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　　LETTER 229

　　CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

　　[Dated at end: April 9, 1816.]

　　Dear Wordsworth—Thanks for the books you have given me and for all the Books you mean to give me. I will bind up the Political Sonnets and Ode according to your Suggestion. I have not bound the poems yet. I wait till People have done borrowing them. I think I shall get a chain, and chain them to my shelves More Bodleiano, and People may come and read them at chain's length. For of those who borrow, some read slow, some mean to read but don't read, and some neither read nor meant to read, but borrow to leave you an opinion of their sagacity. I must do my money-borrowing friends the justice to say that there is nothing of this caprice or wantonness of alienation in them. When they borrow my money, they never fail to make use of it. Coleridge has been here about a fortnight. His health is tolerable at present, though beset with temptations. In the first place, the Cov. Card. Manager has declined accepting his Tragedy, tho' (having read it) I see no reason upon earth why it might not have run a very fair chance, tho' it certainly wants a prominent part for a Miss O Neil or a Mr. Kean. However he is going to day to write to Lord Byron to get it to Drury. Should you see Mrs. C., who has just written to C. a letter which I have given him, it will be as well to say nothing about its fate till some answer is shaped from Drury. He has two volumes printing together at Bristol, both finished as far as the composition goes; the latter containing his fugitive Poems, the former his Literary Life. Nature, who conducts every creature by instinct to its best end, has skilfully directed C. to take up his abode at a Chemist's Laboratory in Norfolk Street. She might as well have sent a Helluo Librorum for cure to the Vatican. God keep him inviolate among the traps and pitfalls. He has done pretty well as yet.

　　Tell Miss H. my sister is every day wishing to be quietly sitting down to answer her very kind Letter, but while C. stays she can hardly find a quiet time, God bless him.

　　Tell Mrs. W. her Postscripts are always agreeable. They are so legible too. Your manual graphy is terrible, dark as Lycophron. "Likelihood" for instance is thus typified [here Lamb makes an illegible scribble].

　　I should not wonder if the constant making out of such Paragraphs is the cause of that weakness in Mrs. W.'s Eyes as she is tenderly pleased to express it. Dorothy I hear has mounted spectacles; so you have deoculated two of your dearest relations in life. Well, God bless you and continue to give you power to write with a finger of power upon our hearts what you fail to impress in corresponding lucidness upon our outward eyesight.

　　Mary's Love to all, She is quite well.

　　I am call'd off to do the deposits on Cotton Wool—but why do I relate

　　this to you who want faculties to comprehend the great mystery of

　　Deposits, of Interest, of Warehouse rent, and Contingent Fund—Adieu. C.

　　LAMB.

　　A longer Letter when C. is gone back into the Country, relating his success, &c.—my judgment of your new Books &c. &c.—I am scarce quiet enough while he stays.

　　Yours again

　　C. L.

　　Tuesday 9 Apr. 1816.

　　[Wordsworth had sent Lamb, presumably in proof (see next letter), Thanksgiving Ode, 18 Jan. 1816, with other short pieces chiefly referring to recent events, 1816—the subject of the ode being the peace that had come upon Europe with the downfall of Napoleon. It follows in the collected works the sonnets to liberty.

　　"More Bodleiano." According to Macray's Annals of the Bodleian Library (second edition, 1890, page 121), books seem to have been chained in the Bodleian Library up to 1751. The process of removing the chains seems to have begun in 1757. In 1761 as many as 1,448 books were unchained at a cost of a ½d. a piece. A dozen years later discarded chains were sold at the rate of 2d. for a long chain, 1½d. for a short one, and if one hankered after a hundred-weight of them, the wish could be gratified on payment of 14s. Many loose chains are still preserved in the library as relics.

　　"For of those who borrow." Lamb's Elia essay, "The Two Races of Men," may have had its germ in this passage.

　　Coleridge came to London from Calne in March bringing with him the manuscript of "Zapolya." He had already had correspondence with Lord Byron concerning a tragedy for Drury Lane, on whose committee Byron had a seat, but he had done nothing towards writing it. "Zapolya" was never acted. It was published in 1817. Coleridge's lodgings were at 43 Norfolk Street, Strand. See next letter for further news of Coleridge at this time.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 5