DEAR Wordsworth, having a Guinea of your sister’s left in hand, after all your commissions, and as it does not seem likely that you will trouble us, as the phrase is, for some time to come, I send you a pound note, and with it the best things in the verse way I have lit upon for many a day. I believe they will be new to you. You know Cotton, who wrote a 2d part to Walton’s Angler. A volume of his miscellaneous poems is scarce. Take what follows from a poem call’d Winter. I omit 20 verses, in which a storm is described, to hasten to the best:—
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21
Louder, and louder, still they1
come,
Nile’s Cataracts to these are dumb,
The Cyclops to these Blades are still,
Whose anvils shake the burning hill.
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22
Were all the stars-enlighten’d skies
As full of ears, as sparkling eyes,
This rattle in the crystal hall
Would be enough to deaf them all.
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23
What monstrous Race is hither tost,
Thus to alarm our British Coast,
With outcries such as never yet
War, or confusion, could beget?
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24
Oh! now I know them, let us home,
Our mortal Enemy is come,
Winter, and all his blustring train
Have made a voyage o’er the main.
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1 The winds. |
| 1803 | COTTON’S “WINTER” | 263 |
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27
With bleak, and with congealing winds,
The earth in shining chain he binds;
And still as he doth further pass,
Quarries his way with liquid glass.
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28
Hark! how the Blusterers of the Bear
Their gibbous Cheeks in triumph bear,
And with continued shouts do ring
The entry of their palsied king!
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29
The squadron, nearest to your eye,
Is his forlorn of Infantry,
Bowmen of unrelenting minds,
Whose shafts are feather’d with the winds.
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30
Now you may see his vanguard rise
Above the earthy precipice,
Bold Horse, on bleakest mountains bred,
With hail, instead of provend, fed.
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31
Their lances are the pointed locks,
Torn from the brows of frozen rocks,
Their shields are chrystal as their swords,
The steel the rusted rock affords.
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32
See, the Main Body now appears!
And hark! th’ Æolian Trumpeters.
By their hoarse levets do declare,
That the bold General rides there.
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33
And look where mantled up in white
He sleds it, like the Muscovite.
I know him by the port he bears,
And his lifeguard of mountaineers.
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34
Their caps are furr’d with hoary frosts,
The bravery their cold kingdom boasts;
Their spungy plads are milk-white frieze,
Spun from the snowy mountain’s fleece.
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35
Their partizans are fine carv’d glass,
Fring’d with the morning’s spangled grass;
And pendant by their brawny thighs
Hang cimetars of burnish’d ice.
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38
Fly, fly, the foe advances fast,
Into our fortress let us haste,
Where all the roarers of the north
Can neither storm, nor starve, us forth.
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| 264 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | March |
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39
There under ground a magazine
Of sovran juice is cellar’d in,
Liquor that will the siege maintain,
Should Phoebus ne’er return again.
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40
’Tis that, that gives the poet rage,
And thaws the gelly’d blood of age,
Matures the young, restores the old,
And makes the fainting coward bold.
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41
It lays the careful head to rest,
Calms palpitations in the breast,
Renders our live’s misfortunes sweet,
And Venus frolic in the sheet.
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42
Then let the chill Scirocco blow,
And gird us round with hills of snow,
Or else go whistle to the shore,
And make the hollow mountains roar.
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43
Whilst we together jovial sit,
Careless, and crown’d with mirth and wit,
Where tho’ bleak winds confine us home,
Our fancies thro’ the world shall roam.
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44
We’ll think of all the friends we know,
And drink to all, worth drinking to;
When, having drunk all thine and mine,
We rather shall want health than wine!
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45
But, where friends fail us, we’ll supply
Our friendships with our Charity.
Men that remote in sorrows live,
Shall by our lusty bumpers thrive.
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46
We’ll drink the wanting into wealth,
And those that languish into health,
Th’ afflicted into joy, th’ opprest
Into security & rest.
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47
The worthy in disgrace shall find
Favour return again more kind,
And in restraint who stifled lye,
Shall taste the air of liberty.
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48
The brave shall triumph in success,
The lovers shall have mistresses,
Poor unregarded virtue praise,
And the neglected Poet bays.
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| 1803 | COTTON ON OLD AGE | 265 |
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49
Thus shall our healths do others good,
While we ourselves do all we wou’d,
For freed from envy, and from care.
What would we be, but what we are?
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50
’Tis the plump Grape’s immortal juice,
That does this happiness produce,
And will preserve us free together,
Maugre mischance, or wind, & weather.
