Samuel Taylor (Coleridge) hath not deigned an answer. Was it impertinent of me to avail myself of that offered source of knowledge? Wishing Madoc may be born into the world with as splendid promise as the second birth, or purification, of the Maid of Neufchatel,-I remain yours sincerely, C. LAMB. I hope Edith is better; my kindest remembrances to her. You have a good deal of trifling to forgive in this letter. "Love and remembrances to Cottle." 6 XXXIV. TO ROBERT LLOYD Aug. 1798. My dear Robert,-Mary is better, and I trust that she will yet be restored to me, I am in good spirits, so do not be anxious about me:-I hope you get reconciled to your situation. The worst in it is that you have no friend to talk to; but wait in patience, and you will in good time make friends. The having a friend is not indispensibly necessary to virtue or happiness. Religion removes those barriers of sentiment which partition us from the disinterested love of our brethren-we are commanded to love our enemies, to do good to those that hate us. How much more is it our duty then to cultivate a forbearance and complacence towards those who only differ from us in dispositions and ways of thinking. There is always, without very unusual care there must always be, something of self in friendship: we love our friend because he is like ourselves. Can consequences altogether unmix'd and pure be reasonably expected from such a source do not even the publicans and sinners the same? Say, that you love a friend for his moral qualities, is it not rather because those qualities resemble what you fancy your own? this ब then is not without danger. The only true cement of a valuable friendship, the only thing that even makes it not sinful, is when two friends propose to become mutually of benefit to each other in a moral or religious way. But even this friendship is perpetually liable to the mixture of something not purewe love our friend, because he is ours: so we do our money, our wit, our knowledge, our virtue. And whereever this sense of appropriation and property enters, so much is to be subtracted from the value of that friendship or that virtue. Our duties are to do good expecting nothing again, to bear with contrary dispositions, to be candid and forgiving, not to crave and long after a communication of sentiment and feeling, but rather to avoid dwelling upon those feelings, however good, because they are our own. A man may be intemperate and selfish, who indulges in good feelings, for the mere pleasure they give him. I do not wish to deter you from making a friend, a true friend, and such a friendship where the parties are not blind to each others' faults, is very useful and valuable. I perceive a tendency in you to this error, Robert. I know you have chosen to take up an high opinion of my moral worth. But I say it before God, and I do not lie, you are mistaken in me. I could not bear to lay open all my failings to you, for the sentiment of shame would be too pungent. Let this be an example to you. Robert, friends fall off, friends mistake us, they change, they grow unlike us, they go away, they die. But God is everlasting and uncapable of change, and to him we may look with chearful, unpresumptuous hope, while we discharge the duties of life in situations more untowardly than yours. You complain of the impossibility of improving yourself, but be assurd that the opportunity of improvement lies more in the mind. than the situation. Humble yourself before God, cast out the selfish principle, wait in patience, do good in every way you can to all sorts of people, never be easy to neglect a duty tho' a small one, praise God for all, and see his hand in all things, and he will in time raise you up many friends-or be himself instead an unchanging friend. God bless you. C. LAMB. XXXV. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY Oct. 18th, 1798. Dear Southey, I have at last been so fortunate as to pick up Wither's Emblems for you, that "old book and quaint," as the brief author of Rosamund Gray hath it; it is in a most detestable state of preservation, and the cuts are of a fainter impression than I have seen. Some child, the curse of antiquaries and bane of bibliopical rarities, hath been dabbling in some of them with its paint and dirty fingers; and, in particular, hath a little sullied the author's own portraiture, which I think valuable, as the poem that accompanies it is no common one; this last excepted, the Emblems are far inferior to old Quarles. I once told you otherwise, but I had not then read old Quarles with attention. I have picked up, too, another copy of Quarles for ninepence!!! O tempora! O lectores! so that if you have lost or parted with your own copy, say so, and I can furnish you, for you prize these things more than I do. You will be amused, I think, with honest Wither's "Supersedeas to all them whose custom it is, without any deserving, to importune authors to give unto them their books." I am sorry 'tis imperfect, as the lottery board annexed to it also is. Methinks you might modernise and elegantise this Supersedeas, and place it in front of your Joan of Arc, as a gentle hint to Messrs Parke, &c. One of the happiest emblems, and comicalest cuts, is the owl and little chirpers, page 63. Wishing you all amusement, which your true emblem-fancier can scarce fail to find in even bad emblems, I remain your caterer to command, C. LAMB. Love and respects to Edith. I hope she is well. How does your Calendar prosper ? XXXVI. TO THE SAME October 29, 1798. Dear Southey, I thank you heartily for the Eclogue; it pleases me mightily, being so full of picture work and circumstances. I find no fault in it, unless perhaps that Joanna's ruin is a catastrophe too trite; and this is not the first or second time you have clothed your indignation, in verse, in a tale of ruined innocence. The old lady, spinning in the sun, I hope Iwould not disdain to claim some kindred with old Margaret. I could almost wish you to vary some circumstances in the conclusion. A gentleman seducer has so often been described in prose and verse. What if you had accomplished Joanna's ruin by the clumsy arts and rustic gifts of some country-fellow ? I am thinking, I believe, of the song "An old woman clothed in gray, Whose daughter was charming and young, By Roger's false flattering tongue." A Roger-Lothario would be a novel character; I think you might paint him very well. You may think this a very silly suggestion, and so indeed it is; but, in good truth, nothing else but the first words of that foolish ballad put me upon scribbling my Rosamund. But I thank you heartily for the poem. Not having any thing of my own to send you in return, (though, to tell truth, I am at work upon something, which, if I were to cut away and garble, perhaps I might send you an extract or two that might not displease you; but I will not do that; and whether it will come to any thing I know not, for I am as slow as a Fleming painter, when I compose anything,) I will crave leave to put down a few lines of old Christopher Marlow's; I take them from his tragedy, Jew of Malta. The Jew is a famous character, quite out of nature; but, when we consider the terrible idea our simple ancestors had of a Jew, not more to be discommended for a certain discolouring (I think Addison calls it) than the witches and fairies of Marlow's mighty successor. The scene is betwixt Barabbas, the Jew, and Ithamore, a Turkish captive, exposed to sale for a slave. BARABBAS (A precious rascal) "As for myself, I walk abroad a-nights, There I enrich'd the priests with burials, With digging graves, and ringing dead men's knells : And in the wars 'twixt France and Germany, Under pretence of serving Charles the Fifth, And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting, (Now hear Ithamore, the other gentle nature.) |