was absolutely stifled and overlaid with its own riches. Truth is one and poor, like the cruse of Elijah's widow. Imagination is the bold face that multiplies its oil; and thou, the old cracked pipkin, that could not believe it could be put to such purposes. Dull pipkin, to have Elijah for thy cook. Imbecile recipient of so fat a miracle. I send you George Dyer's Poems, the richest production of the lyrical muse this century can justly boast for Wordsworth's L. B. were published, or at least written, before Christ mas. "Please to advert to pages 291 to 296 for the most astonishing account of where Shakspeare's muse has been all this while. I thought she had been dead, and buried in Stratford Church, with the young man that kept her company,— 'But it seems, like the Devil, Buried in Cole Harbour, be nibbling my own cheese by my dear self, without mouse-traps and time-traps. By my new plan, I shall be as airy, up four pair of stairs, as in the country; and in a garden, in the midst of enchanting, more than Mahometan paradise, London, whose dirtiest drabfrequented alley, and her lowest bowing tradesman, I would not exchange for Skiddaw, Helvellyn, James, Walter, and the parson into the bargain. O! her lamps of a night! her rich goldsmiths, print-shops, toyshops, mercers, hardwaremen, pastry-cooks! St. Paul's churchyard! the Strand! Exeter Change! Charing Cross, with the man upon a black horse! These are thy gods, O London! An't you mightily moped on the banks of the Cam? Had not you better come and set up here? You can't think what a difference. All the streets and pavements are pure gold, I warrant you. At least, I know an alchemy that turns her mud into that metal, a mind that loves to be at home in crowds. ""Tis half-past twelve o'clock, and all sober people ought to be a-bed. "C. LAMB (as you may guess)." Wordsworth. "N.B.-I don't charge anything for the additional manuscript notes, which are the joint productions of myself and a learned translator of Schiller, Stoddart, Esq. "N.B. the 2d.-I should not have blotted The following two letters appear to have your book, but I had sent my own out to be been written during Coleridge's visit to bound, as I was in duty bound. A liberal criticism upon the several pieces, lyrical, heroical, amatory, and satirical, would be acceptable. So, you don't think there's a Word's worth of good poetry in the great L.B.! I daren't put the dreaded syllables at their just length, for my back tingles from the northern castigation. "I am going to change my lodgings, having received a hint that it would be agreeable, at our Lady's next feast. I have partly fixed upon most delectable rooms, which look out (when you stand a tip-toe) over the Thames, and Surrey Hills; at the upper end of King's Bench walks, in the Temple. There I shall have all the privacy of a house without the encumbrance, and shall be able to lock my friends out as often as I desire to hold free converse with my immortal mind, for my present lodgings resemble a minister's levee, I have so increased my acquaintance (as they call 'em) since I have resided in town. Like the country mouse, that had tasted a little of urbane manners, I long to TO MR. COLERIDGE. "By some fatality, unusual with me, I have mislaid the list of books which you want. Can you from memory, easily supply me with another? "I confess to Statius, and I detained him wilfully, out of a reverent regard to your style. Statius, they tell me, is turgid. As to that other Latin book, since you know neither its name nor subject, your wants (I crave leave to apprehend) cannot be very urgent. Meanwhile, dream that it is one of the lost Decades of Livy. "Your partiality to me has led you to form an erroneous opinion as to the measure of delight you suppose me to take in obliging. Pray, be careful that it spread no further. "Tis one of those heresies that is very pregnant. Pray, rest more satisfied with the portion of learning which you have got, and disturb my peaceful ignorance as little as possible with such sort of commissions. E "Did you never observe an appearance plays. well known by the name of the man in the moon? Some scandalous old maids have set on foot a report, that it is Endymion. "Your theory about the first awkward step a man makes being the consequence of learning to dance, is not universal. We have known many youths bred up at Christ's, who never learned to dance, yet the world imputes to them no very graceful motions. I remember there was little Hudson, the immortal precentor of St. Paul's, to teach us our quavers; but, to the best of my recollection, there was no master of motions when we were at Christ's. Congreve, and the rest of King Charles's moralists, are cheap and accessible. The works on Ireland I will inquire after, but, I fear, Spenser's is not to be had apart from his poems; I never saw it. But you may depend upon my sparing no pains to furnish you as complete a library of old poets and dramatists as will be prudent to buy; for, I suppose you do not include the 201. edition of Hamlet, single play, which Kemble has. Marlowe's plays and poems are totally vanished; only one edition of Dodsley retains one, and the other two of his plays: but John Ford is the man after Shakspeare. Let me know your will and pleasure soon, for I have observed, next to the pleasure of buying a bargain for one's self, is the pleasure of persuading a friend to buy it. It tickles one with the image of an imprudency, without the penalty usually annexed. "C. LAMB." CHAPTER VI. LETTERS TO MANNING, AFTER LAMB'S REMOVAL TO THE "Oct. 13th, 1800. "Dear Wordsworth,-I have not forgot your commissions. But the truth is,-and why should I not confess it?