WiMSflfo , ) RIEND THE CENSUS JFE AND LETTERS JOHN RICKMAN ,,,.,11 1 1 l I If ■I 111 11 l 1 1 l ;! J ft I! 11 1 V:i; ; 'r:V: : I III 1 1 : KLO WILLIAMS John Rickman. (From an engraving published in 1843.) Lamb's Friend the Census-Taker LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN BY ORLO WILLIAMS ILLUSTRATED BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 1912 TO MY MOTHER AND FATHER PREFACE My thanks are due in the first place to the Rev. W. F. Rickman, the grandson of John Rickman, for his good- ness in placing at my disposal the bulk of the correspond- ence which is in his possession. Without his kindness this book would have been impossible. To John Rickman 's granddaughter, Miss Lefroy, I am also very deeply in- debted. She has allowed me to reproduce a unique sketch made by her mother, to draw upon her mother's very interesting reminiscences, and to use some other letters of her grandfather's which are in her possession. I wish to thank Miss Warter for permission to give extracts from unpublished letters of Southey's, Mr. E. V. Lucas and Mr. Gordon Wordsworth for permission to print a long letter from Lamb to Rickman, Messrs. Macmillan & Co. for permission to use letters which appeared in Mrs. Sandford's Thomas Poole and his Friends, and H.M. Office of Works for the loan of a photograph. Leave to publish the Coleridge letters was given by Mr. Ernest Hartley Coleridge. I also mention that two articles by me, based on the letters, appeared in Blackwood's Magazine this year, and that for the political history I have received great assistance from vol. xi. of The Political History of England. ORLO WILLIAMS. 20 Iverna Court, Kensington, W. CONTENTS PA(iE Introduction 1 CHAPTER I The Rickman family — Early life of John Rickman — His meeting with Southey — BSguinages — Departure from Christchurch . 19 CHAPTER II 1800 Rickman in London — George Dyer — The Magazine — Lamb's ' pleasant hand ' — Southey's Thalaba — Dyer's preface — The first Population Act — Rickman and the census ... 26 CHAPTER III 1801 to early 1802 George Burnett — Rickman secretary to Abbot in Ireland — Letters from Lamb — G. D.'s rescue — His letter — ' Horse medicine ' for Burnett — His ' second birth ' and tutorship — Lamb and the Morning Post — Abbot appointed Speaker — Rickman leaves Ireland .......... 44 CHAPTER IV 1802-1805 Secretaryship to the Speaker — Bag and sword — Thomas Poole — George Burnett again — G. B. quarrels with Southey — Lamb's opinion of it — Southey's first visit to Rickman — Poole and Poor Laws — Another letter from G. Dyer — His ' patronage ' of Lamb — Burnett's letters — Rickman's temper — Coleridge — Rickman finds him a ship — His letters — Ned Phillips — Over- work — An unromantic marriage 77 x LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN CHAPTER V PAGE Family life at Westminster — A stern father — The houses in Palace Yard — Church parade — Late dinner — The Burneys and other friends — Lamb's Wednesday evenings — Driving in the gig — Telford — Rickman's official work 118 CHAPTER VI 1806-1816 Political letters to Southey and Poole — The Friend — The Regency Bill — The Quarterly Review — Burnett's death — Coleridge on Lamb's weaknesses — Shelley — Murder of Perceval — Coleridge on ' Remorse ' — Rickman's good advice to Southey — Southey Poet Laureate — His truculence curbed by Rickman — Waterloo — Rickman the consoler — Economic distress in the country — Rickman on ' Mock Humanity ' and the Press . . .135 CHAPTER VII 1817-1829 Southey's ' Wat Tyler ' — Rickman's views on poor law reform — His article in the Quarterly — A letter from Luke Hansard — Rick- man's depression — Letters to Lord Colchester — Scottish tour with Southey — The model beguinage — Depression again — Rick- man on Canning — Opening of the Caledonian Canal — Bertha Southey — Roman Catholic relief — Rickman's part in Southey's essays — State of Ireland — Catholic Relief Bill passed — Co- operation — Rickman Lamb's ' friend ' in 1829 . . . 188 CHAPTER VIII 1830-1832 Parliamentary reform — Letters purely political — Macaulay's maiden speech — Rickman the political philosopher — Calls Southey to arms — ' Monarchy or Democracy ' — The projected Colloquies — Rickman's outline — Introduction of the Reform Bill — Rickman on the debate — Dissolution — The second Bill — An all-night sitting — O'Connell's Irish devils — Murray and the Colloquies — The third Bill — Wellington's failure to form a ministry — The Bill passes — Murray and Spottiswoode impede the Colloquies — Rickman wishes to retire .... 249 CONTENTS xi CHAPTER IX 1833-1840 PAGE The reformed House of Commons — The new Devils and the Whig Devils — Lamb dines with Rickman — Rickman on Wellington — The fire at the Houses of Parliament — A graphic account — Henry Taylor the hero — Lamb's death — Rickman's comment — Southey offered a baronetcy — The Exchequer demolished — Judge Jeffreys' house — Rickman's illness and death — Tribute of the House 299 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS JOHN RiOKMAN Frontispiece From an engraving published in 1843 ST. STEPHEN'S CHAPEL AND THE SPEAKER'S HOUSE before the fire in 1834 .... Facing page 77 From a drawing in the British Museum THE ENTRANCE FROM NEW PALACE YARD TO THE SPEAKER'S COURT „ 124 From Smith's ' Antiquities of Westminster ' THE SPEAKER'S COURTYARD FROM THE SOUTH- WEST „ 124 From Smith's ' Antiquities of Westminster ' RICKM AN LEAVING THE CLERK ASSISTANT'S HOUSE „ 125 From a water-colour sketch by Mrs. Lefroy (1831) NORTH-WEST VIEW OF WESTMINSTER HALL, TAKEN BEFORE THE REMOVAL OF THE COFFEE-HOUSES AND PILLARS, BY THOMAS SANDBY, R. A. . „ 129 From Smith's ' Antiquities of Westminster ' THE BURNING OF THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT IN 1834 ,,309 From a drawing in the British Museum JUDGE JEFFREYS' HOUSE IN DUKE STREET, WEST- MINSTER ,,317 From a water-colour sketch by T. H. Shepherd in 1853, in the British Museum A VIEW OF JUDGE JEFFREYS' HOUSE FROM BIRD- CAGE WALK, TAKEN JUST BEFORE ITS DEMO- LITION IN 1910 ,,318 From a photograph lent by H. M. Office of Works xiii LAMB'S FRIEND THE CENSUS-TAKER INTRODUCTION It was in collecting material for a memorandum on the history of the officials of the House of Commons — of whom I am happy to be one — that I first met the name of John Rickman ; and it was from the memoir by his son, reprinted from an obituary notice in the Gentleman's Magazine, that I first learnt the details of his life. I discovered that one of my own profession — for Rickman was Speaker's Secretary for twelve, and Clerk at the Table for twenty-six, years — had been the originator of the census in England and super- vised the population returns for four successive decades, that he had become a statistician celebrated even outside England, that he was intimate with Southey and Lamb and Coleridge, and — most interesting of all — that he had left a large body of correspondence with these and other friends. Now the memoir, written in the formal, lapidary style dear to the Early Victorians, does not present Rickman as a particularly promising subject for a biographical study. It leaves the reader with an impression of an austere being who lived only to perform prodigious labours : a worthy person no doubt, but, to put it briefly, dull. Yet the memoir is humanised by one inclusion, that of Charles Lamb's well-known letter to Manning in 1800, describing his new acquaintance Rickman as a ' pleasant hand ' with all the exuberance of Elian ecstasy. The fact that Rickman could have inspired such words from such a man was enough to tempt me further. I determined, if it were humanly possible, to possess myself of a correspondence which had apparently lain hidden for seventy years. My inquiries as to its existence were delayed by the exigencies of other tasks, but I was able in the meantime to gather A 2 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN such further information as was to be derived from pub- lished sources. Rickman's name appears in many books — frequently in Southey's voluminous correspondence, in Mrs. Sandford's Thomas Poole and his Friends, in the corre- spondence of Lamb, in biographies of Lamb, Southey, and Coleridge, in Crabb Robinson's and Lord Colchester's diaries, and in the Dictionary of National Biography — yet at the end of my reading I seemed to have gained no more than indi- cations of Rickman's possible interest if more were known about him. He seemed to flit through the pages of books like a literary ghost to whom flesh and blood had never been given, though Mr. E. V. Lucas, in his charming and masterly Life of Charles Lamb, has certainly been successful in giving him some semblance of reality ; but the informa- tion available to Mr. Lucas was comparatively scanty, and so elusive does even his Rickman seem to be that none of my friends — even those who prided themselves on peculiar intimacy with Lamb's life and circle — has ever shown the smallest sign of intelligence on my mentioning his name. Yet Lamb lauded him to the skies, and found him the fittest recipient of the latest drolleries of his friends ; Southey leaned upon him for forty years ; Coleridge admired him whole-heartedly : his life was spent in laborious service for England, and he invented the means for his carrying out that numbering of the people which has taken place this year for the twelfth time. If he had lived and died in more modern times he would have been highly honoured in his life, and his biography would have anticipated the first anniversary of his death. But plain John Rickman, F.R.S., shunned notoriety while he lived, and when he died he was forgotten. And why has he been forgotten ? Chiefly because we have known nothing of the man himself — whether he was prig or prude, witty or dull, Whig or Tory ; why he was so prized at Lamb's Wednesday evenings, what he had to do with such oddities as George Dyer and George Burnett, how he regarded the political conflict of which he was a close witness for nearly forty years. The answers to these INTRODUCTION 3 questions are now no longer in doubt, and that is the reason of this book. The quest of Hickman's letters proved absurdly easy, and if Lamb's ' pleasant hand ' is still a phantom, the fault is entirely mine. Of the documents themselves I must say a word in passing, for they are not inconsiderable in bulk. The correspondence preserved in the Rickman family consists, firstly, of the letters which passed between Southey and Rickman from 1798 to 1839 ; secondly, of certain letters written by Rickman to his wife or daughters, mostly accounts of tours ; thirdly, twenty-three letters from Charles Lamb ; fourthly, fifteen letters from Coleridge. In the British Museum are some thirty letters from Rickman to Coleridge's friend, Thomas Poole of Nether Stowey. Mr. Gordon Wordsworth has another letter from Lamb, one of the longest and most characteristic in all Lamb's correspondence ; and there are four letters from Rickman quoted in the diaries of Lord Colchester, to whom, as Speaker Abbot, Rickman was secretary. The Southey-Rickman correspondence consists of over twelve hundred letters of varying length. It was used by the editors of Southey's correspondence, who have published about two hundred of Southey's, and quoted from about thirty of Rickman 's, letters. From this mass I have had to select what was of permanent interest, and in doing so I have only quoted Southey sparingly, chiefly from unpublished letters, for the tenor of his correspondence is already well known. Two at least of Rickman's family letters are of great interest, and with them may be classed the reminiscences of his daughter, Mrs. Lefroy, which give many details of the household life at Westminster. The letters from Lamb, except that in Mr. Gordon Wordsworth's possession, were published in Canon Ainger's 1906 edition of Lamb's Letters, and I am precluded from using them. I publish seven of the Coleridge letters for the first time, a proceeding which their interest fully justifies. I have selected, again, from the Poole letters in the British Museum, omitting some passages included in Mrs. Sandford's Thomas Poole and 4 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN his Friends, and including others not quoted there. These various items supplement one another particularly well, and there are practically no lacunae making conjecture necessary, though we cannot but lament the absence of Rickman's letters to Lamb. My aim, so far as possible, has been to allow the letters to speak for themselves ; still, even for the task of selecting and combining, a point of view is necessary. My point of view is