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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9365-8.txt b/9365-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a1069df --- /dev/null +++ b/9365-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,28041 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 +by Edited by E. V. Lucas + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 + +Author: Edited by E. V. Lucas + +Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9365] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on September 25, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS CHARLES AND MARY LAMB *** + + + + +Produced by Keren Vergon, David King and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +THE LETTERS OF CHARLES AND MARY LAMB + +1796-1820 + +EDITED BY E. V. LUCAS + +WITH A FRONTISPIECE + + + +PREFACE + + +This edition of the correspondence of Charles and Mary Lamb contains 618 +letters, of which 45 are by Mary Lamb alone. It is the only edition to +contain all Mary Lamb's letters and also a reference to, or abstract of, +every letter of Charles Lamb's that cannot, for reasons of copyright, be +included. Canon Ainger's last edition contains 467 letters and the +_Every-man's Library Edition_ contains 572. In 1905 the Boston +Bibliophile Society, a wealthy association of American collectors, +issued privately--since privately one can do anything--an edition in six +volumes (limited to 453 sets) of the correspondence of Charles and Mary +Lamb, containing everything that was available, which means practically +everything that was known: the number reaching a total of 762 letters; +but it will be many years before such a collection can be issued in +England, since each of the editions here has copyright matter peculiar +to itself. My attempt to induce the American owner of the largest number +of new letters to allow me to copy them from the Boston Bibliophile +edition has proved fruitless. + +And here a word as to copyright in such documents in England, the law as +most recently laid down being established upon a set of sixteen of +Lamb's letters which unhappily are not (except in very brief abstract) +in the present edition. These letters, chiefly to Robert Lloyd, were +first published in _Charles Lamb and the Lloyds_, under my editorship, +in 1900, the right to make copies and publish them having been acquired +by Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. from Mrs. Steeds, a descendant of Charles +Lloyd. The originals were then purchased by Mr. J. M. Dent, who included +copies in his edition of Lamb's letters, under Mr. Macdonald's +editorship, in 1903. Meanwhile Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. had sold their +rights in the letters to Messrs. Macmillan for Canon Ainger's edition, +and when Mr. Dent's edition was issued Messrs. Macmillan with Messrs. +Smith, Elder & Co. brought an action. Mr. Dent thereupon acquired from +Mr. A. H. Moxon, the son of Emma Isola, Lamb's residuary legatee, all +his rights as representing the original author. The case was heard +before Mr. Justice Kekewich early in 1906. The judge held that "the +proprietor of the author's manuscript in the case of letters, as in the +case of any other manuscript, meant the owner of the actual paper on +which the matter was written, and that in the case of letters the +recipient was the owner. No doubt the writer could restrain the +recipient from publishing, and so could the writer's representatives +after death; but although they had the right to restrain others from +publishing, it did not follow that they had the right to publish and +acquire copyright. This right was given to the proprietor of the +manuscript, who, although he could be restrained from publishing by the +writer's personal representatives, yet, if not so restrained, could +publish and acquire copyright." + +Mr. Dent appealed against this verdict and his appeal was heard on +October 31 and November 7, 1906, when the decision of Mr. Justice +Kekewich was upheld with a clearer definition of the right of restraint. +The Court, in deciding (I quote again from Mr. MacGillivray's summary) +that "the proprietors of manuscript letters were, after the writer's +death, entitled to the copyright in them when published, were careful to +make it clear that they did not intend to overrule the authority of +those cases where a deceased man's representatives have been held +entitled to restrain the publication of his private letters by the +recipients or persons claiming through them. The Court expressly +affirmed the common law right of the writer and his representatives in +unpublished letters. It did not follow that because the copyright, if +there was publication, would be in the person who, being proprietor of +the author's manuscript, first published, that that person would be +entitled to publish. The common law right would be available to enable +the legal personal representatives, under proper circumstances, to +restrain publication." That is how the copyright law as regards letters +stands to-day (1912). + +The present edition has been revised throughout and in it will be found +much new material. I have retained from the large edition only such +notes as bear upon the Lambs and the place of the letters in their life, +together with such explanatory references as seemed indispensable. For +the sources of quotations and so forth the reader must consult the old +edition. + +For permission to include certain new letters I have to thank the Master +of Magdalene, Mr. Ernest Betham, Major Butterworth, Mr. Bertram Dobell, +Mr. G. Dunlop, and Mr. E. D. North of New York. + +As an example of other difficulties of editing, at any given time, the +correspondence of Charles and Mary Lamb, I may say that while these +volumes were going through the press, Messrs. Sotheby offered for sale +new letters by both hands, the existence of which was unknown equally to +English editors and to Boston Bibliophiles. The most remarkable of them +is a joint letter from sister and brother to Louisa Martin, their +child-friend (to whom Lamb wrote the verses "The Ape"), dated March 28, +1809. Mary begins, and Charles then takes the pen and becomes +mischievous. Thus, "Hazlitt's child died of swallowing a bag of white +paint, which the poor little innocent thing mistook for sugar candy. It +told its mother just before it died, that it did not like soft sugar +candy, and so it came out, which was not before suspected. When it was +opened several other things were found in it, particularly a small +hearth brush, two golden pippins, and a letter which I had written to +Hazlitt from Bath. The letter had nothing remarkable in it." ... The +others are from brother and sister to Miss Kelly, the actress, whom +Lamb, in 1819, wished to marry. The first, March 27, 1820, is from Mary +Lamb saying that she has taken to French as a recreation and has been +reading Racine. The second is from Lamb, dated July 6, 1825, thanking +Miss Kelly for tickets at Arnold's theatre, the Lyceum, and predicting +the success of his farce "The Pawnbroker's Daughter." How many more new +letters are still to come to light, who shall say? + +In Mr. Bedford's design for the cover of this edition certain Elian +symbolism will be found. The upper coat of arms is that of Christ's +Hospital, where Lamb was at school; the lower is that of the Inner +Temple, where he was born and spent many years. The figures at the bells +are those which once stood out from the façade of St. Dunstan's Church +in Fleet Street, and are now in Lord Londesborough's garden in Regent's +Park. Lamb shed tears when they were removed. The tricksy sprite and the +candles (brought by Betty) need no explanatory words of mine. + +E. V. L. + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME V + +LETTERS BY NUMBER + +1796. + + 1 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge May 27 + From the original in the possession of Mrs. + Alfred Morrison. + + 2 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge End of May? + From the original (Morrison Collection). + + 3 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge June 10 + From the original (Morrison Collection). + + 4 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge June 13 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn's edition). + + 5 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge July 1 + From the original (Morrison Collection). + + 6 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge July 5 + From the facsimile of the original (Mr. E. + H. Coleridge). + + 7 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge July 6 + From the original (Morrison Collection). + + 8 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Sept. 27 + From the original (Morrison Collection). + + 9 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Oct. 3 + From the original (Morrison Collection). + + 10 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Oct. 17 + From the original (Morrison Collection). + + 11 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Oct. 24 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 12 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Oct. 28 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 13 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Nov. 8 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 14 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Nov. 14 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 15 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Dec. 2 + From the original (Morrison Collection). + + 16 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Dec. 5 + From the original (Morrison Collection). + + 17 Charles Lamb to S. T, Coleridge Dec. 9 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (The Lambs). + + 18 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Dec. 10 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +1797. + + 19 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Jan. 2 + From the original (Morrison Collection). + + 20 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Jan. 10 + From the original (Morrison Collection). + + 21 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Jan. 18 + From the original (Morrison Collection). + + 22 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Feb. 5 + From the original (Morrison Collection). + + 23 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Feb. 13 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 24 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge April 7 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 25 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge April 15 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 26 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge June 13 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 27 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge June 24 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 28 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge (?)June 29 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 29 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Late July + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 30 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Aug. 24 + From the original (Morrison Collection). + + 31 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge About Sept. 20 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +1798. + + 32 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Jan. 28 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 33 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Early summer + From the original in the Gluck Collection at Buffalo, U.S.A. + + 34 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey July 28 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 35 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey Oct. 18 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 36 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey Oct. 29 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 37 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey Nov. 3 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 38 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey Nov. 8 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 39 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey ?Nov. + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_The Lambs_). + + 40 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey Nov. 28 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 41 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey Dec. 27 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +1799. + + 42 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey Jan. 21 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 43 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey Jan. or Feb. + From the original. + + 44 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey March 15 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 45 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey March 20 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 46 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey Oct. 31 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 47 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Dec. + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 48 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Dec. 28 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + +1800. + + 49 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge ?Jan. 23 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 50 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Feb. 13 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 51 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning March 1 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 52 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning March 17 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 53 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning April 5 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 54 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge ?April 16 or 17 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 55 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge ?Spring + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 56 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge May 12 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 57 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning May 20 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 58 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning ?May 25 + + 59 Charles Lamb to J. M. Gutch No date + From Mr. G. A. Gutch's original. + + 60 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge ?Late July + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 61 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Aug. 6 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 62 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Aug. 9 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 63 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Aug. 11 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 64 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Aug. 14 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 65 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Aug. 24 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 66 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Aug. 26 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 67 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Aug. 28 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 68 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Sept. 22 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 69 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Oct. 16 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 70 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Nov. 3 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 71 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Nov. 28 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 72 Charles Lamb to William Godwin Dec. 4 + Mr. Kegan Paul's text (_William Godwin: His Friends_, etc.). + + 73 Charles Lamb to William Godwin No date + Mr. Kegan Paul's text (_William Godwin: His Friends_, etc.). + + 74 Charles Lamb to William Godwin Dec. 10 + Mr. Kegan Paul's text (_William Godwin: His Friends_, etc.). + + 75 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Dec. 13 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 76 Charles Lamb to William Godwin Dec. 14 + Mr. Kegan Paul's text (_William Godwin: His Friends_, etc.). + + 77 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Dec. 16 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + +78, 79 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning End of year + From _The Athenaeum_. + + 80 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Dec. 27 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +1801. + + 81 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth. Jan. 30 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + + 82 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Feb. 15 + Canon Ainger's text. + + 83 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Late Feb. + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 84 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning April + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 85 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning ?April + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 86 Charles Lamb to William Godwin June 29 + Mr. Kegan Paul's text (_William Godwin: His Friends_, etc.). + + 87 Charles Lamb to Walter Wilson Aug. 14 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 88 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning ?Aug. + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 89 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Aug. 31 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 90 Charles Lamb to William Godwin Sept. 9 + Mr. Kegan Paul's text (_William Godwin: His Friends_, etc.). + + 91 Charles Lamb to William Godwin (_fragment_) Sept. 17 + Mr. Kegan Paul's text (_William Godwin: His Friends_, etc.). + + 92 Charles Lamb to Mrs. Godwin No date + Mr. Kegan Paul's text (_William Godwin: His Friends_, etc.). + + 93 Charles Lamb to John Rickman ?Nov. + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +1802. + + 94 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning ?Feb. 15 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 95 Charles Lamb to John Rickman April 10 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 96 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning ?End of April + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 97 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge (_fragment_) Sept. 8 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + 98 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Sept. 24 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + 99 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Oct. 9 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +100 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Oct. 11 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +101 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge (_fragment_) Oct. 23 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + +102 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Nov. 4 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +103 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Nov. + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) and Talfourd, with alterations. + +1803. + +104 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Feb. 19 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_The Lambs_) with alterations. + +105 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning March + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +106 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth March 5 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +107 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge April 13 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + +108 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge May + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + +109 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge May 27 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +110 Mary Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth. July 9 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +111 Charles Lamb to John Rickman July 16 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +112 Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart Sept. 21 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_Mary And Charles Lamb_). + +113 Charles Lamb to William Godwin Nov. 8 + Mr. Kegan Paul's text (_William Godwin: His Friends_, etc.). + +114 Charles Lamb to William Godwin Nov. 10 + Mr. Kegan Paul's text (_William Godwin: His Friends_, etc.). + +1804. + +115 Charles Lamb to Thomas Poole. Feb. 14 + From original in British Museum. + +116 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge March 10 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +117 Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart ?March + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_Mary and Charles Lamb_). + +118 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge April 5 + From the original (Morrison Collection). + +119 Charles Lamb to Thomas Poole May 4 + From original in British Museum. + +120 Charles Lamb to Thomas Poole May 5 + From original in British Museum. + +121 Charles Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth June 2 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +122 Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart } +123 Charles Lamb to Sarah Stoddart } Late July + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_Mary and Charles Lamb_). + +124 Part I., Charles Lamb to William } + Wordsworth } +125 Part II., Mary Lamb to Dorothy } + Wordsworth } Oct. 13 +126 Part III., Mary Lamb to Mrs. S.T. } + Coleridge } + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +127 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey Nov. 7 + +1805. + +128 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth Feb. 18 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +129 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth Feb. 19 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +130 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Feb. 23 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + +131 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth March 5 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +132 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth March 21 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +133 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth April 5 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +134 Mary Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth May 7 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +135 Charles Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth June 14 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +136 Charles Lamb to Thomas manning July 27 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +137 Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart ?Sept. 18 + From the original. + +138 Charles Lamb to William and Dorothy + Wordsworth Sept. 28 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +139 Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart Early Nov. + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_Mary and Charles Lamb_). + +140 Charles Lamb to William Hazlitt Nov. 10 + From the original. + +141 Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart Nov. 9 and 14 + From the original. + +142 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Nov. 15 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + +1806. + +143 Charles Lamb to William Hazlitt Jan. 15 + From the original. + +144 Charles Lamb to John Rickman. Jan. 25 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +145 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth Feb. 1 + From the original, recently in the possession of Mr. Gordon + Wordsworth. + +146 Charles Lamb to William Hazlitt Feb. 19 + From the original. + +147 Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart Feb. 20, 21 and 22 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_Mary and Charles Lamb_). + +148 Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart March + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_Mary and Charles Lamb_). + +149 Charles Lamb to John Rickman March + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +150 Charles Lamb to William Hazlitt March 15 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +151 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning May 10 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_The Lambs_). + +152 Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart June 2 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_Mary and Charles Lamb_). + +153 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth June 26 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +154 Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart ?July 4 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_Mary and Charles Lamb_). + +155 Mary Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth Aug. 29 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +156 Mary Lamb to S. T. Coleridge. No date + From the original (Morrison Collection). + +157 Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart Oct. 23 + From the original. + +158 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Dec. 5 + From the original. + +159 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth Dec. 11 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +160 Charles Lamb to Sarah Stoddart Dec. 11 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +161 Charles Lamb to William Godwin No date + Mr. Kegan Paul's text (_William Godwin: His Friends_, etc.). + +1807. + +162 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth Jan. 29 + From the original in Dr. Williams' Library. + +163 Charles Lamb to T. and C. Clarkson June + From the original in the possession of + Mr. A.M.S. Emthuen. + +164 Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart Oct. + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_Mary and Charles + Lamb_). + +165 Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart Dec. 21 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_Mary and Charles + Lamb_). + +1808. + +166 Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddard Feb. 12 + From the original. + +167 Charles Lamb to the Rev. W. Hazlitt Feb. 18 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +168 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Feb. 26 + From the original. + +169 Charles lamb to Matilda Betham No date + From _A House of Letters_. + +170 Charles Lamb to Matilda Betham No date + From _A House of Letters_. + +171 Charles Lamb to William Godwin March 11 + Mr. Kegan Paul's text (_William Godwin + His Friends_, etc.). + +172 Charles Lamb to Henry Crabb Robinson March 12 + From the original in Dr. Williams' Library + +173 Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart March 16 + From the original. + +174 Charles Lamb to George Dyer Dec. 5 + From _The Mirror_. + +175 Mary Lamb to Sarah Hazlitt } +176 Charles Lamb to Sarah Hazlitt } Dec. 10 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_Mary and Charles + Lamb_). + +177 Mary Lamb to Mrs. Clarkson } Dec. 10 +178 Charles Lamb to Mrs. Clarkson } + from the original in the possession of Mr. + A.M.S. Methuen. + +1809. + +179 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning March 28 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations + +180 Charles Lamb to Henry Crabb Robinson May + From the original in Dr. Williams' Library + +181 Mary Lamb to Sarah Hazlitt June 2 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_Mary and Charles + Lamb_). + +182 Charles Lamb to S.T. Coleridge June 7 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +183 Charles Lamb to S.T. Coleridge Oct. 30 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +184 Mary Lamb to Sarah Hazlitt Nov. 7 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_Mary and Charles + Lamb_). + +1810. + +185 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Jan. 2 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + +186 Charles Lamb to Henry Crabb Robinson Feb. 7 + From the original in Dr. Williams' Library. + +187 Charles Lamb to the J.M. Gutch April 9 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +188 Charles Lamb to Basil Montagu July 12 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +189 Charles Lamb to William Hazlitt Aug. 9 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +190 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth Oct. 19 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +191 Mary Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth } +192 Charles Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth } Nov. 13 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. } + +193 Mary Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth } +194 Charles Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth } Nov. 23 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. } + +195 Charles Lamb to William Hazlitt Nov. 28 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +196 Charles Lamb to William Godwin No date + Mr. Kegan Paul's text (_William Godwin: + His Friends_, etc.). + +197 Mary Lamb to Sarah Hazlitt ? End of year + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_Mary and Charles + Lamb_). + +1811. + +198 Mary Lamb to Matilda Betham No date + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_The Lambs_). + +199 Charles Lamb to John Morgan (_fragment_) March 8 + From the original (Duchess of Albany) + +200 Mary Lamb to Sarah Hazlitt } +201 Charles Lamb to William Hazlitt } Oct. 2 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_Mary and Charles } + Lamb_) and Bohn. + +1812. + +202 Charles Lamb to John Dyer Collier No date + J. P. Collier's text (_An Old Man's Diary_). + +203 Mary Lamb to Mrs. John Dyer Collier No date + J. P. Collier's text (_An Old Man's Diary_). + +[1813--_no letters_.] + +1814. + +204 Charles Lamb to John Scott ?Feb. + From facsimile (Birkbeck Hill's _Talks + about Autographs_). + +205 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth Aug. 9 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +206 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Aug. 13 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + +207 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Aug. 26 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +208 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth Sept. 19 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +209 Mary Lamb to Barbara Betham Nov. 2 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_The Lambs_). + +210 Charles Lamb to John Scott Dec. 12 + From Mr. R. B. Adam's original. + +211 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth Dec. 28 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +1815. + +212 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth ?Early Jan. + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +213 Charles Lamb to Mr. Sargus Feb. 23 + From the original in the possession of Mr. + Thomas Greg. + +214 Charles Lamb to Joseph Hume No date + Mr. Kegan Paul's text (_William Godwin: + His Friends_, etc.). + +215 Charles Lamb to [Mrs. Hume?] No date + From the American owner. + +216 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth April 7 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +217 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth April 28 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +218 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey May 6 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +219 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey Aug. 9 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +220 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth Aug. 9 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +221 Mary Lamb to Sarah Hutchinson Aug. 20 + +222 Charles Lamb to Sarah Hutchinson Aug. 20 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +223 Mary Lamb to Matilda Betham ?Late summer + From _Fraser's Magazine_. + +224 Charles Lamb to Matilda Betham No date + From _A House of Letters_. + +225 Charles Lamb to Matilda Betham No date + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_The Lambs_). + +226 Charles Lamb to Sarah Hutchinson Oct. 19 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +227 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Dec. 25 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + +228 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning Dec. 26 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + + +1816. + +229 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth April 9 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +230 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth April 26 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +231 Charles Lamb to Matilda Betham June 1 + From _Fraser's Magazine_. + +232 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth Sept. 23 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +233 Mary Lamb to Sarah Hutchinson Middle of Nov. + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +234 Mary Lamb to Sarah Hutchinson Late in year + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + + +1817. + +235 Charles Lamb to William Ayrton May 12 + From Ayrton's transcript in Lamb's _Works_, Vol. III. + +236 Charles Lamb to Barren Field Aug. 31 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +237 Charles Lamb to James and Louisa Kenney Oct. + Text from Mr. Samuel Davey. + +238 Mary Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth Nov. 21 + +239 Charles Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth Nov. 21 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +240 Charles Lamb to John Payne Collier. Dec. 10 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +241 Charles Lamb to Benjamin Robert Haydon Dec. 26 + From Tom Taylor's _Life of Haydon_. + +1818. + +242 Charles Lamb to Mrs. William Wordsworth Feb. 18 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +243 Charles Lamb to Charles and James Ollier June 18 + From the original (Morrison Collection). + +244 Charles Lamb to Robert Southey Oct. 26 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +245 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Dec. 24 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + +1819. + +246 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth April 26 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +247 Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning May 28 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + +248 Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth June 7 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +249 Charles Lamb to Fanny Kelly July 20 + Mr. John Hollingshead's text (_Harper's Magazine_). + +250 Charles Lamb to Fanny Kelly July 20 + John Hollingshead's text (_Harper's Magazine_). + +251 Charles Lamb to Thomas Noon Talfourd(?) August + (Original in the possession of the Master of Magdelene.) + +252 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge ?Summer + From the original (Morrison Collection). + +253 Charles Lamb to Thomas Holcroft, Jr. Autumn + From the original (Morrison Collection). + +254 Charles Lamb to Joseph Cottle Nov. 5 + Mr. Hazlitt's text. + +255 Charles Lamb to Joseph Cottle (_incomplete_) Late in year + Mr. Hazlitt's text. + +256 Charles Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth Nov. 25 + From Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's original. + +1820. + +257 Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge Jan. 10 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn) with alterations. + +258 Mary Lamb to Mrs. Vincent Novello Spring + From the Cowden Clarkes' _Recollections of Writers_. + +259 Charles Lamb to Joseph Cottle May 26 + Mr. Hazlitt's text. + +260 Charles Lamb to Dorothy Wordsworth May 25 + From Professor Knight's _Life of Wordsworth_. + +261 Charles Lamb to Thomas Allsop July 13 + +262 Charles and Mary Lamb to Samuel James Arnold No date + +263 Charles Lamb to Barron Field Aug. 16 + Mr. Hazlitt's text (_The Lambs_). + +263A Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge ?Autumn + Mr. Hazlitt's text (Bohn). + + +APPENDIX + +Coleridge's "Ode on the Departing Year" +Wither's "Supersedeas" +Dyer's "Poetic Sympathies" (_fragment_) +Haydon's Party (from Taylor's _Life of Haydon_) + + +FRONTISPIECE + +CHARLES LAMB (AGED 44) + +From a Water-colour Drawing by J. G. F. Joseph. + + + + +THE LETTERS OF CHARLES AND MARY LAMB + +1796-1820 + + + +LETTER 1 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[Postmark May 27, 1796.] + +DEAR C---- make yourself perfectly easy about May. I paid his bill, when +I sent your clothes. I was flush of money, and am so still to all the +purposes of a single life, so give yourself no further concern about it. +The money would be superfluous to me, if I had it. + +With regard to Allen,--the woman he has married has some money, I have +heard about £200 a year, enough for the maintenance of herself & +children, one of whom is a girl nine years old! so Allen has dipt +betimes into the cares of a family. I very seldom see him, & do not know +whether he has given up the Westminster hospital. + +When Southey becomes as modest as his predecessor Milton, and publishes +his Epics in duodecimo, I will read 'em,--a Guinea a book is somewhat +exorbitant, nor have I the opportunity of borrowing the Work. The +extracts from it in the Monthly Review and the short passages in your +Watchman seem to me much superior to any thing in his partnership +account with Lovell. + +Your poems I shall procure forthwith. There were noble lines in what you +inserted in one of your Numbers from Religious Musings, but I thought +them elaborate. I am somewhat glad you have given up that Paper--it must +have been dry, unprofitable, and of "dissonant mood" to your +disposition. I wish you success in all your undertakings, and am glad to +hear you are employed about the Evidences of Religion. There is need of +multiplying such books an hundred fold in this philosophical age to +_prevent_ converts to Atheism, for they seem too tough disputants to +meddle with afterwards. I am sincerely sorry for Allen, as a family man +particularly. + +Le Grice is gone to make puns in Cornwall. He has got a tutorship to a +young boy, living with his Mother, a widow Lady. He will of course +initiate him quickly in "whatsoever things are lovely, honorable, and of +good report." He has cut Miss Hunt compleatly,--the poor Girl is very +ill on the Occasion, but he laughs at it, and justifies himself by +saying, "she does not see him laugh." Coleridge, I know not what +suffering scenes you have gone through at Bristol--my life has been +somewhat diversified of late. The 6 weeks that finished last year and +began this your very humble servant spent very agreeably in a mad house +at Hoxton--I am got somewhat rational now, and don't bite any one. But +mad I was--and many a vagary my imagination played with me, enough to +make a volume if all told. + +My Sonnets I have extended to the number of nine since I saw you, and +will some day communicate to you. + +I am beginning a poem in blank verse, which if I finish I publish. + +White is on the eve of publishing (he took the hint from Vortigern) +Original letters of Falstaff, Shallow &c--, a copy you shall have when +it comes out. They are without exception the best imitations I ever saw. + +Coleridge, it may convince you of my regards for you when I tell you my +head ran on you in my madness, as much almost as on another Person, who +I am inclined to think was the more immediate cause of my temporary +frenzy. + +The sonnet I send you has small merit as poetry but you will be curious +to read it when I tell you it was written in my prison-house in one of +my lucid Intervals. + +TO MY SISTER + +If from my lips some angry accents fell, + Peevish complaint, or harsh reproof unkind, +'Twas but the error of a sickly mind, +And troubled thoughts, clouding the purer well, + And waters clear, of Reason; and for me, + Let this my verse the poor atonement be, +My verse, which thou to praise wast ever inclined + Too highly, and with a partial eye to see +No blemish: thou to me didst ever shew + Fondest affection, and woud'st oftimes lend +An ear to the desponding love sick lay, + Weeping my sorrows with me, who repay +But ill the mighty debt of love I owe, + Mary, to thee, my sister and my friend. + +With these lines, and with that sister's kindest remembrances to C----, +I conclude-- + +Yours sincerely + +LAMB. + +Your Conciones ad populum are the most eloquent politics that ever came +in my way. + +Write, when convenient--not as a task, for there is nothing in this +letter to answer. + +You may inclose under cover to me at the India house what letters you +please, for they come post free. + +We cannot send our remembrances to Mrs. C---- not having seen her, but +believe me our best good wishes attend you both. + +My civic and poetic compts to Southey if at Bristol.--Why, he is a very +Leviathan of Bards--the small minnow I-- + +[This is the earliest letter of Lamb's that has come down to us. On +February 10, 1796, he was just twenty-one years old, and was now living +at 7 Little Queen Street (since demolished) with his father, mother, +Aunt Sarah Lamb (known as Aunt Hetty), Mary Lamb and, possibly, John +Lamb. John Lamb, senior, was doing nothing and had, I think, already +begun to break up: his old master, Samuel Salt, had died in February, +1792. John Lamb, the son (born June 5, 1763), had a clerkship at the +South-Sea House; Charles Lamb had begun his long period of service in +the India House; and Mary Lamb (born December 3, 1764) was occupied as a +mantua-maker. + +At this time Coleridge was twenty-three; he would be twenty-four on +October 21. His military experiences over, he had married Sara Fricker +on October 4, 1795 (a month before Southey married her sister Edith), +and was living at Bristol, on Redcliffe Hill. The first number of _The +Watchman_ was dated on March 1, 1796; on May 13, 1796, it came to an +end. On April 16, 1796, Cottle had issued Coleridge's _Poems on Various +Subjects_, containing also four "effusions" by Charles Lamb (Nos. VII., +XI., XII. and XIII.), and the "Religious Musings." Southey, on bad terms +with Coleridge, partly on account of Southey's abandonment of +Pantisocracy, was in Lisbon. His _Joan of Arc_ had just been published +by Cottle in quarto at a guinea. Previously he had collaborated in _The +Fall of Robespierre_, 1794, with Coleridge and Robert Lovell. Each, one +evening, had set forth to write an act by the next. Southey and Lovell +did so, but Coleridge brought only a part of his. Lovell's being +useless, Southey rewrote his act, Coleridge finished his at leisure, and +the result was published. Robert Lovell (1770?-1796) had also been +associated with Coleridge and Southey in Pantisocracy and was their +brother-in-law, having married Mary Fricker, another of the sisters. +When, in 1795, Southey and Lovell had published a joint volume of +_Poems_, Southey took the pseudonym of Bion and Lovell of Moschus. + +May was probably the landlord of the Salutation and Cat. The London +Directory for 1808 has "William May, Salutation Coffee House, 17 Newgate +Street." We must suppose that when Coleridge quitted the Salutation and +Cat in January, 1795, he was unable to pay his bill, and therefore had +to leave his luggage behind. Cottle's story of Coleridge being offered +free lodging by a London inn-keeper, if he would only talk and talk, +must then either be a pretty invention or apply to another landlord, +possibly the host of the Angel in Butcher Hall Street. + +Allen was Robert Allen, a schoolfellow of Lamb and Coleridge, and +Coleridge's first friend. He was born on October 18, 1772. Both Lamb and +Leigh Hunt tell good stories of him at Christ's Hospital, Lamb in _Elia_ +and Hunt in his _Autobiography_. From Christ's Hospital he went to +University College, Oxford, and it was he who introduced Coleridge and +Hucks to Southey in 1794. Probably, says Mr. E. H. Coleridge, it was he +who brought Coleridge and John Stoddart (afterwards Sir John, and +Hazlitt's brother-in-law) together. On leaving Oxford he seems to have +gone to Westminster to learn surgery, and in 1797 he was appointed +Deputy-Surgeon to the 2nd Royals, then in Portugal. He married a widow +with children; at some time later took to journalism, as Lamb's +reference in the _Elia_ essay on "Newspapers" tells us; and he died of +apoplexy in 1805. + +Coleridge's employment on the _Evidences of Religion_, whatever it may +have been, did not reach print. + +Le Grice was Charles Valentine Le Grice (1773-1858), an old Christ's +Hospitaller and Grecian (see Lamb's _Elia_ essays on "Christ's Hospital" +and "Grace before Meat"). Le Grice passed to Trinity College, Cambridge. +He left in 1796 and became tutor to William John Godolphin Nicholls of +Trereife, near Penzance, the only son of a widowed mother. Le Grice was +ordained in 1798 and married Mrs. Nicholls in 1799. Young Nicholls died +in 1815 and Mrs. Le Grice in 1821, when Le Grice became sole owner of +the Trereife property. He was incumbent of St. Mary's, Penzance, for +some years. Le Grice was a witty, rebellious character, but he never +fulfilled the promise of his early days. It has been conjectured that +his skill in punning awakened Lamb's ambition in that direction. Le +Grice saw Lamb next in 1834, at the Bell at Edmonton. His recollections +of Lamb were included by Talfourd in the _Memorials_, and his +recollections of Coleridge were printed in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, +December, 1834. I know nothing of Miss Hunt. + +Of Lamb's confinement in a madhouse we know no more than is here told. +It is conjectured that the "other person" to whom Lamb refers a few +lines later was Ann Simmons, a girl at Widford for whom he had an +attachment that had been discouraged, if not forbidden, by her friends. +This is the only attack of the kind that Lamb is known to have suffered. +He once told Coleridge that during his illness he had sometimes believed +himself to be Young Norval in Home's "Douglas." + +The poem in blank verse was, we learn in a subsequent letter, "The +Grandame," or possibly an autobiographical work of which "The Grandame" +is the only portion that survived. + +White was James White (1775-1820), an old Christ's Hospitaller and a +friend and almost exact contemporary of Lamb. Lamb, who first kindled +his enthusiasm for Shakespeare, was, I think, to some extent involved in +the _Original Letters, &c., of Sir John Falstaff and his Friends_, which +appeared in 1796. The dedication--to Master Samuel Irelaunde, meaning +William Henry Ireland (who sometimes took his father's name Samuel), the +forger of the pretended Shakespearian play "Vortigern," produced at +Drury Lane earlier in the year--is quite in Lamb's manner. White's +immortality, however, rests not upon this book, but upon his portrait in +the _Elia_ essay on "Chimney-Sweepers." + +The sonnet "To my Sister" was printed, with slight alterations, by Lamb +in Coleridge's _Poems_, second edition, 1797, and again in Lamb's +_Works_, 1818. + +Coleridge's _Condones ad Populum; or, Addresses to the People_, had been +published at Bristol in November, 1795.] + + + + +LETTER 2 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[Probably begun either on Tuesday, May 24, or Tuesday, May 31, 1796. +Postmark? June 1.] + +I am in such violent pain with the head ach that I am fit for nothing +but transcribing, scarce for that. When I get your poems, and the Joan +of Arc, I will exercise my presumption in giving you my opinion of 'em. +The mail does not come in before tomorrow (Wednesday) morning. The +following sonnet was composed during a walk down into Hertfordshire +early in last Summer. + +The lord of light shakes off his drowsyhed.[*] +Fresh from his couch up springs the lusty Sun, +And girds himself his mighty race to run. +Meantime, by truant love of rambling led, +I turn my back on thy detested walls, +Proud City, and thy sons I leave behind, +A selfish, sordid, money-getting kind, +Who shut their ears when holy Freedom calls. +I pass not thee so lightly, humble spire, +That mindest me of many a pleasure gone, +Of merriest days, of love and Islington, +Kindling anew the flames of past desire; +And I shall muse on thee, slow journeying on, +To the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire. + +[Footnote: Drowsyhed I have met with I think in Spencer. Tis an old +thing, but it rhymes with led & rhyming covers a multitude of licences.] + +The last line is a copy of Bowles's, "to the green hamlet in the +peaceful plain." Your ears are not so very fastidious--many people would +not like words so prosaic and familiar in a sonnet as Islington and +Hertfordshire. The next was written within a day or two of the last, on +revisiting a spot where the scene was laid of my 1st sonnet that "mock'd +my step with many a lonely glade." + +When last I roved these winding wood-walks green, +Green winding walks, and pathways shady-sweet, +Oftimes would Anna seek the silent scene, +Shrouding her beauties in the lone retreat. +No more I hear her footsteps in the shade; +Her image only in these pleasant ways +Meets me self-wandring where in better days +I held free converse with my fair-hair'd maid. +I pass'd the little cottage, which she loved, +The cottage which did once my all contain: +it spake of days that ne'er must come again, +Spake to my heart and much my heart was moved. +"Now fair befall thee, gentle maid," said I, +And from the cottage turn'd me, with a sigh. + +The next retains a few lines from a sonnet of mine, which you once +remarked had no "body of thought" in it. I agree with you, but have +preserved a part of it, and it runs thus. I flatter myself you will like +it. + +A timid grace sits trembling in her Eye, +As both to meet the rudeness of men's sight, +Yet shedding a delicious lunar light, +That steeps in kind oblivious extacy +The care-craz'd mind, like some still melody; +Speaking most plain the thoughts which do possess +Her gentle sprite, peace and meek quietness, +And innocent loves,[*] and maiden purity. +A look whereof might heal the cruel smart +Of changed friends, or fortune's wrongs unkind; +Might to sweet deeds of mercy move the heart +Of him, who hates his brethren of mankind. +Turned are those beams from me, who fondly yet +Past joys, vain loves, and buried hopes regret. + +[Footnote: Cowley uses this phrase with a somewhat different meaning: I +meant loves of relatives friends &c.] + +The next and last I value most of all. 'Twas composed close upon the +heels of the last in that very wood I had in mind when I wrote "Methinks +how dainty sweet." + +We were two pretty babes, the youngest she, +The youngest and the loveliest far, I ween, +And INNOCENCE her name. The time has been, +We two did love each other's company; +Time was, we two had wept to have been apart. +But when, with shew of seeming good beguil'd, +I left the garb and manners of a child, +And my first love for man's society, +Defiling with the world my virgin heart, +My loved companion dropt a tear, and fled, +And hid in deepest shades her awful head. +Beloved, who can tell me where Thou art, +In what delicious Eden to be found, +That I may seek thee the wide world around. + +Since writing it, I have found in a poem by Hamilton of Bangour, these 2 +lines to happiness + +Nun sober and devout, where art thou fled +To hide in shades thy meek contented head. + +Lines eminently beautiful, but I do not remember having re'd 'em +previously, for the credit of my 10th and 11th lines. Parnell has 2 +lines (which probably suggested the _above_) to Contentment + +Whither ah! whither art thou fled, +To hide thy meek contented head.[*] + +[Footnote: an odd epithet for contentment in a poet so poetical as +Parnell.] + +Cowley's exquisite Elegy on the death of his friend Harvey suggested the +phrase of "we two" + +"Was there a tree that did not know +The love betwixt us two?----" + +So much for acknowledged plagiarisms, the confession of which I know not +whether it has more of vanity or modesty in it. As to my blank verse I +am so dismally slow and sterile of ideas (I speak from my heart) that I +much question if it will ever come to any issue. I have hitherto only +hammered out a few indepen[den]t unconnected snatches, not in a capacity +to be sent. I am very ill, and will rest till I have read your +poems--for which I am very thankful. I have one more favour to beg of +you, that you never mention Mr. May's affair in any sort, much less +_think_ of repaying. Are we not flocci-nauci-what-d'ye-call-em-ists? + +We have just learnd, that my poor brother has had a sad accident: a +large stone blown down by yesterday's high wind has bruised his leg in a +most shocking manner--he is under the care of Cruikshanks. Coleridge, +there are 10,000 objections against my paying you a visit at Bristol--it +cannot be, else--but in this world 'tis better not to think too much of +pleasant possibles, that we may not be out of humour with present +insipids. Should any thing bring you to London, you will recollect No. +7, Little Queen St. Holborn. + +I shall be too ill to call on Wordsworth myself but will take care to +transmit him his poem, when I have read it. I saw Le Grice the day +before his departure, and mentioned incidentally his "teaching the young +idea how to shoot"--knowing him and the probability there is of people +having a propensity to pun in his company you will not wonder that we +both stumbled on the same pun at once, he eagerly anticipating me,--"he +would teach him to shoot!"--Poor Le Grice! if wit alone could entitle a +man to respect, &c. He has written a very witty little pamphlet lately, +satirical upon college declamations; when I send White's book, I will +add that. + +I am sorry there should be any difference between you and Southey. +"Between you two there should be peace," tho' I must say I have borne +him no good will since he spirited you away from among us. What is +become of Moschus? You sported some of his sublimities, I see, in your +Watchman. Very decent things. So much for to night from your afflicted +headachey sorethroatey, humble Servant C. Lamb------Tuesday +night---------. + +Of your Watchmen, the Review of Burke was the best prose. I augurd great +things from the 1st number. There is some exquisite poetry interspersed. +I have re-read the extract from the Religious musings and retract +whatever invidious there was in my censure of it as elaborate. There are +times when one is not in a disposition thoroughly to relish good +writing. I have re-read it in a more favourable moment and hesitate not +to pronounce it sublime. If there be any thing in it approachs to +tumidity (which I meant not to infer in elaborate: I meant simply +labored) it is the Gigantic hyperbole by which you describe the Evils of +existing society. Snakes, Lions, hyenas and behemoths, is carrying your +resentment beyond bounds. The pictures of the Simoom, of frenzy and +ruin, of the whore of Babylon and the cry of the foul spirits disherited +of Earth and the strange beatitude which the good man shall recognise in +heaven--as well as the particularizing of the children of wretchedness-- +(I have unconsciously included every part of it) form a variety of +uniform excellence. I hunger and thirst to read the poem complete. That +is a capital line in your 6th no.: "this dark freeze-coated, hoarse, +teeth-chattering Month"--they are exactly such epithets as Burns would +have stumbled on, whose poem on the ploughd up daisy you seem to have +had in mind. Your complaint that [of] your readers some thought there +was too much, some too little, original matter in your Nos., reminds me +of poor dead Parsons in the Critic--"too little incident! Give me leave +to tell you, Sir, there is too much incident." I had like to have forgot +thanking you for that exquisite little morsel the 1st Sclavonian Song. +The expression in the 2d "more happy to be unhappy in hell"--is it not +very quaint? Accept my thanks in common with those of all who love good +poetry for the Braes of Yarrow. I congratulate you on the enemies you +must have made by your splendid invective against the barterers in +"human flesh and sinews." Coleridge, you will rejoice to hear that +Cowper is recovered from his lunacy, and is employ'd on his translation +of the Italian &c. poems of Milton, for an edition where Fuseli presides +as designer. Coleridge, to an idler like myself to write and receive +letters are both very pleasant, but I wish not to break in upon your +valuable time by expecting to hear very frequently from you. Reserve +that obligation for your moments of lassitude, when you have nothing +else to do; for your loco-restive and all your idle propensities of +course have given way to the duties of providing for a family. The mail +is come in but no parcel, yet this is Tuesday. Farewell then till to +morrow, for a nich and a nook I must leave for criticisms. By the way I +hope you do not send your own only copy of Joan of Arc; I will in that +case return it immediately. + +Your parcel _is_ come, you have been _lavish_ of your presents. + +Wordsworth's poem I have hurried thro not without delight. Poor Lovell! +my heart almost accuses me for the light manner I spoke of him above, +not dreaming of his death. My heart bleeds for your accumulated +troubles, God send you thro' 'em with patience. I conjure you dream not +that I will ever think of being repaid! the very word is galling to the +ears. I have read all your Rel. Musings with uninterrupted feelings of +profound admiration. You may safely rest your fame on it. The best +remain'g things are what I have before read, and they lose nothing by my +recollection of your manner of reciting 'em, for I too bear in mind "the +voice, the look" of absent friends, and can occasionally mimic their +manner for the amusement of those who have seen 'em. Your impassioned +manner of recitation I can recall at any time to mine own heart, and to +the ears of the bystanders. I rather wish you had left the monody on C. +concluding as it did abruptly. It had more of unity.--The conclusion of +your R Musings I fear will entitle you to the reproof of your Beloved +woman, who wisely will not suffer your fancy to run riot, but bids you +walk humbly with your God. The very last words "I exercise my young +noviciate tho't in ministeries of heart-stirring song," tho' not now new +to me, cannot be enough admired. To speak politely, they are a well +turnd compliment to Poetry. I hasten to read Joan of Arc, &c. I have +read your lines at the begin'g of 2d book, they are worthy of Milton, +but in my mind yield to your Rel Mus'gs. I shall read the whole +carefully and in some future letter take the liberty to particularize my +opinions of it. Of what is new to me among your poems next to the +Musings, that beginning "My Pensive Sara" gave me most pleasure: the +lines in it I just alluded to are most exquisite--they made my sister +and self smile, as conveying a pleasing picture of Mrs. C. chequing your +wild wandrings, which we were so fond of hearing you indulge when among +us. It has endeared us more than any thing to your good Lady; and your +own self-reproof that follows delighted us. 'Tis a charming poem +throughout. (You have well remarked that "charming, admirable, +exquisite" are words expressive of feelings, more than conveying of +ideas, else I might plead very well want of room in my paper as excuse +for generalizing.) I want room to tell you how we are charmed with your +verses in the manner of Spencer, &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. I am glad you +resume the Watchman--change the name, leave out all articles of News, +and whatever things are peculiar to News Papers, and confine yourself to +Ethics, verse, criticism, or, rather do not confine yourself. Let your +plan be as diffuse as the Spectator, and I'll answer for it the work +prospers. If I am vain enough to think I can be a contributor, rely on +my inclinations. Coleridge, in reading your R. Musings I felt a +transient superiority over you: I _have_ seen Priestly. I love to see +his name repeated in your writings. I love and honor him almost +profanely. You would be charmed with his _sermons_, if you never read +'em.--You have doubtless read his books, illustrative of the doctrine of +Necessity. Prefixed to a late work of his, in answer to Paine, there is +a preface, given [?giving] an account of the Man and his services to +Men, written by Lindsey, his dearest friend,--well worth your reading. + +Tuesday Eve.--Forgive my prolixity, which is yet too brief for all I +could wish to say.--God give you comfort and all that are of your +household.--Our loves and best good wishes to Mrs. C. + +C. LAMB. + +[The postmark of this letter looks like June 1, but it might be June 7, +It was odd to date it "Tuesday night" half way through, and "Tuesday +eve" at the end. Possibly Lamb began it on Tuesday, May 24, and finished +it on Tuesday, May 31; possibly he began it on Tuesday, May 31, and +finished it and posted it on Tuesday, June 7. + +The Hertfordshire sonnet was printed in the _Monthly Magazine_ for +December, 1797, and not reprinted by Lamb. + +The sonnet that "mock'd my step with many a lonely glade" is that +beginning-- + +Was it some sweet device of Faëry, + +which had been printed in Coleridge's _Poems_, 1796. The second, third +and fourth of the sonnets that are copied in this letter were printed in +the second edition of Coleridge's _Poems_, 1797. Anna is generally +supposed to be Ann Simmons, referred to in the previous note. + +Concerning "Flocci-nauci-what-d'ye-call-'em-ists," Canon Ainger has the +following interesting note: "'Flocci, nauci' is the beginning of a rule +in the old Latin grammars, containing a list of words signifying 'of no +account,' _floccus_ being a lock of wool, and _naucus_ a trifle. Lamb +was recalling a sentence in one of Shenstone's Letters:--'I loved him +for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money.'" +But "Pantisocratists" was, of course, the word that Lamb was shadowing. +Pantisocracy, however--the new order of common living and high thinking, +to be established on the banks of the Susquehanna by Coleridge, Southey, +Favell, Burnett and others--was already dead. + +William Cumberland Cruikshank, the anatomist, who attended Lamb's +brother, had attended Dr. Johnson in his last illness. + +Le Grice's pamphlet was _A General Theorem for A******* Coll. +Declamation_, by Gronovius, 1796. + +Southey and Coleridge had been on somewhat strained terms for some time; +possibly, as I have said in the previous note, owing to Southey's +abandonment of Pantisocratic fervour, which anticipated Coleridge's by +some months. Also, to marry sisters does not always lead to serenity. +The spiriting away of Coleridge had been effected by Southey in January, +1795, when he found Coleridge at the Angel in Butcher Hall Street +(_vice_ the Salutation in Newgate Street) and bore him back to Bristol +and the forlorn Sara Fricker, and away from Lamb, journalism and +egg-hot. + +Moschus was, as we have seen, Robert Lovell. No. V. of _The Watchman_ +contained sonnets by him. + +The review of Burke's _Letter to a Noble Lord_ was in No. I. of _The +Watchman._--The passage from "Religious Musings," under the title "The +Present State of Society," was in No. II.--extending from line 260 to +357. [These lines were 279-378 1st ed.; 264-363 2nd ed.] The capital +line in No. VI. is in the poem, "Lines on Observing a Blossom on the +First of February, 1796."--Poor dead Parsons would be William Parsons +(1736-1795), the original Sir Fretful Plagiary in Sheridan's "Critic." +Lamb praises him in his essay on the Artificial Comedy.--In No. IX. of +_The Watchman_ were prose paraphrases of three Sclavonian songs, the +first being "Song of a Female Orphan," and the second, "Song of the +Haymakers."--John Logan's "Braes of Yarrow" had been quoted in No. III. +as "the most exquisite performance in our language."--The invective +against "the barterers" refers to the denunciation of the slave trade in +No. IV. of _The Watchman_. + +Cowper's recovery was only partial; and he was never rightly himself +after 1793. The edition of Milton had been begun about 1790. It was +never finished as originally intended; but Fuseli completed forty +pictures, which were exhibited in 1799. An edition of Cowper's +translations, with designs by Flaxman, was published in 1808, and of +Cowper's complete Milton in 1810. + +Wordsworth's poem would be "Guilt and Sorrow," of which a portion was +printed in _Lyrical Ballads,_ 1798, and the whole published in 1842. + +Coleridge's "Monody on Chatterton," the first poem in his _Poems on +Various Subjects_, 1796, had been written originally at Christ's +Hospital, 1790: it continued to be much altered before the final +version. + +The two lines from "Religious Musings" are not the last, but the +beginning of the last passage. + +Coleridge contributed between three and four hundred lines to Book II. +of Southey's _Joan of Arc_, as we shall see later. The poem beginning +"My Pensive Sara" was Effusion 35, afterwards called "The Æolian Harp," +and the lines to which Lamb refers are these, following upon Coleridge's +description of how flitting phantasies traverse his indolent and passive +brain:-- + +But thy more serious eye a mild reproof +Darts, O beloved Woman! nor such thoughts +Dim and unhallow'd dost thou not reject, +And biddest me walk humbly with my God. + +The plan to resume _The Watchman_ did not come to anything. + +Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), the theologian, at this time the object of +Lamb's adoration, was one of the fathers of Unitarianism, a creed in +which Lamb had been brought up under the influence of his Aunt Hetty. +Coleridge, as a supporter of one of Priestley's allies, William Frend of +Cambridge, and as a convinced Unitarian, was also an admirer of +Priestley, concerning whom and the Birmingham riots of 1791 is a fine +passage in "Religious Musings," while one of the sonnets of the 1796 +volume was addressed to him: circumstances which Lamb had in mind when +mentioning him in this letter. Lamb had probably seen Priestley at the +Gravel Pit Chapel, Hackney, where he became morning preacher in +December, 1791, remaining there until March, 1794. Thenceforward he +lived in America. His _Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion_ +appeared between 1772 and 1774. The other work referred to is _Letters +to the Philosophers and Politicians of France_, newly edited by +Theophilus Lindsey, the Unitarian, as _An Answer to Mr. Paine's "Age of +Reason_," 1795.] + + + + +LETTER 3 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE + +[Begun Wednesday, June 8. Dated on address: "Friday 10th June," 1796.] + +With Joan of Arc I have been delighted, amazed. I had not presumed to +expect any thing of such excellence from Southey. Why the poem is alone +sufficient to redeem the character of the age we live in from the +imputation of degenerating in Poetry, were there no such beings extant +as Burns and Bowles, Cowper and----fill up the blank how you please, I +say nothing. The subject is well chosen. It opens well. To become more +particular, I will notice in their order a few passages that chiefly +struck me on perusal. Page 26 "Fierce and terrible Benevolence!" is a +phrase full of grandeur and originality. The whole context made me feel +_possess'd_, even like Joan herself. Page 28, "it is most horrible with +the keen sword to gore the finely fibred human frame" and what follows +pleased me mightily. In the 2d Book the first forty lines, in +particular, are majestic and high-sounding. Indeed the whole vision of +the palace of Ambition and what follows are supremely excellent. Your +simile of the Laplander "by Niemi's lake Or Balda Zhiok, or the mossy +stone Of Solfar Kapper"--will bear comparison with any in Milton for +fullness of circumstance and lofty-pacedness of Versification. Southey's +similes, tho' many of 'em are capital, are all inferior. In one of his +books the simile of the Oak in the Storm occurs I think four times! To +return, the light in which you view the heathen deities is accurate and +beautiful. Southey's personifications in this book are so many fine and +faultless pictures. I was much pleased with your manner of accounting +for the reason why Monarchs take delight in War. At the 447th line you +have placed Prophets and Enthusiasts cheek by jowl, on too intimate a +footing for the dignity of the former. Necessarian-like-speaking it is +correct. Page 98 "Dead is the Douglas, cold thy warrior frame, +illustrious Buchan" &c are of kindred excellence with Gray's "Cold is +Cadwallo's tongue" &c. How famously the Maid baffles the Doctors, +Seraphic and Irrefragable, "with all their trumpery!" 126 page, the +procession, the appearances of the Maid, of the Bastard son of Orleans +and of Tremouille, are full of fire and fancy, and exquisite melody of +versification. The personifications from line 303 to 309 in the heat of +the battle had better been omitted, they are not very striking and only +encumber. The converse which Joan and Conrade hold on the Banks of the +Loire is altogether beautiful. Page 313, the conjecture that in Dreams +"all things are that seem" is one of those conceits which the Poet +delights to admit into his creed--a creed, by the way, more marvellous +and mystic than ever Athanasius dream'd of. Page 315, I need only +_mention_ those lines ending with "She saw a serpent gnawing at her +heart"!!! They are good imitative lines "he toild and toild, of toil to +reap no end, but endless toil and never ending woe." 347 page, Cruelty +is such as Hogarth might have painted her. Page 361, all the passage +about Love (where he seems to confound conjugal love with Creating and +Preserving love) is very confused and sickens me with a load of useless +personifications. Else that 9th Book is the finest in the volume, an +exquisite combination of the ludicrous and the terrible,--I have never +read either, even in translation, but such as I conceive to be the +manner of Dante and Ariosto. The 10th book is the most languid. On the +whole, considering the celerity wherewith the poem was finish'd, I was +astonish'd at the infrequency of weak lines. I had expected to find it +verbose. Joan, I think, does too little in Battle--Dunois, perhaps, the +same--Conrade too much. The anecdotes interspersed among the battles +refresh the mind very agreeably, and I am delighted with the very many +passages of simple pathos abounding throughout the poem--passages which +the author of "Crazy Kate" might have written. Has not Master Southey +spoke very slightingly in his preface and disparagingly of Cowper's +Homer?--what makes him reluctant to give Cowper his fame? And does not +Southey use too often the expletives "did" and "does"? They have a good +effect at times, but are too inconsiderable, or rather become blemishes, +when they mark a style. On the whole, I expect Southey one day to rival +Milton. I already deem him equal to Cowper, and superior to all living +Poets besides. What says Coleridge? The "Monody on Henderson" is +_immensely good_; the rest of that little volume is _readable and above +mediocrity_. I proceed to a more pleasant task,--pleasant because the +poems are yours, pleasant because you impose the task on me, and +pleasant, let me add, because it will confer a whimsical importance on +me to sit in judgment upon your rhimes. First tho', let me thank you +again and again in my own and my sister's name for your invitations. +Nothing could give us more pleasure than to come, but (were there no +other reasons) while my Brother's leg is so bad it is out of the +question. Poor fellow, he is very feverish and light headed, but +Cruikshanks has pronounced the symptoms favorable, and gives us every +hope that there will be no need of amputation. God send, not. We are +necessarily confined with him the afternoon and evening till very late, +so that I am stealing a few minutes to write to you. Thank you for your +frequent letters, you are the only correspondent and I might add the +only friend I have in the world. I go no where and have no acquaintance. +Slow of speech, and reserved of manners, no one seeks or cares for my +society and I am left alone. Allen calls only occasionally, as tho' it +were a duty rather, and seldom stays ten minutes. Then judge how +thankful I am for your letters. Do not, however, burthen yourself with +the correspondence. I trouble you again so soon, only in obedience to +your injunctions. Complaints apart, proceed we to our task. I am called +away to tea, thence must wait upon my brother, so must delay till +to-morrow. Farewell--Wednesday. + +Thursday. I will first notice what is new to me. 13th page. "The +thrilling tones that concentrate the soul" is a nervous line, and the 6 +first lines of page 14 are very pretty. The 21st effusion a perfect +thing. That in the manner of Spencer is very sweet, particularly at the +close. The 35th effusion is most exquisite--that line in particular, +"And tranquil muse upon tranquillity." It is the very reflex pleasure +that distinguishes the tranquillity of a thinking being from that of a +shepherd--a modern one I would be understood to mean--a Dametas; one +that keeps other people's sheep. Certainly, Coleridge, your letter from +Shurton Bars has less merit than most things in your volume; personally, +it may chime in best with your own feelings, and therefore you love it +best. It has however great merit. In your 4th Epistle that is an +exquisite paragraph and fancy-full of "A stream there is which rolls in +lazy flow" &c. &c. "Murmurs sweet undersong 'mid jasmine bowers" is a +sweet line and so are the 3 next. The concluding simile is far-fetch'd. +"Tempest-honord" is a quaint-ish phrase. Of the Monody on H., I will +here only notice these lines, as superlatively excellent. That energetic +one, "Shall I not praise thee, Scholar, Christian, friend," like to that +beautiful climax of Shakspeare "King, Hamlet, Royal Dane, Father." "Yet +memory turns from little men to thee!" "and sported careless round their +fellow child." The whole, I repeat it, is immensely good. Yours is a +Poetical family. I was much surpriz'd and pleased to see the signature +of Sara to that elegant composition, the 5th Epistle. I dare not +_criticise_ the Relig Musings, I like not to _select_ any part where all +is excellent. I can only admire; and thank you for it in the name of a +Christian as well as a Lover of good Poetry. Only let me ask, is not +that thought and those words in Young, "Stands in the Sun"? or is it +only such as Young in one of his _better moments_ might have writ? +"Believe, thou, O my Soul, Life is a vision, shadowy of truth, And vice +and anguish and the wormy grave, Shapes of a dream!" I thank you for +these lines, in the name of a Necessarian, and for what follows in next +paragraph in the name of a child of fancy. After all you can[not] nor +ever will write any thing, with which I shall be so delighted as what I +have heard yourself repeat. You came to Town, and I saw you at a time +when your heart was yet bleeding with recent wounds. Like yourself, I +was sore galled with disappointed Hope. You had "many an holy lay, that +mourning, soothed the mourner on his way." I had ears of sympathy to +drink them in, and they yet vibrate pleasant on the sense. When I read +in your little volume, your 19th Effusion, or the 28th or 29th, or what +you call the "Sigh," I think I hear _you_ again. I image to myself the +little smoky room at the Salutation and Cat, where we have sat together +thro' the winter nights, beguiling the cares of life with Poesy. When +you left London, I felt a dismal void in my heart, I found myself cut +off at one and the same time from two most dear to me. "How blest with +Ye the Path could I have trod of Quiet life." In your conversation you +had blended so many pleasant fancies, that they cheated me of my grief. +But in your absence, the tide of melancholy rushd in again, and did its +worst Mischief by overwhelming my Reason. I have recoverd. But feel a +stupor that makes me indifferent to the hopes and fears of this life. I +sometimes wish to introduce a religious turn of mind, but habits are +strong things, and my religious fervors are confined alas to some +fleeting moments of occasional solitary devotion--A correspondence, +opening with you, has roused me a little from my lethargy, and made me +conscious of existence. Indulge me in it. I will not be very +troublesome. At some future time I will amuse you with an account as +full as my memory will permit of the strange turn my phrensy took. I +look back upon it at times with a gloomy kind of Envy. For while it +lasted I had many many hours of pure happiness. Dream not Coleridge, of +having tasted all the grandeur and wildness of Fancy, till you have gone +mad. All now seems to me vapid; comparatively so. Excuse this selfish +digression. + +Your monody is so superlatively excellent, that I can only wish it +perfect, which I can't help feeling it is not quite. Indulge me in a few +conjectures. What I am going to propose would make it more compress'd +and I think more energic, tho' I am sensible at the expence of many +beautiful lines. Let it begin "Is this the land of song-ennobled line," +and proceed to "Otway's famish'd form." Then "Thee Chatterton," to +"blaze of Seraphim." Then "clad in nature's rich array," to "orient +day;" then "but soon the scathing lightning," to "blighted land." Then +"Sublime of thought" to "his bosom glows." Then "but soon upon _his_ +poor unsheltered head Did Penury her sickly Mildew shed, and soon are +fled the charms of vernal Grace, and Joy's wild gleams that lightend +o'er his face!" Then "Youth of tumultuous soul" to "sigh" as before. The +rest may all stand down to "gaze upon the waves below." What follows now +may come next, as detached verses, suggested by the Monody, rather than +a part of it. They are indeed in themselves very sweet "And we at sober +eve would round thee throng, Hanging enraptured on thy stately song"--in +particular perhaps. If I am obscure you may understand me by counting +lines. I have proposed omitting 24 lines. I feel that thus comprest it +would gain energy, but think it most likely you will not agree with me, +for who shall go about to bring opinions to the Bed of Procrustes and +introduce among the Sons of Men a monotony of identical feelings. I only +propose with diffidence. Reject, you, if you please, with as little +remorse as you would the color of a coat or the pattern of a buckle +where our fancies differ'd. The lines "Friend to the friendless" &c. +which you may think "rudely disbranched" from the Chatterton will patch +in with the Man of Ross, where they were once quite at Home, with 2 more +which I recollect "and o'er the dowried virgin's snowy cheek bad bridal +love suffuse his blushes meek!" very beautiful. The Pixies is a perfect +thing, and so are the lines on the spring, page 28. The Epitaph on an +Infant, like a Jack of lanthorn, has danced about (or like Dr. Forster's +scholars) out of the Morn Chron into the Watchman, and thence back into +your Collection. It is very pretty, and you seem to think so, but, may +be o'er looked its chief merit, that of filling up a whole page. I had +once deemd Sonnets of unrivalled use that way, but your epitaphs, I +find, are the more diffuse. Edmund still holds its place among your best +verses. "Ah! fair delights" to "roses round" in your Poem called Absence +recall (none more forcibly) to my mind the tones in which _you recited +it_. I will not notice in this tedious (to you) manner verses which have +been so long delightful to me, and which you already know my opinion of. +Of this kind are Bowles, Priestly, and that most exquisite and most +Bowles-like of all, the 19th Effusion. It would have better ended with +"agony of care." The last 2 lines are obvious and unnecessary and you +need not now make 14 lines of it, now it is rechristend from a Sonnet to +an Effusion. Schiller might have written the 20 Effusion. 'Tis worthy of +him in any sense. I was glad to meet with those lines you sent me, when +my Sister was so ill. I had lost the Copy, and I felt not a little proud +at seeing my name in your verse. The complaint of Ninathoma (1st stanza +in particular) is the best, or only good imitation, of Ossian I ever +saw--your restless gale excepted. "To an infant" is most sweet--is not +"foodful," tho', very harsh! would not "dulcet" fruit be less harsh, or +some other friendly bi-syllable? In Edmund, "Frenzy fierce-eyed child," +is not so well as frantic--tho' that is an epithet adding nothing to the +meaning. Slander _couching_ was better than squatting. In the Man of +Ross it _was_ a better line thus "If 'neath this roof thy wine-chear'd +moments pass" than as it stands now. Time nor nothing can reconcile me +to the concluding 5 lines of Kosciusko: call it any thing you will but +sublime. In my 12th Effusion I had rather have seen what I wrote myself, +tho' they bear no comparison with your exquisite lines "On rose-leaf'd +beds amid your faery bowers," &c.--I love my sonnets because they are +the reflected images of my own feelings at different times. To instance, +in the 13th "How reason reel'd," &c.--are good lines but must spoil the +whole with ME who know it is only a fiction of yours and that the rude +dashings did in fact NOT ROCK me to REPOSE, I grant the same objection +applies not to the former sonnet, but still I love my own feelings. They +are dear to memory, tho' they now and then wake a sigh or a tear. +"Thinking on divers things foredone," I charge you, Col., spare my ewe +lambs, and tho' a Gentleman may borrow six lines in an epic poem (I +should have no objection to borrow 500 and without acknowledging) still +in a Sonnet--a personal poem--I do not "ask my friend the aiding verse." +I would not wrong your feelings by proposing any improvements (did I +think myself capable of suggesting 'em) in such personal poems as "Thou +bleedest my poor heart"--'od so, I am catchd, I have already done +it--but that simile I propose abridging would not change the feeling or +introduce any alien ones. Do you understand me? In the 28th however, and +in the "Sigh" and that composed at Clevedon, things that come from the +heart direct, not by the medium of the fancy, I would not suggest an +alteration. When my blank verse is finished, or any long fancy poems, +"_propino tibi alterandum, cut-up-andum, abridg-andum_," just what you +will with it--but spare my EWE LAMBS! That to Mrs. Siddons now you were +welcome to improve, if it had been worth it. But I say unto you again, +Col., spare my EWE LAMBS. I must confess were they mine I should omit, +in Editione secundâ, Effusions 2-3, because satiric, and below the +dignity of the poet of Religious Musings, 5-7, half of the 8th, that +written in early Youth, as far as "Thousand eyes,"--tho' I part not +unreluctantly with that lively line "Chaste Joyance dancing in her +bright-blue eyes" and one or 2 more just thereabouts. But I would +substitute for it that sweet poem called "Recollection" in the 5th No. +of the Watchman, better I think than the remainder of this poem, tho' +not differing materially. As the poem now stands it looks altogether +confused. And do not omit those lines upon the "early blossom," in your +6th No. of the Watchman, and I would omit the 10th Effusion--or what +would do better, alter and improve the last 4 lines. In fact, I suppose +if they were mine I should _not_ omit 'em. But your verse is for the +most part so exquisite, that I like not to see aught of meaner matter +mixed with it. Forgive my petulance and often, I fear, ill founded +criticisms, and forgive me that I have, by this time, made your eyes and +head ach with my long letter. But I cannot forego hastily the pleasure +and pride of thus conversing with you. + +You did not tell me whether I was to include the Conciones ad Populum in +my remarks on your poems. They are not unfrequently sublime, and I think +you could not do better than to turn 'em into verse,--if you have +nothing else to do. Allen I am sorry to say is a _confirmed_ Atheist. +Stodart, or Stothard, a cold hearted well bred conceited disciple of +Godwin, does him no good. His wife has several daughters (one of 'em as +old as himself). Surely there is something unnatural in such a marriage. +How I sympathise with you on the dull duty of a reviewer, and heartily +damn with you Ned Evans and the Prosodist. I shall however wait +impatiently for the articles in the Crit. Rev., next month, because they +are _yours_. Young Evans (W. Evans, a branch of a family you were once +so intimate with) is come into our office, and sends his love to you. +Coleridge, I devoutly wish that Fortune, who has made sport with you so +long, may play one freak more, throw you into London, or some spot near +it, and there snug-ify you for life. 'Tis a selfish but natural wish for +me, cast as I am "on life's wide plain, friend-less." Are you acquainted +with Bowles? I see, by his last Elegy (written at Bath), you are near +neighbours. "And I can think I can see the groves again--was it the +voice of thee--Twas not the voice of thee, my buried friend--who dries +with her dark locks the tender tear"--are touches as true to nature as +any in his other Elegy, written at the hot wells, about poor Russell, +&c.--You are doubtless acquainted with it.--Thursday. + +I do not know that I entirely agree with you in your stricture upon my +Sonnet to Innocence. To men whose hearts are not quite deadened by their +commerce with the world, Innocence (no longer familiar) becomes an awful +idea. So I felt when I wrote it. Your other censures (qualified and +sweeten'd, tho', with praises somewhat extravagant) I perfectly coincide +with. Yet I chuse to retain the word "lunar"--indulge a "lunatic" in his +loyalty to his mistress the moon. I have just been reading a most +pathetic copy of verses on Sophia Pringle, who was hanged and burn'd for +coining. One of the strokes of pathos (which are very many, all somewhat +obscure) is "She lifted up her guilty forger to heaven." A note explains +by forger her right hand with which she forged or coined the base metal! +For pathos read bathos. You have put me out of conceit with my blank +verse by your Religious Musings. I think it will come to nothing. I do +not like 'em enough to send 'em. I have just been reading a book, which +I may be too partial to, as it was the delight of my childhood; but I +will recommend it to you--it is "Izaak Walton's Complete Angler!" All +the scientific part you may omit in reading. The dialogue is very +simple, full of pastoral beauties, and will charm you. Many pretty old +verses are interspersed. This letter, which would be a week's work +reading only, I do not wish you to answer in less than a month. I shall +be richly content with a letter from you some day early in July--tho' if +you get any how _settled_ before then pray let me know it immediately-- +'twould give me such satisfaction. Concerning the Unitarian chapel, the +salary is the only scruple that the most rigid moralist would admit as +valid. Concerning the tutorage--is not the salary low, and absence from +your family unavoidable? London is the only fostering soil for Genius. + +Nothing more occurs just now, so I will leave you in mercy one small +white spot empty below, to repose your eyes upon, fatigued as they must +be with the wilderness of words they have by this time painfully +travell'd thro'. God love you, Coleridge, and prosper you thro' life, +tho' mine will be loss if your lot is to be cast at Bristol or at +Nottingham or any where but London. Our loves to Mrs. C--. + +C. L. + +[Southey's _Joan of Arc_, with contributions to Book II. by Coleridge, +had been published in quarto by Cottle. Coleridge contributed to Book +II. the first 450 lines, with the exception of 141-143, 148-222, 266-272 +and 286-291. He subsequently took out his lines and gave them new shape +as the poem "The Destiny of Nations," printed in _Sibylline Leaves_, +1817. All subsequent editions of Southey's poem appeared without +Coleridge's portion. The passages on page 26 and page 28 were Southey's. +Those at the beginning of the second book were Coleridge's. The simile +of the Laplander may be read in "The Destiny of Nations" (lines 63-79). +These were the reasons given by Coleridge for monarchs making war:-- + +When Luxury and Lust's exhausted stores +No more can rouse the appetites of KINGS; +When the low Flattery of their reptile Lords +Falls flat and heavy on the accustomed ear; +When Eunuchs sing, and Fools buffoon'ry make. +And Dancers writhe their harlot limbs in vain: +Then War and all its dread vicissitudes +Pleasingly agitate their stagnant hearts.... + +The 447th line was Coleridge's. This is the passage:-- + +Whether thy LAW with unrefracted Ray +Beam on the PROPHET'S purged Eye, or if +Diseasing Realms the ENTHUSIAST, wild of thought, +Scatter new frenzies on the infected Throng, +THOU, Both inspiring and foredooming, Both +Fit INSTRUMENTS and best of perfect END. + +With page 98 we come to Southey again, the remaining references being to +him. The maid baffles the doctors in Book III.; page 126 is in Book IV.; +the personifications are in Book VI.; the converse between Joan and +Conrade is in Book IV.; page 313 is at the beginning of Book IX.; and +pages 315, 347 and 361 are also in Book IX. Southey in the preface to +_Joan of Arc_, speaking of Homer, says: "Pope has disguised him in +fop-finery and Cowper has stripped him naked." "Crazy Kate" is an +episode in _The Task_ ("The Sofa"). + +The "Monody on John Henderson," by Joseph Cottle, was printed +anonymously in a volume of poems in 1795, and again in _The Malvern +Hill_. John Henderson (1757-1788) was an eccentric scholar of Bristol. +The lines praised by Lamb are the 4th, 12th and 14th. The poem must not +be confused with the Monody on Henderson, the actor, by G. D. Harley. + +Lamb now turns again to Coleridge's _Poems_. The poem on the 13th and +14th pages of this little volume was "To the Rev. W. J. H." The 21st +Effusion was that entitled "Composed while Climbing the Left Ascent of +Brockley Coomb." The 35th Effusion is known as "The AEolian Harp." The +letter from Shurton Bars is the poem beginning-- + + Nor travels my meand'ring eye. + +The 4th Epistle is that to Joseph Cottle, Coleridge's publisher and the +author of the "Monody on Henderson," referred to in Coleridge's verses. +The lines which Lamb quotes are Cottle's. The poem by Sara Coleridge is +"The Silver Thimble." The passage in the "Religious Musings," for which +Lamb is thankful as a "child of fancy," is the last paragraph:-- + +Contemplant Spirits! ye that hover o'er +With untired gaze the immeasurable fount +Ebullient with creative Deity! +And ye of plastic power, that interfused +Roll through the grosser and material mass +In organising surge! Holies of God! +(And what if Monads of the infinite mind?) +I haply journeying my immortal course +Shall sometime join your mystic choir! + Till then +I discipline my young noviciate thought +In ministeries of heart-stirring song, +And aye on Meditation's heaven-ward wing +Soaring aloft I breathe the empyreal air +Of Love, omnific, omnipresent Love, +Whose day-spring rises glorious in my soul +As the great Sun, when he his influence +Sheds on the frost-bound waters--The glad stream +Flows to the ray and warbles as it flows. + +"You came to Town ..." Soon after his engagement with Sara Fricker, his +heart being still not wholly healed of its passion for Mary Evans, +Coleridge had gone to London from Bristol, nominally to arrange for the +publication of his _Fall of Robespierre_, and had resumed intercourse +with Lamb and other old Christ's Hospital friends. There he remained +until Southey forcibly took him back in January, 1795. From what Lamb +says of the loss of two friends we must suppose, in default of other +information, that he had to give up his Anna at the same time. The loss +of reason, however, to which he refers did not come until the end of the +year 1795. + +The 19th Effusion, afterwards called "On a Discovery Made Too Late;" the +28th, "The Kiss;" the 29th, "Imitated from Ossian." + +"Your monody." This, not to be confounded with Cottle's "Monody on +Henderson," was Coleridge's "Monody on Chatterton." Lamb's emendations +were not accepted. As regards "The Man of Ross," the couplet beginning +"Friend to the friendless" ultimately had a place both in that poem and +in the Monody, but the couplet "and o'er the dowried virgin" was never +replaced in either. The lines on spring, page 28, are "Lines to a +Beautiful Spring." Dr. Forster (Faustus) was the hero of the nursery +rhyme, whose scholars danced out of England into France and Spain and +back again. The epitaph on an infant was in _The Watchman_, No. IX. (see +note on page 62). The poem "Edmund" is called "Lines on a Friend who +died of a frenzy fever induced by calumnious reports." The lines in +"Absence" are those in the second stanza of the poem. They run thus:-- + +Ah fair Delights! that o'er my soul +On Memory's wing, like shadows fly! +Ah Flowers! which Joy from Eden stole +While Innocence stood smiling by!-- +But cease, fond Heart! this bootless moan: +Those Hours on rapid Pinions flown +Shall yet return, by ABSENCE crowned, +And scatter livelier roses round. + +The 19th Effusion, beginning "Thou bleedest, my poor heart," is known as +"On a Discovery Made Too Late." The 20th Effusion is the sonnet to +Schiller. The lines which were sent to Lamb, written in December, 1794, +are called "To a Friend, together with an unfinished poem" ("Religious +Musings"). Coleridge's "Restless Gale" is the imitation of Ossian, +beginning, "The stream with languid murmur creeps." "Foodful" occurs +thus in the lines "To an Infant":-- + +Alike the foodful fruit and scorching fire +Awake thy eager grasp and young desire. + +Coleridge did not alter the phrase. + +Lamb contributed four effusions to this volume of Coleridge's: the 7th, +to Mrs. Siddons (written in conjunction with Coleridge), the 11th, 12th +and 13th. All were signed C. L. Coleridge had permitted himself to make +various alterations. The following parallel will show the kind of +treatment to which Lamb objected:-- + +LAMB'S ORIGINAL EFFUSION (11) + +Was it some sweet device of Faery +That mock'd my steps with many a lonely glade, +And fancied wanderings with a fair-hair'd maid? +Have these things been? or what rare witchery, +Impregning with delights the charmed air, +Enlighted up the semblance of a smile +In those fine eyes? methought they spake the while +Soft soothing things, which might enforce despair +To drop the murdering knife, and let go by +His foul resolve. And does the lonely glade +Still court the foot-steps of the fair-hair'd maid? +Still in her locks the gales of summer sigh? +While I forlorn do wander reckless where, +And 'mid my wanderings meet no Anna there. + +AS ALTERED BY COLERIDGE + +Was it some sweet device of faery land +That mock'd my steps with many a lonely glade, +And fancied wand'rings with a fair-hair'd maid? +Have these things been? Or did the wizard wand +Of Merlin wave, impregning vacant air, +And kindle up the vision of a smile +In those blue eyes, that seem'd to speak the while +Such tender things, as might enforce Despair +To drop the murth'ring knife, and let go by +His fell resolve? Ah me! the lonely glade +Still courts the footsteps of the fair-hair'd maid, +Among whose locks the west-winds love to sigh: +But I forlorn do wander, reckless where, +And mid my wand'rings find no ANNA there! + +In Effusion 12 Lamb had written:-- + +Or we might sit and tell some tender tale +Of faithful vows repaid by cruel scorn, + A tale of true love, or of friend forgot; +And I would teach thee, lady, how to rail + In gentle sort, on those who practise not +Or Love or pity, though of woman born. + +Coleridge made it:-- + +But ah! sweet scenes of fancied bliss, adieu! +On rose-leaf beds amid your faery bowers +I all too long have lost the dreamy hours! +Beseems it now the sterner Muse to woo, +If haply she her golden meed impart +To realize the vision of the heart. + +Again in the 13th Effusion, "Written at Midnight, by the Sea-side, after +a Voyage," Lamb had dotted out the last two lines. Coleridge substituted +the couplet:-- + +How Reason reel'd! What gloomy transports rose! +Till the rude dashings rock'd them to repose. + +Effusion 2, which Lamb would omit, was the sonnet "To Burke;" Effusion +3, "To Mercy" (on Pitt); Effusion 5, "To Erskine;" Effusion 7, Lamb and +Coleridge's joint sonnet, "To Mrs. Siddons;" and Effusion 8, "To +Koskiusko." The "Lines Written in Early Youth" were afterwards called +"Lines on an Autumnal Evening." The poem called "Recollection," in _The +Watchman_, was reborn as "Sonnet to the River Otter." The lines on the +early blossom were praised by Lamb in a previous letter. The 10th +Effusion was the sonnet to Earl Stanhope. + +Godwin was William Godwin, the philosopher. We shall later see much of +him. It was Allen's wife, not Stoddart's, who had a grown-up daughter. + +_Ned Evans_ was a novel in four volumes, published in 1796, an imitation +of _Tom Jones_, which presumably Coleridge was reviewing for the +_Critical Review_. + +Young W. Evans is said by Mr. Dykes Campbell to have been the only son +of the Mrs. Evans who befriended Coleridge when he was at Christ's +Hospital, the mother of his first love, Mary Evans. Evans was at school +with Coleridge and Lamb. We shall meet with him again. + +William Lisle Bowles (1762-1850), the sonneteer, who had exerted so +powerful a poetical influence on Coleridge's mind, was at this time +rector of Cricklade in Wiltshire (1792-1797), but had been ill at Bath. +The elegy in question was "Elegiac Stanzas written during sickness at +Bath, December, 1795." The lines quoted by Lamb are respectively in the +6th, 4th, 5th and 19th Stanzas. + +Sophia Pringle. Probably the subject of a Catnach or other popular +broadside. I have not found it. + +Izaak Walton. Lamb returns to praises of _The Compleat Angler_ in his +letter to Robert Lloyd referred to on page 215. + +The reference to the Unitarian chapel bears probably upon an offer of a +pulpit to Coleridge. The tutorship was probably that offered to +Coleridge by Mrs. Evans of Darley Hall (no relation to Mary Evans) who +wished him to teach her sons. Neither project was carried through.] + + + + +LETTER 4 + + +(_Apparently a continuation of a letter the first part of which is +missing_) + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE +[Begun] Monday Night [June 13, 1796]. + +UNFURNISHED at present with any sheet-filling subject, I shall continue +my letter gradually and journal-wise. My second thoughts entirely +coincide with your comments on "Joan of Arc," and I can only wonder at +my childish judgment which overlooked the 1st book and could prefer the +9th: not that I was insensible to the soberer beauties of the former, +but the latter caught me with its glare of magic,--the former, however, +left a more pleasing general recollection in my mind. Let me add, the +1st book was the favourite of my sister--and _I_ now, with Joan, often +"think on Domremi and the fields of Arc." I must not pass over without +acknowledging my obligations to your full and satisfactory account of +personifications. I have read it again and again, and it will be a guide +to my future taste. Perhaps I had estimated Southey's merits too much by +number, weight, and measure. I now agree completely and entirely in your +opinion of the genius of Southey. Your own image of melancholy is +illustrative of what you teach, and in itself masterly. I conjecture it +is "disbranched" from one of your embryo "hymns." When they are mature +of birth (were I you) I should print 'em in one separate volume, with +"Religious Musings" and your part of the "Joan of Arc." Birds of the +same soaring wing should hold on their flight in company. Once for all +(and by renewing the subject you will only renew in me the condemnation +of Tantalus), I hope to be able to pay you a visit (if you are then at +Bristol) some time in the latter end of August or beginning of September +for a week or fortnight; before that time, office business puts an +absolute veto on my coming. + + "And if a sigh that speaks regret of happier times appear, + A glimpse of joy that we have met shall shine and dry the tear." + +Of the blank verses I spoke of, the following lines are the only +tolerably complete ones I have writ out of not more than one hundred and +fifty. That I get on so slowly you may fairly impute to want of practice +in composition, when I declare to you that (the few verses which you +have seen excepted) I have not writ fifty lines since I left school. It +may not be amiss to remark that my grandmother (on whom the verses are +written) lived housekeeper in a family the fifty or sixty last years of +her life--that she was a woman of exemplary piety and goodness--and for +many years before her death was terribly afflicted with a cancer in her +breast which she bore with true Christian patience. You may think that I +have not kept enough apart the ideas of her heavenly and her earthly +master but recollect I have designedly given in to her own way of +feeling--and if she had a failing, 'twas that she respected her master's +family too much, not reverenced her Maker too little. The lines begin +imperfectly, as I may probably connect 'em if I finish at all,--and if I +do, Biggs shall print 'em in a more economical way than you yours, for +(Sonnets and all) they won't make a thousand lines as I propose +completing 'em, and the substance must be wire-drawn. + +Tuesday Evening, June 14, 1796. + +I am not quite satisfied now with the Chatterton, and with your leave +will try my hand at it again. A master joiner, you know, may leave a +cabinet to be finished, when his own hands are full. To your list of +illustrative personifications, into which a fine imagination enters, I +will take leave to add the following from Beaumont and Fletcher's "Wife +for a Month;" 'tis the conclusion of a description of a sea-fight;--"The +game of _death_ was never played so nobly; the meagre thief grew wanton +in his mischiefs, and his shrunk hollow eyes smiled on his ruins." There +is fancy in these of a lower order from "Bonduca;"--"Then did I see +these valiant men of Britain, like boding owls creep into tods of ivy, +and hoot their fears to one another nightly." Not that it is a +personification; only it just caught my eye in a little extract book I +keep, which is full of quotations from B. and F. in particular, in which +authors I can't help thinking there is a greater richness of poetical +fancy than in any one, Shakspeare excepted. Are you acquainted with +Massinger? At a hazard I will trouble you with a passage from a play of +his called "A Very Woman." The lines are spoken by a lover (disguised) +to his faithless mistress. You will remark the fine effect of the double +endings. You will by your ear distinguish the lines, for I write 'em as +prose. "Not far from where my father lives, _a lady_, a neighbour by, +blest with as great a _beauty_ as nature durst bestow without _undoing_, +dwelt, and most happily, as I thought then, and blest the house a +thousand times she _dwelt in_. This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, +when my first fire knew no adulterate _incense_, nor I no way to flatter +but my _fondness_; in all the bravery my friends could _show me_, in all +the faith my innocence could _give me_, in the best language my true +tongue could _tell me_, and all the broken sighs my sick heart _lend +me_, I sued and served; long did I serve this _lady_, long was my +travail, long my trade to _win her_; with all the duty of my soul I +SERVED HER." "Then she must love." "She did, but never me: she could not +_love me_; she would not love, she hated,--more, she _scorn'd me_; and +in so poor and base a way _abused me_ for all my services, for all my +_bounties_, so bold neglects flung on me."--"What out of love, and +worthy love, I _gave her_ (shame to her most unworthy mind,) to fools, +to girls, to fiddlers and her boys she flung, all in disdain of me." One +more passage strikes my eye from B. and F.'s "Palamon and Arcite." One +of 'em complains in prison: "This is all our world; we shall know +nothing here but one another, hear nothing but the clock that tells our +woes; the vine shall grow, but we shall never see it," &c. Is not the +last circumstance exquisite? I mean not to lay myself open by saying +they exceed Milton, and perhaps Collins, in sublimity. But don't you +conceive all poets after Shakspeare yield to 'em in variety of genius? +Massinger treads close on their heels; but you are most probably as well +acquainted with his writings as your humble servant. My quotations, in +that case, will only serve to expose my barrenness of matter. Southey in +simplicity and tenderness, is excelled decidedly only, I think, by +Beaumont and F. in his [their] "Maid's Tragedy" and some parts of +"Philaster" in particular, and elsewhere occasionally; and perhaps by +Cowper in his "Crazy Kate," and in parts of his translation, such as the +speeches of Hecuba and Andromache. I long to know your opinion of that +translation. The Odyssey especially is surely very Homeric. What nobler +than the appearance of Phoebus at the beginning of the Iliad--the lines +ending with "Dread sounding, bounding on the silver bow!" + +I beg you will give me your opinion of the translation; it afforded me +high pleasure. As curious a specimen of translation as ever fell into my +hands, is a young man's in our office, of a French novel. What in the +original was literally "amiable delusions of the fancy," he proposed to +render "the fair frauds of the imagination!" I had much trouble in +licking the book into any meaning at all. Yet did the knave clear fifty +or sixty pounds by subscription and selling the copyright. The book +itself not a week's work! To-day's portion of my journalising epistle +has been very dull and poverty-stricken. I will here end. + +Tuesday Night. + +I have been drinking egg-hot and smoking Oronooko (associated +circumstances, which ever forcibly recall to my mind our evenings and +nights at the Salutation); my eyes and brain are heavy and asleep, but +my heart is awake; and if words came as ready as ideas, and ideas as +feelings, I could say ten hundred kind things. Coleridge, you know not +my supreme happiness at having one on earth (though counties separate +us) whom I can call a friend. Remember you those tender lines of +Logan?-- + +"Our broken friendships we deplore, +And loves of youth that are no more; +No after friendships e'er can raise +Th' endearments of our early days, +And ne'er the heart such fondness prove, +As when we first began to love." + +I am writing at random, and half-tipsy, what you may not _equally_ +understand, as you will be sober when you read it; but _my_ sober and +_my_ half-tipsy hours you are alike a sharer in. Good night. + +"Then up rose our bard, like a prophet in drink, +Craigdoroch, thou'lt soar when creation shall sink." + +BURNS. + +_Thursday_ [June 16, 1796]. + +I am now in high hopes to be able to visit you, if perfectly convenient +on your part, by the end of next month--perhaps the last week or +fortnight in July. A change of scene and a change of faces would do me +good, even if that scene were not to be Bristol, and those faces +Coleridge's and his friends. In the words of Terence, a little altered, +"Taedet me hujus quotidiani mundi." I am heartily sick of the every-day +scenes of life. I shall half wish you unmarried (don't show this to Mrs. +C.) for one evening only, to have the pleasure of smoking with you, and +drinking egg-hot in some little smoky room in a pot-house, for I know +not yet how I shall like you in a decent room, and looking quite happy. +My best love and respects to Sara notwithstanding. + + Yours sincerely, + CHARLES LAMB. + +[Coleridge's image of melancholy will be found in the lines +"Melancholy--a fragment." It was published in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817, +and in a note Coleridge said that the verses were printed in the +_Morning Chronicle_ in 1794. They were really printed in the _Morning +Post_, December 12, 1797. Coleridge had probably sent them to Lamb in +MS. The "hymns" came to nothing. + +"The following lines." Lamb's poem "The Grandame" was presumably +included in this letter. See Vol. IV. Mary Field, Lamb's grandmother, +died July 31, 1792, aged seventy-nine, and was buried in Widford +churchyard. She had been for many years housekeeper in the Plumer family +at Blakesware. On William Plumer's moving to Gilston, a neighbouring +seat, in 1767, she had sole charge of the Blakesware mansion, where her +grandchildren used to visit her. Compare Lamb's _Elia_ essays +"Blakesmoor in H----shire" and "Dream-Children," + +N. Biggs was the printer of Coleridge's _Poems_, 1797. + +Lamb had begun his amendment of Coleridge's "Monody on the Death of +Chatterton" in his letter of June 10. Coleridge's illustrative +personifications, here referred to, are in that poem. The extract book +from which Lamb copied his quotations from Beaumont and Fletcher and +Massinger was, he afterwards tells us, destroyed; but similar volumes, +which he filled later, are preserved. Many of his extracts he included +in his _Dramatic Specimens_. + +Writing to Charles Lloyd, sen., in 1809, Lamb says of Cowper as a +translator of Homer that he "delays you ... walking over a Bowling +Green." + +Canon Ainger possessed a copy of the book translated by Lamb's +fellow-clerk. It was called _Sentimental Tablets of the Good Pamphile_. +"Translated from the French of M. Gorjy by P. S. Dupuy of the East India +House, 1795." Among the subscribers' names were Thomas Bye (5 copies), +Ball, Evans, Savory (2 copies), and Lamb himself.] + + + + +LETTER 5 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE + +[Probably begun on Wednesday, June 29. P.M. July 1, 1796.] + +The first moment I can come I will, but my hopes of coming yet a while +yet hang on a ticklish thread. The coach I come by is immaterial as I +shall so easily by your direction find ye out. My mother is grown so +entirely helpless (not having any use of her limbs) that Mary is +necessarily confined from ever sleeping out, she being her bed fellow. +She thanks you tho' and will accompany me in spirit. Most exquisite are +the lines from Withers. Your own lines introductory to your poem on Self +run smoothly and pleasurably, and I exhort you to continue 'em. What +shall I say to your Dactyls? They are what you would call good per se, +but a parody on some of 'em is just now suggesting itself, and you shall +have it rough and unlicked. I mark with figures the lines parodied. + + 4.--Sórely your Dáctyls do drág along lim'p-footed. + 5.--Sád is the méasure that han'gs a clod roúnd 'em so, + 6.--Méagre, and lan'guid, procláiming its wrétchedness. + 1.--Wéary, unsátisfied, nót little sic'k of 'em. +11.--Cóld is my tíred heart, Í have no chárity. + 2.--Páinfully tráv'lling thus óver the rúgged road. + 7.--Ó begone, Méasure, half Látin, half En'glish, then. +12.--Dismal your Dáctyls are, Gód help ye, rhyming Ones. + +I _possibly_ may not come this fortnight--therefore all thou hast to do +is not to look for me any particular day, only to write word immediately +if at any time you quit Bristol, lest I come and Taffy be not at home. I +_hope_ I can come in a day or two. But young Savory of my office is +suddenly taken ill in this very nick of time and I must officiate for +him till he can come to work again. Had the knave gone sick and died and +putrefied at any other time, philosophy might have afforded one comfort, +but just now I have no patience with him. Quarles I am as great a +stranger to as I was to Withers. I wish you would try and do something +to bring our elder bards into more general fame. I writhe with +indignation when in books of Criticism, where common place quotation is +heaped upon quotation, I find no mention of such men as Massinger, or B. +and Fl, men with whom succeeding Dramatic Writers (Otway alone excepted) +can bear no manner of comparison. Stupid Knox hath noticed none of 'em +among his extracts. + +Thursday.--Mrs. C. can scarce guess how she has gratified me by her very +kind letter and sweet little poem. I feel that I _should_ thank her in +rhyme, but she must take my acknowledgment at present in plain honest +prose. The uncertainty in which I yet stand whether I can come or no +damps my spirits, reduces me a degree below prosaical, and keeps me in a +suspense that fluctuates between hope and fear. Hope is a charming, +lively, blue-eyed wench, and I am always glad of her company, but could +dispense with the visitor she brings with her, her younger sister, Fear, +a white-liver'd, lilly-cheeked, bashful, palpitating, awkward hussey, +that hangs like a green girl at her sister's apronstrings, and will go +with her whithersoever _she_ goes. For the life and soul of me I could +not improve those lines in your poem on the Prince and Princess, so I +changed them to what you bid me and left 'em at Perry's. I think 'em +altogether good, and do not see why you were sollicitous about _any_ +alteration. I have not yet seen, but will make it my business to see, +to-day's _Chronicle_, for your verses on Horne Took. Dyer stanza'd him +in one of the papers t'other day, but I think unsuccessfully. Tooke's +friends' meeting was I suppose a dinner of CONDOLENCE. I am not sorry to +find you (for all Sara) immersed in clouds of smoke and metaphysic. You +know I had a sneaking kindness for this last noble science, and you +taught me some smattering of it. I look to become no mean proficient +under your tuition. Coleridge, what do you mean by saying you wrote to +me about Plutarch and Porphyry--I received no such letter, nor remember +a syllable of the matter, yet am not apt to forget any part of your +epistles, least of all an injunction like that. I will cast about for +'em, tho' I am a sad hand to know what books are worth, and both those +worthy gentlemen are alike out of my line. To-morrow I shall be less +suspensive and in better cue to write, so good bye at present. + +Friday Evening.--That execrable aristocrat and knave Richardson has +given me an absolute refusal of leave! The _poor man_ cannot guess at my +disappointment. Is it not hard, "this dread dependance on the low bred +mind?" Continue to write to me tho', and I must be content--Our loves +and best good wishes attend upon you both. + +LAMB. + +Savory did return, but there are 2 or 3 more ill and absent, which was +the plea for refusing me. I will never commit my peace of mind by +depending on such a wretch for a favor in future, so shall never have +heart to ask for holidays again. The man next him in office, Cartwright, +furnished him with the objections. + +C. LAMB. + +[The Dactyls were Coleridge's only in the third stanza; the remainder +were Southey's. The poem is known as "The Soldier's Wife," printed in +Southey's _Poems_, 1797. Later Southey revised the verses. _The +Anti-Jacobin_ had a parody of them. + +Young Savory was probably a relative of Hester Savory, whom we shall +meet later. He entered the East India House on the same day that Lamb +did. + +We do not know what were the lines from Wither which Coleridge had sent +to Lamb; but Lamb himself eventually did much to bring him and the elder +bards into more general fame--in the _Dramatic Specimens_, 1808, and in +the essay "On the Poetical Works of George Wither," in the _Works_, +1818. + +Stupid Knox was Vicesimus Knox (1752-1821), the editor of _Elegant +Extracts_ in many forms. + +"Her ... sweet little poem." Sara Coleridge's verses no longer exist. +See Lamb's next letter for his poetical reply. + +Coleridge's poem on the Prince and Princess, "On a Late Connubial +Rupture in High Life," was not accepted by Perry, of the _Morning +Chronicle_. It appeared in the _Monthly Magazine_, September, 1796. The +"Verses addressed to J. Horne Tooke and the company who met on June 28, +1796, to celebrate his poll at the Westminster Election" were not +printed in the _Morning Chronicle_. Tooke had opposed Charles James Fox, +who polled 5,160 votes, and Sir Alan Gardner, who polled 4,814, against +his own 2,819. + +Dyer was George Dyer (1755-1841), an old Christ's Hospitaller (but +before Lamb and Coleridge's time), of whom we shall see much--Lamb's +famous "G.D." + +William Richardson was Accountant-General of the East India House at +that time; Charles Cartwright, his Deputy.] + + + + +LETTER 6 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE + +The 5th July, 1796. [P.M. Same date.] + +TO SARA AND HER SAMUEL + +Was it so hard a thing? I did but ask +A fleeting holy day. One little week, +Or haply two, had bounded my request. + +What if the jaded Steer, who all day long +Had borne the heat and labour of the plough, +When Evening came and her sweet cooling hour, +Should seek to trespass on a neighbour copse, +Where greener herbage waved, or clearer streams +Invited him to slake his burning thirst? +That Man were crabbed, who should say him Nay: +That Man were churlish, who should drive him thence! + +A blessing light upon your heads, ye good, +Ye hospitable pair. I may not come, +To catch on Clifden's heights the summer gale: +I may not come, a pilgrim, to the "Vales +Where Avon winds," to taste th' inspiring waves +Which Shakespere drank, our British Helicon: +Or, with mine eye intent on Redcliffe towers, +To drop a tear for that Mysterious youth, +Cruelly slighted, who to London Walls, +In evil hour, shap'd his disastrous course. + +Complaints, begone; begone, ill-omen'd thoughts-- +For yet again, and lo! from Avon banks +Another "Minstrel" cometh! Youth beloved, +God and good angels guide thee on thy way, +And gentler fortunes wait the friends I love. + +C.L. + + + + +LETTER 7 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE + +the 6th July [P.M. July 7, 1796]. + +Substitute in room of that last confused & incorrect Paragraph, +following the words "disastrous course," these lines + +[Sidenote: Vide 3d page of this epistle.] + { With better hopes, I trust, from Avon's vales + { This other "minstrel" cometh Youth endear'd +no { God & good Angels guide thee on thy road, + { And gentler fortunes wait the friends I love. + +[_Lamb has crossed through the above lines_.] + +Let us prose. + +What can I do till you send word what priced and placed house you should +like? Islington (possibly) you would not like, to me 'tis classical +ground. Knightsbridge is a desirable situation for the air of the parks. +St. George's Fields is convenient for its contiguity to the Bench. +Chuse! But are you really coming to town? The hope of it has entirely +disarmed my petty disappointment of its nettles. Yet I rejoice so much +on my own account, that I fear I do not feel enough pure satisfaction on +yours. Why, surely, the joint editorship of the Chron: must be a very +comfortable & secure living for a man. But should not you read French, +or do you? & can you write with sufficient moderation, as 'tis called, +when one suppresses the one half of what one feels, or could say, on a +subject, to chime in the better with popular luke-warmness?--White's +"Letters" are near publication. Could you review 'em, or get 'em +reviewed? Are you not connected with the Crit: Rev:? His frontispiece is +a good conceit: Sir John learning to dance, to please Madame Page, in +dress of doublet, etc., from [for] the upper half; & modern pantaloons, +with shoes, etc., of the 18th century, from [for] the lower half--& the +whole work is full of goodly quips & rare fancies, "all deftly masqued +like hoar antiquity"--much superior to Dr. Kenrick's Falstaff's Wedding, +which you may have seen. Allen sometimes laughs at Superstition, & +Religion, & the like. A living fell vacant lately in the gift of the +Hospital. White informed him that he stood a fair chance for it. He +scrupled & scrupled about it, and at last (to use his own words) +"tampered" with _Godwin_ to know whether the thing was honest or not. +_Godwin_ said nay to it, & Allen rejected the living! Could the blindest +Poor Papish have bowed more servilely to his Priest or Casuist? Why +sleep the Watchman's answers to that _Godwin_? I beg you will not delay +to alter, if you mean to keep, those last lines I sent you. Do that, & +read these for your pains:-- + +TO THE POET COWPER + +Cowper, I thank my God that thou art heal'd! +Thine was the sorest malady of all; +And I am sad to think that it should light +Upon the worthy head! But thou art heal'd, +And thou art yet, we trust, the destin'd man, +Born to reanimate the Lyre, whose chords +Have slumber'd, and have idle lain so long, +To the immortal sounding of whose strings +Did Milton frame the stately-pacèd verse; +Among whose wires with lighter finger playing, +Our elder bard, Spenser, a gentle name, +The Lady Muses' dearest darling child, +Elicited the deftest tunes yet heard +In Hall or Bower, taking the delicate Ear +Of Sydney, & his peerless Maiden Queen. + +Thou, then, take up the mighty Epic strain, +Cowper, of England's Bards, the wisest & the best. + +1796. + +I have read your climax of praises in those 3 reviews. These mighty +spouters-out of panegyric waters have, 2 of 'em, scattered their spray +even upon me! & the waters are cooling & refreshing. Prosaically, the +Monthly Reviewers have made indeed a large article of it, & done you +justice. The Critical have, in their wisdom, selected not the very best +specimens, & notice not, except as one name on the muster-roll, the +"Religious Musings." I suspect Master Dyer to have been the writer of +that article, as the substance of it was the very remarks & the very +language he used to me one day. I fear you will not accord entirely with +my sentiments of Cowper, as _exprest_ above, (perhaps scarcely just), +but the poor Gentleman has just recovered from his Lunacies, & that +begets pity, & pity love, and love admiration, & then it goes hard with +People but they lie! Have you read the Ballad called "Leonora," in the +second Number of the "Monthly Magazine"? If you have !!!!!!!!!!!!!! +There is another fine song, from the same author (Berger), in the 3d +No., of scarce inferior merit; & (vastly below these) there are some +happy specimens of English hexameters, in an imitation of Ossian, in the +5th No. For your Dactyls I am sorry you are so sore about 'em--a very +Sir Fretful! In good troth, the Dactyls are good Dactyls, but their +measure is naught. Be not yourself "half anger, half agony" if I +pronounce your darling lines not to be the best you ever wrote--you have +written much. + +For the alterations in those lines, let 'em run thus: + +I may not come a pilgrim, to the Banks +of _Avon, lucid stream_, to taste the wave (inspiring wave) was too +which Shakspere drank, our British Helicon; common place. +or with mine eye, &c., &c. +_To muse, in tears_, on that mysterious Youth, &c. (better than "drop + a tear") + +Then the last paragraph alter thus + + better refer to my own +Complaint begone, begone unkind reproof, "complaint" solely than +Take up, my song, take up a merrier strain, half to that and half to +For yet again, & lo! from Avon's vales, Chatterton, as in your +Another mistrel cometh! youth _endeared_, copy, which creates a +God & good angels &c., as before confusion--"ominous + fears" &c. + +Have a care, good Master poet, of the Statute de Contumelia. What do you +mean by calling Madame Mara harlot & naughty things? The goodness of the +verse would not save you in a court of Justice. But are you really +coming to town? + +Coleridge, a gentleman called in London lately from Bristol, inquired +whether there were any of the family of a Mr. Chambers living--this Mr. +Chambers he said had been the making of a friend's fortune who wished to +make some return for it. He went away without seeing her. Now, a Mrs. +Reynolds, a very intimate friend of ours, whom you have seen at our +house, is the only daughter, & all that survives, of Mr. Chambers--& a +very little supply would be of service to her, for she married very +unfortunately, & has parted with her husband. Pray find out this Mr. +Pember (for that was the gentleman's friend's name), he is an attorney, +& lives at Bristol. Find him out, & acquaint him with the circumstances +of the case, & offer to be the medium of supply to Mrs. Reynolds, if he +chuses to make her a present. She is in very distrest circumstances. Mr. +Pember, attorney, Bristol--Mr. Chambers lived in the Temple. Mrs. +Reynolds, his daughter, was my schoolmistress, & is in the room at this +present writing. This last circumstance induced me to write so soon +again--I have not further to add--Our loves to Sara. + +Thursday. +C. LAMB. + +[The passage at the beginning, before "Let us prose," together with the +later passages in the same manner, refers to the poem in the preceding +letter, which in slightly different form is printed in editions of Lamb +as "Lines to Sara and Her Samuel." To complete the sense of the letter +one should compare the text of the poem in Vol. IV. + +Coleridge had just received a suggestion, through Dr. Beddoes of +Bristol, that he should replace Grey, the late co-editor (with James +Perry) of the _Morning Chronicle_. It came to nothing; but Coleridge had +told Lamb and had asked him to look out a house in town for him. + +Dr. Kenrick's "Falstaff's Wedding," 1760, was a continuation of +Shakespeare's "Henry IV." + +We do not know what were the last lines that Lamb had sent to Coleridge. +The lines to Cowper were printed in the _Monthly Magazine_ for December, +1796. + +Coleridge's _Poems_ were reviewed in the Monthly Review, June, 1796, +with no mention of Lamb. The _Critical Review_ for the same month said +of Lamb's effusions: "These are very beautiful." + +Burger's "Leonora," which was to have such an influence upon English +literature (it was the foundation of much of Sir Walter Scott's poetry), +was translated from the German by William Taylor of Norwich in 1790 and +printed in the _Monthly Magazine_ in March, 1796. Scott at once made a +rival version. The other fine song, in the April _Monthly Magazine_, was +"The Lass of Fair Wone." + +The mention of the Statute de Contumeliâ seems to refer to the "Lines +Composed in a Concert-Room," which were first printed in the _Morning +Post_, September 24, 1799, but must have been written earlier. Madame +Mara (1749-1833) is not mentioned by name in the poem, but being one of +the principal singers of the day Lamb probably fastened the epithet upon +her by way of pleasantry; or she may have been referred to in the +version of the lines which Lamb had seen. + +The passage about Mr. Chambers is not now explicable; but we know that +Mrs. Reynolds was Lamb's schoolmistress, probably when he was very +small, and before he went to William Bird's Academy, and that in later +life he allowed her a pension of £30 a year until her death. + +Between this and the next letter came, in all probability, a number of +letters to Coleridge which have been lost. It is incredible that Lamb +kept silence, at this period, for eleven weeks.] + + + + +LETTER 8 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE + +[P.M. September 27, 1796.] + +My dearest friend--White or some of my friends or the public papers by +this time may have informed you of the terrible calamities that have +fallen on our family. I will only give you the outlines. My poor dear +dearest sister in a fit of insanity has been the death of her own +mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her +grasp. She is at present in a mad house, from whence I fear she must be +moved to an hospital. God has preserved to me my senses,--I eat and +drink and sleep, and have my judgment I believe very sound. My poor +father was slightly wounded, and I am left to take care of him and my +aunt. Mr. Norris of the Bluecoat school has been very very kind to us, +and we have no other friend, but thank God I am very calm and composed, +and able to do the best that remains to do. Write,--as religious a +letter as possible--but no mention of what is gone and done with.--With +me "the former things are passed away," and I have something more to do +that [than] to feel-- + +God almighty have us all in his keeping.-- + +C. LAMB. + +Mention nothing of poetry. I have destroyed every vestige of past +vanities of that kind. Do as you please, but if you publish, publish +mine (I give free leave) without name or initial, and never send me a +book, I charge you. + +You [your] own judgment will convince you not to take any notice of this +yet to your dear wife.--You look after your family,--I have my reason +and strength left to take care of mine. I charge you, don't think of +coming to see me. Write. I will not see you if you come. God almighty +love you and all of us-- + +[The following is the report of the inquest upon Mrs. Lamb which +appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_ for September 26, 1796. The tragedy +had occurred on Thursday, September 22:-- + +On Friday afternoon the Coroner and a respectable Jury sat on the body +of a Lady in the neighbourhood of Holborn, who died in consequence of a +wound from her daughter the preceding day. It appeared by the evidence +adduced, that while the family were preparing for dinner, the young lady +seized a case knife laying on the table, and in a menacing manner +pursued a little girl, her apprentice, round the room; on the eager +calls of her helpless infirm mother to forbear, she renounced her first +object, and with loud shrieks approached her parent. + +The child by her cries quickly brought up the landlord of the house, but +too late--the dreadful scene presented to him the mother lifeless, +pierced to the heart, on a chair, her daughter yet wildly standing over +her with the fatal knife, and the venerable old man, her father, weeping +by her side, himself bleeding at the forehead from the effects of a +severe blow he received from one of the forks she had been madly hurling +about the room. + +For a few days prior to this the family had observed some symptoms of +insanity in her, which had so much increased on the Wednesday evening, +that her brother early the next morning went in quest of Dr. +Pitcairn--had that gentleman been met with, the fatal catastrophe had, +in all probability, been prevented. + +It seems the young Lady had been once before, in her earlier years, +deranged, from the harassing fatigues of too much business.--As her +carriage towards her mother was ever affectionate in the extreme, it is +believed that to the increased attentiveness, which her parents' +infirmities called for by day and night, is to be attributed the present +insanity of this ill-fated young woman. + +It has been stated in some of the Morning Papers, that she has an insane +brother also in confinement--this is without foundation. + +The Jury of course brought in their Verdict, _Lunacy_. + +In the _Whitehall Evening Post_ the first part of the account is the +same, but the end is as follows:-- + +The above unfortunate young person is a Miss Lamb, a mantua-maker, in +Little Queen-street, Lincoln's-inn-fields. She has been, since, removed +to Islington mad-house. + +Mr. Norris of the Blue-Coat School has been confounded with Randal +Norris of the Inner Temple, another friend of the Lambs, but is not, I +think, the same. + +The reference to the poetry and Coleridge's publication of it shows that +Lamb had already been invited to contribute to the second edition of +Coleridge's _Poems_. The words "and never" in the original have a line +through them which might mean erasure, but, I think, does not. + +"Your own judgment..." Mrs. Coleridge had just become a mother: David +Hartley Coleridge was born on September 19. + +This was Coleridge's reply to Lamb's letter, as given in Gillman's _Life +of Coleridge_:-- + +"[September 28, 1796.] + +"Your letter, my friend, struck me with a mighty horror. It rushed upon +me and stupified my feelings. You bid me write you a religious letter; I +am not a man who would attempt to insult the greatness of your anguish +by any other consolation. Heaven knows that in the easiest fortunes +there is much dissatisfaction and weariness of spirit; much that calls +for the exercise of patience and resignation; but in storms, like these, +that shake the dwelling and make the heart tremble, there is no middle +way between despair and the yielding up of the whole spirit unto the +guidance of faith. And surely it is a matter of joy, that your faith in +Jesus has been preserved; the Comforter that should relieve you is not +far from you. But as you are a Christian, in the name of that Saviour, +who was filled with bitterness and made drunken with wormwood, I conjure +you to have recourse in frequent prayer to 'his God and your God,' the +God of mercies, and father of all comfort. Your poor father is, I hope, +almost senseless of the calamity; the unconscious instrument of Divine +Providence knows it not, and your mother is in heaven. It is sweet to be +roused from a frightful dream by the song of birds, and the gladsome +rays of the morning. Ah, how infinitely more sweet to be awakened from +the blackness and amazement of a sudden horror, by the glories of God +manifest, and the hallelujahs of angels. + +"As to what regards yourself, I approve altogether of your abandoning +what you justly call vanities. I look upon you as a man, called by +sorrow and anguish and a strange desolation of hopes into quietness, and +a soul set apart and made peculiar to God; we cannot arrive at any +portion of heavenly bliss without in some measure imitating Christ. And +they arrive at the largest inheritance who imitate the most difficult +parts of his character, and bowed down and crushed under foot, cry in +fulness of faith, 'Father, thy will be done.' + +"I wish above measure to have you for a little while here--no visitants +shall blow on the nakedness of your feelings--you shall be quiet, and +your spirit may be healed. I see no possible objection, unless your +father's helplessness prevent you, and unless you are necessary to him. +If this be not the case, I charge you write me that you will come. + +"I charge you, my dearest friend, not to dare to encourage gloom or +despair--you are a temporary sharer in human miseries, that you may be +an eternal partaker of the Divine nature. I charge you, if by any means +it be possible, come to me. + +"I remain, your affectionate, +"S.T. COLERIDGE."] + + + + +LETTER 9 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE + +[P.M. October 3, 1796.] + +My dearest friend, your letter was an inestimable treasure to me. It +will be a comfort to you, I know, to know that our prospects are +somewhat brighter. My poor dear dearest sister, the unhappy and +unconscious instrument of the Almighty's judgments to our house, is +restored to her senses; to a dreadful sense and recollection of what has +past, awful to her mind, and impressive (as it must be to the end of +life) but temper'd with religious resignation, and the reasonings of a +sound judgment, which in this early stage knows how to distinguish +between a deed committed in a transient fit of frenzy, and the terrible +guilt of a Mother's murther. I have seen her. I found her this morning +calm and serene, far very very far from an indecent forgetful serenity; +she has a most affectionate and tender concern for what has happend. +Indeed from the beginning, frightful and hopeless as her disorder +seemed, I had confidence enough in her strength of mind, and religious +principle, to look forward to a time when _even she_ might recover +tranquillity. God be praised, Coleridge, wonderful as it is to tell, I +have never once been otherwise than collected, and calm; even on the +dreadful day and in the midst of the terrible scene I preserved a +tranquillity, which bystanders may have construed into indifference, a +tranquillity not of despair; is it folly or sin in me to say that it was +a religious principle that _most_ supported me? I allow much to other +favorable circumstances. I felt that I had something else to do than to +regret; on that first evening my Aunt was lying insensible, to all +appearance like one dying,--my father, with his poor forehead plastered +over from a wound he had received from a daughter dearly loved by him, +and who loved him no less dearly,--my mother a dead and murder'd corpse +in the next room--yet was I wonderfully supported. I closed not my eyes +in sleep that night, but lay without terrors and without despair. I have +lost no sleep since. I had been long used not to rest in things of +sense, had endeavord after a comprehension of mind, unsatisfied with the +"ignorant present time," and this kept me up. I had the whole weight of +the family thrown on me, for my brother, little disposed (I speak not +without tenderness for him) at any time to take care of old age and +infirmities, had now, with his bad leg, an exemption from such duties, +and I was now left alone. One little incident may serve to make you +understand my way of managing my mind. Within a day or 2 after the fatal +ONE, we drest for dinner a tongue, which we had had salted for some +weeks in the house. As I sat down a feeling like remorse struck +me,--this tongue poor Mary got for me, and can I partake of it now, when +she is far away--a thought occurrd and relieved me,--if I give in to +this way of feeling, there is not a chair, a room, an object in our +rooms, that will not awaken the keenest griefs, I must rise above such +weaknesses.--I hope this was not want of true feeling. I did not let +this carry me, tho', too far. On the very 2d day (I date from the day of +horrors) as is usual in such cases there were a matter of 20 people I do +think supping in our room. They prevailed on me to eat _with them_, (for +to eat I never refused). They were all making merry! in the room,--some +had come from friendship, some from busy curiosity, and some from +Interest; I was going to partake with them, when my recollection came +that my poor dead mother was lying in the next room, the very next room, +a mother who thro' life wished nothing but her children's welfare-- +indignation, the rage of grief, something like remorse, rushed upon my +mind in an agony of emotion,--I found my way mechanically to the +adjoining room, and fell on my knees by the side of her coffin, asking +forgiveness of heaven, and sometimes of her, for forgetting her so soon. +Tranquillity returned, and it was the only violent emotion that mastered +me, and I think it did me good. + +I mention these things because I hate concealment, and love to give a +faithful journal of what passes within me. Our friends have been very +good. Sam Le Grice who was then in town was with me the first 3 or 4 +first days, and was as a brother to me, gave up every hour of his time, +to the very hurting of his health and spirits, in constant attendance +and humouring my poor father. Talk'd with him, read to him, play'd at +cribbage with him (for so short is the old man's recollection, that he +was playing at cards, as tho' nothing had happened, while the Coroner's +Inquest was sitting over the way!). Samuel wept tenderly when he went +away, for his mother wrote him a very severe letter on his loitering so +long in town, and he was forced to go. Mr. Norris of Christ Hospital has +been as a father to me, Mrs. Norris as a mother; tho' we had few claims +on them. A Gentleman, brother to my Godmother, from whom we never had +right or reason to expect any such assistance, sent my father twenty +pounds,--and to crown all these God's blessings to our family at such a +time, an old Lady, a cousin of my father and Aunt's, a Gentlewoman of +fortune, is to take my Aunt and make her comfortable for the short +remainder of her days. + +My Aunt is recover'd and as well as ever, and highly pleased at thoughts +of going,--and has generously given up the interest of her little money +(which was formerly paid my Father for her board) wholely and solely to +my Sister's use. Reckoning this we have, Daddy and I, for our two selves +and an old maid servant to look after him, when I am out, which will be +necessary, £170 or £180 (rather) a year, out of which we can spare 50 or +60 at least for Mary, while she stays at Islington, where she must and +shall stay during her father's life for his and her comfort. I know John +will make speeches about it, but she shall not go into an hospital. The +good Lady of the mad house, and her daughter, an elegant sweet behaved +young Lady, love her and are taken with her amazingly, and I know from +her own mouth she loves them, and longs to be with them as much.--Poor +thing, they say she was but the other morning saying, she knew she must +go to Bethlem for life; that one of her brothers would have it so, but +the other would wish it not, but be obliged to go with the stream; that +she had often as she passed Bedlam thought it likely "here it may be my +fate to end my days--" conscious of a certain flightiness in her poor +head oftentimes, and mindful of more than one severe illness of that +nature before. A Legacy of £100, which my father will have at Xmas, and +this 20 I mentioned before, with what is in the house will much more +than set us Clear;--if my father, an old servant maid, and I, can't live +and live comfortably on £130 or £120 a year we ought to burn by slow +fires, and I almost would, that Mary might not go into an hospital. Let +me not leave one unfavourable impression on your mind respecting my +Brother. Since this has happened he has been very kind and brotherly; +but I fear for his mind,--he has taken his ease in the world, and is not +fit himself to struggle with difficulties, nor has much accustomed +himself to throw himself into their way,--and I know his language is +already, "Charles, you must take care of yourself, you must not abridge +yourself of a single pleasure you have been used to," &c &c and in that +style of talking. But you, a necessarian, can respect a difference of +mind, and love what is _amiable_ in a character not perfect. He has been +very good, but I fear for his mind. Thank God, I can unconnect myself +with him, and shall manage all my father's monies in future myself, if I +take charge of Daddy, which poor John has not even hinted a wish, at any +future time even, to share with me. The Lady at this mad house assures +me that I may dismiss immediately both Doctor and apothecary, retaining +occasionally an opening draught or so for a while, and there is a less +expensive establishment in her house, where she will only not have a +room and nurse to herself for £50 or guineas a year--the outside would +be 60--You know by oeconomy how much more, even, I shall be able to +spare for her comforts. + +She will, I fancy, if she stays, make one of the family, rather than of +the patients, and the old and young ladies I like exceedingly, and she +loves dearly, and they, as the saying is, take to her very +extraordinarily, if it is extraordinary that people who see my sister +should love her. Of all the people I ever saw in the world my poor +sister was most and thoroughly devoid of the least tincture of +selfishness--I will enlarge upon her qualities, poor dear dearest soul, +in a future letter for my own comfort, for I understand her throughly; +and if I mistake not, in the most trying situation that a human being +can be found in, she will be found (I speak not with sufficient +humility, I fear, but humanly and foolishly speaking) she will be found, +I trust, uniformly great and amiable; God keep her in her present mind, +to whom be thanks and praise for all His dispensations to mankind. + +LAMB. + +Coleridge, continue to write; but do not for ever offend me by talking +of sending me cash. Sincerely, and on my soul, we do not want it. God +love you both! + +I will write again very soon. Do you write directly. + +These mentioned good fortunes and change of prospects had almost brought +my mind over to the extreme the very opposite to Despair; I was in +danger of making myself too happy; your letter brought me back to a view +of things which I had entertained from the beginning; I hope (for Mary I +can answer) but I hope that _I_ shall thro' life never have less +recollection nor a fainter impression of what has happened than I have +now; 'tis not a light thing, nor meant by the Almighty to be received +lightly. I must be serious, circumspect, and deeply religious thro' +life; by such means may _both_ of us escape madness in future, if it so +please the Almighty. + +Send me word, how it fares with Sara. I repeat it, your letter was and +will be an inestimable treasure to me; you have a view of what my +situation demands of me like my own view; and I trust a just one. + +[A word perhaps on Lamb's salary might be fitting here. For the first +three years, from joining the East India House on April 5, 1792, he +received nothing. This probationary period over, he was given £40 for +the year 1795-1796. This, however, was raised to £70 in 1796 and there +were means of adding to it a little, by extra work and by a small +holiday grant. In 1797 it was £80, in 1799 £90, and from that time until +1814 it rose by £10 every second year. + +Samuel Le Grice was the younger brother of Valentine Le Grice. Both were +at Christ's Hospital with Lamb and Coleridge and are mentioned in the +_Elia_ essay on the school. Sam Le Grice afterwards had a commission in +the 60th Foot, and died in Jamaica in 1802, as we shall see.] + + + + +LETTER 10 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE + +[P.M. October 17, 1796.] + +My dearest friend, I grieve from my very soul to observe you in your +plans of life veering about from this hope to the other, and settling no +where. Is it an untoward fatality (speaking humanly) that does this for +you, a stubborn irresistible concurrence of events? or lies the fault, +as I fear it does, in your own mind? You seem to be taking up splendid +schemes of fortune only to lay them down again, and your fortunes are an +ignis fatuus that has been conducting you, in thought, from Lancaster +Court, Strand, to somewhere near Matlock, then jumping across to Dr. +Somebody's whose son's tutor you were likely to be, and would to God the +dancing demon _may_ conduct you at last in peace and comfort to the +"life and labors of a cottager." You see from the above awkward +playfulness of fancy, that my spirits are not quite depressed; I should +ill deserve God's blessings, which since the late terrible event have +come down in mercy upon us, if I indulged regret or querulousness,--Mary +continues serene and chearful,--I have not by me a little letter she +wrote to me, for, tho' I see her almost every day yet we delight to +write to one another (for we can scarce see each other but in company +with some of the people of the house), I have not the letter by me but +will quote from memory what she wrote in it. "I have no bad terrifying +dreams. At midnight when I happen to awake, the nurse sleeping by the +side of me, with the noise of the poor mad people around me, I have no +fear. The spirit of my mother seems to descend, and smile upon me, and +bid me live to enjoy the life and reason which the Almighty has given +me--I shall see her again in heaven; she will then understand me better; +my Grandmother too will understand me better, and will then say no more, +as she used to do, 'Polly, what are those poor crazy moyther'd brains of +yours thinking of always?'"--Poor Mary, my Mother indeed _never +understood_ her right. She loved her, as she loved us all, with a +Mother's love; but in opinion, in feeling, and sentiment, and +disposition, bore so distant a resemblance to her daughter, that she +never understood her right. Never could believe how much _she_ loved +her--but met her caresses, her protestations of filial affection, too +frequently with coldness and repulse.--Still she was a good mother, God +forbid I should think of her but _most_ respectfully, _most_ +affectionately. Yet she would always love my brother above Mary, who was +not worthy of one tenth of that affection, which Mary had a right to +claim. But it is my sister's gratifying recollection, that every act of +duty and of love she could pay, every kindness (and I speak true, when I +say to the hurting of her health, and, most probably, in great part to +the derangement of her senses) thro' a long course of infirmities and +sickness, she could shew her, SHE EVER DID. I will some day, as I +promised, enlarge to you upon my Sister's excellencies; 'twill seem like +exaggeration; but I will do it. At present short letters suit my state +of mind best. So take my kindest wishes for your comfort and +establishment in life, and for Sara's welfare and comforts with you. God +love you; God love us all-- + +C. LAMB. + +[This letter is the only one in which Lamb speaks freely of his mother. +He dwells on her memory in _Blank Verse_, 1798, but in later years he +mentioned her in his writings only twice, in the _Elia_ essays "New +Year's Eve" and "My First Play," and then very indirectly: probably from +the wish to spare his sister pain, although Talfourd tells us that Mary +Lamb spoke of her mother often. Compare the poem on page 110. + +In a letter written by Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart on September 21, +1803, there is further light on Mrs. Lamb's want of sympathetic +understanding of certain characters. + +The references at the beginning are to Coleridge's idea of joining Perry +on the _Morning Chronicle_; of teaching Mrs. Evans' children; of +establishing a school at Derby, on the suggestion of Dr. Crompton; and +finally of moving from Bristol to settle down in a cottage at Nether +Stowey, and support himself by husbandry and literature.] + + + + +LETTER 11 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE + +Oct. 24th, 1796. [Monday.] + +Coleridge, I feel myself much your debtor for that spirit of confidence +and friendship which dictated your last letter. May your soul find peace +at last in your cottage life! I only wish you were but settled. Do +continue to write to me. I read your letters with my sister, and they +give us both abundance of delight. Especially they please us two, when +you talk in a religious strain,--not but we are offended occasionally +with a certain freedom of expression, a certain air of mysticism, more +consonant to the conceits of pagan philosophy, than consistent with the +humility of genuine piety. To instance now in your last letter--you say, +"it is by the press [sic], that God hath given finite spirits both evil +and good (I suppose you mean simply bad men and good men), a portion as +it were of His Omnipresence!" Now, high as the human intellect +comparatively will soar, and wide as its influence, malign or salutary, +can extend, is there not, Coleridge, a distance between the Divine Mind +and it, which makes such language blasphemy? Again, in your first fine +consolatory epistle you say, "you are a temporary sharer in human +misery, that you may be an eternal partaker of the Divine Nature." What +more than this do those men say, who are for exalting the man Christ +Jesus into the second person of an unknown Trinity,--men, whom you or I +scruple not to call idolaters? Man, full of imperfections, at best, and +subject to wants which momentarily remind him of dependence; man, a weak +and ignorant being, "servile" from his birth "to all the skiey +influences," with eyes sometimes open to discern the right path, but a +head generally too dizzy to pursue it; man, in the pride of speculation, +forgetting his nature, and hailing in himself the future God, must make +the angels laugh. Be not angry with me, Coleridge; I wish not to cavil; +I know I cannot _instruct_ you; I only wish to _remind_ you of that +humility which best becometh the Christian character. God, in the New +Testament (_our best guide_), is represented to us in the kind, +condescending, amiable, familiar light of a _parent_: and in my poor +mind 'tis best for us so to consider of Him, as our heavenly Father, and +our _best Friend_, without indulging too bold conceptions of His nature. +Let us learn to think humbly of ourselves, and rejoice in the +appellation of "dear children," "brethren," and "co-heirs with Christ of +the promises," seeking to know no further. + +I am not insensible, indeed I am not, of the value of that first letter +of yours, and I shall find reason to thank you for it again and again +long after that blemish in it is forgotten. It will be a fine lesson of +comfort to us, whenever we read it; and read it we often shall, Mary and +I. + +Accept our loves and best kind wishes for the welfare of yourself and +wife, and little one. Nor let me forget to wish you joy on your birthday +so lately past; I thought you had been older. My kind thanks and +remembrances to Lloyd. God love us all, and may He continue to be the +father and the friend of the whole human race! + +Sunday Evening. C. LAMB. + +[It is interesting to notice that with these letters Lamb suddenly +assumes a gravity, independence and sense of authority that hitherto his +correspondence has lacked. The responsibility of the household seems to +have awakened his extraordinary common sense and fine understanding +sense of justice. Previously he had ventured to criticise only +Coleridge's literary exercises; he places his finger now on conduct too. + +Coleridge's "last letter" has not been preserved; but the "first fine +consolatory epistle" is printed above. + +This letter contains the first mention of Charles Lloyd (1775-1839), who +was afterwards to be for a while so intimately associated with Lamb. +Charles Lloyd was the son of a Quaker banker of Birmingham. He had +published a volume of poems the year before and had met Coleridge when +that magnetic visionary had visited Birmingham to solicit subscribers +for _The Watchman_ early in 1796. The proposition that Lloyd should live +with Coleridge and become in a way his pupil was agreed to by his +parents, and in September he accompanied the philosopher to Nether +Stowey a day or so after David Hartley's birth, all eager to begin +domestication and tutelage. Lloyd was a sensitive, delicate youth, with +an acute power of analysis and considerable grasp of metaphysical ideas. +No connection ever began more amiably. He was, I might add, by only two +days Lamb's junior.] + + + + +LETTER 12 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE +Oct. 28th, 1796. + +My dear Friend, I am not ignorant that to be a partaker of the Divine +Nature is a phrase to be met with in Scripture: I am only apprehensive, +lest we in these latter days, tinctured (some of us perhaps pretty +deeply) with mystical notions and the pride of metaphysics, might be apt +to affix to such phrases a meaning, which the primitive users of them, +the simple fishermen of Galilee for instance, never intended to convey. +With that other part of your apology I am not quite so well satisfied. +You seem to me to have been straining your comparing faculties to bring +together things infinitely distant and unlike; the feeble narrow-sphered +operations of the human intellect and the everywhere diffused mind of +Deity, the peerless wisdom of Jehovah. Even the expression appears to me +inaccurate--portion of omnipresence--omnipresence is an attribute whose +very essence is unlimitedness. How can omnipresence be affirmed of +anything in part? But enough of this spirit of disputatiousness. Let us +attend to the proper business of human life, and talk a little together +respecting our domestic concerns. Do you continue to make me acquainted +with what you were doing, and how soon you are likely to be settled once +for all. + +I have satisfaction in being able to bid you rejoice with me in my +sister's continued reason and composedness of mind. Let us both be +thankful for it. I continue to visit her very frequently, and the people +of the house are vastly indulgent to her; she is likely to be as +comfortably situated in all respects as those who pay twice or thrice +the sum. They love her, and she loves them, and makes herself very +useful to them. Benevolence sets out on her journey with a good heart, +and puts a good face on it, but is apt to limp and grow feeble, unless +she calls in the aid of self-interest by way of crutch. In Mary's case, +as far as respects those she is with, 'tis well that these principles +are so likely to co-operate. I am rather at a loss sometimes for books +for her,--our reading is somewhat confined, and we have nearly exhausted +our London library. She has her hands too full of work to read much, but +a little she must read; for reading was her daily bread. Have you seen +Bowles's new poem on "Hope?" What character does it bear? Has he +exhausted his stores of tender plaintiveness? or is he the same in this +last as in all his former pieces? The duties of the day call me off from +this pleasant intercourse with my friend--so for the present adieu. + +Now for the truant borrowing of a few minutes from business. Have you +met with a new poem called the "Pursuits of Literature?" From the +extracts in the "British Review" I judge it to be a very humorous thing; +in particular I remember what I thought a very happy character of Dr. +Darwin's poetry. Among all your quaint readings did you ever light upon +Walton's "Complete Angler"? I asked you the question once before; it +breathes the very spirit of innocence, purity, and simplicity of heart; +there are many choice old verses interspersed in it; it would sweeten a +man's temper at any time to read it; it would Christianise every +discordant angry passion; pray make yourself acquainted with it. Have +you made it up with Southey yet? Surely one of you two must have been a +very silly fellow, and the other not much better, to fall out like +boarding-school misses; kiss, shake hands, and make it up? + +When will he be delivered of his new epic? _Madoc_ I think, is to be the +name of it; though that is a name not familiar to my ears. What progress +do you make in your hymns? What Review are you connected with? If with +any, why do you delay to notice White's book? You are justly offended at +its profaneness; but surely you have undervalued its _wit_, or you would +have been more loud in its praises. Do not you think that in _Slender's_ +death and madness there is most exquisite humour, mingled with +tenderness, that is irresistible, truly Shakspearian? Be more full in +your mention of it. Poor fellow, he has (very undeservedly) lost by it; +nor do I see that it is likely ever to reimburse him the charge of +printing, etc. Give it a lift, if you can. I suppose you know that +Allen's wife is dead, and he, just situated as he was, never the better, +as the worldly people say, for her death, her money with her children +being taken off his hands. I am just now wondering whether you will ever +come to town again, Coleridge; 'tis among the things I dare not hope, +but can't help wishing. For myself, I can live in the midst of town +luxury and superfluity, and not long for them, and I can't see why your +children might not hereafter do the same. Remember, you are not in +Arcadia when you are in the west of England, and they may catch +infection from the world without visiting the metropolis. But you seem +to have set your heart upon this same cottage plan; and God prosper you +in the experiment! I am at a loss for more to write about; so 'tis as +well that I am arrived at the bottom of my paper. + +God love you, Coleridge!--Our best loves and tenderest wishes await on +you, your Sara, and your little one. + +C. L. + +[Bowles's poem was "Hope, an allegorical sketch on slowly recovering +from sickness." See note on pages 78 and 79. + +_The Pursuits of Literature_, was a literary satire in the form of +dialogues in verse, garnished with very outspoken notes, by Thomas James +Mathias (1754?-1835), which appeared between 1794 and 1797. + +Southey had returned from Portugal in the summer, when the quarrel +between Coleridge and himself revived; but about the time of Hartley's +birth some kind of a reconciliation was patched up. _Madoc_, as it +happened, was not published until 1805, although in its first form it +was completed in 1797. + +Writing to Charles Lloyd, sen., in December, 1796, Coleridge says that +he gives his evenings to his engagements with the _Critical Review_ and +_New Monthly Magazine_. + +This is the passage in Falstaff's Letters describing Blender's death:-- + +DAVY TO SHALLOW + +Master Abram is dead, gone, your Worship--dead! Master Abram! Oh! good +your Worship, a's gone.--A' never throve, since a' came from Windsor-- +'twas his death. I call'd him a rebel, your Worship--but a' was all +subject--a' was subject to any babe, as much as a King--a' turn'd, like +as it were the latter end of a lover's lute--a' was all peace and +resignment--a' took delight in nothing but his book of songs and +sonnets--a' would go to the Stroud side under the large beech tree, and +sing, till 'twas quite pity of our lives to mark him; for his chin grew +as long as a muscle--Oh! a' sung his soul and body quite away--a' was +lank as any greyhound, and had such a scent! I hid his love-songs among +your Worship's law-books; for I thought if a' could not get at them, it +might be to his quiet; but a' snuff'd 'em out in a moment.--Good your +Worship, have the wise woman of Brentfort secured--Master Abram may have +been conjured--Peter Simple says, a' never look'd up, after a' sent to +the wise woman--Marry, a' was always given to look down afore his +elders; a' might do it, a' was given to it--your Worship knows it; but +then 'twas peak and pert with him--a' was a man again, marry, in the +turn of his heel.--A' died, your Worship, just about one, at the crow of +the cock.--I thought how it was with him; for a' talk'd as quick, aye, +marry, as glib as your Worship; and a' smiled, and look'd at his own +nose, and call'd "Sweet Ann Page." I ask'd him if a' would eat--so a' +bad us commend him to his Cousin Robert (a' never call'd your Worship so +before) and bade us get hot meat, for a' would not say nay to Ann +again.[*]--But a' never liv'd to touch it--a' began all in a moment to +sing "Lovers all, a Madrigal." 'Twas the only song Master Abram ever +learnt out of book, and clean by heart, your Worship--and so a' sung, +and smiled, and look'd askew at his own nose, and sung, and sung on, +till his breath waxed shorter, and shorter, and shorter, and a' fell +into a struggle and died. I beseech your Worship to think he was well +tended--I look'd to him, your Worship, late and soon, and crept at his +heel all day long, an it had been any fallow dog--but I thought a' could +never live, for a' did so sing, and then a' never drank with it--I knew +'twas a bad sign--yea, a' sung, your Worship, marry, without drinking a +drop. + +[Footnote: Vide "Merry Wives of Windsor." Latter part of the 1st Scene, +1st Act.]] + + + + +LETTER 13 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE +Nov. 8th, 1796. + +My Brother, my Friend,--I am distrest for you, believe me I am; not so +much for your painful, troublesome complaint, which, I trust, is only +for a time, as for those anxieties which brought it on, and perhaps even +now may be nursing its malignity. Tell me, dearest of my friends, is +your mind at peace, or has anything, yet unknown to me, happened to give +you fresh disquiet, and steal from you all the pleasant dreams of future +rest? Are you still (I fear you are) far from being comfortably settled? +Would to God it were in my power to contribute towards the bringing of +you into the haven where you would be! But you are too well skilled in +the philosophy of consolation to need my humble tribute of advice; in +pain and in sickness, and in all manner of disappointments, I trust you +have that within you which shall speak peace to your mind. Make it, I +entreat you, one of your puny comforts, that I feel for you, and share +all your griefs with you. I feel as if I were troubling you about +_little_ things; now I am going to resume the subject of our last two +letters, but it may divert us both from unpleasanter feelings to make +such matters, in a manner, of importance. Without further apology, then, +it was not that I did not relish, that I did not in my heart thank you +for, those little pictures of your feelings which you lately sent me, if +I neglected to mention them. You may remember you had said much the same +things before to me on the same subject in a former letter, and I +considered those last verses as only the identical thoughts better +clothed; either way (in prose or verse) such poetry must be welcome to +me. I love them as I love the Confessions of Rousseau, and for the same +reason: the same frankness, the same openness of heart, the same +disclosure of all the most hidden and delicate affections of the mind: +they make me proud to be thus esteemed worthy of the place of +friend-confessor, brother-confessor, to a man like Coleridge. This last +is, I acknowledge, language too high for friendship; but it is also, I +declare, too sincere for flattery. Now, to put on stilts, and talk +magnificently about trifles--I condescend, then, to your counsel, +Coleridge, and allow my first Sonnet (sick to death am I to make mention +of my sonnets, and I blush to be so taken up with them, indeed I do)--I +allow it to run thus, "_Fairy Land_" &c. &c., as I [? you] last wrote +it. + +The Fragments I now send you I want printed to get rid of 'em; for, +while they stick burr-like to my memory, they tempt me to go on with the +idle trade of versifying, which I long--most sincerely I speak it--I +long to leave off, for it is unprofitable to my soul; I feel it is; and +these questions about words, and debates about alterations, take me off, +I am conscious, from the properer business of _my_ life. Take my sonnets +once for all, and do not propose any re-amendments, or mention them +again in any shape to me, I charge you. I blush that my mind can +consider them as things of any worth. And pray admit or reject these +fragments, as you like or dislike them, without ceremony. Call 'em +Sketches, Fragments, or what you will, but do not entitle any of my +_things_ Love Sonnets, as I told you to call 'em; 'twill only make me +look little in my own eyes; for it is a passion of which I retain +_nothing_; 'twas a weakness, concerning which I may say, in the words of +Petrarch (whose life is now open before me), "if it drew me out of some +vices, it also prevented the growth of many virtues, filling me with the +love of the creature rather than the Creator, which is the death of the +soul." Thank God, the folly has left me for ever; not even a review of +my love verses renews one wayward wish in me; and if I am at all +solicitous to trim 'em out in their best apparel, it is because they are +to make their appearance in good company. Now to my fragments. Lest you +have lost my Grandame, she shall be one. 'Tis among the few verses I +ever wrote (that to Mary is another) which profit me in the +recollection. God love her,--and may we two never love each other less! + +These, Coleridge, are the few sketches I have thought worth preserving; +how will they relish thus detached? Will you reject all or any of them? +They are thine: do whatsoever thou listest with them. My eyes ache with +writing long and late, and I wax wondrous sleepy; God bless you and +yours, me and mine! Good night. + + C. LAMB. + +I will keep my eyes open reluctantly a minute longer to tell you, that I +love you for those simple, tender, heart-flowing lines with which you +conclude your last, and in my eyes best, sonnet (so you call 'em), + +"So, for the mother's sake, the child was dear, +And dearer was the mother for the child." + +Cultivate simplicity, Coleridge, or rather, I should say, banish +elaborateness; for simplicity springs spontaneous from the heart, and +carries into daylight its own modest buds and genuine, sweet, and clear +flowers of expression. I allow no hot-beds in the gardens of Parnassus. +I am unwilling to go to bed, and leave my sheet unfilled (a good piece +of night-work for an idle body like me), so will finish with begging you +to send me the earliest account of your complaint, its progress, or (as +I hope to God you will be able to send me) the tale of your recovery, or +at least amendment. My tenderest remembrances to your Sara.