560. 575. crossed his brow, made the sign of the cross on his forehead to warn off evil spirits. 623. of sense forlorn, one who has lost his senses. CHRISTABEL Christabel was begun in 1797-8, and continued in 1800. Scot heard it recited while it was still in manuscript, and the melody of the verse made such an impression on his mind that he adopted it for Christabel in its The Lay of the Last Minstrel. fragmentary state was printed in 1816; Coleridge said in 1821, 'Of my poetic works I would fain finish Christabel,' but he never succeeded in doing It remains, however, one of the most wonderful and beautiful poems of the Romantic Revival. 564. 408-426. Said by Coleridge to be the best and sweetest lines I ever wrote.' so. KUBLA KHAN In a note to this poem on its publication in 1816, Coleridge relates the circumstances of its composi tion. Being in ill-health, he had retired to a lonely farmhouse on Exmoor, and an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence from the old book of travels known as Purchas his Pilgrimage:-'In Xamdu lid Cublai Can build a stately palace, encompassing sixteen miles of plain ground with a wall, wherein ire fertile meadows, pleasant springs, delightful streams, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, ind in the midst thereof a sumptuous house of leasure.' Coleridge adds: The Author continued or about three hours in a profound sleep, at least f the external senses, during which time he has he most vivid confidence that he could not have omposed less than from two to three hundred lines; that indeed can be called composition in which II the images rose up before him as things, with a arallel production of the correspondent expressions, ithout any sensation or consciousness of effort. n awaking he appeared to himself to have a disnct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, k, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down e lines that are here preserved. At this moment was unfortunately called out by a person on busiess from Porlock, and detained by him above an ur, and on his return to his room, found, to his small surprise and mortification, that though he 11 retained some vague and dim recollection of e general purport of the vision, yet, with the exption of some eight or ten scattered lines and ages, all the rest had passed away like the images the surface of a stream into which a stone had en cast, but, alas without the after restoration of latter!' Kubla Khan in the thirteenth century founded the gul dynasty in China, and made Pekin the capital his empire, which was the largest that has ever sted in Asia. He was an enlightened but amous ruler, very fond of pomp and splendor. 41. Abora, apparently a mountain of Coleridge's imagination. FROST AT MIDNIGHT Mrs. Coleridge was wont to complain to her friends that her husband would walk up and down composing poetry instead of coming to bed at proper hours.' This poem was the outcome of a midnight meditation in his cottage at Stowey in February, 1798, and was published in the same year. 566. 27. stranger, a film of soot sticking to the bars of the grate, which, according to a common English superstition, betokens the coming of a visitor. 29-30. As to Coleridge's birth and school days, see Life, p. 542. 38. stern preceptor. Coleridge, in his Biographia Literaria, says: 'At school I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a very sensible, though at the same time, a very severe master.' He goes on to a teacher, speak at length of Boyer's merits as 'whose severities, even now, not seldom furnish the dreams, by which the blind fancy would fain interpret to the mind the painful sensations of disnor dim the tempered sleep; but neither lessen deep sense of my moral and intellectual obligations.' The disColeridge writes also in his Table Talk: cipline at Christ's Hospital in my time was ultra Spartan; all domestic ties were to be put aside. "Boy!" I remember Boyer saying to me once when I was crying the first day of my return after the holidays, Boy! the school is your father! Boy! the school is your mother! Boy! the school is your brother! Boy! the school is your sister! the school is your first cousin, and your second cousin, and all the rest of your relations! crying! Coming under the influence of Voltaire, Coleridge professed himself an infidel. So, sirrah, you are an infidel, are you?' said Boyer; then I'll flog your infidelity out of you!' Coleridge said it was the only just flogging he ever ceived.' Let's have no more re 43-44. Coleridge was very fond of his sister Ann, who was five years older than himself and had been his playmate when he was still in petticoats. She died in 1791, to his great grief. 52-54. At Christ's Hospital Coleridge used to lie on the roof and gaze upon the clouds and stars. 