DEAR C.—We
are going off to Enfield, to Allsop’s, for a day or 2, with some intention of
succeeding them in their lodging for a time, for this damn’d nervous
Fever (vide Lond. Mag. for July) indisposes me
for seeing any friends, and never any poor devil was so befriended as I am. Do
you know any poor solitary human that
| 1825 | THE THEORY OF THE PUN | 685 |
They are hearty good-natured things, and I would put my name to ’em chearfully, if I could as honestly. I complimented them in a Newspaper, with an abatement for those puns you laud so. They are generally an excess. A Pun is a thing of too much consequence to be thrown in as a make-weight. You shall read one of the addresses over, and miss the puns, and it shall be quite as good and better than when you discover ’em. A Pun is a Noble Thing per se: O never lug it in as an accessory. A Pun is a sole object for reflection (vide my aids to that recessment from a savage state)—it is entire, it fills the mind: it is perfect as a Sonnet, better. It limps asham’d in the train and retinue of Humour: it knows it should have an establishment of its own. The one, for instance, I made the other day, I forget what it was.
Hood will be gratify’d, as much as I am, by your mistake. I liked ‘Grimaldi’ the best; it is true painting, of abstract Clownery, and that precious concrete of a Clown: and the rich succession of images, and words almost such, in the first half of the Mag. Ignotum. Your picture of the Camel, that would not or could not thread your nice needle-eye of Subtilisms, was confiim’d by Elton, who perfectly appreciated his abrupt departure. Elton borrowed the “Aids” from Hessey (by the way what is your Enigma about Cupid? I am Cytherea’s son, if I understand a tittle of it), and returnd it next day saying that 20 years ago, when he was pure, he thought as you do now, but that he now thinks as you did 20 years ago. But E. seems a very honest fellow. Hood has just come in; his sick eyes sparkled into health when he read your approbation. They had meditated a copy for you, but postponed it till a neater 2d Edition, which is at hand.
Have you heard the Creature at the Opera House—Signor Nonvir sed veluti Vir?
Like Orpheus, he is said to draw storks &c. after him. A picked raisin for a sweet banquet of sounds; but I affect not these exotics. Nos durum genus, as mellifluous Ovid hath it.
Fanny Holcroft is just come in, with her
paternal severity of aspect. She has frozen a bright thought which should have
follow’d. She makes us marble, with too little conceiving. ’Twas
| 686 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | July |
We are setting out to walk to Enfield after our Beans and Bacon, which are just smoking.
Kindest remembrances to the G.’s ever.
From Islinton,
2d day, 3d month of my Hegira or Flight from Leadenhall.