-- + +Once more good night. + +[Coleridge, on November 2, had begun to suffer from his lifelong enemy, +neuralgia, the result largely of worry concerning his future, so many of +his projects having broken down. He was subduing it with laudanum--the +beginning of that fatal habit. + +We do not know what were the verses which Coleridge had sent Lamb, +possibly the three sonnets on the birth of Hartley, the third of which +is referred to below. + +Lamb's decision in September to say or hear no more of his own poetry +here breaks down. The reference to the Fairy Land sonnet is only +partially explained by the parallel version which I printed on page 25; +for "Fairy Land" was Coleridge's version. Either Lamb had made a new +version, substituting "Fairy Land" for "Faery," or he wrote, "I allow it +to run thus: Fairy Land, &c., &c., as _you_ last wrote it." When +reprinted, however, it ran as Lamb originally wished. The other +fragments were those afterwards included in Coleridge's _Poems_, second +edition, 1797. + +"Love Sonnets." Lamb changed his mind again on this subject, and yet +again. + +Coleridge's last of the three sonnets on the birth of Hartley was +entitled "Sonnet to a Friend [Charles Lloyd] who asked how I felt when +the Nurse first presented my Infant to me." It closed with the lines +which Lamb copies.] + + + + +LETTER 14 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +Nov. 14th, 1796. + +Coleridge, I love you for dedicating your poetry to Bowles. Genius of +the sacred fountain of tears, it was he who led you gently by the hand +through all this valley of weeping, showed you the dark green yew trees +and the willow shades where, by the fall of waters, you might indulge an +uncomplaining melancholy, a delicious regret for the past, or weave fine +visions of that awful future, + +"When all the vanities of life's brief day +Oblivion's hurrying hand hath swept away, +And all its sorrows, at the awful blast +Of the archangel's trump, are but as shadows past." + +I have another sort of dedication in my head for my few things, which I +want to know if you approve of, and can insert. I mean to inscribe them +to my sister. It will be unexpected, and it will give her pleasure; or +do you think it will look whimsical at all? As I have not spoke to her +about it, I can easily reject the idea. But there is a monotony in the +affections, which people living together or, as we do now, very +frequently seeing each other, are apt to give in to: a sort of +indifference in the expression of kindness for each other, which demands +that we should sometimes call to our aid the trickery of surprise. Do +you publish with Lloyd or without him? in either case my little portion +may come last, and after the fashion of orders to a country +correspondent I will give directions how I should like to have 'em done. +The title-page to stand thus:-- + +POEMS, + +CHIEFLY LOVE SONNETS +BY + +CHARLES LAMB, OF THE INDIA HOUSE. + +Under this title the following motto, which, for want of room, I put +over leaf, and desire you to insert, whether you like it or no. May not +a gentleman choose what arms, mottoes, or armorial bearings the herald +will give him leave, without consulting his republican friend, who might +advise none? May not a publican put up the sign of the Saracen's Head, +even though his undiscerning neighbour should prefer, as more genteel, +the Cat and Gridiron? + +(MOTTO.) + +"This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, +When my first fire knew no adulterate incense, +Nor I no way to flatter but my fondness, +In the best language my true tongue could tell me, +And all the broken sighs my sick heart lend me, +I sued and served. Long did I love this lady." + +MASSINGER. + +THE DEDICATION. + + * * * * * + +THE FEW FOLLOWING POEMS, +CREATURES OF THE FANCY AND THE FEELING +IN LIFE'S MORE VACANT HOURS, +PRODUCED, FOR THE MOST PART, BY +LOVE IN IDLENESS, +ARE, +WITH ALL A BROTHER'S FONDNESS, +INSCRIBED TO +MARY ANN LAMB, +THE AUTHOR'S BEST FRIEND AND SISTER. + + * * * * * + +This is the pomp and paraphernalia of parting, with which I take my +leave of a passion which has reigned so royally (so long) within me; +thus, with its trappings of laureatship, I fling it off, pleased and +satisfied with myself that the weakness troubles me no longer. I am +wedded, Coleridge, to the fortunes of my sister and my poor old father. +Oh! my friend, I think sometimes, could I recall the days that are past, +which among them should I choose? not those "merrier days," not the +"pleasant days of hope," not "those wanderings with a fair hair'd maid," +which I have so often and so feelingly regretted, but the days, +Coleridge, of a _mother's_ fondness for her _school-boy_. What would I +give to call her back to earth for _one_ day, on my knees to ask her +pardon for all those little asperities of temper which, from time to +time, have given her gentle spirit pain; and the day, my friend, I trust +will come; there will be "time enough" for kind offices of love, if +"Heaven's eternal year" be ours. Hereafter, her meek spirit shall not +reproach me. Oh, my friend, cultivate the filial feelings! and let no +man think himself released from the kind "charities" of relationship: +these shall give him peace at the last; these are the best foundation +for every species of benevolence. I rejoice to hear, by certain +channels, that you, my friend, are reconciled with all your relations. +'Tis the most kindly and natural species of love, and we have all the +associated train of early feelings to secure its strength and +perpetuity. Send me an account of your health; _indeed_ I am solicitous +about you. God love you and yours. C. LAMB. + +[It seems to have been Coleridge's intention to dedicate the second +edition of his _Poems_ to Bowles; but he changed his mind and dedicated +it to his brother, the Rev. George Coleridge. A sonnet to Bowles was +included in the volume, a kind of sub-dedication of the other sonnets, +but it had appeared also in the 1796 volume. + +Lamb's instructions concerning his share in the 1797 volume were carried +out, except that the sub-title was omitted. + +The quotations "merrier days" ("happier days") and "wanderings with a +fair-hair'd maid" are from Lamb's own sonnets; those in lines 9 and 10 +from Dryden's Elegy on Mrs. Killigrew. + +Coleridge had paid in the summer a long-deferred visit of reconciliation +to his family at Ottery St. Mary.] + + + + +LETTER 15 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[P.M. December 2, 1796 (Friday).] + +I have delay'd writing thus long, not having by me my copy of your +poems, which I had lent. I am not satisfied with all your intended +omissions. Why omit 40: 63: 84: above all, let me protest strongly +against your rejecting the "Complaint of Ninathoma," 86. The words, I +acknowledge, are Ossian's, but you have added to them the "Music of +Caril." If a vicarious substitute be wanting, sacrifice (and 'twill be a +piece of self-denial _too_) the Epitaph on an Infant, of which its +Author seems so proud, so tenacious. Or, if your heart be set on +_perpetuating_ the four-line-wonder, I'll tell you what [to] do: sell +the copywright of it at once to a country statuary; commence in this +manner Death's prime poet laureat; and let your verses be adopted in +every village round instead of those hitherto famous ones "Afflictions +sore long time I bore, Physicians were in vain". I have seen your last +very beautiful poem in the Monthly Magazine--write thus, and you most +generally have written thus, and I shall never quarrel with you about +simplicity. With regard to my lines "Laugh all that weep," etc.--I would +willingly sacrifice them, but my portion of the volume is so +ridiculously little, that in honest truth I can't spare them. As things +are, I have very slight pretensions to participate in the +title-page.--White's book is at length reviewed in the Monthly; was it +your doing, or Dyer's to whom I sent him? Or rather do you not write in +the Critical? for I observed, in an Article of this Month's a line +quoted out of _that_ sonnet on Mrs. Siddons "with eager wond'ring and +perturb'd delight"--and a line from _that_ sonnet would not readily have +occurred to a stranger. That sonnet, Coleridge, brings afresh to my mind +the time when you wrote those on Bowles, Priestly, Burke--'twas 2 +Christmases ago, and in that nice little smoky room at the Salutation, +which is even now continually presenting itself to my recollection, with +all its associated train of pipes, tobacco, Egghot, welch Rabbits, +metaphysics and Poetry. + +Are we NEVER to meet again? How differently I am circumstanced now--I +have never met with any one, never shall meet with any one, who could or +can compensate me for the loss of your society--I have no one to talk +all these matters about to--I lack friends, I lack books to supply their +absence. But these complaints ill become me: let me compare my present +situation, prospects, and state of mind, with what they were but 2 +months back--_but_ 2 months. O my friend, I am in danger of forgetting +the awful lessons then presented to me--remind me of them; remind me of +my Duty. Talk seriously with me when you do write. I thank you, from my +heart I thank you, for your sollicitude about my Sister. She is quite +well,--but must not, I fear, come to live with us yet a good while. In +the first place, because at present it would hurt her, and hurt my +father, for them to be together: secondly from a regard to the world's +good report, for I fear, I fear, tongues will be busy _whenever_ that +event takes place. Some have hinted, one man has prest it on me, that +she should be in perpetual confinement--what she hath done to deserve, +or the necessity of such an hardship, I see not; do you? I am starving +at the India house, near 7 o'clock without my dinner, and so it has been +and will be almost all the week. I get home at night o'erwearied, quite +faint,--and then to CARDS with my father, who will not let me enjoy a +meal in peace--but I must conform to my situation, and I hope I am, for +the most part, not unthankful. + +I am got home at last, and, after repeated games at Cribbage have got my +father's leave to write awhile: with difficulty got it, for when I +expostulated about playing any more, he very aptly replied, "If you +won't play with me, you might as well not come home at all." The +argument was unanswerable, and I set to afresh. + +I told you, I do not approve of your omissions. Neither do I quite +coincide with you in your arrangements: I have not time to point out a +better, and I suppose some self-associations of your own have determined +their place as they now stand. Your beginning indeed with the Joan of +Arc lines I coincide entirely with: I love a splendid Outset, a +magnificent Portico; and the Diapason is Grand--the Religious Musings-- +when I read them, I think how poor, how unelevated, unoriginal, my blank +verse is, "Laugh all that weep" especially, where the subject demanded a +grandeur of conception: and I ask what business they have among +yours--but Friendship covereth a multitude of defects. Why omit 73? At +all events, let me plead for those former pages,--40. 63. 84. 86. I +should like, for old acquaintance sake, to spare 62. 119 would have made +a figure among _Shenstone_'s Elegies: _you_ may admit it or reject, as +you please. In the Man of Ross let the old line stand as it used: +"wine-cheer'd moments" much better than the lame present one. 94, change +the harsh word "foodful" into "dulcet" or, if not too harsh, +"nourishing." 91, "moveless": is that as good as "moping"?--8, would it +not read better omitting those 2 lines last but 6 about Inspiration? I +want some loppings made in the Chatterton; it wants but a little to make +it rank among the finest irregular Lyrics I ever read. Have you time and +inclination to go to work upon it--or is it too late--or do you think it +needs none? Don't reject those verses in one of your Watchmen--"Dear +native brook," &c.--nor, I think, those last lines you sent me, in which +"all effortless" is without doubt to be preferred to "inactive." If I am +writing more than ordinarily dully, 'tis that I am stupified with a +tooth-ache. 37, would not the concluding lines of the 1st paragraph be +well omitted--& it go on "So to sad sympathies" &c.? In 40, if you +retain it, "wove" the learned Toil is better than "urge," which spoils +the personification. Hang it, do not omit 48. 52. 53. What you do retain +tho', call sonnets for God's sake, and not effusions,--spite of your +ingenious anticipation of ridicule in your Preface. The last 5 lines of +50 are too good to be lost, the rest is not much worth. My tooth becomes +importunate--I must finish. Pray, pray, write to me: if you knew with +what an anxiety of joy I open such a long packet as you last sent me, +you would not grudge giving a few minutes now and then to this +intercourse (the only intercourse, I fear we two shall ever have), this +conversation, with your friend--such I boast to be called. + +God love you and yours. + +Write to me when you move, lest I direct wrong. + +Has Sara no poems to publish? Those lines 129 are probably too light for +the volume where the Religious Musings are--but I remember some very +beautiful lines addrest by somebody at Bristol to somebody at London. + +God bless you once more. + +C. LAMB. + +Thursday Night. + +[This letter refers to the preparation of Coleridge's second edition of +his _Poems_. "Why omit 40, 63, 84?"--these were "Absence," "To the +Autumnal Moon" and the imitation from Ossian. + +The "Epitaph on an Infant" ran thus:-- + +Ere Sin could blight, or Sorrow fade, + Death came with friendly care; +The opening bud to Heaven conveyed + And bade it blossom there. + +Lamb applied the first two lines to a sucking pig in his _Elia_ essay on +"Roast Pig" many years later. The old epitaph runs:-- + +Afflictions sore long time I bore, +Physicians were in vain; +Till Heaven did please my woes to ease, +And take away my pain. + +Coleridge's very beautiful poem in the _Monthly Magazine_ (for October) +was "Reflections on Entering into Active Life," beginning, "Low was our +pretty cot." + +Lamb's lines, "Laugh all that weep," I cannot find. We learn later that +they were in blank verse. + +_Falstaff's Letters_ was reviewed in the _Monthly Review_ for November, +1796, very favourably. The article was quite possibly by Coleridge. + +The sonnet on Mrs. Siddons was written by Lamb and Coleridge together +when Coleridge was in London at the end of 1794, and it formed one of a +series of sonnets on eminent persons printed in the _Morning Chronicle_, +of which those on Bowles, Priestley and Burke were others. The quotation +from it was in an article in the November _Critical Review_ on the +"Musae Etonenses." + +"One man has prest it on me." There is reason to suppose that this was +John Lamb, the brother. + +As it happened Coleridge did not begin his second edition with the "Joan +of Arc" lines, but with the "Ode to the New Year." The "Religious +Musings" brought Coleridge's part of the volume to a close. + +The poem on page 73 was "In the Manner of Spenser." The poems on pages +40, 63, 84, we know; that on page 86 was "The Complaint of Ninathoma." +"To Genevieve" was on page 62. That on page 119 was "To a Friend in +Answer to a Melancholy Letter." Coleridge never restored the phrase +"wine-cheer'd moments" to "The Man of Ross." He did not change "foodful" +to "dulcet" in "To an Infant." He did not alter "moveless" to "moping" +in "The Young Ass." He left the Inspiration passage as it was in the +"Monody on Chatterton." Not that he disregarded all Lamb's advice, as a +comparison of the 1796 and 1797 editions of the _Poems_ will show. + +The poem "Dear native brook" was the sonnet "To the River Otter." +Coleridge took Lamb's counsel. The poem containing the phrase "all +effortless" was that "Addressed to a Young Man of Fortune" (Charles +Lloyd). Coleridge did not include it. The poem on page 37 was "To a +Young Lady with a Poem on the French Revolution." Nos. 48, 52 and 53 +were the sonnets to Priestley, Kosciusko and Fayette. The last five +lines of 50 were in the sonnet to Sheridan. The lines on page 129 were +Sara's verses "The Silver Thimble." None of these were reprinted in +1797. The beautiful lines addressed from somebody at Bristol to somebody +at London were those from Sara Coleridge to Lamb, referred to on page +33. Coleridge persisted in the use of the word "effusion".] + + + + +LETTER 16 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[Dated at end: Dec. 5, 1796.] + +_To a young Lady going out to India_ + +Hard is the heart, that does not melt with Ruth +When care sits cloudy on the brow of Youth, +When bitter griefs the _female_ bosom swell +And Beauty meditates a fond farewell +To her loved native land, and early home, +In search of peace thro' "stranger climes to roam."[*] + +The Muse, with glance prophetic, sees her stand, +Forsaken, silent Lady, on the strand +Of farthest India, sickening at the war +Of waves slow-beating, dull upon the shore +Stretching, at gloomy intervals, her eye +O'er the wide waters vainly to espy +The long-expected bark, in which to find +Some tidings of a world she has left behind. + +In that sad hour shall start the gushing tear +For scenes her childhood loved, now doubly dear, +In that sad hour shall frantic memory awake +Pangs of remorse for slighted England's sake, +And for the sake of many a tender tye +Of Love or Friendship pass'd too lightly by. +Unwept, unpitied, midst an alien race, +And the cold looks of many a stranger face, +How will her poor heart bleed, and chide the day, +That from her country took her far away. + +[Footnote: Bowles. ["The African," line 27.]] + +[_Lamb has struck his pen through the foregoing poem._] + +Coleridge, the above has some few decent [lines in] it, and in the +paucity of my portion of your volume may as well be inserted; I would +also wish to retain the following if only to perpetuate the memory of so +exquisite a pleasure as I have often received at the performance of the +tragedy of Douglas, when Mrs. Siddons has been the Lady Randolph. Both +pieces may be inserted between the sonnets and the sketches--in which +latter, the last leaf but one of them, I beg you to alter the words +"pain and want" to "pain and grief," this last being a more familiar and +ear-satisfying combination. Do it I beg of you. To understand the +following, if you are not acquainted with the play, you should know that +on the death of Douglas his mother threw herself down a rock; and that +at that time Scotland was busy in repelling the Danes. + +THE TOMB OF DOUGLAS +_See the Tragedy of that name_ +When her son, her Douglas died, +To the steep rock's fearful side +Fast the frantic mother hied. + +O'er her blooming warrior dead +Many a tear did Scotland shed, +And shrieks of long and loud lament +From her Grampian hills she sent. + +Like one awakening from a trance, +She met the shock of Lochlin's lance. Denmark +On her rude invader foe +Return'd an hundred fold the blow. +Drove the taunting spoiler home: +Mournful thence she took her way +To do observance at the tomb, +Where the son of Douglas [lay], + +Round about the tomb did go +In solemn state and order slow, +Silent pace, and black attire, +Earl, or Knight, or good Esquire, +Who e'er by deeds of valour done +In battle had high honors won; +Whoe'er in their pure veins could trace +The blood of Douglas' noble race. + +With them the flower of minstrels came, +And to their cunning harps did frame +In doleful numbers piercing rhimes, +Such strains as in the olden times +Had soothed the spirit of Fingal +Echoing thro' his fathers' Hall. + +"Scottish maidens, drop a tear +O'er the beauteous Hero's bier. +Brave youth and comely 'bove compare; +All golden shone his burnish'd hair; +Valor and smiling courtesy +Played in the sunbeams of his eye. +Closed are those eyes that shone so fair +And stain'd with blood his yellow hair. +Scottish maidens drop a tear +O'er the beauteous Hero's bier." + +"Not a tear, I charge you, shed +For the false Glenalvon dead; +Unpitied let Glenalvon lie, +Foul stain to arms and chivalry." + +"Behind his back the traitor came, +And Douglas died without his fame." + +[_Lamb has struck his pen through the lines against which I have put an +asterisk_.] + +*"Scottish maidens, drop a tear, +*O'er the beauteous hero's bier." +*"Bending warrior, o'er thy grave, +Young light of Scotland early spent! +Thy country thee shall long lament, +*_Douglas 'Beautiful and Brave'!_ +And oft to after times shall tell, +_In Hopes sweet prime my Hero fell_." + +[_Lamb has struck his pen through the remainder_.] + +"Thane or Lordling, think no scorn +Of the poor and lowly-born. +In brake obscure or lonely dell +The simple flowret prospers well; +The _gentler_ virtues cottage-bred, omitted +Thrive best beneath the humble shed. +Low-born Hinds, opprest, obscure, +Ye who patiently endure +To bend the knee and bow the head, +And thankful eat _another's bread_ +Well may ye mourn your best friend dead, +Till Life with Grief together end: +He would have been the poor man's friend." + +"Bending, warrior, o'er thy grave, +Young light of Scotland early spent! omitted +Thy country thee shall long lament, +Douglas, '_Beautiful and Brave_'! +And oft to after times shall tell, omitted +_In life's young prime my Hero fell_." + +[Sidenote: Is "_morbid_ wantonness of woe" a good and allowable phrase?] + +At length I have done with verse making. Not that I relish other +people's poetry less,--theirs comes from 'em without effort, mine is the +difficult operation of a brain scanty of ideas, made more difficult by +disuse. I have been reading the "Task" with fresh delight. I am glad you +love Cowper. I could forgive a man for not enjoying Milton, but I would +not call that man my friend, who should be offended with the "divine +chit-chat of Cowper." Write to me.--God love you and yours, + +C. L. + +[The name of the young lady going out to India is not known; the verses +were printed in the _Monthly Magazine_ for March, 1797, but not in +Coleridge's _Poems_, 1797. "The Tomb of Douglas" was included in that +volume. The poem in which the alteration "pain and want" was to be made +(but was not made, or was made and cancelled later) was "Fancy Employed +on Divine Subjects." + +The "divine chit-chat of Cowper" was Coleridge's own phrase. It is a +pretty circumstance that Lamb and Cowper now share (with Keats) a +memorial in Edmonton church.] + + * * * * * + + + + +LETTER 17 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[Little Queen Street, Night of Dec. 9th,] 1796. + +I am sorry I cannot now relish your poetical present as thoroughly as I +feel it deserves; but I do not the less thank Lloyd and you for it. + +In truth, Coleridge, I am perplexed, & at times almost cast down. I am +beset with perplexities. The old hag of a wealthy relation, who took my +aunt off our hands in the beginning of trouble, has found out that she +is "indolent and mulish"--I quote her own words--and that her attachment +to us is so strong that she can never be happy apart. The Lady, with +delicate Irony, remarks that, if I am not an Hypocrite, I shall rejoyce +to receive her again; and that it will be a means of making me more fond +of home to have so dear a friend to come home to! The fact is, she is +jealous of my aunt's bestowing any kind recollections on us, while she +enjoys the patronage of her roof. She says she finds it inconsistent +with her own "ease and tranquility" to keep her any longer, & in fine +summons me to fetch her home. Now, much as I should rejoyce to +transplant the poor old creature from the chilling air of such +patronage, yet I know how straitend we are already, how unable already +to answer any demand which sickness or any extraordinary expence may +make. I know this, and all unused as I am to struggle with perplexities +I am somewhat nonplusd, to say no worse. This prevents me from a +thorough relish of what Lloyd's kindness and yours have furnished me +with. I thank you tho from my heart, and feel myself not quite alone in +the earth. + +Before I offer, what alone I have to offer, a few obvious remarks on the +poems you sent me, I can[not] but notice the odd coincidence of two +young men, in one age, carolling their grandmothers. Love--what L[loyd] +calls "the feverish and romantic tye"--hath too long domineerd over all +the charities of home: the dear domestic tyes of father, brother, +husband. The amiable and benevolent Cowper has a beautiful passage in +his "Task,"--some natural and painful reflections on his deceased +parents: and Hayley's sweet lines to his mother are notoriously the best +things he ever wrote. Cowper's lines, some of them, are-- + +"How gladly would the man recall to life +The boy's neglected sire; a mother, too. +That softer name, perhaps more gladly still, +Might he demand them at the gates of death." + +I cannot but smile to see my Granny so gayly deck'd forth: tho', I +think, whoever altered "thy" praises to "her" praises, "thy" honoured +memory to "her" honoured memory, did wrong--they best exprest my +feelings. There is a pensive state of recollection, in which the mind is +disposed to apostrophise the departed objects of its attachment, and, +breaking loose from grammatical precision, changes from the 1st to the +3rd, and from the 3rd to the 1st person, just as the random fancy or the +feeling directs. Among Lloyd's sonnets, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 11th, +are eminently beautiful. I think him too lavish of his expletives; the +_do's_ and _did's_, when they occur too often, bring a quaintness with +them along with their simplicity, or rather air of antiquity which the +patrons of them seem desirous of conveying. + +The lines on Friday are very pleasing--"Yet calls itself in pride of +Infancy woman or man," &c., "affection's tottering troop"--are prominent +beauties. Another time, when my mind were more at ease, I could be more +particular in my remarks, and I would postpone them now, only I want +some diversion of mind. The _Melancholy Man_ is a charming piece of +poetry, only the "whys" (with submission) are too many. Yet the +questions are too good to be any of 'em omitted. For those lines of +yours, page 18, omitted in magazine, I think the 3 first better +retain'd--the 3 last, which are somewhat simple in the most affronting +sense of the word, better omitted: to this my taste directs me--I have +no claim to prescribe to you. "Their slothful loves and dainty +sympathies" is an exquisite line, but you knew _that_ when you wrote +'em, and I trifle in pointing such out. Tis altogether the sweetest +thing to me you ever wrote--tis all honey. "No wish profaned my +overwhelmed heart, Blest hour, it was a Luxury to be"--I recognise +feelings, which I may taste again, if tranquility has not taken his +flight for ever, and I will not believe but I shall be happy, very happy +again. The next poem to your friend is very beautiful: need I instance +the pretty fancy of "the rock's collected tears"--or that original line +"pour'd all its healthful greenness on the soul"?--let it be, since you +asked me, "as neighbouring fountains each reflect the whole"--tho' that +is somewhat harsh; indeed the ending is not so finish'd as the rest, +which if you omit in your forthcoming edition, you will do the volume +wrong, and the very binding will cry out. Neither shall you omit the 2 +following poems. "The hour when we shall meet again," is fine fancy, tis +true, but fancy catering in the Service of the feeling--fetching from +her stores most splendid banquets to satisfy her. Do not, do not omit +it. Your sonnet to the _River Otter_ excludes those equally beautiful +lines, which deserve not to be lost, "as the tired savage," &c., and I +prefer that copy in your _Watchman_. I plead for its preference. + +Another time, I may notice more particularly Lloyd's, Southey's, +Dermody's Sonnets. I shrink from them now: my teazing lot makes me too +confused for a clear judgment of things, too selfish for sympathy; and +these ill-digested, meaningless remarks I have imposed on myself as a +task, to lull reflection, as well as to show you I did not neglect +reading your valuable present. Return my acknowledgments to Lloyd; you +two appear to be about realising an Elysium upon earth, and, no doubt, I +shall be happier. Take my best wishes. Remember me most affectionately +to Mrs. C., and give little David Hartley--God bless its little +heart!--a kiss for me. Bring him up to know the meaning of his Christian +name, and what that name (imposed upon him) will demand of him. + +C. LAMB. + +God love you! + +I write, for one thing, to say that I shall write no more till you send +me word where you are, for you are so soon to move. + +My sister is pretty well, thank God. We think of you very often. God +bless you: continue to be my correspondent, and I will strive to fancy +that this world is _not_ "all barrenness." + +[The poetical present, as the late Mr. Dykes Campbell pointed out in +_The Atheneum_, June 13, 1891, consisted of Lloyd's _Poems on the Death +of Priscilla Farmer_, to which Lamb had contributed "The Grandame," and +of a little privately-printed collection of poems by Coleridge and +Lloyd, which they had intended to publish, but did not. The pamphlet has +completely vanished. In addition to these two works the poetical present +also comprised another privately-printed collection, a little pamphlet +of twenty-eight sonnets which Coleridge had arranged for the purpose of +binding up with those of Bowles. It included three of Bowles', four of +Coleridge's, four of Lamb's, four of Southey's, and the remainder by +Dermody, Lloyd, Charlotte Smith, and others. A copy of this pamphlet is +preserved in the South Kensington Museum. + +"The poems you sent me." This would be Lloyd's _Poems on the Death of +Priscilla Farmer_. When Lamb reprinted "The Grandame" in Coleridge's +second edition, 1797, he put back the original text. + +I now take up Mr. Dykes Campbell's comments on the letter, where it +branches off from the _Priscilla Farmer_ volume to the vanished pamphlet +of poems by Coleridge and Lloyd:-- + + +Beginning with Lloyd's "Melancholy Man" (first printed in the Carlisle +volume of 1795), he [Lamb] passes to Coleridge's poem on leaving the +honeymoon-cottage at Clevedon, "altogether the sweetest thing to me," +says Lamb, "you ever wrote." The verses had appeared in the _Monthly +Magazine_ two months before.... That Lamb's counsel was followed to some +extent may be gathered from a comparison between the text of the +magazine and that of 1797:-- + + "Once I saw + (Hallowing his sabbath-day by quietness) + A wealthy son of Commerce saunter by, + Bristowa's citizen: he paus'd, and look'd, + With a pleas'd sadness, and gazed all around, + Then ey'd our Cottage, and gaz'd round again, + And said, _it was a blessed little place!_ + And we _were_ blessed!" + _Monthly Magazine._ + + "Once I saw + (Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness) + A wealthy son of Commerce saunter by, + Bristowa's citizen. Methought it calm'd + His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse + With wiser feelings: for he paus'd, and look'd + With a pleas'd sadness, and gaz'd all around, + Then ey'd our cottage, and gaz'd round again, + And sigh'd and said, _it was a blessed place._ + And we _were_ blessed." + _Poems_, 1797. + +It will be observed that Coleridge in 1797 inserted some lines which +were not in the magazine. They were probably restored from a MS. copy +Lamb had previously seen, and if Coleridge did not cancel all that Lamb +wisely counselled, he certainly drew the sting of the "affronting +simplicity" by removing the word "little." The comical ambiguity of the +Bristol man's exclamation as first reported could hardly have failed to +drive Lamb's dull care away for a moment or two. + +[In] "the next poem to your friend," ... [Lamb is] speaking of +Coleridge's lines "To Charles Lloyd"--those beginning + + "A mount, not wearisome and bare and steep." + +In the "forthcoming edition" the poet improved a little the barely +tolerated line, making it read,-- + + "As neighb'ring fountains image, each the whole," + +but did not take Lamb's hint to omit the five which closed the poem. +Lamb, however, got his way--perhaps took it--when the verses were +reprinted in 1803, in the volume he saw through the press for Coleridge. + +"Neither shall you omit the 2 following poems. 'The hour when we shall +meet again' is [only?] a fine fancy, 'tis true, but fancy catering in +the service of the feeling--fetching from her stores most splendid +banquets to satisfy her. Do not, do not, omit it." + +So wrote Lamb of these somewhat slender verses, but his friend had +composed them "during illness and in absence," and Lamb in his own +heart-sickness and loneliness detected the reality which underlay the +conventionality of expression. The critic slept, and even when he was +awake again in 1803 was fain to let the lines be reprinted with only the +concession of their worst couplet:-- + + "While finely-flushing float her kisses meek, + Like melted rubies, o'er my pallid cheek." + +The second of the "2 following poems" was Coleridge's "Sonnet to the +River Otter." The version then before him "excludes," complains Lamb, +"those equally beautiful lines which deserve not to be lost, 'as the +tir'd savage,' &c., and I prefer the copy in your _Watchman_. I plead +for its preference." This pleading ... was not responded to in the way +Lamb wanted, but in the appendix to the 1797 volume Coleridge printed +the whole of the poem on an "Autumnal Evening," to which the "tir'd +savage" properly belonged.... + +"Lloyd's, Southey's, Dermody's Sonnets." Lamb here refers to the third +portion of the poetical present--the twenty-eight sonnets to be bound up +with those of Bowles. Thomas Dermody (1775-1802) was an Irish poet of +squalidly dissolute life. A collection of his verses appeared in 1792.] + + + + +LETTER 18 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +Dec. 10th, 1796. + +I had put my letter into the post rather hastily, not expecting to have +to acknowledge another from you so soon. This morning's present has made +me alive again: my last night's epistle was childishly querulous; but +you have put a little life into me, and I will thank you for your +remembrance of me, while my sense of it is yet warm; for if I linger a +day or two I may use the same phrase of acknowledgment, or similar; but +the feeling that dictates it now will be gone. I shall send you a _caput +mortuum_, not a _cor vivens_. Thy Watchman's, thy bellman's, verses, I +do retort upon thee, thou libellous varlet,--why, you cried the hours +yourself, and who made you so proud? But I submit, to show my humility, +most implicitly to your dogmas. I reject entirely the copy of verses you +reject. With regard to my leaving off versifying, you have said so many +pretty things, so many fine compliments, ingeniously decked out in the +garb of sincerity, and undoubtedly springing from a present feeling +somewhat like sincerity, that you might melt the most un-muse-ical +soul,--did you not (now for a Rowland compliment for your profusion of +Olivers)--did you not in your very epistle, by the many pretty fancies +and profusion of heart displayed in it, dissuade and discourage me from +attempting anything after you. At present I have not leisure to make +verses, nor anything approaching to a fondness for the exercise. In the +ignorant present time, who can answer for the future man? "At lovers' +perjuries Jove laughs"--and poets have sometimes a disingenuous way of +forswearing their occupation. This though is not my case. The tender +cast of soul, sombred with melancholy and subsiding recollections, is +favourable to the Sonnet or the Elegy; but from + + "The sainted growing woof, + The teasing troubles keep aloof." + +The music of poesy may charm for a while the importunate teasing cares +of life; but the teased and troubled man is not in a disposition to make +that music. + +You sent me some very sweet lines relative to Burns, but it was at a +time when, in my highly agitated and perhaps distorted state of mind, I +thought it a duty to read 'em hastily and burn 'em. I burned all my own +verses, all my book of extracts from Beaumont and Fletcher and a +thousand sources: I burned a little journal of my foolish passion which +I had a long time kept-- + + "Noting ere they past away + The little lines of yesterday." + +I almost burned all your letters,--I did as bad, I lent 'em to a friend +to keep out of my brother's sight, should he come and make inquisition +into our papers, for, much as he dwelt upon your conversation while you +were among us, and delighted to be with you, it has been his fashion +ever since to depreciate and cry you down,--you were the cause of my +madness--you and your damned foolish sensibility and melancholy--and he +lamented with a true brotherly feeling that we ever met, even as the +sober citizen, when his son went astray upon the mountains of Parnassus, +is said to have "cursed wit and Poetry and Pope." I quote wrong, but no +matter. These letters I lent to a friend to be out of the way for a +season; but I have claimed them in vain, and shall not cease to regret +their loss. Your packets, posterior to the date of my misfortunes, +commencing with that valuable consolatory epistle, are every day +accumulating--they are sacred things with me. + +Publish your _Burns_ when and how you like, it will be new to me,--my +memory of it is very confused, and tainted with unpleasant associations. +Burns was the god of my idolatry, as Bowles of yours. I am jealous of +your fraternising with Bowles, when I think you relish him more than +Burns or my old favourite, Cowper. But you conciliate matters when you +talk of the "divine chit-chat" of the latter: by the expression I see +you thoroughly relish him. I love Mrs. Coleridge for her excuses an +hundredfold more dearly than if she heaped "line upon line," +out-Hannah-ing Hannah More, and had rather hear you sing "Did a very +little baby" by your family fire-side, than listen to you when you were +repeating one of Bowles's sweetest sonnets in your sweet manner, while +we two were indulging sympathy, a solitary luxury, by the fireside at +the Salutation. Yet have I no higher ideas of heaven. Your company was +one "cordial in this melancholy vale"--the remembrance of it is a +blessing partly, and partly a curse. + +When I can abstract myself from things present, I can enjoy it with a +freshness of relish; but it more constantly operates to an unfavourable +comparison with the uninteresting; converse I always and _only_ can +partake in. Not a soul loves Bowles here; scarce one has heard of Burns; +few but laugh at me for reading my Testament--they talk a language I +understand not: I conceal sentiments that would be a puzzle to them. I +can only converse with you by letter and with the dead in their books. +My sister, indeed, is all I can wish in a companion; but our spirits are +alike poorly, our reading and knowledge from the self-same sources, our +communication with the scenes of the world alike narrow: never having +kept separate company, or any "company" "_together_"--never having read +separate books, and few books _together_--what knowledge have we to +convey to each other? In our little range of duties and connexions, how +few sentiments can take place, without friends, with few books, with a +taste for religion rather than a strong religious habit! We need some +support, some leading-strings to cheer and direct us. You talk very +wisely, and be not sparing of _your advice_. Continue to remember us, +and to show us you do remember us: we will take as lively an interest in +what concerns you and yours. All I can add to your happiness, will be +sympathy. You can add to mine _more_; you can teach me wisdom. I am +indeed an unreasonable correspondent; but I was unwilling to let my last +night's letter go off without this qualifier: you will perceive by this +my mind is easier, and you will rejoice. I do not expect or wish you to +write, till you are moved; and of course shall not, till you announce to +me that event, think of writing myself. Love to Mrs. Coleridge and David +Hartley, and my kind remembrance to Lloyd, if he is with you. + +C. LAMB. + +I will get "Nature and Art,"--have not seen it yet--nor any of Jeremy +Taylor's works. + +[The reference to the bellman's verses (the bellman, or watchman, used +to leave verses at the houses on his beat at Easter as a reminder of his +deserts) is not quite clear. Lamb evidently had submitted for the new +volume some lines which Coleridge would not pass--possibly the poem in +Letter No. 16. + +Coleridge some time before had sent to Lamb the very sweet lines +relative to Burns, under the title, "To a Friend who had Declared His +Intention of Writing no more Poetry." + +"Did a very little baby." In the Appendix to Vol. I. of the 1847 edition +of the _Biog. Lit._, Sara Coleridge writes, concerning children and +domestic evenings, "'Did a very little babby make a very great noise?' +is the first line of a nursery song, in which Mr. Coleridge recorded +some of his experience on this recondite subject." The song has +disappeared. + +_Nature and Art_ was Mrs. Inchbald's story, published in 1796. Lamb +later became an enthusiast for Jeremy Taylor.] + + + + +LETTER 19 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[Dated outside: Jan. 2, 1797.] + +Your success in the higher species of the Ode is such, as bespeaks you +born for atchievements of loftier enterprize than to linger in the lowly +train of songsters and sonneteurs. Sincerely I think your Ode one of the +finest I have read. The opening is in the spirit of the sublimest +allegory. The idea of the "skirts of the departing year, seen far +onwards, waving on the wind" is one of those noble Hints at which the +Reader's imagination is apt to kindle into grand conceptions. Do the +words "impetuous" and "solemnize" harmonize well in the same line? Think +and judge. In the 2d strophe, there seems to be too much play of fancy +to be consistent with that continued elevation we are taught to expect +from the strain of the foregoing. The parenthized line (by the way I +abominate parentheses in this kind of poetry) at the beginning of 7th +page, and indeed all that gradual description of the throes and pangs of +nature in childbirth, I do not much like, and those 4 first lines,--I +mean "tomb gloom anguish and languish"--rise not above mediocrity. In +the Epode, your mighty genius comes again: "I marked ambition" &c. Thro' +the whole Epod indeed you carry along our souls in a full spring tide of +feeling and imaginat'n. Here is the "Storm of Music," as Cowper +expresses it. Would it not be more abrupt "Why does the northern +Conqueress stay" or "where does the northern Conqueress stay"?--this +change of measure, rather than the feebler "Ah! whither", "Foul her life +and dark her tomb, mighty army of the dead, dance like deathflies" &c.: +here is genius, here is poetry, rapid, irresistible. The concluding +line, is it not a personif: without use? "Nec deus intersit"--except +indeed for rhyme sake. Would the laws of Strophe and antistrophe, which, +if they are as unchangeable, I suppose are about as wise, [as] the Mede +and Persian laws, admit of expunging that line altogether, and changing +the preceding one to "and he, poor madman, deemd it quenchd in endless +night?"--_fond_ madman or _proud_ madman if you will, but poor is more +contemptuous. If I offer alterations of my own to your poetry, and admit +not yours in mine, it is upon the principle of a present to a rich man +being graciously accepted, and the same present to a poor man being +considered as in insult. To return--The Antistrophe that follows is not +inferior in grandeur or original: but is I think not faultless--e: g: +How is Memory _alone_, when all the etherial multitude are there? +Reflect. Again "storiedst thy sad hours" is harsh, I need not tell you, +but you have gained your point in expressing much meaning in few words: +"Purple locks and snow white glories" "mild Arcadians ever blooming" +"seas of milk and ships of amber" these are things the Muse talks about +when, to borrow H. Walpole's witty phrase, she is not finely-phrenzied, +only a little light-headed, that's all. "Purple locks." They may manage +things differently in fairy land, but your "golden tresses" are more to +my fancy. The spirit of the Earth is a most happy conceit, and the last +line is one of the luckiest I ever heard--"_and stood up beautiful_ +before the cloudy seat." I cannot enough admire it. 'Tis somehow +picturesque in the very sound. The 2d Antistrophe (what is the meaning +of these things?) is fine and faultless (or to vary the alliteration and +not diminish the affectation) beautiful and blameless. I only except to +the last line as meaningless after the preceding, and useless +entirely--besides, why disjoin "nature and the world" here, when you had +confounded both in their pregnancy: "the common earth and nature," +recollect, a little before--And there is a dismal superfluity in the +unmeaning vocable "unhurld"--the worse, as it is so evidently a +rhyme-fetch.--"Death like he dozes" is a prosaic conceit--indeed all the +Epode as far as "brother's corse" I most heartily commend to +annihilation. The enthusiast of the lyre should not be so feebly, so +tediously, delineative of his own feelings; 'tis not the way to become +"Master of our affections." The address to Albion is very agreeable, and +concludes even beautifully: "speaks safety to his island +child"--"Sworded"--epithet _I_ would change for "cruel." + +The immediately succeeding lines are prosaic: "mad avarice" is an +unhappy combination; and "the coward distance yet with kindling pride" +is not only reprehensible for the antithetical turn, but as it is a +quotation: "safe distance" and "coward distance" you have more than once +had recourse to before--And the Lyric Muse, in her enthusiasm, should +talk the language of her country, something removed from common use, +something "recent," unborrowed. The dreams of destruction "soothing her +fierce solitude," are vastly grand and terrific: still you weaken the +effect by that superfluous and easily-conceived parenthesis that +finishes the page. The foregoing image, few minds _could_ have +conceived, few tongues could have so cloath'd; "muttring destempered +triumph" &c. is vastly fine. I hate imperfect beginnings and endings. +Now your concluding stanza is worthy of so fine an ode. The beginning +was awakening and striking; the ending is soothing and solemn--Are you +serious when you ask whether you shall admit this ode? it would be +strange infatuation to leave out your Chatterton; mere insanity to +reject this. Unless you are fearful that the splendid thing may be a +means of "eclipsing many a softer satellite" that twinkles thro' the +volume. Neither omit the annex'd little poem. For my part, detesting +alliterations, I should make the 1st line "Away, with this fantastic +pride of woe." Well may you relish Bowles's allegory. I need only tell +you, I have read, and will only add, that I dislike ambition's name +_gilded_ on his helmet-cap, and that I think, among the more striking +personages you notice, you omitted the _most_ striking, Remorse! "He saw +the trees--the sun--then hied him to his cave again"!!! The 2d stanza of +mania is superfl: the 1st was never exceeded. The 2d is too methodic: +for _her_. With all its load of beauties, I am more _affected_ with the +6 first stanzas of the Elegiac poem written during sickness. Tell me +your feelings. If the fraternal sentiment conveyed in the following +lines will atone for the total want of anything like merit or genius in +it, I desire you will print it next after my other sonnet to my sister. + +Friend of my earliest years, & childish days, +My joys, my sorrows, thou with me hast shared +Companion dear; & we alike have fared +Poor pilgrims we, thro' life's unequal ways +It were unwisely done, should we refuse +To cheer our path, as featly as we may, +Our lonely path to cheer, as travellers use +With merry song, quaint tale, or roundelay. +And we will sometimes talk past troubles o'er, +Of mercies shewn, & all our sickness heal'd, +And in his judgments God remembring love; +And we will learn to praise God evermore +For those "Glad tidings of great joy" reveal'd +By that sooth messenger, sent from above. + +1797. + +If you think the epithet "sooth" quaint, substitute "blest messenger." I +hope you are printing my sonnets, as I directed you--particularly the +2d. "Methinks" &c. with my last added 6 lines at ye end: and all of 'em +as I last made 'em. + +This has been a sad long letter of business, with no room in it for what +honest Bunyan terms heart-work. I have just room left to congratulate +you on your removal to Stowey; to wish success to all your projects; to +"bid fair peace" be to that house; to send my love and best wishes, +breathed warmly, after your dear Sara, and her little David Hartley. If +Lloyd be with you, bid him write to me: I feel to whom I am obliged +primarily for two very friendly letters I have received already from +him. A dainty sweet book that "Art and Nature" is. I am at present +re-re-reading Priestley's examinat of the Scotch Drs: how the Rogue +strings 'em up! three together! You have no doubt read that clear, +strong, humorous, most entertaining piece of reasoning. If not, procure +it, and be exquisitely amused. I wish I could get more of Priestley's +works. Can you recommend me to any more books, easy of access, such as +circulating shops afford? God bless you and yours. + +Poor Mary is very unwell with a sore throat and a slight species of +scarlet fever. God bless her too. + +Monday Morning, at Office. + +[Coleridge had just published in quarto his _Ode on the Departing Year_. +In order that Lamb's letter may be intelligible it is necessary, I +think, to give the text of this edition in full. It will be found in the +Appendix to this volume. Lamb returns to his criticism in the next +letter. + +The "annexed little poem" was that "Addressed to a Young Man of +Fortune," which began, and still begins, "Hence that fantastic +wantonness of woe." + +Bowies' allegory was the poem, "Hope, An Allegorical Sketch," recently +published. + +The poem was not included in the 1797 volume, but was printed in the +_Monthly Magazine_, October, 1797. Coleridge had moved to his cottage at +Nether Stowey on the last day of 1796. + +Priestley's book would be _An Examination of Dr. Reid's Inquiry into the +Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, Dr. Beattie's Essay on the +Nature and Immutability of Truth, and Dr. Oswald's Appeal to Common +Sense in Behalf of Religion_, 1774.] + + + + +LETTER 20 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[P.M. Jan. 10, 1797.] + +Saturday. + +I am completely reconciled to that second strophe, and wa[i]ve all +objection. In spite of the Grecian Lyrists, I persist on [in] thinking +your brief personification of Madness useless; reverence forbids me to +say, impertinent. Golden locks and snow white glories are as incongruous +as your former, and if the great Italian painters, of whom my friend +knows about as much as the man in the moon, if these great gentlemen be +on your side, I see no harm in retaining the purple--the glories that I +have observed to encircle the heads of saints and madonnas in those old +paintings have been mostly of a dirty drab-color'd yellow--a dull +gambogium. Keep your old line: it will excite a confused kind of +pleasurable idea in the reader's mind, not clear enough to be called a +conception, nor just enough, I think, to reduce to painting. It is a +rich line, you say, and riches hide a many faults. I maintain, that in +the 2d antist: you _do_ disjoin Nature and the world, and contrary to +your conduct in the 2d strophe. "Nature joins her groans"--joins with +_whom_, a God's name, but the world or earth in line preceding? But this +is being over curious, I acknowledge. Nor _did_ I call the _last_ line +useless, I only objected to "unhurld." I cannot be made to like the +former part of that 2d Epode; I cannot be made to feel it, as I do the +parallel places in Isaiah, Jeremy and Daniel. Whether it is that in the +present case the rhyme impairs the efficacy; or that the circumstances +are feigned, and we are conscious of a made up lye in the case, and the +narrative is too long winded to preserve the semblance of truth; or that +lines 8. 9. 10. 14 in partic: 17 and 18 are mean and unenthusiastic; or +that lines 5 to 8 in their change of rhyme shew like art--I don't know, +but it strikes me as something meant to affect, and failing in its +purpose. Remember my waywardness of feeling is single, and singly stands +opposed to all your friends, and what is one among many! This I know, +that your quotations from the prophets have never escaped me, and never +fail'd to affect me strongly. I hate that simile. I am glad you have +amended that parenthesis in the account of Destruction. I like it well +now. Only utter [? omit] that history of child-bearing, and all will do +well. Let the obnoxious Epode remain, to terrify such of your friends as +are willing to be terrified. I think I would omit the Notes, not as not +good per se, but as uncongenial with the dignity of the Ode. I need not +repeat my wishes to have my little sonnets printed verbatim my last way. +In particular, I fear lest you should prefer printing my first sonnet, +as you have done more than once, "did the wand of Merlin wave"? It looks +so like _Mr._ Merlin, the ingenious successor of the immortal Merlin, +now living in good health and spirits, and nourishing in magical +reputation in Oxford Street; and on my life, one half who read it would +understand it so. Do put 'em forth finally as I have, in various +letters, settled it; for first a man's self is to be pleased, and then +his friends,--and, of course the greater number of his friends, if they +differ inter se. Thus taste may safely be put to the vote. I do long to +see our names together--not for vanity's sake, and naughty pride of +heart altogether, for not a living soul, I know or am intimate with, +will scarce read the book--so I shall gain nothing quoad famam,--and yet +there is a little vanity mixes in it, I cannot help denying. I am aware +of the unpoetical cast of the 6 last lines of my last sonnet, and think +myself unwarranted in smuggling so tame a thing into the book; only the +sentiments of those 6 lines are thoroughly congenial to me in my state +of mind, and I wish to accumulate perpetuating tokens of my affection to +poor Mary; that it has no originality in its cast, nor anything in the +feelings, but what is common and natural to thousands, nor aught +properly called poetry, I see; still it will tend to keep present to my +mind a view of things which I ought to indulge. These 6 lines, too, have +not, to a reader, a connectedness with the foregoing. Omit it, if you +like.--What a treasure it is to my poor indolent and unemployed mind, +thus to lay hold on a subject to talk about, tho' 'tis but a sonnet and +that of the lowest order. How mournfully inactive I am!--'Tis night: +good-night. + +My sister, I thank God, is nigh recovered. She was seriously ill. Do, in +your next letter, and that right soon, give me some satisfaction +respecting your present situation at Stowey. Is it a farm you have got? +and what does your worship know about farming? Coleridge, I want you to +write an Epic poem. Nothing short of it can satisfy the vast capacity of +true poetic genius. Having one great End to direct all your poetical +faculties to, and on which to lay out your hopes, your ambition, will +shew you to what you are equal. By the sacred energies of Milton, by the +dainty sweet and soothing phantasies of honeytongued Spenser, I adjure +you to attempt the Epic. Or do something more ample than writing an +occasional brief ode or sonnet; something "to make yourself for ever +known,--to make the age to come your own". But I prate; doubtless you +meditate something. When you are exalted among the Lords of Epic fame, I +shall recall with pleasure, and exultingly, the days of your humility, +when you disdained not to put forth in the same volume with mine, your +religious musings, and that other poem from the Joan of Arc, those +promising first fruits of high renown to come. You have learning, you +have fancy, you have enthusiasm--you have strength and amplitude of wing +enow for flights like those I recommend. In the vast and unexplored +regions of fairyland, there is ground enough unfound and uncultivated; +search there, and realize your favourite Susquehanah scheme. In all our +comparisons of taste, I do not know whether I have ever heard your +opinion of a poet, very dear to me, the now out of fashion Cowley--favor +me with your judgment of him, and tell me if his prose essays, in +particular, as well as no inconsiderable part of his verse, be not +delicious. I prefer the graceful rambling of his essays, even to the +courtly elegance and ease of Addison--abstracting from this the latter's +exquisite humour. Why is not your poem on Burns in the Monthly Magazine? +I was much disappointed. I have a pleasurable but confused remembrance +of it. + +When the little volume is printed, send me 3 or 4, at all events not +more than 6 copies, and tell me if I put you to any additional expence, +by printing with you. I have no thought of the kind, and in that case, +must reimburse you. My epistle is a model of unconnectedness, but I have +no partic: subject to write on, and must proportion my scribble in some +degree to the increase of postage. It is not quite fair, considering how +burdensome your correspondence from different quarters must be, to add +to it with so little shew of reason. I will make an end for this +evening. Sunday Even:--Farewell. + +Priestly, whom I sin in almost adoring, speaks of "such a choice of +company, as tends to keep up that right bent, and firmness of mind, +which a necessary intercourse with the world would otherwise warp and +relax. Such fellowship is the true balsam of life, its cement is +infinitely more durable than that of the friendships of the world, and +it looks for its proper fruit, and complete gratification, to the life +beyond the Grave." Is there a possible chance for such an one as me to +realize in this world, such friendships? Where am I to look for 'em? +What testimonials shall I bring of my being worthy of such friendship? +Alas! the great and good go together in separate Herds, and leave such +as me to lag far far behind in all intellectual, and far more grievous +to say, in all moral, accomplishments. Coleridge, I have not one truly +elevated character among my acquaintance: not one Christian: not one but +undervalues Christianity. Singly what am I to do? Wesley (have you read +his life? was _he_ not an elevated character?) Wesley has said, +"Religion is not a solitary thing." Alas! it necessarily is so with me, +or next to solitary. 'Tis true, you write to me. But correspondence by +letter, and personal intimacy, are very widely different. Do, do write +to me, and do some good to my mind, already how much "warped and +relaxed" by the world!--'Tis the conclusion of another evening. Good +night. God have us all in his keeping. If you are sufficiently at +leisure, oblige me with an account of your plan of life at Stowey--your +literary occupations and prospects--in short make me acquainted with +every circumstance, which, as relating to you, can be interesting to me. +Are you yet a Berkleyan? Make me one. I rejoice in being, speculatively, +a necessarian. Would to God, I were habitually a practical one. Confirm +me in the faith of that great and glorious doctrine, and keep me steady +in the contemplation of it. You sometime since exprest an intention you +had of finishing some extensive work on the Evidences of Natural and +Revealed Religion. Have you let that intention go? Or are you doing any +thing towards it? Make to yourself other ten talents. My letter is full +of nothingness. I talk of nothing. But I must talk. I love to write to +you. I take a pride in it. It makes me think less meanly of myself. It +makes me think myself not totally disconnected 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 no ways better in practice than my neighbours--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 +rejoyce, 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? Mrs. C---- is +no doubt well,--give my kindest respects to her. 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 this 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. + +[The criticisms contained in the first paragraph bear upon Coleridge's +"Ode on the Departing Year," which had already appeared twice, in the +_Cambridge Intelligencer_ and in a quarto issued by Cottle, and was now +being revised for the second edition of the _Poems_. + +The personification of Madness was contained in the line, afterwards +omitted:-- + +For still does Madness roam on Guilt's black dizzy height. + +Lamb's objection to this line, considering his home circumstances at the +time, was very natural. In Antistrophe I. Coleridge originally said of +the ethereal multitude in Heaven-- + +Whose purple Locks with snow-white Glories shone. + +In the 1797 _Poems_ the line ran-- + +Whose wreathed Locks with snow-white Glories shone; + +and in the final version-- + +Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with glories shone. + +Coleridge must have supported his case, in the letter which Lamb is +answering, by a reference to the Italian painters. + +Coleridge in the 1797 edition of his Poems made no alteration to meet +Lamb's strictures. The simile that Lamb hated is, I imagine, that of the +soldier on the war field. "The history of child-bearing" referred to is +the passage at the end of Strophe II. To the quarto Coleridge had +appended various notes. In 1797 he had only three, and added an +argument. + +The reference to Merlin will be explained by a glance at the parallel +sonnets above. Merlin was entirely Coleridge's idea. A conjuror of that +name was just then among London's attractions. + +The "last sonnet," which was not the last in the 1797 volume, but the +6th, was that beginning "If from my lips" (see first letter). + +In connection with Lamb's question on the Stowey husbandry, the +following quotation from a letter from Coleridge to the Rev. J. P. +Estlin, belonging to this period, is interesting;-- + +Our house is better than we expected--there is a comfortable bedroom and +sitting-room for C. Lloyd, and another for us, a room for Nanny, a +kitchen, and out-house. Before our door a clear brook runs of very soft +water; and in the back yard is a nice _well_ of fine spring water. We +have a very pretty garden, and large enough to find us vegetables and +employment, and I am already an expert gardener, and both my hands can +exhibit a callum as testimonials of their industry. We have likewise a +sweet orchard. + +Writing a little before this to Charles Lloyd, senior, Coleridge had +said: "My days I shall devote to the acquirement of practical husbandry +and horticulture." + +The poem on Burns was that "To a Friend [Lamb] who had Declared His +Intention of Writing no more Poetry." It was printed first in a Bristol +paper and then in the _Annual Anthology_, 1800. + +Priestley's remark is in the Dedication to John Lee, Esq., of Lincoln's +Inn, of "A Free Discussion of the Doctrines of Materialism and +Philosophical Necessity in a Correspondence between Dr. Price and Dr. +Priestley," etc., included in _Disquisitions Relating to Matter and +Spirit_, Vol. III., 1778. The discussion arose from the publication by +Priestley of _The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity Illustrated_, +which itself is an appendage to _Disquisitions Relating to Matter and +Spirit_. + +Three lives at least of John Wesley were published in the two years +following his death in 1791. Coleridge later studied Wesley closely, for +he added valuable notes to Southey's life (see the 1846 edition). + +"A Berkleyan," _i.e._, a follower of Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753), who in +his _New Theory of Vision_ and later works maintained that "what we call +matter has no actual existence, and that the impressions which we +believe ourselves to receive from it are not, in fact, derived from +anything external to ourselves, but are produced within us by a certain +disposition of the mind, the immediate operation of God" (Benham's +_Dictionary of Religion_). + +Coleridge when sending Southey one version of his poem to Charles Lamb, +entitled "This Lime-tree Bower my Prison" (to which we shall come +later), in July, 1797, appended to the following passage the note, "You +remember I am a _Berkleian_":-- + +Struck with joy's deepest calm, and gazing round +On the wide view, may gaze till all doth seem +Less gross than bodily; a living thing +That acts upon the mind, and with such hues +As clothe the Almighty Spirit, when He makes +Spirits perceive His presence! + +"A Necessarian." We should now say a fatalist. + +Coleridge's work on the "Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion," +which has before been mentioned, was, if ever begun, never completed.] + + + + +LETTER 21 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[Dated at end: January 18, 1797.] + +Dear Col,--You have learnd by this time, with surprise, no doubt, that +Lloyd is with me in town. The emotions I felt on his coming so unlooked +for are not ill expressed in what follows, & what, if you do not object +to them as too personal, & to the world obscure, or otherwise wanting in +worth, I should wish to make a part of our little volume. + +I shall be sorry if that vol comes out, as it necessarily must do, +unless you print those very schoolboyish verses I sent you on not +getting leave to come down to Bristol last Summer. I say I shall be +sorry that I have addrest you in nothing which can appear in our joint +volume. + +So frequently, so habitually as you dwell on my thoughts, 'tis some +wonder those thoughts came never yet in Contact with a poetical +mood--But you dwell in my heart of hearts, and I love you in all the +naked honesty of prose. God bless you, and all your little domestic +circle--my tenderest remembrances to your Beloved Sara, & a smile and a +kiss from me to your dear dear little David Hartley--The verses I refer +to above, slightly amended, I have sent (forgetting to ask your leave, +tho' indeed I gave them only your initials) to the Month: Mag: where +they may possibly appear next month, and where I hope to recognise your +Poem on Burns. + + +TO CHARLES LLOYD, AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR + +Alone, obscure, without a friend, +A cheerless, solitary thing, +Why seeks my Lloyd the stranger out? +What offring can the stranger bring + +Of social scenes, home-bred delights, +That him in aught compensate may +For Stowey's pleasant winter nights, +For loves & friendships far away? + +In brief oblivion to forego +Friends, such as thine, so justly dear, +And be awhile with me content +To stay, a kindly loiterer, here-- + +For this a gleam of random joy, +Hath flush'd my unaccustom'd cheek, +And, with an o'er-charg'd bursting heart, +I feel the thanks, I cannot speak. + +O! sweet are all the Muses' lays, +And sweet the charm of matin bird-- +'Twas long, since these estranged ears +The sweeter voice of friend had heard. + +The voice hath spoke: the pleasant sounds +In memory's ear, in after time +Shall live, to sometimes rouse a tear, +And sometimes prompt an honest rhyme. + +For when the transient charm is fled, +And when the little week is o'er, +To cheerless, friendless solitude +When I return, as heretofore-- + +Long, long, within my aching heart, +The grateful sense shall cherishd be; +I'll think less meanly of myself, +That Lloyd will sometimes think on me. + +1797. + +O Col: would to God you were in London with us, or we two at Stowey with +you all. Lloyd takes up his abode at the Bull & Mouth Inn,--the Cat & +Salutation would have had a charm more forcible for me. _O noctes +caenaeque Deûm!_ Anglice--Welch rabbits, punch, & poesy. + +Should you be induced to publish those very schoolboyish verses, print +'em as they will occur, if at all, in the Month: Mag: yet I should feel +ashamed that to you I wrote nothing better. But they are too personal, & +almost trifling and obscure withal. Some lines of mine to Cowper were in +last Month: Mag: they have not body of thought enough to plead for the +retaining of 'em. + +My sister's kind love to you all. + +C. LAMB. + +[The verses to Lloyd were included in Coleridge's 1797 volume; but the +verses concerning the frustrated Bristol holiday were omitted. +Concerning this visit to London Charles Lloyd wrote to his brother +Robert: "I left Charles Lamb very warmly interested in his favour, and +have kept up a regular correspondence with him ever since; he is a most +interesting young man." Only two letters from Lamb to Charles Lloyd have +survived. + +"We two"--Lamb and Lloyd. Not Lamb and his sister.] + + + + +LETTER 22 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[Begun Sunday, February 5, 1797. +Dated on address by mistake: January 5, 1797.] + +Sunday Morning.--You cannot surely mean to degrade the Joan of Arc into +a pot girl. You are not going, I hope, to annex to that most splendid +ornament of Southey's poem all this cock and a bull story of Joan the +publican's daughter of Neufchatel, with the lamentable episode of a +waggoner, his wife, and six children; the texture will be most +lamentably disproportionate. The first forty or fifty lines of these +addenda are, no doubt, in their way, admirable, too; but many would +prefer the Joan of Southey. + +"On mightiest deeds to brood Of shadowy vastness, such as made my heart +Throb fast. Anon I paused, and in a state Of half expectance listen'd to +the wind;" "They wonder'd at me, who had known me once A chearful +careless damsel;" "The eye, That of the circling throng and of the +visible world Unseeing, saw the shapes of holy phantasy;" I see nothing +in your description of the Maid equal to these. There is a fine +originality certainly in those lines--"For she had lived in this bad +world as in a place of tombs, And touch'd not the pollutions of the +Dead"--but your "fierce vivacity" is a faint copy of the "fierce & +terrible benevolence" of Southey. Added to this, that it will look like +rivalship in you, & extort a comparison with S,--I think to your +disadvantage. And the lines, consider'd in themselves as an addition to +what you had before written (strains of a far higher mood), are but such +as Madame Fancy loves in some of her more familiar moods, at such times +as she has met Noll Goldsmith, & walk'd and talk'd with him, calling him +old acquaintance. Southey certainly has no pretensions to vie with you +in the sublime of poetry; but he tells a plain tale better than you. I +will enumerate some woeful blemishes, some of 'em sad deviations from +that simplicity which was your aim. "Hail'd who might be near" (the +canvas-coverture moving, by the by, is laughable); "a woman & six +children" (by the way,--why not nine children, it would have been just +half as pathetic again): "statues of sleep they seem'd." "Frost-mangled +wretch:" "green putridity:" "hail'd him immortal" (rather ludicrous +again): "voiced a sad and simple tale" (abominable!): "unprovender'd:" +"such his tale:" "Ah! suffering to the height of what was suffer'd" (a +most _insufferable line_): "amazements of affright:" "the hot sore brain +attributes its own hues of ghastliness and torture" (what shocking +confusion of ideas!). In these delineations of common & natural +feelings, in the familiar walks of poetry, you seem to resemble +Montauban dancing with Roubigne's tenants, "much of his native loftiness +remained in the execution." I was reading your Religious Musings the +other day, & sincerely I think it the noblest poem in the language, next +after the Paradise lost; & even that was not made the vehicle of such +grand truths. "There is one mind," &c., down to "Almighty's Throne," are +without a rival in the whole compass of my poetical reading. "Stands in +the sun, & with no partial gaze Views all creation"--I wish I could have +written those lines. I rejoyce that I am able to relish them. The +loftier walks of Pindus are your proper region. There you have no +compeer in modern times. Leave the lowlands, unenvied, in possession of +such men as Cowper & Southey. Thus am I pouring balsam into the wounds I +may have been inflicting on my poor friend's vanity. In your notice of +Southey's new volume you omit to mention the most pleasing of all, the +Miniature "There were Who form'd high hopes and flattering ones of thee, +Young Robert. Spirit of Spenser!--was the wanderer wrong?" Fairfax I +have been in quest of a long time. Johnson in his life of Waller gives a +most delicious specimen of him, & adds, in the true manner of that +delicate critic, as well as amiable man, "it may be presumed that this +old version will not be much read after the elegant translation of my +friend, Mr. Hoole." I endeavour'd--I wish'd to gain some idea of Tasso +from this Mr. Hoole, the great boast and ornament of the India House, +but soon desisted. I found him more vapid than smallest small beer +sun-vinegared. Your dream, down to that exquisite line--"I can't tell +half his adventures," is a most happy resemblance of Chaucer. The +remainder is so so. The best line, I think, is, "He belong'd, I believe, +to the witch Melancholy." By the way, when will our volume come out? +Don't delay it till you have written a new Joan of Arc. Send what +letters you please by me, & in any way you choose, single or double. The +India Co. is better adapted to answer the cost than the generality of my +friend's correspondents,--such poor & honest dogs as John Thelwall, +particularly. I cannot say I know Colson, at least intimately. I once +supped with him & Allen. I think his manners very pleasing. I will not +tell you what I think of Lloyd, for he may by chance come to see this +letter, and that thought puts a restraint on me. I cannot think what +subject would suit your epic genius; some philosophical subject, I +conjecture, in which shall be blended the Sublime of Poetry & of +Science. Your proposed Hymns will be a fit preparatory study wherewith +"to discipline your young noviciate soul." I grow dull; I'll go walk +myself out of my dulness. + +_Sunday Night_.--You & Sara are very good to think so kindly & so +favourably of poor Mary. I would to God all did so too. But I very much +fear she must not think of coming home in my father's lifetime. It is +very hard upon her. But our circumstances are peculiar, & we must submit +to them. God be praised she is so well as she is. She bears her +situation as one who has no right to complain. My poor old aunt, whom +you have seen, the kindest, goodest creature to me when I was at school; +who used to toddle there to bring me fag, when I, school-boy like, only +despised her for it, & used to be ashamed to see her come & sit herself +down on the old coal hole steps as you went into the old grammar school, +& opend her apron & bring out her bason, with some nice thing she had +caused to be saved for me--the good old creature is now lying on her +death bed. I cannot bear to think on her deplorable state. To the shock +she received on that our evil day, from which she never completely +recovered, I impute her illness. She says, poor thing, she is glad she +is come home to die with me. I was always her favourite: "No after +friendship e'er can raise The endearments of our early days, Nor e'er +the heart such fondness prove, As when it first began to love." Lloyd +has kindly left me for a keep-sake, John Woolman. You have read it, he +says, & like it. Will you excuse one short extract? I think it could not +have escaped you:--"Small treasure to a resigned mind is sufficient. How +happy is it to be content with a little, to live in humility, & feel +that in us which breathes out this language--Abba! Father!"--I am almost +ashamed to patch up a letter in this miscellaneous sort; but I please +myself in the thought, that anything from me will be acceptable to you. +I am rather impatient, childishly so, to see our names affixed to the +same common volume. Send me two, when it does come out; 2 will be +enough--or indeed 1--but 2 better. I have a dim recollection that, when +in town, you were talking of the Origin of Evil as a most prolific +subject for a long poem. Why not adopt it, Coleridge? there would be +room for imagination. Or the description (from a Vision or Dream, +suppose) of an Utopia in one of the planets (the Moon, for instance). Or +a Five Days' Dream, which shall illustrate, in sensible imagery, +Hartley's 5 motives to conduct:--sensation (1), imagination (2), +ambition (3), sympathy (4), Theopathy (5). 1st banquets, music, etc., +effeminacy,--and their insufficiency. 2d "beds of hyacinth & roses, +where young Adonis oft reposes;" "fortunate Isles;" "The pagan Elysium," +etc., etc.; poetical pictures; antiquity as pleasing to the +fancy;--their emptiness, madness, etc. 3d warriors, poets; some famous, +yet more forgotten, their fame or oblivion now alike indifferent, pride, +vanity, etc. 4th all manner of pitiable stories, in Spenser-like +verse--love--friendship, relationship, &c. 5th Hermits--Christ and his +apostles--martyrs--heaven--&c., etc. An imagination like yours, from +these scanty hints, may expand into a thousand great Ideas--if indeed +you at all comprehend my scheme, which I scarce do myself. + +_Monday Morn._--"A London letter. 9-1/2." Look you, master poet, I have +remorse as well as another man, & my bowels can sound upon occasion. But +I must put you to this charge, for I cannot keep back my protest, +however ineffectual, against the annexing your latter lines to those +former--this putting of new wine into old bottles. This my duty done, I +will cease from writing till you invent some more reasonable mode of +conveyance. Well may the "ragged followers of the nine" set up for +flocci-nauci-what-do-you-call-'em-ists! And I do not wonder that in +their splendid visions of Utopias in America they protest against the +admission of those _yellow_-complexioned, _copper_-color'd, +_white_-liver'd Gentlemen, who never proved themselves _their_ friends. +Don't you think your verses on a Young Ass too trivial a companion for +the Religious Musings? "Scoundrel monarch," alter _that_; and the Man of +Ross is scarce admissible as it now stands curtailed of its fairer half: +reclaim its property from the Chatterton, which it does but encumber, & +it will be a rich little poem. I hope you expunge great part of the old +notes in the new edition. That, in particular, most barefaced unfounded +impudent assertion, that Mr. Rogers is indebted for his story to Loch +Lomond, a poem by Bruce! I have read the latter. I scarce think you +have. Scarce anything is common to them both. The poor author of the +Pleasures of Memory was sorely hurt, Dyer says, by the accusation of +unoriginality. He never saw the Poem. I long to read your Poem on Burns; +I retain so indistinct a memory of it. In what shape and how does it +come into public? As you leave off writing poetry till you finish your +Hymns, I suppose you print now all you have got by you. You have scarce +enough unprinted to make a 2d volume with Lloyd. Tell me all about it. +What is become of Cowper? Lloyd told me of some verses on his mother. If +you have them by you, pray send 'em me. I do so love him! Never mind +their merit. May be _I_ may like 'em--as your taste and mine do not +always exactly _indentify_. Yours, + +LAMB. + +[Coleridge intended to print in his new edition the lines that he had +contributed to Southey's _Joan of Arc_, 1796, with certain additions, +under the title "The Progress of Liberty; or, The Visions of the Maid of +Orleans." Writing to Cottle Coleridge had said: "I much wish to send _My +Visions of the Maid of Arc_ and my corrections to Wordsworth ... and to +Lamb, whose taste and _judgment_ I see reason to think more correct and +philosophical than my own, which yet I place pretty high." Lamb's +criticisms are contained in this letter. Coleridge abandoned his idea of +including the poem in the 1797 edition, and the lines were not +separately published until 1817, in _Sibylline Leaves_, under the title +"The Destiny of Nations." + +"Montauban ... Roubigné." An illustration from Henry Mackenzie's novel +_Julia de Roubigné_, 1777, from which Lamb took hints, a little later, +for the structure of part of his story _Rosamund Gray_. + +This is the passage in "Religious Musings" that Lamb particularly +praises:-- + +There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind, +Omnific. His most holy name is Love. +Truth of subliming import! with the which +Who feeds and saturates his constant soul, +He from his small particular orbit flies +With blest outstarting! From himself he flies, +Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze +Views all creation; and he loves it all, +And blesses it, and calls it very good! +This is indeed to dwell with the Most High! +Cherubs and rapture-trembling Seraphim +Can press no nearer to the Almighty's throne. + +Southey's new volume, which Coleridge had noticed, was his _Poems_, +second edition, Vol. I., 1797. The poem in question was "On My Own +Miniature Picture taken at Two Years of Age." + +Edward Fairfax's "Tasso" (_Godfrey of Bulloigne, or the Recoverie of +Jerusalem_) was published in 1600. John Hoole, a later translator, +became principal auditor at the India House, and resigned in 1786. He +died in 1803. + +Coleridge's dream was the poem called "The Raven." + +Citizen John Thelwall (1764-1834), to whom many of Coleridge's early +letters are written, was a Jacobin enthusiast who had gone to the Tower +with Thomas Hardy and Home Tooke in 1794, but was acquitted at his +trial. At this time he was writing and lecturing on political subjects. +When, in 1818, Thelwall acquired _The Champion_ Lamb wrote squibs for it +against the Regent and others. + +Colson was perhaps Thomas Coulson, a friend of Sir Humphry Davy and the +father of Walter Coulson (born? 1794) who was called "The Walking +Encyclopaedia," and was afterwards a friend of Hazlitt. + +"To discipline your young noviciate soul." A line from "Religious +Musings," 1796:-- + +I discipline my young noviciate thought. + +"My poor old aunt." Lamb's lines on his Aunt Hetty repeat some of this +praise; as also does the _Elia_ essay on "Christ's Hospital." + +John Woolman (1720-1772), an American Quaker. His _Works_ comprise _A +Journal of the Life, Gospel, Labours, and Christian Experiences of that +Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ, John Woolman_, and _His Last Epistle +and other Writings_. Lamb often praised the book. + +"A London letter, 9-1/2." A word on the postal system of those days may +not be out of place. The cost of the letter when a frank had not been +procured was borne by the recipient. The rate varied with the distance. +The charge from London to Bridgewater in 1797 was sevenpence. Later it +was raised to ninepence and tenpence. No regular post was set up between +Bridgewater and Nether Stowey until 1808, when the cost of the carriage +of a letter for the intervening nine miles was twopence. + +"Flocci." See note on page II. + +"The Young Ass," early versions, ended thus:-- + +Soothe to rest +The tumult of some Scoundrel Monarch's breast. + +Coleridge changed the last line to-- + +The aching of pale Fashion's vacant breast. + +Coleridge had asserted, in a 1796 note, that Rogers had taken the story +of Florio in the _Pleasures of Memory_ from Michael Bruce's _Loch Leven_ +(not _Loch Lomond_). In the 1797 edition another note made apology for +the mistake. + +Cowper's "Lines on the Receipt of my Mother's Picture out of Norfolk" +had been written in the spring of 1790. It is interesting to find Lamb +reading them just now, for his own _Blank Verse_ poems, shortly to be +written, have much in common with Cowper's verses, not only in manner +but in matter.] + + + + +LETTER 23 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +Feb. 13th, 1797. + +Your poem is altogether admirable--parts of it are even exquisite--in +particular your personal account of the Maid far surpasses any thing of +the sort in Southey. 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 think I perceive, between these +lines and the former ones. I had an end in view; I wished to make you +reject the poem, only as being discordant with the other; and, in +subservience to that end, it was politically done in me to over-pass, +and make no mention of merit which, could you think me capable of +_overlooking_, might reasonably damn for ever in your judgment all +pretensions in me to be critical. There, I will be judged by Lloyd, +whether I have not made a very handsome recantation. I was in the case +of a man whose friend has asked him his opinion of a certain young lady; +the deluded wight gives judgment against her _in toto_--don't like her +face, her walk, her manners--finds fault with her eyebrows--can see no +wit in her. His friend looks blank; he begins to smell a rat; wind veers +about; he acknowledges her good sense, her judgment in dress, a certain +simplicity of manners and honesty of heart, something too in her manners +which gains upon you after a short acquaintance,--and then her accurate +pronunciation of the French language and a pretty uncultivated taste in +drawing. The reconciled gentleman smiles applause, squeezes him by the +hand, and hopes he will do him the honour of taking a bit of dinner with +Mrs.--and him--a plain family dinner--some day next week. "For, I +suppose, you never heard we were married! I'm glad to see you like my +wife, however; you'll come and see her, ha?" Now am I too proud to +retract entirely. Yet I do perceive I am in some sort straitened; you +are manifestly wedded to this poem, and what fancy has joined let no man +separate. I turn me to the Joan of Arc, second book. + +The solemn openings of it are with sounds which, Lloyd would say, "are +silence to the mind." The deep preluding strains are fitted to initiate +the mind, with a pleasing awe, into the sublimest mysteries of theory +concerning man's nature and his noblest destination--the philosophy of a +first cause--of subordinate agents in creation superior to man--the +subserviency of Pagan worship and Pagan faith to the introduction of a +purer and more perfect religion, which you so elegantly describe as +winning with gradual steps her difficult way northward from Bethabra. +After all this cometh Joan, a _publican's_ daughter, sitting on an +ale-house _bench_, and marking the _swingings_ of the _signboard_, +finding a poor man, his wife and six children, starved to death with +cold, and thence roused into a state of mind proper to receive visions +emblematical of equality; which what the devil Joan had to do with, I +don't know, or indeed with the French and American revolutions; though +that needs no pardon, it is executed so nobly. After all, if you +perceive no disproportion, all argument is vain: I do not so much object +to parts. Again, when you talk of building your fame on these lines in +preference to the "Religious Musings," I cannot help conceiving of you +and of the author of that as two different persons, and I think you a +very vain man. + +I have been re-reading your letter. Much of it I _could_ dispute; but +with the latter part of it, in which you compare the two Joans with +respect to their predispositions for fanaticism, I _toto corde_ +coincide; only I think that Southey's strength rather lies in the +description of the emotions of the Maid under the weight of +inspiration,--these (I see no mighty difference between _her_ describing +them or _you_ describing them), these if you only equal, the previous +admirers of his poem, as is natural, will prefer his; if you surpass, +prejudice will scarcely allow it, and I scarce think you will surpass, +though your specimen at the conclusion (I am in earnest) I think very +nigh equals them. And in an account of a fanatic or of a prophet the +description of her _emotions_ is expected to be most highly finished. By +the way, I spoke far too disparagingly of your lines, and, I am ashamed +to say, purposely. I should like you to specify or particularise; the +story of the "Tottering Eld," of "his eventful years all come and gone," +is too general; why not make him a soldier, or some character, however, +in which he has been witness to frequency of "cruel wrong and strange +distress!" I think I should. When I laughed at the "miserable man +crawling from beneath the coverture," I wonder I [? you] did not +perceive it was a laugh of horror--such as I have laughed at Dante's +picture of the famished Ugolino. Without falsehood, I perceive an +hundred beauties in your narrative. Yet I wonder you do not perceive +something out-of-the way, something unsimple and artificial, in the +expression, "voiced a sad tale." I hate made-dishes at the muses' +banquet. I believe I was wrong in most of my other objections. But +surely "hailed him immortal," adds nothing to the terror of the man's +death, which it was your business to heighten, not diminish by a phrase +which takes away all terror from it. I like that line, "They closed +their eyes in sleep, nor knew 'twas death." Indeed, there is scarce a +line I do not like. "_Turbid_ ecstacy," is surely not so good as what +you _had_ written, "troublous." Turbid rather suits the muddy kind of +inspiration which London porter confers. The versification is, +throughout, to my ears unexceptionable, with no disparagement to the +measure of the "Religious Musings," which is exactly fitted to the +thoughts. + +You were building your house on a rock, when you rested your fame on +that poem. I can scarce bring myself to believe, that I am admitted to a +familiar correspondence, and all the licence of friendship, with a man +who writes blank verse like Milton. Now, this is delicate flattery, +_indirect_ flattery. Go on with your "Maid of Orleans," and be content +to be second to yourself. I shall become a convert to it, when 'tis +finished. + +This afternoon I attend the funeral of my poor old aunt, who died on +Thursday. I own I am thankful that the good creature has ended all her +days of suffering and infirmity. She was to me the "cherisher of +infancy," and one must fall on these occasions into reflections which it +would be commonplace to enumerate, concerning death, "of chance and +change, and fate in human life." Good God, who could have foreseen all +this but four months back! I had reckoned, in particular, on my aunt's +living many years; she was a very hearty old woman. But she was a mere +skeleton before she died, looked more like a corpse that had lain weeks +in the grave, than one fresh dead. "Truly the light is sweet, and a +pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun; but let a man live +many days and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember the days of +darkness, for they shall be many." Coleridge, why are we to live on +after all the strength and beauty of existence are gone, when all the +life of life is fled, as poor Burns expresses it? Tell Lloyd I have had +thoughts of turning Quaker, and have been reading, or am rather just +beginning to read, a most capital book, good thoughts in good language, +William Penn's "No Cross, no Crown;" I like it immensely. Unluckily I +went to one of his meetings, tell him, in St. John Street, yesterday, +and saw a man under all the agitations and workings of a fanatic, who +believed himself under the influence of some "inevitable presence." This +cured me of Quakerism; I love it in the books of Penn and Woolman, but I +detest the vanity of a man thinking he speaks by the Spirit, when what +he says an ordinary man might say without all that quaking and +trembling. In the midst of his inspiration--and the effects of it were +most noisy--was handed into the midst of the meeting a most terrible +blackguard Wapping sailor; the poor man, I believe, had rather have been +in the hottest part of an engagement, for the congregation of +broad-brims, together with the ravings of the prophet, were too much for +his gravity, though I saw even he had delicacy enough not to laugh out. +And the inspired gentleman, though his manner was so supernatural, yet +neither talked nor professed to talk anything more than good sober +sense, common morality, with now and then a declaration of not speaking +from himself. Among other things, looking back to his childhood and +early youth, he told the meeting what a graceless young dog he had been, +that in his youth he had a good share of wit: reader, if thou hadst seen +the gentleman, thou wouldst have sworn that it must indeed have been +many years ago, for his rueful physiognomy would have scared away the +playful goddess from the meeting, where he presided, for ever. A wit! a +wit! what could he mean? Lloyd, it minded me of Falkland in the +"Rivals," "Am I full of wit and humour? No, indeed you are not. Am I the +life and soul of every company I come into? No, it cannot be said you +are." That hard-faced gentleman, a wit! Why, Nature wrote on his fanatic +forehead fifty years ago, "Wit never comes, that comes to all." I should +be as scandalised at a _bon mot_ issuing from his oracle-looking mouth, +as to see Cato go down a country-dance. God love you all. You are very +good to submit to be pleased with reading my nothings. 'Tis the +privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense +re-spected.--Yours ever, + +C. LAMB. + +[Lamb's Aunt Hetty, Sarah Lamb, was buried at St. James's, Clerkenwell, +on February 13, 1797. + +"As poor Burns expresses it." In the "Lament for James, Earl of +Glencairn," the Stanza:-- + +In weary being now I pine, +For a' the life of life is dead, +And hope has left my aged ken, +On forward wing for ever fled. + +"Turning Quaker." Lamb refers to the Peel meeting-house in John Street, +Clerkenwell. Lamb afterwards used the story of the wit in the _Ella_ +essay "A Quaker's Meeting." In his invocation to the reader he here +foreshadows his Elian manner. + +"Falkland" is in Sheridan's comedy "The Rivals" (see Act II., Scene i).] + + + + +LETTER 24 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +April 7th, 1797. + +Your last letter was dated the 10th February; in it you promised to +write again the next day. At least, I did not expect so long, so +unfriend-like, a silence. There was a time, Col., when a remissness of +this sort in a dear friend would have lain very heavy on my mind, but +latterly I have been too familiar with neglect to feel much from the +semblance of it. Yet, to suspect one's self overlooked and in the way to +oblivion, is a feeling rather humbling; perhaps, as tending to +self-mortification, not unfavourable to the spiritual state. Still, as +you meant to confer no benefit on the soul of your friend, you do not +stand quite clear from the imputation of unkindliness (a word by which I +mean the diminutive of unkindness). Lloyd tells me he has been very ill, +and was on the point of leaving you. I addressed a letter to him at +Birmingham: perhaps he got it not, and is still with you, I hope his +ill-health has not prevented his attending to a request I made in it, +that he would write again very soon to let me know how he was. I hope to +God poor Lloyd is not very bad, or in a very bad way. Pray satisfy me +about these things. And then David Hartley was unwell; and how is the +small philosopher, the minute philosopher? and David's mother? +Coleridge, I am not trifling, nor are these matter-of-fact [?course] +questions only. You are all very dear and precious to me; do what you +will, Col., you may hurt me and vex me by your silence, but you cannot +estrange my heart from you all. I cannot scatter friendship[s] like +chuck-farthings, nor let them drop from mine hand like hour-glass sand. +I have two or three people in the world to whom I am more than +indifferent, and I can't afford to whistle them off to the winds. By the +way, Lloyd may have told you about my sister. I told him. If not, I have +taken her out of her confinement, and taken a room for her at Hackney, +and spend my Sundays, holidays, etc., with her. She boards herself. In +one little half year's illness, and in such an illness of such a nature +and of such consequences! to get her out into the world again, with a +prospect of her never being so ill again--this is to be ranked not among +the common blessings of Providence. May that merciful God make tender my +heart, and make me as thankful, as in my distress I was earnest, in my +prayers. Congratulate me on an ever-present and never-alienable friend +like her. And do, do insert, if you have not _lost_, my dedication. It +will have lost half its value by coming so late. If you really are going +on with that volume, I shall be enabled in a day or two to send you a +short poem to insert. Now, do answer this. Friendship, and acts of +friendship, should be reciprocal, and free as the air; a friend should +never be reduced to beg an alms of his fellow. Yet I will beg an alms; I +entreat you to write, and tell me all about poor Lloyd, and all of you. +God love and preserve you all. + +C. LAMB. + +[Lloyd's domestication with Coleridge had been intermittent. It began in +September, 1796; in November Lloyd was very ill; in December Coleridge +told Mr. Lloyd that he would retain his son no longer as pupil but +merely as a lodger and friend; at Christmas Charles Lloyd was at +Birmingham; in January he was in London; in March he was ill again and +his experiment with Coleridge ended. + +"The minute philosopher." A joking reference to Bishop Berkeley's +_Alciphron; or, The Minute Philosopher_. + +For the dedication to which Lamb refers see above.] + + + + +LETTER 25 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +April 15th, 1797. + +A VISION OF REPENTANCE + +I saw a famous fountain in my dream, +Where shady pathways to a valley led; +A weeping willow lay upon that stream, +And all around the fountain brink were spread +Wide branching trees, with dark green leaf rich clad, +Forming a doubtful twilight desolate and sad. + +The place was such, that whoso enter'd in +Disrobed was of every earthly thought, +And straight became as one that knew not sin, +Or to the world's first innocence was brought; +Enseem'd it now, he stood on holy ground, +In sweet and tender melancholy wrapt around. + +A most strange calm stole o'er my soothed sprite; +Long time I stood, and longer had I staid, +When lo! I saw, saw by the sweet moonlight, +Which came in silence o'er that silent shade, +Where near the fountain SOMETHING like DESPAIR +Made of that weeping willow garlands for her hair. + +And eke with painful fingers she inwove +Many an uncouth stem of savage thorn-- +"The willow garland, _that_ was for her Love, +And _these_ her bleeding temples would adorn." +With sighs her heart nigh burst--salt tears fast fell, +As mournfully she bended o'er that sacred well. + +To whom when I addrest myself to speak, +She lifted up her eyes, and nothing said; +The delicate red came mantling o'er her cheek, +And gathering up her loose attire, she fled +To the dark covert of that woody shade +And in her goings seem'd a timid gentle maid. + +Revolving in my mind what this should mean, +And why that lovely Lady plained so; +Perplex'd in thought at that mysterious scene, +And doubting if 'twere best to stay or go, +I cast mine eyes in wistful gaze around, +When from the shades came slow a small and plaintive sound + +"Psyche am I, who love to dwell +In these brown shades, this woody dell, +Where never busy mortal came, +Till now, to pry upon my shame. + +"At thy feet what thou dost see +The Waters of Repentance be, +Which, night and day, I must augment +With tears, like a true penitent, +If haply so my day of grace +Be not yet past; and this lone place, +O'er-shadowy, dark, excludeth hence +All thoughts but grief and penitence." + +"_Why dost thou weep, thou gentle maid! +And wherefore in this barren shade +Thy hidden thoughts with sorrow feed? +Can thing so fair repentance need?_" + +"Oh! I have done a deed of shame, +And tainted is my virgin fame, +And stain'd the beauteous maiden white +In which my bridal robes were dight." + +"_And who the promis'd spouse declare, +And what those bridal garments were_?" + +"Severe and saintly righteousness +Compos'd the clear white bridal dress; +Jesus, the son of Heaven's high King +Bought with his blood the marriage ring. + +"A wretched sinful creature, I +Deem'd lightly of that sacred tye, +Gave to a treacherous WORLD my heart, +And play'd the foolish wanton's part. + +"Soon to these murky shades I came +To hide from the Sun's light my shame-- +And still I haunt this woody dell, +And bathe me in that healing well, +Whose waters clear have influence +From sin's foul stains the soul to cleanse; +And night and day I them augment +With tears, like a true Penitent, +Until, due expiation made, +And fit atonement fully paid, +The Lord and Bridegroom me present +Where in sweet strains of high consent, +God's throne before, the Seraphim +Shall chaunt the extatic marriage hymn." + +"_Now Christ restore thee soon_"--I said, +And thenceforth all my dream was fled. + +The above you will please to print immediately before the blank verse +fragments. Tell me if you like it. I fear the latter half is unequal to +the former, in parts of which I think you will discover a delicacy of +pencilling not quite un-Spenser-like. The latter half aims at the +_measure_, but has failed to attain the _poetry_, of Milton in his +"Comus" and Fletcher in that exquisite thing ycleped the "Faithful +Shepherdess," where they both use eight-syllable lines. But this latter +half was finished in great haste, and as a task, not from that impulse +which affects the name of inspiration. + +By the way, I have lit upon Fairfax's "Godfrey of Bullen" for +half-a-crown. Rejoice with me. + +Poor dear Lloyd! I had a letter from him yesterday; his state of mind is +truly alarming. He has, by his own confession, kept a letter of mine +unopened three weeks, afraid, he says, to open it, lest I should speak +upbraidingly to him; and yet this very letter of mine was in answer to +one, wherein he informed me that an alarming illness had alone prevented +him from writing. You will pray with me, I know, for his recovery; for +surely, Coleridge, an exquisiteness of feeling like this must border on +derangement. But I love him more and more, and will not give up the hope +of his speedy recovery, as he tells me he is under Dr. Darwin's regimen. + +God bless us all, and shield us from insanity, which is "the sorest +malady of all." + +My kind love to your wife and child. + +C. LAMB. + +Pray write, now. + +[I have placed the poem at the head from the text of Coleridge's +_Poems_, 1797; but the version of the letter very likely differed (see +next letter for at least one alteration). + +Fairfax's _Godfrey of Bullen_ was his translation of Tasso, which is +mentioned above. + +Lloyd, who was undergoing one of those attacks of acute melancholia to +which he was subject all his life, had been sent to Lichfield where +Erasmus Darwin had established a sanatorium. + +"The sorest malady of all." From Lamb's lines to Cowper.] + + + + +LETTER 26 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE + +[Tuesday,] June 13th, 1797. + +I stared with wild wonderment to see thy well-known hand again. It +revived many a pleasing recollection of an epistolary intercourse, of +late strangely suspended, once the pride of my life. Before I even +opened thy letter, I figured to myself a sort of complacency which my +little hoard at home would feel at receiving the new-comer into the +little drawer where I keep my treasures of this kind. You have done well +in writing to me. The little room (was it not a little one?) at the +Salutation was already in the way of becoming a fading idea! it had +begun to be classed in my memory with those "wanderings with a fair +hair'd maid," in the recollection of which I feel I have no property. +You press me, very kindly do you press me, to come to Stowey; obstacles, +strong as death, prevent me at present; maybe I shall be able to come +before the year is out; believe me, I will come as soon as I can, but I +dread naming a probable time. It depends on fifty things, besides the +expense, which is not nothing. Lloyd wants me to come and see him; but, +besides that you have a prior claim on me, I should not feel myself so +much at home with him, till he gets a house of his own. As to +Richardson, caprice may grant what caprice only refused, and it is no +more hardship, rightly considered, to be dependent on him for pleasure, +than to lie at the mercy of the rain and sunshine for the enjoyment of a +holiday: in either case we are not to look for a suspension of the laws +of nature. "Grill will be Grill." Vide Spenser. + +I could not but smile at the compromise you make with me for printing +Lloyd's poems first; but there is [are] in nature, I fear, too many +tendencies to envy and jealousy not to justify you in your apology. Yet, +if any one is welcome to pre-eminence from me, it is Lloyd, for he would +be the last to desire it. So pray, let his name _uniformly_ precede +mine, for it would be treating me like a child to suppose it could give +me pain. Yet, alas! I am not insusceptible of the bad passions. Thank +God, I have the ingenuousness to be ashamed of them. I am dearly fond of +Charles Lloyd; he is all goodness, and I have too much of the world in +my composition to feel myself thoroughly deserving of his friendship. + +Lloyd tells me that Sheridan put you upon writing your tragedy. I hope +you are only Coleridgeizing when you talk of finishing it in a few days. +Shakspeare was a more modest man; but you best know your own power. + +Of my last poem you speak slightingly; surely the longer stanzas were +pretty tolerable; at least there was one good line in it, + +"Thick-shaded trees, with dark green leaf rich clad." + +To adopt your own expression, I call this a "rich" line, a fine full +line. And some others I thought even beautiful. Believe me, my little +gentleman will feel some repugnance at riding behind in the basket; +though, I confess, in pretty good company. Your picture of idiocy, with +the sugar-loaf head, is exquisite; but are you not too severe upon our +more favoured brethren in fatuity? Lloyd tells me how ill your wife and +child have been. I rejoice that they are better. My kindest remembrances +and those of my sister. I send you a trifling letter; but you have only +to think that I have been skimming the superficies of my mind, and found +it only froth. Now, do write again; you cannot believe how I long and +love always to hear about you. Yours, most affectionately, + +CHARLES LAMB. + +Monday Night. + +["Little drawer where I keep ..." Lamb soon lost the habit of keeping +any letters, except Manning's. + +"Wanderings with a fair-hair'd maid." Lamb's own line. See sonnet quoted +above. + +Lamb's visit to Stowey was made in July, as we shall see. + +"Grill will be Grill." See the _Faerie Queene_, Book II., Canto 12, +Stanzas 86 and 87. "Let Gryll be Gryll" is the right text. + +Lloyd had joined the poetical partnership, and his poems were to precede +Lamb's in the 1797 volume. "Lloyd's connections," Coleridge had written +to Cottle, "will take off a great many [copies], more than a hundred." + +Coleridge's tragedy was "Osorio," of which we hear first in March, 1797, +when Coleridge tells Cottle that Sheridan has asked him to write a play +for Drury Lane. It was finished in October, and rejected. In 1813, much +altered, it was performed under its new title, "Remorse," and published +in book form. Lamb wrote the Prologue. + +The "last poem" of which Lamb speaks was "The Vision of Repentance." The +good line was altered to-- + +"Wide branching trees, with dark green leaf rich clad," + +when the poem appeared in the Appendix ("the basket," as Lamb calls it) +of the 1797 volume. + +"Your picture of idiocy." Compare S. T. Coleridge to Thomas Poole, dated +"Greta Hall, Oct. 5, 1801" (_Thomas Poole and His Friends_): "We passed +a poor ideot boy, who exactly answered my description; he + +"'Stood in the sun, rocking his sugar-loaf head, +And staring at a bough from morn to sunset, +See-sawed his voice in inarticulate noises.'" + +See this passage, much altered, in "Remorse," II., I, 186-191. The lines +do not occur in "Osorio," yet they, or something like them, must have +been copied out by Coleridge for Lamb in June, 1797.] + + + + +LETTER 27 + + +(_Possibly only a fragment_) + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[Saturday,] June 24th, 1797. + +Did you seize the grand opportunity of seeing Kosciusko while he was at +Bristol? I never saw a hero; I wonder how they look. I have been reading +a most curious romance-like work, called the "Life of John Buncle, Esq." +'Tis very interesting, and an extraordinary compound of all manner of +subjects, from the depth of the ludicrous to the heights of sublime +religious truth. There is much abstruse science in it above my cut and +an infinite fund of pleasantry. John Buncle is a famous fine man, formed +in nature's most eccentric hour. I am ashamed of what I write. But I +have no topic to talk of. I see nobody, and sit, and read or walk, +alone, and hear nothing. I am quite lost to conversation from disuse; +and out of the sphere of my little family, who, I am thankful, are +dearer and dearer to me every day, I see no face that brightens up at my +approach. My friends are at a distance; worldly hopes are at a low ebb +with me, and unworldly thoughts are not yet familiarised to me, though I +occasionally indulge in them. Still I feel a calm not unlike content. I +fear it is sometimes more akin to physical stupidity than to a +heaven-flowing serenity and peace. What right have I to obtrude all this +upon you? what is such a letter to you? and if I come to Stowey, what +conversation can I furnish to compensate my friend for those stores of +knowledge and of fancy, those delightful treasures of wisdom, which I +know he will open to me? But it is better to give than to receive; and I +was a very patient hearer and docile scholar in our winter evening +meetings at Mr. May's; was I not, Col.? What I have owed to thee, my +heart can ne'er forget. + +God love you and yours. C. L. + +Saturday. + +[Thaddeus Kosciusko (1746-1817), the Polish patriot, to whom Coleridge +had a sonnet in his _Poems_, 1796, visited England and America after +being liberated from prison on the accession of Paul I., and settled in +France in 1798. + +_The Life of John Buncle, Esq._, a book which Lamb (and also Hazlitt) +frequently praised, is a curious digressive novel, part religious, part +roystering, and wholly eccentric and individual, by Thomas Amory, +published, Vol. I., in 1756, and Vol. II., in 1766. + +"Mr. May's." See note to the first letter.] + + + + +LETTER 28 + + +(_Possibly only a fragment_) + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[No date. ? June 29, 1797.] + +I discern a possibility of my paying you a visit next week. May I, can +I, shall I, come so soon? Have you _room_ for me, _leisure_ for me, and +are you all pretty well? Tell me all this honestly--immediately. And by +what _day_--coach could I come soonest and nearest to Stowey? A few +months hence may suit you better; certainly me as well. If so, say so. I +long, I yearn, with all the longings of a child do I desire to see you, +to come among you--to see the young philosopher, to thank Sara for her +last year's invitation in person--to read your tragedy--to read over +together our little book--to breathe fresh air--to revive in me vivid +images of "Salutation scenery." There is a sort of sacrilege in my +letting such ideas slip out of my mind and memory. Still that knave +Richardson remaineth--a thorn in the side of Hope, when she would lean +towards Stowey. Here I will leave off, for I dislike to fill up this +paper, which involves a question so connected with my heart and soul, +with meaner matter or subjects to me less interesting. I can talk, as I +can think, nothing else. + +C. LAMB. + +Thursday. + +["Our little book." Coleridge's _Poems_, second edition. + +"Salutation scenery." See note to the first letter. + +"Richardson." See note on page 34.] + + + + +LETTER 29 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[No date. Probably July 19 or 26, 1797.] + +I am scarcely yet so reconciled to the loss of you, or so subsided into +my wonted uniformity of feeling, as to sit calmly down to think of you +and write to you. But I reason myself into the belief that those few and +pleasant holidays shall not have been spent in vain. I feel improvement +in the recollection of many a casual conversation. The names of Tom +Poole, of Wordsworth and his good sister, with thine and Sara's, are +become "familiar in my mouth as household words." You would make me very +happy, if you think W. has no objection, by transcribing for me that +inscription of his. I have some scattered sentences ever floating on my +memory, teasing me that I cannot remember more of it. You may believe I +will make no improper use of it. Believe me I can think now of many +subjects on which I had planned gaining information from you; but I +forgot my "treasure's worth" while I possessed it. Your leg is now +become to me a matter of much more importance--and many a little thing, +which when I was present with you seemed scarce to _indent_ my notice, +now presses painfully on my remembrance. Is the Patriot come yet? Are +Wordsworth and his sister gone yet? I was looking out for John Thelwall +all the way from Bridgewater, and had I met him, I think it would have +moved almost me to tears. You will oblige me too by sending me my +great-coat, which I left behind in the oblivious state the mind is +thrown into at parting--is it not ridiculous that I sometimes envy that +great-coat lingering so cunningly behind?--at present I have none--so +send it me by a Stowey waggon, if there be such a thing, directing for +C. L., No. 45, Chapel-Street, Pentonville, near London. But above all, +_that Inscription!_--it will recall to me the tones of all your +voices--and with them many a remembered kindness to one who could and +can repay you all only by the silence of a grateful heart. I could not +talk much, while I was with you, but my silence was not sullenness, nor +I hope from any bad motive; but, in truth, disuse has made me awkward at +it. I know I behaved myself, particularly at Tom Poole's, and at +Cruikshank's, most like a sulky child; but company and converse are +strange to me. It was kind in you all to endure me as you did. + +Are you and your dear Sara--to me also very dear, because very +kind--agreed yet about the management of little Hartley? and how go on +the little rogue's teeth? I will see White to-morrow, and he shall send +you information on that matter; but as perhaps I can do it as well after +talking with him, I will keep this letter open. + +My love and thanks to you and all of you. + +C. L. + +Wednesday Evening. + +[Lamb spent a week at Nether Stowey in July, 1797. Coleridge tells +Southey of this visit in a letter written in that month: "Charles Lamb +has been with me for a week. He left me Friday morning. The second day +after Wordsworth [who had just left Racedown, near Crewkerne, for +Alfoxden, near Stowey] came to me, dear Sara accidentally emptied a +skillet of boiling milk on my foot, which confined me during the whole +time of C. Lamb's stay and still prevents me from all walks longer than +a furlong." This is the cause of Lamb's allusion to Coleridge's leg, and +it also produced Coleridge's poem beginning "This lime-tree bower my +prison," addressed to Lamb, which opens as follows, the friends in the +fourth line being Lamb, Wordsworth and Dorothy Wordsworth. (Wordsworth +was then twenty-seven. The _Lyrical Ballads_ were to be written in the +next few months.) + +Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, +Lam'd by the scathe of fire, lonely and faint, +This lime-tree bower my prison! They, meantime +My Friends, whom I may never meet again, +On springy heath, along the hill-top edge +Wander delighted, and look down, perchance, +On that same rifted Dell, where many an ash +Twists its wild limbs beside the ferny rock +Whose plumy ferns forever nod and drip, +Spray'd by the waterfall. But chiefly thou +My gentle-hearted _Charles!_ thou who had pin'd +And hunger'd after Nature many a year, +In the great City pent, winning thy way +With sad yet bowed soul, through evil and pain +And strange calamity! + +Tom Poole was Thomas Poole (1765-1837), a wealthy tanner, and +Coleridge's friend, correspondent and patron, who lived at Stowey. + +The Patriot and John Thelwall were one. See note on page 93. + +"That inscription," The "Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew Tree," written +in 1795. Lamb refers to it again in 1815. + +The address at Pentonville is the first indication given by Lamb that he +has left Little Queen Street. We last saw him there for certain in +Letter 17 on December 9. The removal had been made probably at the end +of 1796. + +John Cruikshank, a neighbour of Coleridge, had married a Miss Budé on +the same day that Coleridge married Sara Flicker. + +Of the business connected with White we know nothing.] + + + + +LETTER 30 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[P.M. August 24, 1797.] + +Poor Charles Lloyd came to me about a fortnight ago. He took the +opportunity of Mr. Hawkes coming to London, and I think at his request, +to come with him. It seemed to me, and he acknowledged it, that he had +come to gain a little time and a little peace, before he made up his +mind. He was a good deal perplexed what to do--wishing earnestly that he +had never entered into engagements which he felt himself unable to +fulfill, but which on Sophia's account he could not bring himself to +relinquish. I could give him little advice or comfort, and feeling my +own inability painfully, eagerly snatched at a proposal he made me to go +to Southey's with him for a day or two. He then meant to return with me, +who could stay only one night. While there, he at one time thought of +going to consult you, but changed his intention and stayed behind with +Southey, and wrote an explicit letter to Sophia. I came away on the +Tuesday, and on the Saturday following, _last Saturday_, receiv'd a +letter dated Bath, in which he said he was on his way to +Birmingham,--that Southey was accompanying him,--and that he went for +the purpose of persuading Sophia to a Scotch marriage--I greatly feared, +that she would never consent to this, from what Lloyd had told me of her +character. But waited most anxiously the result. Since then I have not +had one letter. For God's sake, if you get any intelligence of or from +Chas Lloyd, communicate it, for I am much alarmed. + +C. LAMB. + +I wrote to Burnett what I write now to you,--was it from him you heard, +or elsewhere?-- + +He said if he _had_ come to you, he could never have brought himself to +leave you. In all his distress he was sweetly and exemplarily calm and +master of himself,--and seemed perfectly free from his disorder.-- + +How do you all at? + +[This letter is unimportant, except in showing Lamb's power of sharing +his friends' troubles. Charles Lloyd was not married to Sophia +Pemberton, of Birmingham, until 1799; nothing rash being done, as Lamb +seems to think possible. The reference to Southey, who was at this time +living at Burton, in Hampshire, throws some light on De Quincey's +statement, in his "Autobiography," that owing to the objection of Miss +Pemberton's parents to the match, Lloyd secured the assistance of +Southey to carry the lady off. + +Burnett was George Burnett (1776?-1811), one of Coleridge's fellow +Pantisocratists, whom we shall meet later. + +The "he" of the second postscript is not Burnett, but Lloyd.] + + + + +LETTER 31 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE +[About September 20, 1797.] + +WRITTEN A TWELVEMONTH AFTER THE EVENTS + +[_Friday next, Coleridge, is the day on which my mother died._] + +Alas! how am I changed! where be the tears, +The sobs and forced suspensions of the breath, +And all the dull desertions of the heart +With which I hung o'er my dear mother's corse? +Where be the blest subsidings of the storm +Within; the sweet resignedness of hope +Drawn heavenward, and strength of filial love, +In which I bow'd me to my Father's will? +My God and my Redeemer, keep not thou +My heart in brute and sensual thanklessness +Seal'd up, oblivious ever of that dear grace, +And health restor'd to my long-loved friend. + +Long loved, and worthy known! Thou didst not keep +Her soul in death. O keep not now, my Lord, +Thy servants in far worse--in spiritual death +And darkness--blacker than those feared shadows +O' the valley all must tread. Lend us thy balms, +Thou dear Physician of the sin-sick soul, +And heal our cleansed bosoms of the wounds +With which the world hath pierc'd us thro' and thro'! +Give us new flesh, new birth; Elect of heaven +May we become, in thine election sure +Contain'd, and to one purpose steadfast drawn-- +Our souls' salvation. + + Thou and I, dear friend, +With filial recognition sweet, shall know +One day the face of our dear mother in heaven, +And her remember'd looks of love shall greet +With answering looks of love, her placid smiles +Meet with a smile as placid, and her hand +With drops of fondness wet, nor fear repulse. + +Be witness for me, Lord, I do not ask +Those days of vanity to return again, +(Nor fitting me to ask, nor thee to give), +Vain loves, and "wanderings with a fair-hair'd maid;" +(Child of the dust as I am), who so long +My foolish heart steep'd in idolatry, +And creature-loves. Forgive it, O my Maker! +If in a mood of grief, I sin almost +In sometimes brooding on the days long past, +(And from the grave of time wishing them back), +Days of a mother's fondness to her child-- +Her little one! Oh, where be now those sports +And infant play-games? Where the joyous troops +Of children, and the haunts I did so love? +0 my companions! O ye loved names +Of friend, or playmate dear, gone are ye now. +Gone divers ways; to honour and credit some: +And some, I fear, to ignominy and shame! +I only am left, with unavailing grief +One parent dead to mourn, and see one live +Of all life's joys bereft, and desolate: +Am left, with a few friends, and one above +The rest, found faithful in a length of years, +Contented as I may, to bear me on, +T' the not unpeaceful evening of a day +Made black by morning storms. + +The following I wrote when I had returned from C. Lloyd, leaving him +behind at Burton with Southey. To understand some of it, you must +remember that at that time he was very much perplexed in mind. + +A stranger and alone, I past those scenes +We past so late together; and my heart +Felt something like desertion, as I look'd +Around me, and the pleasant voice of friend +Was absent, and the cordial look was there +No more, to smile on me. I thought on Lloyd-- +All he had been to me! And now I go +Again to mingle with a world impure; +With men who make a mock of holy things, +Mistaken, and of man's best hope think scorn. +The world does much to warp the heart of man; +And I may sometimes join its idiot laugh: +Of this I now complain not. Deal with me, +Omniscient Father, as Thou judgest best, +And in _Thy_ season soften thou my heart. +I pray not for myself: I pray for him +Whose soul is sore perplexed. Shine thou on him, +Father of Lights! and in the difficult paths +Make plain his way before him: his own thoughts +May he not think--his own ends not pursue-- +So shall he best perform Thy will on earth. +Greatest and Best, Thy will be ever ours! + +The former of these poems I wrote with unusual celerity t'other morning +at office. I expect you to like it better than anything of mine; Lloyd +does, and I do myself. + +You use Lloyd very ill, never writing to him. I tell you again that his +is not a mind with which you should play tricks. He deserves more +tenderness from you. + +For myself, I must spoil a little passage of Beaumont and Fletcher to +adapt it to my feelings:-- + + "I am prouder +That I was once your friend, tho' now forgot, +Than to have had another true to me." + +If you don't write to me now, as I told Lloyd, I shall get angry, and +call you hard names--Manchineel and I don't know what else. I wish you +would send me my great-coat. The snow and the rain season is at hand, +and I have but a wretched old coat, once my father's, to keep 'em off, +and that is transitory. + +"When time drives flocks from field to fold, +When ways grow foul and blood gets cold," + +I shall remember where I left my coat. Meet emblem wilt thou be, old +Winter, of a friend's neglect--cold, cold, cold! Remembrance where +remembrance is due. + +C. LAMB. + +[The two poems included in this letter were printed in _Blank Verse_, a +volume which Lamb and Lloyd issued in 1798. + +Coleridge had written to Lloyd, we know, as late as July, because he +sent him a version of the poem "This Lime-tree Bower, my Prison;" but a +coolness that was to ripen into positive hostility had already begun. Of +this we shall see more later. + +The passage from Beaumont and Fletcher is in "The Maid's Tragedy" (Act +II., Scene I), where Aspatia says to Amintor:-- + +Thus I wind myself +Into this willow garland, and am prouder +That I was once your love (though now refus'd) +Than to have had another true to me. + +The scene is in Lamb's _Dramatic Specimens_. + +The reference to Manchineel is explained by a passage in Coleridge's +dedication of his 1797 volume, then just published, to his brother, the +Rev. George Coleridge, where, speaking of the friends he had known, he +says:-- + +and some most false, +False and fair-foliag'd as the Manchineel, +Have tempted me to slumber in their shade + +--the manchineel being a poisonous West Indian tree. + +Between this and the next letter probably came correspondence that has +now been lost.] + + + + +LETTER 32 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +January 28th, 1798. + +You have writ me many kind letters, and I have answered none of them. I +don't deserve your attentions. An unnatural indifference has been +creeping on me since my last misfortunes, or I should have seized the +first opening of a correspondence with _you_. To you I owe much under +God. In my brief acquaintance with you in London, your conversations won +me to the better cause, and rescued me from the polluting spirit of the +world. I might have been a worthless character without you; as it is, I +do possess a certain improvable portion of devotional feelings, tho' +when I view myself in the light of divine truth, and not according to +the common measures of human judgment, I am altogether corrupt and +sinful. This is no cant. I am very sincere. + +These last afflictions, Coleridge, have failed to soften and bend my +will. They found me unprepared. My former calamities produced in me a +spirit of humility and a spirit of prayer. I thought they had +sufficiently disciplined me; but the event ought to humble me. If God's +judgments now fail to take away from me the heart of stone, what more +grievous trials ought I not to expect? I have been very querulous, +impatient under the rod--full of little jealousies and heartburnings.--I +had well nigh quarrelled with Charles Lloyd; and for no other reason, I +believe, than that the good creature did all he could to make me happy. +The truth is, I thought he tried to force my mind from its natural and +proper bent; he continually wished me to be from home; he was drawing me +_from_ the consideration of my poor dear Mary's situation, rather than +assisting me to gain a proper view of it with religious consolations. I +wanted to be left to the tendency of my own mind in a solitary state +which, in times past, I knew had led to quietness and a patient bearing +of the yoke. He was hurt that I was not more constantly with him; but he +was living with White, a man to whom I had never been accustomed to +impart my _dearest feelings_, tho' from long habits of friendliness, and +many a social and good quality, I loved him very much. I met company +there sometimes--indiscriminate company. Any society almost, when I am +in affliction, is sorely painful to me. I seem to breathe more freely, +to think more collectedly, to feel more properly and calmly, when alone. +All these things the good creature did with the kindest intentions in +the world, but they produced in me nothing but soreness and discontent. +I became, as he complained, "jaundiced" towards him ... but he has +forgiven me--and his smile, I hope, will draw all such humours from me. +I am recovering, God be praised for it, a healthiness of mind, something +like calmness--but I want more religion--I am jealous of human helps and +leaning-places. I rejoice in your good fortunes. May God at the last +settle you!--You have had many and painful trials; humanly speaking they +are going to end; but we should rather pray that discipline may attend +us thro' the whole of our lives ... A careless and a dissolute spirit +has advanced upon _me_ with large strides--pray God that my present +afflictions may be sanctified to me! Mary is recovering, but I see no +opening yet of a situation for her; your invitation went to my very +heart, but you have a power of exciting interest, of leading all hearts +captive, too forcible to admit of Mary's being with you. + +I consider her as perpetually on the brink of madness. I think you would +almost make her dance within an inch of the precipice: she must be with +duller fancies and cooler intellects. I know a young man of this +description, who has suited her these twenty years, and may live to do +so still, if we are one day restored to each other. In answer to your +suggestions of occupation for me, I must say that I do not think my +capacity altogether suited for disquisitions of that kind.... I have +read little, I have a very weak memory, and retain little of what I +read; am unused to composition in which any methodising is required; but +I thank you sincerely for the hint, and shall receive it as far as I am +able: that is, endeavour to engage my mind in some constant and innocent +pursuit. I know my capacities better than you do. + +Accept my kindest love, and believe me yours, as ever. + +C. L. + +[The first letter that has been preserved since September of the +previous year. In the meantime Lamb had begun to work on _Rosamund +Gray_, probably upon an impulse gained from the visit to Stowey, and was +also arranging to join Lloyd, who was living in London with White, in +the volume of poems to be called _Blank Verse_. Southey, writing many +years later to Edward Moxon, said of Lloyd and White: "No two men could +be imagined more unlike each other; Lloyd had no drollery in his nature; +White seemed to have nothing else. You will easily understand how Lamb +could sympathise with both." + +The new calamity to which Lamb refers in this letter was probably a +relapse in Mary Lamb's condition. When he last mentioned her she was so +far better as to be able to be moved into lodgings at Hackney: all that +good was now undone. Coleridge seems to have suggested that she should +visit Stowey. + +It was about this time that Lamb wrote the poem "The Old Familiar +Faces," which I quote below in its original form, afterwards changed by +the omission of the first four lines:-- + +THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES + +Where are they gone, the old familiar faces? + +I had a mother, but she died, and left me, +Died prematurely in a day of horrors-- +All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. + +I have had playmates, I have had companions, +In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days-- +All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. + +I have been laughing, I have been carousing, +Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies-- +All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. + +I loved a love once, fairest among women. +Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her-- +All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. + +I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man. +Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly; +Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces. + +Ghost-like, I paced round the haunts of my childhood. +Earth seem'd a desert I was bound to traverse, +Seeking to find the old familiar faces. + +Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother! +Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling? +So might we talk of the old familiar faces. + +For some they have died, and some they have left me, +_And some are taken from me_; all are departed; +All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. + +January, 1798. + +It is conjectured by Mr. J. A. Rutter, and there is much reason to +believe it a right theory, especially when taken into connection with +the present letter, that Lloyd was the friend of the fifth stanza and +Coleridge the friend of the seventh. The italicised half line might +refer to "Anna," but, since she is mentioned in the fourth stanza, it +more probably, I think, refers to Mary Lamb, who, as we have seen, had +been so ill as to necessitate removal from Hackney into more special +confinement again. + +The letter was addressed to Coleridge at the Reverend A. Rowe's, +Shrewsbury. Coleridge had been offered the Unitarian pulpit at +Shrewsbury and was on the point of accepting when he received news of +the annuity of £150 which Josiah and Thomas Wedgwood had settled upon +him. + +Between this letter and the next certainly came other letters to +Coleridge, now lost, one of which is referred to by Coleridge in the +letter to Lamb quoted below.] + + + + +LETTER 33 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[No date. Early Summer, 1798.] + +THESES QUAEDAM THEOLOGICAE + +1. Whether God loves a lying Angel better than a true Man? + +2. Whether the Archangel Uriel _could_ affirm an untruth? and if he +_could_ whether he _would_? + +3. Whether Honesty be an angelic virtue? or not rather to be reckoned +among those qualities which the Schoolmen term '_Virtutes minus +splendidoe et terrae et hominis participes_'? + +4. Whether the higher order of Seraphim Illuminati ever sneer? + +5. Whether pure intelligences can love? + +6. Whether the Seraphim Ardentes do not manifest their virtues by the +way of vision and theory? and whether practice be not a sub-celestial +and merely human virtue? + +7. Whether the Vision Beatific be anything more or less than a perpetual +representment to each individual Angel of his own present attainments +and future capabilities, somehow in the manner of mortal +looking-glasses, reflecting a perpetual complacency and +self-satisfaction? + +8 and last. Whether an immortal and amenable soul may not come to be +damned at last, and the man never suspect it beforehand? + +_Learned Sir, my Friend_, + +Presuming on our long habits of friendship and emboldened further by +your late liberal permission to avail myself of your correspondence, in +case I want any knowledge, (which I intend to do when I have no +Encyclopaedia or Lady's Magazine at hand to refer to in any matter of +science,) I now submit to your enquiries the above Theological +Propositions, to be by you defended, or oppugned, or both, in the +Schools of Germany, whither I am told you are departing, to the utter +dissatisfaction of your native Devonshire and regret of universal +England; but to my own individual consolation if thro' the channel of +your wished return, Learned Sir, my Friend, may be transmitted to this +our Island, from those famous Theological Wits of Leipsic and Gottingen, +any rays of illumination, in vain to be derived from the home growth of +our English Halls and Colleges. Finally, wishing, Learned Sir, that you +may see Schiller and swing in a wood (_vide_ Poems) and sit upon a Tun, +and eat fat hams of Westphalia, + +I remain, +Your friend and docile Pupil to instruct +CHARLES LAMB. +1798. + +To S. T. Coleridge. + +[Lamb's last letter to Coleridge for two years. See note to the next +letter. + +Lamb's reading of Thomas Aquinas probably was at the base of his theses. +William Godwin, in his "History of Knowledge, Learning and Taste in +Great Britain," which had run through some years of the _New Annual +Register_, cited, in 1786, a number of the more grotesque queries of the +old Schoolmen. Mr. Kegan Paul suggested that Lamb went to Godwin for his +examination paper; but I should think this very unlikely. Some of the +questions hit Coleridge very hard. + +This letter was first printed by Joseph Cottle in his _Early +Recollections_, 1837, with the remark: "Mr. Coleridge gave me this +letter, saying, 'These young visionaries will do each other no good.'" +It marks an epoch in Lamb's life, since it brought about, or, at any +rate, clinched, the only quarrel that ever subsisted between Coleridge +and himself. + +The story is told in _Charles Lamb and the Lloyds_. Briefly, Lloyd had +left Coleridge in the spring of 1797; a little later, in a state of much +perplexity, he had carried his troubles to Lamb, and to Southey, between +whom and Coleridge no very cordial feeling had existed for some time, +rather than to Coleridge himself, his late mentor. That probably fanned +the flame. The next move came from Coleridge. He printed in the _Monthly +Magazine_ for November, 1797, three sonnets signed Nehemiah +Higginbottom, burlesquing instances of "affectation of unaffectedness," +and "puny pathos" in the poems of himself, of Lamb, and of Lloyd, the +humour of which Lamb probably did not much appreciate, since he believed +in the feelings expressed in his verse, while Lloyd was certainly +unfitted to esteem it. Coleridge effected even more than he had +contemplated, for Southey took the sonnet upon Simplicity as an attack +upon himself, which did not, however, prevent him, a little later, from +a similar exercise in ponderous humour under the too similar name of +Abel Shufflebottom. + +In March, 1798, when a new edition of Coleridge's 1797 _Poems_ was in +contemplation, Lloyd wrote to Cottle, the publisher, asking that he +would persuade Coleridge to omit his (Lloyd's) portion, a request which +Coleridge probably resented, but which gave him the opportunity of +replying that no persuasion was needed for the omission of verses +published at the earnest request of the author. + +Meanwhile a worse offence than all against Coleridge was perpetrated by +Lloyd. In the spring of 1798 was published at Bristol his novel, Edmund +Oliver, dedicated to Lamb, in which Coleridge's experiences in the army, +under the alias of Silas Tomkyn Comberback, in 1793-1794, and certain of +Coleridge's peculiarities, including his drug habit, were utilised. +Added to this, Lloyd seems to have repeated both to Lamb and Southey, in +distorted form, certain things which Coleridge had said of them, either +in confidence, or, at any rate, with no wish that they should be +repeated; with the result that Lamb actually went so far as to take +sides with Lloyd against his older friend. The following extracts from a +letter from Coleridge to Lamb, which I am permitted by Mr. Ernest +Hartley Coleridge to print, carries the story a little farther:-- + +[Spring of 1798.] + +Dear Lamb,--Lloyd has informed me through Miss Wordsworth that you +intend no longer to correspond with me. This has given me little pain; +not that I do not love and esteem you, but on the contrary because I am +confident that your intentions are pure. You are performing what you +deem a duty, and humanly speaking have that merit which can be derived +from the performance of a painful duty. Painful, for you would not +without struggles abandon me in behalf of a man [Lloyd] who, wholly +ignorant of all but your name, became attached to you in consequence of +my attachment, caught _his_ from _my_ enthusiasm, and learned to love +you at my fireside, when often while I have been sitting and talking of +your sorrows and afflictions I have stopped my conversations and lifted +up wet eyes and prayed for you. No! I am confident that although you do +not think as a wise man, you feel as a good man. + +From you I have received little pain, because for you I suffer little +alarm. I cannot say this for your friend; it appears to me evident that +his feelings are vitiated, and that his ideas are in their combination +merely the creatures of those feelings. I have received letters from +him, and the best and kindest wish which, as a Christian, I can offer in +return is that he may feel remorse.... + +When I wrote to you that my Sonnet to Simplicity was not composed with +reference to Southey, you answered me (I believe these were the words): +"It was a lie too gross for the grossest ignorance to believe;" and I +was not angry with you, because the assertion which the grossest +ignorance would believe a lie the Omniscient knew to be truth. This, +however, makes me cautious not too hastily to affirm the falsehood of an +assertion of Lloyd's that in Edmund Oliver's love-fit, leaving college, +and going into the army he had no sort of allusion to or recollection of +my love-fit, leaving college, and going into the army, and that he never +thought of my person in the description of Oliver's person in the first +letter of the second volume. This cannot appear stranger to me than my +assertion did to you, and therefore I will suspend my absolute faith.... + +I have been unfortunate in my connections. Both you and Lloyd became +acquainted with me when your minds were far from being in a composed or +natural state, and you clothed my image with a suit of notions and +feelings which could belong to nothing human. You are restored to +comparative saneness, and are merely wondering what is become of the +Coleridge with whom you were so passionately in love; _Charles Lloyd's_ +mind has only changed his disease, and he is now arraying his ci-devant +Angel in a flaming San Benito--the whole ground of the garment a dark +brimstone and plenty of little devils flourished out in black. Oh, me! +Lamb, "even in laughter the heart is sad!"... + +God bless you + S. T. COLERIDGE. + +One other passage. In a letter from Lloyd at Birmingham to Cottle, dated +June, 1798, Lloyd says, in response to Cottle's suggestion that he +should visit Coleridge, "I love Coleridge, and can forget all that has +happened. At present I could not well go to Stowey.... Lamb quitted me +yesterday, after a fortnight's visit. I have been much interested in his +society. I never knew him so happy in my life. I shall write to +Coleridge to-day." Coleridge left for Germany in September. + +"Schiller and swing in a wood." An allusion to Coleridge's sonnet to +Schiller:-- + +Ah! Bard tremendous in sublimity! + Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood +Wand'ring at eve with finely-frenzied eye + Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood! + +Here should perhaps come Lamb's first letter to Robert Lloyd, not +available for this edition, but printed by Canon Ainger, and in _Charles +Lamb and the Lloyds_, where it is dated October. Lamb's first letter is +one of advice, apparently in reply to some complaints of his position +addressed to him by Lloyd. A second and longer letter which, though +belonging to August, 1798, may be mentioned here, also counsels, +commending the use of patience and humility. Lamb is here seen in the +character of a spiritual adviser. The letter is unique in his +correspondence. + +Robert Lloyd was a younger brother of Charles Lloyd, and Lamb had +probably met him when on his visit to Birmingham in the summer. The boy, +then not quite twenty, was apprenticed to a Quaker draper at Saffron +Walden in Essex.] + + + + +LETTER 34 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY + +Saturday, July 28th, 1798. + +I am ashamed that I have not thanked you before this for the "Joan of +Arc," but I did not know your address, and it did not occur to me to +write through Cottle. The poem delighted me, and the notes amused me, +but methinks she of Neufchatel, in the print, holds her sword too "like +a dancer." I sent your _notice_ to Phillips, particularly requesting an +immediate insertion, but I suppose it came too late. I am sometimes +curious to know what progress you make in that same "Calendar:" whether +you insert the nine worthies and Whittington? what you do or how you can +manage when two Saints meet and quarrel for precedency? Martlemas, and +Candlemas, and Christmas, are glorious themes for a writer like you, +antiquity-bitten, smit with the love of boars' heads and rosemary; but +how you can ennoble the 1st of April I know not. By the way I had a +thing to say, but a certain false modesty has hitherto prevented me: +perhaps I can best communicate my wish by a hint,--my birthday is on the +10th of February, New Style; but if it interferes with any remarkable +event, why rather than my country should lose her fame, I care not if I +put my nativity back eleven days. Fine family patronage for your +"Calendar," if that old lady of prolific memory were living, who lies +(or lyes) in some church in London (saints forgive me, but I have forgot +_what_ church), attesting that enormous legend of as many children as +days in the year. I marvel her impudence did not grasp at a leap-year. +Three hundred and sixty-five dedications, and all in a family--you might +spit in spirit on the oneness of Maecenas' patronage! + +Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to the eternal regret of his native Devonshire, +emigrates to Westphalia--"Poor Lamb (these were his last words), if he +wants any _knowledge_, he may apply to me,"--in ordinary cases, I +thanked him, I have an "Encyclopaedia" at hand, but on such an occasion +as going over to a German university, I could not refrain from sending +him the following propositions, to be by him defended or oppugned (or +both) at Leipsic or Gottingen. + +THESES QUAEDAM THEOLOGICAE + +I + +"Whether God loves a lying angel better than a true man?" + +II + +"Whether the archangel Uriel _could_ knowingly affirm an untruth, and +whether, if he _could_, he _would_?" + +III + +"Whether honesty be an angelic virtue, or not rather belonging to that +class of qualities which the schoolmen term 'virtutes minus splendidæ et +hominis et terræ nimis participes?'" + +IV + +"Whether the seraphim ardentes do not manifest their goodness by the way +of vision and theory? and whether practice be not a sub-celestial, and +merely human virtue?" + +V + +"Whether the higher order of seraphim illuminati ever _sneer_?" + +VI + +"Whether pure intelligences can _love_, or whether they love anything +besides pure intellect?" + +VII + +"Whether the beatific vision be anything more or less than a perpetual +representment to each individual angel of his own present attainments, +and future capabilities, something in the manner of mortal +looking-glasses?" + +VIII + +"Whether an 'immortal and amenable soul' may not come _to be damned at +last, and the man never suspect it beforehand_?" + +Samuel Taylor C. had not deigned an answer; was it impertinent of me to +avail myself of that offered source of knowledge? Lloyd is returned to +town from Ipswich where he has been with his brother. He has brought +home three acts of a Play which I have not yet read. The scene for the +most part laid in a Brothel. O tempora, O mores! but as friend Coleridge +said when he was talking bawdy to Miss ---- "to the pure all things are +pure." + +Wishing "Madoc" may be born into the world with as splendid promise as +the second birth or purification of the Maid of Neufchatel,--I remain +yours sincerely, + +C. LAMB. + +I hope Edith is better; my kindest remembrances to her. You have a good +deal of trifling to forgive in this letter. + +[This is Lamb's first letter to Southey that has been preserved. +Probably others came before it. Southey now becomes Lamb's chief +correspondent for some months. In Canon Ainger's transcript the letter +ends with "Love and remembrances to Cottle." + +Southey's _Joan of Arc_, second edition, had been published by Cottle in +1798. It has no frontispiece: the print of Joan of Arc must have come +separately. + +Phillips was Sir Richard Phillips (1767-1840), editor of the _Monthly +Magazine_ and the publisher satirised in Sorrow's _Lavengro_. + +The Calendar ultimately became the _Annual Anthology_. Southey had at +first an idea of making it a poetical calendar or almanac. + +"That old lady of prolific memory." Lamb is thinking, I imagine, of the +story in Howell's _Familiar Letters_ (also in Evelyn's _Diary_) of the +"Wonder of Nature" near the Hague. "That Wonder of Nature is a +Church-monument, where an Earl and a Lady are engraven with 365 Children +about them, which were all deliver'd at one Birth." The story tells that +a beggar woman with twins asked alms of the Countess, who denying that +it was possible for two children to be born at once and vilifying the +beggar, that woman cursed her and called upon God to show His judgment +upon her by causing her to bear "at one birth as many Children as there +are days in the year, which she did before the same year's end, having +never born Child before." Howell seems to have been convinced of the +authenticity of the story by the spectacle of the christening basin used +by the family. The beggar, who spoke on the third day of the year, meant +as many days as had been in that year--three. + +Edith was Southey's wife.] + + + + +LETTER 35 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY + +Oct. 18th, 1798. + +Dear Southey,--I have at last been so fortunate as to pick up Wither's +Emblems for you, that "old book and quaint," as the brief author of +"Rosamund Gray" hath it; it is in a most detestable state of +preservation, and the cuts are of a fainter impression than I have seen. +Some child, the curse of antiquaries and bane of bibliopolical rarities, +hath been dabbling in some of them with its paint and dirty fingers, and +in particular hath a little sullied the author's own portraiture, which +I think valuable, as the poem that accompanies it is no common one; this +last excepted, the Emblems are far inferior to old Quarles. I once told +you otherwise, but I had not then read old Q. with attention. I have +picked up, too, another copy of Quarles for ninepence!!! O tempora! O +lectores!--so that if you have lost or parted with your own copy, say +so, and I can furnish you, for you prize these things more than I do. +You will be amused, I think, with honest Wither's "Supersedeas to all +them whose custom it is, without any deserving, to importune authors to +give unto them their books." I am sorry 'tis imperfect, as the lottery +board annexed to it also is. Methinks you might modernise and elegantise +this Supersedeas, and place it in front of your "Joan of Arc," as a +gentle hint to Messrs. Park, &c. One of the happiest emblems and +comicalest cuts is the owl and little chirpers, page 63. + +Wishing you all amusement, which your true emblem-fancier can scarce +fail to find in even bad emblems, I remain your caterer to command, + +C. LAMB. + +Love and respects to Edith. I hope she is well. How does your Calendar +prosper? + +[This letter contains Lamb's first reference to _Rosamund Gray_, his +only novel, which had been published a little earlier in the year. +"Wither's _Emblems_, an 'old book and quaint,'" was one of the few +volumes belonging to old Margaret, Rosamund's grandmother (Chapter I). +See next letter and note. + +Wither's _Emblems_ was published in 1635; Quarles' in the same year. I +give Wither's "Supersedeas" in the Appendix to my large edition, vol. +vii., together with a reproduction of the owl and little chirpers from +the edition of 1635.] + + + + +LETTER 36 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY + +[October 29, 1798.] + +Dear Southey,--I thank you heartily for the Eclogue; it pleases me +mightily, being so full of picture-work and circumstances. I find no +fault in it, unless perhaps that Joanna's ruin is a catastrophe too +trite: and this is not the first or second time you have clothed your +indignation, in verse, in a tale of ruined innocence. The old lady, +spinning in the sun, I hope would not disdain to claim some kindred with +old Margaret. I could almost wish you to vary some circumstances in the +conclusion. A gentleman seducer has so often been described in prose and +verse; what if you had accomplished Joanna's ruin by the clumsy arts and +rustic gifts of some country-fellow? I am thinking, I believe, of the +song, + +"An old woman clothed in grey, + Whose daughter was charming and young, +And she was deluded away + By Roger's false nattering tongue." + +A Roger-Lothario would be a novel character: I think you might paint him +very well. You may think this a very silly suggestion, and so, indeed, +it is; but, in good truth, nothing else but the first words of that +foolish ballad put me upon scribbling my "Rosamund." But I thank you +heartily for the poem. Not having anything of my own to send you in +return--though, to tell truth, I am at work upon something, which if I +were to cut away and garble, perhaps I might send you an extract or two +that might not displease you; but I will not do that; and whether it +will come to anything, I know not, for I am as slow as a Fleming painter +when I compose anything. I will crave leave to put down a few lines of +old Christopher Marlow's; I take them from his tragedy, "The Jew of +Malta." The Jew is a famous character, quite out of nature; but, when we +consider the terrible idea our simple ancestors had of a Jew, not more +to be discommended for a certain discolouring (I think Addison calls it) +than the witches and fairies of Marlow's mighty successor. The scene is +betwixt Barabas, the Jew, and Ithamora, a Turkish captive exposed to +sale for a slave. + +BARABAS +(_A precious rascal_.) + +"As for myself, I walk abroad a-nights, +And kill sick people groaning under walls: +Sometimes I go about, and poison wells; +And now and then, to cherish Christian thieves, +I am content to lose some of my crowns, +That I may, walking in my gallery, +See'm go pinioned along by my door. +Being young, I studied physic, and began +To practise first upon the Italian: +There I enriched the priests with burials, +And always kept the sexton's arms in ure +With digging graves and ringing dead men's knells; +And, after that, was I an engineer, +And in the wars 'twixt France and Germany, +Under pretence of serving [helping] Charles the Fifth, +Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems. +Then after that was I an usurer, +And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting, +And tricks belonging unto brokery, +I fill'd the jails with bankrupts in a year, +And with young orphans planted hospitals, +And every moon made some or other mad; +And now and then one hang'd himself for grief, +Pinning upon his breast a long great scroll. +How I with interest tormented him." + +Now hear Ithamore, the other gentle nature, explain how he spent his +time:-- + +ITHAMORE +(_A comical dog_.) + +"Faith, master, in setting Christian villages on fire, +Chaining of eunuchs, binding galley-slaves. +One time I was an hostler at [in] an inn, +And in the night-time secretly would I steal +To travellers' chambers, and there cut their throats. +Once at Jerusalem, where the pilgrims kneel'd, +I strowed powder on the marble stones, +And therewithal their knees would rankle so, +That I have laugh'd a-good to see the cripples +Go limping home to Christendom on stilts." + +BARABAS + +"Why, this is something"-- + +There is a mixture of the ludicrous and the terrible in these lines, +brimful of genius and antique invention, that at first reminded me of +your old description of cruelty in hell, which was in the true +Hogarthian style. I need not tell _you_ that Marlow was author of that +pretty madrigal, "Come live with me, and be my Love," and of the tragedy +of "Edward II.," in which are certain _lines_ unequalled in our English +tongue. Honest Walton mentions the said madrigal under the denomination +of "certain smooth verses made long since by Kit Marlow." + +I am glad you have put me on the scent after old Quarles. If I do not +put up those eclogues, and that shortly, say I am no true-nosed hound. I +have had a letter from Lloyd; the young metaphysician of Caius is well, +and is busy recanting the new heresy, metaphysics, for the old dogma, +Greek. My sister, I thank you, is quite well. She had a slight attack +the other day, which frightened me a good deal; but it went off +unaccountably. Love and respects to Edith. + +Yours sincerely, +C. LAMB. + +[The eclogue was "The Ruined Cottage," in which Joanna and her widowed +mother are at first as happy as Rosamund Gray and old blind Margaret. As +in Lamb's story so in Southey's poem, this state of felicity is +overturned by a seducer. + +"An old woman clothed in gray." This ballad still eludes research. Lamb +says that the first line put him upon writing _Rosamund Gray_, but he is +generally supposed to have taken his heroine's name from a song by +Charles Lloyd, entitled "Rosamund Gray," published among his _Poems_ in +1795. At the end of the novel Matravis, the seducer, in his ravings, +sings the ballad. + +The "something" upon which Lamb was then at work was his play "John +Woodvil," in those early days known as "Pride's Cure." + +"Your old description of cruelty in hell." In "Joan of Arc." See Letter +3. + +"If I do not put up those eclogues." Lamb does not return to this +subject. + +Lloyd had just gone to Cambridge, to Caius College.] + + + + +LETTER 37 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY + +Nov. 3, 1798. + +I have read your Eclogue ["The Wedding"] repeatedly, and cannot call it +bald, or without interest; the cast of it, and the design are completely +original, and may set people upon thinking: it is as poetical as the +subject requires, which asks no poetry; but it is defective in pathos. +The woman's own story is the tamest part of it--I should like you to +remould that--it too much resembles the young maid's history: both had +been in service. Even the omission would not injure the poem; after the +words "growing wants," you might, not unconnectedly, introduce "look at +that little chub" down to "welcome one." And, decidedly, I would have +you end it somehow thus, + +"Give them at least this evening a good meal. + _Gives her money_. +Now, fare thee well; hereafter you have taught me +To give sad meaning to the village-bells," &c., + +which would leave a stronger impression (as well as more pleasingly +recall the beginning of the Eclogue), than the present common-place +reference to a better world, which the woman "must have heard at +church." I should like you, too, a good deal to enlarge the most +striking part, as it might have been, of the poem--"Is it idleness?" +&c., that affords a good field for dwelling on sickness and inabilities, +and old age. And you might also a good deal enrich the piece with a +picture of a country wedding: the woman might very well, in a transient +fit of oblivion, dwell upon the ceremony and circumstances of her own +nuptials six years ago, the smugness of the bride-groom, the feastings, +the cheap merriment, the welcomings, and the secret envyings of the +maidens--then dropping all this, recur to her present lot. I do not know +that I can suggest anything else, or that I have suggested anything new +or material. + +I shall be very glad to see some more poetry, though I fear your trouble +in transcribing will be greater than the service my remarks may do them. + +Yours affectionately, + +C. LAMB. + +I cut my letter short because I am called off to business. + + + + +LETTER 38 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY + +Nov. 8th, 1798. + +I do not know that I much prefer this Eclogue [Lamb has received 'The +Last of the Flock'] to the last ['The Wedding']; both are inferior to +the former ['The Ruined Cottage']. + +"And when he came to shake me by the hand, +And spake as kindly to me as he used, +I hardly knew his voice--" + +is the only passage that affected me. + +Servants speak, and their language ought to be plain, and not much +raised above the common, else I should find fault with the bathos of +this passage: + +"And when I heard the bell strike out, +I thought (what?) that I had never heard it toll +So dismally before." + +I like the destruction of the martens' old nests hugely, having just +such a circumstance in my memory.[1] I should be very glad to see your +remaining Eclogue, if not too much trouble, as you give me reason to +expect it will be the second best. + +I perfectly accord with your opinion of Old Wither. Quarles is a wittier +writer, but Wither lays more hold of the heart. Quarles thinks of his +audience when he lectures; Wither soliloquises in company with a full +heart. What wretched stuff are the "Divine Fancies" of Quarles! Religion +appears to him no longer valuable than it furnishes matter for quibbles +and riddles; he turns God's grace into wantonness. Wither is like an old +friend, whose warm-heartedness and estimable qualities make us wish he +possessed more genius, but at the same time make us willing to dispense +with that want. I always love W., and sometimes admire Q. Still that +portrait poem is a fine one; and the extract from "The Shepherds' +Hunting" places him in a starry height far above Quarles. If you wrote +that review in "Crit. Rev.," I am sorry you are so sparing of praise to +the "Ancient Marinere;"--so far from calling it, as you do, with some +wit, but more severity, "A Dutch Attempt," &c., I call it a right +English attempt, and a successful one, to dethrone German sublimity. You +have selected a passage fertile in unmeaning miracles, but have passed +by fifty passages as miraculous as the miracles they celebrate. I never +so deeply felt the pathetic as in that part, + +"A spring of love gush'd from my heart, +And I bless'd them unaware--" + +It stung me into high pleasure through sufferings. Lloyd does not like +it; his head is too metaphysical, and your taste too correct; at least I +must allege something against you both, to excuse my own dotage-- + +"So lonely 'twas, that God himself +Scarce seemed there to be!"--&c., &c. + +But you allow some elaborate beauties--you should have extracted 'em. +"The Ancient Marinere" plays more tricks with the mind than that last +poem, which is yet one of the finest written. But I am getting too +dogmatical; and before I degenerate into abuse, I will conclude with +assuring you that I am + +Sincerely yours, + +C. LAMB. + +I am going to meet Lloyd at Ware on Saturday, to return on Sunday. Have +you any commands or commendations to the metaphysician? I shall be very +happy if you will dine or spend any time with me in your way through the +great ugly city; but I know you have other ties upon you in these parts. + +Love and respects to Edith, and friendly remembrances to Cottle. + +[Footnote 1: The destruction of the martens' nests, in "The Last of the +Family," runs thus:-- + + I remember, +Eight months ago, when the young Squire began +To alter the old mansion, they destroy'd +The martins' nests, that had stood undisturb'd +Under that roof, ... ay! long before my memory. +I shook my head at seeing it, and thought +No good could follow.] + +[Lamb's ripe judgment of Wither will be found in his essay "On the +Poetical Works of George Wither," in the _Works_, 1818 (see Vol. I. of +this edition). "The portrait poem" would be "The Author's Meditation +upon Sight of His Picture," prefixed to _Emblems_, 1635. + +_Lyrical Ballads_, by Wordsworth and Coleridge, had just been published +by Cottle. "The Ancient Mariner" stood first. "That last poem" was +Wordsworth's "Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey." Southey +(?) reviewed the book in the _Critical Review_ for October, 1798. Of the +"Ancient Mariner" he said: "It is a Dutch attempt at German sublimity. +Genius has here been employed in producing a poem of little merit." + +Here should come a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, dated November 13, +1798, not available for this edition. Robert Lloyd seems to have said in +his last letter that the world was drained of all its sweets. Lamb sends +him a beautiful passage in praise of the world's good things--the first +foretaste in the correspondence of his later ecstatic manner. + +Here also should come a letter from Lamb to Southey, which apparently +does not now exist, containing "The Dying Lover," an extract from Lamb's +play. I have taken the text from the version of the play sent to Manning +late in 1800. + +THE DYING LOVER + +_Margaret_. ... I knew a youth who died +For grief, because his Love proved so, +And married to another. +I saw him on the wedding day, +For he was present in the church that day, +And in his best apparel too, +As one that came to grace the ceremony. + I mark'd him when the ring was given, +His countenance never changed; +And when the priest pronounced the marriage blessing, +He put a silent prayer up for the bride, +_For they stood near who saw his lips move_. +He came invited to the marriage-feast +With the bride's friends, +And was the merriest of them all that day; +But they, who knew him best, call'd it feign'd mirth; +And others said, +He wore a smile like death's upon his face. +His presence dash'd all the beholders' mirth, +And he went away in tears. + _Simon_. What followed then? + _Marg_. Oh! then +He did not as neglected suitors use +Affect a life of solitude in shades, +But lived, +In free discourse and sweet society, +Among his friends who knew his gentle nature best. +Yet ever when he smiled, +There was a mystery legible in his face, +That whoso saw him said he was a man +Not long for this world.-- +And true it was, for even then +The silent love was feeding at his heart +Of which he died: +Nor ever spake word of reproach, +Only he wish'd in death that his remains +Might find a poor grave in some spot, not far +From his mistress' family vault, "being the place +Where one day Anna should herself be laid." + +The line in italics Lamb crossed through in the Manning copy. The last +four lines he crossed through and marked "_very_ bad." I have reproduced +them here because of the autobiographical hint contained in the word +Anna, which was the name given by Lamb to his "fair-haired maid" in his +love sonnets.] + + + + +LETTER 39 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY +[Probably November, 1798.] + +The following is a second Extract from my Tragedy _that is to be_,--'tis +narrated by an old Steward to Margaret, orphan ward of Sir Walter +Woodvil;--this, and the Dying Lover I gave you, are the only extracts I +can give without mutilation. I expect you to like the old woman's curse: + +_Old Steward_.--One summer night, Sir Walter, as it chanc'd, +Was pacing to & fro in the avenue +That westward fronts our house, +Among those aged oaks, said to have been planted +Three hundred years ago +By a neighb'ring Prior of the Woodvil name, +But so it was, +Being overtask't in thought, he heeded not +The importune suitor who stood by the gate, +And beg'd an alms. +Some say he shov'd her rudely from the gate +With angry chiding; but I can never think +(Sir Walter's nature hath a sweetness in it) +That he would use a woman--an old woman-- +With such discourtesy; +For old she was who beg'd an alms of him. +Well, he refus'd her; +Whether for importunity, I know not, +Or that she came between his meditations. +But better had he met a lion in the streets +Than this old woman that night; +For she was one who practis'd the black arts. +And served the devil--being since burn'd for witchcraft. +She look'd at him like one that meant to blast him, +And with a frightful noise +('Twas partly like a woman's voice, +And partly like the hissing of a snake) +She nothing said but this (Sir Walter told the words): + +"A mischief, mischief, mischief, +And a nine-times killing curse, +By day and by night, to the caitive wight +Who shakes the poor like snakes from his door, +And shuts up the womb of his purse; +And a mischief, mischief, mischief, +And a nine-fold withering curse,-- +For that shall come to thee, that will render thee +Both all that thou fear'st, and worse." + +These words four times repeated, she departed, +Leaving Sir Walter like a man beneath +Whose feet a scaffolding had suddenly fal'n: +So he describ'd it. +_Margaret_.