Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2008 witin funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/cliarleslaworksofOOIambrich ^, //'' '/ l//^ .^/; r,iii(j,K \i)t ■' THE WORKS OF CHARLES LAMB. TO WHICH ARE PREPIXED, HIS LETTERS AND A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE, BY THOMAS NOON TALFUURD, OSK OF HIS EXKCUTORS. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. NEW-YORK : HARPER &c BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF- ST. 184 5. C ON TE NTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. PAGE Dedication 8 Preface 9 CHAPTER I. [1775 to 1796.] Lamb's Parentage, Schooldays, and Youth, to the Commencement of his Correspondence with Coleridge 11 CHAPTER II. [1796.] Letters to Coleridge 22 "^ CHAPTER IIL [1797.] Letters to Coleridge 36 CHAPTER IV. 1 [1798.] ^Lamb's Literary Efforts and Correspondence with Southey . . 51 CHAPTER V. "~*" [1799, 1800.] Letters to Southey, Coleridge, Manning, and Wordsworth . . 67 CHAPTER VI. [1800.] Letters to Manning, after Lamb's removal to the Temple ... 90 CHAPTER VIL [1801 to 1804.] John Woodvil Rejected, Published, and Reviewed.— Letters to Man- ning, Wordsworth, and Coleridge 104 CHAPTER Vm. [180-1 to 1806.] Letters to Manning, Wordsworth, Rickman, and Hazlitt.— " Mr. H." written, accepted, damned 127 CHAPTER IX. [1807 to 1814.] Letters to Manning, Montague, Wordsworth, and Coleridge , . 148 4 CONTENTS. PA6B CHAPTER X. [1815 to 1817.] Letters to Wordsworth, Southey, and Manning 165 CHAPTER XI. [1818 to 1820.] Letters to Mrs. Wordsworth, Southey, Manning, and Coleridge . 183 CHAPTER Xn. [1820 to 1823.] Letters to Wordsworth, Coleridge, Field, Wilson, and Barton . . 194 CHAPTER XUL [1823.] Lamb's Controversy with Southey 211 CHAPTER XIV. [1823 to 1825.] Letters to Ainsworth, Barton, and Coleridge 230 CHAPTER XV. [1825] Lamb's Emancipation from the India House 245 CHAPTER XVI. [182G to 1828.] Letters to Robinson, Carey, Coleridge, Patmore, Procter, and Barton 254 CHAPTER XVII. [1829, 1830.] Letters to Robinson, Procter, Barton, Wilson, Oilman, Wordsworth, and Dyer 271 CHAPTER XVIII. [18.30 to 1834. Lamb's last Letters and Death 296 POEMS. Hester 331 'I'o Charles Lloyd, an Unexpected Visiter 332 Tiio Three Friends 3.33 To a Rivf-r in which a Child was drowned 338 The Old Familiar Faces 338 A Vision of Heppntance 339 Queen Oriana's Dream . 341 A Ballad, noting the Difference of Rich and Poor, in the ways of a rich Noble's Palace and a poor Workhouse .... 342 Hypochondriacus 343 A Farewell to Tobacco 344 To T. L. H., a Child 348 Ballad, from the German 349 Lines on the celebrated Picture by Leonardo da Vinci, called the Vir- gin of the Rocks . ; 350 CONTENTS. • PAGE. SONNETS. I. To Miss Kelly . . 351 II. On the Sight of Swans in Kensington Garden . . . . 351 III 352 IV 352 V" ' 353 Vl' ' 353 VH.' '. 354 V) II. The Family Name 354 IX. To John Lamb, Esq., of the South Sea House . . . . 355 X 355 XI .356 BLANK VERSE. Childhood - 357 The Grandame • 357 The Sabbath Bells 358 Fancy employed on Divine Subjects 359 Composed at Midnight 359 John Woodvil, a Tragedy 361 The Witch, a Dramatic Sketch of the Seventeenth Century . . 397 ALBUM VERSES, &c. In the Album of a Clergyman's Lady 401 In the Autograph Book of Mrs. Sergeant W .... 401 In the Album of Edith S 402 To Dora W , on being asked by her Father to write in her Album 402 In the Album of Rotha Q 403 In the Album of Catharine Orkney 403 In the Album of Lucy Barton 404 In the Album of Miss 405 In the Album of Mrs. Jane Towers 405 In my own Album 406 Angel Help 407 The Christening 408 (>n an Infant dying as soon as Born 408 1 he Young Catechist 410 She is Gomg 411 To a Young Friend, on her Twenty-first Birthday . . . . 411 Harmony in Unlikeness • . 412 Written at Cambridge 413 To a celebrated Female Performer in ihe " Blind Boy'-' . . . 413 Work 414 Leisure 414 To Samuel Rogers, Esq 415 The Gipsy's Malison 415 To the Author of Poems published under the Name of Barry Corn- wall 416 To J. S. Knowles, Esq., on his Tragedy of Virginius .... 416 To the Editor of the " Every day Book" 417 To T. Stothard, E.sq., on his Illustrations of the Poems of Mr. Rogers 418 To a Friend on his Marriage 418 The Self-enchanted 419 To Louisa -M , whom I used to call " Monkey" .... 420 Oh lift with Reverent hand 420 On a Sepulchral Statue of an Infant Sleeping 421 The Rival Bells 421 Epitaph on a Dog .......... 422 The Ballad-singers 423 To David Cook, of the Parish of Saint Margaret's, Westminster, Watchman 424 CONTENTS. On a Deaf and Dumb Artist . Newton's Principia The Housekeeper The Female Orators Phidaric Ode to the Tread-mill Going or Gone Free Thoughts on several Eminent Composers The Wife's Trial ; or, the Intruding Widow PAGE 426 426 427 427 428 430 433 43.''i THE LETTERS CHARLES LAMB WITH A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE, BY THOMAS NOON TALFOURD, ONK OF HIS EXECUTORS. TO MARY ANNE LAMB ^Tfjese Sletters, THE MEMORIALS OF MANY YEARS WHICH SHE SPENT WITH THE WRITER IN UNDIVIDED AFFECTION ; OF THE SORROWS AND THE JOYS SHE SHARED; OF THE GENIUS WHICH SHE CHERISHED; AND OF THE EXCELLENCES WHICH SHE BEST KNEW, AKE RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED, BY THE EDITOR. PREFACE. The share of the editor in these volumes can scarcely be regarded too slightly. The successive publications of Lamb's works form almost the only events of his life which can be recorded ; and upon these criticism has been nearly exhausted. Little, therefore, was necessary to accompany the letters, except such thread of narrative as njight connect them together, and such explanations as might render their allusions generally understood. The reader's gratitude for the pleasure which he will derive from these memorials of one of the most delightful of Englisli writers, is wholly due to his correspondents, who have kindly intrusted the precious