illustrated by the title I have chosen, which is an answer to a difficult question frequently put to me, namely, ' Who was Rickman ? ' He was many things, as I have said — census-taker, Parliamentary official, the friend of several men whose names will live as long as English litera- ture. But the quality which has appealed most of all to my mind, and on which I base the immediate interest of this book, is that he was Lamb's friend, that is, a human being with certain distinctive human qualities. Rickman, I admit, was far more intimately acquainted with Southey than with Lamb, but to have been Southey 's friend is no differentia. With Lamb it is different. Elia, as he tells us himself, chose his ' ragged regiment ' of ' intimados ' with care, and he immortalised them all — Dyer, Burnett, Jem White, ' Ralph Bigod,' and the rest — as parts of his own immortal character. He cared not one whit for a man's achievements or possessions, but took a friend to his heart, and planted him there, because, vigorous or feeble, radiant or sickly, he was of that genus called common humanity, which Elia loved so dearly till the day he died. I have tried, therefore, to let Rickman reveal himself, not as the austere, stolid worker (which was only one side of him), but as a very definite personality with forcible views and an interesting life. Some may think that I have treated his actual work too summarily ; but this is not an economical treatise on the census, which, when all has been said, is not a particularly enlivening subject. Who, then, was Rickman ? As I have begun, so I will continue, by speaking first of his friendships, for they are a clue to his character. It is remarkable that, though he INTRODUCTION 5 was externally unbending and severe, intolerant of other people's weaknesses, and indifferent whether his very great benevolence was presented in acceptable form to those who stood in need of it, his friends invariably spoke of him with admiration and affection. Lamb, besides the letter to Manning which I have mentioned, wrote on another occa- sion : ' His memory will be to me as the brazen serpent to the Israelites, — I shall look up to it, to keep me straight and honest.' Coleridge called him a ' sterling man,' and assured him of his unaffected esteem. Talfourd alludes to him as ' the sturdiest of jovial companions.' From Southey's many expressions of affection I choose this : ' God bless you, my dear R., I would often give much for a quiet evening's conversation with you.' Southey was Rickman's earliest friend, for their meeting took place in 1797, when Rickman was twenty-six, and the friendship lasted without a shadow till Rickman's death. What drew them together was a certain firmness of character and similarity of views. Both were revolutionaries when they met ; both crystallised simultaneously into Tories. Rickman befriended Southey in every possible way. He acted as his literary agent when the poet was in Portugal, he procured him a secretaryship when he returned, he opened his house to him whenever he visited London, he sent him books and Parliamentary papers for his reviews, he was never too busy to research for him and embody the result in eight quarto pages of close writing, he paid his fees for a doctor's degree in a particularly graceful manner, and he would have lent him money if it had been necessary. If he was stoical as a comforter, he was admirable as a counsellor. With equal good sense he pointed out the extravagances of Southey's first poem as Laureate, remon- strated with him on his excessive use of religious epithets, and dissuaded him from outraging public opinion by refus- ing to adopt the incorrect name of Waterloo for Wellington's great victory. But the friendship with Southey was so intimate a part of Rickman's whole life that I need say no more of it here. I will but mention the interesting fact, 6 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN which comes to light, that Rickman practically wrote the whole of one of Southey's published essays, and that the letters, among other things, give many interesting details of the never-finished ' Colloquies ' which the two friends undertook in collaboration in 1831. Mr. E. V. Lucas gives a very adequate account of Rick- man's friendship with Lamb. It began in great warmth on both sides. Lamb thought Rickman ' absolute in all numbers,' and Rickman hugely enjoyed Lamb's wit. So long as Lamb lived in London this firm attachment lasted. Rickman attended regularly to play whist at the Wednesday evenings, and he was one of that steadier crew who checked the more demoralising influence of such men as Fell and Fen wick on the volatile Elia. The affection of Lamb for Rickman is proved by the fact that in 1803 he came to stay in Palace Yard while Mary Lamb was suffering from one of her attacks of lunacy, for on these occasions Lamb shunned all ordinary society. Mrs. Lefroy gives a picture of the Lambs on a visit — Charles ' with rather the air of a dissenting preacher ' uttering a pun in a far corner of the room, and Mary ' a stout, roundabout little body with a turban, and a layer of snuff on her upper lip.' In later years the friendship cooled to some extent. Rickman be- came busier, the Lambs left London, and Charles became more intemperate. Yet in 1829 — a fact not hitherto known — Lamb again stayed with Rickman when Mary was ill, and in 1833 he dined with him to be reconciled to his friend Godwin. Lamb died at the end of 1834, and his death occasioned curious remarks from both Rickman and Southey, which are characteristic of their not too sympathetic natures. The chief interest of Coleridge in Rickman's life lies in the unpublished letters. One of these is an ingenuous comment by the opium-drinker on Hazlitt's too frequently convivial visits to Lamb, with a curious remark about the influence of tobacco on Lamb's desire for alcohol. Another describes the rehearsals of his tragedy ' Remorse,' proving that Rickman made some very acceptable emendations, INTRODUCTION 7 The census-taker had a profound admiration for Coleridge's genius, and an entire contempt for his character. He wrote of him : ' If he dies, it will be from a sulky imagination, produced from the general cause of such things, i.e. a want of regular work and application/ Yet, as one of the letters which I publish shows, Coleridge entertained the most lively feelings for Rickman. Those who have any acquaintance with Lamb's life and letters will remember his two butts, George Dyer — ' G. D.' or ' George I.,' — and George Burnett — •' George 11.' or the ' Bishop.' Rickman was the friend of both, and his corre- spondence gives many new facts about them. It was George Dyer who introduced Rickman to Lamb, and who procured him the editorship of the Commercial, Agricultural, and Manufacturers' Magazine. The Southey-Rickman letters give two new and amusing stories of his relations with Lamb. One relates how he persuaded a friend unasked to buy Lamb's play at half-price, and gravely handed Is. 6d. to Lamb, regretting he could do so little for his friends ; and the other tells how the Lambs talked him into love with a famous blue-stocking. Moreover, in this correspondence there are preserved three original letters from George Dyer, from whose pen no private letters have hitherto been known. The first, which I do not print, settles a date in Lamb's life. The second is exceedingly precious, for it is a sequel to Lamb's exquisitely humorous letter describing Dyer's rescue from starvation. The third is recommendation from Dyer of a deserving young man who wished for copying work, his character being vouched for by Dyer's washerwoman. Rickman found the man to be an arrant rogue, and the incident is thoroughly typical of him whom Lamb called the ' common lyar of benevolence.' Rickman enjoyed and appreciated what was good in Dyer, but his feelings towards George Burnett were more mixed. Burnett's life, if it had its humorous side, was a sad chapter of failure, which has never been properly put together. The Rickman correspondence supplies a good deal of new information, which I collected in an article in 8 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN Blackwood's Magazine for March of this year. The scheme of the present book prevented me from incorporating this article en bloc, but no essential points are omitted, though the events are recounted as they occurred as incidents in Rickman's life. The real cause of Burnett's failure was his indolent, vain character ; the immediate cause was the unsettlement of his mind by his meeting Southey at Balliol, and his introduction to Coleridge. Southey always felt the responsibility, and I am able to give some new and highly interesting extracts from Southey 's letters, which set forth his views on the conduct of his unfortunate friend. Rickman's relations with Burnett show the mixture of harshness and benevolence in his nature. He saw the unmistakable talent and the weak character which made it useless. Again and again he put himself out to find work for Burnett, after exclaiming that he would never have any more to do with him. Whenever ' George n.' showed the slightest tendency to reform, he could count on Rick- man's assistance. On the other hand, Rickman never showed any tact in his handling of that neurotic being. He plainly displayed his contempt, he wrote him letters which Lamb called ' a cruel dose of yellow gamboodge,' he even went so far ' as a cosmopolite ' as to wish him dead that some more useful being might consume his share of sustenance. The amazing story of Burnett's commission as a surgeon in the militia, which is told in part by Mrs. Sandford, can now be followed to its absurd conclusion, and in this connection I quote in full Burnett's three original letters which Thomas Poole preserved. It is just a hundred years ago since Burnett, the author of two quite interesting books, died in a workhouse infirmary, and I am glad, if only for the sake of elucidating Lamb's humorous references to him, that I can add to the knowledge of his career. Rickman's friendships with these men and others — Poole, Telford, the engineer, and the Burneys — were characterised by a certain external formality which strikes rather chill upon the modern reader, who must remember, however, that society a hundred years ago was more patriarchal and INTRODUCTION 9 punctilious than it is to-day. Yet rigidity was natural to the man. His family motto was ' Fortitude in Adversity,' and perhaps a puritanical fortitude in everything would best sum up his character. He was sturdily unromantic. He could write to Southey that he had ' lately imported a wife,' and remonstrate with Poole for supposing that he married for love. In his family his word was law, and even to his children his letters were rather portentously solemn. The grave homily administered to his daughter Ann on the occasion of her having confessed her inability to play quadrille music at a children's party might have come out of a Jane Austen novel. His taste for pleasure was not very highly developed. When the Lambs took him to Sadlers Wells he slept, and his only recreation consisted in long driving tours in the yellow gig which Mrs. Lefroy describes, and these tours were planned on distinctly ' improving ' lines. He had a hatred of show and affectation, which led him to avoid ' dinner party intercourse,' and deliberately banish the terms ' drawing room ' and ' dining room ' from his own house. A little litany which comes at the end of a letter to Southey gives a clue to some of his dislikes : ' From all novelists, tourists, anecdotists, beauty- mongers, selectors, abbreviators, et id genus omne, good Lord deliver us ! And also from overgrown theatres, which insure bad plays and bad acting.' The beauties of Nature, he thought, were morbidly insisted on by the Lake poets : in his view they should be ' as play hours.' But Rickman was not in the least crabbed. ' You know,' he said, ' I am in the habit of looking on the white side of futurity ' ; and again : ' The wiser economy of life is to like as much as possible, and to dislike as little as possible.' Neither was he a domestic tyrant, and his excellent letters on Bertha Southey are proof that he had a fatherly soul. His home life, indeed, was undisturbedly happy, and it is a pretty picture on which Mrs. Lefroy has allowed us to look. We see Rickman, the cares of office cast away, sleeping on his grass slope at Westminster, with his children around weaving daisy chains and itching to pull papa's pigtail ; 10 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN we can imagine his garden with the ' Hamboro' grape ' and the ' mound to bury kittens and canaries in ' — if indeed we can conceive anything so pastoral in stately Westminster. Mrs. Lefroy has preserved a charming memory of the official ' church parade ' for Sunday service at St. Margaret's, and has drawn a portrait of her father in his tight pantaloons with ' very pointed toes to his shoes,' his shirt frill ' very neatly plaited,' his cravat of fine white nainsook, and his swallow-tail coat. In early days at Westminster, Rickman's hair was curled and powdered every day ; and though he abandoned powder when the fashion died out, he was the last of the clerks to wear a stock and knee-breeches at the Table of the House. Considering that he enjoyed intimate friendship with men whose names are great in English literature, Rickman's own want of literary taste is a little surprising. He had small appreciation for belles lettres, and none at all for poetry. His earliest letter to Southey, a criticism of ' Joan of Arc ' from the point of view of antiquarian accuracy, contains the remark : ' Poetry has its use and its place, and like some known superfluities we should feel awkward without it.' On another occasion he says : ' I abjure all my little aversion to poetry in deference to your cogent reasons ; I only think poetry bad in a man who may be better employed : a toy in manhood.' Yet he was not without some critical insight. He thought Southey 's ' Madoc ' bad, and told him so ; on the other hand, he was enthusiastic over Lamb's play, ' John Woodvil,' and offered to lend all the money necessary for its publication. Of Wordsworth's articles in the Friend he said : ' It seems to me that Wordsworth has neither fun nor common sense in him.' In spite of his editorship of the Commercial, Agricultural, and Manufacturers' Magazine, Rickman found literary composition a difficult task. He could not em- broider, but marshalled his facts in severe order. For that reason he refused to become a regular contributor to the Quarterly, and it was only for Southey's benefit that he wrote the article on the poor law which appeared in INTRODUCTION 11 that magazine. In this case and in the case of the ' Colloquies ' he strictly stipulated that Southey should apply the file without compunction. The actual matter of his writing was admirable, and more than once Southey bestows on it the highest praise, but what was wanting was that picturesque vigour of expression which gives so strong a flavour to his letters. Rickman's style is at its breeziest when he writes about politics, a subject on which his remarks are both enter- taining and extremely interesting. His political views were, to say the least, well defined. He was, in fact, a strong Tory. But he was neither a party politician nor a landowning squire who imbibed his politics with his mother's milk. He had been, with Southey, a revolu- tionary for a glorious year or two, but a study of economic and social subjects settled him a Tory — a Tory, if I may say so, of the ' Manchester school,' for he held that the only safe rule was individualism or ' selfishness,' and that the Whigs and Reformers erred through a sentimental desire to be benevolent, a ' mock-humanity.' He was perfectly sincere in the conviction that, owing to the spread of Liberal ideas, a tremendous and devastating revolution was about to occur in England at any time before the Reform Bill was actually passed, and so distressed was he on more than one occasion that he confessed to a kind of melancolia of de- spair. But it is just his intellectual Toryism which makes his political letters unique, besides the fact that most of the contemporary memoirs are Whig, and Colchester's diaries end before the Reform Bill. His letters are an expression of the point of view of an extremely intelligent Tory, who was completely acquainted with the political events of his day, and bound by no party allegiance. They remind us, to whom the Tory politics of the early nine- teenth century cannot but appear hopelessly reactionary, what a hard-headed man then feared from the Whigs, and by what spirit he was animated in his hatred for their political aims. Rickman's Parliamentary experience was longer than 12 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN that which falls to the lot of most members ; he was in the service of the House of Commons for thirty-eight years. When he first came to Palace Yard the House was nearing the end of its most brilliant epoch. Burke was dead, but Pitt and Fox, Sheridan and Grattan were still there. The brilliance of debates was diminished under the long Tory administration, but the House was kept from stagnation by the unrest in the country, and the violent agitation of the small band of reformers, led by Burdett, Whitbread, and (later) Brougham, who raised annually the questions of Catholic emancipation and Parliamentary reform. Of these burning questions Rickman saw the rise, the climax, and the settlement, and it may naturally be supposed that his accounts of the debates are worth reading. I do not pretend that he had any access to the inner sources of political knowledge. His contempt for politicians was too great for him to trouble his head about their secrets. ' One cannot live so near the House of Commons,' he wrote, ' without becoming cynical towards all who figure there.' His judgment, too, was often at fault. He was singularly mistaken about Perceval's ability in 1807 : he saw in Brougham only the ' noisy adventurer,' in Canning the intriguer, and in Wellington ' little more of the statesman than a vulgar appetite for power.' He was over- ready to believe political gossip discreditable to the other side. Thus, he was convinced in 1801 that Pitt resigned solely to escape impeachment, and that Catholic emancipation was not the real question at issue ; that the Duke of York's fear of impeachment forced the Ministry of All the Talents on the King, and that Grey's resignation after the second rejection of the Reform Bill was a cleverly stage-managed trick. Nevertheless, in spite of his prejudices and his credulity, Rickman is a valuable witness. Parliamentary officials are politely supposed to have no political opinions. It is amusing, therefore, to imagine the Speaker's Secretary, who was a model of correctness, putting off his bag and sword to write to Southey or Poole that Pitt ' had genius without acquired knowledge; whence his affectation of infalli- INTRODUCTION 13 bility and all the woes of Europe ' ; that ' Charley Fox eats his former opinions daily, and even ostentatiously, showing himself the worst man but the better Minister of a corrupt Government, where three people in four must be rogues and three deeds in four bad ' ; or ' I expected Mr. Perceval to be murdered, but I had expected it from the Burdetts and other vermin rendered infuriate by the weekly poison they imbibe from sixteen newspapers emulous in violence and mischief ' ; or, after a joyful account of the Regent's re- buff to Grenville and Grey in 1811, 'the pangs of the M. Chronicle are delicious. Canting villain ! ' Still more entertaining is it to think of Rickman from 1814 onwards, sitting staidly at the Table in his wig and gown, courte- ously giving his attention to members of any party who required his advice on procedure, entering blameless minutes, editing questions, pruning motions into orderly shape, and all the while mentally fulminating against those whom he called the ' Whiggamores,' or contemptu- ously damning the Tories for their want of backbone. Little did Brougham, Canning, Whitbread, O'Connell, Peel, or Wellington imagine, if in the course of a full-dress second-reading debate their eye fell for a moment on the peacefully writing Clerk Assistant, that he was criticising them as bitterly as any of their opponents, recording Brougham's ' deeply infernal toned " Hear ! hear ! " ', Peel's haughty coldness, or Macaulay's maiden speech, or urging his friend, the trenchant reviewer of the Quarterly, to open the eyes of England to the machinations of the ' Mobocracy ' backed by the ' hell-hounds of the Press.' The Roman Catholic question rilled him with all kinds of gloomy fore- bodings, and he never forgave Wellington for his oppor- tunism in the matter, calling it ' the grossest of all specimens of impropriety in civil government.' But the political interest of Rickman's correspondence reaches its climax at the time of the Reform Bill agitation. His feelings were passionately aroused, and he called to Southey to make a last stand with him, and to sound the bugle for all true patriots. Then was planned the writing of those ' Colloquies ' 14 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN between ' Montesinos ' and ' Metretes ' — Southey and Rickman — which never saw the light. Rickman's first suggested title for the book was ' Monarchy or Democracy,' and the motto Ne quid detrimenti respublica capiat. It was to supply Southey with necessary political knowledge that his letters on the Reform debates are so frequent and full, and their tone may be judged from the description of Lord John Russell's first Reform Bill speech : ' The backing speech of the Tricolor Donkey Lord was truly asinine.' What strikes the reader particularly about the letters at this period is their modernity. With a few changes of names, they might have been written by a Unionist at any time during the last eighteen months. The House of Lords, the question of creating peers, an Irish party (' O'Connell's squadron of Irish Devils ') that boasted of holding the balance of power — there are parallels at the moment of writing. 1 Rickman's vivacious outcries against the ' Whiggamores,' if a little pathetic, were seriously meant. This is proved by the fact that, after comforting himself in 1833 that ' in our Pandemonium ' the ' new devils ' were 1 cuffing and scratching the Whig Devils beautifully,' he practically ceased to take any further interest in politics. In his relations to political events and persons as well as in his relations to his friends, Rickman shows intensely human qualities. My reason, therefore, for including so many political letters has been that they are not only interesting for what they say, but illustrate, often most entertainingly, a certain type of mind. I suspect that the uncompromising nature of his views was responsible in part for the small amount of public recognition which Rickman received for his really important statistical work. Yet he shunned all appearance of self- advertisement, and would have looked with suspicion on officially bestowed honours. Indeed, it is to be noticed that he suspected his employment on the population returns to be meant as a bribe. But Rickman's sole ambition was to be of utility, and in that aim he was certainly successful. 1 May 1911. INTRODUCTION 15 Even the industrious Southey marvelled at his prodigious capacity for work. His official business was to him little more than so much routine, but he was never lax in its performance, and he was always ready to do such extra work as came in his way — the indexing of Hatsell and of the Journals, the institution of a new system of publishing the Votes and Proceedings, digesting various returns, supplying evidence for a com- mittee, or even sending in a secret scheme for combating the Radicals. Till his death he remained in harness, though he certainly wished to retire in 1832, and complained of intrigues which prevented this. His work on the three Commissions for building the Caledonian Canal, making roads, and building churches in the Highlands was in- valuable. He was Telford's loyal supporter for seventeen years in the Caledonian Canal enterprise, and it was due to him that Southey wrote for it his three inscriptions. But the only subject in which Rickman truly took a real interest was what is now called economics, though he would have hated the word, having the utmost contempt for the political economists of his day. Social science was his study from the time he left Oxford, and he regarded the population returns quite rightly as giving data for the widest political and social deductions, though he was a little too reliant on statistical evidence in the face of palpable fact. It was a pity that Rickman had no opportunity of dealing with the poor laws of this country. The subject was one on which he had very definite views, for he saw their great defects (before 1834), if his remedies were a little drastic. He conceived that treating poor men according to their deserts — bread and water for the idlers — would suffice to abolish the poor rates and introduce good character instead. He forgot, perhaps, that many of the rich would also have deserved bread and water. He believed in competition, in unrestricted manufactures, and laisser-faire with a strong police. And yet he was willing enough to be socialistically benevolent for women. In 1800 he started as a hobby a little speculation on the subject of beguinages in England, 16 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN which he took up again in later life, and one of his letters gives a sketch of a model female institution — a model which is not so far from reality now. Rickman, in fact, useful as he was to his country, might have been far more useful, if only governments then had known, as they do now, how to use their permanent officials. Rickman, at heart, was as little reactionary as he was a tyrant. His ideal state would have been a benevolent despotism, and in his relations with others he was inclined to act the benevolent despot himself. Save, perhaps, in his extreme respect for intellectual knowledge, he was a typical John Bull. I am saved from any further effort to sum up his character by being able to quote, in conclusion of these preliminary remarks, a letter written by his friend, the historian Sharon Turner, for inclusion in his son's memoir. 