--A terrible curse! +_Old Steward_.--O Lady, such bad things are told of that old woman, +As, namely, that the milk she gave was sour, +And the babe who suck'd her shrivel'd like a mandrake; +And things besides, with a bigger horror in them, +Almost, I think, unlawful to be told! +_Margaret_.--Then must I never hear them. But proceed, +And say what follow'd on the witch's curse. +_Old Steward_.--Nothing immediate; but some nine months after, +Young Stephen Woodvil suddenly fell sick, +And none could tell what ail'd him: for he lay, +And pin'd, and pin'd, that all his hair came off; +And he, that was full-flesh'd, became as thin +As a two-months' babe that hath been starved in the nursing;-- +And sure, I think, +He bore his illness like a little child, +With such rare sweetness of dumb melancholy +He strove to clothe his agony in smiles, +Which he would force up in his poor, pale cheeks, +Like ill-tim'd guests that had no proper business there;-- +And when they ask'd him his complaint, he laid +His hand upon his heart to show the place +Where Satan came to him a nights, he said, +And prick'd him with a pin.-- +And hereupon Sir Walter call'd to mind +The Beggar Witch that stood in the gateway, +And begg'd an alms-- +_Margaret_.--I do not love to credit Tales of magic. +Heav'n's music, which is order, seems unstrung; +And this brave world, +Creation's beauteous work, unbeautified, +Disorder'd, marr'd, where such strange things are acted. + +This is the extract I brag'd of, as superior to that I sent you from +Marlow. Perhaps you smile; but I should like your remarks on the above, +as you are deeper witch-read than I. + +[The passage quoted in this letter, with certain alterations, became +afterwards "The Witch," a dramatic sketch independent of "John Woodvil." +By the phrase "without mutilation," Lamb possibly means to suggest that +Southey should print this sketch and "The Dying Lover" in the _Annual +Anthology_. That was not, however, done. "The Witch" was first printed +in the _Works_, 1818. + +Here should come a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, postmarked November +20, 1798, not available for this edition. In this letter Lamb sends +Lloyd the extract from "The Witch" that was sent to Southey.] + + + + +LETTER 40 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY + +Nov. 28th, 1798. + +I can have no objection to your printing "Mystery of God" with my name +and all due acknowledgments for the honour and favour of the +communication; indeed, 'tis a poem that can dishonour no name. Now, that +is in the true strain of modern modesto-vanitas ... But for the sonnet, +I heartily wish it, as I thought it was, dead and forgotten. If the +exact circumstances under which I wrote could be known or told, it would +be an interesting sonnet; but to an indifferent and stranger reader it +must appear a very bald thing, certainly inadmissible in a compilation. +I wish you could affix a different name to the volume; there is a +contemptible book, a wretched assortment of vapid feelings, entitled +"Pratt's Gleanings," which hath damned and impropriated the title for +ever. Pray think of some other. The gentleman is better known (better +had he remained unknown) by an Ode to Benevolence, written and spoken +for and at the annual dinner of the Humane Society, who walk in +procession once a-year, with all the objects of their charity before +them, to return God thanks for giving them such benevolent hearts. + +I like "Bishop Bruno;" but not so abundantly as your "Witch Ballad," +which is an exquisite thing of its kind. + +I showed my "Witch" and "Dying Lover" to Dyer last night; but George +could not comprehend how that could be poetry which did not go upon ten +feet, as George and his predecessors had taught it to do; so George read +me some lectures on the distinguishing qualities of the Ode, the +Epigram, and the Epic, and went home to illustrate his doctrine by +correcting a proof sheet of his own Lyrics. George writes odes where the +rhymes, like fashionable man and wife, keep a comfortable distance of +six or eight lines apart, and calls that "observing the laws of verse." +George tells you, before he recites, that you must listen with great +attention, or you'll miss the rhymes. I did so, and found them pretty +exact. George, speaking of the dead Ossian, exclaimeth, "Dark are the +poet's eyes." I humbly represented to him that his own eyes were dark [? +light], and many a living bard's besides, and recommended "Clos'd are +the poet's eyes." But that would not do. I found there was an antithesis +between the darkness of his eyes and the splendour of his genius; and I +acquiesced. + +Your recipe for a Turk's poison is invaluable and truly Marlowish.... +Lloyd objects to "shutting-up the womb of his purse" in my Curse (which +for a Christian witch in a Christian country is not too mild, I hope); +do you object? 1 think there is a strangeness in the idea, as well as +"shaking the poor like snakes from his door," which suits the speaker. +Witches illustrate, as fine ladies do, from their own familiar objects, +and snakes and the shutting up of wombs are in their way. I don't know +that this last charge has been before brought against 'em, nor either +the sour milk or the mandrake babe; but I affirm these be things a witch +would do if she could. + +My Tragedy will be a medley (as [? and] I intend it to be a medley) of +laughter and tears, prose and verse, and in some places rhyme, songs, +wit, pathos, humour, and, if possible, sublimity; at least, it is not a +fault in my intention, if it does not comprehend most of these +discordant colours. Heaven send they dance not the "Dance of Death!" I +hear that the Two Noble Englishmen have parted no sooner than they set +foot on German earth, but I have not heard the reason--possibly, to give +novelists an handle to exclaim, "Ah me! what things are perfect?" I +think I shall adopt your emendation in the "Dying Lover," though I do +not myself feel the objection against "Silent Prayer." + +My tailor has brought me home a new coat lapelled, with a velvet collar. +He assures me everybody wears velvet collars now. Some are born +fashionable, some achieve fashion, and others, like your humble servant, +have fashion thrust upon them. The rogue has been making inroads +hitherto by modest degrees, foisting upon me an additional button, +recommending gaiters; but to come upon me thus in a full tide of luxury, +neither becomes him as a tailor nor the ninth of a man. My meek +gentleman was robbed the other day, coming with his wife and family in a +one-horse shay from Hampstead; the villains rifled him of four guineas, +some shillings and half-pence, and a bundle of customers' measures, +which they swore were bank-notes. They did not shoot him, and when they +rode off he addrest them with profound gratitude, making a congee: +"Gentlemen, I wish you good night, and we are very much obliged to you +that you have not used us ill!" And this is the cuckoo that has had the +audacity to foist upon me ten buttons on a side and a black velvet +collar--A damn'd ninth of a scoundrel! + +When you write to Lloyd, he wishes his Jacobin correspondents to address +him as _Mr_. C. L. Love and respects to Edith. I hope she is well. + +Yours sincerely, +C. LAMB. + +[The poem "Mystery of God" was, when printed in the _Annual Anthology_ +for 1799, entitled "Living without God in the World." Lamb never +reprinted it. It is not clear to what sonnet Lamb refers, possibly that +to his sister, printed on page 78, which he himself never reprinted. It +was at that time intended to call Southey's collection _Gleanings_; Lamb +refers to the _Gleanings_ of Samuel Jackson Pratt (1749-1814), a very +busy maker of books, published in 1795-1799. His _Triumph of +Benevolence_ was published in 1786. + +Southey's witch ballad was "The Old Woman of Berkeley." + +George Dyer's principal works in verse are contained in his _Poems_, +1802, and _Poetics_, 1812. He retained the epithet "dark" for Ossian's +eyes. + +Southey's recipe for a Turk's poison I do not find. It may have existed +only in a letter. + +A reference to the poem in Letter 39 will explain the remarks about +witches' curses. + +The Two Noble Englishmen (a sarcastic reference drawn, I imagine from +Palamon and Arcite) were Coleridge and Wordsworth, then in Germany. +Nothing definite is known, but they seem quite amicably to have decided +to take independent courses. + +"Lloyd's Jacobin correspondents." This is Lamb's only allusion to the +attack which had been made by _The Anti-Jacobin_ upon himself, Lloyd and +their friends, particularly Coleridge and Southey. In "The New +Morality," in the last number of Canning's paper, they had been thus +grouped:-- + +And ye five other wandering Bards that move +In sweet accord of harmony and love, +C-----dge and S--tb--y, L--d, and L--be & Co. +Tune all your mystic harps to praise Lepaux! + +--Lepaux being the high-priest of Theophilanthropy. When "The New +Morality" was reprinted in _The Beauties of "The AntiJacobin_" in 1799, +a savage footnote on Coleridge was appended, accusing him of hypocrisy +and the desertion of his wife and children, and adding "_Ex uno disce_ +his associates Southey and Lamb." Again, in the first number of the +_Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine_, August, 1798, was a picture by +Gilray, representing the worshippers of Lepaux, wherein Lloyd and Lamb +appeared as a toad and a frog reading their own _Blank Verse_, and +Coleridge and Southey, as donkeys, flourish "Dactylics" and "Saphics." +In September the federated poets were again touched upon in a parody of +the "Ode to the Passions":-- + +See! faithful to their mighty dam, +C----dge, S--th--y, L--d, and L--b +In splay-foot madrigals of love, +Soft moaning like the widow'd dove, +Pour, side-by-side, their sympathetic notes; +Of equal rights, and civic feasts, +And tyrant kings, and knavish priests, +Swift through the land the tuneful mischief floats. + +And now to softer strains they struck the lyre, +They sung the beetle or the mole, +The dying kid, or ass's foal, +By cruel man permitted to expire. + +Lloyd took the caricature and the verses with his customary seriousness, +going so far as to indite a "Letter to _The Anti-Jacobin_ Reviewers," +which was printed in Birmingham in 1799. Therein he defended Lamb with +some vigour: "The person you have thus leagued in a partnership of +infamy with me is Mr. Charles Lamb, a man who, so far from being a +democrat, would be the first person to assent to the opinions contained +in the foregoing pages: he is a man too much occupied with real and +painful duties--duties of high personal self-denial--to trouble himself +about speculative matters."] + + + + +LETTER 41 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY + +Dec. 27, 1798. + +Dear Southey,--Your friend John May has formerly made kind offers to +Lloyd of serving me in the India house by the interest of his friend Sir +Francis Baring--It is not likely that I shall ever put his goodness to +the test on my own account, for my prospects are very comfortable. But I +know a man, a young man, whom he could serve thro' the same channel, and +I think would be disposed to serve if he were acquainted with his case. +This poor fellow (whom I know just enough of to vouch for his strict +integrity & worth) has lost two or three employments from illness, which +he cannot regain; he was once insane, & from the distressful uncertainty +of his livelihood has reason to apprehend a return of that malady--He +has been for some time dependant on a woman whose lodger he formerly +was, but who can ill afford to maintain him, and I know that on +Christmas night last he actually walk'd about the streets all night, +rather than accept of her Bed, which she offer'd him, and offer'd +herself to sleep in the kitchen, and that in consequence of that severe +cold he is labouring under a bilious disorder, besides a depression of +spirits, which incapacitates him from exertion when he most needs +it--For God's sake, Southey, if it does not go against you to ask +favors, do it now--ask it as for me--but do not do a violence to your +feelings, because he does not know of this application, and will suffer +no disappointment--What I meant to say was this--there are in the India +house what are called _Extra Clerks_, not on the Establishment, like me, +but employed in Extra business, by-jobs--these get about £50 a year, or +rather more, but never rise--a Director can put in at any time a young +man in this office, and it is by no means consider'd so great a favor as +making an established Clerk. He would think himself as rich as an +Emperor if he could get such a certain situation, and be relieved from +those disquietudes which I do fear may one day bring back his +distemper-- + +You know John May better than I do, but I know enough to believe that he +is a good man--he did make me that offer I have mention'd, but you will +perceive that such an offer cannot authorize me in applying for another +Person. + +But I cannot help writing to you on the subject, for the young man is +perpetually before my eyes, and I should feel it a crime not to strain +all my petty interest to do him service, tho' I put my own delicacy to +the question by so doing--I have made one other unsuccessful attempt +already-- + +At all events I will thank you to write, for I am tormented with +anxiety-- + +I suppose you have somewhere heard that poor Mary Dollin has poisoned +herself, after some interviews with John Reid, the ci-devant Alphonso of +her days of hope. + +How is Edith? + +C. LAMB. + +[John May was a friend and correspondent of Southey whom he had met at +Lisbon: not to be confounded with Coleridge's inn-keeping May. + +Sir Francis Baring was a director of the East India Company. 1 have no +knowledge as to who the young man was; nor have I any regarding Mary +Dollin and John Reid.] + + + + +LETTER 42 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY + +Jan. 21st, 1799. + +I am requested by Lloyd to excuse his not replying to a kind letter +received from you. He is at present situated in most distressful family +perplexities, which I am not at liberty to explain; but they are such as +to demand all the strength of his mind, and quite exclude any attention +to foreign objects. His brother Robert (the flower of his family) hath +eloped from the persecutions of his father, and has taken shelter with +me. What the issue of his adventure will be, I know not. He hath the +sweetness of an angel in his heart, combined with admirable firmness of +purpose: an uncultivated, but very original, and, I think, superior +genius. But this step of his is but a small part of their family +troubles. + +I am to blame for not writing to you before on _my own account_; but I +know you can dispense with the expressions of gratitude, or I should +have thanked you before for all May's kindness. He has liberally +supplied the person I spoke to you of with money, and had procured him a +situation just after himself had lighted upon a similar one and engaged +too far to recede. But May's kindness was the same, and my thanks to you +and him are the same. May went about on this business as if it had been +his own. But you knew John May before this: so I will be silent. + +I shall be very glad to hear from you when convenient. I do not know how +your Calendar and other affairs thrive; but, above all, I have not heard +a great while of your "Madoc"--the _opus magnum_. I would willingly send +you something to give a value to this letter; but I have only one slight +passage to send you, scarce worth the sending, which I want to edge in +somewhere into my play, which, by the way, hath not received the +addition of ten lines, besides, since I saw you. A father, old Walter +Woodvil (the witch's PROTÉGÉ) relates this of his son John, who "fought +in adverse armies," being a royalist, and his father a parliamentary +man:-- + +"I saw him in the day of Worcester fight, +Whither he came at twice seven years, +Under the discipline of the Lord Falkland +(His uncle by the mother's side, +Who gave his youthful politics a bent +Quite _from_ the principles of his father's house;) +There did I see this valiant Lamb of Mars, +This sprig of honour, this unbearded John, +This veteran in green years, this sprout, this Woodvil, +(With dreadless ease guiding a fire-hot steed, +Which seem'd to scorn the manage of a boy), +Prick forth with such a _mirth_ into the field, +To mingle rivalship and acts of war +Even with the sinewy masters of the art,-- +You would have thought the work of blood had been +A play-game merely, and the rabid Mars +Had put his harmful hostile nature off, +To instruct raw youth in images of war, +And practice of the unedged players' foils. +The rough fanatic and blood-practised soldiery +Seeing such hope and virtue in the boy, +Disclosed their ranks to let him pass unhurt, +Checking their swords' uncivil injuries, +As loth to mar that curious workmanship +Of Valour's beauty pourtray'd in his face." + +Lloyd objects to "pourtray'd in his face,"--do you? I like the line. + +I shall clap this in somewhere. I think there is a spirit through the +lines; perhaps the 7th, 8th, and 9th owe their origin to Shakspeare, +though no image is borrowed. + +He says in "Henry the Fourth"-- + +"This infant Hotspur, +Mars in swathing clothes." + +[See Pt. I., III., 2, 111, 112.] + +But pray did Lord Falkland die before Worcester fight? In that case I +must make bold to unclify some other nobleman. + +Kind love and respects to Edith. + + C. LAMB. + +[Charles Lloyd's perplexities turned probably once again on the question +of his marriage. How long Robert Lloyd was with Lamb we do not know; nor +of what nature were the "persecutions" to which he was subjected. +According to the evidence at our disposal, Charles Lloyd, sen., was a +good father. + +Southey's _Madoc_ was not published until 1805. + +The passage from the play was not printed in _John Woodvil_. This, +together with "The Dying Lover" are to be found only in the discarded +version, printed in the Notes to Vol. IV. of the present edition. Lord +Falkland had been killed at Newbury eight years before Worcester fight. +Lamb altered the names to Ashley and Naseby, although Sir Anthony Cooper +was not made Lord Ashley until sixteen years after Naseby was fought.] + + + + +LETTER 43 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY + +[Late January or early February, 1799.] + +Dr. Southey,--Lloyd will now be able to give you an account of himself, +so to him I leave you for satisfaction. Great part of his troubles are +lightened by the partial recovery of his sister, who had been alarmingly +ill with similar diseases to his own. The other part of the family +troubles sleeps for the present, but I fear will awake at some future +time to _confound_ and _disunite_. He will probably tell you all about +it. Robert still continues here with me, his father has proposed +nothing, but would willingly lure him back with fair professions. But +Robert is endowed with a wise fortitude, and in this business has acted +quite from himself, and wisely acted. His parents must come forward in +the End. I like reducing parents to a sense of undutifulness. I like +confounding the relations of life. Pray let me see you when you come to +town, and contrive to give me some of your company. + +I thank you heartily for your intended presents, but do by no means see +the necessity you are under of burthening yourself thereby. You have +read old Wither's Supersedeas to small purpose. You object to my pauses +being at the end of my lines. I do not know any great difficulty I +should find in diversifying or changing my blank verse; but I go upon +the model of Shakspere in my Play, and endeavour after a colloquial ease +and spirit, something like him. I could so easily imitate Milton's +versification; but my ear & feeling would reject it, or any approaches +to it, in the _drama_. I do not know whether to be glad or sorry that +witches have been detected aforetimes in shutting up of wombs. I +certainly invented that conceit, and its coincidence with fact is +incidental [? accidental], for I never heard it. I have not seen those +verses on Col. Despard--I do not read any newspapers. Are they short, to +copy without much trouble? I should like to see them. + +I just send you a few rhymes from my play, the only rhymes in it--a +forest-liver giving an account of his amusements:-- + +What sports have you in the forest? +Not many,--some few,--as thus. +To see the sun to bed, and see him rise, +Like some hot amourist with glowing eyes, +Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him: +With all his fires and travelling glories round him: +Sometimes the moon on soft night-clouds to rest, +Like beauty nestling in a young man's breast, +And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keep +Admiring silence, while those lovers sleep: +Sometimes outstretch'd in very idleness, +Nought doing, saying little, thinking less, +To view the leaves, thin dancers upon air, +Go eddying round; and small birds how they fare, +When mother Autumn fills their beaks with corn, +Filch'd from the careless Amalthea's horn; +And how the woods berries and worms provide, +Without their pains, when earth hath nought beside +To answer their small wants; +To view the graceful deer come trooping by, +Then pause, and gaze, then turn they know not why, +Like bashful younkers in society; +To mark the structure of a plant or tree; +And all fair things of earth, how fair they be! &c. &c. + +I love to anticipate charges of unoriginality: the first line is almost +Shakspere's:-- + +"To have my love to bed & to arise." +_Midsummer Nights Dream_ [III., I, 174]. + +I think there is a sweetness in the versification not unlike some rhymes +in that exquisite play, and the last line but three is yours: + +"An eye +That met the gaze, or turn'd it knew not why." +_Rosamund's Epistle_. + +I shall anticipate all my play, and have nothing to shew you. An idea +for Leviathan:-- + +Commentators on Job have been puzzled to find out a meaning for +Leviathan,--'tis a whale, say some; a crocodile, say others. In my +simple conjecture, Leviathan is neither more nor less than the Lord +Mayor of London for the time being. + +"Rosamund" sells well in London, maugre the non-reviewal of it. + +I sincerely wish you better health, & better health to Edith, Kind +remembrances to her. + +C. LAMB. + +If you come to town by Ash Wednesday [February 6], you will certainly +see Lloyd here--I expect him by that time. + +My sister Mary was never in better health or spirits than now. + +[Writing in June, 1799, to Robert Lloyd, Priscilla, his sister, says: +"Lamb would not I think by any means be a person to take up your abode +with. He is too much like yourself--he would encourage those feelings +which it certainly is your duty to suppress. Your station in life--the +duties which are pointed out by that rank in society which you are +destined to fill--differ widely from his." When next we hear of Robert +Lloyd he has returned to Birmingham, where his father soon afterwards +bought him a partnership in a bookselling and printing business. + +"Col. Despard." I have not found the verses. Colonel Edward Marcus +Despard, after a career that began brilliantly, was imprisoned in the +spring of 1798 and executed for High Treason in 1803. + +The rhymed passage from _John Woodvil_ is that which is best known. +Hazlitt relates that Godwin was so taken with it when he first read it +that he asked every one he met to tell him the author and play, and at +last applied to Lamb himself.] + + + + +LETTER 44 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY +March 15th, 1799. + +Dear Southey,--I have received your little volume, for which I thank +you, though I do not entirely approve of this sort of intercourse, where +the presents are all one side. I have read the last Eclogue again with +great pleasure. It hath gained considerably by abridgment, and now I +think it wants nothing but enlargement. You will call this one of tyrant +Procrustes' criticisms, to cut and pull so to his own standard; but the +old lady is so great a favourite with me, I want to hear more of her; +and of "Joanna" you have given us still less. But the picture of the +rustics leaning over the bridge, and the old lady travelling abroad on a +summer evening to see her garden watered, are images so new and true, +that I decidedly prefer this "Ruin'd Cottage" to any poem in the book. +Indeed I think it the only one that will bear comparison with your "Hymn +to the Penates" in a former volume. + +I compare dissimilar things, as one would a rose and a star for the +pleasure they give us, or as a child soon learns to choose between a +cake and a rattle; for dissimilars have mostly some points of +comparison. The next best poem, I think, is the First Eclogue; 'tis very +complete, and abounding in little pictures and realities. The remainder +Eclogues, excepting only the "Funeral," I do not greatly admire. I miss +_one_, which had at least as good a title to publication as the "Witch," +or the "Sailor's Mother." You call'd it the "Last of the Family." The +"Old Woman of Berkeley" comes next; in some humours I would give it the +preference above any. But who the devil is Matthew of Westminster? You +are as familiar with these antiquated monastics, as Swedenborg, or, as +his followers affect to call him, the Baron, with his invisibles. But +you have raised a very comic effect out of the true narrative of Matthew +of Westminster. 'Tis surprising with how little addition you have been +able to convert with so little alteration his incidents, meant for +terror, into circumstances and food for the spleen. The Parody is _not_ +so successful; it has one famous line indeed, which conveys the finest +death-bed image I ever met with: + +"The doctor whisper'd the nurse, and the surgeon knew what he said." + +But the offering the bride three times bears not the slightest analogy +or proportion to the fiendish noises three times heard! In "Jaspar," the +circumstance of the great light is very affecting. But I had heard you +mention it before. The "Rose" is the only insipid piece in the volume; +it hath neither thorns nor sweetness, and, besides, sets all chronology +and probability at defiance. + +"Cousin Margaret," you know, I like. The allusions to the "Pilgrim's +Progress" are particularly happy, and harmonise tacitly and delicately +with old cousins and aunts. To familiar faces we do associate familiar +scenes and accustomed objects; but what hath Apollidon and his +sea-nymphs to do in these affairs? Apollyon I could have borne, though +he stands for the devil; but who is Apollidon? I think you are too apt +to conclude faintly, with some cold moral, as in the end of the poem +called "The Victory"-- + +"Be thou her comforter, who art the widow's friend;" + +a single common-place line of comfort, which bears no proportion in +weight or number to the many lines which describe suffering. This is to +convert religion into mediocre feelings, which should burn, and glow, +and tremble. A moral should be wrought into the body and soul, the +matter and tendency, of a poem, not tagged to the end, like a "God send +the good ship into harbour," at the conclusion of our bills of lading. +The finishing of the "Sailor" is also imperfect. Any dissenting minister +may say and do as much. + +These remarks, I know, are crude and unwrought; but I do not lay claim +to much accurate thinking. I never judge system-wise of things, but +fasten upon particulars. After all, there is a great deal in the book +that I must, for time, leave _unmentioned_, to deserve my thanks for its +own sake, as well as for the friendly remembrances implied in the gift. +I again return you my thanks. + +Pray present my love to Edith. C. L. + +[Southey's little volume was Vol. II. of the second edition of his +_Poems_, published in 1799. The last of the English Eclogues included in +it was "The Ruined Cottage," slightly altered from the version referred +to in letter 38. The "Hymn to the Penates" brought the first volume of +this edition to a close. The first Eclogue was "The Old Mansion House." +"The Old Woman of Berkeley" was called "A Ballad showing how an Old +Woman rode double and who rode before her." It was preceded by a long +quotation in Latin from Matthew of Westminster. Matthew of Westminster +is the imaginary name given to the unknown authors of a chronicle called +_Flares Historiarum_, belonging probably to the fifteenth century. The +Parody was "The Surgeon's Warning," which begins with the two lines that +Lamb prints as one:-- + +The Doctor whisper'd to the Nurse, +And the Surgeon knew what he said. + +"The Rose" was blank verse, addressed to Edith Southey. "Cousin +Margaret" was a "Metrical Letter Written from London," in which there +are allusions to Bunyan. The reference to Apollidon is explained by +these lines:-- + +The Sylphs should waft us to some goodly isle, +Like that where whilome old Apollidon +Built up his blameless spell.] + + + + +LETTER 45 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY + +March 2Oth, 1799. + +I am hugely pleased with your "Spider," "your old freemason," as you +call him. The three first stanzas are delicious; they seem to me a +compound of Burns and Old Quarles, those kind of home-strokes, where +more is felt than strikes the ear; a terseness, a jocular pathos, which +makes one feel in laughter. The measure, too, is novel and pleasing. I +could almost wonder Rob. Burns in his lifetime never stumbled upon it. +The fourth stanza is less striking, as being less original. The fifth +falls off. It has no felicity of phrase, no old-fashioned phrase or +feeling. + +"Young hopes, and love's delightful dreams," + +savour neither of Burns nor Quarles; they seem more like shreds of many +a modern sentimental sonnet. The last stanza hath nothing striking in +it, if I except the two concluding lines, which are Burns all over. I +wish, if you concur with me, these things could be looked to. I am sure +this is a kind of writing, which comes tenfold better recommended to the +heart, comes there more like a neighbour or familiar, than thousands of +Hamuels and Zillahs and Madelons. I beg you will send me the +"Holly-tree," if it at all resemble this, for it must please me. I have +never seen it. I love this sort of poems, that open a new intercourse +with the most despised of the animal and insect race. I think this vein +may be further opened; Peter Pindar hath very prettily apostrophised a +fly; Burns hath his mouse and his louse; Coleridge, less successfully, +hath made overtures of intimacy to a jackass, therein only following at +unresembling distance Sterne and greater Cervantes. Besides these, I +know of no other examples of breaking down the partition between us and +our "poor earth-born companions." It is sometimes revolting to be put in +a track of feeling by other people, not one's own immediate thoughts, +else I would persuade you, if I could (I am in earnest), to commence a +series of these animal poems, which might have a tendency to rescue some +poor creatures from the antipathy of mankind. Some thoughts come across +me;--for instance--to a rat, to a toad, to a cockchafer, to a +mole--People bake moles alive by a slow oven-fire to cure consumption. +Rats are, indeed, the most despised and contemptible parts of God's +earth. I killed a rat the other day by punching him to pieces, and feel +a weight of blood upon me to this hour. Toads you know are made to fly, +and tumble down and crush all to pieces. Cockchafers are old sport; then +again to a worm, with an apostrophe to anglers, those patient tyrants, +meek inflictors of pangs intolerable, cool devils; to an owl; to all +snakes, with an apology for their poison; to a cat in boots or bladders. +Your own fancy, if it takes a fancy to these hints, will suggest many +more. A series of such poems, suppose them accompanied with plates +descriptive of animal torments, cooks roasting lobsters, fishmongers +crimping skates, &c., &c., would take excessively. I will willingly +enter into a partnership in the plan with you: I think my heart and soul +would go with it too--at least, give it a thought. My plan is but this +minute come into my head; but it strikes me instantaneously as something +new, good and useful, full of pleasure and full of moral. If old Quarles +and Wither could live again, we would invite them into our firm. Burns +hath done his part. I the other day threw off an extempore epitaph on +Ensign Peacock of the 3rd Regt. of the Royal East India Volunteers, who +like other boys in this scarlet tainted age was ambitious of playing at +soldiers, but dying in the first flash of his valour was at the +particular instance of his relations buried with military honours! like +any veteran scarr'd or chopt from Blenheim or Ramilies. (He was buried +in sash and gorget.) + +MARMOR LOQUITUR + +He lies a Volunteer so fine, +Who died of a decline, +As you or I, may do one day; +Reader, think of this, I pray; +And I numbly hope you'll drop a tear +For my poor Royal Volunteer. +He was as brave as brave could be, +Nobody was so brave as he; +He would have died in Honor's bed, +Only he died at home instead. +Well may the Royal Regiment swear, +They never had such a Volunteer. +But whatsoever they may say, +Death is a man that will have his way: +Tho' he was but an ensign in this world of pain; +In the next we hope he'll be a captain. +And without meaning to make any reflection on his mentals, +He begg'd to be buried in regimentals. + +Sed hæ sunt lamentabilis nugæ--But 'tis as good as some epitaphs you and +I have read together in Christ-Church-yard. + +Poor Sam. Le Grice! I am afraid the world, and the camp, and the +university, have spoilt him among them. 'Tis certain he had at one time +a strong capacity of turning out something better. I knew him, and that +not long since, when he had a most warm heart. I am ashamed of the +indifference I have sometimes felt towards him. I think the devil is in +one's heart. I am under obligations to that man for the warmest +friendship and heartiest sympathy, even for an agony of sympathy exprest +both by word and deed, and tears for me, when I was in my greatest +distress. But I have forgot that! as, I fear, he has nigh forgot the +awful scenes which were before his eyes when he served the office of a +comforter to me. No service was too mean or troublesome for him to +perform. I can't think what but the devil, "that old spider," could have +suck'd my heart so dry of its sense of all gratitude. If he does come in +your way, Southey, fail not to tell him that I retain a most +affectionate remembrance of his old friendliness, and an earnest wish to +resume our intercourse. In this I am serious. I cannot recommend him to +your society, because I am afraid whether he be quite worthy of it. But +I have no right to dismiss him from _my_ regard. He was at one time, and +in the worst of times, my own familiar friend, and great comfort to me +then. I have known him to play at cards with my father, meal-times +excepted, literally all day long, in long days too, to save me from +being teased by the old man, when I was not able to bear it. + +God bless him for it, and God bless you, Southey. + +C. L. + +[Peter Pindar (Dr. John Wolcot) has an ode "To a Fly, taken out of a +Bowl of Punch." He also wrote "The Lousiad." + +"Poor earth-born companions." From Burns' "Lines to a Mouse," 2nd +Stanza, line 5. + +"Toads are made to fly." Filliping the toad was an old pastime. A toad +was placed on one end of a piece of wood, laid crosswise over a stone. +The other end was struck with a beetle (_i.e._, a mallet), and the toad +flew into the air. Falstaff says: "Fillip me with a three-man beetle." +As to worms and fishermen, the late Mrs. Coe, who as a girl had known +Lamb at Widford, told me that he could rarely, if ever, be tempted to +join the anglers. Affixing the worm was too much for him. "Barbarous, +barbarous," he used to say. + +Lamb's project for a series of animal poems has to some extent been +carried out by a living poet, Mr. A. C. Benson. Neither Lamb nor Southey +pursued it. + +We met Sam Le Grice in the letter of October 3, 1796. To what escapade +Lamb refers I do not know, but he was addicted to folly. It was Sam Le +Grice of whom Leigh Hunt in his _Autobiography_ tells the excellent tale +that he excused himself to his master for not having performed a task, +by the remark that he had had a "lethargy." + +In April of this year died John Lamb, the father. Charles Lamb probably +at once moved from 45 Chapel Street to No. 36, where Mary Lamb joined +him. + +Between this and the next letter should probably come a letter from Lamb +to Robert Lloyd, not available for this edition. It seems to follow upon +Robert Lloyd's departure from Lamb's house, and remarks that Lamb knows +but one being that he could ever consent to live perpetually with, and +that is Robert--but Robert must go whither prudence and paternal +regulations dictate. Lamb also refers to a poem of an intimate character +by Charles Lloyd in the _Annual Anthology_ ("Lines to a Brother and +Sister"), remarking that, in his opinion, these domestic addresses +should not always be made public. There is also a reference to Charles +Lloyd's novel, which Lamb says he wants to read if he may be permitted a +sight of it. This would be _Isabel_.] + + + + +LETTER 46 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY + +Oct. 31st, 1799. + +Dear Southey,--I have but just got your letter, being returned from +Herts, where I have passed a few red-letter days with much pleasure. I +would describe the county to you, as you have done by Devonshire, but +alas! I am a poor pen at that same. I could tell you of an old house +with a tapestry bed-room, the "judgment of Solomon" composing one +pannel, and "Actæon spying Diana naked" the other. I could tell of an +old marble hall, with Hogarth's prints and the Roman Caesars in marble +hung round. I could tell of a _wilderness_, and of a village church, and +where the bones of my honoured grandam lie; but there are feelings which +refuse to be translated, sulky aborigines, which will not be naturalised +in another soil. Of this nature are old family faces and scenes of +infancy. + +I have given your address, and the books you want, to the Arches; they +will send them as soon as they can get them, but they do not seem quite +familiar to [? with] their names. I have seen Gebor! Gebor aptly so +denominated from Geborish, _quasi_ Gibberish. But Gebor hath some lucid +intervals. I remember darkly one beautiful simile veiled in uncouth +phrases about the youngest daughter of the Ark. I shall have nothing to +communicate, I fear, to the Anthology. You shall have some fragments of +my play, if you desire them, but I think I would rather print it whole. +Have you seen it, or shall I lend you a copy? I want your opinion of it. + +I must get to business, so farewell. My kind remembrances to Edith. + +C. LAMB. + +[Lamb had probably been staying at Widford. Many years later he +described his Hertfordshire days in more than one essay (see the _Elia_ +essays "Mackery End" and "Blakesmoor in H-----shire" and +"Dream-Children"). The old house was, of course, Blakesware. The +wilderness, which lay at the back of the house, is, with Widford, +mentioned in _Rosamund Gray_. + +The Arches were the brothers Arch, the booksellers of Ludgate Hill. + +Gebor stands for _Gebir_, Landor's poem, published in 1798. The simile +in question would be this: from Book VII., lines 248-251:-- + +Never so eager, when the world was waves, +Stood the less daughter of the ark, and tried +(Innocent this temptation) to recall +With folded vest and casting arm the dove. + +The reference to Southey's Anthology is to Vol. II., then in +preparation. The play was now finished: it circulated in manuscript +before being published in 1802. + +In a letter to Robert Lloyd, dated December 17, 1799, Lamb thanks him +for a present of porter, adding that wine makes him hot, and brandy +drunk, but porter warms without intoxication. + +Here should come an unpublished letter from Lamb to Charles Lloyd at +Cambridge, asking for the return of his play. Kemble, he says, had +offered to put it in the hands of the proprietor of Drury Lane, and +therefore Lamb wishes to have a second copy in the house. Kemble, as it +turned out, returned no answer for a year, and then he stated that he +had lost the copy. + +Lamb mentions Coleridge's settlement with his family in lodgings in the +Adelphi. Coleridge, having returned from Germany and undertaken work for +the _Morning Post_, took lodgings at 21 Buckingham Street, Strand, close +to the Adelphi, in November, 1799. + +The letter is interesting in containing the first mention of Manning, +whom we are now to meet.] + + + + +LETTER 47 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +Dec., 1799. + +Dear Manning,--The particular kindness, even up to a degree of +attachment, which I have experienced from you, seems to claim some +distinct acknowledgment on my part. I could not content myself with a +bare remembrance to you, conveyed in some letter to Lloyd. + +Will it be agreeable to you, if I occasionally recruit your memory of +me, which must else soon fade, if you consider the brief intercourse we +have had. I am not likely to prove a troublesome correspondent. My +scribbling days are past. I shall have no sentiments to communicate, but +as they spring up from some living and worthy occasion. + +I look forward with great pleasure to the performance of your promise, +that we should meet in London early in the ensuing year. The century +must needs commence auspiciously for me, that brings with it Manning's +friendship as an earnest of its after gifts. + +I should have written before, but for a troublesome inflammation in one +of my eyes, brought on by night travelling with the coach windows +sometimes up. + +What more I have to say shall be reserved for a letter to Lloyd. I must +not prove tedious to you in my first outset, lest I should affright you +by my ill-judged loquacity. I am, yours most sincerely, C. LAMB. + +[This is the first letter that has been preserved in the correspondence +between Lamb and Manning. Lamb first met Manning at Cambridge, in the +autumn of 1799, when on a visit to Charles Lloyd. Much of Manning's +history will be unfolded as the letters proceed, but here it should be +stated that he was born on November 8, 1772, and was thus a little more +than two years older than Lamb. He was at this time acting as private +tutor in mathematics at Cambridge, among his pupils being Charles Lloyd, +of Caius, Manning's own college. Manning, however, did not take his +degree, owing to an objection to oaths and tests. + +Lamb's reference to the beginning of the century shows that he shared +with many other non-mathematically-minded persons the belief that the +century begins with the hundredth, and not the hundred and first, year. +He says of Manning, in the _Elia_ essay "The Old and the New +Schoolmaster": "My friend M., with great painstaking, got me to think I +understood the first proposition in Euclid, but gave me over in despair +at the second."] + + + + +LETTER 48 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +Dec. 28th, 1799. + +Dear Manning,--Having suspended my correspondence a decent interval, as +knowing that even good things may be taken to satiety, a wish cannot but +recur to learn whether you be still well and happy. Do all things +continue in the state I left them in Cambridge? + +Do your night parties still flourish? and do you continue to bewilder +your company with your thousand faces running down through all the keys +of idiotism (like Lloyd over his perpetual harpsicord), from the smile +and the glimmer of half-sense and quarter-sense to the grin and hanging +lip of Betty Foy's own Johnny? And does the face-dissolving curfew sound +at twelve? How unlike the great originals were your petty terrors in the +postscript, not fearful enough to make a fairy shudder, or a Lilliputian +fine lady, eight months full of child, miscarry. Yet one of them, which +had more beast than the rest, I thought faintly resembled _one_ of your +brutifications. But, seriously, I long to see your own honest +Manning-face again. I did not mean a pun,--your _man's_ face, you will +be apt to say, I know your wicked will to pun. I cannot now write to +Lloyd and you too, so you must convey as much interesting intelligence +as this may contain, or be thought to contain, to him and Sophia, with +my dearest love and remembrances. + +By the by, I think you and Sophia both incorrect with regard to the +_title_ of the _play_. Allowing your objection (which is not necessary, +as pride may be, and is in real life often, cured by misfortunes not +directly originating from its own acts, as Jeremy Taylor will tell you a +naughty desire is sometimes sent to cure it--I know you read these +_practical divines_). But allowing your objection, does not the +betraying of his father's secret directly spring from pride?--from the +pride of wine and a full heart, and a proud over-stepping of the +ordinary rules of morality, and contempt of the prejudices of mankind, +which are not to bind superior souls--"as _trust_ in _the matter_ of +_secret_ all _ties_ of _blood_, &c., &c., keeping of _promises_, the +feeble mind's religion, binding our _morning knowledge_ to the +performance of what _last night's ignorance_ spake"--does he not prate, +that "_Great Spirits_" must do more than die for their friend--does not +the pride of wine incite him to display some evidence of friendship, +which its own irregularity shall make great? This I know, that I meant +his punishment not alone to be a cure for his daily and habitual +_pride_, but the direct consequence and appropriate punishment of a +particular act of pride. + +If you do not understand it so, it is my fault in not explaining my +meaning. + +I have not seen Coleridge since, and scarcely expect to see +him,--perhaps he has been at Cambridge. I dined with him in town and +breakfasted with him and Priscilla, who you may tell Charles has +promised to come and see me when she returns [to] Clapham. I will write +to Charles on Monday. + +Need I turn over to blot a fresh clean half-sheet? merely to say, what I +hope you are sure of without my repeating it, that I would have you +consider me, dear Manning, Your sincere friend, + +C. LAMB. + +What is your proper address? + +["Betty Foy's own Johnny"--"The Idiot Boy," in the _Lyrical Ballads_. + +"In the postscript." A reference presumably to some drawings of faces in +one of Manning's letters. + +"The title of the play." Writing to Lamb on December 15, 1799, Manning +had said: "I had some conversation the other day with Sophia concerning +your tragedy; and she made some very sensible observations (as I +thought) with respect to the unfitness of its title, 'The Folly,' whose +consequences humble the pride and ambition of John's heart, does not +originate in the workings of those passions, but from an underpart in +his character, and as it were accidentally, _viz_., from the ebullitions +of a drunken mind and from a rash confidence." + +"You will understand what I mean, without my explaining myself any +further. God bless you, and keep you from all evil things, that walk +upon the face of the earth--I mean nightmares, hobgoblins and spectres." + +Lamb refers in this letter particularly to Act III. of his play. "I have +not seen Coleridge since." Since when is not clear. Possibly Coleridge +had been at Cambridge when Lamb was there.] + + + + +LETTER 49 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE +? Jan. 23, 1800. + +Dear Coleridge,--Now I write, I cannot miss this opportunity of +acknowledging the obligations myself, and the readers in general of that +luminous paper, the "Morning Post," are under to you for the very novel +and exquisite manner in which you combined political with grammatical +science, in your yesterday's dissertation on Mr. Wyndham's unhappy +composition. It must have been the death-blow to that ministry. I expect +Pitt and Grenville to resign. More especially the delicate and +Cottrellian grace with which you officiated, with a ferula for a white +wand, as gentleman usher to the word "also," which it seems did not know +its place. + +I expect Manning of Cambridge in town to-night--will you fulfil your +promise of meeting him at my house? He is a man of a thousand. Give me a +line to say what day, whether Saturday, Sunday, Monday, &c., and if Sara +and the Philosopher can come. I am afraid if I did not at intervals call +upon you, I should _never see you_. But I forget, the affairs of the +nation engross your time and your mind. + +Farewell. C.L. + +[The first letter that has been preserved of the second period of Lamb's +correspondence with Coleridge, which was to last until the end. + +In the _Morning Post_ of January 7, 1800, had appeared the +correspondence between Buonaparte and Lord Grenville, in which +Buonaparte made an offer of peace. Lord Grenville's Note, it was pointed +out in the _Morning Post_ for January 16, was really written by William +Windham, Secretary for War, and on January 22 appeared an article +closely criticising its grammar. + +Here is the passage concerning "also," to which Lamb particularly +alludes a little later in the letter:-- + +... "The _same_ system, to the prevalence of which France justly +ascribes all her present miseries, is that which has _also_ involved the +rest of Europe in a long and destructive warfare, of a nature long since +unknown _to_ the practice of civilized nations." Here the connective +word "also" should have followed the word "Europe." As it at present +stands, the sentence implies that France, miserable as she may be, has, +however, not been involved in a warfare. The word "same" is absolutely +expletive; and by appearing to refer the reader to some foregoing +clause, it not only loads the sentence, but renders it obscure. The word +"to" is absurdly used for the word "in." A thing may be unknown _to_ +practitioners, as humanity and sincerity may be unknown to the +practitioners of State-craft, and foresight, science, and harmony may +have been unknown to the planners and practitioners of Continental +Expeditions; but even "cheese-parings and candle-ends" cannot be known +or unknown "_to_" a practice!! + +Windham was destined to be attacked by another stalwart in Lamb's +circle, for it was his speech in opposition to Lord Erskine's Cruelty to +Animals Bill in 1809 that inspired John Lamb to write his fierce +pamphlet (see page 434). + +"Cottrellian grace." The Cotterells were Masters of the Ceremonies from +1641 to 1808. + +The Philosopher was Hartley Coleridge, aged three, so called after his +great namesake, David Hartley. The Coleridges were now, as we have seen, +living at 21 Buckingham Street, Strand.] + + + + +LETTER 50 + + +Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning + +[P.M. Feb. 13, 1800.] + +Dear Manning,--Olivia is a good girl, and if you turn to my letter, you +will find that this very plea you set up to vindicate Lloyd I had made +use of as a reason why he should never have employed Olivia to make a +copy of such a letter--a letter I could not have sent to my enemy's +b----h, if she had thought fit to seek me in the way of marriage. But +you see it in one view, I in another. Rest you merry in your opinion! +Opinion is a species of property; and though I am always desirous to +share with my friend to a certain extent, I shall ever like to keep some +tenets and some property properly my own. Some day, Manning, when we +meet, substituting Corydon and fair Amaryllis, for Charles Lloyd and +Mary Hayes, we will discuss together this question of moral feeling, "In +what cases and how far sincerity is a virtue?" I do not mean Truth--a +good Olivia-like creature--God bless her, who, meaning no offence, is +always ready to give an answer when she is asked why she did so and so; +but a certain forward-talking half-brother of hers, Sincerity, that +amphibious gentleman, who is so ready to perk up his obnoxious +sentiments unasked into your notice, as Midas would his ears into your +face uncalled for. But I despair of doing anything by a letter in the +way of explaining or coming to explanations. A good wish, or a pun, or a +piece of secret history, may be well enough that way conveyed; nay, it +has been known that intelligence of a turkey hath been conveyed by that +medium without much ambiguity. Godwin I am a good deal pleased with. He +is a very well-behaved, decent man, nothing very brilliant about him, or +imposing, as you may suppose; quite another guess sort of gentleman from +what your Anti-Jacobin Christians imagine him. I was well pleased to +find he has neither horns nor claws; quite a tame creature, I assure +you. A middle-sized man, both in stature and in understanding; whereas, +from his noisy fame, you would expect to find a Briareus Centimanus, or +a Tityus tall enough to pull Jupiter from his heavens. + +I begin to think you Atheists not quite so tall a species. Coleridge +inquires after you pretty often. I wish to be the Pandar to bring you +together again once before I die. When we die, you and I must part; the +sheep, you know, take the right hand, and the goats the left. Stripped +of its allegory, you must know, the sheep are _I_ and the Apostles, and +the Martyrs, and the Popes, and Bishop Taylor, and Bishop Horsley, and +Coleridge, &c., &c.; the goats are the Atheists and the Adulterers, and +dumb dogs, and Godwin and M-----g, and that Thyestaean crew--yaw! how my +saintship sickens at the idea! + +You shall have my play and the Falstaff letters in a day or two. I will +write to Lloyd by this day's post. + +Pray, is it a part of your sincerity to show my letters to Lloyd? for +really, gentlemen ought to explain their virtues upon a first +acquaintance, to prevent mistakes. + +God bless you, Manning. Take my trifling _as trifling_; and believe me, +seriously and deeply, + +Your well-wisher and friend, + +C. L. + +[Mary Hayes was a friend of Mary Wollstonecraft, and also of Southey and +Coleridge. She wrote a novel, _Memoirs of Emma Courtney_, which Lloyd +says contained her own love letters to Godwin and Frend, and also +_Female Biography, or Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women_. +Lloyd and she had been very intimate. A passage from a letter of +Coleridge to Southey, dated January 25, 1800, bears upon the present +situation: "Miss Hayes I have seen. Charles Lloyd's conduct has been +atrocious beyond what you stated. Lamb himself confessed to me that +during the time in which he kept up his ranting, sentimental +correspondence with Miss Hayes, he frequently read her letters in +company, as a subject for _laughter_, and then sate down and answered +them quite _à la Rousseau_! Poor Lloyd! Every hour new-creates him; he +is his own posterity in a perpetually flowing series, and his body +unfortunately retaining an external identity, _their_ mutual +contradictions and disagreeings are united under one name, and of course +are called lies, treachery, and rascality!" + +Another letter from Lamb to Manning at this time tells the story of the +Charles Lloyd and Mary Hayes imbroglio. Lloyd had written to Miss Hayes +a very odd letter concerning her Godwinite creed, in which he refers to +her belief that she was in love with him and repeats old stories that +she had been in love both with Godwin and Frend. Here is one sentence: +"In the confounding medley of ordinary conversation, I have interwoven +my abhorrence of your principles with a glanced contempt for your +personal character." This letter Lloyd had given to his sister Olivia to +copy--"An ignorant Quaker girl," says Lamb, "I mean ignorant in the best +sense, who ought not to know, that such a thing was possible or in rerum +naturae that a woman should court a man." Later: "As long as Lloyd or I +have known Col. [Coleridge] so long have we known him in the daily and +hourly habit of quizzing the world by lyes, most unaccountable and most +disinterested fictions." And here is one more passage: "To sum up my +inferences from the above facts, I am determined to live a merry Life in +the midst of Sinners. I try to consider all men as such, and to pitch +any expectations from human nature as low as possible. In this view, all +unexpected Virtues are Godsends and beautiful exceptions." + +Lamb had just met William Godwin (1756-1836), probably having been +introduced to him by Coleridge. Godwin, known chiefly by his _Political +Justice_, 1793; _Caleb Williams_, 1794, and _St. Leon_, 1799, stood at +that time for everything that was advanced in thought and conduct. We +shall meet with him often in the correspondence of the next few years. + +Bishop Horsley (then of Rochester, afterwards St. Asaph's) was probably +included ironically, on account of his hostility to Priestley.] + + + + +LETTER 51 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[P.M. March 1, 1800.] + +I hope by this time you are prepared to say the "Falstaf's letters" are +a bundle of the sharpest, queerest, profoundest humours, of any these +juice-drained latter times have spawned. I should have advertised you, +that the meaning is frequently hard to be got at; and so are the future +guineas, that now lie ripening and aurifying in the womb of some +undiscovered Potosi; but dig, dig, dig, dig, Manning! I set to with an +unconquerable propulsion to write, with a lamentable want of what to +write. My private goings on are orderly as the movements of the spheres, +and stale as their music to angels' ears. Public affairs--except as they +touch upon me, and so turn into private, I cannot whip up my mind to +feel any interest in. I grieve, indeed, that War and Nature, and Mr. +Pitt, that hangs up in Lloyd's best parlour, should have conspired to +call up three necessaries, simple commoners as our fathers knew them, +into the upper house of Luxuries; Bread, and Beer, and Coals, Manning. +But as to France and Frenchmen, and the Abbé Sièyes and his +constitutions, I cannot make these present times present to me. I read +histories of the past, and I live in them; although, to abstract senses, +they are far less momentous than the noises which keep Europe awake. I +am reading Burnet's Own Times. Did you ever read that garrulous, +pleasant history? He tells his story like an old man past political +service, bragging to his sons on winter evenings of the part he took in +public transactions, when his "old cap was new." Full of scandal, which +all true history is. No palliatives, but all the stark wickedness, that +actually gives the _momentum_ to national actors. Quite the prattle of +age and out-lived importance. Truth and sincerity staring out upon you +perpetually in _alto relievo_. Himself a party man--he makes you a party +man. None of the Damned philosophical Humeian indifference, so cold, and +unnatural, and inhuman! None of the damned Gibbonian fine writing, so +fine and composite. None of Mr. Robertson's periods with three members. +None of Mr. Roscoe's sage remarks, all so apposite, and coming in so +clever, lest the reader should have had the trouble of drawing an +inference. Burnet's good old prattle I can bring present to my mind--I +can make the revolution present to me; the French Revolution, by a +converse perversity in my nature, I fling as far _from_ me. To quit this +damn'd subject, and to relieve you from two or three dismal yawns, which +I hear in spirit, I here conclude my more than commonly obtuse letter; +dull up to the dulness of a Dutch commentator on Shakspeare. + +My love to Lloyd and Sophia. C. L. + +["War and Nature, and Mr. Pitt." The war had sent up taxation to an +almost unbearable height. Pitt was Chancellor of Exchequer, as well as +Prime Minister. + +Hume, Gibbon and Robertson were among the books which, in the Elia essay +"Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading," Lamb described as +_biblia-a-biblia_. William Roscoe's principal work was his _Life of +Lorenzo de' Medici_, 1795.] + + + + +LETTER 52 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[P.M. March 17, 1800.] + +Dear Manning,--I am living in a continuous feast. Coleridge has been +with me now for nigh three weeks, and the more I see of him in the +quotidian undress and relaxation of his mind, the more cause I see to +love him, and believe him a _very good man_, and all those foolish +impressions to the contrary fly off like morning slumbers. He is engaged +in translations, which I hope will keep him this month to come. He is +uncommonly kind and friendly to me. He ferrets me day and night to _do +something_. He tends me, amidst all his own worrying and +heart-oppressing occupations, as a gardener tends his young _tulip_. +Marry come up! what a pretty similitude, and how like your humble +servant! He has lugged me to the brink of engaging to a newspaper, and +has suggested to me for a first plan the forgery of a supposed +manuscript of Burton the anatomist of melancholy. I have even written +the introductory letter; and, if I can pick up a few guineas this way, I +feel they will be most _refreshing_, bread being so dear. If I go on +with it, I will apprise you of it, as you may like to see my thing's! +and the _tulip_, of all flowers, loves to be admired most. + +Pray pardon me, if my letters do not come very thick. I am so taken up +with one thing or other, that I cannot pick out (I will not say time, +but) fitting times to write to you. My dear love to Lloyd and Sophia, +and pray split this thin letter into three parts, and present them with +the _two biggest_ in my name. + +They are my oldest friends; but ever the new friend driveth out the old, +as the ballad sings! God bless you all three! I would hear from Lloyd, +if I could. + +C. L. + +Flour has just fallen nine shillings a sack! we shall be all too rich. + +Tell Charles I have seen his Mamma, and have almost fallen in love with +_her_, since I mayn't with Olivia. She is so fine and graceful, a +complete Matron-Lady-Quaker. She has given me two little books. Olivia +grows a charming girl--full of feeling, and thinner than she was. + +But I have not time to fall in love. + +Mary presents her _general compliments_. She keeps in fine health! + +Huzza! boys, and down with the Atheists. + +[Coleridge, having sent his wife and Hartley into the country, had, for +a while, taken up his abode with Lamb at Pentonville, and given up the +_Morning Post_ in order to proceed with his translation of Schiller's +_Wallenstein_. Lamb's forgery of Burton, together with those mentioned +in the next letter, which were never printed by Stuart, for whom they +were written, was included in the _John Woodvil_ volume, 1802, among the +"Curious Fragments, extracted from a commonplace book, which belonged to +Robert Burton, the famous Author of The Anatomy of Melancholy." See the +_Miscellaneous Prose_, Vol. I. of this edition. + +"They are my oldest friends." Coleridge and Southey were, of course, +older. The ballad I have not found. + +Mrs. Charles Lloyd, sen., _née_ Mary Farmer, and Olivia, her second +daughter, had been staying in London. Lamb had breakfasted with them. + +The reference to Atheists is explained by a passage from Manning's +letter to Lamb in March, 1800: "One thing tho' I must beg of you--that +is not to call me Atheist in your letters--for though it may be mere +raillery in you, and not meant as a serious imputation on my Faith, yet, +if the Catholic or any other intolerant religion should [illegible] and +become established in England, (which [illegible] if the Bishop of +R----r may be the case) and if the post-people should happen to open and +read your letters, (which, considering the sometimes quaintness of their +form, they may possibly be incited to do) such names might send me to +Smithfield on a hurdle,--and nothing _upon earth_ is more discordant to +my wishes, than to become one of the Smithfield Illuminati."] + + + + +LETTER 53 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[P.M. April 5, 1800.] + +C.L.'s moral sense presents her compliments to Doctor Manning, is very +thankful for his medical advice, but is happy to add that her disorder +has died of itself. + +Dr. Manning, Coleridge has left us, to go into the north, on a visit to +his god Wordsworth. With him have flown all my splendid prospects of +engagement with the "Morning Post," all my visionary guineas, the +deceitful wages of unborn scandal. In truth, I wonder you took it up so +seriously. All my intention was but to make a little sport with such +public and fair game as Mr. Pitt, Mr. Wilberforce, Mrs. Fitzherbert, the +Devil, &c.--gentry dipped in Styx all over, whom no paper javelin-lings +can touch. To have made free with these cattle, where was the harm? +'twould have been but giving a polish to lampblack, not nigrifying a +negro primarily. After all, I cannot but regret my involuntary virtue. +Damn virtue that's thrust upon us; it behaves itself with such +constraint, till conscience opens the window and lets out the goose. + +I had struck off two imitations of Burton, quite abstracted from any +modern allusions, which it was my intent only to lug in from time to +time to make 'em popular. Stuart has got these, with an introductory +letter; but, not hearing from him, I have ceased from my labours, but I +write to him today to get a final answer. I am afraid they won't do for +a paper. Burton is a scarce gentleman, not much known; else I had done +'em pretty well. + +I have also hit off a few lines in the name of Burton, being a conceit +of "Diabolic Possession." Burton was a man often assailed by deepest +melancholy, and at other times much given to laughing and jesting, as is +the way with melancholy men. I will send them you: they were almost +extempore, and no great things; but you will indulge them. Robert Lloyd +is come to town. He is a good fellow, with the best heart, but his +feelings are shockingly _un_sane. Priscilla meditates going to see +Pizarro at Drury Lane to-night (from her uncle's) under cover of coming +to dine with me... _heu! tempora! heu! mores!_--I have barely time to +finish, as I expect her and Robin every minute.--Yours as usual. + +C. L. + +[For Coleridge's movements see note to the next letter.--"Pizarro" was +Sheridan's drama. It was acted this season, 1799-1800, sixty-seven +times. Lamb's next letter to Manning, which is not available for this +edition, contained the promised copy of the "Conceit of Diabolical +Possession." It also contained a copy of Thekla's song in "Wallenstein," +in Lamb's translation (see Vol. IV.), which he says is better than the +original "a huge deal". Finally Lamb copies the old ballad "Edward, +Edward" and calls it "the very first dramatic poem in the English +language."] + + + + +LETTER 54 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE +[Probably April 16 or 17, 1800.] + +I send you, in this parcel, my play, which I beg you to present in my +name, with my respect and love, to Wordsworth and his sister. You blame +us for giving your direction to Miss Wesley; the woman has been ten +times after us about it, and we gave it her at last, under the idea that +no further harm would ensue, but she would once write to you, and you +would bite your lips and forget to answer it, and so it would end. You +read us a dismal homily upon "Realities." We know, quite as well as you +do, what are shadows and what are realities. You, for instance, when you +are over your fourth or fifth jorum, chirping about old school +occurrences, are the best of realities. Shadows are cold, thin things, +that have no warmth or grasp in them. Miss Wesley and her friend, and a +tribe of authoresses that come after you here daily, and, in defect of +you, hive and cluster upon us, are the shadows. You encouraged that +mopsey, Miss Wesley, to dance after you, in the hope of having her +nonsense put into a nonsensical Anthology. We have pretty well shaken +her off, by that simple expedient of referring her to you; but there are +more burrs in the wind. I came home t'other day from business, hungry as +a hunter, to dinner, with nothing, I am sure, of _the author but hunger_ +about me, and whom found I closeted with Mary but a friend of this Miss +Wesley, one Miss Benje, or Benjey--I don't know how she spells her name. +I just came in time enough, I believe, luckily to prevent them from +exchanging vows of eternal friendship. It seems she is one of your +authoresses, that you first foster, and then upbraid us with. But I +forgive you. "The rogue has given me potions to make me love him." Well; +go she would not, nor step a step over our threshold, till we had +promised to come and drink tea with her next night. I had never seen her +before, and could not tell who the devil it was that was so familiar. We +went, however, not to be impolite. Her lodgings are up two pairs of +stairs in East Street. Tea and coffee, and macaroons--a kind of cake I +much love. We sat down. Presently Miss Benje broke the silence, by +declaring herself quite of a different opinion from D'Israeli, who +supposes the differences of human intellect to be the mere effect of +organization. She begged to know my opinion. I attempted to carry it off +with a pun upon organ; but that went off very flat. She immediately +conceived a very low opinion of my metaphysics; and, turning round to +Mary, put some question to her in French,--possibly having heard that +neither Mary nor I understood French. The explanation that took place +occasioned some embarrassment and much wondering. She then fell into an +insulting conversation about the comparative genius and merits of all +modern languages, and concluded with asserting that the Saxon was +esteemed the purest dialect in Germany. From thence she passed into the +subject of poetry; where I, who had hitherto sat mute and a hearer only, +humbly hoped I might now put in a word to some advantage, seeing that it +was my own trade in a manner. But I was stopped by a round assertion, +that no good poetry had appeared since Dr. Johnson's time. It seems the +Doctor has suppressed many hopeful geniuses that way by the severity of +his critical strictures in his "Lives of the Poets." I here ventured to +question the fact, and was beginning to appeal to names, but I was +assured "it was certainly the case." Then we discussed Miss More's book +on education, which I had never read. It seems Dr. Gregory, another of +Miss Benjey's friends, has found fault with one of Miss More's +metaphors. Miss More has been at some pains to vindicate herself--in the +opinion of Miss Benjey, not without success. It seems the Doctor is +invariably against the use of broken or mixed metaphor, which he +reprobates against the authority of Shakspeare himself. We next +discussed the question, whether Pope was a poet? I find Dr. Gregory is +of opinion he was not, though Miss Seward does not at all concur with +him in this. We then sat upon the comparative merits of the ten +translations of "Pizarro," and Miss Benjey or Benje advised Mary to take +two of them home; she thought it might afford her some pleasure to +compare them _verbatim_; which we declined. It being now nine o'clock, +wine and macaroons were again served round, and we parted, with a +promise to go again next week, and meet the Miss Porters, who, it seems, +have heard much of Mr. Coleridge, and wish to meet _us_, because we are +_his_ friends. I have been preparing for the occasion. I crowd cotton in +my ears. I read all the reviews and magazines of the past month against +the dreadful meeting, and I hope by these means to cut a tolerable +second-rate figure. + +Pray let us have no more complaints about shadows. We are in a fair way, +_through you_, to surfeit sick upon them. + +Our loves and respects to your host and hostess. Our dearest love to +Coleridge. + +Take no thought about your proof-sheets; they shall be done as if +Woodfall himself did them. Pray send us word of Mrs. Coleridge and +little David Hartley, your little reality. + +Farewell, dear Substance. Take no umbrage at any thing I have written. + +C. LAMB, _Umbra_. + +Land of Shadows, +Shadow-month the 16th or 17th, 1800. + +Coleridge, I find loose among your papers a copy of "_Christabel_." It +wants about thirty lines; you will very much oblige me by sending me the +beginning as far as that line,-- + +"And the spring comes slowly up this way;" + +and the intermediate lines between-- + +"The lady leaps up suddenly. +The lovely Lady Christabel;" + +and the lines,-- + +"She folded her arms beneath her cloak, +And stole to the other side of the oak." + +The trouble to you _will be small_, and the benefit to us _very great_! +A pretty antithesis! A figure in speech I much applaud. + +Godwin has called upon us. He spent one evening here. Was very friendly. +Kept us up till midnight. Drank punch, and talked about you. He seems, +above all men, mortified at your going away. Suppose you were to write +to that good-natured heathen--"or is he a _shadow_?" If I do not +_write_, impute it to the long postage, of which you have so much cause +to complain. I have scribbled over a _queer letter_, as I find by +perusal; but it means no mischief. + +I am, and will be, yours ever, in sober sadness, + +C. L. + +Write your _German_ as plain as sunshine, for that must correct itself. +You know I am homo unius linguae: in English, illiterate, a dunce, a +ninny. + +[Having left Lamb, Coleridge went to Grasmere, where he stayed at Dove +Cottage with Wordsworth and finished his translation, which was ready +for the printer on April 22. To what Lamb alludes in his reference to +the homily on "Realities" I cannot say, but presumably Coleridge had +written a metaphysical letter on this subject. Lamb returns to the +matter at the end of the first part of his reply. + +Miss Wesley was Sarah Wesley (1760-1828), the daughter of Charles Wesley +and, therefore, niece of the great John and Samuel. She moved much in +literary society. Miss Benjay, or Benjé, was in reality Elizabeth Ogilvy +Benger (1778-1827), a friend of Mrs. Inchbald, Mrs. Barbauld and the +Aikins, and other literary people. Madame de Stael called her the most +interesting woman she had met in England. She wrote novels and poems and +biographies. In those days there were two East Streets, one leading from +Red Lion Square to Lamb's Conduit Street, and one in the neighbourhood +of Clare Market. + +D'Israeli was Isaac Disraeli, the author of _The Curiosities of +Literature_ and other books about books and authors; Miss More was +Hannah More, and her book, _Strictures on the Modern System of Female +Education, 1799_; Dr. Gregory I have not traced; Miss Seward was Anna +Seward, the Swan of Lichfield; and the Miss Porters were Jane and Anna +Maria, authors (later) respectively of _The Scottish Chiefs_ and +_Thaddeus of Warsaw_, and _The Hungarian Brothers_. + +The proof-sheets were those of _Wallenstein_. Henry Sampson Woodfall was +the famous printer of the _Letters of Junius_. + +_Christabel_, Coleridge's poem, had been begun in 1797; it was finished, +in so far as it was finished, later in the year 1800. It was published +first in 1816. + +"_Homo unius linguae_." Lamb exaggerated here. He had much Latin, a +little Greek and apparently a little French. The sentence is in the +manner of Burton, whom Lamb had been imitating. + +Here should come a letter dated April 23, 1800, to Robert Lloyd, which +treats of obedience to parental wish. Lloyd seems to have objected to +attend the meetings of the Society of Friends, of which he was a +birthright member. Lamb bids him go; adding that, if his own parents +were to live again, he would do more things to please them than merely +sitting still a few hours in a week.] + + + + +LETTER 55 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE + +[? Spring, 1800.] + +By some fatality, unusual with me, I have mislaid the list of books +which you want. Can you, from memory, easily supply me with another? + +I confess to Statius, and I detained him wilfully, out of a reverent +regard to your style. Statius, they tell me, is turgid. As to that other +Latin book, since you know neither its name nor subject, your wants (I +crave leave to apprehend) cannot be very urgent. Meanwhile, dream that +it is one of the lost Decades of Livy. + +Your partiality to me has led you to form an erroneous opinion as to the +measure of delight you suppose me to take in obliging. Pray, be careful +that it spread no further. 'Tis one of those heresies that is very +pregnant. Pray, rest more satisfied with the portion of learning which +you have got, and disturb my peaceful ignorance as little as possible +with such sort of commissions. + +Did you never observe an appearance well known by the name of the man in +the moon? Some scandalous old maids have set on foot a report that it is +Endymion. Dr. Stoddart talks of going out King's Advocate to Malta. He +has studied the Civil and Canon Law just three canon months, to my +knowledge. _Fiat justitia, ruat caelum._ + +Your theory about the first awkward step a man makes being the +consequence of learning to dance, is not universal. We have known many +youths bred up at Christ's, who never learned to dance, yet the world +imputes to them no very graceful motions. I remember there was little +Hudson, the immortal precentor of St. Paul's, to teach us our quavers: +but, to the best of my recollection, there was no master of motions when +we were at Christ's. + +Farewell, in haste. + +C.L. + +[Talfourd does not date this letter, merely remarking that it belongs to +the present period. Canon Ainger dated it June 22, 1800; but this I +think cannot be right when we take into consideration Letter 60 and what +it says about Lamb's last letter to Coleridge (clearly that of May 12), +and the time that has since elapsed. The birth of Charles Lloyd's first +child, July 31, gives us the latest date to which Letter 60 could +belong. + +"Your theory ..." This may have been contained in one of Coleridge's +letters, now lost; I do not find it in any of the known _Morning Post_ +articles.] + + + + +LETTER 56 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE + +Monday, May 12th, 1800. + +My dear Coleridge--I don't know why I write, except from the propensity +misery has to tell her griefs. Hetty died on Friday night, about eleven +o'clock, after eight days' illness; Mary, in consequence of fatigue and +anxiety, is fallen ill again, and I was obliged to remove her yesterday. +I am left alone in a house with nothing but Hetty's dead body to keep me +company. To-morrow I bury her, and then I shall be quite alone, with +nothing but a cat to remind me that the house has been full of living +beings like myself. My heart is quite sunk, and I don't know where to +look for relief. Mary will get better again; but her constantly being +liable to such relapses is dreadful; nor is it the least of our evils +that her case and all our story is so well known around us. We are in a +manner _marked_. Excuse my troubling you; but I have nobody by me to +speak to me. I slept out last night, not being able to endure the change +and the stillness. But I did not sleep well, and I must come back to my +own bed. I am going to try and get a friend to come and be with me +to-morrow. I am completely shipwrecked. My head is quite bad. I almost +wish that Mary were dead.--God bless you! Love to Sara and Hartley. + +C. LAMB. + +[Hetty was the Lambs' aged servant. + +Here should come a letter from Lamb to Thomas Manning clearly written on +May 12, 1800, the same day as that to Coleridge, stating that Lamb has +given up his house, and is looking for lodgings,--White (with whom he +had stayed) having "all kindness but not sympathy".] + + + + +LETTER 57 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[P.M. May 20, 1800.] + +Dear Manning,--I feel myself unable to thank you sufficiently for your +kind letter. It was doubly acceptable to me, both for the choice poetry +and the kind honest prose which it contained. It was just such a letter +as I should have expected from Manning. + +I am in much better spirits than when I wrote last. I have had a very +eligible offer to lodge with a friend in town. He will have rooms to let +at midsummer, by which time I hope my sister will be well enough to join +me. It is a great object to me to live in town, where we shall be much +more _private_, and to quit a house and neighbourhood where poor Mary's +disorder, so frequently recurring, has made us a sort of marked people. +We can be nowhere private except in the midst of London. We shall be in +a family where we visit very frequently; only my landlord and I have not +yet come to a conclusion. He has a partner to consult. I am still on the +tremble, for I do not know where we could go into lodgings that would +not be, in many respects, highly exceptionable. Only God send Mary well +again, and I hope all will be well! The prospect, such as it is, has +made me quite happy. I have just time to tell you of it, as I know it +will give you pleasure.--Farewell. + +C. LAMB. + +[Manning's letter containing the choice poetry has not been preserved. + +The friend in town was John Mathew Gutch (1776-1861), with whom Lamb had +been at school at Christ's Hospital, who was now a law stationer, in +partnership with one Anderson, at 27 Southampton Buildings, Chancery +Lane, since demolished.] + + + + +LETTER 58 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[No date. ? May 25, 1800.] + +Dear Manning, I am a letter in your debt, but I am scarcely rich enough +(in spirits) to pay you.--I am writing at an inn on the Ware road, in +the neighbourhood of which I am going to pass two days, being +Whitsuntide.--Excuse the pen, tis the best I can get.--Poor Mary is very +bad yet. I went yesterday hoping I should see her getting well, then I +might have come into the country more chearful, but I could not get to +see her. This has been a sad damp. Indeed I never in my life have been +more wretched than I was all day yesterday. I am glad I am going away +from business for a little while, for my head has been hot and ill. I +shall be very much alone where I am going, which always revives me. I +hope you will accept of this worthless memento, which I merely send as a +token that I am in your debt. I will write upon my return, on Thursday +at farthest. I return on Wednesday.-- + +God bless you. + +I was afraid you would think me forgetful, and that made me scribble +this jumble. + +Sunday. + +[Here probably also should come an unpublished letter from Lamb to +Manning, in which Lamb remarks that his goddess is Pecunia. + +In another letter to Manning belonging to the same period, Lamb returns +to the subject of poverty:--"You dropt a word whether in jest or +earnest, as if you would join me in some work, such as a review or +series of papers, essays, or anything.--Were you serious? I want home +occupation, & I more want money. Had you any scheme, or was it, as G. +Dyer says, en passant? If I don't have a Legacy left me shortly I must +get into pay with some newspaper for small gains. Mutton is twelvepence +a pound." + +Here should come a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, in which he +describes a visit to Gutch's family at Oxford, and mentions his +admiration for a fine head of Bishop Taylor in All Souls' Library, which +was an inducement to the Oxford visit. He refers to Charles Lloyd's +settlement in the Lakes, and suggests that it may be the means of again +uniting him and Coleridge; adding that such men as Coleridge and +Wordsworth would exclude solitude in the Hebrides or Thule. + +The following undated letter, which may be placed a little too soon in +its present position, comes with a certain fitness here:--] + + + + +LETTER 59 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN MATHEW GUTCH + +[No date. 1800.] + +Dear Gutch, Anderson is not come home, and I am almost afraid to tell +you what has happen'd, lest it should seem to have happened by my fault +in not writing for you home sooner.-- + +This morning Henry, the eldest lad, was missing. We supposd he was only +gone out on a morning's stroll, and that he would return, but he did not +return & we discovered that he had opened your desk before he went, & I +suppose taken all the money he could find, for on diligent search I +could find none, and on opening your Letter to Anderson, which I thought +necessary to get at the key, I learn that you had a good deal of money +there. + +Several people have been here after you to-day, & the boys seem quite +frightened, and do not know what to do. In particular, one gentleman +wants to have some writings finished by Tuesday--For God's sake set out +by the first coach. Mary has been crying all day about it, and I am now +just going to some law stationer in the neighbourhood, that the eldest +boy has recommended, to get him to come and be in the house for a day or +so, to manage. I cannot think what detains Anderson. His sister is quite +frightend about him. I am very sorry I did not write yesterday, but +Henry persuaded me to wait till he could ascertain when some job must be +done (at the furthest) for Mr. Foulkes, and as nothing had occurrd +besides I did not like to disturb your pleasures. I now see my error, +and shall be heartily ashamed to see you. + +[_That is as far as the letter goes on the first page. We then turn +over, and find (as Gutch, to his immense relief, found before us) +written right across both pages:_] + +A BITE!!! + +Anderson is come home, and the wheels of thy business are going on as +ever. The boy is honest, and I am thy friend. And how does the +coach-maker's daughter? Thou art her Phaeton, her Gig, and her Sociable. +Commend me to Rob. + +C. LAMB. + +Saturday. + +[This letter is the first example extant of Lamb's tendency to hoaxing. +Gutch was at that time courting a Miss Wheeley, the daughter of a +Birmingham coachbuilder. It was while he was in Birmingham that Lamb +wrote the letter. Anderson was his partner in business. Rob would be +Robert Lloyd, then at Birmingham again. This, and one other, are the +only letters of Lamb to Gutch that escaped destruction.] + + + + +LETTER 60 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE + +[? Late July, 1800.] + +Dear Coleridge,--Soon after I wrote to you last, an offer was made me by +Gutch (you must remember him? at Christ's--you saw him, slightly, one +day with Thomson at our house)--to come and lodge with him at his house +in Southampton Buildings, Chancery-Lane. This was a very comfortable +offer to me, the rooms being at a reasonable rent, and including the use +of an old servant, besides being infinitely preferable to ordinary +lodgings _in our case_, as you must perceive. As Gutch knew all our +story and the perpetual liability to a recurrence in my sister's +disorder, probably to the end of her life, I certainly think the offer +very generous and very friendly. I have got three rooms (including +servant) under £34 a year. Here I soon found myself at home; and here, +in six weeks after, Mary was well enough to join me. So we are once more +settled. I am afraid we are not placed out of the reach of future +interruptions. But I am determined to take what snatches of pleasure we +can between the acts of our distressful drama.... I have passed two days +at Oxford on a visit, which I have long put off, to Gutch's family. The +sight of the Bodleian Library and, above all, a fine bust of Bishop +Taylor at All Souls', were particularly gratifying to me; unluckily, it +was not a family where I could take Mary with me, and I am afraid there +is something of dishonesty in any pleasures I take without _her_. She +never goes anywhere. I do not know what I can add to this letter. I hope +you are better by this time; and I desire to be affectionately +remembered to Sara and Hartley. + +I expected before this to have had tidings of another little +philosopher. Lloyd's wife is on the point of favouring the world. + +Have you seen the new edition of Burns? his posthumous works and +letters? I have only been able to procure the first volume, which +contains his life--very confusedly and badly written, and interspersed +with dull pathological and _medical_ discussions. It is written by a Dr. +Currie. Do you know the well-meaning doctor? Alas, _ne sutor ultra +crepitum_! [_A few words omitted here_.] + +I hope to hear again from you very soon. Godwin is gone to Ireland on a +visit to Grattan. Before he went I passed much time with him, and he has +showed me particular attentions: N.B. A thing I much like. Your books +are all safe: only I have not thought it necessary to fetch away your +last batch, which I understand are at Johnson's the bookseller, who has +got quite as much room, and will take as much care of them as +myself--and you can send for them immediately from him. + +I wish you would advert to a letter I sent you at Grasmere about +"Christabel," and comply with my request contained therein. + +Love to all friends round Skiddaw. + +C. LAMB. + +[The Coleridges had recently moved into Greta Hall, Keswick. + +Thomson would, I think, be Marmaduke Thompson, an old Christ's +Hospitaller, to whom Lamb dedicated _Rosamund Gray_. He became a +missionary. + +"Another little philosopher." Derwent Coleridge was born September 14, +1800. Lloyd's eldest son, Charles Grosvenor Lloyd, was born July 31, +1800. + +Dr. James Currie's Life of Burns was prefixed to an edition of his poems +in 1800. Dugald Stewart called it "a strong and faithful picture." It +was written to raise funds for Burns' widow and family. + +Godwin had gone to stay with Curran: he saw much of Grattan also. + +Johnson, the publisher and bookseller, lived at 72 St. Paul's +Churchyard. He published Priestley's works.] + + + + +LETTER 61 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +Aug. 6th, 1800. + +Dear Coleridge,--I have taken to-day, and delivered to Longman and Co., +_Imprimis_: your books, viz., three ponderous German dictionaries, one +volume (I can find no more) of German and French ditto, sundry other +German books unbound, as you left them, Percy's Ancient Poetry, and one +volume of Anderson's Poets. I specify them, that you may not lose any. +_Secundo_: a dressing-gown (value, fivepence), in which you used to sit +and look like a conjuror, when you were translating "Wallenstein." A +case of two razors and a shaving-box and strap. This it has cost me a +severe struggle to part with. They are in a brown-paper parcel, which +also contains sundry papers and poems, sermons, _some few Epic_ +Poems,--one about Cain and Abel, which came from Poole, &c., &c., and +also your tragedy; with one or two small German books, and that drama in +which Gotfader performs. _Tertio_: a small oblong box containing _all +your letters_, collected from all your waste papers, and which fill the +said little box. All other waste papers, which I judged worth sending, +are in the paper parcel aforesaid. But you will find _all_ your letters +in the box by themselves. Thus have I discharged my conscience and my +lumber-room of all your property, save and except a folio entitled +Tyrrell's Bibliotheca Politica, which you used to learn your politics +out of when you wrote for the Post, _mutatis mutandis, i.e._, applying +past inferences to modern _data_. I retain that, because I am sensible I +am very deficient in the politics myself; and I have torn up--don't be +angry, waste paper has risen forty per cent., and I can't afford to buy +it--all Buonaparte's Letters, Arthur Young's Treatise on Corn, and one +or two more light-armed infantry, which I thought better suited the +flippancy of London discussion than the dignity of Keswick thinking. +Mary says you will be in a damned passion about them when you come to +miss them; but you must study philosophy. Read Albertus Magnus de +Chartis Amissis five times over after phlebotomising,--'tis Burton's +recipe--and then be angry with an absent friend if you can. I have just +heard that Mrs. Lloyd is delivered of a fine boy, and mother and boy are +doing well. Fie on sluggards, what is thy Sara doing? Sara is obscure. +Am I to understand by her letter, that she sends a _kiss_ to Eliza +Buckingham? Pray tell your wife that a note of interrogation on the +superscription of a letter is highly ungrammatical--she proposes writing +my name _Lamb_? Lambe is quite enough. I have had the Anthology, and +like only one thing in it, _Lewti_; but of that the last stanza is +detestable, the rest most exquisite!--the epithet _enviable_ would dash +the finest poem. For God's sake (I never was more serious), don't make +me ridiculous any more by terming me gentle-hearted in print, or do it +in better verses. It did well enough five years ago when I came to see +you, and was moral coxcomb enough at the time you wrote the lines, to +feed upon such epithets; but, besides that, the meaning of gentle is +equivocal at best, and almost always means poor-spirited, the very +quality of gentleness is abhorrent to such vile trumpetings. My +_sentiment_ is long since vanished. I hope my _virtues_ have done +_sucking_. I can scarce think but you meant it in joke. I hope you did, +for I should be ashamed to think that you could think to gratify me by +such praise, fit only to be a cordial to some green-sick sonneteer. + +I have hit off the following in imitation of old English poetry, which, +I imagine, I am a dab at. The measure is unmeasureable; but it most +resembles that beautiful ballad of the "Old and Young Courtier;" and in +its feature of taking the extremes of two situations for just parallel, +it resembles the old poetry certainly. If I could but stretch out the +circumstances to twelve more verses, i.e., if I had as much genius as +the writer of that old song, I think it would be excellent. It was to +follow an imitation of Burton in prose, which you have not seen. But +fate "and wisest Stewart" say No. + +I can send you 200 pens and six quires of paper _immediately_, if they +will answer the carriage by coach. It would be foolish to pack 'em up +_cum multis libris et caeteris_,--they would all spoil. I only wait your +commands to coach them. I would pay five-and-forty thousand carriages to +read W.'s tragedy, of which I have heard so much and seen so +little--only what I saw at Stowey. Pray give me an order in writing on +Longman for "Lyrical Ballads." I have the first volume, and, truth to +tell, six shillings is a broad shot. I cram all I can in, to save a +multiplying of letters--those pretty comets with swingeing tails. + +I'll just crowd in God bless you! + +C. LAMB. + +Wednesday night. + +[The epic about Cain and Abel was "The Wanderings of Cain," which +Coleridge projected but never finished. The drama in which Got-fader +performs would be perhaps "Faust"--"Der Herr" in the Prologue--or some +old miracle play. + +"'Tis Burton's recipe." Lamb was just now steeped in the _Anatomy_; but +there is no need to see if Burton says this. + +"Eliza Buckingham." Sara Coleridge's message was probably intended for +Eliza, a servant at the Buckingham Street lodgings. + +Lambe was _The Anti-Jacobin's_ idea of Lamb's name; and indeed many +persons adhered to it to the end. Mrs. Coleridge, when writing to her +husband under care of Lamb at the India House, added "e" to Lamb's name +to signify that the letter was for Coleridge. Wordsworth later also had +some of his letters addressed in the same way--for the same economical +reason. + +Coleridge's "Lewti" was reprinted, with alterations, from the _Morning +Post_, in the _Annual Anthology_, Vol. II. Line 69 ran-- + +"Had I the enviable power;" + +Coleridge changed this to-- + +"Voice of the Night! had I the power." + +"This Lime-tree Bower my Prison; a Poem, addressed to Charles Lamb of +the India House, London," was also in the _Annual Anthology_. Lamb +objected to the phrase "My gentle-hearted Charles" (see above). Lamb +says "five years ago"; he means three. Coleridge did not alter the +phrase. It was against this poem that he wrote in pencil on his deathbed +in 1834: "Ch. and Mary Lamb--dear to my heart, yea, as it were, my +heart.--S. T. C. Aet. 63, 1834. 1797-1834 = 37 years!" + +"I have hit off the following"--"A Ballad Denoting the Difference +between the Rich and the Poor," first printed among the Imitations of +Burton in the _John Woodvil_ volume, 1802, see Vol. IV. + +"And wisest Stewart"--Stuart of the _Morning Post_. Adapted from +Milton's "Hymn on the Nativity"-- + +"But wisest Fate says no." + +"W.'s (Wordsworth's) tragedy" was "The Borderers." The second edition of +_Lyrical Ballads_ was just ready.] + + + + +LETTER 62 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING +[P.M. August 9, 1800.] + +Dear Manning,--I suppose you have heard of Sophia Lloyd's good fortune, +and paid the customary compliments to the parents. Heaven keep the +new-born infant from star-blasting and moon-blasting, from epilepsy, +marasmus, and the devil! May he live to see many days, and they good +ones; some friends, and they pretty regular correspondents, with as much +wit as wisdom as will eat their bread and cheese together under a poor +roof without quarrelling; as much goodness as will earn heaven! Here I +must leave off, my benedictory powers failing me. I could _curse_ the +sheet full; so much stronger is corruption than grace in the Natural +Man. + +And now, when shall I catch a glimpse of your honest face-to-face +countenance again--your fine _dogmatical sceptical_ face, by +punch-light? O! one glimpse of the human face, and shake of the human +hand, is better than whole reams of this cold, thin correspondence--yea, +of more worth than all the letters that have sweated the fingers of +sensibility from Madame Sévigné and Balzac (observe my Larning!) to +Sterne and Shenstone. + +Coleridge is settled with his wife and the young philosopher at Keswick +with the Wordsworths. They have contrived to spawn a new volume of +lyrical ballads, which is to see the light in about a month, and causes +no little excitement in the _literary world_. George Dyer too, that +good-natured heathen, is more than nine months gone with his twin +volumes of ode, pastoral, sonnet, elegy, Spenserian, Horatian, +Akensidish, and Masonic verse--Clio prosper the birth! it will be twelve +shillings out of somebody's pocket. I find he means to exclude "personal +satire," so it appears by his truly original advertisement. Well, God +put it into the hearts of the English gentry to come in shoals and +subscribe to his poems, for He never put a kinder heart into flesh of +man than George Dyer's! + +Now farewell: for dinner is at hand. C. L. + +[Southey's letters contain a glimpse (as Mr. J.A. Rutter has pointed +out) of Lamb and Manning by punch-light. Writing in 1824, describing a +certain expression of Mrs. Coleridge's face, Southey says:-- + +First, then, it was an expression of dolorous alarm, such as Le Brun +ought to have painted: but such as Manning never could have equalled, +when, while Mrs. Lloyd was keeping her room in child-bed, he and Charles +Lamb sate drinking punch in the room below till three in the morning-- +Manning acting Le Brun's passions (punchified at the time), and Charles +Lamb (punchified also) roaring aloud and swearing, while the tears ran +down his cheeks, that it required more genius than even Shakespeare +possessed to personate them so well; Charles Lloyd the while (not +punchified) praying and entreating them to go to bed, and not disturb +his wife by the uproar they were making. + +Southey's reminiscence, though interesting, is very confusing. Lamb does +not seem to have visited Cambridge between the end of 1799 and January +5, 1800. At the latter date the Lloyds were in the north. Possibly +Southey refers to an earlier illness of Mrs. Lloyd, which, writing after +a long interval, he confused with confinement. + +"Balzac." Not, of course, the novelist; but Jean Louis Guez de Balzac +(1594-1654) the letter-writer. + +Two or three lines have been omitted from this letter which can be read +as written only in the Boston Bibliophile edition.] + + + + +LETTER 63 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[P.M. August 11, 1800.] + +My dear fellow (_N.B._ mighty familiar of late!) for me to come to +Cambridge now is one of God Almighty's impossibilities. Metaphysicians +tell us, even He can work nothing which implies a contradiction. I can +explain this by telling you that I am engaged to do double duty (this +hot weather!) for a man who has taken advantage of this very weather to +go and cool himself in "green retreats" all the month of August. + +But for you to come to London instead!--muse upon it, revolve it, cast +it about in your mind. I have a bed at your command. You shall drink +rum, brandy, gin, aqua-vitae, usquebaugh, or whiskey a' nights; and for +the after-dinner trick I have eight bottles of genuine port, which, if +mathematically divided, gives 1-1/7 for every day you stay, provided you +stay a week. Hear John Milton sing, + +"Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause." +Twenty-first Sonnet. + +And elsewhere,-- + + "What neat repast shall feast us, light[1] and choice, + Of Attic taste, with wine,[2] whence we may rise + To hear the lute well touch'd, or artful voice + Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?" + +Indeed, the poets are full of this pleasing morality-- + + "Veni cito, Domine Manning!" + +Think upon it. Excuse the paper: it is all I have. + +_N.B._--I lives at No. 27 Southampton Buildings, Holborn. + +C. LAMB. + +[Footnote 1: We poets generally give _light_ dinners.] + +[Footnote 2: No doubt the poet here alludes to port wine at 38s. the +dozen.] + + + + +LETTER 64 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +Thursday, Aug. 14, 1800. + +Read on and you'll come to the _Pens_. + +My head is playing all the tunes in the world, ringing such peals. It +has just finished the "Merry Christ Church Bells," and absolutely is +beginning "Turn again, Whittington." Buz, buz, buz: bum, bum, bum: +wheeze, wheeze, wheeze: feu, feu, feu: tinky, tinky, tinky: _craunch_. I +shall certainly come to be damned at last. I have been getting drunk for +two days running. I find my moral sense in the last stage of a +consumption, and my religion burning as blue and faint as the tops of +evening bricks. Hell gapes and the Devil's great guts cry cupboard for +me. In the midst of this infernal torture, Conscience (and be damn'd to +her), is barking and yelping as loud as any of them. + +I have sat down to read over again, and I think I do begin to spy out +something with beauty and design in it. I perfectly accede to all your +alterations, and only desire that you had cut deeper, when your hand was +in. + +In the next edition of the "Anthology" (which Phoebus avert and those +nine other wandering maids also!) please to blot out _gentle-hearted_, +and substitute drunken: dog, ragged-head, seld-shaven, odd-eyed, +stuttering, or any other epithet which truly and properly belongs to the +gentleman in question. And for Charles read Tom, or Bob, or Richard _for +more delicacy_. Damn you, I was beginning to forgive you and believe in +earnest that the lugging in of my proper name was purely unintentional +on your part, when looking back for further conviction, stares me in the +face _Charles Lamb of the India House. Now_ I am convinced it was all +done in malice, heaped sack-upon-sack, congregated, studied malice. You +Dog! your 141st page shall not save you. I own I was just ready to +acknowledge that there is a something not unlike good poetry in that +page, if you had not run into the unintelligible abstraction-fit about +the manner of the Deity's making spirits perceive his presence. God, nor +created thing alive, can receive any honour from such thin show-box +attributes. + +By-the-by, where did you pick up that scandalous piece of private +history about the angel and the Duchess of Devonshire? If it is a +fiction of your own, why truly it is a very modest one _for you_. Now I +do affirm that "Lewti" is a very beautiful poem. I _was_ in earnest when +I praised it. It describes a silly species of one not the wisest of +passions. _Therefore_ it cannot deeply affect a disenthralled mind. But +such imagery, such novelty, such delicacy, and such versification never +got into an "Anthology" before. I am only sorry that the cause of all +the passionate complaint is not greater than the trifling circumstance +of Lewti being out of temper one day. In sober truth, I cannot see any +great merit in the little Dialogue called "Blenheim." It is rather novel +and pretty; but the thought is very obvious and children's poor prattle, +a thing of easy imitation. _Pauper vult videri et_ EST. + +"Gualberto" certainly has considerable originality, but sadly wants +finishing. It is, as it is, one of the very best in the book. Next to +"Lewti" I like the "Raven," which has a good deal of humour. I was +pleased to see it again, for you once sent it me, and I have lost the +letter which contained it. Now I am on the subject of Anthologies, I +must say I am sorry the old Pastoral way has fallen into disrepute. The +Gentry which now indite Sonnets are certainly the legitimate descendants +of the ancient shepherds. The same simpering face of description, the +old family face, is visibly continued in the line. Some of their +ancestors' labours are yet to be found in Allan Ramsay's and Jacob +Tonson's _Miscellanies_. + +But, miscellanies decaying and the old Pastoral way dying of mere want, +their successors (driven from their paternal acres) now-a-days settle +and hive upon Magazines and Anthologies. This Race of men are uncommonly +addicted to superstition. Some of them are Idolaters and worship the +Moon. Others deify qualities, as love, friendship, sensibility, or bare +accidents, as Solitude. Grief and Melancholy have their respective +altars and temples among them, as the heathens builded theirs to Mors, +Febris, Palloris. They all agree in ascribing a peculiar sanctity to the +number fourteen. One of their own legislators affirmeth, that whatever +exceeds that number "encroacheth upon the province of the Elegy"--_vice +versa_, whatever "cometh short of that number abutteth upon the premises +of the Epigram." I have been able to discover but few _Images_ in their +temples, which, like the Caves of Delphos of old, are famous for giving +_Echoes_. They impute a religious importance to the letter O, whether +because by its roundness it is thought to typify the moon, their +principal goddess, or for its analogies to their own labours, all ending +where they began; or whatever other high and mystical reference, I have +never been able to discover, but I observe they never begin their +invocations to their gods without it, except indeed one insignificant +sect among them, who use the Doric A, pronounced like Ah! broad, +instead. These boast to have restored the old Dorian mood. + +Now I am on the subject of poetry, I must announce to you, who, +doubtless, in your remote part of the Island, have not heard tidings of +so great a blessing, that GEORGE DYER hath prepared two ponderous +volumes full of Poetry and Criticism. They impend over the town, and are +threatened to fall in the winter. The first volume contains every sort +of poetry except personal satire, which George, in his truly original +prospectus, renounceth for ever, whimsically foisting the intention in +between the price of his book and the proposed number of subscribers. +(If I can, I will get you a copy of his _handbill_.) He has tried his +_vein_ in every species besides--the Spenserian, Thomsonian, Masonic and +Akensidish more especially. The second volume is all criticism; wherein +he demonstrates to the entire satisfaction of the literary world, in a +way that must silence all reply for ever, that the pastoral was +introduced by Theocritus and polished by Virgil and Pope--that Gray and +Mason (who always hunt in couples in George's brain) have a good deal of +poetical fire and true lyric genius--that Cowley was ruined by excess of +wit (a warning to all moderns)--that Charles Lloyd, Charles Lamb, and +William Wordsworth, in later days, have struck the true chords of poesy. +O, George, George, with a head uniformly wrong and a heart uniformly +right, that I had power and might equal to my wishes!--then I would call +the Gentry of thy native Island, and they should come in troops, +flocking at the sound of thy Prospectus Trumpet, and crowding who shall +be first to stand in thy List of Subscribers. I can only put twelve +shillings into thy pocket (which, I will answer for them, will not stick +there long), out of a pocket almost as bare as thine. [_Lamb here erases +six lines._] + +Is it not a pity so much fine writing should be erased? But, to tell the +truth, I began to scent that I was getting into that sort of style which +Longinus and Dionysius Halicarnassus aptly call "the affected." But I am +suffering from the combined effect of two days' drunkenness, and at such +times it is not very easy to think or express in a natural series. The +ONLY useful OBJECT of this Letter is to apprize you that on Saturday I +shall transmit the PENS by the same coach I sent the Parcel. So enquire +them out. You had better write to Godwin _here_, directing your letter +to be forwarded to him. I don't know his address. You know your letter +must at any rate come to London first. C. L. + +["Your satire upon me"--"This Lime-tree Bower my Prison" (see above). + +"Those nine other wandering maids"--the Muses. A recollection of _The +Anti-Jacobin's_ verses on Lamb and his friends (see above). + +"Your 141st page." "This Lime-tree Bower" again. By "unintelligible +abstraction-fit" Lamb refers to the passage:-- + + Ah! slowly sink +Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun! +Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb, +Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds! +Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves! +And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend +Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood, +Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round +On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem +Less gross than bodily; and of such hues +As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet He makes +Spirits perceive His presence. + +"That scandalous piece of private history." A reference to Coleridge's +"Ode to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire," reprinted in the _Annual +Anthology_ from the _Morning Post_. + +"Blenheim"--Southey's ballad, "It was a summer's evening." + +"Gualberto." The poem "St. Gualberto" by Southey, in the _Annual +Anthology_. + +"The Raven" was referred to in Lamb's letter of Feb. 5, 1797. + +George Dyer's _Poems_, in two volumes, were published in 1800. See note +to Letter 80. + +Upon the phrase "the tops of evening bricks" in this letter, editors +have been divided. The late Dr. Garnett, who annotated the Boston +Bibliophile edition, is convinced that "evening" is the word, and he +says that the bricks meant were probably briquettes of compressed coal +dust.] + + + + +LETTER 65 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[P.M. August 24, 1800.] + +Dear Manning,--I am going to ask a favour of you, and am at a loss how +to do it in the most delicate manner. For this purpose I have been +looking into Pliny's Letters, who is noted to have had the best grace in +begging of all the ancients (I read him in the elegant translation of +Mr. Melmoth), but not finding any case there exactly similar with mine, +I am constrained to beg in my own barbarian way. To come to the point +then, and hasten into the middle of things, have you a copy of your +Algebra to give away? I do not ask it for myself; I have too much +reverence for the Black Arts ever to approach thy circle, illustrious +Trismegist! But that worthy man and excellent Poet, George Dyer, made me +a visit yesternight, on purpose to borrow one, supposing, rationally +enough I must say, that you had made me a present of one before this; +the omission of which I take to have proceeded only from negligence; but +it is a fault. I could lend him no assistance. You must know he is just +now diverted from the pursuit of BELL LETTERS by a paradox, which he has +heard his friend Frend (that learned mathematician) maintain, that the +negative quantities of mathematicians were _merae nugae_, things +scarcely _in rerum naturá_, and smacking too much of mystery for +gentlemen of Mr. Frend's clear Unitarian capacity. However, the dispute +once set a-going has seized violently on George's pericranick; and it is +necessary for his health that he should speedily come to a resolution of +his doubts. He goes about teasing his friends with his new mathematics; +he even frantically talks of purchasing Manning's Algebra, which shows +him far gone, for, to my knowledge, he has not been master of seven +shillings a good time. George's pockets and ----'s brains are two things +in nature which do not abhor a vacuum.... Now, if you could step in, in +this trembling suspense of his reason, and he should find on Saturday +morning, lying for him at the Porter's Lodge, Clifford's Inn,--his +safest address--Manning's Algebra, with a neat manuscriptum in the blank +leaf, running thus, FROM THE AUTHOR! it might save his wits and restore +the unhappy author to those studies of poetry and criticism, which are +at present suspended, to the infinite regret of the whole literary +world. + +N.B.--Dirty books [?backs], smeared leaves, and dogs' ears, will be +rather a recommendation than otherwise. + +N.B.--He must have the book as soon as possible, or nothing can withhold +him from madly purchasing the book on tick.... Then shall we see him +sweetly restored to the chair of Longinus--to dictate in smooth and +modest phrase the laws of verse; to prove that Theocritus first +introduced the Pastoral, and Virgil and Pope brought it to its +perfection; that Gray and Mason (who always hunt in couples in George's +brain) have shown a great deal of poetical fire in their lyric poetry; +that Aristotle's rules are not to be servilely followed, which George +has shown to have imposed great shackles upon modern genius. His poems, +I find, are to consist of two vols.--reasonable octavo; and a third book +will exclusively contain criticisms, in which he asserts he has gone +_pretty deeply_ into the laws of blank verse and rhyme--epic poetry, +dramatic and pastoral ditto--all which is to come out before Christmas. +But above all he has _touched_ most _deeply_ upon the Drama, comparing +the English with the modern German stage, their merits and defects. +Apprehending that his _studies_ (not to mention his _turn_, which I take +to be chiefly towards the lyrical poetry) hardly qualified him for these +disquisitions, I modestly inquired what plays he had read? I found by +George's reply that he _had_ read Shakspeare, but that was a good while +since: he calls him a great but irregular genius, which I think to be an +original and just remark. (Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Ben Jonson, +Shirley, Marlowe, Ford, and the worthies of Dodsley's Collection--he +confessed he had read none of them, but professed his intention of +looking through them all, so as to be able to touch upon them in his +book.) + +So Shakspeare, Otway, and I believe Rowe, to whom he was naturally +directed by Johnson's Lives, and these not read lately, are to stand him +in stead of a general knowledge of the subject. God bless his dear +absurd head! + +By the by, did I not write you a letter with something about an +invitation in it?--but let that pass; I suppose it is not agreeable. + +N.B. It would not be amiss if you were to accompany your present with a +dissertation on negative quantities. + +C. L. + +[Mr. Melmoth. A translation of the _Letters_ of Pliny the Younger was +made by William Melmoth in 1746. + +Trismegistus--thrice greatest--was the term applied to Hermes, the +Egyptian philosopher. Manning had written _An Introduction to Arithmetic +and Algebra_, 1796, 1798. + +William Frend (1757-1841), the mathematician and Unitarian, who had been +prosecuted in the Vice-Chancellor's Court at Cambridge for a tract +entitled "Peace and Union Recommended to the Associated Bodies of +Republicans and Anti-Republicans," in which he attacked much of the +Liturgy of the Church of England. He was found guilty and banished from +the University of Cambridge. He had been a friend of Robert Robinson, +whose life Dyer wrote, and remained a friend of Dyer to the end of his +life. Coleridge had been among the undergraduates who supported Frend at +his trial. + +"...'s brain." In a later letter Lamb uses Judge Park's wig, when his +head is in it, as a simile for emptiness.] + + + + +LETTER 66 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +August 26th, 1800. + +How do you like this little epigram? It is not my writing, nor had I any +finger in it. If you concur with me in thinking it very elegant and very +original, I shall be tempted to name the author to you. I will just hint +that it is almost or quite a first attempt. + +HELEN REPENTANT TOO LATE + +1 +High-born Helen, round your dwelling +These twenty years I've paced in vain: +Haughty beauty, your lover's duty +Has been to glory in his pain. + +2 +High-born Helen! proudly telling +Stories of your cold disdain; +I starve, I die, now you comply, +And I no longer can complain. + +3 +These twenty years I've lived on tears, +Dwelling for ever on a frown; +On sighs I've fed, your scorn my bread; +I perish now you kind are grown. + +4 +Can I, who loved my Beloved +But for the "scorn was in her eye," +Can I be moved for my Beloved, +When she "returns me sigh for sigh?" + +5 +In stately pride, by my bed-side, +High-born Helen's portrait's hung; +Deaf to my praise; my mournful lays +Are nightly to the portrait sung. + +6 +To that I weep, nor ever sleep, +Complaining all night long to her! +_Helen, grown old, no longer cold, +Said_, "You to all men I prefer." + +Godwin returned from Wicklow the week before last, tho' he did not reach +home till the Sunday after. He might much better have spent that time +with you.--But you see your invitation would have been too late. He +greatly regrets the occasion he mist of visiting you, but he intends to +revisit Ireland in the next summer, and then he will certainly take +Keswick in his way. I dined with the Heathen on Sunday. + +By-the-by, I have a sort of recollection that somebody, I think _you_, +promised me a sight of Wordsworth's Tragedy. I should be very glad of it +just now; for I have got Manning with me, and should like to read it +_with him_. But this, I confess, is a refinement. Under any +circumstances, alone in Cold Bath Prison, or in the desert island, just +when Prospero & his crew had set off, with Caliban in a cage, to Milan, +it would be a treat to me to read that play. Manning has read it, so has +Lloyd, and all Lloyd's family; but I could not get him to betray his +trust by giving me a sight of it. Lloyd is sadly deficient in some of +those virtuous vices. I have just lit upon a most beautiful fiction of +hell punishments, by the author of "Hurlothrumbo," a mad farce. The +inventor imagines that in hell there is a great caldron of hot water, in +which a man can scarce hold his finger, and an immense sieve over it, +into which the probationary souls are put. + +"And all the little souls +Pop through the riddle holes." + +Mary's love to Mrs. Coleridge--mine to all. + +N.B.--I pays no Postage.-- + +George Dyer is the only literary character I am happily acquainted with. +The oftener I see him, the more deeply I admire him. He is goodness +itself. If I could but calculate the precise date of his death, I would +write a novel on purpose to make George the hero. I could hit him off to +a hair. + +George brought a Dr. Anderson to see me. The Doctor is a very pleasant +old man, a great genius for agriculture, one that ties his +breeches-knees with Packthread, & boasts of having had disappointments +from ministers. The Doctor happened to mention an Epic Poem by one +Wilkie, called the "Epigoniad," in which he assured us there is not one +tolerable line from beginning to end, but all the characters, incidents, +&c., are verbally copied from _Homer_. George, who had been sitting +quite inattentive to the Doctor's criticism, no sooner heard the sound +of _Homer_ strike his pericraniks, than up he gets, and declares he must +see that poem immediately: where was it to be had? An epic poem of 800 +[? 8,000] lines, and _he_ not hear of it! There must be some things good +in it, and it was necessary he should see it, for he had touched pretty +deeply upon that subject in his criticisms on the Epic. George has +touched pretty deeply upon the Lyric, I find; he has also prepared a +dissertation on the Drama and the comparison of the English and German +theatres. As I rather doubted his competency to do the latter, knowing +that his peculiar _turn_ lies in the lyric species of composition, I +questioned George what English plays he had read. I found that he _had_ +read Shakspere (whom he calls an original, but irregular, genius), but +it was a good while ago; and he has dipt into Rowe and Otway, I suppose +having found their names in Johnson's Lives at full length; and upon +this slender ground he has undertaken the task. He never seem'd even to +have heard of Fletcher, Ford, Marlow, Massinger, and the Worthies of +Dodsley's Collection; but he is to read all these, to prepare him for +bringing out his "Parallel" in the winter. I find he is also determined +to vindicate Poetry from the shackles which Aristotle & some others have +imposed upon it, which is very good-natured of him, and very necessary +just now! Now I am _touching_ so deeply upon poetry, can I forget that I +have just received from Cottle a magnificent copy of his Guinea Epic. +Four-and-twenty Books to read in the dog-days! I got as far as the Mad +Monk the first day, & fainted. Mr. Cottle's genius strongly points him +to the _Pastoral_, but his inclinations divert him perpetually from his +calling. He imitates Southey, as Rowe did Shakspeare, with his "Good +morrow to ye; good master Lieut't." Instead of _a_ man, _a_ woman, _a_ +daughter, he constantly writes one a man, one a woman, one his daughter. +Instead of _the_ king, _the_ hero, he constantly writes, he the king, he +the hero--two flowers of rhetoric palpably from the "Joan." But Mr. +Cottle soars a higher pitch: and when he _is_ original, it is in a most +original way indeed. His terrific scenes are indefatigable. Serpents, +asps, spiders, ghosts, dead bodies, staircases made of nothing, with +adders' tongues for bannisters--My God! what a brain he must have! He +puts as many plums in his pudding as my Grandmother used to do; and then +his emerging from Hell's horrors into Light, and treading on pure flats +of this earth for twenty-three Books together! + +C. L. + +[The little epigram was by Mary Lamb. It was printed first in the _John +Woodvil_ volume in 1802; and again, in a footnote to Lamb's essay +"Blakesmoor in H----shire," 1824. + +Godwin's return was from his visit to Curran. Coleridge had asked him to +break his journey at Keswick. + +"Wordsworth's Tragedy"--"The Borderers." + +"I would write a novel." Lamb returns to this idea in Letter 91. + +One of Dyer's printed criticisms of Shakespeare, in his _Poetics_, some +years later might be quoted: "Shakespeare had the inward clothing of a +fine mind; the outward covering of solid reading, of critical +observation, and the richest eloquence; and compared with these, what +are the trappings of the schools?" + +"Cottle's Guinea Epic" would be _Alfred, an Epic Poem_, by Joseph +Cottle, the publisher.] + + + + +LETTER 67 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[P.M. August 28, 1800.] + +George Dyer is an Archimedes, and an Archimagus, and a Tycho Brahé, and +a Copernicus; and thou art the darling of the Nine, and midwife to their +wandering babe also! We take tea with that learned poet and critic on +Tuesday night, at half-past five, in his neat library; the repast will +be light and Attic, with criticism. If thou couldst contrive to wheel up +thy dear carcase on the Monday, and after dining with us on tripe, +calves' kidneys, or whatever else the Cornucopia of St. Clare may be +willing to pour out on the occasion, might we not adjourn together to +the Heathen's--thou with thy Black Backs and I with some innocent volume +of the Bell Letters--Shenstone, or the like? It would make him wash his +old flannel gown (that has not been washed to my knowledge since it has +been _his_--Oh the long time!) with tears of joy. Thou shouldst settle +his scruples and unravel his cobwebs, and sponge off the sad stuff that +weighs upon his dear wounded pia mater; thou shouldst restore light to +his eyes, and him to his friends and the public; Parnassus should shower +her civic crowns upon thee for saving the wits of a citizen! I thought I +saw a lucid interval in George the other night--he broke in upon my +studies just at tea-time, and brought with him Dr. Anderson, an old +gentleman who ties his breeches' knees with packthread, and boasts that +he has been disappointed by ministers. The Doctor wanted to see _me_; +for, I being a Poet, he thought I might furnish him with a copy of +verses to suit his "Agricultural Magazine." The Doctor, in the course of +the conversation, mentioned a poem called "Epigoniad" by one Wilkie, an +epic poem, in which there is not one tolerable good line all through, +but every incident and speech borrowed from Homer. George had been +sitting inattentive seemingly to what was going on--hatching of negative +quantities--when, suddenly, the name of his old friend Homer stung his +pericranicks, and, jumping up, he begged to know where he could meet +with Wilkie's work. "It was a curious fact that there should be such an +epic poem and he not know of it; and he _must_ get a copy of it, as he +was going to touch pretty deeply upon the subject of the Epic--and he +was sure there must be some things good in a poem of 1400 lines!" I was +pleased with this transient return of his reason and recurrence to his +old ways of thinking: it gave me great hopes of a recovery, which +nothing but your book can completely insure. Pray come on Monday if you +_can_, and stay your own time. I have a good large room, with two beds +in it, in the handsomest of which thou shalt repose a-nights, and dream +of Spheroides. I hope you will understand by the nonsense of this letter +that I am _not_ melancholy at the thoughts of thy coming: I thought it +necessary to add this, because you love _precision_. Take notice that +our stay at Dyer's will not exceed eight o'clock, after which our +pursuits will be our own. But indeed I think a little recreation among +the Bell Letters and poetry will do you some service in the interval of +severer studies. I hope we shall fully discuss with George Dyer what I +have never yet heard done to my satisfaction, the reason of Dr. +Johnson's malevolent strictures on the higher species of the Ode. + +["Thy Black Back"--Manning's Algebra. + +Dr. Anderson was James Anderson (1739-1808), the editor, at that time, +of _Recreations in Agriculture, Natural History, Arts, and Miscellaneous +History_, published in monthly parts. Lamb gave him a copy of +verses--three extracts from _John Woodvil_ which were printed in the +number for November, 1800, as being "from an unpublished drama by C. +Lamb." They were the "Description of a Forest Life," "The General Lover" +("What is it you love?") and "Fragment or Dialogue," better known as +"The Dying Lover." All have slight variations from other versions. The +most striking is the epithet "lubbar bands of sleep," instead of "lazy +bands of sleep," in the "Description of a Forest Life." + +Wilkie was William Wilkie (1721-1772), the "Scottish Homer," whose +_Epigoniad_ in nine books, based on the fourth book of the _Iliad_, was +published in 1757.] + + + + +LETTER 68 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING +[P.M. Sept. 22, 1800.] + +Dear Manning,--You needed not imagine any apology necessary. Your fine +hare and fine birds (which just now are dangling by our kitchen blaze) +discourse most eloquent music in your justification. You just nicked my +palate. For, with all due decorum and leave may it be spoken, my worship +hath taken physic for his body to-day, and being low and puling, +requireth to be pampered. Foh! how beautiful and strong those buttered +onions come to my nose! For you must know we extract a divine spirit of +gravy from those materials which, duly compounded with a consistence of +bread and cream (y'clept bread-sauce), each to each giving double grace, +do mutually illustrate and set off (as skilful goldfoils to rare jewels) +your partridge, pheasant, woodcock, snipe, teal, widgeon, and the other +lesser daughters of the ark. My friendship, struggling with my carnal +and fleshly prudence (which suggests that a bird a man is the proper +allotment in such cases), yearneth sometimes to have thee here to pick a +wing or so. I question if your Norfolk sauces match our London +culinaric. + +George Dyer has introduced me to the table of an agreeable old +gentleman, Dr. Anderson, who gives hot legs of mutton and grape pies at +his sylvan lodge at Isleworth, where, in the middle of a street, he has +shot up a wall most preposterously before his small dwelling, which, +with the circumstance of his taking several panes of glass out of +bedroom windows (for air), causeth his neighbours to speculate strangely +on the state of the good man's pericranicks. Plainly, he lives under the +reputation of being deranged. George does not mind this circumstance; he +rather likes him the better for it. The Doctor, in his pursuits, joins +agricultural to poetical science, and has set George's brains mad about +the old Scotch writers, Harbour, Douglas's Aeneid, Blind Harry, &c. We +returned home in a return postchaise (having dined with the Doctor), and +George kept wondering and wondering, for eight or nine turnpike miles, +what was the name, and striving to recollect the name, of a poet +anterior to Barbour. I begged to know what was remaining of his works. +"There is nothing _extant_ of his works, Sir, but by all accounts he +seems to have been a fine genius!" This fine genius, without anything to +show for it or any title beyond George's courtesy, without even a name! +and Barbour, and Douglas, and Blind Harry, now are the predominant +sounds in George's pia mater, and their buzzings exclude politics, +criticism, and algebra--the late lords of that illustrious lumber-room. +Mark, he has never read any of these bucks, but is impatient till he +reads them _all_ at the Doctor's suggestion. Poor Dyer! his friends +should be careful what sparks they let fall into such inflammable +matter. + +Could I have my will of the heathen, I would lock him up from all access +of new ideas; I would exclude all critics that would not swear me first +(upon their Virgil) that they would feed him with nothing but the old, +safe, familiar notions and sounds (the rightful aborigines of his +brain)--Gray, Akenside and Mason. In these sounds, reiterated as often +as possible, there could be nothing painful, nothing distracting. + +God bless me, here are the birds, smoking hot! + +All that is gross and unspiritual in me rises at the sight! + +Avaunt friendship and all memory of absent friends! + +C. LAMB. + +["Divine spirit of gravy." This passage is the first of Lamb's outbursts +of gustatory ecstasy, afterwards to become frequent in his writings. + +Here should come a letter, dated October 9, 1800, in the richest spirit +of comedy, describing to Coleridge an evening with George Dyer and the +Cottles after the death of their brother Amos; and how Lamb, by praising +Joseph Cottle's poem, drew away that good man's thoughts from his grief. +"Joseph, who till now had sat with his knees cowering in by the +fireplace, wheeled about, and with great difficulty of body shifted the +same round to the corner of a table where I was sitting, and first +stationing one thigh over the other, which is his sedentary mood, and +placidly fixing his benevolent face right against mine, waited my +observations. At that moment it came strongly into my mind, that I had +got Uncle Toby before me, he looked so kind and so good." The letter, +printed in full in other editions, is, I am given to understand, not +available for this.] + + + + +LETTER 69 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING +[P.M. Oct. 16, 1800.] + +Dear Manning,--Had you written one week before you did, I certainly +should have obeyed your injunction; you should have seen me before my +letter. I will explain to you my situation. There are six of us in one +department. Two of us (within these four days) are confined with severe +fevers; and two more, who belong to the Tower Militia, expect to have +marching orders on Friday. Now six are absolutely necessary. I have +already asked and obtained two young hands to supply the loss of the +_feverites_; and, with the other prospect before me, you may believe I +cannot decently ask leave of absence for myself. All I can promise (and +I do promise with the sincerity of Saint Peter, and the contrition of +sinner Peter if I fail) that I will come _the very first spare week_, +and go nowhere till I have been at Cambridge. No matter if you are in a +state of pupilage when I come; for I can employ myself in Cambridge very +pleasantly in the mornings. Are there not libraries, halls, colleges, +books, pictures, statues? I wish to God you had made London in your way. +There is an exhibition quite uncommon in Europe, which could not have +escaped _your genius_,--a live rattlesnake, ten feet in length, and the +thickness of a big leg. I went to see it last night by candlelight. We +were ushered into a room very little bigger than ours at Pentonville. A +man and woman and four boys live in this room, joint tenants with nine +snakes, most of them such as no remedy has been discovered for their +bite. We walked into the middle, which is formed by a half-moon of wired +boxes, all mansions of _snakes_,--whip-snakes, thunder-snakes, +pig-nose-snakes, American vipers, and _this monster_. He lies curled up +in folds; and immediately a stranger enters (for he is used to the +family, and sees them play at cards,) he set up a rattle like a +watchman's in London, or near as loud, and reared up a head, from the +midst of these folds, like a toad, and shook his head, and showed every +sign a snake can show of irritation. I had the foolish curiosity to +strike the wires with my finger, and the devil flew at me with his +toad-mouth wide open: the inside of his mouth is quite white. I had got +my finger away, nor could he well have bit me with his damn'd big mouth, +which would have been certain death in five minutes. But it frightened +me so much, that I did not recover my voice for a minute's space. I +forgot, in my fear, that he was secured. You would have forgot too, for +'tis incredible how such a monster can be confined in small +gauzy-looking wires. I dreamed of snakes in the night. I wish to heaven +you could see it. He absolutely swelled with passion to the bigness of a +large thigh. I could not retreat without infringing on another box, and +just behind, a little devil not an inch from my back, had got his nose +out, with some difficulty and pain, quite through the bars! He was soon +taught better manners. All the snakes were curious, and objects of +terror: but this monster, like Aaron's serpent, swallowed up the +impression of the rest. He opened his damn'd mouth, when he made at me, +as wide as his head was broad. I hallooed out quite loud, and felt pains +all over my body with the fright. + +I have had the felicity of hearing George Dyer read out one book of "The +Farmer's Boy." I thought it rather childish. No doubt, there is +originality in it, (which, in your self-taught geniuses, is a most rare +quality, they generally getting hold of some bad models in a scarcity of +books, and forming their taste on them,) but no _selection_. _All_ is +described. + +Mind, I have only heard read one book. + +Yours sincerely, +Philo-Snake, +C. L. + +[_The Farmer's Boy_, by Robert Bloomfield, was published in March, 1800, +and was immensely popular. Other criticisms upon it by Lamb will be +found in this work. + +Lamb's visit to Cambridge was deferred until January 5, 1801.] + + + + +LETTER 70 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING +[P.M. Nov. 3, 1800.] + +_Ecquid meditatur Archimedes?_ What is Euclid doing? What has happened +to learned Trismegist?--Doth he take it in ill part, that his humble +friend did not comply with his courteous invitation? Let it suffice, I +could not come--are impossibilities nothing--be they abstractions of the +intellects or not (rather) most sharp and mortifying realities? nuts in +the Will's mouth too hard for her to crack? brick and stone walls in her +way, which she can by no means eat through? sore lets, _impedimenta +viarum_, no thoroughfares? _racemi nimium alte pendentes_? Is the phrase +classic? I allude to the grapes in Aesop, which cost the fox a strain, +and gained the world an aphorism. Observe the superscription of this +letter. In adapting the size of the letters, which constitute _your_ +name and Mr. _Crisp's_ name respectively, I had an eye to your different +stations, in life. 'Tis really curious, and must be soothing to an +_aristocrat_. I wonder it has never been hit on before my time. I have +made an acquisition latterly of a _pleasant hand_, one Rickman, to whom +I was introduced by George Dyer, not the most flattering auspices under +which one man can be introduced to another. George brings all sorts of +people together, setting up a sort of agrarian law, or common property, +in matter of society; but for once he has done me a great pleasure, +while he was only pursuing a principle, as _ignes fatui may_ light you +home. This Rickman lives in our Buildings, immediately opposite our +house; the finest fellow to drop in a' nights, about nine or ten +o'clock--cold bread-and-cheese time--just in the _wishing_ time of the +night, when you _wish_ for somebody to come in, without a distinct idea +of a probable anybody. Just in the nick, neither too early to be +tedious, nor too late to sit a reasonable time. He is a most pleasant +hand: a fine rattling fellow, has gone through life laughing at solemn +apes; himself hugely literate, oppressively full of information in all +stuff of conversation, from matter of fact to Xenophon and Plato--can +talk Greek with Porson, politics with Thelwall, conjecture with George +Dyer, nonsense with me, and anything with anybody: a great farmer, +somewhat concerned in an agricultural magazine--reads no poetry but +Shakspeare, very intimate with Southey, but never reads his poetry: +relishes George Dyer, thoroughly penetrates into the ridiculous wherever +found, understands the _first time_ (a great desideratum in common +minds)--you need never twice speak to him; does not want explanations, +translations, limitations, as Professor Godwin does when you make an +assertion: _up_ to anything, _down_ to everything--whatever _sapit +hominem_. A perfect _man_. All this farrago, which must perplex you to +read, and has put me to a little trouble to _select_, only proves how +impossible it is to describe a _pleasant hand_. You must see Rickman to +know him, for he is a species in one. A new class. An exotic, any slip +of which I am proud to put in my garden-pot. The clearest-headed fellow. +Fullest of matter with least verbosity. If there be any alloy in my +fortune to have met with such a man, it is that he commonly divides his +time between town and country, having some foolish family ties at +Christchurch, by which means he can only gladden our London hemisphere +with returns of light. He is now going for six weeks. + +At last I have written to Kemble, to know the event of my play, which +was presented last Christmas. As I suspected, came an answer back that +the copy was lost, and could not be found--no hint that anybody had to +this day ever looked into it--with a courteous (reasonable!) request of +another copy (if I had one by me,) and a promise of a definite answer in +a week. I could not resist so facile and moderate a demand, so scribbled +out another, omitting sundry things, such as the witch story, about half +of the forest scene (which is too leisurely for story), and transposing +that damn'd soliloquy about England getting drunk, which, like its +reciter, stupidly stood alone, nothing prevenient or antevenient, and +cleared away a good deal besides; and sent this copy, written _all out_ +(with alterations, &c., _requiring judgment_) in one day and a half! I +sent it last night, and am in weekly expectation of the tolling-bell and +death-warrant. + +This is all my Lunnon news. Send me some from the _banks of Cam_, as the +poets delight to speak, especially George Dyer, who has no other name, +nor idea, nor definition of Cambridge: namely, its being a market-town, +sending members to Parliament, never entered into his definition: it was +and is, simply, the banks of the Cam or the fair Cam, as Oxford is the +banks of the Isis or the fair Isis. Yours in all humility, most +illustrious Trismegist, + +C. LAMB. + +(Read on; there's more at the bottom.) + +You ask me about the "Farmer's Boy"--don't you think the fellow who +wrote it (who is a shoemaker) has a poor mind? Don't you find he is +always silly about _poor Giles_, and those abject kind of phrases, which +mark a man that looks up to wealth? None of Burns's poet-dignity. What +do you think? I have just opened him; but he makes me sick. Dyer knows +the shoemaker (a damn'd stupid hound in company); but George promises to +introduce him indiscriminately to all friends and all combinations. + +[Mr. Crisp was Manning's landlord, a barber in St. Mary's Passage, +Cambridge. In one letter at least Lamb spells his name Crips--a joke he +was fond of. + +"Rickman" was John Rickman (1771-1840), already a friend of Southey's, +whom he had met at Burton, near Christchurch, in Hampshire, where +Rickman's father lived. A graduate of Lincoln College, Oxford, he was at +this time secretary to Charles Abbot, afterwards Lord Colchester. He had +conducted the _Commercial, Agricultural_, and Manufacturer's Magazine, +and he was practically the originator of the census in England. We shall +meet with him often in the correspondence. + +Kemble was John Philip Kemble, then manager of Drury Lane. The play was +"John Woodvil." For an account of the version which Lamb submitted, see +the Notes to Vol. IV. + +George Dyer wrote a _History of Cambridge University_. + +George Daniel, the antiquary and bookseller, tells us that many years +later he took Bloomfield to dine with Lamb at Islington.] + + + + +LETTER 71 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[P.M. Nov. 28, 1800.] + +Dear Manning,--I have received a very kind invitation from Lloyd and +Sophia to go and spend a month with them at the Lakes. Now it +fortunately happens (which is so seldom the case!) that I have spare +cash by me, enough to answer the expenses of so long a journey; and I am +determined to get away from the office by some means. The purpose of +this letter is to request of you (my dear friend) that you will not take +it unkind if I decline my proposed visit to Cambridge _for the present_. +Perhaps I shall be able to take Cambridge _in my way_, going or coming. +I need not describe to you the expectations which such an one as myself, +pent up all my life in a dirty city, have formed of a tour to the Lakes. +Consider Grasmere! Ambleside! Wordsworth! Coleridge! I hope you will.* +Hills, woods, lakes, and mountains, to the eternal devil. I will eat +snipes with thee, Thomas Manning. Only confess, confess, a _bite_. + +_P.S._ I think you named the 16th; but was it not modest of Lloyd to +send such an invitation! It shows his knowledge of money and time. I +would be loth to think he meant + +"Ironic satire sidelong sklented +On my poor pursie."--BURNS. + +For my part, with reference to my friends northward, I must confess that +I am not romance-bit about _Nature_. The earth, and sea, and sky (when +all is said) is but as a house to dwell in. If the inmates be courteous, +and good liquors flow like the conduits at an old coronation; if they +can talk sensibly and feel properly; I have no need to stand staring +upon the gilded looking-glass (that strained my friend's purse-strings +in the purchase), nor his five-shilling print over the mantelpiece of +old Nabbs the carrier (which only betrays his false taste). Just as +important to me (in a sense) is all the furniture of my world-- +eye-pampering, but satisfies no heart. Streets, streets, streets, +markets, theatres, churches, Covent Gardens, shops sparkling with pretty +faces of industrious milliners, neat sempstresses, ladies cheapening, +gentlemen behind counters lying, authors in the street with spectacles, +George Dyers (you may know them by their gait), lamps lit at night, +pastry-cooks' and silver-smiths' shops, beautiful Quakers of +Pentonville, noise of coaches, drowsy cry of mechanic watchman at night, +with bucks reeling home drunk; if you happen to wake at midnight, cries +of Fire and Stop thief; inns of court, with their learned air, and +halls, and butteries, just like Cambridge colleges; old book-stalls, +Jeremy Taylors, Burtons on Melancholy, and Religio Medicis on every +stall. These are thy pleasures, O London with-the-many-sins. O City +abounding in whores, for these may Keswick and her giant brood go hang! + +C. L. + +[Charles Lloyd had just settled at Old Brathay, about three miles from +Ambleside. + +Manning's reply to this letter indicates that Lamb's story of the +invitation to stay with Lloyd was a hoax. The first page, ended where I +have put the *asterisk--as in the letter, to Gutch. Manning writes: +"N.B. Your lake story completely took me in till I got to the 2d page. I +was pleased to think you were so rich, but I confess rather wondered how +you should be able conveniently to take so long a journey this +inside-fare time of the year." + +Manning also says: "I condole, with you, Mr. Lamb, on the tragic fate of +your tragedie--I wonder what fool it was that read it! By the bye, you +would do me a very very great favour by letting me have a copy. If +Beggars might be chusers, I should ask to have it transcribed partly by +you and partly by your sister. I have a desire to possess some of Mary's +handwriting" (see Letter 79). + +"Beautiful Quakers of Pentonville." This is almost certainly a reference +to Hester Savory, the original of Lamb's poem "Hester." The whole +passage is the first of three eulogies of London in the letters, all +very similar. To "The Londoner" we come later.] + + + + +LETTER 72 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM GODWIN + +[Dec. 4, 1800.] + +Dear Sir,--I send this speedily after the heels of Cooper (O! the dainty +expression) to say that Mary is obliged to stay at home on Sunday to +receive a female friend, from whom I am equally glad to escape. So that +we shall be by ourselves. I write, because it may make _some_ difference +in your marketting, &c. + +C. L. + +Thursday Morning. + +I am sorry to put you to the expense of twopence postage. But I +calculate thus: if Mary comes she will + + eat Beef 2 plates, 4d. +_Batter Pudding_ 1 do. 2d. +Beer, a pint, 2d. +Wine, 3 glasses, 11d. I drink no wine! +Chesnuts, after dinner, 2d. +Tea and supper at moderate + calculation, 9d. + --------- + 2s. 6d. + From which deduct 2d. postage + ---------- + 2s. 4d. + +You are a clear gainer by her not coming. + +[If the date be correct this becomes the first extant letter proper +which Lamb sent to the author of _Political Justice_. Godwin was then +forty-four years old, and had long been busy upon his tragedy "Antonio," +in which Lamb had been assisting with suggestions. In this connection I +place here the following document, which belongs, however, naturally to +an earlier date, but is not harmed by its present position.] + + + + +LETTER 73 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM GODWIN + +[No date. Autumn, 1800.] + +Queries. Whether the best conclusion would not be a solemn judicial +pleading, appointed by the king, before himself in person of Antonio as +proxy for Roderigo, and Guzman for himself--the form and ordering of it +to be highly solemn and grand. For this purpose, (allowing it,) the king +must be reserved, and not have committed his royal dignity by descending +to previous conference with Antonio, but must refer from the beginning +to this settlement. He must sit in dignity as a high royal arbiter. +Whether this would admit of spiritual interpositions, cardinals +&c.--appeals to the Pope, and haughty rejection of his interposition by +Antonio--(this merely by the way). + +The pleadings must be conducted by short speeches--replies, taunts, and +bitter recriminations by Antonio, in his rough style. In the midst of +the undecided cause, may not a messenger break up the proceedings by an +account of Roderigo's death (no improbable or far-fetch'd event), and +the whole conclude with an affecting and awful invocation of Antonio +upon Roderigo's spirit, now no longer dependent upon earthly tribunals +or a froward woman's will, &c., &c. + +Almanza's daughter is now free, &c. + +This might be made _very affecting_. Better nothing follow after; if +anything, she must step forward and resolve to take the veil. In this +case, the whole story of the former nunnery _must_ be omitted. But, I +think, better leave the final conclusion to the imagination of the +spectator. Probably the violence of confining her in a convent is not +necessary; Antonio's own castle would be sufficient. + +To relieve the former part of the Play, could not some sensible images, +some work for the Eye, be introduced? A gallery of Pictures, Almanza's +ancestors, to which Antonio might affectingly point his sister, one by +one, with anecdote, &c. + +At all events, with the present want of action, the Play must not extend +above four Acts, unless it is quite new modell'd. The proposed +alterations might all be effected in a few weeks. + +Solemn judicial pleadings always go off well, as in Henry the 8th, +Merchant of Venice, and perhaps Othello. + +[Lamb, said Mr. Paul, writing of this critical Minute, was so genuinely +kind and even affectionate, in his criticism that Godwin did not +perceive his real disapproval. + +Mr Swinburne, writing in _The Athenæum_ for May 13, 1876, made an +interesting comment upon one of Lamb's suggestions in the foregoing +document. It contains, he remarks, "a singular anticipation of one of +the most famous passages in the work of the greatest master of our own +age, the scene of the portraits in 'Hernani:' 'To relieve the former +part of the play, could not some sensible images, some work for the eye, +be introduced? _A gallery of pictures, Alexander's ancestors, to which +Antonio might affectingly point his sister, one by one, with anecdote_, +&c.' I know of no coincidence more pleasantly and strangely notable than +this between the gentle genius of the loveliest among English essayists +and the tragic invention of the loftiest among French poets." + +After long negotiation "Antonio" was now actually in rehearsal at Drury +Lane, to be produced on December 13. Lamb supplied the epilogue. + +Cooper was Godwin's servant.] + + + + +LETTER 74 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM GODWIN + +Dec. 10th, 1800. +Wednesday Morning. + +Dear Sir,--I expected a good deal of pleasure from your company +to-morrow, but I am sorry I must beg of you to excuse me. I have been +confined ever since I saw you with one of the severest colds I ever +experienced, occasioned by being in the night air on Sunday, and on the +following day, very foolishly. I am neither in health nor spirits to +meet company. I hope and trust I shall get out on Saturday night. You +will add to your many favours, by transmitting to me as early as +possible as many tickets as conveniently you can spare,--Yours truly, + +C. L. + +I have been plotting how to abridge the Epilogue. But I cannot see that +any lines can be spared, retaining the connection, except these two, +which are better out. + +"Why should I instance, &c., +The sick man's purpose, &c.," + +and then the following line must run thus, + +"The truth by an example best is shown." + +Excuse this _important_ postscript. + + + + +LETTER 75 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[P.M. Dec. 13, 1800.] + +Don't spill the cream upon this letter. + +I have received your letter _this moment_, not having been at the +office. I have just time to scribble down the epilogue. To your epistle +I will just reply, that I will certainly come to Cambridge before +January is out: I'll come _when I can_. You shall have an amended copy +of my play early next week. Mary thanks you; but her handwriting is too +feminine to be exposed to a Cambridge gentleman, though I endeavour to +persuade her that you understand algebra, and must understand her hand. +The play is the man's you wot of; but for God's sake (who would not like +to have so pious a _professor's_ work _damn'd_) do not mention it--it is +to come out in a feigned name, as one Tobin's. I will omit the +introductory lines which connect it with the play, and give you the +concluding tale, which is the mass and bulk of the epilogue. The _name_ +is _Jack_ INCIDENT. It is about promise-breaking--you will see it all, +if you read the _papers_. + +Jack, of dramatic genius justly vain, +Purchased a renter's share at Drury-lane; +A prudent man in every other matter, +Known at his club-room for an honest hatter; +Humane and courteous, led a civil life, +And has been seldom known to beat his wife; +But Jack is now grown quite another man, +Frequents the green-room, knows the plot and plan + Of each new piece, +And has been seen to talk with Sheridan! +In at the play-house just at six he pops, +And never quits it till the curtain drops, +Is never absent on the _author's night_, +Knows actresses and actors too--by sight; +So humble, that with Suett he'll confer, +Or take a pipe with plain Jack Bannister; +Nay, with an author has been known so free, +He once suggested a catastrophe-- +In short, John dabbled till his head was turn'd; +His wife remonstrated, his neighbours mourn'd, +His customers were dropping off apace, +And Jack's affairs began to wear a piteous face. + One night his wife began a curtain lecture; +"My dearest Johnny, husband, spouse, protector, +Take pity on your helpless babes and me, +Save us from ruin, you from bankruptcy-- +Look to your business, leave these cursed plays, +And try again your old industrious ways." + +Jack who was always scared at the Gazette, +And had some bits of skull uninjured yet, +Promised amendment, vow'd his wife spake reason, +"He would not see another play that season--" + +Three stubborn fortnights Jack his promise kept, +Was late and early in his shop, eat, slept, +And walk'd and talk'd, like ordinary men; +No _wit_, but John the hatter once again-- +Visits his club: when lo! one _fatal night_ +His wife with horror view'd the well-known sight-- +John's _hat, wig, snuff-box_--well she knew his tricks-- +And Jack decamping at the hour of six, +Just at the counter's edge a playbill lay, +Announcing that "Pizarro" was the play-- +"O Johnny, Johnny, this is your old doing." +Quoth Jack, "Why what the devil storm's a-brewing? +About a harmless play why all this fright? +I'll go and see it if it's but for spite-- +Zounds, woman! Nelson's[1] to be there to-night." + +_N.B_.--This was intended for Jack Bannister to speak; but the sage +managers have chosen Miss _Heard_,--except Miss Tidswell, the worst +actress ever seen or _heard_. Now, I remember I have promised the loan +of my play. I will lend it _instantly_, and you shall get it ('pon +honour!) by this day week. + +I must go and dress for the boxes! First night! Finding I have time, I +transcribe the rest. Observe, you have read the last first; it begins +thus:--the names I took from a little outline G. gave me. I have not +read the play. + +"Ladies, ye've seen how Guzman's consort died, +Poor victim of a Spaniard brother's pride, +When Spanish honour through the world was blown, +And Spanish beauty for the best was known[2] +In that romantic, unenlighten'd time, +A _breach of promise_[3] was a sort of crime-- +Which of you handsome English ladies here, +But deems the penance bloody and severe? +A whimsical old Saragossa[4] fashion, +That a dead father's dying inclination, +Should _live_ to thwart a living daughter's passion,[5] +Unjustly on the sex _we_[6] men exclaim, +Rail at _your_[7] vices,--and commit the same;-- +Man is a promise-breaker from the womb, +And goes a promise-breaker to the tomb-- +What need we instance here the lover's vow, +The sick man's purpose, or the great man's bow?[8] +The truth by few examples best is shown-- +Instead of many which are better known, +Take poor Jack Incident, that's dead and gone. +Jack," &c. &c. &c. + +Now you have it all-how do you like it? I am going to hear it recited!!! + +C. L. + +[Footnote 1: A good clap-trap. Nelson has exhibited two or three times +at both theatres--and advertised himself.] +[Footnote 2: Four _easy_ lines.] +[Footnote 3: For which the _heroine died_.] +[Footnote 4: In _Spain!!?] +[Footnote 5: Two _neat_ lines.] +[Footnote 6: Or _you_.] +[Footnote 7: Or _our_, as _they_ have altered it.] +[Footnote 8: Antithesis.] + +["As one Tobin's." The rehearsals of "Antonio" were attended by Godwin's +friend, John Tobin, subsequently author of "The Honeymoon," in the hope, +on account of Godwin's reputation for heterodoxy, of deceiving people as +to the real authorship of the play. It was, however, avowed by Godwin on +the title-page. + +Jack Bannister, the comedian, was a favourite actor of Lamb's. See the +_Elia_ essay "On some of the Old Actors." + +Miss Heard was a daughter of William Heard, the author of "The +Snuff-Box," a feeble comedy. Miss Tidswell, by the irony of fate, had a +part in Lamb's own play, "Mr. H.," six years later. + +"I have not read the play." Meaning probably, "I have not read it in its +final form." Lamb must have read it in earlier versions. I quote Mr. +Kegan Paul's summary of the plot of "Antonio":-- + +"Helena was betrothed, with her father's consent, to her brother +Antonio's friend, Roderigo. While Antonio and Roderigo were at the wars, +Helena fell in love with, and married, Don Gusman. She was the king's +ward, who set aside the pre-contract. Antonio, returning, leaves his +friend behind; he has had great sorrows, but all will be well when he +comes to claim his bride. When Antonio finds his sister is married, the +rage he exhibits is ferocious. He carries his sister off from her +husband's house, and demands that the king shall annul the marriage with +Gusman. There is then talk of Helena's entrance into a convent. At last +the king, losing patience, gives judgment, as he had done before, that +the pre-contract with Roderigo was invalid, and the marriage to Gusman +valid. Whereupon Antonio bursts through the guards, and kills his +sister."] + + + + +LETTER 76 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM GODWIN + +Dec. 14, 1800. +Late o' Sunday. + +Dear Sir,--I have performed my office in a slovenly way, but judge for +me. I sat down at 6 o'clock, and never left reading (and I read out to +Mary) your play till 10. In this sitting I noted down lines as they +occurred, exactly as you will read my rough paper. Do not be frightened +at the bulk of my remarks, for they are almost all upon single lines, +which, put together, do not amount to a hundred, and many of them merely +verbal. I had but one object in view, abridgement for compression sake. +I have used a dogmatical language (which is truly ludicrous when the +trivial nature of my remarks is considered), and, remember, my office +was to hunt out faults. You may fairly abridge one half of them, as a +fair deduction for the infirmities of Error, and a single reading, which +leaves only fifty objections, most of them merely against words, on no +short play. Remember, you constituted me Executioner, and a hangman has +been seldom seen to be ashamed of his profession before Master Sheriff. +We'll talk of the Beauties (of which I am more than ever sure) when we +meet,--Yours truly, C. L. + +I will barely add, as you are on the very point of printing, that in my +opinion neither prologue nor epilogue should accompany the play. It can +only serve to remind your readers of its fate. _Both_ suppose an +audience, and, that jest being gone, must convert into burlesque. Nor +would I (but therein custom and decorum must be a law) print the actors' +names. Some things must be kept out of sight. + +I have done, and I have but a few square inches of paper to fill up. I +am emboldened by a little jorum of punch (vastly good) to say that next +to _one man_, I am the most hurt at our ill success. The breast of +Hecuba, where she did suckle Hector, looked not to be more lovely than +Marshal's forehead when it spit forth sweat, at Critic-swords +contending. I remember two honest lines by Marvel, (whose poems by the +way I am just going to possess) + +"Where every Mower's wholesome heat +Smells like an Alexander's sweat." + +["Antonio" was performed on December 13, with John Philip Kemble in the +title-rôle, and was a complete failure. Lamb wrote an account of the +unlucky evening many years later in the "Old Actors" series in the +_London Magazine_ (see Vol. II. of the present edition). He speaks +there, as here, of Marshal's forehead--Marshal being John Marshall, a +friend of the Godwins. + +After the play Godwin supped with Lamb, when it was decided to publish +"Antonio" at once. Lamb retained the MS. for criticism. The present +letter in the original contains his comments, the only one of which that +Mr. Kegan Paul thought worth reproducing being the following:-- +"'Enviable' is a very bad word. I allude to 'Enviable right to bless +us.' For instance, Burns, comparing the ills of manhood with the state +of infancy, says, 'Oh! enviable early days;' here 'tis good, because the +passion lay in comparison. Excuse my insulting your judgment with an +illustration. I believe I only wanted to beg in the name of a favourite +Bardie, or at most to confirm my own judgment." + +Lamb, it will be remembered, had refused to let Coleridge use "enviable" +in "Lewti." Burns's poem to which Lamb alludes is "Despondency, an Ode," +Stanza 5, "Oh! enviable, early days." + +Godwin's play was published in 1801 without Lamb's epilogue.] + + + + +LETTER 77 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +Dec. 16th, 1800. + +We are damn'd! + +Not the facetious epilogue could save us. For, as the editor of the +"Morning Post," quick-sighted gentleman! hath this morning truly +observed, (I beg pardon if I falsify his _words_, their profound _sense_ +I am sure I retain,) both prologue and epilogue were worthy of +accompanying such a piece; and indeed (mark the profundity, Mister +Manning) were received with proper indignation by such of the audience +only as thought either worth attending to. PROFESSOR, thy glories wax +dim! Again, the incomparable author of the "True Briton" declareth in +_his_ paper (bearing same date) that the epilogue was an indifferent +attempt at humour and character, and failed in both. I forbear to +mention the other papers, because I have not read them. O PROFESSOR, how +different thy feelings now (_quantum mutatus ab illo professore, qui in +agris philosophiae tantas victorias aquisivisti_),--how different thy +proud feelings but one little week ago,--thy anticipation of thy nine +nights,--those visionary claps, which have soothed thy soul by day and +thy dreams by night! Calling in accidentally on the Professor while he +was out, I was ushered into the study; and my nose quickly (most +sagacious always) pointed me to four tokens lying loose upon thy table, +Professor, which indicated thy violent and satanical pride of heart. +Imprimis, there caught mine eye a list of six persons, thy friends, whom +thou didst meditate inviting to a sumptuous dinner on the Thursday, +anticipating the profits of thy Saturday's play to answer charges; I was +in the honoured file! Next, a stronger evidence of thy violent and +almost satanical pride, lay a list of all the morning papers (from the +"Morning Chronicle" downwards to the "Porcupine,") with the places of +their respective offices, where thou wast meditating to insert, and +didst insert, an elaborate sketch of the story of thy play--stones in +thy enemy's hand to bruise thee with; and severely wast thou bruised, O +Professor! nor do I know what oil to pour into thy wounds. Next, which +convinced me to a dead conviction of thy pride, violent and almost +satanical pride--lay a list of books, which thy un-tragedy-favoured +pocket could never answer; Dodsley's Old Plays, Malone's Shakspeare +(still harping upon thy play, thy philosophy abandoned meanwhile to +Christians and superstitious minds); nay, I believe (if I can believe my +memory), that the ambitious Encyclopaedia itself was part of thy +meditated acquisitions; but many a playbook was there. All these visions +are _damned_; and thou, Professor, must read Shakspere in future out of +a common edition; and, hark ye, pray read him to a little better +purpose! Last and strongest against thee (in colours manifest as the +hand upon Belshazzar's wall), lay a volume of poems by C. Lloyd and C. +Lamb. Thy heart misgave thee, that thy assistant might possibly not have +talent enough to furnish thee an epilogue! Manning, all these things +came over my mind; all the gratulations that would have thickened upon +him, and even some have glanced aside upon his humble friend; the +vanity, and the fame, and the profits (the Professor is £500 ideal money +out of pocket by this failure, besides £200 he would have got for the +copyright, and the Professor is never much beforehand with the world; +what he gets is all by the sweat of his brow and dint of brain, for the +Professor, though a sure man, is also a slow); and now to muse upon thy +altered physiognomy, thy pale and squalid appearance (a kind of _blue +sickness_ about the eyelids), and thy crest fallen, and thy proud demand +of £200 from thy bookseller changed to an uncertainty of his taking it +at all, or giving thee full £50. The Professor has won my heart by this +_his_ mournful catastrophe. You remember Marshall, who dined with him at +my house; I met him in the lobby immediately after the damnation of the +Professor's play, and he looked to me like an angel: his face was +lengthened, and ALL OVER SWEAT; I never saw such a care-fraught visage; +I could have hugged him, I loved him so intensely--"From every pore of +him a perfume fell." I have seen that man in many situations, and from +my soul I think that a more god-like honest soul exists not in this +world. The Professor's poor nerves trembling with the recent shock, he +hurried him away to my house to supper; and there we comforted him as +well as we could. He came to consult me about a change of catastrophe; +but alas! the piece was condemned long before that crisis. I at first +humoured him with a specious proposition, but have since joined his true +friends in advising him to give it up. He did it with a pang, and is to +print it as _his_. + +L. + +[The Professor was Lamb's name for Godwin. + +The _Porcupine_ was Cobbett's paper.] + + + + +LETTERS 78 AND 79 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING +[Middle December.] + +I send you all of Coleridge's letters to me, which I have preserved: +some of them are upon the subject of my play. I also send you Kemble's +two letters, and the prompter's courteous epistle, with a curious +critique on "Pride's Cure," by a young physician from EDINBRO, who +modestly suggests quite another kind of a plot. These are monuments of +my disappointment which I like to preserve. + +In Coleridge's letters you will find a good deal of amusement, to see +genuine talent struggling against a pompous display of it. I also send +you the Professor's letter to me (careful Professor! to conceal his +_name_ even from his correspondent), ere yet the Professor's pride was +cured. Oh monstrous and almost satanical pride! + +You will carefully keep all (except the Scotch Doctor's, _which burn in +status quo_), till I come to claim mine own. + +C. LAMB. + +For Mister Manning, Teacher of Mathematics and the Black Arts. There is +another letter in the inside cover of the book opposite the blank leaf +that _was_. + +Mind this goes for a letter. (Acknowledge it _directly_, if only in ten +words.) + +DEAR MANNING--(I shall want to hear this comes safe.) I have scratched +out a good deal, as you will see. Generally, what I have rejected was +either false in feeling, or a violation of character--mostly of the +first sort. I will here just instance in the concluding few lines of the +"Dying Lover's Story," which completely contradicted his character of +_silent_ and _unreproachful_. I hesitated a good deal what copy to send +you, and at last resolved to send the worst, because you are familiar +with it, and can make it out; and a stranger would find so much +difficulty in doing it, that it would give him more pain than pleasure. + +This is compounded precisely of the two persons' hands you requested it +should be.