relics to the care of the editor, and have permitted them to be given to the world ; and to Mr. Moxon, by whose interest and zeal they have been chiefly collected. He may be allowed to express his personal sense of the honour which he has re- ceived in such trust from men, some of whom are among the greatest of England's living authors : to Wordsworth, Southey, Manning, Barton, Procter, Oilman, Palmore, Walter Wilson, Field, Robinson, Dyer, Carey, Ains- worth, to Mr. Green, the executor of Coleridge, and to the surviving relatives of Hazlitt. He is also most grate- ful to Lamb's esteemed schoolfellow, Mr. Le Grice, for supplying an interesting part of his history, and to Mr. Montague and Miss Beetham for the remembered snatches of [lis conversation which accompany the closing chapter. Of the few additional facts of Lamb's history, the chief have been supplied by Mr. Moxon, in whose welfare he took a most affectionate interest to the close of his life, and who has devoted some beautiful sonnets to his memory. The recentness of the period of some of the letters has X PREFACE. rendered it necessary to omit many portions of them, m which the humour and beauty are interwoven with per- sonal references, which, although wholly free from any- thing which, rightly understood, could give pain to any human being, touch on subjects too sacred for public ex- posure. Some of the personal allusions which have been retained may seem, perhaps, too free to a stranger ; but they have been retained only in cases in which the editor is well assured the parties would be rather gratified than displeased at seeing their names connected in lifelike asso- ciation with one so dear to their memories. The italics and the capitals are invariably those indi- cated by the MSS. It is to be regretted that in the printed letters the reader must lose the curious varieties of writing with which the originals abound, and which are scrupulously adapted to the subjects. The letters are usually undated. Where the date occurs it has gen- erally been given ; and much trouble has been necessary to assign to many of the letters (the postmarks of which are not legible) their proper place, and perhaps not always with complete success. Many letters yet remain unpublished, which will fur- ther illustrate the character of Mr. Lamb, but which must be reserved for a future time, when the editor hopes to do more justice to his own sense of the genius and the ex- cellences of his friend than it has been possible for him to accomplish in these volumes. T. N. T. Russell Square, 26th June, 1837. L E T T E R S, & c, OF CHARLES LAMB. CHAPTER I. [1775 to 1796.] Lamb's Parentage, Schooldays, and Youth, to the Commencement of his Correspondence with Coleridge. Charles Lamb was bom on the 18th February, 1775, in Crown-ofRce Row, in the Inner Temple, where he spent the first seven years of his life. His parents were in a humble station, but they were endued with sentiments and with man- ners which might well become the gentlest blood ; and for- tune, which had denied them wealth, enabled them to bestow on their children some of the happiest intellectual advantages which wealth ever confers. His father, Mr. John Lamb, who came up a little boy from Lincoln, fortunately, both for him- self and his master, entered into the service of Mr. Salt, one of the benchers of the Inner Temple, a widower, who, growing old within its precincts, was enabled to appreciate and to re- ward his devotedness and intelligence ; and to whom he be- came, in the language of his son, " his clerk, his good servant, his dresser, his friend, his flapper, his guide, stopwatch, audi- tor, treasurer."* Although contented with his lot, and dis- * Lamb has given characters of his father (under the name of Lovel) and of Mr. Salt in one of the most exquisite of all the Essays of P^.lia, " The (lid Benchers of the Inner Temple." Of Lovel he says. " He was a man of an in- corrigible and losing honesty. A good fellow withal, and could .smite. In the cause of the oppressed he never considered inequalities, or calculated the number of his opponents. He once wrested a sword out of tlijo hand uf a man of quality that had drawn upon him, and pommelled him severely with the hilt of it. The sword.sman had offered insult to a female, an occasion upon which no odds against him could have prevented the interference of Lovel. He would stand next day bareheaded to the same person, modestly to excuse nis interference ; for L. never forgot rank, where something better was not concerned. L. was the liveliest little follow breathing; had a face as gay as Garrick'.s, who ti he was said greatly to resemble; nossesseil a fine turn for humorous poetry — next to Swift and Prior ; moulded heads in clay or plastei 12 PARENTAGE, SCHOOLDAYS, AND YOUTH. charging its duties with the most patient assiduity, he was not without Hterary ambition ; and, having written some occa- sional verses to grace the festivities of a benefit society of which he was a member, was encouraged by his brother members to pubUsh, in a thin quarto, " Poetical Pieces on several occasions." This volume contains a lively picture of the life of a lady's footman of the last century ; the " History of Joseph," told in well-measured, heroic couplets ; and a pleasant piece after the manner of " Gay's Fables," entitled the " Sparrow's Wedding," which was the author's favourite, and which, when he fell into the dotage of age, he delighted to hear Charles read.