ECQUID
meditatur Archimedes? What is Euclid doing? What has happened to learned
Trismegist?—Doth he take it in ill part, that his
humble friend did not comply with his courteous invitation? Let it suffice, I
could not come—are impossibilities nothing—be they abstractions of the
intellects or not (rather) most sharp and mortifying realities? nuts in the
Will’s mouth too hard for her to crack?
brick’ and stone walls in her way, which she can by no means eat through?
sore lets, impedimenta viarum, no
thoroughfares? racemi nimium alte
pendentes? Is the phrase classic? I allude to the grapes in
Æsop, which cost the fox a strain, and
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
really 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 another. George
brings all sorts of people together, setting up a sort of agrarian
| 192 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Nov. |
At last I have written to Kemble, to know the event of my play, which was presented last
Christmas. As I suspected, came an answer back that the copy was lost, and
could not be found—no hint that anybody had to this day ever looked into
it—with a courteous (reasonable!) request of another copy (if I had one by me,)
and a promise of a definitive answer in a week. I could not resist so facile
and moderate a demand, so scribbled out another, omitting sundry things, such
as the witch story, about half of the forest scene (which is too leisurely for
story), and transposing that damn’d soliloquy about England getting
drunk, which, like its reciter, stupidly stood alone, nothing prevenient or
antevenient, and cleared away a good deal besides; and sent this copy, written
| 1800 | JOHN RICKMAN | 193 |
This is all my Lunnon news. Send me some from the banks of Cam, as the poets delight to speak, especially George Dyer, who has no other name, nor idea, nor definition of Cambridge: namely, its being a market-town, sending members to Parliament, never entered into his definition: it was and is, simply, the banks of the Cam or the fair Cam, as Oxford is the banks of the Isis or the fair Isis. Yours in all humility, most illustrious Trismegist,
(Read on; there’s more at the bottom.)
You ask me about the “Farmer’s Boy”—don’t you think the fellow who wrote it (who is a shoemaker) has a poor mind? Don’t you find he is always silly about poor Giles, and those abject kind of phrases, which mark a man that looks up to wealth? None of Burns’s poet-dignity. What do you think? I have just opened him; but he makes me sick. Dyer knows the shoemaker (a damn’d stupid hound in company); but George promises to introduce him indiscriminately to all friends and all combinations.