--Yours sincerely, + +C. LAMB. + +[These were the letters accompanying the copy of "Pride's Cure" (or +"John Woodvil") which Charles and Mary Lamb together made for Manning, +as requested in the note on page 197. + +All the letters mentioned by Lamb have vanished; unless by an unlikely +chance the bundle contained Coleridge's letters on Mrs. Lamb's death and +on the quarrel with Lamb and Lloyd. + +Manning's reply, dated December, 1800, gives a little information +concerning the Edinburgh physician's letter--"that gentleman whose +fertile brain can, at a moment's warning, furnish you with 10 Thousand +models of a plot--'The greatest variety of Rapes, Murders, Deathsheads, +&c., &c., sold here.'" Manning thinks that the Scotch doctor understands +Lamb's tragedy better than Coleridge does. He adds: "P.S.--My verdict +upon the Poet's epitaph is 'genuine.'" This probably applies to a +question asked by Lamb concerning Wordsworth's poem of that name.] + + + + +LETTER 80 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +December 27th, 1800. + +At length George Dyer's phrenesis has come to a crisis; he is raging and +furiously mad. I waited upon the heathen, Thursday was a se'nnight; the +first symptom which struck my eye and gave me incontrovertible proof of +the fatal truth was a pair of nankeen pantaloons four times too big for +him, which the said Heathen did pertinaciously affirm to be new. + +They were absolutely ingrained with the accumulated dirt of ages; but he +affirmed them to be clean. He was going to visit a lady that was nice +about those things, and that's the reason he wore nankeen that day. And +then he danced, and capered, and fidgeted, and pulled up his pantaloons, +and hugged his intolerable flannel vestment closer about his poetic +loins; anon he gave it loose to the zephyrs which plentifully insinuate +their tiny bodies through every crevice, door, window or wainscot, +expressly formed for the exclusion of such impertinents. Then he caught +at a proof sheet, and catched up a laundress's bill instead--made a dart +at Blomfield's Poems, and threw them in agony aside. I could not bring +him to one direct reply; he could not maintain his jumping mind in a +right line for the tithe of a moment by Clifford's Inn clock. He must go +to the printer's immediately--the most unlucky accident--he had struck +off five hundred impressions of his Poems, which were ready for delivery +to subscribers, and the Preface must all be expunged. There were eighty +pages of Preface, and not till that morning had he discovered that in +the very first page of said Preface he had set out with a principle of +Criticism fundamentally-wrong, which vitiated all his following +reasoning. The Preface must be expunged, although it cost him £30--the +lowest calculation, taking in paper and printing! In vain have his real +friends remonstrated against this Midsummer madness. George is as +obstinate as a Primitive Christian--and wards and parries off all our +thrusts with one unanswerable fence;--"Sir, it's of great consequence +that the _world_ is not _misled_!" + +As for the other Professor, he has actually begun to dive into Tavernier +and Chardin's _Persian_ Travels for a story, to form a new drama for the +sweet tooth of this fastidious age. Hath not Bethlehem College a fair +action for non-residence against such professors? Are poets so _few_ in +_this age_, that he must write poetry? Is _morals_ a subject so +exhausted, that he must quit that line? Is the metaphysic well (without +a bottom) drained dry? + +If I can guess at the wicked pride of the Professor's heart, I would +take a shrewd wager that he disdains ever again to dip his pen in +_Prose_. Adieu, ye splendid theories! Farewell, dreams of political +justice! Lawsuits, where I was counsel for Archbishop Fenelon _versus_ +my own mother, in the famous fire cause! + +Vanish from my mind, professors, one and all! I have metal more +attractive on foot. + +Man of many snipes, I will sup with thee, Deo volente et diabolo +nolente, on Monday night the 5th of January, in the new year, and crush +a cup to the infant century. + +A word or two of my progress. Embark at six o'clock in the morning, with +a fresh gale, on a Cambridge one-decker; very cold till eight at night; +land at St. Mary's light-house, muffins and coffee upon table (or any +other curious production of Turkey or both Indies), snipes exactly at +nine, punch to commence at ten, with _argument_; difference of opinion +is expected to take place about eleven; perfect unanimity, with some +haziness and dimness, before twelve.--N.B. My single affection is not so +singly wedded to snipes; but the curious and epicurean eye would also +take a pleasure in beholding a delicate and well-chosen assortment of +teals, ortolans, the unctuous and palate-soothing flesh of geese wild +and tame, nightingales' brains, the sensorium of a young sucking-pig, or +any other Christmas dish, which I leave to the judgment of you and the +cook of Gonville. C. LAMB. + +[Lamb's copy of George Dyer's _Poems_ is in the British Museum. It has +the original withdrawn 1800 title-page and the cancelled preface bound +up with it, and Lamb has written against the reference to the sacrifice, +in the new 1801 preface: "One copy of this cancelled preface, snatch'd +out of the fire, is prefaced to this volume." See Letter 93, page 234. +It runs to sixty-five pages, whereas the new one is but a few words. +Southey tells Grosvenor Bedford in one of his letters that Lamb gave +Dyer the title of Cancellarius Magnus. Dyer reprinted in the 1802 +edition of his Poems the greater part of the cancelled preface and all +of the first page--so that it is difficult to say what the fallacy was. +The original edition of his _Poems_, was to be in three large volumes. +In 1802 it had come down to two small ones. + +Godwin's Persian drama was "Abbas, King of Persia," but he could not get +it acted. The reference to Fénélon is to Godwin's _Political Justice_ +(first edition, Vol. I., page 84) where he argues on the comparative +worth of the persons of Fénélon, a chambermaid, and Godwin's mother, +supposing them to have been present at the famous fire at Cambrai and +only one of them to be saved. (As a matter of fact Fénélon was not at +the fire.) + +We must suppose that Lamb carried out his intention of visiting Manning +on January 5; but there is no confirmation.] + + + + +LETTER 81 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +[P.M. January 30, 1801.] + +Thanks for your Letter and Present. I had already borrowed your second +volume. What most please me are, the Song of Lucy.... _Simon's sickly +daughter_ in the Sexton made me _cry_. Next to these are the description +of the continuous Echoes in the story of Joanna's laugh, where the +mountains and all the scenery absolutely seem alive--and that fine +Shakesperian character of the Happy Man, in the Brothers, + +--that creeps about the fields, +Following his fancies by the hour, to bring +Tears down his cheek, or solitary smiles +Into his face, _until the Setting Sun_ +Write Fool upon his forehead. + +I will mention one more: the delicate and curious feeling in the wish +for the Cumberland Beggar, that he may have about him the melody of +Birds, altho' he hear them not. Here the mind knowingly passes a fiction +upon herself, first substituting her own feelings for the Beggar's, and, +in the same breath detecting the fallacy, will not part with the +wish.--The Poet's Epitaph is disfigured, to my taste by the vulgar +satire upon parsons and lawyers in the beginning, and the coarse epithet +of pin point in the 6th stanza. All the rest is eminently good, and your +own. I will just add that it appears to me a fault in the Beggar, that +the instructions conveyed in it are too direct and like a lecture: they +don't slide into the mind of the reader, while he is imagining no such +matter. An intelligent reader finds a sort of insult in being told, I +will teach you how to think upon this subject. This fault, if I am +right, is in a ten-thousandth worse degree to be found in Sterne and +many many novelists & modern poets, who continually put a sign post up +to shew where you are to feel. They set out with assuming their readers +to be stupid. Very different from Robinson Crusoe, the Vicar of +Wakefield, Roderick Random, and other beautiful bare narratives. There +is implied an unwritten compact between Author and reader; I will tell +you a story, and I suppose you will understand it. Modern novels "St. +Leons" and the like are full of such flowers as these "Let not my reader +suppose," "Imagine, _if you can_"--modest!--&c.--I will here have done +with praise and blame. I have written so much, only that you may not +think I have passed over your book without observation,--I am sorry that +Coleridge has christened his Ancient Marinere "a poet's Reverie"--it is +as bad as Bottom the Weaver's declaration that he is not a Lion but only +the scenical representation of a Lion. What new idea is gained by this +Title, but one subversive of all credit, which the tale should force +upon us, of its truth? For me, I was never so affected with any human +Tale. After first reading it, I was totally possessed with it for many +days--I dislike all the miraculous part of it, but the feelings of the +man under the operation of such scenery dragged me along like Tom +Piper's magic whistle. I totally differ from your idea that the Marinere +should have had a character and profession. This is a Beauty in +Gulliver's Travels, where the mind is kept in a placid state of little +wonderments; but the Ancient Marinere undergoes such Trials, as +overwhelm and bury all individuality or memory of what he was, like the +state of a man in a Bad dream, one terrible peculiarity of which is: +that all consciousness of personality is gone. Your other observation is +I think as well a little unfounded: the Marinere from being conversant +in supernatural events _has_ acquired a supernatural and strange cast of +_phrase_, eye, appearance, &c. which frighten the wedding guest. You +will excuse my remarks, because I am hurt and vexed that you should +think it necessary, with a prose apology, to open the eyes of dead men +that cannot see. To sum up a general opinion of the second vol.--I do +not feel any one poem in it so forcibly as the Ancient Marinere, the Mad +Mother, and the Lines at Tintern Abbey in the first.--I could, too, have +wished the Critical preface had appeared in a separate treatise. All its +dogmas are true and just, and most of them new, _as_ criticism. But they +associate a _diminishing_ idea with the Poems which follow, as having +been written for _Experiment_ on the public taste, more than having +sprung (as they must have done) from living and daily circumstances.--I +am prolix, because I am gratifyed in the opportunity of writing to you, +and I don't well know when to leave off. I ought before this to have +reply'd to your very kind invitation into Cumberland. With you and your +Sister I could gang any where. But I am afraid whether I shall ever be +able to afford so desperate a Journey. Separate from the pleasure of +your company, I don't much care if I never see a mountain in my life. I +have passed all my days in London, until I have formed as many and +intense local attachments, as any of you mountaineers can have done with +dead nature. The Lighted shops of the Strand and Fleet Street, the +innumerable trades, tradesmen and customers, coaches, waggons, +playhouses, all the bustle and wickedness round about Covent Garden, the +very women of the Town, the Watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles,--life +awake, if you awake, at all hours of the night, the impossibility of +being dull in Fleet Street, the crowds, the very dirt & mud, the Sun +shining upon houses and pavements, the print shops, the old book stalls, +parsons cheap'ning books, coffee houses, steams of soups from kitchens, +the pantomimes, London itself a pantomime and a masquerade,--all these +things work themselves into my mind and feed me, without a power of +satiating me. The wonder of these sights impells me into night-walks +about her crowded streets, and I often shed tears in the motley Strand +from fulness of joy at so much Life.--All these emotions must be strange +to you. So are your rural emotions to me. But consider, what must I have +been doing all my life, not to have lent great portions of my heart with +usury to such scenes?-- + +My attachments are all local, purely local. I have no passion (or have +had none since I was in love, and then it was the spurious engendering +of poetry & books) to groves and vallies. The rooms where I was born, +the furniture which has been before my eyes all my life, a book case +which has followed me about (like a faithful dog, only exceeding him in +knowledge) wherever I have moved--old chairs, old tables, streets, +squares, where I have sunned myself, my old school,--these are my +mistresses. Have I not enough, without your mountains? I do not envy +you. I should pity you, did I not know, that the Mind will make friends +of any thing. Your sun & moon and skys and hills & lakes affect me no +more, or scarcely come to me in more venerable characters, than as a +gilded room with tapestry and tapers, where I might live with handsome +visible objects. I consider the clouds above me but as a roof, +beautifully painted but unable to satisfy the mind, and at last, like +the pictures of the apartment of a connoisseur, unable to afford him any +longer a pleasure. So fading upon me, from disuse, have been the +Beauties of Nature, as they have been confinedly called; so ever fresh & +green and warm are all the inventions of men and assemblies of men in +this great city. I should certainly have laughed with dear Joanna. + +Give my kindest love, _and my sister's_, to D. & your_self_ and a kiss +from me to little Barbara Lewthwaite. + +C. LAMB. + +Thank you for Liking my Play!! + +[This is the first--and perhaps the finest--letter from Lamb to +Wordsworth that has been preserved. Wordsworth, then living with his +sister Dorothy at Dove Cottage, Grasmere, was nearly thirty-one years of +age; Lamb was nearly twenty-six. The work criticised is the second +edition of the _Lyrical Ballads_. The second and sixth stanzas of the +"Poet's Epitaph" ran thus:-- + +A Lawyer art thou?--draw not nigh; + Go, carry to some other place +The hardness of thy coward eye, + The falshood of thy sallow face. + + * * * * * + +Wrapp'd closely in thy sensual fleece + O turn aside, and take, I pray, +That he below may rest in peace, + Thy pin-point of a soul away! + +_St. Leon_ was by Godwin. + +Of "The Ancient Mariner, a Poet's Reverie," Wordsworth had said in a +note to the first volume of _Lyrical Ballads_:-- + +"The Poem of my Friend has indeed great defects; first, that the +principal person has no distinct character, either in his profession of +Mariner, or as a human being who having been long under the controul of +supernatural impressions might be supposed himself to partake of +something supernatural; secondly, that he does not act, but is +continually acted upon; thirdly, that the events having no necessary +connection do not produce each other; and lastly, that the imagery is +somewhat too laboriously accumulated." + +"The Mad Mother." The poem beginning, "Her eyes are wild, her head is +bare." + +"I could, too, have wished." The passage from these words to "don't well +know when to leave off," used to be omitted in the editions of Lamb's +Letters. When Wordsworth sent the correspondence to Moxon, for +Talfourd's use, in 1835, he wrote:-- + +"There are, however, in them some parts which had better be kept +back.... I have also thought it proper to suppress every word of +criticism [Wordsworth meant adverse criticism] upon my own poems.... +Those relating to my works are withheld, partly because I shrink from +the thought of assisting in any way to spread my own praises, and still +more I being convinced that the opinions or judgments of friends given +in this way are of little value." + +"Joanna." Joanna of the laugh. "Barbara Lewthwaite." See Wordsworth's +"Pet Lamb." + +"Thank you for Liking my Play!!" We must suppose this postscript to +contain a touch of sarcasm. Lamb had sent "John Woodvil" to Grasmere and +Keswick. Wordsworth apparently had been but politely interested in it. +Coleridge had written to Godwin: "Talking of tragedies, at every perusal +my love and admiration of his [Lamb's] play rises a peg." + +Here should come a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, dated at end +February 7, 1801, not available for this edition. It is one of the best +letters written by Lamb to Robert Lloyd, or to any one. Lamb first +praises Izaak Walton, whose _Compleat Angler_ he loved for two reasons: +for itself and for its connection with his own Hertfordshire country, +Hoddesdon, Broxbourne, Amwell and the Ware neighbourhood. The letter +passes to a third eulogy of London. Lamb closes by remarking that +Manning is "a dainty chiel, and a man of great power, an enchanter +almost."] + + + + +LETTER 82 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +Feb. 15, 1801. + +I had need be cautious henceforward what opinion I give of the "Lyrical +Ballads." All the North of England are in a turmoil. Cumberland and +Westmoreland have already declared a state of war. I lately received +from Wordsworth a copy of the second volume, accompanied by an +acknowledgement of having received from me many months since a copy of a +certain Tragedy, with excuses for not having made any acknowledgement +sooner, it being owing to an "almost insurmountable aversion from +Letter-writing." This letter I answered in due form and time, and +enumerated several of the passages which had most affected me, adding, +unfortunately, that no single piece had moved me so forcibly as the +"Ancient Mariner," "The Mad Mother," or the "Lines at Tintern Abbey." +The Post did not sleep a moment. I received almost instantaneously a +long letter of four sweating pages from my Reluctant Letter-Writer, the +purport of which was, that he was sorry his 2d vol. had not given me +more pleasure (Devil a hint did I give that it had _not pleased me_), +and "was compelled to wish that my range of sensibility was more +extended, being obliged to believe that I should receive large influxes +of happiness and happy Thoughts" (I suppose from the L.B.)--With a deal +of stuff about a certain Union of Tenderness and Imagination, which in +the sense he used Imagination was not the characteristic of Shakspeare, +but which Milton possessed in a degree far exceeding other Poets: which +Union, as the highest species of Poetry, and chiefly deserving that +name, "He was most proud to aspire to;" then illustrating the said Union +by two quotations from his own 2d vol. (which I had been so unfortunate +as to miss). 1st Specimen--a father addresses his son:-- + + "When thou +First camest into the World, as it befalls +To new-born Infants, thou didst sleep away +Two days: and _Blessings from Thy father's Tongue +Then fell upon thee_." + +The lines were thus undermarked, and then followed "This Passage, as +combining in an extraordinary degree that Union of Imagination and +Tenderness which I am speaking of, I consider as one of the Best I ever +wrote!" + +2d Specimen.--A youth, after years of absence, revisits his native +place, and thinks (as most people do) that there has been strange +alteration in his absence:-- + + "And that the rocks +And everlasting Hills themselves were changed." + +You see both these are good Poetry: but after one has been reading +Shakspeare twenty of the best years of one's life, to have a fellow +start up, and prate about some unknown quality, which Shakspeare +possessed in a degree inferior to Milton and _somebody else_!! This was +not to be _all_ my castigation. Coleridge, who had not written to me +some months before, starts up from his bed of sickness to reprove me for +my hardy presumption: four long pages, equally sweaty and more tedious, +came from him; assuring me that, when the works of a man of true genius +such as W. undoubtedly was, do not please me at first sight, I should +suspect the fault to lie "in me and not in them," etc. etc. etc. etc. +etc. What am I to do with such people? I certainly shall write them a +very merry Letter. Writing to _you_, I may say that the 2d vol. has no +such pieces as the three I enumerated. It is full of original thinking +and an observing mind, but it does not often make you laugh or cry.--It +too artfully aims at simplicity of expression. And you sometimes doubt +if Simplicity be not a cover for Poverty. The best Piece in it I will +send you, being _short_. I have grievously offended my friends in the +North by declaring my undue preference; but I need not fear you:-- + + "She dwelt among the untrodden ways + Beside the Springs of Dove, +A maid whom there were few [none] to praise + And very few to love. + + "A violet, by a mossy stone, + Half hidden from the eye. +Fair as a star when only one + Is shining in the sky. + + "She lived unknown; and few could know, + When Lucy ceased to be. +But she is in the grave, and oh! + The difference to me." + +This is choice and genuine, and so are many, many more. But one does not +like to have 'em rammed down one's throat. "Pray, take it--it's very +good--let me help you--eat faster." + +[It cannot be too much regretted that Lamb's "very merry Letter" in +answer to Wordsworth and Coleridge's remonstrances has not been +preserved. + +At the end of the letter is a passage which can be read only in the +Boston Bibliophile edition, referring to Dyer's Poems, to _John Woodvil_ +and to Godwin.] + + + + +LETTER 83 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[Late February, 1801.] + +You masters of logic ought to know (logic is nothing more than a +knowledge of _words_, as the Greek etymon implies), that all words are +no more to be taken in a literal sense at all times than a promise given +to a tailor. When I expressed an apprehension that you were mortally +offended, I meant no more than by the application of a certain formula +of efficacious sounds, which had _done_ in similar cases before, to +rouse a sense of decency in you, and a remembrance of what was due to +me! You masters of logic should advert to this phenomenon in human +speech, before you arraign the usage of us dramatic geniuses. +Imagination is a good blood mare, and goes well; but the misfortune is, +she has too many paths before her. 'Tis true I might have imaged to +myself, that you had trundled your frail carcass to Norfolk. I might +also, and did imagine, that you had not, but that you were lazy, or +inventing new properties in a triangle, and for that purpose moulding +and squeezing Landlord Crisp's three-cornered beaver into fantastic +experimental forms; or that Archimedes was meditating to repulse the +French, in case of a Cambridge invasion, by a geometric hurling of +folios on their red caps; or, peradventure, that you were in +extremities, in great wants, and just set out for Trinity-bogs when my +letters came. In short, my genius (which is a short word now-a-days for +what-a-great-man-am-I) was absolutely stifled and overlaid with its own +riches. Truth is one and poor, like the cruse of Elijah's widow. +Imagination is the bold face that multiplies its oil: and thou, the old +cracked pipkin, that could not believe it could be put to such purposes. +Dull pipkin, to have Elijah for thy cook! Imbecile recipient of so fat a +miracle! I send you George Dyer's Poems, the richest production of the +lyric muse _this century_ can justly boast: for Wordsworth's L.B. were +published, or at least written, before Christmas. + +Please to advert to pages 291 to 296 for the most astonishing account of +where Shakspeare's muse has been all this while. I thought she had been +dead, and buried in Stratford Church, with the young man _that kept her +company_,-- + + "But it seems, like the Devil, + Buried in Cole Harbour. +Some say she's risen again, + 'Gone prentice to a Barber." + +N.B.--I don't charge anything for the additional manuscript notes, which +are the joint productions of myself and a learned translator of +Schiller, John Stoddart, Esq. + +N.B. the 2nd.--I should not have blotted your book, but I had sent my +own out to be bound, as I was in duty bound. A liberal criticism upon +the several pieces, lyrical, heroical, amatory, and satirical, would be +acceptable. So, you don't think there's a Word's--worth of good poetry +in the great L.B.! I daren't put the dreaded syllables at their just +length, for my back tingles from the northern castigation. I send you +the three letters, which I beg you to return along with those former +letters, which I hope you are not going to print by your detention. But +don't be in a hurry to send them. When you come to town will do. Apropos +of coming to town, last Sunday was a fortnight, as I was coming to town +from the Professor's, inspired with new rum, I tumbled down, and broke +my nose. I drink nothing stronger than malt liquors. + +I am going to change my lodgings, having received a hint that it would +be agreeable, at our Lady's next feast. I have partly fixed upon most +delectable rooms, which look out (when you stand a tiptoe) over the +Thames and Surrey Hills, at the upper end of King's Bench walks in the +Temple. There I shall have all the privacy of a house without the +encumbrance, and shall be able to lock my friends out as often as I +desire to hold free converse with my immortal mind; for my present +lodgings resemble a minister's levee, I have so increased my +acquaintance (as they call 'em), since I have resided in town. Like the +country mouse, that had tasted a little of urban manners, I long to be +nibbling my own cheese by my dear self without mouse-traps and +time-traps. By my new plan, I shall be as airy, up four pair of stairs, +as in the country; and in a garden, in the midst of [that] enchanting, +more than Mahometan paradise, London, whose dirtiest drab-frequented +alley, and her lowest bowing tradesman, I would not exchange for +Skiddaw, Helvellyn, James, Walter, and the parson into the bargain. O! +her lamps of a night! her rich goldsmiths, print-shops, toyshops, +mercers, hardwaremen, pastry-cooks! St. Paul's Churchyard! the Strand! +Exeter Change! Charing Cross, with the man _upon_ a black horse! These +are thy gods, O London! Ain't you mightily moped on the banks of the +Cam! Had not you better come and set up here? You can't think what a +difference. All the streets and pavements are pure gold, I warrant you. +At least I know an alchemy that turns her mud into that metal,--a mind +that loves to be at home in crowds. + +'Tis half-past twelve o'clock, and all sober people ought to be a-bed. +Between you and me, the "Lyrical Ballads" are but drowsy performances. + +C. LAMB (as you may guess). + +[Lamb refers in his opening sentences to a letter from himself to +Manning which no longer exists. In Manning's last letter, dated February +24, he complains that he found on returning to Cambridge three copies of +a letter from Lamb suggesting that he was offended because he had not +answered. + +The passage in George Dyer's _Poems_ between pages 291 and 296 is long, +but it is so quaint and so illustrative of its author's mind that I give +it in full, footnotes and all, in the Appendix to this volume. + +Stoddart we have already met. He had translated, with Georg Heinrich +Noehden, Schiller's _Fiesco_, 1796, and _Don Carlos_, 1798. The copy of +Dyer's _Poems_ annotated by Lamb and Stoddart I have not seen. + +"So, you don't think there's a Word's-worth..." Manning had written, on +February 24, 1801, of the second volume of _Lyrical Ballads_: "I think +'tis utterly absurd from one end to the other. You tell me 'tis good +poetry--if you mean that there is nothing puerile, nothing bombast or +conceited, everything else that is so often found to disfigure poetry, I +agree, but will you read it over and over again? Answer me that, Master +Lamb." The three letters containing the northern castigation are +unhappily lost. + +"My back tingles." "Back" is not Lamb's word. + +"I am going to change my lodgings." The Lambs were still at 34 +Southampton Buildings; they moved to 16 Mitre Court Buildings just +before Lady Day, 1801. + +"James, Walter, and the parson." In Wordsworth's poem "The Brothers." + +Exeter Change, which stood where Burleigh Street now is, was a great +building, with bookstalls and miscellaneous stalls on the ground floor +and a menagerie above. It was demolished in 1829.] + + + + +LETTER 84 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING +April, 1801. + +I was not aware that you owed me anything beside that guinea; but I dare +say you are right. I live at No. 16 Mitre-court Buildings, a pistol-shot +off Baron Maseres'. You must introduce me to the Baron. I think we +should suit one another mainly. He lives on the ground floor for +convenience of the gout; I prefer the attic story for the air! He keeps +three footmen and two maids; I have neither maid nor laundress, not +caring to be troubled with them! His forte, I understand, is the higher +mathematics; my turn, I confess, is more to poetry and the belles +lettres. The very antithesis of our characters would make up a harmony. +You must bring the baron and me together.--N.B. when you come to see me, +mount up to the top of the stairs--I hope you are not asthmatical--and +come in flannel, for it's pure airy up there. And bring your glass, and +I will shew you the Surrey Hills. My bed faces the river so as by +perking up upon my haunches, and supporting my carcase with my elbows, +without much wrying my neck, I can see the white sails glide by the +bottom of the King's Bench walks as I lie in my bed. An excellent tiptoe +prospect in the best room: casement windows with small panes, to look +more like a cottage. Mind, I have got no bed for you, that's flat; sold +it to pay expenses of moving. The very bed on which Manning lay--the +friendly, the mathematical Manning! How forcibly does it remind me of +the interesting Otway! "The very bed which on thy marriage night gave +thee into the arms of Belvidera, by the coarse hands of ruffians--" +(upholsterers' men,) &c. My tears will not give me leave to go on. But a +bed I will get you, Manning, on condition you will be my day-guest. + +I have been ill more than month, with a bad cold, which comes upon me +(like a murderer's conscience) about midnight, and vexes me for many +hours. I have successively been drugged with Spanish licorice, opium, +ipecacuanha, paregoric, and tincture of foxglove (tinctura purpurae +digitalis of the ancients). I am afraid I must leave off drinking. + +[Francis Maseres (1731-1824), whom Lamb mentions again in his _Elia_ +essay on "The Old Benchers," was the mathematician (hence his interest +to Manning) and reformer. His rooms were at 5 King's Bench Walk. He +became Cursitor Baron of the Exchequer in 1773. To the end he wore a +three-cornered hat, a wig and ruffles. Priestley praised the Baron's +mathematical labours, in which he had the support of William Frend.] + + + + + +LETTER 85 + + +CHARLES LAME TO THOMAS MANNING + +[No date. ? April, 1801.] + +Dear Manning,--I sent to Brown's immediately. Mr. Brown (or Pijou, as he +is called by the moderns) denied the having received a letter from you. +The one for you he remembered receiving, and remitting to Leadenhall +Street; whither I immediately posted (it being the middle of dinner), my +teeth unpicked. There I learned that if you want a letter set right, you +must apply at the first door on the left hand before one o'clock. I +returned and picked my teeth. And this morning I made my application in +form, and have seen the vagabond letter, which most likely accompanies +this. If it does not, I will get Rickman to name it to the Speaker, who +will not fail to lay the matter before Parliament the next sessions, +when you may be sure to have all abuses in the Post Department +rectified. + +N.B. There seems to be some informality epidemical. You direct yours to +me in Mitre Court; my true address is Mitre Court Buildings. By the +pleasantries of Fortune, who likes a joke or a _double entendre_ as well +as the best of her children, there happens to be another Mr. Lamb (that +there should be two!!) in Mitre Court. + +Farewell, and think upon it. + +C. L. + +[Here should come a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, dated April 6, +1801, in praise of Jeremy Taylor, particularly the _Holy Dying_. Lamb +recommends Lloyd to read the story of the Ephesian matron in the eighth +section. + +Here also should come a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, dated June 26, +1801, containing a very interesting criticism of George Frederick +Cooke's acting as Richard III. at Covent Garden. Lamb wrote for the +_Morning Post_, January 8, 1802, a criticism of Cooke in this part, +which will be found in Vol. I. of the present edition.] + + + + +LETTER 86 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM GODWIN + +June 29, 1801. + +Dear Sir,--Doctor Christy's Brother and Sister are come to town, and +have shown me great civilities. I in return wish to requite them, +having, _by God's grace_, principles of generosity _implanted_ (as the +moralists say) in my nature, which have been duly cultivated and watered +by good and religious friends, and a pious education. They have picked +up in the northern parts of the island an astonishing admiration of the +great author of the New Philosophy in England, and I have ventured to +promise their taste an evening's gratification by seeing Mr. Godwin +_face_ to _face!!!!!_ Will you do them and me _in_ them the pleasure of +drinking tea and supping with me at the _old_ number 16 on Friday or +Saturday next? An early nomination of the day will very much oblige +yours sincerely, + +CH. LAMB. + +[Dr. Christy's brother and sister I do not identify.] + + + + +LETTER 87 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WALTER WILSON + +August 14th, 1801. + +Dear Wilson.--I am extremely sorry that any serious difference should +subsist between us on account of some foolish behaviour of mine at +Richmond; you knew me well enough before--that a very little liquor will +cause a considerable alteration in me. + +I beg you to impute my conduct solely to that, and not to any deliberate +intention of offending you, from whom I have received so many friendly +attentions. I know that you think a very important difference in opinion +with respect to some more serious subjects between us makes me a +dangerous companion; but do not rashly infer, from some slight and light +expressions which I may have made use of in a moment of levity in your +presence, without sufficient regard to your feelings--do not conclude +that I am an inveterate enemy to all religion. I have had a time of +seriousness, and I have known the importance and reality of a religious +belief. + +Latterly, I acknowledge, much of my seriousness has gone off, whether +from new company or some other new associations; but I still retain at +bottom a conviction of the truth, and a certainty of the usefulness of +religion. I will not pretend to more gravity or feeling than I at +present possess; my intention is not to persuade you that any great +alteration is probable in me; sudden converts are superficial and +transitory; I only want you to believe that I have _stamina_ of +seriousness within me, and that I desire nothing more than a return of +that friendly intercourse which used to subsist between us, but which my +folly has suspended. + +Believe me, very affectionately yours, + +C. LAMB. + +[Walter Wilson (1781-1847) was, perhaps, at this time, or certainly +previously, in the India House with Lamb. Later he became a bookseller, +and then, inheriting money, he entered at the Inner Temple. We meet him +again later in the correspondence, in connection with his _Life of +Defoe_, 1830. + +One wonders if the following passage in Hazlitt's essay "On Coffee-House +Politicians" in _Table Talk_ has any reference to the Richmond +incident:-- + +"Elia, the grave and witty, says things not to be surpassed in essence: +but the manner is more painful and less a relief to my own thoughts. +Some one conceived he could not be an excellent companion, because he +was seen walking down the side of the Thames, _passibus iniquis_, after +dining at Richmond. The objection was not valid."] + + + + +LETTER 88 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[August,] 1801. + +Dear Manning,--I have forborne writing so long (and so have you, for the +matter of that), until I am almost ashamed either to write or to forbear +any longer. But as your silence may proceed from some worse cause than +neglect--from illness, or some mishap which may have befallen you--I +begin to be anxious. You may have been burnt out, or you may have +married, or you may have broken a limb, or turned country parson; any of +these would be excuse sufficient for not coming to my supper. I am not +so unforgiving as the nobleman in "Saint Mark." For me, nothing new has +happened to me, unless that the poor "Albion" died last Saturday of the +world's neglect, and with it the fountain of my puns is choked up for +ever. + +All the Lloyds wonder that you do not write to them. They apply to me +for the cause. Relieve me from this weight of ignorance, and enable me +to give a truly oracular response. + +I have been confined some days with swelled cheek and rheumatism--they +divide and govern me with a viceroy-headache in the middle. I can +neither write nor read without great pain. It must be something like +obstinacy that I choose this time to write to you in after many months +interruption. + +I will close my letter of simple inquiry with an epigram on Mackintosh, +the "Vindiciae Gallicae"-man--who has got a place at last--one of the +last I _did_ for the "Albion";-- + +"Though thou'rt like Judas, an apostate black, +In the resemblance one thing thou dost lack; +When he had gotten his ill-purchas'd pelf, +He went away, and wisely hanged himself: +This thou may do at last, yet much I doubt, +If thou hast any _Bowels_ to gush out!" + +Yours, as ever, + +C. LAMB. + +[The Albion was at the time of its decease owned and edited by John +Fenwick, a friend of Lamb's whom we shall meet again. Lamb told the +story in the _Elia_ essay on "Newspapers" in the following passage:-- + +"From the office of the _Morning Post_ (for we may as well exhaust our +Newspaper Reminiscences at once) by change of property in the paper, we +were transferred, mortifying exchanged to the office of the Albion +Newspaper, late Rackstrow's Museum, in Fleet Street. What a transition-- +from a handsome apartment, from rose-wood desks, and silver inkstands, +to an office--no office, but a _den_ rather, but just redeemed from the +occupation of dead monsters, of which it seemed redolent--from the +centre of loyalty and fashion, to a focus of vulgarity and sedition! +Here in murky closet, inadequate from its square contents to the receipt +of the two bodies of Editor, and humble paragraph-maker, together at one +time, sat in the discharge of his new Editorial functions (the 'Bigod' +of _Elia_) the redoubted John Fenwick. + +"F., without a guinea in his pocket, and having left not many in the +pockets of his friends whom he might command, had purchased (on tick +doubtless) the whole and sole Editorship, Proprietorship, with all the +rights and titles (such as they were worth) of the Albion, from one +Lovell; of whom we know nothing, save that he had stood in the pillory +for a libel on the Prince of Wales. With this hopeless concern--for it +had been sinking ever since its commencement, and could now reckon upon +not more than a hundred subscribers--F. resolutely determined upon +pulling down the Government in the first instance, and making both our +fortunes by way of corollary. For seven weeks and more did this +infatuated Democrat go about borrowing seven shilling pieces, and lesser +coin, to meet the daily demands of the Stamp Office, which allowed no +credit to publications of that side in politics. An outcast from politer +bread, we attached our small talents to the forlorn fortunes of our +friend. Our occupation now was to write treason. + +"Recollections of feelings--which were all that now remained from our +first boyish heats kindled by the French Revolution, when if we were +misled, we erred in the company of some, who are accounted very good men +now--rather than any tendency at this time to Republican doctrines-- +assisted us in assuming a style of writing, while the paper lasted, +consonant in no very under-tone to the right earnest fanaticism of F. +Our cue was now to insinuate, rather than recommend, possible +abdications. Blocks, axes, Whitehall tribunals, were covered with +flowers of so cunning a periphrasis--as Mr. Bayes says, never naming the +_thing_ directly--that the keen eye of an Attorney-General was +insufficient to detect the lurking snake among them. There were times, +indeed, when we signed for our more gentleman-like occupation under +Stuart. But with change of masters it is ever change of service. Already +one paragraph, and another, as we learned afterwards from a gentleman at +the Treasury, had begun to be marked at that office, with a view of its +being submitted at least to the attention of the proper Law Officers-- +when an unlucky, or rather lucky epigram from our pen, aimed at Sir +J------s M------h, who was on the eve of departing for India to reap the +fruits of his apostacy, as F. pronounced it, (it is hardly worth +particularising), happening to offend the nice sense of Lord, or, as he +then delighted to be called, Citizen Stanhope, deprived F. at once of +the last hopes of a guinea from the last patron that had stuck by us; +and breaking up our establishment, left us to the safe, but somewhat +mortifying, neglect of the Crown Lawyers." + +There are, however, in Lamb's account, written thirty years afterwards, +some errors. He passed rather from the _Albion_ to the _Post_ than from +the _Post_ to the _Albion_ (see the notes in Vol. II.). Sir James +Mackintosh was not in 1801 on the eve of departing for India: he did not +get the post of Recordership of Bombay until two years later. The +epigram probably referred to an earlier rumour of a post for him. His +apostasy consisted in recanting in 1800 from the opinions set forth in +his _Vindiciae Gallicae_, 1791, a book supporting the French +Revolutionists, and in becoming a close friend of his old enemy Burke. I +have not succeeded in finding a file of the Albion, nor, I believe, has +any one else. + +"The nobleman in 'St. Mark.'" Lamb was thinking of Luke xiv. 16-24.] + + + + +LETTER 89 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[P.M. August 31, 1801.] + +I heard that you were going to China, with a commission from the +Wedgwoods to collect hints for their pottery, and to teach the Chinese +_perspective_. But I did not know that London lay in your way to Pekin. +I am seriously glad of it, for I shall trouble you with a small present +for the Emperor of Usbeck Tartary, as you go by his territories: it is a +fragment of a "Dissertation on the state of political parties in England +at the end of the eighteenth century," which will no doubt be very +interesting to his Imperial Majesty. It was written originally in +English for the use of the _two_ and _twenty_ readers of "The Albion" +(this _calculation_ includes a printer, four pressmen, and a devil); but +becoming of no use when "The Albion" stopped, I got it translated into +Usbeck Tartar by my good friend Tibet Kulm, who is come to London with a +_civil_ invitation from the Cham to the English nation to go over to the +worship of the Lama. + +"The Albion" is dead--dead as nail in door--and my revenues have died +with it; but I am not as a man without hope. I have got a sort of +opening to the "Morning Chronicle," !!! Mister Manning, by means of that +common dispenser of benevolence, Mister Dyer. I have not seen Perry the +editor yet: but I am preparing a specimen. I shall have a difficult job +to manage, for you must know that Mister Perry, in common with the great +body of the Whigs, thinks "The Albion" _very low_. I find I must rise a +peg or so, be a little more decent and less abusive; for, to confess the +truth, I had arrived to an abominable pitch; I spared neither age nor +sex when my cue was given me. _N'importe_ (as they say in French): any +climate will suit me. So you are about to bring your old face-making +face to London. You could not come in a better time for my purposes; for +I have just lost Rickman, a faint idea of whose character I sent you. He +is gone to Ireland for a year or two, to make his fortune; and I have +lost by his going, what [it] seems to me I can never recover--_a +finished man_. His memory will be to me as the brazen serpent to the +Israelites,--I shall look up to it, to keep me upright and honest. But +he may yet bring back his honest face to England one day. I wish your +affairs with the Emperor of China had not been _so urgent_, that you +might have stayed in Great Britain a year or two longer, to have seen +him; for, judging from _my own_ experience, I almost dare pronounce you +never saw his equal. I never saw a man that could be at all a second or +substitute for him in any sort. + +Imagine that what is here erased was an apology and explanation, +perfectly satisfactory you may be sure! for rating this man so highly at +the expense of ----, and ----, and ----, and M----, and ----, and ----, +and ----. But Mister Burke has explained this phenomenon of our nature +very prettily in his letter to a Member of the National Assembly, or +else in his Appeal to the old Whigs, I forget which. Do you remember an +instance, from Homer (who understood these matters tolerably well) of +Priam driving away his other sons with expressions of wrath and bitter +reproach, when Hector was just dead. + +I live where I did, in a _private_ manner, because I don't like _state_. +Nothing is so disagreeable to me as the clamours and applauses of the +mob. For this reason I live in an _obscure_ situation in one of the +courts of the Temple. + +C. L. + +[Manning had taken up Chinese at Cambridge, and in 1800 he had moved to +Paris to study the language under Dr. Hagan. He did not, however, go to +China until 1806. The Wedgwoods were Coleridge's patrons. Lamb's +reference to them is, of course, a joke. + +The _Morning Chronicle_ was then the chief Whig paper, the principal +opponent of the _Morning Post_. I have, I think, traced two or three of +Lamb's contributions to the _Chronicle_ at this period, but they are not +of his best. He quickly moved on to the _Post_, but, as we shall see, +only for a short period. + +Rickman went to Dublin in 1801 with Abbot, the Chief Secretary for +Ireland, and was appointed Deputy-Keeper of the Privy Seal. He returned +in February, 1802. + +The reference to Burke is to his justification of his particular +solicitude for the Crown, as the part of the British Constitution then +in danger, though not in itself more important than the other parts, in +the "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs." The Priam-Hector +illustration is there employed. + +"Homer." See _The Iliad_, Book 24, lines 311-316. Pope translates +thus:-- + +Next on his sons his erring fury falls, +Polites, Paris, Agathon, he calls; +His threats Dïphobus and Dius hear, +Hippothoüs, Pammon, Helenus the seer, +And generous Antiphon: for yet these nine +Survived, sad relics of his numerous line. + +Following this letter should come one from Lamb to John Rickman, dated +September 16, 1801 (the first of a valuable series printed in Canon +Ainger's latest edition), saying that he and his sister are at Margate. +He has been trying to write for the _Morning Chronicle_ but with little +success. Is now meditating a book: "Why should every creature make books +but I?" After a passage concerning George Burnett, Lamb describes Godwin +and his courtship of his second wife--"a very disgusting woman." "You +never saw such a philosophic coxcomb, nor any one play the Romeo so +unnaturally." + +Here should come a mutilated letter, not yet printed, I believe, shown +to me by Mr. Bertram Dobell, from Lamb to Manning, written probably at +Margate, where this year's holidays were spent. It is deeply interesting +and I wish 1 could print it even with its imperfections. There are +references to White, Dyer, Coleridge ("Pity that such human frailties +should perch upon the margin of Ulswater Lake") and the Lloyds. Also to +politics and the riddle of life. "What we came here for I know no more +than [an] Ideot."] + + + + +LETTER 90 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM GODWIN +Sept. 9, 1801. + +Dear Sir,--Nothing runs in my head when I think of your story, but that +you should make it as like the life of Savage as possible. That is a +known and familiar tale, and its effect on the public mind has been very +great. Many of the incidents in the true history are readily made +dramatical. For instance, Savage used to walk backwards and forwards o' +nights to his mother's window, to catch a glimpse of her, as she passed +with a candle. With some such situation the play might happily open. I +would plunge my Hero, exactly like Savage, into difficulties and +embarrassments, the consequences of an unsettled mind: out of which he +may be extricated by the unknown interference of his mother. He should +be attended from the beginning by a friend, who should stand in much the +same relation towards him as Horatio to Altamont in the play of the Fair +Penitent. A character of this sort seems indispensable. This friend +might gain interviews with the mother, when the son was refused sight of +her. Like Horatio with Calista, he might wring his [her?] soul. Like +Horatio, he might learn the secret _first_. He might be exactly in the +same perplexing situation, when he had learned it, whether to tell it or +conceal it from the Son (I have still Savage in my head) might _kill_ a +man (as he did) in an affray--he should receive a pardon, as Savage +did--and the mother might interfere to have him _banished_. This should +provoke the Friend to demand an interview with her husband, and disclose +the whole secret. The husband, refusing to believe anything to her +dishonour, should fight with him. The husband repents before he dies. +The mother explains and confesses everything in his presence. The son is +admitted to an interview with his now acknowledged mother. Instead of +embraces, she resolves to abstract herself from all pleasure, even from +his sight, in voluntary penance all her days after. This is crude +indeed!! but I am totally unable to suggest a better. I am the worst +hand in the world at a plot. But I understand enough of passion to +predict that your story, with some of Savage's, which has no repugnance, +but a natural alliance with it, cannot fail. The mystery of the +suspected relationship--the suspicion, generated from slight and +forgotten circumstances, coming at last to act as Instinct, and so to be +mistaken for Instinct--the son's unceasing pursuit and throwing of +himself in his mother's way, something like Falkland's eternal +persecution of Williams--the high and intricate passion in the mother, +the being obliged to shun and keep at a distance the thing nearest to +her heart--to be cruel, where her heart yearns to be kind, without a +possibility of explanation. You have the power of life and death and the +hearts of your auditors in your hands; still Harris will want a +skeleton, and he must have it. I can only put in some sorry hints. The +discovery to the son's friend may take place not before the 3d act--in +some such way as this. The mother may cross the street--he may point her +out to some gay companion of his as the Beauty of Leghorn--the pattern +for wives, &c. &c. His companion, who is an Englishman, laughs at his +mistake, and knows her to have been the famous Nancy Dawson, or any one +else, who captivated the English king. Some such way seems dramatic, and +speaks to the Eye. The audience will enter into the Friend's surprise, +and into the perplexity of his situation. These Ocular Scenes are so +many great landmarks, rememberable headlands and lighthouses in the +voyage. Macbeth's witch has a good advice to a magic [? tragic] writer, +what to do with his spectator. + +"_Show_ his _eyes_, and grieve his heart." + +The most difficult thing seems to be, What to do with the husband? You +will not make him jealous of his own son? that is a stale and an +unpleasant trick in Douglas, etc. Can't you keep him out of the way till +you want him, as the husband of Isabella is conveniently sent off till +his cue comes? There will be story enough without him, and he will only +puzzle all. Catastrophes are worst of all. Mine is most stupid. I only +propose it to fulfil my engagement, not in hopes to convert you. + +It is always difficult to get rid of a woman at the end of a tragedy. +_Men_ may fight and die. A woman must either take poison, _which is a +nasty trick_, or go mad, which is not fit to be shown, or retire, which +is poor, only retiring is most reputable. + +I am sorry I can furnish you no better: but I find it extremely +difficult to settle my thoughts upon anything but the scene before me, +when I am from home, I am from home so seldom. If any, the least hint +crosses me, I will write again, and I very much wish to read your plan, +if you could abridge and send it. In this little scrawl you must take +the will for the deed, for I most sincerely wish success to your +play.--Farewell, + +C. L. + +[This and the letter that follows it contain Lamb's suggestions for +Godwin's play "Faulkener," upon which he was now meditating, but which +was not performed until 1807. Lamb wrote the prologue, a poem in praise +of Defoe, since it was in _Roxana_, or at least in one edition of it, +that the counterpart to, or portion of, Godwin's plot is found. There, +however, the central figure is a daughter, not a son. See the letters to +Walter Wilson. + +Mr. Swinburne, in the little article to which I have already alluded, +says of this and the following letter: "Several of Lamb's suggestions, +in spite of his own modest disclaimer ('I am the worst hand in the world +at a plot'), seem to me, especially as coming from the author of a +tragedy memorable alike for sweetness of moral emotion and emptiness of +theatrical subject, worthy of note for the instinctive intuition of high +dramatic effect implied in their rough and rapid outlines." + +Richard Savage, the poet, whose life Johnson wrote, claimed to be the +illegitimate son of Lady Macclesfield by Lord Rivers. Savage killed +Sinclair in a tavern quarrel in 1727, and was condemned to death. His +pardon was obtained by the Countess of Hertford. + +"The Fair Penitent" is by Nicholas Rowe. + +Falkland and Williams are in Godwin's novel _Caleb Williams_, dramatised +by Colman as "The Iron Chest." + +"Harris will want a skeleton." Thomas Harris, stage manager of Covent +Garden Theatre. + +Nancy Dawson (1730?-1767), the famous dancer and _bona roba_. + +"Douglas"--Home's tragedy. + +"The husband of Isabella." In Southern's "Fatal Marriage."] + + + + +LETTER 91 + + +(_Fragment_) + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM GODWIN + +Margate, Sep. 17, 1801. + +I shall be glad to come home and talk these matters over with you. I +have read your scheme very attentively. That Arabella has been mistress +to King Charles is sufficient to all the purposes of the story. It can +only diminish that respect we feel for her to make her turn whore to one +of the Lords of his Bed-chamber. Her son must not know that she has been +a whore: it matters not that she has been whore to a _King_: equally in +both cases it is against decorum and against the delicacy of a son's +respect that he should be privy to it. No doubt, many sons might feel a +wayward pleasure in the honourable guilt of their mothers; but is it a +true feeling? Is it the best sort of feeling? Is it a feeling to be +exposed on theatres to mothers and daughters? Your conclusion (or rather +Defoe's) comes far short of the tragic ending, which is always expected; +and it is not safe to disappoint. A tragic auditory wants _blood_. They +care but little about a man and his wife parting. Besides, what will you +do with the son, after all his pursuits and adventures? Even quietly +leave him to take guinea-and-a-half lodgings with mamma in Leghorn! O +impotent and pacific measures!... I am certain that you must mix up some +strong ingredients of distress to give a savour to your pottage. I still +think that you may, and must, graft the story of Savage upon Defoe. Your +hero must _kill a man or do some thing_. Can't you bring him to the +gallows or some great mischief, out of which she _must_ have recourse to +an explanation with her husband to save him. Think on this. The husband, +for instance, has great friends in Court at Leghorn. The son is +condemned to death. She cannot teaze him for a stranger. She must tell +the whole truth. Or she _may_ tease him, as for a stranger, till (like +Othello in Cassio's case) he begins to suspect her for her importunity. +Or, being pardoned, can she not teaze her husband to get him banished? +Something of this I suggested before. _Both_ is best. The murder and the +pardon will make business for the fourth act, and the banishment and +explanation (by means of the _Friend_ I want you to draw) the fifth. You +must not open any of the truth to Dawley by means of a letter. A letter +is a feeble messenger on the stage. Somebody, the son or his friend, +must, as a _coup de main_, be exasperated, and obliged to tell the +husband. Damn the husband and his "gentlemanlike qualities." Keep him +out of sight, or he will trouble all. Let him be in England on trade, +and come home, as Biron does in Isabella, in the fourth act, when he is +wanted. I am for introducing situations, sort of counterparts to +situations, which have been tried in other plays--_like_ but not the +_same_. On this principle I recommended a friend like Horatio in the +"Fair Penitent," and on this principle I recommend a situation like +Othello, with relation to Desdemona's intercession for Cassio. By-scenes +may likewise receive hints. The son may see his mother at a mask or +feast, as Romeo, Juliet. The festivity of the company contrasts with the +strong perturbations of the individuals. Dawley may be told his wife's +past unchastity at a mask by some witch-character--as Macbeth upon the +heath, in dark sentences. This may stir his brain, and be forgot, but +come in aid of stronger proof hereafter. From this, what you will +perhaps call whimsical way of counterparting, this honest stealing, and +original mode of plagiarism, much yet, I think, remains to be sucked. +Excuse these abortions. I thought you would want the draught soon again, +and I would not send it empty away.--Yours truly, + +WILLIAM GODWIN!!! + +Somers Town, 17th Sept., 1801. + +[The point of signing this letter with Godwin's name and adding his +address (Lamb, it will be noticed, was then at Margate) is not clear. + +I place here the following letter, not having any clue as to date, which +is immaterial:--] + + + + +LETTER 92 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO MRS. WILLIAM GODWIN + +Dear Mrs. G.,--Having observed with some concern that Mr. Godwin is a +little fastidious in what he eats for supper, I herewith beg to present +his palate with a piece of dried salmon. I am assured it is the best +that swims in Trent. If you do not know how to dress it, allow me to add +that it should be cut in thin slices and boiled in paper _previously +prepared in butter_. Wishing it exquisite, I remain,--Much as before, +yours sincerely, + +C. LAMB. + +Some add _mashed potatoes_. + +[Following this letter should come a letter from Lamb to John Rickman, +describing the state of their two George friends: George the First +(George Dyer) and George the Second (George Burnett). Burnett, he says, +as ill becomes adversity as Dyer would prosperity. He tells also of +another poor acquaintance of Rickman's--one Simonds with a slit lip, who +has been to Lamb to borrow money. "Saving his dirty shirt and his +physiognomy and his 'bacco box, together with a certain kiddy air in his +walk, a man w'd have gone near to have mistaken him for a gentleman. He +has a sort of ambition to be so misunderstood."] + + + + +LETTER 93 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN RICKMAN + +To + John Rickman, Esqr., + Dublin Castle. + +[No date. ? November, 1801.] + +A letter from G. Dyer will probably accompany this. I wish I could +convey to you any notion of the whimsical scenes I have been witness to +in this fortnight past. 'Twas on Tuesday week the poor heathen scrambled +up to my door about breakfast time. He came thro' a violent rain with no +neckcloth on, and a _beard_ that made him a spectacle to men and angels, +and tap'd at the door. Mary open'd it, and he stood stark still and held +a paper in his hand importing that he had been ill with a fever. He +either wouldn't or couldn't speak except by signs. When you went to +comfort him he put his hand upon his heart and shook his head and told +us his complaint lay where no medicines could reach it. I was dispatch'd +for Dr. Dale, Mr. Phillips of St. Paul's Church yard, and Mr. Frend, who +is to be his executor. George solemnly delivered into Mr. Frend's hands +and mine an old burnt preface that had been in the fire, with +injunctions which we solemnly vow'd to obey that it should be printed +after his death with his last corrections, and that some account should +be given to the world why he had not fulfill'd his engagement with +subscribers. Having done this and borrow'd two guineas of his bookseller +(to whom he imparted in confidence that he should leave a great many +loose papers behind him which would only want methodizing and arranging +to prove very lucrative to any bookseller after his death), he laid +himself down on my bed in a mood of complacent resignation. By the aid +of meat and drink put into him (for I all along suspected a vacuum) he +was enabled to sit up in the evening, but he had not got the better of +his intolerable fear of dying; he expressed such philosophic +indifference in his speech and such frightened apprehensions in his +physiognomy that if he had truly been dying, and I had known it, I could +not have kept my countenance. In particular, when the doctor came and +ordered him to take little white powders (I suppose of chalk or alum, to +humour him), he ey'd him with a _suspicion_ which I could not account +for; he has since explain'd that he took it for granted Dr. Dale knew +his situation and had ordered him these powders to hasten his departure +that he might suffer as little pain as possible. Think what an aspect +the heathen put on with these fears upon a dirty face. To recount all +his freaks for two or three days while he thought he was going, and how +the fit operated, and sometimes the man got uppermost and sometimes the +author, and he had this excellent person to serve, and he must correct +some proof sheets for Phillips, and he could not bear to leave his +subscribers unsatisfy'd, but he must not think of these things now, he +was going to a place where he should satisfy all his debts--and when he +got a little better he began to discourse what a happy thing it would be +if there was a place where all the good men and women in the world might +meet, meaning heav'n, and I really believe for a time he had doubts +about his soul, for he was very near, if not quite, light-headed. The +fact was he had not had a good meal for some days and his little dirty +Niece (whom he sent for with a still dirtier Nephew, and hugg'd him, and +bid them farewell) told us that unless he dines out he subsists on tea +and gruels. And he corroborated this tale by ever and anon complaining +of sensations of gnawing which he felt about his heart, which he mistook +his stomach to be, and sure enough these gnawings were dissipated after +a meal or two, and he surely thinks that he has been rescued from the +jaws of death by Dr. Dale's white powders. He is got quite well again by +nursing, and chirps of odes and lyric poetry the day long--he is to go +out of town on Monday, and with him goes the dirty train of his papers +and books which follow'd him to our house. I shall not be sorry when he +takes his nipt carcase out of my bed, which it has occupied, and +vanishes with all his Lyric lumber, but I will endeavour to bring him in +future into a method of dining at least once a day. I have proposed to +him to dine with me (and he has nearly come into it) whenever he does +not go out; and pay me. I will take his money beforehand and he shall +eat it out. If I don't it will go all over the world. Some worthless +relations, of which the dirty little devil that looks after him and a +still more dirty nephew are component particles, I have reason to think +divide all his gains with some lazy worthless authors that are his +constant satellites. The Literary Fund has voted him seasonably £20 and +if I can help it he shall spend it on his own carcase. I have assisted +him in arranging the remainder of what he calls Poems and he will get +rid of 'em I hope in another. [_Here three lines are torn away at the +foot of the page, wherein Lamb makes the transition from George Dyer to +another poor author, George Burnett._] + +I promised Burnet to write when his parcel went. He wants me to certify +that he is more awake than you think him. I believe he may be by this +time, but he is so full of self-opinion that I fear whether he and +Phillips will ever do together. What he is to do for Phillips he +whimsically seems to consider more as a favor done _to_ P. than a job +_from_ P. He still persists to call employment _dependence_, and prates +about the insolence of booksellers and the tax upon geniuses. Poor +devil! he is not launched upon the ocean and is sea-sick with +aforethought. I write plainly about him, and he would stare and frown +finely if he read this treacherous epistle, but I really am anxious +about him, and that [? it] nettles me to see him so proud and so +helpless. If he is not serv'd he will never serve himself. I read his +long letter to Southey, which I suppose you have seen. He had better +have been furnishing copy for Phillips than luxuriating in tracing the +causes of his imbecillity. I believe he is a little wrong in not +ascribing more to the structure of his own mind. He had his yawns from +nature, his pride from education. + +I hope to see Southey soon, so I need only send my remembrance to him +now. Doubtless I need not tell him that Burnett is not to be foster'd in +self-opinion. His eyes want opening, to see himself a man of middling +stature. I am not oculist enough to do this. The booksellers may one day +remove the film. I am all this time on the most cordial supping terms of +amity with G. Burnett and really love him at times: but I must speak +freely of people behind their backs and not think it back-biting. It is +better than Godwin's way of telling a man he is a fool to his face. + +I think if you could do any thing for George in the way of an office +(God knows whether you can in any haste [? case], but you did talk of +it) it is my firm belief that it would be his _only chance_ of +settlement; he will never live by his _literary exertions_, as he calls +them--he is too proud to go the usual way to work and he has no talents +to make that way unnecessary. I know he talks big in his letter to +Southey that his mind is undergoing an alteration and that the die is +now casting that shall consign him to honor or dishonour, but these +expressions are the convulsions of a fever, not the sober workings of +health. Translated into plain English, he now and then perceives he must +work or starve, and then he thinks he'll work; but when he goes about it +there's a lion in the way. He came dawdling to me for an Encyclopædia +yesterday. I recommended him to Norris' library and he said if he could +not get it there, Phillips was bound to furnish him with one; it was +Phillips' interest to do so, and all that. This was true with some +restrictions--but as to Phillips' interests to oblige G.B.! Lord help +his simple head! P. could by a _whistle_ call together a host of such +authors as G. B. like Robin Hood's merry men in green. P. has regular +regiments in pay. Poor writers are his crab-lice and suck at him for +nutriment. His round pudding chops are their _idea_ of plenty when _in +their idle fancies they aspire to be rich_. + +What do you think of a life of G. Dyer? I can scarcely conceive a more +amusing novel. He has been connected with all sects in the world and he +will faithfully tell all he knows. Every body will read it; and if it is +not done according to my fancy I promise to put him in a novel when he +dies. Nothing shall escape _me_. If you think it feasible, whenever you +write you may encourage him. Since he has been so close with me I have +perceiv'd the workings of his inordinate vanity, his gigantic attention +to particles and to prevent open vowels in his odes, his solicitude that +the public may not lose any tittle of his poems by his death, and all +the while his utter ignorance that the world don't care a pin about his +odes and his criticisms, a fact which every body knows but himself--he +_is a rum genius_. + + C. L. + +[Dr. Dale would probably be Thomas Dale of Devonshire Square, +Bishopsgate, who had a large city practice in those days. He died in +1816. + +"An old burnt preface." See note on page 210. + +George Burnett we have already met. He was born probably in 1776. He +went to Balliol, met Southey and Coleridge and became a Pantisocratist. +Subsequently he became a dissenting minister at Yarmouth, and then a +medical student at Edinburgh; and later he succeeded George Dyer as +tutor in the family of Lord Stanhope. He became one of Phillips' hacks, +as Lamb's letter tells us. His principal work was the _Specimens of +English Prose Writers_, 1807, in three volumes, in which it has been +stated that Lamb had a hand. He died in want in 1811. + +The reference to Southey being in Dublin is explained by the fact that, +through Rickman, he had been appointed private secretary to Mr. Corry, +Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland, at a salary of £400. He did not +long retain the post, as it was vexatious and the duties very irregular. + +Lamb's next letter to Rickman, dated November 24, 1801, contains better +news of Dyer and returns to the subject of _John Woodvil_. "Dyer +regularly dines with me when he does not go a visiting, and brings his +shilling." Also, says Lamb, he talks of marrying. "He has not forgiven +me for betraying to you his purpose of writing his own Life. He says, +that if it once spreads, so many people will expect and wish to have a +place in it, that he is sure he shall disoblige all his friends." + +Another, undated, letter to Rickman should probably come here-abouts, +saying that Dyer has been lent a house at Enfield full of books, where +he is at work on his Poems. + +Here perhaps should come a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, returning +to Jeremy Taylor, and deprecating a selection from his works, which +Robert Lloyd had suggested that Lamb should make. (In 1805 Basil +Montagu, afterwards, if not now, a friend of Lamb's, published a volume +of _Selections from the Works of Taylor, Etc_.) Lamb says that Manning +and Coleridge are in town, and he is making a thorough alteration in the +structure of his play (_John Woodvil_) for publication. + +Here perhaps should come a further undated letter to Rickman in which +Lamb says that the receipt of £50 for an old debt has made it possible +to print _John Woodvil_. Dyer, he says, is "the most unmanageable of +God's creatures." Burnett is in a very bad way again. Fenwick's paper +_The Plough_ has become a weekly. Godwin is not yet married. Fell, +Godwin's shadow, is writing a comedy: "An Owl making a Pun would be no +bad emblem of the unnatural attempt." In a postscript Lamb says that he +has since read the play and it is not bad: "Who knows, but Owls do make +Puns when they hoot by moonshine." The best news is that Lamb hopes to +be a theatrical critic for the _Morning Post_. + +Here should come a letter to Rickman dated January 9, 1802, the +principal news in which is that George Dyer is consorting with the Earl +of Buchan, the "eccentric biographer of Fletcher of Saltoun," and has +brought him to see Lamb. "I wan't at home, but Mary was washing--a +pretty pickle to receive an Earl in! Lord have mercy upon us! a Lord in +my garret! My utmost ambition was some time or other to receive a +Secretary. Well, I am to breakfast with this mad Lord on Sunday." Lamb +refers to his article in the _Post_ on Cooke's "Richard III." + +Here should come a letter to Rickman dated January 14, 1802, in which +Lamb confesses to the authorship of "Dick Strype" in the _Morning Post_ +of January 6 (see Vol. IV.); also of a whimsical account of the Lord +Mayor's State Bed (see Vol. I.); and of some of the Twelfth Night +Epigrams (see Vol. IV.). He includes two epigrams which the editor +rejected. + +Here should come a note to Rickman dated January 18, 1802, relating to a +joint subscription with Rickman's father for certain newspapers. + +Here should come a letter to Rickman dated February 1, 1802, giving the +first draft of the epitaph for Mary Druitt (see Vol. IV.). He also says +that George Burnett, who had just been appointed tutor to the sons of +Lord ("Citizen") Stanhope, is perplexed because his pupils have run +away. + +Here should come a note to Rickman, dated February 4, 1802, accompanying +three copies of _John Woodvil_ and saying that an annuity is to be +bought for George Dyer by certain friends. + +Here should come a letter to Rickman, dated February 14, 1802, which +contains the news that Lamb has given up the _Post_. He feels much +relieved in consequence, in spite of the loss of money. George Dyer's +dinner money is now paid from his friends' fund, and Burnett is happy in +doing nothing for Lord Stanhope's salary. Mary Lamb does not want +Rickman to know that "Helen," in the _John Woodvil_ volume, is of her +writing.] + + + + +LETTER 94 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[No date. ? Feb. 15, 1802.] + +Not a sentence, not a syllable of Trismegistus, shall be lost through my +neglect. I am his word-banker, his storekeeper of puns and syllogisms. +You cannot conceive (and if Trismegistus cannot, no man can) the strange +joy which I felt at the receipt of a letter from Paris. It seemed to +give me a learned importance, which placed me above all who had not +Parisian correspondents. Believe that I shall carefully husband every +scrap, which will save you the trouble of memory, when you come back. +You cannot write things so trifling, let them only be about Paris, which +I shall not treasure. In particular, I must have parallels of actors and +actresses. I must be told if any building in Paris is at all comparable +to St. Paul's, which, contrary to the usual mode of that part of our +nature called admiration, I have looked up to with unfading wonder every +morning at ten o'clock, ever since it has lain in my way to business. At +noon I casually glance upon it, being hungry; and hunger has not much +taste for the fine arts. Is any night-walk comparable to a walk from St. +Paul's to Charing Cross, for lighting and paving, crowds going and +coming without respite, the rattle of coaches and the cheerfulness of +shops? Have you seen a man guillotined yet? is it as good as hanging? +are the women _all_ painted, and the men _all_ monkeys? or are there not +a _few_ that look like _rational_ of _both sexes_? Are you and the First +Consul _thick_? All this expense of ink I may fairly put you to, as your +letters will not be solely for my proper pleasure, but are to serve as +memoranda and notices, helps for short memory, a kind of Rumfordising +recollection, for yourself on your return. Your letter was just what a +letter should be, crammed and very funny. Every part of it pleased me +till you came to Paris; and your damn'd philosophical indolence or +indifference stung me. You cannot stir from your rooms till you know the +language! What the devil!--are men nothing but word-trumpets? are men +all tongue and ear? have these creatures, that you and I profess to know +_something about_, no faces, gestures, gabble: no folly, no absurdity, +no induction of French education upon the abstract idea of men and +women, no similitude nor dis-similitude to English! Why! thou damn'd +Smell-fungus! your account of your landing and reception, and Bullen (I +forget how you spell it--it was spelt my way in Harry the Eighth's +time,) was exactly in that minute style which strong impressions INSPIRE +(writing to a Frenchman, I write as a Frenchman would). It appears to me +as if I should die with joy at the first landing in a foreign country. +It is the nearest pleasure, which a grown man can substitute for that +unknown one, which he can never know--the pleasure of the first entrance +into life from the womb. I dare say, in a short time, my habits would +come back like a "stronger man" armed, and drive out that new pleasure; +and I should soon sicken for known objects. Nothing has transpired here +that seems to me of sufficient importance to send dry-shod over the +water: but I suppose you will want to be told some news. The best and +the worst to me is, that I have given up two guineas a week at the +"Post," and regained my health and spirits, which were upon the wane. I +grew sick, and Stuart unsatisfied. _Ludisti satis, tempus abire est_; I +must cut closer, that's all. + +In all this time I have done but one thing, which I reckon tolerable, +and that I will transcribe, because it may give you pleasure, being a +picture of _my_ humours. You will find it in my last page. It absurdly +is a first Number of a series, thus strangled in its birth. + +More news! The Professor's Rib has come out to be a damn'd disagreeable +woman, so much so as to drive me and some more old cronies from his +house. If a man will keep snakes in his house, he must not wonder if +people are shy of coming to see him because of the _snakes_. + +C. L. + +Mister Fell--or as you, with your usual facetiousness and drollery, call +him, Mr. F + II--has stopped short in the middle of his play. Some +_friend_ has told him that it has not the least merit in it. Oh! that I +had the rectifying of the Litany! I would put in a _libera nos +(Scriptores videlicet) ab amicis_! That's all the news. _A propos_ (is +it pedantry, writing to a Frenchman, to express myself sometimes by a +French word, when an English one would not do as well? methinks, my +thoughts fall naturally into it). + +_Apropos_, I think you wrong about my play. All the omissions are right. +And the supplementary scene, in which Sandford narrates the manner in +which his master is affected, is the best in the book. It stands where a +hodge-podge of German puerilities used to stand. I insist upon it that +you like that scene. Love me, love that scene. + +I will now transcribe the "Londoner" (No. 1), and wind up all with +affection and humble servant at the end. + +THE LONDONER. No. 1. + +In compliance with my own particular humour, no less than with thy +laudable curiosity, Reader, I proceed to give thee some account of my +history and habits. I was born under the nose of St. Dunstan's steeple, +just where the conflux of the eastern and western inhabitants of this +twofold city meet and justle in friendly opposition at Temple-bar. The +same day which gave me to the world saw London happy in the celebration +of her great annual feast. This I cannot help looking upon as a lively +type or omen of the future great goodwill which I was destined to bear +toward the City, resembling in kind that solicitude which every Chief +Magistrate is supposed to feel for whatever concerns her interests and +well-being. Indeed, I consider myself in some sort a speculative Lord +Mayor of London: for, though circumstances unhappily preclude me from +the hope of ever arriving at the dignity of a gold chain and spital +sermon, yet thus much will I say of myself, in truth, that _Whittington_ +himself with his _Cat_ (just emblem of _vigilance_ and a _furred gown_), +never went beyond me in affection, which I bear to the citizens. Shut +out from serving them in the most honourable mode, I aspire to do them +benefit in another, scarcely less honourable; and if I cannot, by virtue +of office, commit vice and irregularity to the _material Counter_, I +will, at least, erect a _spiritual one_, where they shall be _laid fast +by the heels_. In plain words, I will do my best endeavour to _write +them down_. + +To return to _myself_ (from whence my zeal for the Public good is +perpetually causing me to digress), I will let thee, Reader, into +certain more of my peculiarities. I was born (as you have heard), bred, +and have passed most of my time, in a _crowd_. This has begot in me an +entire affection for that way of life, amounting to an almost +insurmountable aversion from solitude and rural scenes. This aversion +was never interrupted or suspended, except for a few years in the +younger part of my life, during a period in which I had fixed my +affections upon a charming young woman. Every man, while the _passion_ +is upon him, is for a time at least addicted to groves and meadows, and +purling streams. During this short period of my existence, I contracted +just enough familiarity with rural objects to understand tolerably well +ever after the _Poets_, when they declaim in such passionate terms in +favour of a _country life_. + +For my own part, now the _fit_ is long past, I have no hesitation in +declaring, that a mob of happy faces crowding up at the pit door of +Drury-Lane Theatre just at the hour of five, give me ten thousand finer +pleasures, than I ever received from all the flocks of _silly sheep_, +that have whitened the plains of _Arcadia_ or _Epsom Downs_. + +This passion for crowds is no where feasted so full as in London. The +man must have a rare _recipe_ for melancholy, who can be dull in +Fleet-street. I am naturally inclined to _hypochondria_, but in London +it vanishes, like all other ills. Often when I have felt a weariness or +distaste at home, have I rushed out into her crowded Strand, and fed my +humour, till tears have wetted my cheek for inutterable sympathies with +the multitudinous moving picture, which she never fails to present at +all hours, like the shifting scenes of a skilful Pantomime. + +The very deformities of London, which give distaste to others, from +habit do not displease me. The endless succession of shops, where Fancy +(miscalled Folly) is supplied with perpetual new gauds and toys, excite +in me no puritanical aversion. I gladly behold every appetite supplied +with its proper food. The obliging customer, and the obliged tradesmen-- +things which live by bowing, and things which exist but for homage, do +not affect me with disgust; from habit I perceive nothing but urbanity, +where other men, more refined, discover meanness. I love the very smoke +of London, because it has been the medium most familiar to my vision. I +see grand principles of honour at work in the dirty ring which +encompasses two combatants with fists, and principles of no less eternal +justice in the tumultuous detectors of a pickpocket. The salutary +astonishment with which an execution is surveyed, convinces me more +forcibly than an hundred volumes of abstract polity, that the universal +instinct of man, in all ages, has leaned to order and good government. +Thus an art of extracting morality, from the commonest incidents of a +town life, is attained by the same well-natured alchemy, with which the +_Foresters of Arden_ in a beautiful country + +Found tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, +Sermons in stones, and good in every thing-- + +Where has spleen her food but in London--humour, interest, curiosity, +suck at her measureless breasts without a possibility of being satiated. +Nursed amid her noise, her crowds, her beloved smoke--what have I been +doing all my life, if I have not lent out my heart with usury to such +scenes? + +Reader, in the course of my peregrinations about the great city, it is +hard, if I have not picked up matter, which may serve to amuse thee, as +it has done me, a winter evening long. When next we meet, I purpose +opening my budget--Till when, farewell. + + * * * * * + +"What is all this about?" said Mrs. Shandy. "A story of a cock and a +bull," said Yorick: and so it is; but Manning will take good-naturedly +what _God will send him_ across the water: only I hope he won't _shut_ +his _eyes_, and _open_ his _mouth_, as the children say, for that is the +way to _gape_, and not to _read_. Manning, continue your laudable +purpose of making me your register. I will render back all your remarks; +and _I, not you_, shall have received usury by having read them. In the +mean time, may the great Spirit have you in his keeping, and preserve +our Englishmen from the inoculation of frivolity and sin upon French +earth. + +_Allons_--or what is it you say, instead of _good-bye_? + +Mary sends her kind remembrance, and covets the remarks equally with me. + + C. LAMB. + +[The reference to the "word-banker" and "register" is explained by +Manning's first letter to Lamb from Paris, in which he says: "I ... beg +you to keep all my letters. I hope to send you many--and I may in the +course of time, make some observations that I shall wish to recall to my +memory when I return to England." + +"Are you and the First Consul _thick_?"--Napoleon, with whom Manning was +destined one day to be on terms. In 1803, on the declaration of war, +when he wished to return to England, Manning's was the only passport +that Napoleon signed; again, in 1817, on returning from China, Manning +was wrecked near St. Helena, and, waiting on the island for a ship, +conversed there with the great exile. + +"Rumfordising." A word coined by Lamb from Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count +von Rumford, the founder of the Royal Institution, the deviser of the +Rumford stove, and a tireless scientific and philosophical +experimentalist. + +"Smellfungus." An allusion to Sterne's attack on Smollett, in _The +Sentimental Journey_: "The lamented Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne +to Paris, from Paris to Rome, and so on; but he set out with the spleen +and jaundice, and every object he passed by was discoloured or +distorted." + +"The _Post_." Lamb had been writing criticisms of plays; but Stuart, as +we have seen, wanted them on the same night as the performance and Lamb +found this impossible. + +"I have done but one thing"--"The Londoner," referred to later. + +"The Professor's Rib"--Godwin's second wife, the widow Clairmont (mother +of Jane Clairmont), whom he had married in December, 1801. + +"Fell"--R. Fell, author of a _Tour through the Batavian Republic_, 1801. +Later he compiled a _Life of Charles James Fox_, 1808. Lamb knew him, as +well as Fenwick, through Godwin. + +"_Apropos_, I think you wrong about my play." _John Woodvil_ had just +been published and Lamb had sent Manning a copy. Manning, in return, had +written from Paris early in February: "I showed your Tragedy to +Holcroft, who had taste enough to discover that 'tis full of poetry--but +the plot he condemns _in toto_. Tell me how it succeeds. I think you +were ill advised to retrench so much. I miss the beautiful Branches you +have lopped off and regret them. In some of the pages the sprinkling of +words is so thin as to be quite _outré_. There you were wrong again." + +"The Londoner" was published in the _Morning Post_, February 1, 1802. I +have quoted the article from that paper, as Lamb's copy for Manning has +disappeared. Concerning it Manning wrote, in his next letter--April 6, +1802--"I like your 'Londoner' very much, there is a deal of happy fancy +in it, but it is not strong enough to be seen by the generality of +readers, yet if you were to write a volume of essays in the same stile +you might be sure of its succeeding."] + + + + +LETTER 95 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN RICKMAN + +16, Mitre Court Buildings, Inner Temple, +April 10, 1802. + +Dear Rickman,--The enclosed letter explains itself. It will save me the +danger of a corporal interview with the man-eater who, if very +sharp-set, may take a fancy to me, if you will give me a short note, +declaratory of probabilities. These from him who hopes to see you once +or twice more before he goes hence, to be no more seen: for there is no +tipple nor tobacco in the grave, whereunto he hasteneth. + +C. LAMB. + +How clearly the Goul writes, and like a gentleman! + +[A friend of Burnett, named Simonds, is meant. Lamb calls him a "Goul" +in another letter, and elsewhere says he eats strange flesh. See note on +page 232.] + + + + +LETTER 96 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[No date. ?End of April, 1802.] + +My dear Manning,--Although something of the latest, and after two +months' waiting, your letter was highly gratifying. Some parts want a +little explication; for example, "the god-like face of the First +Consul." _What god_ does he most resemble? Mars, Bacchus, or Apollo? or +the god Serapis who, flying (as Egyptian chronicles deliver) from the +fury of the dog Anubis (the hieroglyph of an English mastiff), lighted +on Monomotapa (or the land of apes), by some thought to be Old France, +and there set up a tyranny, &c. Our London prints of him represent him +gloomy and sulky, like an angry Jupiter. I hear that he is very small, +even less than me, who am "less than the least of the Apostles," at +least than they are painted in the Vatican. I envy you your access to +this great man, much more than your séances and conversaziones, which I +have a shrewd suspicion must be something dull. What you assert +concerning the actors of Paris, that they exceed our comedians, "bad as +ours are," is _impossible_. In one sense it may be true, that their fine +gentlemen, in what is called genteel comedy, may possibly be more brisk +and _dégagé_ than Mr. Caulfield or Mr. Whitfield; but have any of them +the power to move _laughter in excess_? or can a Frenchman _laugh_? Can +they batter at your judicious ribs till they _shake_, nothing both to be +so shaken? This is John Bull's criterion, and it shall be mine. You are +Frenchified. Both your tastes and morals are corrupt and perverted. +By-and-by you will come to assert, that Buonaparte is as great a general +as the old Duke of Cumberland, and deny that one Englishman can beat +three Frenchmen. Read "Henry the Fifth" to restore your orthodoxy. All +things continue at a stay-still in London. I cannot repay your new +novelties with my stale reminiscences. Like the prodigal, I have spent +my patrimony, and feed upon the superannuated chaff and dry husks of +repentance; yet sometimes I remember with pleasure the hounds and +horses, which I kept in the days of my prodigality. I find nothing new, +nor anything that has so much of the gloss and dazzle of novelty, as may +rebound in narrative, and cast a reflective glimmer across the channel. +Something I will say about people that you and I know. Fenwick is still +in debt, and the Professor has not done making love to his new spouse. I +think he never looks into an almanack, or he would have found by the +calendar that the honeymoon was extinct a moon ago. Lloyd has written to +me and names you. I think a letter from Maison Magnan (is that a person +or a thing?) would gratify him. G. Dyer is in love with an Ideot who +loves a Doctor, who is incapable of loving anything but himself. A +puzzling circle of perverse Providences! A maze as un-get-out-again-able +as the House which Jack built. Southey is Secretary to the Chancellor of +the Irish Exchequer; £400 a year. Stoddart is turned Doctor of Civil +Law, and dwells in Doctors' Commons. I fear _his_ commons are short, as +they say. Did I send you an epitaph I scribbled upon a poor girl who +died at nineteen, a good girl and a pretty girl, and a clever girl, but +strangely neglected by all her friends and kin? + +"Under this cold marble stone +Sleep the sad remains of one +Who, when alive, by few or none +Was loved, as loved she might have been, +If she prosperous days had seen, +Or had thriving been, I ween. +Only this cold funeral stone +Tells she was beloved by one, +Who on the marble graves his moan." + +Brief, and pretty, and tender, is it not? I send you this, being the +only piece of poetry I have _done_, since the muses all went with T. M. +to Paris. I have neither stuff in my brain, nor paper in my drawer, to +write you a longer letter. Liquor and company and wicked tobacco +a'nights, have quite dispericraniated me, as one may say; but you who +spiritualise upon Champagne may continue to write long letters, and +stuff 'em with amusement to the end. Too long they cannot be, any more +than a codicil to a will which leaves me sundry parks and manors not +specified in the deed. But don't be _two months_ before you write again. +These from merry old England, on the day of her valiant patron St. +George. + +C. LAMB. + +[This letter is usually dated 1803, but I feel sure it should be 1802. +Southey had given up his Irish appointment in that year, and Godwin's +honeymoon began in December, 1801. + +"Even less than me." Mr. W. C. Hazlitt gives in _Mary and Charles Lamb_ +a vivid impression of Lamb's spare figure. A farmer at Widford, Mr. +Charles Tween, himself not a big man, told Mr. Hazlitt that when walking +out with Lamb he would place his hands under his arm and lift him over +the stiles as if it were nothing. Napoleon's height was 5 feet 6 or 7 +inches. + +Thomas Caulfield, a brother of the antiquary and print-seller, James +Caulfield, was a comedian and mimic at Drury Lane; Whitfield was an +actor at Drury Lane, who later moved to Covent Garden. + +"An epitaph." These lines were written upon a friend of Rickman's, Mary +Druitt of Wimborne. They were printed in the _Morning Post_ for February +7, 1804, signed C. L. See later.] + + + + +LETTER 97 + + +(_Fragment_) + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +Sept. 8th, 1802. + +Dear Coleridge,--I thought of not writing till we had performed some of +our commissions; but we have been hindered from setting about them, +which yet shall be done to a tittle. We got home very pleasantly on +Sunday. Mary is a good deal fatigued, and finds the difference of going +to a place, and coming _from_ it. I feel that I shall remember your +mountains to the last day I live. They haunt me perpetually. I am like a +man who has been falling in love unknown to himself, which he finds out +when he leaves the lady. I do not remember any very strong impression +while they were present; but, being gone, their mementos are shelved in +my brain. We passed a very pleasant little time with the Clarksons. The +Wordsworths are at Montagu's rooms, near neighbours to us. They dined +with us yesterday, and I was their guide to Bartlemy Fair! + +[In the summer of 1802 the Lambs paid a sudden visit to Coleridge at +Keswick. Afterwards they went to Grasmere, although the Wordsworths were +away from home; but they saw Thomas Clarkson, the philanthropist, then +living at Ullswater (see the next letter). They had reached London again +on September 5. Procter records that on being asked how he felt when +among the lakes and mountains, Lamb replied that in order to bring down +his thoughts from their almost painful elevation to the sober regions of +life, he was obliged to think of the ham and beef shop near St. Martin's +Lane. Lamb says that after such a holiday he finds his office work very +strange. "I feel debased; but I shall soon break in my mountain spirit." +The last two words were a recollection of his own poem "The Grandame"-- + + hers was else +A mountain spirit.... + +This letter, the original of which is I know not where, is here, for +dismal copyright reasons, very imperfectly given. Mr. Macdonald prints +it apparently in full, although Mrs. Gilchrist in her memoir of Mary +Lamb supplies another passage, as follows:--"Lloyd has written me a fine +letter of friendship all about himself and Sophia and love and cant +which I have not answered. I have not given up the idea of writing to +him but it will be done very plainly and sincerely, without acrimony." + +Lamb also says that Pi-pos (as Coleridge's second child Derwent was +called) was the only one, except a beggar's brat, that he had ever +wanted to steal from its parents. + +He says also: "I was pleased to recognise your blank-verse poem (the +Picture) in the _Morn. Post_ of Monday. It reads very well, and I feel +some dignity in the notion of being able to understand it better than +most Southern readers." + +Coleridge's poem "The Picture; or, The Lover's Resolution," was printed +in the _Morning Post_ for September 6. Its scenery was probably pointed +out to Lamb by Coleridge at Keswick. + +Basil Montagu, the lawyer, an old friend of Wordsworth's. It is his son +Edward who figures in the "Anecdote for Fathers." + +Bartholomew Fair, held at Smithfield, continued until 1855, but its +glories had been decreasing for some years.] + + + + +LETTER 98 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +24th Sept., 1802, London. + +My dear Manning,--Since the date of my last letter, I have been a +traveller. A strong desire seized me of visiting remote regions. My +first impulse was to go and see Paris. It was a trivial objection to my +aspiring mind, that I did not understand a word of the language, since I +certainly intend some time in my life to see Paris, and equally +certainly never intend to learn the language; therefore that could be no +objection. However, I am very glad I did not go, because you had left +Paris (I see) before I could have set out. I believe, Stoddart promising +to go with me another year prevented that plan. My next scheme, (for to +my restless, ambitious mind London was become a bed of thorns) was to +visit the far-famed Peak in Derbyshire, where the Devil sits, they say, +without breeches. _This_ my purer mind rejected as indelicate. And my +final resolve was a tour to the Lakes. I set out with Mary to Keswick, +without giving Coleridge any notice; for my time being precious did not +admit of it. He received us with all the hospitality in the world, and +gave up his time to show us all the wonders of the country. He dwells +upon a small hill by the side of Keswick, in a comfortable house, quite +enveloped on all sides by a net of mountains: great floundering bears +and monsters they seemed, all couchant and asleep. We got in in the +evening, travelling in a post-chaise from Penrith, in the midst of a +gorgeous sunshine, which transmuted all the mountains into colours, +purple, &c. &c. We thought we had got into fairyland. But that went off +(as it never came again--while we stayed we had no more fine sunsets); +and we entered Coleridge's comfortable study just in the dusk, when the +mountains were all dark with clouds upon their heads. Such an impression +I never received from objects of sight before, nor do I suppose 1 can +ever again. + +Glorious creatures, fine old fellows, Skiddaw, &c. I never shall forget +ye, how ye lay about that night, like an intrenchment; gone to bed, as +it seemed for the night, but promising that ye were to be seen in the +morning. Coleridge had got a blazing fire in his study; which is a +large, antique, ill-shaped room, with an old-fashioned organ, never +played upon, big enough for a church, shelves of scattered folios, an +Æolian harp, and an old sofa, half-bed, &c. And all looking out upon the +last fading view of Skiddaw and his broad-breasted brethren: what a +night! Here we stayed three full weeks, in which time I visited +Wordsworth's cottage, where we stayed a day or two with the Clarksons +(good people and most hospitable, at whose house we tarried one day and +night), and saw Lloyd. The Wordsworths were gone to Calais. They have +since been in London and past much time with us: he is now gone into +Yorkshire to be married to a girl of small fortune, but he is in +expectation of augmenting his own in consequence of the death of Lord +Lonsdale, who kept him out of his own in conformity with a plan my lord +had taken up in early life of making everybody unhappy. So we have seen +Keswick, Grasmere, Ambleside, Ulswater (where the Clarksons live), and a +place at the other end of Ulswater--I forget the name--to which we +travelled on a very sultry day, over the middle of Helvellyn. We have +clambered up to the top of Skiddaw, and I have waded up the bed of +Lodore. In fine, I have satisfied myself, that there is such a thing as +that which tourists call _romantic_, which I very much suspected before: +they make such a spluttering about it, and toss their splendid epithets +around them, till they give as dim a light as at four o'clock next +morning the lamps do after an illumination. Mary was excessively tired, +when she got about half-way up Skiddaw, but we came to a cold rill (than +which nothing can be imagined more cold, running over cold stones), and +with the reinforcement of a draught of cold water she surmounted it most +manfully. Oh, its fine black head, and the bleak air atop of it, with a +prospect of mountains all about, and about, making you giddy; and then +Scotland afar off, and the border countries so famous in song and +ballad! It was a day that will stand out, like a mountain, I am sure, in +my life. But I am returned (I have now been come home near three +weeks--I was a month out), and you cannot conceive the degradation I +felt at first, from being accustomed to wander free as air among +mountains, and bathe in rivers without being controlled by any one, to +come home and _work_. I felt very _little_. I had been dreaming I was a +very great man. But that is going off, and I find I shall conform in +time to that state of life to which it has pleased God to call me. +Besides, after all, Fleet-Street and the Strand are better places to +live in for good and all than among Skiddaw. Still, I turn back to those +great places where I wandered about, participating in their greatness. +After all, I could not _live_ in Skiddaw. I could spend a year--two, +three years--among them, but I must have a prospect of seeing +Fleet-Street at the end of that time, or I should mope and pine away, I +know. Still, Skiddaw is a fine creature. My habits are changing, I +think: _i.e._ from drunk to sober. Whether I shall be happier or not +remains to be proved. I shall certainly be more happy in a morning; but +whether I shall not sacrifice the fat, and the marrow, and the kidneys, +_i.e._ the night, the glorious care-drowning night, that heals all our +wrongs, pours wine into our mortifications, changes the scene from +indifferent and flat to bright and brilliant!--O Manning, if I should +have formed a diabolical resolution, by the time you come to England, of +not admitting any spirituous liquors into my house, will you be my guest +on such shameworthy terms? Is life, with such limitations, worth trying? +The truth is, that my liquors bring a nest of friendly harpies about my +house, who consume me. This is a pitiful tale to be read at St. Gothard; +but it is just now nearest my heart. Fenwick is a ruined man. He is +hiding himself from his creditors, and has sent his wife and children +into the country. Fell, my other drunken companion (that has been: nam +hic caestus artemque repono), is turned editor of a "Naval Chronicle." +Godwin (with a pitiful artificial wife) continues a steady friend, +though the same facility does not remain of visiting him often. That +Bitch has detached Marshall from his house, Marshall the man who went to +sleep when the "Ancient Mariner" was reading: the old, steady, +unalterable friend of the Professor. Holcroft is not yet come to town. I +expect to see him, and will deliver your message. How I hate _this part_ +of a letter. Things come crowding in to say, and no room for 'em. Some +things are too little to be told, _i.e._ to have a preference; some are +too big and circumstantial. Thanks for yours, which was most delicious. +Would I had been with you, benighted &c. I fear my head is turned with +wandering. I shall never be the same acquiescent being. Farewell; write +again quickly, for I shall not like to hazard a letter, not knowing +where the fates have carried you. Farewell, my dear fellow. + +C. LAMB. + +[Lamb suggests in Letter 54 that he knew some French. Marshall we met in +the letters to Godwin of December 14,1800, and to Manning, December 16, +1800. + +"Holcroft"--Thomas Holcroft (1745-1809), a miscellaneous writer, who is +best known by his play "The Road to Ruin." Lamb says of him in his +"Letter to Southey" (see Vol. I. of this edition) that he was "one of +the most candid, most upright, and single-meaning men" that he had ever +met.] + + + + +LETTER 99 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE +October 9, 1802. + +CAROLUS AGNUS COLERIDGIO SUO S. + +Carissime--Scribis, ut nummos scilicet epistolarios solvam et postremo +in Tartara abeam: immo tu potius Tartaricum (ut aiunt) deprehendisti, +qui me vernaculâ meâ linguâ pro scribâ conductitio per tot annos satis +eleganter usum ad Latinè impure et canino fere ore latrandum per tuasmet +epistolas benè compositas et concinnatas percellere studueris. Conabor +tamen: Attamen vereor, ut Ædes istas nostri Christi, inter quas tantâ +diligentiâ magistri improbâ [?improbi] bonis literulis, quasi per +clysterem quendam injectis, infrà supraque olim penitùs imbutus fui, +Barnesii et Marklandii doctissimorum virorum nominibus adhuc gaudentes, +barbarismis meis peregrinis et aliunde quæsitis valde dehonestavero +[_sic_]. Sed pergere quocunque placet. Adeste igitur, quotquot estis, +conjugationum declinationumve turmae, terribilia spectra, et tu imprimis +ades, Umbra et Imago maxima obsoletas (Diis gratiæ) Virgæ, quâ novissime +in mentem receptâ, horrescunt subito natales [nates], et parum deest quo +minùs braccas meas ultro usque ad crura demittam, et ipse puer +pueriliter ejulem. + +Ista tua Carmina Chamouniana satis grandia esse mihi constat; sed hoc +mihi nonnihil displicet, quòd in iis illae montium Grisosonum inter se +responsiones totidem reboant anglice, _God, God_, haud aliter atque +temet audivi tuas monies Cumbrianas resonare docentes, _Tod, Tod_, nempe +Doctorem infelicem: vocem certe haud Deum Sonantem. Pro caeteris plaudo. + +Itidem comparationes istas tuas satis callidas et lepidas certè novi: +sed quid hoc ad verum? cum illi Consulari viro et _mentem irritabilem_ +istam Julianam: et etiam _astutias frigidulas_ quasdam Augusto +propriores, nequaquam congruenter uno afflatu comparationis causâ +insedisse affirmaveris: necnon nescio quid similitudinis etiam cum +Tiberio tertio in loco solicite produxetis. Quid tibi equidem cum uno +vel altero Caesare, cùm universi Duodecim ad comparationes tuas se ultro +tulerint? Praeterea, vetustati adnutans, comparationes iniquas odi. + +Istas Wordsworthianas nuptias (vel potius cujusdam _Edmundii_ tui) te +retulisse mirificum gaudeo. Valeas, Maria, fortunata nimium, et antiquae +illae Mariae Virgini (comparatione plusquam Caesareanâ) forsitan +comparanda, quoniam "beata inter mulieres:" et etiam fortasse +Wordsworthium ipsum tuum maritum Angelo Salutatori aequare fas erit, +quoniam e Coelo (ut ille) descendunt et Musae et ipsi Musicolae: at +Wordsworthium Musarum observantissimum semper novi. Necnon te quoque +affinitate hâc novâ, Dorothea, gratulor: et tu certe alterum _donum +Dei_. + +Istum Ludum, quem tu, Coleridgi, Americanum garris, a Ludo (ut Ludi +sunt) maximè abhorrentem praetereo: nempe quid ad Ludum attinet, totius +illae gentis Columbianae, a nostrâ gente, eadem stirpe ortâ, ludi +singuli causa voluntatem perperam alienare? Quasso ego materiam ludi: tu +Bella ingeris. + +Denique valeas, et quid de Latinitate meâ putes, dicas; facias ut +opossum illum nostrum volantem vel (ut tu malis) quendam Piscem +errabundum, a me salvum et pulcherrimum esse jubeas. Valeant uxor tua +cum Hartleiio nostro. Soror mea salva est et ego: vos et ipsa salvere +jubet. Ulterius progrediri [? progredi] non liquet: homo sum aeratus. + +P.S.--Pene mihi exciderat, apud me esse Librorum a Johanno Miltono +Latinè scriptorum volumina duo, quae (Deo volente) cum caeteris tuis +libris ocyùs citiùs per Maria [?] ad te missura [_sic_] curabo; sed me +in hoc tali genere rerum nullo modo _festinantem_ novisti: habes +confitentem reum. Hoc solum dici [_sic_] restat, praedicta volumina +pulchra esse et omnia opera Latina J. M. in se continere. Circa +defensionem istam Pro Pop°. Ang°. acerrimam in praesens ipse praeclaro +gaudio moror. + + Jussa tua Stuartina faciam ut diligenter colam. + Iterum iterumque valeas: + Et facias memor sis nostri. + +[I append a translation from the pen of Mr. Stephen Gwynn:-- + +CHARLES LAMB TO HIS FRIEND COLERIDGE, GREETING. + +DEAR FRIEND--You write that I am to pay my debt, to wit in coin of +correspondence, and finally that I am to go to Tartarus: no but it is +you have caught a Tartar (as the saying is), since after all these years +employing my own vernacular tongue, and prettily enough for a hired +penman, you have set about to drive me by means of your well composed +and neatly turned epistles to gross and almost doggish barking in the +Latin. Still, I will try: And yet I fear that the Hostel of our +Christ,--wherein by the exceeding diligence of a relentless master I was +in days gone by deeply imbued from top to bottom with polite learning, +instilled as it were by a clyster--which still glories in the names of +the erudite Barnes and Markland, will be vilely dishonoured by my +outlandish and adscititious barbarisms. But I am determined to proceed, +no matter whither. Be with me therefore all ye troops of conjugations +and declensions, dread spectres, and approach thou chiefest, Shade and +Phantom of the disused (thank Heaven) Birch, at whose entry to my +imagination a sudden shiver takes my rump, and a trifle then more would +make me begin to let down my breeches to my calves, and turning boy, +howl boyishly. + +That your Ode at Chamounix is a fine thing I am clear; but here is a +thing offends me somewhat, that in the ode your answers of the Grison +mountains to each other should so often echo in English God, God--in the +very tone that I have heard your own lips teaching your Cumbrian +mountains to resound Tod, Tod, meaning the unlucky doctor--a syllable +assuredly of no Godlike sound. For the rest, I approve. + +Moreover, I certainly recognise that your comparisons are acute and +witty; but what has this to do with truth? since you have given to the +great Consul at once that irritable mind of Julius, and also a kind of +cold cunning, more proper to Augustus--attributing incongruous +characteristics in one breath for the sake of your comparison: nay, you +have even in the third instance laboriously drawn out some likeness to +Tiberius. What had you to do with one Caesar, or a second, when the +whole Twelve offered themselves to your comparison? Moreover, I agree +with antiquity, and think comparisons odious. + +Your Wordsworth nuptials (or rather the nuptials of a certain Edmund of +yours) fill me with joy in your report. May you prosper, Mary, fortunate +beyond compare, and perchance comparable to that ancient Virgin Mary (a +comparison more than Cæsarean) since "blessed art thou among women:" +perhaps also it will be no impiety to compare Wordsworth himself your +husband to the Angel of Salutation, since (like the angel) from heaven +descend both Muses and the servants of the Muses: whose devoutest votary +I always know Wordsworth to be. Congratulations to thee, Dorothea, in +this new alliance: you also assuredly are another "gift of God." + +As for your Ludus [Lloyd], whom you talk of as an "American," I pass him +by as no sportsman (as sport goes): what kind of sport is it, to +alienate utterly the good will of the whole Columbian people, our own +kin, sprung of the same stock, for the sake of one Ludd [Lloyd]? I seek +the material for diversion: you heap on War. + +Finally, fare you well, and pray tell me what you think of my Latinity. +Kindly wish health and beauty from me to our flying possum or (as you +prefer to call it) roving Fish. Good health to your wife and my friend +Hartley. My sister and I are well. She also sends you greeting. I do not +see how to get on farther: I am a man in debt [or possibly in +"fetters"]. + +P.S.--I had almost forgot, I have by me two volumes of the Latin +writings of John Milton, which (D.V.) I will have sent you sooner or +later by Mary: but you know me no way precipitate in this kind: the +accused pleads guilty. This only remains to be said, that the aforesaid +volumes are handsome and contain all the Latin works of J. M. At present +I dwell with much delight on his vigorous defence of the English people. + +I will be sure to observe diligently your Stuartial tidings. + +Again and again farewell: and pray be mindful of me. + +Coleridge's "Hymn before Sun-rise, in the Vale of Chamouni," was printed +in the _Morning Post_ for September 11, 1802. The poem contains this +passage:-- + +God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, +Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God! +God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice! +Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! +And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, +And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God! + +Canon Ainger suggests that by Tod, the unlucky doctor, Lamb meant Dr. +William Dodd (1729-1777), the compiler of the _Beauties of Shakespeare_ +and the forger, who was hanged at Tyburn. + +"Your comparisons." Coleridge's "Comparison of the Present State of +France with that of Rome under Julius and Augustus Cæsar" was printed in +the _Morning Post_, September 21, September 25, and October 2, 1802. See +_Essays on His Own Times_, 1850, Vol. III., page 478. + +Wordsworth's marriage to Mary Hutchinson, on October 4, 1802, had called +forth from Coleridge his ode on "Dejection," printed in the _Morning +Post_ for the same day, in which Wordsworth was addressed as Edmund. In +later editions Coleridge suppressed its personal character. + +Ludus is Lloyd. Lamb means by "American" what we should mean by +pro-American. + +"Stuartial." Referring to Daniel Stuart of the _Morning Post_.] + + + + +LETTER 100 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +Oct. 11th, 1802. + +Dear Coleridge,--Your offer about the German poems is exceedingly kind; +but I do not think it a wise speculation, because the time it would take +you to put them into prose would be nearly as great as if you versified +them. Indeed, I am sure you could do the one nearly as soon as the +other; so that, instead of a division of labour, it would be only a +multiplication. But I will think of your offer in another light. I dare +say I could find many things of a light nature to suit that paper, which +you would not object to pass upon Stuart as your own, and I should come +in for some light profits, and Stuart think the more highly of your +assiduity. "Bishop Hall's Characters" I know nothing about, having never +seen them. But I will reconsider your offer, which is very plausible; +for as to the drudgery of going every day to an editor with my scraps, +like a pedlar, for him to pick out, and tumble about my ribbons and +posies, and to wait in his lobby, &c., no money could make up for the +degradation. You are in too high request with him to have anything +unpleasant of that sort to submit to. + +It was quite a slip of my pen, in my Latin letter, when I told you I had +Milton's Latin Works. I ought to have said his Prose Works, in two +volumes, Birch's edition, containing all, both Latin and English, a +fuller and better edition than Lloyd's of Toland. It is completely at +your service, and you must accept it from me; at the same time, I shall +be much obliged to you for your Latin Milton, which you think you have +at Howitt's; it will leave me nothing to wish for but the "History of +England," which I shall soon pick up for a trifle. But you must write me +word whether the Miltons are worth paying carriage for. You have a +Milton; but it is pleasanter to eat one's own peas out of one's own +garden, than to buy them by the peck at Covent Garden; and a book reads +the better, which is our own, and has been so long known to us, that we +know the topography of its blots and dog's-ears, and can trace the dirt +in it to having read it at tea with buttered muffins, or over a pipe, +which I think is the maximum. But, Coleridge, you must accept these +little things, and not think of returning money for them, for I do not +set up for a factor or general agent. As for the fantastic debt of 15£., +I'll think you were dreaming, and not trouble myself seriously to attend +to you. My bad Latin you properly correct; but _natales_ for _nates_ was +an inadvertency: I knew better. _Progrediri_ or _progredi_ I thought +indifferent, my authority being Ainsworth. However, as I have got a fit +of Latin, you will now and then indulge me with an _epistola_. I pay the +postage of this, and propose doing it by turns. In that case I can now +and then write to you without remorse; not that you would mind the +money, but you have not always ready cash to answer small demands--the +_epistolarii nummi_. + +Your "Epigram on the Sun and Moon in Germany" is admirable. Take 'em all +together, they are as good as Harrington's. I will muster up all the +conceits I can, and you shall have a packet some day. You and I together +can answer all demands surely: you, mounted on a terrible charger (like +Homer in the Battle of the Books) at the head of the cavalry: I will +lead the light horse. I have just heard from Stoddart. Allen and he +intend taking Keswick in their way home. Allen wished particularly to +have it a secret that he is in Scotland, and wrote to me accordingly +very urgently. As luck was, I had told not above three or four; but Mary +had told Mrs. Green of Christ's Hospital! For the present, farewell: +never forgetting love to Pi-pos and his friends. + +C. LAMB. + +[Coleridge, who seems to have been asked by Stuart of the _Morning Post_ +for translations of German verse, had suggested, I presume, that he +should supply Lamb (who knew no German) with literal prose translations, +and that Lamb should versify them, as he had in the case of "Thekla's +Song" in Coleridge's translation of the first part of _Wallenstein_ +nearly three years before. Lamb's suggestion is that he should send to +Stuart epigrams and paragraphs in Coleridge's name. Whether or not he +did so, I cannot say. + +Bishop Hall's _Characters of Vices and Virtues_ was published in 1608. +Coleridge may have suggested that Lamb should imitate them for the +_Morning Post_. Lamb later came to know Hall's satires, for he quotes +from them in his review of Barron Field's poems in 1820. + +Milton's prose works were edited by Thomas Birch, and by John Toland in +folio. + +"My bad Latin"--in the letter of October 9, 1802. Ainsworth was Robert +Ainsworth, compiler of the _Thesaurus Linguæ Latinæ_, 1736, for many +years the best Latin dictionary. + +"Your Epigram"--Coleridge's Epigram "On the Curious Circumstance that in +the German Language the Sun is feminine and the Moon masculine." It +appeared in the _Morning Post_ on October 11, 1802. Coleridge had been +sending epigrams and other verse to the _Post_ for some time. Harrington +was Sir John Harington (1561-1612), the author of many epigrams. + +Stoddart and Allen we have met. I do not know anything of Mrs. Green.] + + + + +LETTER 101 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE + +Oct. 23rd, 1802. + +Your kind offer I will not a second time refuse. You shall send me a +packet and I will do them into English with great care. Is not there one +about W'm. Tell, and would not that in the present state of discussions +be likely to _tell_? The Epigrams I meant are to be found at the end of +Harrington's Translation of Orlando Furioso: if you could get the book, +they would some of them answer your purpose to modernize. If you can't, +I fancy I can. Baxter's Holy Commonwealth I have luckily met with, and +when I have sent it, you shall if you please consider yourself indebted +to me 3s. 6d. the cost of it: especially as I purchased it after your +solemn injunctions. The plain case with regard to my presents (which you +seem so to shrink from) is that I have not at all affected the character +of a DONOR, or thought of violating your sacred Law of Give and Take: +but I have been _taking_ and partaking the good things of your House +(when I know you were not over-abounding) and I now _give_ unto you of +mine; and by the grace of God I happen to be myself a little +super-abundant at present. I expect I shall be able to send you my final +parcel in about a week: by that time I shall have gone thro' all +Milton's Latin Works. There will come with it the Holy Commonwealth, and +the identical North American Bible which you helped to dogs ear at +Xt's.--I call'd at Howell's for your little Milton, and also to fetch +away the White Cross Street Library Books, which I have not forgot: but +your books were not in a state to be got at then, and Mrs. H. is to let +me know when she packs up. They will be sent by sea; and my little +præcursor will come to you by the Whitehaven waggon accompanied with +pens, penknife &c.--Mrs. Howell was as usual very civil; and asked with +great earnestness, if it were likely you would come to Town in the +winter. She has a friendly eye upon you. + +I read daily your political essays. I was particularly pleased with +"Once a Jacobin:" though the argument is obvious enough, the style was +less swelling than your things sometimes are, and it was plausible _ad +populum_. A vessel has just arrived from Jamaica with the news of poor +Sam Le Grice's death. He died at Jamaica of the yellow fever. His course +was rapid and he had been very foolish; but I believe there was more of +kindness and warmth in him than in almost any other of our +schoolfellows. The annual meeting of the Blues is to-morrow, at the +London Tavern, where poor Sammy dined with them two years ago, and +attracted the notice of all by the singular foppishness of his dress. +When men go off the stage so early, it scarce seems a noticeable thing +in their epitaphs, whether they had been wise or silly in their +lifetime. + +I am glad the snuff and Pi-pos's Books please. "Goody Two Shoes" is +almost out of print. Mrs. Barbauld's stuff has banished all the old +classics of the nursery; and the shopman at Newbery's hardly deigned to +reach them off an old exploded corner of a shelf, when Mary asked for +them. Mrs. B.'s and Mrs. Trimmer's nonsense lay in piles about. +Knowledge insignificant and vapid as Mrs. B.'s books convey, it seems, +must come to a child in the _shape_ of _knowledge_, and his empty noddle +must be turned with conceit of his own powers when he has learnt that a +Horse is an animal, and Billy is better than a Horse, and such like; +instead of that beautiful Interest in wild tales which made the child a +man, while all the time he suspected himself to be no bigger than a +child. Science has succeeded to Poetry no less in the little walks of +children than with men. Is there no possibility of averting this sore +evil? Think what you would have been now, if instead of being fed with +Tales and old wives' fables in childhood, you had been crammed with +geography and natural history? + +Damn them!--I mean the cursed Barbauld Crew, those Blights and Blasts of +all that is Human in man and child. + +As to the Translations, let me do two or three hundred lines, and then +do you try the Nostrums upon Stuart in any way you please. If they go +down I will bray more. In fact, if I got or could but get 50 l. a year +only, in addition to what I have, I should live in affluence. + +Have you anticipated it, or could not you give a Parallel of Bonaparte +with Cromwell, particularly as to the contrast in their deeds affecting +_foreign_ states? Cromwell's interference for the Albigenses, +B[uonaparte]'s against the Swiss. Then Religion would come in; and +Milton and you could rant about our countrymen of that period. This is a +hasty suggestion, the more hasty because I want my Supper. I have just +finished Chapman's Homer. Did you ever read it?--it has most the +continuous power of interesting you all along, like a rapid original, of +any, and in the uncommon excellence of the more finished parts goes +beyond Fairfax or any of 'em. The metre is fourteen syllables, and +capable of all sweetness and grandeur. Cowper's damn'd blank verse +detains you every step with some heavy Miltonism; Chapman gallops off +with you his own free pace. Take a simile for an example. The council +breaks up-- + +"Being abroad, the earth was overlaid +With flockers to them, that came forth; as when of frequent bees +Swarms rise out of a hollow rock, repairing the degrees +_Of their egression endlessly, with ever rising new_ +From forth their sweet nest; as their store, still as it faded, grew, +_And never would cease sending forth her clusters to the spring_, +They still crowd out so: this flock here, that there, belabouring +The loaded flowers. So," &c. &c. + +[_Iliad_, Book II., 70-77.] + +What _endless egression of phrases_ the dog commands! + +Take another: Agamemnon wounded, bearing his wound heroically for the +sake of the army (look below) to a woman in labour. + +"He, with his lance, sword, mighty stones, poured his heroic wreak +On other squadrons of the foe, whiles yet warm blood did break +Thro' his cleft veins: but when the wound was quite exhaust and crude, +The eager anguish did approve his princely fortitude. +As when most sharp and bitter pangs distract a labouring dame, +Which the divine Ilithiæ, that rule the painful frame +Of human childbirth, pour on her; the Ilithiæ that are +The daughters of Saturnia; with whose extreme repair +The woman in her travail strives to take the worst it gives; +With thought, it _must be, 'tis love's fruit, the end for which she lives; +The mean to make herself new born, what comforts_ will redound: +So," &c. + +[_Iliad_, Book XI., 228-239.] + +I will tell you more about Chapman and his peculiarities in my next. I +am much interested in him. + +Yours ever affectionately, and Pi-Pos's. + +C.L. + +[Coleridge was just now contributing political essays as well as verse +to the _Morning Post_. "Once a Jacobin always a Jacobin" appeared on +October 21, 1802. These were afterwards reprinted in _Essays on His Own +Times_. _Ad populum_ is a reminder of Coleridge's first political +essays, the _Conciones ad Populum_ of 1795. + +"Goody Two Shoes"--One of Newbery's most famous books for children, +sometimes attributed to Goldsmith, though, I think, wrongly. + +Mrs. Barbauld (1743-1825) was the author of _Hymns in Prose for +Children_, and she contributed to her brother John Aikin's _Evenings at +Home_, both very popular books. Lamb, who afterwards came to know Mrs. +Barbauld, described her and Mrs. Inchbald as the two bald women. Mrs. +Sarah Trimmer (1741-1810) was the author of many books for children; she +lives by the _Story of the Robins_. + +The translation for Stuart either was not made or not accepted; nor did +Coleridge carry out the project of the parallel of Buonaparte with +Cromwell. Hallam, however, did so in his _Constitutional History of +England_, unfavourably to Cromwell. + +George Chapman's _Odyssey_ was paraphrased by Lamb in his _Adventures of +Ulysses_, 1808. Lamb either did not return to the subject with +Coleridge, or his "next letter" has been lost.] + + + + +LETTER 102 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE + +Nov. 4th, 1802. + +Observe, there comes to you, by the Kendal waggon to-morrow, the +illustrious 5th of November, a box, containing the Miltons, the strange +American Bible, with White's brief note, to which you will attend; +Baxter's "Holy Commonwealth," for which you stand indebted to me 3s. +6d.; an odd volume of Montaigne, being of no use to me, I having the +whole; certain books belonging to Wordsworth, as do also the strange +thick-hoofed shoes, which are very much admired at in London. All these +sundries I commend to your most strenuous looking after. If you find the +Miltons in certain parts dirtied and soiled with a crumb of right +Gloucester blacked in the candle (my usual supper), or peradventure a +stray ash of tobacco wafted into the crevices, look to that passage more +especially: depend upon it, it contains good matter. I have got your +little Milton which, as it contains Salmasius--and I make a rule of +never hearing but one side of the question (why should I distract +myself?)--I shall return to you when I pick up the _Latina opera_. The +first Defence is the greatest work among them, because it is uniformly +great, and such as is befitting the very mouth of a great nation +speaking for itself. But the second Defence, which is but a succession +of splendid episodes slightly tied together, has one passage which if +you have not read, I conjure you to lose no time, but read it; it is his +consolations in his blindness, which had been made a reproach to him. It +begins whimsically, with poetical flourishes about Tiresias and other +blind worthies (which still are mainly interesting as displaying his +singular mind, and in what degree poetry entered into his daily soul, +not by fits and impulses, but engrained and innate); but the concluding +page, i.e. of _this passage_ (not of the _Defensio_) which you will +easily find, divested of all brags and flourishes, gives so rational, so +true an enumeration of his comforts, so human, that it cannot be read +without the deepest interest. Take one touch of the religious part:--"Et +sane haud ultima Dei cura caeci--(_we blind folks_, I understand it not +_nos_ for _ego_;)--sumus; qui nos, quominus quicquam aliud praeter ipsum +cernere valemus, eo clementius atque benignius respicere dignatur. Vae +qui illudit nos, vae qui laedit, execratione publica devovendo; nos ab +injuriis hominum non modo incolumes, sed pene sacros divina lex +reddidit, divinus favor: nee tam _oculorum hebetudine_ quam _coelestium +alarum umbrâ_ has nobis fecisse tenebras videtur, factas illustrare +rursus interiore ac longe praestabiliore lumine haud raro solet. Huc +refero, quod et amici officiosius nunc etiam quam solebant, colunt, +observant, adsunt; quod et nonnulli sunt, quibuscum Pyladeas atque +Theseas alternare voces verorum amicorum liceat. + +"Vade gubernaculum mei pedis. +Da manum ministro amico. +Da collo manum tuam, ductor autem viæ ero tibi ego." + +All this, and much more, is highly pleasing to know. But you may easily +find it;--and I don't know why I put down so many words about it, but +for the pleasure of writing to you and the want of another topic. + +Yours ever, C. LAMB. + +To-morrow I expect with anxiety S.T.C.'s letter to Mr. Fox. + +[Lamb refers to Milton's _Defensio Secunda pro Populo Anglicano contra +Alexandrum Morum Ecclesiasten_. The following is a translation of the +Latin passage by Robert Fellowes:-- + +And indeed, in my blindness, I enjoy in no inconsiderable degree the +favour of the Deity; who regards me with more tenderness and compassion +in proportion as I am able to behold nothing but himself. Alas! for him +who insults me, who maligns and merits public execration! For the divine +law not only shields me from injury, but almost renders me too sacred to +attack; not indeed so much from the privation of my sight, as from the +overshadowing of those heavenly wings, which seem to have occasioned +this obscurity; and which, when occasioned, he is wont to illuminate +with an interior light, more precious and more pure. To this I ascribe +the more tender assiduities of my friends, their soothing attentions, +their kind visits, their reverential observances; among whom there are +some with whom I may interchange the Pyladean and Thesean dialogue of +inseparable friends. + +_Orest_. Proceed, and be rudder of my feet, by showing me the most +endearing love. [Eurip. in _Orest_.] + +And in another place-- + +"Lend your hand to your devoted friend, +Throw your arm round my neck, and +I will conduct you on the way." + +Coleridge's first letter to Charles James Fox was printed in the +_Morning Post_ for November 4, 1802, his second on November 9.] + + + + +LETTER 103 + + +Charles Lamb to Thomas Manning +[November, 1802.] + +My dear Manning,--I must positively write, or I shall miss you at +Toulouse. I sit here like a decayed minute hand (I lie; _that_ does not +_sit_), and being myself the exponent of no time, take no heed how the +clocks about me are going. You possibly by this time may have explored +all Italy, and toppled, unawares, into Etna, while you went too near +those rotten-jawed, gap-toothed, old worn-out chaps of hell,--while I am +meditating a quiescent letter to the honest postmaster at Toulouse. But +in case you should not have been _felo de se_, this is to tell you, that +your letter was quite to my palate--in particular your just remarks upon +Industry, damned Industry (though indeed you left me to explore the +reason), were highly relishing. + +I've often wished I lived in the Golden Age, when shepherds lay +stretched upon flowers, and roused themselves at their leisure,--the +genius there is in a man's natural idle face, that has not learned his +multiplication table! before doubt, and propositions, and corollaries, +got into the world! _Now_, as Joseph Cottle, a Bard of Nature, sings, +going up Malvern Hills, + +"How steep! how painful the ascent! +It needs the evidence of _close deduction_ +To know that ever I shall gain the top." + +You must know that Joe is lame, so that he had some reason for so +singing. These two lines, I assure you, are taken _totidem literis_ from +a very _popular_ poem. Joe is also an Epic Poet as well as a +Descriptive, and has written a tragedy, though both his drama and +epopoiea are strictly _descriptive_, and chiefly of the _Beauties of +Nature_, for Joe thinks _man_ with all his passions and frailties not a +proper subject of the _Drama_. Joe's tragedy hath the following +surpassing speech in it. Some king is told that his enemy has engaged +twelve archers to come over in a boat from an enemy's country and +way-lay him; he thereupon pathetically exclaims-- + +"_Twelve_, dost thou say? Where be those dozen villains!" + +Cottle read two or three acts out to us, very gravely on both sides, +till he came to this heroic touch,--and then he asked what we laughed +at? I had no more muscles that day. A poet that chooses to read out his +own verses has but a limited power over you. There is a bound where his +authority ceases. + +Apropos: if you should go to Florence or to Rome, inquire what works are +extant in gold, silver, bronze, or marble, of Benvenuto Cellini, a +Florentine artist, whose Life doubtless, you have read; or, if not, +without controversy you must read: so hark ye, send for it immediately +from Lane's circulating library. It is always put among the romances, +very properly; but you have read it, I suppose. In particular, inquire +at Florence for his colossal bronze statue (in the grand square or +somewhere) of Perseus. You may read the story in Tooke's "Pantheon." +Nothing material has _transpired_ in these parts. Coleridge has indited +a violent philippic against Mr. Fox in the "Morning Post," which is a +compound of expressions of humility, gentlemen-ushering-in most arrogant +charges. It will do Mr. Fox no real injury among those that know him. + +[Manning's letter of September 10 had told Lamb he was on his way to +Toulouse. + +Cottle's epic was _Alfred_. The quoted lines were added in the twelfth +edition. He had also written _John the Baptist_. + +"Cellini's Life." Lamb would probably have read the translation by +Nugent, 1771. Cellini's Perseus in bronze is in the Loggia de' Lanzi at +Florence.] + + + + +LETTER 104 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[Dated at end: Feb. 19th, 1803.] + +My dear Manning,--The general scope of your letter afforded no +indications of insanity, but some particular points raised a scruple. +For God's sake don't think any more of "Independent Tartary." What have +you to do among such Ethiopians? Is there no _lineal descendant_ of +Prester John? + +Is the chair empty? Is the sword unswayed?--depend upon't they'll never +make you their king, as long as any branch of that great stock is +remaining. I tremble for your Christianity. They'll certainly circumcise +you. Read Sir John Maundevil's travels to cure you, or come over to +England. + +There is a Tartar-man now exhibiting at Exeter Change. Come and talk +with him, and hear what he says first. Indeed, he is no very favorable +specimen of his Countrymen! But perhaps the best thing you can do, is to +_try_ to get the idea out of your head. For this purpose repeat to +yourself every night, after you have said your prayers, the words +Independent Tartary, Independent Tartary, two or three times, and +associate with them the _idea of oblivion_ ('tis Hartley's method with +obstinate memories), or say, Independent, Independent, have I not +already got an _Independence_? That was a clever way of the old +puritans--pun-divinity. My dear friend, think what a sad pity it would +be to bury such _parts_ in heathen countries, among nasty, +unconversable, horse-belching, Tartar people! Some say, they are +Cannibals; and then conceive a Tartar-fellow _eating_ my friend, and +adding the _cool malignity_ of mustard and vinegar! I am afraid 'tis the +reading of Chaucer has misled you; his foolish stories about Cambuscan +and the ring, and the horse of brass. Believe me, there's no such +things, 'tis all the poet's _invention_; but if there were such +_darling_ things as old Chaucer sings, I would _up_ behind you on the +Horse of Brass, and frisk off for Prester John's Country. But these are +all tales; a Horse of Brass never flew, and a King's daughter never +talked with Birds! The Tartars, really, are a cold, insipid, smouchey +set. You'll be sadly moped (if you are not eaten) among them. Pray _try_ +and cure yourself. Take Hellebore (the counsel is Horace's, 'twas none +of my thought _originally_). Shave yourself oftener. Eat no saffron, for +saffron-eaters contract a terrible Tartar-like yellow. Pray, to avoid +the fiend. Eat nothing that gives the heart-burn. _Shave the upper lip_. +Go about like an European. Read no books of voyages (they're nothing but +lies): only now and then a Romance, to keep the fancy _under_. Above +all, don't go to any sights of _wild beasts_. _That has been your ruin_. +Accustom yourself to write familiar letters on common subjects to your +friends in England, such as are of a moderate understanding. And think +about common things more. There's your friend Holcroft now, has written +a play. You used to be fond of the drama. Nobody went to see it. +Notwithstanding this, with an audacity perfectly original, he faces the +town down in a preface, that they _did like_ it very much. I have heard +a waspish punster say, "Sir, why did you not laugh at my jest?" But for +a man boldly to face me out with, "Sir, I maintain it, you did laugh at +my jest," is a little too much. I have seen H. but once. He spoke of you +to me in honorable terms. H. seems to me to be drearily dull. Godwin is +dull, but then he has a dash of affectation, which smacks of the +coxcomb, and your coxcombs are always agreeable. I supped last night +with Rickman, and met a merry _natural_ captain, who pleases himself +vastly with once having made a Pun at Otaheite in the O. language. 'Tis +the same man who said Shakspeare he liked, because he was so _much of +the Gentleman_. Rickman is a man "absolute in all numbers." I think I +may one day bring you acquainted, if you do not go to Tartary first; for +you'll never come back. Have a care, my dear friend, of Anthropophagi! +their stomachs are always craving. But if you do go among [them] pray +contrive to _stink_ as soon as you can that you may [? not] hang a [? +on] hand at the Butcher's. 'Tis terrible to be weighed out for 5d. +a-pound. To sit at table (the reverse of fishes in Holland), not as a +guest, but as a meat. + +God bless you: do come to England. Air and exercise may do great things. +Talk with some Minister. Why not your father? + +God dispose all for the best. I have discharged my duty. + +Your sincere fr'd, +C. LAMB. + +19th Feb., 1803, London. + +[Manning's letter producing this reply is endorsed by Lamb, "Received +February 19, 1803," so that he lost no time. Manning wrote: "I am +actually thinking of Independent Tartary as I write this, but you go out +and skate--you go out and walk some times? Very true, that's a +distraction--but the moment I set myself down quietly to any-thing, in +comes Independent Tartary--for example I attend chemical lectures but +every drug that Mr. Vauquelin presents to me tastes of Cream of +Tartar--in short I am become good for nothing for a time, and as I said +before, I should not have written now, but to assure you of my friendly +and affectionate remembrance, but as you are not in the same unhappy +circumstances, I expect you'll write to me and not measure page for +page. This is the first letter I have begun for England for three months +except one I sent to my Father yesterday." Manning returned to London +before leaving for China. He did not sail until 1806. + +Prester John, the name given by old writers to the King of Ethiopia in +Abyssinia. A corruption of Belul Gian, precious stone; in Latin first +Johanus preciosus, then Presbyter Johannes, and then Prester John. In +Sir John Mandeville's _Voiage and Travails_, 1356, Prester John is said +to be a lineal descendant of Ogier the Dane.--Hartley would be David +Hartley, the metaphysician, after whom Coleridge's son was named.--The +reader must go to Chaucer's "Squire's Tale" for Cambuscan, King of +Sarra, in Tartary; his horse of brass which conveyed him in a day +wherever he would go; and the ring which enabled his daughter Canacé to +understand the language of birds. + +Holcroft's play was "A Tale of Mystery." + +Rickman had returned from Ireland some months previously. The merry +natural captain was James Burney (1750-1821), with whom the Lambs soon +became very friendly. He was the centre of their whist-playing circle. +Burney, who was brother of Madame D'Arblay, had sailed with Captain +Cook. + +"The reverse of fishes in Holland." An allusion to Andrew Marvell's +whimsical satire against the Dutch:-- + +The fish ofttimes the burgher dispossessed +And sat not as a meat but as a guest. + +"Why not your father?" Manning's father was the Rev. William Manning, +rector of Diss, in Norfolk, who died in 1810.] + + + + +LETTER 105 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +March, 1803. + +Dear Manning, I send you some verses I have made on the death of a young +Quaker you may have heard me speak of as being in love with for some +years while I lived at Pentonville, though I had never spoken to her in +my life. She died about a month since. If you have interest with the +Abbé de Lisle, you may get 'em translated: he has done as much for the +Georgics. + +HESTER + +When maidens such as Hester die, +Their place ye may not well supply, +Though ye among a thousand try, +With vain endeavour. + +A month or more hath she been dead, +Yet cannot I by force be led +To think upon the wormy bed, +And her together. + +A springy motion in her gait, +A rising step, did indicate +Of pride and joy no common rate, +That flush'd her spirit. + +I know not by what name beside +I shall it call:--if 'twas not pride, +It was a joy to that allied, +She did inherit. + +Her parents held the Quaker rule, +Which doth the human feeling cool, +But she was train'd in Nature's school, +Nature had blest her. + +A waking eye, a prying mind, +A heart that stirs, is hard to bind, +A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind, +Ye could not Hester. + +My sprightly neighbour, gone before +To that unknown and silent shore, +Shall we not meet, as heretofore, +Some summer morning, + +When from thy cheerful eyes a ray +Hath struck a bliss upon the day, +A bliss that would not go away, +A sweet forewarning? + +[This letter is possibly only a fragment. I have supplied "Hester" from +the 1818 text. + +The young Quaker was Hester Savory, the daughter of Joseph Savory, a +goldsmith of the Strand. She was married July 1, 1802, and died a few +months after. + +"The Abbé de Lisle." L'Abbé Jacques Delille (1738-1813), known by his +_Géorgiques_, 1770, a translation into French of Virgil's _Georgics_.] + + + + +LETTER 106 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH + +[Dated at end: March 5, 1803.] + +Dear Wordsworth, having a Guinea of your sister's left in hand, after +all your commissions, and as it does not seem likely that you will +trouble us, as the phrase is, for some time to come, I send you a pound +note, and with it the best things in the verse way I have lit upon for +many a day. I believe they will be new to you. You know Cotton, who +wrote a 2d part to Walton's Angler. A volume of his miscellaneous poems +is scarce. Take what follows from a poem call'd Winter. I omit 20 +verses, in which a storm is described, to hasten to the best:-- + +21 +Louder, and louder, still they[1] come, +Nile's Cataracts to these are dumb, +The Cyclops to these Blades are still, +Whose anvils shake the burning hill. + +22 +Were all the stars-enlighten'd skies +As full of ears, as sparkling eyes, +This rattle in the crystal hall +Would be enough to deaf them all. + +23 +What monstrous Race is hither tost, +Thus to alarm our British Coast, +With outcries such as never yet +War, or confusion, could beget? + +24 +Oh! now I know them, let us home, +Our mortal Enemy is come, +Winter, and all his blustring train +Have made a voyage o'er the main. + +27 +With bleak, and with congealing winds, +The earth in shining chain he binds; +And still as he doth further pass, +Quarries his way with liquid glass. + +28 +Hark! how the Blusterers of the Bear +Their gibbous Cheeks in triumph bear, +And with continued shouts do ring +The entry of their palsied king! + +29 +The squadron, nearest to your eye, +Is his forlorn of Infantry, +Bowmen of unrelenting minds, +Whose shafts are feather'd with the winds. + +30 +Now you may see his vanguard rise +Above the earthy precipice, +Bold Horse, on bleakest mountains bred, +With hail, instead of provend, fed. + +31 +Their lances are the pointed locks, +Torn from the brows of frozen rocks, +Their shields are chrystal as their swords, +The steel the rusted rock affords. + +32 +See, the Main Body now appears! +And hark! th' Aeolian Trumpeters. +By their hoarse levels do declare, +That the bold General rides there. + +33 +And look where mantled up in white +He sleds it, like the Muscovite. +I know him by the port he bears, +And his lifeguard of mountaineers. + +34 +Their caps are furr'd with hoary frosts, +The bravery their cold kingdom boasts; +Their spungy plads are milk-white frieze, +Spun from the snowy mountain's fleece. + +35 +Their partizans are fine carv'd glass, +Fring'd with the morning's spangled grass; +And pendant by their brawny thighs +Hang cimetars of burnish'd ice. + +38 +Fly, fly, the foe advances fast, +Into our fortress let us haste, +Where all the roarers of the north +Can neither storm, nor starve, us forth. + +39 +There under ground a magazine +Of sovran juice is cellar'd in, +Liquor that will the siege maintain, +Should Phoebus ne'er return again. + +40 +'Tis that, that gives the poet rage, +And thaws the gelly'd blood of age, +Matures the young, restores the old, +And makes the fainting coward bold. + +41 +It lays the careful head to rest, +Calms palpitations in the breast, +Renders our live's misfortunes sweet, +And Venus frolic in the sheet. + +42 +Then let the chill Scirocco blow, +And gird us round with hills of snow, +Or else go whistle to the shore, +And make the hollow mountains roar. + +43 +Whilst we together jovial sit, +Careless, and crown'd with mirth and wit, +Where tho' bleak winds confine us home, +Our fancies thro' the world shall roam. + +44 +We'll think of all the friends we know, +And drink to all, worth drinking to; +When, having drunk all thine and mine, +We rather shall want health than wine! + +45 +But, where friends fail us, we'll supply +Our friendships with our Charity. +Men that remote in sorrows live, +Shall by our lusty bumpers thrive. + +46 +We'll drink the wanting into wealth, +And those that languish into health, +Th' afflicted into joy, th' opprest +Into security & rest. + +47 +The worthy in disgrace shall find +Favour return again more kind, +And in restraint who stifled lye, +Shall taste the air of liberty. + +48 +The brave shall triumph in success, +The lovers shall have mistresses, +Poor unregarded virtue praise, +And the neglected Poet bays. + +49 +Thus shall our healths do others good, +While we ourselves do all we wou'd, +For freed from envy, and from care, +What would we be, but what we are? + +50 +'Tis the plump Grape's immortal juice, +That does this happiness produce, +And will preserve us free together, +Maugre mischance, or wind, & weather. + +51 +Then let old winter take his course, +And roar abroad till he be hoarse, +And his lungs crack with ruthless ire, +It shall but serve to blow our fire. + +52 +Let him our little castle ply +With all his loud artillery, +Whilst sack and claret man the fort, +His fury shall become our sport. + +53 +Or let him Scotland take, and there +Confine the plotting Presbyter; +His zeal may freeze, whilst we kept warm +With love and wine can know no harm. + +[Footnote 1: The winds.] + +How could Burns miss the series of lines from 42 to 49? + +There is also a long poem from the Latin on the inconveniences of old +age. I can't set down the whole, tho' right worthy, having dedicated the +remainder of my sheet to something else. I just excerp here and there, +to convince you, if after this you need it, that Cotton was a first +rate. Tis old Callus speaks of himself, once the delight of the Ladies +and Gallants of Rome:-- + +The beauty of my shape & face are fled, +And my revolted form bespeaks me dead, +For fair, and shining age, has now put on +A bloodless, funeral complexion. +My skin's dry'd up, my nerves unpliant are, +And my poor limbs my nails plow up and tear. +My chearful eyes now with a constant spring +Of tears bewail their own sad suffering; +And those soft lids, that once secured my eye +Now rude, and bristled grown, do drooping lie, +Bolting mine eyes, as in a gloomy cave, +Which there on furies, and grim objects, rave. +'Twould fright the full-blown Gallant to behold +The dying object of a man so old. +And can you think, that once a man he was, +Of human reason who no portion has. +The letters split, when I consult my book, +And every leaf I turn does broader look. +In darkness do I dream I see the light, +When light is darkness to my perishd sight. + + * * * * * + +Is it not hard we may not from men's eyes +Cloak and conceal Age's indecencies. +Unseeming spruceness th' old man discommends, +And in old men, only to live, offends. + + * * * * * + +How can I him a living man believe, +Whom light, and air, by whom he panteth, grieve; +The gentle sleeps, which other mortals ease, +Scarce in a winter's night my eyelids seize. + + * * * * * + +The boys, and girls, deride me now forlorn, +And but to call me, Sir, now think it scorn, +They jeer my countnance, and my feeble pace, +And scoff that nodding head, that awful was. + + * * * * * + +A song written by Cowper, which in stile is much above his usual, and +emulates in noble plainness any old balad I have seen. Hayley has just +published it &c. with a Life. I did not think Cowper _up_ to it:-- + +SONG +ON THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE + +1 +Toll for the Brave! +The Brave, that are no more! +All sunk beneath the wave, +Fast by their native shore.-- + +2 +Eight hundred of the Brave, +Whose courage well was tried, +Had made the vessel heel, +And laid her on her side. + +3 +A Land breeze shook the shrouds, +And she was over set; +Down went the Royal George, +With all her sails complete. + +4 +Toll for the Brave! +Brave Kempenfelt is gone: +His last sea-fight is fought; +His work of glory done. + +5 +It was not in the battle, +No tempest gave the shock; +She sprang no fatal leak; +She ran upon no rock. + +6 +His sword was in its sheath; +His fingers held the pen, +When Kempenfelt went down, +With twice four hundred men. + +7 +Weigh the vessel up! +Once dreaded by our foes! +And mingle with the cup +The tear that England owes. + +8 +Her timbers yet are sound, +And she may float again, +Full charg'd with England's thunder, +And plow the distant main. + +9 +But Kempenfelt is gone, +His victories are o'er; +And he, and his eight hundred, +Shall plow the wave no more. + +In your obscure part of the world, which I take to be Ultima Thule, I +thought these verses out of Books which cannot be accessible would not +be unwelcome. Having room, I will put in an Epitaph I writ for a _real +occasion_, a year or two back. + +ON MARY DRUIT WHO DIED AGED 19 + +Under this cold marble stone +Sleep the sad remains of One, +Who, when alive, by few or none + +2 +Was lov'd, as lov'd she might have been, +If she prosp'rous days had seen, +Or had thriving been, I ween. + +3 +Only this cold funeral stone +Tells, she was belov'd by One, +Who on the marble graves his moan. + +I conclude with Love to your Sister and Mrs. W. + +Yours affect'y, +C. LAMB. +Mary sends Love, &c. +5th March, 1803. + +On consulting Mary, I find it will be foolish inserting the Note as I +intended, being so small, and as it is possible you _may_ have to +_trouble_ us again e'er long; so it shall remain to be settled +hereafter. However, the verses shan't be lost. + +N.B.--All orders executed with fidelity and punctuality by C. & M. Lamb. + +[_On the outside is written:_] I beg to open this for a minute to add my +remembrances to you all, and to assure you I shall ever be happy to hear +from or see, much more to be useful to any of my old friends at +Grasmere. + + J. STODDART. + +A _lean_ paragraph of the Doctor's. + + C. LAMB. + +[Charles Cotton (1630-1687). Wordsworth praises the poem on Winter in +his preface to the 1815 edition of his works, and elsewhere sets up a +comparison between the character of Cotton and that of Burns. + +Hayley's _Life of Cowper_ appeared first in 1803. + +Lamb's epitaph was written at the request of Rickman. See also the +letter to Manning of April, 1802. Rickman seems to have supplied Lamb +with a prose epitaph and asked for a poetical version. Canon Ainger +prints an earlier version in a letter to Rickman, dated February 1, +1802. Lamb printed the epitaph in the _Morning Post_ for February 7, +1804, over his initials (see Vol. IV. of this edition). Mary Druit, or +Druitt, lived at Wimborne, and according to John Payne Collier, in _An +Old Man's Diary_, died of small-pox at the age of nineteen. He says that +Lamb's lines were cut on her tomb, but correspondence in _Notes and +Queries_ has proved this to be incorrect. + +"The Doctor." Stoddart, having taken his D.C.L. in 1801, was now called +Dr. Stoddart. + +Soon after this letter Mary Lamb was taken ill again.] + + + + +LETTER 107 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +April 13th, 1803. + +My dear Coleridge,--Things have gone on better with me since you left +me. I expect to have my old housekeeper home again in a week or two. She +has mended most rapidly. My health too has been better since you took +away that Montero cap. I have left off cayenned eggs and such bolsters +to discomfort. There was death in that cap. I mischievously wished that +by some inauspicious jolt the whole contents might be shaken, and the +coach set on fire. For you said they had that property. How the old +Gentleman, who joined you at Grantham, would have clappt his hands to +his knees, and not knowing but it was an immediate visitation of God +that burnt him, how pious it would have made him; him, I mean, that +brought the Influenza with him, and only took places for one--a damn'd +old sinner, he must have known what he had got with him! However, I wish +the cap no harm for the sake of the _head it fits_, and could be content +to see it disfigure my healthy sideboard again. [_Here is a paragraph +erased._] + +What do you think of smoking? I want your sober, _average noon opinion_ +of it. I generally am eating my dinner about the time I should determine +it. [_Another small erasure._] + +Morning is a Girl, and can't smoke--she's no evidence one way or other; +and Night is so evidently _bought over_, that _he_ can't be a very +upright Judge. May be the truth is, that _one_ pipe is wholesome, _two_ +pipes toothsome, _three_ pipes noisome, _four_ pipes fulsome, _five_ +pipes quarrelsome; and that's the _sum_ on't. But that is deciding +rather upon rhyme than reason.... After all, our instincts _may_ be +best. Wine, I am sure, good, mellow, generous Port, can hurt nobody, +unless they take it to excess, which they may easily avoid if they +observe the rules of temperance. + +Bless you, old Sophist, who next to Human Nature taught me all the +corruption I was capable of knowing--And bless your Montero Cap, and +your trail (which shall come after you whenever you appoint), and your +wife and children--Pi-pos especially. + +When shall we two smoke again? Last night I had been in a sad quandary +of spirits, in what they call the evening; but a pipe and some generous +Port, and King Lear (being alone), had its effects as a remonstrance. I +went to bed pot-valiant. By the way, may not the Ogles of Somersetshire +be remotely descended from King Lear? + +Love to Sara, and ask her what gown she means that Mary has got of hers. +I know of none but what went with Miss Wordsworth's things to +Wordsworth, and was paid for out of their money. I allude to a part +which I may have read imperfectly in a letter of hers to you. + +C. L. + +[Coleridge had been in London early in April and had stayed with Lamb in +the Temple. From the following letter to his wife, dated April 4, we get +light on Lamb's allusion to his "old housekeeper," _i.e._, Mary Lamb, +and her rapid mending:-- + +"I had purposed not to speak of Mary Lamb, but I had better write it +than tell it. The Thursday before last she met at Rickman's a Mr. Babb, +an old friend and admirer of her mother. The next day she _smiled_ in an +ominous way; on Sunday she told her brother that she was getting bad, +with great agony. On Tuesday morning she laid hold of me with violent +agitation and talked wildly about George Dyer. I told Charles there was +not a moment to lose; and I did not lose a moment, but went for a +hackney-coach and took her to the private mad-house at Hugsden. She was +quite calm, and said it was the best to do so. But she wept bitterly two +or three times, yet all in a calm way. Charles is cut to the heart." + +Lamb's first articulate doubts as to smoking are expressed in this +letter. One may perhaps take in this connection the passage on tobacco +and alcohol in the "Confessions of a Drunkard" (see Vol. I.). + +"Montero cap"--a recollection of _Tristram Shandy_. + +The Ogles and King Lear (_i.e._, leer)--merely a pun.] + + + + +LETTER 108 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[No date. May, 1803.] + +Mary sends love from home. + +DR. C.,--I do confess that I have not sent your books as I ought to be +[have] done; but you know how the human freewill is tethered, and that +we perform promises to ourselves no better than to our friends. A watch +is come for you. Do you want it soon, or shall I wait till some one +travels your way? You, like me, I suppose, reckon the lapse of time from +the waste thereof, as boys let a cock run to waste: too idle to stop it, +and rather amused with seeing it dribble. Your poems have begun +printing; Longman sent to me to arrange them, the old and the new +together. It seems you have left it to him. So I classed them, as nearly +as I could, according to dates. First, after the Dedication, (which must +march first) and which I have transplanted from before the Preface +(which stood like a dead wall of prose between) to be the first +poem--then comes "The Pixies," and the things most juvenile--then on "To +Chatterton," &c.--on, lastly, to the "Ode on the Departing Year," and +"Musings,"--which finish. Longman wanted the Ode first; but the +arrangement I have made is precisely that marked out in the dedication, +following the order of time. I told Longman I was sure that you would +omit a good portion of the first edition. I instanced in several +sonnets, &c.