* His wife was a woman of appearance so matronly and commanding that, according to the recollec- tion of one of Lamb's dearest schoolmates, " she might be taken for a sister of Mrs. Siddons." This excellent couple were blessed with three children, John, Mary, and Charles ; John being twelve and Mary ten years older than Charles. John, who is vividly described in the essays of Elia, entitled " My Relations," under the name of James Elia, rose to fill a lucrative office in the South Sea House, and died a few years ago, having to the last fulfilled the affectionate injunction of Charles to " keep the elder brother up in state." Mary (the Bridget of the same essay) still survives, to mourn the sever- ance of a life-long association, as free from every alloy of selfishness, as remarkable for moral beauty, as this world ever witnessed in brother and sister. of Paris to admiration, by dint of natural genius merely ; turned cribbage- boards and such small toys to perfection ; took a hand at quadrille or bowls with equal facility ; made punch better than any man of his degree in Eng- land ; had the merriest quips and conceits ; and was altogether as brimful of rogueries and inventions as you could desire. He was a brother of the angle, moreover, and just such a free, hearty, honest companion as Mr. Izaak Wal- ton would have chosen to go a fishing with. — Prose Works, vol. i., p. 104. ■*■ The following Utile poem, entitled " A Letter from a Child to its Grand- mother," written by Mr. John Lamb for his eldest son, though possessing no merit beyond simplicity of expression, may show the manner in which he en deavoured to discharge his parental duties : — " Dear Grandam, Pray to God to bless Your grandson dear with happiness ; That, as 1 do advance each year, I may be taught my God to fear ; My little frame from passion free, To man's estate from infancy ; From vice, tJiat turns a youth aside, And to have wisdom for my guide ; That I may neither He nor swear. But in the path of virtue steer; My actions generous, firm, and just, Be always faithful to my trust ; And thee the Lord will ever bless. Your grandson dear, John L , the Less. PARENTAGE, SCHOOLDAYS, AND YOUTH. 13 On the 9th of October, 1782, when Charles Lamb had at- tained the age of seven, he was presented to the school of Christ's Hospital by Timothy Yeates, Esq., governor, as " the son of John Lamb, scrivener, and Elizabeth his wife," and remained a scholar of that noble establishment till he had en- tered into his fifteenth year. Small of stature, delicate of frame, and constitutionally nervous and timid, he would seem unfit- ted to encounter the discipline of a school formed to restram some hundreds of lads in the heart of the metropolis, or to fight his way among them. But the sweetness of his dispo- sition won him favour from all ; and although the antique pe- culiarities of the school tinged his opening imagination, they did not sadden his childhood. One of his schoolfellows, of whose genial qualities he has made affectionate mention in his '• Recollections of Christ's Hospital," Charles V. Le Grice, now of Treriefe, near Penzance, has supplied me with some particulars of his schooldays, for which friends of a later date will be grateful. " Lamb," says Mr. Le Grice, " was an amiable, gentle boy, very sensible, and keenly observing, in- dulged by his schoolfellows and by his master on account of his infirmity of speech. His countenance was mild ; his complexion clear brown, with an expression which might lead you to think that he was of Jewish descent. His eyes were not each of the same colour : one was hazel, the other had specks of gray in the iris, mingled as we see red spots in the bloodstone. His step was plantigrade, which made his walk slow and peculiar, adding to the staid appearance of his fig- ure. I never heard his name mentioned without the addition of Charles, although, as there was no other boy of the name of Lamb, the addition was unnecessary ; but there was an im- plied kindness in it, and it was a proof that his gentle man- ners excited that kindness. '•His delicate frame and his difficulty of utterance, which was increased by agitation, unfitted him for joining in any boisterous sport. Vhe description which he gives in his ' Recollections of Christ's Hospital' of the habits and feel- ings of the schoolboy, is a true one in general, but is more particularly a delineation of himself — the feelings were all in his own heart — the portrait was his own : ' While others were all fire and play, he stole along with all the self-concen- tration of a young monk.' These habits and feelings were awakened and cherished in him by peculiar circumstances ; he had been born and bred in the Inner Temple ; and his pa- rents continued to reside there while he was at school, so that he passed from cloister to cloister, and this was all the change his young mind ever knew. On every half-holyday (and there 2 14 PARENTAGE, SCHOOLDAYS, AND YOUTH. were two in the week) in ten minutes he was in the gardens, on the terrace, or at the fountain of the Temple : here was his home ; here his recreation; and the influence they had on his infant mind is vividly shown in his description of the old Benchers. He says, ' I was born and passed the first seven years of my life in the Temple ;' he might have added, that here he passed a great portion of the second seven years of his life, a portion which mixed itself with all his habits and enjoyments, and gave a bias to the whole. Here he found a happy home, affectionate parents, and a sister who watched over him to the latest hour of his existence (God be with her !) with the tenderest solici- tude ; and here he had access to the library of Mr. Salt, one of the benchers, to whose memory his pen has given in re- turn for this and greater favours — I do not think it extravagant to say — immortality. To use his own language, ' Here he was tumbled into a spacious closet of good old English read- ing, where he browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage.' He applied these words to his sister ; but there is no doubt they 'browsed' together ; they had walked hand in hand from a time ' extending beyond the period of their mem- ory.' " When Lamb left school, he was in