1 20 Sept. 1840. ' My impression, whenever I saw your father, was, that he had a strong and resolute mind, very discursive, full of varied but promiscuous knowledge, ready to bring it out whenever called upon, and always pleased to have a reason to do so, and to talk with those who would be inter- ested to hear him ; whoever did so, could not fail to be both gratified and informed. For he had a large store of facts and thoughts, and frequently viewed things in an original though sometimes also in a peculiar manner. He was fond of intellectual labour as an exercise of the mind as well as for the prosecution of the object he undertook ; and what- ever he directed his attention to, he pursued with a zeal and perseverance, and with an almost insensibility of fatigue that can seldom be paralleled. . . . He thought little of those who pursued any object with indolence and indifference and believed that mental activity always did good to the health, and that the evils ascribed to it arose from other causes. ' He was peculiarly a man of facts and realities, and well adapted to all things that required close attention, INTRODUCTION 17 investigation, and continued mental labour. He was very anxious never to be deceived himself, and never to deceive others. He had not a philosophical cast of mind, nor did he view his subjects with that course and style of thought. But he saw his main points quickly and adhered tenaciously to them, and always threw light upon them. ' I would not call him a man of genius, but of a powerful and solid mind — quick, ardent, penetrating, self-confident from experienced success in what he undertook, and not willing to yield his own opinions to the opposing conclusions of others — he was therefore rather peremptory, both from the strength of his own convictions, and his earnest desire that what he deemed right should be thought or deemed so by others : but it was always in good humour. He had a very straightforward, upright, and honest-meaning mind, with nothing of the base or shabby in it. I never saw any- thing like trick or subterfuge, or fraud, or hypocrisy in him : nor could he endure these in any other. He liked to skir- mish in conversation, and so often attacked what he thought wrong in all parties, and in their leaders, that it was not easy to know what his settled opinions were on many of our political questions. He was at times a little impatient and stern ; but whatever his manner might be, he was always a kind-hearted and worthy man — one of steady, moral conduct — and desirous that all should be so. . . .' [Note. — For the benefit of those — and they are many — who take a particular interest in the smallest fact concerning Charles Lamb, I summarise here the new points which the Rickman correspondence brings to light. (1) George Dyer's first letter in 1801 fixes the approximate date of Lamb's removal from Pentonville to Southampton Buildings (p. 34). (2) Rickman's letter to Southey enclosing Dyer's second letter of 1801 fixes within a few days the date of Lamb's long letter to Rickman describing Dyer's rescue from starvation. Mr. E. V. Lucas heads this letter ' ? November.' Dyer's letter, too, corroborates Lamb's account (pp. 56-60). (3) A short undated letter from Lamb to Rickman, printed by 18 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN Canon Ainger after one on November 24, 1801, is shown to belong to November 9 or 10 (p. 60). (4) The allusion in Lamb's letter to Rickman of July 16, 1803, where he refers to a ' gentle ghost ' who wishes to return, has mystified all commentators. I think its date, together with the contents of letters from Southey and Rickman, proves it conclus- ively to refer to a kind of circular sent by George Burnett to his friends, announcing his return to the paths of reason, and ex- pressing regret for former aberrations together with a desire for work. This confirms Mr. E. V. Lucas in a conjecture which he seems to have abandoned (p. 90). (5) Lamb stayed with Rickman in 1803 during one of Mary Lamb's attacks of insanity (p. 87). (6) On July 25, 1829, Lamb wrote to Bernard Barton describing a visit paid, during a recent attack of Mary Lamb's, to a friend in London, ' one of the individuals of my old long knot of friends, card-players, pleasant companions — that have tumbled to pieces into dust and other things.' The identity of this friend has hitherto been unknown, but Rickman's letter to Southey of July 14, 1829, proves him to have been Lamb's entertainer (p. 247). (7) Three letters from Coleridge refer to Lamb (pp. 105, 106, 157), the last giving a particularly interesting account of Lamb's convivialities. (8) Two new stories of Lamb's connection with George Dyer occur in the Rickman correspondence with Southey (pp. 76, 93, 94). (9) Lamb's estimate of Southey's and Coleridge's responsi- bility for Burnett's aberrations is quoted by Rickman (p. 85). (10) Mrs. Lefroy in her reminiscences gives a portrait of the Lambs at Rickman's house (p. 128). (11) I am able to quote Rickman's and Southey's interesting comments on Lamb's death (p. 313).] CHAPTER I The Rickman family — Early life of John Rickman — His meeting with Southey — Beguinages — Departure from Christchurch. From the genealogical researches made by John Rickman's father, the Rev. Thomas Rickman, it appears that the family of Rickman, Rykeman or Richman, originated in Somersetshire, for the arms — or, three piles azure, three bars gules, over all a stag trippant ; with a crest, a stag's head couped proper — were originally granted to Rickman of Somersetshire. The family seems to have overflowed first into Dorsetshire, where John Ritcheman is known to have been rector of Porton in 1380, and members of the family represented Lyme in Parliament in the reigns of Henry iv. and Henry v. The Rickmans of Hampshire, from whom John Rickman more immediately sprang, had the same arms and a slightly different crest with the motto, ' Fortitude in Adversity.' The earliest mention of the family is in the parish register of Wardleham, where the baptism of John Rickman, son of Richard Rickman and Isabel his wife, is recorded in 1542. A William Rickman who lived at Marchwood in Eling appears in 1556 among the subscribers to the defence of the country against the Spanish Armada. In 1623 a Richard Rickman was married at Eling to Elizabeth Stubbs, and their son William was baptised in 1627. The son of this William, James Rickman, was father of three sons, William, John, and James, the first of whom was born in 1701 at Milford. John Rickman, the subject of this book, was his grandson. There is a letter by John Rickman, written to his eldest daughter, which gives an interesting account of his near ancestors. This long letter, which occupies forty-two quarto 20 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN pages, was written purely as a warning to his younger daughter not to embark upon rash expenditure in her newly married life. This lesson in economy — so typical of its writer's formal mind — can only be quoted in extract. It is dated ' 8 December, 1836,' and after the exordium con- tinues thus : — ' The grandfather of my grandfather (a portrait of which last we have) was a yeoman of small property, 50 or 60 acres, on the coast of Hampshire, at Hordwell in the parish of Milford near Lymington, and possessor of a windmill there. He being a patriot, and no Popery man, left his plough and his mill and joined the army of the Duke of Monmouth which was defeated at Sedgmoor in the year 1685. He escaped the slaughter of the day and the ven- geance of Judge Jefferies, and returned home to tell of his adventures, to boast of them (no doubt) after the triumph of Ms party at the Revolution in 1688. The son of the miller who succeeded to the landed property had three sons of whom my grandfather W. R. was the eldest, and being a studious lad of good talents was placed in the country house of Mr. Missing, a wealthy merchant at Portsmouth, who dying left a son remarkably unfit for business, which there- fore devolved on my grandfather upon his marriage in the year 1729 with the daughter of his former employer. . . . ' In the year 1739, a war commenced between England and Spain, and my grandfather (through Portsmouth Borough influence, I suppose) obtained the contract for supply of provisions to the Spanish prisoners of war con- fined in Porchester Castle. His business was very lucrative, and as he had become a proficient in the Spanish language, indeed well read in Spanish literature, he had opportunity of being attentive to Don Ulloa, 1 the Spanish officer em- ployed in mensuration of a degree of longitude near the equator in Spanish America, who in his narrative makes grateful mention of his English friend, Mr. Rickman.' 1 Admiral Ulloa was captured in 1745. The reference is in Book ix. ch. ix. of his Narrative of a Voyage to S. America, and speaks of William Rickman's great care for the prisoners' comfort. LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 21 William Rickman thus became a prosperous man. He made considerable purchases of land, was made a Justice of the Peace, in which office he distinguished himself in bring- ing a gang of murderers and smugglers to book for their crimes, and in 1747 served as Sheriff for the county. This was the summit of his prosperity. The Spanish war merged into a French war, and another merchant was given the contract to feed the French prisoners. William Rickman was practically superseded, and his income fell consider- ably. Further, he had become surety for his brother, a Custom House collector, in £8000, a sum which he forfeited on his rascally relative's absconding. A nephew also lost him £1500 on another suretyship. William Rickman's affairs thus fell into decay, so that when he died in 1764 he had sold all his landed property. His son, Thomas Rickman, was at this time on the verge of entering Holy Orders. In 1766 he became vicar of Newburn in Northumberland. He married a Miss Beaumont in 1770, of which marriage John Rickman, born in 1771. was the only son, the two other children being daughters. In 1776, when the taxes caused by the American war began to pinch, he was offered an exchange and second benefice at Compton, near Winchester, which he exchanged in 1780 for the livings of Ash, near Farnham in Hampshire, and Stourpaine in Dorset, which he held till his death in 1809. In 1796, however, being no longer able to perform divine service, he retired to Christchurch. ' Soon after this,' says Rickman in the same letter as I have quoted above, ' the Income Tax was imposed, and I had some prospect of employment in London. The salary of a curate at Ash was a heavy burden on my father's income, and the price of provisions was enormous, so that my father upon my leaving the family broke up his little establishment, and went to reside between Lymington and Christchurch with some of his relations. . . . This continued till 1803, when upon my being well established in Palace Yard my father again ventured on housekeeping till he died in 1809.' John Rickman himself was educated at Guildford 22 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN Grammar School from 1781 to 1788, when he went to Magdalen Hall, and thence to Lincoln College, Oxford. No allusion is ever made by Rickman to his boyhood, except when he mentions that he suffered several years' reasonable misery through a mistake in deciding upon a profession. 