--but that was not his plan, and, as you have done nothing +in it, all I could do was to arrange 'em on the supposition that all +were to be retained. A few I positively rejected; such as that of "The +Thimble," and that of "Flicker and Flicker's wife," and that _not_ in +the manner of Spenser, which you yourself had stigmatised--and the "Man +of Ross,"--I doubt whether I should this last. It is not too late to +save it. The first proof is only just come. I have been forced to call +that Cupid's Elixir "Kisses." It stands in your first volume as an +Effusion, so that, instead of prefixing The Kiss to that of "One Kiss, +dear Maid," &c., _I_ have ventured to entitle it "To Sara." I am aware +of the nicety of changing even so mere a trifle as a title to so short a +piece, and subverting old associations; but two called "Kisses" would +have been absolutely ludicrous, and "Effusion" is no name; and these +poems come close together. I promise you not to alter one word in any +poem whatever, but to take your last text, where two are. Can you send +any wishes about the book? Longman, I think, should have settled with +you. But it seems you have left it to him. Write as soon as you possibly +can; for, without making myself responsible, I feel myself in some sort +accessory to the selection which I am to proof-correct. But I decidedly +said to Biggs that I was sure you would omit more. Those I have +positively rubbed off I can swear to _individually_, (except the "Man of +Ross," which is too familiar in Pope,) but no others--you have your cue. +For my part, I had rather all the _Juvenilia_ were kept--_memories +causa_. + +Rob Lloyd has written me a masterly letter, containing a character of +his father;--see, how different from Charles he views the old man! +_Literatim_ "My father smokes, repeats Homer in Greek, and Virgil, and +is learning, when from business, with all the vigour of a young man +Italian. He is really a wonderful man. He mixes public and private +business, the intricacies of discording life with his religion and +devotion. No one more rationally enjoys the romantic scenes of nature, +and the chit-chat and little vagaries of his children; and, though +surrounded with an ocean of affairs, the very neatness of his most +obscure cupboard in the house passes not unnoticed. I never knew any one +view with such clearness, nor so well satisfied with things as they are, +and make such allowance for things which must appear perfect Syriac to +him." By the last he means the Lloydisms of the younger branches. His +portrait of Charles (exact as far as he has had opportunities of noting +him) is most exquisite. "Charles is become steady as a church, and as +straightforward as a Roman road. It would distract him to mention +anything that was not as plain as sense; he seems to have run the whole +scenery of life, AND NOW RESTS AS THE FORMAL PRECISIAN OF +NON-EXISTENCE." Here is genius I think, and 'tis seldom a young man, a +Lloyd, looks at a father (so differing) with such good nature while he +is alive. Write-- + +I am in post-haste, C. LAMB. + +Love, &c., to Sara, P., and H. + +[The date is usually given as March 20, but is May 20; certainly after +Coleridge's visit to town (see preceding letter). + +_Poems_, by S. T. Coleridge, third edition, was now in preparation by +Longman & Rees. Lamb saw the volume through the press. The 1797 second +edition was followed, except that Lloyd's and Lamb's contributions were +omitted, together with the following poems by Coleridge: "To the Rev. W. +J. H.," "Sonnet to Koskiusko," "Written after a Walk" (which Lamb +inaccurately called "Flicker and Flicker's Wife"), "From a Young Lady" +("The Silver Thimble"), "On the Christening of a Friend's Child," +"Introductory Sonnet to Lloyd's 'Poems on the Death of Priscilla +Farmer.'" "The Man of Ross" (whom Pope also celebrates in the _Moral +Essays_, III., lines 250-290) was retained, and also the "Lines in the +Manner of Spenser." The piece rechristened "Kisses" had been called "The +Composition of a Kiss." Biggs was the printer. See also the next letter. + +Of Robert Lloyd's father we hear more later.] + + + + +LETTER 109 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE +27th May, 1803. + +My dear Coleridge,--The date of my last was one day prior to the receipt +of your letter, full of foul omens. I explain, lest you should have +thought mine too light a reply to such sad matter. I seriously hope by +this time you have given up all thoughts of journeying to the green +islands of the Blest--voyages in time of war are very precarious--or at +least, that you will take them in your way to the Azores. Pray be +careful of this letter till it has done its duty, for it is to inform +you that I have booked off your watch (laid in cotton like an untimely +fruit), and with it Condillac and all other books of yours which were +left here. These will set out on Monday next, the 29th May, by Kendal +waggon, from White Horse, Cripplegate. You will make seasonable +inquiries, for a watch mayn't come your way again in a hurry. I have +been repeatedly after Tobin, and now hear that he is in the country, not +to return till middle of June. I will take care and see him with the +earliest. But cannot you write pathetically to him, enforcing a speedy +mission of your books for literary purposes? He is too good a retainer +to Literature, to let her interests suffer through his default. And why, +in the name of Beelzebub, are your books to travel from Barnard's Inn to +the Temple, and then circuitously to Cripplegate, when their business is +to take a short cut down Holborn-hill, up Snow do., on to Woodstreet, +&c.? The former mode seems a sad superstitious subdivision of labour. +Well! the "Man of Ross" is to stand; Longman begs for it; the printer +stands with a wet sheet in one hand and a useless Pica in the other, in +tears, pleading for it; I relent. Besides, it was a Salutation poem, and +has the mark of the beast "Tobacco" upon it. Thus much I have done; I +have swept off the lines about _widows_ and _orphans_ in second edition, +which (if you remember) you most awkwardly and illogically caused to be +inserted between two _Ifs_, to the great breach and disunion of said +_Ifs_, which now meet again (as in first edition), like two clever +lawyers arguing a case. Another reason for subtracting the pathos was, +that the "Man of Ross" is too familiar to need telling what he did, +especially in worse lines than Pope told it; and it now stands simply as +"Reflections at an Inn about a known Character," and sucking an old +story into an accommodation with present feelings. Here is no breaking +spears with Pope, but a new, independent, and really a very pretty poem. +In fact, 'tis as I used to admire it in the first volume, and I have +even dared to restore + +"If 'neath this roof thy _wine-cheer'd_ moments pass," + +for + +"Beneath this roof if thy cheer'd moments pass." + +"Cheer'd" is a sad general word; "_wine-cheer'd_" I'm sure you'd give +me, if I had a speaking-trumpet to sound to you 300 miles. But I am your +_factotum_, and that (save in this instance, which is a single case, and +I can't get at you) shall be next to a _fac-nihil_--at most, a +_fac-simile_. I have ordered "Imitation of Spenser" to be restored on +Wordsworth's authority; and now, all that you will miss will be "Flicker +and Flicker's Wife," "The Thimble," "Breathe, _dear harmonist_" and, _I +believe_, "The Child that was fed with Manna." Another volume will clear +off all your Anthologic Morning-Postian Epistolary Miscellanies; but +pray don't put "Christabel" therein; don't let that sweet maid come +forth attended with Lady Holland's mob at her heels. Let there be a +separate volume of Tales, Choice Tales, "Ancient Mariners," &c. + + C. LAMB. + +[Coleridge, who was getting more and more nervous about his health, had +long been on the point of starting on some southern travels with Thomas +Wedgwood, but Wedgwood had gone alone; his friend James Webbe Tobin, +mentioned later in the letter, lived at Nevis, in the West Indies: +possibly Coleridge had thoughts of returning with him. The Malta +experiment, of which we are to hear later, had not, I think, yet been +mooted. + +"The Man of Ross." In the 1797 edition the poem had run thus, partly by +Lamb's advice (see the letters of June 10, 1796, and February 5, +1797):-- + +LINES WRITTEN AT THE KING'S-ARMS, ROSS, FORMERLY THE HOUSE OF THE "MAN +OF ROSS" + +Richer than MISER o'er his countless hoards, +Nobler than KINGS, or king-polluted LORDS, +Here dwelt the MAN OF ROSS! O Trav'ller, hear! +Departed Merit claims a reverent tear. +Friend to the friendless, to the sick man health, +With generous joy he view'd his modest wealth; +He hears the widow's heaven-breath'd prayer of praise, +He marks the shelter'd orphan's tearful gaze, +Or where the sorrow-shrivel'd captive lay, +Pours the bright blaze of Freedom's noon-tide ray. +Beneath this roof if thy cheer'd moments pass, +Fill to the good man's name one grateful glass; +To higher zest shall MEM'RY wake thy soul, +And VIRTUE mingle in th' ennobled bowl. +But if, like me, thro' life's distressful scene +Lonely and sad thy pilgrimage hath been; +And if, thy breast with heart-sick anguish fraught, +Thou journeyest onward tempest-tost in thought; +Here cheat thy cares! in generous visions melt, +And dream of Goodness, thou hast never felt! + +Lamb changed it by omitting lines 9 to 14, Coleridge agreeing. The poet +would not, however, restore "wine-cheer'd" as in his earliest version, +1794. In the edition of 1828 the six lines were put back. "Breathe, dear +Harmonist" was the poem "To the Rev. W. J. H.," and "The Child that was +fed with Manna" was "On the Christening of a Friend's Child." + +"Lady Holland's mob." Elizabeth Vassall Fox, third Lady Holland +(1770-1845), was beginning her reign as a Muse. Lamb by his phrase means +occasional and political verse generally. The reference to "Christabel" +helps to controvert Fanny Godwin's remark in a letter to Mrs. Shelley, +on July 20, 1816, that Lamb "says _Christabel_ ought never to have been +published; that no one understood it." + +Canon Ainger's transcript adds: "A word of your health will be richly +acceptable."] + + + + +LETTER 110 + + +MARY LAMB TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH + +[Dated at end: July 9. P.M. July 11, 1803.] + +My dear Miss Wordsworth--We rejoice with exceeding great joy to hear the +delightful tidings you were so _very_ kind to remember to send us--I +hope your dear sister is perfectly well, and makes an excellent nurse. +Are you not now the happiest family in the world? + +I have been in better health and spirits this week past than since my +last illness--I continued so long so very weak & dejected I began to +fear I should never be at all comfortable again. I strive against low +spirits all I can, but it is a very hard thing to get the better of. + +I am very uneasy about poor Coleridge, his last letters are very +melancholy ones. Remember me affectionately to him and Sara. I hope you +often see him. + +Southey is in town. He seems as proud of his little girl as I suppose +your brother is of his boy; he says his home is now quite a different +place to what it used to be. I was glad to hear him say this--it used to +look rather chearless. + +We went last week with Southey and Rickman and his sister to Sadlers +Wells, the lowest and most London-like of all our London amusements--the +entertainments were Goody Two Shoes, Jack the Giant Killer, and _Mary of +Buttermere_! Poor Mary was very happily married at the end of the piece, +to a sailor her former sweetheart. We had a prodigious fine view of her +father's house in the vale of Buttermere--mountains very like large +haycocks, and a lake like nothing at all. If you had been with us, would +you have laughed the whole time like Charles and Miss Rickman or gone to +sleep as Southey and Rickman did? + +Stoddart is in expectation of going soon to Malta as Judge Advocate; it +is likely to be a profitable situation, fifteen hundred a year or more. +If he goes he takes with him his sister, and, as I hear from her as a +very great secret, a _wife_; you must not mention this because if he +stays in England he may not be rich enough to marry for some years. I do +not know why I should trouble you with a secret which it seems I am +unable to keep myself and which is of no importance to you to hear; if +he succeeds in this appointment he will be in a great bustle, for he +must set out to Malta in a month. In the mean time he must go to +Scotland to marry and fetch his wife, and it is a match against her +parents' consent, and they as yet know nothing of the Malta expedition; +so that he expects many difficulties, but the young lady and he are +determined to conquer them. He then must go to Salisbury to take leave +of his father and mother, who I pity very much, for they are old people +and therefore are not very likely ever to see their children again. + +Charles is very well and very _good_--I mean very sober, but he is very +good in every sense of the word, for he has been very kind and patient +with me and I have been a sad trouble to him lately. He has shut out all +his friends because he thought company hurt me, and done every thing in +his power to comfort and amuse me. We are to go out of town soon for a +few weeks, when I hope I shall get quite stout and lively. + +You saw Fenwick when you was with us--perhaps you remember his wife and +children were with his brother, a tradesman at Penzance. He (the +brother), who was supposed to be in a great way of business, has become +a bankrupt; they are now at Penzance without a home and without money; +and poor Fenwick, who has been Editor of a country newspaper lately, is +likely soon to be quite out of employ; I am distressed for them, for I +have a great affection for Mrs. Fenwick. + +How pleasant your little house and orchard must be now. I almost wish I +had never seen it. I am always wishing to be with you. I could sit upon +that little bench in idleness day long. When you have a leisure hour, a +letter from [you], kind friend, will give me the greatest pleasure. + +We have money of yours and I want you to send me some commission to lay +it out. Are you not in want of anything? I believe when we go out of +town it will be to Margate--I love the seaside and expect much benefit +from it, but your mountain scenery has spoiled us. We shall find the +flat country of the Isle of Thanet very dull. + +Charles joins me in love to your brother and sister and the little John. +I hope you are building more rooms. Charles said I was so long answering +your letter Mrs. Wordsworth would have another little one before you +received it. Our love and compliments to our kind Molly, I hope she +grows younger and happier every day. When, and where, shall I ever see +you again? Not I fear for a very long time, you are too happy ever to +wish to come to London. When you write tell me how poor Mrs. Clarkson +does. + +God bless you and yours. + +I am your affectionate friend, + +M. LAMB. + +July 9th. + +[Wordsworth's eldest child, John, was born on June 18, 1803. Southey's +little girl was Edith, born in September of the preceding year. It was +Southey who made the charming remark that no house was complete unless +it had in it a child rising six years, and a kitten rising six months. + +Coleridge had been ill for some weeks after his visit to London. He was +about to visit Scotland with the Wordsworths. + +Mary of Buttermere was Mary Robinson, the Beauty of Buttermere, whom the +swindler John Hatfield had married in October, 1802, under the false +name of Hope. Mary was the daughter of the landlord of the Fish Inn at +Buttermere, and was famous in the Lake Country for her charm. Coleridge +sent to the _Morning Post_ in October some letters on the imposture, and +Mary's name became a household word. Hatfield was hanged in September, +1803. Funds were meanwhile raised for Mary, and she ultimately married a +farmer, after being the subject of dramas, ballads and novels. + +The play which the Lambs saw was by Charles Dibdin the Younger, produced +on April 11, 1803. Its title was "Edward and Susan; or, The Beauty of +Buttermere." A benefit performance for the real Beauty of Buttermere was +promised. Both Grimaldi and Belzoni were among the evening's +entertainers. + +Stoddart was the King's and the Admiralty's Advocate at Malta from 1803 +to 1807. He married Isabella Moncrieff in 1803. His sister was Sarah +Stoddart, of whom we are about to hear much. + +According to the next letter the Lambs went not to Margate, but to the +Isle of Wight--to Cowes, with the Burneys. + +Molly was an old cottager at Grasmere whom the Lambs had been friendly +with on their northern visit. + +Mrs. Clarkson, the wife of Thomas Clarkson, was Catherine Buck. She +survived her husband, who died in 1846.] + + + + +LETTER 111 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN RICKMAN + +Saturday Morning, July 16th, 1803. + +Dear Rickman,--I enclose you a wonder, a letter from the shades. A dead +body wants to return, and be inrolled _inter vivos_. 'Tis a gentle +ghost, and in this Galvanic age it may have a chance. + +Mary and I are setting out for the Isle of Wight. We make but a short +stay, and shall pass the time betwixt that place and Portsmouth, where +Fenwick is. I sadly wanted to explore the Peak this Summer; but Mary is +against steering without card or compass, and we should be at large in +Darbyshire. + +We shall be at home this night and to-morrow, if you can come and take a +farewell pipe. + +I regularly transmitted your Notices to the "Morning Post," but they +have not been duly honoured. The fault lay not in me.-- + +Yours truly, + +C. LAMB. + +[I cannot explain the reference to the dead body. Mr. Bertram Dobell +considers it to apply to an article which he believes Lamb to have +written, called "An Appeal from the Shades," printed in the _London +Magazine_, New Series, Vol. V. (see _Sidelights on Charles Lamb_, 1903, +pages 140-152). I cannot, however, think that Lamb could write in 1803 +in the deliberate manner of that essay; that the "Appeal" is by him; or +that the reference in the letter is to an essay at all. I have no real +theory to put forward; but it once occurred to me that the letter from +the shades was from George Burnett, who had quarrelled with Rickman, may +reasonably be believed to have threatened suicide, and had now possibly +appealed to his mercy through Lamb. Later, Burnett entered the militia +as a surgeon, and at the beginning of 1804 he left for Poland. + +Following this should come a letter from Lamb to Rickman, dated July 27, +1803. It is part of one from Captain Burney describing the adventures of +the Burneys and Lambs at Cowes. Lamb, says the Captain, on their way to +Newport "very ingeniously and unconsciously cast loose the fastenings of +the mast, so that mast, sprit, sails, and all the rest tumbled overboard +with a crash." Lamb on his part is amusing about the Captain and Martin +Burney, and says he longs for Holborn scenery again.] + + + + +LETTER 112 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART + +[Dated at end: September 21, 1803.] + +My dear Sarah, I returned home from my visit yesterday, and was much +pleased to find your letter; for I have been very anxious to hear how +you are going on. I could hardly help expecting to see you when I came +in; yet, though I should have rejoiced to have seen your merry face +again, I believe it was better as it was--upon the whole; and, all +things considered, it is certainly better you should go to Malta. The +terms you are upon with your Lover does (as you say it will) appear +wondrous strange to me; however, as I cannot enter into your feelings, I +certainly can have nothing to say to it, only that I sincerely wish you +happy in your own way, however odd that way may appear to me to be. I +would begin now to advise you to drop all correspondence with William; +but, as I said before, as I cannot enter into your feelings and views of +things, _your ways not being my ways_, why should I tell you what I +would do in your situation? So, child, take thy own ways, and God +prosper thee in them! + +One thing my advising spirit must say--use as little _Secrecy_ as +possible; and, as much as possible, make a friend of your +sister-in-law--you know I was not struck with her at first sight; but, +upon your account, I have watched and marked her very attentively; and, +while she was eating a bit of cold mutton in our kitchen, we had a +serious conversation. From the frankness of her manner, I am convinced +she is a person I could make a friend of; why should not you? We talked +freely about you: she seems to have a just notion of your character, and +will be fond of you, if you will let her. + +My father had a sister lived with us--of course, lived with my Mother, +her sister-in-law; they were, in their different ways, the best +creatures in the world--but they set out wrong at first. They made each +other miserable for full twenty years of their lives--my Mother was a +perfect gentlewoman, my Aunty as unlike a gentlewoman as you can +possibly imagine a good old woman to be; so that my dear Mother (who, +though you do not know it, is always in my poor head and heart) used to +distress and weary her with incessant and unceasing attention and +politeness, to gain her affection. The old woman could not return this +in kind, and did not know what to make of it--thought it all deceit, and +used to hate my Mother with a bitter hatred; which, of course, was soon +returned with interest. A little frankness, and looking into each +other's characters at first, would have spared all this, and they would +have lived, as they died, fond of each other for the last few years of +their life. When we grew up, and harmonised them a little, they +sincerely loved each other. + +My Aunt and my Mother were wholly unlike you and your sister, yet in +some degree theirs is the secret history I believe of all +sisters-in-law--and you will smile when I tell you I think myself the +only woman in the world who could live with a brother's wife, and make a +real friend of her, partly from early observation of the unhappy example +I have just given you, and partly from a knack I know I have of looking +into people's real characters, and never expecting them to act out of +it--never expecting another to do as I would in the same case. When you +leave your Mother, and say, if you never shall see her again, you shall +feel no remorse, and when you make a _jewish_ bargain with your _Lover_, +all this gives me no offence, because it is your nature, and your +temper, and I do not expect or want you to be otherwise than you are. I +love you for the good that is in you, and look for no change. _But_, +certainly, you ought to struggle with the evil that does most easily +beset you--a total want of politeness in behaviour, I would say modesty +of behaviour, but that I should not convey to you my idea of the word +modesty; for I certainly do not mean that you want _real modesty_; and +what is usually called false, or mock, modesty is [a quality] I +certainly do not wish you to possess; yet I trust you know what I mean +well enough. + +_Secrecy_, though you appear all frankness, is certainly a grand failing +of yours; it is likewise your _brother's_, and, therefore, a family +failing--by secrecy, I mean you both want the habit of telling each +other at the moment every thing that happens--where you go,--and what +you do,--the free communication of letters and opinions just as they +arrive, as Charles and I do,--and which is, after all, the only +groundwork of friendship. Your brother, I will answer for [it,] will +never tell his wife or his sister all that [is in] his mind--he will +receive letters, and not [mention it]. This is a fault Mrs. Stoddart can +never [tell him of;] but she can, and will, feel it: though, [on] the +whole, and in every other respect, she is [very] happy with him. Begin, +for God's sake, at the first, and tell her every thing that passes. At +first she may hear you with indifference; but in time this will gain her +affection and confidence; show her all your letters (no matter if she +does not show hers)--it is a pleasant thing for a friend to put into +one's hand a letter just fresh from the post. I would even say, begin +with showing her this, but that it is written freely and loosely, and +some apology ought to be made for it--which I know not how to make, for +I must write freely or not at all. + +If you do this, she will tell your brother, you will say; and what then, +quotha? It will beget a freer communication amongst you, which is a +thing devoutly to be wished-- + +God bless you, and grant you may preserve your integrity, and remain +unmarried and penniless, and make William a good and a happy wife. + +Your affectionate friend, + +M. LAMB. + +Charles is very unwell, and my head aches. He sends his love: mine, with +my best wishes, to your brother and sister. + +I hope I shall get another letter from you. + +Wednesday, 21st September, 1803. + +[Sarah Stoddart was the sister of Dr. John Stoddart, who had just been +appointed the King's and the Admiralty's Advocate at Malta, whither Miss +Stoddart followed him. Her lover of that moment was a Mr. Turner, and +William was an earlier lover still. Her sister-in-law was Mrs. John +Stoddart, _née_ Isabella Moncrieff, whom her brother had only just +married. + +"My Mother." This is the only reference to her mother in any of Mary +Lamb's letters. The sister was Sarah Lamb, usually known as Aunt Hetty.] + + + + +LETTER 113 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM GODWIN + +Nov. 8, 1803. + +My dear Sir,--I have been sitting down for three or four days +successively to the review, which I so much wished to do well, and to +your satisfaction. But I can produce nothing but absolute flatness and +nonsense. My health and spirits are so bad, and my nerves so irritable, +that I am sure, if I persist, I shall teaze myself into a fever. You do +not know how sore and weak a brain I have, or you would allow for many +things in me which you set down for whims. I solemnly assure you that I +never more wished to prove to you the value which I have for you than at +this moment; but although in so seemingly trifling a service I cannot +get through with it, I pray you to impute it to this one sole cause, ill +health. I hope I am above subterfuge, and that you will do me this +justice to think so. + +You will give me great satisfaction by sealing my pardon and oblivion in +a line or two, before I come to see you, or I shall be ashamed to +come.--Your, with great truth, + +C. LAMB. + + + + +LETTER 114 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM GODWIN + +Nov. 10, 1803. + +Dear Godwin,--You never made a more unlucky and perverse mistake than to +suppose that the reason of my not writing that cursed thing was to be +found in your book. I assure you most sincerely that I have been greatly +delighted with Chaucer. I may be wrong, but I think there is one +considerable error runs through it, which is a conjecturing spirit, a +fondness for filling out the picture by supposing what Chaucer did and +how he felt, where the materials are scanty. So far from meaning to +withhold from you (out of mistaken tenderness) this opinion of mine, I +plainly told Mrs. Godwin that I did find a _fault_, which I should +reserve naming until I should see you and talk it over. This she may +very well remember, and also that I declined naming this fault until she +drew it from me by asking me if there was not too much fancy in the +work. I then confessed generally what I felt, but refused to go into +particulars until I had seen you. I am never very fond of saying things +before third persons, because in the relation (such is human nature) +something is sure to be dropped. If Mrs. Godwin has been the cause of +your misconstruction, I am very angry, tell her; yet it is not an anger +unto death. I remember also telling Mrs. G. (which she may have _dropt_) +that I was by turns considerably more delighted than I expected. But I +wished to reserve all this until I saw you. I even had conceived an +expression to meet you with, which was thanking you for some of the most +exquisite pieces of criticism I had ever read in my life. In particular, +I should have brought forward that on "Troilus and Cressida" and +Shakespear which, it is little to say, delighted me, and instructed me +(if not absolutely _instructed_ me, yet put into _full-grown sense_ many +conceptions which had arisen in me before in my most discriminating +moods). All these things I was preparing to say, and bottling them up +till I came, thinking to please my friend and host, the author! when lo! +this deadly blight intervened. + +I certainly ought to make great allowances for your misunderstanding me. +You, by long habits of composition and a greater command gained over +your own powers, cannot conceive of the desultory and uncertain way in +which I (an author by fits) sometimes cannot put the thoughts of a +common letter into sane prose. Any work which I take upon myself as an +engagement will act upon me to torment, _e.g._, when I have undertaken, +as three or four times I have, a school-boy copy of verses for Merchant +Taylors' boys, at a guinea a copy, I have fretted over them, in perfect +inability to do them, and have made my sister wretched with my +wretchedness for a week together. The same, till by habit I have +acquired a mechanical command, I have felt in making paragraphs. As to +reviewing, in particular, my head is so whimsical a head, that I cannot, +after reading another man's book, let it have been never so pleasing, +give any account of it in any methodical way. I cannot follow his train. +Something like this you must have perceived of me in conversation. Ten +thousand times I have confessed to you, talking of my talents, my utter +inability to remember in any comprehensive way what I read. I can +vehemently applaud, or perversely stickle, at _parts_; but I cannot +grasp at a whole. This infirmity (which is nothing to brag of) may be +seen in my two little compositions, the tale and my play, in both which +no reader, however partial, can find any story. I wrote such stuff about +Chaucer, and got into such digressions, quite irreducible into 1-1/5 +column of a paper, that I was perfectly ashamed to show it you. However, +it is become a serious matter that I should convince you I neither slunk +from the task through a wilful deserting neglect, or through any (most +imaginary on your part) distaste of Chaucer; and I will try my hand +again, I hope with better luck. My health is bad and my time taken up, +but all I can spare between this and Sunday shall be employed for you, +since you desire it: and if I bring you a crude, wretched paper on +Sunday, you must burn it, and forgive me; if it proves anything better +than I predict, may it be a peace-offering of sweet incense between us. + +C. LAMB. + +[Lamb's review of Godwin's _Life of Chaucer_, issued in October, 1803, +has not been identified. Perhaps it was never completed. Writing to +Wordsworth, December 28, 1814, he says that his review of _The +Excursion_ is the first he ever did. + +Lamb's early Merchant Taylors' verses have been lost, but two epigrams +that he wrote many years later for the sons of Hessey, the publisher, +have been preserved (see the letter to Southey, May 10, 1830).] + + + + +LETTER 115 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS POOLE + +[Dated at end: Feb. 14, 1804.] + +Dear Sir--I am sorry we have not been able to hear of lodgings to suit +young F. but we will not desist in the enquiry. In a day or two +something may turn up. Boarding houses are common enough, but to find a +family where he would be safe from impositions within & impositions +without is not so easy.-- + +I take this opportunity of thanking you for your kind attentions to the +Lad I took the liberty of recommending. _His_ mother was disposed to +have taken in young F. but could not possibly make room. + +Your obliged &c + +C. LAMB. + +Temple, 14 Feb., 1804. + +[I do not know to what lads the note refers, but probably young F. was +young Fricker, the brother of Mrs. Coleridge and Mrs. Southey. The note +is interesting only as giving another instance of Lamb's willing +helpfulness to others.] + + + + +LETTER 116 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[P.M. March 10, 1804.] + +Dr C. I blunderd open this letter, its weight making me conjecture it +held an inclosure; but finding it poetry (which is no man's ground, but +waste and common) I perused it. Do you remember that you are to come to +us to-night? + +C. L. + +To Mr. Coleridge, +Mr. Tobin's, +Barnards Inn, Holborn. + +[This is written on the back of a paper addressed (to save postage) to +Mr. Lamb, India House, containing a long extract from "Madoc" in +Southey's hand. + +Coleridge, having been invited by Stoddart to Malta, was now in London +on his way thither. Tobin was probably James Webbe Tobin, brother of +John Tobin, the solicitor and dramatist. + +Between this letter and the next comes a letter from Lamb to Robert +Lloyd, dated at the end March 13, 1804, in which Lamb congratulates +Robert Lloyd on his approaching marriage to Hannah Hart. The wedding was +celebrated on August 2, 1804.] + + + + +LETTER 117 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART + +[No date. ? March, 1804.] + +My dearest Sarah,--I will just write a few hasty lines to say Coleridge +is setting off sooner than we expected; and I every moment expect him to +call in one of his great hurrys for this. Charles intended to write by +him, but has not: most likely he will send a letter after him to +Portsmouth: if he does, you will certainly hear from him soon. We +rejoiced with exceeding joy to hear of your safe arrival: I hope your +brother will return home in a few years a very rich man. Seventy pounds +in one fortnight is a pretty beginning-- + +I envy your brother the pleasure of seeing Coleridge drop in +unexpectedly upon him; we talk--but it is but wild and idle talk--of +following him: he is to get my brother some little snug place of a +thousand a year, and we are to leave all, and come and live among ye. +What a pretty dream. + +Coleridge is very ill. I dread the thought of his long voyage--write as +soon as he arrives, whether he does or not, and tell me how he is. + +Jamaica bodies... [_words illegible_]. + +He has got letters of recommendation to Governor Ball, and God knows +who; and he will talk and talk, and be universally admired. But I wish +to write for him a _letter of recommendation_ to Mrs. Stoddart, and to +yourself, to take upon ye, on his first arrival, to be kind affectionate +nurses; and mind, now, that you perform this duty faithfully, and write +me a good account of yourself. Behave to him as you would to me, or to +Charles, if we came sick and unhappy to you. + +I have no news to send you; Coleridge will tell you how we are going on. +Charles has lost the newspaper; but what we dreaded as an evil has +proved a great blessing, for we have both strangely recovered our health +and spirits since this has happened; and I hope, when I write next, I +shall be able to tell you Charles has begun something which will produce +a little money; for it is not well to be _very poor_--which we certainly +are at this present writing. + +I sit writing here, and thinking almost you will see it tomorrow; and +what a long, long time it will be ere you receive this--When I saw your +letter, I fancy'd you were even just then in the first bustle of a new +reception, every moment seeing new faces, and staring at new objects, +when, at that time, every thing had become familiar to you; and the +strangers, your new dancing partners, had perhaps become gossiping +fireside friends. You tell me of your gay, splendid doings; tell me, +likewise, what manner of home-life you lead--Is a quiet evening in a +Maltese drawing room as pleasant as those we have passed in Mitre Court +and Bell yard?--Tell me all about it, every thing pleasant, and every +thing unpleasant, that befalls you. + +I want you to say a great deal about yourself. _Are you happy? and do +you not repent going out?_ I wish I could see you for one hour only. + +Remember me affectionately to your sister and brother; and tell me, when +you write, if Mrs. Stoddart likes Malta, and how the climate agrees with +her and with thee. + +We heard you were taken prisoners, and for several days believed the +tale. + +How did the pearls, and the fine court finery, bear the fatigues of the +voyage, and how often have they been worn and admired? + +Rickman wants to know if you are going to be married yet--satisfy him in +that little particular when you write. + +The Fenwicks send their love, and Mrs. Reynolds her love, and the little +old lady her best respects. + +Mrs. Jefferies, who I see now and then, talks of you with tears in her +eyes, and, when she heard you was taken prisoner, Lord! how frightened +she was. She has heard, she tells me, that Mr. Stoddart is to have a +pension of two thousand a year, whenever he chuses to return to England. + +God bless you, and send you all manner of comforts and happinesses. + + Your most affectionate friend, + MARY LAMB. + +How-do? how-do? No time to write. S.T.C. going off in a great hurry. CH. +LAMB. + +[Miss Stoddart was now in Malta. Governor Ball was Sir Alexander Ball, +to whom Coleridge was to act as private secretary and of whom he wrote +some years later in _The Friend_. + +"Charles has lost the newspaper"--his work on the _Morning Post_. Lamb's +principal period on this paper had begun after Stuart sold it in +September, 1803, and it lasted until February, 1804 (see notes in Vol. +II. of this edition). + +"We heard you were taken prisoners"--by the French. + +"Mrs. Reynolds"--Lamb's old schoolmistress and pensioner. Mrs. Jefferies +I do not know.] + + + + +LETTER 118 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[P.M. April 4, 1804.] + +Mary would send her best love, but I write at office. + +Thursday [April 5]. +The £1 came safe. + +My dear C.--I but just received your commission-abounding letter. All +shall be done. Make your European heart easy in Malta, all shall be +performed. You say I am to transcribe off part of your letters and send +to X somebody (but the name is lost under the wafer, so you must give it +me)--I suppose Wordsw'th. + +I have been out of town since Saturday, the reason I had not your letter +before. N.B. N.B. Knowing I had 2 or 3 Easter holydays, it was my +intention to have ask'd you if my accompanying you to Portsm'th would +have been pleasant. But you were not visible, except just at the +critical moment of going off from the Inn, at which time I could not get +at you. So Deus aliter disposuit, and I went down into Hertfordshire. + +I write in great bustle indeed--God bless you again. Attend to what I +have written mark'd X above, and don't merge any part of your Orders +under seal again. + + C. LAMB. + +[Addressed to "S. T. Coleridge, Esq'r., J. C. Mottley's, Esq'r., +Portsmouth, Hants." + +Coleridge had left London for Portsmouth on March 27; he sailed for +Malta on April 9.] + + + + +LETTER 119 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS POOLE + +[Dated at end: Temple, 4th May, 1804.] + +Dear Sir--I have no sort of connexion with the Morning Post at present, +nor acquaintance with its late Editor (the present Editor of the +Courier) to ask a favour of him with propriety; but if it will be of any +use, I believe I could get the insertions into the British Press (a +Morning Paper) through a friend.-- + + Yours truly + C. LAMB. + + + + +LETTER 120 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS POOLE + +[Dated at end: Temple, 5 May, 1804.] + +Dear Sir--I can get the insertions into the British Press without any +difficulty at all. I am only sorry that I have no interest in the M. +Post, having so much greater circulation. If your friend chuses it, you +will be so good as to return me the Critique, of which I forgot to take +a copy, and I suppose on Monday or Tuesday it will be in. The sooner I +have it, the better. + + Yours &c. + C. LAMB. + +I did formerly assist in the Post, but have no longer any engagement.-- + +[Stuart, having sold the _Morning Post_, was now developing the +_Courier_. The notes are interesting only as showing Lamb's attitude to +Stuart. Writing to the _Gentleman's Magazine_ in June, 1838, concerning +his association as editor with Coleridge, Stuart said: "But as for good +Charles Lamb, I never could make any-thing of his writings. Coleridge +often and repeatedly pressed me to settle him on a salary, and often and +repeatedly did I try; but it would not do. Of politics he knew nothing; +they were out of his line of reading and thought; and his drollery was +vapid, when given in short paragraphs fit for a newspaper: yet he has +produced some agreeable books, possessing a tone of humour and kind +feeling, in a quaint style, which it is amusing to read, and cheering to +remember."] + + + + +LETTER 121 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH + +[Dated at end: June 2, 1804.] + +Dear Miss Wordsworth, the task of letter-writing in my family falls to +me; you are the organ of correspondence in yours, so I address you +rather than your brother. We are all sensibly obliged to you for the +little scraps (Arthur's Bower and his brethren) which you sent up; the +bookseller has got them and paid Mrs. Fenwick for them. So while some +are authors for fame, some for money, you have commenced author for +charity. The least we can do, is to see your commissions fulfilled; +accordingly I have booked this 2d June 1804 from the Waggon Inn in +Cripplegate the watch and books which I got from your brother Richard, +together with Purchas's Pilgrimage and Brown's Religio Medici which I +desire your brother's acceptance of, with some _pens_, of which I +observed no great frequency when I tarried at Grasmere. (I suppose you +have got Coleridge's letter)--These things I have put up in a deal box +directed to Mr. Wordsworth, Grasmere, near Ambleside, Kendal, by the +Kendal waggon. At the same time I have sent off a parcel by C.'s desire +to Mr. T. Hutchinson to the care of Mr. "T. Monkhouse, or T. Markhouse" +(for C.'s writing is not very plain) Penrith, by the Penrith waggon this +day; which I beg you to apprize them of, lest my direction fail. In your +box, you will find a little parcel for Mrs. Coleridge, which she wants +as soon as possible; also for yourselves the Cotton, Magnesia, bark and +Oil, which come to £2. 3. 4. thus. + + sh. +Thread and needles 17 +Magnesia 8 +bark 9. 8 +Oil 8. 8 + -------- + 2. 3. 4 +packing case 2. 6 + ------ + 2. 5.10 +deduct a guinea I owe you, + which C. was to pay, 1. 1. - + but did not + ------ +leaves you indebted 1. 4.10 + +whereby you may see how punctual I am. + +I conclude with our kindest remembrances to your brother and Mrs. W. + +We hear, the young John is a Giant. + +And should you see Charles Lloyd, pray _forget_ to give my love to him. + +Yours truly, D'r Miss W. +C. LAMB. +June 2, 1804. + +I send you two little copies of verses by Mary L--b:-- + +DIALOGUE BETWEEN A MOTHER AND CHILD + +_Child_. +(_Sings_) +"O Lady, lay your costly robes aside, +No longer may you glory in your pride." + +_Mother_. +Wherefore to day art singing in mine ear +Sad songs were made so long ago, my dear? +This day I am to be a bride, you know. +Why sing sad songs were made so long ago? + +_Child_. +"O Mother lay your costly robes aside," +_For you may never be another's bride_: +That line I learnt not in the old sad song. + +_Mother_. +I pray thee, pretty one, now hold thy tongue; +Play with the bride maids, and be glad, my boy, +For thou shall be a second father's joy. + +_Child_. +One father fondled me upon his knee: +One father is enough alone for me. + +Suggested by a print of 2 females after Leo[nardo da] Vinci, called +Prudence & Beauty, which hangs up in our ro[om]. + +O! that you could see the print!! + +The Lady Blanch, regardless of all her lovers' fears, +To the Urseline Convent hastens, and long the Abbess hears: +"O Blanch, my child, repent thee of the courtly life ye lead." +Blanch looked on a rose-bud, and little seem'd to heed; +She looked on the rose-bud, she looked round, and thought +On all her heart had whisper'd, and all the Nun had taught. +"I am worshipped by lovers, and brightly shines my fame, +All Christendom resoundeth the noble Blanch's name; +Nor shall I quickly wither like the rose-bud from the tree, +My Queen-like graces shining when my beauty's gone from me. +But when the sculptur'd marble is raised o'er my head, +And the matchless Blanch lies lifeless among the noble dead, +This saintly Lady Abbess has made me justly fear. +It nothing will avail me that I were worshipt here." + +I wish they may please you: we in these parts are not a little proud of +them. + +C. L. + +["The little scraps." Professor Knight informed me that the scraps were +not written but only copied by Miss Wordsworth. Arthur's Bower ran +thus:-- + +Arthur's bower has broke his band, +He comes riding up the land, +The King of Scots with all his power +Cannot build up Arthur's bower. + +"Your brother Richard"--Wordsworth's eldest brother. + +"Purchas's Pilgrimage." Samuel Purchas (1575?-1626) was the author of +_Purchas His Pilgrimage_, 1613; _Purchas His Pilgrim_, 1619; and +_Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes_, 1625. This last is +Purchas's best work, and is probably that which Lamb sent to Grasmere. + +Mary Lamb's two poems, her earliest that we know, with the exception of +"Helen," were printed in the _Works_, 1818.] + + + + +LETTER 122 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART + +[Late July, 1804.] + +My dearest Sarah,--Your letter, which contained the news of Coleridge's +arrival, was a most welcome one; for we had begun to entertain very +unpleasant apprehensions for his safety; and your kind reception of the +forlorn wanderer gave me the greatest pleasure, and I thank you for it +in my own and my brother's name. I shall depend upon you for hearing of +his welfare; for he does not write himself; but, as long as we know he +is safe, and in such kind friends' hands, we do not mind. Your letters, +my dear Sarah, are to me very, very precious ones. They are the kindest, +best, most natural ones I ever received. The one containing the news of +the arrival of Coleridge perhaps the best I ever saw; and your old +friend Charles is of my opinion. We sent it off to Mrs. Coleridge and +the Wordsworths--as well because we thought it our duty to give them the +first notice we had of our dear friend's safety, as that we were proud +of shewing our Sarah's pretty letter. + +The letters we received a few days after from you and your brother were +far less welcome ones. I rejoiced to hear your sister is well; but I +grieved for the loss of the dear baby; and I am sorry to find your +brother is not so successful as he at first expected to be; and yet I am +almost tempted to wish his ill fortune may send him over [to] us again. +He has a friend, I understand, who is now at the head of the Admiralty; +why may he not return, and make a fortune here? + +I cannot condole with you very sincerely upon your little failure in the +fortune-making way. If you regret it, so do I. But I hope to see you a +comfortable English wife; and the forsaken, forgotten William, of +English-partridge memory, I have still a hankering after. However, I +thank you for your frank communication, and I beg you will continue it +in future; and if I do not agree with a good grace to your having a +Maltese husband, I will wish you happy, provided you make it a part of +your marriage articles that your husband shall allow you to come over +sea and make me one visit; else may neglect and overlookedness be your +portion while you stay there. + +I would condole with you when the misfortune has fallen your poor leg; +but such is the blessed distance we are at from each other, that I hope, +before you receive this, that you forgot it ever happened. + +Our compliments [to] the high ton at the Maltese court. Your brother is +so profuse of them to me, that being, as you know, so unused to them, +they perplex me sadly; in future, I beg they may be discontinued. They +always remind me of the free, and, I believe, very improper, letter I +wrote to you while you were at the Isle of Wight. The more kindly you +and your brother and sister took the impertinent advice contained in it, +the more certain I feel that it was unnecessary, and therefore highly +improper. Do not let your brother compliment me into the memory of it +again. + +My brother has had a letter from your Mother, which has distressed him +sadly--about the postage of some letters being paid by my brother. Your +silly brother, it seems, has informed your Mother (I did not think your +brother could have been so silly) that Charles had grumbled at paying +the said postage. The fact was, just at that time we were very poor, +having lost the Morning Post, and we were beginning to practise a strict +economy. My brother, who never makes up his mind whether he will be a +Miser or a Spendthrift, is at all times a strange mixture of both: of +this failing, the even economy of your correct brother's temper makes +him an ill judge. The miserly part of Charles, at that time smarting +under his recent loss, then happened to reign triumphant; and he would +not write, or let me write, so often as he wished, because the postage +cost two and four pence. Then came two or three of your poor Mother's +letters nearly together; and the two and four pences he wished, but +grudged, to pay for his own, he was forced to pay for hers. In this +dismal distress, he applied to Fenwick to get his friend Motley to send +them free from Portsmouth. This Mr. Fenwick could have done for half a +word's speaking; but this he did not do. Then Charles foolishly and +unthinkingly complained to your brother in a half serious, half joking +way; and your brother has wickedly, and with malice afore thought, told +your Mother. O fye upon him! what will your Mother think of us? + +I too feel my share of blame in this vexatious business; for I saw the +unlucky paragraph in my brother's letter; and I had a kind of foreboding +that it would come to your Mother's ears--although I had a higher +opinion of your brother's good sense than I find he deserved. By +entreaties and prayers, I might have prevailed on my brother to say +nothing about it. But I make a point of conscience never to interfere or +cross my brother in the humour he happens to be in. It always appears to +me to be a vexatious kind of Tyranny, that women have no business to +exercise over men, which, merely because _they having a better +judgement_, they have the power to do. Let _men_ alone, and at last we +find they come round to the right way, which _we_, by a kind of +intuition, perceive at once. But better, far better, that we should let +them often do wrong, than that they should have the torment of a Monitor +always at their elbows. + +Charles is sadly fretted now, I know, at what to say to your Mother. I +have made this long preamble about it to induce [you,] if possible, to +reinstate us in your Mother's good graces. Say to her it was a jest +misunderstood; tell her Charles Lamb is not the shabby fellow she and +her son took him for; but that he is now and then a trifle whimsical or +so. I do not ask your brother to do this, for I am offended with him for +the mischief he has made. + +I feel that I have too lightly passed over the interesting account you +sent me of your late disappointment. It was not because I did not feel +and compl[ete]ly enter into the affair with you. You surprise and please +me with the frank and generous way in which you deal with your Lovers, +taking a refusal from their so prudential hearts with a better grace and +more good humour than other women accept a suitor's service. Continue +this open artless conduct, and I trust you will at last find some man +who has sense enough to know you are well worth risking a peaceable life +of poverty for. I shall yet live to see you a poor, but happy, English +wife. + +Remember me most affectionately to Coleridge; and I thank you again and +again for all your kindness to him. To dear Mrs. Stoddart and your +brother, I beg my best love; and to you all I wish health and happiness, +and a _soon_ return to Old England. + +I have sent to Mr. Burrel's for your kind present; but unfortunately he +is not in town. I am impatient to see my fine silk handkerchiefs; and I +thank you for them, not as a present, for I do not love presents, but as +a [_word illegible_] remembrance of your old friend. Farewell. + +I am, my best Sarah, +Your most affectionate friend, +MARY LAMB. + +Good wishes, and all proper remembrances, from old nurse, Mrs. Jeffries, +Mrs. Reynolds, Mrs. Rickman, &c. &c. &c. + +Long live Queen Hoop-oop-oop-oo, and all the old merry phantoms! + + + + +LETTER 123 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO SARAH STODDART +(_Same letter_) + +My dear Miss Stoddart,--Mary has written so fully to you, that I have +nothing to add but that, in all the kindness she has exprest, and loving +desire to see you again, I bear my full part. You will, perhaps, like to +tear this half from the sheet, and give your brother only his strict +due, the remainder. So I will just repay your late kind letter with this +short postscript to hers. Come over here, and let us all be merry again. + +C. LAMB. + +[Coleridge reached Valetta on May 18, 1804; but no opportunity to send +letters home occurred until June 5. Miss Stoddart seems to have given up +all her lovers at home in the hope of finding one in Malta. + +"The blessed distance." Here Mary Lamb throws out an idea afterwards +developed by her brother in the Elia essay on "Distant Correspondents." + +Lamb's letter to Stoddart containing the complaint as to postage no +longer exists. Mrs. Stoddart, Sarah's mother, had remained in England, +at Salisbury. + +Of Mr. Burrel I know nothing: he was probably an agent; nor can I +explain Queen Hoop-oop-oop-oo. + +Here should come a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, dated September 13, +1804, not available for this edition, in which Lamb expresses his +inability to accept an invitation, having had a month's holiday at +Richmond. After alluding to Priscilla Lloyd's approaching marriage (to +Christopher Wordsworth) he says that these new nuptials do not make him +the less satisfied with his bachelor state.] + + + + +LETTER 124 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH + +[P.M. October 13, 1804.] + +(Turn over leaf for more letters.) + +Dear Wordsworth--I have not forgot your commissions. + +But the truth is, and why should I not confess it? I am not +plethorically abounding in Cash at this present. Merit, God knows, is +very little rewarded; but it does not become me to speak of myself. My +motto is "Contented with little, yet wishing for more." Now the books +you wish for would require some pounds, which I am sorry to say I have +not by me: so I will say at once, if you will give me a draft upon your +town-banker for any sum you propose to lay out, I will dispose of [it] +to the very best of my skill in choice old books, such as my own soul +loveth. In fact, I have been waiting for the liquidation of a debt to +enable myself to set about your commission handsomely, for it is a +scurvy thing to cry Give me the money first, and I am the first of the +family of the Lambs that have done it for many centuries: but the debt +remains as it was, and my old friend that I accommodated has generously +forgot it! + +The books which you want I calculate at about £8. + +Ben Jonson is a Guinea Book. Beaumont & Fletcher in folio, the right +folio, not now to be met with; the octavos are about £3. As to any other +old dramatists, I do not know where to find them except what are in +Dodsley's old plays, which are about £3 also: Massinger I never saw but +at one shop, but it is now gone, but one of the editions of Dodsley +contains about a fourth (the best) of his plays. Congreve and the rest +of King Charles's moralists are cheap and accessible. The works on +Ireland I will enquire after, but I fear, Spenser's is not to be had +apart from his poems; I never saw it. But you may depend upon my sparing +no pains to furnish you as complete a library of old Poets & Dramatists +as will be prudent to buy; for I suppose you do not include the £20 +edition of Hamlet, single play, which Kemble has. Marlow's plays and +poems are totally vanished; only one edition of Dodsley retains one, and +the other two, of his plays: but John Ford is the man after Shakespear. +Let me know your will and pleasure soon: for I have observed, next to +the pleasure of buying a bargain for one's self is the pleasure of +persuading a friend to buy it. It tickles one with the image of an +imprudency without the penalty usually annex'd. + +C. LAMB. + + + + +LETTER 125 + + +MARY LAMB TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH + +(_Same letter_) + +[P.M. October 13, 1804.] + +My dear Miss Wordsworth--I writ a letter immediately upon the receipt of +yours, to thank you for sending me the welcome tidings of your little +niece's birth, and Mrs. Wordsworth's safety, & waited till I could get a +frank to send it in. Not being able to procure one, I will defer my +thanks no longer for fear Mrs. Wordsworth should add another little baby +to your family, before my congratulations on the birth of the little +Dorothy arrive. + +I hope Mrs. Wordsworth, & the pretty baby, & the young philosopher, are +well: they are three strangers to me whom I have a longing desire to be +acquainted with. + +My brother desires me not to send such a long gossiping letter as that I +had intended for you, because he wishes to fill a large share of the +paper with his acknowledgments to Mr. Wordsworth for his letters, which +he considers as a very uncommon favor, your brother seldom writing +letters. I must beg my brother will tell Mr. Wordsworth how very proud +he has made me also by praising my poor verses. Will you be so kind as +to forward the opposite page to Mrs. Coleridge. This sheet of paper is +quite a partnership affair. When the parliament meets you shall have a +letter for your sole use. + +My brother and I have been this summer to Richmond; we had a lodging +there for a month, we passed the whole time there in wandering about, & +comparing the views from the banks of the Thames with your mountain +scenery, & tried, & wished, to persuade ourselves that it was almost as +beautiful. Charles was quite a Mr. Clarkson in his admiration and his +frequent exclamations, for though we had often been at Richmond for a +few hours we had no idea it was so beautiful a place as we found it on a +month's intimate acquaintance. + +We rejoice to hear of the good fortune of your brave sailor-brother, I +should have liked to have been with you when the news first arrived. + +Your very friendly invitations have made us long to be with you, and we +promise ourselves to spend the first money my brother earns by writing +certain books (Charles often plans but never begins) in a journey to +Grasmere. + +When your eyes (which I am sorry to find continue unwell) will permit +you to make use of your pen again I shall be very happy to see a letter +in your own hand writing. + +I beg to be affectionately remembered to your brother & sister & remain +ever your affectionate friend + +M. LAMB. + +Compliments to old Molly. + + + + +LETTER 126 + + +MARY LAMB TO MRS. S. T. COLERIDGE +(_Same letter_) + +[P.M. October 13, 1804.] + +My dear Mrs. Coleridge--I have had a letter written ready to send to +you, which I kept, hoping to get a frank, and now I find I must write +one entirely anew, for that consisted of matter not now in season, such +as condolence on the illness of your children, who I hope are now quite +well, & comfortings on your uncertainty of the safety of Coleridge, with +wise reasons for the delay of the letters from Malta, which must now be +changed for pleasant congratulations. Coleridge has not written to us, +but we have had two letters from the Stoddarts since the one I sent to +you, containing good accounts of him, but as I find you have had letters +from himself I need not tell you the particulars. + +My brother sent your letters to Mr. Motley according to Coleridge's +direction, & I have no doubt but he forwarded them. + +One thing only in my poor letter the time makes no alteration in, which +is that I have half a bed ready for you, & I shall rejoice with +exceeding great joy to have you with me. Pray do not change your mind +for I shall be sadly disappointed if you do. Will Hartley be with you? I +hope he will, for you say he goes with you to Liverpool, and I conclude +you come from thence to London. + +I have seen your brother lately, and I find he entertains good hopes +from Mr. Sake, and his present employment I hear is likely to continue a +considerable time longer, so that I hope you may consider him as good as +provided for. He seems very steady, and is very well spoken of at his +office. + +I have lately been often talking of you with Mrs. Hazlitt. William +Hazlitt is painting my brother's picture, which has brought us +acquainted with the whole family. I like William Hazlitt and his sister +very much indeed, & I think Mrs. Hazlitt a pretty good-humoured woman. +She has a nice little girl of the Pypos kind, who is so fond of my +brother that she stops strangers in the street to tell them when _Mr. +Lamb is coming to see her_. + +I hope Mr. Southey and your sister and the little Edith are well. I beg +my love to them. + +God bless you, and your three little darlings, & their wandering father, +who I hope will soon return to you in high health & spirits. + +I remain ever your affectionate friend + +MARY LAMB. + +Compliments to Mr. Jackson and darling friend. I hope they are well. + +[Charles Lamb adds:--] + +C. Lamb particularly desires to be remembered to Southey and all the +Southeys, as well as to Mrs. C. and her little Coleridges. Mrs. C.'s +letters have all been sent as Coleridge left word, to Motley's, +Portsmouth. + +[The Ben Jonson in Lamb's own library was the 1692 folio; his Beaumont +and Fletcher, which may be seen at the British Museum, was the folio +1647 or 1679. + +Spenser's prose work, _View of the Present State of Ireland_, is that +referred to. + +"John Ford." Lamb says in the _Dramatic Specimens_, 1808, "Ford was of +the first order of poets." + +Dorothy Wordsworth (afterwards the wife of Edward Quillinan) was born +August 16, 1804. + +"Your brave sailor-brother"--John Wordsworth. + +Mrs. Coleridge now had three children--Hartley, Derwent and Sara. We do +not know whether or no she stayed with the Lambs, as suggested. Her +brother was George Fricker. + +William Hazlitt's sister was Peggy Hazlitt. His sister-in-law, Mrs. +Hazlitt, was the wife of John Hazlitt, the miniature painter. + +Hazlitt's portrait of Lamb was the one in the dress of a Venetian +senator, reproduced as frontispiece to Vol. I. of this edition. It now +hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.] + + + + +LETTER 127 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY +7 Nov., 1804. + +Dear Southey,--You were the last person from whom we heard of Dyer, and +if you know where to forward the news I now send to him, I shall be +obliged to you to lose no time. D.'s sister-in-law, who lives in St. +Dunstan's Court, wrote to him about three weeks ago, to the Hope Inn, +Cambridge, to inform him that Squire Houlbert, or some such name, of +Denmark Hill, has died, and left her husband a thousand pounds, and two +or three hundred to Dyer. Her letter got no answer, and she does not +know where to direct to him; so she came to me, who am equally in the +dark. Her story is, that Dyer's immediately coming to town now, and +signing some papers, will save him a considerable sum of money--how, I +don't understand; but it is very right he should hear of this. She has +left me barely time for the post; so I conclude with all Love, &c., to +all at Keswick. + +Dyer's brother, who, by his wife's account, has got 1000_l_. left him, +is father of the little dirty girl, Dyer's niece and factotum. + +In haste, +Yours truly, +C. LAMB. + +If you send George this, cut off the last paragraph. D.'s laundress had +a letter a few days since; but George never dates. + + + + +LETTER 128 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +[P.M. February 18, 1805.] + +My dear Wordsworth, the subject of your letter has never been out of our +thoughts since the day we first heard of it, and many have been our +impulses towards you, to write to you, or to write to enquire about you; +but it never seemed the time. We felt all your situation, and how much +you would want Coleridge at such a time, and we wanted somehow to make +up to you his absence, for we loved and honoured your Brother, and his +death always occurs to my mind with something like a feeling of +reproach, as if we ought to have been nearer acquainted, and as if there +had been some incivility shown him by us, or something short of that +respect which we now feel: but this is always a feeling when people die, +and I should not foolishly offer a piece of refinement, instead of +sympathy, if I knew any other way of making you feel how little like +indifferent his loss has been to us. I have been for some time +wretchedly ill and low, and your letter this morning has affected me so +with a pain in my inside and a confusion, that I hardly know what to +write or how. I have this morning seen Stewart, the 2'd mate, who was +saved: but he can give me no satisfactory account, having been in quite +another part of the ship when your brother went down. But I shall see +Gilpin tomorrow, and will communicate your thanks, and learn from him +all I can. All accounts agree that just before the vessel going down, +your brother seemed like one overwhelmed with the situation, and +careless of his own safety. Perhaps he might have saved himself; but a +Captain who in such circumstances does all he can for his ship and +nothing for himself, is the noblest idea. I can hardly express myself, I +am so really ill. But the universal sentiment is, that your brother did +all that duty required; and if he had been more alive to the feelings of +those distant ones whom he loved, he would have been at that time a less +admirable object; less to be exulted in by them: for his character is +high with all that I have heard speak of him, and no reproach can fix +upon him. Tomorrow I shall see Gilpin, I hope, if I can get at him, for +there is expected a complete investigation of the causes of the loss of +the ship, at the East India House, and all the Officers are to attend: +but I could not put off writing to you a moment. It is most likely I +shall have something to add tomorrow, in a second letter. If I do not +write, you may suppose I have not seen G. but you shall hear from me in +a day or two. We have done nothing but think of you, particularly of +Dorothy. Mary is crying by me while I with difficulty write this: but as +long as we remember any thing, we shall remember your Brother's noble +person, and his sensible manly modest voice, and how safe and +comfortable we all were together in our apartment, where I am now +writing. When he returned, having been one of the triumphant China +fleet, we thought of his pleasant exultation (which he exprest here one +night) in the wish that he might meet a Frenchman in the seas; and it +seem'd to be accomplished, all to his heart's desire. I will conclude +from utter inability to write any more, for I am seriously unwell: and +because I mean to gather something like intelligence to send to you +to-morrow: for as yet, I have but heard second hand, and seen one +narrative, which is but a transcript of what was common to all the +Papers. God bless you all, and reckon upon us as entering into all your +griefs. [_Signature cut away._] + +[This is the first of a series of letters bearing upon the loss of the +East Indiaman _Earl of Abergavenny_, which was wrecked off Portland Bill +on February 6, 1805, 200 persons and the captain, John Wordsworth, being +lost. The character of Wordsworth's "Happy Warrior" is said to have been +largely drawn from his brother John. His age was only thirty-three.] + + + + +LETTER 129 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +[P.M. February 19, 1805.] + +My dear Wordsworth, I yesterday wrote you a very unsatisfactory letter. +To day I have not much to add, but it may be some satisfaction to you +that I have seen Gilpin, and thanked him in all your names for the +assistance he tried to give: and that he has assured me that your +Brother did try to save himself, and was doing so when Gilpin called to +him, but he was then struggling with the waves and almost dead. G. heard +him give orders a very little before the vessel went down, with all +possible calmness, and it does not at all appear that your Brother in +any absence of mind neglected his own safety. But in such circumstances +the memory of those who escaped cannot be supposed to be very accurate; +and there appears to be about the Persons that I have seen a good deal +of reservedness and unwillingness to enter into detail, which is +natural, they being Officers of the Ship, and liable to be examined at +home about its loss. The examination is expected to day or to-morrow, +and if any thing should come out, that can interest you, I shall take an +early opportunity of sending it to you. + +Mary wrote some few days since to Miss Stoddart, containing an account +of your Brother's death, which most likely Coleridge will have heard, +before the letter comes: we both wish it may hasten him back. We do not +know any thing of him, whether he is settled in any post (as there was +some talk) or not. We had another sad account to send him, of the death +of his schoolfellow Allen; tho' this, I am sure, will much less affect +him. I don't know whether you knew Allen; he died lately very suddenly +in an apoplexy. When you do and can write, particularly inform us of the +healths of you all. God bless you all. Mary will write to Dorothy as +soon as she thinks she will be able to bear it. It has been a sad +tidings to us, and has affected us more than we could have believed. I +think it has contributed to make me worse, who have been very unwell, +and have got leave for some few days to stay at home: but I am ashamed +to speak of myself, only in excuse for the unfeeling sort of huddle +which I now send. I could not delay it, having seen Gilpin, and I +thought his assurance might be some little ease to you. + +We will talk about the Books, when you can better bear it. I have bought +none yet. But do not spare me any office you can put me on, now or when +you are at leisure for such things. Adopt me as one of your family in +this affliction; and use me without ceremony as such. + +Mary's kindest Love to all. + +C.L. + +Tuesday [Feb. 19]. + +[Mary Lamb's letter to Miss Stoddart, here referred to, is no longer +preserved. Coleridge a little later accepted the post of private +secretary to the Governor of Malta, Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander John +Ball. Allen was Bob Allen, whom we have already met.] + + + + +LETTER 130 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +16 Mitre-court Buildings, + +Saturday, 24th [_i.e._ 23rd] Feb., 1805. + +Dear Manning,--I have been very unwell since I saw you. A sad depression +of spirits, a most unaccountable nervousness; from which I have been +partially relieved by an odd accident. You knew Dick Hopkins, the +swearing scullion of Caius? This fellow, by industry and agility, has +thrust himself into the important situations (no sinecures, believe me) +of cook to Trinity Hall and Caius College: and the generous creature has +contrived with the greatest delicacy imaginable, to send me a present of +Cambridge brawn. What makes it the more extraordinary is, that the man +never saw me in his life that I know of. I suppose he has _heard_ of me. +I did not immediately recognise the donor; but one of Richard's cards, +which had accidentally fallen into the straw, detected him in a moment. +Dick, you know, was always remarkable for flourishing. His card imports, +that "orders (to wit, for brawn), from any part of England, Scotland, or +Ireland, will be duly executed," &c. At first, I thought of declining +the present; but Richard knew my blind side when he pitched upon brawn. +'Tis of all my hobbies the supreme in the eating way. He might have sent +sops from the pan, skimmings, crumplets, chips, hog's lard, the tender +brown judiciously scalped from a fillet of veal (dexterously replaced by +a salamander), the tops of asparagus, fugitive livers, runaway gizzards +of fowls, the eyes of martyred pigs, tender effusions of laxative +woodcocks, the red spawn of lobsters, leverets' ears, and such pretty +filchings common to cooks; but these had been ordinary presents, the +everyday courtesies of dishwashers to their sweethearts. Brawn was a +noble thought. It is not every common gullet-fancier that can properly +esteem it. It is like a picture of one of the choice old Italian +masters. Its gusto is of that hidden sort. As Wordsworth sings of a +modest poet,--"you must love him, ere to you he will seem worthy of your +love;" so brawn, you must taste it, ere to you it will seem to have any +taste at all. But 'tis nuts to the adept: those that will send out their +tongues and feelers to find it out. It will be wooed, and not unsought +be won. Now, ham-essence, lobsters, turtle, such popular minions, +absolutely _court you_, lay themselves out to strike you at first smack, +like one of David's pictures (they call him _Darveed_), compared with +the plain russet-coated wealth of a Titian or a Correggio, as I +illustrated above. Such are the obvious glaring heathen virtues of a +corporation dinner, compared with the reserved collegiate worth of +brawn. Do me the favour to leave off the business which you may be at +present upon, and go immediately to the kitchens of Trinity and Caius, +and make my most respectful compliments to Mr. Richard Hopkins, and +assure him that his brawn is most excellent; and that I am moreover +obliged to him for his innuendo about salt water and bran, which I shall +not fail to improve. I leave it to you whether you shall choose to pay +him the civility of asking him to dinner while you stay in Cambridge, or +in whatever other way you may best like to show your gratitude to _my +friend_. Richard Hopkins, considered in many points of view, is a very +extraordinary character. Adieu: I hope to see you to supper in London +soon, where we will taste Richard's brawn, and drink his health in a +cheerful but moderate cup. We have not many such men in any rank of life +as Mr. R. Hopkins. Crisp the barber, of St. Mary's, was just such +another. I wonder _he_ never sent me any little token, some chestnuts, +or a pufif, or two pound of hair just to remember him by; gifts are like +nails. + +_Praesens ut absens_, that is, your _present_ makes amends for your +absence. + +Yours, +C. LAMB. + +[This letter is, I take it, a joke: that is to say, the brawn was sent +to Lamb by Manning, who seems to have returned to Cambridge for a while, +and Lamb affects to believe that Hopkins, from whom it was bought, was +the giver. I think this view is supported by the reference to Mr. Crisp, +at the end,--Mr. Crisp being Manning's late landlord. + +The following advertisement occurs in the _Cambridge Chronicle_ for +February 8, 1806. It is sent me by Dr. Wharry:-- + + +"CAMBRIDGE BRAWN. + +"R. HOPKINS, Cook of Trinity Hall and Caius College, begs leave to +inform the Nobility, Gentry, &c. that he has now ready for Sale, BRAWN, +BRAWN HEADS & CHEEKS. + +"All orders will be thankfully received, and forwarded to any part of +the kingdom." + +Lamb stayed at 3 St. Mary's Passage, now rebuilt and occupied by Messrs. +Leach & Son (1911). + +The letter contains Lamb's second expression of epicurean rapture: the +first in praise of pig. + +"As Wordsworth sings"--in the "Poet's Epitaph":-- + +He is retired as noontide dew, +Or fountain in a noon-day grove; +And you must love him, ere to you +He will seem worthy of your love. + +"_Praesens ut absens_." Lamb enlarged upon the topic of gifts and giving +many years later, in the Popular Fallacy "That we must not look a Gift +Horse in the Mouth," 1826, and in his "Thoughts on Presents of Game," +1833.] + + + + +LETTER 131 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH + +[P.M. March 5, 1805.] + +My dear Wordsworth, if Gilpin's statement has afforded you any +satisfaction, I can assure you that he was most explicit in giving it, +and even seemed anxious (interrupting me) to do away any misconception. +His statement is not contradicted by the last and fullest of the two +Narratives which have been published (the former being a mere transcript +of the newspapers), which I would send you if I did not suppose that you +would receive more pain from the unfeeling canting way in which it is +drawn up, than satisfaction from its contents; and what relates to your +brother in particular is very short. It states that your brother was +seen talking to the First Mate but a few minutes before the ship sank, +with apparent cheerfulness, and it contradicts the newspaper account +about his depression of spirits procrastinating his taking leave of the +Court of Directors; which the drawer up of the Narrative (a man high in +the India House) is likely to be well informed of. It confirms Gilpin's +account of his seeing your brother striving to save himself, and adds +that "Webber, a Joiner, was near the Captain, who was standing on the +hencoop when the ship went down, whom he saw washed off by a sea, which +also carried him (Webber) overboard;"--this is all which concerns your +brother personally. But I will just transcribe from it, a Copy of +Gilpin's account delivered in to the Court of Directors:-- + +"Memorandum respecting the Loss of the E. of A." + +"At 10 A.M. being about 10 leagues to the westward of Portland, the +Commodore made the signal to bear up--did so accordingly; at this time +having maintop gallant mast struck, fore and mizen d°. on deck, and the +jib boom in the wind about W.S.W. At 3 P.M. got on board a Pilot, being +about 2 leagues to the westward of Portland; ranged and bitted both +cables at about ½ past 3, called all hands and got out the jib boom at +about 4. While crossing the east End of the Shambles, the wind suddenly +died away, and a strong tide setting the ship to the westward, drifted +her into the breakers, and a sea striking her on the larboard quarter, +brought her to, with her head to the northward, when she instantly +struck, it being about 5 P.M. Let out all the reefs, and hoisted the +topsails up, in hopes to shoot the ship across the Shambles. About this +time the wind shifted to the N.W. The surf driving us off, and the tide +setting us on alternately, sometimes having 4½ at others 9 fathoms, sand +of the sea about 8 feet; continued in this situation till about ½ past +7, when she got off. During the time she was on the Shambles, had from 3 +to 4 feet water; kept the water at this height about 15 minutes, during +the whole time the pumps constantly going. Finding she gained on us, it +was determined to run her on the nearest shore. About 8 the wind shifted +to the eastward: the leak continuing to gain upon the pumps, having 10 +or 11 feet water, found it expedient to bale at the forescuttles and +hatchway. The ship would not bear up--kept the helm hard a starboard, +she being water-logg'd: but still had a hope she could be kept up till +we got her on Weymouth Sands. Cut the lashings of the boats--could not +get the Long Boat out, without laying the main-top-sail aback, by which +our progress would have been so delayed, that no hope would have been +left us of running her aground, and there being several sloops in sight, +one having sent a small skiff on board, took away 2 Ladies and 3 other +passengers, and put them on board the sloop, at the same time promising +to return and take away a hundred or more of the people: she finding +much difficulty in getting back to the sloop, did not return. About this +time the Third Mate and Purser were sent in the cutter to get assistance +from the other ships. Continued pumping and baling till 11 P.M. when she +sunk. Last cast of the lead 11 fathoms; having fired guns from the time +she struck till she went down, about 2 A.M. boats came and took the +people from the wreck about 70 in number. The troops, in particular the +Dragoons, pumped very well. + +"(Signed) THOS. GILPIN." + +And now, my dear W.--I must apologize for having named my health. But +indeed it was because, what with the ill news, your letter coming upon +me in a most wretched state of ill spirits, I was scarce able to give it +an answer, and I felt what it required. But we will say no more about +it. I am getting better. And when I have persisted time enough in a +course of regular living I shall be well. But I am now well enough; and +have got to business afresh. Mary thanks you for your invitation. I have +wished myself with you daily since the news. I have wished that I were +Coleridge, to give you any consolation. You have not mourned without one +to have a feeling of it. And we have not undervalued the intimation of +your friendship. We shall one day prove it by intruding on your privacy, +when these griefs shall be a little calmed. This year, I am afraid, it +is impossible: but I shall store it up as among the good things to come, +which keep us up when life and spirits are sinking. + +If you have not seen, or wish to see, the wretched narrative I have +mentioned, I will send it. But there is nothing more in it affecting +you. I have hesitated to send it, because it is unfeelingly done, and in +the hope of sending you something from some of the actual spectators; +but I have been disappointed, and can add nothing yet. Whatever I pick +up, I will store for you. It is perfectly understood at the E. I. House, +that no blame whatever belongs to the Captn. or Officers. + +I can add no more but Mary's warmest Love to all. When you can write +without trouble, do it, for you are among the very chief of our +interests. + +C. LAMB. +4 March. + + + + +LETTER 132 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +[Dated at end: March 21, 1805.] + +Dear Wordsworth, upon the receipt of your last letter before that which +I have just received, I wrote myself to Gilpin putting your questions to +him; but have yet had no answer. I at the same time got a person in the +India House to write a much fuller enquiry to a relative of his who was +saved, one Yates a midshipman. Both these officers (and indeed pretty +nearly all that are left) have got appointed to other ships and have +joined them. Gilpin is in the Comet, India man, now lying at Gravesend. +Neither Yates nor Gilpin have yet answered, but I am in daily +expectation. I have sent your letter of this morning also to Gilpin. The +waiting for these answers has been my reason for not writing you. I have +made very particular enquiries about Webber, but in vain. He was a +common seaman (not the ship's carpenter) and no traces of him are at the +I. House: it is most probable that he has entered in some Privateer, as +most of the crew have done. I will keep the £1 note till you find out +something I can do with it. I now write idly, having nothing to send: +but I cannot bear that you should think I have quite neglected your +commission. My letter to G. was such as I thought he could not but +answer: but he may be busy. The letter to Yates I hope I can promise +will be answered. One thing, namely why the other ships sent no +assistance, I have learn'd from a person on board one of them: the +firing was never once heard, owing to the very stormy night, and no +tidings came to them till next morning. The sea was quite high enough to +have thrown out the most expert swimmer, and might not your brother have +received some blow in the shock, which disabled him? We are glad to hear +poor Dorothy is a little better. None of you are able to bear such a +stroke. To people oppressed with feeling, the loss of a good-humoured +happy man that has been friendly with them, if he were no brother, is +bad enough. But you must cultivate his spirits, as a legacy: and believe +that such as he cannot be lost. He was a chearful soul! God bless you. +Mary's love always. + +C. LAMB. +21st March, 1805. + + + + +LETTER 133 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +[P.M. April 5, 1805.] + +Dear Wordsworth, I have this moment received this letter from Gilpin in +reply to 3 or 4 short questions I put to him in my letter before yours +for him came. He does not notice having rec'd yours, which I sent +immediately. Perhaps he has already answered it to you. You see that his +hand is sprain'd, and your questions being more in number, may delay his +answer to you. My first question was, when it was he called to your +brother: the rest you will understand from the answers. I was beginning +to have hard thoughts of G. from his delay, but now I am confirm'd in my +first opinion that he is a rare good-hearted fellow. How is Dorothy? and +all of you? + +Yours sincerely +C. LAMB. + +4th question was, was Capt. W. standing near the shrouds or any place of +safety at the moment of sinking? + +Comet, +Northfleet, March 3131, 1805. + +Sir--I did not receive yours of 16th ins't, till this day, or sh'd. have +answered it sooner. To your first Question, I answer after the Ship had +sunk. To your second, my answer is, I was in the Starboard Mizen +Rigging--I thought I see the Capt'n hanging by a Rope that was fast to +the Mizen Mast. I came down and haild him as loud as I could, he was +about 10 feet distant from me. I threw a rope which fell close to him, +he seem'd quite Motionless and insensible (it was excessive cold), and +was soon after sweep'd away, and I see him no more. It was near about +five minutes after the Ship went down. With respect to the Capt'n and +Webber being on the same Hencoop, I can give no answer, all I can say, I +did not see them. Your fourth Question, I cannot answer, as I did not +see Capt. Wordsworth at the moment the Ship was going down, tho I was +then on the Poop less than one minute before I see the Capt'n there. The +Statement in the printed Pamphlet is by no means correct. I have +sprained my Wrist, most violently, and am now in great pain, which will, +I hope, be an apology for the shortness of this Letter. + +believe me truly yours [*] +THOS. GILPIN. + +This Letter as been detained till April 5th. + +[Footnote: This is merely a kind way of expressing himself, for I have +no acquaintance with him, nor ever saw him but that once I got +introduced to him. + +I think I did not mention in my last, that I sent yours to T. Evans, +Richmond. I hope you have got an answer.] + + + + +LETTER 134 + + +MARY LAMB TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH +[P.M. May 7, 1805.] + +My dear Miss Wordsworth--I thank you, my kind friend, for your most +comfortable letter. Till I saw your own handwriting, I could not +persuade myself that I should do well to write to you, though I have +often attempted it, but I always left off dissatisfied with what I had +written, and feeling that I was doing an improper thing to intrude upon +your sorrow. I wished to tell you, that you would one day feel the kind +of peaceful state of mind, and sweet memory of the dead which you so +happily describe as now almost begun, but I felt that it was improper, +and most grating to the feelings of the afflicted, to say to them that +the memory of their affliction would in time become a constant part not +only of their "dream, but of their most wakeful sense of happiness." +That you would see every object with, and through your lost brother, and +that that would at last become a real and everlasting source of comfort +to you, I felt, and well knew from my own experience in sorrow, but till +you yourself began to feel this I did not dare tell you so, but I send +you some poor lines which I wrote under this conviction of mind, and +before I heard Coleridge was returning home. I will transcribe them now +before I finish my letter, lest a false shame prevent me then, for I +know they are much worse than they ought to be, written as they were +with strong feeling and on such a subject. Every line seems to me to be +borrowed, but I had no better way of expressing my thoughts, and I never +have the power of altering or amending anything I have once laid aside +with dissatisfaction. + +Why is he wandering on the sea? +Coleridge should now with Wordsworth be. +By slow degrees he'd steal away +Their woe, and gently bring a ray +(So happily he'd time relief) +Of comfort from their very grief. +He'd tell them that their brother dead +When years have passed o'er their head, +Will be remember'd with such holy, +True, and perfect melancholy +That ever this lost brother John +Will be their heart's companion. +His voice they'll always hear, his face they'll always see, +There's nought in life so sweet as such a memory. + +Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson came to see us last week, I find it was at your +request they sought us out; you cannot think how glad we were to see +them, so little as we have ever seen of them, yet they seem to us like +very old friends. Poor Mrs. Clarkson looks very ill indeed, she walked +near a mile, and came up our high stairs, which fatigued her very much, +but when she had sat a while her own natural countenance with which she +cheared us in your little cottage seemed to return to her, and then I +began to have hopes she would get the better of her complaint. Charles +does not think she is so much altered as I do. I wish he may be the +better judge. We talked of nothing but you. She means to try to get +leave of Dr. Beddoes to come and see you--her heart is with you, and I +do not think it would hurt her so much to come to you, as it would +distress you to see her so ill. + +She read me a part of your letter wherein you so kindly express your +wishes that we would come and see you this summer. I wish we could, for +I am sure it would be a blessed thing for you and for us to be a few +weeks together--I fear it must not be. Mrs. Clarkson is to be in town +again in a fortnight and then they have promised we shall see more of +them. + +I am very sorry for the poor little Dorothy's illness--I hope soon to +hear she is perfectly recovered. Remember me with affection to your +brother, and your good sister. What a providence it is that your brother +and you have this kind friend, and these dear little ones--I rejoice +with her and with you that your brother is employed upon his poem again. + +Pray remember us to Old Molly. Mrs. Clarkson says her house is a pattern +of neatness to all her neighbours--such good ways she learnt of +"Mistress." How well I remember the shining ornaments of her kitchen, +and her old friendly face, not [the] least ornamental part of it. + +Excuse the haste I write in. I am unexpectedly to go out to dinner, else +I think I have much more to say, but I will not put it off till next +post, because you so kindly say I must not write if I feel unwilling-- +you do not know what very great joy I have in being again writing to +you. Thank you for sending the letter of Mr. Evans, it was a very kind +one. Have you received one from a Cornet Burgoine? My brother wrote to +him and desires he would direct his answer to your brother. + +God bless you and yours my dear friend. +I am yours affectionately +M. LAMB. + +[Dr. Beddoes, who was attending Mrs. Clarkson, would be, I suppose, +Thomas Beddoes of Clifton (1760-1808), the father of Thomas Lovell +Beddoes and a friend of Coleridge and Southey. + +In a letter from Dorothy Wordsworth to Mrs. Clarkson, dated April 19, +1805 (recently printed by Mr. Hale White in the _Athenaeum_), we read:-- + +I have great pleasure in thinking that you may see Miss Lamb; do not +miss it if you can possibly go without injury to yourself--they are the +best good creatures--blessings be with them! they have sympathised in +our sorrow as tenderly as if they had grown up in the same [town?] with +us and known our beloved John from his childhood. Charles has written to +us the most consolatory letters, the result of diligent and painful +inquiry of the survivors of the wreck,--for this we must love him as +long as we have breath. I think of him and his sister every day of my +life, and many times in the day with thankfulness and blessings. Talk to +dear Miss Lamb about coming into this country and let us hear what she +says of it. I cannot express how much we all wish to see her and her +brother while we are at Grasmere. We look forward to Coleridge's return +with fear and painful hope--but indeed I dare not look to it--I think as +little as I can of him.] + + + + +LETTER 135 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH + +[_Slightly torn. The conjectures in square brackets are +Talfourd's._] + +Friday, 14th June, 1805. + +My dear Miss Wordsworth, Your long kind letter has not been thrown away +(for it has given me great pleasure to find you are all resuming your +old occupations, and are better) but poor Mary to whom it is addrest +cannot yet relish it. She has been attacked by one of her severe +illnesses, and is at present _from home_. Last Monday week was the day +she left me; and I hope I may calculate upon having her again in a +month, or little more. I am rather afraid late hours have in this case +contributed to her indisposition. But when she begins to discover +symptoms of approaching illness, it is not easy to say what is best to +do. Being by ourselves is bad, and going out is bad. I get so irritable +and wretched with fear, that I constantly hasten on the disorder. You +cannot conceive the misery of such a foresight. I am sure that for the +week before she left me, I was little better than light-headed. I now am +calm, but sadly taken down, and flat. I have every reason to suppose +that this illness, like all her former ones, will be but temporary; but +I cannot always feel so. Meantime she is dead to me, and I miss a prop. +All my strength is gone, and I am like a [fool, ber]eft of her +co-operation. I dare not think, lest I [should think] wrong; so used am +I to look up to her [in the least] and the biggest perplexity. To say +_all that_ [I know of her] would be more than I think any body could +[believe or even under]stand; and when I hope to have her well [again +with me] it would be sinning against her feelings to go about to praise +her: for I can conceal nothing that I do from her. She is older, and +wiser, and better, than me, and all my wretched imperfections I cover to +myself by resolutely thinking on her goodness. She would share life and +death, heaven and hell, with me. She lives but for me. And I know I have +been wasting and teazing her life for five years past incessantly with +my cursed drinking and ways of going on. But even in this up-braiding of +myself I am offending against her, for I know that she has cleaved to me +for better, for worse; and if the balance has been against her hitherto, +it was a noble trade. + +I am stupid and lose myself in what I write. I write rather what answers +to my feelings (which are sometimes sharp enough) than express my +present ones, for I am only flat and stupid. + +Poor Miss Stoddart! she is coming to England under the notion of passing +her time between her mother and Mary, between London and Salisbury. +Since she talk'd of coming, word has been sent to Malta that her Mother +is gone out of her mind. This Letter, with mine to Stoddart with an +account of Allen's death, &c., has miscarried (taken by the French) +[_word missing_]. She is coming home, with no soul to receive [_words +missing_]. She has not a woman-friend in London. + +I am sure you will excuse my writing [any more, I] am very poorly. I +cannot resist tra[nscribing] three or four Lines which poor Mary made +upon a Picture (a Holy Family) which we saw at an Auction only one week +before she left home. She was then beginning to show signs of ill +boding. They are sweet Lines, and upon a sweet Picture. But I send them, +only as the last memorial of her. + +VIRGIN AND CHILD. L. DA VINCI +Maternal Lady with the Virgin-grace, +Heaven-born thy Jesus seemeth sure, +And thou a virgin pure. +Lady most perfect, when thy angel face +Men look upon, they wish to be +A Catholic, Madona fair, to worship thee. + +You had her lines about the "Lady Blanch." You have not had some which +she wrote upon a copy of a girl from Titian, which I had hung up where +that print of Blanch and the Abbess (as she beautifully interpreted two +female figures from L. da Vinci) had hung, in our room. 'Tis light and +pretty. + +Who art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the place +Of Blanch, the Lady of the matchless grace? +Come, fair and pretty, tell to me +Who in thy lifetime thou mightst be? +Thou pretty art and fair, +But with the Lady Blanch thou never must compare. +No need for Blanch her history to tell, +Whoever saw her face, they there did read it well. +But when I look on thee, I only know +There liv'd a pretty maid some hundred years ago. + +This is a little unfair, to tell so much about ourselves, and to advert +so little to your letter, so full of comfortable tidings of you all. But +my own cares press pretty close upon me, and you can make allowance. +That you may go on gathering strength and peace is the next wish to +Mary's recovery. + +I had almost forgot your repeated invitation. Supposing that Mary will +be well and able, there is another _ability_ which you may guess at, +which I cannot promise myself. In prudence we ought not to come. This +illness will make it still more prudential to wait. It is not a balance +of this way of spending our money against another way, but an absolute +question of whether we shall stop now, or go on wasting away the little +we have got beforehand, which my wise conduct has already incroach'd +upon one half. My best Love, however, to you all; and to that most +friendly creature, Mrs. Clarkson, and better health to her, when you see +or write to her. + +C. LAMB. + +[The reference to Miss Stoddart is explained later, in the next letter +but one. + +Mary Lamb's two poems were included in the _Works_, 1818. "Lady Blanch" +is the poem quoted on page 300.] + + + + +LETTER 136 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[Dated by Mr. Hazlitt: July 27, 1805.] + +Dear Archimedes,--Things have gone on badly with thy ungeometrical +friend; but they are on the turn. My old housekeeper has shown signs of +convalescence, and will shortly resume the power of the keys, so I +shan't be cheated of my tea and liquors. Wind in the west, which +promotes tranquillity. Have leisure now to anticipate seeing thee again. +Have been taking leave of tobacco in a rhyming address. Had thought +_that vein_ had long since closed up. [_A sentence omitted here._] Find +I can rhyme and reason too. Think of studying mathematics, to restrain +the fire of my genius, which G.D. recommends. Have frequent bleedings at +the nose, which shows plethoric. Maybe shall try the sea myself, that +great scene of wonders. Got incredibly sober and regular; shave oftener, +and hum a tune, to signify cheerfulness and gallantry. + +Suddenly disposed to sleep, having taken a quart of pease with bacon and +stout. Will not refuse Nature, who has done such things for me! + +Nurse! don't call me unless Mr. Manning comes.--What! the gentleman in +spectacles?--Yes. + +_Dormit_. +C. L. + +Saturday, +Hot Noon. + +["Have been taking leave of tobacco." On August 10, 1824, Lamb tells +Hood that he designs to give up smoking.] + + + + +LETTER 137 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART +[? Sept. 18, 1805.] + +My dear Sarah,--I have made many attempts at writing to you, but it has +always brought your troubles and my own so strongly into my mind, that I +have been obliged to leave off, and make Charles write for me. I am +resolved now, however few lines I write, this shall go; for I know, my +kind friend, you will like once more to see my own handwriting. + +I have been for these few days past in rather better spirits, so that I +begin almost to feel myself once more a living creature, and to hope for +happier times; and in that hope I include the prospect of once more +seeing my dear Sarah in peace and comfort in our old garret. How did I +wish for your presence to cheer my drooping heart when I returned home +from banishment. + +Is your being with, or near, your poor dear Mother necessary to her +comfort? does she take any notice of you? and is there any prospect of +her recovery? How I grieve for her and for you.... + +I went to the Admiralty about your Mother's pension; from thence I was +directed to an office in Lincoln's Inn, where they are paid. They +informed me at the office that it could not be paid to any person except +Mr. Wray, without a letter of attorney from your Mother; and as the +stamp for that will cost one pound, it will, perhaps, be better to leave +it till Mr. Wray comes to town, if he does come before Christmas; they +tell me it can be received any Thursday between this and Christmas, If +you send up a letter of Attorney, let it be in my name. If you think, +notwithstanding their positive assurance to the contrary, that you can +put me in any way of getting it without, let me know. Are you acquainted +with Mr. Pearce, and will my taking another letter from you to him be of +any service? or will a letter from Mr. Wray be of any use?--though I +fear not, for they said at the office they had orders to pay no pension +without a letter of Attorney. The attestation you sent up, they said, +was sufficient, and that the same must be sent every year. Do not let us +neglect this business; and make use of me in any way you can. + +I have much to thank you and your kind brother for; I kept the dark +silk, as you may suppose: you have made me very fine; the broche is very +beautiful. Mrs. Jeffries wept for gratitude when she saw your present; +she desires all manner of thanks and good wishes. Your maid's sister was +gone to live a few miles from town; Charles, however, found her out, and +gave her the handkerchief. + +I want to know if you have seen William, and if there is any prospect in +future there. All you said in your letter from Portsmouth that related +to him was burnt so in the fumigating, that we could only make out that +it was unfavourable, but not the particulars; tell us again how you go +on, and if you have seen him: I conceit affairs will some how be made up +between you at last. + +I want to know how your brother goes on. Is he likely to make a very +good fortune, and in how long a time? And how is he, in the way of home +comforts?--I mean, is he very happy with Mrs. Stoddart? This was a +question I could not ask while you were there, and perhaps is not a fair +one now; but I want to know how you all went on--and, in short, twenty +little foolish questions that one ought, perhaps, rather to ask when we +meet, than to write about. But do make me a little acquainted with the +inside of the good Doctor's house, and what passes therein. + +Was Coleridge often with you? or did your brother and Col. argue long +arguments, till between the two great arguers there grew a little +coolness?--or perchance the mighty friendship between Coleridge and your +Sovereign Governor, Sir Alexander Ball, might create a kind of jealousy, +for we fancy something of a coldness did exist, from the little mention +ever made of C. in your brother's letters. + +Write us, my good girl, a long, gossiping letter, answering all these +foolish questions--and tell me any silly thing you can recollect--any, +the least particular, will be interesting to us, and we will never tell +tales out of school: but we used to wonder and wonder, how you all went +on; and when you was coming home we said, "Now we shall hear all from +Sarah." + +God bless you, my dear friend. +I am ever your affectionate + +MARY LAMB. + +If you have sent Charles any commissions he has not executed, write me +word--he says he has lost or mislaid a letter desiring him to inquire +about a wig. + +Write two letters--one of business and pensions, and one all about Sarah +Stoddart and Malta. Is Mr. Moncrief doing well there? + +Wednesday morning. + +We have got a picture of Charles; do you think your brother would like +to have it? If you do, can you put us in a way how to send it? + +[Mrs. Stoddart was the widow of a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Mr. Wray +and Mr. Pearce were presumably gentlemen connected with the Admiralty or +in some way concerned with the pension. "William" is still the early +William--not William Hazlitt, whom Sarah was destined to marry. Mr. +Moncrieff was Mrs. John Stoddart's eldest brother, who was a King's +Advocate in the Admiralty Court at Malta. The picture of Charles might +be some kind of reproduction of Hazlitt's portrait of him, painted in +the preceding year; but more probably, I think, a few copies of +Hancock's drawing, made in 1798 for Cottle, had been struck off.] + + + + +LETTER 138 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM AND DOROTHY +WORDSWORTH + +[P.M. September 28, 1805.] + +My dear Wordsworth (or Dorothy rather, for to you appertains the biggest +part of this answer by right.)--I will not again deserve reproach by so +long a silence. I have kept deluding myself with the idea that Mary +would write to you, but she is so lazy, or, I believe the true state of +the case, so diffident, that it must revert to me as usual. Though she +writes a pretty good style, and has some notion of the force of words, +she is not always so certain of the true orthography of them, and that +and a poor handwriting (in this age of female calligraphy) often deter +her where no other reason does. We have neither of us been very well for +some weeks past. I am very nervous, and she most so at those times when +I am: so that a merry friend, adverting to the noble consolation we were +able to afford each other, denominated us not unaptly Gum Boil and Tooth +Ache: for they use to say that a Gum Boil is a great relief to a Tooth +Ache. We have been two tiny excursions this summer, for three or four +days each: to a place near Harrow, and to Egham, where Cooper's Hill is: +and that is the total history of our Rustications this year. Alas! how +poor a sound to Skiddaw, and Helvellyn, and Borrodaile, and the +magnificent sesquipedalia of the year 1802. Poor old Molly! to have lost +her pride, that "last infirmity of Noble Mind," and her Cow--Providence +need not have set her wits to such an old Molly. I am heartily sorry for +her. Remember us lovingly to her. And in particular remember us to Mrs. +Clarkson in the most kind manner. I hope by southwards you mean that she +will be at or near London, for she is a great favorite of both of us, +and we feel for her health as much as is possible for any one to do. She +is one of the friendliest, comfortablest women we know, and made our +little stay at your cottage one of the pleasantest times we ever past. +We were quite strangers to her. Mr. C. is with you too?--our kindest +separate remembrances to him. + +As to our special affairs, I am looking about me. I have done nothing +since the beginning of last year, when I lost my newspaper job, and +having had a long idleness, I must do something, or we shall get very +poor. Sometimes I think of a farce--but hitherto all schemes have gone +off,--an idle brag or two of an evening vaporing out of a pipe, and +going off in the morning; but now I have bid farewell to my "Sweet +Enemy" Tobacco, as you will see in my next page, I perhaps shall set +soberly to work. Hang Work! I wish that all the year were holyday. I am +sure that Indolence indefeazible Indolence is the true state of man, and +business the invention of the Old Teazer who persuaded Adam's Master to +give him an apron and set him a houghing. Pen and Ink, and Clerks, and +desks, were the refinements of this old torturer a thousand years after, +under pretence of Commerce allying distant shores, promoting and +diffusing knowledge, good, &c.-- + +A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO + +May the Babylonish curse +Strait confound my stammering verse, +If I can a passage see +In this word-perplexity, +Or a fit expression find, +Or a language to my mind, +(Still the phrase is wide an acre) +To take leave of thee, Tobacco; +Or in any terms relate +Half my Love, or half my Hate, +For I hate yet love thee so, +That, whichever Thing I shew, +The plain truth will seem to be +A constrain'd hyperbole, +And the passion to proceed +More from a Mistress than a Weed. + +Sooty retainer to the vine, +Bacchus' black servant, negro fine, +Sorcerer that mak'st us doat upon +Thy begrim'd complexion, +And, for thy pernicious sake +More and greater oaths to break +Than reclaimed Lovers take +'Gainst women: Thou thy siege dost lay +Much too in the female way, +While thou suck'st the labouring breath +Faster than kisses; or than Death. + +Thou in such a cloud dost bind us, +That our worst foes cannot find us, +And Ill Fortune (that would thwart us) +Shoots at rovers, shooting at us; +While each man thro' thy heightening steam, +Does like a smoking Etna seem, +And all about us does express +(Fancy and Wit in richest dress) +A Sicilian Fruitfulness. + +Thou through such a mist does shew us, +That our best friends do not know us; +And, for those allowed features, +Due to reasonable creatures, +Liken'st us to fell Chimeras, +Monsters, that, who see us, fear us, +Worse than Cerberus, or Geryon, +Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion. + +Bacchus we know, and we allow +His tipsy rites. But what art thou? +That but by reflex canst shew +What his deity can do, +As the false Egyptian spell +Aped the true Hebrew miracle-- +Some few vapours thou may'st raise, +The weak brain may serve to amaze, +But to the reins and nobler heart +Canst nor life nor heat impart. + +Brother of Bacchus, later born, +The old world was sure forlorn, +Wanting thee; that aidest more +The God's victories than before +All his panthers, and the brawls +Of his piping Bacchanals; +These, as stale, we disallow, +Or judge of _thee meant_: only thou +His true Indian Conquest art; +And, for Ivy round his dart, +The reformed God now weaves +A finer Thyrsus of thy leaves. + +Scent to match thy rich perfume +Chymic art did ne'er presume +Through her quaint alembic strain; +None so sovran to the brain. +Nature, that did in thee excell, +Framed again no second smell. +Roses, violets, but toys +For the smaller sort of boys, +Or for greener damsels meant, +Thou'rt the only manly scent. + +Stinking'st of the stinking kind, +Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind, +Africa that brags her foyson, +Breeds no such prodigious poison, +Henbane, nightshade, both together, +Hemlock, aconite-------- + +Nay rather, +Plant divine, of rarest virtue, +Blisters on the tongue would hurt you; +'Twas but in a sort I blamed thee, +None e'er prosper'd who defamed thee: +Irony all, and feign'd abuse, +Such as perplext Lovers use +At a need, when in despair +To paint forth their fairest fair, +Or in part but to express +That exceeding comeliness +Which their fancies does so strike, +They borrow language of Dislike, +And instead of Dearest Miss, +Honey, Jewel, Sweetheart, Bliss, +And, those forms of old admiring, +Call her Cockatrice and Syren, +Basilisk and all that's evil, +Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil, +Ethiop wench, and Blackamoor, +Monkey, Ape, and twenty more, +Friendly Traitress, Loving Foe: +Not that she is truly so, +But no other way they know +A contentment to express, +Borders so upon excess, +That they do not rightly wot, +Whether it be pain or not. + +Or, as men, constrain'd to part +With what's nearest to their heart, +While their sorrow's at the height, +Lose discrimination quite, +And their hasty wrath let fall, +To appease their frantic gall, +On the darling thing whatever, +Whence they feel it death to sever, +Though it be, as they, perforce, +Guiltless of the sad divorce, + +For I must (nor let it grieve thee, +Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee-- +For thy sake, _TOBACCO_, I +Would do anything but die; +And but seek to extend my days +Long enough to sing thy praise. + +But, as She, who once has been +A King's consort, is a Queen +Ever after; nor will bate +Any tittle of her state, +Though a widow, or divorced, +So I, from thy converse forced, +The old name and style retain, +(A right Katherine of Spain;) +And a seat too 'mongst the joys +Of the blest Tobacco Boys: +Where, though I by sour physician +Am debarr'd the full fruition +Of thy favours, I may catch +Some collateral sweets, and snatch +Sidelong odours, that give life +Like glances from a neighbour's wife; +And still dwell in the by-places, +And the suburbs of thy graces, +And in thy borders take delight, +An unconquer'd Canaanite. + +I wish you may think this a handsome farewell to my "Friendly +Traitress." Tobacco has been my evening comfort and my morning curse for +these five years: and you know how difficult it is from refraining to +pick one's lips even, when it has become a habit. This Poem is the only +one which I have finished since so long as when I wrote "Hester Savory." +I have had it in my head to do it these two years, but Tobacco stood in +its own light when it gave me head aches that prevented my singing its +praises. Now you have got it, you have got all my store, for I have +absolutely not another line. No more has Mary. We have nobody about us +that cares for Poetry, and who will rear grapes when he shall be the +sole eater? Perhaps if you encourage us to shew you what we may write, +we may do something now and then before we absolutely forget the +quantity of an English line for want of practice. The "Tobacco," being a +little in the way of Withers (whom Southey so much likes) perhaps you +will somehow convey it to him with my kind remembrances. Then, everybody +will have seen it that I wish to see it: I have sent it to Malta. + +I remain Dear W. and D--yours truly, +C. LAMB. + +28th Sep., 1805. + +["Hang Work." This paragraph is the germ of the sonnet entitled "Work" +which Lamb wrote fourteen years later (see the letter to Bernard Barton, +Sept. 11, 1822). He seems always to have kept his thoughts in sight. + +The "Farewell to Tobacco" was printed in the _Reflector_, No. IV., 1811 +or 1812, and then in the Works, 1818 (see Notes to Vol. IV. of this +edition). Lamb's farewell was frequently repeated; but it is a question +whether he ever entirely left off smoking. Talfourd says that he did; +but the late Mrs. Coe, who remembered Lamb at Widford about 1827-1830, +credited him with the company of a black clay pipe. It was Lamb who, +when Dr. Parr asked him how he managed to emit so much smoke, replied +that he had toiled after it as other men after virtue. And Macready +relates that he remarked in his presence that he wished to draw his last +breath through a pipe and exhale it in a pun. Coleridge writing to +Rickman (see _The Life and Letters of John Rickman_, 1912) says of Lamb +and smoking: "Were it possible to win C.L. from the pipe, other things +would follow with comparative ease, for till he gets a pipe I have +regularly observed that he is contented with porter--and that the +unconquerable appetite for spirit comes in with the tobacco--the oil of +which, especially in the gluttonous manner in which he _volcanizes_ it, +acts as an instant poison on his stomach or lungs". + +"Hestor Savory." See above.] + + + + +LETTER 139 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART + +[Early November, 1805.] + +My dear Sarah,--Certainly you are the best letter-writer (besides +writing the best hand) in the world. I have just been reading over again +your two long letters, and I perceive they make me very envious. I have +taken a brand new pen, and put on my _spectacles_, and am peering with +all my might to see the lines in the paper, which the sight of your even +lines had well nigh tempted me to rule: and I have moreover taken two +pinches of snuff extraordinary, to clear my head, which feels more +cloudy than common this fine, chearful morning. + +All I can gather from your clear and, I have no doubt, faithful history +of Maltese politics is, that the good Doctor, though a firm friend, an +excellent fancier of brooches, a good husband, an upright Advocate, and, +in short, all that they say upon tomb stones (for I do not recollect +that they celebrate any fraternal virtues there) yet is but a _moody_ +brother, that your sister in law is pretty much like what all sisters in +law have been since the first happy invention of the happy marriage +state; that friend Coleridge has undergone no alteration by crossing the +Atlantic,--for his friendliness to you, as well as all the oddities you +mention, are just what one ought to look for from him; and that you, my +dear Sarah, have proved yourself just as unfit to flourish in a little, +proud Garrison Town as I did shrewdly suspect you were before you went +there. + +If I possibly can, I will prevail upon Charles to write to your brother +by the conveyance you mention; but he is so unwell, I almost fear the +fortnight will slip away before I can get him in the right vein. Indeed, +it has been sad and heavy times with us lately: when I am pretty well, +his low spirits throws me back again; and when he begins to get a little +chearful, then I do the same kind office for him. I heartily wish for +the arrival of Coleridge; a few such evenings as we have sometimes +passed with him would wind us up, and set us a going again. + +Do not say any thing, when you write, of our low spirits--it will vex +Charles. You would laugh, or you would cry, perhaps both, to see us sit +together, looking at each other with long and rueful faces, and saying, +"how do you do?" and "how do you do?" and then we fall a-crying, and say +we will be better on the morrow. He says we are like toothach and his +friend gum bile--which, though a kind of ease, is but an uneasy kind of +ease, a comfort of rather an uncomfortable sort. + +I rejoice to hear of your Mother's amendment; when you can leave her +with any satisfaction to yourself--which, as her sister, I think I +understand by your letters, is with her, I hope you may soon be able to +do--let me know upon what plan you mean to come to Town. Your brother +proposed your being six months in Town, and six with your Mother; but he +did not then know of your poor Mother's illness. By his desire, I +enquired for a respectable family for you, to board with; and from +Capt'n. Burney I heard of one I thought would suit you at that time. He +particularly desires I would not think of your being with us, not +thinking, I conjecture, the home of a single man _respectable_ enough. +Your brother gave me most unlimited orders to domineer over you, to be +the inspector of all your actions, and to direct and govern you with a +stern voice and a high hand, to be, in short, a very elder brother over +you--does not the hearing of this, my meek pupil, make you long to come +to London? I am making all the proper enquiries against the time of the +newest and most approved modes (being myself mainly ignorant in these +points) of etiquette, and nicely correct maidenly manners. + +But to speak seriously. I mean, when we mean [? meet], that we will lay +our heads together, and consult and contrive the best way of making the +best girl in the world the fine Lady her brother wishes to see her; and +believe me, Sarah, it is not so difficult a matter as one is sometimes +apt to imagine. I have observed many a demure Lady, who passes muster +admirably well, who, I think, we could easily learn to imitate in a week +or two. We will talk of these things when we meet. In the mean time, I +give you free license to be happy and merry at Salisbury in any way you +can. Has the partridge-season opened any communication between you and +William--as I allow you to be imprudent till I see you, I shall expect +to hear you have invited him to taste his own birds. Have you scratched +him out of your will yet? Rickman is married, and that is all the news I +have to send you. + +Your Wigs were sent by Mr. Varvell about five months ago; therefore, he +could have arrived when you came away. + +I seem, upon looking over my letter again, to have written too lightly +of your distresses at Malta; but, however I may have written, believe +me, I enter very feelingly into all your troubles. I love you, and I +love your brother; and between you, both of whom I think have been to +blame, I know not what to say--only this I say, try to think as little +as possible of past miscarriages; it was, perhaps, so ordered by +Providence, that you might return home to be a comfort to your poor +Mother. And do not, I conjure you, let her unhappy malady afflict you +too deeply. I speak from experience, and from the opportunity I have had +of much observation in such cases, that insane people, in the fancy's +they take into their heads, do not feel as one in a sane state of mind +does under the real evil of poverty, the perception of having done +wrong, or any such thing that runs in their heads. + +Think as little as you can, and let your whole care be to be certain +that she is treated with _tenderness_. I lay a stress upon this, because +it is a thing of which people in her state are uncommonly susceptible, +and which hardly any one is at all aware of: a hired nurse never, even +though in all other respects they are good kind of people. I do not +think your own presence necessary, unless she _takes to you very much_, +except for the purpose of seeing with your own eyes that she is very +kindly treated. + +I do so long to see you! God bless and comfort you! +Yours affectionately, +M. LAMB. + +[Miss Stoddart had now returned to England, to her mother at Salisbury, +who had been and was very ill. Coleridge meanwhile had had coolnesses +with Stoddart and had transferred himself to the roof of the Governor. + +Rickman married, on October 30, 1805, Susanna Postlethwaite of Harting, +in Sussex.] + + + + +LETTER 140 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HAZLITT + +November 10, 1805. + +Dear Hazlitt,--I was very glad to hear from you, and that your journey +was so _picturesque_. We miss you, as we foretold we should. One or two +things have happened, which are beneath the dignity of epistolary +communication, but which, seated about our fire at night, (the winter +hands of pork have begun) gesture and emphasis might have talked into +some importance. Something about Rickman's wife, for instance: how tall +she is and that she visits prank'd out like a Queen of the May with +green streamers--a good-natured woman though, which is as much as you +can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a +bachelor. Some things too about MONKEY, which can't so well be +written--how it set up for a fine Lady, and thought it had got Lovers, +and was obliged to be convinc'd of its age from the parish register, +where it was proved to be only twelve; and an edict issued that it +should not give itself airs yet these four years; and how it got leave +to be called Miss, by grace;--these and such like Hows were in my head +to tell you, but who can write? Also how Manning's come to town in +spectacles, and studies physic; is melancholy and seems to have +something in his head, which he don't impart. Then, how I am going to +leave off smoking. O la! your Leonardos of Oxford made my mouth water. I +was hurried thro' the gallery, and they escaped me. What do I say? I was +a Goth then, and should not have noticed them. I had not settled my +notions of Beauty. I have now for ever!--the small head, the [_here is +drawn a long narrow eye_] long Eye,--that sort of peering curve, the +wicked Italian mischief! the stick-at-nothing, Herodias'-daughter kind +of grace. You understand me. But you disappoint me, in passing over in +absolute silence the Blenheim Leonardo. Didn't you see it? Excuse a +Lover's curiosity. I have seen no pictures of note since, except Mr. +Dawe's gallery. It is curious to see how differently two great men treat +the same subject, yet both excellent in their way: for instance, Milton +and Mr. Dawe. Mr. Dawe has chosen to illustrate the story of Sampson +exactly in the point of view in which Milton has been most happy: the +interview between the Jewish Hero, blind and captive, and Dalilah. +Milton has imagined his Locks grown again, strong as horse-hair or +porcupine's bristles; doubtless shaggy and black, as being hairs "which +of a nation armed contained the strength." I don't remember, he _says_ +black: but could Milton imagine them to be yellow? Do you? Mr. Dawe with +striking originality of conception has crowned him with a thin yellow +wig, in colour precisely like Dyson's, in curl and quantity resembling +Mrs. Professor's, his Limbs rather stout, about such a man as my Brother +or Rickman--but no Atlas nor Hercules, nor yet so bony as Dubois, the +Clown of Sadler's Wells. This was judicious, taking the spirit of the +story rather than the fact: for doubtless God could communicate national +salvation to the trust of flax and tow as well as hemp and cordage, and +could draw down a Temple with a golden tress as soon as with all the +cables of the British Navy.--Miss Dawe is about a portrait of sulky +Fanny Imlay, alias Godwin: but Miss Dawe is of opinion that her subject +is neither reserved nor sullen, and doubtless she will persuade the +picture to be of the same opinion. However, the features are tolerably +like--Too much of Dawes! Wasn't you sorry for Lord Nelson? I have +followed him in fancy ever since I saw him walking in Pall Mall (I was +prejudiced against him before) looking just as a Hero should look; and I +have been very much cut about it indeed. He was the only pretence of a +Great Man we had. Nobody is left of any Name at all. His Secretary died +by his side. I imagined him, a Mr. Scott, to be the man you met at +Hume's; but I learn from Mrs. Hume that it is not the same. I met Mrs. +H. one day, and agreed to go on the Sunday to Tea, but the rain +prevented us, and the distance. I have been to apologise, and we are to +dine there the first fine Sunday. Strange perverseness! I never went +while you staid here, and now I _go to find you_! What other news is +there, Mary?--What puns have I made in the last fortnight? You never +remember them. You have no relish for the Comic. "O! tell Hazlitt not to +forget to send the American Farmer. I dare say it isn't so good as he +fancies; but a Book's a Book." I have not heard from Wordsworth or from +Malta since. Charles Kemble, it seems, enters into possession to-morrow. +We sup at 109 Russell St. this evening. I wish your brother wouldn't +drink. It's a blemish in the greatest characters. You send me a modern +quotation poetical. How do you like this in an old play? Vittoria +Corombona, a spunky Italian Lady, a Leonardo one, nick-named the White +Devil, being on her trial for murder, &c.--and questioned about seducing +a Duke from his wife and the State, makes answer: + +"Condemn you me for that the Duke did love me? +So may you blame some fair and chrystal river, +For that some melancholic distracted man +Hath drown'd himself in it."-- + +Our ticket was a £20. Alas!! are both yours blanks? + +P.S.--Godwin has asked after you several times. + +N.B.--I shall expect a Line from you, if but a bare Line, whenever you +write to Russell St., and a Letter often when you do not. I pay no +postage; but I will have consideration for you until parliament time and +franks. Luck to Ned Search and the new art of colouring. Monkey sends +her Love, and Mary especially. + +Yours truly, +C. LAMB. + +[Addressed to Hazlitt at Wem. This is the first letter from Lamb to +Hazlitt that has been preserved. The two men first met at Godwin's. +Holcroft and Coleridge were disputing which was best--man as he is, or +man as he ought to be. Lamb broke in with, "Give me man as he ought +_not_ to be." + +Hazlitt at this date was twenty-six, some three years younger than Lamb. +He had just abandoned his project of being a painter and was settling +down to literary work. + +"Rickman's wife." This passage holds the germ of Lamb's essay on "The +Behaviour of Married Persons," first printed in the _Reflector_, No. +IV., in 1811 or 1812, and afterwards included with the _Elia_ essays. + +"Monkey" was Louisa Martin, a little girl of whom Lamb was fond and whom +he knew to the end of his life. + +Manning studied medicine at the Westminster Hospital for six months +previous to May, 1806. + +"The Oxford Leonardos ... the Blenheim Leonardo." The only Leonardos at +Oxford are the drawings at Christ Church. The Blenheim Leonardo was +probably Boltraffio's "Virgin and Child" which used to be ascribed to Da +Vinci, as indeed were many pictures he never painted. Hazlitt +subsequently wrote a work on the Picture Galleries of England, but he +mentions none of these works. + +"Mr. Dawe's gallery." George Dawe (1781-1829), afterwards R.A., of whom +Lamb wrote his essay "Recollections of a Late Royal Academician," where +he alludes again to the picture of Samson (see Vol. I. of this edition). + +"Dyson's." Dyson was a friend of Godwin. Mrs. Professor was Mrs. Godwin. + +"Miss Dawe." I know nothing further of George Dawe's sister. Fanny Imlay +was the unfortunate daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (by Gilbert +Imlay the author). She committed suicide in 1816. + +Nelson was killed on October 21, 1805. Scott was his chaplain, and he +was not killed. + +Hume was Joseph Hume, an official at Somerset House, whom we shall meet +again directly. + +The _American Farmer_ was very likely Gilbert Imlay's novel _The +Emigrants_, 1793, or possibly his _Topographical Description of the +Western Territory of North America_, 1792. + +Charles Kemble, brother of John Philip Kemble and father of Fanny +Kemble. + +John Hazlitt, the miniature painter, lived at 109 Russell Street. Lamb's +quotation, afterwards included in his _Dramatic Specimens_, 1808, is +from Webster's "The White Devil," Act III., Scene I. + +The £20 ticket was presumably in the Lottery. Lamb's essay "The +Illustrious Defunct" (see Vol. I.) shows him to have been interested in +Lotteries; and in Letter No. 184 Mary Lamb states that he wrote Lottery +puffs. + +"Ned Search." Hazlitt was engaged on an abridgment of _The Light of +Nature Pursued_, in seven volumes, 1768-1778, nominally by Edward +Search, but really by Abraham Tucker. + +"The new art of colouring" is a reference, I fancy, to Tingry, mentioned +again below.] + + + + +LETTER 141 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART +[November 9 and 14, 1805.] + +My dear Sarah,--After a very feverish night, I writ a letter to you; and +I have been distressed about it ever since. In the first place, I have +thought I treated too lightly your differences with your brother--which +I freely enter into and feel for, but which I rather wished to defer +saying much about till we meet. But that which gives me most concern is +the way in which I talked about your Mother's illness, and which I have +since feared you might construe into my having a doubt of your showing +her proper attention without my impertinent interference. God knows, +nothing of this kind was ever in my thoughts; but I have entered very +deeply into your affliction with regard to your Mother; and while I was +wishing, the many poor souls in the kind of desponding way she is in, +whom I have seen, came afresh into my mind; and all the mismanagement +with which I have seen them treated was strong in my mind, and I wrote +under a forcible impulse, which I could not at that time resist, but I +have fretted so much about it since, that I think it is the last time I +will ever let my pen run away with me. + +Your kind heart will, I know, even if you have been a little displeased, +forgive me, when I assure you my spirits have been so much hurt by my +last illness, that at times I hardly know what I do. I do not mean to +alarm you about myself, or to plead an excuse; but I am very much +otherwise than you have always known me. I do not think any one +perceives me altered, but I have lost all self-confidence in my own +actions, and one cause of my low spirits is, that I never feel satisfied +with any thing I do--a perception of not being in a sane state +perpetually haunts me. I am ashamed to confess this weakness to you; +which, as I am so sensible of, I ought to strive to conquer. But I tell +you, that you may excuse any part of my letter that has given offence: +for your not answering it, when you are such a punctual correspondent, +has made me very uneasy. + +Write immediately, my dear Sarah, but do not notice this letter, nor do +not mention any thing I said relative to your poor Mother. Your +handwriting will convince me you are friends with me; and if Charles, +who must see my letter, was to know I had first written foolishly, and +then fretted about the event of my folly, he would both ways be angry +with me. + +I would desire you to direct to me at home, but your hand is so well +known to Charles, that that would not do. Therefore, take no notice of +my megrums till we meet, which I most ardently long to do. An hour spent +in your company would be a cordial to my drooping heart. + +Pray write directly, and believe me, ever +Your affectionate friend, +M. LAMB. + +Nov. l4.--I have kept this by me till to-day, hoping every day to hear +from you. If you found the seal a clumsy one, it is because I opened the +wafer. + +Write, I beg, by the return of the post; and as I am very anxious to +hear whether you are, as I fear, dissatisfied with me, you shall, if you +please, direct my letter to Nurse. Her direction is, Mrs. Grant, at Mr. +Smith's, _Maidenhead_, Ram Court, Fleet Street. + +I was not able, you know, to notice, when I writ to Malta, your letter +concerning an insult you received from a vile wretch there; and as I +mostly show my letters to Charles, I have never named it since. Did it +ever come to your brother's knowledge? Charles and I were very uneasy at +your account of it. I wish I could see you. + +Yours ever, +M. LAMB. + +I do not mean to continue a secret correspondence, but you must oblige +me with this one letter. In future I will always show my letters before +they go, which will be a proper check upon my wayward pen. + + + + +LETTER 142 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[P.M. Nov. 15, 1805.] + +Dear Manning,--Certainly you could not have called at all hours from two +till ten, for we have been only out of an evening Monday and Tuesday in +this week. But if you think you have, your thought shall go for the +deed. We did pray for you on Wednesday night. Oysters unusually +luscious--pearls of extraordinary magnitude found in them. I have made +bracelets of them--given them in clusters to ladies. Last night we went +out in despite, because you were not come at your hour. + +This night we shall be at home, so shall we certainly both Sunday, +Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Take your choice, mind I don't say of +one, but choose which evening you will not, and come the other four. +Doors open at five o'clock. Shells forced about nine. Every gentleman +smokes or not as he pleases. O! I forgot, bring the £10, for fear you +should lose it. + +C. L. + +[Here should come a letter from Mary Lamb to Mrs. Clarkson, dated +December 25, 1805, printed by Mr. Macdonald. It states that Lamb has +been latterly in indifferent health, and is unimportant.] + + + + +LETTER 143 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HAZLITT + +Thursday, 15th Jan., 1806. + +Dear Hazlitt,--Godwin went to Johnson's yesterday about your business. +Johnson would not come down, or give any answer, but has promised to +open the manuscript, and to give you an answer in one month. Godwin will +punctually go again (Wednesday is Johnson's open day) yesterday four +weeks next: i.e. in one lunar month from this time. Till when Johnson +positively declines giving any answer. I wish you joy on ending your +Search. Mrs. H. was naming something about a Life of Fawcett, to be by +you undertaken: the great Fawcett, as she explain'd to Manning, when he +ask'd, _What Fawcett_? He innocently thought _Fawcett the player_. But +Fawcett the Divine is known to many people, albeit unknown to the +Chinese Enquirer. I should think, if you liked it, and Johnson declined +it, that Phillips is the man. He is perpetually bringing out +Biographies, Richardson, Wilkes, Foot, Lee Lewis, without number: little +trim things in two easy volumes price 12s. the two, made up of letters +to and from, scraps, posthumous trifles, anecdotes, and about forty +pages of hard biography. You might dish up a Fawcetiad in 3 months, and +ask 60 or 80 Pounds for it. I should dare say that Phillips would catch +at it--I wrote to you the other day in a great hurry. Did you get it? +This is merely a Letter of business at Godwin's request. + +Lord Nelson is quiet at last. His ghost only keeps a slight fluttering +in odes and elegies in newspapers, and impromptus, which could not be +got ready before the funeral. + +As for news--We have Miss Stoddart in our house, she has been with us a +fortnight and will stay a week or so longer. She is one of the few +people who are not in the way when they are with you. No tidings of +Coleridge. Fenwick is coming to town on Monday (if no kind angel +intervene) to surrender himself to prison. He hopes to get the Rules of +the Fleet. On the same, or nearly the same, day, Fell, my other quondam +co-friend and drinker, will go to Newgate, and his wife and 4 children, +I suppose, to the Parish. Plenty of reflection and motives of gratitude +to the wise disposer of all things in us, whose prudent conduct has +hitherto ensured us a warm fire and snug roof over our heads. _Nullum +numen abest si sit Prudentia_. + +Alas! Prudentia is in the last quarter of her tutelary shining over me. +A little time and I-- + +But may be I may, at last, hit upon some mode of collecting some of the +vast superfluities of this money-voiding town. Much is to be got, and I +don't want much. All I ask is time and leisure; and I am cruelly off for +them. + +When you have the inclination, I shall be very glad to have a letter +from you.--Your brother and Mrs. H., I am afraid, think hardly of us for +not coming oftener to see them, but we are distracted beyond what they +can conceive with visitors and visitings. I never have an hour for my +head to work quietly its own workings; which you know is as necessary to +the human system as sleep. + +Sleep, too, I can't get for these damn'd winds of a night: and without +sleep and rest what should ensue? Lunacy. But I trust it won't. + +Yours, dear H., mad or sober, +C. LAMB. + +[Hazlitt's business was finding a publisher for his abridgment of Search +(see page 340). Johnson was Priestley's publisher. A letter to Godwin +from Coleridge in June, 1803 (see Kegan Paul's _Life of Godwin_, ii., +96), had suggested such an abridgment, Coleridge adding that a friend of +his would make it, and that he would write a preface and see the proofs +through the press. Hence Godwin's share in the matter. Coleridge's part +of the transaction was not carried out. + +Hazlitt's Life of Joseph Fawcett (?1758-1804), the poet and dissenting +preacher of Walthamstow and Old Jewry, whom he had known intimately, was +not written. The Fawcett of whom Manning, the Chinese Enquirer, was +thinking was John Fawcett, famous as Dr. Pangloss and Caleb Quotem. + +"The Fleet"--the prison for debtors in Farringdon Street. Closed in +1844. The Rules of the Fleet were the limits within which prisoners for +debt were under certain conditions permitted to live: the north side of +Ludgate Hill, the Old Bailey up to Fleet Lane, Fleet Lane to Fleet +Market, and then back to Ludgate Hill. The Rules cost money: £10 for the +first £100 of the debt and for every additional £100, £4. Later, Fenwick +seems to have settled in America. + +Here should come an undated letter to Hazlitt, accompanied by Tingry's +_Painter's and Varnisher's Guide_, 1804. Hazlitt, who was then painting, +seems to have wanted prints of trees, probably for a background. Lamb +says that he has been hunting in shop windows for him. He adds: "To +supply poetry and wildness, you may read the _American Farmer_ over +again." The postscript runs, "Johnson shall not be forgot at his month's +end."] + + + + +LETTER 144 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN RICKMAN + +Jan. 25th, 1806. + +Dear Rickman,--You do not happen to have any place at your disposal +which would suit a decayed Literatus? I do not much expect that you +have, or that you will go much out of the way to serve the object, when +you hear it is Fenwick. But the case is, by a _mistaking_ of his _turn_, +as they call it, he is reduced, I am afraid, to extremities, and would +be extremely glad of a place in an office. Now it does sometimes happen, +that just as a man wants a place, a place wants him; and though this is +a lottery to which none but G.B. would choose to trust his all, there is +no harm just to call in at Despair's office for a friend, and see if +_his_ number is come up (B.'s further case I enclose by way of episode). +Now, if you should happen, or anybody you know, to want a _hand_, here +is a young man of solid but not brilliant genius, who would turn his +hand to the making out dockets, penning a manifesto, or scoring a tally, +not the worse (I hope) for knowing Latin and Greek, and having in youth +conversed with the philosophers. But from these follies I believe he is +thoroughly awakened, and would bind himself by a terrible oath never to +imagine himself an extraordinary genius again. + +Yours, &., +C. LAMB. + +[Mr. Hazlitt's text, which I follow here, makes Lamb appeal for Fenwick; +but other editors say Fell--except Talfourd, who says F. If, as Lamb +says in his previous letter, Fell was bound for Newgate and Fenwick only +for the Fleet, probably it was Fenwick. But the matter is not very +important. Fenwick and Fell both came into Lamb's life through Godwin +and at this point they drop out. The enclosure concerning George Burnett +is missing.] + + + + +LETTER 145 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +[Dated at end: February 1st, 1806.] + +Dear Wordsworth--I have seen the Books which you ordered, booked at the +White Horse Inn, Cripplegate, by the Kendal waggon this day 1st Feb'y. +1806; you will not fail to see after them in time. They are directed to +you at Grasmere. We have made some alteration in the Editions since your +sister's directions. The handsome quarto Spencer which she authorized +Mary to buy for £2. 12. 6, when she brought it home in triumph proved to +be _only the Fairy Queen_: so we got them to take it again and I have +procured instead a Folio, which luckily contains, besides all the Poems, +the view of the State of Ireland, which is difficult to meet with. The +Spencer, and the Chaucer, being noble old books, we did not think +Stockdale's modern volumes would look so well beside them; added to +which I don't know whether you are aware that the Print is _excessive_ +small, same as Eleg. Extracts, or smaller, not calculated for eyes in +age; and Shakespear is one of the last books one should like to give up, +perhaps the one just before the Dying Service in a large Prayer book. So +we have used our own discretion in purchasing Pope's fine Quarto in six +volumes, which may be read ad ultimam horam vitae. It is bound like Law +Books (rather, half bound) and the Law Robe I have ever thought as +comely and gentlemanly a garb as a Book would wish to wear. The state of +the purchase then stands thus, + +Urry's Chaucer £1. 16 -- +Pope's Shakespeare 2. 2 -- +Spenser 14 -- +Milton 1. 5 -- +Packing Case &c. 3. 6 + ____________ + 6. --. 6 + +Which your Brother immediately repaid us. He has the Bills for all (by +his desire) except the Spenser, which we took no bill with (not looking +to have our accounts audited): so for that and the Case he took a +separate receipt for 17/6. N.B. there is writing in the Shakespear: but +it is only variæ lectiones which some careful gentleman, the former +owner, was at the pains to insert in a very neat hand from 5 +Commentators. It is no defacement. The fault of Pope's edition is, that +he has comically and coxcombically marked the Beauties: which is vile, +as if you were to chalk up the cheek and across the nose of a handsome +woman in red chalk to shew where the comeliest parts lay. But I hope the +noble type and Library-appearance of the Books will atone for that. With +the Books come certain Books and Pamphlets of G. Dyer, Presents or +rather Decoy-ducks of the Poet to take in his thus-far obliged friends +to buy his other works; as he takes care to inform them in M.S. notes to +the Title Pages, "G. Dyer, Author of other Books printed for Longman +&c." The books have lain at your dispatchful brother's a 12 months, to +the great staling of most of the subjects. The three Letters and what is +else written at the beginning of the respective _Presents_ will +ascertain the division of the Property. If not, none of the Donees, I +dare say, will grudge a community of property in this case. We were +constrained to pack 'em how we could, for room. Also there comes W. +Hazlitt's book about Human Action, for Coleridge; a little song book for +Sarah Coleridge; a Box for Hartley which your Brother was to have sent, +but now devolved on us--I don't know from whom it came, but the things +altogether were too much for Mr. (I've forgot his name) to take charge +of; a Paraphrase on the King and Queen of Hearts, of which I being the +Author beg Mr. Johnny Wordsworth's acceptance and opinion. _Liberal +Criticism_, as G. Dyer declares, I am always ready to attend to!--And +that's all, I believe. N.B. I must remain Debtor to Dorothy for 200 +pens: but really Miss Stoddart (women are great gulfs of Stationery), +who is going home to Salisbury and has been with us some weeks, has +drained us to the very last pen: by the time S.T.C. passes thro' London +I reckon I shall be in full feather. No more news has transpired of that +Wanderer. I suppose he has found his way to some of his German friends. + +A propos of Spencer (you will find him mentioned a page or two before, +near enough for an a propos), I was discoursing on Poetry (as one's apt +to deceive onesself, and when a person is willing to _talk_ of what one +likes, to believe that he also likes the same: as Lovers do) with a +Young Gentleman of my office who is deep read in Anacreon Moore, Lord +Strangford, and the principal Modern Poets, and I happen'd to mention +Epithalamiums and that I could shew him a very fine one of Spencer's. At +the mention of this, my Gentleman, who is a very fine Gentleman, and is +brother to the Miss Evans who Coleridge so narrowly escaped marrying, +pricked up his ears and exprest great pleasure, and begged that I would +give him leave to copy it: he did not care how long it was (for I +objected the length), he should be very happy to see _any thing by him_. +Then pausing, and looking sad, he ejaculated POOR SPENCER! I begged to +know the reason of his ejaculation, thinking that Time had by this time +softened down any calamities which the Bard might have endured--"Why, +poor fellow!" said he "he has lost his Wife!" "Lost his Wife?" said I, +"Who are you talking of?" "Why, Spencer," said he. "I've read the Monody +he wrote on the occasion, and _a very pretty thing it is_." This led to +an explanation (it could be delay'd no longer) that the sound Spencer, +which when Poetry is talk'd of generally excites an image of an old Bard +in a Ruff, and sometimes with it dim notions of Sir P. Sydney and +perhaps Lord Burleigh, had raised in my Gentleman a quite contrary image +of The Honourable William Spencer, who has translated some things from +the German very prettily, which are publish'd with Lady Di. Beauclerk's +Designs. + +Nothing like defining of Terms when we talk. What blunders might I have +fallen into of quite inapplicable Criticism, but for this timely +explanation. + +N.B. At the beginning of _Edm._ Spencer (to prevent mistakes) I have +copied from my own copy, and primarily from a book of Chalmers on +Shakspear, a Sonnet of Spenser's never printed among his poems. It is +curious as being manly and rather Miltonic, and as a Sonnet of Spenser's +with nothing in it about Love or Knighthood. I have no room for +remembrances; but I hope our doing your commission will prove we do not +quite forget you. + +C. L. + +1 Feb., 1806. + +["Hazlitt's book about Human Action for Coleridge"--_An Essay on the +Principles of Human Action_, 1805. + +"A Paraphrase of the King and Queen of Hearts." This was a little book +for children by Lamb, illustrated by Mulready and published by T. +Hodgkins (for the Godwins) in 1806. It was discovered through this +passage in this letter and is reprinted in facsimile in Vol. III. of my +large edition. The title ran _The King and Queen of Hearts, with the +Rogueries of the Knave who stole away the Queen's Pies_. + +Coleridge had left Malta on September 21, 1805. He went to Naples, and +from there to Rome in January, 1806, where he stayed until May 18. + +"A propos of Spencer." This portion of the letter, owing to a mistake of +Talfourd's, is usually tacked on to one dated June, 1806. "Miss Evans." +See note to Letter 3. + +"Poor Spencer." William Robert Spencer (1769-1834) was the author of +_jeux d'esprit_ and poems. He is now known, if at all, by his ballad of +"Bed Gellert." He married the widow of Count Spreti, and in 1804 +published a book of elegies entitled "The Year of Sorrow." Spencer was +among the translators of Bürger's "Leonore," his version being +illustrated by Lady Diana Beauclerk (his great-aunt) in 1796. Lamb used +this anecdote as a little article in the _Reflector_, No. II., 1811, +entitled "On the Ambiguities arising from Proper Names" (see Vol. I. of +this edition). Lamb, however, by always spelling the real poet with a +"c," did nothing towards avoiding the ambiguity! + +This is the sonnet which Lamb copied into Wordsworth's Spenser from +George Chalmers' _Supplemental Apology for the Believers in the +Shakespeare-Papers_ (1799), page 94:-- + +To the Right worshipful, my singular good _friend_, Mr. Gabriel Harvey, +Doctor of the Laws:-- + +"Harvey, the happy above happiest men +I read: that sitting like a looker on +Of this world's stage, doest note with critique pen +The sharp dislikes of each condition: +And as one careless of suspition, +Ne fawnest for the favour of the great: +Ne fearest foolish reprehension +Of faulty men, which danger to thee threat. +But freely doest, of what thee list, entreat, +Like a great Lord of peerless liberty: +Lifting the good up to high honours seat, +And the Evil damning ever more to dy. +For life, _and_ death is [are] in thy doomful writing: +So thy renowne lives ever by endighting." + + +Dublin: this xviij of July, 1586; +Your devoted _friend_, during life, +EDMUND SPENSER.] + + + + +LETTER 146 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HAZLITT +[Dated at end: Feb. 19, 1806.] + +Dear H.--Godwin has just been here in his way from Johnson's. Johnson +has had a fire in his house; this happened about five weeks ago; it was +in the daytime, so it did not burn the house down, but did so much +damage that the house must come down, to be repaired: his nephew that we +met on Hampstead Hill put it out: well, this fire has put him so back, +that he craves one more month before he gives you an answer. + +I will certainly goad Godwin (if necessary) to go again this very day +four weeks; but I am confident he will want no goading. + +Three or four most capital auctions of Pictures advertised. In May, +Welbore Ellis Agar's, the first private collection in England, so +Holcroft says. In March, Sir George Young's in Stratford-place (where +Cosway lives), and a Mr. Hulse's at Blackheath, both very capital +collections, and have been announc'd for some months. Also the Marquis +of Lansdowne's Pictures in March; and though inferior to mention, +lastly, the Tructhsessian gallery. Don't your mouth water to be here? + +T'other night Loftus called, whom we have not seen since you went +before. We meditate a stroll next Wednesday, Fast-day. He happened to +light upon Mr. Holcroft's Wife, and Daughter, their first visit at our +house. + +Your brother called last night. We keep up our intimacy. He is going to +begin a large Madona and child from Mrs. H. and baby, I fear he goes +astray after ignes fatui. He is a clever man. By the bye, I saw a +miniature of his as far excelling any in his shew cupboard (that of your +sister not excepted) as that shew cupboard excells the shew things you +see in windows--an old woman--damn her name--but most superlative; he +has it to clean--I'll ask him the name--but the best miniature I ever +saw, equal to Cooper and them fellows. But for oil pictures!--what has +he [to] do with Madonas? if the Virgin Mary were alive and visitable, he +would not hazard himself in a Covent-Garden-pit-door crowd to see her. +It ain't his style of beauty, is it?--But he will go on painting things +he ought not to paint, and not painting things he ought to paint. + +Manning is not gone to China, but talks of going this Spring. God +forbid! + +Coleridge not heard of. + +I, going to leave off smoke. In mean time am so smoky with last night's +10 Pipes, that I must leave off. + +Mary begs her kind remembrances. + +Pray write to us-- + +This is no Letter, but I supposed you grew anxious about Johnson. + +N.B.--Have taken a room at 3/- a week, to be in between 5 & 8 at night, +to avoid my _nocturnal_ alias _knock-eternal_ visitors. The first-fruits +of my retirement has been a farce which goes to manager tomorrow. _Wish +my ticket luck._ God bless you, and do write,--Yours, _fumosissimus_, + +C. LAMB. + +Wednesday, 19 Feb., 1806. + +[Johnson was the publisher whom we have already seen considering +Hazlitt's abridgment of the _Light of Nature Revealed_. + +Lamb was always interested in sales of pictures: the on-view days gave +him some of his best opportunities of seeing good painting. The +Truchsessian Picture Gallery was in New Road, opposite Portland Place. +Exhibitions were held annually, the pictures being for sale. + +Loftus was Tom Loftus of Wisbech, a cousin of Hazlitt. + +Holcroft's wife at that time, his fourth, was Louisa Mercier, who +afterwards married Lamb's friend, James Kenney, the dramatist. The +daughter referred to was probably Fanny Holcroft, who subsequently wrote +novels and translations. + +Cooper, the miniature painter, was Samuel Cooper (1609-1672), a +connection by marriage of Pope's mother, and the painter of Cromwell and +other interesting men. + +Lamb's _N.B._ contains his first mention of his farce "Mr. H." We are +not told where the 3s. room was situated. Possibly in the Temple.] + + + + +LETTER 147 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART + +[? Feb. 20, 21 and 22, 1806.] + +My dear Sarah,--I have heard that Coleridge was lately going through +Sicily to Rome with a party, but that, being unwell, he returned back to +Naples. We think there is some mistake in this account, and that his +intended journey to Rome was in his former jaunt to Naples. If you know +that at that time he had any such intention, will you write instantly? +for I do not know whether I ought to write to Mrs. Coleridge or not. + +I am going to make a sort of promise to myself and to you, that I will +write you kind of journal-like letters of the daily what-we-do matters, +as they occur. This day seems to me a kind of new era in our time. It is +not a birthday, nor a new-year's day, nor a leave-off-smoking day; but +it is about an hour after the time of leaving you, our poor Phoenix, in +the Salisbury Stage; and Charles has just left me for the first time to +go to his lodgings; and I am holding a solitary consultation with myself +as to the how I shall employ myself. + +Writing plays, novels, poems, and all manner of such-like vapouring and +vapourish schemes are floating in my head, which at the same time aches +with the thought of parting from you, and is perplext at the idea of +I-cannot-tell-what-about notion that I have not made you half so +comfortable as I ought to have done, and a melancholy sense of the dull +prospect you have before you on your return home. Then I think I will +make my new gown; and now I consider the white petticoat will be better +candle-light worth; and then I look at the fire, and think, if the irons +was but down, I would iron my Gowns--you having put me out of conceit of +mangling. + +So much for an account of my own confused head; and now for yours. +Returning home from the Inn, we took that to pieces, and ca[n]vassed +you, as you know is our usual custom. We agreed we should miss you +sadly, and that you had been, what you yourself discovered, _not at all +in our way_; and although, if the Post Master should happen to open +this, it would appear to him to be no great compliment, yet you, who +enter so warmly into the interior of our affairs, will understand and +value it, as well as what we likewise asserted, that since you have been +with us you have done but one foolish thing, _vide_ Pinckhorn (excuse my +bad Latin, if it should chance to mean exactly contrary to what I +intend). We praised you for the very friendly way in which you regarded +all our whimsies, and, to use a phrase of Coleridge's, _understood us_. +We had, in short, no drawback on our eulogy on your merit, except +lamenting the want of respect you have to yourself--the want of a +certain dignity of action, you know what I mean, which--though it only +broke out in the acceptance of the old Justice's book, and was, as it +were, smothered and almost extinct, while you were here--yet is so +native a feeling in your mind, that you will do whatever the present +moment prompts you to do, that I wish you would take that one slight +offence seriously to heart, and make it a part of your daily +consideration to drive this unlucky propensity, root and branch, out of +your character.--Then, mercy on us, what a perfect little gentlewoman +you will be!!!-- + +You are not yet arrived at the first stage of your journey; yet have I +the sense of your absence so strong upon me, that I was really thinking +what news I had to send you, and what had happened since you had left +us. Truly nothing, except that Martin Burney met us in +Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, and borrowed four-pence, of the repayment of which +sum I will send you due notice. + +Friday [Feb. 21, 1806].--Last night I told Charles of your matrimonial +overtures from Mr. White, and of the cause of that business being at a +_stand-still_. Your generous conduct in acquainting Mr. White with the +vexatious affair at Malta highly pleased him. He entirely approves of +it. You would be quite comforted to hear what he said on the subject. + +He wishes you success, and, when Coleridge comes, will consult with him +about what is best to be done. But I charge you, be most strictly +cautious how you proceed yourself. Do not give Mr. W. any reason to +think you indiscreet; let him return of his own accord, and keep the +probability of his doing so full in your mind; so, I mean, as to +regulate your whole conduct by that expectation. Do not allow yourself +to see, or in any way renew your acquaintance with, William, nor do not +do any other silly thing of that kind; for, you may depend upon it, he +will be a kind of spy upon you, and, if he observes nothing that he +disapproves of, you will certainly hear of him again in time. + +Charles is gone to finish the farce, and I am to hear it read this +night. I am so uneasy between my hopes and fears of how I shall like it, +that I do not know what I am doing. I need not tell you so, for before I +send this I shall be able to tell you all about it. If I think it will +amuse you, I will send you a copy. _The bed was very cold last night._ + +Feb. 21 [?22]. I have received your letter, and am happy to hear that +your mother has been so well in your absence, which I wish had been +prolonged a little, for you have been wanted to copy out the Farce, in +the writing of which I made many an unlucky blunder. + +The said Farce I carried (after many consultations of who was the most +proper person to perform so important an office) to Wroughton, the +Manager of Drury Lane. He was very civil to me; said it did not depend +upon himself, but that he would put it into the Proprietors' hands, and +that we should certainly have an answer from them. + +I have been unable to finish this sheet before, for Charles has taken a +week's holidays [from his] lodging, to rest himself after his labour, +and we have talked to-night of nothing but the Farce night and day; but +yesterday [I carri]ed it to Wroughton; and since it has been out of the +[way, our] minds have been a little easier. I wish you had [been with] +us, to have given your opinion. I have half a mind to sc[ribble] another +copy, and send it you. I like it very much, and cannot help having great +hopes of its success. + +I would say I was very sorry for the death of Mr. White's father; but +not knowing the good old gentleman, I cannot help being as well +satisfied that he is gone--for his son will feel rather lonely, and so +perhaps he may chance to visit again Winterslow. You so well describe +your brother's grave lecturing letter, that you make me ashamed of part +of mine. I would fain rewrite it, leaving out my '_sage advice_;' but if +I begin another letter, something may fall out to prevent me from +finishing it,--and, therefore, skip over it as well as you can; it shall +be the last I ever send you. + +It is well enough, when one is talking to a friend, to hedge in an odd +word by way of counsel now and then; but there is something mighty +irksome in its staring upon one in a letter, where one ought only to see +kind words and friendly remembrances. + +I have heard a vague report from the _Dawes_ (the pleasant-looking young +lady we called upon was Miss Daw), that Coleridge returned back to +Naples: they are to make further enquiries, and let me know the +particulars. We have seen little or nothing of Manning since you went. +Your friend [George] Burnett calls as usual, for Charles to _point out +something for him_. I miss you sadly, and but for the fidget I have been +in about the Farce, I should have missed you still more. I am sorry you +cannot get your money. Continue to tell us all your perplexities, and do +not mind being called Widow Blackacre. + +Say all in your mind about your _Lover_, now Charles knows of it; he +will be as anxious to hear as me. All the time we can spare from talking +of the characters and plot of the Farce, we talk of you. I have got a +fresh bottle of Brandy to-day: if you were here, you should have a +glass, _three parts brandy_--so you should. I bought a pound of bacon +to-day, not so good as yours. I wish the little caps were finished. I am +glad the Medicines and the Cordials bore the fatigue of their journey so +well. I promise you I will write often, and _not mind the postage_. God +bless you. Charles does _not_ send his love, because he is not here. + +Yours affectionately, +M. LAMB. + +_Write as often as ever you can_. Do not work too hard. + +[Mr. Hazlitt dates this letter April, thinking that Mary Lamb's pen +slipped when she wrote February 21 half-way through. But I think +February must be right; because (1) Miss Stoddart has only just left, +and Lamb tells Hazlitt in January that she is staying a week or so +longer: April would make this time three months; and (2) Lamb has told +Hazlitt on February 19 that his farce is finished. + +Coleridge left Malta for Rome on September 21, 1805. He was probably at +Naples from October, 1805, to the end of January, 1806, when he went to +Rome, remaining there until May 18. Writing to Mrs. Clarkson on March 2, +1806, Dorothy Wordsworth quotes from a letter written on February 25 by +Mary Lamb to Mrs. S.T. Coleridge and containing this passage: "My +Brother has received a letter from Stoddart dated December 26, in which +he tells him that Coleridge was then at Naples. We have also heard from +a Mr. Dawe that a friend of his had received a letter of the same date, +which mentioned Coleridge having been lately travelling towards Rome +with a party of gentlemen; but that he changed his mind and returned +back to Naples. Stoddart says nothing more than that he was driven to +Naples in consequence of the French having taken possession of Trieste." +(See the _Athenæum_, January 23, 1904.) + +"_Vide_ Pinckhorn." I cannot explain this, unless a Justice Pinckhorn +had ogled Sarah Stoddart and offered her a present of a book. Mary Lamb, +by the way, some years later taught Latin to William Hazlitt, Junior, +Sarah's son. + +Martin Charles Burney, the son of Captain Burney, born in 1788, a +devoted admirer of the Lambs to the end. He was now only eighteen. We +shall often meet him again. + +Mr. White was not Lamb's friend James White. + +Winterslow, in Wiltshire, about six miles from Salisbury, was a small +property belonging to Sarah Stoddart. + +"Widow Blackacre." In Wycherley's "Plain Dealer:" a busy-body and +persistent litigant.] + + + + +LETTER 148 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART + +[March, 1806.] + +My dear Sarah,--No intention of forfeiting my promise, but mere want of +time, has prevented me from continuing my _journal_. You seem pleased +with the long, stupid one I sent, and, therefore, I shall certainly +continue to write at every opportunity. The reason why I have not had +any time to spare, is because Charles has given himself some holidays +after the hard labour of finishing his farce, and, therefore, I have had +none of the evening leisure I promised myself. Next week he promises to +go to work again. I wish he may happen to hit upon some new plan, to his +mind, for another farce: when once begun, I do not fear his +perseverance, but the holidays he has allowed himself, I fear, will +unsettle him. I look forward to next week with the same kind of anxiety +I did to the first entrance at the new lodging. We have had, as you +know, so many teasing anxieties of late, that I have got a kind of habit +of foreboding that we shall never be comfortable, and that he will never +settle to work: which I know is wrong, and which I will try with all my +might to overcome--for certainly, if I could but see things as they +really are, our prospects are considerably improved since the memorable +day of Mrs. Fenwick's last visit. I have heard nothing of that good +lady, or of the Fells, since you left us. + +We have been visiting a little--to Norris's, to Godwin's; and last night +we did not come home from Captain Burney's till two o'clock: the +_Saturday night_ was changed to _Friday_, because Rickman could not be +there to-night. We had the best _tea things_, and the litter all cleared +away, and every thing as handsome as possible--Mrs. Rickman being of the +party. Mrs. Rickman is much _increased in size_ since we saw her last, +and the alteration in her strait shape wonderfully improves her. +Phillips was there, and Charles had a long batch of Cribbage with him: +and, upon the whole, we had the most chearful evening I have known there +a long time. To-morrow, we dine at Holcroft's. These things rather +fatigue me; but I look for a quiet week next week, and hope for better +times. We have had Mrs. Brooks and all the Martins, and we have likewise +been there; so that I seem to have been in a continual bustle lately. I +do not think Charles cares so much for the Martins as he did, which is a +fact you will be glad to hear--though you must not name them when you +write: always remember, when I tell you any thing about them, not to +mention their names in return. + +We have had a letter from your brother, by the same mail as yours, I +suppose; he says he does not mean to return till summer, and that is all +he says about himself; his letter being entirely filled with a long +story about Lord Nelson--but nothing more than what the newspapers have +been full of, such as his last words, &c. Why does he tease you with so +much _good advice_? is it merely to fill up his letters as he filled +ours with Lord Nelson's exploits? or has any new thing come out against +you? has he discovered Mr. Curse-a-rat's correspondence? I hope you will +not write to that _news-sending_ gentleman any more. I promised never +more to give my _advice_, but one may be allowed to _hope_ a little; and +I also hope you will have something to tell me soon about Mr. W[hite]: +have you seen him yet? I am sorry to hear your Mother is not better, but +I am in a hoping humour just now, and I cannot help hoping that we shall +all see happier days. The bells are just now ringing for the taking of +the _Cape of Good Hope_. + +I have written to Mrs. Coleridge to tell her that her husband is at +Naples; your brother slightly named his being there, but he did not say +that he had heard from him himself. Charles is very busy at the Office; +he will be kept there to-day till seven or eight o'clock: and he came +home very _smoky and drinky_ last night; so that I am afraid a hard +day's work will not agree very well with him. + +0 dear! what shall I say next? Why this I will say next, that I wish you +was with me; I have been eating a mutton chop all alone, and I have been +just looking in the pint porter pot, which I find quite empty, and yet I +am still very dry. If you was with me, we would have a glass of brandy +and water; but it is quite impossible to drink brandy and water by +oneself; therefore, I must wait with patience till the kettle boils. I +hate to drink tea alone, it is worse than dining alone, We have got a +fresh cargo of biscuits from Captain Burney's. I have-- + +_March l4._--Here I was interrupted; and a long, tedious interval has +intervened, during which I have had neither time nor inclination to +write a word. The Lodging--that pride and pleasure of your heart and +mine--is given up, _and here he is again_--Charles, I mean--as unsettled +and as undetermined as ever. When he went to the poor lodging, after the +hollidays I told you he had taken, he could not endure the solitariness +of them, and I had no rest for the sole of my foot till I promised to +believe his solemn protestations that he could and would write as well +at home as there. Do you believe this? + +I have no power over Charles: he will do--what he will do. But I ought +to have some little influence over myself. And therefore I am most +manfully resolving to turn over a new leaf with my own mind. Your visit +to us, though not a very comfortable one to yourself, has been of great +use to me. I set you up in my fancy as a kind of _thing_ that takes an +interest in my concerns; and I hear you talking to me, and arguing the +matter very learnedly, when I give way to despondency. You shall hear a +good account of me, and the progress I make in altering my fretful +temper to a calm and quiet one. It is but being once thorowly convinced +one is wrong, to make one resolve to do so no more; and I know my dismal +faces have been almost as great a drawback upon Charles's comfort, as +his feverish, teazing ways have been upon mine. Our love for each other +has been the torment of our lives hitherto. I am most seriously +intending to bend the whole force of my mind to counteract this, and I +think I see some prospect of success. + +Of Charles ever bringing any work to pass at home, I am very doubtful; +and of the farce succeeding, I have little or no hope; but if I could +once get into the way of being chearful myself, I should see an easy +remedy in leaving town and living cheaply, almost wholly alone; but till +I do find we really are comfortable alone, and by ourselves, it seems a +dangerous experiment. We shall certainly stay where we are till after +next Christmas; and in the mean time, as I told you before, all my whole +thoughts shall be to _change_ myself into just such a chearful soul as +you would be in a lone house, with no companion but your brother, if you +had nothing to vex you--nor no means of wandering after _Curse-a-rats_. + +Do write soon: though I write all about myself, I am thinking all the +while of you, and I am uneasy at the length of time it seems since I +heard from you. Your Mother, and Mr. White, is running continually in my +head; and this _second winter_ makes me think how cold, damp, and +forlorn your solitary house will feel to you. I would your feet were +perched up again on our fender. + +Manning is not yet gone. Mrs. Holcroft is brought to bed. Mrs. Reynolds +has been confined at home with illness, but is recovering. God bless +you. + +Yours affectionately, +M. LAMB. + +["Norris's"--Randal Norris, sub-treasurer of the Inner Temple, whose +wife, _née_ Faint, came from Widford, where she had known Lamb's +grandmother, Mary Field. + +Captain Burney's whist parties, in Little James Street, Pimlico, were, +as a rule, on Saturdays. Later Lamb established a Wednesday party. + +Of Mrs. Brooks I have no knowledge; nor of him whom Mary Lamb called Mr. +Curse-a-rat. + +"The _Cape of Good Hope_." The Cape of Good Hope, having been taken by +the English in 1795 from the Dutch, and restored to them at the Peace of +Amiens in 1802, had just been retaken by the English. + +"Mrs. Holcroft is brought to bed." The child was Louisa, afterwards Mrs. +Badams, one of Lamb's correspondents late in life.] + + + + +LETTER 149 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN RICKMAN + +March, 1806. + +Dear Rickman,--I send you some papers about a salt-water soap, for which +the inventor is desirous of getting a parliamentary reward, like Dr. +Jenner. Whether such a project be feasible, I mainly doubt, taking for +granted the equal utility. I should suppose the usual way of paying such +projectors is by patents and contracts. The patent, you see, he has got. +A contract he is about with the Navy Board. Meantime, the projector is +hungry. Will you answer me two questions, and return them with the +papers as soon as you can? Imprimis, is there any chance of success in +application to Parliament for a reward? Did you ever hear of the +invention? You see its benefits and saving to the nation (always the +first motive with a true projector) are feelingly set forth: the last +paragraph but one of the estimate, in enumerating the shifts poor seamen +are put to, even approaches to the pathetic. But, agreeing to all he +says, is there the remotest chance of Parliament giving the projector +anything; and _when_ should application be made, now or after a report +(if he can get it) from the navy board? Secondly, let the infeasibility +be as great as you will, you will oblige me by telling me the way of +introducing such an application to Parliament, without buying over a +majority of members, which is totally out of projector's power. I vouch +nothing for the soap myself; for I always wash in _fresh water_, and +find it answer tolerably well for all purposes of cleanliness; nor do I +know the projector; but a relation of mine has put me on writing to you, +for whose parliamentary knowledge he has great veneration. + +P.S. The Capt. and Mrs. Burney and Phillips take their chance at +cribbage here on Wednesday. Will you and Mrs. R. join the party? Mary +desires her compliments to Mrs. R., and joins in the invitation. + +Yours truly, +C. LAMB. + +[Rickman now held the post of private secretary to the Speaker, Charles +Abbot, afterwards Lord Colchester. + +Captain Burney we have already met. His wife, Sarah Burney, was, there +is good reason to suppose, in Lamb's mind when he wrote the Elia essay +"Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist." Phillips was either Colonel Phillips, +a retired officer of marines, who had sailed with Burney and Captain +Cook, had known Dr. Johnson, and had married Burney's sister; or Ned +Phillips (Rickman's Secretary).] + + + + +LETTER 150 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HAZLITT + +March 15, 1806. + +Dear H.