55-65. There was no likelihood at this time that Coleridge would live in the Lake District, but he fulfilled his own prophecy in 1800 by removing to Greta Hall, Keswick, from which he writes, soon after his settlement there, of his little son's enjoy. ment of nature: 'I look at my doted-on Hartley he he lives, he finds impulses from within and from without, he is the darling of the sun and the breeze. Nature seems to bless him as a thing of her own. He looks at the clouds, the mountains, the living beings of the earth, and vaults and jubilates.' moves, HUMILITY THE MOTHER OF CHARITY The date appended to this poem is that of com position. 'Where are they gone, the old familiar faces? The last stanza began with the word For,' and the words' And some are taken from me' in 1. 20 were italicized, referring no doubt to Mary Lamb, whose illness was probably the occasion of the poem. The 'friend' of 1. 10 was Charles Lloyd, with whom Lamb had a temporary difference about this time; the more than brother' of 1. 16, Coleridge. MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE All these essays appeared in the London Magazine, 1821-22, and were afterwards included in the Essays of Elia. Mackrye End may now be easily reached from Wheathampstead Station on the Great Northern Railway. The old farmhouse, with some additions since Lamb's day, is still standing. 568. a. 4. Bridget Elia, Mary Lamb. See biographical sketch, p. 567. 12. the rash king's offspring, Jephthah's daughter. Judges xi, 30-40. 15. 'with a difference.' Ophelia in Hamlet IV, v. 183, O, you must wear your rue with a difference.' 17. bickerings, little quarrels. 20. dissembling, simulating. This is contrary to the established usage, according to which dissemble is to pretend not to be something that you are. 26. Burton, the author of The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621). 33. a story, Mary Lamb's passion for novel-reading is spoken of by others. clever '- a quotation 39. humors, eccentricities. 43. bizarre, whimsical, fantastic. 46. holds Nature more from Gay, Epitaph of Byewords. 48. obliquities, irregularities. 49. Religio Medici, the chief work of Sir Thomas Browne, whose curious notions and elaborate style made him a favorite with Lamb. See p. 200. 52. intellectuals, reasoning powers, intelligence. b. 1. Margaret Newcastle, an eccentric Restoration noblewoman, of high character and remarkable talents, for whom Lamb often expressed his admiration. 34. derogatory, disparaging. 42. stuff of the conscience, quoted from Othello I, ii, 2. 50. good old English reading, in the library of Samuel Salt of the Inner Temple. 569. a. 18. beat up the quarters of, arouse, disturb, visit unceremoniously. The expression is used in exactly the same way by Richardson in Pamela. 14. the poet, Wordsworth. See Yarrow Visited, stanza 6, than which' (Lamb wrote to Wordsworth) I think no lovelier stanza can be found in the wide world of poetry.' 21. waking bliss, conscious enjoyment, less like a dream; quoted from Milton's Comus. 570. a. 5. gossamer, spider thread. rending, sepa rating. 14. the two scriptural cousins, Mary and Elizabeth. Luke i, 39-40. 23. B. F., Baron Field, an English barrister, who in 1816 became Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. To him Lamb addressed the Elia essay entitled Distant Correspondents. 24. peradventure, by chance. 26. The fatted calf. See the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Luke xv, 23. 43. astoundment, intense surprise. 50. I forget all this. A reminiscence of Psalm cxxxvii, 5: If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.' DREAM-CHILDREN: A REVERIE The death of Lamb's brother John on Oct. 26, 1821, appears to have suggested the tender vein of reminiscence and musing on what might have been' in this essay, which is justly regarded as one of the most delicate in pathos and perfect in workmanship Lamb ever wrote. But this kind of reverie was not unusual with him. He writes in an earlier essay (New Year's Eve): 'Being without wife or family and having no offspring of my own to dally with, I turn back upon memory, and adopt my own early idea, as my heir and favorite.' b. 11. Norfolk. Lamb's grandmother, Mary Field, was housekeeper for more than fifty years at Blakesware in Hertfordshire, the seat of the Plumers, described in the Elia essay, Blakesmoor in H-shire. William Plumer, who lived in another family seat (also in Hertfordshire), and dismantled Blakesware, was still living when Dream-Children was published, and this may have been the reason why Lamb altered the name of the county to Norfolk, the scene of the legend of the children in the wood. 23. Robin Redbreasts, which at the end of the ballad cover the bodies of the murdered children with leaves. 50. tawdry, showy, pretentious and yet worthless. 571. a. 3. Psaltery, the Psalms. Psalter is the more usual and correct form. 5. spread her hands, in amazement at such learning. 14. cancer, the actual cause of Mrs. Field's death. 