The Best Letters of Charles Lamb Part 7

"An old woman clothed in gray, Whose daughter was charming and young, And she was deluded away By Roger's false, flattering tongue."

A Roger-Lothario would be a novel character; I think you might paint him very well. You may think this a very silly suggestion, and so indeed it is; but, in good truth, nothing else but the first words of that foolish ballad put me upon scribbling my "Rosamund." [2] But I thank you heartily for the poem. Not having anything of my own to send you in return,--though, to tell truth, I am at work upon something which, if I were to cut away and garble, perhaps I might send you an extract or two that might not displease you; but I will not do that; and whether it will come to anything, I know not, for I am as slow as a Fleming painter when I compose anything. I will crave leave to put down a few lines of old Christopher Marlowe's; I take them from his tragedy, "The Jew of Malta." The Jew is a famous character, quite out of nature; but when we consider the terrible idea our simple ancestors had of a Jew, not more to be discommended for a certain discoloring (I think Addison calls it) than the witches and fairies of Marlowe's mighty successor. The scene is betwixt Barabas, the Jew, and Ithamore, a Turkish captive exposed to sale for a slave.

BARABAS.

(_A precious rascal_.)

"As for myself, I walk abroad o' nights, And kill sick people groaning under walls; Sometimes I go about and poison wells; And now and then, to cherish Christian thieves, I am content to lose some of my crowns, That I may, walking in my gallery, See 'm go pinioned along by my door.

Being young, I studied physic, and began To practise first upon the Italian; There I enriched the priests with burials, And always kept the s.e.xton's arms in ure [3]

With digging graves and ringing dead men's knells.

And after that, was I an engineer, And in the wars 'twixt France and Germany, Under pretence of serving Charles the Fifth, Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems.

Then after that was I an usurer, And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting, And tricks belonging unto brokery, I fill'd the jails with bankrupts in a year, And with young orphans planted hospitals, And every moon made some or other mad; And now and then one hang'd himself for grief, Pinning upon his breast a long great scroll, How I with interest tormented him."

Now hear Ithamore, the other gentle nature, explain how he has spent his time:--

ITHAMORE

(_A Comical Dog_.)

"Faith, master, in setting Christian villages on fire, Chaining of eunuchs, binding galley-slaves.

One time I was an hostler in an inn, And in the night-time secret would I steal To travellers' chambers, and there cut their throats.

Once at Jerusalem, where the pilgrims kneel'd, I strewed powder on the marble stones, And therewithal their knees would rankle so, That I have laugh'd a-good to see the cripples Go limping home to Christendom on stilts."

BARABAS.

"Why, this is something."

There is a mixture of the ludicrous and the terrible in these lines, brimful of genius and antique invention, that at first reminded me of your old description of cruelty in h.e.l.l, which was in the true Hogarthian style. I need not tell _you_ that Marlowe was author of that pretty madrigal, "Come live with me, and be my Love," and of the tragedy of "Edward II.," in which are certain _lines_ unequalled in our English tongue. Honest Walton mentions the said madrigal under the denomination of "certain smooth verses made long since by Kit Marlowe."

I am glad you have put me on the scent after old Quarles. If I do not put up those eclogues, and that shortly, say I am no true-nosed hound. I have had a letter from Lloyd; the young metaphysician of Caius is well, and is busy recanting the new heresy, metaphysics, for the old dogma Greek. My sister, I thank you, is quite well. She had a slight attack the other day, which frightened me a good deal; but it went off unaccountably. Love and respects to Edith.

Yours sincerely,

C. LAMB.

[1] The eclogue was ent.i.tled "The Ruined Cottage."

[2] His romance. "Rosamund Gray."

[3] Use.

XVI.

TO SOUTHEY.

_November_ 8, 1798.

I perfectly accord with your opinion of old Wither. Quarles is a wittier writer, but Wither lays more hold of the heart. Quarles thinks of his audience when he lectures; Wither soliloquizes in company with a full heart. What wretched stuff are the "Divine Fancies" of Quarles! Religion appears to him no longer valuable than it furnishes matter for quibbles and riddles; he turns G.o.d's grace into wantonness. Wither is like an old friend, whose warm-heartedness and estimable qualities make us wish he possessed more genius, but at the same time make us willing to dispense with that want. I always love W., and sometimes admire Q. Still, that portrait is a fine one; and the extract from "The Shepherds' Hunting"

places him in a starry height far above Quarles, If you wrote that review in "Crit. Rev.," I am sorry you are so sparing of praise to the "Ancient Marinere;" [1] so far from calling it, as you do, with some wit but more severity, "A Dutch Attempt," etc., I call it a right English attempt, and a successful one, to dethrone German sublimity. You have selected a pa.s.sage fertile in unmeaning miracles, but have pa.s.sed by fifty pa.s.sages as miraculous as the miracles they celebrate. I never so deeply felt the pathetic as in that part,--

"A spring of love gush'd from my heart, And I bless'd them unaware."