--I am a little surprised at no letter from you. This day week, +to wit, Saturday, the 8th of March, 1806, I booked off by the Wem coach, +Bull and Mouth Inn, directed to _you_, at the Rev. Mr. Hazlitt's, Wem, +Shropshire, a parcel containing, besides a book, &c., a rare print, +which I take to be a Titian; begging the said W.H. to acknowledge the +receipt thereof; which he not having done, I conclude the said parcel to +be lying at the inn, and may be lost; for which reason, lest you may be +a Wales-hunting at this instant, I have authorised any of your family, +whosoever first gets this, to open it, that so precious a parcel may not +moulder away for want of looking after. What do you in Shropshire when +so many fine pictures are a-going, a-going every day in London? Monday I +visit the Marquis of Lansdowne's, in Berkeley Square. Catalogue 2s. 6d. +Leonardos in plenty. Some other day this week I go to see Sir Wm. +Young's, in Stratford Place. Hulse's, of Blackheath, are also to be sold +this month; and in May, the first private collection in Europe, Welbore +Ellis Agar's. And there are you, perverting Nature in lying landscapes, +filched from old rusty Titians, such as I can scrape up here to send +you, with an additament from Shropshire Nature thrown in to make the +whole look unnatural. I am afraid of your mouth watering when I tell you +that Manning and I got into Angerstein's on Wednesday. _Mon Dieu_! Such +Claudes! Four Claudes bought for more than £10,000 (those who talk of +Wilson being equal to Claude are either mainly ignorant or stupid); one +of these was perfectly miraculous. What colours short of _bonâ fide_ +sunbeams it could be painted in, I am not earthly colourman enough to +say; but I did not think it had been in the possibility of things. Then, +a music-piece by Titian--a thousand-pound picture--five figures standing +behind a piano, the sixth playing; none of the heads, as M. observed, +indicating great men, or affecting it, but so sweetly disposed; all +leaning separate ways, but so easy--like a flock of some divine +shepherd; the colouring, like the economy of the picture, so sweet and +harmonious--as good as Shakspeare's "Twelfth Night,"--_almost_, that is. +It will give you a love of order, and cure you of restless, fidgetty +passions for a week after--more musical than the music which it would, +but cannot, yet in a manner _does_, show. I have no room for the rest. +Let me say, Angerstein sits in a room--his study (only that and the +library are shown)--when he writes a common letter, as I am doing, +surrounded with twenty pictures worth £60,000. What a luxury! Apicius +and Heliogabalus, hide your diminished heads! + +Yours, my dear painter, +C. LAMB. + +[Angerstein's was the house of John Julius Angerstein (1735-1823) the +financier, in Pall Mall. He had a magnificent collection of pictures, +£60,000 worth of which were bought on his death by the nation, to form +the nucleus of our National Gallery. A portrait of Angerstein by +Lawrence hangs there. The Titian of which Lamb speaks is now attributed +to the School of Titian. It is called "A Concert." Angerstein's Claudes +are also in the National Gallery.] + + + + +LETTER 151 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +May 10, 1806. + +My dear Manning--I didn't know what your going was till I shook a last +fist with you, and then 'twas just like having shaken hands with a +wretch on the fatal scaffold, and when you are down the ladder, you can +never stretch out to him again. Mary says you are dead, and there's +nothing to do but to leave it to time to do for us in the end what it +always does for those who mourn for people in such a case. But she'll +see by your letter you are not quite dead. A little kicking and agony, +and then--. Martin Burney _took me out_ a walking that evening, and we +talked of Mister Manning; and then I came home and smoked for you; and +at twelve o'Clock came home Mary and Monkey Louisa from the play, and +there was more talk and more smoking, and they all seemed first-rate +characters, because they knew a certain person. But what's the use of +talking about 'em? By the time you'll have made your escape from the +Kalmuks, you'll have staid so long I shall never be able to bring to +your mind who Mary was, who will have died about a year before, nor who +the Holcrofts were! Me perhaps you will mistake for Phillips, or +confound me with Mr. Daw, because you saw us together. Mary (whom you +seem to remember yet) is not quite easy that she had not a formal +parting from you. I wish it had so happened. But you must bring her a +token, a shawl or something, and remember a sprightly little Mandarin +for our mantle-piece, as a companion to the Child I am going to purchase +at the Museum. She says you saw her writings about the other day, and +she wishes you should know what they are. She is doing for Godwin's +bookseller twenty of Shakspear's plays, to be made into Children's +tales. Six are already done by her, to wit, 'The Tempest,' 'Winter's +Tale,' 'Midsummer Night,' 'Much Ado,' 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' and +'Cymbeline:' 'The Merchant of Venice' is in forwardness. I have done +'Othello' and 'Macbeth,' and mean to do all the tragedies. I think it +will be popular among the little people. Besides money. It is to bring +in 60 guineas. Mary has done them capitally, I think you'd think. These +are the humble amusements we propose, while you are gone to plant the +cross of Christ among barbarous Pagan anthropophagi. Quam homo homini +praestat! but then, perhaps, you'll get murder'd, and we shall die in +our beds with a fair literary reputation. Be sure, if you see any of +those people whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, that you make +a draught of them. It will be very curious. O Manning, I am serious to +sinking almost, when I think that all those evenings, which you have +made so pleasant, are gone perhaps for ever. Four years you talk of, +maybe ten, and you may come back and find such alterations! Some +circumstance may grow up to you or to me, that may be a bar to the +return of any such intimacy. I daresay all this is Hum, and that all +will come back; but indeed we die many deaths before we die, and I am +almost sick when I think that such a hold as I had of you is gone. I +have friends, but some of 'em are changed. Marriage, or some +circumstance, rises up to make them not the same. But I felt sure of +you. And that last token you gave me of expressing a wish to have my +name joined with yours, you know not how it affected me: like a legacy. + +God bless you in every way you can form a wish. May He give you health, +and safety, and the accomplishment of all your objects, and return you +again to us, to gladden some fireside or other (I suppose we shall be +moved from the Temple). I will nurse the remembrance of your steadiness +and quiet, which used to infuse something like itself into our nervous +minds. Mary called you our ventilator. Farewell, and take her best +wishes and mine. + +One thing more. When you get to Canton, you will most likely see a young +friend of mine, Inspector of Teas, named Ball. He is a very good fellow +and I should like to have my name talked of in China. Give my kind +remembrances to the same Ball. Good bye. + +C. L. + +I have made strict inquiries through my friend Thompson as to your +affairs with the Comp'y. If there had been a committee yesterday an +order would have been sent to the captain to draw on them for your +passage money, but there was no Committee. But in the secretary's orders +to receive you on board, it was specified that the Company would defray +your passage, all the orders about you to the supercargoes are certainly +in your ship. Here I will manage anything you may want done. What can I +add but take care of yourself. We drink tea with the Holcrofts +to-morrow. + +[Addressed to "Mr. Manning, Passenger on Board the _Thames_, East +Indiaman, Portsmouth." + +Manning sailed for China this month. He did not return to England until +1817. His nominal purpose was to practise medicine there, not to spread +Christianity, as Lamb suggests--probably in fun. + +This is Manning's reply to Lamb's letter:-- + +"Dear Lamb--As we are not sailed yet, and I have a few minutes, why +should not I give you a line to say that I received your kind letter +yesterday, and shall read it again before I have done with it. I am +sorry I had not time to call on Mary, but I did not even call on my own +Father, and he's 70 and loves me like a Father. I don't know that you +can do any thing for me at the India House: if you hear any thing there +about me, communicate it to Mr. Crabtree, 13, Newgate Street. I am not +dead, nor dying--some people go into Yorkshire for four [years], and I +have no currant jelly aboard. Tell Holcroft I received his kind letter." + +"T. MANNING for ever."] + + + + +LETTER 152 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART + +[Mr. W.C. Hazlitt dates: June 2, 1806.] + +My dear Sarah,--You say truly that I have sent you too many make-believe +letters. I do not mean to serve you so again, if I can help it. I have +been very ill for some days past with the toothache. Yesterday, I had it +drawn; and I feel myself greatly relieved, but far from easy, for my +head and my jaws still ache; and, being unable to do any business, I +would wish to write you a long letter, to atone for my former offences; +but I feel so languid, that I am afraid wishing is all I can do. + +I am sorry you are so worried with business; and I am still more sorry +for your sprained ancle. You ought not to walk upon it. What is the +matter between you and your good-natured maid you used to boast of? and +what the devil is the matter with your Aunt? You say she is +discontented. You must bear with them as well as you can; for, +doubtless, it is you[r] poor Mother's teazing that puts you all out of +sorts. I pity you from my heart. + +We cannot come to see you this summer, nor do I think it advisable to +come and incommode you, when you for the same expence could come to us. +Whenever you feel yourself disposed to run away from your troubles, come +up to us again. I wish it was not such a long, expensive journey, then +you could run backwards and forwards every month or two. + +I am very sorry you still hear nothing from Mr. White. I am afraid that +is all at an end. What do you intend to do about Mr. Turner? + +I believe Mr. Rickman is well again, but I have not been able to get out +lately to enquire, because of my toothache. Louisa Martin is quite well +again. + +William Hazlitt, the brother of him you know, is in town. I believe you +have heard us say we like him? He came in good time; for the loss of +Manning made Charles very dull, and he likes Hazlitt better than any +body, except Manning. + +My toothache has moped Charles to death: you know how he hates to see +people ill. + +Mrs. Reynolds has been this month past at Deptford, so that I never know +when Monday comes. I am glad you have got your Mother's pension. + +My _Tales_ are to be published in separate story-books; I mean, in +single stories, like the children's little shilling books. I cannot send +you them in Manuscript, because they are all in the Godwins' hands; but +one will be published very soon, and then you shall have it _all in +print_. I go on very well, and have no doubt but I shall always be able +to hit upon some such kind of job to keep going on. I think I shall get +fifty pounds a year at the lowest calculation; but as I have not yet +seen any _money_ of my own earning, for we do not expect to be paid till +Christmas, I do not feel the good fortune, that has so unexpectedly +befallen me, half so much as I ought to do. But another year, no doubt, +I shall perceive it. + +When I write again, you will hear tidings of the farce, for Charles is +to go in a few days to the Managers to enquire about it. But that must +now be a next-year's business too, even if it does succeed; so it's all +looking forward, and no prospect of present gain. But that's better than +no hopes at all, either for present or future times. + +Charles has written Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, and has begun Hamlet; +you would like to see us, as we often sit, writing on one table (but not +on one cushion sitting), like Hermia and Helena in the Midsummer's +Night's Dream; or, rather, like an old literary Darby and Joan: I taking +snuff, and he groaning all the while, and saying he can make nothing of +it, which he always says till he has finished, and then he finds out he +has made something of it. + +If I tell you that you Widow-Blackacreise, you must tell me I Tale-ise, +for my _Tales_ seem to be all the subject matter I write about; and when +you see them, you will think them poor little baby-stories to make such +a talk about; but I have no news to send, nor nothing, in short, to say, +that is worth paying two pence for. I wish I could get franks, then I +should not care how short or stupidly I wrote. + +Charles smokes still, and will smoke to the end of the chapter. + +Martin [Burney] has just been here. My Tales (_again_) and Charles's +Farce has made the boy mad to turn Author; and he has written a Farce, +and he has made the Winter's Tale into a story; but what Charles says of +himself is really true of Martin, for _he can make nothing at all of +it_: and I have been talking very eloquently this morning, to convince +him that nobody can write farces, &c., under thirty years of age. And so +I suppose he will go home and new model his farce. + +What is Mr. Turner? and what is likely to come of him? and how do you +like him? and what do you intend to do about it? I almost wish you to +remain single till your Mother dies, and then come and live with us; and +we would either get you a husband, or teach you how to live comfortably +without. I think I should like to have you always to the end of our +lives living with us; and I do not know any reason why that should not +be, except for the great fancy you seem to have for marrying, which +after all is but a hazardous kind of an affair: but, however, do as you +like; every man knows best what pleases himself best. + +I have known many single men I should have liked in my life (_if it had +suited them_) for a husband: but very few husbands have I ever wished +was mine, which is rather against the state in general; but one never is +disposed to envy wives their good husbands. So much for marrying--but +however, get married, if you can. + +I say we shall not come and see you, and I feel sure we shall not: but, +if some sudden freak was to come into our wayward heads, could you at +all manage?--Your Mother we should not mind, but I think still it would +be so vastly inconvenient.--I am certain we shall not come, and yet +_you_ may tell me, when you write, if it would be horribly inconvenient +if we did; and do not tell me any lies, but say truly whether you would +rather we did or not. + +God bless you, my dearest Sarah! I wish, for your sake, I could have +written a very amusing letter; but do not scold, for my head aches +sadly. Don't mind my headach, for before you get this it will be well, +being only from the pains of my jaws and teeth. Farewell. + +Yours affectionately, +M. LAMB. + +[This letter contains the first mention to Sarah Stoddart of William +Hazlitt, who was shortly to put an end to the claims both of Mr. White +and Mr. Turner. + +The _Tales from Shakespear_, although mainly Mary Lamb's book, did not +bear her name for many years, not until after her brother's death. Her +connection with it was, however, made public in more than one literary +year-book of her day. Originally they were to be unsigned, but Godwin +"cheated" Lamb into putting a name to them (see letter of Jan. 29, +1807). The single stories, which Mrs. Godwin issued at sixpence each, +are now excessively rare. The ordinary first edition in two volumes is a +valuable possession, much desired by collectors.] + + + + +LETTER 153 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +[P.M. June 26, 1806.] + +Dear Wordsworth--We got the six pounds safe in your sister's +letters--are pleased, you may be sure, with the good news of Mrs. +W.--hope all is well over by this time. "A fine boy!--have you any more? +one more and a girl--poor copies of me" vide MR. H. a farce which the +Proprietors have done me the honor--but I will set down Mr. Wroughton's +own words. N.B. the ensuing letter was sent in answer to one which I +wrote begging to know if my piece had any chance, as I might make +alterations, &c. I writing on the Monday, there comes this letter on the +Wednesday. Attend. + +(_Copy of a Letter from Mr. R'd. Wroughton_) + +Sir, Your Piece of Mr. H--I am desired to say, is accepted at Drury Lane +Theatre, by the Proprietors, and, if agreeable to you, will be brought +forwards when the proper opportunity serves--the Piece shall be sent to +you for your Alterations in the course of a few days, as the same is not +in my Hands but with the Proprietors. + +(dated) I am Sir, +66 Gower St., Your obedient ser't., +Wednesday R'd. WROUGHTON. +June 11, 1806. + +On the following Sunday Mr. Tobin comes. The scent of a manager's letter +brought him. He would have gone further any day on such a business. I +read the letter to him. He deems it authentic and peremptory. Our +conversation naturally fell upon pieces--different sorts of pieces--what +is the best way of offering a piece--how far the caprice of managers is +an obstacle in the way of a piece--how to judge of the merits of a +piece--how long a piece may remain in the hands of the managers before +it is acted--and my piece--and your piece--and my poor brother's +piece--my poor brother was all his life endeavouring to get a piece +accepted-- + +I am not sure that when _my poor Brother_ bequeathed the care of his +pieces to Mr. James Tobin he did not therein convey a legacy which in +some measure mollified the otherwise first stupefactions of grief. It +can't be expected that the present Earl Nelson passes all his time in +watering the laurels of the Admiral with Right Reverend Tears. Certainly +he steals a fine day now and then to plot how to lay out the grounds and +mansion at Burnham most suitably to the late Earl's taste, if he had +lived, and how to spend the hundred thousand pound parliament has given +him in erecting some little neat monument to his memory. + +MR. H. I wrote that in mere wantonness of triumph. Have nothing more to +say about it. The Managers I thank my stars have decided its merits for +ever. They are the best judges of pieces, and it would be insensible in +me to affect a false modesty after the very flattering letter which I +have received and the ample-- + +I think this will be as good a pattern for Orders as I can think on. A +little thin flowery border round, neat not gaudy, and the Drury Lane +Apollo with the harp at the top. Or shall I have no Apollo?--simply +nothing? Or perhaps the Comic Muse? + +The same form, only I think without the Apollo, will serve for the pit +and galleries. I think it will be best to write my name at full length; +but then if I give away a great many, that will be tedious. Perhaps _Ch. +Lamb_ will do. BOXES now I think on it I'll have in Capitals. The rest +in a neat Italian hand. Or better perhaps, BOXES, in old English +character, like Madoc or Thalaba? + +I suppose you know poor Mountague has lost his wife. That has been the +reason for my sending off all we have got of yours separately. I thought +it a bad time to trouble him. The Tea 25 lb. in 5 5 lb. Papers, two +sheets to each, with the chocolate which we were afraid Mrs. W. would +want, comes in one Box and the Hats in a small one. I booked them off +last night by the Kendal waggon. There comes with this letter (no, it +comes a day or two earlier) a Letter for you from the Doctor at Malta, +about Coleridge, just received. Nothing of certainty, you see, only that +he is not at Malta. We supt with the Clarksons one night--Mrs. Clarkson +pretty well. Mr. C. somewhat fidgety, but a good man. The Baby has been +on a visit to Mrs. Charlotte Smith, Novellist and morals-trainer, but is +returned. [_A short passage omitted here._] + +Mary is just stuck fast in All's Well that Ends Well. She complains of +having to set forth so many female characters in boy's clothes. She +begins to think Shakspear must have wanted Imagination. I to encourage +her, for she often faints in the prosecution of her great work, flatter +her with telling her how well such a play and such a play is done. But +she is stuck fast and I have been obliged to promise to assist her. To +do this it will be necessary to leave off Tobacco. But I had some +thoughts of doing that before, for I sometimes think it does not agree +with me. W. Hazlitt is in Town. I took him to see a very pretty girl +professedly, where there were two young girls--the very head and sum of +the Girlery was two young girls--they neither laughed nor sneered nor +giggled nor whispered--but they were young girls--and he sat and frowned +blacker and blacker, indignant that there should be such a thing as +Youth and Beauty, till he tore me away before supper in perfect misery +and owned he could not bear young girls. They drove him mad. So I took +him home to my old Nurse, where he recover'd perfect tranquillity. +Independent of this, and as I am not a young girl myself, he is a great +acquisition to us. He is, rather imprudently, I think, printing a +political pamphlet on his own account, and will have to pay for the +paper, &c. The first duty of an Author, I take it, is never to pay +anything. But non cuivis attigit adire Corinthum. The Managers I thank +my stars have settled that question for me. + +Yours truly, +C. LAMB. + +[Wordsworth's third child, Thomas, who did not grow up, was born June +16, 1806. + +"A fine boy!" The quotation is from Mr. H.'s soliloquy after the +discovery of his name:--"No son of mine shall exist, to bear my +ill-fated name. No nurse come chuckling, to tell me it is a boy. No +midwife, leering at me from under the lids of professional gravity. I +dreamed of caudle. (_Sings in a melancholy tone_) Lullaby, Lullaby,-- +hush-a-by-baby--how like its papa it is!--(_makes motions as if he was +nursing_). And then, when grown up, 'Is this your son, sir?' 'Yes, sir, +a poor copy of me,--a sad young dog!--just what his father was at his +age,--I have four more at home.' Oh! oh! oh!" + +Tobin was James Tobin, whom we have already met, brother of the late +dramatist, John Tobin. + +Poor Mountague would be Basil Montagu, whose second wife had just died. +He married afterwards Anne Skepper, whom Lamb came to know well, and of +whom he speaks in his _Elia_ essay "Oxford in the Vacation." + +The Doctor was Dr. Stoddart. Coleridge had left Malta some months +before, as we have seen. He had also left Rome and was in some foreign +town unknown, probably not far from Leghorn, whence he sailed for +England in the following month, reaching Portsmouth in August. + +The Baby was Mrs. Godwin, and Charlotte Smith was the poetess (of great +fame in her day, but now forgotten), who was then living at Tilford, +near Farnham, in Surrey. She died in the following October. The passage +which I have, with extreme reluctance, omitted, refers to the physical +development of the two ladies. Lamb was writing just then less for +Wordsworth than Antiquity. + +Hazlitt's political pamphlet was his _Free Thoughts on Public Affairs_, +1806.] + + + + +LETTER 154 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART + +[No date. ? Begun on Friday, July 4, 1806.] + +Charles and Hazlitt are going to Sadler's Wells, and I am amusing myself +in their absence with reading a manuscript of Hazlitt's; but have laid +it down to write a few lines, to tell you how we are going on. Charles +has begged a month's hollidays, of which this is the first day, and they +are all to be spent at home. We thank you for your kind invitations, and +were half-inclined to come down to you; but after mature deliberation, +and many wise consultations, such as you know we often hold, we came to +the resolution of staying quietly at home: and during the hollidays we +are both of us to set stoutly to work and finish the Tales, six of them +being yet to do. We thought, if we went anywhere and left them undone, +they would lay upon our minds; and that when we returned, we should feel +unsettled, and our money all spent besides: and next summer we are to be +very rich, and then we can afford a long journey some where, I will not +say to Salisbury, because I really think it is better for you to come to +us; but of that we will talk another time. + +The best news I have to send you is, that the Farce is accepted. That is +to say, the manager has written to say it shall be brought out when an +opportunity serves. I hope that it may come out by next Christmas: you +must come and see it the first night; for if it succeeds, it will be a +great pleasure to you, and if it should not, we shall want your +consolation. So you must come. + +I shall soon have done my work, and know not what to begin next. Now, +will you set your brains to work and invent a story, either for a short +child's story, or a long one that would make a kind of Novel, or a Story +that would make a play. Charles wants me to write a play, but I am not +over anxious to set about it; but seriously will you draw me out a +skeleton of a story, either from memory of any thing that you have read, +or from your own invention, and I will fill it up in some way or other. + +The reason I have not written so long is, that I worked, and worked, in +hopes to get through my task before the hollidays began; but at last I +was not able, for Charles was forced to get them now, or he could not +have had any at all: and having picked out the best stories first, these +latter ones take more time, being more perplext and unmanageable. But +however I hope soon to tell you that they are quite completed. I have +finished one to-day which teazed me more than all the rest put together. +The[y] sometimes plague me as bad as your _Lovers_ do you. How do you go +on, and how many new ones have you had lately? + +I met Mrs. Fenwick at Mrs. Holcroft's the other day; she loo[ked very] +placid and smiling, but I was so disconcerted that I hardly knew how to +sit upon my chair. She invited us to come and see her, but we did not +invite her in return; and nothing at all was said in an explanatory +sort: so that matter rests at present. + +Mrs. Rickman continues very ill--so ill, that there are no hopes of her +recovery--for which I am very sorry indeed. + +I am sorry you are altogether so uncomfortable; I shall be glad to hear +you are settled at Salisbury: that must be better than living in a lone +house, companionless as you are. I wish you could afford to bring your +Mother up to London; but that is quite impossible. + +Your brother wrote a letter a week ago (which passed through our hands) +to Wordsworth, to tell him all he knew of Coleridge; but as he had not +heard from C. for some time, there was nothing in the letter we did not +know before. + +Thanks for your brother's letters. I preserve them very carefully, and +you shall have them (as the Manager says) when opportunity serves. + +Mrs. Wordsworth is brought to bed; and I ought to write to Miss +Wordsworth to thank her for the information, but I suppose I shall defer +it till another child is coming. I do so hate writing letters. I wish +all my friends would come and live in town. Charles has been telling me +even it is better [than] two months that he ought to write to your +brother. [It is not] my dislike to writing letters that prevents my +[writing] to you, but sheer want of time, I assure you, because [I know] +you care not how stupidly I write, so as you do but [hear at the] time +what we are about. + +Let me hear from you soon, and do let me hear some [good news,] and +don't let me hear of your walking with sprained ancles again; no +business is an excuse for making yourself lame. + +I hope your poor Mother is better, and Aunty and Maid jog on pretty +well; remember me to them all in due form and order. Charles's love, and +our best wishes that all your little busy affairs may come to a +prosperous conclusion. + +Yours affectionately, +M. LAMB. + +Friday evening. + +[_Added later:_--] + +They (Hazlitt and Charles) came home from Sadler's Wells so dismal and +dreary dull on Friday, that I gave them both a good scolding--_quite a +setting to rights_; and I think it has done some good, for Charles has +been very chearful ever since. I begin to hope the _home hollidays_ will +go on very well. Mrs. Rickman is better. Rickman we saw at Captain +Burney's for the first time since her illness last night. + +Write directly, for I am uneasy about your _Lovers_; I wish something +was settled. God bless you. + +Once more, yours affectionately, +M. LAMB. + +_Sunday morning [July 6, or more probably 13]_.--I did not put this in +the post, hoping to be able to write a less dull letter to you this +morning; but I have been prevented, so it shall go as it is. I am in +good spirits just at this present time, for Charles has been reading +over the _Tale_ I told you plagued me so much, and he thinks it one of +the very best: it is All's Well that Ends Well. You must not mind the +many wretchedly dull letters I have sent you; for, indeed, I cannot help +it, my mind is so _dry_ always after poring over my work all day. But it +will soon be over. + +I am cooking a shoulder of Lamb (Hazlitt dines with us); it will be +ready at two o'Clock, if you can pop in and eat a bit with us. + +[The programme at Sadler's Wells on July 4, 1806, was: "Aquatic Theatre, +Sadler's Wells. A new dance called Grist and Puff, or the Highland +Fling. The admired comic pantomime, Harlequin and the Water Kelpe. New +melodramatic Romance, The Invisible Ring; or, The Water Monstre and Fire +Spectre." The author of both was Mr. C. Dibdin, Jun. "Real water." + +Mary Lamb's next work, after the _Tales from Shakespear_, was _Mrs. +Leicester's School_. Charles Lamb meanwhile was preparing his _Dramatic +Specimens_ and _Adventures of Ulysses_. + +Mrs. Rickman did not die then, She lived until 1836.] + + + + +LETTER 155 + + +MARY LAMB TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH + +[P.M. August 29, 1806.] + +My dear Miss Wordsworth--After I had put my letter in the post yesterday +I was uneasy all the night because of some few expressions relative to +poor Coleridge--I mean, in saying I wished your brother would come to +town and that I wished your brother would consult Mr. Southey. I am very +sure your brother will take no step in consequence of any foolish advice +that I can give him, so far I am easy, but the painful reflections I +have had during a sleepless night has induced me to write merely to +quiet myself, because I have felt ever since, that in the present +situation of Coleridge, returned after an absence of two years, and +feeling a reluctance to return to his family, I ought not to throw in +the weight of a hair in advising you or your Brother, and that I ought +not to have so much as named to you his reluctance to return to Keswick, +for so little is it in my power to calculate on his actions that perhaps +in a few days he may be on his return home. + +You, my dear friend, will perfectly understand me that I do not mean +that I might not freely say to you anything that is upon my mind--but +[the] truth is, my poor mind is so weak that I never dare trust my own +judgement in anything: what I think one hour a fit of low spirits makes +me unthink the next. Yesterday I wrote, anxiously longing for Mr. +Wordsworth and Mr. Southey to endeavour to bring Mrs. C. to consent to a +separation, and to day I think of the letter I received from Mrs. +Coleridge, telling me, as joyful news, that her husband is arrived, and +I feel it very wrong in me even in the remotest degree to do anything to +prevent her seeing that husband--she and her husband being the only +people who ought to be concerned in the affair. + +All that I have said, or meant to say, you will perfectly understand, it +being nothing more than to beg you will consider both my letter to day +and yesterday as if you had not read either, they being both equally the +effect of low spirits, brought on by the fatigue of Coleridge's +conversation and the anxious care even to misery which I have felt since +he has been here, that something could be done to make such an admirable +creature happy. Nor has, I assure you, Mrs. Coleridge been without her +full share in adding to my uneasiness. They say she grows fat and is +very happy--and people say I grow fat and look happy-- + +It is foolish to teize you about my anxieties, you will feel quite +enough on the subject yourself, and your little ones are all ill, and no +doubt you are fatigued with nursing, but I could not help writing to +day, to tell you how what I said yesterday has vext and worried me. Burn +both these foolish letters and do not name the subject of them, because +Charles will either blame me for having written something improper or he +will laugh at me for my foolish fears about nothing. + +Though I wish you not to take notice of what I have said, yet I shall +rejoice to see a letter from you, and I hope, when you have half an +hour's leisure, to see a line from you. We have not heard from Coleridge +since he went out of town, but I dare say you have heard either from him +or Mrs. Clarkson. + +I remain my dear friend +Yours most affectionately +M. LAMB. + +Friday [August 29]. + +[For the full understanding of Mary Lamb's letter it is necessary to +read Coleridge's Life and his Letters. Coleridge on his return from +abroad reached London August 17, 1806, and took up his quarters with the +Lambs on the following day. He once more joined Stuart, then editing the +_Courier_, but much of his old enthusiasm had gone. In Mr. Dykes +Campbell's words:-- + +"Almost his first words to Stuart were: 'I am literally afraid, even to +cowardice, to ask for any person, or of any person.' Spite of the +friendliest and most unquestioning welcome from all most dear to him, it +was the saddest of home-comings, for the very sympathy held out with +both hands induced only a bitter, hopeless feeling of remorse--a + +"'Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain;-- +And genius given, and knowledge won in vain;--' + +"of broken promises,--promises to friends and promises to himself; and +above all, sense of a will paralysed--dead perhaps, killed by his own +hand." + +Coleridge remained at Lamb's at any rate until August 29, afterwards +taking rooms in the _Courier_ office at 348 Strand. Meanwhile his +reluctance to meet or communicate with his wife was causing his friends +much concern, none more so than Mary Lamb, who wrote at least two +letters filled with anxious sympathy to Dorothy Wordsworth on the +subject, asking for the mediation of Wordsworth or Southey. Her earlier +letter is missing. + +To quote Mr. Dykes Campbell again:-- + +"On September 16--just a month after his landing--he wrote his first +letter to his wife, to say that he might be expected at Greta Hall on +the 29th. + +"Before this, Wordsworth had informed Sir George Beaumont that Coleridge +'dare not go home, he recoils so much from the thought of domesticating +with Mrs. Coleridge, with whom, though on many accounts he much respects +her, he is so miserable that he dare not encounter it. What a deplorable +thing! I have written to him to say that if he does not come down +immediately I must insist upon seeing him some-where. If he appoints +London I shall go. + +"'I believe if anything good is to be done for him it must be done by +me.'" + +"It was this letter of Wordsworth, doubtless, which drew Coleridge to +the North. Dorothy's letter to Lady Beaumont, written on receipt of the +announcement of Coleridge's home-coming, goes copiously and minutely +into the reasons for the estrangement between the poet and his wife. +Miss Wordsworth still had hopes of an improvement. 'Poor soul!' she +writes, 'he had a struggle of many years, striving to bring Mrs. C. to a +change of temper, and something like communion with him in his +enjoyments. He is now, I trust, effectually convinced that he has no +power of that sort,' and may, she thinks, if he will be 'reconciled to +that one great want, want of sympathy,' live at home in peace and quiet. +'Mrs. C. has many excellent properties, as you observe; she is +unremitting in her attention as a nurse to her children, and, indeed, I +believe she would have made an excellent wife to many persons. Coleridge +is as little fitted for her as she for him, and I am truly sorry for +her.'" + +It might perhaps be stated here that the separation was agreed upon in +December. At the end of that month Coleridge visited the Wordsworths at +Coleorton with Hartley, and in a few days began to be "more like his old +self"--in Dorothy Wordsworth's phrase. + +I append an undated letter which may belong to this period:--] + + + + +LETTER 156 + + +MARY LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +Dear Coleridge--I have read your silly, very silly, letter, and between +laughing and crying I hardly know how to answer it. You are too serious +and too kind a vast deal, for we are not much used to either seriousness +or kindness from our present friends, and therefore your letter has put +me into a greater hurry of spirits that [? than] your pleasant segar did +last night, for believe me your two odd faces amused me much more than +the mighty transgression vexed me. If Charles had not smoked last night +his virtue would not have lasted longer than tonight, and now perhaps +with a little of your good counsel he will refrain. Be not too serious +if he smokes all the time you are with us--a few chearful evenings spent +with you serves to bear up our spirits many a long and weary year--and +the very being led into the crime by your segar that you thought so +harmless, will serve for our amusement many a dreary time when we can +get no letter nor hear no tidings of you. + +You must positively must write to Mrs. Coleridge this day, and you must +write here, that I may know you write, or you must come and dictate a +letter for me to write to her. I know all that you would say in defence +of not writing and I allow in full force everything that [you] can say +or think, but yet a letter from me or you _shall go today_. + +I wanted to tell you, but feared to begin the subject, how well your +children are, how Pypos thrives and what a nice child Sara is, and above +all I hear such favourable accounts from Southey, from Wordsworth and +Hazlitt, of Hartley. + +I have got Wordsworth's letters out for you to look at, but you shall +not see them or talk of them without you like--Only come here as soon as +you receive this, and I will not teize you about writing, but will +manage a few lines, Charles and I between us. But something like a +letter shall go today. + +Come directly +Yours affectionately, +M. LAMB. + + + + +LETTER 157 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART +[P.M. October 23, 1806.] + +My dear Sarah--I thank you a thousand times for the beautiful work you +have sent me, I received the parcel from a strange gentleman yesterday. +I like the patterns very much, you have quite set me up in finery, but +you should have sent the silk handkerchief too. Will you make a parcel +of that and send it by the Salisbury coach--I should like to have it in +a few days because we have not yet been to Mr. Babbs and that +handkerchief would suit this time of year nicely. + +I have received a long letter from your brother on the subject of your +intended marriage. I have no doubt but you also have one on this +business, therefore it is needless to repeat what he says. I am well +pleased to find that upon the whole he does not seem to see it in an +unfavorable light. He says that, if Mr. D. is a worthy man he shall have +no objection to become the brother of a farmer, and he makes an odd +request to me that I shall set out to Salisbury to look at and examine +into the merits of the said Mr. D., and speaks very confidently as if +you would abide by my determination. A pretty sort of an office +truly.--Shall I come? + +The objections he starts are only such as you and I have already talked +over, such as the difference in age, education, habits of life, &c. + +You have gone too far in this affair for any interference to be at all +desirable, and if you had not, I really do not know what my wishes would +be. When you bring Mr. Dowling at Christmas I suppose it will be quite +time enough for me to sit in judgement upon him, but my examination will +not be a very severe one. If you fancy a very young man, and he likes an +elderly gentlewoman; if he likes a learned and accomplished lady, and +you like a not very learned youth, who may need a little polishing, +which probably he will never acquire; it is all very well, and God bless +you both together and may you be both very long in the same mind. + +I am to assist you too, your brother says, in drawing up the marriage +settlements--another thankful office! I am not, it seems, to suffer you +to keep too much money in your own power, and yet I am to take care of +you in case of bankruptcy &c., and I am to recommend to you, for the +better management of this point, the serious perusal of _Jeremy Taylor_ +his opinion on the marriage state, especially his advice against +_separate interests_ in that happy state, and I am also to tell you how +desirable it is that the husband should have the intire direction of all +money concerns, except, as your good brother adds, in the case of his +own family, where the money, he observes, is very properly deposited in +Mrs. Stoddart's hands, she being better suited to enjoy such a trust +than any other woman, and therefore it is fit that the general rule +should not be extended to her. + +We will talk over these things when you come to town, and as to +settlements, which are matters of which, I never having had a penny in +my own disposal, I never in my life thought of--and if I had been +blessed with a good fortune, and that marvellous blessing to boot, a +husband, I verily believe I should have crammed it all uncounted into +his pocket--But thou hast a cooler head of thy own, and I dare say will +do exactly what is expedient and proper, but your brother's opinion +seems somewhat like Mr. Barwis's and I dare say you will take it into +due consideration, yet perhaps an offer of your own money to take a farm +may make _uncle_ do less for his nephew, and in that case Mr. D. might +be a loser by your generosity. Weigh all these things well, and if you +can so contrive it, let your brother _settle_ the _settlements_ himself +when he returns, which will most probably be long before you want them. + +You are settled, it seems, in the very house which your brother most +dislikes. If you find this house very inconvenient, get out of it as +fast as you can, for your brother says he sent you the fifty pound to +make you comfortable, and by the general tone of his letter I am sure he +wishes to make you easy in money matters: therefore why straiten +yourself to pay the debt you owe him, which I am well assured he never +means to take? Thank you for the letter and for the picture of pretty +little chubby nephew John. + +I have been busy making waistcoats and plotting new work to succeed the +Tales. As yet I have not hit upon any thing to my mind. + +Charles took an emendated copy of his farce to Mr. Wroughton the Manager +yesterday. Mr. Wroughton was very friendly to him, and expressed high +approbation of the farce, but there are two, he tells him, to come out +before it, yet he gave him hopes that it will come out this season, but +I am afraid you will not see it by Christmas. It will do for another +jaunt for you in the spring. We are pretty well and in fresh spirits +about this farce. Charles has been very good lately in the matter of +_Smoking_. + +When you come bring the gown you wish to sell. Mrs. Coleridge will be in +town then, and if she happens not to fancy it, perhaps some other person +may. + +Coleridge I believe is gone home; he left us with that design but we +have not heard from him this fortnight. + +Louisa sends her love; she has been very unwell lately. + +My respects to Coridon, Mother, and Aunty. + +Farewel, my best wishes are with you. + +Yours affectionately, +M. LAMB. + +Thursday. + +When I saw what a prodigious quantity of work you had put into the +finery I was quite ashamed of my unreasonable request, I will never +serve you so again, but I do dearly love worked muslin. + +[Sarah Stoddart now had a new lover, Mr. Dowling, to whom she seems +actually to have become engaged. Mr. Barwis, I presume, was Mr. +Dowling's uncle. Coridon would, I imagine, be Mr. Dowling.] + + + + +LETTER 158 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +5th Dec., 1806. + +Tuthill is at Crabtree's who has married Tuthill's sister. + +Manning, your letter dated Hottentots, August the what-was-it? came to +hand. I can scarce hope that mine will have the same luck. China-- +Canton--bless us--how it strains the imagination and makes it ache! I +write under another uncertainty, whether it can go to-morrow by a ship +which I have just learned is going off direct to your part of the world, +or whether the despatches may not be sealed up and this have to wait, +for if it is detained here, it will grow staler in a fortnight than in a +five months' voyage coming to you. It will be a point of conscience to +send you none but brand-new news (the latest edition), which will but +grow the better, like oranges, for a sea voyage. Oh, that you should be +so many hemispheres off--if I speak incorrectly you can correct me--why, +the simplest death or marriage that takes place here must be important +to you as news in the old Bastile. There's your friend Tuthill has got +away from France--you remember France? and Tuthill?--ten-to-one but he +writes by this post, if he don't get my note in time, apprising him of +the vessel sailing. Know then that he has found means to obtain leave +from Bonaparte without making use of any _incredible romantic pretences_ +as some have done, who never meant to fulfil them, to come home; and I +have seen him here and at Holcroft's. I have likewise seen his wife, +this elegant little French woman whose hair reaches to her heels--by the +same token that Tom (Tommy H.) took the comb out of her head, not +expecting the issue, and it fell down to the ground to his utter +consternation, two ells long. An't you glad about Tuthill? Now then be +sorry for Holcroft, whose new play, called "The Vindictive Man," was +damned about a fortnight since. It died in part of its own weakness, and +in part for being choked up with bad actors. The two principal parts +were destined to Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Bannister, but Mrs. J. has not come +to terms with the managers, they have had some squabble, and Bannister +shot some of his fingers off by the going off of a gun. So Miss Duncan +had her part, and Mr. de Camp, a vulgar brother of Miss De Camp, took +his. He is a fellow with the make of a jockey, and the air of a +lamplighter. His part, the principal comic hope of the play, was most +unluckily Goldfinch, taken out of the "Road to Ruin," not only the same +character, but the identical Goldfinch--the same as Falstaff is in two +plays of Shakspeare. As the devil of ill-luck would have it, half the +audience did not know that H. had written it, but were displeased at his +stealing from the "Road to Ruin;" and those who might have borne a +gentlemanly coxcomb with his "That's your sort," "Go it"--such as Lewis +is--did not relish the intolerable vulgarity and inanity of the idea +stript of his manner. De Camp was hooted, more than hist, hooted and +bellowed off the stage before the second act was finished, so that the +remainder of his part was forced to be, with some violence to the play, +omitted. In addition to this, a whore was another principal character--a +most unfortunate choice in this moral day. The audience were as +scandalised as if you were to introduce such a personage to their +private tea-tables. Besides, her action in the play was gross--wheedling +an old man into marriage. But the mortal blunder of the play was that +which, oddly enough, H. took pride in, and exultingly told me of the +night before it came out, that there were no less than eleven principal +characters in it, and I believe he meant of the men only, for the +play-bill exprest as much, not reckoning one woman and one whore; and +true it was, for Mr. Powell, Mr. Raymond, Mr. Bartlett, Mr. H. Siddons, +Mr. Barrymore, &c. &c.,--to the number of eleven, had all parts equally +prominent, and there was as much of them in quantity and rank as of the +hero and heroine--and most of them gentlemen who seldom appear but as +the hero's friend in a farce--for a minute or two--and here they all had +their ten-minute speeches, and one of them gave the audience a serious +account how he was now a lawyer but had been a poet, and then a long +enumeration of the inconveniences of authorship, rascally booksellers, +reviewers, &c.; which first set the audience a-gaping; but I have said +enough. You will be so sorry, that you will not think the best of me for +my detail; but news is news at Canton. Poor H. I fear will feel the +disappointment very seriously in a pecuniary light. From what I can +learn he has saved nothing. You and I were hoping one day that he had; +but I fear he has nothing but his pictures and books, and a no very +flourishing business, and to be obliged to part with his long-necked +Guido that hangs opposite as you enter, and the game-piece that hangs in +the back drawing-room, and all those Vandykes, &c.! God should temper +the wind to the shorn connoisseur. I hope I need not say to you, that I +feel for the weather-beaten author and for all his household. I assure +you his fate has soured a good deal the pleasure I should have otherwise +taken in my own little farce being accepted, and I hope about to be +acted--it is in rehearsal actually, and I expect it to come out next +week. It is kept a sort of secret, and the rehearsals have gone on +privately, lest by many folks knowing it, the story should come out, +which would infallibly damn it. You remember I had sent it before you +went. Wroughton read it, and was much pleased with it. I speedily got an +answer. I took it to make alterations, and lazily kept it some months, +then took courage and furbished it up in a day or two and took it. In +less than a fortnight I heard the principal part was given to Elliston, +who liked it, and only wanted a prologue, which I have since done and +sent; and I had a note the day before yesterday from the manager, +Wroughton (bless his fat face--he is not a bad actor in some things), to +say that I should be summoned to the rehearsal after the next, which +next was to be yesterday. I had no idea it was so forward. I have had no +trouble, attended no reading or rehearsal, made no interest; what a +contrast to the usual parade of authors! But it is peculiar to modesty +to do all things without noise or pomp! I have some suspicion it will +appear in public on Wednesday next, for W. says in his note, it is so +forward that if wanted it may come out next week, and a new melo-drama +is announced for every day till then: and "a new farce is in rehearsal," +is put up in the bills. Now you'd like to know the subject. The title is +"Mr. H.," no more; how simple, how taking! A great H. sprawling over the +play-bill and attracting eyes at every corner. The story is a coxcomb +appearing at Bath, vastly rich--all the ladies dying for him--all +bursting to know who he is--but he goes by no other name than Mr. H.--a +curiosity like that of the dames of Strasburg about the man with the +great nose. But I won't tell you any more about it. Yes, I will; but I +can't give you an idea how I have done it. I'll just tell you that after +much vehement admiration, when his true name comes out, "Hogsflesh," all +the women shun him, avoid him, and not one can be found to change their +name for him--that's the idea--how flat it is here!--but how whimsical +in the farce! and only think how hard upon me it is that the ship is +despatched to-morrow, and my triumph cannot be ascertained till the +Wednesday after--but all China will ring of it by and by. N.B. (But this +is a secret). The Professor has got a tragedy coming out with the young +Roscius in it in January next, as we say--January last it will be with +you--and though it is a profound secret now, as all his affairs are, it +cannot be much of one by the time you read this. However, don't let it +go any further. I understand there are dramatic exhibitions in China. +One would not like to be forestalled. Do you find in all this stuff I +have written anything like those feelings which one should send my old +adventuring friend, that is gone to wander among Tartars and may never +come again? I don't--but your going away, and all about you, is a +threadbare topic. I have worn it out with thinking--it has come to me +when I have been dull with anything, till my sadness has seemed more to +have come from it than to have introduced it. I want you, you don't know +how much--but if I had you here in my European garret, we should but +talk over such stuff as I have written--so--. Those "Tales from +Shakespear" are near coming out, and Mary has begun a new work. Mr. Dawe +is turned author: he has been in such a way lately--Dawe the painter, I +mean--he sits and stands about at Holcroft's and says nothing--then +sighs and leans his head on his hand. I took him to be in love--but it +seems he was only meditating a work,--"The Life of Morland,"--the young +man is not used to composition. Rickman and Captain Burney are well; +they assemble at my house pretty regularly of a Wednesday--a new +institution. Like other great men I have a public day, cribbage and +pipes, with Phillips and noisy Martin. + +Good Heaven! what a bit only I've got left! How shall I squeeze all I +know into this morsel! Coleridge is come home, and is going to turn +lecturer on taste at the Royal Institution. I shall get £200 from the +theatre if "Mr. H." has a good run, and I hope £100 for the copyright. +Nothing if it fails; and there never was a more ticklish thing. The +whole depends on the manner in which the name is brought out, which I +value myself on, as a _chef-d'oeuvre_. How the paper grows less and +less! In less than two minutes I shall cease to talk to you, and you may +rave to the Great Wall of China. N.B. Is there such a wall! Is it as big +as Old London Wall by Bedlam? Have you met with a friend of mine, named +Ball, at Canton?--if you are acquainted, remember me kindly to him. +Amongst many queer cattle I have and do meet with at the India Ho. I +always liked his behaviour. Tell him his friend Evans &c. are well. +Woodruff not dead yet. May-be, you'll think I have not said enough of +Tuthill and the Holcrofts. Tuthill is a noble fellow, as far as I can +judge. The Holcrofts bear their disappointment pretty well, but indeed +they are sadly mortified. Mrs. H. is cast down. It was well, if it were +but on this account, that Tuthill is come home. N.B. If my little thing +don't succeed, I shall easily survive, having, as it were, compared to +H.'s venture, but a sixteenth in the lottery. Mary and I are to sit next +the orchestra in the pit, next the tweedledees. She remembers you. You +are more to us than five hundred farces, clappings, &c. + +Come back one day. C. LAMB. + +[The letter is addressed to T. Manning, Esq., Canton. At the end Lamb +adds:-- + +"Holcroft has just writ to me as follows:-- + +"'DEAR SIR, Miss L. has informed us you are writing to Manning. Will you +be kind enough to inform him directly from me that I and my family are +most truly anxious for his safety; that if praying could bring down +blessings on him we should pray morning noon and night; that his and our +good friends the Tuthills are once more happily safe in England, and +that I earnestly entreat not only a single letter but a correspondence +with him whenever the thing [is] practicable, with such an address as +may make letters from me likely to find him. In short, dear sir, if you +will be kind enough to speak of me to Manning, you cannot speak with +greater friendship and respect than I feel. + +"'Yours with true friendship and kindness.'" + +In the beginning of this letter we see the first germ of an idea +afterwards developed in the letter to Barren Field of August 31, 1817, +and again, more fully, in the _Elia_ essay "Distant Correspondents." + +Tuthill, afterwards Sir George Leman Tuthill (1772-1835), was the +physician who, on a visit to Paris, was included among the English +_détenus_ and held a captive for several years. He was released only +after his wife had made a personal appeal to Napoleon on his return from +hunting. The words "incredible romantic pretences" refer chaffingly to +Manning's application to Napoleon for liberty to return to England two +or three years previously. Holcroft's "Vindictive Man" was produced at +Drury Lane on November 20, 1806. It was a complete failure. His "Road to +Ruin," produced in 1792 at Covent Garden, with "Gentleman" Lewis as +Goldfinch, had been a great success and is still occasionally played. +Holcroft was also a very voluminous author and translator, and the +partner of his brother-in-law, Mercier, in a printing business, which, +however, was unprofitable. Tommy was Holcroft's son. + +"The dames of Strasburg"--in _Tristram Shandy_, Vol. IV. + +"The Professor has a tragedy." This was "Faulkener," for which Lamb +wrote the prologue. Owing to the capriciousness of Master Betty, the +Young Roscius, it was not produced until December 16, 1807, and then +with Elliston in the principal part. It was only partially successful, a +result for which Godwin blamed Holcroft, who had revised the play. + +Mary Lamb's new work was Mrs. Leicester's School. + +"Mr. Dawe is turned author." The Life of George Morland, by George Dawe, +was published in 1807. + +Coleridge's intended series of lectures on Taste was abandoned. He did +not actually deliver any until January 12, 1808.] + + + + +LETTER 159 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH + +[Dated at end: December 11, 1806.] + +Mary's Love to all of you--I wouldn't let her write-- + +Dear Wordsworth, Mr. H. came out last night and failed. + +I had many fears; the subject was not substantial enough. John Bull must +have solider fare than a _Letter_. We are pretty stout about it, have +had plenty of condoling friends, but after all, we had rather it should +have succeeded. You will see the Prologue in most of the Morning Papers. +It was received with such shouts as I never witness'd to a Prologue. It +was attempted to be encored. How hard! a thing I did merely as a task, +because it was wanted--and set no great store by; and Mr. H.----!! + +The quantity of friends we had in the house, my brother and I being in +Public Offices &c., was astonishing--but they yielded at length to a few +hisses. A hundred hisses--damn the word, I write it like kisses--how +different--a hundred hisses outweigh a 1000 Claps. The former come more +directly from the Heart--Well, 'tis withdrawn and there is an end. + +Better Luck to us-- + +C. L. + +11 Dec.--(turn over). + +P.S. Pray when any of you write to the Clarksons, give our kind Loves, +and say we shall not be able to come and see them at Xmas--as I shall +have but a day or two,--and tell them we bear our mortification pretty +well. + +["Mr. H." was produced at Drury Lane on December 10, with Elliston in +the title-role. Lamb's account of the evening is supplemented by Hazlitt +in his essay "On Great and Little Things" and by Crabb Robinson, a new +friend whom he had just made, in his _Diary_. See Vol. IV. of this +edition. The curious thing is that the management of Drury Lane +advertised the farce as a success and announced it for the next night. +But Lamb apparently interfered and it was not played again. Some few +years later "Mr. H." was performed acceptably in America.] + + + + +LETTER 160 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO SARAH STODDART + +December 11 [1806]. + +Don't mind this being a queer letter. I am in haste, and taken up by +visitors, condolers, &c. God bless you! + +Dear Sarah,--Mary is a little cut at the ill success of "Mr. H.," which +came out last night and _failed_. I know you'll be sorry, but never +mind. We are determined not to be cast down. I am going to leave off +tobacco, and then we must thrive. A smoking man must write smoky farces. + +Mary is pretty well, but I persuaded her to let me write. We did not +apprise you of the coming out of "Mr. H." for fear of ill-luck. You were +much better out of the house. If it had taken, your partaking of our +good luck would have been one of our greatest joys. As it is, we shall +expect you at the time you mentioned. But whenever you come you shall be +most welcome. + +God bless you, dear Sarah, + +Yours most truly, C. L. + +Mary is by no means unwell, but I made her let me write. + +[Following this should come a letter from Mary Lamb to Mrs. Thomas +Clarkson, dated December 23, 1806. It again describes the ill success of +"Mr. H." "The blame rested chiefly with Charles and yet it should not be +called blame for it was mere ignorance of stage effect ... he seems +perfectly aware why and for what cause it failed. He intends to write +one more with all his dearly bought experience in his head, and should +that share same fate he will then turn his mind to some other pursuit." +Lamb did not write another farce for many years. When he did--"The +Pawnbroker's Daughter" (see Vol. IV.)--it deservedly was not acted.] + + + + +LETTER 161 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM GODWIN + +[No date. ? 1806.] + +I repent. Can that God whom thy votaries say that thou hast demolished +expect more? I did indite a splenetic letter, but did the black +Hypocondria never gripe _thy_ heart, till them hast taken a friend for +an enemy? The foul fiend Flibbertigibbet leads me over four inched +bridges, to course my own shadow for a traitor. There are certain +positions of the moon, under which I counsel thee not to take anything +written from this domicile as serious. + +_I_ rank thee with Alves, Latinè Helvetius, or any of his cursed crew? +Thou art my friend, and henceforth my philosopher--thou shall teach +Distinction to the junior branches of my household, and Deception to the +greyhaired Janitress at my door. + +What! Are these atonements? Can Arcadians be brought upon knees, +creeping and crouching? + +Come, as Macbeth's drunken porter says, knock, knock, knock, knock, +knock, knock, knock--seven times in a day shall thou batter at my peace, +and if I shut aught against thee, save the Temple of Janus, may +Briareus, with his hundred hands, in each a brass knocker, lead me such +a life. + +C. LAMB. + +[I cannot account for this letter in the absence of its predecessor and +that from Godwin to which it replies.] + + + + +LETTER 162 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH + +[Dated at end: January 29, 1807.] + +Dear Wordsworth-- + +We have book'd off from Swan and Two Necks, Lad Lane, this day (per +Coach) the Tales from Shakespear. You will forgive the plates, when I +tell you they were left to the direction of Godwin, who left the choice +of subjects to the bad baby, who from mischief (I suppose) has chosen +one from damn'd beastly vulgarity (vide Merch. Venice) where no atom of +authority was in the tale to justify it--to another has given a name +which exists not in the tale, Nic Bottom, and which she thought would be +funny, though in this I suspect _his_ hand, for I guess her reading does +not reach far enough to know Bottom's Xtian name--and one of Hamlet, and +Grave digging, a scene which is not hinted at in the story, and you +might as well have put King Canute the Great reproving his courtiers-- +the rest are Giants and Giantesses. Suffice it, to save our taste and +damn our folly, that we left it all to a friend W. G.--who in the first +place cheated me into putting a name to them, which I did not mean, but +do not repent, and then wrote a puff about their _simplicity_, &c., to +go with the advertisement as in my name! Enough of this egregious +dupery.--I will try to abstract the load of teazing circumstances from +the Stories and tell you that I am answerable for Lear, Macbeth, Timon, +Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, for occasionally a tail piece or correction of +grammar, for none of the cuts and all of the spelling. The rest is my +Sister's.--We think Pericles of hers the best, and Othello of mine--but +I hope all have some good. As You Like It we like least. + +So much, only begging you to tear out the cuts and give them to Johnny, +as "Mrs. Godwin's fancy." + +C. L. + +Thursday, +29 Jan., 1807. + +Our Love to all. + +I had almost forgot, + +My part of the Preface begins in the middle of a sentence, in last but +one page after a colon thus + +:--_which if they be happily so done &c_. + +the former part hath a more feminine turn and does hold me up something +as an instructor to young Ladies: but upon my modesty's honour I wrote +it not. + +Godwin told My Sister that the Baby chose the Subjects. A fact in Taste. + +[Lamb has run his pen lightly through "God bless me," at the beginning +of the postscript. + +The plates to the _Tales from Shakespear_ will be found reproduced in +facsimile in Vol. III. of my large edition. They were designed probably +by Mulready. + +An interval of nine months occurs before we come to another letter of +the date of which we can be certain. Of what happened in this time, we +know little or nothing, but I think it probable that the following +hitherto unpublished letter from Charles Lamb to the Clarksons explains +part of the long silence. The postmark gives no year, but it must be +either 1807 or 1808, and since the _Dramatic Specimens_ herein referred +to as in preparation were published in 1808, we may confidently assume +it to be 1807. The letter tells its own story only too clearly: the +Lambs had been on a visit to the Clarksons at Bury St. Edmunds; Mary +Lamb had again fallen ill while there; and her brother had just left her +once more at her Hoxton Asylum.] + + + + +LETTER 163 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS AND CATHERINE CLARKSON + +[P.M. June (1807).] + +Dear Mr. & Mrs. Clarkson, you will wish to know how we performed our +journey. My sister was tolerably quiet until we got to Chelmsford, where +she began to be very bad indeed, as your friends William Knight and his +family can tell you when you see them. What I should have done without +their kindness I don't know, but among other acts of great attention, +they provided me with a waistcoat to confine her arms, by the help of +which we went through the rest of our journey. But sadly tired and +miserably depressed she was before we arrived at Hoxton. We got there +about half past eight; and now 'tis all over, I have great satisfaction +that she is among people who have been used to her. In all probability a +few months or even weeks will restore her (her last illness confined her +ten weeks) but if she does recover I shall be very careful how I take +her so far from home again. I am so fatigued, for she talked in the most +wretched desponding way conceivable, particularly the last three stages, +she talked all the way,--so that you won't expect me to say much, or +even to express myself as I should do in thanks for your kindnesses. My +sister will acknowledge them when she can.-- + +I shall not have heard how she is to day until too late for the Post, +but if any great change takes place for better or worse, I shall +certainly let you know. + +She tells me something about having given away one of my coats to your +servant. It is a new one, and perhaps may be of small use to him. If you +can get it me again, I shall very willingly give him a compensation. I +shall also be much obliged by your sending in a parcel all the +manuscripts, books &c. she left behind. I want in particular the +Dramatic Extracts, as my purpose is to make use of the remainder of my +holydays in completing them at the British Museum, which will be +employment & money in the end. + +I am exceedingly harrassed with the journey, but that will go off in a +day or two, and I will set to work. I know you will grieve for us, but I +hope my sister's illness is not worse than many she has got through +before. Only I am afraid the fatigue of the journey may affect her +general health. You shall have notice how she goes on. In the mean time, +accept our kindest thanks. + +[_Signature cut off_.] + + + + +LETTER 164 + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART + +[No date. Endorsed Oct., 1807.] + +My dear Sarah,--I am two letters in your debt; but it has not been so +much from idleness, as a wish first to see how your comical love affair +would turn out. You know, I make a pretence not to interfere; but like +all old maids I feel a mighty solicitude about the event of love +stories. I learn from the Lover that he has not been so remiss in his +duty as you supposed. His Effusion, and your complaints of his +inconstancy, crossed each other on the road. He tells me his was a very +strange letter, and that probably it has affronted you. That it was a +strange letter I can readily believe; but that you were affronted by a +strange letter is not so easy for me to conceive, that not being your +way of taking things. But however it be, let some answer come, either to +him, or else to me, showing cause why you do not answer him. And pray, +by all means, preserve the said letter, that I may one day have the +pleasure of seeing how Mr. Hazlitt treats of love. + +I was at your brother's on Thursday. Mrs. S. tells me she has not +written, because she does not like to put you to the expense of postage. +They are very well. Little Missy thrives amazingly. Mrs. Stoddart +conjectures she is in the family way again; and those kind of +conjectures generally prove too true. Your other sister-in-law, Mrs. +Hazlitt, was brought to bed last week of a boy: so that you are likely +to have plenty of nephews and nieces. + +Yesterday evening we were at Rickman's; and who should we find there but +Hazlitt; though, if you do not know it was his first invitation there, +it will not surprise you as much as it did us. We were very much +pleased, because we dearly love our friends to be respected by our +friends. + +The most remarkable events of the evening were, that we had a very fine +pine-apple; that Mr. Phillips, Mr. Lamb, and Mr. Hazlitt played at +Cribbage in the most polite and gentlemanly manner possible--and that I +won two rubbers at whist. + +I am glad Aunty left you some business to do. Our compliments to her and +your Mother. Is it as cold at Winterslow as it is here? How do the Lions +go on? I am better, and Charles is tolerably well. Godwin's new Tragedy +will probably be damned the latter end of next week. Charles has written +the Prologue. Prologues and Epilogues will be his death. If you know the +extent of Mrs. Reynolds' poverty, you will be glad to hear Mr. Norris +has got ten pounds a year for her from the Temple Society. She will be +able to make out pretty well now. + +Farewell--Determine as wisely as you can in regard to Hazlitt; and, if +your determination is to have him, Heaven send you many happy years +together. If I am not mistaken, I have concluded letters on the Corydon +Courtship with this same wish. I hope it is not ominous of change; for +if I were sure you would not be quite starved to death, nor beaten to a +mummy, I should like to see Hazlitt and you come together, if (as +Charles observes) it were only for the joke sake. + +Write instantly to me. + +Yours most affectionately, +M. LAMB. + +Saturday morning. + +[The reference to Godwin's tragedy, "Faulkener," which was produced on +December 16, 1807, would indicate a later date, except that that play +was so frequently postponed. + +The Lover this time is, at last, William Hazlitt. Miss Stoddart was not +his first love; some time before he had wished to marry a Miss Railton +of Liverpool; then, in the Lakes, he had had passages with a farmer's +daughter involving a ducking at the hands of jealous rivals; while De +Quincey would have us believe that Hazlitt proposed to Dorothy +Wordsworth. But it was Sarah Stoddart whom he was destined to marry. A +specimen of Hazlitt's love letters (which Mary Lamb wished to see) will +be found in Mr. W. C. Hazlitt's _Memoirs of William Hazlitt_, Vol. I., +page 153. The marriage turned out anything but a joke. + +Mrs. Reynolds' poverty was in later years further relieved by an annuity +of £30 from Charles Lamb.] + + + + +LETTER 165 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART +Dec. 21, 1807. + +My dear Sarah,--I have deferred answering your last letter, in hopes of +being able to give you some intelligence that might be useful to you; +for I every day expected that Hazlitt or you would communicate the +affair to your brother; but, as the Doctor is silent upon the subject, I +conclude he yet knows nothing of the matter. You desire my advice; and +therefore I tell you I think you ought to tell your brother as soon as +possible; for, at present, he is on very friendly visiting terms with +Hazlitt, and, if he is not offended by a too long concealment, will do +every thing in his power to serve you. If you chuse that I should tell +him, I will; but I think it would come better from you. If you can +persuade Hazlitt to mention it, that would be still better; for I know +your brother would be unwilling to give credit to you, because you +deceived yourself in regard to Corydon. Hazlitt, I know, is shy of +speaking first; but I think it of such great importance to you to have +your brother friendly in the business, that, if you can overcome his +reluctance, it would be a great point gained. For you must begin the +world with ready money--at least an hundred pound; for, if you once go +into furnished lodgings, you will never be able to lay by money to buy +furniture. + +If you obtain your brother's approbation, he might assist you, either by +lending or otherwise. I have a great opinion of his generosity, where he +thinks it would be useful. + +Hazlitt's brother is mightily pleased with the match; but he says you +must have furniture, and be clear in the world at first setting out, or +you will be always behindhand. He also said he would give you what +furniture he could spare. I am afraid you can bring but few things away +from your house. What a pity that you have laid out so much money on +your cottage!--that money would have just done. I most heartily +congratulate you on having so well got over your first difficulties; +and, now that it is quite settled, let us have no more fears. I now mean +not only to hope and wish, but to persuade myself, that you will be very +happy together. + +Endeavour to keep your mind as easy as you can. You ought to begin the +world with a good stock of health and spirits: it is quite as necessary +as ready money at first setting out. Do not teize yourself about coming +to town. When your brother learns how things are going on, we shall +consult him about meetings and so forth; but, at present, any hasty step +of that kind would not answer, I know. If Hazlitt were to go down to +Salisbury, or you were to come up here, without consulting your brother, +you know it would never do. + +Charles is just come in to dinner; he desires his love and best wishes. + +Yours affectionately, +M. LAMB. + +Monday morning. + +[Our next letter shows that when Dr. Stoddart was at length told of the +engagement he resented it. + +We now come to two curious letters from Charles Lamb to Joseph Hume, not +available for this edition, which are printed by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt in +_Lamb and Hazlitt_. The first, dated December 29, 1807, contains the +beginning of an elaborate hoax maintained by Lamb and Hume (who was +Joseph Hume, a clerk in the Victualling Office at Somerset House, and +the author of a translation of Tasso), in which Hazlitt, although the +victim, played his part. Lamb asserts that Hazlitt has cut his throat. +He also incidentally regrets that he cannot accept an invitation to dine +with Hume: "Cold bones of mutton and leather-roasted potatoes at Pimlico +at ten must carry it away from a certain Turkey and contingent +plumb-pudding at Montpelier at four (I always spell plumb-pudding with a +_b_, p-l-u-m-_b_--) I think it reads fatter and more suetty." + +In reply to this letter came one from Hume, dated January 11, 1808, +referring to a humble petition and remonstrance by Hazlitt, dated +January 10, 1808, showing that he is not dead. The petition will be +found in full in _Lamb and Hazlitt_. It ends thus:-- + +"With all the sincerity of a man doubtful between life and death, the +petitioner declares that he looks upon the said Charles Lamb as the +ring-leader in this unjust conspiracy against him, and as the sole cause +and author of the jeopardy he is in: but that as losers have leave to +speak, he must say, that, if it were not for a poem he wrote on Tobacco +about two years ago, a farce called Mr. H----- he brought out last +winter with more wit than discretion in it, some prologues and epilogues +he has since written with good success, and some lively notes he is at +present writing on dead authors, he sees no reason why he should not be +considered as much a dead man as himself, and the undertaker spoken to +accordingly." + +The next letter, dated January 12, 1808, carrying on the joke, consists +of speculations as to Hazlitt's reappearance. Lamb remarks that the +commonest reason for the return of the spirits of the dead is the desire +to reveal hidden treasures which they had hoarded in their lifetime. He +destroys this theory in the case of Hazlitt in the following passage:-- + +"I for my part always looked upon our dear friend as a man rich rather +in the gifts of his mind than in earthly treasures. He had few rents or +comings in, that I was ever aware of, small (if any) landed property, +and by all that I could witness he subsisted more upon the well-timed +contributions of a few chosen friends who knew his worth, than upon any +Estate which could properly be called his own. I myself have contributed +my part. God knows, I speak not this in reproach. I have never taken, +nor indeed did the Deceased offer, any _written acknowledgments_ of the +various sums which he has had of me, by which I could make the fact +manifest to the legal eye of an Executor or Administrator. He was not a +Man to affect these niceties in his transactions with his friends. He +would often say, Money was nothing between intimate acquaintances, that +Golden Streams had no Ebb, that a Purse mouth never regorged, that God +loved a chearful giver but the Devil hated a free taker, that a paid +Loan makes angels groan, with many such like sayings: he had always free +and generous notions about money. His nearest friends know this best." + +Continuing the subject of the return of Spirits, Lamb decides that it +must be with the wish to establish some speculative point in religion. +"But whatever the cause of this re-appearance may prove to be, we may +now with truth assert that our deceased friend has attained to one +object of his pursuits, one hour's separate existence gives a dead man +clearer notions of metaphysics than all the treatises which in his state +of casual entanglement the least immersed spirit can out-spin. It is +good to leave such subjects to that period when we shall have no Heads +to ache, no brains to distort, no faces to lengthen, no clothes to +neglect."] + + + + +LETTER 166 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART +[P.M. February 12, 1808.] + +My dear Sarah,--I have sent your letter and drawing off to Wm. Hazlitt's +father's in Shropshire, where I conjecture Hazlitt is. He left town on +Saturday afternoon, without telling us where he was going. He seemed +very impatient at not hearing from you. He was very ill and I suppose is +gone home to his father's to be nursed. + +I find Hazlitt has mentioned to you an intention which we had of asking +you up to town, which we were bent on doing, but having named it since +to your brother, the Doctor expressed a strong desire that you should +not come to town to be at any other house than his own, for he said that +it would have a very strange appearance. His wife's father is coming to +be with them till near the end of April, after which time he shall have +full room for you. And if you are to be married, he wishes that you +should be married with all the proper decorums, _from his house_. Now +though we should be willing to run any hazards of disobliging him, if +there were no other means of your and Hazlitt's meeting, yet as he seems +so friendly to the match, it would not be worth while to alienate him +from you and ourselves too, for the slight accommodation which the +difference of a few weeks would make, provided always, and be it +understood, that if you, and H. make up your minds to be married before +the time in which you can be at your brother's, our house stands open +and most ready at a moment's notice to receive you. Only we would not +quarrel unnecessarily with your brother. Let there be a clear necessity +shewn, and we will quarrel with any body's brother. Now though I have +written to the above effect, I hope you will not conceive, but that both +my brother & I had looked forward to your coming with unmixed pleasure, +and we are really disappointed at your brother's declaration, for next +to the pleasure of being married, is the pleasure of making, or helping +marriages forward. + +We wish to hear from you, that you do not take the _seeming change_ of +purpose in ill part; for it is but seeming on our part; for it was my +brother's suggestion, by him first mentioned to Hazlitt, and cordially +approved by me; but your brother has set his face against it, and it is +better to take him along with us, in our plans, if he will +good-naturedly go along with us, than not. + +The reason I have not written lately has been that I thought it better +to leave you all to the workings of your own minds in this momentous +affair, in which the inclinations of a bye-stander have a right to form +a wish, but not to give a vote. + +Being, with the help of wide lines, at the end of my last page, I +conclude with our kind wishes, and prayers for the best. + +Yours affectionately, +M. LAMB. + +H.'s direction is (if he is there) at Wem in Shropshire. I suppose as +letters must come to London first, you had better inclose them, while he +is there, for my brother in London. + +[The drawing referred to, says Mr. W.C. Hazlitt, was a sketch of +Middleton Cottage, Miss Stoddart's house at Winterslow (see next +letter).] + + + + +LETTER 167 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THE REV. W. HAZLITT + +Temple, 18th February, 1808. + +Sir,--I am truly concerned that any mistake of mine should have caused +you uneasiness, but I hope we have got a clue to William's absence, +which may clear up all apprehensions. The people where he lodges in town +have received direction from him to forward one or two of his shirts to +a place called Winterslow, in the county of Hants [Wilts] (not far from +Salisbury), where the lady lives whose Cottage, pictured upon a card, if +you opened my letter you have doubtless seen, and though we have had no +explanation of the mystery since, we shrewdly suspect that at the time +of writing that Letter which has given you all this trouble, a certain +son of yours (who is both Painter and Author) was at her elbow, and did +assist in framing that very Cartoon which was sent to amuse and mislead +us in town, as to the real place of his destination. + +And some words at the back of the said Cartoon, which we had not marked +so narrowly before, by the similarity of the handwriting to William's, +do very much confirm the suspicion. If our theory be right, they have +had the pleasure of their jest, and I am afraid you have paid for it in +anxiety. But I hope your uneasiness will now be removed, and you will +pardon a suspense occasioned by LOVE, who does so many worse mischiefs +every day. + +The letter to the people where William lodges says, moreover, that he +shall be in town in a fortnight. + +My sister joins in respects to you and Mrs. Hazlitt, and in our kindest +remembrances and wishes for the restoration of Peggy's health. + +I am, Sir, your humble serv't., + +CH. LAMB. + +[The Rev. William Hazlitt, Hazlitt's father (1737-1820), was a Unitarian +minister at Wem, in Shropshire, the son of an Irish Protestant. +Hazlitt's mother was Grace Loftus of Wisbech, a farmer's daughter. + +Sarah Stoddart's letter containing the drawing referred to had been sent +by the Lambs to William Hazlitt at Wem, whereas Hazlitt, instead of +seeking his father's roof as arranged, had sought his betrothed's, and +had himself helped in the mystification. + +Peggy was Hazlitt's only sister.] + + + + +LETTER 168 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +[Dated at end: 26 February, 1808.] + +Dear Missionary,--Your letters from the farthest ends of the world have +arrived safe. Mary is very thankful for your remembrance of her, and +with the less suspicion of mercenariness, as the silk, the _symbolum +materiale_ of your friendship, has not yet appeared. I think Horace says +somewhere, _nox longa_. I would not impute negligence or unhandsome +delays to a person whom you have honoured with your confidence; but I +have not heard of the silk, or of Mr. Knox, save by your letter. Maybe +he expects the first advances! or it may be that he has not succeeded in +getting the article on shore, for it is among the _res prohibitae et non +nisi smuggle-ationis viá fruendae_. But so it is, in the friendships +between _wicked men_, the very expressions of their good-will cannot but +be sinful. _Splendida vitia_ at best. Stay, while I remember it--Mrs. +Holcroft was safely delivered of a girl some day in last week. Mother +and child doing well. Mr. Holcroft has been attack'd with severe +rheumatism. They have moved to Clipstone Street. I suppose you know my +farce was damned. The noise still rings in my ears. Was you ever in the +pillory?--being damned is something like that. Godwin keeps a shop in +Skinner Street, Snow Hill, he is turned children's bookseller, and sells +penny, twopenny, threepenny, and fourpenny books. Sometimes he gets an +order for the dearer sort of Books. (Mind, all that I tell you in this +letter is true.) A treaty of marriage is on foot between William Hazlitt +and Miss Stoddart. Something about settlements only retards it. She has +somewhere about £80 a year, to be £120 when her mother dies. He has no +settlement except what he can claim from the Parish. _Pauper est Cinna, +sed amat_. The thing is therefore in abeyance. But there is love o' both +sides. Little Fenwick (you don't see the connexion of ideas here, how +the devil should you?) is in the rules of the Fleet. Cruel creditors! +operation of iniquitous laws! is Magna Charta then a mockery? Why, in +general (here I suppose you to ask a question) my spirits are pretty +good, but I have my depressions, black as a smith's beard, Vulcanic, +Stygian. At such times I have recourse to a pipe, which is like not +being at home to a dun; he comes again with tenfold bitterness the next +day.--(Mind, I am not in debt, I only borrow a similitude from others; +it shows imagination.) I have done two books since the failure of my +farce; they will both be out this summer. The one is a juvenile +book--"The Adventures of Ulysses," intended to be an introduction to the +reading of Telemachus! It is done out of the Odyssey, not from the +Greek: I would not mislead you; nor yet from Pope's Odyssey, but from an +older translation of one Chapman. The "Shakespear Tales" suggested the +doing it. Godwin is in both those cases my bookseller. The other is done +for Longman, and is "Specimens of English Dramatic Poets contemporary +with Shakespear." Specimens are becoming fashionable. We have-- +"Specimens of Ancient English Poets," "Specimens of Modern English +Poets," "Specimens of Ancient English Prose Writers," without end. They +used to be called "Beauties." You have seen "Beauties of Shakespear?" so +have many people that never saw any beauties in Shakespear. Longman is +to print it, and be at all the expense and risk; and I am to share the +profits after all deductions; _i.e._ a year or two hence I must pocket +what they please to tell me is due to me. But the book is such as I am +glad there should be. It is done out of old plays at the Museum and out +of Dodsley's collection, &c. It is to have notes. So I go creeping on +since I was lamed with that cursed fall from off the top of Drury-Lane +Theatre into the pit, something more than a year ago. However, I have +been free of the house ever since, and the house was pretty free with me +upon that occasion. Damn 'em, how they hissed! It was not a hiss +neither, but a sort of a frantic yell, like a congregation of mad geese, +with roaring something like bears, mows and mops like apes, sometimes +snakes, that hiss'd me into madness. 'Twas like St. Anthony's +temptations. Mercy on us, that God should give his favourite children, +men, mouths to speak with, to discourse rationally, to promise smoothly, +to flatter agreeably, to encourage warmly, to counsel wisely: to sing +with, to drink with, and to kiss with: and that they should turn them +into mouths of adders, bears, wolves, hyenas, and whistle like tempests, +and emit breath through them like distillations of aspic poison, to +asperse and vilify the innocent labours of their fellow-creatures who +are desirous to please them! God be pleased to make the breath stink and +the teeth rot out of them all therefore! Make them a reproach, and all +that pass by them to loll out their tongue at them! Blind mouths! as +Milton somewhere calls them. Do you like Braham's singing? The little +Jew has bewitched me. I follow him like as the boys followed Tom the +Piper. He cured me of melancholy, as David cured Saul; but I don't throw +stones at him, as Saul did at David in payment. I was insensible to +music till he gave me a new sense. O, that you could go to the new opera +of "Kais" to-night! 'Tis all about Eastern manners; it would just suit +you. It describes the wild Arabs, wandering Egyptians, lying dervishes, +and all that sort of people, to a hair. You needn't ha' gone so far to +see what you see, if you saw it as I do every night at Drury-lane +Theatre. Braham's singing, when it is impassioned, is finer than Mrs. +Siddons's or Mr. Kemble's acting; and when it is not impassioned, it is +as good as hearing a person of fine sense talking. The brave little Jew! +Old Sergeant Hill is dead. Mrs. Rickman is in the family way. It is +thought that Hazlitt will have children, if he marries Miss Stoddart. I +made a pun the other day, and palmed it upon Holcroft, who grinned like +a Cheshire cat. (Why do cats grin in Cheshire?--Because it was once a +county palatine and the cats cannot help laughing whenever they think of +it, though I see no great joke in it.) I said that Holcroft said, being +asked who were the best dramatic writers of the day, "HOOK AND I." Mr. +Hook is author of several pieces, "Tekeli," &c. You know what _hooks and +eyes_ are, don't you? They are what little boys do up their breeches +with. Your letter had many things in it hard to be understood: the puns +were ready and Swift-like; but don't you begin to be melancholy in the +midst of Eastern customs! "The mind does not easily conform to foreign +usages, even in trifles: it requires something that it has been familiar +with." That begins one of Dr. Hawkesworth's papers in the "Adventurer," +and is, I think, as sensible a remark as ever fell from the Doctor's +mouth. Do you know Watford in Hertfordshire? it is a pretty village. +Louisa goes to school there. They say the governess is a very +intelligent managing person, takes care of the morals of the pupils, +teaches them something beyond exteriors. Poor Mrs. Beaumont! Rickman's +aunt, she might have been a governess (as both her nieces ate) if she +had any ability or any education, but I never thought she was good for +anything; she is dead and so is her nephew. He was shot in half at Monte +Video, that is, not exactly in half, but as you have seen a 3 quarter +picture. Stoddart is in England. White is at Christ's Hospital, a wit of +the first magnitude, but had rather be thought a gentleman, like +Congreve. You know Congreve's repulse which he gave to Voltaire, when he +came to visit him as a _literary man_, that he wished to be considered +only in the light of a private gentleman. I think the impertinent +Frenchman was properly answered. I should just serve any member of the +French institute in the same manner, that wished to be introduced to me. +Bonaparte has voted 5,000 livres to Davy, the great young English +chemist; but it has not arrived. Coleridge has delivered two lectures at +the Royal Institution; two more were attended, but he did not come. It +is thought he has gone sick upon them. He a'n't well, that's certain. +Wordsworth is coming to see him. He sits up in a two pair of stairs room +at the "Courier" Office, and receives visitors on his close stool. How +is Mr. Ball? He has sent for a prospectus of the London Library. + +Does any one read at Canton? Lord Moira is President of the Westminster +Library. I suppose you might have interest with Sir Joseph Banks to get +to be president of any similiar institution that should be set up at +Canton. I think public reading-rooms the best mode of educating young +men. Solitary reading is apt to give the headache. Besides, who knows +that you _do_ read? There are ten thousand institutions similar to the +Royal Institution, which have sprung up from it. There is the London +Institution, the Southwark Institution, the Russell Square Rooms +Institution, &c.--_College quasi Conlege_, a place where people read +together. Wordsworth, the great poet, is coming to town; he is to have +apartments in the Mansion House. He says he does not see much difficulty +in writing like Shakspeare, if he had a mind to try it. It is clear then +nothing is wanting but the mind. Even Coleridge a little checked at this +hardihood of assertion. Jones of Trinity, I suppose you know he is dead. +Dyer came to me the other evening at 11 o'clock, when there was a large +room full of company, which I usually get together on a Wednesday +evening (all great men have public days), to propose to me to have my +face done by a Miss Beetham (or Betham), a miniature painter, some +relation to Mrs. Beetham the Profilist or Pattern Mangle woman opposite +to St. Dunstan's, to put before my book of Extracts. I declined it. + +Well, my dear Manning, talking cannot be infinite; I have said all I +have to say; the rest is but remembrances, which we shall bear in our +heads of you, while we have heads. Here is a packet of trifles nothing +worth; but it is a trifling part of the world where I live; emptiness +abounds. But, in fulness of affection, we remain yours, + +C.L. + +[Manning had written in April, 1807, saying that a roll of silk was on +its way to Mary Lamb. It was, however, another letter, not preserved, +which mentioned Mr. Knox as the bearer. + +Godwin sold books at 41 Skinner Street under his wife's name--M.J. +Godwin. At first when he began, in 1805, in Hanway Street, he had used +the name of Thomas Hodgkins, his manager. + +"Damn 'em, how they hissed." This passage has in it the germ of Lamb's +essay in _The Reflector_ two or three years later, "On the Custom of +Hissing at the Theatres" (see Vol. I.). + +John Braham (?1774-1856), the great tenor and the composer of "The Death +of Nelson." Lamb praised him again in his _Elia_ essay "Imperfect +Sympathies," and later wrote an amusing article on Braham's recantation +of Hebraism (see "The Religion of Actors," Vol. I.). "Kais," composed by +Braham and Reeve, was produced at Drury Lane, February 11, 1808. + +"Old Sergeant Hill." George Hill (1716-1808), nicknamed Serjeant +Labyrinth, the hero of many stories of absence-of-mind. He would have +appealed to Manning on account of his mathematical abilities. He died on +February 21. + +"Hook and I." This pun is attributed also to others; who may very easily +have made it independently. Theodore Hook was then only nineteen, but +had already written "Tekeli," a melodrama, and several farces. Talfourd +omits the references to breeches. + +"Dr. Hawkesworth." John Hawkesworth, LL.D. (?1715-1773), the editor of +Swift, a director of the East India Company, and the friend of Johnson +whom he imitated in _The Adventurer_. He also made one of the +translations of Fénélon's _Télémaque_, to which Lamb's _Adventures of +Ulysses_ was to serve as prologue. + +James White, Lamb's friend and the author of _Falstaff's Letters_, was +for many years a clerk in the Treasurer's office at Christ's Hospital. +Later he founded an advertisement agency, which still exists. + +"Congreve's repulse." The story is told by Johnson in the _Lives of the +Poets_. Congreve "disgusted him [Voltaire] by the despicable foppery of +desiring to be considered not as an author but a gentleman; to which the +Frenchman replied, 'that, if he had been only a gentleman, he should not +have come to visit him.'" + +"Young Davy." Afterwards Sir Humphry Davy, and now one of Coleridge's +correspondents. He had been awarded the Napoleon prize of 3,000 francs +"for his discoveries announced in the _Philosophical Transactions_ for +the year 1807." + +"Coleridge's lectures." Coleridge delivered the first on January 12, +1808, and the second on February 5. The third and fourth were eventually +delivered some time before April 3. The subject was not Taste but +Poetry. Coleridge's rooms over _The Courier_ office at No. 348 Strand +are described by De Quincey in his _Works_, Vol. II. (1863 edition), +page 98. + +It was Coleridge's illness that was bringing Wordsworth to town, to be +followed by Southey, largely by the instrumentality of Charles and Mary +Lamb. It is conjectured that Coleridge was just then more than usually +in the power of drugs. + +Sir Joseph Banks, as President of the Royal Society, had written a +letter to the East India Company supporting Manning's wish to practise +as a doctor in Canton. + +The similar institutions that sprang up in imitation of the Royal +Institution have all vanished, except the London Institution in Finsbury +Circus. + +"Writing like Shakspeare." This passage was omitted by Talfourd. He +seems to have shown it to Crabb Robinson, just after Lamb's death, as +one of the things that could not be published. Robinson (or Robinson's +editor, Dr. Sadler), in recording the event, substitutes a dash for +Wordsworth's name. + +Miss Betham was Miss Mary Matilda Betham (1776-1852), afterwards a +correspondent of Lamb. We shall soon meet her again. She had written a +_Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and +Country_, 1804, and some poems. Among her sitters were Coleridge and +Mrs. Coleridge. The Profilist opposite St. Dunstan's was, I take it, E. +Beetham, Patent Washing-Mill Maker at 27 Fleet Street. I find this in +the 1808 Directory. The shop was close to Inner Temple Lane. + +[Two undated letters to Miss Betham follow, which may well belong to +this time. Mr. Ernest Betham allows me to take them from his book, _A +House of Letters_.] + + + + +LETTER 169 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO MATILDA BETHAM + +[No date. ?1808.] + +Dear Miss B.--I send you three Tickets which will serve the first course +of C.'s Lectures, six in number, the first begins tomorrow. Excuse the +cover being not _or fa_, is not that french? I have no writing paper. + +Yours truly, +C. LAMB. + +N.B. It is my present, not C.'s, id. est he gave 'em me, I you. + + + + +LETTER 170 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO MATILDA BETHAM + +Dear Miss Betham,--I am very sorry, but I was pre-engaged for this +evening when Eliza communicated the contents of your letter. She herself +also is gone to Walworth to pass some days with Miss Hays-- + +"G-d forbid I should +pass my days +with Miss H--ys" + +but that is neither here nor there. We will both atone for this accident +by calling upon you as early as possible. + +I am setting out to engage Mr. Dyer to your Party, but what the issue of +my adventure will be, cannot be known, till the wafer has closed up this +note for ever. + +Yours truly, +C. LAMB. + +Friday. + +[We have already met Miss Hayes. Miss Betham was a friend of Dyer, as we +shall see.] + + + + +LETTER 171 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM GODWIN + +March 11, 1808. + +Dear Godwin,--The giant's vomit was perfectly nauseous, and I am glad +you pointed it out. I have removed the objection. To the other passages +I can find no other objection but what you may bring to numberless +passages besides, such as of Scylla snatching up the six men, etc., that +is to say, they are lively images of _shocking_ things. If you want a +book, which is not occasionally to _shock_, you should not have thought +of a tale which was so full of anthropophagi and wonders. I cannot alter +these things without enervating the Book, and I will not alter them if +the penalty should be that you and all the London booksellers should +refuse it. But speaking as author to author, I must say that I think +_the terrible_ in those two passages seems to me so much to preponderate +over the nauseous, as to make them rather fine than disgusting. Who is +to read them, I don't know: who is it that reads Tales of Terror and +Mysteries of Udolpho? Such things sell. I only say that I will not +consent to alter such passages, which I know to be some of the best in +the book. As an author I say to you an author, Touch not my work. As to +a bookseller I say, Take the work such as it is, or refuse it. You are +as free to refuse it as when we first talked of it. As to a friend I +say, Don't plague yourself and me with nonsensical objections. I assure +you I will not alter one more word. + +[This letter refers to the proofs of Lamb's _Adventures of Ulysses_, his +prose paraphrase for children of Chapman's translation of the _Odyssey_, +which Mrs. Godwin was publishing. Godwin had written the following +letter:-- + +"Skinner St., March 10, 1808. + +"DEAR LAMB,--I address you with all humility, because I know you to be +_tenax propositi_. Hear me, I entreat you, with patience. + +"It is strange with what different feelings an author and a bookseller +looks at the same manuscript. I know this by experience: I was an +author, I am a bookseller. The author thinks what will conduce to his +honour: the bookseller what will cause his commodities to sell. + +"_You_, or some other wise man, I have heard to say, It is children that +read children's books, when they are read, but it is parents that choose +them. The critical thought of the tradesman put itself therefore into +the place of the parent, and what the parent will condemn. + +"We live in squeamish days. Amid the beauties of your manuscript, of +which no man can think more highly than I do, what will the squeamish +say to such expressions as these,--'devoured their limbs, yet warm and +trembling, lapping the blood,' p. 10. Or to the giant's vomit, p. 14; or +to the minute and shocking description of the extinguishing the giant's +eye in the page following. You, I daresay, have no formed plan of +excluding the female sex from among your readers, and I, as a +bookseller, must consider that if you have you exclude one half of the +human species. + +"Nothing is more easy than to modify these things if you please, and +nothing, I think, is more indispensable. + +"Give me, as soon as possible, your thoughts on the matter. + +"I should also like a preface. Half our customers know not Homer, or +know him only as you and I know the lost authors of antiquity. What can +be more proper than to mention one or two of those obvious +recommendations of his works, which must lead every human creature to +desire a nearer acquaintance.-- + +"Believe me, ever faithfully yours, +W. GODWIN." + +As a glance at the _Adventures of Ulysses_ will show (see Vol. III.), +Lamb did not make the alteration on pages 10 or 15 (pages 244 and 246 of +Vol. III.), although the giant's vomit has disappeared. _The Tales of +Terror_, 1801, were by Matthew Gregory Lewis, "Monk Lewis," as he was +called, and the _Mysteries of Udolpho_, 1794, by Mrs. Radcliffe.] + + + + +LETTER 172 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON + +[Dated at end: March 12, 1808.] + +Dear Sir,--Wordsworth breakfasts with me on Tuesday morning next; he +goes to Mrs. Clarkson the next day, and will be glad to meet you before +he goes. Can you come to us before nine or at nine that morning? I am +afraid, _W_. is so engaged with Coleridge, who is ill, we cannot have +him in an evening. If I do not hear from you, I will expect you to +breakfast on Tuesday. + +Yours truly, +C. LAMB. +Saturday, 12 Mar., 1808. + +[This is the first letter to Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867), whom Lamb +was destined to know very intimately, and to whose _Diary_ we are +indebted for much of our information concerning the Lambs. Robinson, who +was only a month younger than Lamb, had been connected with the _Times_ +as foreign correspondent and foreign editor; in November, 1809, he gave +up journalism and began to keep his terms at the Middle Temple, rising +in time to be leader of the Norfolk Circuit. We shall see much more of +him. He knew Lamb well enough to accompany him, his sister and Hazlitt +to "Mr. H." in December, 1806. + +Wordsworth left on April 3, by which time Coleridge was sufficiently +recovered to give two more lectures. The series closed in June. +Coleridge then went to Bury St. Edmunds to see the Clarksons, and then +to Grasmere, to the Wordsworths. His separation from Mrs. Coleridge had +already occurred, he and his wife remaining, however, on friendly +terms.] + + + + +LETTER 173 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART + +[P.M. March 16, 1808.] + +My dear Sarah,--Do not be very angry that I have not written to you. I +have promised your brother to be at your wedding, and that favor you +must accept as an atonement for my offences--you have been in no want of +correspondence lately, and I wished to leave you both to your own +inventions. + +The border you are working for me I prize at a very high rate because I +consider it as the last work you can do for me, the time so fast +approaching when you must no longer work for your friends. Yet my old +fault of giving away presents has not left me, and I am desirous of even +giving away this your last gift. I had intended to have given it away +without your knowledge, but I have intrusted my secret to Hazlitt, and I +suppose it will not remain a secret long, so I condescend to consult +you. It is to Miss Hazlitt, to whose superior claim I wish to give up my +right to this precious worked border. Her brother William is her great +favorite, and she would be pleased to possess his bride's last work. Are +you not to give the fellow-border to one sister-in-law, and therefore +has she not a just claim to it?--I never heard in the annals of weddings +(since the days of Nausicaa, and she only washed her old gowns for that +purpose) that the brides ever furnished the apparel of their maids. +Besides, I can be completely clad in your work without it, for the +spotted muslin will serve both for cap and hat (Nota bene, my hat is the +same as yours) and the gown you sprigged for me has never been made up, +therefore I can wear that--Or, if you like better, I will make up a new +silk which Manning has sent me from China. Manning would like to hear I +wore it for the first time at your wedding. It is a very pretty light +colour, but there is an objection (besides not being your work and that +is a very serious objection) and that is, Mrs. Hazlitt tells me that all +Winterslow would be in an uproar if the bridemaid was to be dressed in +anything but white, and although it is a very light colour I confess we +cannot call it white, being a sort of a dead-whiteish-bloom colour; then +silk, perhaps, in a morning is not so proper, though the occasion, so +joyful, might justify a full dress. Determine for me in this perplexity +between the sprig and the China-Manning silk. But do not contradict my +whim about Miss Hazlitt having the border, for I have set my heart upon +the matter: if you agree with me in this I shall think you have forgiven +me for giving away your pin; and that was a _mad_ trick, but I had many +obligations and no money. I repent me of the deed, wishing I had it now +to send to Miss H. with the border, and I cannot, will not, give her the +Doctor's pin, for having never had any presents from gentlemen in my +young days, I highly prize all they now give me, thinking my latter days +are better than my former. + +You must send this same border in your own name to Miss Hazlitt, which +will save me the disgrace of giving away your gift, and make it amount +merely to a civil refusal. + +I shall have no present to give you on your marriage, nor do I expect +that I shall be rich enough to give anything to baby at the first +christening, but at the second, or third child's I hope to have a coral +or so to spare out of my own earnings. Do not ask me to be Godmother, +for I have an objection to that--but there is I believe, no serious +duties attached to a bride's maid, therefore I come with a willing mind, +bringing nothing with me but many wishes, and not a few hopes, and a +very little of fears of happy years to come. + +I am dear Sarah +Yours ever most affectionately +M. LAMB. + +What has Charles done that nobody invites him to the wedding? + +[The wedding was on May 1, 1808. Originally it was intended to perform +the ceremony at Winterslow, but London was actually the place: St. +Andrew's, Holborn. Mary Lamb was a bridesmaid and Charles Lamb was +present. He told Southey in a letter some years after: "I was at +Hazlitt's marriage, and had like to have been turned out several times +during the ceremony. Anything awful makes me laugh." + +The episode of Nausicaa, to which Mary Lamb refers, had just been +rewritten by Charles Lamb in the _Adventures of Ulysses_.] + + + + +LETTER 174 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO GEORGE DYER + +From my Desk in Leadenhall Street, + +Decr 5, 1808. + +Dear Dyer,--Coleridge is not so bad as your fears have represented him; +it is true that he is Bury'd, altho' he is not dead; to understand this +quibble you must know that he is at Bury St. Edmunds, relaxing, after +the fatigues of lecturing and Londonizing. The little Rickmaness, whom +you enquire after so kindly, thrives and grows apace; she is already a +prattler, and 'tis thought that on some future day she may be a speaker. +[This was Mrs. Lefroy.] We hold our weekly meetings still at No. 16, +where altho' we are not so high as the top of Malvern, we are involved +in almost as much mist. Miss B[etham]'s merit "in every point of view," +I am not disposed to question, altho' I have not been indulged with any +view of that lady, back, side, or front--_fie!_ Dyer, to praise a female +in such common market phrases--you who are held so courtly and so +attentive. My book is not yet out, that is not my "Extracts," my +"Ulysses" is, and waits your acceptance. When you shall come to town, I +hope to present you both together--never think of buying the +"Extracts"--half guinea books were never calculated for my friends. +Those poets have started up since your departure; William Hazlitt, your +friend and mine, is putting to press a collection of verses, chiefly +amatory, some of them pretty enough. How these painters encroach on our +province! There's Hoppner, Shee, Westall, and I don't know who besides, +and Tresham. It seems on confession, that they are not at the top of +their own art, when they seek to eke out their fame with the assistance +of another's; no large tea-dealer sells cheese; no great silversmith +sells razorstrops; it is only your petty dealers who mix commodities. If +Nero had been a great Emperor, he would never have played the +Violoncello! Who ever caught you, Dyer, designing a landscape, or taking +a likeness? I have no more to add, who am the friend of virtue, poetry, +painting, therefore in an especial manner, + +Unalterably Thine +C. LAMB. + + + + +LETTER 175 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH HAZLITT (LATE STODDART) + +December 10th, 1808. + +My dear Sarah,--I hear of you from your brother; but you do not write +yourself, nor does Hazlitt. I beg that one or both of you will amend +this fault as speedily as possible, for I am very anxious to hear of +your health. I hope, as you say nothing about your fall to your brother, +you are perfectly recovered from the effects of it. + +You cannot think how very much we miss you and H. of a Wednesday +evening. All the glory of the night, I may say, is at an end. Phillips +makes his jokes, and there is no one to applaud him; Rickman argues, and +there is no one to oppose him. + +The worst miss of all to me is, that, when we are in the dismals, there +is now no hope of relief from any quarter whatsoever. Hazlitt was most +brilliant, most ornamental, as a Wednesday-man; but he was a more useful +one on common days, when he dropt in after a quarrel or a fit of the +glooms. The Skeffington is quite out now, my brother having got drunk +with claret and Tom Sheridan. This visit, and the occasion of it, is a +profound secret, and therefore I tell it to nobody but you and Mrs. +Reynolds. Through the medium of Wroughton, there came an invitation and +proposal from T.S., that C.L. should write some scenes in a speaking +pantomime, the other parts of which Tom now, and his father formerly, +have manufactured between them. So, in the Christmas holydays, my +brother and his two great associates, we expect, will be all three +damned together: this is, I mean, if Charles's share, which is done and +sent in, is accepted. + +I left this unfinished yesterday, in the hope that my brother would have +done it for me: his reason for refusing me was 'no exquisite reason;' +for it was, because he must write a letter to Manning in three or four +weeks, and therefore he could not be always writing letters, he said. I +wanted him to tell your husband about a great work which Godwin is going +to publish, to enlighten the world once more, and I shall not be able to +make out what it is. He (Godwin) took his usual walk one evening, a +fortnight since, to the end of Hatton Garden and back again. During that +walk, a thought came into his mind, which he instantly set down and +improved upon, till he brought it, in seven or eight days, into the +compass of a reasonable sized pamphlet. To propose a subscription to all +well disposed people, to raise a certain sum of money, to be expended in +the care of a cheap monument for the former and the future great dead +men,--the monument to be a white cross, with a wooden slab at the end, +telling their names and qualifications. This wooden slab and white cross +to be perpetuated to the end of time. To survive the fall of empires and +the destruction of cities by means of a map, which was, in case of an +insurrection among the people, or any other cause by which a city or +country may be destroyed, to be carefully preserved; and then, when +things got again into their usual order, the +white-cross-wooden-slab-makers were to go to work again, and set them in +their former places. This, as nearly as I can tell you, is the sum and +substance of it, but it is written remarkably well, in his very best +manner; for the proposal (which seems to me very like throwing salt on a +sparrow's tail to catch him) occupies but half a page, which is followed +by very fine writing on the benefits he conjectures would follow if it +were done. Very excellent thoughts on death, and on our feelings +concerning dead friends, and the advantages an old country has over a +new one, even in the slender memorials we have of great men who once +flourished. + +Charles is come home, and wants his dinner; and so the dead men must be +no more thought on: tell us how you go on, and how you like Winterslow +and winter evenings. + +Noales [Knowles] has not got back again, but he is in better spirits. +John Hazlitt was here on Wednesday, very sober. + +Our love to Hazlitt. + +Yours affectionately, +M. LAMB. + + + + +LETTER 176 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO MRS. HAZLITT + +(_Added to same letter_) + +Saturday. + +There came this morning a printed prospectus from S.T. Coleridge, +Grasmere, of a weekly paper, to be called The Friend--a flaming +prospectus--I have no time to give the heads of it--to commence first +Saturday in January. There came also a notice of a Turkey from Mr. +Clarkson, which I am more sanguine in expecting the accomplishment of +than I am of Coleridge's prophecy. + +C. LAMB. + +["The Skeffington." Referring probably to some dramatic scheme in which +Sir Lumley Skeffington, an amateur playwright, had tried to engage +Lamb's pen. Lamb's share of the speaking pantomime for the Sheridans has +vanished. We do not even know if it were ever accepted. + +The late Mr. Charles Kent, in his Centenary Edition of Lamb's works, +printed a comic opera, said, on the authority of P.G. Patmore, to be +Lamb's, and identified it with the experiment mentioned by Mary Lamb. +But an examination of the manuscript, which is in the British Museum, +convinces me that the writing is not Lamb's, while the matter has +nothing characteristic in it. Tom Sheridan, by the way, was just a month +younger than Lamb. + +Noales was probably James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862), the dramatist, a +protégé of Hazlitt's father. We shall meet him again in the +correspondence. After serving as a soldier and practising medicine he +had gone on the stage. Several years later he became one of Lamb's +friends. + +_The Friend_, which probably had been in Coleridge's thoughts for some +time, was announced to begin on the first Saturday in January. Lamb's +scepticism was justified; the first number came out on June 1.] + + + + +LETTER 177 + + +MARY LAMB TO MRS. THOMAS CLARKSON + +[P.M. Dec. (10), 1808.] + +My dear Mrs. Clarkson--I feel myself greatly indebted to Mr. Clarkson +for his care about our direction, since it has procured us the pleasure +of a line from you. Why are we all, my dear friend, so unwilling to sit +down and write a letter when we all so well know the great satisfaction +it is to hear of the welfare of an absent friend? I began to think that +you and all I connect in my mind with you were gone from us for +ever--Coleridge in a manner gave us up when he was in town, and we have +now lost all traces of him. At the time he was in town I received two +letters from Miss Wordsworth, which I never answered because I would not +complain to her of our old friend. As this has never been explained to +her it must seem very strange, more particularly so, as Miss Hutchinson +& Mrs. Wordsworth were in an ill state of health at the time. Will you +some day soon write a few words just to tell me how they all are and all +you know concerning them? + +Do not imagine that I am now _complaining_ to you of Coleridge. Perhaps +we are both in fault, we expect _too much_, and he gives _too little_. +We ought many years ago to have understood each other better. Nor is it +quite all over with us yet, for he will some day or other come in with +the same old face, and receive (after a few spiteful words from me) the +same warm welcome as ever. But we could not submit to sit as hearers at +his lectures and not be permitted to see our old friend when +_school-hours_ were over. I beg you will not let what I have said give +you a moment's thought, nor pray do not mention it to the Wordsworths +nor to Coleridge, for I know he thinks I am apt to speak unkindly of +him. I am not good tempered, and I have two or three times given him +proofs that I am not. You say you are all in your "better way," which is +a very chearful hearing, for I trust you mean to include that your +health is _bettering_ too. I look forward with great pleasure to the +near approach of Christmas and Mr. Clarkson. And now the turkey you are +so kind as to promise us comes into my head & tells me it is so very +near that if writing before then should happen to be the least irksome +to you, I will be content to wait for intelligence of our old friends +till I have the pleasure of seeing Mr. Clarkson in town. I ought to say +this because I know at times how dreadfully irksome writing a letter is +to me, even when I have no reason in the world to give why it is so, and +I remember I have heard you express something of the same kind of +feelings. + +I try to remember something to enquire after at Bury--The lady we +visited, the cherry tree Tom and I robbed, Tom my partner in the robbery +(Mr. Thomas C--- I suppose now), and your Cook maid that was so kind to +me, are all at present I can recollect. Of all the places I ever saw +Bury has made the liveliest impression on my memory. I have a very +indistinct recollection of the Lakes. + +Charles joins with me in affectionate remembrances to you all, and he is +more warm in his expressions of gratitude for the turkey because he is +fonder of good eating than I am, though I am not amiss in that way. + +God bless you my kind friends + +I remain yours affectionately + +M. LAMB. + +Excuse this slovenly letter, if I were to write it over again I should +abridge it one half. + +Saturday morning +No. 16 Mitre Court Buildings +Inner Temple. + + + + +LETTER 178 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO MRS. CLARKSON + +(_Added to same letter_) + +We have this moment received a very chearful letter from Coleridge, who +is now at Grasmere. It contains a prospectus for a new weekly +publication to be called _The Friend_. He says they are well there, and +in good spirits & that he has not been so well for a long time. + +The Prospectus is of a weekly paper of a miscellaneous nature to be +call'd the Friend & to come out, the first number, the first Saturday in +January. Those who remember _The Watchman_ will not be very sanguine in +expecting a regular fulfillment of this Prophecy. But C. writes in +delightful spirits, & _if ever_, he may _now_ do this thing. I suppose +he will send you a Prospectus. I had some thought of inclosing mine. But +I want to shew it about. My kindest remembrance to Mr. C. & thanks for +the turkey. + +C. LAMB. + +[Coleridge, after delivering his lectures, had gone to Bury on a visit +to the Clarksons. He then passed on to Grasmere, to Wordsworth's new +house, Allan Bank, and settled down to project _The Friend_. + +Tom Clarkson, with whom Mary Lamb robbed a cherry tree, became a +metropolitan magistrate. He died in 1837. + +Here should come a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, dated February 25, +1809. It tells Lloyd where to look for Lamb when he reached town--at 16 +Mitre Court Buildings, which he is leaving at Lady Day, or at 2 or 4 +Inner Temple Lane. "Drury Lane Theatre is burnt to the ground." Robert +Lloyd spent a short while in London in the spring of 1809 and saw the +Lambs, Godwin, Captain Burney, James White and other persons. His +letters to his wife describing these experiences, printed in _Charles +Lamb and the Lloyds_, are amusingly fresh and enthusiastic.] + + + + +LETTER 179 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +28th March, 1809. + +Dear Manning,--I sent you a long letter by the ships which sailed the +beginning of last month, accompanied with books, &c. Since I last wrote, +Holcroft is dead. He died on Thursday last and is not yet buried. He has +been opened by Carlisle and his heart was found completely ossified. He +has had a long and severe illness. He seemed very willing to live, and +to the last acted on his favorite principle of the power of the will to +overcome disease. I believe his strong faith in that power kept him +alive long after another person would have given him up, and the +physicians all concurred in positively saying he would not live a week, +many weeks before he died. The family are as well as can be expected. I +told you something about Mrs. Holcroft's plans. Since her death there +has been a meeting of his friends and a subscription has been mentioned. +I have no doubt that she will be set agoing, and that she will be fully +competent to the scheme which she proposes. Fanny bears it much better +than I could have supposed. So there is one of your friends whom you +will never see again! Perhaps the next fleet may bring you a letter from +Martin Burney, to say that he writes by desire of Miss Lamb, who is not +well enough to write herself, to inform you that her brother died on +Thursday last, 14th June, &c. But I hope _not_. I should be sorry to +give occasion to open a correspondence between Martin and you. This +letter must be short, for I have driven it off to the very moment of +doing up the packets; and besides, that which I refer to above is a very +long one; and if you have received my books, you will have enough to do +to read them. While I think on it, let me tell you we are moved. Don't +come any more to Mitre Court Buildings. We are at 34, Southampton +Buildings, Chancery Lane, and shall be here till about the end of May: +then we remove to No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, where I mean to live and +die; for I have such horror of moving, that I would not take a benefice +from the King, if I was not indulged with non-residence. What a +dislocation of comfort is comprised in that word moving! Such a heap of +little nasty things, after you think all is got into the cart: old +dredging-boxes, worn-out brushes, gallipots, vials, things that it is +impossible the most necessitous person can ever want, but which the +women, who preside on these occasions, will not leave behind if it was +to save your soul; they'd keep the cart ten minutes to stow in dirty +pipes and broken matches, to show their economy. Then you can find +nothing you want for many days after you get into your new lodgings. You +must comb your hair with your fingers, wash your hands without soap, go +about in dirty gaiters. Was I Diogenes, I would not move out of a +kilderkin into a hogshead, though the first had had nothing but small +beer in it, and the second reeked claret. Our place of final +destination,--I don't mean the grave, but No. 2 [4] Inner Temple +Lane,--looks out upon a gloomy churchyard-like court, called Hare Court, +with three trees and a pump in it. Do you know it? I was born near it, +and used to drink at that pump when I was a Rechabite of six years old. +If you see newspapers you will read about Mrs. Clarke. The sensation in +London about this nonsensical business is marvellous. I remember nothing +in my life like it. Thousands of ballads, caricatures, lives, of Mrs. +Clarke, in every blind alley. Yet in the midst of this stir, a sublime +abstracted dancing-master, who attends a family we know in Kensington, +being asked a question about the progress of the examination in the +House, inquired who Mrs. Clarke was? He had heard nothing of it. He had +evaded this omnipresence by utter insignificancy! The Duke should make +that man his confidential valet. I proposed locking him up, barring him +the use of his fiddle and red pumps, until he had minutely perused and +committed to memory the whole body of the examinations, which employed +the House of Commons a fortnight, to teach him to be more attentive to +what concerns the public. I think I told you of Godwin's little book, +and of Coleridge's prospectus, in my last; if I did not, remind me of +it, and I will send you them, or an account of them, next fleet. I have +no conveniency of doing it by this. Mrs.---- grows every day in +disfavour with God and man. I will be buried with this inscription over +me:--"Here lies C. L., the Woman-hater"--I mean that hated ONE WOMAN: +for the rest, God bless them, and when he makes any more, make 'em +prettier. How do you like the Mandarinesses? Are you on some little +footing with any of them? This is Wednesday. On Wednesdays is my levee. +The Captain, Martin, Phillips, (not the Sheriff,) Rickman, and some +more, are constant attendants, besides stray visitors. We play at whist, +eat cold meat and hot potatoes, and any gentleman that chooses smokes. +Why do you never drop in? You'll come some day, won't you? + +C. LAMB, &c. + +[Thomas Holcroft died on March 23, 1809, aged sixty-three. Mitre Court +Buildings, Southampton Buildings and Inner Temple Lane (Lamb's homes) +have all been rebuilt since Lamb's day. + +"That word 'moving.'" Lamb later elaborated and condensed this passage, +in the _Elia_ essay "New Year's Eve": "Any alteration, on this earth of +mine, in diet or in lodging, puzzles and discomposes me. My +household-gods plant a terrible fixed foot, and are not rooted up +without blood." + +"Mrs. Clarke." Mary Anne Clarke (1776-1852), mistress of the Duke of +York, Commander-in-Chief, whose reception of money from officers as a +return for procuring them preferment or promising to, by her influence +with the Duke, had just been exposed in Parliament, and was causing +immense excitement. + +"Godwin's little book." Probably the _Essay on Sepulchres_. But Godwin's +Lives of Edward and John Phillips, Milton's nephews, appeared also at +this time. + +"Mrs. ----." Most probably Mrs. Godwin once more. + +"Not the Sheriff." Alluding to Sir Richard Phillips, the publisher, who +was elected Sheriff of London in 1807, and was knighted in 1808. + +On the same day Lamb and his sister wrote a very charming joint letter +to Louisa Martin, which has not yet been published. See the Preface to +this volume, p. viii.] + + + + +LETTER 180 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON + +[Dated by H. C. R.: May, 1809.] + +Dear Sir,--Would you be so kind as, when you go to the Times office, to +see about an Advertisement which My Landlady's Daughter left for +insertion about ten days since and has not appeared, for a Governesses +Place? The references are to Thorpe & Graves 18 Lower Holborn, and to M. +B. 115 Oxford St. Though not anxious about attitudes, she pines for a +situation. I got home tolerably well, as I hear, the other evening. It +may be a warning to any one in future to ask me to a dinner party. I +always disgrace myself. I floated up stairs on the Coachman's back, like +Ariel; "On a bat's back I do fly, After sunset merrily." + +In sobriety + +I am + +Yours truly + +C. LAMB. + +[Lamb used the simile of Ariel at least twice afterwards: at the close +of the _Elia_ essay "Rejoicings on the New Year's Coming-of-Age," and in +a letter to J. V. Asbury of Enfield, the Lambs' doctor.] + + + + +LETTER 181 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH HAZLITT + +[June 2, 1809.] + +You may write to Hazlitt, that I will _certainly_ go to Winterslough, as +my Father has agreed to give me 5l. to bear my expences, and has given +leave that I may stop till that is spent, leaving enough to defray my +Carriage on the 14th July. + +So far Martin has written, and further than that I can give you no +intelligence, for I do not yet know Phillips's intentions; nor can I +tell you the exact time when we can come; nor can I positively say we +shall come at all; for we have scruples of conscience about there being +so many of us. Martin says, if you can borrow a blanket or two, he can +sleep on the floor, without either bed or mattress, which would save his +expences at the Hut; for, if Phillips breakfasts there, he must do so +too, which would swallow up all his money. And he and I have calculated +that, if he has no Inn expences, he may as well spare that money to give +you for a part of his roast beef. + +We can spare you also just five pounds. You are not to say this to +Hazlitt, lest his delicacy should be alarmed; but I tell you what Martin +and I have planned, that, if you happen to be empty pursed at this time, +you may think it as well to make him up a bed in the best kitchen. + +I think it very probable that Phillips will come; and, if you do not +like such a croud of us, for they both talk of staying a whole month, +tell me so, and we will put off our visit till next summer. + +The 14th July is the day Martin has fixed for _coming_. I should have +written before, if I could have got a positive answer from them. + +Thank you very much for the good work you have done for me. Mrs. +Stoddart also thanks you for the gloves. How often must I tell you never +to do any needle work for any body but me? + +Martin Burney has been very ill, and still is very weak and pale. Mrs. +Holcroft and all her children, and all her scholars, have had the +measles. Your old friend, Mrs. Fenwick, is in town. + +We are going to see Mrs. Martin and her daughter, Mrs. Fulton (Sarah +Martin), and I expect to see there the future husband of Louisa. It will +be a charming evening, doubtless. + +I cannot write any more, for we have got a noble Life of Lord Nelson +lent us for a short time by my poor relation the book binder, and I want +to read as much of it as I can. + +Yours affectionately, +M. LAMB. + +On reading Martin's note over again, we guess the Captain means him to +stay only a fortnight. It is most likely we shall come the beginning of +July. Saturday [?June 3]. + +[The Lambs were proposing to spend their holidays with the Hazlitts, in +July, and to take Colonel Phillips and his nephew Martin Burney with +them. (Or possibly it was the other Phillips.) As it happened, however, +Mary Lamb was taken ill almost immediately after writing this letter, +and the visit had to be postponed until September and October. + +The Hut was the Winterslow inn. + +"My poor relation the book binder." See the letter to Barron Field, Oct. +4, 1827.] + + + + +LETTER 182 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE +June 7th, 1809. + +Dear Coleridge,--I congratulate you on the appearance of "The Friend." +Your first number promises well, and I have no doubt the succeeding +numbers will fulfil the promise. I had a kind letter from you some time +since, which I have left unanswered. I am also obliged to you, I +believe, for a review in the "Annual," am I not? The "Monthly Review" +sneers at me, and asks "if 'Comus' is not _good enough_ for Mr. Lamb?" +because I have said no good serious dramas have been written since the +death of Charles the First, except "Samson Agonistes"; so because they +do not know, or won't remember, that "Comus" was written long before, I +am to be set down as an undervaluer of Milton! O Coleridge, do kill +those reviews, or they will kill us--kill all we like! Be a friend to +all else, but their foe. I have been turned out of my chambers in the +Temple by a landlord who wanted them for himself; but I have got other +at No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, far more commodious and roomy. I have two +rooms on third floor and five rooms above, with an inner staircase to +myself, and all new painted, &c., and all for £30 a year! I came into +them on Saturday week; and on Monday following, Mary was taken ill with +fatigue of moving, and affected, I believe, by the novelty of the home; +she could not sleep, and I am left alone with a maid quite a stranger to +me, and she has a month or two's sad distraction to go through. What sad +large pieces it cuts out of life--out of _her_ life, who is getting +rather old; and we may not have many years to live together! I am +weaker, and bear it worse than I ever did. But I hope we shall be +comfortable by and bye. The rooms are delicious, and the best look +backwards into Hare Court, where there is a pump always going. Just now +it is dry. Hare Court trees come in at the window, so that it's like +living in a garden. I try to persuade myself it is much pleasanter than +Mitre Court; but, alas! the household gods are slow to come in a new +mansion. They are in their infancy to me; I do not feel them yet; no +hearth has blazed to them yet. How I hate and dread new places! + +I was very glad to see Wordsworth's book advertised; I am to have it +to-morrow lent me, and if Wordsworth don't send me an order for one upon +Longman, I will buy it. It is greatly extolled and liked by all who have +seen it. Let me hear from some of you, for I am desolate. I shall have +to send you, in a week or two, two volumes of Juvenile Poetry, done by +Mary and me within the last six months, and that tale in prose which +Wordsworth so much liked, which was published at Christmas, with nine +others, by us, and has reached a second edition. There's for you! We +have almost worked ourselves out of child's work, and I don't know what +to do. Sometimes I think of a drama, but I have no head for play-making; +I can do the dialogue, and that's all. I am quite aground for a plan, +and I must do something for money. Not that I have immediate wants, but +I have prospective ones. O money, money, how blindly thou hast been +worshipped, and how stupidly abused! Thou art health, and liberty, and +strength; and he that has thee may rattle his pockets at the foul fiend! + +Nevertheless, do not understand by this that I have not quite enough for +my occasions for a year or two to come. While I think on it, Coleridge, +I fetch'd away my books which you had at the "Courier" Office, and found +all but a third volume of the old plays, containing "The White Devil," +"Green's Tu Quoque," and the "Honest Whore,"--perhaps the most valuable +volume of them all--_that_ I could not find. Pray, if you can, remember +what you did with it, or where you took it out with you a walking +perhaps; send me word; for, to use the old plea, it spoils a set. I +found two other volumes (you had three), the "Arcadia," and "Daniel," +enriched with manuscript notes. I wish every book I have were so noted. +They have thoroughly converted me to relish Daniel, or to say I relish +him, for, after all, I believe I did relish him. You well call him +sober-minded. Your notes are excellent. Perhaps you've forgot them. I +have read a review in the "Quarterly," by Southey, on the Missionaries, +which is most masterly. I only grudge it being there. It is quite +beautiful. Do remember my Dodsley; and pray do write; or let some of you +write. Clarkson tells me you are in a smoky house. Have you cured it? It +is hard to cure anything of smoking. Our little poems are but humble, +but they have no name. You must read them, remembering they were +task-work; and perhaps you will admire the number of subjects, all of +children, picked out by an old Bachelor and an old Maid. Many parents +would not have found so many. Have you read "Coelebs?" It has reached +eight editions in so many weeks; yet literally it is one of the very +poorest sort of common novels, with the draw-back of dull religion in +it. Had the religion been high and flavoured, it would have been +something. I borrowed this "Coelebs in Search of a Wife" of a very +careful, neat lady, and returned it with this stuff written in the +beginning:-- + +"If ever I marry a wife +I'd marry a landlord's daughter, +For then I may sit in the bar, +And drink cold brandy-and-water." + +I don't expect you can find time from your "Friend" to write to me much, +but write something, for there has been a long silence. You know +Holcroft is dead. Godwin is well. He has written a very pretty, absurd +book about sepulchres. He was affronted because I told him it was better +than Hervey, but not so good as Sir T. Browne. This letter is all about +books; but my head aches, and I hardly know what I write; but I could +not let "The Friend" pass without a congratulatory epistle. I won't +criticise till it comes to a volume. Tell me how I shall send my packet +to you?--by what conveyance?--by Longman, Short-man, or how? Give my +kindest remembrances to Wordsworth. Tell him he must give me a book. My +kind love to Mrs. W. and to Dorothy separately and conjointly. I wish +you could all come and see me in my new rooms. God bless you all. + +C. L. + +[The first number of _The Friend_ was dated June 1, 1809. + +Lamb's _Dramatic Specimens_ had been reviewed in the _Annual Review_ for +1808, with discrimination and approval (see Vol. IV. of my large +edition), but whether or not by Coleridge I do not know. + +Wordsworth's book was his pamphlet on the "Convention of Cintra." + +The Juvenile Poetry was _Poetry for Children. Entirely Original_. By the +author of _Mrs. Leicester's School_. In two volumes, 1809. _Mrs. +Leicester's School_, 1809, had been published a little before. +Wordsworth's favourite tale was Arabella Hardy's "The Sea Voyage." + +I know nothing of the annotated copy of Sidney's _Arcadia_. Daniel's +_Poetical Works_, 12mo, 1718, two volumes, with marginalia by Lamb and +Coleridge, is still preserved. The copy of Hannah More's _Coelebs in +Search of a Wife_, 1809, with Lamb's verses, is not, I think, now known. + +Southey's missionary article was in the first number of the _Quarterly_, +February, 1809. + +Hervey wrote _Meditations among the Tombs_; Sir Thomas Browne, _Urn +Burial_. + +Here should come four letters from Lamb to Charles Lloyd, Senior. They +are all printed in _Charles Lamb and the Lloyds_. The first, dated June +13, 1809, contains an interesting criticism of a translation of the +twenty-fourth book of the _Iliad_, which Charles Lloyd, the father of +Robert Lloyd, had made. Lamb says that what he misses, and misses also +in Pope, is a savage-like plainness of speaking. + +"The heroes in Homer are not half civilized--they utter all the cruel, +all the selfish, all the _mean thoughts_ even of their nature, which it +is the fashion of our great men to keep in." + +Mr. Lloyd had translated [Greek: aoidous] (line 720) "minstrels." Lamb +says "minstrels I suspect to be a word bringing merely English or +English ballad feelings to the Mind. It expresses the thing and +something more, as to say Sarpedon was a Gentleman, or as somebody +translated Paul's address, 'Ye men of Athens,' 'Gentlemen of Athens.'" + +The second letter, dated June 19, 1809, continues the subject. Lamb +writes: "I am glad to see you venture _made_ and _maid_ for rhymes. 'Tis +true their sound is the same. But the mind occupied in revolving the +different meaning of two words so literally the same, is diverted from +the objection which the mere Ear would make, and to the mind it is rhyme +enough." + +In the third letter, dated July 31, 1809, Lamb remarks of translators of +Homer, that Cowper delays one as much, walking over a Bowling Green, as +Milton does, travelling over steep Alpine heights. + +The fourth letter, undated, accompanies criticisms of Mr. Lloyd's +translation of the _Odyssey_, Books 1 and 2, Mr. Lloyd had translated +[Greek: Bous Helioio] (Book I, line 8) "Bullocks of the Sun." Lamb +wrote: "OXEN of the Sun, I conjure. Bullocks is too Smithfield and +sublunary a Word. Oxen of the Sun, or of Apollo, but in any case not +Bullocks." + +With a letter to Robert Lloyd, belonging to this year, Lamb sends +_Poetry for Children_, and states that the poem "The Beggar Man" is by +his brother, John Lamb.] + + + + +LETTER 183 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +Monday, Oct. 30th, 1809. + +Dear Coleridge,--I have but this moment received your letter, dated the +9th instant, having just come off a journey from Wiltshire, where I have +been with Mary on a visit to Hazlitt. The journey has been of infinite +service to her. We have had nothing but sunshiny days and daily walks +from eight to twenty miles a-day; have seen Wilton, Salisbury, +Stonehenge, &c. Her illness lasted but six weeks; it left her weak, but +the country has made us whole. We came back to our Hogarth Room--I have +made several acquisitions since you saw them,--and found Nos. 8, 9, 10 +of "The Friend." The account of Luther in the Warteburg is as fine as +anything I ever read. God forbid that a man who has such things to say +should be silenced for want of £100. This Custom-and-Duty Age would have +made the Preacher on the Mount take out a licence, and St. Paul's +Epistles would not have been missible without a stamp. Oh, that you may +find means to go on! But alas! where is Sir G. Beaumont?--Sotheby? What +is become of the rich Auditors in Albemarle Street? Your letter has +saddened me. + +I am so tired with my journey, being up all night, I have neither things +nor words in my power. I believe I expressed my admiration of the +pamphlet. Its power over me was like that which Milton's pamphlets must +have had on his contemporaries, who were tuned to them. What a piece of +prose! Do you hear if it is read at all? I am out of the world of +readers. I hate all that do read, for they read nothing but reviews and +new books. I gather myself up unto the old things. + +I have put up shelves. You never saw a book-case in more true harmony +with the contents, than what I've nailed up in a room, which, though +new, has more aptitudes for growing old than you shall often see--as one +sometimes gets a friend in the middle of life, who becomes an old friend +in a short time. My rooms are luxurious; one is for prints and one for +books; a Summer and a Winter parlour. When shall I ever see you in them? + +C. L. + +[Hazlitt has given some account of the Lambs' visit to Winterslow, but +the passage belongs probably to the year following. In his essay "On the +Conversation of Authors" he likens Lamb in the country to "the most +capricious poet Ovid among the Goths." "The country people thought him +an oddity, and did not understand his jokes. It would be strange if they +had, for he did not make any, while he stayed. But when he crossed the +country to Oxford, then he spoke a little. He and the old colleges were +hail-fellow well met; and in the quadrangles he 'walked gowned.'" Again, +in "A Farewell to Essay-writing," Hazlitt says: "I used to walk out at +this time with Mr. and Miss Lamb of an evening, to look at the Claude +Lorraine skies over our heads melting from azure into purple and gold, +and to gather mushrooms, that sprang up at our feet, to throw into our +hashed mutton." + +Lamb's Hogarths were framed in black. It must have been about this time +that he began his essay "On the Genius of Hogarth," which was printed in +_The Reflector_ in 1811 (see Vol. I.). + +_The Friend_ lasted until No. XXVII., March 15, 1810. The account of +Luther was in No. VIII., October 5, 1809. Coleridge had not been +supported financially as he had hoped, and had already begun to think of +stopping the paper. + +Sir George Howland Beaumont (1753-1827), of Coleorton, the friend and +patron of men of genius, had helped, with Sotheby, in the establishment +of _The Friend_, and was instrumental subsequently in procuring a +pension for Coleridge. William Sotheby (1757-1833), the translator and +author, had received subscriptions for Coleridge's lectures. + +"The rich Auditors in Albemarle Street"--those who had listened to +Coleridge's lectures at the Royal Institution. + +"The pamphlet." Presumably Wordsworth's "Convention of Cintra." + +"You never saw a book-case." Leigh Hunt wrote of Lamb's books in the +essay "My Books," in _The Literary Examiner_:-- + +"It looks like what it is, a selection made at precious intervals from +the book-stalls;--now a Chaucer at nine and two-pence; now a Montaigne +or a Sir Thomas Browne at two shillings; now a Jeremy Taylor, a Spinoza; +an old English Dramatist, Prior, and Sir Philip Sidney; and the books +are 'neat as imported.' The very perusal of the backs is a 'discipline +of humanity.' There Mr. Southey takes his place again with an old +Radical friend: there Jeremy Collier is at peace with Dryden: there the +lion, Martin Luther, lies down with the Quaker lamb, Sewel: there Guzman +d'Alfarache thinks himself fit company for Sir Charles Grandison, and +has his claims admitted. Even the 'high fantastical' Duchess of +Newcastle, with her laurel on her head, is received with grave honours, +and not the less for declining to trouble herself with the constitutions +of her maids."] + + + + +LETTER 184 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH HAZLITT + +November 7th, 1809. + +My dear Sarah--The dear, quiet, lazy, delicious month we spent with you +is remembered by me with such regret, that I feel quite discontent & +Winterslow-sick. I assure you, I never passed such a pleasant time in +the country in my life, both in the house & out of it, the card playing +quarrels, and a few gaspings for breath after your swift footsteps up +the high hills excepted, and those drawbacks are not unpleasant in the +recollection. We have got some salt butter to make our toast seem like +yours, and we have tried to eat meat suppers, but that would not do, for +we left our appetites behind us; and the dry loaf, which offended you, +now comes in at night unaccompanied; but, sorry am I to add, it is soon +followed by the pipe and the gin bottle. We smoked the very first night +of our arrival. + +Great news! I have just been interrupted by Mr. Daw, who comes to tell +me he was yesterday elected a Royal Academician. He said none of his own +friends voted for him; he got it by strangers, who were pleased with his +picture of Mrs. White. Charles says he does not believe Northcote ever +voted for the admission of any one. Though a very cold day, Daw was in a +prodigious sweat, for joy at his good fortune. + +More great news! my beautiful green curtains were put up yesterday, and +all the doors listed with green baize, and four new boards put to the +coal-hole, and fastening hasps put to the window, and my died Manning +silk cut out. + +Yesterday was an eventful day: for yesterday too Martin Burney was to be +examined by Lord Eldon, previous to his being admitted as an Attorney; +but he has not yet been here to announce his success. + +I carried the baby-caps to Mrs. [John] Hazlitt; she was much pleased, +and vastly thankful. Mr. [John] H. got fifty-four guineas at Rochester, +and has now several pictures in hand. + +I am going to tell you a secret, for ---- says she would be sorry to +have it talked of. One night ---- came home from the ale-house, bringing +with him a great, rough, ill-looking fellow, whom he introduced to ---- +as Mr. Brown, a gentleman he had hired as a mad keeper, to take care of +him, at forty pounds a year, being ten pounds under the usual price for +keepers, which sum Mr. Brown had agreed to remit out of pure friendship. +It was with great difficulty, and by threatening to call in the aid of +watchmen and constables, that ---- could prevail on Mr. Brown to leave +the house. + +We had a good chearful meeting on Wednesday: much talk of Winterslow, +its woods & its nice sun flowers. I did not so much like Phillips at +Winterslow, as I now like him for having been with us at Winterslow. We +roasted the last of his 'beach, of oily nut prolific,' on Friday, at the +Captain's. Nurse is now established in Paradise, _alias_ the Incurable +Ward [of Westminster Hospital]. I have seen her sitting in most superb +state, surrounded by her seven incurable companions. They call each +other ladies. Nurse looks as if she would be considered as the first +lady in the ward: only one seemed at [all] like to rival her in dignity. + +A man in the India House has resigned, by which Charles will get twenty +pounds a year; and White has prevailed on him to write some more +lottery-puffs. If that ends in smoke, the twenty pounds is a sure card, +and has made us very joyful. + +I continue very well, & return you very sincere thanks for my good +health and improved looks, which have almost made Mrs. Godwin die with +envy; she longs to come to Winterslow as much as the spiteful elder +sister did to go to the well for a gift to spit diamonds-- + +Jane and I have agreed to boil a round of beef for your suppers, when +you come to town again. She, Jane, broke two of the Hogarth glasses +while we were away--whereat I made a great noise. + +Farewel. Love to William, and Charles's love and good wishes for the +speedy arrival of the Life of Holcroft, & the bearer thereof. + +Yours most affectionately, +M. LAMB. + +Tuesday. + +Charles told Mrs. Godwin, Hazlitt had found a well in his garden, which, +water being scarce in your country, would bring him in two hundred a +year; and she came in great haste the next morning to ask me if it were +true. Your brother and his &c. are quite well. + +[George Dawe had just been elected not Royal Academician but Associate. +He became full R.A. in 1814. + +Mrs. White was the wife of Anthony White, the surgeon, who had been +apprenticed to Sir Anthony Carlisle. + +Northcote was James Northcote, R.A., whose _Conversations_ Hazlitt +recorded some years later. + +Martin Burney never made a successful lawyer. His life was destined to +be unhappy and unprofitable, as we shall see later. + +"I am going to tell you a secret." In the absence of the original these +blanks cannot be filled in, nor are they important. + +"Lottery puffs." See note on page 340. + +"The spiteful elder sister." This story is in Grimm, I think. + +"The _Life of Holcroft_." The _Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft_, begun by +Holcroft and finished by Hazlitt, although completed in 1810, was not +published until 1816. + +Here should come a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, dated January 1, +1810, thanking him for a turkey. Lamb mentions that his 1809 holiday had +been spent in Wiltshire, where he saw Salisbury Cathedral and +Stonehenge. He adds that Coleridge's _Friend_ is occasionally sublime. +This was the last letter of the correspondence. Robert Lloyd died on +October 26, 1811. Lamb wrote in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ a memoir of +him, which will be found in Vol. I. of this edition.] + + + + +LETTER 185 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +Jan. 2nd, 1810. + +Mary sends her love. + +Dear Manning,--When I last wrote to you, I was in lodgings. I am now in +chambers, No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, where I should be happy to see you +any evening. Bring any of your friends, the Mandarins, with you. I have +two sitting-rooms: I call them so _par excellence_, for you may stand, +or loll, or lean, or try any posture in them; but they are best for +sitting; not squatting down Japanese fashion, but the more decorous use +of the post----s which European usage has consecrated. I have two of +these rooms on the third floor, and five sleeping, cooking, &c., rooms, +on the fourth floor. In my best room is a choice collection of the works +of Hogarth, an English painter of some humour. In my next best are +shelves containing a small but well-chosen library. My best room +commands a court, in which there are trees and a pump, the water of +which is excellent--cold with brandy, and not very insipid without. Here +I hope to set up my rest, and not quit till Mr. Powell, the undertaker, +gives me notice that I may have possession of my last lodging. He lets +lodgings for single gentlemen. I sent you a parcel of books by my last, +to give you some idea of the state of European literature. There comes +with this two volumes, done up as letters, of minor poetry, a sequel to +"Mrs. Leicester;" the best you may suppose mine; the next best are my +coadjutor's; you may amuse yourself in guessing them out; but I must +tell you mine are but one-third in quantity of the whole. So much for a +very delicate subject. It is hard to speak of one's self, &c. Holcroft +had finished his life when I wrote to you, and Hazlitt has since +finished his life--I do not mean his own life, but he has finished a +life of Holcroft, which is going to press. Tuthill is Dr. Tuthill. I +continue Mr. Lamb. I have published a little book for children on titles +of honour: and to give them some idea of the difference of rank and +gradual rising, I have made a little scale, supposing myself to receive +the following various accessions of dignity from the king, who is the +fountain of honour--As at first, 1, Mr. C. Lamb; 2, C. Lamb, Esq.; 3, +Sir C. Lamb, Bart.; 4, Baron Lamb of Stamford;[1] 5, Viscount Lamb; 6, +Earl Lamb; 7, Marquis Lamb; 8, Duke Lamb. It would look like quibbling +to carry it on further, and especially as it is not necessary for +children to go beyond the ordinary titles of sub-regal dignity in our +own country, otherwise I have sometimes in my dreams imagined myself +still advancing, as 9th, King Lamb; 10th, Emperor Lamb; 11th, Pope +Innocent, higher than which is nothing but the Lamb of God. Puns I have +not made many (nor punch much), since the date of my last; one I cannot +help relating. A constable in Salisbury Cathedral was telling me that +eight people dined at the top of the spire of the cathedral; upon which +I remarked, that they must be very sharp-set. But in general I cultivate +the reasoning part of my mind more than the imaginative. Do you know +Kate *********. I am stuffed out so with eating turkey for dinner, and +another turkey for supper yesterday (turkey in Europe and turkey in +Asia), that I can't jog on. It is New-Year here. That is, it was +New-Year half a-year back, when I was writing this. Nothing puzzles me +more than time and space, and yet nothing puzzles me less, for I never +think about them. Miss Knap is turned midwife. Never having had a child +herself, she can't draw any wrong analogies from her own case. Dr. +Stoddart has had Twins. There was five shillings to pay the Nurse. Mrs. +Godwin was impannelled on a jury of Matrons last Sessions. She saved a +criminal's life by giving it as her opinion that ----. The Judge +listened to her with the greatest deference. The Persian ambassador is +the principal thing talked of now. I sent some people to see him worship +the sun on Primrose Hill at half past six in the morning, 28th November; +but he did not come, which makes me think the old fire-worshippers are a +sect almost extinct in Persia. Have you trampled on the Cross yet? The +Persian ambassador's name is Shaw Ali Mirza. The common people call him +Shaw Nonsense. While I think of it, I have put three letters besides my +own three into the India post for you, from your brother, sister, and +some gentleman whose name I forget. Will they, have they, did they, come +safe? The distance you are at, cuts up tenses by the root. I think you +said you did not know Kate *********, I express her by nine stars, +though she is but one, but if ever one star differed from another in +glory--. You must have seen her at her father's. Try and remember her. +Coleridge is bringing out a paper in weekly numbers, called the +"Friend," which I would send, if I could; but the difficulty I had in +getting the packets of books out to you before deters me; and you'll +want something new to read when you come home. It is chiefly intended to +puff off Wordsworth's poetry; but there are some noble things in it by +the by. Except Kate, I have had no vision of excellence this year, and +she passed by like the queen on her coronation day; you don't know +whether you saw her or not. Kate is fifteen: I go about moping, and sing +the old pathetic ballad I used to like in my youth-- + +"She's sweet Fifteen, +I'm _one year more_." + +Mrs. Bland sung it in boy's clothes the first time I heard it. I +sometimes think the lower notes in my voice are like Mrs. Eland's. That +glorious singer Braham, one of my lights, is fled. He was for a season. +He was a rare composition of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel, yet +all these elements mixed up so kindly in him, that you could not tell +which predominated; but he is gone, and one Phillips is engaged instead. +Kate is vanished, but Miss B ****** is always to be met with! + +"Queens drop away, while blue-legg'd Maukin thrives; +And courtly Mildred dies while country Madge survives." + +That is not my poetry, but Quarles's; but haven't you observed that the +rarest things are the least obvious? Don't show anybody the names in +this letter. I write confidentially, and wish this letter to be +considered as _private_. Hazlitt has written a _grammar_ for Godwin; +Godwin sells it bound up with a treatise of his own on language, but the +_grey mare is the better horse_. I don't allude to Mrs. Godwin, but to +the word _grammar_, which comes near to _grey mare_, if you observe, in +sound. That figure is called paranomasia in Greek. I am sometimes happy +in it. An old woman begged of me for charity. "Ah! sir," said she, "I +have seen better days;" "So have I, good woman," I replied; but I meant +literally, days not so rainy and overcast as that on which she begged: +she meant more prosperous days. Mr. Dawe is made associate of the Royal +Academy. By what law of association I can't guess. Mrs. Holcroft, Miss +Holcroft, Mr. and Mrs. Godwin, Mr. and Mrs. Hazlitt, Mrs. Martin and +Louisa, Mrs. Lum, Capt. Burney, Mrs. Burney, Martin Burney, Mr. Rickman, +Mrs. Rickman, Dr. Stoddart, William Dollin, Mr. Thompson, Mr. and Mrs. +Norris, Mr. Fenwick, Mrs. Fenwick, Miss Fenwick, a man that saw you at +our house one day, and a lady that heard me speak of you; Mrs. Buffam +that heard Hazlitt mention you, Dr. Tuthill, Mrs. Tuthill, Colonel +Harwood, Mrs. Harwood, Mr. Collier, Mrs. Collier, Mr. Sutton, Nurse, Mr. +Fell, Mrs. Fell, Mr. Marshall, are very well, and occasionally inquire +after you. [_Rest cut away_.] + +[Footnote 1: Where my family come from. I have chosen that if ever I +should have my choice.] + +["I have published a little book." This was, of course, an invention. In +the _Elia_ essay on "Poor Relations" Lamb says that his father's boyhood +was spent at Lincoln, and in Susan Yates' story in _Mrs. Leicester's +School_ we see the Lincolnshire fens, but of the history of the family +we know nothing, I fancy Stamford is a true touch. + +"The Persian ambassador." A portrait of this splendid person is +preserved at the India Office. Leigh Hunt says that Dyer was among the +pilgrims to Primrose Hill. + +"Kate *********." I have not identified this young lady. + +"The old pathetic ballad." I have not found this. + +"Mrs. Bland." Maria Theresa Bland (1769-1838), a Jewess, and a +mezzo-soprano famous in simple ballads, who was connected with Drury +Lane for many years. + +"Braham is fled." Braham did not sing in London in 1810, but joined Mrs. +Billington in a long provincial tour. Phillips was Thomas Philipps +(1774-1841), singer and composer. + +"Miss B ******." Miss Burrell. See note to letter of Feb. 18, 1818. + +"Not my poetry, but Quarles's." In "An Elegie," Stanza 16. Lamb does not +quote quite correctly. + +"Hazlitt's grammar." _A New and Improved Grammar of the English Tongue +... By William Hazlitt, to which is added A New Guide to the English +Tongue by E[dward] Baldwin_ (William Godwin). Published by M. J. Godwin. +1810. + +"A woman begged of me." Lamb told this story at the end of his _Elia_ +essay "A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars," in the _London Magazine_, +June, 1822, but the passage was not reprinted in book form. See Vol. II. +of this edition. + +George Dawe was made A.R.A. in 1809, not R.A. until 1814. + +Of the friends on Lamb's list we have already met several. Mr. and Mrs. +Norris were the Randal Norrises. Dr. Stoddart having left Malta was now +practising in Doctors Commons. Mr. and Mrs. Collier were the John Dyer +Colliers, the parents of John Payne Collier, who introduced Lamb to +Henry Crabb Robinson. Both Colliers were journalists. Thompson may be +Marmaduke Thompson of Christ's Hospital. We meet some Buffams later, in +the Moxon correspondence. Mr. Marshall was Godwin's friend. Of Mrs. Lum, +Mr. Dollin, Colonel and Mrs. Harwood, and Mr. Sutton, I know nothing.] + + + + +LETTER 186 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON + +[Dated by H. C. R. Feb. 7, 1810.] + +Dr R.