the lower division of the second class — which, in the language of the scliool, is termed " being in Greek, but not Deputy Grecian." He had read Virgil, Sallust, Terence, selections from Lucian's Dia- logues, and Xenophon ; and had evinced considerable skill in the niceties of Latin composition, both in prose and verse. His docility and aptitude for the attainment of classical knowledge would have ensured him an exhibition ; but to this the impediment in his speech proved an insuperable ob- stacle. The exhibitions were given under the implied, if not expressed condition of entering into the church ; the whole course of education was preparatory to that end ; and, there- fore, Lamb, who was unfitted by nature for the clerical pro- fession, was not adopted into the class which led to it, and left school to pursue the uncongenial labour of the " desk's dull wood." To this apparently hard lot he submitted with cheerfulness, and saw his schoolfellows of his own standing- depart, one after another, for the University, without a mur- mur. 'I'his acquiescence in his different fortune must have been a hard trial for the sweetness of his disposition ; as he always, in after life, regarded the ancient seats of learnino- with the fondness of one who had been hardly divorced from them. He delighted, when other duties did not hinder, to pass his vacations in their neighbourhood, and indulge in that fancied association with them which he has so beautifully PARENTAGE, SCHOOLDAYS, AND YOUTH. 15 mirrored in his " Sonnets written at Cambridge."* What worldly success can, indeed, ever compensate for the want of timely nurture beneath the shade of one of these venerable institutions ; for the sense of antiquity shading, not check- ing, the joyous impulses of opening manhood ; for the refine- ment and the grace there interfused into tlie long labour of ambitious study ; for young friendships consecrated by the associations of long past time ; and for liberal emulation, crowned by successes restrained from ungenerous and selfish pride by palpable symbols of the genius and the learning of ages ? On 23d November, 1789, Lamb finally left Christ's Hos- pital for the abode of his parents, who still resided in the Temple. At first he was employed in the South Sea House, under his brother John ; but, on 5th of Aj)ril, 1792, he ob- tained an appointment in the accountant's ofiice of the East India Company. His salary, though then small, was a wel- come addition to the scanty means of his parents ; who now were unable, by their own exertions, to increase it, his mother being in ill health, which confined her to her bed, and his father sinking into dotage. On their comfort, however, this, and, what was more precious to him, his little leisure, were freely bestowed ; and his recreations were confined tf> a delightful visit to the two shilling gallery of the theatre, hi company with his sister, and an occasional supper with some of his schoolmates, when in town, from Cambridge. On one of the.se latter occasions he obtained the appellation of Gmj, by which he was always called among them; but of which few of his late friends heard till after his death. " In the first year of his clerkship," says Mr. Le Grice, in the com- munication with which he favoured me, " Lamb spent the evening of the 5th November with some of his former school- fellows, who, being amused with the particularly large and flapping brim of his round hat, pinned it up on the sides in the form of a cocked-hat. Lamb made no alteration in it, ♦ I was not train'd in academic bowers, And to those learned streanns I nothing owe "Which copious from those fair twin founts do flow ; Mine have been anythmg but studious hours. Yet can I fancy wandering mid thy towers Myself, a nursling, Granla, of thy lap ; My brow seems tightening with the drjctor's cap, And I walk gown'd : feel unusual powers. Strange forms of logic clothe my admiring speech ; Old Kama's t'host is busy at my brain ; And my scull teems with notions infinite. Be still, ye reed of Comus, while I teach Tniths which transcend the searching schoolman's vein, And half had stagger'd that stout Stagynte ' 16 PARENTAGE, SCHOOLDAYS, AND YOUTH. but walked home in his usual sauntering gait towards the Temple. As he was going down Ludgate-hill, some gay young men, who seemed not to have passed the London Tavern without resting, exclaimed, ' the veritable Guy ! — no man of straw !' and with this exclamation they took him up, making a chair with their arms, carried him, seated him on a post in St. Paul's churchyard, and there left him. This story Lamb told so seriously that the truth of it was never doubted. He wore his three-cornered hat many evenings, and retained the name of Guy ever after. Like Nym, he quietly sympa- thized in the fun, and seemed to say, ' that was the humour of it.' A clergyman of the city lately wrote to me, ' I have no recollection of Lamb. There was a gentleman called Guy, to whom you once introduced me, and with whom 1 have oc- casionally interchanged nods for more than thirty years ; but how is it that I never met Mr. Lamb ? If I was ever intro- duced to him, I wonder that we never came in contact during my residence for ten years in Edmonton.' Imagine this gen- tleman's surprise when I informed him that his nods to Mr. Guy had been constantly reciprocated by Mr. Lamb !" During tliese years Lamb's most frequent companion was James White, or rather Jem White, as he always called him. Lamb always insisted that for hearty joyous humour, tinged with Shakspearian fancy, Jem never had an equal. " Jem White !" said he to Mr. Le Grice, when they met for the last time, after many years' absence, at the Bell at Edmonton, in June, 1833, " there never was his like ! We never shall see such days as those in which Jem flourished !" All that now remains of Jem is the celebration of the suppers