book will exclusively contain criticisms, in which he asserts he has gone pretty deeply into the laws of blank verse and rhyme-epic poetry, dramatic and pastoral ditto-all which is to come out before Christmas. But above all he has touched most deeply upon the Drama, comparing the English with the modern German stage, their merits and defects. Apprehending that his studies (not to mention his turn, which I take to be chiefly towards the lyrical poetry) hardly qualified him for these disquisitions, I modestly inquired what plays he had read? I found by George's reply that he had read Shakspeare, but that was a good while since he calls him a great but irregular genius, which I think to be an original and just remark. (Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Ben Jonson, Shirley, Marlowe, Ford, and the worthies of Dodsley's Collection-he confessed he had read none of them, but professed his intention of looking through them all, so as to be able to touch upon them in his book.) So Shakspeare, Otway, and I believe Rowe, to whom he was naturally directed by Johnson's Lives, and these not read lately, are to stand him in stead of a general knowledge of the subject. God bless his dear absurd head! By the by, did I not write you a letter with something about an invitation in it ?-but let that pass; I suppose it is not agreeable. N.B. It would not be amiss if you were to accompany your present with a dissertation on negative quantities. Č. L. NOTE [Mr. Melmoth. A translation of the Letters of Pliny the Younger was made by William Melmoth in 1746. Trismegistus-thrice greatest-was the term applied to Hermes, the Egyptian philosopher. Manning had written An Introduction to Arithmetic and Algebra, 1796, 1798. William Frend (1757-1841), the mathematician and Unitarian, who had been prosecuted in the Vice-Chancellor's Court at Cambridge for a tract entitled "Peace and Union Recommended to the Associated Bodies of Republicans and Anti-Republicans," in which he attacked much of the Liturgy of the Church of England. He was found guilty and banished from the University of Cambridge. He had been a friend of Robert Robinson, whose life Dyer wrote, and remained a friend of Dyer to the end of his life. Coleridge had been among the undergraduates who supported Frend at his trial. "Mera nuga"-Sheer nonsense. * ". . .'s brain.” In a later letter (see page 633) Lamb uses Judge Park's wig, when his head is in it, as a simile for emptiness.] 1800 MARY LAMB'S BALLAD 183 How LETTER 66 CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE August 26th, 1800. Ow do you like this little epigram? It is not my writing, nor had I any finger in it. If you concur with me in thinking it very elegant and very original, I shall be tempted to name the author to you. I will just hint that it is almost or quite a first attempt. HELEN REPENTANT TOO LATE I High-born Helen, round your dwelling 2 High-born Helen! proudly telling 3 These twenty years I've lived on tears, On sighs I've fed, your scorn my bread; Can I, who loved my Beloved But for the "scorn was in her eye," Can I be moved for my Beloved, When she "returns me sigh for sigh?" 5 In stately pride, by my bed-side, High-born Helen's portrait's hung; 6 To that I weep, nor ever sleep, Complaining all night long to her! Godwin returned from Wicklow the week before last, tho' he did not reach home till the Sunday after. He might much better have spent that time with you.-But you see your invitation would have been too late. He greatly regrets the occasion he mist of visiting you, but he intends to revisit Ireland in the next summer, and then he will certainly take Keswick in his way. I dined with the Heathen on Sunday. By-the-by, I have a sort of recollection that somebody, I think you, promised me a sight of Wordsworth's Tragedy. I should be very glad of it just now; for I have got Manning with me, and should like to read it with him. But this, I confess, is a refinement. Under any circumstances, alone in Cold Bath Prison, or in the desert island, just when Prospero & his crew had set off, with Caliban in a cage, to Milan, it would be a treat to me to read that play. Manning has read it, so has Lloyd, and all Lloyd's family; but I could not get him to betray his trust by giving me a sight of it. Lloyd is sadly deficient in some of those virtuous vices. I have just lit upon a most beautiful fiction of hell punishments, by the author of "Hurlothrumbo," a mad farce. The inventor imagines that in hell there is a great caldron of hot water, in which a man can scarce hold his finger, and an immense sieve over it, into which the probationary souls are put. "And all the little souls Pop through the riddle holes." Mary's love to Mrs. Coleridge-mine to all. George Dyer is the only literary character I am happily acquainted with. The oftener I see him, the more deeply I admire him. He is goodness itself. If I could but calculate the precise date of his death, I would write a novel on purpose to make George the hero. I could hit him off to a hair. The Doctor is a George brought a Dr. Anderson to see me. very pleasant old man, a great genius for agriculture, one that ties his breeches-knees with Packthread, & boasts of having had disappointments from ministers. The Doctor happened to mention an Epic Poem by one Wilkie, called the "Epigoniad," in which he assured us there is not one tolerable line from beginning to end, but all the characters, incidents, &c., are verbally copied from Homer. George, who had been sitting quite inattentive to the Doctor's criticism, no sooner heard the sound of Homer strike his pericraniks, than up he gets, and declares he must see that poem immediately: where was it to be had? An epic poem of 800 [? 