The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 1: Miscellaneous ProseLamb, Charles
General
The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 1: Miscellaneous Prose
Lamb, Charles
English literature
ten thousand leagues awry.
Then might we see
Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tost
And flutter'd into rags; then reliques, beads,
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,
The sport of winds.
You pick up pence by showing the hallowed bones, shrine, and crucifix;
and you take money a second time by exposing the trick of them
afterwards. You carry your verse to Castle Angelo for sale in a morning;
and, swifter than a pedlar can transmute his pack, you are at Canterbury
with your prose ware before night.
Sir, is it that I dislike you in this merry vein? The very reverse. No
countenance becomes an intelligent jest better than your own. It is your
grave aspect, when you look awful upon your poor friends, which I would
deprecate.
In more than one place, if I mistake not, you have been pleased to
compliment me at the expence of my companions. I cannot accept your
compliment at such a price. The upbraiding a man's poverty naturally
makes him look about him, to see whether he be so poor indeed as he is
presumed to be. You have put me upon counting my riches. Really, Sir, I
did not know I was so wealthy in the article of friendships. There
is----, and----, whom you never heard of, but exemplary characters both,
and excellent church-goers; and N., mine and my father's friend for
nearly half a century; and the enthusiast for Wordsworth's poetry, T. N.
T., a little tainted with Socinianism, it is to be feared, but constant
in his attachments, and a capital critic; and----, a sturdy old
Athanasian, so that sets all to rights again; and W., the light, and
warm-as-light hearted, Janus of the London; and the translator of Dante,
still a curate, modest and amiable C.; and Allan C., the large-hearted
Scot; and P----r, candid and affectionate as his own poetry; and A----p,
Coleridge's friend; and G----n, his more than friend; and Coleridge
himself, the same to me still, as in those old evenings, when we used to
sit and speculate (do you remember them, Sir?) at our old Salutation
tavern, upon Pantisocracy and golden days to come on earth; and W----th,
(why, Sir, I might drop my rent-roll here; such goodly farms and manors
have I reckoned up already. In what possessions has not this last name
alone estated me!--but I will go on)--and M., the noble-minded kinsman,
by wedlock, of W----th; and H. C. R., unwearied in the offices of a
friend; and Clarkson, almost above the narrowness of that relation, yet
condescending not seldom heretofore from the labours of his
world-embracing charity to bless my humble roof; and the gall-less and
single-minded Dyer; and the high-minded associate of Cook, the veteran
Colonel, with his lusty heart still sending cartels of defiance to old
Time; and, not least, W. A., the last and steadiest left to me of that
little knot of whist-players, that used to assemble weekly, for so many
years, at the Queen's Gate (you remember them, Sir?) and called Admiral
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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