Chapter I (4)

I am doing a tragi-comedy in two acts, and have got on tolerably; but it will be refused, or worse. I never had luck with anything my name was put to.

Oh, I am so poorly! I _waked_ it at my cousin's the bookbinder's, who is now with God; or, if he is not, it's no fault of mine.

We hope the frank wines do not disagree with Mrs. Patmore. By the way, I like her.

Did you ever taste frogs? Get them, if you can. They are little Liliput rabbits, only a thought nicer.

Christ, how sick I am!--not of the world, but of the widow's shrub. She's sworn under six thousand pounds; but I think she perjured herself. She howls in E _la_; and I comfort her in B flat. You understand music?

If you haven't got Massinger, you have nothing to do but go to the first bibliotheque you can light upon at Boulogne, and ask for it (Gifford's edition); and if they haven't got it, you can have "Athalie," par Monsieur Racine, and make the best of it; but that "Old Law" 's delicious!

"No shrimps!" (That's in answer to Mary's question about how the soles are to be done.)

I am uncertain where this _wandering_ letter may reach you. What you mean by "poste restante," God knows. Do you mean I must pay the postage? So I do, to Dover.

We had a merry passage with the widow at the Commons. She was howling,--part howling, and part giving directions to the proctor,--when, crash! down went my sister through a crazy chair, and made the clerks grin; and I grinned, and the widow tittered; _and then I knew that she was not inconsolable_. Mary was more frightened than hurt.

She'd make a good match for anybody (by "she," I mean the widow).

"If he bring but a _relict_ away,
He is happy, nor heard to complain."

_Shenstone._

Procter has got a wen growing out at the nape of his neck, which his wife wants him to have cut off: but I think it rather an agreeable excrescence; like his poetry, redundant. Hone has hanged himself for debt. Godwin was taken up for picking pockets. Beckey takes to bad courses. Her father was blown up in a steam-machine. The coroner found it insanity. I should not like him to sit on my letter.[F]

Do you observe my direction? Is it Gaelic?--classical?

Do try and get some frogs. You must ask for "grenouilles" (green-eels). They don't understand "frogs"; though it's a common phrase with us.

If you go through Bulloign [Boulogne], inquire if old Godfrey is living, and how he got home from the Crusades. He must be a very old man now.

If there is anything new in politics or literature in France, keep it till I see you again; for I'm in no hurry. Chatty-Briant [Chateaubriand] is well, I hope.

I think I have no more news; only give both our loves ("all three," says Dash) to Mrs. Patmore, and bid her get quite well, as I am at present, bating qualms, and the grief incident to losing a valuable relation.

C. L.

LONDRES, July 19, 1827.

* * * * *

Of all the essays of Elia, the paper on "Roast Pig" is perhaps the most read, the most quoted, the most admired. 'T is even better, says an epicurean friend of mine, than the "crisp, tawny, well-watched, not over-roasted crackling" it descants upon so eloquently. Certainly Lamb never writes so richly and so delightfully as when he discourses of the dainties and delicacies of the table.

Though all our readers are doubtlessly familiar with Elia's beautiful little article entitled "Thoughts on Presents of Game," very few of them have read the letter he wrote in acknowledgment of a present of a pig from a farmer and his wife. 'T is a rare bit, a choice morsel of Lamb's best and most delicious humor, and will be perused with great pleasure and satisfaction by all admirers of its witty and eccentric author. Here it is.

TO A FARMER AND HIS WIFE.

_Twelfth Day, 1823._

The pig was above my feeble praise. It was a dear pigmy. There was some contention as to who should have the ears; but, in spite of his obstinacy, (deaf as these little creatures are to advice,) I contrived to get at one of them.

It came in boots, too, which I took as a favor. Generally these pretty toes--pretty toes!--are missing; but I suppose he wore them to look taller.

He must have been the least of his race. His little foots would have gone into the silver slipper. I take him to have been a Chinese and a female.

If Evelyn could have seen him, he would never have farrowed two such prodigious volumes; seeing how much good can be contained in--how small a compass!

