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　　LETTER 347

　　CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

　　July 7th, 1824.

　　DEAR B.B.—I have been suffering under a severe inflammation of the eyes, notwithstanding which I resolutely went through your very pretty volume at once, which I dare pronounce in no ways inferior to former lucubrations. "Abroad" and "lord" are vile rhymes notwithstanding, and if you count you will wonder how many times you have repeated the word unearthly—thrice in one poem. It is become a slang word with the bards; avoid it in future lustily. "Time" is fine; but there are better a good deal, I think. The volume does not lie by me; and, after a long day's smarting fatigue, which has almost put out my eyes (not blind however to your merits), I dare not trust myself with long writing. The verses to Bloomfield are the sweetest in the collection. Religion is sometimes lugged in, as if it did not come naturally. I will go over carefully when I get my seeing, and exemplify. You have also too much of singing metre, such as requires no deep ear to make; lilting measure, in which you have done Woolman injustice. Strike at less superficial melodies. The piece on Nayler is more to my fancy.

　　My eye runs waters. But I will give you a fuller account some day. The book is a very pretty one in more than one sense. The decorative harp, perhaps, too ostentatious; a simple pipe preferable.

　　Farewell, and many thanks. C. LAMB.

　　[Barton's new book was Poetic Vigils, 1824. It contained among other poems "An Ode to Time," "Verses to the Memory of Bloomfield," "A Memorial of John Woolman," beginning—

　　There is glory to me in thy Name,

　　Meek follower of Bethlehem's Child,

　　More touching by far than the splendour of Fame

　　With which the vain world is beguil'd,

　　and "A Memorial of James Nayler." The following "Sonnet to Elia," from the London Magazine, is also in the volume: it is odd that Lamb did not mention it:—

　　SONNET TO ELIA

　　Delightful Author! unto whom I owe

　　Moments and moods of fancy and of feeling,

　　Afresh to grateful memory now appealing,

　　Fain would I "bless thee—ere I let thee go!"

　　From month to month has the exhaustless flow

　　Of thy original mind, its wealth revealing,

　　With quaintest humour, and deep pathos healing

　　The World's rude wounds, revived Life's early glow:

　　And, mixt with this, at times, to earnest thought,

　　Glimpses of truth, most simple and sublime,

　　By thy imagination have been brought

　　Over my spirit. From the olden time

　　Of authorship thy patent should be dated,

　　And thou with Marvell, Brown, and Burton mated.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6