21. apparition of two infants. There was a legend in the Plumer family about the mysterious disappearance of two children in the seventeenth century. 36. the old busts. These were among the things removed by Mr. Plumer from Blakesware. 49. nectarines, a variety of peach thought particularly delicious. 52. forbidden fruit. See Genesis ii, 16-17, and the opening lines of Paradise Lost. b. 3. basking, lying in the sun; originally a Norse word, meaning to bathe one's self.' It 11. impertinent, because the pike eats dace. is a sluggish fish, while dace are very lively. 20. irrelevant, not to the purpose, not worth attention. 30. mettlesome, high-spirited. 43. a lame-footed boy. It is not known whether Lamb was ever temporarily lame in boyhood. John Lamb's lameness was caused by the fall of a stone in 1796, just before the tragedy which made such a difference in Charles Lamb's life. Writing to Coleridge just afterwards he says: 'I had the whole weight of the family thrown on me; for my brother, little disposed (I speak not without tenderness for him) at any time to take care of old age and infirmities, had now, with his bad leg, an exemption from such duties, and I was now left alone.' John Lamb was self-indulgent, and in manhood they saw little of each other, but Charles felt his loss severely, as is shown by the letters he wrote at the time. A fuller account of John Lamb, written before his death, will be found in the Elia essay, My Relations. 572. a. 13. took off his limb. This is a detail supplied from Lamb's imagination. 22. Alice W- -n, Winterton in Lamb's Key, but he adds that it is a feigned name: The real name of the village girl with the bright yellow Hertfordshire hair, and eye of watchet hue' was probably Ann Simmons. She seems to have lived in one of the cottages near Blakesware and married Mr. Bartram, or Bartrum, a London pawnbroker. Lamb probably idealized this youthful passion, which, if his seven long years' are to be taken literally, must have begun when he was a boy of fourteen. He writes in New Year's Eve: I would scarce now have any of those untoward accidents and events of my life reversed. I would no more alter them than the incidents of some well-contrived novel. Methinks it is better that I should have pined away seven of my goldenest years, when I was thrall to the fair hair, and fairer eyes, of Alice W -n, than that so passionate a love-adventure should be lost.' 25. difficulty, shyness, reserve, reluctance to be won. 28. representment, re-incarnation. 31. whose, i.e., the first or the second Alice's. 42. might have been, if he had married Alice. 44. Lethe, the river of Hades, which made those who drank of it completely forget their past life. Virgil in the Enid (VI, 703-751) says that after thousands of years the soul, having drunk of Lethe, returns to earth in another body. Some such faroff incarnation is all that is possible for the creations of the dreamer's imagination. 49. Bridget James Elia, the names given by Lamb to his sister and brother in My Relations. 50. gone for ever. This was the only part of the dream that remained true. A CHAPTER ON EARS Lamb exaggerates his lack of appreciation for music in this essay, as in his verses, Free Thoughts on Several Eminent Composers, beginning: 'Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart, For either of them, or for Handel.' As a matter of fact he was a fervent admirer of Braham, whose singing of Handel's oratorio, Israel in Egypt, is commended in the essay on Imperfect Sympathies. Lamb wrote of this great singer: 'He was a rare composition of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel; yet all these elements mixed up so kindly in him that you could not tell which preponderated.' b. 3. volutes, spiral ornaments at the sides of the capital or top of Ionic and Corinthian pillars. 6. conduits, channels, usually for water, here for sound. 8. the mole has small ears but keen hearing. 9. labyrinthine, winding, intricate. 10. side-intelligencers, side passages, conveying in formation to the brain. 13. to draw upon assurance, to rely upon impu dence. 14. quite unabashed.' Lamb gave the reference in a foot-note in the London Magazine to Pope's Dunciad (II, 147): 'Earless on high stood unabashed Defoe.' 15. upon that article, in that particular. 17. pillory, a frame in which the offender's head and hands were fixed in an uncomfortable and helpless position while he was exposed to the jeers and insults of the mob. This mode of punishment was practised in Great Britain up to the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign. Defoe was subjected to it for his satirical tract, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (see p. 287), but the barbarous practice of cutting off the ears, which often accompanied exposure in the pillory, was in his case not carried out. 23. concourse of sweet sounds. The Merchant of Venice V, i, 83-5. 