—I am not plethorically abounding in cash at this present. Merit, God knows, is very little rewarded; but it does not become me to speak of myself. My motto is, 'contented with little, yet wishing for more.' Now, the books you wish for would require some pounds, which, I am sorry to say, I have In the year 1800, Lamb carried into effect not by me; so, I will say at once, if you his purpose of removing to Mitre-court will give me a draft upon your town banker for any sum you propose to lay out, I will Buildings, Temple. During this time he dispose of it to the very best of my skill in wrote only a few small poems, which he transmitted to Manning. In his letters to choice old books, such as my own soul loveth. In fact, I have been waiting for the liquida- Manning a vein of wild humour breaks out, tion of a debt to enable myself to set about of which there are but slight indications in the correspondence with his more sentimenyour commission handsomely; for it is a tal friends; as if the very opposition of scurvy thing to cry, 'Give me the money first,' and I am the first of the family of the Manning's more scientific power to his own Lambs that have done it for many centuries; the genial kindness of the mathematician force of sympathy provoked the sallies which but the debt remains as it was, and my old friend that I accommodated has generously of some of these letters forms a striking fostered. The prodigal and reckless humour forgot it! The books which you want, I calculate at about 8l. Ben Jonson is a guinea book. Beaumont and Fletcher, in folio, the right folio not now to be met with; the octavos are about 31. As to any other dramatists, I do not know where to find them, except what are in Dodsley's Old Plays, which are about 31. also. Massinger I never saw but at one shop, but it is now gone; but one of the editions of Dodsley contains about a fourth (the best) of his letters to Coleridge. His Essays of Elia' contrast to the deep feeling of the earlier show the harmonious union of both. The following letter contains Lamb's description of his new abode. TO MR. MANNING. "I was not aware that you owed me anything beside that guinea; but I dare say you are right. I live at No. 16, Mitre-court TO MR. MANNING. "Oct. 16th, 1800. Buildings, a pistol-shot off Baron Maseres'. You must introduce me to the Baron. I think we should suit one another mainly. He lives on the ground floor, for convenience "Dear Manning,-Had you written one of the gout; I prefer the attic story, for the week before you did, I certainly should have air! He keeps three footmen and two obeyed your injunction; you should have maids; I have neither maid nor laundress, seen me before my letter. I will explain to not caring to be troubled with them! His you my situation. There are six of us in one forte, I understand, is the higher mathe- department. Two of us (within these four matics; my turn, I confess, is more to poetry days) are confined with severe fevers; and and the belles lettres. The very antithesis two more, who belong to the Tower Militia, of our characters would make up a harmony. You must bring the baron and me together. -N.B. when you come to see me, mount up to the top of the stairs-I hope you are not asthmatical-and come in flannel, for it's pure airy up there. And bring your glass, and I will show you the Surrey Hills. My bed faces the river, so as by perking up upon my haunches, and supporting my carcase with my elbows, without much wrying my neck, I can see the white sails glide by the bottom of the King's Bench walks as I lie in my bed. An excellent tiptoe prospect in the best room :-casement windows, with small panes, to look more like a cottage. Mind, I have got no bed for you, that's flat; sold it to pay expenses of moving. The very bed on which Manning lay; the friendly, the mathematical Manning! How forcibly does it remind me of the interesting Otway! The very bed which on thy marriage night gave thee into the arms of Belvidera, by the coarse hands of ruffians-' (upholsterers' men,) &c. | My tears will not give me leave to go on. But a bed I will get you, Manning, on condition you will be my day-guest. "I have been ill more than a month, with a bad cold, which comes upon me (like a murderer's conscience) about midnight, and vexes me for many hours. I have successively been drugged with Spanish licorice, opium, ipecacuanha, paregoric, and tincture of foxglove (tinctura purpuræ digitalis of the ancients). I am afraid I must leave off drinking." Lamb then gives an account of his visit to an exhibition of snakes-of a frightful vividness and interesting-as all