118. [When first young Vernon's flight she knew, The lady deemed the tale untrue.]

"Deemed"! This word is just repeated above; say "thought" or "held."

"Deem" is half-cousin to "ween" and "wot."

143. [By pure intent and soul sincere Sustained and nerved, I will not fear Reproach, shame, scorn, the taunting jeer, And worse than all, a father's sneer.]

A father's "sneer"? Would a high-born man in those days _sneer_ at a daughter's disgrace--would he _only_ sneer?

Reproach, and biting shame, and--worse Than all--the estranged father's curse.

I only throw this hint out in a hurry.

177. "Stern and _sear_"? I see a meaning in it, but no word is good that startles one at first, and then you have to make it out: "drear,"

perhaps. Then why "to minstrel's glance"? "To fancy's eye," you would say, not "to fiddler's eye."

422. A knight thinks, he don't "trow."

424. "Mayhap" is vulgarish. Perchance.

464. "Sensation" is a philosophic prose word. Feeling.

27. [The hill, where ne'er rang woodman's stroke, Was clothed with elm and spreading oak, Through whose black boughs the moon's mild ray As hardly strove to win a way, As pity to a miser's heart.]

Natural ill.u.s.trations come more naturally when by _them_ we expound mental operations than when we deduce from natural objects similes of the mind's workings. The miser's struggle thus compared is a beautiful image. But the storm and clouds do not inversely so readily suggest the miser.

160. [Havock and Wrath, his maniac bride, Wheel o'er the conflict, &c.]

These personified gentry I think are not in taste. Besides, Fear has been pallid any time these 2,000 years. It is mixing the style of Aeschylus and the _Last Minstrel_.

175. Bracy is a good rough vocative. No better suggests itself, unless Grim, Baron Grimm, or Grimoald, which is Saxon, or Grimbald! Tracy would obviate your objection [that the name Bracy occurs in _Ivanhoe_] but Bracy is stronger.

231. [The frown of night Conceals him, and bewrays their sight.]

Betrays. The other has an _unlucky a.s.sociation_.

243. [The glinting moon's half-shrouded ray.]

Why "glinting," Scotch, when "glancing" is English?

421. [Then solemnly the monk did say, (The Abbot of Saint Mary's gray,) The leman of a wanton youth Perhaps may gain her father's _ruth_, But _never_ on his injured breast May lie, caressing and caressed.

Bethink you of the vow you made When your light daughter, all distraught, From yonder slaughter-plain was brought, That if in some secluded cell She might till death securely dwell, The house of G.o.d should share her wealth.]

Holy abbots surely never so undisguisedly blurted out their secular aims.

I think there is so much of this kind of poetry, that it would not be _very taking_, but it is well worthy of pleasing a private circle. One blemish runs thro', the perpetual accompaniment of natural images.

Seasons of the year, times of day, phases of the moon, phenomena of flowers, are quite as much your _dramatis personae_ as the warriors and the ladies. This last part is as good as what precedes.

LETTER 607

CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE

[No date. End of July, 1834.]

Dear Sir, I am totally incapable of doing what you suggest at present, and think it right to tell you so _without delay_. It would shock me, who am shocked enough already, to sit down to _write_ about it. I have no letters of poor C. By and bye what sc.r.a.ps I have shall be yours. Pray excuse me. It is not for want of obliging you, I a.s.sure you. For your Box we most cordially feel thankful. I shall be your debtor in my poor way. I do a.s.sure you I am incapable.

Again, excuse me

Yours sincerely

C.L.

[Coleridge's death had occurred on July 25, in his sixty-second year; and Dilke had written to Lamb asking for some words on that event, for _The Athenaeum_. A little while later a request was made by John Forster that Lamb would write something for the alb.u.m of a Mr. Keymer. It was then that Lamb wrote the few words that stand under the t.i.tle "On the Death of Coleridge" (see Vol. I.). Forster wrote thus of the effect of Coleridge's death upon Lamb:--

He thought of little else (his sister was but another portion of himself) until his own great spirit joined his friend. He had a habit of venting his melancholy in a sort of mirth. He would, with nothing graver than a pun, "cleanse his bosom of the perilous stuff that weighed" upon it. In a jest, or a few light phrases, he would lay open the last recesses of his heart. So in respect of the death of Coleridge. Some old friends of his saw him two or three weeks ago, and remarked the constant turning and reference of his mind. He interrupted himself and them almost every instant with some play of affected wonder, or astonishment, or humorous melancholy, on the words, "_Coleridge is dead_." Nothing could divert him from that, for the thought of it never left him.

Wordsworth said that Coleridge's death hastened Lamb's.]

LETTER 608

CHARLES LAMB TO REV. JAMES GILLMAN

Mr. Walden's, Church Street,

Edmonton, August 5, 1834.

My dear Sir,--The sad week being over, I must write to you to say, that I was glad of being spared from attending; I have no words to express my feeling with you all. I can only say that when you think a short visit from me would be acceptable, when your father and mother shall be able to see me _with comfort_, I will come to the bereaved house. Express to them my tenderest regards and hopes that they will continue our friends still. We both love and respect them as much as a human being can, and finally thank them with our hearts for what they have been to the poor departed.

G.o.d bless you all,

C. LAMB.

[Talfourd writes: "Shortly after, a.s.sured that his presence would be welcome, Lamb went to Highgate. There he asked leave to see the nurse who had attended upon Coleridge; and being struck and affected by the feeling she manifested towards his friend, insisted on her receiving five guineas from him."

Here should come a letter to J.H. Green dated August 26, 1834, thanking him for a copy of Coleridge's will and offering to send all letters, etc., and "fragments of handwriting from leaves of good old books."]

LETTER 609

CHARLES AND MARY LAMB TO H.F. CARY

Sept. 12, 1834.