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Coleridge quitted the Salutation and Cat in January, 1795, he was unable to pay his bill, and therefore had to leave his luggage behind. Cottle's story of Coleridge being offered free lodging by a London inn-keeper, if he would only talk and talk, must then either be a pretty invention or apply to another landlord, possibly the host of the Angel in Butcher Hall Street.

Allen was Robert Allen, a schoolfellow of Lamb and Coleridge, and Coleridge's first friend. He was born on October 18, 1772. Both Lamb and Leigh Hunt tell good stories of him at Christ's Hospital, Lamb in Elia and Hunt in his Autobiography. From Christ's Hospital he went to University College, Oxford, and it was he who introduced Coleridge and Hucks to Southey in 1794. Probably, says Mr. E. H. Coleridge, it was he who brought Coleridge and Stoddart (afterwards Sir John and Hazlitt's brotherin-law) together. On leaving Oxford he seems to have gone to Westminster to learn surgery, and in 1797 he was appointed Deputy-Surgeon to the 2nd Royals, then in Portugal. He married a widow with children; at some time later took to journalism, as Lamb's reference in the Elia essay on "Newspapers" tells us; and he died of apoplexy in 1805.

The phrase "dissonant mood" (Samson Agonistes, line 662) had been used by Coleridge in line 6 of his Effusion 22, "To a Friend with an Unfinished Poem," the friend being Lamb.

it

Coleridge's employment on the Evidences of Religion, whatever may have been, did not reach print.

Le Grice was Charles Valentine Le Grice (1773-1858), an old Christ's Hospitaller and Grecian (see Lamb's Elia essays on "Christ's Hospital" and "Grace before Meat "). Le Grice passed to Trinity College, Cambridge. He left in 1796 and became tutor to William John Godolphin Nicholls of Trereife, near Penzance, the only son of a widowed mother. Le Grice was ordained in 1798 and married Mrs. Nicholls in 1799. Young Nicholls died in 1815 and Mrs. Le Grice in 1821, when Le Grice became sole owner of the Trereife property. He was incumbent of St. Mary's, Penzance, for some years. Le Grice was a witty, rebellious character, but he never fulfilled the promise of his early days. It has been conjectured that his skill in punning awakened Lamb's ambition in that direction. Le Grice saw Lamb next in 1834, at the Bell at Edmonton. His recollections of Lamb were included by Talfourd in the Memorials, and his recollections of Coleridge were printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, December, 1834. I know nothing of Miss Hunt.

"Whatsoever things are honest . . .” See Philippians iv. 8. Of Lamb's confinement in a madhouse we know no more than is here told. It is conjectured that the "other person" to whom

1796

"FALSTAFF'S LETTERS "

5

Lamb refers a few lines later was Ann Simmons, a girl at Widford for whom he had an attachment that had been discouraged, if not forbidden, by her friends. This is the only attack of the kind that Lamb is known to have suffered. He once told Coleridge that during his illness he had sometimes believed himself to be Young Norval in Home's "Douglas."

The poem in blank verse was, we learn in a subsequent letter, "The Grandame," or possibly an autobiographical work of which "The Grandame" is the only portion that survived.

White was James White (1775-1820), an old Christ's Hospitaller and a friend and almost exact contemporary of Lamb. Lamb, who first kindled his enthusiasm for Shakespeare, was, I think, to some extent involved in the Original Letters, &c., of Sir John Falstaff and his Friends, which appeared in 1796. The dedication-to Master Samuel Irelaunde, meaning William Henry Ireland (who sometimes took his father's name Samuel), the forger of the pretended Shakespearian play "Vortigern," produced at Drury Lane earlier in the year-is quite in Lamb's manner (see Vol. I. of this edition, page 465). White's immortality, however, rests not upon this book, but upon his portrait in the Elia essay on "ChimneySweepers."

The sonnet "To my Sister" was printed, with slight alterations, by Lamb in Coleridge's Poems, second edition, 1797, and again in Lamb's Works, 1818.

Coleridge's Conciones ad Populum; or, Addresses to the People, had been published at Bristol in November, 1795.

Close students of Lamb's Letters will observe that this, together with many of the early letters to Coleridge which follow, differs from the text of the other editions, new copies having been made from the originals in the Morrison Collection.]

I

LETTER 2

CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[Probably begun either on Tuesday, May 24, or Tuesday, May 31, 1796. Postmark? June 1.]

AM in such violent pain with the head ach that I am fit for nothing but transcribing, scarce for that. When I get your poems, and the Joan of Arc, I will exercise my presumption in giving you my opinion of 'em. The mail does not come in before tomorrow (Wednesday) morning. The following sonnet was composed during a walk down into Hertfordshire early in last Summer.

The lord of light shakes off his drowsyhed.*
Fresh from his couch up springs the lusty Sun,
And girds himself his mighty race to run.
Meantime, by truant love of rambling led,
I turn my back on thy detested walls,

Proud City, and thy sons I leave behind,
A selfish, sordid, money-getting kind,
Who shut their ears when holy Freedom calls.
I pass not thee so lightly, humble spire,

That mindest me of many a pleasure gone,
Of merriest days, of love and Islington,
Kindling anew the flames of past desire;

And I shall muse on thee, slow journeying on,
To the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire.

* Drowsyhed I have met with I think in Spencer. Tis an old thing, but it rhymes with led & rhyming covers a multitude of licences.

The last line is a copy of Bowles's, "to the green hamlet in the peaceful plain." Your ears are not so very fastidious-many people would not like words so prosaic and familiar in a sonnet as Islington and Hertfordshire. The next was written within a day or two of the last, on revisiting a spot where the scene was laid of my 1st sonnet that "mock'd my step with many a lonely glade."

