The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb
Chapter 294 : Our house is better than we expected--there is a comfortable bedroom and sitting-room

Our house is better than we expected--there is a comfortable bedroom and sitting-room for C. Lloyd, and another for us, a room for Nanny, a kitchen, and out-house. Before our door a clear brook runs of very soft water; and in the back yard is a nice _well_ of fine spring water. We have a very pretty garden, and large enough to find us vegetables and employment, and I am already an expert gardener, and both my hands can exhibit a callum as testimonials of their industry. We have likewise a sweet orchard.

Writing a little before this to Charles Lloyd, senior, Coleridge had said: "My days I shall devote to the acquirement of practical husbandry and horticulture."

The poem on Burns was that "To a Friend [Lamb] who had Declared His Intention of Writing no more Poetry." It was printed first in a Bristol paper and then in the _Annual Anthology_, 1800.

Priestley's remark is in the Dedication to John Lee, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn, of "A Free Discussion of the Doctrines of Materialism and Philosophical Necessity in a Correspondence between Dr. Price and Dr.

Priestley," etc., included in _Disquisitions Relating to Matter and Spirit_, Vol. III., 1778. The discussion arose from the publication by Priestley of _The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity Ill.u.s.trated_, which itself is an appendage to _Disquisitions Relating to Matter and Spirit_.

Three lives at least of John Wesley were published in the two years following his death in 1791. Coleridge later studied Wesley closely, for he added valuable notes to Southey's life (see the 1846 edition).

"A Berkleyan," _i.e._, a follower of Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753), who in his _New Theory of Vision_ and later works maintained that "what we call matter has no actual existence, and that the impressions which we believe ourselves to receive from it are not, in fact, derived from anything external to ourselves, but are produced within us by a certain disposition of the mind, the immediate operation of G.o.d" (Benham's _Dictionary of Religion_).

Coleridge when sending Southey one version of his poem to Charles Lamb, ent.i.tled "This Lime-tree Bower my Prison" (to which we shall come later), in July, 1797, appended to the following pa.s.sage the note, "You remember I am a _Berkleian_":--

Struck with joy's deepest calm, and gazing round On the wide view, may gaze till all doth seem Less gross than bodily; a living thing That acts upon the mind, and with such hues As clothe the Almighty Spirit, when He makes Spirits perceive His presence!

"A Necessarian." We should now say a fatalist.

Coleridge's work on the "Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion,"

which has before been mentioned, was, if ever begun, never completed.]

LETTER 21

CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[Dated at end: January 18, 1797.]

Dear Col,--You have learnd by this time, with surprise, no doubt, that Lloyd is with me in town. The emotions I felt on his coming so unlooked for are not ill expressed in what follows, & what, if you do not object to them as too personal, & to the world obscure, or otherwise wanting in worth, I should wish to make a part of our little volume.

I shall be sorry if that vol comes out, as it necessarily must do, unless you print those very schoolboyish verses I sent you on not getting leave to come down to Bristol last Summer. I say I shall be sorry that I have addrest you in nothing which can appear in our joint volume.

So frequently, so habitually as you dwell on my thoughts, 'tis some wonder those thoughts came never yet in Contact with a poetical mood--But you dwell in my heart of hearts, and I love you in all the naked honesty of prose. G.o.d bless you, and all your little domestic circle--my tenderest remembrances to your Beloved Sara, & a smile and a kiss from me to your dear dear little David Hartley--The verses I refer to above, slightly amended, I have sent (forgetting to ask your leave, tho' indeed I gave them only your initials) to the Month: Mag: where they may possibly appear next month, and where I hope to recognise your Poem on Burns.

TO CHARLES LLOYD, AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR

Alone, obscure, without a friend, A cheerless, solitary thing, Why seeks my Lloyd the stranger out?

What offring can the stranger bring

Of social scenes, home-bred delights, That him in aught compensate may For Stowey's pleasant winter nights, For loves & friends.h.i.+ps far away?

In brief oblivion to forego Friends, such as thine, so justly dear, And be awhile with me content To stay, a kindly loiterer, here--

For this a gleam of random joy, Hath flush'd my unaccustom'd cheek, And, with an o'er-charg'd bursting heart, I feel the thanks, I cannot speak.

O! sweet are all the Muses' lays, And sweet the charm of matin bird-- 'Twas long, since these estranged ears The sweeter voice of friend had heard.

The voice hath spoke: the pleasant sounds In memory's ear, in after time Shall live, to sometimes rouse a tear, And sometimes prompt an honest rhyme.

For when the transient charm is fled, And when the little week is o'er, To cheerless, friendless solitude When I return, as heretofore--

Long, long, within my aching heart, The grateful sense shall cherishd be; I'll think less meanly of myself, That Lloyd will sometimes think on me.

1797.

O Col: would to G.o.d you were in London with us, or we two at Stowey with you all. Lloyd takes up his abode at the Bull & Mouth Inn,--the Cat & Salutation would have had a charm more forcible for me. _O noctes caenaeque Deum!_ Anglice--Welch rabbits, punch, & poesy.

