Charles Lamb - The Collected Works of Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

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(1822)

The Choice of a Grave

In Fontenelle's Dialogues of the Dead, Mary Stuart meets Rizzio, and by way of reconciling him to the violence he had suffered, says to him, "I have honoured thy memory so far as to place thee in the tomb of the Kings of Scotland." "How," says the musician, "my body entombed among the Scottish Kings?" "Nothing more true," replies the queen. "And I," says Rizzio, "I have been so little sensible of that good fortune, that, believe me, this is the first notice I ever had of it."

I have no sympathy with that feeling, which is now-a-days so much in fashion, for picking out snug spots to be buried in. What is the meaning of such fancies? No man thinks or says, that it will be agreeable to his dead body to be resolved into dust under a willow, or with flowers above it. No—it is, that while alive he has pleasure in such anticipations for his coxcomical clay. I do not understand it—there is no quid pro quo in the business to my apprehension. It will not do to reason upon of course; but I can't feel about it. I am to blame, I dare say—but I can only laugh at such under-ground whims. "A good place" in the church-yard!—the boxes!—a front row! but why? No, I cannot understand it: I cannot feel particular on such a subject: any part for me, as a plain man says of a partridge.

Wilks

It is very pleasing to discover redeeming points in characters that have been held up to our detestation. The merest trifles are enough, if they taste but of common humanity. I have never thought very ill of Wilks since I discovered that he was exceedingly fond of South-Down mutton. But better than this: "My cherries," he says, "are the prey of the blackbirds—and they are most welcome." This is a little trait of character, which, in my mind, covers a multitude of sins.

Milton

Milton takes his rank in English literature, according to the station which has been determined on by the critics. But he is not read like Lord Byron, or Mr. Thomas Moore. He is not popular ; nor perhaps will he ever be. He is known as the Author of "Paradise Lost;" but his "Paradise Regained," "severe and beautiful," is little known. Who knows his Arcades? or Samson Agonistes? or half his minor poems? We are persuaded that, however they may be spoken of with respect, few persons take the trouble to read them. Even Comus, the child of his youth, his "florid son, young" Comus—is not well known; and for the little renown he may possess, he is indebted to the stage. The following lines ( excepting only the first four ) are not printed in the common editions of Milton; nor are they generally known to belong to that divine "Masque;" yet they are in the poet's highest style. We are happy to bring them before such of our readers as are not possessed of Mr. Todd's expensive edition of Milton.

Before the starry threshold of Jove's court

My mansion is, where those immortal shapes

Of bright aërial spirits live insphered

In regions mild of calm and serene air,

Amidst th' Hesperian gardens, on whose banks Bedew'd with nectar and celestial songs, Eternal roses grow, and hyacinth, And fruits of golden rind, on whose fair tree The scaly harness'd dragon ever keeps His unenchanted eye: around the verge And sacred limits of this blissful isle, The jealous ocean, that old river, winds His far-extended arms, till with steep fall Half his waste flood the wild Atlantic fills, And half the slow unfathom'd Stygian pool. But soft, I was not sent to court your wonder With distant worlds, and strange removed climes. Yet thence I come, and oft from thence behold, &c.

Our readers will forgive us for having modernized the spelling. It is the only liberty that we have taken with our great author's magnificent passage.

A Check To Human Pride

It is rather an unpleasant fact, that the ugliest and awkwardest of brute animals have the greatest resemblance to man: the monkey and the bear. The monkey is ugly too, (so we think,) because he is like man—as the bear is awkward, because the cumbrous action of its huge paws seems to be a preposterous imitation of the motions of the human hands. Men and apes are the only animals that have hairs on the under eye-lid. Let kings know this.

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by C. Dibdin the Younger

(1825)

In this age of hyper-poetic plights, and talent in a frenzy aping genius, it is consolatory to see a little volume of verse in the good old sober manner of Queen Ann's days, when verse walked high, rather than flew, and sought its nutriment upon this diurnal sphere, not rapt above the moon. To a lover of Chess, who at the same time can relish the Rape of the Lock, the poem which forms the distinguishing feature of this volume cannot fail to impart pleasure. It is a mock heroic of course, descriptive of the Game; and the Homeric parodies are adroit and numerous. The names of the mortal combatants, Blanc, Blanche, Croesieroi, Reinelawne, Sir Garderoi, Sir Gardereene, etc. on one side, with Niger, Nigra, Mitrex, Mitre regina, Sir Rexensor, Sir Reginalde, etc. on the other, are happily conceived, and the strife thickens to the conclusion. The Gods and Goddesses are the Games of Chance, or Mixed Chance, Faro, Whist, Loo, etc. in all their attributes, with old Hazard for their Jupiter, a fine gruff, grumbling Dice-compeller, whose dice-box is to him what the awful Homeric chain was to his Prototype. The soft blandishments of Joan , the gentle Pope —

Intriguing Hebe to the God of Game—

wrings from his austere Deity his slow permission for the interference of the Olympeans in the fight below, and accordingly they range on either side, as in the Iliad; and by their infusion of passions, coprices, impulses, peculiar to the nature of their own warfare, confound and embroil the pure contest of skill through five Cantos very entertainingly. We confess we are more at home in Hoyle than in Phillidor; but by the help of the notes, we played the game through ourselves very tolerably. We subjoin an exquisite simile, with which the third Canto commences—a description of the Morning, redolent of Swift and Gay:—

Now Morning, yawning, rais'd her from her bed,

Slipp'd on her wrapper blue and 'kerchief red,

And took from Night the key of Sleep's abode—

For Night within that mansion had bestow'd

The Hours of Day; now, turn and turn about,

Morn takes the key, and lets the Day Hours out;

Laughing they issue from the ebon gate,

And Night walks in. As when, in drowsy state,

Some watchman , wed to one who chars all day , Takes to his lodgings door his creeping way; His Rib, arising, lets him in to sleep, While she emerges to scrub, dust, and sweep.

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"Now Sirius rages"

To the Editor of the Every-Day Book

(1825)

Sir—I am one of those unfortunate creatures, who, at this season of the year, are exposed to the effects of an illiberal prejudice. Warrants are issued out in form, and whole scores of us are taken up and executed annually, under an obsolete statute, on what is called suspicion of lunacy. It is very hard that a sober sensible dog, cannot go quietly through a village about his business, without having his motions watched, or some impertinent fellow observing that there is an "odd look about his eyes." My pulse, for instance, at this present writing, is as temperate as yours, Mr. Editor, and my head as little rambling, but I hardly dare to show my face out of doors for fear of these scrutinizers. If I look up in a stranger's face, he thinks I am going to bite him. If I go with my eyes fixed upon the ground, they say I have got the mopes, which is but a short stage from the disorder. If I wag my tail, I am too lively; if I do not wag it, I am sulky—either of which appearances passes alike for a prognostic. If I pass a dirty puddle without drinking, sentence is infallibly pronounced upon me. I am perfectly swilled with the quantity of ditch-water I am forced to swallow in a day, to clear me from imputations—a worse cruelty than the water ordeal of your old Saxon ancestors. If I snap at a bone, I am furious; if I refuse it, I have got the sullens, and that is a bad symptom. I dare not bark outright, for fear of being adjudged to rave. It was but yesterday, that I indulged in a little innocent yelp only, on occasion of a cart-wheel going over my leg, and the populace was up in arms, as if I had betrayed some marks of flightiness in my conversation.