--My Brother whom you have met at my rooms (a plump good looking +man of seven and forty!) has written a book about humanity, which I +transmit to you herewith. Wilson the Publisher has put it in his head +that you can get it Reviewed for him. I dare say it is not in the scope +of your Review--but if you could put it in any likely train, he would +rejoyce. For alas! our boasted Humanity partakes of Vanity. As it is, he +teazes me to death with chusing to suppose that I could get it into all +the Reviews at a moment's notice--I!! who have been set up as a mark for +them to throw at, and would willingly consign them all to Hell flames +and Megaera's snaky locks. + +But here's the Book--and don't shew it Mrs. Collier, for I remember she +makes excellent Eel soup, and the leading points of the Book are +directed against that very process. + +Yours truly C. LAMB. + +At Home to-night--Wednesday [February 7]. + +[Addressed to "Henry Robinson, Esq., 56 Hatton Garden, 'with a Treatise +on Cruelty to Animals.'" + +Lamb's brother, John Lamb, who was born in 1763, was now Accountant of +the South-Sea House. His character is described by Lamb in the _Elia_ +essay "My Relations," where he figures as James Elia. Robinson's _Diary_ +later frequently expresses Robinson's dislike of his dogmatic ways. + +The pamphlet has been identified by Mr. L.S. Livingston as _A Letter to +the Right Hon. William Windham, on his opposition to Lord Erskine's Bill +for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals_. It was published by Maxwell & +Wilson at 17 Skinner Street in 1810. No author's name is given. One copy +only is known, and that is in America, and the owner declines to permit +it to be reprinted. The particular passage referring to eel pie runs +thus:-- + +"If an eel had the wisdom of Solomon, he could not help himself in the +ill-usage that befalls him; but if he had, and were told, that it was +necessary for our subsistence that he should be eaten, that he must be +skinned first, and then broiled; if ignorant of man's usual practice, he +would conclude that the cook would so far use her reason as to cut off +his head first, which is not fit for food, as then he might be skinned +and broiled without harm; for however the other parts of his body might +be convulsed during the culinary operations, there could be no feeling +of consciousness therein, the communication with the brain being cut +off; but if the woman were immediately to stick a fork into his eye, +skin him alive, coil him up in a skewer, head and all, so that in the +extremest agony he could not move, and forthwith broil him to death: +then were the same Almighty Power that formed man from the dust, and +breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, to call the eel into a +new existence, with a knowledge of the treatment he had undergone, and +he found that the instinctive disposition which man has in common with +other carnivorous animals, which inclines him to cruelty, was not the +sole cause of his torments; but that men did not attend to consider +whether the sufferings of such insignificant creatures could be +lessened: that eels were not the only sufferers; that lobsters and other +shell fish were put into cold water and boiled to death by slow degrees +in many parts of the sea coast; that these, and many other such wanton +atrocities, were the consequence of carelessness occasioned by the pride +of mankind despising their low estate, and of the general opinion that +there is no punishable sin in the ill-treatment of animals designed for +our use; that, therefore, the woman did not bestow so much thought on +him as to cut his head off first, and that she would have laughed at any +considerate person who should have desired such a thing; with what +fearful indignation might he inveigh against the unfeeling metaphysician +that, like a cruel spirit alarmed at the appearance of a dawning of +mercy upon animals, could not rest satisfied with opposing the Cruelty +Prevention Bill by the plea of possible inconvenience to mankind, highly +magnified and emblazoned, but had set forth to the vulgar and unthinking +of all ranks, in the jargon of proud learning, that man's obligations of +morality towards the creatures subjected to his use are imperfect +obligations!" + +Robinson's review was, I imagine, _The London Review_, founded by +Richard Cumberland in February, 1809, which, however, no longer existed, +having run its brief course by November, 1809. + +"Megæra's snaky locks." From _Paradise Lost_, X., 559:-- + +and up the trees +Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks +That curl'd Megæra. + +Here should come another letter from Lamb to Charles Lloyd, Senior, +dated March 10, 1810. It refers to Mr. Lloyd's translation of the first +seven books of the _Odyssey_ and is accompanied by a number of +criticisms. Lamb advises Mr. Lloyd to complete the _Odyssey_, adding +that he would prize it for its Homeric plainness and truths above the +confederate jumble of Pope, Broom and Fenton which goes under Pope's +name and is far inferior to his _Iliad_. Among the criticisms is one on +Mr. Lloyd's use of the word "patriotic," in which Lamb says that it +strikes his ears as being too modern; adding that in English few words +of more than three syllables chime well into a verse. The word +"sentiment" calls from him the remark that he would root it out of a +translation of Homer. "It came in with Sterne, and was a child he had by +Affectation."] + + + + +LETTER 187 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN MATHEW GUTCH + +[April 9th, 1810.] + +Dear Gutch,--I did not see your brother, who brought me Wither; but he +understood, he said, you were daily expecting to come to town: this has +prevented my writing. The books have pleased me excessively: I should +think you could not have made a better selection. I never saw +"Philaretè" before--judge of my pleasure. I could not forbear scribbling +certain critiques in pencil on the blank leaves. Shall I send them, or +may I expect to see you in town? Some of them are remarks on the +character of Wither and of his writings. Do you mean to have anything of +that kind? What I have said on "Philaretè" is poor, but I think some of +the rest not so bad: perhaps I have exceeded my commission in scrawling +over the copies; but my delight therein must excuse me, and pencil-marks +will rub out. Where is the Life? Write, for I am quite in the dark. +Yours, with many thanks, + +C. LAMB. + +Perhaps I could digest the few critiques prefixed to the Satires, +Shepherds Hunting, &c., into a short abstract of Wither's character and +works, at the end of his Life. But, may be, you don't want any thing, +and have said all you wish in the Life. + +[John Mathew Gutch (1776-1861), whom we have met before, was at this +time living at Bristol, where he owned, edited and printed _Felix +Farley's Bristol Journal_. He had been printing for his own pleasure an +edition of George Wither's poems, which he had sent to Lamb for his +opinion, intending ultimately to edit Wither fully. Lamb returned the +volumes with a number of comments, many of which he afterwards +incorporated in his essay "On the poetry of George Wither," printed in +his _Works_ in 1818. Gutch subsequently handed the volumes to his friend +Dr. John Nott of the Hot Wells, Bristol, who had views of his own upon +Wither, and who commented in his turn on the poet and on Lamb's +criticism of the poet. In course of time the volumes fell into Lamb's +hands again, when Nott's comments on Wither and on Lamb received +treatment. They were ultimately given by Lamb to his friend Brook Pulham +of the India House (who made the caricature etching of "Ælia") and are +now in the possession of Mr. A.C. Swinburne, who told the story of the +book in the _Nineteenth Century_ for January, 1885, reprinted in his +_Miscellanies_, 1886. Some passages from that article will be found in +the notes to Lamb's essay on Wither in Vol. I. of the present edition. +The last word was with Nott, for when Gutch printed a three- or +four-volume edition of Wither in 1820, under Nott's editorship, many of +Lamb's best things were included as Nott's.] + + + + +LETTER 188 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO BASIL MONTAGU + +Mr. Hazlitt's: Winterslow, near Sarum, +12th July, 1810. + +Dear [Montagu],--I have turned and twisted the MSS. in my head, and can +make nothing of them. I knew when I took them that I could not; but I do +not like to do an act of ungracious necessity at once; so I am ever +committing myself by half engagements and total failures. I cannot make +any body understand why I can't do such things. It is a defect in my +occiput. I cannot put other people's thoughts together; I forget every +paragraph as fast as I read it; and my head has received such a shock by +an all-night journey on the top of the coach, that I shall have enough +to do to nurse it into its natural pace before I go home. I must devote +myself to imbecility. I must be gloriously useless while I stay here. +How is Mrs. [M.]? will she pardon my inefficiency? The city of Salisbury +is full of weeping and wailing. The Bank has stopt payment; and every +body in the town kept money at it, or has got some of its notes. Some +have lost all they had in the world. It is the next thing to seeing a +city with a plague within its walls. The Wilton people are all undone. +All the manufacturers there kept cash at the Salisbury bank; and I do +suppose it to be the unhappiest county in England this, where I am +making holiday. + +We purpose setting out for Oxford Tuesday fortnight, and coming thereby +home. But no more night travelling. My head is sore (understand it of +the inside) with that deduction of my natural rest which I suffered +coming down. Neither Mary nor I can spare a morsel of our rest. It is +incumbent on us to be misers of it. Travelling is not good for us--we +travel so seldom. If the Sun be Hell, it is not for the fire, but for +the sempiternal motion of that miserable Body of Light. How much more +dignified leisure hath a mussel glued to his unpassable rocky limit, two +inch square! He hears the tide roll over him, backwards and forwards +twice a-day (as the d----d Salisbury Long Coach goes and returns in +eight and forty hours), but knows better than to take an outside +night-place a top on't. He is the Owl of the Sea. Minerva's fish. The +fish of Wisdom. + +Our kindest remembrances to Mrs. [M.]. + +Yours truly, C. LAMB. + +[If the date is correct we must suppose that the Lambs had made a second +visit to the Hazlitts and were intending to return by way of Oxford (see +next Letter). + +Basil Montagu was a barrister and humanitarian, a friend of Wordsworth +and Coleridge, and afterwards step-father-in-law of Procter. He was born +in 1770 and lived until 1851. Lamb probably addressed to him many other +letters, also to his third wife, Carlyle's "noble lady." But the +correspondence was destroyed by Mrs. Procter. + +The MSS. referred to cannot now be identified.] + + + + +LETTER 189 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HAZLITT + +August 9th, 1810. + +Dear H.,--Epistemon is not well. Our pleasant excursion has ended sadly +for one of us. You will guess I mean my sister. She got home very well +(I was very ill on the journey) and continued so till Monday night, when +her complaint came on, and she is now absent from home. + +I am glad to hear you are all well. I think I shall be mad if I take any +more journeys with two experiences against it. I find all well here. +Kind remembrances to Sarah--have just got her letter. + +H. Robinson has been to Blenheim. He says you will be sorry to hear that +we should have asked for the Titian Gallery there. One of his friends +knew of it, and asked to see it. It is never shown but to those who +inquire for it. + +The pictures are all Titians, Jupiter and Ledas, Mars and Venuses, &c., +all naked pictures, which may be a reason they don't show it to females. +But he says they are very fine; and perhaps it is shown separately to +put another fee into the shower's pocket. Well, I shall never see it. + +I have lost all wish for sights. God bless you. I shall be glad to see +you in London. + +Yours truly, C. LAMB. + +Thursday. + +[Hazlitt subsequently saw the Blenheim Titians and wrote of them with +gusto in his description of the Picture Galleries of England. + +Next should come a letter from Lamb to Mrs. Thomas Clarkson, dated +September 18, 1810, not available for this edition; relating to the +illness of Mary Lamb and stating that she is "quite restored and will be +with me in little more than a week."] + + + + +LETTER 190 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH + +Friday, 19 Oct., 1810. _E.I.Ho_. + +Dr W.--I forwarded the Letter which you sent to me, without opening it, +to your Sister at Binfield. She has returned it to me, and begs me to +tell you that she intends returning from B. on Monday or Tuesday next, +when Priscilla leaves it, and that it was her earnest wish to spend +another week with us in London, but she awaits another Letter from home +to determine her. I can only say that she appeared so much pleased with +London, and that she is so little likely to see it again for a long +time, that if you can spare her, it will be almost a pity not. But +doubtless she will have heard again from you, before I can get a reply +to this Letter & what she next hears she says will be decisive. If +wanted, she will set out immediately from London. Mary has been very ill +which you have heard I suppose from the Montagues. She is very weak and +low spirited now. I was much pleased with your continuation of the Essay +on Epitaphs. It is the only sensible thing which has been written on +that subject & it goes to the Bottom. In particular I was pleased with +your Translation of that Turgid Epitaph into the plain feeling under it. +It is perfectly a Test. But what is the reason we have so few good +Epitaphs after all? + +A very striking instance of your position might be found in the Church +yard of Ditton upon Thames, if you know such a place. Ditton upon Thames +has been blessed by the residence of a Poet, who for Love or Money, I do +not well know which, has dignified every grave stone for the last few +years with bran new verses, all different, and all ingenious, with the +Author's name at the Bottom of each. The sweet Swan of Thames has +artfully diversified his strains & his rhymes, that the same thought +never occurs twice. More justly perhaps, as no thought ever occurs at +all, there was a physical impossibility that the same thought should +recur. It is long since I saw and read these inscriptions, but I +remember the impression was of a smug Usher at his desk, in the +intervals of instruction levelling his pen. Of Death as it consists of +dust and worms and mourners and uncertainty he had never thought, but +the word death he had often seen separate & conjunct with other words, +till he had learned to skill of all its attributes as glibly as +Unitarian Belsham will discuss you the attributes of the word God, in a +Pulpit, and will talk of infinity with a tongue that dangles from a +scull that never reached in thought and thorough imagination two inches, +or further than from his hand to his mouth, or from the vestry to the +Sounding Board. [But the] epitaphs were trim and sprag & patent, & +pleased the survivors of Thames Ditton above the old mumpsimus of +Afflictions Sore. + +To do justice though, it must be owned that even the excellent Feeling +which dictated this Dirge when new, must have suffered something in +passing thro' so many thousand applications, many of them no doubt quite +misplaced, as I have seen in Islington Churchy'd (I think) an Epitaph to +an Infant who died Ætatis 4 months, with this seasonable inscription +appended, Honor thy Fath'r. and Moth'r. that thy days may be long in the +Land &c.--Sincerely wishing your children better [_words cut out with +signature_]. + +[Binfield, near Windsor, was the home of Dorothy Wordsworth's uncle, Dr. +Cookson, Canon of Windsor. + +Priscilla, _nèe_ Lloyd, a sister of Charles Lloyd, had married +Christopher Wordsworth, afterwards Master of Trinity, in 1804. + +Wordsworth's "Essay on Epitaphs" was printed in part in _The Friend_, +February 22, 1810. For the remainder see Wordsworth's _Works_, Part II. +began with a reference to _Rosamund Gray_. I quote the passage +containing the turgid example. + +Let us return to an instance of common life. I quote it with reluctance, +not so much for its absurdity as that the expression in one place will +strike at first sight as little less than impious; and it is indeed, +though unintentionally so, most irreverent. But I know no other example +that will so forcibly illustrate the important truth I wish to +establish. The following epitaph is to be found in a church-yard in +Westmoreland; which the present Writer has reason to think of with +interest as it contains the remains of some of his ancestors and +kindred. The date is 1673. + +"Under this Stone, Reader, inter'd doth lye, + Beauty and Virtue's true epitomy. +At her appearance the noone-son + Blush'd and shrunk in 'cause quite outdon. +In her concentered did all graces dwell: + God pluck'd my rose that He might take a smel. +I'll say no more: but weeping wish I may + Soone with thy dear chaste ashes com to lay. + Sic efflevit Maritus." + +Can anything go beyond this in extravagance? yet, if the fundamental +thoughts be translated into a natural style, they will be found +reasonable and affecting--"The woman who lies here interred, was in my +eyes a perfect image of beauty and virtue; she was to me a brighter +object than the sun in heaven: God took her, who was my delight, from +this earth to bring her nearer to Himself. Nothing further is worthy to +be said than that weeping I wish soon to lie by thy dear chaste ashes. +Thus did the husband pour out his tears." + +Wordsworth wrote an epitaph on Lamb, but it was too long to be used. A +few lines are now on the tablet in Edmonton Church. + +Lamb had begun his criticisms of churchyard epitaphs very early: +Talfourd tells that, when quite a little boy, after reading a number of +flattering inscriptions, he asked Mary Lamb where all the bad people +were buried.] + + + + +LETTER 191 + + +MARY LAMB TO MISS WORDSWORTH + +[P.M. November 13, 1810.] + +My dear friend--My brother's letter, which I did not see, I am sure has +distressed you sadly. I was then so ill as to alarm him exceedingly, and +he thought me quite incapable of any kind of business. It is a great +mortification to me to be such an useless creature, and I feel myself +greatly indebted to you for the very kind manner in which you take this +ungracious matter: but I will say no more on this unpleasant subject. I +am at present under the care of Dr. Tuthill. I think I have derived +great benefit from his medicines. He has also made a water drinker of +me, which, contrary to my expectations, seems to agree with me very +well. + +I very much regret that you were so untimely snatched away; the lively +recollection you seem to retain of London scenes will I hope induce you +to return, in happier times, for I must still hope for better days. + +We have had many pleasant hours with Coleridge,--if I had not known how +ill he is I should have had no idea of it, for he has been very +chearful. But yet I have no good news to send you of him, for two days +ago, when I saw him last, he had not begun his course of medicine & +regimen under Carlisle. I have had a very chearful letter from Mrs. +Clarkson. She complained a little of your friend Tom, but she says she +means to devote the winter to the task of new molding him, I am afraid +she will find it no easy task. + +Mrs. Montague was very sorry to find you gone. I have not seen much of +her, for I have kept very much at home since her return. I mean to stay +at home and keep early hours all this winter. + +I have a new maid coming this evening. Betty, that you left here, went +from me last week, and I took a girl lately from the country, who was +fetched away in a few days by her sister, who took it into her head that +the Temple was an improper place for a girl to live in. I wish the one +that is coming may suit me. She is seven & twenty, with a very plain +person, therefore I may hope she will be in little danger here. + +Henry Robinson, and many other friends that you made here, enquire +continually after you. The Spanish lady is gone, and now poor Robinson +is left quite forlorn. + +The streets remind me so much of you that I wish for you every showy +shop I pass by. I hope we had many pleasant fireside hours together, but +I almost fear the stupid dispirited state I was in made me seem a very +flat companion; but I know I listened with great pleasure to many +interesting conversations. I thank you for what you have done for +Phillips, his fate will be decided in about a week. He has lately +breakfasted with Sir Joseph Banks, who received him with great civility +but made him no promise of support. Sir Joseph told him a new candidate +had started up who it was expected would be favoured by the council. I +am afraid Phillips stands a very poor chance. + +I am doing nothing, I wish I was, for if I were once more busily +employed at work, I should be more satisfied with myself. I should not +feel so helpless, & so useless. + +I hope you will write soon, your letters give me great pleasure; you +have made me so well acquainted with all your household, that I must +hope for frequent accounts how you are all going on. Remember us +affectionately to your brother & sister. I hope the little Katherine +continues mending. God bless you all & every one. + +Your affectionate friend + +M. LAMB. + +Nov'r. 13, 1810. + + + + +LETTER 192 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO Miss WORDSWORTH + +(_Added to same letter_) + +Mary has left a little space for me to fill up with nonsense, as the +Geographers used to cram monsters in the voids of their maps & call it +Terra Incognita. She has told you how she has taken to water, like a +hungry otter. I too limp after her in lame imitation, but it goes +against me a little _at first_. I have been _aquavorous_ now for full +four days, and it seems a moon. I am full of cramps & rheumatisms, and +cold internally so that fire won't warm me, yet I bear all for virtues +sake. Must I then leave you, Gin, Rum, Brandy, Aqua Vitae--pleasant +jolly fellows--Damn Temperance and them that first invented it, some +Anti Noahite. Coleridge has powdered his head, and looks like Bacchus, +Bacchus ever sleek and young. He is going to turn sober, but his Clock +has not struck yet, meantime he pours down goblet after goblet, the 2d +to see where the 1st is gone, the 3d to see no harm happens to the +second, a fourth to say there's another coming, and a 5th to say he's +not sure he's the last. William Henshaw is dead. He died yesterday, aged +56. It was but a twelvemonth or so back that his Father, an ancient +Gunsmith & my Godfather, sounded me as to my willingness to be guardian +to this William in case of his (the old man's) death. William had three +times broke in business, twice in England, once in t'other Hemisphere. +He returned from America a sot & hath liquidated all debts. What a +hopeful ward I am rid of. Ætatis 56. I must have taken care of his +morals, seen that he did not form imprudent connections, given my +consent before he could have married &c. From all which the stroke of +death hath relieved me. Mrs. Reynolds is the name of the Lady to whom I +will remember you to-morrow. Farewell. Wish me strength to continue. +I've been eating jugg'd Hare. The toast & water makes me quite sick. + +C. LAMB. + +[After the preceding letter Mary Lamb had been taken ill--but not, I +think, mentally--and Dorothy Wordsworth's visit was put off. + +Coleridge, _The Friend_ having ceased, had come to London with the +Montagus on October 26 to stay with them indefinitely at 55 Frith +Street, Soho. But a few days after his arrival Montagu had inadvisedly +repeated what he unjustifiably called a warning phrase of Wordsworth's +concerning Coleridge's difficult habits as a guest--the word "nuisance" +being mentioned--and this had so plunged Coleridge in grief that he left +Soho for Hammersmith, where his friends the Morgans were living. +Montagu's indiscretion led to a quarrel between Coleridge and Wordsworth +which was long of healing. This is no place in which to tell the story, +which has small part in Lamb's life; but it led to one of the few +letters from Coleridge to Lamb that have been preserved (see Mr. E.H. +Coleridge's edition of Coleridge's _Letters_, page 586). + +Carlisle was Sir Anthony Carlisle (1768-1840), the surgeon and a friend +of Lamb. + +"The Spanish lady"--Madam Lavaggi. See Robinson's _Diary_, 1869, Vol. +I., page 303. + +"Phillips." This would be Ned Phillips, I presume, not the Colonel. I +have not discovered for what post he was trying. + +"The little Katherine." Catherine Wordsworth, born September 6, 1808, +lived only until June 4, 1812. + +"I have been _aquavorous_." Writing to Dorothy Wordsworth on December 23 +Crabb Robinson says that Lamb has abstained from alcohol and tobacco +since Lord Mayor's Day (November 9). + +"William Henshaw." I know nothing more of this unfortunate man.] + + + + +LETTER 193 + + +MARY LAMB TO MISS WORDSWORTH + +[P.M. Nov. 23, 1810.] + +My dear Friend, Miss Monkhouse left town yesterday, but I think I am +able to answer all your enquiries. I saw her on Sunday evening at Mrs. +Montagu's. She looked very well & said her health was greatly improved. +She promised to call on me before she left town but the weather having +been very bad I suppose has prevented her. She received the letter which +came through my brother's hands and I have learned from Mrs. Montagu +that all your commissions are executed. It was Carlisle that she +consulted, and she is to continue taking his prescriptions in the +country. Mr. Monkhouse & Mr. Addison drank tea with us one evening last +week. Miss Monkhouse is a very pleasing girl, she reminds me, a little, +of Miss Hutchinson. I have not seen Henry Robinson for some days past, +but I remember he told me he had received a letter from you, and he +talked of Spanish papers which he should send to Mr. Southey. I wonder +he does not write, for I have always understood him to be a very regular +correspondent, and he seemed very proud of your letter. I am tolerably +well, but I still affect the invalid--take medicines, and keep at home +as much as I possibly can. Water-drinking, though I confess it to be a +flat thing, is become very easy to me. Charles perseveres in it most +manfully. + +Coleridge is just in the same state as when I wrote last--I have not +seen him since Sunday, he was then at Mr. Morgan's but talked of taking +a lodging. + +Phillips feels a certainty that he shall lose his election, for the new +candidate is himself a Fellow of the Royal Society, and [it] is thought +Sir Joseph Banks will favour him. It will now be soon decided. + +My new maid is now sick in bed. Am I not unlucky? She would have suited +me very well if she had been healthy, but I must send her away if she is +not better tomorrow. + +Charles promised to add a few lines, I will therefore leave him plenty +of room, for he may perhaps think of something to entertain you. I am +sure I cannot. + +I hope you will not return to Grasmere till all fear of the Scarlet +Fever is over, I rejoice to hear so good an account of the children and +hope you will write often. When I write next I will endeavour to get a +frank. This I cannot do but when the parliament is sitting, and as you +seemed anxious about Miss Monkhouse I would not defer sending this, +though otherwise it is not worth paying one penny for. + +God bless you all. + +Yours affectionately + +M. LAMB. + + + + +LETTER 194 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO Miss WORDSWORTH + +(_Added to same letter_) + +We are in a pickle. Mary from her affectation of physiognomy has hired a +stupid big country wench who looked honest, as she thought, and has been +doing her work some days but without eating--eats no butter nor meat, +but prefers cheese with her tea for breakfast--and now it comes out that +she was ill when she came with lifting her mother about (who is now with +God) when she was dying, and with riding up from Norfolk 4 days and +nights in the waggon. She got advice yesterday and took something which +has made her bring up a quart of blood, and she now lies, a dead weight +upon our humanity, in her bed, incapable of getting up, refusing to go +into an hospital, having no body in town but a poor asthmatic dying +Uncle, whose son lately married a drab who fills his house, and there is +no where she can go, and she seems to have made up her mind to take her +flight to heaven from our bed.--O God! O God!--for the little +wheelbarrow which trundled the Hunchback from door to door to try the +various charities of different professions of Mankind! + +Here's her Uncle just crawled up, he is far liker Death than He. O the +Parish, the Parish, the hospital, the infirmary, the charnel house, +these are places meet for such guests, not our quiet mansion where +nothing but affluent plenty and literary ease should abound.--Howard's +House, Howard's House, or where the Parylitic descended thro' the +sky-light (what a God's Gift) to get at our Savior. In this perplexity +such topics as Spanish papers and Monkhouses sink into comparative +insignificance. What shall we do?--If she died, it were something: +gladly would I pay the coffin maker and the bellman and searchers--O +Christ. C. L. + +[Miss Monkhouse was the daughter of the Wordsworths' and Lambs' friend, +Thomas Monkhouse. + +"Mr. Addison." I have not traced this gentleman. + +Miss Hutchinson was Sarah Hutchinson, sister of Mrs. Wordsworth. + +"The Hunchback." In the _Arabian Nights_. + +"Howard's House." This would be Cold-Bath Fields Prison, erected in 1794 +upon some humane suggestions of Howard the Philanthropist.] + + + + +LETTER 195 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HAZLITT + +Wednesday, November 28, 1810. + +Dear Hazlitt--I sent you on Saturday a Cobbett, containing your reply to +the _Edinburgh Review_, which I thought you would be glad to receive as +an example of attention on the part of Mr. Cobbett to insert it so +speedily. Did you get it? We have received your pig, and return you +thanks; it will be dressed in due form, with appropriate sauce, this +day. Mary has been very ill indeed since you saw her; that is, as ill as +she can be to remain at home. But she is a good deal better now, owing +to a very careful regimen. She drinks nothing but water, and never goes +out; she does not even go to the Captain's. Her indisposition has been +ever since that night you left town; the night Miss W[ordsworth] came. +Her coming, and that d----d Mrs. Godwin coming and staying so late that +night, so overset her that she lay broad awake all that night, and it +was by a miracle that she escaped a very bad illness, which I thoroughly +expected. I have made up my mind that she shall never have any one in +the house again with her, and that no one shall sleep with her, not even +for a night; for it is a very serious thing to be always living with a +kind of fever upon her; and therefore I am sure you will take it in good +part if I say that if Mrs. Hazlitt comes to town at any time, however +glad we shall be to see her in the daytime, I cannot ask her to spend a +night under our roof. Some decision we must come to, for the harassing +fever that we have both been in, owing to Miss Wordsworth's coming, is +not to be borne; and I would rather be dead than so alive. However, at +present, owing to a regimen and medicines which Tuthill has given her, +who very kindly volunteer'd the care of her, she is a great deal +quieter, though too much harassed by company, who cannot or will not see +how late hours and society teaze her. + +Poor Phillips had the cup dash'd out of his lips as it were. He had +every prospect of the situation, when about ten days since one of the +council of the R. Society started for the place himself, being a rich +merchant who lately failed, and he will certainly be elected on Friday +next. P. is very sore and miserable about it. + +Coleridge is in town, or at least at Hammersmith. He is writing or going +to write in the _Courier_ against Cobbett, and in favour of paper money. + +No news. Remember me kindly to Sarah. I write from the office. + +Yours ever, C. LAMB. + +I just open'd it to say the pig, upon proof, hath turned out as good as +I predicted. My fauces yet retain the sweet porcine odour. I find you +have received the Cobbett. I think your paper complete. + +Mrs. Reynolds, who is a sage woman, approves of the pig. + +["A Cobbett." This was Cobbett's _Political Register_ for November 24, +1810, containing Hazlitt's letter upon "Mr. Malthus and the Edinburgh +Reviewers," signed "The Author of a Reply to the _Essay on Population_." +Hazlitt's reply had been criticised in the _Edinburgh_ for August, +probably only just published. + +The postscript contains Lamb's first passage in praise of roast pig. + +I place next the following undated letter to Godwin from Mr. Kegan +Paul's _William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries_, as it seems to +be connected with the decision concerning visitors expressed in the +letter to Hazlitt.] + + + + +LETTER 196 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM GODWIN + +Dear Godwin,--I have found it for several reasons indispensable to my +comfort, and to my sister's, to have no visitors in the forenoon. If I +cannot accomplish this I am determined to leave town. + +I am extremely sorry to do anything in the slightest degree that may +seem offensive to you or to Mrs. Godwin, but when a general rule is +fixed on, you know how odious in a case of this sort it is to make +exceptions; I assure you I have given up more than one friendship in +stickling for this point. It would be unfair to those from whom I have +parted with regret to make exceptions, which I would not do for them. +Let me request you not to be offended, and to request Mrs. G. not to be +offended, if I beg both your compliances with this wish. Your friendship +is as dear to me as that of any person on earth, and if it were not for +the necessity of keeping tranquillity at home, I would not seem so +unreasonable. + +If you were to see the agitation that my sister is in, between the fear +of offending you and Mrs. G. and the difficulty of maintaining a system +which she feels we must do to live without wretchedness, you would +excuse this seeming strange request, which I send you with a trembling +anxiety as to its reception with you, whom I would never offend. I rely +on your goodness. + +C. LAMB. + + + + +LETTER 197 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH HAZLITT + +[? End of 1810 or early 1811.] + +My dear Sarah,--I have taken a large sheet of paper, as if I were going +to write a long letter; but that is by no means my intention, for I only +have time to write three lines to notify what I ought to have done the +moment I received your welcome letter. Namely, that I shall be very much +joyed to see you. Every morning lately I have been expecting to see you +drop in, even before your letter came; and I have been setting my wits +to work to think how to make you as comfortable as the nature of our +inhospitable habits will admit. I must work while you are here; and I +have been slaving very hard to get through with something before you +come, that I may be quite in the way of it, and not teize you with +complaints all day that I do not know what to do. + +I am very sorry to hear of your mischance. Mrs. Rickman has just buried +her youngest child. I am glad I am an old maid; for, you see, there is +nothing but misfortunes in the marriage state. + +Charles was drunk last night, and drunk the night before; which night +before was at Godwin's, where we went, at a short summons from Mr. G., +to play a solitary rubber, which was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. +and little Mrs. Liston; and after them came Henry Robinson, who is now +domesticated at Mr. Godwin's fireside, and likely to become a formidable +rival to Tommy Turner. We finished there at twelve o'clock (Charles and +Liston brim-full of gin and water and snuff): after which Henry Robinson +spent a long evening by our fireside at home; and there was much gin and +water drunk, albeit only one of the party partook of it. And H.R. +professed himself highly indebted to Charles for the useful information +he gave him on sundry matters of taste and imagination, even after +Charles could not speak plain for tipsiness. But still he swallowed the +flattery and the spirits as savourily as Robinson did his cold water. + +Last night was to be a night, but it was not. There was a certain son of +one of Martin's employers, one young Mr. Blake; to do whom honour, Mrs. +Burney brought forth, first rum, then a single bottle of champaine, long +kept in her secret hoard; then two bottles of her best currant wine, +which she keeps for Mrs. Rickman, came out; and Charles partook +liberally of all these beverages, while Mr. Young Blake and Mr. Ireton +talked of high matters, such as the merits of the Whip Club, and the +merits of red and white champaine. Do I spell that last word right? +Rickman was not there, so Ireton had it all his own way. + +The alternating Wednesdays will chop off one day in the week from your +jolly days, and I do not know how we shall make it up to you; but I will +contrive the best I can. Phillips comes again pretty regularly, to the +great joy of Mrs. Reynolds. Once more she hears the well-loved sounds +of, 'How do you do, Mrs. Reynolds? How does Miss Chambers do?' + +I have spun out my three lines amazingly. Now for family news. Your +brother's little twins are not dead, but Mrs. John Hazlitt and her baby +may be, for any thing I know to the contrary, for I have not been there +for a prodigious long time. Mrs. Holcroft still goes about from +Nicholson to Tuthil, and from Tuthil to Godwin, and from Godwin to +Tuthil, and from Tuthil to Godwin, and from Godwin to Tuthil, and from +Tuthil to Nicholson, to consult on the publication, or no publication, +of the life of the good man, her husband. It is called the Life +Everlasting. How does that same Life go on in your parts? Good bye, God +bless you. I shall be glad to see you when you come this way. + +Yours most affectionately, + +M. LAMB. + +I am going in great haste to see Mrs. Clarkson, for I must get back to +dinner, which I have hardly time to do. I wish that dear, good, amiable +woman would go out of town. I thought she was clean gone; and yesterday +there was a consultation of physicians held at her house, to see if they +could keep her among them here a few weeks longer. + +[This letter is dated by Mr. Hazlitt November 30, 1810, but I doubt if +that can be right. See extract from Crabb Robinson above, testifying to +Lamb's sobriety between November 9 and December 23. + +Liston was John Liston (1776?-1846), the actor, whose mock biography +Lamb wrote some years later (see Vol. I. of this edition). His wife was +a diminutive comedienne, famous as Queen Dollalolla in "Tom Thumb." Lamb +may have known Liston through the Burneys, for he is said to have been +an usher in Dr. Burney's school--Dr. Charles Burney, Captain Burney's +brother. + +"Henry Robinson." Crabb Robinson's _Diary_ shows us that his +domestication by Godwin's fireside was not of long duration. I do not +know who Tommy Turner was. Mr. Ireton was probably William Ayrton, the +musical critic, a friend and neighbour of the Burneys, and later a +friend of the Lambs, as we shall see. + +"The alternating Wednesdays." The Lambs seem to have given up their +weekly Wednesday evening, which now became fortnightly. Later it was: +changed to Thursday and made monthly. + +Mrs. Reynolds had been a Miss Chambers.] + + + + +LETTER 198 + + +MARY LAMB TO MATILDA BETHAM + +[No date. Feb., 1811.] + +My dear Matilda,--Coleridge has given me a very chearful promise that he +will wait on Lady Jerningham any day you will be pleased to appoint; he +offered to write to you; but I found it was to be done _tomorrow_, and +as I am pretty well acquainted with his tomorrows, I thought good to let +you know his determination _today_. He is in town today, but as he is +often going to Hammersmith for a night or two, you had better perhaps +send the invitation through me, and I will manage it for you as well as +I can. You had better let him have four or five days' previous notice, +and you had better send the invitation as soon as you can; for he seems +tolerably well just now. I mention all these betters, because I wish to +do the best I can for you, perceiving, as I do, it is a thing you have +set your heart upon. He dined one [d]ay in company with Catilana (is +that the way you spell her Italian name?--I am reading Sallust, and had +like to have written Catiline). How I should have liked, and how you +would have liked, to have seen Coleridge and Catilana together! + +You have been very good of late to let me come and see you so seldom, +and you are a little goodish to come so seldom here, because you stay +away from a kind motive. But if you stay away always, as I fear you mean +to do, I would not give one pin for your good intentions. In plain +words, come and see me very soon; for though I be not sensitive as some +people, I begin to feel strange qualms for having driven you from me. + +Yours affectionately, + +M. LAMB. + +Wednesday. + +Alas! Wednesday shines no more to me now. + +Miss Duncan played famously in the new comedy, which went off as +famously. By the way, she put in a spiteful piece of wit, I verily +believe of her own head; and methought she stared me full in the face. +The words were "As silent as an author in company." Her hair and herself +looked remarkably well. + +[Angelica Catalani (1782-1849) was the great singer. I find no record of +Coleridge's meeting with her. + +"Miss Duncan." Praise of this lady in Miss Hardcastle and other parts +will be found in Leigh Hunt's _Critical Essays on the Performers of the +London Theatres_, 1807. At this time she was playing with the Drury Lane +Company at the Lyceum. They produced several new plays.] + + + + +LETTER 199 + + +(Fragment) + +CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN MORGAN + +[Dated at end: March 8, 1811.] + +There--don't read any further, because the Letter is not intended for +you but for Coleridge, who might perhaps not have opened it directed to +him suo nomine. It is to invite C. to Lady Jerningham's on Sunday. Her +address is to be found within. We come to Hammersmith notwithstanding on +Sunday, and hope Mrs. M. will not think of getting us Green Peas or any +such expensive luxuries. A plate of plain Turtle, another of Turbot, +with good roast Beef in the rear, and, as Alderman Curtis says, whoever +can't make a dinner of that ought to be damn'd. C. LAMB. + +Friday night, 8 Mar., 1811. + +[This is Lamb's only existing letter to Coleridge's friend, John Morgan. + +Coleridge had not found a lodging and was still with the Morgans at 7 +Portland Place, Hammersmith. + +Alderman Sir William Curtis, M.P., afterwards Lord Mayor of London, was +the subject of much ridicule by the Whigs and Radicals, and the hero of +Peter Pindar's satire "The Fat Knight and the Petition." It was he who +first gave the toast of the three R.'s--"reading, riting and +rithmetic."] + + + + +LETTER 200 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH HAZLITT + +2 Oct., 1811. + +Temple. + +My dear Sarah,--I have been a long time anxiously expecting the happy +news that I have just received. I address you because, as the letter has +been lying some days at the India House, I hope you are able to sit up +and read my congratulations on the little live boy you have been so many +years wishing for. As we old women say, 'May he live to be a great +comfort to you!' I never knew an event of the kind that gave me so much +pleasure as the little long-looked-for-come-at-last's arrival; and I +rejoiced to hear his honour has begun to suck--the word was not +distinctly written and I was a long time making out the solemn fact. I +hope to hear from you soon, for I am desirous to know if your nursing +labours are attended with any difficulties. I wish you a happy +_getting-up_, and a merry christening. + +Charles sends his love, perhaps though he will write a scrap to Hazlitt +at the end. He is now looking over me, he is always in my way, for he +has had a month's holydays at home, but I am happy to say they end on +Monday--when mine begin, for I am going to pass a week at Richmond with +Mrs. Burney. She has been dying, but she went to the Isle of Wight and +recovered once more, and she is finishing her recovery at Richmond. When +there I intend to read Novels and play at Piquet all day long. + +Yours truly, + +M. LAMB. + + + + +LETTER 201 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HAZLITT + +(_Added to same letter_) + +Dear Hazlitt, + +I cannot help accompanying my sister's congratulations to Sarah with +some of my own to you on this happy occasion of a man child being born-- + +Delighted Fancy already sees him some future rich alderman or opulent +merchant; painting perhaps a little in his leisure hours for amusement +like the late H. Bunbury, Esq. + +Pray, are the Winterslow Estates entailed? I am afraid lest the young +dog when he grows up should cut down the woods, and leave no groves for +widows to take their lonesome solace in. The Wem Estate of course can +only devolve on him, in case of your brother leaving no male issue. + +Well, my blessing and heaven's be upon him, and make him like his +father, with something a better temper and a smoother head of hair, and +then all the men and women must love him. + +Martin and the Card-boys join in congratulations. Love to Sarah. Sorry +we are not within Caudle-shot. C. LAMB. + +If the widow be assistant on this notable occasion, give our due +respects and kind remembrances to her. + +[William Hazlitt's son, William Hazlitt, afterwards the Registrar, was +born on September 26, 1811, He had been preceded by another boy, in +1809, who lived, however, only a few months. + +"H. Bunbury." Henry William Bunbury, the caricaturist and painter, and +the husband of Goldsmith's friend, Catherine Horneck, the "Jessamy +Bride." He died in 1811. + +The Card-boys would be Lamb's Wednesday visitors. + +Here should come a letter from Lamb to Charles Lloyd, Senior, dated +September 8, 1812. It is printed in _Charles Lamb and the Lloyds_: a +letter of criticism of Mr. Lloyd's translation of the _Epistles_ of +Horace. + +A letter from Lamb to Charles Lloyd, Junior, belonging to this period, +is now no more, in common with all but two of his letters, the remainder +of which were destroyed by Lloyd's son, Charles Grosvenor Lloyd. Writing +to Daniel Stuart on October 13, 1812, Wordsworth says. "Lamb writes to +Lloyd that C.'s play [Coleridge's "Remorse"] is accepted." + +We now come to a period of three years in Lamb's life which is +represented in the correspondence by only two or three letters. Not +until August 9, 1814, does he return to his old manner. During this time +Lamb is known to have written his first essay on Christ's Hospital, his +"Confessions of a Drunkard," the little but excellent series of +Table-Talk in _The Examiner_ and some verses in the same paper. Possibly +he wrote many letters too, but they have disappeared. We know from Crabb +Robinson's _Diary_ that it was a social period with the Lambs; the India +House work also becoming more exacting than before.] + + + + +LETTER 202 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN DYER COLLIER + +[No date. Probably 1812.] + +Dear Sir--Mrs. Collier has been kind enough to say that you would +endeavour to procure a reporter's situation for W. Hazlitt. I went to +consult him upon it last night, and he acceded very eagerly to the +proposal, and requests me to say how very much obliged he feels to your +kindness, and how glad he should be for its success. He is, indeed, at +his wits' end for a livelihood; and, I should think, especially +qualified for such an employment, from his singular facility in +retaining all conversations at which he has been ever present. I think +you may recommend him with confidence. I am sure I shall _myself_ be +obliged to you for your exertions, having a great regard for him. + +Yours truly, + +C. LAMB. + +Sunday morning. + +[John Payne Collier, who prints this in his _Old Man's Diary_, adds: +"The result was that my father procured for Hazlitt the situation of a +parliamentary reporter on the _Morning Chronicle_; but he did not retain +it long, and as his talents were undoubted, Mr. Perry transferred to him +the office of theatrical critic, a position which was subsequently held +for several years by a person of much inferior talents." + +Crabb Robinson mentions in his _Diary_ under the date December 24, 1812, +that Hazlitt is in high spirits from his engagement with Perry as +parliamentary reporter at four guineas a week. + +I place here, not having any definite date, a letter on a kindred +subject from Mary Lamb:--] + + + + +LETTER 203 + + +MARY LAMB TO MRS. JOHN DYER COLLIER +[No date.] + +Dear Mrs. C.--This note will be given to you by a young friend of mine, +whom I wish you would employ: she has commenced business as a +mantua-maker, and, if you and my girls would try her, I think she could +fit you all three, and it will be doing her an essential service. She +is, I think, very deserving, and if you procure work for her among your +friends and acquaintances, so much the better. My best love to you and +my girls. We are both well. + +Yours affectionately, +MARY LAMB. + +[John Payne Collier remarks: "Southey and Coleridge, as is well known, +married two sisters of the name of Fricker. I never saw either of them, +but a third sister settled as a mantua-maker in London, and for some +years she worked for my mother and her daughters. She was an intelligent +woman, but by no means above her business, though she was fond of +talking of her two poet-married relations. She was introduced to my +mother by the following note from Mary Lamb, who always spoke of my +sisters as _her_ girls." + +Mary Lamb had herself worked as a mantua-maker for some years previous +to the autumn of 1796.] + + + + +LETTER 204 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN SCOTT +[P.M. (? Feb.), 1814.] + +Sir--Your explanation is perfectly pleasant to me, and I accede to your +proposal most willingly. + +As I began with the beginning of this month, I will if you please call +upon you for _your part of the engagement_ (supposing I shall have +performed mine) on the 1st of March next, and thence forward if it suit +you quarterly.--You will occasionally wink at BRISKETS & VEINY PIECES. + +Your hble. Svt. +C. LAMB. +Saturday. + +[John Scott (1783-1821) we shall meet later, in 1820, in connection with +the _London Magazine_, which he edited until the fatal termination of +his quarrel with _Blackwood's_. Scott had just become editor of _The +Champion_. + +Lamb's only contribution to _The Champion_ under Scott, which can be +identified, is the essay "On the Melancholy of Tailors," but there is +little doubt that he supplied many of the extracts from old authors +which were printed from time to time, and possibly one or two comic +letters also. See the letter of Dec. 12, 1814.] + + + + +LETTER 205 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +[Dated at end: August 9, 1814.] + +Dear Wordsworth, I cannot tell you how pleased I was at the receit of +the great Armful of Poetry which you have sent me, and to get it before +the rest of the world too! I have gone quite through with it, and was +thinking to have accomplishd that pleasure a second time before I wrote +to thank you, but M. Burney came in the night (while we were out) and +made holy theft of it, but we expect restitution in a day or two. It is +the noblest conversational poem I ever read. A day in heaven. The part +(or rather main body) which has left the sweetest odour on my memory (a +bad term for the remains of an impression so recent) is the Tales of the +Church yard. The only girl among seven brethren, born out of due time +and not duly taken away again--the deaf man and the blind man--the +Jacobite and the Hanoverian whom antipathies reconcile--the +Scarron-entry of the rusticating parson upon his solitude--these were +all new to me too. My having known the story of Margaret (at the +beginning), a very old acquaintance, even as long back as I saw you +first at Stowey, did not make her reappearance less fresh. I don't know +what to pick out of this Best of Books upon the best subjects for +partial naming. + +That gorgeous Sunset is famous, I think it must have been the identical +one we saw on Salisbury plain five years ago, that drew Phillips from +the card table where he had sat from rise of that luminary to its +unequall'd set, but neither he nor I had gifted eyes to see those +symbols of common things glorified such as the prophets saw them, in +that sunset--the wheel--the potter's clay--the wash pot--the wine +press--the almond tree rod--the baskets of figs--the fourfold visaged +head, the throne and him that sat thereon. + +One feeling I was particularly struck with as what I recognised so very +lately at Harrow Church on entering in it after a hot and secular day's +pleasure,--the instantaneous coolness and calming, almost transforming, +properties of a country church just entered--a certain fragrance which +it has--either from its holiness, or being kept shut all the week, or +the air that is let in being pure country--exactly what you have reduced +into words but I am feeling I cannot. The reading your lines about it +fixed me for a time, a monument, in Harrow Church, (do you know it?) +with its fine long Spire white as washd marble, to be seen by vantage of +its high scite as far as Salisbury spire itself almost-- + +I shall select a day or two very shortly when I am coolest in brain to +have a steady second reading, which I feel will lead to many more, for +it will be a stock book with me while eyes or spectacles shall be lent +me. + +There is a deal of noble matter about mountain scenery, yet not so much +as to overpower and discountenance a poor Londoner or South country man +entirely, though Mary seems to have felt it occasionally a little too +powerfully, for it was her remark during reading it that by your system +it was doubtful whether a Liver in Towns had a Soul to be Saved. She +almost trembled for that invisible part of us in her. + +Save for a late excursion to Harrow and a day or two on the banks of the +Thames this Summer, rural images were fast fading from my mind, and by +the wise provision of the Regent all that was countryfy'd in the Parks +is all but obliterated. The very colour of green is vanishd, the whole +surface of Hyde Park is dry crumbling sand (Arabia Arenosa), not a +vestige or hint of grass ever having grown there, booths and drinking +places go all round it for a mile and half I am confident--I might say +two miles in circuit--the stench of liquors, _bad_ tobacco, dirty people +and provisions, conquers the air and we are stifled and suffocated in +Hyde Park. + +Order after Order has been issued by L'd. Sidmouth in the name of the +Regent (acting in behalf of his Royal father) for the dispersion of the +varlets, but in vain. The vis unita of all the Publicans in London, +Westm'r., Marybone, and miles round is too powerful a force to put down. +The Regent has rais'd a phantom which he cannot lay. There they'll stay +probably for ever. The whole beauty of the Place is gone--that +lake--look of the Serpentine--it has got foolish ships upon it--but +something whispers to have confidence in nature and its revival-- + +at the coming of the _milder day_ +These monuments shall all be overgrown. + +Meantime I confess to have smoked one delicious Pipe in one of the +cleanliest and goodliest of the booths--a tent rather, "O call it not a +booth!"--erected by the public Spirit of Watson, who keeps the Adam and +Eve at Pancras (the ale houses have all emigrated with their train of +bottles, mugs, corkscrews, waiters, into Hyde Park--whole Ale houses +with all their Ale!) in company with some of the guards that had been in +France and a fine French girl (habited like a Princess of Banditti) +which one of the dogs had transported from the Garonne to the +Serpentine. The unusual scene, in H. Park, by Candlelight in open air, +good tobacco, bottled stout, made it look like an interval in a +campaign, a repose after battle, I almost fancied scars smarting and was +ready to club a story with my comrades of some of my lying deeds. + +After all, the fireworks were splendent--the Rockets in clusters, in +trees and all shapes, spreading about like young stars in the making, +floundering about in Space (like unbroke horses) till some of Newton's +calculations should fix them, but then they went out. Any one who could +see 'em and the still finer showers of gloomy rain fire that fell +sulkily and angrily from 'em, and could go to bed without dreaming of +the Last Day, must be as hardened an Atheist as * * * * * *. + +Again let me thank you for your present and assure you that fireworks +and triumphs have not distracted me from receiving a calm and noble +enjoyment from it (which I trust I shall often), and I sincerely +congratulate you on its appearance. + +With kindest remembrances to you & household, we remain--yours sincerely + +C. LAMB and sister. + +9 Aug., 1814. + +[With this letter Lamb's second epistolary period may be said to begin. + +Wordsworth had sent Lamb a copy of _The Excursion_, which had been +published in July, 1814. In connection with this letter Lamb's review of +the poem in the _Quarterly_ (see Vol. I. of this edition) should be +read. The tales of the churchyard are in Books VI. and VII. The story of +Margaret had been written in 1795. + +The "sunset scene" (see letter of September 19, 1814) is at the end of +Book II. Lamb refers to his visit to Hazlitt at Winterslow, near +Salisbury, in 1809, with Mary Lamb, Colonel Phillips and Martin Burney. +Wordsworth was not with them. This is the passage:-- + +So was he lifted gently from the ground, +And with their freight homeward the shepherds moved +Through the dull mist, I following--when a step, +A single step, that freed me from the skirts +Of the blind vapour, opened to my view +Glory beyond all glory ever seen +By waking sense or by the dreaming soul! +The appearance, instantaneously disclosed, +Was of a mighty city--boldly say +A wilderness of building, sinking far +And self-withdrawn into a boundless depth, +Far sinking into splendour--without end! +Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold, +With alabaster domes, and silver spires, +And blazing terrace upon terrace, high +Uplifted; here, serene pavilions bright, +In avenues disposed; there, towers begirt +With battlements that on their restless fronts +Bore stars--illumination of all gems! +By earthly nature had the effect been wrought +Upon the dark materials of the storm +Now pacified; on them, and on the coves +And mountain-steeps and summits, whereunto +The vapours had receded, taking there +Their station under a cerulean sky. +Oh, 'twas an unimaginable sight! +Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks and emerald turf, +Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky, +Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed, +Molten together, and composing thus, +Each lost in each, that marvellous array +Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge +Fantastic pomp of structure without name, +In fleecy folds voluminous, enwrapped. +Right in the midst, where interspace appeared +Of open court, an object like a throne +Under a shining canopy of state +Stood fixed; and fixed resemblances were seen +To implements of ordinary use, +But vast in size, in substance glorified; +Such as by Hebrew Prophets were beheld +In vision--forms uncouth of mightiest power +For admiration and mysterious awe. + +In August, 1814, London was in a state of jubilation over the +declaration of peace between England and France. Lord Sidmouth, late Mr. +Addington, the Home Secretary, known as "The Doctor," was one of Lamb's +butts in his political epigrams. + +"* * * * * *." I assume these stars to stand for Godwin.] + + + + +LETTER 206 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +13 August, 1814. + +Dear Resuscitate,--there comes to you by the vehicle from Lad Lane this +day a volume of German; what it is I cannot justly say, the characters +of those northern nations having been always singularly harsh and +unpleasant to me. It is a contribution of Dr. Southey towards your +wants, and you would have had it sooner but for an odd accident. I wrote +for it three days ago, and the Dr., as he thought, sent it me. A book of +like exterior he did send, but being disclosed, how far unlike. It was +the _Well-bred Scholar_,--a book with which it seems the Dr. laudably +fills up those hours which he can steal from his medical avocations. +Chesterfield, Blair, Beattie, portions from "The Life of Savage," make +up a prettyish system of morality and the Belles Lettres, which Mr. +Mylne, a Schoolmaster, has properly brought together, and calls the +collection by the denomination above mentioned. The Doctor had no sooner +discovered his error than he despatched man and horse to rectify the +mistake, and with a pretty kind of ingenuous modesty in his note seemeth +to deny any knowledge of the _Well-bred Scholar_; false modesty surely +and a blush misplaced; for, what more pleasing than the consideration of +professional austerity thus relaxing, thus improving; but so, when a +child I remember blushing, being caught on my knees to my maker, or +doing otherwise some pious and praiseworthy action; _now_ I rather love +such things to be seen. Henry Crabb Robinson is out upon his circuit, +and his books are inaccessible without his leave and key. He is +attending the Midland Circuit,--a short term, but to him, as to many +young Lawyers, a long vacation sufficiently dreary. I thought I could do +no better than transmit to him, not extracts, but your very letter +itself, than which I think I never read any thing more moving, more +pathetic, or more conducive to the purpose of persuasion. The Crab is a +sour Crab if it does not sweeten him. I think it would draw another +third volume of Dodsley out of me; but you say you don't want any +English books? Perhaps, after all, that's as well; one's romantic +credulity is for ever misleading one into misplaced acts of foolery. +Crab might have answered by this time: his juices take a long time +supplying, but they'll run at last,--I know they will,--pure golden +pippin. His address is at T. Robinson's, Bury, and if on Circuit, to be +forwarded immediately--such my peremptory superscription. A fearful +rumour has since reached me that the Crab is on the eve of setting out +for France. If he is in England, your letter will reach him, and I +flatter myself a touch of the persuasive of my own, which accompanies +it, will not be thrown away; if it be, he is a Sloe, and no true-hearted +crab, and there's an end. For that life of the German Conjuror which you +speak of, "Colerus de Vitâ Doctoris vix-Intelligibilis," I perfectly +remember the last evening we spent with Mrs. Morgan and Miss Brent, in +London-Street,--(by that token we had raw rabbits for supper, and Miss +Brent prevailed upon me to take a glass of brandy and water after +supper, which is not my habit,)--I perfectly remember reading portions +of that life in their parlour, and I think it must be among their +Packages. It was the very last evening we were at that house. What is +gone of that frank-hearted circle, Morgan and his cos-lettuces? He ate +walnuts better than any man I ever knew. Friendships in these parts +stagnate. One piece of news I know will give you pleasure--Rickman is +made a Clerk to the House of Commons, £2000 a year with greater +expectat'us--but that is not the news--but it is that poor card-playing +Phillips, that has felt himself for so many years the outcast of +Fortune, which feeling pervaded his very intellect, till it made the +destiny it feared, withering his hopes in the great and little games of +life--by favor of the single star that ever shone upon him since his +birth, has strangely stept into Rickman's Secretaryship--sword, bag, +House and all--from a hopeless £100 a year eaten up beforehand with +desperate debts, to a clear £400 or £500--it almost reconciles me to the +belief of a moral government of the world--the man stares and gapes and +seems to be always wondering at what has befaln him--he tries to be +eager at Cribbage, but alas! the source of that Interest is dried up for +ever, he no longer plays for his next day's meal, or to determine +whether he shall have a half dinner or a whole dinner, whether he shall +buy a pair of black silk stockings, or wax his old ones a week or two +longer, the poor man's relish of a Trump, the Four Honors, is gone--and +I do not know whether if we could get at the bottom of things whether +poor star-doomed Phillips with his hair staring with despair was not a +happier being than the sleek well combed oily-pated Secretary that has +succeeded. The gift is, however, clogged with one stipulation, that the +Secretary is to remain a Single Man. Here I smell Rickman. Thus are gone +at once all Phillips' matrimonial dreams. Those verses which he wrote +himself, and those which a superior pen (with modesty let me speak as I +name no names) endited for him to Elisa, Amelia &c.--for Phillips was a +wife-hunting, probably from the circumstance of his having formed an +extreme rash connection in early life which paved the way to all his +after misfortunes, but there is an obstinacy in human nature which such +accidents only serve to whet on to try again. Pleasure thus at two +entrances quite shut out--I hardly know how to determine of Phillips's +result of happiness. He appears satisfyd, but never those bursts of +gaiety, those moment-rules from the Cave of Despondency, that used to +make his face shine and shew the lines which care had marked in it. I +would bet an even wager he marries secretly, the Speaker finds it out, +and he is reverted to his old Liberty and a hundred pounds a year--these +are but speculations--I can think of no other news. I am going to eat +Turbot, Turtle, Venison, marrow pudding--cold punch, claret, madeira,-- +at our annual feast at half-past four this day. Mary has ordered the +bolt to my bedroom door inside to be taken off, and a practicable latch +to be put on, that I may not bar myself in and be suffocated by my +neckcloth, so we have taken all precautions, three watchmen are engaged +to carry the body up-stairs--Pray for me. They keep bothering me, (I'm +at office,) and my ideas are confused. Let me know if I can be of any +service as to books. God forbid the Architectonicon should be sacrificed +to a foolish scruple of some Book-proprietor, as if books did not belong +with the highest propriety to those that understand 'em best. + +C. LAMB. + +[Since Lamb's last letter to him (October 30, 1809) Coleridge had done +very little. _The Friend_ had been given up; he had made his London home +with the Morgans; had delivered the pictures on Shakespeare and +contributed to _The Courier_; "Remorse" had been produced with Lamb's +prologue, January 23, 1813; the quarrel with Wordsworth had been to some +extent healed; he had sold his German books; and the opium-habit was +growing on him. He was now at Bristol, living with Joseph Wade, and +meditating a great work on Christianity which Cottle was to print, and +which ultimately became the _Biographia Literaria_. + +The term "Resuscitate" may refer to one of Coleridge's frequent threats +of dying. + +Dr. Henry Herbert Southey (1783-1865) was brother of the poet. He had +just settled in London. + +"Mylne" was William Milns, author of the _Well-Bred Scholar_, 1794. + +Crabb Robinson does not mention Coleridge's letter, nor make any +reference to it, in his _Diary_. He went to France in August after +circuit. It was at this time (August 23) that Coleridge wrote to John +Murray concerning a translation of Goethe's _Faust_, which Murray +contemplated (see _Letters_, E. H. Coleridge, page 624). The suggestion +that Coleridge should translate _Faust_ for Murray came _viâ_ Crabb +Robinson _viâ_ Lamb. + +The "life of the German conjuror." There were several Colerus'. John +Colerus of Amsterdam wrote a Life of Spinoza. Lamb may have meant this, +John Colerus of Berlin invented a perpetual calendar and John Jacob +Colerus examined Platonic doctrine. There are still others. + +The Morgans had moved to Ashley, near Box. Miss Brent was Mrs. Morgan's +sister. + +"Our annual feast"--the annual dinner of the India House clerks. + +"The Architectonicon." Lamb refers possibly to some great projected work +of Coleridge's. The term is applied to metaphysicians. Possibly Goethe +is referred to.] + + + + +LETTER 207 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +26th August, 1814. + +Let the hungry soul rejoice: there is corn in Egypt. Whatever thou hast +been told to the contrary by designing friends, who perhaps inquired +carelessly, or did not inquire at all, in hope of saving their money, +there is a stock of "Remorse" on hand, enough, as Pople conjectures, for +seven years' consumption; judging from experience of the last two years. +Methinks it makes for the benefit of sound literature, that the best +books do not always go off best. Inquire in seven years' time for the +"Rokebys" and the "Laras," and where shall they be found?--fluttering +fragmentally in some thread-paper--whereas thy "Wallenstein" and thy +"Remorse" are safe on Longman's or Pople's shelves, as in some Bodleian; +there they shall remain; no need of a chain to hold them fast--perhaps +for ages--tall copies--and people shan't run about hunting for them as +in old Ezra's shrievalty they did for a Bible, almost without effect +till the great-great-grand-niece (by the mother's side) of Jeremiah or +Ezekiel (which was it?) remembered something of a book, with odd reading +in it, that used to lie in the green closet in her aunt Judith's +bedchamber. + +Thy caterer Price was at Hamburgh when last Pople heard of him, laying +up for thee, like some miserly old father for his generous-hearted son +to squander. + +Mr. Charles Aders, whose books also pant for that free circulation which +thy custody is sure to give them, is to be heard of at his kinsmen, +Messrs. Jameson and Aders, No. 7, Laurence-Pountney-Lane, London, +according to the information which Crabius with his parting breath left +me. Crabius is gone to Paris. I prophesy he and the Parisians will part +with mutual contempt. His head has a twist Alemagne, like thine, dear +mystic. + +I have been reading Madame Stael on Germany. An impudent clever woman. +But if "Faust" be no better than in her abstract of it, I counsel thee +to let it alone. How canst thou translate the language of cat-monkeys? +Fie on such fantasies! But I will not forget to look for Proclus. It is +a kind of book which when one meets with it one shuts the lid faster +than one opened it. Yet I have some bastard kind of recollection that +somewhere, some time ago, upon some stall or other, I saw it. It was +either that or Plotinus, 205-270 A.D., Neoplatonist, or Saint +Augustine's "City of God." So little do some folks value, what to +others, _sc_. to you, "well used," had been the "Pledge of Immortality." +Bishop Bruno I never touched upon. Stuffing too good for the brains of +such "a Hare" as thou describest. May it burst his pericranium, as the +gobbets of fat and turpentine (a nasty thought of the seer) did that old +dragon in the Apocrypha! May he go mad in trying to understand his +author! May he lend the third volume of him before he has quite +translated the second, to a friend who shall lose it, and so spoil the +publication; and may his friend find it and send it him just as thou or +some such less dilatory spirit shall have announced the whole for the +press; lastly, may he be hunted by Reviewers, and the devil jug him! So +I think I have answered all the questions except about Morgan's +cos-lettuces. The first personal peculiarity I ever observed of him (all +worthy souls are subject to 'em) was a particular kind of rabbit-like +delight in munching salads with oil without vinegar after dinner--a +steady contemplative browsing on them--didst never take note of it? +Canst think of any other queries in the solution of which I can give +thee satisfaction? Do you want any books that I can procure for you? Old +Jimmy Boyer is dead at last. Trollope has got his living, worth £1000 +a-year net. See, thou sluggard, thou heretic-sluggard, what mightest +thou not have arrived at! Lay thy animosity against Jimmy in the grave. +Do not _entail_ it on thy posterity. + +CHARLES LAMB. + +[Coleridge's play "Remorse" had been published by Pople in 1813. A copy +of the first edition now brings about thirty shillings; but this is +largely owing to the presence in the volume of Lamb's prologue. But +_Rokeby_ and _Lara_ bring their pounds too. + +"Thy caterer Price." I do not identify. + +Charles Aders we shall meet. Crabius was, of course, Crabb Robinson. + +"Such 'a Hare.'" Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855), who afterwards knew +Coleridge, was then at Cambridge, after living at Weimar. I find no +record of his translating Bruno; but this possibly was he. + +"Jimmy Boyer." The Rev. James Boyer, Headmaster of Christ's Hospital in +Lamb and Coleridge's day, died in 1814. His living, the richest in the +Hospital's gift, was that of Colne Engaine, which passed to the Rev. +Arthur William Trollope, Headmaster of Christ's Hospital until 1826. +Boyer had been a Spartan, and Coleridge and he had had passages, but in +the main Coleridge's testimony to him is favourable and kindly (see +Lamb's Christ's Hospital essay, Vol. II. of this edition).] + + + + +LETTER 208 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH + +[P.M. illegible. Sept. 19, 1814.] + +My dear W. I have scarce time or quiet to explain my present situation, +how unquiet and distracted it is.... Owing to the absence of some of my +compeers, and to the deficient state of payments at E. I. H. owing to +bad peace speculations in the Calico market (I write this to W. W., Esq. +Collector of Stamp duties for the conjoint northern counties, not to W. +W. Poet) I go back, and have for this many days past, to evening work, +generally at the rate of nine hours a day. The nature of my work too, +puzzling and hurrying, has so shaken my spirits, that my sleep is +nothing but a succession of dreams of business I cannot do, of +assistants that give me no assistance, of terrible responsibilities. I +reclaimed your book, which Hazlit has uncivilly kept, only 2 days ago, +and have made shift to read it again with shatterd brain. It does not +lose--rather some parts have come out with a prominence I did not +perceive before--but such was my aching head yesterday (Sunday) that the +book was like a Mount'n. Landscape to one that should walk on the edge +of a precipice. I perceived beauty dizzily. Now what I would say is, +that I see no prospect of a quiet half day or hour even till this week +and the next are past. I then hope to get 4 weeks absence, and if _then_ +is time enough to begin I will most gladly do what you require, tho' I +feel my inability, for my brain is always desultory and snatches off +hints from things, but can seldom follow a "work" methodically. But that +shall be no excuse. What I beg you to do is to let me know from Southey, +if that will be time enough for the "Quarterly," i.e. suppose it done in +3 weeks from this date (19 Sept.): if not it is my bounden duty to +express my regret, and decline it. Mary thanks you and feels highly +grateful for your Patent of Nobility, and acknowleges the author of +Excursion as the legitimate Fountain of Honor. We both agree, that to +our feeling Ellen is best as she is. To us there would have been +something repugnant in her challenging her Penance as a Dowry! the fact +is explicable, but how few to whom it could have been renderd explicit! + +The unlucky reason of the detention of Excursion was, Hazlit and we +having a misunderstanding. He blowed us up about 6 months ago, since +which the union hath snapt, but M. Burney borrowd it for him and after +reiterated messages I only got it on Friday. His remarks had some vigor +in them, particularly something about an old ruin being _too modern for +your Primeval Nature, and about a lichen_, but I forget the Passage, but +the whole wore a slovenly air of dispatch and disrespect. That objection +which M. Burney had imbibed from him about Voltaire, I explaind to M. B. +(or tried) exactly on your principle of its being a characteristic +speech. That it was no settled comparative estimate of Voltaire with any +of his own tribe of buffoons--no injustice, even _you_ spoke it, for I +dared say you never could relish Candide. I know I tried to get thro' it +about a twelvemonth since, and couldn't for the Dullness. Now, I think I +have a wider range in buffoonery than you. Too much toleration perhaps. + +I finish this after a raw ill bakd dinner, fast gobbled up, to set me +off to office again after working there till near four. O Christ! how I +wish I were a rich man, even tho' I were squeezed camel-fashion at +getting thro' that Needles eye that is spoken of in the _Written Word_. +Apropos, are you a Xtian? or is it the Pedlar and the Priest that are? + +I find I miscalld that celestial splendor of the mist going off, a +_sunset_. That only shews my inaccuracy of head. + +Do pray indulge me by writing an answer to the point of time mentioned +above, or _let Southey_. I am asham'd to go bargaining in this way, but +indeed I have no time I can reckon on till the 1st week in Octo'r. God +send I may not be disappointed in that! + +Coleridge swore in letter to me he would review Exc'n. in the Quarterly. +Therefore, tho' _that_ shall not stop me, yet if I can do anything, +_when_ done, I must know of him if he has anything ready, or I shall +fill the world with loud exclaims. + +I keep writing on, knowing the Postage is no more for much writing, else +so faggd & disjointed I am with damnd India house work, I scarce know +what I do. My left arm reposes on "Excursion." I feel what it would be +in quiet. It is now a sealed Book. + +O happy Paris, seat of idleness and pleasure! From some return'd English +I hear that not such a thing as a counting house is to be seen in her +streets, scarce a desk--Earthquakes swallow up this mercantile city and +its gripple merchants, as Drayton hath it, "born to be the curse of this +brave isle." I invoke this not on account of any parsimonious habits the +mercantile interest may have, but, to confess truth, because I am not +fit for an office. + +Farewell, in haste, from a head that is ill to methodize, a stomach to +digest, and all out of Tune. Better harmonies await you. + +C. LAMB. + +[Wordsworth had been appointed in 1813 Distributor of Stamps for the +county of Westmoreland. Lamb is writing again about _The Excursion_, +which at the instigation of Southey, to whom Wordsworth had made the +suggestion, he is to review for the _Quarterly_. + +"Hazlitt and we having a misunderstanding." The precise cause of the +trouble we do not know, but in Crabb Robinson's _Diary_, in 1811, it is +said that a slight coolness had begun between the two men on account of +money which Lamb did not feel justified in lending to Hazlitt. Between +1811 and 1814, however, they were friendly again. It was Hazlitt's +hostile attitude to Wordsworth that brought about Robinson's split with +him, although that also was mended: literary men are short haters. +Hazlitt reviewed _The Excursion_--from Lamb's copy, which in itself was +a cause of grievance--in _The Examiner_, in three numbers, August 21, 28 +and October 2. Wordsworth had described _Candide_, in Book II., as the +"dull product of a scoffer's pen." Hazlitt wrote thus:-- + +... We cannot however agree with Mr. Wordsworth that _Candide_ is +_dull_. It is, if our author pleases, "the production of a scoffer's +pen," or it is any thing, but dull. _Rasselas_ indeed is dull; but then +it is privileged dulness. It may not be proper in a grave, discreet, +orthodox, promising young divine, who studies his opinions in the +contraction or distension of his patron's brow, to allow any merit to a +work like _Candide_; but we conceive that it would have been more in +character, that is, more manly, in Mr. Wordsworth, nor do we think it +would have hurt the cause he espouses, if he had blotted out the +epithet, after it had peevishly escaped him. Whatsoever savours of a +little, narrow, inquisitorial spirit, does not sit well on a poet and a +man of genius. The prejudices of a philosopher are not natural.... + +Lamb himself made the same criticism, three years later, at Haydon's +dinner party. + +Hazlitt had also said of _The Excursion_ that-- + +Such is the severe simplicity of Mr. Wordsworth's taste, that we doubt +whether he would not reject a druidical temple, or time-hallowed ruin, +as too modern and artificial for his purpose. He only familiarises +himself or his readers with a stone, covered with lichens, which has +slept in the same spot of ground from the creation of the world, or with +the rocky fissure between two mountains, caused by thunder, or with a +cavern scooped out by the sea. His mind is, as it were, coeval with the +primary forms of things, holds immediately from nature; and his +imagination "owes no allegiance" but "to the elements." + +"Are you a Xtian?"--referring to the sentiments of Wanderer and the +Pastor--two characters of _The Excursion_. + +"A _sunset_." See preceding letter to Wordsworth. + +Here should come a letter from Lamb to Southey, dated October 20, 1814, +stating that Lamb has deposited with Mr. Grosvenor Bedford, Southey's +friend and correspondent, his review of _The Excursion_. "Who can cram +into a strait coop of a review any serious idea of such a vast and +magnificent poem?"] + + + + +LETTER 209 + + +MARY LAMB TO BARBARA BETHAM (Aged 14) +Nov'r. 2, 1814. + +It is very long since I have met with such an agreeable surprise as the +sight of your letter, my kind young friend, afforded me. Such a nice +letter as it is too. And what a pretty hand you write. I congratulate +you on this attainment with great pleasure, because I have so often felt +the disadvantage of my own wretched handwriting. + +You wish for London news. I rely upon your sister Ann for gratifying you +in this respect, yet I have been endeavouring to recollect whom you +might have seen here, and what may have happened to them since, and this +effort has only brought the image of little Barbara Betham, unconnected +with any other person, so strongly before my eyes that I seem as if I +had no other subject to write upon. Now I think I see you with your feet +propped upon the fender, your two hands spread out upon your knees--an +attitude you always chose when we were in familiar confidential +conversation together--telling me long stories of your own home, where +now you say you are "Moping on with the same thing every day," and which +then presented nothing but pleasant recollections to your mind. How well +I remember your quiet steady face bent over your book. One day, +conscience struck at having wasted so much of your precious time in +reading, and feeling yourself, as you prettily said, "quite useless to +me," you went to my drawers and hunted out some unhemmed +pocket-handkerchiefs, and by no means could I prevail upon you to resume +your story books till you had hemmed them all. I remember, too, your +teaching my little maid to read--your sitting with her a whole evening +to console her for the death of her sister; and that she in her turn +endeavoured to become a comforter to you, the next evening, when you +wept at the sight of Mrs. Holcroft, from whose school you had recently +eloped because you were not partial to sitting in the stocks. Those +tears, and a few you once dropped when my brother teased you about your +supposed fondness for an apple dumpling, were the only interruptions to +the calm contentedness of your unclouded brow. We still remain the same +as you left us, neither taller nor wiser, or perceptibly older, but +three years must have made a great alteration in you. How very much, +dear Barbara, I should like to see you! + +We still live in Temple Lane, but I am now sitting in a room you never +saw. Soon after you left us we we[re] distressed by the cries of a cat, +which seemed to proceed from the garrets adjoining to ours, and only +separated from ours by a locked door on the farther side of my brother's +bedroom, which you know was the little room at the top of the kitchen +stairs. We had the lock forced and let poor puss out from behind a +pannel of the wainscot, and she lived with us from that time, for we +were in gratitude bound to keep her, as she had introduced us to four +untenanted, unowned rooms, and by degrees we have taken possession of +these unclaimed apartments--First putting up lines to dry our clothes, +then moving my brother's bed into one of these, more commodious than his +own room. And last winter, my brother being unable to pursue a work he +had begun, owing to the kind interruptions of friends who were more at +leisure than himself, I persuaded him that he might write at his ease in +one of these rooms, as he could not then hear the door knock, or hear +himself denied to be at home, which was sure to make him call out and +convict the poor maid in a fib. Here, I said, he might be almost really +not at home. So I put in an old grate, and made him a fire in the +largest of these garrets, and carried in one table, and one chair, and +bid him write away, and consider himself as much alone as if he were in +a new lodging in the midst of Salisbury Plain, or any other wide +unfrequented place where he could expect few visitors to break in upon +his solitude. I left him quite delighted with his new acquisition, but +in a few hours he came down again with a sadly dismal face. He could do +nothing, he said, with those bare whitewashed walls before his eyes. He +could not write in that dull unfurnished prison. + +The next day, before he came home from his office, I had gathered up +various bits of old carpetting to cover the floor; and, to a little +break the blank look of the bare walls, I hung up a few old prints that +used to ornament the kitchen, and after dinner, with great boast of what +an improvement I had made, I took Charles once more into his new study. +A week of busy labours followed, in which I think you would not have +disliked to have been our assistant. My brother and I almost covered the +wall with prints, for which purpose he cut out every print from every +book in his old library, coming in every now and then to ask my leave to +strip a fresh poor author--which he might not do, you know, without my +permission, as I am elder sister. There was such pasting, such +consultation where their portraits, and where the series of pictures +from Ovid, Milton, and Shakespear would show to most advantage, and in +what obscure corner authors of humbler note might be allowed to tell +their stories. All the books gave up their stores but one, a translation +from Ariosto, a delicious set of four and twenty prints, and for which I +had marked out a conspicuous place; when lo! we found at the moment the +scissars were going to work that a part of the poem was printed at the +back of every picture. What a cruel disappointment! To conclude this +long story about nothing, the poor despised garret is now called the +print room, and is become our most favorite sitting room. + +Your sister Ann will tell you that your friend Louisa is going to +France. Miss Skepper is out of town, Mrs. Reynolds desires to be +remembered to you, and so does my neighbour Mrs. Norris, who was your +doctress when you were unwell, her three little children are grown three +big children. The Lions still live in Exeter Change. Returning home +through the Strand, I often hear them roar about twelve oclock at night. +I never hear them without thinking of you, because you seemed so pleased +with the sight of them, and said your young companions would stare when +you told them you had seen a Lion. + +And now my dear Barbara fare well, I have not written such a long letter +a long time, but I am very sorry I had nothing amusing to write about. +Wishing you may pass happily through the rest of your school days, and +every future day of your life. + +I remain, your affectionate Friend, +M. LAMB. + +My brother sends his love to you, with the kind remembrance your letter +shewed you have of us as I was. He joins with me in respects to your +good father and mother, and to your brother John, who, if I do not +mistake his name, is your tall young brother who was in search of a fair +lady with a large fortune. Ask him if he has found her yet. You say you +are not so tall as Louisa--you must be, you cannot so degenerate from +the rest of your family. Now you have begun, I shall hope to have the +pleasure of hearing from [you] again. I shall always receive a letter +from you with very great delight. + +[This charming letter is to a younger sister of Matilda Betham. What the +work was which in 1814 drove Lamb into an empty room I do not know. It +may have been something which came to nought. Beyond the essay on +Tailors (see Vol. I.) and a few brief scraps for _The Champion_ he did +practically nothing that has survived until some verses in 1818, a few +criticisms in 1819, and in 1820 the first of the _Elia_ essays for the +_London Magazine_. Louisa was Louisa Holcroft, about to go to France +with her mother and stepfather, James Kenney. Miss Skepper was Basil +Montagu's stepdaughter, afterwards the wife of B. W. Procter (Barry +Cornwall). Exeter Change, where there was a menagerie, was in the Strand +(see note above). There is a further reference to the tallness of John +Betham in Lamb's letter to Landor in 1832.] + + + + +LETTER 210 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN SCOTT +[Dated at end: Dec. 12, 1814.] + +Sir, I am sorry to seem to go off my agreement, but very particular +circumstances have happened to hinder my fulfillment of it at present. +If any single Essays ever occur to me in future, you shall have the +refusal of them. Meantime I beg you to consider the thing as at an end. + +Yours, +with thanks & acknowlg'nt +C. LAMB. +Monday ev: 12 Dec., 1814. + +[_See Letter to Scott above._] + + + + +LETTER 211 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +[P.M. Dec. 28, 1814.] + +Dear W. your experience about tailors seems to be in point blank +opposition to Burton, as much as the author of the Excursion does toto +coelo differ in his notion of a country life from the picture which W.H. +has exhibited of the same. But with a little explanation you and B. may +be reconciled. It is evident that he confined his observations to the +genuine native London tailor. What freaks Tailor-nature may take in the +country is not for him to give account of. And certainly some of the +freaks recorded do give an idea of the persons in question being beside +themselves, rather than in harmony with the common moderate self +enjoym't of the rest mankind. A flying tailor, I venture to say, is no +more in rerum naturâ than a flying horse or a Gryphon. His wheeling his +airy flight from the precipice you mention had a parallel in the +melancholy Jew who toppled from the monument. Were his limbs ever found? +Then, the man who cures diseases by words is evidently an inspired +tailor. Burton never affirmed that the act of sewing disqualified the +practiser of it from being a fit organ for supernatural revelation. He +never enters into such subjects. 'Tis the common uninspired tailor which +he speaks of. Again the person who makes his smiles to be _heard_, is +evidently a man under possession; a demoniac taylor. A greater hell than +his own must have a hand in this. I am not certain that the cause which +you advocate has much reason for triumph. You seem to me to substitute +light headedness for light heartedness by a trick, or not to know the +difference. I confess, a grinning tailor would shock me.--Enough of +tailors.-- + +The "'scapes" of the great god Pan who appeared among your mountains +some dozen years since, and his narrow chance of being submerged by the +swains, afforded me much pleasure. I can conceive the water nymphs +pulling for him. He would have been another Hylas. W. Hylas. In a mad +letter which Capel Loft wrote to M.M. Phillips (now S'r. Rich'd.) I +remember his noticing a metaphysical article by Pan, signed H. and +adding "I take your correspondent to be the same with Hylas." Hylas has +[? had] put forth a pastoral just before. How near the unfounded +conjecture of the certainly inspired Loft (unfounded as we thought it) +was to being realized! I can conceive him being "good to all that wander +in that perilous flood." One J. Scott (I know no more) is edit'r of +_Champ_. + +Where is Coleridge? + +That Review you speak of, I am only sorry it did not appear last month. +The circumstances of haste and peculiar bad spirits under which it was +written, would have excused its slightness and inadequacy, the full load +of which I shall suffer from its lying by so long as it will seem to +have done from its postponement. I write with great difficulty and can +scarce command my own resolution to sit at writing an hour together. I +am a poor creature, but I am leaving off Gin. I hope you will see good +will in the thing. I had a difficulty to perform not to make it all +Panegyrick; I have attempted to personate a mere stranger to you; +perhaps with too much strangeness. But you must bear that in mind when +you read it, and not think that I am in mind distant from you or your +Poem, but that both are close to me among the nearest of persons and +things. I do but act the stranger in the Review. Then, I was puzzled +about extracts and determined upon not giving one that had been in the +Examiner, for Extracts repeated give an idea that there is a meagre +allow'ce, of good things. By this way, I deprived myself of Sr. W. +Irthing and the reflections that conclude his story, which are the +flower of the Poem. H. had given the reflections before me. _Then_ it is +the first Review I ever did, and I did not know how long I might make +it. But it must speak for itself, if Giffard and his crew do not put +words in its mouth, which I expect. Farewell. Love to all. Mary keeps +very bad. + +C. LAMB. + +[Lamb seems to have sent Wordsworth a copy of _The Champion_ containing +his essay, signed Burton, Junior, "On the Melancholy of Tailors." +Wordsworth's letter of reply, containing the examples of other tailors, +is no longer in existence. "A greater hell" is a pun: the receptacle +into which tailors throw scraps is called a hell. See Lamb's "Satan in +Search of a Wife" and notes (Vol. IV.) for more on this topic. + +"W. H."--Hazlitt: referring again to his review of _The Excursion_ in +_The Examiner_. + +"The melancholy Jew"--Mr. Lyon Levy, a diamond merchant, who jumped off +the Monument commemorating the Fire of London, on January 18, 1810. + +"The ''scapes' of the great god Pan." A reference to Hazlitt's +flirtation with a farmer's daughter in the Lake country, ending almost +in immersion (see above). Hylas, seeking for water with a pitcher, so +enraptured the nymphs of the river with his beauty that they drew him +in. + +Capell Lofft (1751-1824) was a lawyer and philanthropist of independent +means who threw himself into many popular discussions and knew many +literary men. He was the patron of Robert Bloomfield. Lamb was amused by +him, but annoyed that his initials were also C. L. "M. M. Phillips"--for +_Monthly Magazine_, which Phillips published. + +"One J. Scott." See note above. + +"Where is Coleridge?" Coleridge was now at Calne, in Wiltshire, with the +Morgans. He was being treated for the drug habit by a Dr. Page. + +"That Review." Lamb's review of _The Excursion_, which, although the +_Quarterly_ that contains it is dated October, 1814, must have been +delayed until the end of the year. The episode of Sir W. Irthing (really +Sir Alfred Irthing) is in Book VII. Lamb's foreboding as to Clifford's +action was only too well justified, as we shall see. + +"Mary keeps very bad." Mary Lamb, we learn from Crabb Robinson's +_Diary_, had been taken ill some time between December 11 and December +24, having tired herself by writing an article on needlework for the +_British Lady's Magazine_ (see Vol. I. of this edition). She did not +recover until February, 1815.] + + + + +LETTER 212 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +[P.M. illegible. ?Early Jan., 1815.] + +Dear Wordsworth, I told you my Review was a very imperfect one. But what +you will see in the Quarterly is a spurious one which Mr. Baviad Gifford +has palm'd upon it for mine. I never felt more vexd in my life than when +I read it. I cannot give you an idea of what he has done to it out of +spite at me because he once sufferd me to be called a lunatic in his +Thing. The _language_ he has alterd throughout. Whatever inadequateness +it had to its subject, it was in point of composition the prettiest +piece of prose I ever writ, and so my sister (to whom alone I read the +MS.) said. That charm if it had any is all gone: more than a third of +the substance is cut away, and that not all from one place, but +_passim_, so as to make utter nonsense. Every warm expression is changed +for a nasty cold one. I have not the cursed alteration by me, I shall +never look at it again, but for a specimen I remember I had said the +Poet of the Excurs'n "walks thro' common forests as thro' some Dodona or +enchanted wood, and every casual bird that flits upon the boughs, like +that miraculous one in Tasso, but in language more piercing than any +articulate sounds, reveals to him far higher lovelays." It is now +(besides half a dozen alterations in the same half dozen lines) "but in +language more _intelligent_ reveals to him"--that is one I remember. But +that would have been little, putting his damnd Shoemaker phraseology +(for he was a shoemaker) in stead of mine, which has been tinctured with +better authors than his ignorance can comprehend--for I reckon myself a +dab at _Prose_--verse I leave to my betters--God help them, if they are +to be so reviewed by friend and foe as you have been this quarter. I +have read "It won't do." But worse than altering words, he has kept a +few members only of the part I had done best, which was to explain all I +could of your "scheme of harmonies," as I had ventured to call it, +between the external universe and what within us answers to it. To do +this I had accumulated a good many short passages, rising in length to +the end, weaving in the Extracts as if they came in as a part of the +text, naturally, not obtruding them as specimens. Of this part a little +is left, but so as without conjuration no man could tell what I was +driving it [? at]. A proof of it you may see (tho' not judge of the +whole of the injustice) by these words: I had spoken something about +"natural methodism--" and after follows "and therefore the tale of +Margaret sh'd have been postponed" (I forget my words, or his words): +now the reasons for postponing it are as deducible from what goes +before, as they are from the 104th psalm. The passage whence I deduced +it has vanished, but clapping a colon before a _therefore_ is always +reason enough for Mr. Baviad Gifford to allow to a reviewer that is not +himself. I assure you my complaints are founded. I know how sore a word +alterd makes one, but indeed of this Review the whole complexion is +gone. I regret only that I did not keep a copy. I am sure you would have +been pleased with it, because I have been feeding my fancy for some +months with the notion of pleasing you. Its imperfection or +inadequateness in size and method I knew, but for the _writing part_ of +it, I was fully satisfied. I hoped it would make more than atonement. +Ten or twelve distinct passages come to my mind, which are gone, and +what is left is of course the worse for their having been there, the +eyes are pulld out and the bleeding sockets are left. I read it at +Arch's shop with my face burning with vexation secretly, with just such +a feeling as if it had been a review written against myself, making +false quotations from me. But I am ashamd to say so much about a short +piece. How are _you_ served! and the labors of years turn'd into +contempt by scoundrels. + +But I could not but protest against your taking that thing as mine. +Every _pretty_ expression, (I know there were many) every warm +expression, there was nothing else, is vulgarised and frozen--but if +they catch me in their camps again let them spitchcock me. They had a +right to do it, as no name appears to it, and Mr. Shoemaker Gifford I +suppose never wa[i]ved a right he had since he commencd author. God +confound him and all caitiffs. + +C. L. + +[For the full understanding of this letter it is necessary to read +Lamb's review (see Vol. I. of this edition). + +William Gifford (1756-1826), editor of the _Quarterly_, had been a +shoemaker's apprentice. Lamb calls him Mr. Baviad Gifford on account of +his satires, _The Moeviad_ and _The Baviad_, against the Delia Cruscan +school of poetry, of which Robert Merry had been the principal member. +Some of Lamb's grudge against Gifford, which was of old standing (see +notes to Lamb's review, Vol. I.), was repaid in his sonnet "St. Crispin +to Mr. Gifford" (see Vol. IV. of this edition). Gifford's connection +with Canning, in the _Anti-Jacobin_, could not have improved his +position with Lamb. + +"I have read 'It won't do.'" A reference to the review of _The +Excursion_ in the _Edinburgh_ for November, by Jeffrey, beginning "This +will never do."] + + + + +LETTER 213 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO MR. SARGUS +[Dated at end: Feb. 23, 1815.] + +Dr Sargus--This is to give you notice that I have parted with the +Cottage to Mr. Grig Jun'r. to whom you will pay rent from Michaelmas +last. The rent that was due at Michaelmas I do not wish you to pay me. I +forgive it you as you may have been at some expences in repairs. + +Yours +CH. LAMB. + +Inner Temple Lane, London, +23 Feb., 1815. + +[In 1812 Lamb inherited, through his godfather, Francis Fielde, who is +mentioned in the _Elia_ essay "My First Play," a property called Button +Snap, near Puckeridge, in Hertfordshire, consisting of a small cottage +and about an acre of ground. In 1815 he sold it for £50, and the +foregoing letter is an intimation of the transaction to his tenant. The +purchaser, however, was not a Mr. Grig, but a Mr. Greg (see notes to "My +First Play" in Vol. II. of this edition). In my large edition I give a +picture of the cottage. + +I append here an undated letter to Joseph Hume which belongs to a time +posterior to the sale of the cottage. It refers to Tuthill's candidature +for the post of physician to St. Luke's Hospital. + +The letter is printed in Mr. Kegan Paul's _William Godwin: His Friends +and Acquaintances_, as though it were written to Godwin, and all Lamb's +editors follow in assuming the Philosopher to be the recipient, but +internal evidence practically proves that Hume was addressed; for there +is the reference to Mrs. Hume and her daughters, and Godwin lived not in +Kensington but in Skinner Street.] + + + + +LETTER 214 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO JOSEPH HUME + +"Bis dat qui dat cito." + +[No date.] + +I hate the pedantry of expressing that in another language which we have +sufficient terms for in our own. So in plain English I very much wish +you to give your vote to-morrow at Clerkenwell, instead of Saturday. It +would clear up the brows of my favourite candidate, and stagger the +hands of the opposite party. It commences at nine. How easy, as you come +from Kensington (_à propos_, how is your excellent family?) to turn down +Bloomsbury, through Leather Lane (avoiding Lay Stall St. for the +disagreeableness of the name). Why, it brings you in four minutes and a +half to the spot renowned on northern milestones, "where Hicks' Hall +formerly stood." There will be good cheer ready for every independent +freeholder; where you see a green flag hang out go boldly in, call for +ham, or beef, or what you please, and a mug of Meux's Best. How much +more gentleman-like to come in the front of the battle, openly avowing +one's sentiments, than to lag in on the last day, when the adversary is +dejected, spiritless, laid low. Have the first cut at them. By Saturday +you'll cut into the mutton. I'd go cheerfully myself, but I am no +freeholder (Fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium), but I sold it for £50. If they'd +accept a copy-holder, we clerks are naturally _copy_-holders. + +By the way, get Mrs. Hume, or that agreeable Amelia or Caroline, to +stick a bit of green in your hat. Nothing daunts the adversary more than +to wear the colours of your party. Stick it in cockade-like. It has a +martial, and by no means disagreeable effect. + +Go, my dear freeholder, and if any chance calls you out of this +transitory scene earlier than expected, the coroner shall sit lightly on +your corpse. He shall not too anxiously enquire into the circumstances +of blood found upon your razor. That might happen to any gentleman in +shaving. Nor into your having been heard to express a contempt of life, +or for scolding Louisa for what Julia did, and other trifling +incoherencies. + +Yours sincerely, +C. LAMB. + +["Lay Stall St." This street, which is still found in Clerkenwell, was +of course named from one of the laystalls or public middens which were a +feature of London when sanitation was in its infancy. + +"Where Hicks' Hall formerly stood." Hicks' Hall, the old Sessions House +of the County of Middlesex, stood in St. John Street, Clerkenwell, until +its demolition in 1782, when the justices removed to the new Sessions +House on Clerkenwell Green. The milestones on the Great North Road, +which had long been measured from Hicks' Hall, were reinscribed "---- +Miles from the spot where Hicks' Hall formerly stood." Thus Hicks' Hall +remained a household word long after it had ceased to exist. The +adventures of Jedediah Jones in search of "the spot where Hicks' Hall +formerly stood" are amusingly set forth in Knight's _London_, Vol. I., +pages 242-244. + +We meet Hume's daughters again in Letter 540. I append a letter with no +date, which may come here:--] + + + + +LETTER 215 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO [MRS. HUME?] +[No date.] + +Dear Mrs. H.: Sally who brings this with herself back has given every +possible satisfaction in doing her work, etc., but the fact is the poor +girl is oppressed with a ladylike melancholy, and cannot bear to be so +much alone, as she necessarily must be in our kitchen, which to say the +truth is damn'd solitary, where she can see nothing and converse with +nothing and not even look out of window. The consequence is she has been +caught shedding tears all day long, and her own comfort has made it +indispensable to send her home. Your cheerful noisy children-crowded +house has made her feel the change so much the more. + +Our late servant always complained of the _want of children_, which she +had been used to in her last place. One man's meat is another man's +poison, as they say. However, we are eternally obliged to you, as much +as if Sally could have staid. We have got an old woman coming, who is +too stupid to know when she is alone and when she is not. + +Yours truly, +C. LAMB, for self and sister. + +Have you heard from ...... + +[I take it that Mrs. H. is Mrs. Hume, because Hume had a large family. +It was of him, in his paternal light, that Lamb said, "one fool makes +many."] + + + + +LETTER 216 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +[P.M. partly illegible. April 7, 1815.] + +The conclusion of this epistle getting gloomy, I have chosen this part +to desire our kindest Loves to Mrs. Wordsworth and to _Dorothea_. Will +none of you ever be in London again? + +Dear Wordsw'th, you have made me very proud with your successive book +presents. I have been carefully through the two volumes to see that +nothing was omitted which used to be there. I think I miss nothing but a +Character in Antithet. manner which I do not know why you left out; the +moral to the boys building the giant, the omission whereof leaves it in +my mind less complete; and one admirable line gone (or something come in +stead of it) "the stone-chat and the glancing sand-piper," which was a +line quite alive. I demand these at your hand. I am glad that you have +not sacrificed a verse to those scoundrels. I would not have had you +offer up the poorest rag that lingered upon the stript shoulders of +little Alice Fell, to have atoned all their malice. I would not have +given 'em a red cloak to save their souls. I am afraid lest that +substitution of a shell (a flat falsification of the history) for the +household implement as it stood at first, was a kind of tub thrown out +to the beast, or rather thrown out for him. The tub was a good honest +tub in its place, and nothing could fairly be said against it. You say +you made the alteration for the "friendly reader," but the malicious +will take it to himself. Damn 'em; if you give 'em an inch &c. The +preface is noble and such as you should write: I wish I could set my +name to it--Imprimatur--but you have set it there yourself, and I thank +you. I had rather be a door-keeper in your margin, than have their +proudest text swelling with my eulogies. The poems in the volumes which +are new to me are so much in the old tone that I hardly received them as +novelties. Of those, of which I had no previous knowlege, the four yew +trees and the mysterious company which you have assembled there, most +struck me--"Death the Skeleton and Time the Shadow--" It is a sight not +for every youthful poet to dream of--it is one of the last results he +must have gone thinking-on for years for. Laodamia is a very original +poem; I mean original with reference to your own manner. You have +nothing like it. I should have seen it in a strange place, and greatly +admired it, but not suspected its derivation. Let me in this place, for +I have writ you several letters without naming it, mention that my +brother, who is a picture collector, has picked up an undoubtable +picture of Milton. He gave a few shillings for it, and could get no +history with it, but that some old lady had had it for a great many +years. Its age is ascertainable from the state of the canvas, and you +need only see it to be sure that it is the original of the heads in the +Tonson Editions, with which we are all so well familiar. Since I saw you +I have had a treat in the reading way which comes not every day. The +Latin Poems of V. Bourne, which were quite new to me. What a heart that +man had, all laid out upon town scenes, a proper counterpoise to _some +people's_ rural extravaganzas. Why I mention him is that your Power of +Music reminded me of his poem of the balad singer in the Seven Dials. Do +you remember his epigram on the old woman who taught Newton the A. B. +C., which after all, he says, he hesitates not to call Newton's +_Principia_. I was lately fatiguing myself with going thro' a volume of +fine words by _L'd. Thurlow_--excellent words, and if the heart could +live by words alone, it could desire no better regale--but what an +aching vacuum of matter; I don't stick at the madness of it, for that is +only a consequence of shutting his eyes and thinking he is in the age of +the old Elisabeth poets; from thence I turned to V. Bourne--what a sweet +unpretending pretty-mannered _matter-ful_ creature, sucking from every +flower, making a flower of every thing, his diction all Latin and his +thoughts all English. Bless him, Latin wasn't good enough for him, why +wasn't he content with the language which Gay and Prior wrote in. + +I am almost sorry that you printed Extracts from those first Poems, or +that you did not print them at length. They do not read to me as they do +all together. Besides they have diminished the value of the original +(which I possess) as a curiosity. I have hitherto kept them distinct in +my mind as referring to a particular period of your life. All the rest +of your poems are so much of a piece, they might have been written in +the same week--these decidedly speak of an earlier period. They tell +more of what you had been reading. + +We were glad to see the poems by a female friend. The one of the wind is +masterly, but not new to us. Being only three, perhaps you might have +clapt a D. at the corner and let it have past as a printer's mark to the +uninitiated, as a delightful hint to the better-instructed. As it is, +Expect a formal criticism on the Poems of your female friend, and she +must expect it. + +I should have written before, but I am cruelly engaged and like to be. +On Friday I was at office from 10 in the morning (two hours dinner +except) to 11 at night, last night till 9. My business and office +business in general has increased so. I don't mean I am there every +night, but I must expect a great deal of it. I never leave till 4--and +do not keep a holyday now once in ten times, where I used to keep all +red letter days, and some fine days besides which I used to dub Nature's +holydays. I have had my day. I had formerly little to do. So of the +little that is left of life I may reckon two thirds as dead, for Time +that a man may call his own is his Life, and hard work and thinking +about it taints even the leisure hours, stains Sunday with workday +contemplations--this is Sunday, and the headache I have is part late +hours at work the 2 preceding nights and part later hours over a +consoling pipe afterw'ds. But I find stupid acquiescence coming over me. +I bend to the yoke, and it is almost with me and my household as with +the man and his consort-- + +To them each evening had its glittering star +And every Sabbath day its golden sun-- + +To such straits am I driven for the Life of life, Time--O that from that +superfluity of Holyday leisure my youth wasted "Age might but take some +hours youth wanted not.--" N.B. I have left off spirituous liquors for 4 +or more months, with a moral certainty of its lasting. Farewell, dear +Wordsworth. + +[Wordsworth had just brought out, with Longmans, his _Poems_ ... +_including Lyrical Ballads and the Miscellaneous Pieces of the Author_, +1815, in two volumes. The "Character in the Antithetical Manner" was +omitted from all editions of Wordsworth's poems between 1800 and 1836. +In the 1800 version of "Rural Architecture" there had been these last +lines, expunged in the editions of 1805 and 1815, but restored with a +slight alteration in later editions:-- + +--Some little I've seen of blind boisterous works +In Paris and London, 'mong Christians or Turks, +Spirits busy to do and undo: +At remembrance whereof my blood sometimes will flag, +--Then, light-hearted Boys, to the top of the Crag; +And I'll build up a Giant with you. + +In the original form of the "Lines Left upon a Seat in a Yew Tree" there +had been these lines:-- + +His only visitants a straggling sheep, +The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper. + +Wordsworth had altered them to:-- + +His only visitants a straggling sheep, +The stone-chat, or the sand-lark, restless Bird, +Piping along the margin of the lake. + +In the 1820 edition Wordsworth put back the original form. + +"Those scoundrels." Principally the critic of the _Edinburgh_, Jeffrey, +but Wordsworth's assailants generally. + +"That substitution of a shell." In the original draft of "The Blind +Highland Boy" the adventurous voyage was made in + +A Household Tub, like one of those +Which women use to wash their clothes. + +In the new version the vessel was a turtle's shell. + +"The preface." Wordsworth quotes from Lamb's essay in _The Reflector_ on +the genius of Hogarth, referring to the passage as "the language of one +of my most esteemed Friends." It is Lamb's description of Imagination as +that which "draws all things to one, which makes things animate or +inanimate, beings with their attributes, subjects with their +accessories, take one colour and serve to one effect." + +"The four yew trees." The poem is called "Yew Trees." This is the +passage in question:-- + +But worthier still of note +Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale, +Joined in one solemn and capacious grove; +Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth +Of intertwisted fibres serpentine +Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved; +Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks +That threaten the profane;--a pillared shade, +Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue, +By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged +Perennially--beneath whose sable roof +Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked +With unrejoicing berries--ghostly Shapes +May meet at noontide; Fear and trembling Hope, +Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton +And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate, +As in a natural temple scattered o'er +With altars undisturbed of mossy stone, +United worship; or in mute repose +To lie, and listen to the mountain flood +Murmuring from Giaramara's inmost caves. + +"Picture of Milton." This portrait, a reproduction of which I give in my +large edition, is now in America, the property of the New York Public +Library. + +"V. Bourne." Lamb afterwards translated some of Bourne's _Poemata_ and +wrote critically of them in the _Englishman's Magazine_ in 1831 (see +Vols. I. and IV.). + +"Lord Thurlow." But see Letter to Bernard Barton of December 5, 1828, +and note. + +"Extracts from those first Poems." Wordsworth included extracts from +juvenile pieces, which had been first published in his _Descriptive +Sketches_, 1793. + +"A female friend"--Dorothy Wordsworth. The three poems were "Address to +a Child" (beginning, "What way does the Wind come from?"), "The Mother's +Return" and "The Cottager to Her Infant." + +"To them each evening had its glittering star ... "--_The Excursion_, +Book V. + +"Age might but take some hours ..." From Wordsworth's "Small +Celandine":-- + +Age might but take the things Youth needed not.] + + + + +LETTER 217 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +[P.M. April 28, 1815.] + +Excuse this maddish letter: I am too tired to write in formal-- + +Dear Wordsw'th. The more I read of your two last volumes, the more I +feel it necessary to make my acknowledgm'ts for them in more than one +short letter. The Night Piece to which you refer me I meant fully to +have noticed, but the fact is I come so fluttering and languid from +business, tired with thoughts of it, frightened with fears of it, that +when I get a few minutes to sit down to scribble (an action of the hand +now seldom natural to me--I mean voluntary pen-work) I lose all +presential memory of what I had intended to say, and say what I +can,--talk about Vincent Bourne or any casual image instead of that +which I had meditated--by the way, I must look out V. B. for you.--So I +had meant to have mentioned Yarrow Visited, with that stanza, "But thou +that didst appear so fair--" than which I think no lovelier stanza can +be found in the wide world of poetry--yet the poem on the whole seems +condemned to leave behind it a melancholy of imperfect satisfaction, as +if you had wronged the feeling with which in what preceded it you had +resolved never to visit it, and as if the Muse had determined in the +most delicate manner to make you, and _scarce make you_, feel it. Else, +it is far superior to the other, which has but one exquisite verse in +it, the last but one, or the two last--this has all fine, except perhaps +that _that_ of "studious ease and generous cares" has a little tinge of +the _less romantic_ about it. The farmer of Tilsbury vale is a charming +counter part to poor Susan, with the addition of that delicacy towards +aberrations from the strict path which is so fine in the Old Thief and +the boy by his side, which always brings water into my eyes. Perhaps it +is the worse for being a repetition. Susan stood for the representative +of poor Rus in Urbe. There was quite enough to stamp the moral of the +thing never to be forgotten. "Fast volumes of vapour" &c. The last verse +of Susan was to be got rid of at all events. It threw a kind of dubiety +upon Susan's moral conduct. Susan is a servant maid. I see her trundling +her mop and contemplating the whirling phenomenon thro' blurred optics; +but to term her a poor outcast seems as much as to say that poor Susan +was no better than she should be, which I trust was not what you meant +to express. Robin Goodfellow supports himself without that _stick_ of a +moral which you have thrown away,--but how I can be brought in felo de +omittendo for that Ending to the boy builders is a mystery. I can't say +positively now--I only know that no line oftener or readier occurs than +that "Light hearted boys, I will build up a giant with you." It comes +naturally with a warm holyday and the freshness of the blood. It is a +perfect summer Amulet that I tye round my legs to quicken their motion +when I go out a Maying. (N.B.) I don't often go out a maying.--_Must_ is +the tense with me now. Do you take the Pun? Young Romilly is divine, the +reasons of his mother's grief being remediless. I never saw parental +love carried up so high, towering above the other Loves. Shakspeare had +done something for the filial in Cordelia, and by implication for the +fatherly too in Lear's resentment--he left it for you to explore the +depths of the maternal heart. I get stupid, and flat and flattering-- +what's the use of telling you what good things you have written, or--I +hope I may add--that I know them to be good. Apropos--when I first +opened upon the just mentioned poem, in a careless tone I said to Mary +as if putting a riddle "What is good for a bootless bean?" to which with +infinite presence of mind (as the jest book has it) she answered, a +"shoeless pea." It was the first joke she ever made. Joke the 2d I make +you distinguish well in your old preface between the verses of Dr. +Johnson of the man in the Strand, and that from the babes of the wood. I +was thinking whether taking your own glorious lines-- + +And for the love was in her soul + For the youthful Romilly-- + +which, by the love I bear my own soul, I think have no parallel in any +of the best old Balads, and just altering it to-- + +And from the great respect she felt + For Sir Samuel Romilly-- + +would not have explained the boundaries of prose expression and poetic +feeling nearly as well. Excuse my levity on such an occasion. I never +felt deeply in my life, if that poem did not make me, both lately and +when I read it in MS. No alderman ever longed after a haunch of buck +venison more than I for a Spiritual taste of that White Doe you promise. +I am sure it is superlative, or will be when _drest_, i.e. printed. All +things read raw tome in MS.--to compare magna parvis, I cannot endure my +own writings in that state. The only one which I think would not very +much win upon me in print is Peter Bell. But I am not certain. You ask +me about your preface. I like both that and the Supplement without an +exception. The account of what you mean by Imagination is very valuable +to me. It will help me to like some things in poetry better, which is a +little humiliating in me to confess. I thought I could not be instructed +in that science (I mean the critical), as I once heard old obscene +beastly Peter Pindar in a dispute on Milton say he thought that if he +had reason to value himself upon one thing more than another it was in +knowing what good verse was. Who lookd over your proof sheets, and left +_ordebo_ in that line of Virgil? + +My brothers picture of Milton is very finely painted, that is, it might +have been done by a hand next to Vandyke's. It is the genuine Milton, +and an object of quiet gaze for the half hour at a time. _Yet_ tho' I am +confident there is no better one of him, the face does not quite answer +to Milton. There is a tinge of petit (or petite, how do you spell it) +querulousness about. Yet hang it, now I remember better, there is +not--it is calm, melancholy, and poetical. + +_One_ of the copies you sent had precisely the same pleasant blending of +a sheet of 2d vol. with a sheet of 1st. I think it was page 245; but I +sent it and had it rectifyd. It gave me in the first impetus of cutting +the leaves just such a cold squelch as going down a plausible turning +and suddenly reading "no thoroughfare." Robinson's is entire; he is gone +to Bury his father. + +I wish you would write more criticism, about Spenser &c. I think I could +say something about him myself--but Lord bless me--these "merchants and +their spicy drugs" which are so harmonious to sing of, they lime-twig up +my poor soul and body, till I shall forget I ever thought myself a bit +of a genius! I can't even put a few thoughts on paper for a newspaper. I +"engross," when I should pen a paragraph. Confusion blast all mercantile +transactions, all traffick, exchange of commodities, intercourse between +nations, all the consequent civilization and wealth and amity and link +of society, and getting rid of prejudices, and knowlege of the face of +the globe--and rot the very firs of the forest that look so romantic +alive, and die into desks. Vale. + +Yours dear W. and all yours'. C. LAMB. + +[_Added at foot of the first page:_] N.B. Don't read that Q. Review--I +will never look into another. + +[Lamb continues his criticism of the 1815 edition of Wordsworth's +_Poems_. The "Night Piece" begins-- + +The sky is overcast. + +The stanza from "Yarrow Visited" is quoted on page 557. The poem +followed "Yarrow Unvisited" in the volume. The one exquisite verse in +"Yarrow Unvisited" first ran:-- + +Your cottage seems a bower of bliss, + It promises protection +To studious ease and generous cares + And every chaste affection. + +Wordsworth altered to-- + + A covert for protection +Of tender thoughts that nestle there, + The brood of chaste affection. + +"Poor Susan" had in the 1800 version ended thus:-- + +Poor Outcast! return--to receive thee once more +The house of thy Father will open its door, +And thou once again, in thy plain russet gown, +May'st hear the thrush sing from a tree of its own. + +Wordsworth expunged this stanza in the 1815 edition. "Fast volumes of +vapour" should be "Bright volumes of vapour." For the Old Thief see "The +Two Thieves." + +"_Felo de omittendo._" See the preceding letter, where Lamb remonstrated +with Wordsworth for omitting the last lines from "Rural Architecture." +Wordsworth seems to have charged Lamb with the criticism that decided +their removal. + +"The Pun." Canon Ainger pointed out that Hood, in his "Ode to +Melancholy," makes the same pun very happily:-- + +Even as the blossoms of the May, +Whose fragrance ends in must. + +"Young Romilly." In "The Force of Prayer," which opens with the +question-- + +What is good for a bootless bene? + +Later Mary Lamb made another joke, when at Munden's farewell performance +she said, "Sic transit gloria Munden!" + +The stanzas from which Lamb quotes run:-- + +"What is good for a bootless bene?" +The Falconer to the Lady said; +And she made answer "Endless sorrow!" +In that she knew that her Son was dead. + +She knew it by the Falconer's words, +And from the look of the Falconer's eye; +And from the love which was in her soul +For her youthful Romilly. + +Sir Samuel Romilly (1757-1818), the lawyer and law reformer, was the +great opponent of capital punishment for small offences. + +In the preface to the 1802 edition of _Lyrical Ballads_, etc., +Wordsworth had quoted Dr. Johnson's prosaic lines:-- + +I put my hat upon my head +And walked into the Strand, +And there I met another man +Whose hat was in his hand. + +--contrasting them with these lines from the "Babes in the Wood":-- + +These pretty Babes with hand in hand +Went wandering up and down; +But never more they saw the Man +Approaching from the Town. + +"Peter Pindar." John Wolcot (1738-1819), whom Lamb had met at Henry +Rogers', brother of the poet.] + + + + +LETTER 218 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY + +London, May 6th, 1815. + +Dear Southey,--I have received from Longman a copy of "Roderick," with +the author's compliments, for which I much thank you. I don't know where +I shall put all the noble presents I have lately received in that way; +the "Excursion," Wordsworth's two last vols., and now "Roderick," have +come pouring in upon me like some irruption from Helicon. The story of +the brave Maccabee was already, you may be sure, familiar to me in all +its parts. I have, since the receipt of your present, read it quite +through again, and with no diminished pleasure. I don't know whether I +ought to say that it has given me more pleasure than any of your long +poems. "Kehama" is doubtless more powerful, but I don't feel that firm +footing in it that I do in "Roderick;" my imagination goes sinking and +floundering in the vast spaces of unopened-before systems and faiths; I +am put out of the pale of my old sympathies; my moral sense is almost +outraged; I can't believe, or with horror am made to believe, such +desperate chances against omnipotences, such disturbances of faith to +the centre. The more potent the more painful the spell. Jove and his +brotherhood of gods, tottering with the giant assailings, I can bear, +for the soul's hopes are not struck at in such contests; but your +Oriental almighties are too much types of the intangible prototype to be +meddled with without shuddering. One never connects what are called the +attributes with Jupiter. I mention only what diminishes my delight at +the wonder-workings of "Kehama," not what impeaches its power, which I +confess with trembling. + +But "Roderick" is a comfortable poem. It reminds me of the delight I +took in the first reading of the "Joan of Arc." It is maturer and better +than _that_, though not better to me now than that was then. It suits me +better than "Madoc." I am at home in Spain and Christendom. I have a +timid imagination, I am afraid. I do not willingly admit of strange +beliefs or out-of-the-way creeds or places. I never read books of +travel, at least not farther than Paris or Rome. I can just endure +Moors, because of their connection as foes with Christians; but +Abyssinians, Ethiops, Esquimaux, Dervises, and all that tribe, I hate. I +believe I fear them in some manner. A Mahometan turban on the stage, +though enveloping some well known face (Mr. Cook or Mr. Maddox, whom I +see another day good Christian and English waiters, innkeepers, &c.), +does not give me pleasure unalloyed. I am a Christian, Englishman, +Londoner, _Templar_. God help me when I come to put off these snug +relations, and to get abroad into the world to come! I shall be like +_the crow on the sand_, as Wordsworth has it; but I won't think on +it--no need, I hope, yet. + +The parts I have been most pleased with, both on 1st and 2nd readings, +perhaps, are Florinda's palliation of Roderick's crime, confessed to him +in his disguise--the retreat of Palayo's family first discovered,--his +being made king--"For acclamation one form must serve, _more solemn for +the breach of old observances_." Roderick's vow is extremely fine, and +his blessing on the vow of Alphonso: + +"Towards the troop he spread his arms, +As if the expanded soul diffused itself, +And carried to all spirits _with the act_ +Its affluent inspiration." + +It struck me forcibly that the feeling of these last lines might have +been suggested to you by the Cartoon of Paul at Athens. Certain it is +that a better motto or guide to that famous attitude can no where be +found. I shall adopt it as explanatory of that violent, but dignified +motion. + +I must read again Landor's "Julian." I have not read it some time. I +think he must have failed in Roderick, for I remember nothing of him, +nor of any distinct character as a character--only fine-sounding +passages. I remember thinking also he had chosen a point of time after +the event, as it were, for Roderick survives to no use; but my memory is +weak, and I will not wrong a fine Poem by trusting to it. + +The notes to your poem I have not read again; but it will be a +take-downable book on my shelf, and they will serve sometimes at +breakfast, or times too light for the text to be duly appreciated. +Though some of 'em, one of the serpent Penance, is serious enough, now I +think on't. + +Of Coleridge I hear nothing, nor of the Morgans. I hope to have him like +a re-appearing star, standing up before me some time when least expected +in London, as has been the case whylear. + +I am _doing_ nothing (as the phrase is) but reading presents, and walk +away what of the day-hours I can get from hard occupation. Pray accept +once more my hearty thanks, and expression of pleasure for your +remembrance of me. My sister desires her kind respects to Mrs. S. and to +all at Keswick. + +Yours truly, +C. LAMB. + +The next Present I look for is the "White Doe." Have you seen Mat. +Betham's "Lay of Marie?" I think it very delicately pretty as to +sentiment, &c. + +[Southey's _Roderick, the Last of the Goths_, was published in 1814. +Driven from his throne by the Moors, Roderick had disguised himself as a +monk under the name of Father Maccabee. _The Curse of Kehama_ had been +published in 1810; Madoc in 1805; _Joan of Arc_ (see Letter 3, &c.) in +1796. Southey was now Poet Laureate. + +"I never read books of travels." Writing to Dilke, of _The Athenaeum_, +for books, some years later, Lamb makes a point of "no natural history +or useful learning" being sent--such as Giraffes, Pyramids and +Adventures in Central Africa. None the less, as a boy, he tells us, he +had read Bruce and applied his Abyssinian methods to the New River (see +the _Elia_ essay on Newspapers). + +"The crow on the sand." In "The Farmer of Tilsbury Vale":-- + +As lonely he stood as a crow on the sands. +Verse xii., line 4 + +Florinda's palliation of Roderick's crime is in Book X.; the retreat of +Pelayo's family discovered, in Book XVI.; Pelayo made king, in Book +XVIII. Landor's _Count Julian_, published in 1812, dealt with the same +story, Florinda, whom Roderick violated, having been the daughter of the +Count, a Spanish Goth. Julian devoted himself to Roderick's ruin, even +turning traitor for the purpose. Southey's notes are tremendous-- +sometimes filling all but a line or two of the page. + +"The _White Doe_." Wordsworth's poem _The White Doe of Rylstone_, to be +published this year, 1815. + +"Matilda Betham's _Lay of Marie_." We shall come to this shortly. The +poem was still in MS.] + + + + +LETTER 219 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY +Aug. 9th, 1815. + +Dear Southey,--Robinson is not on the circuit, as I erroneously stated +in a letter to W. W., which travels with this, but is gone to Brussels, +Ostend, Ghent, etc. But his friends the Colliers, whom I consulted +respecting your friend's fate, remember to have heard him say, that +Father Pardo had effected his escape (the cunning greasy rogue), and to +the best of their belief is at present in Paris. To my thinking, it is a +small matter whether there be one fat friar more or less in the world. I +have rather a taste for clerical executions, imbibed from early +recollections of the fate of the excellent Dodd. I hear Buonaparte has +sued his habeas corpus, and the twelve judges are now sitting upon it at +the Rolls. + +Your boute-feu (bonfire) must be excellent of its kind. Poet Settle +presided at the last great thing of the kind in London, when the pope +was burnt in form. Do you provide any verses on this occasion? Your fear +for Hartley's intellectuals is just and rational. Could not the +Chancellor be petitioned to remove him? His lordship took Mr. Betty from +under the paternal wing. I think at least he should go through a course +of matter-of-fact with some sober man after the mysteries. Could not he +spend a week at Poole's before he goes back to Oxford? Tobin is dead. +But there is a man in my office, a Mr. Hedges, who proses it away from +morning to night, and never gets beyond corporal and material verities. +He'd get these crack-brain metaphysics out of the young gentleman's head +as soon as any one I know. When I can't sleep o' nights, I imagine a +dialogue with Mr. H. upon any given subject, and go prosing on in fancy +with him, till I either laugh or fall asleep. I have literally found it +answer. I am going to stand godfather; I don't like the business; I +cannot muster up decorum for these occasions; I shall certainly disgrace +the font. I was at Hazlitt's marriage, and had like to have been turned +out several times during the ceremony. Any thing awful makes me laugh. I +misbehaved once at a funeral. Yet I can read about these ceremonies with +pious and proper feelings. The realities of life only seem the +mockeries. I fear I must get cured along with Hartley, if not too +inveterate. Don't you think Louis the Desirable is in a sort of +quandary? + +After all, Bonaparte is a fine fellow, as my barber says, and I should +not mind standing bareheaded at his table to do him service in his fall. +They should have given him Hampton Court or Kensington, with a tether +extending forty miles round London. Qu. Would not the people have +ejected the Brunswicks some day in his favour? Well, we shall see. + +C. LAMB. + +["Father Pardo." I have not traced this fat friar. + +"The excellent Dodd." The Rev. William Dodd (1729-1777), compiler of +_The Beauties of Shakespeare_, was hanged for forgery in 1777, when Lamb +was two years old. The case caused immense public interest. + +"Buonaparte." Waterloo had been fought on June 18. + +"Your boute-feu." The bonfire in honour of Waterloo flamed on Skiddaw on +August 21. See Southey's description in his letter to his brother, +August 23, 1815 (_Life and Correspondence_, Vol. IV., page 120). + +"Poet Settle." Elkanah Settle (1648-1724) was chief organiser of the +procession on the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's birthday in 1680, +when the Pope was burned in effigy. + +Hartley Coleridge, now almost nineteen, after having been to school at +Ambleside, had been sent to Oxford through the instrumentality of his +uncle, Southey. At the time of Lamb's letter he was staying at Calne +with his father. Mr. Betty was the Young Roscius, whom we have already +seen, who, after retiring from the Phenomenon stage of his career in +1808, had since been to school and to Cambridge upon his earnings, and +had now become an adult actor. Poole was Thomas Poole of Nether Stowey, +whom we have seen: Coleridge's old and very sensible friend. Tobin would +probably be James Webbe Tobin, the brother of the dramatist. He had died +in 1814. + +"I am going to stand godfather." To what child I do not know. + +"Louis the Desirable"--Louis XVIII., styled by the Royalists "_Le +Desiré_."] + + + + +LETTER 220 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +[P.M. August 9, 1815.] +9th Aug. 1815. + +Dear Wordsworth, We acknowlege with pride the receit of both your hand +writings, and desire to be ever had in kindly remembrance by you both +and by Dorothy. Miss Hutchinson has just transmitted us a letter +containing, among other chearful matter, the annunciation of a child +born. Nothing of consequence has turned up in our parts since your +departure. Mary and I felt quite queer after your taking leave (you W. +W.) of us in St. Giles's. We wishd we had seen more of you, but felt we +had scarce been sufficiently acknowleging for the share we had enjoyed +of your company. We felt as if we had been not enough _expressive_ of +our pleasure. But our manners _both_ are a little too much on this side +of too-much-cordiality. We want presence of mind and presence of heart. +What we feel comes too late, like an after thought impromptu. But +perhaps you observed nothing of that which we have been painfully +conscious of, and are, every day, in our intercourse with those we stand +affected to through all the degrees of love. Robinson is on the Circuit. +Our Panegyrist I thought had forgotten one of the objects of his +youthful admiration, but I was agreeably removed from that scruple by +the laundress knocking at my door this morning almost before I was up, +with a present of fruit from my young friend, &c.--There is something +inexpressibly pleasant to me in these _presents_. Be it fruit, or fowl, +or brawn, or _what not_. _Books_ are a legitimate cause of acceptance. +If presents be not the soul of friendship, undoubtedly they are the most +spiritual part of the body of that intercourse. There is too much +narrowness of thinking in this point. The punctilio of acceptance +methinks is too confined and straitlaced. I could be content to receive +money, or clothes, or a joint of meat from a friend; why should he not +send me a dinner as well as a dessert? I would taste him in the beasts +of the field, and thro' all creation. Therefore did the basket of fruit +of the juvenile Talfourd not displease me. Not that I have any thoughts +of bartering or reciprocating these things. To send him any thing in +return would be to reflect suspicion of mercenariness upon what I know +he meant a freewill offering. Let him overcome me in bounty. In this +strife a generous nature loves to be overcome. Alsager (whom you call +Alsinger--and indeed he is rather _singer_ than _sager_, no reflection +upon his naturals neither) is well and in harmony with himself and the +world. I don't know how he and those of his constitution keep their +nerves so nicely balanced as they do. Or have they any? or are they made +of packthread? He is proof against weather, ingratitude, meat under +done, every weapon of fate. I have just now a jagged end of a tooth +pricking against my tongue, which meets it half way in a wantonness of +provocation, and there they go at it, the tongue pricking itself like +the viper against the file, and the tooth galling all the gum inside and +out to torture, tongue and tooth, tooth and tongue, hard at it, and I to +pay the reckoning, till all my mouth is as hot as brimstone, and I'd +venture the roof of my mouth that at this moment, at which I conjecture +my full-happinessed friend is picking his crackers, not one of the +double rows of ivory in his privileged mouth has as much as a flaw in +it, but all perform their functions, and having performed it, expect to +be picked (luxurious steeds!) and rubbed down. I don't think he could be +robbed, or could have his house set on fire, or ever want money. I have +heard him express a similar opinion of his own impassibility. I keep +acting here Heautontimorumenos. M. Burney has been to Calais and has +come home a travelld Monsieur. He speaks nothing but the Gallic Idiom. +Field is on circuit. So now I believe I have given account of most that +you saw at our Cabin. Have you seen a curious letter in Morn. Chron., by +C. Ll., the genius of absurdity, respecting Bonaparte's suing out his +Habeas Corpus. That man is his own moon. He has no need of ascending +into that gentle planet for mild influences. You wish me some of your +leisure. I have a glimmering aspect, a chink-light of liberty before me, +which I pray God may prove not fallacious. My remonstrances have stirred +up others to remonstrate, and altogether, there is a plan for separating +certain parts of business from our department, which if it take place +will produce me more time, i.e. my evenings free. It may be a means of +placing me in a more conspicuous situation which will knock at my nerves +another way, but I wait the issue in submission. If I can but begin my +own day at 4 o Clock in the afternoon, I shall think myself to have Eden +days of peace and liberty to what I have had. As you say, how a man can +fill 3 volumes up with an Essay on the Drama is wonderful. I am sure a +very few sheets would hold all I had to say on the subject, and yet I +dare say ---- as Von Slagel. Did you ever read Charron on Wisdom? or +Patrick's Pilgrim? if neither, you have two great pleasures to come. I +mean some day to attack Caryl on Job, six Folios. What any man can +write, surely I may read. If I do but get rid of auditing +Warehousekeepers Acc'ts. and get no worse-harassing task in the place of +it, what a Lord of Liberty I shall be. I shall dance and skip and make +mouths at the invisible event, and pick the thorns out of my pillow and +throw 'em at rich men's night caps, and talk blank verse, hoity toity, +and sing "A Clerk I was in London Gay," ban, ban, CaCaliban, like the +emancipated monster, and go where I like, up this street or down that +ally. Adieu, and pray that it may be my luck. Good be to you all. + +C. LAMB. + +["A child born." This was George Hutchinson, Mrs. Wordsworth's nephew. + +"Our Panegyrist"--Thomas Noon Talfourd. This is Lamb's first mention of +his future biographer. Talfourd was then just twenty, had published some +poems, and was reading law with Chitty, the special pleader. He had met +Lamb at the beginning of 1815 through William Evans, owner of _The +Pamphleteer_, had scoured London for a copy of _Rosamund Gray_, and had +written of Lamb in _The Pamphleteer_ as one of the chief of living +poets. He then became an ardent supporter of Wordsworth, his principal +criticism of whom was written later for the _New Monthly Magazine_. + +"If presents be not the soul of friendship." Lamb's "Thoughts on +Presents of Game," written many years later for _The Athenaeum_, carries +on this theme (see Vol. I.). + +"Alsager." Thomas Massa Alsager, a friend of Crabb Robinson, and through +him of Lamb, was a strange blend of the financial and the musical +critic. He controlled the departments of Money and Music for _The Times_ +for many years. + +"Field"--Barron Field (see note later). + +"C. Ll."--Capell Lofft (see note on page 475). He wrote to the Morning +Chronicle for August 2 and 3, 1815, as Lamb says. The gist of his +argument was in this sentence:-- + +[7th para.] Bonaparte with the concurrence of the _Admiralty_, is +_within_ the limits of British _local_ allegiance. He is a _temporary_, +considered as private, though not a natural born _subject_, and as +_such_ within the limits of 31 Car. II. the _Habeas Corpus_ Act, [etc.]. + +On August 10 he wrote again, quoting the lines from "The Tempest":-- + +The nobler action is, +In virtue than in vengeance:--He being here +The sole drift of our purpose, wrath here ends; +Not a frown further. + +"An Essay on the Drama." This cryptic passage refers, I imagine, to a +translation by John Black, afterwards the editor of the _Morning +Chronicle_, of August Von Schlegel's _Lectures on Dramatic Art and +Literature_, 2 vols., 1815. Does Lamb mean + +"And yet, I dare say, _I know as much_ as Von Slagel _did_"? + +"Charron on Wisdom" and "Patrick's Pilgrim." Pierre Charron's _De la +Sagesse_, and Bishop Patrick's _Parable of the Pilgrim_, 1664, a curious +independent anticipation of Bunyan. Lamb had written of both these books +in a little essay contributed in 1813 to _The Examiner_, entitled "Books +with One Idea in them" (see Vol. I.). + +"A Clerk I was in London Gay." A song sung in Colman's "Inkle and +Yarico," which Lamb actually did use as a motto for his _Elia_ essay +"The Superannuated Man," dealing with his emancipation, ten years +later.] + + + + +LETTER 221 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH HUTCHINSON +[Dated at end: August 20, 1815.] + +My dear friend, It is less fatigue to me to write upon lines, and I want +to fill up as much of my paper as I can in gratitude for the pleasure +your very kind letter has given me. I began to think I should not hear +from you; knowing you were not fond of letter-writing I quite forgave +you, but I was very sorry. Do not make a point of conscience of it, but +if ever you feel an inclination you cannot think how much a few lines +would delight me. I am happy to hear so good an account of your sister +and child, and sincerely wish her a perfect recovery. I am glad you did +not arrive sooner, you escaped much anxiety. I have just received a very +chearful letter from Mrs. Morgan--the following I have picked out as I +think it will interest you. "Hartley Coleridge has been with us for two +months. Morgan invited him to pass the long vacation here in the hope +that his father would be of great service to him in his studies: he +seems to be extremely amiable. I believe he is to spend the next +vacation at Lady Beaumont's. Your old friend Coleridge is very hard at +work at the preface to a new Edition which he is just going to publish +in the same form as Mr. Wordsworth's--at first the preface was not to +exceed five or six pages, it has however grown into a work of great +importance. I believe Morgan has already written nearly two hundred +pages. The title of it is '_Autobiographia Literaria_' to which are +added '_Sybilline Leaves_,' a collection of Poems by the same author. +Calne has lately been much enlivened by an excellent company of +players--last week they performed the 'Remorse' to a very crowded and +brilliant audience; two of the characters were admirably well supported; +at the request of the actors Morgan was behind the scenes all the time +and assisted in the music &c." + +Thanks to your kind interference we have had a very nice letter from Mr. +Wordsworth. Of them and of you we think and talk quite with a painful +regret that we did not see more of you, and that it may be so long +before we meet again. + +I am going to do a queer thing--I have wearied myself with writing a +long letter to Mrs. Morgan, a part of which is an incoherent rambling +account of a jaunt we have just been taking. I want to tell you all +about it, for we so seldom do such things that it runs strangely in my +head, and I feel too tired to give you other than the mere copy of the +nonsense I have just been writing. + +"Last Saturday was the grand feast day of the India House Clerks. I +think you must have heard Charles talk of his yearly turtle feast. He +has been lately much wearied with work, and, glad to get rid of all +connected with it, he _used_ Saturday, the feast day being a holiday, +_borrowed_ the Monday following, and we set off on the outside of the +Cambridge Coach from Fetter Lane at eight o'clock, and were driven into +Cambridge in great triumph by Hell Fire Dick five minutes before three. +Richard is in high reputation, he is private tutor to the Whip Club. +Journeys used to be tedious torments to me, but seated out in the open +air I enjoyed every mile of the way--the first twenty miles was +particularly pleasing to me, having been accustomed to go so far on that +road in the Ware Stage Coach to visit my Grandmother in the days of +other times. + +"In my life I never spent so many pleasant hours together as I did at +Cambridge. We were walking the whole time--out of one College into +another. If you ask me which I like best I must make the children's +traditionary unoffending reply to all curious enquirers--'_Both_.' I +liked them all best. The little gloomy ones, because they were little +gloomy ones. I felt as if I could live and die in them and never wish to +speak again. And the fine grand Trinity College, Oh how fine it was! And +King's College Chapel, what a place! I heard the Cathedral service +there, and having been no great church goer of late years, _that_ and +the painted windows and the general effect of the whole thing affected +me wonderfully. + +"I certainly like St. John's College best. I had seen least of it, +having only been over it once, so, on the morning we returned, I got up +at six o'clock and wandered into it by myself--by myself indeed, for +there was nothing alive to be seen but one cat, who followed me about +like a dog. Then I went over Trinity, but nothing hailed me there, not +even a cat. + +"On the Sunday we met with a pleasant thing. We had been congratulating +each other that we had come alone to enjoy, as the miser his feast, all +our sights greedily to ourselves, but having seen all we began to grow +flat and wish for this and tother body with us, when we were accosted by +a young gownsman whose face we knew, but where or how we had seen him we +could not tell, and were obliged to ask his name. He proved to be a +young man we had seen twice at Alsager's. He turned out a very pleasant +fellow--shewed us the insides of places--we took him to our Inn to +dinner, and drank tea with him in such a delicious college room, and +then again he supped with us. We made our meals as short as possible, to +lose no time, and walked our young conductor almost off his legs. Even +when the fried eels were ready for supper and coming up, having a +message from a man who we had bribed for the purpose, that then we might +see Oliver Cromwell, who was not at home when we called to see him, we +sallied out again and made him a visit by candlelight--and so ended our +sights. When we were setting out in the morning our new friend came to +bid us good bye, and rode with us as far as Trompington. I never saw a +creature so happy as he was the whole time he was with us, he said we +had put him in such good spirits that [he] should certainly pass an +examination well that he is to go through in six weeks in order to +qualify himself to obtain a fellowship. + +"Returning home down old Fetter Lane I could hardly keep from crying to +think it was all over. With what pleasure [Charles] shewed me Jesus +College where Coleridge was--the barbe[r's shop] where Manning was--the +house where Lloyd lived--Franklin's rooms, a young schoolfellow with +whom Charles was the first time he went to Cambridge: I peeped in at his +window, the room looked quite deserted--old chairs standing about in +disorder that seemed to have stood there ever since they had sate in +them. I write sad nonsense about these things, but I wish you had heard +Charles talk his nonsense over and over again about his visit to +Franklin, and how he then first felt himself commencing gentleman and +had eggs for his breakfast." Charles Lamb commencing gentleman! + +A lady who is sitting by me seeing what I am doing says I remind her of +her husband, who acknowledged that the first love letter he wrote to her +was a copy of one he had made use of on a former occasion. + +This is no letter, but if you give me any encouragement to write again +you shall have one entirely to yourself: a little encouragement will do, +a few lines to say you are well and remember us. I will keep this +tomorrow, maybe Charles will put a few lines to it--I always send off a +humdrum letter of mine with great satisfaction if I can get him to +freshen it up a little at the end. Let me beg my love to your sister +Johanna with many thanks. I have much pleasure in looking forward to her +nice bacon, the maker of which I long have had a great desire to see. + +God bless you, my dear Miss Hutchinson, I remain ever +Your affectionate friend +M. LAMB. +Aug'st. 20. + + + + +LETTER 222 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO Miss HUTCHINSON +(_Added to same letter_) + +Dear Miss Hutchinson, I subscribe most willingly to all my sister says +of her Enjoyment at Cambridge. She was in silent raptures all the while +_there_ and came home riding thro' the air (her 1st long outside +journey) triumphing as if she had been _graduated_. I remember one +foolish-pretty expression she made use of, "Bless the little churches +how pretty they are," as those symbols of civilized life opened upon her +view one after the other on this side Cambridge. You cannot proceed a +mile without starting a steeple, with its little patch of villagery +round it, enverduring the waste. I don't know how you will pardon part +of her letter being a transcript, but writing to another Lady first +(probably as the _easiest task_ *) it was unnatural not to give you an +acco't of what had so freshly delighted her, and would have been a piece +of transcendant rhetorick (above her modesty) to have given two +different accounts of a simple and univocal pleasure. Bless me how +learned I write! but I always forget myself when I write to Ladies. One +cannot tame one's erudition down to their merely English apprehensions. +But this and all other faults you will excuse from yours truly + +C. LAMB. + +Our kindest loves to Joanna, if she will accept it from us who are +merely NOMINAL to her, and to the child and child's parent. Yours again + +C. L. + +[_Mary Lamb adds this footnote:_--] + +* "_Easiest Task_." Not the true reason, but Charles had so connected +Coleridge & Cambridge in my mind, by talking so much of him there, and a +letter coming so fresh from _him_, in a manner _that was the reason_ I +wrote to them first. I make this apology perhaps quite unnecessarily, +but I am of a very jealous temper myself, and more than once recollect +having been offended at seeing kind expressions which had particularly +pleased me in a friend's letter repeated word for word to +another--Farewell once more. + +[I have no idea why this charming letter was held back when Talfourd +copied the Lamb-Wordsworth correspondence. The name of the young man who +showed the Lambs such courtesy is not known. + +Coleridge's literary plans were destined to change. The _Biographia +Literaria_ was published alone in 1817, and _Sibylline Leaves_ alone +later in the same year.--"Remorse" had been acted at Calne in June for +the second time, a previous visit having been paid in 1813. Coleridge +gave the manager a "flaming testimonial."--Lady Beaumont was the wife of +Sir George Beaumont. + +"Oliver Cromwell." The portrait by Cooper at Sidney Sussex College. + +F.W. Franklin was with Lamb at Christ's Hospital. Afterwards he became +Master of the Blue Coat School at Hertford. He is mentioned in the +_Elia_ essay on Christ's Hospital.] + + + + +LETTER 223 + + +MARY LAMB TO MATILDA BETHAM + +[No date. ? Late summer, 1815.] + +My dear Miss Betham,--My brother and myself return you a thousand thanks +for your kind communication. We have read your poem many times over with +increased interest, and very much wish to see you to tell you how highly +we have been pleased with it. May we beg one favour?--I keep the +manuscript in the hope that you will grant it. It is that, either now or +when the whole poem is completed, you will read it over with us. When I +say with _us_, of course I mean Charles. I know that you have many +judicious friends, but I have so often known my brother spy out errors +in a manuscript which has passed through many judicious hands, that I +shall not be easy if you do not permit him to look yours carefully +through with you; and also you _must_ allow him to correct the press for +you. + +If I knew where to find you I would call upon you. Should you feel +nervous at the idea of meeting Charles in the capacity of a _severe +censor_, give me a line, and I will come to you any where, and convince +you in five minutes that he is even timid, stammers, and can scarcely +speak for modesty and fear of giving pain when he finds himself placed +in that kind of office. Shall I appoint a time to see you here when he +is from home? I will send him out any time you will name; indeed, I am +always naturally alone till four o'clock. If you are nervous about +coming, remember I am equally so about the liberty I have taken, and +shall be till we meet and laugh off our mutual fears. + +Yours most affectionately +M. LAMB. + + + + +LETTER 224 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO MATILDA BETHAM +[No date. 1815]. + +Dear Miss Betham,--That accursed word trill has vexed me excessively. I +have referred to the MS. and certainly the printer is exonerated, it is +much more like a _tr_ than a _k_. But what shall I say of myself? + +If you can trust me hereafter, I will be more careful. I will go thro' +the Poem, unless you should feel more safe by doing it yourself. In fact +a second person looking over a proof is liable to let pass anything that +sounds plausible. The act of looking it over seeming to require only an +attention to the words that they have the proper component letters, one +scarce thinks then (or but half) of the sense.--You will find one line I +have ventured to alter in 3'd sheet. You had made hope & yoke rhime, +which is intolerable. Every body can see & carp at a bad rhime or no +rhime. It strikes as slovenly, like bad spelling. + +I found out another _sung_ but I could not alter it, & I would not delay +the time by writing to you. Besides it is not at all conspicuous--it +comes in by the bye 'the strains I sung.' The other obnoxious word was +in an eminent place, at the beginning of her Lay, when all ears are upon +her. + +I must conclude hastily, +dear M. B. +Yours +C. L. + +[These letters refer to _The Lay of Marie_. In Mr. Ernest Betham's _A +House of Letters_ will be found six other letters (see pp. 161, 163, +164, 166, 232) all bearing upon Matilda Betham's poem.] + + + + +LETTER 225 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO MATILDA BETHAM + +Dr Miss Betham,--All this while I have been tormenting myself with the +thought of having been ungracious to you, and you have been all the +while accusing yourself. Let us absolve one another & be quits. My head +is in such a state from incapacity for business that I certainly know it +to be my duty not to undertake the veriest trifle in addition. I hardly +know how I can go on. I have tried to get some redress by explaining my +health, but with no great success. No one can tell how ill I am, because +it does not come out to the exterior of my face, but lies in my scull +deep & invisible. I wish I was leprous & black jaundiced skin-over, and +[? or] that all was as well within as my cursed looks. You must not +think me worse than I am. I am determined not to be overset, but to give +up business rather and get 'em to allow me a trifle for services past. O +that I had been a shoe-maker or a baker, or a man of large independ't +fortune. O darling Laziness! heaven of Epicurus! Saints Everlasting +Rest! that I could drink vast potations of thee thro' unmeasured +Eternity. Otium _cum_ vel _sine_ dignitate. Scandalous, dishonorable, +any-kind-of-_repose_. I stand not upon the _dignified_ sort. Accursed +damned desks, trade, commerce, business--Inventions of that old original +busybody brainworking Satan, Sabbathless restless Satan-- + +A curse relieves. Do you ever try it? + +A strange Letter this to write to a Lady, but mere honey'd sentences +will not distill. I dare not ask who revises in my stead. I have drawn +you into a scrape. I am ashamed, but I know no remedy. My unwellness +must be my apology. God bless you (tho' he curse the India House & fire +it to the ground) and may no unkind Error creep into Marie, may all its +readers like it as well as I do & everybody about you like its kind +author no worse. Why the devil am I never to have a chance of scribbling +my own free thoughts, verse or prose, again? Why must I write of Tea & +Drugs & Price Goods & bales of Indigo--farewell. + +C. LAMB. + +[_Written at head of Letter on margin the following_:--] + +Mary goes to her Place on Sunday--I mean your maid, foolish Mary. She +wants a very little brains only to be an excellent Serv. She is +excellently calculated for the country, where nobody has brains. + +[Mr. Ernest Betham, in _A House of Letters_, dates the foregoing June 1, +1816; but I place it here none the less. + +In the passage concerning work and leisure we see another hint of the +sonnet on "Work" which Lamb was to write a little later. + +Here should come two notes to William Ayrton, printed by Mr. Macdonald, +referring to the musical use of the word "air."] + + + + +LETTER 226 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO SARAH HUTCHINSON + +Thursday 19 Oct. 1815. + +My brother is gone to Paris. + +Dear Miss H.--I am forced to be the replier to your Letter, for Mary has +been ill and gone from home these five weeks yesterday. She has left me +very lonely and very miserable. I stroll about, but there is no rest but +at one's own fireside, and there is no rest for me there now. I look +forward to the worse half being past, and keep up as well as I can. She +has begun to show some favorable symptoms. The return of her disorder +has been frightfully soon this time, with scarce a six month's interval. +I am almost afraid my worry of spirits about the E. I. House was partly +the cause of her illness, but one always imputes it to the cause next at +hand; more probably it comes from some cause we have no control over or +conjecture of. It cuts sad great slices out of the time, the little time +we shall have to live together. I don't know but the recurrence of these +illnesses might help me to sustain her death better than if we had had +no partial separations. But I won't talk of death. I will imagine us +immortal, or forget that we are otherwise; by God's blessing in a few +weeks we may be making our meal together, or sitting in the front row of +the Pit at Drury Lane, or taking our evening walk past the theatres, to +look at the outside of them at least, if not to be tempted in. Then we +forget we are assailable, we are strong for the time as rocks, the wind +is tempered to the shorn Lambs. Poor C. Lloyd, and poor Priscilla, I +feel I hardly feel enough for him, my own calamities press about me and +involve me in a thick integument not to be reached at by other folks' +misfortunes. But I feel all I can, and all the kindness I can towards +you all. God bless you. I hear nothing from Coleridge. Yours truly + +C. LAMB. + +[Mary Lamb had recovered from her preceding attack in February. She did +not recover from the present illness until December. + +"The wind is tempered to the shorn Lambs." "'But God tempers the wind,' +said Maria, 'to the shorn lamb'" (Sterne's _Sentimental Journey_). Also +in Henri Estienne (1594). + +"Poor C. Lloyd, and poor Priscilla." Priscilla Wordsworth (_neé_ Lloyd) +died this month, aged thirty-three. Charles Lloyd having just completed +his translation of the tragedies of Alfieri, published in 1815, had been +prostrated by the most serious visitation of his malady that he had yet +suffered.] + + + + +LETTER 227 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING +Dec. 25th, 1815. + +Dear old friend and absentee,--This is Christmas-day 1815 with us; what +it may be with you I don't know, the 12th of June next year perhaps; and +if it should be the consecrated season with you, I don't see how you can +keep it. You have no turkeys; you would not desecrate the festival by +offering up a withered Chinese bantam, instead of the savoury grand +Norfolcian holocaust, that smokes all around my nostrils at this moment +from a thousand firesides. Then what puddings have you? Where will you +get holly to stick in your churches, or churches to stick your dried +tea-leaves (that must be the substitute) in? What memorials you can have +of the holy time, I see not. A chopped missionary or two may keep up the +thin idea of Lent and the wilderness; but what standing evidence have +you of the Nativity?--'tis our rosy-cheeked, homestalled divines, whose +faces shine to the tune of _unto us a child_; faces fragrant with the +mince-pies of half a century, that alone can authenticate the cheerful +mystery--I feel. + +I feel my bowels refreshed with the holy tide--my zeal is great against +the unedified heathen. Down with the Pagodas--down with the idols-- +Ching-chong-fo--and his foolish priesthood! Come out of Babylon, O my +friend! for her time is come, and the child that is native, and the +Proselyte of her gates, shall kindle and smoke together! And in sober +sense what makes you so long from among us, Manning? You must not expect +to see the same England again which you left. + +Empires have been overturned, crowns trodden into dust, the face of the +western world quite changed: your friends have all got old--those you +left blooming--myself (who am one of the few that remember you) those +golden hairs which you recollect my taking a pride in, turned to silvery +and grey. Mary has been dead and buried many years--she desired to be +buried in the silk gown you sent her. Rickman, that you remember active +and strong, now walks out supported by a servant-maid and a stick. +Martin Burney is a very old man. The other day an aged woman knocked at +my door, and pretended to my acquaintance; it was long before I had the +most distant cognition of her; but at last together we made her out to +be Louisa, the daughter of Mrs. Topham, formerly Mrs. Morton, who had +been Mrs. Reynolds, formerly Mrs. Kenney, whose first husband was +Holcroft, the dramatic writer of the last century. St. Paul's Church is +a heap of ruins; the Monument isn't half so high as you knew it, divers +parts being successively taken down which the ravages of time had +rendered dangerous; the horse at Charing Cross is gone, no one knows +whither,--and all this has taken place while you have been settling +whether Ho-hing-tong should be spelt with a ---- or a ----. For aught I +see you had almost as well remain where you are, and not come like a +Struldbug into a world where few were born when you went away. Scarce +here and there one will be able to make out your face; all your opinions +will be out of date, your jokes obsolete, your puns rejected with +fastidiousness as wit of the last age. Your way of mathematics has +already given way to a new method, which after all is I believe the old +doctrine of Maclaurin, new-vamped up with what he borrowed of the +negative quantity of fluxions from Euler. + +Poor Godwin! I was passing his tomb the other day in Cripplegate +churchyard. There are some verses upon it written by Miss Hayes, which +if I thought good enough I would send you. He was one of those who would +have hailed your return, not with boisterous shouts and clamours, but +with the complacent gratulations of a philosopher anxious to promote +knowledge as leading to happiness--but his systems and his theories are +ten feet deep in Cripplegate mould. Coleridge is just dead, having lived +just long enough to close the eyes of Wordsworth, who paid the debt to +nature but a week or two before. Poor Col., but two days before he died +he wrote to a bookseller proposing an epic poem on the "Wanderings of +Cain," in twenty-four books. It is said he has left behind him more than +forty thousand treatises in criticism and metaphysics, but few of them +in a state of completion. They are now destined, perhaps, to wrap up +spices. You see what mutations the busy hand of Time has produced, while +you have consumed in foolish voluntary exile that time which might have +gladdened your friends--benefited your country; but reproaches are +useless. Gather up the wretched reliques, my friend, as fast as you can, +and come to your old home. I will rub my eyes and try to recognise you. +We will shake withered hands together, and talk of old things--of St. +Mary's Church and the barber's opposite, where the young students in +mathematics used to assemble. Poor Crisp, that kept it afterwards, set +up a fruiterer's shop in Trumpington-street, and for aught I know, +resides there still, for I saw the name up in the last journey I took +there with my sister just before she died. I suppose you heard that I +had left the India House, and gone into the Fishmongers' Almshouses over +the bridge. I have a little cabin there, small and homely; but you shall +be welcome to it. You like oysters, and to open them yourself; I'll get +you some if you come in oyster time. Marshall, Godwin's old friend, is +still alive, and talks of the faces you used to make. + +Come as soon as you can. C. LAMB. + +[Since Lamb's last letter Manning had entered Lhassa, the sacred city of +Thibet, being the first Englishman to do so. He remained there until +April, 1812, when he returned to Calcutta. Then he took up his abode +once more in Canton, and, in 1816, moved to Peking as interpreter to +Lord Amherst's embassy, returning to England the following year. + +"Norfolcian." Manning was a Norfolk man. + +"Maclaurin." Here Lamb surprises the reader by a reasonable remark. +Colin Maclaurin, the mathematician, was the author of _A Treatise of +Fluxions_. + +Coleridge actually had begun many years before an epic on the subject of +the "Wanderings of Cain."] + + + + +LETTER 228 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING +Dec. 26th, 1815. + +Dear Manning,--Following your brother's example, I have just ventured +one letter to Canton, and am now hazarding another (not exactly a +duplicate) to St. Helena. The first was full of unprobable romantic +fictions, fitting the remoteness of the mission it goes upon; in the +present I mean to confine myself nearer to truth as you come nearer +home. A correspondence with the uttermost parts of the earth necessarily +involves in it some heat of fancy; it sets the brain agoing; but I can +think on the half-way house tranquilly. Your friends, then, are not all +dead or grown forgetful of you through old age, as that lying letter +asserted, anticipating rather what must happen if you kept tarrying on +for ever on the skirts of creation, as there seemed a danger of your +doing--but they are all tolerably well and in full and perfect +comprehension of what is meant by Manning's coming home again. Mrs. +Kenney (ci-devant Holcroft) never let her tongue run riot more than in +remembrances of you. Fanny expends herself in phrases that can only be +justified by her romantic nature. Mary reserves a portion of your silk, +not to be buried in (as the false nuncio asserts), but to make up spick +and span into a new bran gown to wear when you come. I am the same as +when you knew me, almost to a surfeiting identity. This very night I am +going to _leave off tobacco_! Surely there must be some other world in +which this unconquerable purpose shall be realised. The soul hath not +her generous aspirings implanted in her in vain. One that you knew, and +I think the only one of those friends we knew much of in common, has +died in earnest. Poor Priscilla, wife of Kit Wordsworth! Her brother +Robert is also dead, and several of the grown-up brothers and sisters, +in the compass of a very few years. Death has not otherwise meddled much +in families that I know. Not but he has his damn'd eye upon us, and is +w[h]etting his infernal feathered dart every instant, as you see him +truly pictured in that impressive moral picture, "The good man at the +hour of death." I have in trust to put in the post four letters from +Diss, and one from Lynn, to St. Helena, which I hope will accompany this +safe, and one from Lynn, and the one before spoken of from me, to +Canton. But we all hope that these latter may be waste paper. I don't +know why I have forborne writing so long. But it is such a forlorn hope +to send a scrap of paper straggling over wide oceans. And yet I know +when you come home, I shall have you sitting before me at our fireside +just as if you had never been away. In such an instant does the return +of a person dissipate all the weight of imaginary perplexity from +distance of time and space! I'll promise you good oysters. Cory is dead, +that kept the shop opposite St. Dunstan's, but the tougher materials of +the shop survive the perishing frame of its keeper. Oysters continue to +flourish there under as good auspices. Poor Cory! But if you will absent +yourself twenty years together, you must not expect numerically the same +population to congratulate your return which wetted the sea-beach with +their tears when you went away. Have you recovered the breathless +stone-staring astonishment into which you must have been thrown upon +learning at landing that an Emperor of France was living in St. Helena? +What an event in the solitude of the seas! like finding a fish's bone at +the top of Plinlimmon; but these things are nothing in our western +world. Novelties cease to affect. Come and try what your presence can. + +God bless you.