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51
Then let old winter take his course,
And roar abroad till he be hoarse,
And his lungs crack with ruthless ire,
It shall but serve to blow our fire.
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52
Let him our little castle ply
With all his loud artillery,
Whilst sack and claret man the fort,
His fury shall become our sport.
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53
Or let him Scotland take, and there
Confine the plotting Presbyter;
His zeal may freeze, whilst we kept warm
With love and wine can know no harm.
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How could Burns miss the series of lines from 42 to 49?
There is also a long poem from the Latin on the inconveniences of old age. I can’t set down the whole, tho’ right worthy, having dedicated the remainder of my sheet to something else. I just excerp here and there, to convince you, if after this you need it, that Cotton was a first rate. Tis old Gallus speaks of himself, once the delight of the Ladies and Gallants of Rome:—
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The beauty of my shape & face are fled,
And my revolted form bespeaks me dead,
For fair, and shining age, has now put on
A bloodless, funeral complexion.
My skin’s dry’d up, my nerves unpliant are,
And my poor limbs my nails plow up and tear.
My chearful eyes now with a constant spring
Of tears bewail their own sad suffering;
And those soft lids, that once secured my eye
Now rude, and bristled grown, do drooping lie,
Bolting mine eyes, as in a gloomy cave,
Which there on furies, and grim objects, rave.
’Twould fright the full-blown Gallant to behold
The dying object of a man so old.
And can you think, that once a man he was,
Of human reason who no portion has.
The letters split, when I consult my book,
And every leaf I turn does broader look.
In darkness do I dream I see the light,
When light is darkness to my perishd sight.
* * * * * * * * *
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| 266 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | March |
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Is it not hard we may not from men’s eyes
Cloak and conceal Age’s indecencies.
Unseeming spruceness th’ old man discommends,
And in old men, only to live, offends.
* * * * * * * * *
How can I him a living man believe,
Whom light, and air, by whom he panteth, grieve;
The gentle sleeps, which other mortals ease,
Scarce in a winter’s night my eyelids seize.
* * * * * * * * *
The boys, and girls, deride me now forlorn,
And but to call me, Sir, now think it scorn,
They jeer my countnance, and my feeble pace,
And scoff that nodding head, that awful was.
* * * * * * * * *
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A song written by Cowper, which in stile is much above his usual, and emulates in noble plainness any old balad I have seen. Hayley has just published it &c. with a Life. I did not think Cowper up to it:—
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1
Toll for the Brave!
The Brave, that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore.—
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2
Eight hundred of the Brave,
Whose courage well was tried,
Had made the vessel heel,
And laid her on her side.
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3
A Land breeze shook the shrouds,
And she was over set;
Down went the Royal George,
With all her sails complete.
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4
Toll for the Brave!
Brave Kempenfelt is gone:
His last sea-fight is fought;
His work of glory done.
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5
It was not in the battle,
No tempest gave the shock;
She sprang no fatal leak;
She ran upon no rock.
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6
His sword was in its sheath;
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down,
With twice four hundred men.
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| 1803 | “THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE” | 267 |
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7
Weigh the vessel up!
Once dreaded by our foes!
And mingle with the cup
The tear that England owes.
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8
Her timbers yet are sound,
And she may float again,
Full charg’d with England’s thunder,
And plow the distant main.
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9
But Kempenfelt is gone,
His victories are o’er;
And he, and his eight hundred,
Shall plow the wave no more.
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In your obscure part of the world, which I take to be Ultima Thule, I thought these verses out of Books which cannot be accessible would not be unwelcome. Having room, I will put in an Epitaph I writ for a real occasion, a year or two back.
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Under this cold marble stone
Sleep the sad remains of One,
Who, when alive, by few or none
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2
Was lov’d, as lov’d she might have been,
If she prosp’rous days had seen,
Or had thriving been, I ween.
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3
Only this cold funeral stone
Tells, she was belov’d by One,
Who on the marble graves his moan.
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I conclude with Love to your Sister and Mrs. W.
Mary sends Love, &c.
On consulting Mary, I find it will be foolish inserting the Note as I intended, being so small, and as it is possible you may have to trouble us again e’er long; so it shall remain to be settled hereafter. However, the verses shan’t be lost.
N.B.—All orders executed with fidelity and punctuality by C. & M. Lamb.
[On the outside is written:] I
beg to open this for a minute to add my remembrances to you all, and to
assure you I shall ever be
| 268 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | April |
A lean paragraph of the Doctor’s.
