nd getting
rid of prejudices, and knowledge of the face of the globe; and rot the
very firs of the forest that look so romantic alive, and die into
desks: _Vale_.

Yours, dear W., and all yours,

C. LAMB.

[1] "But thou, that didst appear so fair
To fond imagination,
Dost rival in the light of day
Her dilicate Creation"

[2] Better known as "Rural Architecture."

[3] The first line of the poem on Bolton Abbey:--

"'What is good for a bootless bene?'
With these dark words begins my fate;
And their meaning is, whence can comfort spring
When Prayer is of no avail?"

LVI.

TO SOUTHEY.

_May_ 6, 1815.

Dear Southey,--I have received from Longman a copy of "Roderick," with
the author's compliments, for which I much thank you. I don't know where
I shall put all the noble presents I have lately received in that way;
the "Excursion," Wordsworth's two last volumes, and now "Roderick," have
come pouring in upon me like some irruption from Helicon. The story of
the brave Maccabee was already, you may be sure, familiar to me in all
its parts. I have, since the receipt of your present, read it quite
through again, and with no diminished pleasure. I don't know whether I
ought to say that it has given me more pleasure than any of your long
poems. "Kehama" is doubtless more powerful, but I don't feel that firm
footing in it that I do in "Roderick;" my imagination goes sinking and
floundering in the vast spaces of unopened-before systems and faiths; I
am put out of the pale of my old sympathies; my moral sense is almost
outraged; I can't believe, or with horror am made to believe, such
desperate chances against omnipotences, such disturbances of faith to
the centre. The more potent, the more painful the spell. Jove and his
brotherhood of gods, tottering with the giant assailings, I can bear,
for the soul's hopes are not struck at in such contests; but your
Oriental almighties are too much types of the intangible prototype to be
meddled with without shuddering. One never connects what are called the
"attributes" with Jupiter. I mention only what diminishes my delight at
the wonder-workings of "Kehama," not what impeaches its power, which I
confess with trembling.

But "Roderick" is a comfortable poem. It reminds me of the delight I
took in the first reading of the "Joan of Arc." It is maturer and better
than _that_, though not better to me now than that was then. It suits me
bet