1815 THE TWO YARROW POEMS 463 One of the copies you sent had precisely the same pleasant blending of a sheet of 2d vol. with a sheet of 1st. I think it was page 245; but I sent it and had it rectifyd. 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; he is gone to Bury his father. 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 traffick, exchange of commodities, intercourse between nations, all the consequent civilization and wealth and amity and link of society, and getting rid of prejudices, and knowlege of the face of the globe--and rot the very firs of the forest that look so romantic alive, and die into desks. Vale. Yours dear W. and all yours' C. LAMB. [Added at foot of the first page:] N.B. Dont read that Q. Review-I will never look into another. NOTE [Lamb continues his criticism of the 1815 edition of Wordsworth's Poems. The "Night Piece" begins The sky is overcast. The stanza from "Yarrow Visited" is quoted on page 557. The poem followed "Yarrow Unvisited" in the volume. The one exquisite verse in "Yarrow Unvisited" first ran : Your cottage seems a bower of bliss, It promises protection To studious ease and generous cares Wordsworth altered to A covert for protection Of tender thoughts that nestle there, The brood of chaste affection. "Poor Susan" had in the 1800 version ended thus: Poor Outcast! return-to receive thee once more The house of thy Father will open its door, Wordsworth expunged this stanza in the 1815 edition. "Fast volumes of vapour" should be "Bright volumes of vapour." For the Old Thief see "The Two Thieves." "Felo de omittendo." See the preceding letter, where Lamb remonstrated with Wordsworth for omitting the last lines from "Rural Architecture." Wordsworth seems to have charged Lamb with the criticism that decided their removal. "The Pun." Canon Ainger pointed out that Hood, in his "Ode to Melancholy," makes the same pun very happily Later Mary Lamb made another joke, when at Munden's farewell performance she said, "Sic transit gloria Munden!" The stanzas from which Lamb quotes run : "What is good for a bootless bene?" She knew it by the Falconer's words, Sir Samuel Romilly (1757-1818), the lawyer and law reformer, was I put my hat upon my head -contrasting them with these lines from the "Babes in the Wood": These pretty Babes with hand in hand Went wandering up and down; "Peter Pindar." John Wolcot (1738-1819), whom Lamb had met at Henry Rogers', brother of the poet. "Ordebo." Wordsworth quoted Virgil's lines (Eclogue I., 75, 76): Non ego vos posthac, viridi projectus in antro, "Merchants and their spicy drugs." See Paradise Lost, II., 639, 640.] D EAR Southey, I have received from Longman a copy of "Roderick," with the author's compliments, for which I much thank you. I don't know where I shall put all the noble presents I have lately received in that way; the "Excursion," Wordsworth's two last vols., and now "Roderick," have come pouring in upon me like some irruption from Helicon. The story of the brave Maccabee was already, you may be sure, familiar to me in all its parts. I have, since the receipt of your present, read it quite through again, and with no diminished pleasure. I don't know whether I ought to say that it has given me more pleasure than any of your long poems. "Kehama" is doubtless more powerful, but I don't feel that firm footing in it that I do in "Roderick;" my imagination goes sinking and floundering in the vast spaces of unopened-before systems and faiths; I am put out of the pale of my old sympathies; my moral sense is almost outraged; I can't believe, or with horror am made to believe, such desperate chances against omnipotences, such disturbances of faith to the centre. The more potent the more painful the spell. Jove and his brotherhood of gods, tottering with the giant assailings, I can bear, for the soul's hopes are not struck at in such contests; but your Oriental almighties are too much types of the intangible prototype to be meddled with without shuddering. One never connects what are called the attributes with Jupiter. I mention only what diminishes my delight at the wonder-workings of "Kehama," not what impeaches its power, which I confess with trembling. But "Roderick" is a comfortable poem. It reminds me of the delight I took in the first reading of the "Joan of Arc." It is maturer and better than that, though not better to me now than that was then. It suits me better than “Madoc.” I am at home in Spain and Christendom. I have a timid imagination, I am afraid. I do not willingly admit of strange beliefs or out-of-theway creeds or places. I never read books of travel, at least not farther than Paris or Rome. I can just endure Moors, because of their connection as foes with Christians; but Abyssinians, Ethiops, Esquimaux, Dervises, and all that tribe, I hate. I believe I fear them in some manner. A Mahometan turban on the stage, though enveloping some well known face (Mr. Cook or Mr. Maddox, whom I see another day good Christian and English waiters, innkeepers, &c.), does not give me pleasure unalloyed. I am a Christian, Englishman, Londoner, Templar. God help me when I come VOL. VI.