I AM ashamed that I have not thanked you before this
for the “Joan of
Arc,” but I did not know your address, and it did not occur to me
to write through Cottle. The poem
delighted me, and the notes amused me, but methinks she of Neufchatel, in the
print, holds her sword too “like a dancer.” I sent your notice to Phillips, particularly requesting an immediate
| 122 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | July |
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to the eternal regret of his native Devonshire, emigrates to Westphalia—“Poor Lamb (these were his last words), if he wants any knowledge, he may apply to me,”—in ordinary cases, I thanked him, I have an “Encyclopædia” at hand, but on such an occasion as going over to a German university, I could not refrain from sending him the following propositions, to be by him defended or oppugned (or both) at Leipsic or Gottingen.
“Whether God loves a lying angel better than a true man?”
“Whether the archangel Uriel could knowingly affirm an untruth, and whether, if he could, he would?”
“Whether honesty be an angelic virtue, or not rather belonging to that class of qualities which the schoolmen term ‘virtutes minus splendidæ et hominis et terræ nimis participes?’”
“Whether the seraphim ardentes do not manifest their goodness by the way of vision and theory? and whether practice be not a sub-celestial, and merely human virtue?”
“Whether the higher order of seraphim illuminati ever sneer?”
| 1798 | FIRST LETTER TO SOUTHEY | 123 |
“Whether pure intelligences can love, or whether they can love anything besides pure intellect?”
“Whether the beatific vision be anything more or less than a perpetual representment to each individual angel of his own present attainments, and future capabilities, something in the manner of mortal looking-glasses?”
“Whether an ‘immortal and amenable soul’ may not come to be damned at last, and the man never suspect it beforehand?”
Samuel Taylor C. hath not deigned an answer; was it impertinent of me to avail myself of that offered source of knowledge? Lloyd is returned to town from Ipswich where he has been with his brother. He has brought home three acts of a Play which I have not yet read. The scene for the most part laid in a Brothel. O tempore, O mores! but as friend Coleridge said when he was talking bawdy to Miss —— “to the pure all things are pure.”
Wishing “Madoc” may be born into the world with as splendid promise as the second birth or purification of the Maid of Neufchatel,—I remain yours sincerely,
I hope Edith is better; my kindest remembrances to her. You have a good deal of trifling to forgive in this letter.
