LETTER 15


CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE

[P.M. December 2, 1796 (Friday).]

I have delay'd writing thus long, not having by me my copy of your
poems, which I had lent. I am not satisfied with all your intended
omissions. Why omit 40: 63: 84: above all, let me protest strongly
against your rejecting the "Complaint of Ninathoma," 86. The words, I
acknowledge, are Ossian's, but you have added to them the "Music of
Caril." If a vicarious substitute be wanting, sacrifice (and 'twill be a
piece of self-denial _too_) the Epitaph on an Infant, of which its
Author seems so proud, so tenacious. Or, if your heart be set on
_perpetuating_ the four-line-wonder, I'll tell you what [to] do: sell
the copywright of it at once to a country statuary; commence in this
manner Death's prime poet laureat; and let your verses be adopted in
every village round instead of those hitherto famous ones "Afflictions
sore long time I bore, Physicians were in vain". I have seen your last
very beautiful poem in the Monthly Magazine--write thus, and you most
generally have written thus, and I shall never quarrel with you about
simplicity. With regard to my lines "Laugh all that weep," etc.--I would
willingly sacrifice them, but my portion of the volume is so
ridiculously little, that in honest truth I can't spare them. As things
are, I have very slight pretensions to participate in the
title-page.--White's book is at length reviewed in the Monthly; was it