which he gave the young chimney-sweepers, in tlie Elia of his friend, and a thin duodecimo volume, which he published in 1796, under the title of the " Letters of Sir John FalstafF, with a dedication (printed in black letter) to Master Samuel Ire- launde," which those who knew Lamb at the time believed to be his. "White's Letters," said Lamb, in a letter to a friend about this time, " are near publication. His frontis- piece is a good conceit ; Sir .Tohn learning to dance to please Madame Page, in dress of doublet, &c., from the upper half, and modern pantaloons, with shoes of the eighteenth century, from the lower half, and the whole work is full of oroodlv quips and rare fancies, ' all deeply masked like hoar anti- qiiily' — much superior to Dr. Kendrick's ' Falstaff's Wed- ding.' " The work was neglected, although Lamb exerted all the influence he subsequently acquired with more popular writers to obtain for it favourable notices, as will be seen from various passages in his letters. He stuck, however, PARENTAGE, SCHOOLDAYS, AND YOUTH. 17 gallantly by his favourite protege ; and even when he could little afford to disburse sixpence, he made a point of buying a copy of the book whenever he discovered one amid the re- fuse of a bookseller's stall, and would present it to a friend in the hope of making a convert. He gave me one of these copies soon after I became acquainted with him, stating that he had purchased it in the morning for sixpence, and assuring me I should enjoy a rare treat in the perusal ; but, if I must confess the truth, the mask of quaintness was so closely worn, that it nearly concealed the humour. To Lamb it was, doubtless, vivihed by the eye and voice of his old boon companion, forming to him an undying commentary, without which it was comparatively spiritless. Alas ! how many even of his own most delicate fancies, rich as they are in feeling and in wisdom, will be lost to those who have not present to them the sweet broken accents, and the half play- ful, half melancholy smile of the writer ! But if Jem White was the companion of his lighter moods, the friend of his serious thoughts was a person of far nobler powers — Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It was his good fortune to be the schoolfellow of that extraordinary man ; and if no particular intimacy had been formed between them at Christ's Hospital, a foundation was there laid for a friendship to which the world is probably indebted for all that Lamb has added to its sources of pleasure. Junior to Coleridge by two years, and far inferior to him in all scholastic acquirements. Lamb had listend to the rich discourse of " the inspired charity-boy" with a wondering delight, pure from all envy, and, it may be, enhanced by his sense of his own feebleness and difficulty at expression. While Coleridge remained at the University they met occasionally on his visits to London ; and when he left it, and came to town, full of mantling hopes and glorious schemes. Lamb became his admiring disciple. The scene of these happy meetings was a little public-house, called the Salutation and Cat, in the neighbourhood of Smithfield, where they used to sup, and remain long after they had "heard the chimes of midnight." 'J'here they discoursed of Bowles, who was the god of Coleridge's poetical idolatry, and of Burns and Cowper, who, of recent poets, in that season of comparative barren- ness, had made the deepest impression on Lamb. There Coleridge talked of " Fate, freewill, foreknowledge absolute" to one who desired " to fmd no end" of the golden maze ; and there h(! recitiul his early poems with that deep sweetness of intonation which sunk into the heart of his hearer. To these meetings liamb was accustomed, at all periods of his life, to re- vert as the season when his finer intellects were quickened 2* 18 PARENTAGE, SCHOOLDAYS, AND YOUTH. into action. Shortly after they had terminated, with Cole- ridge's departure for London, he thus recalled them in a let- ter.* " When I read in your little volume the effusion you call * the Sigh,' I think I hear you again. I imagine to myself the little smoky room at the Salutation and Cat, where we sat together through the winter nights beguiling the cares of life with poetry." This was early in 1796; and in 1818, when dedicating his works, then first collected, to his earliest friend, he thus spoke of the same meetings. " Some of the sonnets, which shall be carelessly turned over by the general reader, may happily awaken in you remembrances which I should be sorry to doubt are totally extinct — the memory ' of summer days and of delightful years,' even so far back as those old suppers at our old inn — when life was fresh, and topics exhaustless — and you first kindled in me, if not the power, yet the love of poetry, and beauty, and kindliness." And so he talked of these unforgotten hours in that short inter- val during which death divided them ! The warmth of Coleridge's friendship supplied the quicken- ing impulse to Lamb's genius ; but the ge^e unfolding all its nice peculiarities lay ready for the influence, and expanded into forms and hues of its own. Lamb's earliest poetry was not a faint reflection of Coleridge's, such as the young lustre of original genius may cast on a polished and sensitive mind, to glow and tremble for a season, but was streaked with deli- cate yet distinct traits, which proved it an emanation from within. There was, indeed, little resemblance between the two, except in the affection which they bore towards each other. Coleridge's mind, not laden as yet with the spoils of all systems and of all times, glowed with the ardour of un- controllable purpose, and thirsted for glorious achievement and universal knowledge. The imagination, which afterward struggled gloriously, but perhaps vainly, to overmaster the stupendous clouds of German philosophies, breaking them into huge masses, and tinting them with heavenly hues, then shone through the simple articles of Unitarian faith, the graceful architecture of Hartley's theory, and the well-compacted chain by which Priestley and Edwards seemed to bind all things in necessary connexion, as through transparencies of thought; and, finding no opposition worthy of its activity in this poor foreground of the mind, opened for itself a bright succession of fairy visions, which it sought to realize on earth. In its * This, with other passages T have interwoven with my own slender thread of narration, are from lettters which I have thought either too personal for en- tire publication at present, or not of sufficient interest, in comparison with Others, to occupy a portion of the space to which the letters are limited. PARENTAGE, SCHOOLDAYS, AND YOUTH. 