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"I heard of you from Mr. Pulham this morning, and that gave a fillip to my laziness, which has been intolerable; but I am so taken up with pruning and gardening, quite

of infidelity, in the Quarterly article,' Progress of Infidelity.' I had not, nor have seen the Monthly. He might have spared an old friend such a construction of a few careless flights, that meant no harm to religion. If a new sort of occupation to me. I have all his unguarded expressions on the subject were to be collected-but I love and respect Southey, and will not retort. I hate his review, and his being a reviewer. The hint he has dropped will knock the sale of the book on the head, which was almost at a stop before. Let it stop,-there is corn in Egypt, while there is cash at Leadenhall! You and I are something besides being writers, thank God!

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"Dear B. B.,--What will you not say for my not writing? You cannot say, I do not write now. When you come London-ward, you will find me no longer in Covent Garden; I have a cottage, in Colebrook Row, Islington; a cottage, for it is detached; a white house, with six good rooms; the New River (rather elderly by this time) runs (if a moderate walking pace can be so termed) close to the foot of the house; and behind is a spacious garden with vines (I assure you), pears, strawberries, parsnips, leeks, carrots, cabbages, to delight the heart of old Alcinous. You enter without passage into a cheerful dining-room, all studded over and rough with old books; and above is a lightsome drawing-room, three windows, full of choice prints. I feel like a great lord, never having had a house before.

"The 'London,' I fear, falls off. I linger among its creaking rafters, like the last rat ; it will topple down if they don't get some buttresses. They have pulled down three; Hazlitt, Procter, and their best stay, kind, light-hearted Wainwright, their Janus. The best is, neither of our fortunes is concerned in it.

gathered my jargonels, but my Windsor pears are backward. The former were of exquisite raciness. I do now sit under my own vine, and contemplate the growth of vegetable nature. I can now understand in what sense they speak of father Adam. I recognise the paternity, while I watch my tulips. I almost fell with him, for the first day I turned a drunken gardener (as he let in the serpent) into my Eden, and he laid about him, lopping off some choice boughs, &c., which hung over from a neighbour's garden, and in his blind zeal laid waste a shade, which had sheltered their window from the gaze of passers-by. The old gentlewoman (fury made her not handsome) could scarcely be reconciled by all my fine words. There was no buttering her parsnips. She talked of the law. What a lapse to commit on the first day of my happy' garden-state!'

"I hope you transmitted the Fox-Journal to its owner, with suitable thanks. Mr. Cary, the Dante-man, dines with me to-day. He is a model of a country parson, lean (as a curate ought to be), modest, sensible, no obtruder of church dogmas, quite a different man from —. You would like him. Pray accept this for a letter, and believe me, with sincere regards, Yours, C. L."

In the next letter to Barton, Lamb referred to an intended letter to Southey in the Magazine.

TO BERNARD BARTON.

"September 17th, 1823.

"Dear Sir, I have again been reading your 'Stanzas on Bloomfield,' which are the most appropriate that can be imagined,— sweet with Doric delicacy. I like that,

'Our own more chaste Theocritus'

just hinting at the fault of the Grecian. I
love that stanza ending with,

'Words, phrases, fashions, pass away;
But truth and nature live through all.'

But I shall omit in my own copy the one

stanza which alludes to Lord B. I suppose. It spoils the sweetness and oneness of the feeling. Cannot we think of Burns, or Thomson, without sullying the thought with a reflection out of place upon Lord Rochester? These verses might have been inscribed upon a tomb; are in fact an epitaph; satire does not look pretty upon a tomb-stone. Besides, there is a quotation in it, always bad in verse, seldom advisable in prose. I doubt if their having been in a paper will not prevent T. and H. from insertion, but I shall have a thing to send in a day or two, and shall try them. Omitting that stanza, a very little alteration is wanting in the beginning of the next. You see, I use freedom. How happily, (I flatter not) you have brought in his subjects; and (I suppose) his favourite measure, though I am not acquainted with any of his writings but the 'Farmer's Boy.' He dined with me once, and his manners took me exceedingly.

"I rejoice that you forgive my long silence. I continue to estimate my own-roof comforts highly. How could I remain all my life a lodger? My garden thrives (I am told), though I have yet reaped nothing but some tiny salad, and withered carrots. But a garden's a garden anywhere, and twice a garden in London.

"Do you go on with your 'Quaker Sonnets?' have 'em ready with 'Southey's Book of the Church.' I meditate a letter to S. in the 'London,' which perhaps will meet the fate of the Sonnet.

