"The Elephant." Some mildly humorous verses "To an Elephant."
"As Sh. says of religion"--Shakespeare, I assume, in "Hamlet," III., 4, 47, 48:--
And sweet Religion makes A rhapsody of words.
I quote in the Appendix the poem which Lamb liked best. Barton had written a poem called "Syr Heron." This is Lord Thurlow's sonnet, of which Lamb was very fond. He quoted it in a note to his _Elia_ essay on the sonnets of Sidney in the _London Magazine_, and copied it into his album:--
TO A BIRD, THAT HAUNTED THE WATERS OF LACKEN, IN THE WINTER
O melancholy Bird, a winter's day, Thou standest by the margin of the pool, And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school To Patience, which all evil can allay. God has appointed thee the fish thy prey; And giv'n thyself a lesson to the fool Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule, And his unthinking course by thee to weigh. There need not schools, nor the professor's chair, Though these be good, true wisdom to impart: He, who has not enough, for these, to spare, Of time, or gold, may yet amend his heart, And teach his soul, by brooks, and rivers fair: Nature is always wise in every part.
"Fludyer" was a poem to Sir Charles Fludyer on the devastation effected on his marine villa at Felixstowe by the encroachments of the sea. The answer to the enigma, Mrs. FitzGerald (Lucy Barton) told Canon Ainger, was not money but an auctioneer's hammer.
Here should come a letter from Lamb to Louisa Holcroft, dated December 5, 1828. Louisa Holcroft was a daughter of Thomas Holcroft, Lamb's friend, whose widow married Kenney. A good letter with some excellent nonsense about measles in it.]
My dear three C.'s--The way from Southgate to Colney Hatch thro' the unfrequentedest Blackberry paths that ever concealed their coy bunches from a truant Citizen, we have accidentally fallen upon--the giant Tree by Cheshunt we have missed, but keep your chart to go by, unless you will be our conduct--at present I am disabled from further flights than just to skirt round Clay Hill, with a peep at the fine back woods, by strained tendons, got by skipping a skipping-rope at 53--heu mihi non sum qualis. But do you know, now you come to talk of walks, a ramble of four hours or so--there and back--to the willow and lavender plantations at the south corner of Northaw Church by a well dedicated to Saint Claridge, with the clumps of finest moss rising hillock fashion, which I counted to the number of two hundred and sixty, and are called "Claridge's covers"--the tradition being that that saint entertained so many angels or hermits there, upon occasion of blessing the waters? The legends have set down the fruits spread upon that occasion, and in the Black Book of St. Albans some are named which are not supposed to have been introduced into this island till a century later. But waiving the miracle, a sweeter spot is not in ten counties round; you are knee deep in clover, that is to say, if you are not above a middling man's height; from this paradise, making a day of it, you go to see the ruins of an old convent at March Hall, where some of the painted glass is yet whole and fresh.