Nothing like defining of Terms when we talk. What blunders might I have fallen into of quite inapplicable Criticism, but for this timely explanation.
N.B. At the beginning of Edm. Spencer (to prevent mistakes) I have copied from my own copy, and primarily from a book of Chalmers on Shakspear, a Sonnet of Spenser's never printed among his poems. It is curious as being manly and rather Miltonic, and as a Sonnet of Spenser's with nothing in it about Love or Knighthood. I have no room for remembrances; but I hope our doing your commission will prove we do not quite forget you.
C. L.
1 Feb., 1806.
["Hazlitt's book about Human Action for Coleridge"—An Essay on the
Principles of Human Action, 1805.
"A Paraphrase of the King and Queen of Hearts." This was a little book for children by Lamb, illustrated by Mulready and published by T. Hodgkins (for the Godwins) in 1806. It was discovered through this passage in this letter and is reprinted in facsimile in Vol. III. of my large edition. The title ran The King and Queen of Hearts, with the Rogueries of the Knave who stole away the Queen's Pies.
Coleridge had left Malta on September 21, 1805. He went to Naples, and from there to Rome in January, 1806, where he stayed until May 18.
"A propos of Spencer." This portion of the letter, owing to a mistake of
Talfourd's, is usually tacked on to one dated June, 1806. "Miss Evans."
See note to Letter 3.
"Poor Spencer." William Robert Spencer (1769-1834) was the author of jeux d'esprit and poems. He is now known, if at all, by his ballad of "Bed Gellert." He married the widow of Count Spreti, and in 1804 published a book of elegies entitled "The Year of Sorrow." Spencer was among the translators of Bürger's "Leonore," his version being illustrated by Lady Diana Beauclerk (his great-aunt) in 1796. Lamb used this anecdote as a little article in the Reflector, No. II., 1811, entitled "On the Ambiguities arising from Proper Names" (see Vol. I. of this edition). Lamb, however, by always spelling the real poet with a "c," did nothing towards avoiding the ambiguity!
This is the sonnet which Lamb copied into Wordsworth's Spenser from
George Chalmers' Supplemental Apology for the Believers in the
Shakespeare-Papers (1799), page 94:—