Puslapio vaizdai
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"She's sweet fifteen,
I'm one year more."

Mrs Bland sang it in boy's clothes the first time I heard it. I sometimes think the lower notes in my voice are like Mrs Bland's. That glorious singer, Braham, one of my lights, is fled. He was for a

season. He was a rare composition of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel; yet all these elements mixed up so kindly in him, that you could not tell which preponderated; but he is gone, and one Phillips is engaged instead. Kate is vanished, but Miss B is always to be met with!

"Queens drop away, while blue-legg'd Maukin thrives;

And courtly Mildred dies while country Madge survives."

That is not my poetry, but Quarles's; but haven't you observed that the rarest things are the least obvious? Don't show any body the names in this letter. I write confidentially, and wish this letter to be considered as private. Hazlitt has written a grammar for Godwin. Godwin sells it bound up with a treatise of his own on language; but the grey mare is the better horse. I don't allude to Mrs [Godwin], but to the word grammar, which comes near to grey mare, if you observe, in sound. That figure is called paronomasia in Greek. I am sometimes happy in it. An old woman begged of me for charity. "Ah! sir," said she, "I have seen better days." "So have I,

good woman," I replied; but I meant, literally, days not so rainy and overcast as that on which she begged: she meant more prosperous days. Mr Dawe is made associate of the Royal Academy. By what law of association I can't guess, Mrs Holcroft, Miss Holcroft, Mr and Mrs Godwin, Mr and Mrs Hazlitt, Mrs Martin and Louisa, Mrs Lum, Capt. Burney, Mrs Burney, Martin Burney, Mr Rickman, Mrs Rickman, Dr Stoddart, William Dollin, Mr

Thompson, Mr and Mrs Norris, Mr Fenwick, Mrs Fenwick, Miss Fenwick, a man that saw you at our house one day, and a lady that heard me speak of you; Mrs Buffam that heard Hazlitt mention you, Dr Tuthill, Mrs Tuthill, Colonel Harwood, Mrs Harwood, Mr Collier, Mrs Collier, Mr Sutton, Nurse, Mr Fell, Mrs Fell, Mr Marshall, are very well, and occasionally inquire after you.

I remain yours ever,

CLXII.

TO JOHN MATHEW GUTCH

CH. LAMB.

[April 9, 1810.]

Dear Gutch,-I did not see your brother, who brought me Wither; but he understood, he said, you were daily expecting to come to town: this has prevented my writing. The books have pleased me excessively I should think you could not have made a better selection. I never saw Philarete beforejudge of my pleasure. I could not forbear scribbling certain critiques in pencil on the blank leaves. Shall I send them, or may I expect to see you in town? Some of them are remarks on the character of Wither and of his writings. Do you mean to have any thing of that kind? What I have said on Philarete is poor, but I think some of the rest not so bad: perhaps I have exceeded my commission in scrawling over the copies; but my delight therein must excuse me, and pencil-marks will rub out. Where is the Life? Write, for I am quite in the dark.

Yours, with many thanks,

C. LAMB.

Perhaps I could digest the few critiques prefixed to the Satires, Shepherds Hunting, &c., into a short

abstract of Wither's character and works, at the end of his Life. But, may be, you don't want any thing, and have said all you wish in the Life.

CLXIII.

TO BASIL MONTAGU

Winterstow, near Sarum,
July 12th, 1810.

Dear Montague,-I have turned and twisted the MSS. in my head, and can make nothing of them. I knew when I took them that I could not, but I do not like to do an act of ungracious necessity at once; so I am ever committing myself by half engagements, and total failures. I cannot make any body understand why I can't do such things; it is a defect in my occiput. I cannot put other people's thoughts together; I forget every paragraph as fast as I read it; and my head has received such a shock by an allnight journey on the top of the coach, that I shall have enough to do to nurse it into its natural pace before I go home. I must devote myself to imbecility; I must be gloriously useless while I stay here. How is Mrs M.? will she pardon my inefficiency? The city of Salisbury is full of weeping and wailing. The bank has stopped payment; and every body in the town kept money at it, or has got some of its notes. Some have lost all they had in the world. It is the next thing to seeing a city with the plague within its walls. The Wilton people are all undone; all the manufacturers there kept cash at the Salisbury bank; and I do suppose it to be the unhappiest county in England this, where I am making holiday. We propose setting out for Oxford Tuesday fortnight, and coming thereby home. But no more night travelling. My head is sore (understand it of the inside) with that deduction from my natural rest which I suffered

coming down. Neither Mary nor I can spare a morsel of our rest: it is incumbent on us to be misers of it. Travelling is not good for us, we travel so seldom. If the sun be hell, it is not for the fire, but for the sempiternal motion of that miserable body of light. How much more dignified leisure hath a mussel glued to his unpassable rocky limit, two inch square! He hears the tide roll over him, backwards and forwards twice a-day, (as the Salisbury long coach goes and returns in eight-and-forty hours,) but knows better than to take an outside night-place a top on't. He is the owl of the sea-Minerva's fish-the fish of wisdom.

Our kindest remembrances to Mrs M.

Yours truly,

CLXIV.

TO WILLIAM HAZLITT

C. LAMB.

[August 9th, 1810.]

Dear H.,-Epistemon is not well. Our pleasant excursion has ended sadly for one of us. You will guess I mean my sister. She got home very well, (I was very ill on the journey,) and continued so till Monday night, when her complaint came on, and she is now absent from home.

I am glad to hear you are all well. I think I shall be mad if I take any more journeys, with two experiences against it. I found all well here. Kind remembrances to Sarah,-have just got her letter.

H. Robinson has been to Blenheim. He says you will be sorry to hear that we should not have asked for the Titian Gallery there. One of his friends knew of it, and asked to see it. but to those who inquire for it.

It is never shown

The pictures are all Titians, Jupiter and Ledas, Mars and Venuses, &c., all naked pictures, which may be a reason they don't show them to females.

But he says they are very fine; and perhaps they are shown separately to put another fee into the shower's pocket. Well, I shall never see it.

I have lost all wish for sights. shall be glad to see you in London. Yours truly,

God bless you. I

Mr Hazlitt, Winterslow, near Salisbury.

C. LAMB.

CLXV.

TO MR AND MRS CLARKSON

Dear Mr and Mrs Clarkson,-You will wish to know how we performed our journey. My sister was tolerably quiet until we got to Chelmsford, when she began to be very bad indeed, as your friends William Knight and his family can tell you when you see them. What I should have done without their kindness, I dont know, but among other acts of great attention, they provided me with a waistcoat to confine her arms, by the help of which we went through the rest of our journey. But sadly tired and considerably depressed she was before we arrived at Hoxton. We got their about half past eight, and now 'tis all over. I have great satisfaction that she is among people who have been used to her. In all probability a few months or even weeks will restore her (her last illness confined her ten weeks) but if she does recover I shall be very careful how I take her so far from home again. I am so fatigued, for she talked in the most wretched, desponding way conceivable, particularly the last three stages, she talked all the way-so that you wont expect me to say much, or even to express myself as I should do in thanks for your kindnesses. My sister will acknowledge them when she can.

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