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　　LETTER 108

　　CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE

　　[No date. May, 1803.]

　　Mary sends love from home.

　　DR. C.,—I do confess that I have not sent your books as I ought to be [have] done; but you know how the human freewill is tethered, and that we perform promises to ourselves no better than to our friends. A watch is come for you. Do you want it soon, or shall I wait till some one travels your way? You, like me, I suppose, reckon the lapse of time from the waste thereof, as boys let a cock run to waste: too idle to stop it, and rather amused with seeing it dribble. Your poems have begun printing; Longman sent to me to arrange them, the old and the new together. It seems you have left it to him. So I classed them, as nearly as I could, according to dates. First, after the Dedication, (which must march first) and which I have transplanted from before the Preface (which stood like a dead wall of prose between) to be the first poem—then comes "The Pixies," and the things most juvenile—then on "To Chatterton," &c.—on, lastly, to the "Ode on the Departing Year," and "Musings,"—which finish. Longman wanted the Ode first; but the arrangement I have made is precisely that marked out in the dedication, following the order of time. I told Longman I was sure that you would omit a good portion of the first edition. I instanced in several sonnets, &c.—but that was not his plan, and, as you have done nothing in it, all I could do was to arrange 'em on the supposition that all were to be retained. A few I positively rejected; such as that of "The Thimble," and that of "Flicker and Flicker's wife," and that not in the manner of Spenser, which you yourself had stigmatised—and the "Man of Ross,"—I doubt whether I should this last. It is not too late to save it. The first proof is only just come. I have been forced to call that Cupid's Elixir "Kisses." It stands in your first volume as an Effusion, so that, instead of prefixing The Kiss to that of "One Kiss, dear Maid," &c., I have ventured to entitle it "To Sara." I am aware of the nicety of changing even so mere a trifle as a title to so short a piece, and subverting old associations; but two called "Kisses" would have been absolutely ludicrous, and "Effusion" is no name; and these poems come close together. I promise you not to alter one word in any poem whatever, but to take your last text, where two are. Can you send any wishes about the book? Longman, I think, should have settled with you. But it seems you have left it to him. Write as soon as you possibly can; for, without making myself responsible, I feel myself in some sort accessory to the selection which I am to proof-correct. But I decidedly said to Biggs that I was sure you would omit more. Those I have positively rubbed off I can swear to individually, (except the "Man of Ross," which is too familiar in Pope,) but no others—you have your cue. For my part, I had rather all the Juvenilia were kept—memories causa.

　　Rob Lloyd has written me a masterly letter, containing a character of his father;—see, how different from Charles he views the old man! Literatim "My father smokes, repeats Homer in Greek, and Virgil, and is learning, when from business, with all the vigour of a young man Italian. He is really a wonderful man. He mixes public and private business, the intricacies of discording life with his religion and devotion. No one more rationally enjoys the romantic scenes of nature, and the chit-chat and little vagaries of his children; and, though surrounded with an ocean of affairs, the very neatness of his most obscure cupboard in the house passes not unnoticed. I never knew any one view with such clearness, nor so well satisfied with things as they are, and make such allowance for things which must appear perfect Syriac to him." By the last he means the Lloydisms of the younger branches. His portrait of Charles (exact as far as he has had opportunities of noting him) is most exquisite. "Charles is become steady as a church, and as straightforward as a Roman road. It would distract him to mention anything that was not as plain as sense; he seems to have run the whole scenery of life, AND NOW RESTS AS THE FORMAL PRECISIAN OF NON-EXISTENCE." Here is genius I think, and 'tis seldom a young man, a Lloyd, looks at a father (so differing) with such good nature while he is alive. Write—

　　I am in post-haste, C. LAMB.

　　Love, &c., to Sara, P., and H.

　　[The date is usually given as March 20, but is May 20; certainly after

　　Coleridge's visit to town (see preceding letter).

　　Poems, by S. T. Coleridge, third edition, was now in preparation by Longman & Rees. Lamb saw the volume through the press. The 1797 second edition was followed, except that Lloyd's and Lamb's contributions were omitted, together with the following poems by Coleridge: "To the Rev. W. J. H.," "Sonnet to Koskiusko," "Written after a Walk" (which Lamb inaccurately called "Flicker and Flicker's Wife"), "From a Young Lady" ("The Silver Thimble"), "On the Christening of a Friend's Child," "Introductory Sonnet to Lloyd's 'Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer.'" "The Man of Ross" (whom Pope also celebrates in the Moral Essays, III., lines 250-290) was retained, and also the "Lines in the Manner of Spenser." The piece rechristened "Kisses" had been called "The Composition of a Kiss." Biggs was the printer. See also the next letter.

　　Of Robert Lloyd's father we hear more later.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 5