1 Probably he had had early ideas of entering the Church, which residence at Oxford had dissipated. After taking his degree in 1792 or 1793, Rickman seems to have remained at Christchurch reading the books in the library left by his grandfather, especially those upon economic subjects, thus laying in the wide stock of know- ledge which stood him in such good stead later in his career. The recollections of Mrs. Lefroy (Rickman's elder daughter Ann) mention that Rickman used to act as tutor in the vacations to the son of a very rich man named Clark, whose daughter became Marchioness of Ormond. Mr. Clark offered Rickman a large living in Kent if he would take Holy Orders, but he refused. He seems to have had an attachment, not wholly unreturned, for Miss Clark, who remained a close friend of his throughout her life. On her death in 1818 he was made her executor, and received a legacy of £7000. The first event of any note in Rickman's life was his acquaintance with Robert Southey, the future Poet Laureate. In the summer of 1797 Southey and his wife took lodgings at Burton, near Christchurch, and it was not long before they met John Rickman. In a letter from Southey to Cottle, the publisher, dated June 18, 1797, 2 he speaks of going down Christchurch harbour in Rickman's boat, and calls his new friend ' a sensible young man, of rough but mild manners, and very seditious.' In a note Cottle says : ' On visiting Southey at Christchurch, he introduced me to the Mr. Rickman, whom I found sensible enough, blunt enough, and seditious enough ; that is, simply anti-ministerial.' Their dislike of Pitt's war 1 In a letter to Southey of September 23, 1817, giving advice as to the profession which Derwent Coleridge should adopt. 2 Cottle, Reminiscences of Southey and Coleridge, p. 214. LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 23 policy and their desire to ameliorate society — Southey had not long got over the scheme of Pantisocracy — soon bound these two friends with links of mutual respect and esteem, and the friendship, however restrained was its expression, ripened into a warm and lifelong affection. The first letter of their correspondence is from Rickman, dated November 13, 1798. It was written to thank Southey for sending a new edition of his Joan of Arc, and contains some detailed criticisms of that poem, chiefly on historical matters of fact. Rickman corrects Southey on such points as the date when the fife was introduced as military music and the material of which cannons were first made. There is then a gap for more than a year, and the next letter, also from Rickman, on January 4, 1800, contains a proposi- tion that Southey shall devote his verse to some definitely utilitarian object. ' Poetry has its use and its place, and like some known superfluities we should feel awkward without it. But when I have sometimes considered with some surprise the facility with which you compose verse, I have always wished to see that facility exerted to some solid purpose in prose. The objects I propose for your investigation are therefore : the employment, and consequent ameliora- tion, of womankind, the consequences on the welfare of society, and some illustration of the possibility of these things. You think it too good an alteration to be expected — and so do I, from virtue : but if the vanity of leading women could be interested, it might become fashionable to promote certain establishments to this purpose, and then it might go down.' Rickman's purpose, in fact, was to urge the establish- ment of beguinages on the model of those in the Netherlands. He promises in this letter to furnish any dry deductions on the head of political economy. He continues : — ' You like women better than I do ; therefore I think it likely that you may take as much trouble to benefit the 24 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN sex, as I to benefit the community by this means. For all that I have been in love these ten years, not enough to put me beside calculation, but with a fixed and unaltered preference.' It was the secret of Rickman's character that no emotion or affection ever put him ' beside calculation.' This letter contains another personal touch in the words : ' I begin to be almost tired of staying in this obscure place so long. I imagine I was born for better purpose than to vegetate at Christchurch.' This contradicts his own statement, in the letter to his daughter quoted above, that he went to London in 1799. The first letter to Southey mentions a visit to London, but it is clear from this passage that Rick- man had no occupation in London at the beginning of 1800. Southey answered Rickman's letter with great interest on January 9, urging him to undertake the task himself, and pleading the unsuitability of his own style to methodical deduction and his prospective departure, for health's sake, to some other climate as obstacles to his own performance of it. He ended by inviting Rickman to stay with him at Bristol. Rickman replied that his own style was too severe to please the public, and supplied further information upon the subject, touching upon various other matters in the course of a long letter. Southey then consented to under- take the work ; his and Rickman's next letters are given up to a discussion of the position of women in various nations. On February 17 Rickman announced his probable arrival at Bristol in the following week, requesting Southey to engage him lodgings near the harbour, that he might also observe the tides — a subject in which he took great interest. This letter contains an early instance of Rickman's violent political views : — ' I expect peace soon, at least to all the world except England ; and it is better for us to fight on till slow indig- nation shall finish Pitt and the war together. I have laughed at Lord Castlereagh's panegyric on the compre- hensive mind of this sorry drunkard, who in 16 years has LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN HICKMAN 25 produced no measure of eternal utility — the paltry resources of immediate rapacity are dignified with the name of finance ; tins methodised pillage has stamped him a great man among the vulgar.' Southey looked forward to Hickman's visit with no little enthusiasm, as is proved in his letter of February 18, 1800, to John May describing the proposed scheme, calling Rick- man ' a man of uncommon talents and knowledge,' and saying that he himself would be ' little more than mason under the master architect.' 1 Rickman, having sent his box by coach, arrived on foot from Christchurch, and stayed till the end of March at Bristol, where he made the acquaint- ance of Humphry Davy, who was then experimenting at the Pneumatic Institute. It is impossible to say what progress was made with the beguinage scheme, for Southey was forced by continued ill-health to set out for Portugal in April. The project therefore dropped, but, as we shall see, it was revived twenty years later. When Southey left to join his vessel at Falmouth, Rickman went to London to take up his abode. It was for him the beginning of a wider life, the life of utility for which he always craved. This fresh start will be better left to a separate chapter. 1 Southey 's Life and Correspondence, ii. 51. CHAPTER II 1800 Rickman in London — George Dyer — The Magazine — Lamb's • pleasant hand ' — Southey's Thalaba — Dyer's preface — The first Population Act — Rickman and the census. In April 1800, before Southey had left Falmouth, Rickman had settled in London. It is not possible to determine precisely what his prospects of literary employment were, but from hints in his letters it is evident that Southey had recommended him to the editor of the Critical Review, that he might succeed to the place of reviewer of poetry vacated by Southey, and that he had given him a letter of intro- duction to George Dyer, Lamb's immortal G. D., 1 who was at this time pursuing a literary career in Clifford's Inn. Dyer, whom Hazlitt called ' one of God Almighty's gentle- men,' in spite of his slovenliness, absent-mindedness, and his execrable taste in poetry, was a most constant and warm- hearted friend to men of letters. Southey could have re- commended Rickman to no better person, and it is pleasant to notice that Dyer and Rickman became firm friends. This friendship has preserved to us three of Dyer's private letters — no others are known — and has furnished a few more facts in the life of the genial G. D. Rickman 's first letter to Southey from London mentions their meeting : — ' London, Apr. ISth, 1800. ' My Dear Sir, — Having called on Mr. Dyer on Thursday he appointed this morning (Saturday) for the proposed 1 See Lamb's Essays, ' Oxford in the Vacation ' and ' Amicus Redivivus,' also his earlier letters. Mr. E. V. Lucas gives a very good account of Dyer in his Life of Charles Lamb, ch. xiv. LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 27 inspection of your books. [Here follow details of the books.] G. Dyer is a great curiosity ; his room more so ; and I was witness to the regular apologies he makes to every visitor on its unusual disorder. Their answers are as regular, that they never saw it otherwise. He is very busy printing some poetry. He read me some from the manuscript : whence he seems no unhappy forger of the Spenserian style. He received me with the highest civility, and professes great regard for you. . . . — I remain your obliged Servant, 'John Rickman.' In spite of their warm friendship Rickman's style in addressing Southey was, in accordance with his character, most formal. The formality softened in the course of years to ' My dear S.' and a ' God bless you, my dear S. Yrs. J. R.', but in all letters, even to his family, he found it difficult to express affection in words. The next letter shows that George Dyer was able to find Rickman employ- ment without delay. ' London, Apr. 18th, 1800. ' My dear Sir, — As I have indirect intelligence that you could not reach Falmouth sooner than the 15th I venture to direct another letter to your name there, supposing from the S.W. winds that you are not yet put to sea. The letter you found waiting at Falmouth was a hurried one, and you may consider this as a supplement. I learnt at the India- house that Mr. Coleridge has taken a flight northward ; to Cumberland I think. By this I suppose his German plays are completed, though I have not seen them. Cottle 1 cannot be more busy with Alfred at Bristol than G. Dyer at present is about a publication. He has promised all his friends, and the public, that an octavo of poems shall be 1 Amos Cottle, brother of Joseph Cottle, the Bristol publisher, who first published the poems of Coleridge and Southey. The poem ' Alfred ' was exceedingly dull. Its author died shortly after its publication, and there is a very humorous letter from Lamb to Coleridge of October 9, 1800, describing his visit of condolence to Joseph Cottle. 28 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN ready for delivery on the first of May. The copy is as yet very imperfect, and the printing not commenced. But I suppose every body knows him well enough, to know that punctu- ality and method are not among his virtues, and the " Sad dog " (as he calls himself) will be pardoned. He has been very attentive to my interest, as he has offered to my acceptance, the task of conducting a Magazine. As its proprietor Griffiths seems no haughty bookseller, and is in much present distress, I shall do what I can for him for this month or two ; and afterwards consider more maturely about the business. The circumstances of this publication stand thus : the title is promising — The Commercial and Agricultural Magazine. It has reached No. 8 with tolerable, not splendid success. Indeed it has not deserved much, and the bundle of papers the Editor has sent me for selection are very pitiful. It is printed with about the same letter- press as a Review. He offers 2| guineas p. sheet, and 2 guineas p. month for arrangement and correction. The last sum seems very low. He excuses the offer by the infant state and small returns of the Magazine. I suppose it may be possible for me to manage this concern with success ; as the usual subjects are things on which I have been accus- tomed to think often. Luckily I have some short essays (which you have not seen) which may help out the present dearth of matter, and the editor seems rather fearfull that I should chuse to contribute too much than too little for the future. He seems to have been ill-used in this respect by his last conductor, who thereby wished to get the power of the property into his own hands — thereby also disgusting the best correspondents. ' In my opinion to write anonymously is small trouble, because it requires no fastidious correction ; and I am persuaded I write better speedily, than maturely. But the conduct of a publication infers a kind of conscious, irksome responsibility, which I do not like so well : and I should not meddle with this, but from a sincere wish to save a publication from sinking, whose future repute may possibly collect a useful body of information. I am also somewhat LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 29 biassed towards an acceptance of the task that I mayjnot seem to undervalue the efforts of so good a man as G. D. ' He wishes of all things he could get me some employ- ment in the reviews : I did not tell him, I had any prospect of that sort, though I suppose your intended transfer will be accepted by S. Hamilton, 1 if you have not failed to promise a renewal of communication at your return. I do not know enough of the history of poetry to execute the business very well — the general knowledge of good and evil is scarcely stock enough for a reviewer's observations. However if it be offered, I must dash through thick and thin — depending chiefly on your opinion (I fear me a partial one) that the performance will not be below par. Thus have I given you a faithful history of the proffered employ which I indirectly owe to your civility. I conjecture that a constrained abode at Falmouth will be far from adverse to the completion of Thalaba : I have some curiosity to watch the public taste on that intended innovation in the Commonwealth of Poesy. . . . 