I am

immediately, if at any time you quit Bristol, what you bid me, and left 'em at Perry's.† lest I come and Taffy be not at home. II think 'em altogether good, and do not see hope I can come in a day or two; but young, why you were solicitous about any alteration S-, of my office, is suddenly taken ill in I have not yet seen, but will make it my this very nick of time, and I must officiate business to see, to-day's Chronicle, for your for him till he can come to work again: had verses on Horne Tooke. Dyer stanza'd him the knave gone sick, and died, and been in one of the papers tother day, but, I think, buried at any other time, philosophy might unsuccessfully. Tooke's friends meeting was, have afforded one comfort, but just now II suppose, a dinner of condolence. have no patience with him. Quarles I am as not sorry to find you (for all Sara) immersed great a stranger to as I was to Withers. I in clouds of smoke and metaphysics. You wish you would try and do something to know I had a sneaking kindness for this last bring our elder bards into more general noble science, and you taught me some smatfame. I writhe with indignation when, in tering of it. I look to become no mean probooks of criticism, where common-place quo- ficient under your tuition. Coleridge, what tation is heaped upon quotation, I find no do you mean by saying you wrote to me mention of such men as Massinger, or Beau- about Plutarch and Porphyry? I received mont and Fletcher, men with whom succeed- no such letter, nor remember a syllable of ing dramatic writers (Otway alone excepted)* the matter, yet am not apt to forget any part can bear no manner of comparison. Stupid Knox hath noticed none of 'em among his

extracts.

of your epistles, least of all, an injunction
like that. I will cast about for 'em, tho'
I am a sad hand to know what books are
worth, and both these worthy gentlemen are
alike out of my line. To-morrow I shall be
less suspensive, and in better cue to write, so
good bye at present.
"Friday Evening. That execrable aristo-
crat and knave R- has given me an abso-
lute refusal of leave. The poor man cannot
guess at my disappointment. Is it not hard,
this dread dependence on the low-bred
mind?' Continue to write to me tho', and

"Thursday. Mrs. C can scarce guess how she has gratified me by her very kind letter and sweet little poem. I feel that I should thank her in rhyme, but she must take my acknowledgment at present, in plain honest prose. The uncertainty in which I yet stand, whether I can come or no, damps my spirits, reduces me a degree below prosaical, and keeps me in a suspense that fluctuates between hope and fear. Hope is a charming, lively, blue-eyed wench, and I am always I must be content. Our loves and best good glad of her company, but could dispense with the visitor she brings with her her younger sister, Fear, a white-livered, lily-cheeked, bashful, palpitating, awkward hussy, that hangs like a green girl, at her sister's apronstrings, and will go with her whithersoever she goes. For the life and soul of me, I could not improve those lines in your poem on the Prince and Princess, so I changed them to

* An exception he certainly would not have made a few years afterwards; for he used to mention two pretty lines in the "Orphan,"

"Sweet as the shepherd's pipe upon the mountains, With all his fleecy flock at feed beside him,"

wishes attend upon you both. LAMB."

"S did return, but there are two or three more ill and absent, which was the plea for refusing me. I shall never have heart to ask for holidays again. The man next him in office, C, furnished him with the objections. C. LAMB."

The little copy of verses in which Lamb commemorated and softened his disappointment, bearing date (a most unusual circunfstance with Lamb), 5th July, 1796, was inclosed in a letter of the following day, which

as a redeeming passage amidst mere stage trickeries. refers to a scheme Coleridge had formed of

The great merit which lies in the construction of "Venice Preserved," was not in his line of appreciation; and he thought Thomson's reference to Otway's ladies --"poor Monimia moans,

And Belvidera pours her soul in love,"

worth both heroines.

settling in London on an invitation to share

+ Some occasional " verses of Coleridge's written to order for the Morning Chronicle.

This was just after the Westminster Election, in which Mr. Tooke was defeated.

the Editorship of the Morning Chronicle. | Islington, possibly, you would not like; to The poem includes a lamentation over a me 'tis classical ground. Knightsbridge is a fantastical loss-that of a draught of the desirable situation for the air of the parks; Avon "which Shakespeare drank;" somewhat strangely confounding the Avon of Stratford with that of Bristol. It may be doubted whether Shakespeare knew the taste of the waves of one Avon more than of the other, or whether Lamb would not have found more kindred with the world's poet in a glass of sack, than in the water of either stream. Coleridge must have enjoyed the misplaced sentiment of his friend, for he was singularly destitute of sympathy with local associations, which he regarded as interfering with the pure and simple impression of great deeds or thoughts; denied a special interest to the Pass of Thermopyla; and instead of subscribing to purchase 'Shakespeare's House," would scarcely have admitted the peculiar sanctity of the spot which enshrines

his ashes.

