ected from the better part of mankind. I know I am too
dissatisfied with the beings around me; but I cannot help occasionally
exclaiming, "Woe is me, that I am constrained to dwell with Meshech, and
to have my habitation among the tents of Kedar." I know I am noways
better in practice than my neighors, but I have a taste for religion, an
occasional earnest aspiration after perfection, which they have not. I
gain, nothing by being with such as myself,--we encourage one another in
mediocrity, I am always longing to be with men more excellent than
myself. All this must sound odd to you; but these are my predominant
feelings when I sit down to write to you, and I should put force upon my
mind, were I to reject them, Yet I rejoice, and feel my privilege with
gratitude, when I have been reading some wise book, such as I have just
been reading,--Priestley on Philosophical Necessity,--in the thought
that I enjoy a kind of communion, a kind of friendship even, with the
great and good. Books are to me instead of friends, I wish they did not
resemble the latter in their scarceness.

And how does little David Hartley? "Ecquid in antiquam virtutem?" Does
his mighty name work wonders yet upon his little frame and opening mind?
I did not distinctly understand you,--you don't mean to make an actual
ploughman of him? Is Lloyd with you yet? Are you intimate with Southey?
What poems is he about to publish? He hath a most prolific brain, and is
indeed a most sweet poet. But how can you answer all the various mass of
interrogation I have put to you in the course of the sheet? Write back
just what you like, only write something, however brief. I have now nigh
finished my page, and got to the end of another evening (Monday
evening), and my eyes are heavy and sleepy, and my brain unsuggestive. I
have just heart enough awake to say good night once more, and God love
you, my dear friend; God love us all! Mary bears an affectionate
remembrance of you.

CHARLES LAMB.

[1] A well-known conjuror of the time.

XIII.

TO COLERIDGE.

_February_ 13, 1797.

Your poem is altogether admirable--parts of it are even exquisite; in
particular your personal account of the Maid far surpasses anything of
the sort in Southey. [1] I perceived all its excellences, on a first
reading, as readily as now you have been removing a supposed film from
my eyes. I was only struck with a certain faulty disproportion in the
matter and the _style_, which I still