Chapter 236

CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM AYRTON EPISTLE TO WILL'M. AYRTON ESQ'RE.

Temple, May 12, 1817.

My dear friend, Before I end,-- Have you any More orders for Don Giovanni To give Him that doth live Your faithful Zany? Without raillery I mean Gallery Ones: For I am a person that shuns All ostentation And being at the top of the fashion; And seldom go to operas But in formâ pauperis.

I go to the play In a very economical sort of a way, Rather to see Than be seen. Though I'm no ill sight Neither, By candle-light, And in some kinds of weather. You might pit me For height Against Kean; But in a grand tragic scene I'm nothing:-- It would create a kind of loathing To see me act Hamlet; There'd be many a damn let Fly At my presumption If I should try, Being a fellow of no gumption.

By the way, tell me candidly how you relish This, which they call The lapidary style? Opinions vary. The late Mr. Mellish Could never abide it. He thought it vile, And coxcombical. My friend the Poet Laureat, Who is a great lawyer at Anything comical, Was the first who tried it; But Mellish could never abide it. But it signifies very little what Mellish said, Because he is dead. For who can confute A body that's mute?-- Or who would fight With a senseless sprite?-- Or think of troubling An impenetrable old goblin That's dead and gone, And stiff as stone, To convince him with arguments pro and con, As if some live logician, Bred up at Merton, Or Mr. Hazlitt, the Metaphysician-- Hey, Mr. Ayrton! With all your rare tone.

For tell me how should an apparition List to your call, Though you talk'd for ever,-- Ever so clever, When his ear itself, By which he must hear, or not hear at all, Is laid on the shelf? Or put the case (For more grace) It were a female spectre-- Now could you expect her To take much gust In long speeches, With her tongue as dry as dust, In a sandy place, Where no peaches, Nor lemons, nor limes, nor oranges hang, To drop on the drought of an arid harangue, Or quench, With their sweet drench, The fiery pangs which the worms inflict, With their endless nibblings, Like quibblings, Which the corpse may dislike, but can ne'er contradict-- Hey, Mr. Ayrton? With all your rare tone-- I am. C. LAMB.

[The text is from Ayrton's transcript in a private volume lately in the possession of Mr. Edward Ayrton, lettered _Lamb's Works_, Vol. III., uniform with the 1818 edition.

William Ayrton (1777-1858), a friend and neighbour of the Burneys, and a member of Lamb's whist-playing set, was a musical critic, and at this time director of the King's Theatre in the Haymarket, where he had just produced Mozart's "Don Giovanni." His wife was Marianne Arnold, sister of Samuel James Arnold, manager of the Lyceum Theatre.

"You might pit me for height against Kean." This was so. Edmund Kean was small in stature, though not so "immaterially" built as Lamb is said to have been.

"Mr. Mellish." Possibly the Joseph Charles Mellish who translated Schiller.

The Laureate, Southey, had first tried the lapidary style in "Gooseberry Pie"; later, without rhymes, in "Thalaba."

Some time in the intervening three months before the next letter the Lambs went to Brighton for their holiday.]