struction (besides the slight darkening of a dead language) to cast a veil over the ugly appearance of something very like blasphemy in the last two verses. I think the Lover would have been staggered, if he had gone about to express the same thought in English. I am sure, Sydney has no flights like this. His extravaganzas do not strike at the sky, though he takes leave to adopt the pale Dian into a fellowship with his mortal passions. "With how sad steps, O Moon," &c.-The last line of his poem--"Do they call virtue there-ungrate fulness?"-is a little obscured by transposition. He means, Do they call ungratefulness there a virtue?

[After giving, here, eleven of Sir Philip Sydney's Sonnets, Elia goes on to say.]

Of the foregoing, the first-" Come, Sleep, O Sleep," &c.-the second-"The curious wits," &c.-and the last sonnet-" Highway, since you," &c.—are my favourites. But the general beauty of them all is, that they are so perfectly characteristical. The spirit of "learning and of chivalry,"-of which union, Spenser has entitled Sydney to have been the " president,"-shines through them. I confess I can see nothing of the "jejune" or "frigid" in them; much less of the "stiff" and "cumbrous"-which I have sometimes heard objected to the Arcadia. The verse runs off swiftly and gallantly. It might have been tuned to the trumpet; or tempered (as himself expresses it) to " trampling horses' feet." They abound in felicitous phrases-"O heavenly Fool, thy most kiss-worthy face": 8th Sonnet.- Sweet pillows, sweetest bed; a chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light": 2nd Sonnet.-"That sweet enemy,-France": 5th Sonnet.

But they are not rich in words only, in vague and unlocalized feelings-the failing too much of some poetry of the present day-they are full, material, and circumstantiated. Time and place appropriated every one of them. It is not a fever of passion wasting itself upon a thin diet of dainty words, but a transcendent passion pervading and illuminating action, pursuits, studies, feats of arms, the opinions of contemporaries and his judgment of them. An historical thread runs through them, which almost fixes a date to them; marks the when and where they were written.

I have dwelt the longer upon what I conceive the merit of these poems, because I have been hurt by the wantonness (I wish I could treat it by a gentler name) with which W. H. takes every occasion of insulting the memory of Sir Philip Sydney. But the decisions of the Author of Table Talk, &c. (most profound and subtle where they are, as for the most part, just), are more safely to be relied upon, on subjects and authors he has a partiality for, than on such as he has conceived an accidental prejudice against. Milton wrote Sonnets, and was a king-hater; and it was congenial perhaps to sacrifice a courtier to a patriot. But I was unwilling to lose a fine idea from my mind. The noble images, passions, sentiments, and poetical delicacies of character, scattered all over the Arcadia (spite of some stiffness and encumberment), justify to me the character which his contemporaries have left us of the writer. I cannot think with the critic, that Sir Philip Sydney was that opprobrious thing which a foolish nobleman in his insolent hostility chose to term him. I call to mind the epitaph made on him, to guide me to juster thoughts of him; and I repose upon the beautiful lines in the Friend's Passion for his Astrophel," printed with the Elegies of Spenser and others-"You knew-who knew not Astrophel?" &c. Or let any one read the deeper sorrows (grief running into rage) in the Poem, -the last in the collection accompanying the above, from which internal testimony I believe to be Lord Brooke's, -beginning with Silence augmenteth grief,"-and then seriously ask himself, whether the subject of such absorbing and confounding regrets could have been that thing which Lord Oxford termed him.

The Tombs in the Abbey.

(The London Magazine, October, 1823.)