details of these fascinating reptiles are, whom we at once loathe and long to look upon, as the old enemies and tempters of our race. expect to have marching orders on Friday. Now six are absolutely necessary. I have already asked and obtained two young hands to supply the loss of the feverites. And, with the other prospect before me, you may believe I cannot decently ask leave of absence for myself. All I can promise (and I do promise, with the sincerity of Saint Peter, and the contrition of sinner Peter if I fail) that I will come the very first spare week, and go nowhere till I have been at Cambridge. No matter if you are in a state of pupilage when I come; for I can employ myself in Cambridge very pleasantly in the mornings. Are there not libraries, halls, colleges, books, pictures, statues? I wish you had made London in your way. There is an exhibition quite uncommon in Europe, which could not have escaped your genius,—a live rattlesnake, ten feet in length, and the thickness of a big leg. I went to see it last night by candlelight. We were ushered into a room very little bigger than ours at Pentonville. A man and woman and four boys live in this room, joint tenants with nine snakes, most of them such as no remedy has been discovered for their bite. We walked into the middle, which is formed by a half-moon of wired boxes, all mansions of snakes,-whip-snakes, thundersnakes, pig-nose-snakes, American vipers, and this monster. He lies curled up in folds; and immediately a stranger enters (for he is used to the family, and sees them play at cards,) he set up a rattle like a watchman's in London, or near as loud, and reared up a head, from the midst of these folds, like a toad, and shook his head, and showed every sign a snake can show of irritation. I had the foolish curiosity to strike the wires with my finger, and the devil flew at me with his toad-mouth wide open: the inside of his mouth is quite white. I had got my finger away, nor could he well have bit me with his big mouth, which would have been certain young philosopher at Keswick, with the death in five minutes. But it frightened me Wordsworths. They have contrived to spawn so much, that I did not recover my voice for a new volume of lyrical ballads, which is to a minute's space. I forgot, in my fear, that see the light in about a month, and causes no he was secured. You would have forgot too, little excitement in the literary world. George for 'tis incredible how such a monster can be Dyer too, that good-natured heathen, is more confined in small gauzy-looking wires. I than nine months gone with his twin volumes dreamed of snakes in the night. I wish to of ode, pastoral, sonnet, elegy, Spenserian, heaven you could see it. He absolutely Horatian, Akensidish, and Masonic verseswelled with passion to the bigness of a large | Clio prosper the birth! it will be twelve thigh. I could not retreat without infringing shillings out of somebody's pocket. I find on another box, and just behind, a little devil not an inch from my back, had got his nose out, with some difficulty and pain, quite through the bars! He was soon taught better manners. All the snakes were curious, and objects of terror: but this monster, like Aaron's serpent, swallowed up the impression of the rest. He opened his cursed mouth, when he made at me, as wide as his head was broad. I hallooed out quite loud, and felt pains all over my body with the fright. "I have had the felicity of hearing George Dyer read out one book of 'The Farmer's Boy.' I thought it rather childish. No doubt, there is originality in it, (which, in your self-taught geniuses, is a most rare quality, they generally getting hold of some bad models, in a scarcity of books, and forming their taste on them,) but no selection. All is described. "Mind, I have only heard read one book. "C. L." The following are fragments from a letter chiefly on personal matters, the interest of which is gone by * TO MR. MANNING. he means to exclude 'personal satire,' so it appears by his truly original advertisement. Well, God put it into the hearts of the English gentry to come in shoals and subscribe to his poems, for He never put a kinder heart into flesh of man than George Dyer's! "Now farewell, for dinner is at hand. "C. L." Lamb had engaged to spend a few days when he could obtain leave, with Manning at Cambridge, and, just as he hoped to accomplish his wish, received an invitation from Lloyd to give his holiday to the poets assembled at the Lakes. In the joyous excitement of spirits which the anticipated visit to Manning produced, he thus plays off Manning's proposal on his friend, abuses mountains and luxuriates in his love of London: TO MR. MANNING. "Dear Manning,—I have received a very kind invitation from Lloyd and Sophia, to go and spend a month with them at the Lakes. Now it fortunately happens, (which is so seldom the case!) that I have spare cash by me, enough to answer the expenses of so long a journey; and I am determined to get away from the office by some means. The purpose "And now, when shall I catch a glimpse of of this letter is to request of you (my dear your honest face-to-face