With these lines, and with that sister's kindest remembrances to Cottle,
I conclude.
Yours sincerely,
LAMB.
[1] Southey had just published his "Joan of Arc," in quarto. He and
Lovell had published jointly, two years before, "Poems by Bion and
Moschus."
[2] A Christ's Hospital schoolfellow, the "Jem" White of the Elia essay,
"The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers."
II.
TO COLERIDGE.
(_No month_) 1796.
_Tuesday night_.--Of your "Watchman," the review of Burke was the best
prose. I augured great things from the first number. There is some
exquisite poetry interspersed. I have re-read the extract from the
"Religious Musings," and retract whatever invidious there was in my
censure of it as elaborate. There are times when one is not in a
disposition thoroughly to relish good writing. I have re-read it in a
more favorable moment, and hesitate not to pronounce it sublime. If
there be anything in it approaching to tumidity (which I meant not to
infer; by "elaborate" I meant simply "labored"), it is the gigantic
hyperbole by which you describe the evils of existing society: "snakes,
lions, hyenas, and behemoths," is carrying your resentment beyond
bounds. The pictures of "The Simoom," of "Frenzy and Ruin," of "The
Whore of Babylon," and "The Cry of Foul Spirits disinherited of Earth,"
and "The Strange Beatitude" which the good man shall recognize in
heaven, as well as the particularizing of the children of wretchedness
(I have unconsciously included every part of it), form a variety of
uniform excellence.
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