[When originally published in the London, this paper appeared as a letter formally addressed "To Robert Southey, Esq." It was afterwards compacted from an epistle into an essay, by the striking out of the passages here restored and as usual carefully bracketed. This severe remonstrance was provoked by an article of Southey's in the Quarterly, for the January of 1823, on the " Progress of Infidelity," in the course of which Elia was pained to find his old friend, alluding by name to his essays, apropos to the one on Witches and other Night Fears, as "a book which only wants a sounder religious feeling, to be as delightful as it is original." It was this unexpected onslaught that provoked Charles Lamb to the following pungent retaliation. The result of the contest was a brief estrangement, the two old friends, on Southey's next coming up to London, being readily, however, and, as the sequel proved, lastingly reconciled. Elia's intimates, here referred to under initials, are easily identified. C." was the Rev. Henry Francis Cary, translator of the Divina Commedia; "Allan C." Allan Cunningham; "Pr" Bryan Waller Procter, otherwise Barry Cornwall; "A -p" Thomas Allsopp; "G-n Gilman; "Wth" William Wordsworth; "L. H." Leigh Hunt; "T. H." Leigh Hunt's eldest son Thornton; "H. C. R." Henry Crabb Robinson; W. A." William Ayrton; and "W. H." William Hazlitt.]

[Sir,-You have done me an unfriendly office, without perhaps much considering what you were doing. You have given an ill name to my poor lucubrations. In a recent paper on Infidelity, you usher in a conditional commendation of them with an exception; which, preceding the encomium, and taking up nearly the same space with it, must impress your readers with the notion, that the objectionable parts in them are at least equal in quantity to the pardonable. The censure is in fact the criticism; the praise-a concession mercly. Exceptions usually follow, to qualify praise or blame. But there stands your reproof, in the very front of your notice, in ugly characters, like some bugbear, to frighten all good Christians from purchasing. Through you I become an object of suspicion to preceptors of youth, and fathers of families. "A book which wants only a sounder religious feeling, to be as delightful as it is original." With no further explanation, what must your readers conjecture, but that my little volume is some vehicle for heresy or infidelity? The quotation, which you honour me by subjoining, oddly enough, is of a character which bespeaks a temperament in the writer the very reverse of that your reproof goes to insinuate. Had you been taxing me with superstition, the passage would have been pertinent to the censure. Was it worth your while to go so far out of your way to affront the feelings of an old friend, and commit yourself by an irrelevant quotation, for the pleasure of reflecting upon a poor child, an exile at Genoa?

I am at a loss what particular essay you had in view (if my poor ramblings amount to that appellation) when you were in such a hurry to thrust in your objection, like bad news, foremost.-Perhaps the paper on " Saying Graces' was the obnoxious feature. I have endeavoured there to rescue a voluntary

duty-good in place, but never, as I remember, literally commanded—from the charge of an undecent formality. Rightly taken, sir, that paper was not against graces, but want of grace; not against the ceremony, but the carelessness and slovenliness so often observed in the performance of it.

Or was it that on the "New Year"-in which I have described the feelings of the merely natural man, on a consideration of the amazing change, which is supposable to take place on our removal from this fleshly scene? If men would honestly confess their misgivings (which few men will) there are times when the strongest Christian of us, I believe, has reeled under questions of such staggering obscurity. I do not accuse you of this weakness. There are some who tremblingly reach out shaking hands to the guidance of Faith-others who stoutly venture into the dark (their Human Confidence their leader, whom they mistake for Faith); and, investing themselves beforehand with cherubic wings, as they fancy, find their new robes as familiar, and fitting to their supposed growth and stature in godliness, as the coat they left off yesterday-some whose hope totters upon crutches-others who stalk into futurity upon stilts.

The contemplation of a Spiritual World, --which, without the addition of a misgiving conscience, is enough to shake some natures to their foundation-is smoothly got over by others, who shall float over the black billows in their little boat of No-Distrust, as unconcernedly as over a summer sea. The difference is chiefly constitutional.

