Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 20 December 1796
I HAD put my letter into the post rather hastily,
not expecting to have to acknowledge another from you so soon. This
morning’s present has made me alive again: my last night’s epistle
was childishly querulous; but you have put a little life into me, and I will
thank you for your remembrance of me, while my sense of it is yet warm; for if
I linger a day or two I may use the same phrase of acknowledgment, or similar;
but the feeling that dictates it now will be gone. I shall send you a
caput mortuum, not a
cor vivens. Thy
Watchman’s, thy bellman’s, verses, I do retort upon thee, thou
libellous varlet,—why, you cried the hours yourself, and who made you so proud?
But I submit, to show my humility, most implicitly to your dogmas. I reject
entirely the copy of verses you reject. With regard to my leaving off
versifying, you have said so many pretty things, so many fine compliments,
ingeniously decked out in the garb of sincerity, and undoubtedly springing from
a present feeling somewhat like sincerity, that you might melt the most
un-muse-ical soul,—did you not (now for a Rowland compliment for your profusion of Olivers)—did you not in your very epistle, by the
many pretty fancies and profusion of heart displayed in it, dissuade and
discourage me from attempting anything after you. At present I have not leisure
to make verses, nor ![]()
![]()
anything
approaching to a fondness for the exercise. In the ignorant present time, who
can answer for the future man? “At lovers’ perjuries Jove laughs”—and poets have
sometimes a disingenuous way of forswearing their occupation. This though is
not my case. The tender cast of soul, sombred with melancholy and subsiding
recollections, is favourable to the Sonnet or the Elegy; but from “The sainted growing woof, The teasing troubles keep aloof.” |
![]()
The music of poesy may charm for a while the importunate teasing cares of
life; but the teased and troubled man is not in a disposition to make that
music.
You sent me some very sweet lines relative to Burns, but it was
at a time when, in my highly agitated and perhaps distorted state of mind, I
thought it a duty to read ’em hastily and burn ’em. I burned all my
own verses, all my book of extracts from Beaumont and Fletcher
and a thousand sources: I burned a little journal of my foolish passion which I
had a long time kept—
“Noting ere they past away The little lines of yesterday.” |
![]()
I almost burned all your letters,—I did as bad, I lent ’em to a
friend to keep out of my brother’s
sight, should he come and make inquisition into our papers, for, much as he
dwelt upon your conversation while you were among us, and delighted to be with
you, it has been his fashion ever since to depreciate and cry you down,—you
were the cause of my madness—you and your damned foolish sensibility and
melancholy—and he lamented with a true brotherly feeling that we ever met, even
as the sober citizen, when his son went astray upon the mountains of Parnassus,
is said to have “cursed wit and Poetry and Pope.” I quote wrong, but no matter. These
letters I lent to a friend to be out of the way for a season; but I have
claimed them in vain, and shall not cease to regret their loss. Your packets,
posterior to the date of my misfortunes, commencing with that valuable
consolatory epistle, are every day accumulating—they are sacred things with me.
Publish your Burns when and
how you like, it will be new to me,—my memory of it is very confused, and
tainted with unpleasant associations. Burns was the god of my idolatry, as Bowles of yours. I am jealous of your
fraternising with Bowles, when I think you relish him more
than Burns or my old favourite, Cowper. But you conciliate matters when you
talk of the “divine chit-chat” of the latter: by the
expression I see you thoroughly relish him. I love Mrs. Coleridge for her excuses an hundredfold more dearly than
if she heaped “line upon line,” out-Hannah-ing Hannah More, and had rather hear you sing
“Did a very little baby” ![]()
| 74 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Dec. |
![]()
by your family fire-side, than listen to you when you were repeating one of
Bowles’s sweetest sonnets in your sweet manner,
while we two were indulging sympathy, a solitary luxury, by the fire-side at
the Salutation. Yet have I no higher ideas of heaven. Your company was one
“cordial in this melancholy vale”—the remembrance of it
is a blessing partly, and partly a curse. When I can abstract myself from
things present, I can enjoy it with a freshness of relish; but it more
constantly operates to an unfavourable comparison with the uninteresting:
converse I always and only can partake in. Not a soul loves
Bowles here; scarce one has heard of
Burns; few but laugh at me for reading my
Testament—they talk a language I understand not: I conceal sentiments that
would be a puzzle to them. I can only converse with you by letter and with the
dead in their books. My sister, indeed,
is all I can wish in a companion; but our spirits are alike poorly, our reading
and knowledge from the self-same sources, our communication with the scenes of
the world alike narrow: never having kept separate company, or any
“company” “together”—never
having read separate books, and few books together—what
knowledge have we to convey to each other? In our little range of duties and
connexions, how few sentiments can take place, without friends, with few books,
with a taste for religion rather than a strong religious habit! We need some
support, some leading-strings to cheer and direct us. You talk very wisely, and
be not sparing of your advice. Continue to remember us,
and to show us you do remember us: we will take as lively an interest in what
concerns you and yours. All I can add to your happiness, will be sympathy. You
can add to mine more; you can teach me wisdom. I am indeed an unreasonable
correspondent; but I was unwilling to let my last night’s letter go off
without this qualifier: you will perceive by this my mind is easier, and you
will rejoice I do not expect or wish you to write, till you are moved; and of
course shall not, till you announce to me that event, think of writing myself.
Love to Mrs. Coleridge and David Hartley, and my kind remembrance to Lloyd, if he is with you.
I will get “Nature and Art,”—have not seen it
yet—nor any of Jeremy Taylor’s
works.
Francis Beaumont (1585-1616)
English playwright, often in collaboration with John Fletcher; author of
The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607).
William Lisle Bowles (1762-1850)
English poet and critic; author of
Fourteen Sonnets, elegiac and
descriptive, written during a Tour (1789), editor of the
Works
of Alexander Pope, 10 vols (1806), and writer of pamphlets contributing to the
subsequent Pope controversy.
Robert Burns (1759-1796)
Scottish poet and song collector; author of
Poems, chiefly in the
Scottish Dialect (1786).
Hartley Coleridge [Old Bachelor] (1796-1849)
The eldest son of the poet; he was educated at Merton College, Oxford, contributed essays
in the
London Magazine and
Blackwood's, and
published
Lives of Distinguished Northerns (1832).
William Cowper (1731-1800)
English poet, author of
Olney Hymns (1779),
John
Gilpin (1782), and
The Task (1785); Cowper's delicate
mental health attracted as much sympathy from romantic readers as his letters, edited by
William Hayley, did admiration.
John Fletcher (1579-1625)
English playwright, author of
The Faithful Shepherdess (1610) and
of some fifteen plays in collaboration with Francis Beaumont.
John Lamb Jr. (1763-1821)
The elder brother of Charles Lamb; educated at Christ's Hospital, he was an accountant
with the East India Company.
Mary Anne Lamb (1764-1847)
Sister of Charles Lamb with whom she wrote Tales from Shakespeare (1807). She lived with
her brother, having killed their mother in a temporary fit of insanity.
Charles Lloyd (1775-1839)
Quaker poet; a disciple of Coleridge and friend of Charles Lamb, he published
Poetical Essays on the Character of Pope (1821) and other
volumes.
Hannah More (1745-1833)
English bluestocking writer and advocate for Christian morality; a founder of the
Religious Tract Society (1799) and author of
Coelebs in Search of a
Wife (1808).
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
English poet and satirist; author of
The Rape of the Lock (1714)
and
The Dunciad (1728).
