Written after the death of Charles Lamb (page 156).

Light will be thrown upon the tragic circumstance alluded to in this poem when, after the death of Charles Lamb's Sister, his biographer, Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, shall be at liberty to relate particulars which could not, at the time his Memoir was written, be given to the public. Mary Lamb was ten years older than her brother, and has survived him as long a time. Were I to give way to my own feelings, I should dwell not only on her genius and intellectual powers, but upon the delicacy and refinement of manner which she maintained inviolable under most trying circumstances. She was loved and honoured by all her brother's friends; and others, some of them strange characters, whom his philanthropic peculiarities induced him to countenance. The death of C. Lamb himself was doubtless hastened by his sorrow for that of Coleridge, to whom he had been attached from the time of their being schoolfellows at Christ's Hospital. Lamb was a good Latin scholar, and probably would have gone to college upon one of the school foundations but for the impediment in his speech. Had such been his lot, he would most likely have been preserved from the indulgences of social humours and fancies which were often injurious to himself, and causes of severe regret to his friends, without really benefiting the object of his misapplied kindness.-I. F.

Written Nov., 1835 (Lamb died Dec. 27, 1834); privately printed without date or title; first included in "Poetical Works" in 1837, without a title; title added in 1845. The text is as it was in 1837, but the privately printed pamphlet gives the following variations:

L. 1, "To the dear memory of a frail good Man."
Ll. 34, 35:

"He had a constant friend in Charity;
Her who, among a multitude of sins,"

Ll. 39-49:

"From a reflecting mind and sorrowing heart
This tribute flowed, with hope that it might guard
The dust of him whose virtues called it forth;
But 'tis a little space of earth that man,
Stretched out in death, is doomed to occupy;
Still smaller space doth modest custom yield,
On sculptured tomb or tablet, to the claims
Of the deceased, or rights of the bereft.

'Tis well; and tho' the record overstepped
Those narrow bounds, yet, on the printed page
Received, there may it stand, I trust, unblamed
As long as verse of mine shall steal from tears
Their bitterness, or live to shed a gleam

Of solace over one dejected thought."

In the copy of the privately printed lines lent to me by Wordsworth's friend, the Rev. R. P. Graves, is a slip of manuscript in the poet's handwriting, rehandling a portion of the above passage:

""Tis well, and if the Record in the strength
And earnestness of feeling, overpass'd
Those narrow limits and so miss'd its aim,
Yet will I trust that on the printed page

Received, it there may keep a place unblamed."

L. 61, "Burned, and with ever-strengthening light, enshrined."

Thus 'mid a shifting world,

Together stood they (witnessing of time
And season's difference) as a double tree ".

Ll. 101-103:

"Yet, in all visitations, through all trials
Still they were faithful, like two goodly ships
Launched from the beach."

The poem closed thus (wanting the two closing lines of edd. 1837-1850):

Is broken, to become more sacred still."

66

In its first form the lines were intended as an epitaph. Wordsworth wrote, on Nov. 20, 1835, to Moxon, sending the "requested epitaph," which was composed yesterday." The request was made probably by Moxon, and on behalf of Mary Lamb. Wordsworth admits the objection of "extreme length," but suggests that the lines might be engraved in double columns. "Chiabrera," he says, "has been my model," and he has tried, like Chiabrera, to be "characteristic and circumstantial . . . but

I have not ventured to touch upon the most striking feature of our departed friend's character, and the most affecting circumstance of his life, namely, his faithful and intense love of his sister. Had I been framing an Elegy or Monody this would and must have been done." In a later letter to Moxon he writes: "If the length makes the above utterly unsuitable, it may be printed with his [Lamb's] Works as an effusion by the side of his grave; in this case, in some favourable moment, I might be able to add a few lines upon the friendship of the brother and sister." Crabb Robinson notes, Jan. 3, 1836: "In the evening Wordsworth read his verses on Charles Lamb, supplemental to the epitaph."-Ed.

"From the most gentle creature nursed in fields"

(page 157).

This way of indicating the name of my lamented friend has been found fault with; perhaps rightly so; but I may say in justification of the double sense of the word, that similar allusions are not uncommon in epitaphs. One of the best in our language in verse, I ever read, was upon a person who bore the name of Palmer; and the course of the thought, throughout, turned upon the Life of the Departed, considered as a pilgrimage. Nor can I think that the objection in the present case will have much force with any one who remembers Charles Lamb's beautiful sonnet addressed to his own name, and ending,

"No deed of mine shall shame thee, gentle name!" -W. W.

Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg
(page 160).