66

TO SARA AND HER SAMUEL.

"Was it so hard a thing?-I did but ask
A fleeting holiday. One little week,
Or haply two, had bounded my request.

What, if the jaded steer, who all day long
Had borne the heat and labour of the plough,
When evening came, and her sweet cooling hour,
Should seek to trespass on a neighbour copse,
Where greener herbage waved, or clearer streams
Invited him to slake his burning thirst?

That man was crabbed, who should say him nay;
That man were churlish, who should drive him
thence!

A blessing light upon your head, ye good,
Ye hospitable pair! I may not come,

To catch on Clifden's heights the summer gale;
I may not come, a pilgrim, to the banks
Of Avon, lucid stream, to taste the wave
Which Shakespeare drank, our British Helicon :
Or with mine eye intent on Redcliffe towers,
To muse in tears on that mysterious youth,
Cruelly slighted, who to London walls,
In evil hour, shaped his disastrous course.

St. George's Fields is convenient for its contiguity to the Bench. Choose! But are you really coming to town? The hope of it has entirely disarmed my petty disappointment of its nettles, yet I rejoice so much on my own account, that I fear I do not feel enough pure satisfaction on yours. Why, surely, the joint editorship of the Chronicle must le very comfortable and secure living for a man. But should not you read French, or do you? and can you write with sufficient moderation, as 'tis called, when one suppresses the one half of what one feels or could say on a subject, to chime in the better with popular lukewarmness? White's 'Letters' are near publication; could you review 'em or get 'em reviewed? Are you not connected with the Critical Review? His frontispiece is a good conceit-Sir John learning to dance to please Madam Page, in dress of doublet, &c., from the upper half, and modern pantaloons with shoes, &c., of the eighteenth century, from the lower half; and the whole work is full of goodly quips and rare fancies, all deftly masqued like hoar antiquity '-much superior to Dr. Kenrick's Falstaff's Wedding,' which you have seen. A sometimes laughs at superstition, and religion, and the like. A living fell vacant lately in the gift of the Hospital: White informed him that he stood a fair chance for it. He scrupled and scrupled about it, and at last, to use his own words, tampered' with Godwin to know whether the thing was honest or not. Godwin said nay to it, and A rejected the living! Could the blindest poor papist have bowed more servilely to his priest or casuist? Why sleep the Watchman's answers to that Godwin? I beg you will not delay to alter, if you mean to keep those last lines I sent you. Do that, and read these for your pains:

TO THE POET COWPER.

"Cowper, I thank my God that thou art heal'd!
Thine was the sorest malady of all;
And I am sad to think that it should light
Upon the worthy head! But thou art heal'd,
And thou art yet, we trust, the destined man,
Born to reanimate the lyre, whose chords
Have slumber'd, and have idle lain so long;
To the immortal sounding of whose stings
Did Milton frame the stately-paced verse;

Among whose wires with light finger playing,
Our elder bard, Spenser, a gentle name,
The lady Muses' dearest darling child,
Elicited the deftest tunes yet heard

In hall or bower, taking the delicate ear
Of Sidney and his peerless Maiden Queen.

would not save you in a court of justice.
But are you really coming to town? Cole-
ridge, a gentleman called in London lately
from Bristol, and inquired whether there
were any of the family of a Mr. Chambers
living: this Mr. Chambers, he said, had been

Thou, then, take up the mighty epic strain,
Cowper, of England's Bards, the wisest and the best. the making of a friend's fortune, who wished.

1796.

to make some return for it. He went away without seeing her. Now a Mrs. Reynolds, a very intimate friend of ours, whom you "I have read your climax of praises in have seen at our house, is the only daughter, those three Reviews. These mighty spouters and all that survives, of Mr. Chambers; and out of panegyric waters have, two of 'em, a very little supply would be of service to scattered their spray even upon me, and the her, for she married very unfortunately, and waters are cooling and refreshing. Prosaically, has parted with her husband. Pray find out the Monthly reviewers have made indeed a this Mr. Pember (for that was the gentleman's large article of it, and done you justice. The friend's name); he is an attorney, and lives Critical have, in their wisdom, selected not at Bristol. Find him out, and acquaint him the very best specimens, and notice not, with the circumstances of the case, and offer except as one name on the muster-roll, the to be the medium of supply to Mrs. Reynolds, 'Religious Musings.' I suspect Master Dyer if he chooses to make her a present. She is to have been the writer of that article, as the in very distressed circumstances. Mr. Pember, substance of it was the very remarks and attorney, Bristol. Mr. Chambers lived in the very language he used to me one day. I the Temple; Mrs. Reynolds, his daughter, fear you will not accord entirely with my was my schoolmistress, and is in the room at sentiments of Cowper, as expressed above this present writing. This last circumstance (perhaps scarcely just); but the poor gentle-induced me to write so soon again. I have man has just recovered from his lunacies, not further to add. Our loves to Sara. and that begets pity, and pity love, and love Thursday. admiration; and then it goes hard with people but they lie! Have you read the Ballad called 'Lenora,' in the second number of the Monthly Magazine! If you have!!!! There is another fine song, from the same author (Bürger), in the third number, of scarce inferior merit; and (vastly below these) there are some happy specimens of English hexameters, in an imitation of Ossian, in the fifth number. For your Dactylsam sorry you are so sore about 'em-a very Sir Fretful! In good troth, the Dactyls are good Dactyls, but their measure is naught. Be not yourself 'half anger, half agony,' if I pronounce your darling lines not to be the best you ever wrote in all your life - you have written much.