Should you be induced to publish those very schoolboyish verses, print 'em as they will occur, if at all, in the Month: Mag: yet I should feel ashamed that to you I wrote nothing better. But they are too personal, & almost trifling and obscure withal. Some lines of mine to Cowper were in last Month: Mag: they have not body of thought enough to plead for the retaining of 'em.

My sister's kind love to you all.

C. LAMB.

[The verses to Lloyd were included in Coleridge's 1797 volume; but the verses concerning the frustrated Bristol holiday were omitted.

Concerning this visit to London Charles Lloyd wrote to his brother Robert: "I left Charles Lamb very warmly interested in his favour, and have kept up a regular correspondence with him ever since; he is a most interesting young man." Only two letters from Lamb to Charles Lloyd have survived.

"We two"--Lamb and Lloyd. Not Lamb and his sister.]

LETTER 22

CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[Begun Sunday, February 5, 1797.

Dated on address by mistake: January 5, 1797.]

Sunday Morning.--You cannot surely mean to degrade the Joan of Arc into a pot girl. You are not going, I hope, to annex to that most splendid ornament of Southey's poem all this c.o.c.k and a bull story of Joan the publican's daughter of Neufchatel, with the lamentable episode of a waggoner, his wife, and six children; the texture will be most lamentably disproportionate. The first forty or fifty lines of these addenda are, no doubt, in their way, admirable, too; but many would prefer the Joan of Southey.

"On mightiest deeds to brood Of shadowy vastness, such as made my heart Throb fast. Anon I paused, and in a state Of half expectance listen'd to the wind;" "They wonder'd at me, who had known me once A chearful careless damsel;" "The eye, That of the circling throng and of the visible world Unseeing, saw the shapes of holy phantasy;" I see nothing in your description of the Maid equal to these. There is a fine originality certainly in those lines--"For she had lived in this bad world as in a place of tombs, And touch'd not the pollutions of the Dead"--but your "fierce vivacity" is a faint copy of the "fierce & terrible benevolence" of Southey. Added to this, that it will look like rivals.h.i.+p in you, & extort a comparison with S,--I think to your disadvantage. And the lines, consider'd in themselves as an addition to what you had before written (strains of a far higher mood), are but such as Madame Fancy loves in some of her more familiar moods, at such times as she has met Noll Goldsmith, & walk'd and talk'd with him, calling him old acquaintance. Southey certainly has no pretensions to vie with you in the sublime of poetry; but he tells a plain tale better than you. I will enumerate some woeful blemishes, some of 'em sad deviations from that simplicity which was your aim. "Hail'd who might be near" (the canvas-coverture moving, by the by, is laughable); "a woman & six children" (by the way,--why not nine children, it would have been just half as pathetic again): "statues of sleep they seem'd." "Frost-mangled wretch:" "green putridity:" "hail'd him immortal" (rather ludicrous again): "voiced a sad and simple tale" (abominable!): "unprovender'd:"

"such his tale:" "Ah! suffering to the height of what was suffer'd" (a most _insufferable line_): "amazements of affright:" "the hot sore brain attributes its own hues of ghastliness and torture" (what shocking confusion of ideas!). In these delineations of common & natural feelings, in the familiar walks of poetry, you seem to resemble Montauban dancing with Roubigne's tenants, "much of his native loftiness remained in the execution." I was reading your Religious Musings the other day, & sincerely I think it the n.o.blest poem in the language, next after the Paradise lost; & even that was not made the vehicle of such grand truths. "There is one mind," &c., down to "Almighty's Throne," are without a rival in the whole compa.s.s of my poetical reading. "Stands in the sun, & with no partial gaze Views all creation"--I wish I could have written those lines. I rejoyce that I am able to relish them. The loftier walks of Pindus are your proper region. There you have no compeer in modern times. Leave the lowlands, unenvied, in possession of such men as Cowper & Southey. Thus am I pouring balsam into the wounds I may have been inflicting on my poor friend's vanity. In your notice of Southey's new volume you omit to mention the most pleasing of all, the Miniature "There were Who form'd high hopes and flattering ones of thee, Young Robert. Spirit of Spenser!--was the wanderer wrong?" Fairfax I have been in quest of a long time. Johnson in his life of Waller gives a most delicious specimen of him, & adds, in the true manner of that delicate critic, as well as amiable man, "it may be presumed that this old version will not be much read after the elegant translation of my friend, Mr. Hoole." I endeavour'd--I wish'd to gain some idea of Ta.s.so from this Mr. Hoole, the great boast and ornament of the India House, but soon desisted. I found him more vapid than smallest small beer sun-vinegared. Your dream, down to that exquisite line--"I can't tell half his adventures," is a most happy resemblance of Chaucer. The remainder is so so. The best line, I think, is, "He belong'd, I believe, to the witch Melancholy." By the way, when will our volume come out?