countenance again? friend), that you will not take it unkind, if I Your fine dogmatical sceptical face by punch- decline my proposed visit to Cambridge for light? O one glimpse of the human face, the present. Perhaps I shall be able to take and shake of the human hand, is better than Cambridge in my way, going or coming. I whole reams of this cold, thin correspondence; need not describe to you the expectations yea, of more worth than all the letters that which such an one as myself, pent up all my have sweated the fingers of sensibility, from life in a dirty city, have formed of a tour to Madame Sévigné and Balzac to Sterne and the Lakes. Consider Grasmere ! AmbleShenstone. side! Wordsworth! Coleridge! Hills, woods, "Coleridge is settled with his wife and the lakes, and mountains, to the eternal devil I will eat snipes with thee, Thomas Manning. of his manuscripts, and the delay of his hopes; Only confess, confess, a bite. which, according to the old theatrical usage, he was destined to endure. "P. S. I think you named the 16th; but was it not modest of Lloyd to send such an invitation! It shows his knowledge of money and time. I would be loth to think, he meant 'Ironic satire sidelong sklented On my poor pursie.' BURNS. TO MR. MANNING. "Nov. 3rd, 1800. "Ecquid meditatur Archimedes? What is Euclid doing? What hath happened to learned Trismegist ?-doth he take it in ill part, that his humble friend did not comply For my part, with reference to my friends with his courteous invitation? Let it suffice, northward, I must confess that I am not I could not come-are impossibilities nothing? romance-bit about Nature. The earth, and be they abstractions of the intellect?-or sea, and sky (when all is said,) is but as a not (rather) most sharp and mortifying house to dwell in. If the inmates be courteous, realities? nuts in the Will's mouth too hard and good liquors flow like the conduits at an for her to crack ? brick and stone walls in old coronation, if they can talk sensibly, and her way, which she can by no means eat feel properly, I have no need to stand staring through? sore lets, impedimenta viarum, no upon the gilded looking-glass (that strained thoroughfares? racemi nimium alte pendentes? my friend's purse-strings in the purchase) Is the phrase classic? I allude to the grapes nor his five-shilling print over the mantel- in Æsop, which cost the fox a strain, and piece of old Nabbs the carrier (which only betrays his false taste). Just as important to me (in a sense) is all the furniture of my world; eye-pampering, but satisfies no heart. | Streets, streets, streets, markets, theatres, churches, Covent Gardens, shops sparkling with pretty faces of industrious milliners, neat sempstresses, ladies cheapening, gentlemen behind counters lying, authors in the street with spectacles, George Dyers, (you may know them by their gait,) lamps lit at night, pastry-cooks' and silver-smiths' shops, beautiful Quakers of Pentonville, noise of coaches, drowsy cry of mechanic watchmen at night, with bucks reeling home drunk; if property, in matter of society; but for once you happen to wake at midnight, cries of Fire and Stop thief; inns of court, with their learned air, and halls, and butteries, just like Cambridge colleges; old book-stalls, 'Jeremy Taylors,' 'Burtons on Melancholy,' and 'Religio Medicis,' on every stall. These are thy pleasures, O London! with-the-manysins. O, city, abounding in— for these may Keswick and her giant brood go hang! "C. L." gained the world an aphorism. Observe the superscription of this letter. In adapting the size of the letters, which constitute your name and Mr. Crisp's name respectively, I had an eye to your different stations in life. "Tis truly curious, and must be soothing to an aristocrat. I wonder it has never been hit on before my time. I have made an acquisition latterly of a pleasant hand, one Rickman, to whom I was introduced by George Dyer,' not the most flattering auspices under which one man can be introduced to anotherGeorge brings all sorts of people together, setting up a sort of agrarian law, or common he has done me a great pleasure, while he was only pursuing a principle, as ignes fatui may light you home. This Rickman lives in our Buildings, immediately opposite our house; the finest fellow to drop in a' nights, about nine or ten o'clock-cold bread-andcheese time-just in the wishing time of the night, when you wish for somebody to come in, without a distinct idea of a probable anybody. Just in the nick, neither too early to be tedious, nor too late to sit a reasonable time. He is a most pleasant hand; a fine rattling fellow, has gone through life laughing at solemn apes;-himself hugely literate, On this occasion Lamb was disappointed; but he was consoled by the acquisition of a new friend, in Mr. Rickman of the House of oppressively full of information in all stuff of Commons, and exults in a strain which he never had reason to regret. This piece of rare felicity enabled him even to bear the loss conversation, from matter of fact to Xenophon and Plato-can talk Greek with Porson, politics with Thelwall, conjecture with George |