CHAPTER II.

C. LAMB."

LETTERS OF LAMB TO COLERIDGE, CHIEFLY RELATING
TO THE DEATH OF MRS. LAMB, AND MISS LAMB'S
SUBSEQUENT CONDITION.

THE autumn of 1796 found Lamb engaged all the morning in task-work at the India House, and all the evening in attempting to amuse his father by playing cribbage; sometimes snatching a few minutes for his only pleasure, writing to Coleridge; while Miss Lamb was worn down to a state of extreme nervous misery, by attention to needlework by day and to her mother by night, until the insanity, which had been manifested more than once, broke out into frenzy, which, on Thursday, 22nd of September, proved fatal to her mother. The following account of the proceedings on the inquest, copied from the

66

Times" of Monday, 26th September, 1796, supplies the details of this terrible calamity,

only give you the outlines; — My poor, dear, dearest sister, in a fit of insanity, has been the death of her own mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her grasp. She is at present in a madhouse, from whence I fear she must be moved to an hospital. God has preserved to

"On Friday afternoon, the coroner and a jury sat on the body of a lady in the neighbourhood of Holborn, who died in consequence of a wound from her daughter the preceding me my senses, — I eat, and drink, and sleep, day. It appeared, by the evidence adduced, and have my judgment, I believe, very that, while the family were preparing for sound. My poor father was slightly wounded, dinner, the young lady seized a case-knife and I am left to take care of him and my lying on the table, and in a menacing manner aunt. Mr. Norris, of the Blue-coat School, pursued a little girl, her apprentice, round has been very kind to us, and we have On the calls of her infirm mother no other friend; but, thank God, I am very calm and composed, and able to do the best that remains to do. Write as religious a letter as possible, but no mention of what is gone and done with. With me the former things are passed away,' and I have something more to do than to feel.

the room.

to forbear, she renounced her first object, and with loud shrieks, approached her parent. The child, by her cries, quickly brought up the landlord of the house, but too late. The dreadful scene presented to him the mother lifeless, pierced to the heart, on a chair, her daughter yet wildly standing over her with the fatal knife, and the old man, her father, weeping by her side, himself bleeding at the forehead from the effects of a severe blow he received from one of the forks she had been madly hurling about the

room.

"For a few days prior to this, the family had observed some symptoms of insanity in her, which had so much increased on the Wednesday evening, that her brother, early the next morning, went to Dr. Pitcairn, but that gentleman was not at home.

"Your own judgment will convince you not to take any notice of this yet to your dear wife. You look after your family, — I have my reason and strength left to take "It seems the young lady had been once be- care of mine. I charge you, don't think of fore deranged. coming to see me. Write. I will not see "The jury, of course, brought in their ver- you if you come. God Almighty love you dict-Lunacy."*

and all of us.

C. LAMB."

After the inquest, Miss Lamb was placed in

The following is Lamb's account of the an Asylum, where she was, in a short time, event to Coleridge:— restored to reason. The following is Lamb's next letter::

"September 27th, 1796.

"My dearest Friend, -White or some of my friends, or the public papers, by this time may have informed you of the terrible calamities that have fallen on our family. I will

* A statement nearly similar to this will be found in several other journals of the day, and in the Annual Register for the year. The "True Briton" adds: It appears she had been before, in the earlier part of her life, deranged, from the harassing fatigues of too much business As her carriage towards her mother had always been affectionate in the extreme, it is believed her increased attachment to her, as her infirmities called

TO MR. COLERIDGE.

"Oct. 3rd, 1792.

"My dearest Friend, -Your letter was an inestimable treasure to me. It will be a

for it by day and by night, caused her loss of reason at this time. It has been stated in some of the morning papers that she has an insane brother in confinement; but this is without foundation." None of the accounts give the names of the sufferers; but in the index to the Annual Register, the anonymous account is referred to with Mrs. Lamb's name.