19 light, oppression and force seemed to vanish like the phan- toms of a feverish dream ; mankind were disposed in the pic- turesque groups of universal brotherhood ; and, in far distance, the ladder which Jacob saw in solemn vision connected earth ■with heaven, '• and the angels of God were ascending and de- scending upon it." Lamb had no sympathy with these radiant hopes, except as they were part of his friend. He clung to the realities of life ; to thiiigs nearest to him, which the force of habit hacl made d^ar ; . and-caught -tremblingly hold of the pasL He delighted, indeed, to hear Coleridge talk of the dis- tant and future ; to see the palm-trees wave and the pyramids tower in the long perspective of his style ; and to catch the prophetic notes of a universal harmony trembling in his voice but the pleasure was only that of admiration unalloyed by envy, and of the generous pride of friendship. The tendency of his mind to detect the beautiful and good in surrounding things, to nestle rather than to roam, was cherished by all the circumstances of his boyish days. He had become familiar with the vestiges of antiquity, both in his school and in his home of the Temple ; and these became dear to him in his serious and affectionate childhood. But, perhaps, more even than those external associations, the situation of his parents, as it was elevated and graced by their character, moulded his young thoughts to the holy habit of a liberal obedience and unaspiring self-respect, which led rather to the embellishment of what w as near than to the creation of visionary forms. He saw at home the daily beauty of a cheerful submission to a state bordering on the servile ; he looked upward to his father's master, and the old benchers who walked with him on the stately terrace, with a modest erectness of mind ; and he saw in his own humble home how well the decencies of life could be maintained on slender means by the exercise of generous principle. Another circumstance, akin to these, tended also to impart a tinge of venerableness to his early musings. His maternal grandmother was for many years housekeeper in the old and wealthy family of the Plumers of Hertfordshire, by whom she was held in true esteem ; and his visits to their an- cient mansion, where he had the free range of every apart- ment, gallery, and terraced walk, gave him " a peep at the con- trasting accidents of a great fortune," and an alliance with that gentility of soul which to appreciate is to share. He has beautifully recorded his own recollections of this place in the essay entitled, " Blakesmoor in H shire," in which he modestly vindicates his claim to partake in the associations of ancestry not his own, and shows the true value ofliigh lineage by detecting the spirit of nobleness which breathes around it. 20 PARENTAGE, SCHOOLDAYS, AND YOUTH. s)" for the enkindling of generous affections, not only in those who may boast of its possession, but in all who can feel its ijifluences. IVhile the bias of the minds of Coleridge and Lamb thus essentially differed, it is singular that their opinions on reli- gion, and on those philosophical questions which border on religious belief, and receive their colour from it, agreed, al- though probably derived from various sourcesT*, Both were Unitarians, ardent admirers of the writings and character of Dr. Priestley, and both believers in necessity, according to Priestley's exposition, and in the mference which he drew from that doctrine respecting moral responsibility and the ultimate destiny of the human race. The adoption of this creed arose in Lamb from the accident of education ; he was brought up to receive and love it ; and attended, when cir- cumstances permitted, at the chapel at Hackney, of which Mr. Belsham, afterward of Essex-street, was then the minister. It is remarkable that another of Lamb's most intimate friends, in whose conversation, next to that of Coleridge, he most de- lighted, Mr. Hazlitt, with whom he became acquainted at a subsequent time, and who came from a distant part of the country, was educated in the same faith. With Coleridge, whose early impressions were derived from the rites and ser- vices of the Church of England, Unitarianism was the result of a strong conviction ; so strong that, with all the ardour of a convert, he sought to win proselytes to his chosen creed, and purposed to spend his days in preaching it. Neither of these young men, however, long continued to profess it. Lamb, in his mature life, rarely alluded to matters of religious doctrine ; and, when he did so, evinced no sympathy with the professors of his once-loved creed. Hazlitt wrote of his father, who was a Unitarian minister at Wem, with honouring affection ; and of his dissenting associates with respect, but he had obviously ceased to think or feel with them ; and Coleridge's Remains indicate, what was well known to all who enjoyed the privi- lege of his conversation, that he not only reverted to a belief in the Trinitarian mysteries, but that he was accustomed to express as much distaste for Unitarianism, and for the spirit of its more active advocates, as the benignity of his nature would allow him to feel for any human opinion honestly cher- ished. Perhaps this solitary approach to intolerance in the universality of Coleridge's mind arose from the disapproval with which he might justly regard his own pride of under- standing, as excited in defence of the doctrines he had adopted. To hi in there was much of devotional thought to be violated, many reverential associations, intertwined with the moral being, PARENTAGE, SCHOOLDAYS, AND YOUTH. 