face that multiplies its oil; and thou, the old cracked pipkin, that could not believe it could be put to such purposes. Dull pipkin, to have Elijah for thy cook! Imbecile recipient of so fat a miracle! I send you George Dyer's Poems, the richest production of the lyrical muse this century can justly boast: for Wordsworth's L. B. were published, or at least written, before Christmas. Please to advert to pages 291 to 296 for the most astonishing account of where Shakspeare's muse has been all this while. I thought she had been dead, and buried in Stratford Church, with the young man that kept her company,— "But it seems, like the Devil, N.B.-I don't charge any thing for the additional manuscript notes, which are the joint productions of myself and a learned translator of Schiller, [John] Stoddart, Esq. N.B. the 2nd.-I should not have blotted your book, but I had sent my own out to be bound, as I was in duty bound. A liberal criticism upon the several pieces, lyrical, heroical, amatory, and satirical, would be acceptable. So, you don't think there's a Word's-worth of good poetry in the great L. B.! I daren't put the dreaded syllables at their just length, for my back tingles from the northern castigation. I send you the three letters, which I beg you to return along with those former letters (which I hope you are not going to print, by your detention). But don't be in a hurry to send them. When you come to town will do. Apropos of coming to town: Last Sunday was a fortnight, as I was coming to town from the Professor's, inspired with new rum, I tumbled down and broke my nose. I drink nothing stronger than malt liquors. I am going to change my lodgings, having received a hint that it would be agreeable, at our Lady's next feast. I have partly fixed upon most delectable rooms, which look out (when you stand a tip-toe) over the Thames and Surrey Hills; at the upper end of King's Bench Walks, in the Temple. There I shall have all the privacy of a house without the encumbrance, and shall be able to lock my friends out as often as I desire to hold free converse with my immortal mind; for my present lodgings resemble a minister's levee, I have so increased my acquaintance (as they call 'em) since I have resided in town. Like the country mouse, that had tasted a little of urbane manners, I long to be nibbling my own cheese by my dear self, without mouse-traps and time-traps. By my new plan, I shall be as airy, up four pair of stairs, as in the country; and in a garden, in the midst of enchanting (more than Mahometan paradise) London, whose dirtiest drab-frequented alley, and her lowest bowing tradesman, I would not exchange for Skiddaw, Helvellyn, James, Walter, and the parson into the bargain. O her lamps of a night! her rich goldsmiths, print-shops, toy-shops, mercers, hardwaremen, pastry-cooks, St Paul's Churchyard, the Strand, Exeter Change, Charing Cross, with the man upon a black horse! These are thy gods, O London! A'nt you mightily moped on the banks of the Cam? Had you not better come and set up here? You can't think what a difference. All the streets and pavements are pure gold, I warrant you. At least, I know an alchemy that turns her mud into that metal-a mind that loves to be at home in crowds. 'Tis half-past twelve o'clock, and all sober people ought to be a-bed. Between you and me the L. Ballads are but drowsy performances. C. LAMB (as you may guess). LXXXVIII. TO THE SAME [After March 25, 1801.] I was not aware that you owed me anything beside that guinea; but I dare say you are right. I live at No. 16, Mitre Court Buildings, a pistol-shot off Baron Maseres'. You must introduce me to the Baron. I think we should suit one another mainly. He lives on the ground floor, for convenience of the gout; I prefer the attic story, for the air. He keeps three footmen and two maids; I have neither maid nor laundress, not caring to be troubled with them. His forte, I understand, is the higher mathematics; my turn, I confess, is more to poetry and the belles lettres. The very antithesis of our characters would make up a harmony. You must bring the Baron and me together.-N.B. when you come to see me, mount up to the top of the stairs-I hope you are not asthmatical-and come in flannel, for 'tis pure airy up there. And bring your glass, and I will show you the Surrey Hills. My bed faces the river, so as by perking up upon my haunches, and supporting my carcass with my elbows, without much wrying my neck, I can see the white sails glide by the bottom of the King's Bench Walks as I lie in my bed. An excellent tiptoe prospect in the best room :-casement windows, with small panes, to look more like a cottage. Mind, I have got no bed for you, that's flat; sold it to pay expenses of moving,-the very bed on which Manning lay; the friendly, the mathematical Manning! How forcibly does it remind me of the interesting Otway! "The very bed which on thy marriage night gave thee into the arms of Belvidera, by the coarse hands of ruffians-" (upholsterers' men), &c. My tears will not give me leave to go on. But a bed I will get you, Manning, on condition you will be my day-guest. I have been ill more than a month, with a bad cold, which comes upon me (like a murderer's conscience) about midnight, and vexes me for many hours. I Ι have successively been drugged with Spanish licorice, opium, ipecacuanha, paregoric, and tincture of foxglove (tinctura purpuræ digitalis of the ancients). I am afraid I must leave off drinking. LXXXIX. TO ROBERT LLOYD [April 16, 1801.] Fletcher's Purple Island is a tedious Allegory of the Parts of the Human body. I would not advise you to lay out six pence upon it. It is not the work of Fletcher, the Coadjutor of Beaumont, but one Phineas a kinsman of his. If by the work of Bishop Taylor, whose title you have not given correctly, you mean his Contemplations on the State of Man in this Life and that which is to Come, I dare hope you will join with me in believing it to be spurious. The suspicious circumstance of its being a posthumous work, with the total dissimilarity in style to the genuine works, I think evince that it never was the work of Doctor Jeremy Taylor Late Lord Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland and Administrator of the See of Dromore; such are the Titles which his sounding title pages give him, and I love the man, and I love his paraphernalia and I like to name him with all his attributions and additions. If you are yet but lightly acquainted with his real manner, take up and read the whole first chapter of the Holy Dying; in particular turn to the first paragraph of the 2 sect. of that chapter for a simile of a rose, or more truly many similes within simile, for such were the riches of his fancy, that when a beauteous image offered, before he could stay to expand it into all its capacities, throngs of new coming images came up, and justled out the first, or blended in disorder with it, which imitates the But read all the first order of every rapid mind. chapter by my advice; and I know I need not advise you when you have to read it, to read the second. . . . Or for another specimen, (where so many beauties crowd, the judgment has yet vanity enough to think it can discern a handsomest, till a second judgment and a third ad infinitum start up to disallow their elder brother's pretensions) turn to the Story of the Ephesian Matron in the second section of the 5th Chapter of the same Holy Dying (I still refer to the Dying part, because it also contains better matter than the Holy Living, which deals more in rules than illustrations-I mean in comparison with the other only, else it has more and more beautiful illustrations than any prose book besides)-read it yourself and shew it to Plumstead (with my Love, and bid him write to me) and ask him if Willy himself has ever told a story with more circumstances of fancy and humour. The paragraph begins "But that which is to be faulted," and the story not long after follows.-Make these references, while P. is with you, that you may stir him up to the Love of Jeremy Taylor, and make a convertite of him. Coleridge was the man who first solemnly exhorted me to "study" the works of Dr Jeremy Taylor, and I have had reason to bless the hour in which he did it. Read as many of his works as you can get. I will assist you in getting them, when we go a stall hunting together in London, and its odds if we don't get a good Beaumt. and Fletcher cheap.-Bp. Taylor has more, and more beautiful imagery, and (what is more to a Lover of Willy) more knowledge and description of human life and manners, than any prose book in the language:-he has more delicacy and sweetness, than any mortal, the "gentle" Shakespear hardly excepted,—his similes and allusions are taken, as the bees take honey, from all the youngest, greenest, exquisitest parts of nature: from plants, and flowers, and fruit, young boys and virgins, from little children |