One man shall love his friends and his friends' faces; and, under the uncertainty of conversing with them again, in the same manner and familiar circumstances of sight, speech, &c., as upon earth-in a moment of no irreverent weakness--for a dream-while-no more-would be almost content, for a reward of a life of virtue (if he could ascribe such acceptance to his lame performances), to take up his portion with those he loved, and was made to love, in this good world, which he knows-which was created so lovely, beyond his deservings. Another, embracing a more exalted vision-so that he might receive indefinite additaments of power, knowledge, beauty, glory, &c.-is ready to forego the recognition of humbler individualities of earth, and the old familiar faces. The shapings of our heavens are the modifications of our constitutions; and Mr. Feeble Mind, or Mr. Great Heart, is born in every one of us. Some (and such have been accounted the safest divines) have shrunk from pronouncing upon the final state of any man; nor dare they pronounce the case of Judas to be desperate. Others (with stronger optics), as plainly as with the eye of flesh, shall behold a given king in bliss, and a given chamberlain in torment; even to the eternizing of a cast of the eye in the latter, his own selfmocked and good-humouredly-borne deformity on earth, but supposed to aggravate the uncouth and hideous expression of his pangs in the other place. That one man can presume so far, and that another would with shuddering disclaim such confidences, is, I believe, an effect of the nerves purely.

If, in either of these papers, or elsewhere, I have been betrayed into some levities-not affronting the sanctuary, but glancing perhaps at some of the outskirts and extreme edges, the debateable land between the holy and profane regions (for the admixture of man's inventions, twisting themselves with the name of religion itself has artfully made it difficult to touch even the alloy, without, in some men's estimation, soiling the fine gold)—if I have sported within the purlieux of serious matter-it was, I dare say, a humourbe not startled, sir,-which I have unwittingly derived from yourself. You have all your life been making a jest of the devil. Not of the scriptural meaning of that dark essence-personal or allegorical; for the nature is nowhere plainly delivered. I acquit you of intentional irreverence. But indeed you have made wonderfully free with, and been mighty pleasant upon, the popular idea and attributes of him. A Noble Lord, your brother Visionary,

The Tombs in the Abbey.

(The London Magazine, October, 1823.)

[When originally published in the London, this paper appeared as a letter formally addressed "To Robert Southey, Esq." It was afterwards compacted from an epistle into an essay, by the striking out of the passages here restored and as usual carefully bracketed. This severe remonstrance was provoked by an article of Southey's in the Quarterly, for the January of 1823, on the "Progress of Infidelity," in the course of which Elia was pained to find his old friend, alluding by name to his essays, apropos to the one on Witches and other Night Fears, as "a book which only wants a sounder religious feeling, to be as delightful as it is original." It was this unexpected onslaught that provoked Charles Lamb to the following pungent retaliation. The result of the contest was a brief estrangement, the two old friends, on Southey's next coming up to London, being readily, however, and, as the sequel proved, lastingly reconciled. Elia's intimates, here referred to under initials, are easily identified. C." was the Rev. Henry Francis Cary, translator of the Divina Commedia; “Allan C." Allan Cunningham; "P-r Bryan Waller Procter, otherwise Barry Cornwall; "A -P "Thomas Allsopp; "G- -n Gilman; "W--th William Wordsworth; "L. H." Leigh Hunt; "T. H." Leigh Hunt's eldest son Thornton; "H. C. R." Henry Crabb Robinson; "W. A." William Ayrton; and "W. H." William Hazlitt.]

[Sir,-You have done me an unfriendly office, without perhaps much considering what you were doing. You have given an ill name to my poor lucubrations. In a recent paper on Infidelity, you usher in a conditional commendation of them with an exception; which, preceding the encomium, and taking up nearly the same space with it, must impress your readers with the notion, that the objectionable parts in them are at least equal in quantity to the pardonable. The censure is in fact the criticism; the praise-a concession mercly. Exceptions usually follow, to qualify praise or blame. But there stands your reproof, in the very front of your notice, in ugly characters, like some bugbear, to frighten all good Christians from purchasing. Through you I become an object of suspicion to preceptors of youth, and fathers of families. "A bock which wants only a sounder religious feeling, to be as delightful as it is original." With no further explanation, what must your readers conjecture, but that my little volume is some vehicle for heresy or infidelity? The quotation, which you honour me by subjoining, oddly enough, is of a character which bespeaks a temperament in the writer the very reverse of that your reproof goes to insinuate. Had you been taxing me with superstition, the passage would have been pertinent to the censure. Was it worth your while to go so far out of your way to affront the feelings of an old friend, and commit yourself by an irrelevant quotation, for the pleasure of reflecting upon a poor child, an exile at Genoa?

