ell as pleasant thing
To hear thy good report, now borne along
Upon the honest breath of public praise:
We know that with the elder sons of song
In honouring whom thou hast delighted still,
Thy name shall keep its course to after days.
The empty pertness, and the vulgar wrong,
The flippant folly, the malicious will,
Which have assailed thee, now, or heretofore,
Find, soon or late, their proper meed of shame;
The more thy triumph, and our pride the more,
When witling critics to the world proclaim,
In lead, their own dolt incapacity.
Matter it is of mirthful memory
To think, when thou wert early in the field,
How doughtily small Jeffrey ran at thee
A-tilt, and broke a bulrush on thy shield.
And now, a veteran in the lists of fame,
I ween, old Friend! thou art not worse bested
When with a maudlin eye and drunken aim,
Dulness hath thrown a _jerdan_ at thy head.

SOUTHEY.

Leigh Hunt attacked Jerdan in the _Examiner_ in a number of "Rejected
Epigrams" signed T.A. See later. He also took up the matter in the
Tatler, in the first number of which the following "Inquest
Extraordinary" was printed:--

Last week a porter died beneath his burden;
Verdict: Found carrying a _Gazette_ from Jerdan.

Moxon's shop without customers was at 64 New Bond Street. "The candle of
the Lord." In my large edition I gave this reference very thoughtlessly
to Proverbs xx. 27. It is really to Job. xxix. 3.

"The French heroism." The July Revolution, in which the Bourbons were
routed and Louis Philippe placed on the throne.]

LETTER 523

CHARLES LAMB TO SAMUEL ROGERS

[Dated at end: Oct. 5, 1830.]

Dear Sir,--I know not what hath bewitch'd me that I have delayed
acknowledging your beautiful present. But I have been very unwell and
nervous of late. The poem was not new to me, tho' I have renewed
acquaintance with it. Its metre is none of the least of its
excellencies. 'Tis so far from the stiffness of blank verse--it gallops
like a traveller, as it should do--no crude Miltonisms in [it]. Dare I
pick out what most pleases me? It is the middle paragraph in page
thirty-four. It is most tasty. Though I look on every impression as a
_proof_ of your kindness, I am jealous of the ornaments, and should have
prized the verses naked on whitybrown paper.

I am,