These verses were written extempore, immediately after reading a notice of the Ettrick Shepherd's death in the Newcastle paper, to the Editor of which I sent a copy for publication. The persons lamented in these verses were all either of my friends or acquaintance. In Lockhart's "Life of Sir Walter Scott" an account is given of my first meeting with him in 1803. How the Ettrick Shepherd and I became known to each other has already been mentioned in these notes. He was undoubtedly a man of original genius, but of coarse manners and low and offensive opinions. Of Coleridge and Lamb I need not speak here. Crabbe I have met in London at Mr. Rogers's, but more

:

frequently and favourably at Mr. Hoare's upon Hampstead Heath. Every spring he used to pay that family a visit of some length, and was upon terms of intimate friendship with Mrs. Hoare, and still more with her daughter-in-law, who has a large collection of his letters addressed to herself. After the poet's decease, application was made to her to give up these letters to his biographer, that they, or at least part of them, might be given to the public. She hesitated to comply, and asked my opinion on the subject. "By no means,' was my answer, grounded not upon any objection there might be to publishing a selection from these letters, but from an aversion I have always felt to meet idle curiosity by calling back the recently departed to become the object of trivial and familiar gossip. Crabbe obviously for the most part preferred the company of women to that of men, for this among other reasons, that he did not like to be put upon the stretch in general conversation accordingly in miscellaneous society his talk was so much below what might have been expected from a man so deservedly celebrated, that to me it seemed trifling. It must upon other occasions have been of a different character, as I found in our rambles together on Hampstead Heath, and not so much from a readiness to communicate his knowledge of life and manners as of natural history in all its branches. His mind was inquisitive, and he seems to have taken refuge from the remembrance of the distresses he had gone through, in these studies and the employments to which they led. Moreover, such contemplations might tend profitably to counterbalance the painful truths which he had collected from his intercourse with mankind. Had I been more intimate with him, I should have ventured to touch upon his office as a minister of the Gospel, and how far his heart and soul were in it so as to make him a zealous and diligent labourer in poetry, though he wrote much, as we all know, he assuredly was not so. I happened once to speak of pains as necessary to produce merit of a certain kind which I highly valued: his observation was-"It is not worth while." You are quite right, thought I, if the labour encroaches upon the time due to teach truth as a steward of the mysteries of God: if there be cause to fear that, write less: but, if poetry is to be produced at all, make what you do produce as good as you can. Mr. Rogers once told me that he expressed his regret to Crabbe that he wrote in his later works so much less correctly than in his earlier. "Yes," replied he, "but then I had a reputa

tion to make; now I can afford to relax." Whether it was from a modest estimate of his own qualifications, or from causes less creditable, his motives for writing verse and his hopes and aims were not so high as is to be desired. After being silent for more than twenty years, he again applied himself to poetry, upon the spur of applause he received from the periodical publications of the day, as he himself tells us in one of his prefaces. Is it not to be lamented that a man who was so conversant with permanent truth, and whose writings are so valuable an acquisition to our country's literature, should have required an impulse from such a quarter?-Mrs. Hemans was unfortunate as a poetess in being obliged by circumstances to write for money, and that so frequently and so much, that she was compelled to look out for subjects wherever she could find them, and to write as expeditiously as possible. As a woman, she was to a considerable degree a spoilt child of the world. She had been early in life distinguished for talent, and poems of hers were published while she was a girl. She had also been handsome in her youth, but her education had been most unfortunate. She was totally ignorant of housewifery, and could as easily have managed the spear of Minerva as her needle. It was from observing these deficiencies that, one day while she was under my roof, I purposely directed her attention to household economy, and told her I had purchased Scales, which I intended to present to a young lady as a wedding present; pointed out their utility (for her especial benefit), and said that no ménage ought to be without them. Mrs. Hemans, not in the least suspecting my drift, reported this saying, in a letter to a friend at the time, as a proof of my simplicity. Being disposed to make large allowances for the faults of her education and the circumstances in which she was placed, I felt most kindly disposed towards her, and took her part upon all occasions, and I was not a little affected by learning that after she withdrew to Ireland, a long and severe sickness raised her spirit as it depressed her body. This I heard from her most intimate friends, and there is striking evidence of it in a poem written and published not long before her death. These notices of Mrs. Hemans would be very unsatisfactory to her intimate friends, as indeed they are to myself, not so much for what is said, but what for brevity's sake is left unsaid. Let it suffice to add, there was much sympathy between us, and, if opportunity had been allowed me to see more of her, I should have loved and valued her accordingly; as it is, I