I am at a loss what particular essay you had in view (if my poor ramblings amount to that appellation) when you were in such a hurry to thrust in your objection, like bad news, foremost.-Perhaps the paper on "Saying Graces' was the obnoxious feature. I have endeavoured there to rescue a voluntary

1

duty-good in place, but never, as I remember, literally commanded-from the charge of an undecent formality. Rightly taken, sir, that paper was not against graces, but want of grace; not against the ceremony, but the carelessness and slovenliness so often observed in the performance of it.

Or was it that on the "New Year"-in which I have described the feelings of the merely natural man, on a consideration of the amazing change, which is supposable to take place on our removal from this fleshly scene? If men would honestly confess their misgivings (which few men will) there are times when the strongest Christian of us, I believe, has reeled under questions of such staggering obscurity. I do not accuse you of this weakness. There are some who tremblingly reach out shaking hands to the guidance of Faith --others who stoutly venture into the dark (their Human Confidence their leader, whom they mistake for Faith); and, investing themselves beforehand with cherubic wings, as they fancy, find their new robes as familiar, and fitting to their supposed growth and stature in godliness, as the coat they left off yesterday--some whose hope totters upon crutches-others who stalk into futurity upon stilts.

The contemplation of a Spiritual World,-which, without the addition of a misgiving conscience, is enough to shake some natures to their foundation-is smoothly got over by others, who shall float over the black billows in their little boat of No-Distrust, as unconcernedly as over a summer sea. The difference is chiefly constitutional.

One man shall love his friends and his friends' faces; and, under the uncertainty of conversing with them again, in the same manner and familiar circumstances of sight, speech, &c., as upon earth-in a moment of no irreverent weakness--for a dream-while-no more-would be almost content, for a reward of a life of virtue (if he could ascribe such acceptance to his lame performances), to take up his portion with those he loved, and was made to love, in this good world, which he knows-which was created so lovely, beyond his deservings. Another, embracing a more exalted vision-so that he might receive indefinite additaments of power, knowledge, beauty, glory, &c. -is ready to forego the recognition of humbler individualities of earth, and the old familiar faces. The shapings of our heavens are the modifications of our constitutions; and Mr. Feeble Mind, or Mr. Great Heart, is born in every one of us. Some (and such have been accounted the safest divines) have shrunk from pronouncing upon the final state of any man; nor dare they pronounce the case of Judas to be desperate. Others (with stronger optics), as plainly as with the eye of flesh, shall behold a given king in bliss, and a given chamberlain in torment; even to the eternizing of a cast of the eye in the latter, his own selfmocked and good-humouredly-borne deformity on earth, but supposed to aggravate the uncouth and hideous expression of his pangs in the other place. That one man can presume so far, and that another would with shuddering disclaim such confidences, is, I believe, an effect of the nerves purely.

If, in either of these papers, or elsewhere, I have been betrayed into some levities-not affronting the sanctuary, but glancing perhaps at some of the outskirts and extreme edges, the debateable land between the holy and profane regions (for the admixture of man's inventions, twisting themselves with the name of religion itself has artfully made it difficult to touch even the alloy, without, in some men's estimation, soiling the fine gold)—if I have sported within the purlieux of serious matter-it was, I dare say, a humourbe not startled, sir,-which I have unwittingly derived from yourself. You have all your life been making a jest of the devil. Not of the scriptural meaning of that dark essence-personal or allegorical; for the nature is nowhere plainly delivered. I acquit you of intentional irreverence. But indeed you have made wonderfully free with, and been mighty pleasant upon, the popular idea and attributes of him. A Noble Lord, your brother Visionary,