HYPOCHONDRIACUS.

[Originally published in 1802 (among the Miscellaneous Pieces appended to Charles Lamb's Five Act Tragedy of John Woodvil) as part and parcel of what purported to be "Curious Fragments from a Common-place Book which belonged to Robert Burton, author of The Anatomy of Melancholy."]

By myself walking,
To myself talking,
When as I ruminate
On my untoward fate,
Scarce seem I
Alone sufficiently,
Black thoughts continually
Crowding my privacy ;
They come unbidden,
Like foes at a wedding,
Thrusting their faces
In better guests' places,
Peevish and malecontent,
Clownish, impertinent,
Dashing the merriment :
So in like fashions
Dim cogitations
Follow and haunt me,
Striving to daunt me,
In my heart festering,
In my ears whispering,
"Thy friends are treacherous,
Thy foes are dangerous,
Thy dreams ominous."
Fierce Anthropophagi,
Spectra, Diaboli,

What scared St. Anthony,
Hobgoblins, Lemures,
Dreams of Antipodes,
Night-riding Incubi
Troubling the fantasy,
All dire illusions
Causing confusions;

Figments heretical, Scruples fantastical, Doubts diabolical; Abaddon vexeth me, Mahu perplexeth me, Lucifer teaseth meJesu! Maria! liberate nos ab his diris tentationibus Inimici.

FREE THOUGHTS ON SEVE-
RAL EMINENT COMPOSERS.
SOME cry up Haydn, some Mozart,
Just as the whim bites; for my part,
I do not care a farthing candle
For either of them, or for Handel.-
Cannot a man live free and easy,
Without admiring Pergolesé?
Or through the world with comfort go
That never heard of Doctor Blow?
So help me Heaven, I hardly have ;
And yet I eat, and drink, and shave,
Like other people, if you watch it,
And know no more of stave
crotchet

or

Than did the primitive Peruvians;
Or those old ante-queer-diluvians
That lived in the unwash'd world with
Jubal,

Before that dirty blacksmith Tubal,
By stroke on anvil, or by summat,
Found out, to his great surprise, the

gamut.

I care no more for Cimarosa
Than he did for Salvator Rosa,
Being no painter; and bad luck
Be mine, if I can bear that Gluck!
Old Tycho Brahe, and modern Her-
schel,

Had something in them; but who's
Purcel?

The devil with his foot so cloven,
For aught I care, may take Beet-
hoven;

And, if the bargain does not suit,
I'll throw him Weber in to boot!
There's not the splitting of a splinter
To choose 'twixt him last named, and
Winter.

Of Doctor Pepusch old Queen Dido
Knew just as much, God knows, as I

do.

I would not go four miles to visit Sebastian Bach, (or Batch, which is

it ?)

No more I would for Bononcini.
As for Novello, or Rossini,

I shall not say a word to grieve 'em,
Because they're living; so I leave 'em.

Then have you, Madelina, an album

complete,

Which may you live to finish, and I live to see 't!

WHAT IS AN ALBUM?

[A correspondent of Notes and Queries brought to light the following verses, which he discovered by accident, written on the fly-leaf of a copy of "John Woodvil," lying for sale in a bookseller's window-stall, the lines being dated the 7th September, 1830, penned unmistakably in Charles Lamb's handwriting, and further authenticated with his simple straggling autograph.]

'Tis a book kept by modern young ladies for show,

Of which their plain grandmothers nothing did know;

A medley of scraps, half verse and half prose,

And some things not very like either, God knows.

The first soft effusions of beaux and of belles,

Of future Lord Byrons and sweet L. E. L.'s;

Where wise folk and simple both equally join,

And you write your nonsense that I may write mine.

Stick in a fine landscape to make a display

A flower-piece, a foreground! all

tinted so gay,

As Nature herself, could she see them, would strike

With envy, to think that she ne'er did the like;

And since some Lavaters, with head

TO MARGARET W-. (The Athenæum, 14th March, 1835). [Written at Edmonton, on the 8th October, 1834, only eleven weeks before Charles Lamb's death, and first published in the Athenæum, within less than three months after he was laid in his grave.] MARGARET, in happy hour Christen'd from that humble flower Which we a daisy call! May thy pretty namesake be In all things a type of thee, And image thee in all.

Like it you show a modest face,
An unpretending native grace; —

The tulip, and the pink,

The china and the damask rose,
And every flaunting flower that blows,
In the comparing shrink.

Of lowly fields you think no scorn;
Yet gayest gardens would adorn,

And grace, wherever set.
Home-seated in your lonely bower,
Or wedded-a transplanted flower-
I bless you, Margaret !

PROLOGUE

TO COLERIDGE'S TRAGEDY OF

"REMORSE."

[Spoken by Mr. Carr, on Saturday, the 23rd January, 1813, when the play was first produced on the boards of Drury Lane Theatre. In the original issue of the drama, in its printed form, this prologue was duly published.]

THERE are, I am told, who sharply criticize

Our modern theatres' unwieldy size. We players shall scarce plead guilty to that charge,

Who think a house can never be too large:

Grieved when a rant, that's worth a

nation's ear,

Shakes some prescribed Lyceum's petty sphere;

[Spoken by Miss Ellen Tree, afterwards Mrs. Charles Kean, on the night of the drama's first representation. In the printed copy of the play published immediately afterwards, the dramatist, in his Preface, dated 24th April, 1833, took occasion to say: "To my early, my trusty and honoured friend, Charles Lamb, I owe my thanks for a delightful Epilogue, composed almost as soon as it was requested."]

WHEN first our bard his simple will express'd

That I should in his heroine's robes be dress'd,

My fears were with my vanity at strife, How I could act that untried part

'a wife."