I CAN have no objection to your printing “Mystery of God” with my name and all due acknowledgments for the honour and favour of the communication; indeed, ’tis a poem that can dishonour no name. Now, that is in the true strain of modern modesto-vanitas. . . . But for the sonnet, I heartily wish it, as I thought it was, dead and forgotten. If the exact circumstances under which I wrote could be known or told, it would be an interesting sonnet; but to an indifferent and stranger reader it must appear a very bald thing, certainly inadmissible in a compilation. I wish you could affix a different name to the volume; there is a contemptible book, a wretched assortment of vapid feelings, entitled “Pratt’s Gleanings,” which hath damned and impropriated the title for ever. Pray think of some other. The gentleman is better known (better had he remained unknown) by an Ode to Benevolence, written and spoken for and at the annual dinner of the Humane Society, who walk in procession once a-year, with all the objects of their charity before them, to return God thanks for giving them such benevolent hearts.
I like “Bishop Bruno;” but not so abundantly as your “Witch Ballad,” which is an exquisite thing of its kind.
I showed my “Witch” and “Dying Lover” to Dyer last night; but
George could not comprehend how that could be poetry
which did not go upon ten feet, as George and his
predecessors had taught it to do; so George read me some
lectures on the distinguishing qualities of the Ode, the Epigram, and the Epic,
and went home to illustrate his doctrine by correcting a proof sheet of his own
Lyrics. George writes odes where the rhymes, like
fashionable man and wife, keep a comfortable distance of six or eight lines
apart, and calls that “observing the laws of verse.”
George tells you, before he recites, that you must
listen with great attention,
| 1798 | LAMB’S TAILOR | 135 |
Your recipe for a Turk’s poison is invaluable and truly Marlowish. . . . Lloyd objects to “shutting up the womb of his purse” in my Curse (which for a Christian witch in a Christian country is not too mild, I hope); do you object? I think there is a strangeness in the idea, as well as “shaking the poor like snakes from his door,” which suits the speaker. Witches illustrate, as fine ladies do, from their own familiar objects, and snakes and the shutting up of wombs are in their way. I don’t know that this last charge has been before brought against ’em, nor either the sour milk or the mandrake babe; but I affirm these be things a witch would do if she could.
My Tragedy will be a medley (as [? and] I intend it to be a medley) of laughter and tears, prose and verse, and in some places rhyme, songs, wit, pathos, humour, and, if possible, sublimity; at least, it is not a fault in my intention, if it does not comprehend most of these discordant colours. Heaven send they dance not the “Dance of Death!” I hear that the Two Noble Englishmen have parted no sooner than they set foot on German earth, but I have not heard the reason—possibly, to give novelists an handle to exclaim, “Ah me! what things are perfect?” I think I shall adopt your emendation in the “Dying Lover,” though I do not myself feel the objection against “Silent Prayer.”
My tailor has brought me home a new coat lapelled, with a
velvet collar. He assures me everybody wears velvet collars now. Some are born
fashionable, some achieve fashion, and others, like your humble servant, have
fashion thrust upon them. The rogue has been making inroads hitherto by modest
degrees, foisting upon me an additional button, recommending gaiters; but to
come upon me thus in a full tide of luxury, neither becomes him as a tailor nor
the ninth of a man. My meek gentleman was robbed the other day, coming with his
wife and family in a one-horse shay from Hampstead; the villains rifled him of
four guineas, some shillings and half-pence, and a bundle of customers’
measures, which they swore were bank-notes. They did not shoot him, and when
they rode off he addrest them with profound gratitude, making a congee:
“Gentlemen, I wish you good night, and we are very much obliged to
you that you have not used us ill!” And this is the cuckoo that
has had the audacity to foist upon me ten
| 136 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Nov. |
When you write to Lloyd, he wishes his Jacobin correspondents to address him as Mr. C. L. Love and respects to Edith. I hope she is well.