-30 to put off these snug relations, and to get abroad into the world to come! I shall be like the crow on the sand, as Wordsworth has it; but I won't think on it-no need, I hope, yet. The parts I have been most pleased with, both on 1st and 2nd readings, perhaps, are Florinda's palliation of Roderick's crime, confessed to him in his disguise-the retreat of Palayo's family first discovered, his being made king-"For acclamation one form must serve, more solemn for the breach of old observances." Roderick's vow is extremely fine, and his blessing on the vow of Alphonso: "Towards the troop he spread his arms, As if the expanded soul diffused itself, It struck me forcibly that the feeling of these last lines might have been suggested to you by the Cartoon of Paul at Athens. Certain it is that a better motto or guide to that famous attitude can no where be found. I shall adopt it as explanatory of that violent, but dignified motion. I must read again Landor's "Julian." I have not read it some time. I think he must have failed in Roderick, for I remember nothing of him, nor of any distinct character as a character-only fine-sounding passages. I remember thinking also he had chosen a point of time after the event, as it were, for Roderick survives to no use; but my memory is weak, and I will not wrong a fine Poem by trusting to it. The notes to your poem I have not read again; but it will be a take-downable book on my shelf, and they will serve sometimes at breakfast, or times too light for the text to be duly appreciated. Though some of 'em, one of the serpent Penance, is serious enough, now I think on't. Of Coleridge I hear nothing, nor of the Morgans. I hope to have him like a re-appearing star, standing up before me some time when least expected in London, as has been the case whylear. I am doing nothing (as the phrase is) but reading presents, and walk away what of the day-hours I can get from hard occupation. Pray accept once more my hearty thanks, and expression of pleasure for your remembrance of me. My sister desires her kind respects to Mrs S. and to all at Keswick. Yours truly, C. LAMB. The next Present I look for is the "White Doe." Have you seen Mat. Betham's "Lay of Marie ?" I think it very delicately pretty as to sentiment, &c. NOTE [Southey's Roderick, the Last of the Goths, was published in 1814. Driven from his throne by the Moors, Roderick had dis 1815 HARTLEY COLERIDGE 467 guised himself as a monk under the name of Father Maccabee. The Curse of Kehama had been published in 1810; Madoc in 1805; Joan of Arc (see Letter 3 &c.) in 1796. Southey was now Poet Laureate. "I never read books of travels." Writing to Dilke, of The Athenæum, for books, some years later, Lamb makes a point of "no natural history or useful learning" being sent-such as Giraffes, Pyramids and Adventures in Central Africa. None the less, as a boy, he tells us, he had read Bruce and applied his Abyssinian methods to the New River (see the Elia essay on Newspapers). “The crow on the sand." In "The Farmer of Tilsbury Vale" As lonely he stood as a crow on the sands. Verse xii., line 4. Florinda's palliation of Roderick's crime is in Book X.; the retreat of Pelayo's family discovered, in Book XVI.; Pelayo made king, in Book XVIII. Landor's Count Julian, published in 1812, dealt with the same story, Florinda, whom Roderick violated, having been the daughter of the Count, a Spanish Goth. Julian devoted himself to Roderick's ruin, even turning traitor for the purpose. Southey's notes are tremendous-sometimes filling all but a line or two of the page. "The White Doe." Wordsworth's poem The White Doe of Rylstone, to be published this year, 1815. "Matilda Betham's Lay of Marie." See note on page 477.] DE LETTER 209 CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY Aug. 9th, 1815. EAR Southey,-Robinson is not on the circuit, as I erroneously stated in a letter to W. W., which travels with this, but is gone to Brussels, Ostend, Ghent, &c. But his friends the Colliers, whom I consulted respecting your friend's fate, remember to have heard him say, that Father Pardo had effected his escape (the cunning greasy rogue), and to the best of their belief is at present in Paris. To my thinking, it is a small matter whether there be one fat friar more or less in the world. I have rather a taste for clerical executions, imbibed from early recollections of the fate of the excellent Dodd. I hear Buonaparte has sued his habeas corpus, and the twelve judges are now sitting upon it at the Rolls. Your boute-feu (bonfire) must be excellent of its kind. Settle presided at the last great thing of the kind in London, when the pope was burnt in form. Do you provide any verses Poet |