" Charles's hatred for annuals and albums was continually
breaking out: "I die of albophobia." "I detest to appear in an annual," he
writes; "I hate the paper, the type, the gloss, the dandy plates."
"Coleridge is too deep," again he says, "among the prophets, the gentleman
annuals." "If I take the wings of the morning, and fly to the uttermost
parts of the earth, there will albums be." To Southey he writes about this
time, "I have gone lately into the acrostic line. I find genius declines
with me; but I get clever." The reader readily appreciates the distinction
which the humorist thus cleverly (more than cleverly) makes. In proof of
his subdued quality, however, under the acrostical tyranny, I quote two
little unpublished specimens addressed to the Misses Locke, whom he had
never seen.
To M. L. [Mary Locke.]
Must I write with pen unwilling,
And describe those graces killing,
Rightly, which I never saw?
Yes--it is the album's law.
Let me then invention strain,
On your excelling grace to feign.
Cold is fiction. I believe it
Kindly as I did receive it;
Even as I. F.'s tongue did weave it.
To S. L. [Sarah Locke.
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