24. Water parted from the sea.' This and In infancy are both songs from Arne's opera Artaxerxes, Lamb's First Play. 27. harpsichord, the forerunner of the modern pianoforte. 32. Mrs. S-, not identified beyond the name 'Spinkes' given in Lamb's Key. 42. Alice W- -n. See notes to Dream Children above. 56. A., William Ayrton, a well-known musical critic of the time. 573. a. 29. Sostenuto and adagio, Italian musical terms indicating that a passage is to be played in a 'sustained' or 'leisurely manner. 31. Sol, Fa, Mi, Re, names of notes used in singing. 32. conjuring, mysterious, magical. Baralipton, a meaningless word invented by the scholastic philos ophers for the purpose of exercises in logic. 56. con, learn by heart. b. 1. thrid, thread, follow all the windings of. 2. hieroglyphics, the sacred picture-writings of the ancient Egyptians. 8. follow, with the mind, in the attempt to connect what went before with what comes after. 13. the Enraged Musician, a picture by Hogarth of a musician almost driven mad by street noises. 15. Oratorio, a sacred musical performance without scenery or special dress. 18. pit, the part of the theatre on the ground floor, a little removed from the stage, chiefly frequented by devoted theatre-goers who cannot afford to pay for dearer seats. 19. Laughing Audience, a wonderful picture by Hogarth representing varieties of mirth as seen on different human faces at a play. There is a good description of it in Dowden, Shakspere's Mind and Art, pp. 338-9. 30. Party in a parlor, etc. Quoted from the first edition of Wordsworth's Peter Bell. The stanza was omitted from subsequent editions, but in the meantime Shelley had taken it for the motto of his burlesque Peter Bell the Third. 33. concertos, elaborate pieces of music for one or more instruments, accompanied by an orchestra. 46. all stops, all punctuation marks, no words. 50. mime, a mimic or actor of farces. Latin mimus. 574. a. 1. book in Patmos. See Revelation x, 10. 3. Burton. Anatomy of Melancholy I, ii, 2, 6. 6. melancholy given, given or inclined to melancholy. 10. amabilis insania, delightful ecstasy. Horace, Odes III, iv, 5. 11. mentis gratissimus error, a most welcome deception of the mind, a pleasing hallucination. Horace, Epistles II, ii, 140. 17. toys, trifles, innocent amusements. 26. habitated, habituated, accustomed. 30. subrusticus pudor, awkward bashfulness. Cicero, Epistolae ad Familiares V, xii, first sentence. 44. Nov, Vincent Novello, a well-known organist and composer. 53. abbey, Westminster. b. 3. dove's wings. Psalm lv, 6: 'Oh that I had wings like a dove!' Barron Field says that Lamb was especially fond of the setting of these words by Kent, the English composer of the previous century. Mendelssohn's anthem, 'O for the wings of a dove,' was not yet composed. 6. cleanse his mind. Psalm cxix, 9: 'Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?' An 21. German ocean, of music by German composers. 23. Arion (long i), a musician of Lesbos, who, according to the Greek legend, when threatened with death by pirates, obtained permission to play one last tune. This attracted a shoal of dolphins and upon the back of one of these he escaped t land. 24. Tritons, sea gods, half men, half fishes. Mod ein opinion would not agree with Lamb in making Bach and Beethoven subordinate to Haydn and Mozart. 28. at my wit's end. See Psalm cvii, 26–7. 31. dazzle, gleam confusedly. This is a curious use of the word, which is a diminutive of daze, and means to make or become confused. his, No vello's. 33. tiara, an elaborate head-dress; originally Persian, now used with special reference to the triple crown worn by the Pope on ceremonial occasions. 34. naked, unadorned, frank. 38. malleus hereticorum, the heretics' hammer, the title of an attack upon Luther and other early Prot estants. 39. heresiarch, chief of heretics. 41. Marcion, Ebion, Cerinthus, heretics of the first century, each of whom had a view inconsistent with the opinions of the other two. 42. Gog and Magog. See Revelation xx, 8, where they stand for all unbelievers. what not, anything and everything. 44. dissipates the figment, dispels the vision. 45. Lutheran, Protestant. Ben Jonson has a jest ing reference to Luther's beer' (Epigram 101). Ollier in his reminiscences of Lamb says: "Once at a musical party at Leigh Hunt's, being oppressed with what to him was nothing better than a prolonged noise he said " If one only had a pot of porter, one might get through this." It was procured for him, and he weathered the Mozartian storm.' 47. rationalities of a purer faith, reasonable views of Protestantism. A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 'The idea of the discovery of roasting pigs I borrowed from my friend Manning,' Lamb says in a let ter written six months later. Manning had been in China for some years, and this fact may have sug gested to Lamb his fantastic setting of the story, which in its bald outlines is a commonplace of literature going back to the third century. With the exception of the name of the Chinese philosopher Confucius (sixth century B. C.), the details are, of course, Lamb's own invention. 