some

brought in felo de omittendo for that ending to the
Boy-builders is a mystery. I can't say positively
now, I only know that no line oftener or readier occurs
than that "Light-hearted boys, I will build up a Giant
with you." It comes naturally, with a warm holiday,
and the freshness of the blood. It is a perfect sum-
mer amulet, that I tie round my legs to quicken their
motion when I go out a maying. (N.B.) I don't often
go out a maying;-must is the tense with me now.
Do you take the pun? Young Romilly is divine
the reasons of his mother's grief being remediless. I
never saw parental love carried up so high, towering
above the other loves. Shakspeare had done
thing for the filial, in Cordelia, and, by implication,
for the fatherly too, in Lear's resentment; he left it
for you to explore the depths of the maternal heart. I
get stupid, and flat, and flattering. What's the use of
telling you what good things you have written, or-I
hope I may add-that I know them to be good?
Apropos when I first opened upon the just men-
tioned poem, in a careless tone, I said to Mary, as if
putting a riddle, "What is good for a bootless bene?"
To which, with infinite presence of mind, (as the jest-
book has it,) she answered, "a shoeless pea." It
was the first joke she ever made. Joke the second I
make. You distinguish well, in your old preface, be-
tween the verses of Dr Johnson, of the "Man in the
Strand," and those from "The Babes in the Wood." I
was thinking, whether taking your own glorious lines—

"And from the love which was in her soul
For her youthful Romilly,"

which, by the love I. bear my own soul, I think have no parallel in any of the best old ballads, and just altering them to

"And from the great respect she felt

For Sir Samuel Romilly,"

would not have explained the boundaries of prose

expression, and poetic feeling, nearly as well. Excuse my levity on such an occasion. I never felt deeply in my life if that poem did not make me feel, both lately and when I read it in MS. No alderman ever longed after a haunch of buck venison more than I for a spiritual taste of that "White Doe" you promise. I am sure it is superlative, or will be when drest, i.e. printed. All things read raw to me in MS.; to compare magna parvis, I cannot endure my own writings in that state. The only one which I think would not very much win upon me in print is "Peter Bell." But I am not certain. You ask me about your preface. I like both that and the supplement, without an exception. The account of what you mean by imagination is very valuable to me. It will help me to like some things in poetry better, which is a little humiliating in me to confess. I thought I could not be instructed in that science (I mean the critical), as I once heard old obscene, beastly Peter Pindar, in a dispute on Milton, say he thought that if he had reason to value himself upon one thing more than another, it was in knowing what good verse was. Who looked over your proof sheets and left ordebo in that line of Virgil?

My brother's picture of Milton is very finely painted; that is, it might have been done by a hand next to Vandyke's. It is the genuine Milton, and an object of quiet gaze for the half-hour at a time. Yet though I am confident there is no better one of him, the face does not quite answer to Milton. There

is a tinge of petit (or petite, how do you spell it?) querulousness about it; yet, hang it! now I remember better, there is not; it is calm, melancholy, and poetical. One of the copies of the poems you sent has precisely the same pleasant blending of a sheet of second volume with a sheet of first. I think it was page 245; but I sent it and had it rectified. It gave me in the first impetus of cutting the leaves, just such

a cold squelch as going down a plausible turning and suddenly_reading "No thoroughfare!" Robinson's is entire I wish you would write more criticism about Spenser, &c. I think I could say something about him myself; but, Lord bless me ! these "merchants and their spicy drugs," which are so harmonious to sing of, they lime-twig up my poor soul and body, till I shall forget I ever thought myself a bit of a genius! I can't even put a few thoughts on paper for a newspaper. I "engross" when I should "pen" a paragraph. Confusion blast all mercantile transactions, all traffic, exchange of commodities, intercourse between nations, all the consequent civilization, and wealth, and amity, and link of society, and getting rid of prejudices, and getting a knowledge of the face of the globe; and rotting the very firs of the forest, that look so romantic alive, and die into desks! Vale. Yours, dear W., and all yours,

C. LAMB.

CLXVIII.

