1796 COLERIDGE AND SOUTHEY 11 The Hertfordshire sonnet was printed in the Monthly Magazine for December, 1797, and not reprinted by Lamb. The last line, which he says here is from Bowles (the last line of the sonnet "To a Friend"), has a nearer counterpart in William Vallan's Tale of Two Swans (1590), quoted in Leland's Itinerary, Hearne's edition : About this time the Lady Venus views The fruitful fields of pleasant Hertfordshire. This interesting discovery was made by Mr. W. J. Craig. The sonnet that "mock'd my step with many a lonely glade" is that beginning Was it some sweet device of Faery, which had been printed in Coleridge's Poems, 1796. The second, third and fourth of the sonnets that are copied in this letter were printed in the second edition of Coleridge's Poems, 1797. Anna is generally supposed to be Ann Simmons, referred to in the previous note. The lines from Hamilton of Bangor are in his "Epistle to the Countess of Eglintoun (with "The Gentle Shepherd")": "where" should be "why." Parnell's lines are in his "Hymn to Contentment":"ah" should be "O" and "hide" "lay." In Cowley's poem the first of the quoted lines runs :— Was there a tree about which did not know Concerning "Flocci-nauci-what-d'ye-call-'em-ists," Canon Ainger has the following interesting note: "Flocci, nauci' is the beginning of a rule in the old Latin grammars, containing a list of words signifying 'of no account,' floccus being a lock of wool, and naucus a trifle. Lamb was recalling a sentence in one of Shenstone's Letters :-'I loved him for nothing so much as his floccinauci-nihili-pili-fication of money."" But "Pantisocratists" was, of course, the word that Lamb was shadowing. Pantisocracy, however the new order of common living and high thinking, to be established on the banks of the Susquehanna by Coleridge, Southey, Favell, Burnett and others—was already dead. William Cumberland Cruikshank, the anatomist, who attended Lamb's brother, had a great reputation. He had attended Dr. Johnson in his last illness. Le Grice's pamphlet was A General Theorem for A******* Coll. Declamation, by Gronovius, 1796.-The phrase "teaching the young idea how to shoot" is from Thomson's Seasons. Southey and Coleridge had been on somewhat strained terms for some time; possibly, as I have said in the previous note, owing to Southey's abandonment of Pantisocratic fervour, which anticipated Coleridge's by some months. Also, to marry sisters does not always lead to serenity. The spiriting away of Coleridge had been effected by Southey in January, 1795, when he found Coleridge at the Angel in Butcher Hall Street (vice the Salutation in Newgate Street) and bore him back to Bristol and the forlorn Sara Fricker, and away from Lamb, journalism and egg-hot. 66 Between two there should be peace you Between us two let there be peace. Paradise Lost, X., 924. Moschus was, as we have seen, Robert Lovell. Watchman contained sonnets by him. No. V. of The The review of Burke's Letter to a Noble Lord was in No. I. of The Watchman. The passage from "Religious Musings," under the title "The Present State of Society," was in No. II.-extending from line 260 to 357.-The capital line in No. VI. is in the poem, "Lines on Observing a Blossom on the First of February, 1796."Poor dead Parsons would be William Parsons (1736-1795), the original Sir Fretful Plagiary in Sheridan's "Critic." Lamb praises him in his essay on the Artificial Comedy.-In No. IX. of The Watchman were prose paraphrases of three Sclavonian songs, the first being "Song of a Female Orphan," and the second, "Song of the Haymakers."-John Logan's "Braes of Yarrow" had been quoted in No. III. as "the most exquisite performance in our language."-The invective against "the barterers" refers to the denunciation of the slave trade in No. IV. of The Watchman. Cowper's recovery was only partial; and he was never rightly himself after 1793. The edition of Milton had been begun about 1790. It was never finished as originally intended; but Fuseli completed forty pictures, which were exhibited in 1799. An edition of Cowper's translations, with designs by Flaxman, was published in 1808, and of Cowper's complete Milton in 1810. Wordsworth's poem would be "Guilt and Sorrow," of which a portion was printed in Lyrical Ballads, 1798, and the whole published in 1842. "The voice, the look." Possibly a phrase in Coleridge's letter, to which Lamb is replying. In one of Lloyd's sonnets in Coleridge's Poems, 1797 (page 205), are the words "That look, those accents." Coleridge's "Monody on Chatterton," the first poem in his Poems on Various Subjects, 1796, had been written originally at Christ's Hospital, 1790: it continued to be much altered before the final version. 4 1796 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY 13 Coleridge contributed between three and four hundred lines to Book II. of Southey's Joan of Arc, as we shall see later. The poem beginning "My Pensive Sara" was Effusion 35, afterwards called "The Eolian Harp," and the lines to which Lamb refers are these, following upon Coleridge's description of how flitting phantasies traverse his indolent and passive brain : But thy more serious eye a mild reproof And biddest me walk humbly with my God. The plan to resume The Watchman did not come to anything. Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), the theologian, at this time the object of Lamb's adoration, was one of the fathers of Unitarianism, a creed in which Lamb had been brought up under the influence of his Aunt Hetty. Coleridge, as a supporter of one of Priestley's allies, William Frend of Cambridge, and as a convinced Unitarian, was also an admirer of Priestley, concerning whom and the Birmingham riots of 1791 is a fine passage in "Religious Musings," while one of the sonnets of the 1796 volume was addressed to him: circumstances which Lamb had in mind when mentioning him in this letter. Lamb had probably seen Priestley at the Gravel Pit Chapel, Hackney, where he became morning preacher in December, 1791, remaining there until March, 1794. Thenceforward he lived in America. His Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion appeared between 1772 and 1774. The other work referred to is Letters to the Philosophers and Politicians of France, newly edited by Theophilus Lindsey, the Unitarian, as An Answer to Mr. Paine's "Age of Reason," 1795.] LETTER 3 CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE [Begun Wednesday, June 8. Dated on address: "Friday 10th June," 1796.] Wr ITH Joan of Arc I have been delighted, amazed. I had not presumed to expect any thing of such excellence from Southey. Why the poem is alone sufficient to redeem the character of the age we live in from the imputation of degenerating in Poetry, were there no such beings extant as Burns and Bowles, Cowper and ——fill up the blank how you please, I say nothing. The subject is well chosen. It opens well. To become more particular, I will notice in their order a few passages that chiefly struck me on perusal. Page 26 "Fierce and terrible Benevolence!" is a phrase full of grandeur and originality. The whole context made me feel possess'd, even like Joan herself. Page 28, "it is most horrible with the keen sword to gore the finely fibred human frame" and what follows pleased me mightily. In the 2d Book the first forty lines, in particular, are majestic and high-sounding. Indeed the whole vision of the palace of Ambition and what follows are supremely excellent. Your simile of the Laplander "by Niemi's lake Or Balda Zhiok, or the mossy stone Of Solfar Kapper"—will bear comparison with any in Milton for fullness of circumstance and lofty-pacedness of Versification. Southey's similes, tho' many of 'em are capital, are all inferior. In one of his books the simile of the Oak in the Storm occurs I think four times! To return, the light in which you view the heathen deities is accurate and beautiful. Southey's personifications in this book are so many fine and faultless pictures. I was much pleased with your manner of accounting for the reason why Monarchs take delight in War. At the 447th line you have placed Prophets and Enthusiasts cheek by jowl, on too intimate a footing for the dignity of the former. Necessarian-like-speaking it is corect. Page 98 "Dead is the Douglas, cold thy warrior frame, illustrious Buchan" &c are of kindred excellence with Gray's "Cold is Cadwallo's tongue" &c. How famously the Maid baffles the Doctors, Seraphic and Irrefragable, "with all their trumpery!" 126 page, the procession, the appearances of the Maid, of the Bastard son of Orleans and of Tremouille, are full of fire and fancy, and exquisite melody of versification. The personifications from line 303 to 309 in the heat of the battle had better been omitted, they are not very striking and only encumber. The converse which Joan and Conrade hold on the Banks of the Loire is altogether beautiful. Page 313, the conjecture that in Dreams "all things are that seem " is one of those conceits which the Poet delights to admit into his creed-a creed, by the way, more marvellous and mystic than ever Athanasius dream'd of. Page 315, I need only mention those lines ending with "She saw a serpent gnawing at her heart"!!! They are good imitative lines "he toild and toild, of toil to reap no end, but endless toil and never ending woe." 347 page, Cruelty is such as Hogarth might have painted her. Page 361, all the passage about Love (where he seems to confound conjugal love with Creating and Preserving love) is very confused and sickens me with a load of useless personifications. Élse that 9th Book is the finest in the volume, an exquisite combination of the ludicrous and the terrible, -I have never read either, even in translation, but such as I conceive to be the manner of Dante and Ariosto. The 10th book is the most languid. On the whole, considering the celerity wherewith the poem was finish'd, I was astonish'd at the infrequency of weak lines. I had expected to find it verbose. Joan, I think, does too 1796 JOHN LAMB'S ACCIDENT 15 little in Battle-Dunois, perhaps, the same-Conrade too much. The anecdotes interspersed among the battles refresh the mind very agreeably, and I am delighted with the very many passages of simple pathos abounding throughout the poem-passages which the author of "Crazy Kate" might have written. Has not Master Southey spoke very slightingly in his preface and disparagingly of Cowper's Homer ?—what makes him reluctant to give Cowper his fame? And does not Southey use too often the expletives "did" and "does?" they have a good effect at times, but are too inconsiderable, or rather become blemishes, when they mark a style. On the whole, I expect Southey one day to rival Milton. I already deem him equal to Cowper, and superior to all living Poets Besides. What says Coleridge? The "Monody on Henderson" is immensely good; the rest of that little volume is readable and above mediocrity. I proceed to a more pleasant task,-pleasant because the poems are yours, pleasant because you impose the task on me, and pleasant, let me add, because it will confer a whimsical importance on me to sit in judgment upon your rhimes. First tho', let me thank you again and again in my own and my sister's name for your invitations. Nothing could give us more pleasure than to come, but (were there no other reasons) while my Brother's leg is so bad it is out of the question. Poor fellow, he is very feverish and light headed, but Cruikshanks has pronounced the symptoms favorable, and gives us every hope that there will be no need of amputation. God send, not. We are necessarily confined with him the afternoon and evening till very late, so that I am stealing a few minutes to write to you. Thank you for your frequent letters, you are the only correspondent and I might add the only friend I have in the world. I go no where and have no acquaintance. Slow of speech, and reserved of manners, no one seeks or cares for my society and I am left alone. Allen calls only occasionally, as tho' it were a duty rather, and seldom stays ten minutes. Then judge how thankful I am for your letters. Do not, however, burthen yourself with the correspondence. I trouble you again so soon, only in obedience to your injunctions. Complaints apart, proceed we to our task. I am called away to tea, thence must wait upon my brother, so must delay till to-morrow. Farewell-Wednesday. 13th page. Thursday. I will first notice what is new to me. "The thrilling tones that concentrate the soul" is a nervous line, and the 6 first lines of page 14 are very pretty. The 21st effusion a perfect thing. That in the manner of Spencer is very sweet, particularly at the close. The 35th effusion is most exquisitethat line in particular, "And tranquil muse upon tranquillity." |