He crackled delicately.

I left a blank at the top of my letter, not being determined which to address it to: so farmer and farmer's wife will please to divide our thanks. May your granaries be full, and your rats empty, and your chickens plump, and your envious neighbors lean, and your laborers busy, and you as idle and as happy as the day is long!

VIVE L'AGRICULTURE!

How do you make your pigs so little?
They are vastly engaging at the age:
I was so myself.
Now I am a disagreeable old hog,
A middle-aged gentleman-and-a-half.
My faculties, thank God, are not much impaired!

I have my sight, hearing, taste, pretty perfect; and can read the Lord's Prayer in common type, by the help of a candle, without making many mistakes.

Believe me, that, while my faculties last, I shall ever cherish a proper appreciation of your many kindnesses in this way, and that the last lingering relish of past favors upon my dying memory will be the smack of that little ear. It was the left ear, which is lucky. Many happy returns,--not of the pig, but of the New Year, to both!

Mary, for her share of the pig and the memoirs, desires to send the same.

Yours truly,
C. LAMB.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] "Who this modern poet was," says Mr. Collier, "is a secret worth discovering." The wood-cut on the title of the pamphlet is an ass with a wreath of laurel round his neck.

[C] Milton, _from memory_.

[D] Fletcher, in the "Faithful Shepherdess." The Satyr offers to Clorin

"grapes whose lusty blood Is the learned poet's good; Sweeter yet did never crown The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown Than the _squirrels' teeth_ that crack them."

[E] Fauntleroy.

[F] The reader, says Mr. Patmore, need not be told that all the above items of home-news are pure fiction.

TO WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

ON HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY.

NOVEMBER 3, 1864.

Calm priest of Nature, her maternal hand
Led thee, a reverent child,
To mountain-altars, by the lonely strand,
And through the forest wild.

Haunting her temple, filled with love and awe,
To thy responsive youth
The harmonies of her benignant law
Revealed consoling truth.

Thenceforth, when toiling in the grasp of Care
Amid the eager throng,
A votive seer, her greetings thou didst bear,
Her oracles prolong.

The vagrant winds and the far heaving main
Breathed in thy chastened rhyme,
Their latent music to the soul again,
Above the din of time.

The seasons, at thy call, renewed the spell
That thrilled our better years,
The primal wonder o'er our spirits fell,
And woke the fount of tears.

And Faith's monition, like an organ's strain,
Followed the sea-bird's flight,
The river's bounteous flow, the ripening grain,
And stars' unfathomed light.

In the dank woods and where the meadows gleam,
The lowliest flower that smiled
To wisdom's vigil or to fancy's dream
Thy gentle thought beguiled.

They win fond glances in the prairie's sweep,
And where the moss-clumps lie,
A welcome find when through the mould they creep,
A requiem when they die.

Unstained thy song with passion's fitful hues
Or pleasure's reckless breath,
For Nature's beauty to thy virgin muse
Was solemnized by death.

O'er life's majestic realm and dread repose,
Entranced with holy calm,
From the rapt soul of boyhood then uprose
The memorable psalm.

And roaming lone beneath the woodland shades,
Thy meditative prayer
In the umbrageous aisles and choral glades
We murmur unaware;

Or track the ages with prophetic cheer,
Lured by thy chant sublime,
Till bigotry and kingcraft disappear
In Freedom's chosen clime,--

While on her ramparts with intrepid mien,
O'er faction's angry sea,
Thy voice proclaims, undaunted and serene,
The watchwords of the free.

Not in vague tones or tricks of verbal art
The plaint and paean rung:
Thine the clear utterance of an earnest heart,
The limpid Saxon tongue.

Our country's minstrel! in whose crystal verse
With tranquil joy we trace
Her native glories, and the tale rehearse
Of her primeval race,--

Blest are thy laurels, that unchallenged crown
Worn brow and silver hair,
For truth and manhood consecrate renown,
And her pure triumph share!

HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS

BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.