The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 94

Not bad as a pun. I _wil_ expect you before two on Tuesday. I am well and happy, tell E.

[Moxon subsequently published his _Sonnets_, in two parts, one of which was dedicated to his brother and one to Wordsworth. There are several to his wife, so that it is difficult to identify that in which the last lines were to be altered. Mrs. Moxon's first alb.u.m was an extract book in which Lamb had copied a number of old ballads and other poems.

I quote one of Moxon's many sonnets to Emma Moxon:--

Fair art thou as the morning, my young Bride!

Her freshness is about thee; like a river To the sea gliding with sweet murmur ever Thou sportest; and, wherever thou dost glide, Humanity a livelier aspect wears.

Fair art thou as the morning of that land Where Tuscan breezes in his youth have fanned Thy grandsire oft. Thou hast not many tears, Save such as pity from the heart will wring, And then there is a smile in thy distress!

Meeker thou art than lily of the spring, Yet is thy nature full of n.o.bleness!

And gentle ways, that soothe and raise me so, That henceforth I no worldly sorrow know!

"Heigh-ho! Little Barrow!" I cannot identify this acquaintance.

"Knowles's play"--"The Wife." Prologued by Lamb too.

"At Chatteris." I cannot say who were the teetotal, or abstinent, Philistines.

"Mary's birthday." Mary Lamb would be sixty-nine on December 3, 1833.

Lamb's verses to Miss Brown seem to be no longer preserved. Mr. Hazlitt prints a letter to a Miss Frances Brown, wherein Lamb offers the verses, adding "I hope your sweetheart's name is WHITE. Else it would spoil all.

May be 'tis BLACK. Then we must alter it. And may your fortunes BLACKEN with your name."]

LETTER 592

CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE

[No date. Middle Dec., 1833.]

I hoped R. would like his Sonnet, but I fear'd S. that _fine old man_, might not quite like the turn of it. This last was penn'd almost literally extempore.

YOUR LAUREAT.

Is S.'s Christian name Thomas? if not, correct it.

["R."--Rogers; "S."--Stothard. See next letter.]

LETTER 593

CHARLES LAMB TO SAMUEL ROGERS

[No date. Probably Sat.u.r.day, December 21, 1833.]

My dear Sir,--Your book, by the unremitting punctuality of your publisher, has reached me thus early. I have not opened it, nor will till to-morrow, when I promise myself a thorough reading of it. "The Pleasures of Memory" was the first school present I made to Mrs. Moxon, it had those nice wood-cuts; and I believe she keeps it still. Believe me, that all the kindness you have shown to the husband of that excellent person seems done unto myself. I have tried my hand at a sonnet in "The Times." But the turn I gave it, though I hoped it would not displease you, I thought might not be equally agreeable to your artist. I met that dear old man at poor Henry's--with you--and again at Cary's--and it was sublime to see him sit deaf and enjoy all that was going on in mirth with the company. He reposed upon the many graceful, many fantastic images he had created; with them he dined and took wine.

I have ventured at an antagonist copy of verses in "The Athenaeum" to _him_, in which he is as everything and you as nothing. He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides. But I am jealous of the combination of the sister arts. Let them sparkle apart. What injury (short of the theatres) did not Boydell's "Shakespeare Gallery" do me with Shakespeare?--to have Opie's Shakespeare, Northcote's Shakespeare, light-headed Fuseli's Shakespeare, heavy-headed Romney's Shakespeare, wooden-headed West's Shakespeare (though he did the best in "Lear"), deaf-headed Reynolds's Shakespeare, instead of my, and everybody's Shakespeare. To be tied down to an authentic face of Juliet! To have Imogen's portrait! To confine the illimitable! I like you and Stothard (you best), but "out upon this half-faced fellows.h.i.+p." Sir, when I have read the book I may trouble you, through Moxon, with some faint criticisms. It is not the flatteringest compliment, in a letter to an author, to say you have not read his book yet. But the devil of a reader he must be who prances through it in five minutes, and no longer have I received the parcel. It was a little tantalizing to me to receive a letter from Landor, _Gebir_ Landor, from Florence, to say he was just sitting down to read my "Elia," just received, but the letter was to go out before the reading.

There are calamities in authors.h.i.+p which only authors know. I am going to call on Moxon on Monday, if the throng of carriages in Dover Street on the morn of publication do not barricade me out.

With many thanks, and most respectful remembrances to your sister,

Yours,

C. LAMB.

Have you seen Coleridge's happy exemplification in English of the Ovidian elegiac metre?--

In the Hexameter rises the fountain's silvery current, In the Pentameter aye falling in melody down.

My sister is papering up the book--careful soul!

[Moxon published a superb edition of Rogers' _Poems_ ill.u.s.trated by Turner and Stothard. Lamb had received an advance copy. The sonnet to Rogers in _The Times_ was printed on December 13, 1833. It ran thus:--

TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ., ON THE NEW EDITION OF HIS "PLEASURES OF MEMORY"

When thy gay book hath paid its proud devoirs, Poetic friend, and fed with luxury The eye of pampered aristocracy In glittering drawing-rooms and gilt boudoirs, O'erlaid with comments of pictorial art, However rich and rare, yet nothing leaving Of healthful action to the soul-conceiving Of the true reader--yet a n.o.bler part Awaits thy work, already cla.s.sic styled.

Cheap-clad, accessible, in homeliest show The modest beauty through the land shall go From year to year, and render life more mild; Refinement to the poor man's hearth shall give, And in the moral heart of England live.

C. LAMB.

Thomas Stothard, then in his seventy-ninth year, Lamb had met at Henry Rogers', who had died at Christmas, 1832. The following was the copy of verses printed in _The Athenaeum_, December 21, 1833 ("that most romantic tale" was _Peter Wilkins_):--

TO T. STOTHARD, ESQ.

_On his Ill.u.s.trations of the Poems of Mr. Rogers_

Consummate Artist, whose undying name With cla.s.sic Rogers shall go down to fame, Be this thy crowning work! In my young days How often have I with a child's fond gaze Pored on the pictured wonders thou hadst done: Clarissa mournful, and prim Grandison!

All Fielding's, Smollett's heroes, rose to view; I saw, and I believed the phantoms true.

But, above all, that most romantic tale Did o'er my raw credulity prevail, Where Glums and Gawries wear mysterious things, That serve at once for jackets and for wings.

Age, that enfeebles other men's designs, But heightens thine, and thy free draught refines.

In several ways distinct you make us feel-- _Graceful_ as Raphael, as Watteau _genteel_.

Your lights and shades, as t.i.tianesque, we praise; And warmly wish you t.i.tian's length of days.

"Short of the theatres." The injury done by the theatres is of course the subject of Lamb's _Reflector_ essay on Shakespeare's Tragedies (see Vol. I.).

"Boydell's 'Shakespeare Gallery'"--the series of 170 ill.u.s.trations to Shakespeare by leading artists of the day projected by Alderman Boydell in 1786.

"Coleridge's... exemplification." Lamb quoted incorrectly. The lines had just appeared in _Friends.h.i.+p's Offering_ for 1834:--

In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column; In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.

Coleridge took the lines from Schiller.

At Dr. Williams' Library is a note from Thos. Robinson to Crabb Robinson, dated December 22, 1833, concerning Lamb's Christmas turkey, which went first to Crabb Robinson at the Temple and was then sent on to Lamb, presumably with the note in the hamper. Lamb adds at the foot of the note:--