1800 DR. ANDERSON 187 I I was a curious fact that there should be such an epic poem and he not know of it; and he must get a copy of it, as he was going to touch pretty deeply upon the subject of the Epic-and he was sure there must be some things good in a poem of 1400 lines!" I was pleased with this transient return of his reason and recurrence to his old ways of thinking: it gave me great hopes of a recovery, which nothing but your book can completely insure. Pray come on Monday if you can, and stay your own time. have a good large room, with two beds in it, in the handsomest of which thou shalt repose a-nights, and dream of Spheroides. hope you will understand by the nonsense of this letter that I am not melancholy at the thoughts of thy coming: I thought it necessary to add this, because you love precision. Take notice that our stay at Dyer's will not exceed eight o'clock, after which our pursuits will be our own. But indeed I think a little recreation among the Bell Letters and poetry will do you some service in the interval of severer studies. I hope we shall fully discuss with George Dyer what I have never yet heard done to my satisfaction, the reason of Dr. Johnson's malevolent strictures on the higher species of the Ode. NOTE [Archimedes, the philosopher and mathematician of Syracuse; Archimagus, the title given to the High-Priest of the Persian Magi; Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer, born 1546, who discovered a new star in Cassiopeia; Copernicus, the German astronomer, born 1473, the founder of modern astronomy. "Thy Black Back "-Manning's Algebra. Dr. Anderson was James Anderson (1739-1808), the editor, at that time, of Recreations in Agriculture, Natural History, Arts, and Miscellaneous History, published in monthly parts. Lamb gave him a copy of verses-three extracts from John Woodvil which were printed in the number for November, 1800, as being "from an unpublished drama by C. Lamb." They were the "Description of a Forest Life," "The General Lover" ("What is it you love?") and "Fragment or Dialogue," better known as "The Dying Lover" (see page 131). All have slight variations from other versions. The most striking is the epithet "lubbar bands of sleep," instead of "lazy bands of sleep," in the "Description of a Forest Life." Wilkie was William Wilkie (1721-1772), the "Scottish Homer," whose Epigoniad in nine books, based on the fourth book of the Iliad, was published in 1757.] DE LETTER 68 CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING [P.M. Sept. 22, 1800.] EAR Manning,-You needed not imagine any apology necessary. Your fine hare and fine birds (which just now are dangling by our kitchen blaze) discourse most eloquent music in your justification. You just nicked my palate. For, with all due decorum and leave may it be spoken, my worship hath taken physic for his body to-day, and being low and puling, requireth to be pampered. Foh! how beautiful and strong those buttered onions come to my nose! For you must know we extract a divine spirit of gravy from those materials which, duly compounded with a consistence of bread and cream (y'clept bread-sauce), each to each giving double grace, do mutually illustrate and set off (as skilful goldfoils to rare jewels) your partridge, pheasant, woodcock, snipe, teal, widgeon, and the other lesser daughters of the ark. My friendship, struggling with my carnal and fleshly prudence (which suggests that a bird a man is the proper allotment in such cases), yearneth sometimes to have thee here to pick a wing or so. I question if your Norfolk sauces match our London culinaric. George Dyer has introduced me to the table of an agreeable old gentleman, Dr. Anderson, who gives hot legs of mutton and grape pies at his sylvan lodge at Isleworth, where, in the middle of a street, he has shot up a wall most preposterously before his small dwelling, which, with the circumstance of his taking several panes of glass out of bedroom windows (for air), causeth his neighbours to speculate strangely on the state of the good man's pericranicks. Plainly, he lives under the reputation of being deranged. George does not mind this circumstance; he rather likes him the better for it. The Doctor, in his pursuits, joins agricultural to poetical science, and has set George's brains mad about the old Scotch writers, Barbour, Douglas's Æneid, Blind Harry, &c. We returned home in a return postchaise (having dined with the Doctor), and George kept wondering and wondering, for eight or nine turnpike miles, what was the name, and striving to recollect the name, of a poet anterior to Barbour. I begged to know what was remaining of his works. "There is nothing extant of his works, Sir, but by all accounts he seems to have been a fine genius!" This fine genius, without anything to show for it or any title beyond George's courtesy, without even a name! and Barbour, and Douglas, and Blind Harry, now are the predominant sounds in George's pia mater, and their buzzings exclude politics, criticism, and algebra-the late lords of that illustrious lumber-room. Mark, he has never read any of these bucks, but is impatient till he reads them all at the Doctor's 1800 AMOS COTTLE'S DEATH 189 suggestion. Poor Dyer! his friends should be careful what sparks they let fall into such inflammable matter. Could I have my will of the heathen, I would lock him up from all access of new ideas; I would exclude all critics that would not swear me first (upon their Virgil) that they would feed him with nothing but the old, safe, familiar notions and sounds (the rightful aborigines of his brain)-Gray, Akenside and Mason. In these sounds, reiterated as often as possible, there could be nothing painful, nothing distracting. God bless me, here are the birds, smoking hot! All that is gross and unspiritual in me rises at the sight! NOTE C. LAMB. ["Divine spirit of gravy." This passage is the first of Lamb's outbursts of gustatory ecstasy, afterwards to become frequent in his writings. John Barbour (1316-1395), author of Bruce; Gavin Douglas, (?1474-1522), author of two allegories, "The Palace of Honour and "King Hart," and translator of the Eneid; and Henry the Minstrel, or