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　　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 'tolic 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.

　　P.S.

　　I had forgot, at Small Bohemia

　　(Enquire the way of your maid Euphemia)

　　Are sojourning, of all good fellows

　　The prince and princess,—the Novellos—

　　Pray seek 'em out, and give my love to 'em;

　　You'll find you'll soon be hand and glove to 'em.

　　In prose, Little Bohemia, about a mile from Hastings in the Hollington road, when you can get so far. Dear Dib, I find relief in a word or two of prose. In truth my rhymes come slow. You have "routh of 'em." It gives us pleasure to find you keep your good spirits. Your Letter did us good. Pray heaven you are got out at last. Write quickly.

　　This letter will introduce you, if 'tis agreeable. Take a donkey. 'Tis Novello the Composer and his Wife, our very good friends.

　　C.L.

　　[Dibdin must have sent the verses which Lamb asked for in the previous letter, and this is Lamb's reply. Pride of ancestry seems to have been the note of Dibdin's effort. Probably there is a certain amount of truth in Lamb's account of the resolute merriment of his father. It is not inconsistent with his description of Lovel in the Elia essay "The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple."

　　"I have stol'n a quip." The manner rather than the precise matter, I think.

　　Here should come a letter from Lamb to the Rev. Edward Coleridge, Coleridge's nephew, dated July 19, 1826. It thanks the recipient for his kindness to the child of a friend of Lamb's, Samuel Anthony Bloxam, Coleridge having assisted in getting Frederick Bloxam into Eton (where he was a master) on the foundation. Samuel Bloxam and Lamb were at Christ's Hospital together.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6