803 was fain to let the lines be reprinted with only the concession of their worst couplet : "While finely-flushing float her kisses meek, Like melted rubies, o'er my pallid cheek." The second of the "2 following poems was Coleridge's "Sonnet to the River Otter." The version then before him "excludes," complains Lamb, "those equally beautiful lines which deserve not to be lost, as the tir'd savage,' &c., and I prefer the copy in your Watchman. I plead for its preference." This pleading was not responded to in the way Lamb wanted, but in the appendix to the 1797 volume Coleridge printed the whole of the poem on an "Autumnal Evening," to which the "tir'd savage" properly belonged. "Lloyd's, Southey's, Dermody's Sonnets." Lamb here refers to the third portion of the poetical present-the twenty-eight sonnets to be bound up with those of Bowles. Thomas Dermody (1775-1802) was an Irish poet of squalidly dissolute life. A collection of his verses appeared in 1792.] I LETTER 18 CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE Dec. 10th, 1796. HAD put my letter into the post rather hastily, not expecting to have to acknowledge another from you so soon. This morning's present has made me alive again my last night's epistle was childishly querulous; but you have put a little life into me, and I will thank you for your remembrance of me, while my sense of it is yet warm; for if I linger a day or two I may use the same phrase of acknowledgment, or similar; but the feeling that dictates it now will be gone. I shall send you a caput mortuum, not a cor vivens. Thy Watchman's, thy bellman's, verses, I do retort upon thee, thou libellous varlet,—why, you cried the hours yourself, and who made you so proud? But I submit, to show my humility, most implicitly to your dogmas. I reject entirely the copy of verses you reject. With regard to my leaving off versifying, you have said so many pretty things, so many fine compliments, ingeniously decked out in the garb of sincerity, and undoubtedly springing from a present feeling somewhat like sincerity, that you might melt the most un-muse-ical soul,— did you not (now for a Rowland compliment for your profusion of Olivers)-did you not in your very epistle, by the many pretty fancies and profusion of heart displayed in it, dissuade and discourage me from attempting anything after you. At present I have not leisure to make verses, nor anything approaching to a fondness for the exercise. In the ignorant present time, who can answer for the future man? "At lovers' perjuries Jove laughs"-and poets have sometimes a disingenuous way of forswearing their occupation. This though is not my case. The tender cast of soul, sombred with melancholy and subsiding recollections, is favourable to the Sonnet or the Elegy; but from "The sainted growing woof, The teasing troubles keep aloof." The music of poesy may charm for a while the importunate teasing cares of life; but the teased and troubled man is not in a disposition to make that music. You sent me some very sweet lines relative to Burns, but it was at a time when, in my highly agitated and perhaps dis |