4 33 Southampton Buildings, Holborn.' Southey arrived at Lisbon on May 1, and remained there till the middle of 1801. His letters to Rickman during that period are chiefly descriptions of the state of Portugal. As three of them have been published in Southey's corre- spondence, it is unnecessary further to allude to them. Southey was finishing his poem ' Thalaba,' and Rickman had undertaken to negotiate for its sale and publication in England. To this we shall have several allusions. Rickman continued to edit the Commercial, Agricultural, and Manufacturers'' Magazine till he went to Ireland. In the appendix to the memoir by his son a list of the articles con- tributed by him is given. They range over many economic subjects — bread laws, tides, clocks, the condition of the poor, Phoenician commerce, weights and measures, paper money, and cottage gardens. 1 Editor of the Critical Review. 30 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN Rickman's next letter is dated May 28. 'I read the letter with much pleasure which informed me of your safe arrival at Lisbon. I suppose by this time your sea-sickness is almost forgotten. I am glad that you ascertained that imagination can also cure this disease. 1 This fact may hereafter be valuable when Davy 2 shall have to give the death-blow to quacks of all descrip- tions. It was singular that about the time (I supposed) you sailed, a rumour was current here that the French fleet had also sailed for Lisbon. You had then found unwelcome guests in the Tagus. I suppose a Republican Frenchman is a more terrible animal at Lisbon, than even an Irishman ; I confess that in England it would be no bad regulation to make an Irishman a contraband freight ; however as they are soon to be imported as legislators I must take care of the Scandalum magnatum penalties. I suppose fortune hunting will be more successful in the Parliament House, than it has ever been at Bath 3 to the Paddies. The Union business has become so stale, that when the deputation of both houses attended his Majesty with the address on that subject, half an hour after the appointed time, they were told that he was set out for Windsor, lest he should be too late for dinner-time ! You must know ere this, that the King has been fired at by a madman, 4 with little danger of being struck, from the distance, and from the random effects of a common pistol shot. However we thank God in the churches for this mercy vouchsafed to a sinful people ! The man is to be tried by a special commission ; but his lunacy is undoubted. At the first rumour I thought it another scheme of Dundas 5 to revive the expiring flame of loyalty — however it has not had that effect ; the pro- 1 Southey had related how an alarm of an attack by a French cutter had cured him of sea-sickness for six hours. 1 The scientist, Sir Humphry Davy. 3 Where Pitt was recovering from the gout. 4 On May 15 in Drury Lane Theatre. The man was an old soldier called James Hadfield. 8 Afterwards Lord Melville ; at this time Secretary for War. LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 31 posal of Bonaparte for peace has sank deep into the public mind, and the minister is at his wits' end. A proposed severity in the collection of the income tax had not one advocate in the City. It is therefore dropped, at least in regard to those whose income exceeds £2000 per ann. Other people they wish still to submit to a ruinous scrutiny. But this seems a partiality to loan mongers too violent to go down. Pitt under his disappointment absented himself so long from the House, that it was currently reported he was gone mad ! To be sure Ld. Camelford Ms a specimen of madness in the family ; he has been in two scrapes since I came hither, for the last of which Ld. Kenyon has hold of him, and threatens heavily. I wrote to Davy a few days before the Lisbon packet arrived and prophesied a good passage to you — a lucky prophet — but you know I am in the habit of looking on the white side of futurity — a certain gain for the present, and little consequent loss. I expect to hear from Davy before he visits the metropolis ; where he ought to remain for the important purposes of fame and fortune. If I can persuade him that the public good is implicated in his acquisition of these things, he perhaps may not be impregnable : arguments which have self at bottom will not touch him. I shall have truth to help me in my plea : for surely on his fame and repute much uni- versal good is consequent. ... I have not heard of Hamilton about the Review ; I am not inclined to make application to him, nor am I very solicitous about the matter ; if it is offered I shall do the best I can. They have a month or two of the poetical department in store. I thank you for your offers of assistance in the Magazine affair ; but I do not enough care about its success to give you the least trouble about it. The printer is a very civil man ; but has not correspondents enough, or dash enough for the undertaking. So let it go on jog-trot. In so far as your enquiries relative to the Portuguese history may coincide with its title, I should be well pleased to receive any com- munication — on this condition, that you do not mis'pend 1 Finally killed in a duel in Kensington in 1804. 32 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN any precious time in it. I have a confused recollection of some Portuguese edict about preventing the planting new vineyards, under pretence of not diminishing corn- land ; in fact to establish a monopoly in favour of some lords who hold most vineyards. It is said that port is raised lately to £10 per pipe in Portugal — from the above cause perhaps. The first of your enquiries on this subject would be acceptable : as would be any thing on the popu- lation, agriculture, tenure of farms, commerce, supply of Lisbon with fuel and necessaries, price of provision etc. So far as these things may be pertinent in the history I should like to receive them in company with Thalaba ; the best of your poems yet published ; and I conjecture more strictly poetical than will be Madoc. The air of history in the epic, always (to my feel) takes off the con- tinuous, fine edge of poetry. . . . I am in possession of the benefit of your civility in the Westminster library, though I have made very little use of it yet, having been much engaged with various, compulsory company. Among the rest the people of Christchurch seem to have combined together to visit town. To speak of them in due order of precedence, first, Lady Strathmore * for interment. She was so silly as to will her body to be deposited in Poets Corner (!) and lyes there within three yards of Shakspeare's Monument. Concordes Animae ! Kindred Spirits ! She was coffined in her wedding suit, and with her a speaking trumpet ! When one recollects her confessions recorded in Doctors' Commons, and published by Bowes, and which (beside her amours with Gray) 2 relate two artificial abor- tions, one must confess that according to the trumpet application in Butler's description of fame, this interred trumpet is in considerable danger of an unsavoury blast. 1 Mary Elizabeth Bowes, Countess of Strathmore, 1749-1800. Her husband, the ninth earl, died in 1776. After some very indiscreet flirtations she married an adventurer, who took her surname, treated her with great brutality, and finally abducted her when she was suing for divorce. She was rescued, and he was imprisoned. Her confessions, published in 1793 were probably extorted by her husband. 2 The Hon. George Grey. LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 33 . . . There is a Bill pending before Parliament to prevent nunneries in England. I hear they increase fast, and that there are two large ones in Essex — Quocirca hoc ? Why, it proves that if the Sex are so sensible of their forlorn con- dition as to embrace a new religion, and unpleasant vows for the sake of a nunnery, that they will ardentty embrace the Beguinage when it is established. Do you go on build- ing this institution in your head ? I should not reckon that waste time compared with the researches for the history of Portugal, If you mention in your next that the Beguinage is not forgotten, I will try to proceed pari passu ; but no faster than you will deign to march, in this chivalrous emprize. G. Dyer has not put out his Spen- serian volume yet. ... I see little of him, he is much engaged in private tutorage. I imagine he does any thing better than he writes poetry. But it would be dangerous to tell him so ; he is so confident of not imbibing the stream from the nether orifice of that bird in the Edda. J. Cottle is vigorously printing unfortunate Alfred. I look with melan- choly to his future disappointment. Amos Cottle dines with me on Saturday. We shall drink your health, and speedy return to the land of intellect and morality. I hear that R. Cottle (whom I do not know) is going to com- mence a bookselling business. Your letter is down at Clifford's Inn. As it contained no secret, I thought it would gratify G. D. and A. C. 1 to see themselves not forgotten, and perhaps in some sort give you a greater latitude of longer silence to either of them ; for of writing letters you must be well nigh weary. I am as glad as you that you have not forgotten Portuguese ; that will save much time. Mrs. E. S. proceeds in that task with rapidity, I daresay ; I think females are good at learning to talk outlandish tongues, especially if she can accommodate herself to Portuguese company. There are no middle-aged women in Portugal, therefore the Prince of Wales (perhaps) did not follow you. G. Dyer desires me to convey to you Mrs. Opie's 2 remembrances with his own. He proposes 1 Amos Cottle. 2 The novelist and poet, wife of John Opie, the painter. C 34 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN &ICKMAN to send you a budget of literary news next month. His chivalry is anxious that his respects should be particularly conveyed to Mrs. Southey. I without chivalry desire the same thing.' There is nothing of particular moment in Rickman's letter to Southey of July 29, except that one page of it is written by G. Dyer, and that it contains the news : ' Mr. Lamb is soon to be my neighbour in Southampton Buildings.' Dyer's letter is written in what Lamb afterwards called his 8 Grecian's hand,' and is only just legible. It gives Southey news of the literary world, mentioning in particular the poems of R. Bloomfield, the shoemaker-poet. Lamb moved in this year from Pentonville to lodge with his friend Gutch, the law-stationer, at 27 Southampton Buildings, and his move is announced in a letter to Coleridge. This letter of Rickman's proves that the move was not made till well into the summer of 1800. Rickman had as yet not made Lamb's acquaintance, though he was familiar with his name. Southey had known Lamb since 1795, and Lamb had even stayed with him at Burton in 1797, but it was presumably before he had met Rickman. The meeting between Lamb and Rickman took place in the autumn of this year, and Lamb describes it in an ecstatic letter to his friend Manning dated November 3. ' 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 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 35 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, con- jecture with George Dyer, nonsense with me, and anything with anybody ; a great farmer, somewhat concerned him- self in an agricultural magazine ; reads no poetry but Shakespeare ; 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, trans- lations, limitations, as Professor Godwin does when you make an assertion ; up to anything ; down to everything ; whatever sapit hominem. A perfect man. . . . 