"Excuse my brevity, for I write painfully at office, liable to a hundred callings off; and I can never sit down to an epistle elsewhere. I read or walk. If you return this letter. to the Post-office, I think they will return fourpence, seeing it is but half a one. Believe me, though, C. L."

Entirely yours,

The contemplated expostulation with Southey was written, and appeared in the "London Magazine for October 1823." Lamb did not print it in any subsequent collection of his essays; but I give it now, as I have reason to know that its publication will cause no painful feelings in the mind of Mr. Southey, and as it forms the only ripple on the kindliness of Lamb's personal and literary life.

LETTER OF ELIA TO ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ. "Sir,-You have done me an unfriendly office, without perhaps much considering what you were doing. You have given an ill name to my poor lucubrations. In a recent paper on Infidelity, you usher in a conditional commendation of them with an exception: which, preceding the encomium, and taking up nearly the same space with it, must impress your readers with the notion, that the objectionable parts in them are at least equal in quantity to the pardonable. The censure is in fact the criticism; the praise— a concession merely. Exceptions usually follow, to qualify praise or blame. But there stands your reproof, in the very front of your notice, in ugly characters, like some bugbear, to frighten all good Christians from purchasing. Through you I become an object of suspicion to preceptors of youth, and fathers of families. A book, which wants only a sounder religious feeling to be as delightful as it is original. With no further explanation, what must your readers conjecture, but that my little volume is some vehicle for heresy or infidelity? The quotation, which you honour me by subjoining, oddly enough, is of a character which bespeaks a temperament in the writer the very reverse of that your reproof goes to insinuate. Had you been taxing me with superstition, the passage would have been pertinent to the censure. Was it worth your while to go so far out of your way to affront the feelings of an old friend, and commit yourself by an irrelevant quotation, for the pleasure of reflecting upon a poor child, an exile at Genoa?

"I am at a loss what particular essay you had in view (if my poor ramblings amount to that appellation) when you were in such a hurry to thrust in your objection, like bad news, foremost.-Perhaps the paper on 'Saying Graces' was the obnoxious feature. I have endeavoured there to rescue a voluntary duty-good in place, but never, as I remember, literally commanded-from the charge of an undecent formality. Rightly taken, sir, that paper was not against graces, but want of grace; not against the ceremony, but the carelessness and slovenliness so often observed in the performance of it.

"Or was it that on the 'New Year'—in which I have described the feelings of the

optics), as plainly as with the eye of flesh, shall behold a given king in bliss, and a given chamberlain in torment; even to the eternising of a cast of the eye in the latter, his own self-mocked and good-humouredly-borne de

merely natural man, on a consideration of the to be desperate. Others (with stronger amazing change, which is supposable to take place on our removal from this fleshly scene? If men would honestly confess their misgivings (which few men will) there are times when the strongest Christian of us, I believe, has reeled under questions of such staggering formity on earth, but supposed to aggravate obscurity. I do not accuse you of this weakness. There are some who tremblingly reach out shaking hands to the guidance of Faith --others who stoutly venture into the dark (their Human Confidence their leader, whom they mistake for Faith); and, investing themselves beforehand with cherubic wings, as they fancy, find their new robes as familiar, and fitting to their supposed growth and stature in godliness, as the coat they left off yesterday-some whose hope totters upon crutches-others who stalk into futurity upon

stilts.

the uncouth and hideous expression of his pangs in the other place. That one man can presume so far, and that another would with shuddering disclaim such confidences, is, I believe, an effect of the nerves purely.

"If in either of these papers, or elsewhere, I have been betrayed into some levities-not affronting the sanctuary, but glancing perhaps at some of the outskirts and extreme edges, the debateable land between the holy and profane regions-(for the admixture of man's inventions, twisting themselves with the name of the religion itself, has artfully made it "The contemplation of a Spiritual World, difficult to touch even the alloy, without, in -which, without the addition of a misgiving some men's estimation, soiling the fine gold) conscience, is enough to shake some natures—if I have sported within the purlieus of to their foundation-is smoothly got over by serious matter—it was, I dare say, a humour others, who shall float over the black billows-be not startled, sir,—which I have unwitin their little boat of No-Distrust, as unconcernedly as over a summer sea. The difference is chiefly constitutional.