575. a. 11. broiling, exposing to a fierce heat; roasting, to a moderate one. 12. the elder brother, of earlier date. 16. mast, beech nuts, used to feed pigs. 18. lubberly, awkward., 54. nether, lower. b. 1. booby, stupid. 6. crackling, the crisp skin of roast pork. 19. retributory, avenging, punishing. 25. lower regions, stomach. 27. remote quarters, his shoulders, on which the blows were raining. 31. sensible, conscious, aware. 36. me, the indirect object of advantage or disadvantage, often used in Shakspere. See Taming of the Shrew, beginning of I, ii: 'Knock me at this gate.' 42. eats, quasi-passive. Goldsmith, Vicar of Wakefield: If the cakes at tea eat short and crisp. Used in the same sense by Shakspere. 50. the lesser half, keeping the larger share for himself. 54. cramming, stuffing the pig into his mouth. 55. would choke, wished to choke himself. 576. a. 13. litter, of nine pigs. 26. farrowed, brought forth young. So 34. assize town, in England a county town to which the judges come to hold the assizes. Used here to give a burlesque effect of historic detail. with the whole circumstances of the trial, which are distinctively modern and English. 46. charge, direction as to the law of the case given by an English judge. 49. box, the shut-in benches where the jury sit during an English trial. After hearing the evidence, they are conducted to a private room for consultation, unless they are ready to give a unanimous verdict offhand, as Lamb imagines to have been the case in this instance. The taste of the burnt pig had such an effect upon their minds that they at once agreed upon a verdict in direct contradiction to the judge's charge and the evidence. 54. winked at, shut his eyes to. This meaning is common in the Bible and Shakspere. b. 3. took wing, was noised abroad. 15. Locke, the great English philosopher (16321704). 23. dynasty, succession of sovereigns of the same family. Lamb is still writing in the mock-historic style. Month means the period of time measured by the moon. guiltless of, unpolluted by. 43. amor immunditiae, love of filth. The allusion is to the doctrine of original sin, the fall of Adam which involved all his offspring. 45. broken, commonly used only of the passage of a boy's voice to the deeper tones of manhood. 48. praeludium, prelude, music played by way of introduction. 51. exterior tegument, outer skin. The longer words are used in mock seriousness for comic effect. 54. tawny, yellowish-brown. 577. a. 2. oleaginous, oily. 7. quintessence, essence five times distilled. 10. manna, the food sent from heaven to the Israelites in the wilderness. See Exodus xvi, 14, 15. 10. if it must be so, if we must use terms so gross. 13. ambrosian, heavenly, like ambrosia, the food of the Greek gods. 15. doing, being cooked. 17. passive, submissive. 18. equably, smoothly, evenly, with mind undis turbed. 20. sensibility, sensitiveness. There is an 22. radiant jellies — shooting stars. ancient superstition that shooting stars leave jellies where they fall. The prosaic fact is, of course, that the young pig's eyes drop out because of the heat to which they are exposed. 30. conversation, manner of life, as in 2 Peter ii, 7, 'the filthy conversation of the wicked.' 34. Ere sin could blight, etc. This couplet is quoted, with exquisite humor, from Coleridge's Epitaph on a Young Infant, published in 1796 in a little volume of poems to which Lamb himself contributed. 42. epicure, one devoted to the pleasures of the table. The modern use of the word is a slander on the philosopher Epicurus, who was devoted to the pleasures of the intellect. for such a tomb might be content to die, probably a reminiscence of the last line of Milton's verses on Shakspere, that kings for such a tomb would wish to die.' See p. 236. 44. sapors, tastes, flavors. 50. excoriateth, takes the skin off. - an exaggeration of the keenness of the flavour. 54. stoppeth at the palate, satisfies the taste, not the stomach. b. 6. censorious, inclined to find fault without sufficient cause. 7. batten, fatten. 14-15. helpeth . . all around, may be served and do good to everybody. 15. is the least envious, excites the least envy, because all parts are equally good. 17. neighbors' fare, food promoting neighborly or friendly feeling. 18. I am one of those, etc. This paragraph and the next are merely the elaboration of a letter Lamb wrote to Coleridge on March 9, 1822-six months before the essay was published. The story of the old gray impostor and some other hints are to be found in the letter, which was evidently the foundation of the essay, the main addition being the fable of the |