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.' It is not easy to realise from his letters by what charm Rickman, who in all that he wrote was too matter of fact to display his winning qualities, so gained the affection of such men as Lamb and Southey. Southey's letters from Portugal never end without a regret that Rickman is not there too, while there is something almost pathetic in Lamb's enthusiasm. Lamb's letters to him are full of affection and admiration, while Rickman, though, as we shall see, he appreciated Lamb very highly, and was ready to assist him in any way, never alludes to him with any 36 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN warmth of feeling, even after his death. In his next letter to Southey of December 23, which opens with an account of the incomplete negotiations for the sale of Thalaba to Longmans, Rickman quotes Lamb's opinion of the poem that ' it contains more poetry and manifests more care than Joan of Arc.' This letter contains an allusion to Rickman 's decision not to enter the Church. He says : — ' I am very glad to learn . . . that your brother has a very promising prospect before him, if he chuses to enter the Church. I hope he has not genius or severity enough to refuse it. Though I myself have (somewhat to my cost) declined telling lies once a week for hire, I wish my friends a different opinion and less scrupulosity.' Rickman goes on to speak of Cottle, whom a wicked wit in his rooms had called the ' Epic Owl,' and concludes with an account of the failure of Godwin's play Antonio, of which Lamb told the story so inimitably in his essay on the old actors in the London Magazine, and in a letter to Manning of December 16. The next letter to Southey deserves quotation at length. 1 Deer. 27th, 1800. ' I wish you to consider my last, as only half a letter ; otherwise the omission of any remembrance of Mrs. Southey, and enquiring about the state of your own health, and about the period of your return to England may be felt as in- civility. However you know how one sometimes slips on to the end of the paper, unconscious. As I really wish to be informed on the above points, satisfy my longing in your next. About Thalaba — Longman has this day given a three months' note payable to the order of Mr. J. May. He made a push to obtain the edition at 100 guineas, but I told him, time could not be afforded to consult you by letter, and that I myself could not feel justified in taking less than £115, thus splitting the difference between your first demand, and his first offer. You are to have a dozen LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 37 copies. I asked for half of them on large paper : but it is pleaded that the printing expense of those few, would be same as of 250. Otherwise Mr. L. would make no objection. I think his plea valid, and have given up the point. He has a great appetite to mutilate the beauty of the title page, by inserting, A Metrical Romance. I would not assent to this, and the matter is compromised by liberty to say these words on the second title, after the preface. It was necessary to say it somewhere, and that seems the fittest place. [Here follow further details about the printing of the poem.] . . . G. Dyer has your letter. He dines with me to-day. I am about to attempt to persuade him not to cancel a long preface of 80 or 90 pages, which he has prefixed to a vol. of poems, printed but not published — and this, because for- sooth, he thinks he has committed himself in some opinion given of some poet or other. Thus in this idle punctilio, he is likely to waste £20 or £30. His poems are publishing by subscription : I fear me much, that his necessities will spend the money received, and the future bill from the printer will drive him half -mad. He projects three vols. : it is humourous to see him anxious about some feeble criticism, which no soul will ever read. But his exertion of a fanciful literary justice is honourable to him — I wish it was not expensive. He exhibits an obstinacy on this point, which I fear I shall not conquer. 1 ' We feel also a scarcity here. Bread about 4| d. a lb. — and little hope of fall till next harvest. The mob (high and low) prate about monopoly : and if Mr. Pitt had not luckily in his youth read Adam Smith, by this time England would have been a scene of injustice, and the future summer had produced an absolute and fatal famine. Rice is sent for, and expected in June. Meat is not dear (considering); about 7d. per lb., much the cheapest aliment ;. the people tolerably quiet under their affliction ; perhaps it may issue 1 Lamb describes Dyer's crazy obstinacy in a very amusing letter to Manning of December 27. The half-burnt cancelled preface bound into Lamb's copy of the poems is in the British Museum. The first volume was issued in 1801 without a preface, and two complete volumes in 1802. 38 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN in the first of national goods : a general inclosure Bill. . . . Your brother goes into the Church : and the product of Thalaba (a thing of more consequence) into your pocket. Had I been aware of that destination, I had pushed Longman for a shorter date. Three months I considered as a fair distance for an apprenticeship fee. However, it may be readily discounted. I thank you for the commercial intelligence which you occasionally give me. By inserting it (in a guarded shape) I make your epistles pay me much more than the postage to and from Lisbon. I have continued to conduct the Magazine, I mentioned to you. As it is quite in my own way, it is rather a pleasurable occupation, and producing about £70 per ann. The Critical Reviewers have (I suppose) got some other poet-taster. They were not so civil as to write to me on the subject : but from starving scribblers, and brutal booksellers one does not expect much attention. As I have a very mean opinion of my talents for that task, I am glad to avoid it, hoping you will resume it on your return. For as you must wish to read the political effusions of the day (I had almost called them ephemeral) the money rec ed - may be esteemed clear gain. I have another occupation offered me : of which this is the history. At my suggestion, they have passed an Act of Parliament for ascertaining the population of Great Britain, and as a compliment (of course) have proposed to me to superintend the execution of it. Next March the returns will be made, and I shall be busy enough for a short time, I suppose. I suspect all this attention (it is more immediately from G. Rose) is intended as a decent bribe : which I shall reject, by doing the business well, and taking no more remuneration, than I judge exactly adequate to the trouble. It is a task of national benefit, and I should be fanciful to reject it, because offered by rogues. As they well know me for their foe, I cannot suspect them of magnanimity enough to notice me with any good intention. At all events, I shall go strait forward. I wish you and Mrs. S. a merry Xmas, and a happy New Year ! leaving the rest of the paper to be filled next Tuesday morning. J. R. 5 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 39 ' December 30th, 1800. ' I have this morning reced. a letter from Mr. J. May, and in consequence have transmitted to him the note of £115. He is in Wiltshire, therefore I was so many days in hearing from him. So that the pecuniary part of the business is now complete. ... I sometimes think of our projected Beguinage with satisfaction. If it can be brought to bear (it seems not impossible) I hope all the Ladies will allow, that at least I have a little solid gallantry towards their sex. I have not written a word more about it : but will with my first leisure — in February — the last half of which, I purpose to spend in the country. I have a very pleasant neighbour opposite, C. Lamb. He laughs as much as I wish, and makes even puns, without remorse of conscience. He has lately completed a dramatic piece, 1 rather tragic (without murder). The language entirely of the last century, and farther back : From Shakespeare, Beaumont, and Fletcher. He demurs on printing it. I wish him to set it forth under some fictitious name of that age — Shirley (perhaps) who was burnt out at the great fire of London. Lamb is peculiarly happy in his heroine, and altogether I have not seen a play with so much humour, moral feeling and correct sentiment, since the world was young. ' G. Dyer is miserable about his unfortunate preface. I am quite vexed at his obstinacy. Lamb calls him, Cancellarius Magnus, The Lord High Canceller. I have been twice at Christchurch this year, once in Sussex. But still London is best, though we, have not seen the sun for the last month till to-day. Snow fell in the night. There was never such perpetual, general fog known : an un- healthy year throughout, except for invalids, who had Portugal summer. Bill of mortality 23,000 — 4000 above the average. Make my best compts. to Mrs. Southey and your uncle. May God preserve you far into the nineteenth century ! ' 1 Lamb's play, John Woodvil. It is mentioned again in Rickman's correspondence. 40 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN The first Population Act for Great Britain passed the House of Lords the very day on which the first part of this letter was written. Herein, little as he knew it then, lay the fife- work in which Rickman was to take the highest pride, for it enabled him to be of that ' utility ' which was his continual aim. It is curious that he should speak of his employment in so nonchalant a manner to Southey, for he must have looked upon his own handiwork already with pride. In 1796, while Rickman was still in obscurity at Burton, he wrote a paper entitled ' Thoughts on the Utility and Facility of a general Enumeration of the People of the British Empire,' extracts from which are given in the memoir by W. C. Rickman. These extracts set forth, in a very dry manner, the economic advantages of ascer- taining the number of the population, the probability of its being far higher than the usual estimate, and the facility of arithmetically deducing it from the parish registers. This paper was communicated by Mr. (afterwards Sir George) Rose, the member for Christchurch, to Charles Abbot, the future Speaker, who was also interested in the subject. Abbot introduced the Population Bill in 1800, and on its being passed offered to Rickman the supervision of the returns. In view of Abbot's subsequent employment of Rickman as his secretary, it is not hard to suppose that Rickman's suspicions of a bribe were unfounded, and that his anti-ministerial ardours in reality blazed unseen. I hope I may be excused here in making a short digression upon the census, the work upon which Rickman was occupied more or less continuously for the rest of his life, though I do not propose to go into the question of its economic results. The whole machinery was set to work in 1801 by Rickman, who was given an office in the Cockpit, 1 and authority to choose his clerks. The aim was to find out not only the number of the population, but also to estimate the increase or decrease from the records in the parish registers. The returns of 1801 were made by the clergy under six heads : — 1 A little valley off the Birdcage Walk. LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 41 (1) The number of inhabited houses, the number of uninhabited houses, and the number of families inhabiting each house ; (2) The number of persons, excluding soldiers and sailors, found in the parish on the day of inquiry ; (3) The number of persons engaged in trade, agriculture, manufacture, and the number not so engaged ; (4) The number of baptisms and funerals during every period of ten years from 1700 to 1780, and from 1780 to 1800, in each year ; (5) The number of marriages yearly between 1754 and 1800 (the Marriage Act not having been enforced till 1754) ; and (6) Explanatory remarks. From this short list of questions