The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4Lamb, Charles
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The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4
Lamb, Charles
English essays; English poetry; Short stories, English
One cometh to me sighing, complaining. He expected universal remedies
in my Anatomy; so many cures as there are distemperatures among men.
I have not put his affection in my cases. Hear you his case. My fine
Sir is a lover, an _inamorata_, a Pyramus, a Romeo; he walks seven
years disconsolate, moping, because he cannot enjoy his miss,
_insanus amor_ is his melancholy, the man is mad; _delirat_, he
dotes; all this while his Glycera is rude, spiteful, not to be
entreated, churlish, spits at him, yet exceeding fair, gentle eyes
(which is a beauty), hair lustrous and _smiling_, the trope is none
of mine, _Æneas Sylvius_ hath _crines ridentes_--in conclusion she is
wedded to his rival, a boore, a _Corydon_, a rustic, _omnino ignarus,
he can scarce construe Corderius_, yet haughty, fantastic,
_opiniâtre_. The lover travels, goes into foreign parts,
peregrinates, _amoris ergo_, sees manners, customs, not English,
converses with pilgrims, lying travellers, monks, hermits, those
cattle, pedlars, travelling gentry, _Egyptians_, natural wonders,
unicorns (though _Aldobrandus_ will have them to be figments),
satyrs, semi-viri, apes, monkeys, baboons, curiosities artificial,
_pyramides_, Virgilius his tombe, relicks, bones, which are nothing
but ivory as _Melancthon_ judges, though _Cornutus_ leaneth to think
them bones of dogs, cats, (why not men?) which subtill priests vouch
to have been saints, martyrs, _heu Pietas!_ By that time he has ended
his course, _fugit hora_, seven other years are expired, gone by,
time is he should return, he taketh ship for Britaine, much desired
of his friends, _favebant venti, Neptune is curteis_, after some
weekes at sea he landeth, rides post to town, greets his family,
kinsmen, _compotores, those jokers his friends that were wont to
tipple with him at alehouses_; these wonder now to see the change,
_quantum mutatus, the man is quite another thing_, he is
disenthralled, manumitted, he wonders what so bewitched him, he can
now both see, hear, smell, handle, converse with his mistress, single
by reason of the death of his rival, a widow having children, grown
willing, prompt, amorous, showing no such great dislike to second
nuptials, he might have her for asking, no such thing, his mind is
changed, he loathes his former meat, had liever eat ratsbane,
aconite, his humour is to die a bachelour; marke the conclusion. In
this humour of celibate seven other years are consumed in idleness,
sloth, world's pleasures, which fatigate, satiate, induce wearinesse,
vapours, _tædium vitæ:_ When upon a day, behold a wonder, _redit
Amor_, the man is as sick as ever, he is commenced lover upon the old
stock, walks with his hand thrust in his bosom for negligence, moping
he leans his head, face yellow, beard flowing and incomposite, eyes
sunken, _anhelus, breath wheezy and asthmatical, by reason of
over-much sighing:_ society he abhors, solitude is but a hell, what
shall he doe? all this while his mistresse is forward, coming,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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