Don't delay it till you have written a new Joan of Arc. Send what letters you please by me, & in any way you choose, single or double. The India Co. is better adapted to answer the cost than the generality of my friend's correspondents,--such poor & honest dogs as John Thelwall, particularly. I cannot say I know Colson, at least intimately. I once supped with him & Allen. I think his manners very pleasing. I will not tell you what I think of Lloyd, for he may by chance come to see this letter, and that thought puts a restraint on me. I cannot think what subject would suit your epic genius; some philosophical subject, I conjecture, in which shall be blended the Sublime of Poetry & of Science. Your proposed Hymns will be a fit preparatory study wherewith "to discipline your young noviciate soul." I grow dull; I'll go walk myself out of my dulness.

_Sunday Night_.--You & Sara are very good to think so kindly & so favourably of poor Mary. I would to G.o.d all did so too. But I very much fear she must not think of coming home in my father's lifetime. It is very hard upon her. But our circ.u.mstances are peculiar, & we must submit to them. G.o.d be praised she is so well as she is. She bears her situation as one who has no right to complain. My poor old aunt, whom you have seen, the kindest, goodest creature to me when I was at school; who used to toddle there to bring me f.a.g, when I, school-boy like, only despised her for it, & used to be ashamed to see her come & sit herself down on the old coal hole steps as you went into the old grammar school, & opend her ap.r.o.n & bring out her bason, with some nice thing she had caused to be saved for me--the good old creature is now lying on her death bed. I cannot bear to think on her deplorable state. To the shock she received on that our evil day, from which she never completely recovered, I impute her illness. She says, poor thing, she is glad she is come home to die with me. I was always her favourite: "No after friends.h.i.+p e'er can raise The endearments of our early days, Nor e'er the heart such fondness prove, As when it first began to love." Lloyd has kindly left me for a keep-sake, John Woolman. You have read it, he says, & like it. Will you excuse one short extract? I think it could not have escaped you:--"Small treasure to a resigned mind is sufficient. How happy is it to be content with a little, to live in humility, & feel that in us which breathes out this language--Abba! Father!"--I am almost ashamed to patch up a letter in this miscellaneous sort; but I please myself in the thought, that anything from me will be acceptable to you.

I am rather impatient, childishly so, to see our names affixed to the same common volume. Send me two, when it does come out; 2 will be enough--or indeed 1--but 2 better. I have a dim recollection that, when in town, you were talking of the Origin of Evil as a most prolific subject for a long poem. Why not adopt it, Coleridge? there would be room for imagination. Or the description (from a Vision or Dream, suppose) of an Utopia in one of the planets (the Moon, for instance). Or a Five Days' Dream, which shall ill.u.s.trate, in sensible imagery, Hartley's 5 motives to conduct:--sensation (1), imagination (2), ambition (3), sympathy (4), Theopathy (5). 1st banquets, music, etc., effeminacy,--and their insufficiency. 2d "beds of hyacinth & roses, where young Adonis oft reposes;" "fortunate Isles;" "The pagan Elysium,"

etc., etc.; poetical pictures; antiquity as pleasing to the fancy;--their emptiness, madness, etc. 3d warriors, poets; some famous, yet more forgotten, their fame or oblivion now alike indifferent, pride, vanity, etc. 4th all manner of pitiable stories, in Spenser-like verse--love--friends.h.i.+p, relations.h.i.+p, &c. 5th Hermits--Christ and his apostles--martyrs--heaven--&c., etc. An imagination like yours, from these scanty hints, may expand into a thousand great Ideas--if indeed you at all comprehend my scheme, which I scarce do myself.

_Monday Morn._--"A London letter. 9-1/2." Look you, master poet, I have remorse as well as another man, & my bowels can sound upon occasion. But I must put you to this charge, for I cannot keep back my protest, however ineffectual, against the annexing your latter lines to those former--this putting of new wine into old bottles. This my duty done, I will cease from writing till you invent some more reasonable mode of conveyance. Well may the "ragged followers of the nine" set up for flocci-nauci-what-do-you-call-'em-ists! And I do not wonder that in their splendid visions of Utopias in America they protest against the admission of those _yellow_-complexioned, _copper_-color'd, _white_-liver'd Gentlemen, who never proved themselves _their_ friends.

Don't you think your verses on a Young a.s.s too trivial a companion for the Religious Musings? "Scoundrel monarch," alter _that_; and the Man of Ross is scarce admissible as it now stands curtailed of its fairer half: reclaim its property from the Chatterton, which it does but enc.u.mber, & it will be a rich little poem. I hope you expunge great part of the old notes in the new edition. That, in particular, most barefaced unfounded impudent a.s.sertion, that Mr. Rogers is indebted for his story to Loch Lomond, a poem by Bruce! I have read the latter. I scarce think you have. Scarce anything is common to them both. The poor author of the Pleasures of Memory was sorely hurt, Dyer says, by the accusation of unoriginality. He never saw the Poem. I long to read your Poem on Burns; I retain so indistinct a memory of it. In what shape and how does it come into public? As you leave off writing poetry till you finish your Hymns, I suppose you print now all you have got by you. You have scarce enough unprinted to make a 2d volume with Lloyd. Tell me all about it.

What is become of Cowper? Lloyd told me of some verses on his mother. If you have them by you, pray send 'em me. I do so love him! Never mind their merit. May be _I_ may like 'em--as your taste and mine do not always exactly _indentify_. Yours,

LAMB.