together a little Serenata upon the occasion, but was prevented from sending it by my sister, to whose judgment I am apt to defer too much in these kind of things; so that, now I have her consent, the offering, I am afraid, will have lost the grace of seasonableness. Such as it is, I send it. She thinks it a little too old-fashioned in the mauner, too much like what they wrote a century back. But I cannot write in the modern style, if I try ever so hard. I have attended to the proper divisions for the music, and you will have little difficulty in composing it. If I may advise, make Pepusch your model, or Blow. It will be necessary to have a good second voice, as the stress of the melody lies there :— SERENATA, FOR TWO VOICES, On the Marriage of Charles Cowden Clarke, Esqre., to Victoria, eldest daughter of Vincent Novello, Esqre. DUETTO. Wake th' harmonious voice and string, Sounds with secret charms combining, In melodious union joining, Best the wondrous joys can tell, That in hearts united dwell. RECITATIVE. First Voice. To young Victoria's happy fame And, own'd by her, with rapture speaks her name. The Graces all in her conspire; Love arms her with his surest dart, AIR. The list'ning Muses all around her, RECITATIVE. Second Voice. While crowds of rivals with despair In courts, in camps, thro' distant realms renown'd, He comes with British honour crown'd, AIR. In tender sighs he silence breaks, RECITATIVE. First Voice. Now Hymen at the altar stands, And while he joins their faithful hands, Its magic sound Commands a sudden silence all around, And strains prophetic thus attune the strings. DUETTO. First Voice. The Swain his Nymph possessing, Second Voice. The Nymph her Swain caressing, Shall still improve the blessing, For ever kind and true. Both. While rolling years are flying, Love, Hymen's lamp supplying, With fuel never dying, Shall still the flame renew. To so great a master as yourself I have no need to suggest that the peculiar tone of the composition requires sprightliness, occasionally checked by tenderness, as in the second air,— She smiles, she yields,—she loves. Again, you need not be told that each fifth line of the two first recitatives requires a crescendo. And your exquisite taste will prevent your falling into the error of Purcell, who at a passage similar to that in my first air, Drops his bow, and stands to hear, directed the first violin thus:— Here the first violin must drop his bow. But, besides the absurdity of disarming his principal performer of so necessary an adjunct to his instrument, in such an emphatic part of the composition too, which must have had a droll effect at the time, all such minutiæ of adaptation are at this time of day very properly exploded, and Jackson of Exeter very fairly ranks them under the head of puns. Should you succeed in the setting of it, we propose having it performed (we have one very tolerable second voice here, and Mr. Holmes, I dare say, would supply the minor parts) at the Greyhound. But it must be a secret to the young couple till we can get the band in readiness. Believe me, dear Novello, yours truly, To LAMAN BLANCHARD. LETTER CCCXXXII.] C. LAMB. Enfield, November 9, 1828. Sir-I beg to return my acknowledgments for the present of your elegant volume, which I should have esteemed, without the bribe of the name prefixed to it. VOL. II. P I have been much pleased with it throughout, but am most taken with the peculiar delicacy of some of the sonnets. I shall put them up among my poetical treasures. Your obliged Servant, TO BERNARD BARTON. C. LAMB. December 5, 1828. LETTER CCCXXXIII.] Dear B. B.-I am ashamed to receive so many nice books from you, and to have none to send you in return. You are always sending me some fruits or wholesome potherbs, and mine is the garden of the Sluggard, nothing but weeds, or scarce they. Nevertheless, if I knew how to transmit it, I would send you Blackwood's of this month, which contains a little drama, to have your opinion of it, and how far I have improved, or otherwise, upon its prototype. Thank you for your kind sonnet. It does me good to see the Dedication to a Christian Bishop. I am for a comprehension, as divines call it; but so as that the Church shall go a good deal more than half way over to the silent Meeting-house. I have ever said that the Quakers are the only professors of Christianity as I read it in the Evangiles. I say professors: marry, as to practice, with their gaudy hot types and poetical vanities, they are much at one with the sinful. Martin's Frontispiece is a very fine thing, let C. L. say what he pleases to the contrary. Of the Poems, I like them as a volume, better than any one of the preceding; particularly, "Power and Gentleness "The Present "—" Lady Russell"; with the exception that I do not like the noble act of Curtius, true or false-one of the grand foundations of old Roman patriotism - to be sacrificed to Lady R.'s taking notes on her husband's trial. If a thing is good, why invidiously bring it into light with something better? There are too few heroic things in this world, to admit of our marshalling them in anxious But etiquettes of precedence. Would you make a poem on the story of Ruth (pretty story !), and then say--Ay, but how much better is the story of Joseph and his brethren! To go on, the stanzas to "Chalon" want the name of Clarkson in the body of them; it is left to inference. The "Battle of Gibeon" is spirited, again; but you sacrifice it in the last stanza to the song at Bethlehem. Is it quite orthodox to do so? The first was good, you suppose, for that dispensation. Why set the Word against the Word? It puzzles a weak Christian. So Watts's Psalms are an implied censure on David's. as long as the Bible is supposed to be an equally divine emanation with the Testament, so long it will stagger weaklings to have them set in opposition. "Godiva" is delicately touched. I have always thought it a beautiful story, characteristic of the old English times. But I could not help amusing myself with the thought-if Martin had chosen this subject for a frontispiece there would have been in some dark corner a white lady, white as the walker on the waves, riding upon some mystical quadruped; and high above would have risen "tower above tower a massy structure high -the Tenterden steeples of Coventry, till the poor cross would scarce have known itself among the clouds; and far above them all the distant Clint Hills peering over chimney-pots, piled up, Ossa-on-Olympus fashion, till the admiring spectator (admirer of a noble deed) might have gone look for the lady, as you must hunt for the other in the lobster. But M[artin] should be made royal architect. What palaces he would pile! But then, what parliamentary grants to make them good! Nevertheless, I like the frontispiece. "The Elephant" is pleasant; and I am glad you are getting into a wider scope of subjects. There may be too much, not religion, but too many good words in a book, till it becomes, as Shsays of Religion, a rhapsody of words. I will just name, that you have brought in the "Song to the Shepherds" in four or five, if not six places. Now this is not good |