put us out of our way. Emma is with us, and our small house just holds us, without obliging Mary to sleep with Becky, etc. We are going on extremely comfortable, and shall soon be in capacity of seeing our friends. Much weakness is left still. With thanks and old remembrances, Yours, C. L. TO BERNARD BARTON. LETTER CCCXVII.] [December] 1827. With it I send My dear B.-We are all pretty well again and comfortable, and I take a first opportunity of sending the "Adventures of Ulysses," hoping that among us-Homer, Chapman, and Co.- we shall afford you some pleasure. I fear it is out of print; if not, A. K. will accept it, with wishes it were bigger; if another copy is not to be had, it reverts to me and my heirs for ever. a trumpery book; to which, without my knowledge, the editor of the Bijoux has contributed Lucy's verses; I am ashamed to ask her acceptance of the trash accompanying it. Adieu to Albums—for a great while—I said when I came here, and had not been fixed for two days; but my landlord's daughter (not at the Pothouse) requested me to write in her female friends' and in her own. If I go to thou art there also, O all pervading Album! All over the Leeward Islands, in Newfoundland, and the Back Settlements, I understand there is no other reading. They haunt me. I die of Albophobia! C. L. LETTER CCCXVIII.] [December] 1827. My dear B. B.-A gentleman I never saw before brought me your welcome present. Imagine a scraping, fiddling, fidgeting, petit-maître of a dancing school advancing into my plain parlour with a coupée and a sideling bow, and presenting the book as if he had been handing a glass of lemonade to a young miss: imagine this, and contrast it with the serious nature of the book presented! Then task your imagination, reversing this picture, to conceive of quite an opposite messenger, a lean, strait-locked, whey-faced Methodist, for such was he in reality who brought it, the Genius (it seems) of the Wesleyan Magazine. Certes, friend B., thy Widow's Tale is too horrible, spite of the lenitives of Religion, to embody in verse; I hold prose to be the appropriate expositor of such atrocities! No offence, but it is a cordial that makes the heart sick. Still thy skill in compounding it I do not deny. I turn to what gave me less mingled pleasure. I find mark'd with pencil these pages in thy pretty book, and fear I have been penurious : Page 52, 53-Capital. 59-6th stanza, exquisite simile. 108-3rd stanza, I long to see Van Balen. 153-Lines at the bottom. Dixi. So you see, I read, hear, and mark, if I don't learn. In short, this little volume is no discredit to any of your former, and betrays none of the senility you fear about. Apropos of Van Balen, an artist who painted me lately, had painted a blackamoor praying, and not filling his canvas, stuffed in his little girl aside of Blackey, gaping at him unmeaningly; and then didn't know what to call it. Now for a picture to be promoted to the Exhibition (Suffolk Street) as Historical, a subject is requisite. What does me? I but christened it the "Young Catechist" and furbish'd it with dialogue following, which dubb'd it an Historical Painting. Nothing to a friend at need. VOL. II. "While this tawny Ethiop prayeth, To the Power that must protect him? Meek Hope, strong Faith, sweet Charity! "They you mention Far transcend my weak invention. From her store of script'ral knowledge (Bible-taught without a college), White and black in Him have part, When I'd done it, the artist (who had clapt in Miss merely as a fill-space) swore I exprest his full meaning, and the damosel bridled up into a missionary's vanity. I like verses to explain pictures; seldom pictures to illustrate poems. Your woodcut is a rueful lignum mortis. By the by, is the widow likely to marry again? I am giving the fruit of my old play reading at the Museum to Hone, who sets forth a portion weekly in the Table Book. Do you see it? How is Mitford ?—I'll just hint that the pitcher, the chord, and the bowl are a little too often repeated (passim) in your book, and that in page 17, last line but 4, him is put for he; but the poor widow I take it had small leisure for grammatical niceties. Don't you see there's he, myself, and him; why not both him? likewise imperviously is cruelly spelt imperiously. These are trifles, and I honestly like your book, and you for giving it, though I really am ashamed of so many presents. I can think of no news; therefore I will end with mine and Mary's kindest remembrances to you and yours. C. L. CHAPTER VI. 1828-1834. LETTERS TO BERNARD BARTON, COWDEN CLARKE, To THOMAS ALLSOP. LETTER CCCXIX.] January 2, 1828. Dear Allsop-I have been very poorly and nervous lately, but am recovering sleep, etc. I do not write or make engagements for particular days: but I need not say how pleasant your dropping in any Sunday morning would be. Perhaps Jameson would accompany you. Pray beg him to keep an accurate record of the warning I sent him to old Pau., for I dread lest he should at the 12 months' end deny the warning. The house is his daughter's, but we took it through him, and have paid the rent to his receipts for his daughter's. Consult J. if he thinks the warning sufficient. I am very nervous, or have been, about the house; lost my sleep, and expected to be ill; but slumbered gloriously last night, golden slumbers. I shall not relapse; you fright me with your inserted slips in the most welcome Atlas. They begin to charge double for it, and call it two sheets. How can I confute them by opening it, when a note of yours might slip out, and we get in a hobble? When you write, write real letters. Mary's best love and mine to Mrs. A. Yours ever, C. LAMB. To C. COWDEN CLARKE. LETTER CCCXX.] Enfield, February 25 [1828]. My dear Clarke-You have been accumulating on me such a heap of pleasant obligations, that I feel uneasy in writing as to a Benefactor. Your smaller contributions, the little weekly rills, are refreshments in the Desart; but your large books were feasts. I hope Mrs. Hazlitt, to whom I encharged it, has taken Hunt's Lord B. to the Novellos. His picture of Literary Lordship is as pleasant as a disagreeable subject can be made; his own poor man's Education at dear Christ's is as good and hearty as the subject. Hazlitt's speculative episodes are capital; I skip the Battles. But how did I deserve to have the book? The "Companion" has too much of Madame Pasta. Theatricals have ceased to be popular attractions. His walk home after the play is as good as the best of the old "Indicators." The watchmen are emboxed in a niche of fame, save the skaiting one that must be still fugitive. I wish I could send a scrap for goodwill. But I have been most seriously unwell and nervous a long, long time. I have scarce mustered courage to begin this short note, but conscience duns me. I had a pleasant letter from your sister, greatly overacknowledging my poor sonnet. I think I should have replied to it, but tell her I think so. Alas! for sonneting, 'tis as the nerves are; all the summer I was dawdling among green lanes, and verses came as thick as fancies. I am sunk winterly below prose and zero. But I trust the vital principle is only as under snow. That I shall yet laugh again. I suppose the great change of place affects me; but I could not have lived in Town; I could not bear company. |