When last I roved these winding wood-walks green,

Green winding walks, and pathways shady-sweet,

Oftimes would Anna seek the silent scene,
Shrouding her beauties in the lone retreat.
No more I hear her footsteps in the shade;
Her image only in these pleasant ways
Meets me self-wandring where in better days
I held free converse with my fair-hair'd maid.
I pass'd the little cottage, which she loved,

The cottage which did once my all contain:
It spake of days that ne'er must come again,
Spake to my heart and much my heart was moved.
"Now fair befall thee, gentle maid," said I,
And from the cottage turn'd me, with a sigh.

The next retains a few lines from a sonnet of

mine, which you

once remarked had no "body of thought" in it. I agree with you, but have preserved a part of it, and it runs thus. you will like it.

A timid grace sits trembling in her Eye,

As loth to meet the rudeness of men's sight,
Yet shedding a delicious lunar light,

That steeps in kind oblivious extacy

The care-craz'd mind, like some still melody;

Speaking most plain the thoughts which do possess
Her gentle sprite, peace and meek quietness,
And innocent loves,* and maiden purity.
A look whereof might heal the cruel smart

Of changed friends, or fortune's wrongs unkind;
Might to sweet deeds of mercy move the heart
Of him, who hates his brethren of mankind.
Turned are those beams from me, who fondly yet
Past joys, vain loves, and buried hopes regret.

I flatter myself

Cowley uses this phrase with a somewhat different meaning: I meant loves of relatives friends &c.

1796

LAMB'S LOVE SONNETS

7

The next and last I value most of all. "Twas composed close upon the heels of the last in that very wood I had in mind when I wrote "Methinks how dainty sweet."

We were two pretty babes, the youngest she,
The youngest and the loveliest far, I ween,
And INNOCENCE her name. The time has been,
We two did love each other's company;
Time was, we two had wept to have been apart.
But when, with shew of seeming good beguil'd,
I left the garb and manners of a child,
And my first love for man's society,
Defiling with the world my virgin heart,

My loved companion dropt a tear, and fled,
And hid in deepest shades her awful head.
Beloved, who can tell me where Thou art,
In what delicious Eden to be found,

That I may seek thee the wide world around.

Since writing it, I have found in a poem by Hamilton of Bangour, these 2 lines to happiness

Nun sober and devout, where art thou fled
To hide in shades thy meek contented head.

Lines eminently beautiful, but I do not remember having re'd 'em previously, for the credit of my 10th and 11th lines. Parnell has 2 lines (which probably suggested the above) to Contentment

Whither ah! whither art thou fled,
To hide thy meek contented head.*

* an odd epithet for contentment in a poet so poetical as Parnell.

Cowley's exquisite Elegy on the death of his friend Harvey suggested the phrase of "we two"

"Was there a tree that did not know
The love betwixt us two?

So much for acknowledged plagiarisms, the confession of which I know not whether it has more of vanity or modesty in it. As to my blank verse I am so dismally slow and steril of ideas (I speak from my heart) that I much question if it will ever come to any issue. I have hitherto only hammered out a few indepen[dent unconnected snatches, not in a capacity to be sent. I am very ill, and will rest till I have read your poems--for which I am very thankful. I have one more favour to beg of you, that you never mention Mr. May's affair in any sort, much less think of repaying. Are we not flocci-nauci-what-d'ye-call-em-ists?

We have just learnd, that my poor brother has had a sad accident: a large stone blown down by yesterday's high wind has bruised his leg in a most shocking manner-he is under the care of Cruikshanks. Coleridge, there are 10,000 objections against my paying

you a visit at Bristol-it cannot be, else-but in this world 'tis better not to think too much of pleasant possibles, that we may not be out of humour with present insipids. Should any thing bring you to London, you will recollect No. 7, Little Queen St. Holborn.

I shall be too ill to call on Wordsworth myself but will take care to transmit him his poem, when I have read it. I saw Le Grice the day before his departure, and mentioned incidentally his "teaching the young idea how to shoot"-knowing him and the probability there is of people having a propensity to pun in his company you will not wonder that we both stumbled on the same pun at once, he eagerly anticipating me," he would teach him to shoot!"-Poor Le Grice! if wit alone could entitle a man to respect, &c. He has written a very witty little pamphlet lately, satirical upon college declamations; when I send White's book, I will add that.

I am sorry there should be any difference between you and Southey. "Between you two there should be peace," tho' I must say I have borne him no good will since he spirited you away from among us. What is become of Moschus? You sported some of his sublimities, I see, in your Watchman. Very decent things. So much for to night from your afflicted headachey sorethroatey, humble Servant C. Lamb--Tuesday night

I

Of your Watchmen, the Review of Burke was the best prose. augurd great things from the 1st number. There is some exquisite poetry interspersed. I have re-read the extract from the Religious musings and retract whatever invidious there was in my censure of it as elaborate. There are times when one is not in a disposition thoroughly to relish good writing. I have re-read it in a more favourable moment and hesitate not to pronounce it sublime. If there be any thing in it approach to tumidity (which I meant not to infer in elaborate: I meant simply labord) it is the Gigantic hyperbole by which you describe the Evils of existing society. Snakes, Lions, hyenas and behemoths, is carrying your resentment beyond bounds. The pictures of the Simoom, of frenzy and ruin, of the whore of Babylon and the cry of the foul spirits disherited of Earth and the strange beatitude which the good man shall recognise in heaven-as well as the particularizing of the children of wretchedness-(I have unconsciously included every part of it) form a variety of uniform excellence. I hunger and thirst to read the poem complete. That is a capital line in your 6th no.: “this dark freeze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering Month".they are exactly such epithets as Burns would have stumbled on, whose poem on the ploughd up daisy you seem to have had in

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