"One man shall love his friends and his friends' faces; and, under the uncertainty of conversing with them again, in the same manner and familiar circumstances of sight, speech, &c. as upon earth-in a moment of no irreverent weakness-for a dream-whileno more-would be almost content, for a reward of a life of virtue (if he could ascribe such acceptance to his lame performances), to take up his portion with those he loved, and was made to love, in this good world, which he knows-which was created so lovely, beyond his deservings. Another, embracing a more exalted vision-so that he might receive indefinite additaments of power, knowledge, beauty, glory, &c.—is ready to forego the recognition of humbler individualities of earth, and the old familiar faces. The shapings of our heavens are the modifications of our constitution; and Mr. Feeble Mind, or Mr. Great Heart, is born in every one of us.

"Some (and such have been accounted the safest divines) have shrunk from pronouncing upon the final state of any man; nor dare they pronounce the case of Judas

tingly derived from yourself. You have all your life been making a jest of the Devil. Not of the scriptural meaning of that dark essence-personal or allegorical; for the nature is nowhere plainly delivered. I acquit you of intentional irreverence. But indeed you have made wonderfully free with, and been mighty pleasant upon, the popular idea and attributes of him. A Noble Lord, your brother Visionary, has scarcely taken greater. liberties with the material keys, and merely Catholic notion of St. Peter. You have flattered him in prose: you have chanted him in goodly odes. You have been his Jester; volunteer Laureat, and self-elected Court Poet to Beelzebub.

"You have never ridiculed, I believe, what you thought to be religion, but you are always girding at what some pious, but perhaps mistaken folks, think to be so. For this reason I am sorry to hear, that you are engaged upon a life of George Fox. I know you will fall into the error of intermixing some comic stuff with your seriousness. The Quakers tremble at the subject in your hands. The Methodists are shy of you, upon account of their founder. But, above all, our Popish brethren are most in your debt. The errors of that Church have proved a fruitful source

to your scoffing vein. Their Legend has been a Golden one to you. And here your friends, sir, have noticed a notable inconsistency. To the imposing rites, the solemn penances, devout austerities of that communion; the affecting though erring piety of their hermits; the silence and solitude of the Chartreux-their crossings, their holy waters -their Virgin, and their saints-to these, they say, you have been indebted for the best feelings, and the richest imagery, of your Epic poetry. You have drawn copious drafts upon Loretto. We thought at one time you were going post to Rome-but that in the facetious commentaries, which it is your custom to append so plentifully, and (some say) injudiciously, to your loftiest performances in this kind, you spurn the uplifted toe, which you but just now seemed to court; leave his holiness in the lurch; and show him a fair pair of Protestant heels under your Romish vestment. When we think you already at the wicket, suddenly a violent cross wind blows you transverse——————

Ten thousand leagues awry

Then might we see

Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tost
And flutter'd into rags; then reliques, beads,
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,
The sport of winds.'

You pick up pence by showing the hallowed bones, shrine, and crucifix; and you take money a second time by exposing the trick of them afterwards. You carry your verse to Castle Angelo for sale in a morning; and swifter than a pedlar can transmute his pack, you are at Canterbury with your prose ware before night.

"Sir, is it that I dislike you in this merry vein? The very reverse. No countenance becomes an intelligent jest better than your own. It is your grave aspect, when you look awful upon your poor friends, which I would deprecate.

"In more than one place, if I mistake not, you have been pleased to compliment me at the expense of my companions. I cannot accept your compliment at such a price. The upbraiding a man's poverty naturally makes him look about him, to see whether he be so poor indeed as he is presumed to be. You have put me upon counting my riches. Really, sir, I did not know I was so wealthy in the article of friendships.

There is heard of, but exemplary characters both, and excellent church-goers; and N., mine and my father's friend for nearly half a century; and the enthusiast for Wordsworth's poetry, a little tainted with Socinianism, it is to be feared, but constant in his attachments, and a capital critic; and a sturdy old Athanasian, so that sets all to rights again; and W., the light, and warm-as-light hearted, Janus of the London; and the translator of Dante, still a curate, modest and amiable C.; and Allan C., the large-hearted Scot; and P-r, candid and affectionate as his own poetry; and A-p, Coleridge's friend; and G-n, his more than friend; and Coleridge himself, the same to me still, as in those old evenings, when we used to sit and speculate (do you remember them, sir?) at our old Salutation tavern, upon Pantisocracy and golden days to come on earth; and W——th (why, sir, I might drop my rent-roll here; such goodly farms and manors have I reckoned up already. In what possession has not this last name alone estated me !-but I will go on) and M., the noble-minded kinsman, by wedlock, of W-th; and H. C. R., unwearied in the offices of a friend; and Clarkson, almost above the narrowness of that relation, yet condescending not seldom. heretofore from the labours of his worldembracing charity to bless my humble roof; and the gall-less and single-minded Dyer; and the high-minded associate of Cook, the veteran Colonel, with his lusty heart still sending cartels of defiance to old Time; and, not least, W. A., the last and steadiest left to me of that little knot of whist-players, that used to assemble weekly, for so many years, at the Queen's Gate (you remember them, sir?) and called Admiral Burney friend.

and —, whom you never

"I will come to the point at once. I believe you will not make many exceptions to my associates so far. But I have purposely omitted some intimacies, which I do not yet repent of having contracted, with two gentlemen, diametrically opposed to yourself in principles. You will understand me to allude to the authors of Rimini' and of the "Table Talk.' And first of the former.