21 to be rent away in the struggle of the intellect to grasp the doctrines which were alien to its nurture. But to Lamb these formed the simple creed of his childhood ; and slender and barren as they seem to those who are united in religious sympathy with the great body of their fellow-countrymen, they sufficed for affections which had so strong a tendency to find out resting-places for themselves as his. Those who only knew him in his latter days, and who feel that if ever the spirit of Christianity breathed through a human life it breathed in his, will nevertheless trace with surprise the extraordinary vividness of impressions directly religious, and the self-jeal- ousy with which he watched the cares and distractions of the world, which might efface them in his first letters. If in a life of ungenial toil, diversified with frequent sorrow, the train of these solemn meditations was broken ; if he was led, in the distractions and labours of his course, to cleave more closely to surrounding objects than those early aspirations promised ; if, in his cravings after immediate sympathy, he rather sought to perpetuate the social circle which he charmed, than to ex- patiate in scenes of untried being ; his pious feelings were only diverted, not destroyed. The stream glided still, the under current of thought, sometimes breaking out in sallies which strangers did not understand, but always feeding and nourishing the most exquisite sweetness of disposition, and the most unobtrusive proofs of self-denying love. While Lamb was enjoying habits of the closest intimacy with Coleridge in London, he was introduced by him to a young poet whose name has often been associated with his — Charles Lloyd — the son of a wealthy banker at Birmingham, who had recently cast off the trammels of the Society of Friends, and, smitten with the love of poetry, had become a student at the University of Cambridge. There he had been attached to Coleridge by the fascination of his discourse ; and, having been admitted to his regard, was introduced by him to Lamb. Lloyd was endeared both to Lamb and Coleridge by a very amiable disposition and a pensive cast of thought; but his intellect bore little resemblance to that of either. He wrote, indeed, pleasing verses and with great facility — a facil- ity fatal to excellence ; but his mind was chiefly remarkable for the fine power of analysis which distinguishes his " Lon- don," and other of his later compositions. In this power of discriminating and distinguishing, carried to a pitch almost of painfulness, Lloyd has scarcely been equalled ; and his poems, though rugged in point of versification, will be found, by those who will read them with the calm attention they re- quire, replete with critical and moral suggestions of the high- 2S LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. est value. He and Coleridge were devoted wholly to literary pursuits ; while Lamb's days were given to accounts, and only at snatches of time was he able to cultivate the faculty of which the society of Coleridge had made him imperfectly con- scious. Lamb's first compositions were in verse, produced slowly, at long intervals, and with self-distrust which the encourage- ments of Coleridge could not subdue. With the exception of a sonnet to Mrs. Siddons, whose acting, especially in the character of Lady Randolph, had made a deep impression upon him, they were exclusively personal. The longest and most elaborate is that beautiful piece of blank verse entitled " The Grandame," in which he so affectionately celebrates the virtues of the " antique world" of the aged housekeeper of Mr. Plumer. A youthful passion, which lasted only a few months, and which he afterward attempted to regard lightly as a folly past, inspired a few sonnets of very delicate feeling and exquisite music. On the death of his parents he felt him- self called upon by duty to repay to his sister the solicitude with which she had watched over his infancy ; and well indeed he performed it ! To her, from the age of twenty-one, he de- voted his existence ; seeking thenceforth no connexion which could interfere with her supremacy in his affections, or impair his ability to sustain and to comfort her. CHAPTER n. [1796.] Letters to Coleridge. In the year 1796, Coleridge, having married and relin- quished his splendid dream of emigration, was resident at Bristol ; and Lamb, who had left the Temple, and lived with his father, then sinking into dotage, felt his absence from London bitterly, and sought a correspondence with him as, almost, his only comfort. " In your absence," he writes, in one of the earliest of his letters,* " I feel a stupor which makes me indifferent to the hopes and fears of this life. I sometimes wish to induce a religious turn of mind ; but habits * These and other passages are extracted from letters which are either too personal or not sufficiently interesting for entire publication. I LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 23 are stubborn things, and my religious fervours are confined 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 ! 