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most exquisite address to the Widowed Queen to court her daughter for him—the topics of maternal feeling, of a deep knowledge of the heart, are such as no monster could have supplied.' Richard must have felt before he could feign so well; tho' ambition choked the good seed. I think it the most finished piece of Eloquence in the world; of persuasive oratory far above Demosthenes, Burke, or any man, far exceeding the courtship of Lady Anne. Her relenting is barely natural, after all; the more perhaps S.'s merit to make impossible appear probable, but the Queen's consent (taking in all the circumstances and topics, private and public, with his angelic address, able to draw the host of [piece cut out of letter] Lucifer), is probable; and [piece cut out of letter] resisted it. This observation applies to many other parts. All the inconsistency is, that Shakespeare's better genius was forced to struggle against the prejudices which made a monster of Richard. He set out to paint a monster, but his human sympathies produced a

man.

1 Lamb refers to the whole of Scene iv. of Act iv. It will be noticed that he has no prejudice in favour of any particular form of spelling Shakespeare's name. Shakspeare, Shakespeare, and Shakspere--he offers all three.

Are you not tired with all this ingenious criticism? I am.

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Richard itself is totally metamorphosed in the wretched acting play of that name, which you will see altered by Cibber.

'July 26, 1801.'

'God bless you,

[The signature is cut off.]

And then came a space of some three years,

in which Lamb either wrote not at all to his young friend, or wrote nothing that has been preserved. Probably the correspondence ceased, for a partnership in a printing and bookselling business had been found for Robert in Birmingham, and its cares seem to have been engrossing.

IX

ROBERT LLOYD'S MARRIAGE

1804

WE may gather from references in Lamb's letters to Manning and others, that during this interval he had occasional news of the Lloyd family; while in the summer of 1802, when his sister and he visited Coleridge at Keswick, they saw Charles Lloyd. But of that meeting there is no record beyond the bare statement.

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Of Robert Lloyd we have no tidings whatever until March 1803, when, in writing to Southey, Lamb said: Robert Lloyd has written me a masterly letter, containing a character of his father. See how different from Charles he views the old man! (Literatim): "My father smokes, repeats Homer in Greek, and Virgil, and is learning, when from business, with all the vigour of a young man, Italian. He is, really, a wonderful man. He mixes public and private business, the intricacies of

disordering life, with his religion and devotion. No one more rationally enjoys the romantic scenes of Nature, and the chit-chat and little vagaries of his children; and, though surrounded with an ocean of affairs, the very neatness of his most obscure cupboard in the house passes not unnoticed. I never knew anyone view with such clearness, nor so well satisfied with things as they are, and make such allowance for things which must appear perfect Syriac to him." By the last [says Lamb] he means the Lloydisms of the younger branches. His portrait of Charles (exact as far as he has had opportunities of noting him) is most exquisite : "Charles is become steady as a church, and as straightforward as a Roman road. It would distract him to mention anything that was not as plain as sense; he seems to have run the whole scenery of life, and now rests as the formal precision of non-existence." Here is genius, I think [says Lamb again], and 'tis seldom a young man, a Lloyd, looks at a father (so differing) with such good-nature while he is alive.'

And so we come to Lamb's next letter to Robert, and learn something more of the young man's employment during the interval. He had

been falling in love. Lamb wrote (with some forgetfulness of his appreciation of Robert's letter, passages from which he had copied out for Coleridge, as we have just seen) :

'Dear Robert,-I received your notes safe, and thank you for them. It seems you are about to be married. Joy to you and uninterrupted satisfaction in that state. But who is the Lady? It is the character of your letters that you omit facts, dates, names, and matter, and describe nothing but feelings, in which, as I cannot always partake, as being more intense in degree or different in kind from my own. tranquil ones, I cannot always well tell how to reply. Your dishes are too much sauced and spiced and flavoured for me to suppose that you can relish my plain meats and vulgar aliment. Still, Robert, if I cannot always send you of the same, they have a smack and a novelty, a Robert-ism about them, that make them a dainty stimulus to my palate at times. (I have little to tell you of. You are mistaken, I am disengaged from all newspaper connexions, and breathe a freer air in consequence. I was bound, like Gulliver, in a multitude of little chains, which, by quotidian leasing swelled to a

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