Chapter 263

CHARLES LAMB TO VINCENT NOVELLO

[P.M. November 8, 1830.]

Tears are for lighter griefs. Man weeps the doom That seals a single victim to the tomb. But when Death riots, when with whelming sway Destruction sweeps a family away; When Infancy and Youth, a huddled mass, All in an instant to oblivion pass, And Parent's hopes are crush'd; what lamentation Can reach the depth of such a desolation? Look upward, Feeble Ones! look up, and trust That He, who lays this mortal frame in dust, Still hath the immortal Spirit in His keeping. In Jesus' sight they are not dead, but sleeping.

Dear N., will these lines do? I despair of better. Poor Mary is in a deplorable state here at Enfield.

Love to all,

C. LAMB.

[The four sons and two daughters of John and Ann Rigg, of York, had been drowned in the Ouse. A number of poets were asked for verses, the best to be inscribed on a monument in York Minster. Those of James Montgomery were chosen.

It was possibly the death of Hazlitt, on September 18, while the Lambs were in their London lodgings, that brought on Mary Lamb's attack.]