My eye runs waters. But I will give you a fuller account some day. The book is a very pretty one in more than one sense. The decorative harp, perhaps, too ostentatious; a simple pipe preferable.
Farewell, and many thanks. C. LAMB.
[Barton’s new book was Poetic Vigils, 1824. It contained among other poems “An Ode to Time,” “Verses to the Memory of Bloomfield,” “A Memorial of John Woolman,” beginning—
There
is glory to me in thy Name,
Meek
follower of Bethlehem’s Child,
More
touching by far than the splendour of Fame
With
which the vain world is beguil’d,
and “A Memorial of James Nayler.” The following “Sonnet to Elia,” from the London Magazine, is also in the volume: it is odd that Lamb did not mention it:—
SONNET TO ELIA
Delightful
Author! unto whom I owe
Moments
and moods of fancy and of feeling,
Afresh
to grateful memory now appealing,
Fain
would I “bless thee—ere I let thee
go!”
From
month to month has the exhaustless flow
Of
thy original mind, its wealth revealing,
With
quaintest humour, and deep pathos healing
The
World’s rude wounds, revived Life’s early
glow:
And,
mixt with this, at times, to earnest thought,
Glimpses
of truth, most simple and sublime,
By
thy imagination have been brought
Over
my spirit. From the olden time
Of
authorship thy patent should be dated,
And
thou with Marvell, Brown, and Burton mated.]
LETTER 348
CHARLES LAMB TO W. MARTER [Dated at end: July 19 (1824).]
Dear Marter,—I have just rec’d your letter, having returned from a month’s holydays. My exertions for the London are, tho’ not dead, in a dead sleep for the present. If your club like scandal, Blackwood’s is your magazine; if you prefer light articles, and humorous without offence, the New Monthly is very amusing. The best of it is by Horace Smith, the author of the Rejected Addresses. The Old Monthly has more of matter, information, but not so merry. I cannot safely recommend any others, as not knowing them, or knowing them to their disadvantage. Of Reviews, beside what you mention, I know of none except the Review on Hounslow Heath, which I take it is too expensive for your ordering. Pity me, that have been a Gentleman these four weeks, and am reduced in one day to the state of a ready writer. I feel, I feel, my gentlemanly qualities fast oozing away—such as a sense of honour, neckcloths twice a day, abstinence from swearing, &c. The desk enters into my soul.
See my thoughts on business next Page.
SONNET