8,000] lines, and he not hear of it! There must be some things good in it, and it was necessary he should see it, for he had touched pretty deeply upon that subject in his criticisms on the Epic. George has touched pretty deeply upon the Lyric, I find; he has also prepared a dissertation on the Drama and the comparison of the English and German theatres. As I rather doubted his competency to do the latter, knowing that his peculiar turn lies in the lyric species of composition, I questioned George what English plays he had read. 1800 COTTLE'S GUINEA EPIC 185 I found that he had read Shakspere (whom he calls an original, but irregular, genius), but it was a good while ago; and he has dipt into Rowe and Otway, I suppose having found their names in Johnson's Lives at full length; and upon this slender ground he has undertaken the task. He never seem'd even to have heard of Fletcher, Ford, Marlow, Massinger, and the Worthies of Dodsley's Collection; but he is to read all these, to prepare him for bringing out his "Parallel" in the winter. I find he is also determined to vindicate Poetry from the shackles which Aristotle & some others have imposed upon it, which is very good-natured of him, and very necessary just now! Now I am touching so deeply upon poetry, can I forget that I have just received from Cottle a magnificent copy of his Guinea Epic. Four-and-twenty Books to read in the dog-days! I got as far as the Mad Monk the first day, & fainted. Mr. Cottle's genius strongly points him to the Pastoral, but his inclinations divert him perpetually from his calling. He imitates Southey, as Rowe did Shakspeare, with his "Good morrow to ye; good master Lieut." Instead of a man, a woman, a daughter, he constantly writes one a man, one a woman, one his daughter. Instead of the king, the hero, he constantly writes, he the king, he the hero-two flowers of rhetoric palpably from the "Joan." But Mr. Cottle soars a higher pitch: and when he is original, it is in a most original way indeed. His terrific scenes are indefatigable. Serpents, asps, spiders, ghosts, dead bodies, staircases made of nothing, with adders' tongues for bannisters-My God! what a brain he must have! He puts as many plums in his pudding as my Grandmother used to do; and then his emerging from Hell's horrors into Light, and treading on pure flats of this earth for twenty-three Books together! C. L. NOTE [The little epigram was by Mary Lamb. It was printed first in the John Woodvil volume in 1802; and again, in a footnote to Lamb's essay "Blakesmoor in H-shire," 1824. Godwin's return was from his visit to Curran. Coleridge had asked him to break his journey at Keswick. "Wordsworth's Tragedy ""The Borderers." "Hurlothrumbo," an opera, was written by Samuel Johnson (1691-1773), a dancing master. It was produced at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket in 1729 and afterwards published. "I would write a novel." Lamb returns to this idea in Letter 91 on page 232. One of Dyer's printed criticisms of Shakespeare, in his Poetics, some years later might be quoted: "Shakespeare had the inward clothing of a fine mind; the outward covering of solid reading, of critical observation, and the richest eloquence; and compared with these, what are the trappings of the schools?" "Cottle's Guinea Epic." This would be Alfred, an Epic Poem, by Joseph Cottle, the publisher.] LETTER 67 CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING [P.M. August 28, 1800.] G EORGE DYER is an Archimedes, and an Archimagus, and a Tycho Brahé, and a Copernicus; and thou art the darling of the Nine, and midwife to their wandering babe also! We take tea with that learned poet and critic on Tuesday night, at half-past five, in his neat library; the repast will be light and Attic, with criticism. If thou couldst contrive to wheel up thy dear carcase on the Monday, and after dining with us on tripe, calves' kidneys, or whatever else the Cornucopia of St. Clare may be willing to pour out on the occasion, might we not adjourn together to the Heathen's-thou with thy Black Backs and I with some innocent volume of the Bell Letters-Shenstone, or the like? It would make him wash his old flannel gown (that has not been washed to my knowledge since it has been his-Oh the long time!) with tears of joy. Thou shouldst settle his scruples and unravel his cobwebs, and sponge off the sad stuff that weighs upon his dear wounded pia mater; thou shouldst restore light to his eyes, and him to his friends and the public; Parnassus should shower her civic crowns upon thee for saving the wits of a citizen! I thought I saw a lucid interval in George the other night-he broke in upon my studies just at tea-time, and brought with him Dr. Anderson, an old gentleman who ties his breeches' knees with packthread, and boasts that he has been disappointed by ministers. Doctor wanted to see me; for, I being a Poet, he thought I might furnish him with a copy of verses to suit his "Agricultural Magazine." The Doctor, in the course of the conversation, mentioned a poem called "Epigoniad" by one Wilkie, an epic poem, in which there is not one tolerable good line all through, but every incident and speech borrowed from Homer. George had been sitting inattentive seemingly to what was going onhatching of negative quantities—when, suddenly, the name of his old friend Homer stung his pericranicks, and, jumping up, he begged to know where he could meet with Wilkie's work. "It The |