1 will not be very troublesome." And again a few days after : " You are the only correspondent, and, I might add, the only friend I have in the world. I go nowhere, and have no acquaintance. Slow of speech and reserved of man- ners, no one seeks or cares for my society, and I am left alone. Coleridge, I devoutly wish that fortune, which has made sport with you so long, may play one prank more, throw you into lyondon, or some spot near it, and there snugify you for life. 'Tis a selfish but natural wish for me, cast on life's plain friendless." These appeals, it may well be believed, were not made in vain to one who delighted in the lavish communi- cation of the riches of his own mind even to strangers ; but none of the letters of Coleridge to Lamb have been preserved. He had just published his " Religious Musings," and the glittering enthusiasm of its language excited Lamb's pious feel- ings, almost to a degree of pain. " I dare not," says he of this poem, " criticise it. 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 lover of true poetry — ' Believe thou, oh my soul, Life is a vision shadowy of truth ; And pain, and anguish, and the wornny grave, Shapes of a dream.' I thank you for these lines, in the name of a necessitarian." To Priestley Lamb repeatedly alludes as to the object of their common admiration. " In reading your Religious Musings," says he, " I have felt a transient superiority over you : I have seen Priestley. I love to see his name repeated in your writings ; I love and honour him almost profanely."* The same ferver glows in the sectarian piety of the following letter addressed to Coleridge, when fascinated with the idea of a cottage life. TO MR. COLERIDGE. *' Coleridge, I feel myself much your debtor for that spirit of confidence and friendship which dictated your ^st letter. May your soul find peace at last in your cottage liie ! I only wish * He probably refers to the following lines in the Religious Musings : — " So Priestley, their patriot, and saint, and sage, Him, full of years, from his loved native land. Statesmen bloodstain'd, and priests idolatrous, Drdve with vain hate. Calm, pitying, he retum'd, And mused expectant on those promised years !" 24 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. you were hut settled. Do continue to write to me. I read your letters with my sister, and they gave us both abundance of delight. Especially they please us too, 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 humility of genuine piety. To instance now in your last letter, you say, ' it is by the press 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 Omnipres- ence !' 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 tempo- rary sharer in human misery, that you may be an eternal par- taker of the Divine Nature.' What more than this do those men say who are for exalting the man Christ Jesus into the sec- ond person of an unknown Trinity, men, whom you or I scru- ple not to call idolators ? Man, full of imperfections, at best, and subject to wants which momentarily remind him of de- pendance ; 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 ihe 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 ;j I know I cannot instruct you ; I only wish to remind you of that humility which best becometh the Christian charac- ter. God in the New Testament [our best guide) is repre- sented 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 in- dulging too bold conceptions of his nature. Let us learn to think humbly of ourselves, and rejoice in the appellation of * dear children,' ' brethren,' and ' coheirs with Christ of tbe 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 birtliday so lately past ; I thought you had been older. My kind thanks and remembrances to Lloyd. LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 25 " God love us all, and may he continue lo be the father and the friend of the whole human race ! " C. Lamb. " Sunday evening." The next letter, commencing in a similar strain, diverges to literary topics, and especially alludes to " Walton's Angler," a book which Lamb always loved as it were a living friend. TO MR. COLERIDGE. " 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 fisher 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 com- paring faculties to bring together things infinitely distant and unlike ; the feeble, narrow-sphered operations of the human intellect ; and the everywhere diffused mind of the Deity, the peerless wisdom of Jehovah. Even the expression ap- pears to me inaccurate — portion of omnipresence — omnipres- ence is an attribute whose very essence is entireness. How can omnipresence be affirmed of anything in part? But enough of this spirit of disputaciousness. 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 are doing, and how soon you are likely to be settled once for all? " Have you seen Bowles's new poem on ' Hope?' What character does it bear ? Has he exhausted his stores of ten- der 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 liit- erature ?' From the extracts in the ' British Review' I judge it to be a very humorous thing ; in particular I remember whaf I thought a very happy character of Dr. Darwin's pootr\ . Among all your quaint readings, did you ever light upon ' Wal- ton's Complete Angler?' I asked you the question once bo- fore ; it breathes the very spirit of innocence, purity, an-' simplicity of heart ; there are many choice, old verses intei spersed in it ; it would sweeten a man's temper at any tim-- Vol. T.~3 B 26 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. to read it ; it would Christianize every discordant angry pas- sion ; pray make yourself acquainted with it. " When will Southey he delivered of his new epic ? Madoc, I think, is to be the name of it, though that is a name not fa- miliar 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 under- valued 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 irre- sistible, 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,