I wonder you will sow your correspondence on so barren a ground as I am, that make such poor returns. But my head akes at the bare thought of letter writing. I wish all the ink in the ocean dried up, and would listen to the quills shivering [? shrivelling] up in the candle flame, like parching martyrs. The same indisposit'n to write it is has stopt my Elias, but you will see a futile Effort in the next No., "wrung from me with slow pain."
The fact is, my head is seldom cool enough. I am dreadfully indolent. To have to do anything-to order me a new coat, for instance, tho' my old buttons are shelled like beans-- is an effort.
My pen stammers like my tongue. What cool craniums those old enditers of Folios must have had. What a mortify'd pulse. Well, once more I throw myself on your mercy-- Wishing peace in thy new dwelling-- C. LAMB.
[The Lambs gave up their "country lodgings" at Dalston on moving to Colebrooke Row.
"The Prometheus Unbound." A bookseller, asked for _Prometheus Unbound_, Shelley's poem, had replied that _Prometheus_ was not to be had "in sheets." _Elfrida_ was a dramatic poem by William Mason, Gray's friend.
This is Shelley's poem (not a sonnet) which Lamb liked:--
Alas! good friend, what profit can you see In hating such an hateless thing as me? There is no sport in hate, where all the rage Is on one side. In vain would you assuage Your frowns upon an unresisting smile, In which not even contempt lurks, to beguile Your heart by some faint sympathy of hate. Oh conquer what you cannot satiate! For to your passion I am far more coy Then ever yet was coldest maid or boy In winter-noon. Of your antipathy If I am the Narcissus, you are free To pine into a sound with hating me.
Hazlitt writes of Shelley in his essay "On Paradox and Commonplace" in _Table Talk_; but he does not make this remark there. Perhaps he said it in conversation.
"The next Number." The "futile Effort" was "Blakesmoor in H----shire" in the _London Magazine_ for September, 1824.
Here should come a note from Lamb to Cary, August 19, 1824, in which Lamb thanks him for his translation of _The Birds_ of Aristophanes and accepts an invitation to dine.]
Little Book! surnam'd of White; Clean, as yet, and fair to sight; Keep thy attribution right,