The Prose Works of Charles LambCambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009 - 146 páginas Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 29 TO THE SHADE OF ELLISTON. Joyousest of once embodied spirits, whither at length hast thou flown ? to what genial region are we permitted to conjecture that thou hast flitted. Art thou sowing thy Wild Oats yet (the harvest time was still to come with thee) upon casual sands of Avernus? or art thou enacting Rover (as we would gladlier think) by wandering Elysian streams ? This mortal frame, while thou didst play thy brief antics amongst us, was in truth any thing but a prison to thee, as the vain Platonist dreams of this body to be no better than a county gaol, forsooth, or some house of durance vile, whereof the five senses are the fetters. Thou knewest better than to be in a hurry to cast off those gyves; and had notice to quit, I fear, before thou wertquite ready to abandon this fleshy tenement. It was thy Pleasure-House, thy Palace of Dainty Devices: thy Louvre, or thy White-Hall. What new mysterious lodgings dost thou tenant now ? or when may we expect thy aerial house- warming ? Tartarus we know, and we have read of the Blessed Shades; now cannot I intelligibly fancy thee in either. Is it too much to hazard a conjecture, that (as the schoolmen admitted a receptacle apart for Patriarchs and un-chrisom Babes) there may exist ?not far perchance from that storehouse of all vanities, which Milton saw in visions?a Limbo somewhere for Players ? and that Up thither like aerial vapours fly Both all Stage things, and all that in Stage things Built their fond hopes of glory, or lasting fame ? All the unaccomplish'd works of Authors' hands, Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mix'd, Damn'd upon earth, fleet thither? Play, Opera, Farce, with all their trumpery.? There, by the neighbouring moon (by some not improperly supposed thy Regent Planet ... |