TO THE SAME

August 9th, 1815.

Dear Wordsworth,-We acknowledge with pride the receipt of both your handwritings, and desire to be ever had in kindly remembrance by you both and by Dorothy. Alsager, whom you call Alsinger, (and indeed he is rather singer than sager, no reflection upon his naturals neither,) is well, and in harmony with himself and the world. I don't know how he, and those of his constitution, keep their nerves so nicely balanced as they do. Or, have they any? Or, are they made of packthread? He is proof against weather, ingratitude, meat underdone, every weapon of fate. I have just now a jagged end of a tooth pricking against my tongue, which meets it half way, in a wantonness of provocation; and there they go at it, the tongue pricking itself, like the viper against the file, and the tooth galling all the gum inside and

out to torture; tongue and tooth, tooth and tongue, hard at it; and I to pay the reckoning, till all my mouth is as hot as brimstone; and I'd venture the roof of my mouth, that at this moment, at which I conjecture my full-happiness'd friend is picking his crackers, that not one of the double rows of ivory in his privileged mouth has as much as a flaw in it, but all perform their functions, and, having performed them, expect to be picked, (luxurious steeds!) and rubbed down. I don't think he could be robbed, or have the house set on fire, or ever want money. I have heard him express a similar opinion of his own impassibility. I keep acting here Heautonti

morumenos.

Mr Burney has been to Calais, and has come a travelled Monsieur. He speaks nothing but the Gallic Idiom. Field is on circuit. So now I believe I have given account of most that you saw at our Cabin.

Have you seen a curious letter in the Morning Chronicle, by C. L. [Capell Lofft,] the genius of absurdity, respecting Bonaparte's suing out his Habeas Corpus? That man is his own moon. He has no need of ascending into that gentle planet for mild influences.

Mary and I felt quite queer after your taking leave (you W. W.) of us in St Giles's. We wish we had seen more of you, but felt we had scarce been sufficiently acknowledging for the share we had enjoyed of your company. We felt as if we had been not enough expressive of our pleasure. But our manners both are a little too much on this side of too-muchcordiality. We want presence of mind and presence of heart. What we feel comes too late, like an afterthought impromptu. But perhaps you observed nothing of that which we have been painfully conscious of, and are every day in our intercourse with those we stand affected to through all the degrees of

love. Robinson is on the circuit. Our panegyrist I thought had forgotten one of the objects of his youthful admiration, but I was agreeably removed from that scruple by the laundress knocking at my door this morning, almost before I was up, with a present of fruit from my young friend, &c. There is something inexpressibly pleasant to me in these presents, be it fruit, or fowl, or brawn, or what not. Books are a legitimate cause of acceptance. If presents be not the soul of friendship, undoubtedly they are the most spiritual part of the body of that intercourse. There is too much narrowness of thinking in this point. The punctilio of acceptance, methinks, is too confined and stait-laced. I could be content to receive money, or clothes, or a joint of meat from a friend. Why should he not send me a dinner as well as a dessert? I would taste him in the beasts of the field, and through all creation. Therefore did the basket of fruit of the juvenile Talfourd not displease me; not that I have any thoughts of bartering or reciprocating these things. To send him any thing in return, would be to reflect suspicion of mercenariness upon what I know he meant a free-will offering. Let him overcome me in bounty. In this strife a generous nature loves to be overcome. You wish me some of your leisure. I have a glimmering aspect, a chink-light of liberty before me, which I pray God may prove not fallacious. My remonstrances have stirred up others to remonstrate, and altogether, there is a plan for separating certain parts of business from our department; which, if it take place, will produce me more time, i.e. my evenings free. It may be a means of placing me in a more conspicuous situation, which will knock at my nerves another way, but I wait the issue in submission. If I can but begin my own day at four o'clock in the afternoon, I shall think myself to have Eden days of peace and liberty to what I have had. As you say, how a man can fill three volumes