Blind Harry (fl. 1470-1492), author of a poem on Wallace. Here should come a letter, dated October 9, 1800, in the finest spirit of comedy describing to Coleridge an evening with George Dyer and the Cottles after the death of their brother Amos; and how Lamb, by praising Joseph Cottle's poem, drew away that good man's thoughts from his grief. "Joseph, who till now had sat with his knees cowering in by the fireplace, wheeled about, and with great difficulty of body shifted the same round to the corner of a table where I was sitting, and first stationing one thigh over the other, which is his sedentary mood, and placidly fixing his benevolent face right against mine, waited my observations. At that moment it came strongly into my mind, that I had got Uncle Toby before me, he looked so kind and so good." The letter, printed in full in other editions, is unfortunately not available for this.] D LETTER 69 CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING [P.M. Oct. 16, 1800.] EAR Manning,-Had you written one week before you did, I certainly should have obeyed your injunction; you should have seen me before my letter. I will explain to you my situation. There are six of us in one department. Two of us (within these four days) are confined with severe fevers; and two more, who belong to the Tower Militia, expect to have marching orders on Friday. Now six are absolutely necessary. I have already asked and obtained two young hands to supply the loss of the feverites; and, with the other prospect before me, you may believe I cannot decently ask leave of absence for myself. All I can promise (and I do promise with the sincerity of Saint Peter, and the contrition of sinner Peter if I fail) that I will come the very first spare week, and go nowhere till I have been at Cambridge. No matter if you are in a state of pupilage when I come; for I can employ myself in Cambridge very pleasantly in the mornings. Are there not libraries, halls, colleges, books, pictures, statues? I wish to God you had made London in your way. There is an exhibition quite uncommon in Europe, which could not have escaped your genius,—a live rattlesnake, ten feet in length, and the thickness of a big leg. I went to see it last night by candlelight. We were ushered into a room very little bigger than ours at Pentonville. A man and woman and four boys live in this room, joint tenants with nine snakes, most of them such as no remedy has been discovered for their bite. We walked into the middle, which is formed by a half-moon of wired boxes, all mansions of snakes,—whip-snakes, thunder-snakes, pig-nose-snakes, American vipers, and this monster. He lies curled up in folds; and immediately a stranger enters (for he is used to the family, and sees them play at cards,) he set up a rattle like a watchman's in London, or near as loud, and reared up a head, from the midst of these folds, like a toad, and shook his head, and showed every sign a snake can show of irritation. I had the foolish curiosity to strike the wires with my finger, and the devil flew at me with his toad-mouth wide open: the inside of his mouth is quite white. I had got my finger away, nor could he well have bit me with his damn'd big mouth, which would have been certain death in five minutes. But it frightened me so much, that I did not recover my voice for a minute's space. I forgot, in my fear, that he was secured. You would have forgot too, for 'tis incredible how such a monster can be confined in small gauzylooking wires. I dreamed of snakes in the night. I wish to heaven you could see it. He absolutely swelled with passion to the bigness of a large thigh. I could not retreat without infringing on another box, and just behind, a little devil not an inch from my back, had got his nose out, with some difficulty and pain, quite through the bars! He was soon taught better manners. All the snakes were curious, and objects of terror: but this monster, like Aaron's serpent, swallowed up the impression of the rest. opened his damn'd mouth, when he made at me, as wide as his head He 1800 was broad. "THE FARMER'S BOY " 191 I hallooed out quite loud, and felt pains all over my body with the fright. I have had the felicity of hearing George Dyer read out one book of "The Farmer's Boy." I thought it rather childish. No doubt, there is originality in it, (which, in your self-taught geniuses, is a most rare quality, they generally getting hold of some bad models in a scarcity of books, and forming their taste on them,) but no selection. All is described. Mind, I have only heard read one book. Yours sincerely, NOTE C. L. [The Farmer's Boy, by Robert Bloomfield, was published in March, 1800, and was immensely popular. Other criticisms upon it by Lamb will be found on pages 193 and 621. Lamb's visit to Cambridge was deferred until January 5, 1801. See page 207.] LETTER 70 CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING CQUID meditatur Archimedes? ECQU [P.M. Nov. 3, 1800.] What is Euclid doing? What has happened to learned Trismegist ?-Doth he take it in ill part, that his humble friend did not comply with his courteous invitation ? Let it suffice, I could not come-are impossibilities nothing-be they abstractions of the intellects or not (rather) most sharp and mortifying realities? nuts in the Will's mouth too hard for her to crack? brick and stone walls in her way, which she can by no means eat through? sore lets, impedimenta viarum, no thoroughfares? racemi nimium alte pendentes? Is the phrase classic? I allude to the grapes in Esop, which cost the fox a strain, and gained the world an aphorism. Observe the superscription of this letter. In adapting the size of the letters, which constitute your name and Mr. Crisp's name respectively, I had an eye to your different stations in life. "Tis really curious, and must be soothing to an aristocrat. wonder it has never been hit on before my time. I have made an acquisition latterly of a pleasant hand, one Rickman, to whom I was introduced by George Dyer, not the most flattering auspices under which one man can be introduced to another. George brings all sorts of people together, setting up a sort of agrarian |