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　　LETTER 274

　　CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN PAYNE COLLIER

　　May 16, 1821.

　　Dear J.P.C.,—Many thanks for the "Decameron:" I have not such a gentleman's book in my collection: it was a great treat to me, and I got it just as I was wanting something of the sort. I take less pleasure in books than heretofore, but I like books about books. In the second volume, in particular, are treasures—your discoveries about "Twelfth Night," etc. What a Shakespearian essence that speech of Osrades for food!—Shakespeare is coarse to it—beginning "Forbear and eat no more." Osrades warms up to that, but does not set out ruffian-swaggerer. The character of the Ass with those three lines, worthy to be set in gilt vellum, and worn in frontlets by the noble beasts for ever—

　　"Thou would, perhaps, he should become thy foe,

　　And to that end dost beat him many times:

　　He cares not for himself, much less thy blow."

　　Cervantes, Sterne, and Coleridge, have said positively nothing for asses compared with this.

　　I write in haste; but p. 24, vol. i., the line you cannot appropriate is Gray's sonnet, specimenifyed by Wordsworth in first preface to L.B., as mixed of bad and good style: p. 143, 2nd vol., you will find last poem but one of the collection on Sidney's death in Spenser, the line,

　　"Scipio, Caesar, Petrarch of our time."

　　This fixes it to be Raleigh's: I had guess'd it to be Daniel's. The last after it, "Silence augmenteth rage," I will be crucified if it be not Lord Brooke's. Hang you, and all meddling researchers, hereafter, that by raking into learned dust may find me out wrong in my conjecture!

　　Dear J.P.C., I shall take the first opportunity of personally thanking you for my entertainment. We are at Dalston for the most part, but I fully hope for an evening soon with you in Russell or Bouverie Street, to talk over old times and books. Remember us kindly to Mrs. J.P.C. Yours very kindly, CHARLES LAMB. I write in misery.

　　N.B.—The best pen I could borrow at our butcher's: the ink, I verily believe, came out of the kennel.

　　[Collier's Poetical Decameron, in two volumes, was published in 1820: a series of imaginary conversations on curious and little-known books. His "Twelfth Night" discoveries will be found in the Eighth Conversation; Collier deduces the play from Barnaby Rich's Farewell to Military Profession, 1606. He also describes Thomas Lodge's "Rosalynde," the forerunner of "As You Like It," in which is the character Rosader, whom Lamb calls Osrades. His speech for food runs thus:—

　　It hapned that day that Gerismond, the lawfull king of France banished by Torismond, who with a lustie crew of outlawes liued in that Forrest, that day in honour of his birth, made a feast to all his bolde yeomen, and frolickt it with store of wine and venison, sitting all at a long table vnder the shadow of Limon trees: to that place by chance fortune conducted Rosader, who seeing such a crew of braue men, hauing store of that for want of which hee and Adam perished, hee slept boldly to the boords end, and saluted the Company thus.—Whatsoeuer thou be that art maister of these lustie squires, I salute thee as graciously as a man in extreame distresse may: knowe that I and a fellow friend of mine, are here famished in the forrest for want of foode: perish we must, vnlesse relieued by thy fauours. Therefore if thou be a Gentleman, giue meate to men, and such as are euery way worthie of life: let the proudest Squire that sits at thy table rise and encounter with me in any honourable point of activitie whatsoeuer, and if he and thou proue me not a man, send mee away comfortlesse: if thou refuse this, as a niggard of thy cates, I will haue amongst you with my sword, for rather wil I die valiantly, then perish with so cowardly an extreame (Collier's Poetical Decameron, 174, Eighth Conversation).

　　Lamb compares with that the passage in "As You Like It," II., 7, 88, beginning with Orlando's "Forbear, and eat no more." The character of the ass is "ed by Collier from an old book, The Noblenesse of the Asse, 1595, in the Third Conversation:—

　　Thou wouldst (perhaps) he should become thy foe,

　　And to that end doost beat him many times;

　　He cares not for himselfe, much lesse thy blowe.

　　Lamb wrote more fully of this passage in an article on the ass contributed to Hone's Every-Day Book in 1825 (see Vol. I. of the present edition).

　　The line from Gray's sonnet on the death of Mr. Richard West was this:—

　　And weep the more because I weep in vain.

　　"Scipio, Caesar," etc. This line runs, in the epitaph on Sidney, beginning "To praise thy life"—

　　Scipio, Cicero, and Petrarch of our time!

　　It is generally supposed to be by Raleigh. The next poem, "Silence Augmenteth Grief," is attributed by Malone to Sir Edward Dyer, and by Hannah to Raleigh.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6