It stung me into high pleasure through sufferings. Lloyd does not like it; his head is too metaphysical, and your taste too correct,--at least I must allege something against you both, to excuse my own dotage,--

But you allow some elaborate beauties; you should have extracted 'em.

"The Ancient Marinere" plays more tricks with the mind than that last poem, which is yet one of the finest written. But I am getting too dogmatical; and before I degenerate into abuse, I will conclude with a.s.suring you that I am,

Sincerely yours,

C. LAMB.

[1] The "Lyrical Ballads" of Wordsworth and Coleridge had just appeared.

The volume contained four pieces, including the "Ancient Mariner," by Coleridge.

XVII.

TO SOUTHEY.

_November_ 28, 1798.

I showed my "Witch" and "Dying Lover" to Dyer [1] last night; but George could not comprehend how that could be poetry which did not go upon ten feet, as George and his predecessors had taught it to do; so George read me some lectures on the distinguis.h.i.+ng qualities of the Ode, the Epigram, and the Epic, and went home to ill.u.s.trate his doctrine by correcting a proof-sheet of his own Lyrics, George writes odes where the rhymes, like fas.h.i.+onable man and wife, keep a comfortable distance of six or eight lines apart, and calls that "observing the laws of verse," George tells you, before he recites, that you must listen with great attention, or you 'll miss the rhymes. I did so, and found them pretty exact, George, speaking of the dead Ossian, exclaimeth, "Dark are the poet's eyes," I humbly represented to him that his own eyes were dark, and many a living bard's besides, and recommended "Clos'd are the poet's eyes." But that would not do, I found there was an ant.i.thesis between the darkness of his eyes and the splendor of his genius, and I acquiesced.

Your recipe for a Turk's poison is invaluable and truly Marlowish....

Lloyd objects to "shutting up the womb of his purse" in my Curse (which for a Christian witch in a Christian country is not too mild, I hope): do you object? I think there is a strangeness in the idea, as well as "shaking the poor like snakes from his door," which suits the speaker.

Witches ill.u.s.trate, as fine ladies do, from their own familiar objects, and snakes and shutting up of wombs are in their way. I don't know that this last charge has been before brought against 'em, nor either the sour milk or the mandrake babe; but I affirm these be things a witch would do if she could.

My tragedy [2] will be a medley (as I intend it to be a medley) of laughter and tears, prose and verse, and in some places rhyme, songs, wit, pathos, humor, and if possible, sublimity,--at least, it is not a fault in my intention if it does not comprehend most of these discordant colors. Heaven send they dance not the "Dance of Death!" I hear that the Two n.o.ble Englishmen [3] have parted no sooner than they set foot on German earth; but I have not heard the reason,--possibly to give novelists a handle to exclaim, "Ah me, what things are perfect!" I think I shall adopt your emendation in the "Dying Lover," though I do not myself feel the objection against "Silent Prayer."

My tailor has brought me home a new coat lapelled, with a velvet collar.

He a.s.sures me everybody wears velvet collars now. Some are born fas.h.i.+onable, some achieve fas.h.i.+on, and others, like your humble servant, have fas.h.i.+on thrust upon them. The rogue has been making inroads. .h.i.therto by modest degrees, foisting upon me an additional b.u.t.ton, recommending gaiters; but to come upon me thus in a full tide of luxury, neither becomes him as a tailor or the ninth of a man. My meek gentleman was robbed the other day, coming with his wife and family in a one-horse shay from Hampstead; the villains rifled him of four guineas, some s.h.i.+llings and halfpence, and a bundle of customers' measures, which they swore were bank-notes. They did not shoot him, and when they rode off he addressed them with profound grat.i.tude, making a congee: "Gentlemen, I wish you good-night; and we are very much obliged to you that you have not used us ill!" And this is the cuckoo that has the audacity to foist upon me ten b.u.t.tons on a side and a black velvet collar,--a cursed ninth of a scoundrel!

When you write to Lloyd, he wishes his Jacobin correspondents to address him as _Mr._ C. L. Love and respects to Edith. I hope she is well.

Yours sincerely,

C. LAMB.

[1] This quaint scholar, a marvel of simplicity and universal optimism, is a constantly recurring and delightfully humorous character in the Letters. Lamb and Dyer had been schoolfellows at Christ's Hospital.

[2] John Woodvil.

[3] Coleridge and Wordsworth, who started for Germany together.