LETTER 398
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN
[P.M. July 14, 1826.]
Because
you boast poetic Grandsire,
And
rhyming kin, both Uncle and Sire,
Dost
think that none but their Descendings
Can
tickle folks with double endings?
I
had a Dad, that would for half a bet
Have
put down thine thro’ half the Alphabet.
Thou,
who would be Dan Prior the second,
For
Dan Posterior must be reckon’d.
In
faith, dear Tim, your rhymes are slovenly,
As
a man may say, dough-baked and ovenly;
Tedious
and long as two Long Acres,
And
smell most vilely of the Baker’s.
(I
have been cursing every limb o’ thee,
Because
I could not hitch in Timothy.
Jack,
Will, Tom, Dick’s, a serious evil,
But
Tim, plain Tim’s—the very devil.)
Thou
most incorrigible scribbler,
Right
Watering place and cockney dribbler,
What
child, that barely understands A,
B,
C, would ever dream that Stanza
Would
tinkle into rhyme with “Plan, Sir”?
Go,
go, you are not worth an answer.
I
had a Sire, that at plain Crambo
Had
hit you o’er the pate a damn’d blow.
How
now? may I die game, and you die brass,
But
I have stol’n a quip from Hudibras.
’Twas
thinking on that fine old Suttler, }
That
was in faith a second Butler; }
Mad
as queer rhymes as he, and subtler. }
He
would have put you to ’t this weather
For
rattling syllables together;
Rhym’d
you to death, like “rats in Ireland,”
Except
that he was born in High’r Land.
His
chimes, not crampt like thine, and rung ill,
Had
made Job split his sides on dunghill.
There
was no limit to his merryings
At
christ’nings, weddings, nay at buryings.
No
undertaker would live near him,
Those
grave practitioners did fear him;
Mutes,
at his merry mops, turned “vocal.”
And
fellows, hired for silence, “spoke all.”
No
body could be laid in cavity,
Long
as he lived, with proper gravity.
His
mirth-fraught eye had but to glitter,
And
every mourner round must titter.
The
Parson, prating of Mount Hermon,
Stood
still to laugh, in midst of sermon.
The
final Sexton (smile he must for him)
Could
hardly get to “dust to dust” for him.
He
lost three pall-bearers their livelyhood,
Only
with simp’ring at his lively mood:
Provided
that they fresh and neat came,
All
jests were fish that to his net came.
He’d
banter Apostolic castings,
As
you jeer fishermen at Hastings.
When
the fly bit, like me, he leapt-o’er-all,
And
stood not much on what was scriptural.