"The Decision against Hunt." John Hunt, the publisher of The Liberal, in which Byron's "Vision of Judgment" had been printed in 1822, had just been fined £100 for the libel therein contained on George III.
Here should come a note from Lamb to Charles Ollier, thanking him for a copy of his Inesilla; or, The Tempter: A Romance, with Other Tales.]
LETTER 341
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[P.M. February 25, 1824.]
My dear Sir—Your title of Poetic Vigils arrides me much more than A Volume of Verse, which is no meaning. The motto says nothing, but I cannot suggest a better. I do not like mottoes but where they are singularly felicitous; there is foppery in them. They are unplain, un-Quakerish. They are good only where they flow from the Title and are a kind of justification of it. There is nothing about watchings or lucubrations in the one you suggest, no commentary on Vigils. By the way, a wag would recommend you to the Line of Pope
Sleepless himself—to give his readers sleep—
I by no means wish it. But it may explain what I mean, that a neat motto is child of the Title. I think Poetic Virgils as short and sweet as can be desired; only have an eye on the Proof, that the Printer do not substitute Virgils, which would ill accord with your modesty or meaning. Your suggested motto is antique enough in spelling, and modern enough in phrases; a good modern antique: but the matter of it is germane to the purpose only supposing the title proposed a vindication of yourself from the presumption of authorship. The 1st title was liable to this objection, that if you were disposed to enlarge it, and the bookseller insisted on its appearance in Two Tomes, how oddly it would sound—
A Volume of Verse in Two Volumes 2d edition &c—
You see thro' my wicked intention of curtailing this Epistolet by the above device of large margin. But in truth the idea of letterising has been oppressive to me of late above your candour to give me credit for. There is Southey, whom I ought to have thank'd a fortnight ago for a present of the Church Book. I have never had courage to buckle myself in earnest even to acknowledge it by six words. And yet I am accounted by some people a good man. How cheap that character is acquired! Pay your debts, don't borrow money, nor twist your kittens neck off, or disturb a congregation, &c.— your business is done. I know things (thoughts or things, thoughts are things) of myself which would make every friend I have fly me as a plague patient. I once * * *, and set a dog upon a crab's leg that was shoved out under a moss of sea weeds, a pretty little feeler.—Oh! pah! how sick I am of that; and a lie, a mean one, I once told!— I stink in the midst of respect.