"It is an error more particularly incident to persons of the correctest principles and habits, to seclude themselves from the rest

of mankind, as from another species, and
form into knots and clubs. The best people
herding thus exclusively, are in danger of
contracting a narrowness. Heat and cold,
dryness and moisture, in the natural world,
do not fly asunder, to split the globe into
sectarian parts and separations; but mingling,
as they best may, correct the malignity of
any single predominance. The analogy
holds, I suppose, in the moral world. If all
the good people were to ship themselves off
to Terra Incognita, what, in humanity's
name, is to become of the refuse? If the
persons, whom I have chiefly in view, have
not pushed matters to this extremity yet,
they carry them as far as they can go. Instead
of mixing with the infidel and the free-
thinker-in the room of opening a negocia-
tion, to try at least to find out at which gate
the error entered-they huddle close together,
in a weak fear of infection, like that pusil-
lanimous underling in Spenser—

This is the wandering wood, this Error's den ;
A monster vile, whom God and man does hate :
Therefore, I reed, beware. Fly, fly, quoth then
The fearful Dwarf.'

which this would not be quite the proper place for explicating. At all events, you have no cause to triumph; you have not been proving the premises, but refer for satisfaction therein to very long and laborious works, which may well employ the sceptic a twelvemonth or two to digest, before he can possibly be ripe for your conclusion. When he has satisfied himself about the premises, he will concede to you the inference, I dare say, most readily.—But your latter deduction, viz. that because 8 has written a book concerning 9, therefore 10 and 11 was certainly his meaning, is one of the most extraordinary conclusions per saltum, that I have had the good fortune to meet with. As far as 10 is verbally asserted in the writings, all sects must agree with you; but you cannot be ignorant of the many various ways in which the doctrine of the ******* has been understood, from a low figurative expression (with the Unitarians) up to the most mysterious actuality; in which highest sense alone you and your church take it. And for 11, that there is no other possible conclusion—to hazard this in the face of so many thousands of Arians and Socinians, &c., who have drawn so opposite a one, is such a piece of theological hardihood, as, I think, warrants me in concluding that, when you sit down to pen theology, you do not at all consider your opponents; but have in your eye, merely and exclusively, readers of the same way of thinking with yourself, and therefore have no occasion to trouble yourself with the quality of the logic to which you treat them.

And, if they be writers in orthodox journals addressing themselves only to the irritable passions of the unbeliever-they proceed in a safe system of strengthening the strong hands, and confirming the valiant knees; of converting the already converted, and proselyting their own party. I am the more convinced of this from a passage in the very treatise which occasioned this letter. It is where, having recommended to the doubter the writings of Michaelis and Lardner, you "Neither can I think, if you had had the ride triumphant over the necks of all infidels, welfare of the poor child-over whose hopesceptics, and dissenters, from this time to the less condition you whine so lamentably and world's end, upon the wheels of two un-(I must think) unseasonably-seriously at answerable deductions. I do not hold it meet to set down, in a miscellaneous compilation like this, such religious words as you have thought fit to introduce into the pages of a petulant literary journal. I therefore beg leave to substitute numerals, and refer to the Quarterly Review' (for January) for filling of them up. 'Here,' say you, 'as in the history of 7, if these books are authentic, the events which they relate must be true; if they were written by 8, 9 is 10 and 11.' Your first deduction, if it means honestly, rests upon two identical propositions; though I suspect an unfairness in one of the terms,

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heart, that you could have taken the step of sticking him up by name-T. H. is as good as naming him-to perpetuate an outrage upon the parental feelings, as long as the 'Quarterly Review' shall last. Was it necessary to specify an individual case, and give to Christian compassion the appearance of personal attack? Is this the way to conciliate unbelievers, or not rather to widen the breach irreparably?

"I own I could never think so considerably of myself as to decline the society of an agree able or worthy man upon difference of opinion only. The impediments and the facilitations

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