--Your old friend, C. LAMB. + +[Robert Lloyd had died in 1811, and within a few days one of his +brothers and one of his sisters. + +"The good man at the hour of death." I have not found the picture to +which Lamb refers. Probably a popular print of the day, or he may have +been incorrectly remembering Blake's "Death of the Good Old Man" in +Blair's _Grave_. + +Manning, by changing his plans, did not reach St. Helena when he +expected to; not, indeed, until July, 1817, when he met Napoleon.] + + + + +LETTER 229 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +[Dated at end: April 9, 1816.] + +Dear Wordsworth--Thanks for the books you have given me and for all the +Books you mean to give me. I will bind up the Political Sonnets and Ode +according to your Suggestion. I have not bound the poems yet. I wait +till People have done borrowing them. I think I shall get a chain, and +chain them to my shelves More Bodleiano, and People may come and read +them at chain's length. For of those who borrow, some read slow, some +mean to read but don't read, and some neither read nor meant to read, +but borrow to leave you an opinion of their sagacity. I must do my +money-borrowing friends the justice to say that there is nothing of this +caprice or wantonness of alienation in them. When they borrow my money, +they never fail to make use of it. Coleridge has been here about a +fortnight. His health is tolerable at present, though beset with +temptations. In the first place, the Cov. Card. Manager has declined +accepting his Tragedy, tho' (having read it) I see no reason upon earth +why it might not have run a very fair chance, tho' it certainly wants a +prominent part for a Miss O Neil or a Mr. Kean. However he is going to +day to write to Lord Byron to get it to Drury. Should you see Mrs. C., +who has just written to C. a letter which I have given him, it will be +as well to say nothing about its fate till some answer is shaped from +Drury. He has two volumes printing together at Bristol, both finished as +far as the composition goes; the latter containing his fugitive Poems, +the former his Literary Life. Nature, who conducts every creature by +instinct to its best end, has skilfully directed C. to take up his abode +at a Chemist's Laboratory in Norfolk Street. She might as well have sent +a Helluo Librorum for cure to the Vatican. God keep him inviolate among +the traps and pitfalls. He has done pretty well as yet. + +Tell Miss H. my sister is every day wishing to be quietly sitting down +to answer her very kind Letter, but while C. stays she can hardly find a +quiet time, God bless him. + +Tell Mrs. W. her Postscripts are always agreeable. They are so legible +too. Your manual graphy is terrible, dark as Lycophron. "Likelihood" for +instance is thus typified [_here Lamb makes an illegible scribble_]. + +I should not wonder if the constant making out of such Paragraphs is the +cause of that weakness in Mrs. W.'s Eyes as she is tenderly pleased to +express it. Dorothy I hear has mounted spectacles; so you have +deoculated two of your dearest relations in life. Well, God bless you +and continue to give you power to write with a finger of power upon our +hearts what you fail to impress in corresponding lucidness upon our +outward eyesight. + +Mary's Love to all, She is quite well. + +I am call'd off to do the deposits on Cotton Wool--but why do I relate +this to you who want faculties to comprehend the great mystery of +Deposits, of Interest, of Warehouse rent, and Contingent Fund--Adieu. C. +LAMB. + +A longer Letter when C. is gone back into the Country, relating his +success, &c.--_my_ judgment of _your_ new Books &c. &c.--I am scarce +quiet enough while he stays. + + +Yours again +C. L. + +Tuesday 9 Apr. 1816. + +[Wordsworth had sent Lamb, presumably in proof (see next letter), +_Thanksgiving Ode_, 18 _Jan_. 1816, _with other short pieces chiefly +referring to recent events_, 1816--the subject of the ode being the +peace that had come upon Europe with the downfall of Napoleon. It +follows in the collected works the sonnets to liberty. + +"More Bodleiano." According to Macray's _Annals of the Bodleian Library_ +(second edition, 1890, page 121), books seem to have been chained in the +Bodleian Library up to 1751. The process of removing the chains seems to +have begun in 1757. In 1761 as many as 1,448 books were unchained at a +cost of a ½d. a piece. A dozen years later discarded chains were sold at +the rate of 2d. for a long chain, 1½d. for a short one, and if one +hankered after a hundred-weight of them, the wish could be gratified on +payment of 14s. Many loose chains are still preserved in the library as +relics. + +"For of those who borrow." Lamb's _Elia_ essay, "The Two Races of Men," +may have had its germ in this passage. + +Coleridge came to London from Calne in March bringing with him the +manuscript of "Zapolya." He had already had correspondence with Lord +Byron concerning a tragedy for Drury Lane, on whose committee Byron had +a seat, but he had done nothing towards writing it. "Zapolya" was never +acted. It was published in 1817. Coleridge's lodgings were at 43 Norfolk +Street, Strand. See next letter for further news of Coleridge at this +time.] + + + + +LETTER 230 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +[April 26, 1816.] + +SIR, + +Please to state the Weights and Amounts of the following Lots of sold +Sale, 181 for Your obedient Servant, + +CHAS. LAMB. +_Accountant's Office_, +26 Apr. 1816 + +Dear W. I have just finished the pleasing task of correcting the Revise +of the Poems and letter. I hope they will come out faultless. One +blunder I saw and shuddered at. The hallucinating rascal had printed +_battered_ for _battened_, this last not conveying any distinct sense to +his gaping soul. The Reader (as they call 'em) had discovered it and +given it the marginal brand, but the substitutory _n_ had not yet +appeared. I accompanied his notice with a most pathetic address to the +Printer not to neglect the Correction. I know how such a blunder would +"batter at your Peace." [_Batter is written batten and corrected to +batter in the margin_.] With regard to the works, the Letter I read with +unabated satisfaction. Such a thing was wanted, called for. The parallel +of Cotton with Burns I heartily approve; Iz. Walton hallows any page in +which his reverend name appears. "Duty archly bending to purposes of +general benevolence" is exquisite. The Poems I endeavored not to +understand, but to read them with my eye alone, and I think I succeeded. +(Some people will do that when they come out, you'll say.) As if I were +to luxuriate to-morrow at some Picture Gallery I was never at before, +and going by to day by chance, found the door open, had but 5 minutes to +look about me, peeped in, just such a _chastised_ peep I took with my +mind at the lines my luxuriating eye was coursing over unrestrained,-- +not to anticipate another day's fuller satisfaction. Coleridge is +printing Xtabel, by L'd Byron's recommendation to Murray, with what he +calls a vision, Kubla Khan--which said vision he repeats so enchantingly +that it irradiates and brings heaven and Elysian bowers into my parlour +while he sings or says it, but there is an observation "Never tell thy +dreams," and I am almost afraid that Kubla Khan is an owl that won't +bear day light, I fear lest it should be discovered by the lantern of +typography and clear redacting to letters, no better than nonsense or no +sense. When I was young I used to chant with extacy _Mild Arcadians ever +blooming_, till somebody told me it was meant to be nonsense. Even yet I +have a lingering attachment to it, and think it better than Windsor +Forest, Dying Xtian's address &c.--C. has sent his Tragedy to D.L.T.--it +cannot be acted this season, and by their manner of receiving it, I hope +he will be able to alter it to make them accept it for next. He is at +present under the medical care of a Mr. Gilman (Killman?) a Highgate +Apothecary, where he plays at leaving off Laud----m. I think his +essentials not touched: he is very bad, but then he wonderfully picks up +another day, and his face when he repeats his verses hath its ancient +glory, an Archangel a little damaged. + +Will Miss H. pardon our not replying at length to her kind Letter? We +are not quiet enough. Morgan is with us every day, going betwixt +Highgate and the Temple. Coleridge is absent but 4 miles, and the +neighborhood of such a man is as exciting as the presence of 50 ordinary +Persons. 'Tis enough to be within the whiff and wind of his genius, for +us not to possess our souls in quiet. If I lived with him or the _author +of the Excursion_, I should in a very little time lose my own identity, +and be dragged along in the current of other people's thoughts, hampered +in a net. How cool I sit in this office, with no possible interruption +further than what I may term _material_; there is not as much +metaphysics in 36 of the people here as there is in the first page of +Locke's treatise on the Human understanding, or as much poetry as in any +ten lines of the Pleasures of Hope or more natural Beggar's Petition. I +never entangle myself in any of their speculations. Interruptions, if I +try to write a letter even, I have dreadful. Just now within 4 lines I +was call'd off for ten minutes to consult dusty old books for the +settlement of obsolete Errors. I hold you a guinea you don't find the +Chasm where I left off, so excellently the wounded sense closed again +and was healed. + +N.B. Nothing said above to the contrary but that I hold the personal +presence of the two mentioned potent spirits at a rate as high as any, +but I pay dearer, what amuses others robs me of myself, my mind is +positively discharged into their greater currents, but flows with a +willing violence. As to your question about work, it is far less +oppressive to me than it was, from circumstances; it takes all the +golden part of the day away, a solid lump from ten to four, but it does +not kill my peace as before. Some day or other I shall be in a taking +again. My head akes and you have had enough. God bless you. + +C. LAMB. + +[Lamb had been correcting the proofs of Wordsworth's _Letter to a Friend +of Burns_ and his _Thanksgiving Ode, with other short Pieces_, both +published in 1816. In the _Letter to a Friend of Robert Burns_, which +was called forth by the intended republication of Burns' life by Dr. +Currie, Wordsworth incidentally compares Burns and Cotton. The phrase +which Lamb commends is in the description of "Tam o' Shanter" (page +22)--"This reprobate sits down to his cups, while the storm is roaring, +and heaven and earth are in confusion;--the night is driven on by song +and tumultuous noise--laughter and jest thicken as the beverage improves +upon the palate--conjugal fidelity archly bends to the service of +general benevolence--selfishness is not absent, but wearing the mask of +social cordiality...." + +Coleridge's _Christabel_ (with _Kubla Khan_ and _The Pains of Sleep_) +was published by Murray in 1816. It ran into a second edition quickly, +but was not too well received. The _Edinburgh_ indeed described it as +destitute of one ray of genius. In a letter from Fanny Godwin to Mary +Shelley, July 20, 1816, in Dowden's _Life of Shelley_, we read that +"Lamb says _Christabel_ ought never to have been published; and that no +one understood it, and _Kubla Khan_ is nonsense." But this was probably +idle gossip. Lamb had admired _Christabel_ to the full, but he may have +thought its publication in an incomplete state an error. + +Coleridge was introduced to Mr. James Gillman of the Grove, Highgate, by +Dr. Adams of Hatton Garden, to whom he had applied for medical aid. +Adams suggested that Gillman should take Coleridge into his house. +Gillman arranged on April 11 that Adams should bring Coleridge on the +following day. Coleridge went alone and conquered. He promised to begin +domestication on the next day, and "I looked with impatience," wrote +Gillman in his _Life of Coleridge_, "for the morrow ... I felt indeed +almost spellbound, without the desire of release." Coleridge did not +come on the morrow, but two days later. He remained with the Gillmans +for the rest of his life. + +_The Pleasures of Hope_, by Thomas Campbell; _The Beggar's +Petition_--"Pity the sorrows of a poor old man"--by Thomas Moss +(1740-1808), a ditty in all the recitation books. Lamb alluded to it in +the _London Magazine_ version of his _Elia_ essay, "A Complaint of the +Decay of Beggars." + +Here should come a brief note from Lamb to Leigh Hunt, dated May 13, +1816, accompanying _Falstaff's Letters_, etc., and a gift of "John +Woodvil." This is Lamb's first letter to James Henry Leigh Hunt +(1784-1859) that has been preserved. He had known Hunt (an old Christ's +Hospitaller, but later than Lamb's day) for some years. To his +_Reflector_ he contributed a number of essays and humorous letters in +1810-1811; and he had written also for _The Examiner_ in 1812 and during +Hunt's imprisonment in 1813-1815. The Lambs visited him regularly at the +Surrey Jail. One of Lamb's most charming poems is inscribed "To T. L. +H."--Thornton Leigh Hunt, whom he called his "favourite child."] + + + + +LETTER 231 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO MATILDA BETHAM +[Dated at end: June 1, 1816.] + +Dear Miss Betham,--I have sent your _very pretty lines_ to Southey in a +frank as you requested. Poor S. what a grievous loss he must have had! +Mary and I rejoice in the prospect of seeing you soon in town. Let _us_ +be among the very first persons you come to see. Believe me that you can +have no friends who respect and love you more than ourselves. Pray +present our kind remembrances to Barbara, and to all to whom you may +think they will be acceptable. + +Yours very sincerely, +C. LAMB. + +Have you seen _Christabel_ since its publication? +E. I. H. June 1 1816. + +[Southey's eldest son, Herbert, had died in April of this year. Here +should come a letter from Lamb to H. Dodwell, of the India House, dated +August, 1816, not available for this edition. Lamb writes from Calne, in +Wiltshire, where he and his sister were making holiday, staying with the +Morgans. He states that he has lost all sense of time, and recollected +that he must return to work some day only through the accident of +playing _Commerce_ instead of whist.] + + + + +LETTER 232 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +[P.M. September 23, 1816.] + +My dear Wordsworth, It seems an age since we have corresponded, but +indeed the interim has been stuffd out with more variety than usually +checquers my same-seeming existence.--Mercy on me, what a traveller have +I been since I wrote you last! what foreign wonders have been explored! +I have seen Bath, King Bladud's ancient well, fair Bristol, seed-plot of +suicidal Chatterton, Marlbro', Chippenham, Calne, famous for nothing in +particular that I know of--but such a vertigo of locomotion has not +seized us for years. We spent a month with the Morgans at the last named +Borough--August--and such a change has the change wrought in us that we +could not stomach wholesome Temple air, but are absolutely rusticating +(O the gentility of it) at Dalston, about one mischievous boy's stone's +throw off Kingsland Turnpike, one mile from Shoreditch church,--thence +we emanate in various directions to Hackney, Clapton, Totnam, and such +like romantic country. That my lungs should ever prove so dainty as to +fancy they perceive differences of air! but so it is, tho' I am almost +ashamed of it, like Milton's devil (turn'd truant to his old Brimstone) +I am purging off the foul air of my once darling tobacco in this Eden, +absolutely snuffing up pure gales, like old worn out Sin playing at +being innocent, which never comes again, for in spite of good books and +good thoughts there is something in a Pipe that virtue cannot give tho' +she give her unendowed person for a dowry. Have you read the review of +Coleridge's character, person, physiognomy &c. in the Examiner--his +features even to his _nose_--O horrible license beyond the old Comedy. +He is himself gone to the sea side with his favorite Apothecary, having +left for publication as I hear a prodigious mass of composition for a +Sermon to the middling ranks of people to persuade them they are not so +distressed as is commonly supposed. Methinks he should recite it to a +congregation of Bilston Colliers,--the fate of Cinna the Poet would +instantaneously be his. God bless him, but certain that rogue Examiner +has beset him in most unmannerly strains. Yet there is a kind of respect +shines thro' the disrespect that to those who know the rare compound +(that is the subject of it) almost balances the reproof, but then those +who know him but partially or at a distance are so extremely apt to drop +the qualifying part thro' their fingers. The "after all, Mr. Wordsworth +is a man of great talents, if he did not abuse them" comes so dim upon +the eyes of an Edinbro' review reader, that have been gloating-open +chuckle-wide upon the preceding detail of abuses, it scarce strikes the +pupil with any consciousness of the letters being there, like letters +writ in lemon. There was a cut at me a few months back by the same hand, +but my agnomen or agni-nomen not being calculated to strike the popular +ear, it dropt anonymous, but it was a pretty compendium of observation, +which the author has collected in my disparagement, from some hundreds +of social evenings which we had spent together,--however in spite of +all, there is something tough in my attachment to H---- which these +violent strainings cannot quite dislocate or sever asunder. I get no +conversation in London that is absolutely worth attending to but his. +There is monstrous little sense in the world, or I am monstrous clever, +or squeamish or something, but there is nobody to talk to--to talk +_with_ I should say--and to go talking to one's self all day long is too +much of a good thing, besides subjecting one to the imputation of being +out of one's senses, which does no good to one's temporal interest at +all. By the way, I have seen Coler'ge but once this 3 or 4 months. He is +an odd person, when he first comes to town he is quite hot upon +visiting, and then he turns off and absolutely never comes at all, but +seems to forget there are any such people in the world. I made one +attempt to visit him (a morning call) at Highgate, but there was +something in him or his apothecary which I found so +unattractively-repulsing-from any temptation to call again, that I stay +away as naturally as a Lover visits. The rogue gives you Love Powders, +and then a strong horse drench to bring 'em off your stomach that they +mayn't hurt you. I was very sorry the printing of your Letter was not +quite to your mind, but I surely did not think but you had arranged the +manner of breaking the paragraphs from some principle known to your own +mind, and for some of the Errors, I am confident that Note of Admiration +in the middle of two words did not stand so when I had it, it must have +dropt out and been replaced wrong, so odious a blotch could not have +escaped me. Gifford (whom God curse) has persuaded squinting Murray +(whom may God not bless) not to accede to an offer Field made for me to +print 2 vols. of Essays, to include the one on Hog'rth and 1 or 2 more, +but most of the matter to be new, but I dare say I should never have +found time to make them; M. would have had 'em, but shewed specimens +from the Reflector to G---, as he acknowleged to Field, and Crispin did +for me. "Not on his soal but on his soul, damn'd Jew" may the +malediction of my eternal antipathy light--We desire much to hear from +you, and of you all, including Miss Hutchinson, for not writing to whom +Mary feels a weekly (and did for a long time feel a daily) Pang. How is +Southey?--I hope his pen will continue to move many years smoothly and +continuously for all the rubs of the rogue Examiner. A pertinacious +foul-mouthed villain it is! + +This is written for a rarity at the seat of business: it is but little +time I can generally command from secular calligraphy--the pen seems to +know as much and makes letters like figures--an obstinate clerkish +thing. It shall make a couplet in spite of its nib before I have done +with it, + +"and so I end +Commending me to your love, my dearest friend." +from Leaden Hall, Septem'r something, 1816 +C. LAMB. + +[The Lambs had taken summer lodgings--at 14 Kingsland Row, +Dalston--which they retained for some years. + +Hazlitt's article on Coleridge was in _The Examiner_ for September 8. +Among other things Hazlitt said: "Mr. Shandy would have settled the +question at once: 'You have little or no nose, Sir.'" + +One passage in the article gives colour to the theory that Hazlitt +occasionally borrowed from Lamb's conversation. In Lamb's letter to +Wordsworth of April 20, 1816, he has the celebrated description of +Coleridge, "an archangel a little damaged." Hazlitt in this article +writes: "If he had had but common moral principle, that is, sincerity, +he would have been a great man; nor hardly, as it is, appears to us-- + +"'Less than arch-angel ruined, and the excess +Of glory obscur'd.'" + +Hazlitt may have heard Lamb's epithet, backed probably by the same +passage from_ Paradise Lost_. + +Crabb Robinson tells us, in his _Diary_, that Coleridge was less hurt by +the article than he anticipated. "He denies H., however, originality, +and ascribes to L. [Lamb] the best ideas in H.'s articles. He was not +displeased to hear of his being knocked down by John Lamb lately." + +Coleridge's new work was _The Statesman's Manual; or, the Bible the best +Guide to Political Skill and Foresight: A Lay Sermon_, 1816. It had been +first announced as "A Lay Sermon on the Distresses of the Country, +addressed to the Middle and Higher Orders," and Hazlitt's article had +been in the nature of an anticipatory review. + +I do not find anywhere the "cut" at Lamb from Hazlitt's hand, or indeed +any one's hand, to which Lamb refers. Hazlitt at this time was living at +No. 19 York Street, Westminster, in Milton's old house. + +"Agni-nomen." From _agnus_, a lamb. + +"After all, Mr. Wordsworth ..."--the _Edinburgh Review_ article on _The +Excursion_, in November, 1814, beginning, "This will never do," had at +least two lapses into fairness: "But the truth is, that Mr. Wordsworth, +with all his perversities, is a person of great powers"; and "Nobody can +be more disposed to do justice to the great powers of Mr. Wordsworth +than we are." + +"The printing of your Letter." _The Letter to a Friend of Burns_ (see +above). + +"2 vols. of Essays." These were printed with poems as _The Works of +Charles Lamb_ by the Olliers in 1818 (see later). + +"Crispin"--Gifford (see note to the letter to Wordsworth, early January, +1815). + +"Southey." Hazlitt's attacks on the Laureate were continuous.] + + + + +LETTER 233 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH HUTCHINSON + +[No date. Middle of November, 1816.] +Inner Temple. + +My dear friend, I have procured a frank for this day, and having been +hindered all the morning have no time left to frame excuses for my long +and inexcusable silence, and can only thank you for the very kind way in +which you overlook it. I should certainly have written on the receipt of +yours but I had not a frank, and also I wished to date my letter from my +own home where you expressed so cordial a wish to hear we had arrived. +We have passed ten, I may call them very good weeks, at Dalston, for +they completely answered the purpose for which we went. Reckoning our +happy month at Calne, we have had quite a rural summer, and have +obtained a very clear idea of the great benefit of quiet--of early hours +and time intirely at one's own disposal, and no small advantages these +things are; but the return to old friends--the sight of old familiar +faces round me has almost reconciled me to occasional headachs and fits +of peevish weariness--even London streets, which I sometimes used to +think it hard to be eternally doomed to walk through before I could see +a green field, seem quite delightful. + +Charles smoked but one pipe while we were at Dalston and he has not +transgressed much since his return. I hope he will only smoke now with +his fellow-smokers, which will give him five or six clear days in the +week. Shame on me, I did not even write to thank you for the bacon, upon +which, and some excellent eggs your sister added to her kind present, we +had so many nice feasts. I have seen Henry Robinson, who speaks in +raptures of the days he passed with you. He says he never saw a man so +happy in _three wives_ as Mr. Wordsworth is. I long to join you and make +a fourth, and we cannot help talking of the possibility in some future +fortunate summer of venturing to come so far, but we generally end in +thinking the possibility impossible, for I dare not come but by post +chaises, and the expence would be enormous, yet it was very pleasing to +read Mrs. Wordsworth's kind invitation and to feel a kind of latent hope +of what might one day happen. + +You ask how Coleridge maintains himself. I know no more than you do. +Strange to say, I have seen him but once since he has been at Highgate, +and then I met him in the street. I have just been reading your kind +letter over again and find you had some doubt whether we had left the +Temple entirely. It was merely a lodging we took to recruit our health +and spirits. From the time we left Calne Charles drooped sadly, company +became quite irksome, and his anxious desire to leave off smoking, and +his utter inability to perform his daily resolutions against it, became +quite a torment to him, so I prevailed with him to try the experiment of +change of scene, and set out in one of the short stage coaches from +Bishopsgate Street, Miss Brent and I, and we looked over all the little +places within three miles and fixed on one quite countrified and not two +miles from Shoreditch Church, and entered upon it the next day. I +thought if we stayed but a week it would be a little rest and respite +from our troubles, and we made a ten weeks stay, and very comfortable we +were, so much so that if ever Charles is superannuated on a small +pension, which is the great object of his ambition, and we felt our +income straitened, I do think I could live in the country entirely--at +least I thought so while I was there but since I have been at home I +wish to live and die in the Temple where I was born. We left the trees +so green it looked like early autumn, and can see but one leaf "The last +of its clan" on our poor old Hare Court trees. What a rainy summer!--and +yet I have been so much out of town and have made so much use of every +fine day that I can hardly help thinking it has been a fine summer. We +calculated we walked three hundred and fifty miles while we were in our +country lodging. One thing I must tell you, Charles came round every +morning to a shop near the Temple to get shaved. Last Sunday we had such +a pleasant day, I must tell you of it. We went to Kew and saw the old +Palace where the King was brought up, it was the pleasantest sight I +ever saw, I can scarcely tell you why, but a charming old woman shewed +it to us. She had lived twenty six years there and spoke with such a +hearty love of our good old King, whom all the world seems to have +forgotten, that it did me good to hear her. She was as proud in pointing +out the plain furniture (and I am sure you are now sitting in a larger +and better furnished room) of a small room in which the King always +dined, nay more proud of the simplicity of her royal master's taste, +than any shower of Carlton House can be in showing the fine things +there, and so she was when she made us remark the smallness of one of +the Princesses' bedrooms, and said she slept and also dressed in that +little room. There are a great many good pictures but I was most pleased +with one of the King when he was about two years old, such a pretty +little white-headed boy. + +I cannot express how much pleasure a letter from you gives us. If I +could promise my self I should be always as well as I am now, I would +say I will be a better correspondent in future. If Charles has time to +add a line I shall be less ashamed to send this hasty scrawl. Love to +all and every one. How much I should like once more to see Miss +Wordsworth's handwriting, if she would but write a postscript to your +next, which I look to receive in a few days. + +Yours affectionately +M. LAMB. + +[_Charles Lamb adds at the head:_--] + +Mary has barely left me room to say How d'ye. I have received back the +Examiner containing the delicate enquiry into certain infirm parts of S. +T. C.'s character. What is the general opinion of it? Farewell. My love +to all. + +C. LAMB. + +["Miss Brent." Mrs. Morgan's sister. + +Crabb Robinson had been in the Lake Country in September and October. + +"To a shop near the Temple." Possibly to Mr. A---- of Flower-de-Luce +Court, mentioned by Lamb in the footnote to his essay "On the Melancholy +of Tailors" (see Vol. I.). + +"Our good old King"--George III., then in retirement. Carlton House was +the home of the Regent, whom Lamb (and probably his sister) detested--as +his "Triumph of the Whale" and other squibs (see Vol. IV.) show. + +Here should come a letter to Rickman, dated December 30, 1816. The chief +news in it is that George Dyer has been made one of Lord Stanhope's ten +Residuary Legatees. This, says Lamb, will settle Dyer's fate: he will +have to throw his dirty glove at some one and marry.] + + + + +LETTER 234 + + +MARY LAMB TO SARAH HUTCHINSON +[No date. ? Late 1816.] + +My dear Miss Hutchinson, I had intended to write you a long letter, but +as my frank is dated I must send it off with a bare acknowledgment of +the receipt of your kind letter. One question I must hastily ask you. Do +you think Mr. Wordsworth would have any reluctance to write (strongly +recommending to their patronage) to any of his rich friends in London to +solicit employment for Miss Betham as a Miniature Painter? If you give +me hopes that he will not be averse to do this, I will write to you more +fully stating the infinite good he would do by performing so irksome a +task as I know asking favours to be. In brief, she has contracted debts +for printing her beautiful poem of "Marie," which like all things of +original excellence does not sell at all. + +These debts have led to little accidents unbecoming a woman and a +poetess to suffer. Retirement with such should be voluntary. + +[_Charles Lamb adds:_--] + +The Bell rings. I just snatch the Pen out of my sister's hand to finish +rapidly. Wordsw'th. may tell De Q that Miss B's price for a Virgin and +Child is three guineas. + +Yours (all of you) ever +C. L. + +["De Q"--Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859), the "opium-eater," then living +at Grasmere. Lamb and De Quincey had first met in 1804; but it was not +until 1821 that they became really intimate, when Lamb introduced him to +the _London Magazine_. + +Miss Betham painted miniature portraits, among others, of Mrs. S. T. +Coleridge and Sara Coleridge. + +Here should come a note to William Ayrton dated April 18, 1817, thanking +him for much pleasure at "Don Giovanni" (see note to next letter). + +Somewhen in 1816 should come a letter from Lamb to Leigh Hunt on the +publication of _The Story of Rimini_, mentioned in _Leigh Hunt's +Correspondence_, of which this is the only sentence that is preserved: +"The third Canto is in particular my favourite: we congratulate you most +sincerely on the trait [? taste] of your prison fruit."] + + + + +LETTER 235 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM AYRTON +EPISTLE +TO WILL'M. AYRTON ESQ'RE. + +Temple, May 12, 1817. + +My dear friend, +Before I end,-- +Have you any +More orders for Don Giovanni +To give +Him that doth live +Your faithful Zany? +Without raillery +I mean Gallery +Ones: +For I am a person that shuns +All ostentation +And being at the top of the fashion; +And seldom go to operas +But in formâ pauperis. + +I go to the play +In a very economical sort of a way, +Rather to see +Than be seen. +Though I'm no ill sight +Neither, +By candle-light, +And in some kinds of weather. +You might pit me +For height +Against Kean; +But in a grand tragic scene +I'm nothing:-- +It would create a kind of loathing +To see me act Hamlet; +There'd be many a damn let +Fly +At my presumption +If I should try, +Being a fellow of no gumption. + +By the way, tell me candidly how you relish +This, which they call +The lapidary style? +Opinions vary. +The late Mr. Mellish +Could never abide it. +He thought it vile, +And coxcombical. +My friend the Poet Laureat, +Who is a great lawyer at +Anything comical, +Was the first who tried it; +But Mellish could never abide it. +But it signifies very little what Mellish said, +Because he is dead. +For who can confute +A body that's mute?-- +Or who would fight +With a senseless sprite?-- +Or think of troubling +An impenetrable old goblin +That's dead and gone, +And stiff as stone, +To convince him with arguments pro and con, +As if some live logician, +Bred up at Merton, +Or Mr. Hazlitt, the Metaphysician-- +Hey, Mr. Ayrton! +With all your rare tone. + +For tell me how should an apparition +List to your call, +Though you talk'd for ever,-- +Ever so clever, +When his ear itself, +By which he must hear, or not hear at all, +Is laid on the shelf? +Or put the case +(For more grace) +It were a female spectre-- +Now could you expect her +To take much gust +In long speeches, +With her tongue as dry as dust, +In a sandy place, +Where no peaches, +Nor lemons, nor limes, nor oranges hang, +To drop on the drought of an arid harangue, +Or quench, +With their sweet drench, +The fiery pangs which the worms inflict, +With their endless nibblings, +Like quibblings, +Which the corpse may dislike, but can ne'er contradict-- +Hey, Mr. Ayrton? +With all your rare tone-- +I am. +C. LAMB. + +[The text is from Ayrton's transcript in a private volume lately in the +possession of Mr. Edward Ayrton, lettered _Lamb's Works_, Vol. III., +uniform with the 1818 edition. + +William Ayrton (1777-1858), a friend and neighbour of the Burneys, and a +member of Lamb's whist-playing set, was a musical critic, and at this +time director of the King's Theatre in the Haymarket, where he had just +produced Mozart's "Don Giovanni." His wife was Marianne Arnold, sister +of Samuel James Arnold, manager of the Lyceum Theatre. + +"You might pit me for height against Kean." This was so. Edmund Kean was +small in stature, though not so "immaterially" built as Lamb is said to +have been. + +"Mr. Mellish." Possibly the Joseph Charles Mellish who translated +Schiller. + +The Laureate, Southey, had first tried the lapidary style in "Gooseberry +Pie"; later, without rhymes, in "Thalaba." + +Some time in the intervening three months before the next letter the +Lambs went to Brighton for their holiday.] + + + + +LETTER 236 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO BARRON FIELD +Aug. 31st, 1817. + +My dear Barren,--The bearer of this letter so far across the seas is Mr. +Lawrey, who comes out to you as a missionary, and whom I have been +strongly importuned to recommend to you as a most worthy creature by Mr. +Fenwick, a very old, honest friend of mine, of whom, if my memory does +not deceive me, you have had some knowledge heretofore as editor of the +"Statesman"--a man of talent, and patriotic. If you can show him any +facilities in his arduous undertaking, you will oblige us much. Well, +and how does the land of thieves use you? and how do you pass your time +in your extra-judicial intervals? Going about the streets with a +lantern, like Diogenes, looking for an honest man? You may look long +enough, I fancy. Do give me some notion of the manners of the +inhabitants where you are. They don't thieve all day long, do they? No +human property could stand such continuous battery. And what do they do +when they an't stealing? + +Have you got a theatre? What pieces are performed? Shakespear's, I +suppose--not so much for the poetry, as for his having once been in +danger of leaving his country on account of certain "small deer." + +Have you poets among you? Cursed plagiarists, I fancy, if you have any. +I would not trust an idea or a pocket-handkerchief of mine among 'em. +You are almost competent to answer Lord Bacon's problem, whether a +nation of atheists can subsist together. You are practically in one:-- + +"So thievish 'tis, that the eighth commandment itself +Scarce seemeth there to be." + +Our old honest world goes on with little perceptible variation. Of +course you have heard of poor Mitchell's death, and that G. Dyer is one +of Lord Stanhope's residuaries. I am afraid he has not touched much of +the residue yet. He is positively as lean as Cassius. Barnes is going to +Demerara or Essequibo, I am not quite certain which. A[lsager] is turned +actor. He came out in genteel comedy at Cheltenham this season, and has +hopes of a London engagement. + +For my own history, I am just in the same spot, doing the same thing +(videlicet, little or nothing,) as when you left me; only I have +positive hopes that I shall be able to conquer that inveterate habit of +smoking which you may remember I indulged in. I think of making a +beginning this evening, viz., Sunday 31st August, 1817, not Wednesday, +2nd Feb., 1818, as it will be perhaps when you read this for the first +time. There is the difficulty of writing from one end of the globe +(hemispheres I call 'em) to another! Why, half the truths I have sent +you in this letter will become lies before they reach you, and some of +the lies (which I have mixed for variety's sake, and to exercise your +judgment in the finding of them out) may be turned into sad realities +before you shall be called upon to detect them. Such are the defects of +going by different chronologies. Your now is not my now; and again, your +then is not my then; but my now may be your then, and _vice versá_. +Whose head is competent to these things? + +How does Mrs. Field get on in her geography? Does she know where she is +by this time? I am not sure sometimes you are not in another planet; but +then I don't like to ask Capt. Burney, or any of those that know +anything about it, for fear of exposing my ignorance. + +Our kindest remembrances, however, to Mrs. F., if she will accept of +reminiscences from another planet, or at least another hemisphere. + +C. L. + +[This is Lamb's first letter that has been preserved to Barron Field. +Barron Field (1786-1846) was a lawyer, a son of Henry Field, apothecary +to Christ's Hospital, and brother of a fellow-clerk of Lamb's in the +India House. He had also been a contributor to Leigh Hunt's _Reflector_ +in 1810-1812. Field was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of New +South Wales, whither he sailed in 1816, reaching Sydney in February, +1817. His wife was a Miss Jane Carncroft. + +This letter forms the groundwork of Lamb's _Elia_ essay on "Distant +Correspondents" (see Vol. II.), which may be read with it as an example +of the difference in richness between Lamb's epistolary and finished +literary style. + +"So thievish 'tis ..." A perversion of Coleridge's lines, in _The +Ancient Mariner:_-- + +So lonely 'twas, that God himself +Scarce seemed there to be. + +"Poor Mitchell's death." This may have been one of the lies referred to +a little lower. If so, Thomas Mitchell (1783-1845) was probably +intended, as he had been at Christ's Hospital, and was a friend of Leigh +Hunt's, and might thus have known Lamb and Field. He translated +Aristophanes. The only Mitchell of any importance who died in 1817 was +Colonel Mitchell, who commanded a brigade at Waterloo; but Lamb would +hardly know anything of him. + +George Dyer, who had been tutor in the family of the third Earl of +Stanhope (Citizen Stanhope), was one of the ten executors to whom that +peer's estate was left, after paying a few legacies. Among them was +another of Lamb's acquaintances, Joseph Jekyll, mentioned in the _Elia_ +essay on the Old Benchers. Dyer repudiated the office, but the heir +persuaded him to accept an annuity. + +Thomas Barnes (1785-1841), another old Christ's Hospitaller, and a +contributor to _The Reflector_, became editor of _The Times_ in 1817. +His projected journey was one of the "lies"; nor did Alsager, another +_Times_ man, whom we have already met, turn actor.] + + + + +LETTER 237 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO JAMES AND LOUISA KENNEY +Londres, October, [1817]. + +Dear Friends,--It is with infinite regret I inform you that the pleasing +privilege of receiving letters, by which I have for these twenty years +gratified my friends and abused the liberality of the Company trading to +the Orient, is now at an end. A cruel edict of the Directors has swept +it away altogether. The devil sweep away their patronage also. Rascals +who think nothing of sponging upon their employers for their Venison and +Turtle and Burgundy five days in a week, to the tune of five thousand +pounds in a year, now find out that the profits of trade will not allow +the innocent communication of thought between their underlings and their +friends in distant provinces to proceed untaxed, thus withering up the +heart of friendship and making the news of a friend's good health worse +than indifferent, as tidings to be deprecated as bringing with it +ungracious expenses. Adieu, gentle correspondence, kindly conveyance of +soul, interchange of love, of opinions, of puns and what not! Henceforth +a friend that does not stand in visible or palpable distance to me, is +nothing to me. They have not left to the bosom of friendship even that +cheap intercourse of sentiment the twopenny medium. The upshot is, you +must not direct any more letters through me. To me you may annually, or +biennially, transmit a brief account of your goings on [on] a single +sheet, from which after I have deducted as much as the postage comes to, +the remainder will be pure pleasure. But no more of those pretty +commission and counter commissions, orders and revoking of orders, +obscure messages and obscurer explanations, by which the intellects of +Marshall and Fanny used to be kept in a pleasing perplexity, at the +moderate rate of six or seven shillings a week. In short, you must use +me no longer as a go-between. Henceforth I write up NO THOROUGHFARE. + +Well, and how far is Saint Valery from Paris; and do you get wine and +walnuts tolerable; and the vintage, does it suffer from the wet? I take +it, the wine of this season will be all wine and water; and have you any +plays and green rooms, and Fanny Kellies to chat with of an evening; and +is the air purer than the old gravel pits, and the bread so much whiter, +as they say? Lord, what things you see that travel! I dare say the +people are all French wherever you go. What an overwhelming effect that +must have! I have stood one of 'em at a time, but two I generally found +overpowering, I used to cut and run; but, then, in their own vineyards +may be they are endurable enough. They say marmosets in Senegambia are +so pleasant as the day's long, jumping and chattering in the orange +twigs; but transport 'em, one by one, over here into England, they turn +into monkeys, some with tails, some without, and are obliged to be kept +in cages. + +I suppose you know we've left the Temple _pro tempore_. By the way, this +conduct has caused strange surmises in a good lady of our acquaintance. +She lately sent for a young gentleman of the India House, who lives +opposite her, at Monroe's, the flute shop in Skinner Street, Snow +Hill,--I mention no name, you shall never get out of me what lady I +mean,--on purpose to ask all he knew about us. I had previously +introduced him to her whist-table. Her inquiries embraced every possible +thing that could be known of me, how I stood in the India house, what +was the amount of my salary, what it was likely to be hereafter, whether +I was thought to be clever in business, why I had taken country +lodgings, why at Kingsland in particular, had I friends in that road, +was anybody expected to visit me, did I wish for visitors, would an +unexpected call be gratifying or not, would it be better if she sent +beforehand, did anybody come to see me, wasn't there a gentleman of the +name of Morgan, did he know him, didn't he come to see me, did he know +how Mr. Morgan lived, she never could make out how they were maintained, +was it true that he lived out of the profits of a linendraper's shop in +Bishopsgate Street (there she was a little right, and a little wrong--M. +is a gentleman tobacconist); in short, she multiplied demands upon him +till my friend, who is neither over-modest nor nervous, declared he +quite shuddered. After laying as bare to her curiosity as an anatomy he +trembled to think what she would ask next. My pursuits, inclinations, +aversions, attachments (some, my dear friends, of a most delicate +nature), she lugged 'em out of him, or would, had he been privy to them, +as you pluck a horse-bean from its iron stem, not as such tender +rosebuds should be pulled. The fact is I am come to Kingsland, and that +is the real truth of the matter, and nobody but yourselves should have +extorted such a confession from me. I suppose you have seen by the +Papers that Manning is arrived in England. He expressed some +mortifications at not finding Mrs. Kenney in England. He looks a good +deal sunburnt, and is got a little reserved, but I hope it will wear +off. You will see by the Papers also that Dawe is knighted. He has been +painting the Princess of Coborg and her husband. This is all the news I +could think of. Write _to_ us, but not _by_ us, for I have near ten +correspondents of this latter description, and one or other comes +pouring in every day, till my purse strings and heart strings crack. Bad +habits are not broken at once. I am sure you will excuse the apparent +indelicacy of mentioning this, but dear is my shirt, but dearer is my +skin, and it's too late when the steed is stole, to shut the +door.--Well, and does Louisa grow a fine girl, is she likely to have her +mother's complexion, and does Tom polish in French air--Henry I +mean--and Kenney is not so fidgety, and YOU sit down sometimes for a +quiet half-hour or so, and all is comfortable, no bills (that you call +writs) nor anything else (that you are equally sure to miscall) to annoy +you? Vive la gaite de coeur et la bell pastime, vive la beau France et +revive ma cher Empreur. + +C. LAMB. + +[James Kenney and his wife were now living at St. Valery. Marshall was +Godwin's old friend, whom we have already seen, and Fanny was Fanny +Holcroft. + +Lamb's friend Fanny Kelly is first mentioned by Lamb in this letter. +Frances Maria Kelly (1790-1882), to give her her full name, was then +playing at the Lyceum. We shall soon see much of her. + +"We've left the Temple _pro tempore_"--referring to the Dalston +lodgings. + +"What lady I mean." Mrs. Godwin lived in Skinner Street. + +Manning, on his return from China, was wrecked near Sunda on February +17, 1817. The passengers were taken to St. Helena, and he did not reach +England until the summer. This must give us the date of the present +letter, previously attributed to October, 1816. + +George Dawe was not knighted. Probably it was rumoured that he was to +be. His portrait of Princess Charlotte of Saxe-Coburg (who died in 1817 +so soon after her marriage) was very popular. + +Louisa would be Louisa Holcroft. In Tom Holcroft, Lamb later took some +interest.] + + + + +LETTER 238 + + +MARY LAMB TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH +[P.M. November 21, 1817.] + +My dear Miss Wordsworth, Your kind letter has given us very great +pleasure,--the sight of your hand writing was a most welcome surprize to +us. We have heard good tidings of you by all our friends who were so +fortunate as to visit you this summer, and rejoice to see it confirmed +by yourself. You have quite the advantage in volunteering a letter. +There is no merit in replying to so welcome a stranger. + +We have left the Temple. I think you will be sorry to hear this. I know +I have never been so well satisfied with thinking of you at Rydal Mount +as when I could connect the idea of you with your own Grasmere Cottage. +Our rooms were dirty and out of repair, and the inconveniences of living +in chambers became every year more irksome, and so at last we mustered +up resolution enough to leave the good old place that so long had +sheltered us--and here we are, living at a Brazier's shop, No. 20, in +Russell Street, Covent Garden, a place all alive with noise and bustle, +Drury Lane Theatre in sight from our front and Covent Garden from our +back windows. The hubbub of the carriages returning from the play does +not annoy me in the least--strange that it does not, for it is quite +tremendous. I quite enjoy looking out of the window and listening to the +calling up of the carriages and the squabbles of the coachmen and +linkboys. It is the oddest scene to look down upon, I am sure you would +be amused with it. It is well I am in a chearful place or I should have +many misgivings about leaving the Temple. I look forward with great +pleasure to the prospect of seeing my good friend Miss Hutchinson. I +wish Rydal Mount with all its inhabitants enclosed were to be +transplanted with her and to remain stationary in the midst of Covent +Garden. I passed through the street lately where Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth +lodged; several fine new houses, which were then just rising out of the +ground, are quite finished and a noble entrance made that way into +Portland Place. + +I am very sorry for Mr. De Quincey--what a blunder the poor man made +when he took up his dwelling among the mountains. I long to see my +friend Py pos. Coleridge is still at Little Hampton with Mrs. Gillman, +he has been so ill as to be confined to his room almost the whole time +he has been there. + +Charles has had all his Hogarths bound in a book, they were sent home +yesterday, and now that I have them all together and perceive the +advantage of peeping close at them through my spectacles I am reconciled +to the loss of them hanging round the room, which has been a great +mortification to me--in vain I tried to console myself with looking at +our new chairs and carpets, for we have got new chairs, and carpets +covering all over our two sitting rooms, I missed my old friends and +could not be comforted--then I would resolve to learn to look out of the +window, a habit I never could attain in my life, and I have given it up +as a thing quite impracticable--yet when I was at Brighton last summer, +the first week I never took my eyes off from the sea, not even to look +in a book. I had not seen the sea for sixteen years. Mrs. Morgan, who +was with us, kept her liking, and continued her seat in the window till +the very last, while Charles and I played truant and wandered among the +hills, which we magnified into little mountains and _almost as good as_ +Westmoreland scenery. Certainly we made discoveries of many pleasant +walks which few of the Brighton visitors have ever dreamed of--for like +as is the case in the neighbourhood of London, after the first two or +three miles we were sure to find ourselves in a perfect solitude. I hope +we shall meet before the walking faculties of either of us fail. You say +you can walk fifteen miles with ease,--that is exactly my stint, and +more fatigues me; four or five miles every third or fourth day, keeping +very quiet between, was all Mrs. Morgan could accomplish. + +God bless you and yours. Love to all and each one. + +I am ever yours most affectionately M. LAMB. + + + + +LETTER 239 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH +(_Same letter._) + +Dear Miss Wordsworth, Here we are, transplanted from our native soil. I +thought we never could have been torn up from the Temple. Indeed it was +an ugly wrench, but like a tooth, now 'tis out and I am easy. We never +can strike root so deep in any other ground. This, where we are, is a +light bit of gardener's mold, and if they take us up from it, it will +cost no blood and groans like mandrakes pull'd up. We are in the +individual spot I like best in all this great city. The theatres with +all [_a few words cut away: Talfourd has "their noises. Convent +Garden"_] dearer to me than any gardens of Alcinous, where we are +morally sure of the earliest peas and 'sparagus. Bow Street, where the +thieves are examined, within a few yards of us. Mary had not been here +four and twenty hours before she saw a Thief. She sits at the window +working, and casually throwing out her eyes, she sees a concourse of +people coming this way, with a constable to conduct the solemnity. These +little incidents agreeably diversify a female life. It is a delicate +subject, but is Mr. * * * really married? and has he found a gargle to +his mind? O how funny he did talk to me about her, in terms of such mild +quiet whispering speculative profligacy. But did the animalcule and she +crawl over the rubric together, or did they not? Mary has brought her +part of this letter to an orthodox and loving conclusion, which is very +well, for I have no room for pansies and remembrances. What a nice +holyday I got on Wednesday by favor of a princess dying. [_A line and +signature cut away_.] + +[The Lambs' house in Russell Street is now (1912) a fruiterer's: it has +been rebuilt. Russell Street, Covent Garden, in those days was divided +into Great Russell Street (from the Market to Brydges Street, now +Catherine Street) and Little Russell Street, (from Brydges Street to +Drury Lane). The brazier, or ironmonger, was Mr. Owen, Nos. 20 and 21. + +The Wordsworths had moved to Rydal Mount in 1813. + +"I am very sorry for Mr. De Quincey." Probably a reference to one of the +opium-eater's illnesses. + +It was at Littlehampton that Coleridge met Henry Francis Cary, the +translator of Dante, afterwards one of Lamb's friends. + +"Spot I like best in all this great city." See Vol. I. of this edition, +for a little essay by Lamb on places of residence in London. + +"Mr. * * *." One can but conjecture as to these asterisks. De Quincey, +who was very small, married at the close of 1816. + +"A princess dying"--Princess Charlotte of Saxe-Coburg. She was buried, +amid national lamentation, on November 19, 1817. + +Here should come a letter from Lamb to Ayrton dated November 25, 1817, +which Lamb holds is peculiarly neatly worded.] + + + + +LETTER 240 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN PAYNE COLLIER +The Garden of England, +December 10, 1817. + +Dear J. P. C.,--I know how zealously you feel for our friend S. T. +Coleridge; and I know that you and your family attended his lectures +four or five years ago. He is in bad health and worse mind: and unless +something is done to lighten his mind he will soon be reduced to his +extremities; and even these are not in the best condition. I am sure +that you will do for him what you can; but at present he seems in a mood +to do for himself. He projects a new course, not of physic, nor of +metaphysic, nor a new course of life, but a new course of lectures on +Shakspear and Poetry. There is no man better qualified (always excepting +number one); but I am pre-engaged for a series of dissertations on India +and India-pendence, to be completed at the expense of the Company, in I +know not (yet) how many volumes foolscap folio. I am busy getting up my +Hindoo mythology; and for the purpose I am once more enduring Southey's +Curse. To be serious, Coleridge's state and affairs make me so; and +there are particular reasons just now, and have been any time for the +last twenty years, why he should succeed. He will do so with a little +encouragement. I have not seen him lately; and he does not know that I +am writing. + +Yours (for Coleridge's sake) in haste, C. LAMB. + +[The "Garden of England" of the address stands, of course, for Covent +Garden. + +This is the first letter to Collier that has been preserved. John Payne +Collier (1789-1883), known as a Shakespearian critic and editor of old +plays and poems, was then a reporter on _The Times_. He had recently +married. Wordsworth also wrote to Collier on this subject, Coleridge's +lectures were delivered in 1818, beginning on January 27, in +Flower-de-Luce Court. Their preservation we owe to Collier's shorthand +notes. + +"My Hindoo mythology ... Southey's Curse"--_The Curse of Kehama_.] + + + + +LETTER 241 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON +December [26], 1817. + +My dear Haydon,--I will come with pleasure to 22, Lisson Grove North, at +Rossi's, half-way up, right-hand side--if I can find it. + +Yours, +C. LAMB. + +20, Russell Court, Covent Garden East, +half-way up, next the corner, left hand side. + +[The first letter that has been preserved to Haydon, the painter. +Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846) was then principally known by his +"Judgment of Solomon": he was at this time at work upon his most famous +picture, "Christ's Entry into Jerusalem." Lamb's note is in acceptance +of the invitation to the famous dinner which Haydon gave on December +28,1817, to Wordsworth, Keats, Monkhouse and others, with the +Comptroller of Stamps thrown in. Haydon's _Diary_ describes the evening +with much humour. See Appendix.] + + + + +LETTER 242 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO MRS. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH +18 Feb. 1818. East India House. + +(Mary shall send you all the _news_, which I find I have left out.) + +My dear Mrs. Wordsworth, I have repeatedly taken pen in hand to answer +your kind letter. My sister should more properly have done it, but she +having failed, I consider myself answerable for her debts. I am now +trying to do it in the midst of Commercial noises, and with a quill +which seems more ready to glide into arithmetical figures and names of +Goods, Cassia, Cardemoms, Aloes, Ginger, Tea, than into kindly responses +and friendly recollections. + +The reason why I cannot write letters at home is, that I am never alone. +Plato's (I write to _W. W._ now) Plato's double animal parted never +longed [? more] to be reciprocally reunited in the system of its first +creation, than I sometimes do to be but for a moment single and +separate. Except my morning's walk to the office, which is like treading +on sands of gold for that reason, I am never so. I cannot walk home from +office but some officious friend offers his damn'd unwelcome courtesies +to accompany me. All the morning I am pestered. I could sit and gravely +cast up sums in great Books, or compare sum with sum, and write PAID +against this and UNP'D against t'other, and yet reserve in some "corner +of my mind" some darling thoughts all my own--faint memory of some +passage in a Book--or the tone of an absent friend's Voice--a snatch of +Miss Burrell's singing--a gleam of Fanny Kelly's divine plain face--The +two operations might be going on at the same time without thwarting, as +the sun's two motions (earth's I mean), or as I sometimes turn round +till I am giddy, in my back parlour, while my sister is walking +longitudinally in the front--or as the shoulder of veal twists round +with the spit, while the smoke wreathes up the chimney--but there are a +set of amateurs of the Belle Lettres--the gay science--who come to me as +a sort of rendezvous, putting questions of criticism, of British +Institutions, Lalla Rooks &c., what Coleridge said at the Lecture last +night--who have the form of reading men, but, for any possible use +Reading can be to them but to talk of, might as well have been +Ante-Cadmeans born, or have lain sucking out the sense of an Egypt'n. +hieroglyph as long as the Pyramids will last before they should find it. +These pests worrit me at business and in all its intervals, perplexing +my accounts, poisoning my little salutary warming-time at the fire, +puzzling my paragraphs if I take a newspaper, cramming in between my own +free thoughts and a column of figures which had come to an amicable +compromise but for them. Their noise ended, one of them, as I said, +accompanys me home lest I should be solitary for a moment; he at length +takes his welcome leave at the door, up I go, mutton on table, hungry as +hunter, hope to forget my cares and bury them in the agreeable +abstraction of mastication, knock at the door, in comes Mrs. Hazlitt, or +M. Burney, or Morgan, or Demogorgon, or my brother, or somebody, to +prevent my eating alone, a Process absolutely necessary to my poor +wretched digestion. O the pleasure of eating alone!--eating my dinner +alone! let me think of it. But in they come, and make it absolutely +necessary that I should open a bottle of orange--for my meat turns into +stone when any one dines with me, if I have not wine--wine can mollify +stones. Then _that_ wine turns into acidity, acerbity, misanthropy, a +hatred of my interrupters (God bless 'em! I love some of 'em dearly), +and with the hatred a still greater aversion to their going away. Bad is +the dead sea they bring upon me, choaking and death-doing, but worse is +the deader dry sand they leave me on if they go before bed time. Come +never, I would say to these spoilers of my dinner, but if you come, +never go. The fact is, this interruption does not happen very often, but +every time it comes by surprise that present bane of my life, orange +wine, with all its dreary stifling consequences, follows. Evening +Company I should always like had I any mornings, but I am saturated with +human faces (_divine_ forsooth) and voices all the golden morning, and +five evenings in a week would be as much as I should covet to be in +company, but I assure you that is a wonderful week in which I can get +two, or one, to myself. I am never C. L. but always C. L. and Co. + +He, who thought it not good for man to be alone, preserve me from the +more prodigious monstrosity of being never by myself. I forget bed time, +but even there these sociable frogs clamber up to annoy me. Once a week, +generally some singular evening that, being alone, I go to bed at the +hour I ought always to be abed, just close to my bedroom window, is the +club room of a public house, where a set of singers, I take them to be +chorus-singers of the two theatres (it must be _both of them_), begin +their orgies. They are a set of fellows (as I conceive) who being +limited by their talents to the burthen of the song at the play houses, +in revenge have got the common popular airs by Bishop or some cheap +composer arranged for choruses, that is, to be sung all in chorus. At +least I never can catch any of the text of the plain song, nothing but +the Babylonish choral howl at the tail on't. "That fury being +quenchd"--the howl I mean--a curseder burden succeeds, of shouts and +clapping and knocking of the table. At length over tasked nature drops +under it and escapes for a few hours into the society of the sweet +silent creatures of Dreams, which go away with mocks and mows at +cockcrow. And then I think of the words Christobel's father used (bless +me, I have dipt in the wrong ink) to say every morning by way of variety +when he awoke--"Every knell, the Baron saith, Wakes us up to a world of +death," or something like it. All I mean by this senseless interrupted +tale is, that by my central situation I am a little over companied. Not +that I have any animosity against the good creatures that are so anxious +to drive away the Harpy solitude from me. I like 'em, and cards, and a +chearful glass, but I mean merely to give you an idea between office +confinement and after office society, how little time I can call my own. +I mean only to draw a picture, not to make an inference. I would not +that I know of have it otherwise. I only wish sometimes I could exchange +some of my faces and voices for the faces and voices which a late +visitation brought most welcome and carried away leaving regret, but +more pleasure, even a kind of gratitude, at being so often favored with +that kind northern visitation. My London faces and noises don't hear +me--I mean no disrespect--or I should explain myself that instead of +their return 220 times a year and the return of W. W. &c. 7 times in 104 +weeks, some more equal distribution might be found. I have scarce room +to put in Mary's kind love and my poor name. + +CH. LAMB. + +This to be read last. + +W. H. goes on lecturing against W. W. and making copious use of +quotations from said W. W. to give a zest to said lectures. S. T. C. is +lecturing with success. I have not heard either him or H. but I dined +with S. T. C. at Gilman's a Sunday or 2 since and he was well and in +good spirits. I mean to hear some of the course, but lectures are not +much to my taste, whatever the Lecturer may be. If _read_, they are +dismal flat, and you can't think why you are brought together to hear a +man read his works which you could read so much better at leisure +yourself; if delivered extempore, I am always in pain lest the gift of +utterance should suddenly fail the orator in the middle, as it did me at +the dinner given in honor of me at the London Tavern. "Gentlemen" said +I, and there I stoppt,--the rest my feelings were under the necessity of +supplying. Mrs. Wordsworth _will_ go on, kindly haunting us with visions +of seeing the lakes once more which never can be realized. Between us +there is a great gulf--not of inexplicable moral antipathies and +distances, I hope (as there seemd to be between me and that Gentleman +concern'd in the Stamp office that I so strangely coiled up from at +Haydons). I think I had an instinct that he was the head of an office. I +hate all such people--Accountants, Deputy Accountants. The dear abstract +notion of the East India Company, as long as she is unseen, is pretty, +rather Poetical; but as SHE makes herself manifest by the persons of +such Beasts, I loathe and detest her as the Scarlet what-do-you-call-her +of Babylon. I thought, after abridging us of all our red letter days, +they had done their worst, but I was deceived in the length to which +Heads of offices, those true Liberty haters, can go. They are the +tyrants, not Ferdinand, nor Nero--by a decree past this week, they have +abridged us of the immemorially observed custom of going at one o'clock +of a Saturday, the little shadow of a holiday left us. Blast them. I +speak it soberly. Dear W. W., be thankful for your Liberty. + +We have spent two very pleasant Evenings lately with Mr. Monkhouse. + +[Mary Lamb's letter of news either was not written or has not been +preserved. + +Lamb returned to the subject of this essay for his Popular Fallacy "That +Home is Home" in 1826 (see Vol. II. of this edition). A little +previously to that essay he had written an article in the _New Times_ on +unwelcome callers (see Vol. I.). + +"Miss Burrell"--Fanny Burrell, afterwards Mrs. Gould. Lamb wrote in +praise of her performance in "Don Giovanni in London" (see Vol. I. of +this edition). + +"Fanny Kelly's divine plain face." Only seventeen months later Lamb +proposed to Miss Kelly. + +"What Coleridge said." Coleridge was still lecturing on Shakespeare and +poetry in Flower-de-Luce Court. + +"The two theatres"--Drury Lane and Covent Garden. + +"Bishop"--Sir Henry Rowley Bishop (1786-1855), composer of "Home, Sweet +Home." + +"Christabel's father." + +Each matin bell, the Baron saith, +Knells us back to a world of death. +Part II., lines 1 and 2. + +"W. H. goes on lecturing." Hazlitt was delivering a course of lectures +on the English poets at the Surrey Institution. + +"'Gentleman' said I." On another occasion Lamb, asked to give a toast, +gave the best he knew--woodcock on toast. See also his toasts at +Haydon's dinner. I do not know when or why the dinner was given to him; +perhaps after the failure of "Mr. H." + +"Gentleman concern'd in the Stamp office." See note to the preceding +letter. + +"Our red letter days." Lamb repeats the complaint in his _Elia_ essay +"Oxford in the Vacation." In 1820, I see from the Directory, the +Accountant's Office, where Lamb had his desk, kept sacred only five +red-letter days, where, ten years earlier, it had observed many. + +"Mr. Monkhouse," Thomas Monkhouse, a friend of the Wordsworths and of +Lamb. He was at Haydon's dinner. + +Here should come a note from Lamb to Charles and James Ollier, dated May +28, 1818, which apparently accompanied final proofs of Lamb's _Works_. +Lamb remarks, "There is a Sonnet to come in by way of dedication." This +would be that to Martin Burney at the beginning of Vol. II. The _Works_ +were published in two volumes with a beautiful dedication to Coleridge +(see Vol. IV. of the present edition). Charles Ollier (1788-1859) was a +friend of Leigh Hunt's, for whom he published, as well as for Shelley. +He also brought out Keats' first volume. The Olliers' address was The +Library, Vere Street, Oxford Street.] + + + + +LETTER 243 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES AND JAMES OLLIER +[P.M. June 18, 1818.] + +Dear Sir (whichever opens it) + +I am going off to Birmingh'm. I find my books, whatever faculty of +selling they may have (I wish they had more for {_your/my_} sake), are +admirably adapted for giving away. You have been bounteous. SIX more and +I shall have satisfied all just claims. Am I taking too great a liberty +in begging you to send 4 as follows, and reserve 2 for me when I come +home? That will make 31. Thirty-one times 12 is 372 shillings, Eighteen +pounds twelve Shillings!!!--but here are my friends, to whom, if you +_could_ transmit them, as I shall be away a month, you will greatly +oblige the obliged + +C. LAMB. + +Mr. Ayrton, James Street, Buckingham Gate +Mr. Alsager, Suffolk Street East, Southwark, by Horsemonger Lane +and in one parcel +directed to R. Southey, Esq., Keswick, Cumberland +one for R. S.; +and one for W'm. Wordsworth, Esq'r. + +If you will be kind enough simply to write "from the Author" in all +4--you will still further etc.-- + +Either Longman or Murray is in the frequent habit of sending books to +Southey and will take charge of the Parcel. It will be as well to write +in at the beginning thus + +R. Southey Esq. from the Author. +W. Wordsworth Esq. from the Author. + +Then, if I can find the remaining 2, left for me at Russell St when I +return, rather than encroach any more on the heap, I will engage to make +no more new friends ad infinitum, YOURSELVES being the last. + +Yours truly C. L. + +I think Southey will give us a lift in that damn'd Quarterly. I meditate +an attack upon that Cobler Gifford, which shall appear immediately after +any favourable mention which S. may make in the Quarterly. It can't in +decent _gratitude_ appear _before_. + +[We know nothing of Lamb's visit to Birmingham. He is hardly likely to +have stayed with any of the Lloyd family. The attack on Gifford was +probably the following sonnet, printed in _The Examiner_ for October 3 +and 4, 1819:-- + +ST. CRISPIN TO MR. GIFFORD +All unadvised, and in an evil hour, +Lured by aspiring thoughts, my son, you daft +The lowly labours of the Gentle Craft +For learned toils, which blood and spirits sour. +All things, dear pledge, are not in all men's power; +The wiser sort of shrub affects the ground; +And sweet content of mind is oftener found +In cobbler's parlour, than in critic's bower. +The sorest work is what doth cross the grain; +And better to this hour you had been plying +The obsequious awl with well-waxed finger flying, +Than ceaseless thus to till a thankless vein; +Still teazing Muses, which are still denying; +Making a stretching-leather of your brain.] + + + + +LETTER 244 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY + +Monday, Oct. 26th, 1818. + +Dear Southey,--I am pleased with your friendly remembrances of my little +things. I do not know whether I have done a silly thing or a wise one; +but it is of no great consequence. I run no risk, and care for no +censures. My bread and cheese is stable as the foundations of Leadenhall +Street, and if it hold out as long as the "foundations of our empire in +the East," I shall do pretty well. You and W.W. should have had your +presentation copies more ceremoniously sent; but I had no copies when I +was leaving town for my holidays, and rather than delay, commissioned my +bookseller to send them thus nakedly. By not hearing from W.W. or you, I +began to be afraid Murray had not sent them. I do not see S.T.C. so +often as I could wish. He never comes to me; and though his host and +hostess are very friendly, it puts me out of my way to go see one person +at another person's house. It was the same when he resided at Morgan's. +Not but they also were more than civil; but after all one feels so +welcome at one's own house. Have you seen poor Miss Betham's +"Vignettes"? Some of them, the second particularly, "To Lucy," are sweet +and good as herself, while she was herself. She is in some measure +abroad again. I am _better than I deserve_ to be. The hot weather has +been such a treat! Mary joins in this little corner in kindest +remembrances to you all. + +C.L. + +[The letter treats of Lamb's _Works_, just published. Matilda Betham +followed up _The Lay of Marie_ with a volume entitled _Vignettes_. + +"I am _better than I deserve_." Why Lamb underlined these words I do not +know, but it may have been a quotation from Coleridge. Carlyle in his +account of his visit to Coleridge at Highgate (in the _Life of John +Sterling_) puts it into Coleridge's mouth in connection with a lukewarm +cup of tea. Although lukewarm it was better, he said, than he deserved. +That was later, but it may have been a saying of which Coleridge was +fond.] + + + + +LETTER 245 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE +Dec. 24th, 1818. + +My dear Coleridge,--I have been in a state of incessant hurry ever since +the receipt of your ticket. It found me incapable of attending you, it +being the night of Kenney's new comedy[1] ... You know my local +aptitudes at such a time; I have been a thorough rendezvous for all +consultations. My head begins to clear up a little; but it has had bells +in it. Thank you kindly for your ticket, though the mournful prognostic +which accompanies it certainly renders its permanent pretensions less +marketable; but I trust to hear many a course yet. You excepted +Christmas week, by which I understood _next week_; I thought Christmas +week was that which Christmas Sunday ushered in. We are sorry it never +lies in your way to come to us; but, dear Mahomet, we will come to you. +Will it be convenient to all the good people at Highgate, if we take a +stage up, _not next Sunday_, but the following, viz., 3rd January, +1819--shall we be too late to catch a skirt of the old out-goer;--how +the years crumble from under us! We shall hope to see you before then; +but, if not, let us know if _then_ will be convenient. Can we secure a +coach home? + +Believe me ever yours, C. LAMB. + +I have but one holiday, which is Christmas-day itself nakedly: no pretty +garnish and fringes of St. John's day, Holy Innocents &c., that used to +bestud it all around in the calendar. _Improbe labor!_ I write six hours +every day in this candle-light fog-den at Leadheall. + +[Footnote 1: Canon Ainger supplies the four missing words: "which has +utterly failed."] + +[The ticket was for a new course of lectures, either on the History of +Philosophy, or Six Plays of Shakespeare, both of which began in +December, 1818, and continued into 1819. + +Kenney's new farce was "A Word for the Ladies," produced at Covent +Garden on December 17. + +"To catch a skirt of the old out-goer." A reference to Coleridge's +line-- + +I saw the skirts of the departing year. + +Somewhere at this point should come a delightful letter from Lamb to +John Chambers. John Chambers was the brother of Charles Chambers. He was +a colleague of Lamb's at the India House (see the _Elia_ essay "The +Superannuated Man"), and survived until 1872. It was to John Chambers +that Lamb made the remark that he (Lamb) was probably the only man in +England who had never worn boots and never ridden a horse. The letter, +which is concerned with the peculiarities of India House clerks, is +famous for the remark on Tommy Bye, a fellow-clerk at the India House, +that "his sonnets are most like Petrarch of any foreign poet, or what we +may suppose Petrarch would have written if Petrarch had been born a +fool." We meet Bye again in the next letter but one to Wordsworth. I can +find no trace of his sonnets in book form. Possibly they were never +published.] + + + + +LETTER 246 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH + +[_This letter is written in black and red ink, changing with each +line._] + +[P.M. April 26, 1819.] + +Dear Wordsworth, I received a copy of Peter Bell a week ago, and I hope +the author will not be offended if I say I do not much relish it. The +humour, if it is meant for humour, is forced, and then the price. +Sixpence would have been dear for it. Mind, I do not mean _your_ Peter +Bell, but _a_ Peter Bell which preceded it about a week, and is in every +bookseller's shop window in London, the type and paper nothing differing +from the true one, the preface signed W.W., and the supplementary +preface quoting as the author's words an extract from supplementary +preface to the Lyrical Balads. Is there no law against these rascals? I +would have this Lambert Simnel whipt at the cart's tail. Then there is +Rogers! he has been re-writing your Poem of the Stride, and publishing +it at the end of his "Human Life." Tie him up to the Cart, hangman, +while you are about it. Who started the spurious P.B. I have not heard. +I should guess, one of the sneering brothers--the vile Smiths--but I +have heard no name mentioned. Peter Bell (not the mock one) is +excellent. For its matter, I mean. I cannot say that the style of it +quite satisfies me. It is too lyrical. The auditors to whom it is +feigned to be told, do not _arride me_. I had rather it had been told +me, the reader, at once. Heartleap Well is the tale for me, in matter as +good as this, in manner infinitely before it, in my poor judgment. Why +did you not add the Waggoner? Have I thanked you, though, yet, for Peter +Bell? I would not _not have it_ for a good deal of money. C---- is very +foolish to scribble about books. Neither his tongue nor fingers are very +retentive. But I shall not say any thing to him about it. He would only +begin a very long story, with a very long face, and I see him far too +seldom to teaze him with affairs of business or conscience when I do see +him. He never comes near our house, and when we go to see him, he is +generally writing, or thinking he is writing, in his study till the +dinner comes, and that is scarce over before the stage summons us away. +The mock P. B. had only this effect on me, that after twice reading it +over in hopes to find _some_thing diverting in it, I reach'd your two +books off the shelf and set into a steady reading of them, till I had +nearly finished both before I went to bed. The two of your last edition, +of course, I mean. And in the morning I awoke determining to take down +the Excursion. I wish the scoundrel imitator could know this. But why +waste a wish on him? I do not believe that paddling about with a stick +in a pond and fishing up a dead author whom _his_ intolerable wrongs had +driven to that deed of desperation, would turn the heart of one of these +obtuse literary Bells. There is no Cock for such Peters. Damn 'em. I am +glad this aspiration came upon the red ink line. It is more of a bloody +curse. I have delivered over your other presents to Alsager and G. +D.--A. I am sure will value it and be proud of the hand from which it +came. To G. D. a poem is a poem. His own as good as any bodie's, and god +bless him, any bodie's as good as his own, for I do not think he has the +most distant guess of the possibility of one poem being better than +another. The Gods by denying him the very faculty itself of +discrimination have effectually cut off every seed of envy in his bosom. +But with envy, they excided Curiosity also, and if you wish the copy +again, which you destined for him, I think I shall be able to find it +again for you--on his third shelf, where he stuffs his presentation +copies, uncut, in shape and matter resembling a lump of dry dust, but on +carefully removing that stratum, a thing like a Pamphlet will emerge. I +have tried this with fifty different Poetical Works that have been given +G. D. in return for as many of his own performances, and I confess I +never had any scruple in taking _my own_ again wherever I found it, +shaking the adherencies off--and by this means one Copy of "my Works" +served for G.D. and with a little dusting was made over to my good +friend Dr. Stoddart, who little thought whose leavings he was taking +when he made me that graceful bow. By the way, the Doctor is the only +one of my acquaintance who bows gracefully, my Town acquaintance I mean. +How do you like my way of writing with two Inks? I think it is pretty +and mottley. Suppose Mrs. W. adopts it, the next time she holds the pen +for you. + +[_The ink differs with every word of the following paragraph_:--] + +My dinner waits. I have no time to indulge any longer in these laborious +curiosities. God bless you and cause to thrive and to burgeon whatsoever +you write, and fear no inks of miserable poetasters. + +Yours truly +CHARLES LAMB. +Mary's love. + +[The _Peter Bell_ to which Lamb refers was written by John Hamilton +Reynolds (1796-1852), the friend of Keats, and later Hood's +brother-in-law. The parody is a travesty of Wordsworth generally rather +than of _Peter Bell_, which had not then been published. + +James and Horace Smith, of the _Rejected Addresses_, which contained a +parody of Wordsworth under the title "The Baby's Debut," had nothing to +do with it. Lamb's indignation was shared by Coleridge, who wrote as +follows to Taylor and Hessey, the publishers, on April 16, 1819, on the +announcement of Reynolds' work:-- + +Dear Sirs, I hope, nay I feel confident, that you will interpret this +note in th' real sense--namely, as a proof of the esteem and respect +which I entertain toward you both. Looking in the Times this morning I +was startled by an advertisement of PETER BELL--a Lyrical Ballad--with a +very significant motto from one of our Comedies of Charles the IInd's +reign, tho' what it signifies I wish to ascertain. Peter Bell is a Poem +of Mr. Wordsworth's--and I have not heard, that it has been published by +him.--If it have, and with his name (I have reason to believe, that he +never published anonymously) and this now advertised be a ridicule on +it--I have nothing to say--But if it have not, I have ventured to pledge +myself for you, that you would not wittingly give the high +respectability of your names to an attack on a _Manuscript_ work, which +no man could assail but by a base breach of trust. + +It is stated in the article on Reynolds in the _Dictionary of National +Biography_ that Coleridge asserted positively that Lamb was the +objectionable parodist; but this letter suggests that that was not so. + +"_Peter Bell_ (not the mock one)." Crabb Robinson's _Diary_, in the +original MS., for June 6, 1812, contains this passage:-- + +With C. Lamb. Lent him Peter Bell. To my surprise he finds nothing in it +good. He complains of the slowness of the narrative, as if that were not +the _art_ of the Poet. W. he says has great thoughts, but here are none +of them. He has no interest in the Ass. These are to me inconceivable +judgments from C. L. whose taste in general I acquiesce in and who is +certainly an enthusiast for W. + +Again, on May 11, 1819, after the poem was published, Robinson says:-- + +L. spoke of Peter Bell which he considers as one of the worst of +Wordsworth's works. The lyric narrative L. has no taste for. He is +disgusted by the introduction, which he deems puerile and the story he +thinks ill told, though he allows the idea to be good. + +"Rogers." At the end of Samuel Rogers' poem, _Human Life_, 1819, is a +ballad, entitled "The Boy of Egremond," which has for subject the same +incident as that in Wordsworth's "Force of Prayer"--beginning + +What is good for a bootless bene? + +--the death of the Young Romilly as he leapt across the Strid. In +Wordsworth the answer to the question is "Endless sorrow." Rogers' poem +begins:-- + +"Say what remains when hope is fled?" +She answered "Endless weeping." + +Wordsworth's _Peter Bell_ was published a week after the mock one. To +_The Waggoner_ we shall come shortly. + +The significance of the allusion to Coleridge is not perfectly clear; +but I imagine it to refer to the elaborate examination of Wordsworth's +poetry in the _Biographia Literaria_. + +"These obtuse literary Bells." Peter Bell, in the poem, sounds the river +with his staff, and draws forth the dead body of the ass's master. Lamb +passes, in his curse, to a reference to St. Peter. + +"Taking my own again." This, if, as one may suppose, adapted from +Molière's "Je reprendre mon bien partout où je le trouve," is an +indication that Lamb knew the Frenchman's comedies. + +Here should come a business note to John Rickman dated May 21, 1819, +given in the Boston Bibliophile edition.] + + + + +LETTER 247 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING + +May 28, 1819. + +My dear M.,--I want to know how your brother is, if you have heard +lately. I want to know about you. I wish you were nearer. How are my +cousins, the Gladmans of Wheathamstead, and farmer Bruton? Mrs. Bruton +is a glorious woman. + +Hail, Mackeray End-- + +This is a fragment of a blank verse poem which I once meditated, but got +no further. The E.I.H. has been thrown into a quandary by the strange +phenomenon of poor Tommy Bye, whom I have known man and mad-man +twenty-seven years, he being elder here than myself by nine years and +more. He was always a pleasant, gossiping, half-headed, muzzy, dozing, +dreaming, walk-about, inoffensive chap; a little too fond of the +creature--who isn't at times? but Tommy had not brains to work off an +over-night's surfeit by ten o'clock next morning, and unfortunately, in +he wandered the other morning drunk with last night, and with a +superfoetation of drink taken in since he set out from bed. He came +staggering under his double burthen, like trees in Java, bearing at once +blossom, fruit, and falling fruit, as I have heard you or some other +traveller tell, with his face literally as blue as the bluest firmament; +some wretched calico that he had mopped his poor oozy front with had +rendered up its native dye, and the devil a bit would he consent to wash +it, but swore it was characteristic, for he was going to the sale of +indigo, and set up a laugh which I did not think the lungs of mortal man +were competent to. It was like a thousand people laughing, or the Goblin +Page. He imagined afterwards that the whole office had been laughing at +him, so strange did his own sounds strike upon his _non_sensorium. But +Tommy has laughed his last laugh, and awoke the next day to find himself +reduced from an abused income of £600 per annum to one-sixth of the sum, +after thirty-six years' tolerably good service. The quality of mercy was +not strained in his behalf; the gentle dews dropt not on him from +heaven. It just came across me that I was writing to Canton. How is +Ball? "Mr. B. is a P----." Will you drop in to-morrow night? Fanny Kelly +is coming, if she does not cheat us. Mrs. _Gold_ is well, but proves +"uncoined," as the lovers about Wheathampstead would say. + +O hard hearted Burrell +With teeth like a squirrel-- + +I have not had such a quiet half hour to sit down to a quiet letter for +many years. I have not been interrupted above four times. I wrote a +letter the other day in alternate lines, black ink and red, and you +cannot think how it chilled the flow of ideas. Next Monday is +Whit-Monday. What a reflection! Twelve years ago, and I should have kept +that and the following holiday in the fields a-Maying. All of those +pretty pastoral delights are over. This dead, everlasting dead desk--how +it weighs the spirit of a gentleman down! This dead wood of the desk +instead of your living trees! But then, again, I hate the Joskins, _a +name for Hertfordshire bumpkins_. Each state of life has its +inconvenience; but then, again, mine has more than one. Not that I +repine, or grudge, or murmur at my destiny. I have meat and drink, and +decent apparel; I shall, at least, when I get a new hat. + +A red-haired man has just interrupted me. He has broke the current of my +thoughts. I haven't a word to add. I don't know why I send this letter, +but I have had a hankering to hear about you some days. Perhaps it will +go off, before your reply comes. If it don't, I assure you no letter was +ever welcomer from you, from Paris or Macao. C. LAMB. + +[At the beginning of this letter is an unprinted passage saying that +Charles Lloyd and his wife are in London and that such proximity is not +too comfortable. "Would you like to see him?" or "isn't it better to +lean over a stile in a sort of careless easy half astronomical position +eyeing the blue expanse?" + +Manning, who had now settled in England, but in retirement, was living +in Hertfordshire, at Totteridge. The Gladmans and Brutons are mentioned +in the _Elia_ essay "Mackery End in Hertfordshire":-- + +"The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End; or Mackarel End, as it is +spelt, perhaps more properly, in some old maps of Hertfordshire; a +farm-house,--delightfully situated within a gentle walk from +Wheathampstead. I can just remember having been there, on a visit to a +great-aunt, when I was a child, under the care of Bridget; who, as I +have said, is older than myself by some ten years. I wish that I could +throw into a heap the remainder of our joint existences, that we might +share them in equal division. But that is impossible. The house was at +that time in the occupation of a substantial yeoman, who had married my +grandmother's sister. His name was Gladman. My grandmother was a Bruton, +married to a Field. The Gladmans and the Brutons are still flourishing +in that part of the country, but the Fields are almost extinct." + +The Goblin Page is in Scott's _Lay of the Last Minstrel_. + +"Mrs. _Gold_ is well"--_née_ Fanny Burrell. + +"This dead wood of the desk." Lamb used this figure more than once, in +his letters and elsewhere. In the _Elia_ essay "The Superannuated Man" +he says: "I had grown to my desk, as it were; and the wood had entered +into my soul."] + + + + +LETTER 248 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH + +[P.M. June 7, 1819.] + +My dear Wordsworth, you cannot imagine how proud we are here of the +DEDICATION. We read it twice for once that we do the poem--I mean all +through--yet Benjamin is no common favorite--there is a spirit of +beautiful tolerance in it--it is as good as it was in 1806--and will be +as good in 1829 if our dim eyes shall be awake to peruse it. + +Methinks there is a kind of shadowing affinity between the subject of +the narrative and the subject of the dedication--but I will not enter +into personal themes--else, substituting ******* **** for Ben, and the +Honble United Company of Merch'ts trading to the East Indies for the +Master of the misused Team, it might seem by no far fetched analogy to +point its dim warnings hitherward--but I reject the omen--especially as +its import seems to have been diverted to another victim. + +Poor Tommy Bye, whom I have known (as I express'd it in a letter to +Manning), man and mad man 27 years--he was my gossip in Leadenhall +St.--but too much addicted to turn in at a red lattice--came wandering +into his and my common scene of business--you have seen the orderly +place--reeling drunk at nine o Clock-with his face of a deep blue, +contracted by a filthy dowlas muckinger which had given up its dye to +his poor oozy visnomy--and short to tell, after playing various pranks, +laughing loud laughters three mad explosions they were--in the following +morning the "tear stood in his eye"--for he found his abused income of +clear £600 inexorably reduced to £100--he was my dear gossip--alas! +Benjamin!... + +I will never write another letter with alternate inks. You cannot +imagine how it cramps the flow of the style. I can conceive Pindar (I do +not mean to compare myself [to] _him_) by the command of Hiero, the +Sicilian tyrant (was not he the tyrant of some place? fie on my neglect +of history--) conceive him by command of Hiero, or Perillus, set down to +pen an a Isthmian or Nemean Panegyre in lines alternate red and black. I +maintain he couldn't have done it--it would have been a strait laced +torture to his muse, he would have call'd for the Bull for a relief. +Neither could Lycidas, or the Chorics (how do you like the word?) of +Samson Agonistes, have been written with two inks. Your couplets with +points, Epilogues to Mr. H.'s, &c. might be even benefited by the +twyfount. Where one line (the second) is for point, and the first for +rhime, I think the alternation would assist, like a mould. I maintain +it, you could not have written your stanzas on pre existence with 2 +inks. Try another, and Rogers the Banker, with his silver standish +having one ink only, I will bet my Ode on Tobacco, against the Pleasures +of Memory--and Hope too--shall put more fervor of enthusiasm into the +same subject than you can with your two--he shall do it stans pede in +uno as it were. + +The Waggoner is very ill put up in boards, at least it seems to me +always to open at the dedication--but that is a mechanical fault. + +I re-read the White Doe of Rylston--the title should be always written +at length--as Mary Sabilla Novello, a very nice woman of our +acquaintance, always signs hers at the bottom of the shortest note. Mary +told her, if her name had been Mary Ann, she would have signed M.A. +Novello, or M. only, dropping the A--which makes me think, with some +other triflings, that she understands something of human nature. My pen +goes galloping on most rhapsodically, glad to have escaped the bondage +of Two Inks. + +Manning had just sent it home and it came as fresh to me as the immortal +creature it speaks of. M. sent it home with a note, having this passage +in it, "I cannot help writing to you while I am reading Wordsw'ths poem. +I am got into the 3rd Canto, and say that it raises my opinion of him +very much indeed.[*] 'Tis broad; noble; poetical; with a masterly +scanning of human actions, absolutely above common readers. What a manly +(implied) interpretation of (bad) party-actions, as trampling the bible, +&c."--and so he goes on. + +[Footnote *: N.B. M---- from his peregrinations is 12 or 14 years +_behind_ in his knowledge of who has or has not written good verse of +late.] + +I do not know which I like best, the prologue (the latter part +specially) to P. Bell, or the Epilogue to Benjamin. Yes, I tell stories, +I do know. I like the last best, and the Waggoner altogether as a +pleasanter remembrance to me than the Itinerant. If it were not, the +page before the first page would and ought to make it so. + +The sonnets are not all new to me. Of what are, the 9th I like best. +Thank you for that to Walton. I take it as a favor done to me, that, +being so old a darling of mine, you should bear testimony to his worth +in a book containing a DEDI---- + +I cannot write the vain word at full length any longer. + +If as you say, the Waggoner in some sort came at my call, O for a potent +voice to call forth the Recluse from his profound Dormitory, where he +sleeps forgetful of his foolish charge The World. + +Had I three inks I would invoke him! + +Talfourd has written a most kind Review of J. Woodvil, &c., in the +Champion. He is your most zealous admirer, in solitude and in crowds. H. +Crabbe Robinson gives me any dear Prints that I happen to admire, and I +love him for it and for other things. Alsager shall have his copy, but +at present I have lent it _for a day only_, not chusing to part with my +own. Mary's love. How do you all do, amanuenses both--marital and +sororal? + +C. LAMB. + +[Wordsworth had just put forth _The Waggoner_, which was dedicated to +Lamb in the following terms:-- + +My dear friend--When I sent you, a few weeks ago, "The Tale of Peter +Bell," you asked "Why 'The Waggoner' was not added?" To say the truth, +from the higher tone of imagination, and the deeper touches of passion +aimed at in the former, I apprehended this little piece could not +accompany it without disadvantage. In the year 1806, if I am not +mistaken, "The Waggoner" was read to you in manuscript, and as you have +remembered it for so long a time, I am the more encouraged to hope that, +since the localities on which the poem partly depends did not prevent +its being interesting to you, it may prove acceptable to others. Being, +therefore, in some measure the cause of its present appearance, you must +allow me the gratification of inscribing it to you, in acknowledgment of +the pleasure I have derived from your writings, and of the high esteem +with which + + I am very truly yours, + + WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. + +The poem, which had been written many years before, tells the story of +Benjamin, a waggoner in the Lake county, who one stormy night, +succumbing to the temptations of the Cherry Tree Inn, fell from good +estate. Lamb's asterisks stand, of course, for Charles Lamb. + +"Your stanzas on pre existence"--the "Ode on Intimations of +Immortality." + +_The Pleasures of Hope_ was Campbell's poem. + +Mary Sabilla Novello was the wife of Vincent Novello, the organist, and +Lamb's friend. + +_The White Doe of Rylstone_ had been published in 1815. + +The 9th sonnet. Certain sonnets had been published with _The Waggoner_. +The 9th was that beginning:-- + +Grief, thou hast lost an ever ready Friend. + +Wordsworth's sonnet upon Walton begins:-- + +While flowing rivers yield a blameless sport. + +_The Recluse_ was not published until 1888, and then only Book I. + +_The Champion_, in which Talfourd reviewed Lamb's _Works_, had now +become the property of John Thelwall.] + + + + +LETTER 249 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO FANNY KELLY + +20 July, 1819. + +Dear Miss Kelly,--We had the pleasure, _pain_ I might better call it, of +seeing you last night in the new Play. It was a most consummate piece of +Acting, but what a task for you to undergo! at a time when your heart is +sore from real sorrow! it has given rise to a train of thinking, which I +cannot suppress. + +Would to God you were released from this way of life; that you could +bring your mind to consent to take your lot with us, and throw off for +ever the whole burden of your Profession. I neither expect or wish you +to take notice of this which I am writing, in your present over occupied +& hurried state.--But to think of it at your leisure. I have quite +income enough, if that were all, to justify for me making such a +proposal, with what I may call even a handsome provision for my +survivor. What you possess of your own would naturally be appropriated +to those, for whose sakes chiefly you have made so many hard sacrifices. +I am not so foolish as not to know that I am a most unworthy match for +such a one as you, but you have for years been a principal object in my +mind. In many a sweet assumed character I have learned to love you, but +simply as F.M. Kelly I love you better than them all. Can you quit these +shadows of existence, & come & be a reality to us? can you leave off +harassing yourself to please a thankless multitude, who know nothing of +you, & begin at last to live to yourself & your friends? + +As plainly & frankly as I have seen you give or refuse assent in some +feigned scene, so frankly do me the justice to answer me. It is +impossible I should feel injured or aggrieved by your telling me at +once, that the proposal does not suit you. It is impossible that I +should ever think of molesting you with idle importunity and persecution +after your mind [was] once firmly spoken--but happier, far happier, +could I have leave to hope a time might come, when our friends might be +your friends; our interests yours; our book-knowledge, if in that +inconsiderable particular we have any little advantage, might impart +something to you, which you would every day have it in your power ten +thousand fold to repay by the added cheerfulness and joy which you could +not fail to bring as a dowry into whatever family should have the honor +and happiness of receiving _you_, the most welcome accession that could +be made to it. + +In haste, but with entire respect & deepest affection, I subscribe +myself + +C. LAMB. + +[It was known, on the authority of the late Mr. Charles Kent, that Fanny +Kelly, the actress, had received an offer of marriage from Lamb; but my +own impression was that it was made much later in life than this letter, +first printed in 1903 by Mr. John Hollingshead, indicates. Miss Kelly, +who at this time was engaged at the Lyceum, would be twenty-nine on +October 15; Lamb was forty-four in February. His salary was now £600 a +year. + +Lamb had long admired Miss Kelly as an actress. In his _Works_, +published in 1818, was this sonnet:-- + +To Miss Kelly + +You are not, Kelly, of the common strain, +That stoop their pride and female honour down +To please that many-headed beast _the town_, +And vend their lavish smiles and tricks for gain; +By fortune thrown amid the actors' train, +You keep your native dignity of thought; +The plaudits that attend you come unsought, +As tributes due unto your natural vein. +Your tears have passion in them, and a grace +Of genuine freshness, which our hearts avow; +Your smiles are winds whose ways we cannot trace, +That vanish and return we know not how-- +And please the better from a pensive face, +And thoughtful eye, and a reflecting brow. + +That Lamb had been pondering his offer for some little time is +suggested, Mr. Macdonald remarks, by a passage in one of his articles on +Miss Kelly in _The Examiner_ earlier in this month, where he says of her +as Rachel, in "The Jovial Crew," probably with full knowledge that it +would meet her eye and be understood (a truly Elian method of +love-lettering), "'What a lass that were,' said a stranger who sate +beside us ... 'to go a gipseying through the world with.'" + +This was Miss Kelly's reply:-- + +Henrietta Street, July 20th, 1819. + +An early & deeply rooted attachment has fixed my heart on one from whom +no worldly prospect can well induce me to withdraw it, but while I thus +_frankly_ & decidedly decline your proposal, believe me, I am not +insensible to the high honour which the preference of such a mind as +yours confers upon me--let me, however, hope that all thought upon this +subject will end with this letter, & that you will henceforth encourage +no other sentiment towards me than esteem in my private character and a +continuance of that approbation of my humble talents which you have +already expressed so much & so often to my advantage and gratification. + +Believe me I feel proud to acknowledge myself + + Your obliged friend + + F. M. Kelly. + +Lamb at once wrote again as follows:--] + + + + +Letter 250 + + +Charles Lamb to Fanny Kelly + +July 20th, 1819. + +Dear Miss Kelly,--_Your injunctions shall be obeyed to a tittle_. I feel +myself in a lackadaisacal no-how-ish kind of a humour. I believe it is +the rain, or something. I had thought to have written seriously, but I +fancy I succeed best in epistles of mere fun; puns & _that_ nonsense. +You will be good friends with us, will you not? let what has past "break +no bones" between us. You will not refuse us them next time we send for +them? + +Yours very truly, C. L. + +Do you observe the delicacy of not signing my full name? + +N.B. Do not paste that last letter of mine into your Book. + +[Writing again of Miss Kelly, in the "Hypocrite," in _The Examiner_ of +August 1 and 2, Lamb says: "She is in truth not framed to tease or +torment even in jest, but to utter a hearty _Yes_ or _No_; to yield or +refuse assent with a noble sincerity. We have not the pleasure of being +acquainted with her, but we have been told that she carries the same +cordial manners into private life." + +Miss Kelly died unmarried at the age of ninety-two. + +"Break no bones." Here Lamb makes one of his puns. By "bones" he meant +also the little ivory discs which were given to friends of the +management, entitling them to free entry to the theatre. With this +explanation the next sentence of the letter becomes clear.] + + + + +Letter 251 + + +Charles Lamb to Thomas Noon Talefourd(?) + +[August, 1819.] + +Dear T. We are at Mr. Bays's, Hatter, Trumpington Street, Cambridge. Can +you come down? You will be with us, all but Bed, which you can get at an +Inn. We shall be most glad to see you. Be so good as send me Hazlit's +volume, just published at Hone's, directed as above. Or, much better, +bring it. Yours, hic et ubique, + +C. Lamb. + +[The little note printed above (by permission of the Master of +Magdalene) proves that Lamb was in Cambridge in 1819. The evidence is +that the only book by Hazlitt which Hone published was _Political +Essays, with Sketches by Public Characters_, printed for William Hone, +45 Ludgate Hill, 1819. If then Hazlitt's book determines the year, we +may take the testimony of the sonnet "Written at Cambridge, August 15, +1819" as to the month, especially as Lamb at that time always took his +holidays in the summer; and this gives us August: a peculiarly +satisfactory conclusion for Cambridge men, because it shows that it was +to Cambridge that he went for comfort and solace after Miss Kelly's +refusal. + +The letter has still further value in adding another Lamb domicile to +the list, Mr. Bays's house being still in existence although no longer +in Trumpington Street, but King's Parade. + +"T." may easily have been Talfourd, who had just been writing an +enthusiastic review of Lamb's _John Woodvil_ in _The Champion_ and was +only too happy to serve his hero in any way. But it might be Tom +Holcroft.] + + + + +Letter 252 + + +Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge + +[No date. ? Summer, 1819.] + +Dr C. Your sonnet is capital. The Paper ingenious, only that it split +into 4 parts (besides a side splinter) in the carriage. I have +transferred it to the common English Paper, _manufactured of rags_, for +better preservation. I never knew before how the Iliad and Odyssey were +written. Tis strikingly corroborated by observations on Cats. These +domestic animals, put 'em on a rug before the fire, wink their eyes up +and listen to the Kettle, and then PURR, which is their Poetry. + +On Sunday week we kiss your hands (if they are clean). This next Sunday +I have been engaged for some time. + +With remembces to your good Host and Hostess + +Yours ever C. Lamb. + +[The sonnet was Coleridge's "Fancy in Nubibus; or, The Poet in the +Clouds," printed in _Blackwood_, November, 1819, but now sent to Lamb in +manuscript, apparently on some curious kind of paper. + +This is the sonnet:-- + +O! it is pleasant, with a heart at ease, +Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, +To make the shifting clouds be what you please, +Or let the easily persuaded eyes +Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould +Of a friend's fancy; or with head bent low +And cheek aslant see rivers flow of gold +'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go +From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land! +Or, list'ning to the tide, with closed sight, +Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand +By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, +Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee +Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. + +See next letter to Coleridge. + +Possibly it is to this summer that an undated note to Crabb Robinson +belongs (in the Dr. Williams' Library) in which Lamb says they are +setting out to see Lord Braybrooke's house at Audley End.] + + + + +LETTER 253 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS HOLCROFT, JR. + +[No date. Autumn, 1819.] + +Dear Tom, Do not come to us on Thursday, for we are moved into country +lodgings, tho' I am still at the India house in the mornings. See +Marshall and Captain Betham _as soon as ever you can_. I fear leave +cannot be obtained at the India house for your going to India. If you go +it must be as captain's clerk, if such a thing could be obtain'd. + +For God's sake keep your present place and do not give it up, or neglect +it; as you perhaps will not be able to go to India, and you see how +difficult of attainment situations are. + +Yours truly + +C. LAMB. + +[Thomas Holcroft was the son of Lamb's friend, the dramatist. Apparently +he did not take Lamb's advice, for he lost his place, which was some +small Parliamentary post under John Rickman, in November, 1819. Crabb +Robinson, Anthony Robinson and Lamb took up the matter and subscribed +money, and Holcroft went out to India.] + + + + +LETTER 254 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO JOSEPH COTTLE + +[Dated at end: Nov. 5, 1819.] + +Dear Sir--It is so long since I have seen or heard from you, that I fear +that you will consider a request I have to make as impertinent. About +three years since, when I was one day at Bristol, I made an effort to +see you, but you were from home. The request I have to make is, that you +would very much oblige me, if you have any small portrait of yourself, +by allowing me to have it copied, to accompany a selection of +"Likenesses of Living Bards" which a most particular friend of mine is +making. If you have no objections, and could oblige me by transmitting +such portrait to me at No. 44 Russell Street, Covent Garden, I will +answer for taking the greatest care of it, and returning it safely the +instant the Copier has done with it. I hope you will pardon the liberty + + From an old friend + and well-wisher, + CHARLES LAMB. + +London 5th Nov. 1819. + +[Lamb's visit to Bristol was made probably when he was staying at Calne +with the Morgans in 1816. The present letter refers to an extra +illustrated copy of Byron's _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, which +was being made by William Evans, of _The Pamphleteer_, and which is now +in the British Museum. Owing to Cottle's hostility to Byron, and Byron's +scorn of Cottle, Lamb could hardly explain the nature of the book more +fully. See note to the following letter.] + + + + +LETTER 255 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO JOSEPH COTTLE + +[Not dated. ? Late 1819.] + +Dear Sir--My friend whom you have obliged by the loan of your picture, +having had it very exactly copied (and a very spirited Drawing it is, as +every one thinks that has seen it--the copy is not much inferior, done +by a daughter of Josephs, R.A.)--he purposes sending you back the +original, which I must accompany with my warm thanks, both for that, and +your better favor, the "Messiah," which, I assure you, I have read thro' +with great pleasure; the verses have great sweetness and a New +Testament-plainness about them which affected me very much. + +I could just wish that in page 63 you had omitted the lines 71 and '2, +and had ended the period with + +"The willowy brook was there, but that sweet sound-- +_When_ to be heard again on Earthly ground?"-- + +two very sweet lines, and the sense perfect. + +And in page 154, line 68, "I come _ordained a world to save_,"--these +words are hardly borne out by the story, and seem scarce accordant with +the modesty with which our Lord came to take his common portion among +the Baptismal Candidates. They also anticipate the beauty of John's +recognition of the Messiah, and the subsequent confirmation from the +voice and Dove. + +You will excuse the remarks of an old brother bard, whose career, though +long since pretty well stopt, was coeval in its beginning with your own, +and who is sorry his lot has been always to be so distant from you. It +is not likely that C.L. will ever see Bristol again; but, if J.C. should +ever visit London, he will be a most welcome visitor to C.L. + +My sister joins in cordial remembrances and I request the favor of +knowing, at your earliest opportunity, whether the Portrait arrives +safe, the glass unbroken &c. Your glass broke in its coming. + +Morgan is a little better--can read a little, &c.; but cannot join Mrs. +M. till the Insolvent Act (or whatever it is called) takes place. Then, +I hope, he will stand clear of all debts. Meantime, he has a most +exemplary nurse and kind Companion in Miss Brent. + +Once more, Dear Sir, + +Yours truly + +C. LAMB. + +[Cottle sent Lamb a miniature of himself by Branwhite, which had been +copied in monochrome for Mr. Evans' book. G.J. Joseph, A.R.A., made a +coloured drawing of Lamb for the same work. It serves as frontispiece to +Vol. I. of the present edition. Byron's lines refer as a matter of fact +not to Joseph but to Amos Cottle:-- + +O, Amos Cottle!--Phoebus! what a name. + +and so forth. Mr. Evans, however, dispensed with Amos. Another +grangerised edition of the same satire, also in the British Museum, +compiled by W.M. Tartt, has an engraving of Amos Cottle and two +portraits of Lamb--the Hancock drawing, and the Brook Pulham caricature. +Byron's lines touching Lamb ran thus:-- + +Yet let them not to vulgar Wordsworth stoop, +The meanest object of the lowly group, +Whose verse, of all but childish prattle void, +Seems blessed harmony to Lambe and Lloyd. + +A footnote states that Lamb and Lloyd are the most ignoble followers of +Southey & Co. + +Cottle's _Messiah_, of which the earlier portion had been published long +since, was completed in 1815. Canon Ainger says that lines 71 and 72 in +Lamb's copy (not that of 1815), following upon the couplet quoted, +were:-- + +(While sorrow gave th' involuntary tear) +Had ceased to vibrate on our listening ear. + +Coleridge's friend Morgan had just come upon evil times. Subsequently +Lamb and Southey united in helping him to the extent of £10 a year +each.] + + + + +LETTER 256 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH + +[P.M. 25 Nov., 1819.] + +Dear Miss Wordsworth, you will think me negligent, but I wanted to see +more of Willy, before I ventured to express a prediction. Till yesterday +I had barely seen him--Virgilium Tantum Vidi--but yesterday he gave us +his small company to a bullock's heart--and I can pronounce him a lad of +promise. He is no pedant nor bookworm, so far I can answer. Perhaps he +has hitherto paid too little attention to other men's inventions, +preferring, like Lord Foppington, the "natural sprouts of his own." But +he has observation, and seems thoroughly awake. I am ill at remembering +other people's bon mots, but the following are a few. Being taken over +Waterloo Bridge, he remarked that if we had no mountains, we had a fine +river at least, which was a Touch of the Comparative, but then he added, +in a strain which augured less for his future abilities as a Political +Economist, that he supposed they must take at least a pound a week Toll. +Like a curious naturalist he inquired if the tide did not come up a +little salty. This being satisfactorily answered, he put another +question as to the flux and reflux, which being rather cunningly evaded +than artfully solved by that she-Aristotle Mary, who muttered something +about its getting up an hour sooner and sooner every day, he sagely +replied, "Then it must come to the same thing at last" which was a +speech worthy of an infant Halley! The Lion in the 'Change by no means +came up to his ideal standard. So impossible it is for Nature in any of +her works to come up to the standard of a child's imagination. The +whelps (Lionets) he was sorry to find were dead, and on particular +enquiry his old friend the Ouran Outang had gone the way of all flesh +also. The grand Tiger was also sick, and expected in no short time to +exchange this transitory world for another--or none. But again, there +was a Golden Eagle (I do not mean that of Charing) which did much ARRIDE +and console him. William's genius, I take it, leans a little to the +figurative, for being at play at Tricktrack (a kind of minor +Billiard-table which we keep for smaller wights, and sometimes refresh +our own mature fatigues with taking a hand at), not being able to hit a +ball he had iterate aimed at, he cried out, "I cannot hit that beast." +Now the balls are usually called men, but he felicitously hit upon a +middle term, a term of approximation and imaginative reconciliation, a +something where the two ends, of the brute matter (ivory) and their +human and rather violent personification into _men_, might meet, as I +take it, illustrative of that Excellent remark in a certain Preface +about Imagination, explaining "like a sea-beast that had crawled forth +to sun himself." Not that I accuse William Minor of hereditary plagiary, +or conceive the image to have come ex traduce. Rather he seemeth to keep +aloof from any source of imitation, and purposely to remain ignorant of +what mighty poets have done in this kind before him. For being asked if +his father had ever been on Westminster Bridge, he answer'd that he did +not know. + +It is hard to discern the Oak in the Acorn, or a Temple like St. Paul's +in the first stone which is laid, nor can I quite prefigure what +destination the genius of William Minor hath to take. Some few hints I +have set down, to guide my future observations. He hath the power of +calculation in no ordinary degree for a chit. He combineth figures, +after the first boggle, rapidly. As in the Tricktrack board, where the +hits are figured, at first he did not perceive that 15 and 7 made 22, +but by a little use he could combine 8 with 25--and 33 again with 16, +which approacheth something in kind (far let me be from flattering him +by saying in degree) to that of the famous American boy. I am sometimes +inclined to think I perceive the future satirist in him, for he hath a +sub-sardonic smile which bursteth out upon occasion, as when he was +asked if London were as big as Ambleside, and indeed no other answer was +given, or proper to be given, to so ensnaring and provoking a question. +In the contour of scull certainly I discern something paternal. But +whether in all respects the future man shall transcend his father's +fame, Time the trier of geniuses must decide. Be it pronounced +peremptorily at present, that Willy is a well-mannerd child, and though +no great student, hath yet a lively eye for things that lie before him. +Given in haste from my desk at Leadenhall. Your's and yours' most +sincerely + +C. LAMB. + +[This letter, which refers to a visit paid to the Lambs in Great Russell +Street by Wordsworth's son, William, then nine years old, is remarkable, +apart from its charm and humour, for containing more of the absolute +method of certain of Lamb's _Elia_ passages than anything he had yet +written. + +"Lord Foppington"--in Vanbrugh's "Relapse." Lamb used this speech as the +motto of his _Elia_ essay "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading." + +"Like a sea-beast." Lamb alludes to the preface to the edition of 1815 +of Wordsworth's poems, where he quotes illustratively from his +"Resolution and Independence":-- + +Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf +Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself. + +"If his father had ever been on Westminster Bridge." An allusion to +Wordsworth's sonnet "Composed on Westminster Bridge":-- + +Earth has not anything to show more fair. + +"The American boy." This was Zerah Colburn, the mathematical prodigy, +born in Vermont State in 1804 and exhibited in America and Europe by his +father.] + + + + +LETTER 257 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +Jan. 10th, 1820. + +Dear Coleridge,--A Letter written in the blood of your poor friend would +indeed be of a nature to startle you; but this is nought but harmless +red ink, or, as the witty mercantile phrase hath it, Clerk's Blood. Damn +'em! my brain, guts, skin, flesh, bone, carcase, soul, TIME, is all +theirs. The Royal Exchange, Gresham's Folly, hath me body and spirit. I +admire some of Lloyd's lines on you, and I admire your postponing +reading them. He is a sad Tattler, but this is under the rose. Twenty +years ago he estranged one friend from me quite, whom I have been +regretting, but never could regain since; he almost alienated you (also) +from me, or me from you, I don't know which. But that breach is closed. +The dreary sea is filled up. He has lately been at work "telling again," +as they call it, a most gratuitous piece of mischief, and has caused a +coolness betwixt me and (not a friend exactly, but) [an] intimate +acquaintance. I suspect, also, he saps Manning's faith in me, who am to +Manning more than an acquaintance. Still I like his writing verses about +you. Will your kind host and hostess give us a dinner next Sunday, and +better still, _not expect us_ if the weather is very bad. Why you should +refuse twenty guineas per sheet for Blackwood's or any other magazine +passes my poor comprehension. But, as Strap says, you know best. I have +no quarrel with you about præprandial avocations--so don't imagine one. +That Manchester sonnet I think very likely is Capel Lofft's. Another +sonnet appeared with the same initials in the same paper, which turned +out to be Procter's. What do the rascals mean? Am I to have the +fathering of what idle rhymes every beggarly Poetaster pours forth! Who +put your marine sonnet and about Browne into "Blackwood"? I did not. So +no more, till we meet. + +Ever yours, + +C. L. + +[Charles Lloyd, returned to health, had written _Desultory Thoughts in +London_, in which both Coleridge and Lamb appeared, Coleridge as *** and +Lamb as **. The poem was published in 1821. Lloyd probably had sent it +in manuscript or proof to Lamb and Coleridge. Some of Lloyd's lines on +Coleridge run thus:-- + +How shall I fitly speak on such a theme? + He is a treasure by the world neglected, +Because he hath not, with a prescience dim, + Like those whose every aim is self-reflected, +Pil'd up some fastuous trophy, that of him + Might tell, what mighty powers the age rejected, +But taught his lips the office of a _pen_-- +By fools he's deem'd a being lost to men. + + * * * * * + +No! with magnanimous self-sacrifice, + And lofty inadvertency of fame, +He felt there is a bliss in _being_ wise, + Quite independent of the wise man's _name_. +Who now can say how many a soul may rise + To a nobility of moral aim +It ne'er had known, but for that spirit brave, +Which, being freely gifted, freely gave? + +Sometimes I think that I'm a blossom blighted; + But this I ken, that should it not prove so, +If I am not inexorably spited + Of all that dignifies mankind below; +By him I speak of, I was so excited, + While reason's scale was poising to and fro, +"To the better cause;" that him I have to bless +For that which it is comfort to possess. + + * * * * * + +No! Those who most have seen me, since the hour + When thou and I, in former happier days, +Frank converse held, though many an adverse power + Have sought the memory of those times to raze, +Can vouch that more it stirs me (thus a tower, + Sole remnant of vast castle, still betrays +Haply its former splendour) to have prov'd +Thy love, than by fresh friends to have been lov'd. + +The story of one of Lloyd's former indiscretions is told in the earlier +letters of this collection. I cannot say what friend he quite alienated, +unless it was James White. The nature of the later offence of which Lamb +accuses Lloyd is now unknown. + +"That Manchester sonnet." A sonnet entitled "Manchester," referring to +the Luddites, and signed C. L., by Capel Lofft. Procter's "C.L." sonnet +was upon Macready. + +The marine sonnet was "Fancy in Nubibus" (see page 559). + +"About Browne" refers to a note by Coleridge on Sir Thomas Browne in the +same number, signed G.J.--possibly James Gillman's initials reversed. + +We learn from a letter from Coleridge to J. H. Green (January 14, 1820) +that the visit to Highgate which Lamb mentions was a New Year visit of +annual occurrence. Lamb's reference to praeprandial avocations touches +upon Coleridge's habit of coming down to see his guests only when dinner +was ready.] + + + + +LETTER 258 + + +MARY LAMB TO MRS. VINCENT NOVELLO + +Newington, Monday. +[Spring of 1820.] + +My dear Friend,--Since we heard of your sad sorrow, you have been +perpetually in our thoughts; therefore, you may well imagine how welcome +your kind remembrance of it must be. I know not how enough to thank you +for it. You bid me write a long letter; but my mind is so possessed with +the idea that you must be occupied with one only thought, that all +trivial matters seem impertinent. I have just been reading again Mr. +Hunt's delicious Essay; which I am sure must have come so home to your +hearts, I shall always love him for it. I feel that it is all that one +can think, but which none but he could have done so prettily. May he +lose the memory of his own babies in seeing them all grow old around +him! Together with the recollection of your dear baby, the image of a +little sister I once had comes as fresh into my mind as if I had seen +her as lately. A little cap with white satin ribbon, grown yellow with +long keeping, and a lock of light hair, were the only relics left of +her. The sight of them always brought her pretty, fair face to my view, +that to this day I seem to have a perfect recollection of her features. +I long to see you, and I hope to do so on Tuesday or Wednesday in next +week. Percy Street! I love to write the word; what comfortable ideas it +brings with it! We have been pleasing ourselves ever since we heard this +piece of unexpected good news with the anticipation of frequent drop-in +visits, and all the social comfort of what seems almost next-door +neighbourhood. + +Our solitary confinement has answered its purpose even better than I +expected. It is so many years since I have been out of town in the +Spring, that I scarcely knew of the existence of such a season. I see +every day some new flower peeping out of the ground, and watch its +growth; so that I have a sort of an intimate friendship with each. I +know the effect of every change of weather upon them--have learned all +their names, the duration of their lives, and the whole progress of +their domestic economy. My landlady, a nice, active old soul that wants +but one year of eighty, and her daughter, a rather aged young +gentlewoman, are the only labourers in a pretty large garden; for it is +a double house, and two long strips of ground are laid into one, well +stored with fruit-trees, which will be in full blossom the week after I +am gone, and flowers, as many as can be crammed in, of all sorts and +kinds. But flowers are flowers still; and I must confess I would rather +live in Russell Street all my life, and never set my foot but on the +London pavement, than be doomed always to enjoy the silent pleasures I +now do. We go to bed at ten o'clock. Late hours are life-shortening +things; but I would rather run all risks, and sit every night--at some +places I could name--wishing in vain at eleven o'clock for the entrance +of the supper tray, than be always up and alive at eight o'clock +breakfast, as I am here. We have a scheme to reconcile these things. We +have an offer of a very low-rented lodging a mile nearer town than this. +Our notion is, to divide our time, in alternate weeks, between quiet +rest and dear London weariness. We give an answer to-morrow; but what +that will be, at this present writing, I am unable to say. In the +present state of our undecided opinion, a very heavy rain that is now +falling may turn the scale. "Dear rain, do go away," and let us have a +fine cheerful sunset to argue the matter fairly in. My brother walked +seventeen miles yesterday before dinner. And notwithstanding his long +walk to and from the office, we walk every evening; but I by no means +perform in this way so well as I used to do. A twelve-mile walk one hot +Sunday morning made my feet blister, and they are hardly well now. +Charles is not yet come home; but he bid me, with many thanks, to +present his _love_ to you and all yours, to all whom and to each +individually, and to Mr. Novello in particular, I beg to add mine. With +the sincerest wishes for the health and happiness of all, believe me, +ever, dear Mary Sabilla, your most affectionate friend, + +MARY ANN LAMB. + +[Leigh Hunt's essay "Deaths of Little Children" appeared in _The +Indicator_ for April 5, 1820; it was suggested by the same loss as that +which prompted Mary Lamb's letter. + +The Lambs at this time were staying at Mrs. Bedford's, Church Street, +Stoke Newington, as we know from an unpublished letter from Mary Lamb to +Miss Kelly, dated March 27, 1820. To this letter I have referred in the +Preface. It states that Mary Lamb, who was teaching Miss Kelly Latin at +the time, has herself taken to French in the evenings.] + + + + +LETTER 259 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO JOSEPH COTTLE + +London, India House, +[? May 26th, 1820.] + +My dear Sir,--I am quite ashamed of not having acknowledged your kind +present earlier, but that unknown something, which was never yet +discovered, though so often speculated upon, which stands in the way of +lazy folks answering letters, has presented its usual obstacle. It is +not forgetfulness, nor disrespect, nor incivility, but terribly like all +these bad things. + +I have been in my time a great epistolary scribbler; but the passion, +and with it the facility, at length wears out; and it must be pumped up +again by the heavy machinery of duty or gratitude, when it should run +free. + +I have read your "Fall of Cambria" with as much pleasure as I did your +"Messiah." Your Cambrian poem I shall be tempted to repeat oftenest, as +Human poems take me in a mood more frequently congenial than Divine. The +character of Llewellyn pleases me more than any thing else, perhaps; and +then some of the Lyrical Pieces are fine varieties. + +It was quite a mistake that I could dislike anything you should write +against Lord Byron, for I have a thorough aversion to his character and +a very moderate admiration of his genius; he is great in so little a +way. To be a poet is to be the man--not a petty portion of occasional +low passion worked up into a permanent form of humanity. Shakespear has +thrust such rubbishy feelings into a corner-the dark, dusky heart of Don +John, in the _Much Ado about Nothing_. The fact is, I have not seen your +"Expostulatory Epistle" to him. I was not aware, till your question, +that it was out. I shall inquire, and get it forthwith. + +Southey is in town, whom I have seen slightly; Wordsworth expected, whom +I hope to see much of. I write with accelerated motion; for I have two +or three bothering clerks and brokers about me, who always press in +proportion as you seem to be doing something that is not business. I +could exclaim a little profanely, but I think you do not like swearing. +I conclude, begging you to consider that I feel myself much obliged by +your kindness, and shall be most happy at any and at all times to hear +from you. + +CHARLES LAMB + +Dear Sir, yours truly, + +[Joseph Cottle, the Bristol publisher, had apparently just sent Lamb a +copy of his _Fall of Cambria_, although it had been published some years +before. Perhaps Lamb had sent him his _Works_, and it was a return gift. +Cottle's very serious _Expostulatory Epistle to Lord Byron_ (who had +cast ridicule upon him and his brother in _English Bards and Scotch +Reviewers_) was issued in 1820, after the publication of _Don Juan_ had +begun. + +Southey arrived in London on May Day, 1820. Wordsworth followed early in +June.] + + + + +LETTER 260 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH +(_Incomplete_) + +[May 25, 1820.] + +Dear Miss W.--There can be none to whom the last volume of W. W. has +come more welcome than to me. I have traced the Duddon in thought and +with repetition along the banks (alas!) of the Lea--(unpoetical name); +it is always flowing and murmuring and dashing in my ears. The story of +_Dion_ is divine--the genius of Plato falling on him like moonlight--the +finest thing ever expressed. Then there is _Elidure_ and _Kirkstone +Pass_--the last not new to me--and let me add one of the sweetest of +them all to me, _The Longest Day_. Loving all these as much as I can +love poetry new to me, what could I wish or desire more or extravagantly +in a new volume? That I did not write to W. W. was simply that he was to +come so soon, and that flattens letters.... + +Yours, +C. L. + +[I print from Professor Knight's text, in his _Life of Wordsworth_. +Canon Ainger supplies omissions--a reference to Martin Burney's black +eye. + +The Wordsworths were in town this summer, to attend the wedding of +Thomas Monkhouse and Miss Horrocks. We know from Crabb Robinson's +_Diary_ that they were at Lamb's on June 2: "Not much was said about his +[W. W.'s] new volume of poems. But he himself spoke of the 'Brownie's +Cell' as his favourite." The new volume was _The River Duddon, a Series +of Sonnets_, ... 1820. "The Longest Day" begins:-- + +Let us quit the leafy arbour. + +Between this letter and the next Lamb wrote and sent off his first +contribution to the _London Magazine_ over the signature Elia--"The +South-Sea House," which was printed in the number for August, 1820.] + + + + +LETTER 261 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP +[P.M. July 13, 1820.] + +Dear Sir, I do not know whose fault it is we have not met so long. We +are almost always out of town. You must come and beat up our quarters +there, when we return from Cambridge. It is not in our power to accept +your invitation. To-day we dine out; and set out for Cambridge on +Saturday morning. Friday of course will be past in packing, &c., +moreover we go from Dalston. We return from Cam. in 4 weeks, and will +contrive an early meeting. + +Meantime believe us, +Sincerely yours, +C. L., &c. +_Thursday_, + +[It was during this visit to Cambridge that Lamb wrote his _Elia_ essay +on "Oxford in the Vacation."] + + + + +LETTER 262 + + +CHARLES AND MARY LAMB TO SAMUEL JAMES ARNOLD + +[No date. ? 1820.] + +Dear Sir, We beg to convey our kindest acknowledgements to Mr. Arnold +for the very pleasant privilege he has favoured us with. My yearly +holidays end with next week, during which we shall be mostly in the +country, and afterwards avail ourselves fully of the privilege. +Sincerely wishing you crowded houses, etc., + +We remain, +Yours truly, +CH. & M. LAMB. + +[Arnold, brother-in-law of Ayrton, was the lessee of the Lyceum, where +Miss Kelly was acting when Lamb proposed to her in 1819.] + + + + +LETTER 263 + + +CHARLES LAMB TO BARRON FIELD + +London, 16 Aug., 1820. + +Dear Field,--Captain Ogilvie, who conveys this note to you, and is now +paying for the first time a visit to your remote shores, is the brother +of a Gentleman intimately connected with the family of the _Whites_, I +mean of Bishopsgate Street--and you will much oblige them and myself by +any service or civilities you can shew him. + +I do not mean this for an answer to your warm-hearted Epistle, which +demands and shall have a much fuller return. We receiped your Australian +First Fruits, of which I shall say nothing here, but refer you to **** +of the _Examiner_, who speaks our mind on all public subjects. I can +only assure you that both Coleridge and Wordsworth, and also C. Lloyd, +who has lately reappeared in the poetical horizon, were hugely taken +with your Kangaroo. + +When do you come back full of riches and renown, with the regret of all +the honest, and all the other part of the colony? Mary swears she shall +live to see it. + +Pray are you King's or Queen's men in Sidney? Or have thieves no +politics? Man, don't let this lie about your room for your bed sweeper +or Major Domo to see, he mayn't like the last paragraph. + +This is a dull and lifeless scroll. You shall have soon a tissue of +truth and fiction impossible to be extricated, the interleavings shall +be so delicate, the partitions perfectly invisible, it shall puzzle you +till you return, & [then] I will not explain it. Till then a ... adieu, +with kind rem'brces of me both to you & ... [_Signature and a few words +torn off_.] + +[Barron Field, who was still in New South Wales, had published his poems +under the title _First-Fruits of Australian Poetry_, and Lamb had +reviewed them in _The Examiner_ for January 16, 1820, over his usual +signature in that paper, * * * *. "The Kangaroo" is quoted in that +review (see Vol. I. of the present edition). + +Captain Ogilvie was the brother of a clerk at the India House, who gave +Mr. Joseph H. Twichell some reminiscences of Lamb, which were printed in +_Scribner's Magazine_. + +"King's or Queen's men"--supporters of George IV. or Caroline of +Brunswick. Lamb was very strongly in favour of the Queen, as his +_Champion_ epigrams show (see Vol. IV.). + +"You shall soon see." Lamb's first reference to the _Elia_ essays, +alluding here to "The South-Sea House." + +Here should come a letter from Lamb to Hazlitt. Lamb says that his +sister is ill again and that the last thing she read was Hazlitt's +"Thursday Nights" which gave her unmixed delight--the reference being to +the second part of the essay "On the Conversation of Authors," which was +printed in the _London Magazine_ for September, 1820, describing Lamb's +evenings. Stoddart, Hazlitt's brother-in-law, Lamb adds, says it is +better than Hogarth's "Modern Midnight Conversation." + +Here should come a business note to John Scott, editor of the _London +Magazine_, dated August 24, 1820, given in the Boston Bibliophile +edition.] + + + + +LETTER 263A + + +CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE + +[No date. ? Autumn, 1820.] + +Dear C.,--Why will you make your visits, which should give pleasure, +matter of regret to your friends? You never come but you take away some +folio that is part of my existence. With a great deal of difficulty I +was made to comprehend the extent of my loss. My maid Becky brought me a +dirty bit of paper, which contained her description of some book which +Mr. Coleridge had taken away. It was "Luster's Tables," which, for some +time, I could not make out. "What! has he carried away any of the +_tables_, Becky?" "No, it wasn't any tables, but it was a book that he +called Luster's Tables." I was obliged to search personally among my +shelves, and a huge fissure suddenly disclosed to me the true nature of +the damage I had sustained. That book, C., you should not have taken +away, for it is not mine; it is the property of a friend, who does not +know its value, nor indeed have I been very sedulous in explaining to +him the estimate of it; but was rather contented in giving a sort of +corroboration to a hint that he let fall, as to its being suspected to +be not genuine, so that in all probability it would have fallen to me as +a deodand; not but I am as sure it is Luther's as I am sure that Jack +Bunyan wrote the "Pilgrim's Progress;" but it was not for me to +pronounce upon the validity of testimony that had been disputed by +learneder clerks than I. So I quietly let it occupy the place it had +usurped upon my shelves, and should never have thought of issuing an +ejectment against it; for why should I be so bigoted as to allow rites +of hospitality to none but my own books, children, &c.?--a species of +egotism I abhor from my heart. No; let 'em all snug together, Hebrews +and Proselytes of the gate; no selfish partiality of mine shall make +distinction between them; I charge no warehouse-room for my friends' +commodities; they are welcome to come and stay as long as they like, +without paying rent. I have several such strangers that I treat with +more than Arabian courtesy; there's a copy of More's fine poem, which is +none of mine; but I cherish it as my own; I am none of those churlish +landlords that advertise the goods to be taken away in ten days' time, +or then to be sold to pay expenses. So you see I had no right to lend +you that book; I may lend you my own books, because it is at my own +hazard, but it is not honest to hazard a friend's property; I always +make that distinction. I hope you will bring it with you, or send it by +Hartley; or he can bring that, and you the "Polemical Discourses," and +come and eat some atoning mutton with us one of these days shortly. We +are engaged two or three Sundays deep, but always dine at home on +week-days at half-past four. So come all four--men and books I mean--my +third shelf (northern compartment) from the top has two devilish gaps, +where you have knocked out its two eye-teeth. + +Your wronged friend, +C. LAMB. + +[This letter is usually dated 1824, but I think it was written earlier. +For one reason, Hartley Coleridge was not in London in that year, and +for another, there are several phrases in the _Elia_ essay "Two Races of +Men" (printed in the _London Magazine_, December, 1820) that are so +similar to some in this letter that I imagine the letter to have +suggested the subject of the essay, the composition of which immediately +followed it. Thus, in the essay we read:-- + +"That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing you, like a great eye-tooth +knocked out--(you are now with me in my little back study in Bloomsbury, +reader!)--with the huge Switzer-like tomes on each side (like the +Guildhall giants, in their reformed posture, guardant of nothing) once +held the tallest of my folios, _Opera Bonaventurae_, choice and massy +divinity, to which its two supporters (school divinity also, but of a +lesser calibre,--Bellarmine, and Holy Thomas), showed but as dwarfs,-- +itself an Ascapart!--_that_ Comberbatch abstracted upon the faith of a +theory he holds, which is more easy, I confess, for me to surfer by than +to refute, namely, that 'the title to property in a book (my +Bonaventure, for instance) is in exact ratio to the claimant's powers of +understanding and appreciating the same.' Should he go on acting upon +this theory, which of our shelves is safe?" + +"Luster's Tables"--Luther's _Table Talk_. + +"More's fine poem." The _Psychozoia Platonica_, 1642, of Henry More, the +Platonist. Lamb seems to have returned the book, for it was not among +his books that he left. Luther's _Table Talk_ seems also to have been +given up.] + + + + +APPENDIX + +CONSISTING OF THE LONGER PASSAGES FROM BOOKS REFERRED TO BY LAMB IN HIS +LETTERS + +COLERIDGE'S "ODE ON THE DEPARTING YEAR" + +TEXT OF THE QUARTO, 1796 + +(_See Letter 19, page 75_) + +STROPHE I + +_Spirit_, who sweepest the wild Harp of Time, + It is most hard with an untroubled Ear +Thy dark inwoven Harmonies to hear! +Yet, mine eye fixt on Heaven's unchanged clime, +Long had I listen'd, free from mortal fear, +With inward stillness and a bowed mind: +When lo! far onwards waving on the wind +I saw the skirts of the DEPARTING YEAR! + Starting from my silent sadness + Then with no unholy madness, +Ere yet the entered cloud forbade my sight, +I rais'd th' impetuous song, and solemnized his flight. + +STROPHE II + +Hither from the recent Tomb; +From the Prison's direr gloom; +From Poverty's heart-wasting languish: +From Distemper's midnight anguish; +Or where his two bright torches blending +Love illumines Manhood's maze; +Or where o'er cradled Infants bending +Hope has fix'd her wishful gaze: + + Hither, in perplexed dance, + Ye WOES, and young-eyed JOYS, advance! + By Time's wild harp, and by the Hand + Whose indefatigable Sweep + Forbids its fateful strings to sleep, +I bid you haste, a mixt tumultuous band! + From every private bower, + And each domestic hearth, + Haste for one solemn hour; +And with a loud and yet a louder voice +O'er the sore travail of the common earth + Weep and rejoice! +Seiz'd in sore travail and portentous birth +(Her eye-balls flashing a pernicious glare) +Sick NATURE struggles! Hark--her pangs increase! +Her groans are horrible! But O! most fair +The promis'd Twins, she bears--EQUALITY and PEACE! + +EPODE + +I mark'd Ambition in his war-array: +I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry-- +"Ah! whither [wherefore] does the Northern Conqueress stay? +Groans not her Chariot o'er its onward way?" + Fly, mailed Monarch, fly! + Stunn'd by Death's "twice mortal" mace + No more on MURDER'S lurid face +Th' insatiate Hag shall glote with drunken eye! + Manes of th' unnumbered Slain! + Ye that gasp'd on WARSAW'S plain! + Ye that erst at ISMAIL'S tower, + When human Ruin chok'd the streams, + Fell in Conquest's glutted hour + Mid Women's shrieks, and Infants' screams; + Whose shrieks, whose screams were vain to stir + Loud-laughing, red-eyed Massacre! + Spirits of th' uncoffin'd Slain, + Sudden blasts of Triumph swelling + Oft at night, in misty train + Rush around her narrow Dwelling! + Th' exterminating Fiend is fled-- + (Foul her Life and dark her Doom!) + Mighty Army of the Dead, + Dance, like Death-fires, round her Tomb! + Then with prophetic song relate + Each some scepter'd Murderer's fate! + When shall scepter'd SLAUGHTER cease? + Awhile He crouch'd, O Victor France! + Beneath the light'ning of thy Lance, + With treacherous dalliance wooing PEACE. + But soon up-springing from his dastard trance + The boastful, bloody Son of Pride betray'd + His hatred of the blest and blessing Maid. + One cloud, O Freedom! cross'd thy orb of Light + And sure, he deem'd, that Orb was quench'd in night: +For still does MADNESS roam on GUILT'S bleak dizzy height! + + +ANTISTROPHE I + +DEPARTING YEAR! 'twas on no earthly shore +My Soul beheld thy Vision. Where, alone, +Voiceless and stern, before the Cloudy Throne +Aye MEMORY sits; there, garmented with gore, +With many an unimaginable groan +Thou storiedst thy sad Hours! Silence ensued: +Deep Silence o'er th' etherial Multitude, +Whose purple Locks with snow-white Glories shone. + Then, his eye wild ardors glancing, + From the choired Gods advancing, + the SPIRIT of the EARTH made reverence meet +And stood up beautiful before the Cloudy Seat! + + +ANTISTROPHE II + + On every Harp, on every Tongue + While the mute Enchantment hung; + Like Midnight from a thundercloud, + Spake the sudden SPIRIT loud-- + "Thou in stormy blackness throning + "Love and uncreated Light, + "By the Earth's unsolac'd groaning + "Seize thy terrors, Arm of Might! + "By Belgium's corse-impeded flood! + "By Vendee steaming Brother's blood! + "By PEACE with proffer'd insult scar'd, + "Masked hate, and envying scorn! + "By Tears of Havoc yet unborn; +"And Hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bar'd! + "But chief by Afric's wrongs + "Strange, horrible, and foul! + "By what deep Guilt belongs +"To the deaf Synod, 'full of gifts and lies!' +"By Wealth's insensate Laugh! By Torture's Howl! + "Avenger, rise! +"For ever shall the bloody Island scowl? +"For aye unbroken, shall her cruel Bow +"Shoot Famine's arrows o'er thy ravag'd World? +"Hark! how wide NATURE joins her groans below-- +"Rise, God of Nature, rise! Why sleep thy Bolts unhurl'd?" + +EPODE II + + The Voice had ceas'd, the Phantoms fled, + Yet still I gasp'd and reel'd with dread. + And even when the dream of night + Renews the vision to my sight, + Cold sweat-damps gather on my limbs, + My Ears throb hot, my eye-balls start, + My Brain with horrid tumult swims, + Wild is the Tempest of my Heart; + And my thick and struggling breath + Imitates the toil of Death! + No uglier agony confounds + The Soldier on the war-field spread, + When all foredone with toil and wounds + Death-like he dozes among heaps of Dead! + (The strife is o'er, the day-light fled, + And the Night-wind clamours hoarse; + See! the startful Wretch's head + Lies pillow'd on a Brother's Corse!) + O doom'd to fall, enslav'd and vile, + O ALBION! O my mother Isle! + Thy valleys, fair as Eden's bowers, + Glitter green with sunny showers; + Thy grassy Upland's gentle Swells + Echo to the Bleat of Flocks; + (Those grassy Hills, those glitt'ring Dells + Proudly ramparted with rocks) + And Ocean 'mid his uproar wild + Speaks safely to his Island-child. + Hence for many a fearless age + Has social Quiet lov'd thy shore; + Nor ever sworded Foeman's rage +Or sack'd thy towers, or stain'd thy fields with gore. +Disclaim'd of Heaven! mad Av'rice at thy side, +At coward distance, yet with kindling pride-- +Safe 'mid thy herds and corn-fields thou hast stood, +And join'd the yell of Famine and of Blood. +All nations curse thee: and with eager wond'ring +Shall hear DESTRUCTION like a vulture, scream! +Strange-eyed DESTRUCTION, who with many a dream +Of central flames thro' nether seas upthund'ring +Soothes her fierce solitude, yet (as she lies +Stretch'd on the marge of some fire-flashing fount +In the black chamber of a sulphur'd mount,) +If ever to her lidless dragon eyes, +O ALBION! thy predestin'd ruins rise, +The Fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap, +Mutt'ring distemper'd triumph in her charmed sleep. + Away, my soul, away! +In vain, in vain, the birds of warning sing-- +And hark! I hear the famin'd brood of prey +Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind! + Away, my Soul, away! +I unpartaking of the evil thing, +With daily prayer, and daily toil +Soliciting my scant and blameless soil, +Have wail'd my country with a loud lament. +Now I recenter my immortal mind +In the long sabbath of high self-content; +Cleans'd from the fleshly Passions that bedim +God's Image, Sister of the Seraphim. + +WITHER'S "_SUPERSEDEAS_ TO ALL THEM, WHOSE CUSTOME IT IS, WITHOUT ANY +DESERVING, TO IMPORTUNE _AUTHORS_ TO GIVE UNTO THEM THEIR _BOOKES_" + +FROM A COLLECTION OP EMBLEMS, 1635 + +(See _Letter_ 35, _page_ 123) + +It merits not your Anger, nor my Blame, +That, thus I have inscrib'd this _Epigram_: +For, they who know me, know, that, _Bookes_ thus large, +And, fraught with _Emblems_, do augment the Charge +Too much above my _Fortunes_, to afford +A _Gift_ so costly, for an _Aierie-word_: +And, I have prov'd, your _Begging-Qualitie_, +So forward, to oppresse my _Modestie_; +That, for my future ease, it seemeth fit, +To take some Order, for preventing it. +And, peradventure, other Authors may, +Find Cause to thanke me for't, another day. + These many years, it hath your _Custom_ bin, +That, when in my possession, you have seene +A _Volume_, of mine owne, you did no more, +But, _Aske_ and _Take_; As if you thought my store +Encreast, without my Cost; And, that, by _Giving_, +(Both _Paines_ and Charges too) I got my living; +Or, that, I find the _Paper_ and the _Printing_, +As easie to me, as the _Bookes_ Inventing. + If, of my _Studies_, no esteeme you have, +You, then abuse the _Courtesies_ you crave; +And, are _Unthankfull_. If you prize them ought, +Why should my _Labour_, not enough be thought, +Unlesse, I adde _Expences_ to my paines? +The _Stationer_, affoords for little Gaines, +The _Bookes_ you crave: And, He, as well as I +Might give away, what you repine to buy: +For, what hee _Gives_, doth onely _Mony_ Cost, +In mine, both _Mony_, _Time_, and _Wit_ is lost. +What I shall Give, and what I have bestow'd +On Friends, to whom, I _Love_, or _Service_ ow'd, +I grudge not; And, I thinke it is from them, +Sufficient, that such _Gifts_ they do esteeme: +Yea, and, it is a _Favour_ too, when they +Will take these _Trifles_, my large _Dues_ to pay; +(Or, Aske them at my hands, when I forget, +That, I am to their _Love_, so much in debt.) + But, this inferres not, that, I should bestow +The like on all men, who my _Name_ do know; +Or, have the Face to aske: For, then, I might, +Of _Wit_ and _Mony_, soone be begger'd, quite. + So much, already, hath beene _Beg'd_ away, +(For which, I neither had, nor looke for pay) +As being valu'd at the common Rate, +Had rais'd, _Five hundred Crownes_, in my Estate. +Which, (if I may confesse it) signifies, +That, I was farre more _Liberall_, than _Wise_. + But, for the time to come, resolv'd I am, +That, till without denyall (or just blame) +I may of those, who _Cloth_ and _Clothes_ do make, +(As oft as I shall need them) _Aske_, and _Take_; +You shall no more befoole me. Therfore, _Pray_ +_Be Answer'd_; And, henceforward, keepe away. + +PASSAGE FROM GEORGE DYER'S "POETIC SYMPATHIES" + +FROM _POEMS_, 1800 + +(_See Letter_ 83, _page_ 218) + +Yet, Muse of Shakspeare[1], whither wouldst thou fly, +With hurried step, and dove-like trembling eye? +Thou, as from heav'n, that couldst each grace dispense, +Fancy's rich stream, and all the stores of sense; +Give to each virtue face and form divine, +Make dulness feel, and vulgar souls refine, +Wake all the passions into restless life, +Now calm to softness, and now rouze to strife? + +Sick of misjudging, that no sense can hit, +Scar'd by the jargon of unmeaning wit, +The senseless splendour of the tawdry stage[2], +The loud long plaudits of a trifling age, +Where dost thou wander? Exil'd in disgrace, +Find'st thou in foreign realms some happier place[3]? +Or dost thou still though banish'd from the town, +In Britain love to linger, though unknown? +Light Hymen's torch through ev'ry blooming grove,[4] +And tinge each flow'ret with the blush of love? +Sing winter, summer-sweets, the vernal air, +Or the soft Sofa, to delight the fair[5]? +Laugh, e'en at kings, and mock each prudish rule, +The merry motley priest of ridicule[6]? +With modest pencil paint the vernal scene, +The rustic lovers, and the village green? +Bid Mem'ry, magic child, resume his toy, +And Hope's fond vot'ry seize the distant joy[7]? + +Or dost thou soar, in youthful ardour strong, +And bid some female hero live in song[8]? +Teach fancy how through nature's walks to stray, +And wake, to simpler theme, the lyric lay[9]? +Or steal from beauty's lip th' ambrosial kiss, +Paint the domestic grief, or social bliss[10]? +With patient step now tread o'er rock and hill, +Gaze on rough ocean, track the babbling rill[11], +Then rapt in thought, with strong poetic eye, +Read the great movement of the mighty sky? + +Or wilt thou spread the light of Leo's age, +And smooth, as woman's guide, Tansillo's page[12]? +Till pleas'd, you make in fair translated song, +Odin descend, and rouse the fairy throng[13]? +Recall, employment sweet, thy youthful day, +Then wake, at Mithra's call, the mystic lay[14]? +Unfold the Paradise of ancient lore[15], +Or mark the shipwreck from the sounding shore? +Now love to linger in the daisied vale, +Then rise sublime in legendary tale[16]? +Or, faithful still to nature's sober joy, +Smile on the labours of some Farmer's Boy[17]? +Or e'en regardless of the poet's praise, +Deck the fair magazine with blooming lays[18]? +Oh! sweetest muse, oh, haste thy wish'd return, +See genius droop, and bright-ey'd fancy mourn, +Recall to nature's charms an English stage, +The guard and glory of a nobler age. + +[Footnote 1: It is not meant to say, that even Shakspeare followed +invariably a correct and chastized taste, or that he never purchased +public applause by offering incense at the shrine of public taste. +Voltaire, in his Essays on Dramatic Poetry, has carried the matter too +far; but in many respects his reflections are unquestionably just. In +delineating human characters and passions, and in the display of the +sublimer excellencies of poetry, Shakspeare was unrivalled. + +There he our fancy of itself bereaving, +Did make us marble with too much conceiving. +MILTON'S SONNET TO SHAKSPEARE.] + +[Footnote 2: Pomp and splendour a poor substitute for genius.] + +[Footnote 3: The dramatic muse seems of late years to have taken her +residence in Germany. Schiller, Kotzebue, and Goethé, possess great +merit both for passion and sentiment, and the English nation have done +them justice. One or two principles which the French and English critics +had too implicitly followed from Aristotle, are indeed not adopted, but +have been, I hope, successfully, counteracted by these writers; yet are +these dramatists characterised by a wildness bordering on extravagance, +attendant on a state of half-civilization. Schiller and Kotzebue, amid +some faults, possess great excellencies. + +With respect to England, it has long been noticed by very intelligent +observers, that the dramatic taste of the present age is vitiated. Pope, +who directed very powerful satire against the stage in his time, makes +Dulness say in general terms, + +Contending theatres our empire raise, +Alike their censure, and alike their praise. + +It would be the highest arrogance in me to make such an assertion, with +my slender knowledge in these matters; ready too, as I am, to admire +some excellent pieces that have fallen in my way; and to affirm, that +there is by no means a deficiency of poetic talent in England. + +Aristotle observes, that all the parts of the Epic poet are to be found +in tragedy, and, consequently, that this species of writing is, of all +others, most interesting to men of talents. [Greek: Peri ooiaetikaes] +And baron Kotzebue thinks the theatre the best school of instruction, +both in morals and taste, even for children; and that better effects are +produced by a play, than by a sermon. See his life, written by himself, +just translated by Anne Plumptre. + +How much then is it to be wished, that so admirable a mean of amusement +and instruction might be advanced to its true point of excellence! But +the principles laid down by Bishop HURD, though calculated to advance +the love of splendour, will not, I suspect, advance the TRUE PROVINCE OF +THE DRAMA.] + +[Footnote 4: Loves of the Plants, by Dr. Darwin.] + +[Footnote 5: The Task, by Cowper; written at the request of a lady. The +introductory poem is entitled, The Sofa.] + +[Footnote 6: Dr. Walcot [Wolcot: Peter Pindar], whose poetry is of a +farcical and humorous character.] + +[Footnote 7: The _Pleasures of Memory_, by Rogers; and the _Pleasures of +Hope_, by Campbell.] + +[Footnote 8: Joan of Arc, by Southey;--a volume of poems with an +introductory sonnet to Mary Wolstonecraft, and a poem, on the praise of +woman, breathes the same spirit.] + +[Footnote 9: Alludes to the character of a volume of poems, entitled +Lyrical Ballads. Under this head also should be mentioned Smythe's +English Lyrics.] + +[Footnote 10: Characteristic of a volume of poems, the joint production +of Coleridge, Lloyd, and Lamb.] + +[Footnote 11: Descriptive Poems, such as Leusden hill, by Thomas Crowe; +and the Malvern hills, by Joseph Cottle.] + +[Footnote 12: Roscoe's Reign of Leo de Medici is interspersed with +poetry. Roscoe has also translated, THE NURSE, a poem, from the Italian +of Luigi Tansillo.] + +[Footnote 13: Icelandic poetry, or the Edda of Sæmund, translated by +Amos Cottle; and the Oberon of Wieland, by Sotheby.] + +[Footnote 14: Thomas Maurice, the author of the Indian Antiquities, is +republishing his poems; the Song to Mithra is in the third volume of +Indian Antiquities.] + +[Footnote 15: The Paradise of Taste, and Pictures of Poetry, by +Alexander Thomson.] + +[Footnote 16: There is a tale of this character by Dr. Aikin, and the +Hermit of Warkworth, by Bishop Percy. It will please the friends of +taste to hear, that Cartwright's Armine and Elvira, which has been long +out of print, is now republishing.] + +[Footnote 17: The Farmer's Boy, a poem just published, on THE SEASONS, +by Robert Bloomfield.] + +[Footnote 18: Many of the anonymous poetical pieces thrown into +magazines, possess poetical merit. Those of a young lady in the Monthly +Magazine, will, I hope, in time be more generally known. Those of +Rushton, of Liverpool, will also, I hope, be published by some judicious +friend:--this worthy man is a bookseller, who has been afflicted with +blindness from his youth.] + + + +HAYDON'S PARTY FROM THE _LIFE OF BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON_, BY TOM TAYLOR + +(_See Letter_ 241, _page_ 537) + +On December 28th the immortal dinner came off in my painting-room, with +Jerusalem towering up behind us as a background. Wordsworth was in fine +cue, and we had a glorious set-to,--on Homer, Shakespeare, Milton and +Virgil. Lamb got exceedingly merry and exquisitely witty; and his fun in +the midst of Wordsworth's solemn intonations of oratory was like the +sarcasm and wit of the fool in the intervals of Lear's passion. He made +a speech and voted me absent, and made them drink my health. "Now," said +Lamb, "you old lake poet, you rascally poet, why do you call Voltaire +dull?" We all defended Wordsworth, and affirmed there was a state of +mind when Voltaire would be dull. "Well," said Lamb, "here's +Voltaire--the Messiah of the French nation, and a very proper one too." + +He then, in a strain of humour beyond description, abused me for putting +Newton's head into my picture,--"a fellow," said he, "who believed +nothing unless it was as clear as the three sides of a triangle." And +then he and Keats agreed he had destroyed all the poetry of the rainbow +by reducing it to the prismatic colours. It was impossible to resist +him, and we all drank "Newton's health, and confusion to mathematics." +It was delightful to see the good-humour of Wordsworth in giving in to +all our frolics without affectation and laughing as heartily as the best +of us. + +By this time other friends joined, amongst them poor Ritchie who was +going to penetrate by Fezzan to Timbuctoo. I introduced him to all as "a +gentleman going to Africa." Lamb seemed to take no notice; but all of a +sudden he roared out, "Which is the gentleman we are going to lose?" We +than drank the victim's health, in which Ritchie joined. + +In the morning of this delightful day, a gentleman, a perfect stranger, +had called on me. He said he knew my friends, had an enthusiasm for +Wordsworth and begged I would procure him the happiness of an +introduction. He told me he was a comptroller of stamps, and often had +correspondence with the poet. I thought it a liberty; but still, as he +seemed a gentleman, I told him he might come. + +When we retired to tea we found the comptroller. In introducing him to +Wordsworth I forgot to say who he was. After a little time the +comptroller looked down, looked up and said to Wordsworth, "Don't you +think, sir, Milton was a great genius?" Keats looked at me, Wordsworth +looked at the comptroller. Lamb who was dozing by the fire turned round +and said, "Pray, sir, did you say Milton was a great genius?" "No, sir; +I asked Mr. Wordsworth if he were not." "Oh," said Lamb, "then you are a +silly fellow." "Charles! my dear Charles!" said Wordsworth; but Lamb, +perfectly innocent of the confusion he had created, was off again by the +fire. + +After an awful pause the comptroller said, "Don't you think Newton a +great genius?" I could not stand it any longer. Keats put his head into +my books. Ritchie squeezed in a laugh. Wordsworth seemed asking himself, +"Who is this?" Lamb got up, and taking a candle, said, "Sir, will you +allow me to look at your phrenological development?" He then turned his +back on the poor man, and at every question of the comptroller he +chaunted-- + +"Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John +Went to bed with his breeches on." + +The man in office, finding Wordsworth did not know who he was, said in a +spasmodic and half-chuckling anticipation of assured victory, "I have +had the honour of some correspondence with you, Mr. Wordsworth." "With +me, sir?" said Wordsworth, "not that I remember." "Don't you, sir? I am +a comptroller of stamps." There was a dead silence;--the comptroller +evidently thinking that was enough. While we were waiting for +Wordsworth's reply, Lamb sung out + +"Hey diddle diddle, +The cat and the fiddle." + +"My dear Charles!" said Wordsworth,-- + +"Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John," + +chaunted Lamb, and then rising, exclaimed, "Do let me have another look +at that gentleman's organs." Keats and I hurried Lamb into the +painting-room, shut the door and gave way to inextinguishable laughter. +Monkhouse followed and tried to get Lamb away. We went back, but the +comptroller was irreconcilable. We soothed and smiled and asked him to +supper. He stayed though his dignity was sorely affected. However, being +a good-natured man, we parted all in good-humour, and no ill effects +followed. + +All the while, until Monkhouse succeeded, we could hear Lamb struggling +in the painting-room and calling at intervals, "Who is that fellow? +Allow me to see his organs once more." + +It was indeed an immortal evening. Wordsworth's fine intonation as he +quoted Milton and Virgil, Keats' eager inspired look, Lamb's quaint +sparkle of lambent humour, so speeded the stream of conversation, that +in my life I never passed a more delightful time. All our fun was within +bounds. Not a word passed that an apostle might not have listened to. It +was a night worthy of the Elizabethan age, and my solemn Jerusalem +flashing up by the flame of the fire, with Christ hanging over us like a +vision, all made up a picture which will long glow upon-- + +"that inward eye +Which is the bliss of solitude." + +Keats made Ritchie promise he would carry his Endymion to the great +desert of Sahara and fling it in the midst. + +Poor Ritchie went to Africa, and died, as Lamb foresaw, in 1819. Keats +died in 1821, at Rome. C. Lamb is gone, joking to the last. Monkhouse is +dead, and Wordsworth and I are the only two now living (1841) of that +glorious party. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, +Vol. 5, by Edited by E. V. Lucas + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS CHARLES AND MARY LAMB *** + +This file should be named 9365-8.txt or 9365-8.zip + +Produced by Keren Vergon, David King and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. 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