DEAR Wordsworth, I cannot tell you how pleased I was at the receit
of the great Armful of
Poetry which you have sent me, and to get it before the rest of the
world too! I have gone quite through with it, and was thinking to have
accomplishd that pleasure a second time before I wrote to thank you, but
M. Burney came in the night (while
we were out) and made holy theft of it, but we expect restitution in a day or
two. It is the noblest conversational poem I ever read. A day in heaven. The
part (or rather main body) which has left the sweetest odour on my memory (a
bad term for the remains of an impression so recent) is the Tales of the Church
yard. The only girl among seven brethren, born out of due time and not duly
taken away again—the deaf man and the blind man—the Jacobite and the Hanoverian
whom antipathies reconcile—the Scarron-entry of the rusticating parson upon his
solitude—these were all new to me too. My having known the story of Margaret (at the beginning), a very old
acquaintance, even as long back as I saw you first at Stowey, did not make her
re-
| 1814 | THE HYDE PARK FESTIVAL | 435 |
That gorgeous Sunset is famous, I think it must have been the identical one we saw on Salisbury plain five years ago, that drew Phillips from the card table where he had sat from rise of that luminary to its unequall’d set, but neither he nor I had gifted eyes to see those symbols of common things glorified such as the prophets saw them, in that sunset—the wheel—the potter’s clay—the wash pot—the wine press—the almond tree rod—the baskets of figs—the fourfold visaged head, the throne and him that sat thereon.
One feeling I was particularly struck with as what I recognised so very lately at Harrow Church on entering in it after a hot and secular day’s pleasure,—the instantaneous coolness and calming, almost transforming, properties of a country church just entered—a certain fragrance which it has—either from its holiness, or being kept shut all the week, or the air that is let in being pure country—exactly what you have reduced into words but I am feeling I cannot. The reading your lines about it fixed me for a time, a monument, in Harrow Church, (do you know it?) with its fine long Spire white as washd marble, to be seen by vantage of its high scite as far as Salisbury spire itself almost—
I shall select a day or two very shortly when I am coolest in brain to have a steady second reading, which I feel will lead to many more, for it will be a stock book with me while eyes or spectacles shall be lent me.
There is a deal of noble matter about mountain scenery, yet not so much as to overpower and discountenance a poor Londoner or South country man entirely, though Mary seems to have felt it occasionally a little too powerfully, for it was her remark during reading it that by your system it was doubtful whether a Liver in Towns had a Soul to be Saved. She almost trembled for that invisible part of us in her.
Save for a late excursion to Harrow and a day or two on the banks of the Thames this Summer, rural images were fast fading from my mind, and by the wise provision of the Regent all that was countryfy’d in the Parks is all but obliterated. The very colour of green is vanishd, the whole surface of Hyde Park is dry crumbling sand (Arabia Arenosa), not a vestige or hint of grass ever having grown there, booths and drinking places go all round it for a mile and half I am confident—I might say two miles in circuit—the stench of liquors, bad tobacco, dirty people and provisions, conquers the air and we are stifled and suffocated in Hyde Park.
Order after Order has been issued by Ld. Sidmouth in the name
of the Regent (acting in behalf of his Royal
father) for the dispersion of the varlets, but in vain. The vis
unita of all the
| 436 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | August |
at the coming of the milder
day These monuments shall all be overgrown. |
After all, the fireworks were splendent—the Rockets in clusters, in trees and all shapes, spreading about like young stars in the making, floundering about in Space (like unbroke horses) till some of Newton’s calculations should fix them, but then they went out. Any one who could see ’em and the still finer showers of gloomy rain fire that fell sulkily and angrily from ’em, and could go to bed without dreaming of the Last Day, must be as hardened an Atheist as * * * * * *.
Again let me thank you for your present and assure you that fireworks and triumphs have not distracted me from receiving a calm and noble enjoyment from it (which I trust I shall often), and I sincerely congratulate you on its appearance.
With kindest remembrances to you & household, we remain—yours sincerely