has sprung the elaborate census paper of to-day. It is not surprising that the returns of 1801, important as they are, were very inaccurate. The clergy were not all equally intelligent in drafting their returns, and there was considerable difficulty in determining what constituted a family. The further question, requiring a return of parish registers, was so inaccurately answered that the results were not printed. In 1811 some improvements were made in the questions, old houses being distinguished from new, and in the question as to occupation families were substituted for persons. Only the births, deaths, and marriages were returned by the clergy, the rest of the inquiry being entrusted to the overseers of the parish. In 1821 the questions were much the same, except that the number of persons of various ages — the unit being 5 years from 1 to 20 and 10 years from 20 to 100 — was specifically asked. In 1831 the scope of the inquiry was considerably enlarged. The difficulty of determining the constitution of a family was solved by applying the inquiry to males of twenty years of age, and making a careful schedule of the various trades and professions. The agricultural class was divided into occupiers of land employing labourers, 42 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN occupiers not so doing, and labourers. The Parish Register Act of 1812 enabled a return to be made of ages at the time of death, and the whole returns were arranged for the first time under parishes, and no longer under hundreds. The returns of 1801, 1811, and 1821 were issued in single volumes. Those of 1831 were more elaborate. In view of the Reform Bill it was necessary to publish the in- formation as soon as possible. By a stupendous effort the digest of twenty-eight thousand returns, which did not come in till August 1831, was published in January 1832, in two volumes, entitled A Comparative Account of the population of Great Britain in 1831. Rickman's very able preface includes an account of the origins of London, and remarks upon the increased duration of life, with a mor- tality table for the county of Essex. But these two hastily produced volumes were superseded in 1833 by the Abstract of Returns, in three volumes, to which was prefaced a com- parative account, in one volume, of the results of the four census years. The Abstract contains a complete account of the parish registers of England. Rickman's preface to this Abstract shows him a master of his subject. ' A con- troversy,' as he says, ' of some duration had existed as to the increase or diminution of the population ; and the result of the Act of 1801 being adverse to the opinions of those who had taken a gloomy view of national resources, insinuations were not wanting against the accuracy of the enumeration.' Rickman therefore carefully explains the machinery, proves the efficacy of the 1821 returns from their use in the debates on the Reform Bill, and goes into the whole question of parish areas. There is also a general statistical inquiry to produce data for the average expec- tancy of life, and finally a comparison of the vie moyenne (expectation of life at birth), as calculated from the ages of the deceased (1813-1830), with the percentage increase of the population during the years 1801-1831 in the several counties of England. By his labours Rickman earned a well-deserved reputa- tion, at home and abroad, as a statistician. He became a LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 43 Fellow of the Royal Society in 1815, and in 1833 received the honorary membership of the Societe Frangaise de Statistique Universelle. He contributed several articles on the probability of life to the Medical Gazette between 1835 and 1837, and translated Deparcieux's work on the Probabilities and Duration of Human Life. During the last years of his life he was working continuously on the returns for 1841, as he had obtained leave to ask for returns of births, deaths, and marriages from 1570 to 1750, where early parish registers were known to exist. The result of this inquiry appears in the preface to the census return of 1841, in the form of a table giving the calculated population of the counties of England and Wales at intervals between 1570 and 1750. Rickman's work upon the census was in every way patriotic. He had to make headway against many oppon- ents, chiefly of the Malthusian school, and even in the last year of his life he had to defend himself in a letter to the Home Office against an anonymous attack. In this letter, extracts from which are given in the MS. memoir in the House of Commons Library, he proves that, though he received on an average five hundred guineas for each return, this payment was supposed to cover a number of other statistical labours in intermediate years, and that on the whole, from the necessity of advancing immediate working expenses which could not be recovered, he was financially an actual loser. Such a result is hardly creditable to the governments he had served. For far less services than his men have been heaped with rewards, but it is probable that Rickman's uncompromising political views made it only too easy to ignore the just claims which he himself would have scorned to put forward. CHAPTER III 1801 to early 1802 George Burnett — Rickuian secretary to Abbot in Ireland — Letters from Lamb — G. D.'s rescue — His letter — ' Horse medicine ' for Burnett — His ' second birth ' and tutorship — Lamb and the Morning Post — Abbot appointed Speaker — Rickman leaves Ireland. By the summer of 1801 Southey and his wife had returned from Portugal, and were staying at Bristol with their friends the Dan vers. Southey had a hope of returning to Southern Europe as secretary to a legation, which explains Rickman's allusion to his going ' cost free ' in his letter of July 13. This and the following letter contain Rickman's views upon the political crisis which followed the union with Ireland, when Pitt resigned, and was succeeded by Addington. His explanation of events is hardly one that can be accepted in view of our present historical knowledge, but these letters show that aversion to the Whig party and that readiness to believe the worst of them which is so strong in his later letters. The first mention is here made by Rickman of the unfortunate George Burnett, the friend of Southey, Coleridge, and Lamb, who finally died in a workhouse in 1811. Rickman's letters enable us to fill up some gaps in his story, which has never been fully told, though his name appears in lives of Lamb, in Mrs. Sandford's Thomas Poole and his Friends, and in Crabb Robinson's Diary. He was the son of a farmer in Somersetshire, and was sent to Balliol with a view to entering the Church. Unfortunately for him — for he was of a weak, vain character — he met Southey, then in his most revolutionary mood. Coleridge's visit to Oxford in 1794 resulted in the scheme of Pantisocracy, which, as Southey told Cottle, was talked into shape by Burnett and himself. Burnett threw up all idea of entering the Church, LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 45 and devoted himself to this mad plan of settling a Utopia on the banks of the Susquehanna. He fell entirely under Coleridge's domination, and lived with him for a time during his honeymoon at Clevedon. When Pantisocracy died he seems to have studied surgery in Edinburgh, and in 1798 he was a Unitarian minister at Yarmouth, where he became tutor to Southey's brother, and made the acquaint- ance of William Taylor, the translator of Goethe. It is not certain when he came to London, nor how he met Rickman. I suspect that Dyer, the self-constituted support of the needy, took him in hand and introduced him to Rickman, possibly at Southey's recommendation. He was a man of some talent, but absolutely unpractical, as we shall see. Lamb found in him a continual source of laughter, Rickman as continual a source of irritation. Rickman's appoint- ment as Abbot's secretary speaks for itself. It was the beginning of an official career which only ended with his death. So much preface was necessary to the following two letters to Southey : — 'July 13th, 1801. ' I received an unexpected pleasure on my return home this evening in hearing that you once more retread your natale solum. I suppose you stand among the last of the English in Portugal ; your description of their campaign is exactly what I expected of these Lusitanian heroes. I am glad you are pleased with the appearance of Thalaba in his new dress ; for my part I like him better in print than I did in MS. : wherefore, I know not. ... I question whether you have not formed a wrong opinion of the new Ministry ; in as far as you seem to identify them with their predecessors. I don't think there is the least con- nection. There are mutual reasons for civility — from Pitt, that he might escape a threatened impeachment, from them to gain the aid of his personal friends — I should perhaps say political friends, since his cold heart can have gained no other. However he gave away much necessarily ; and while gratitude is extant, must therefore retain some in- 46 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN fluence. There is some hope of the present Premier 1 ; I suppose that even self-love cannot whisper to him that he is a great man ; therefore he is the more likely to conform to the public wish, and builds his hopes of stability on a speedy peace on reasonable terms. That he is well affected to science and improvements, I am well assured. Pitt had genius without acquired knowledge ; whence his affectation of infallibility and all the woes of Europe. The King's influence has turned him out ; a good effect from a bad cause. I am concerned, though not surprised to find you a little embarrassed about the purse ; I wish common sense had been suffered to take its course in your brother ; I find Burnet is one of the delinquents there. But he is so ab- stracted and thoughtless of the future in his own affairs, that nothing but ignorance of the world is to be imputed to him there. I am trying to teach him the worth of money by making him live on two guineas per week. Incredible as it may seem, he has spent all his resources without an exertion at anything decisive. I wish that you may resume the Review, that at least you may leave it to him as a legacy at your next departure. After the respectful criticisms on Alfred, 2 you may do that with a safe conscience. I hope and am trying to secure him better employment — when his present labour ceases. You know that he is a fellow workman with me on a tedious job ; made so by the incredible inaccuracy of the returns under the Population Act. I write hundreds of letters to little purpose, and have worked about 9 weeks without being able to say that any- thing is done. However, I have made interest to have the state of the business published that blame may be shifted from me to those who deserve it ; and that thereby they may be stimulated to activity. However my vexa- tion at this delay will be well repaid ; since I am to follow Mr. Abbot to Ireland as his private secretary ; when you know that he is to be the real Governor of Ireland, you will think this a post of some consideration ; especially as I understand he means to attend the English Parliament 1 Addington. 2 Cottle's poem. See note p. 27. LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 47 annually, and must therefore leave important matters to his Suppleans. ' I thank God the Irish parliament is annihilated by the Union ! No dirty business to manage with the vilest assembly under the sun ! So I have heard them described by some of themselves. I am told that I shall have no disagreeable business, and have no objection to labour for the improvement of Ireland. You may suppose that nothing can be more pleasant in prospect than experiments for the civilisation of the untutored Irish. I am to be in Dublin (if possible) by the first of Sepr., therefore should be glad to hear of you, how you apportion your nearest time. I am to be partly here, and partly in Hampshire till the time of departure ; and have a power of choice about the " when " if timeously informed ; so that I may have much of the pleasure of your society. Longman has twice desired me to say, that he hopes to see you whenever you come to town;. -. I abjure all my little aversion to poetry in deference to your cogent reasons ; I only think poetry bad in a man who may be better employed : a toy in manhood. Only don't write for the Stage : I think I don't slide into too strong a phrase, when I say, that the success of good dramatic poetry is physically impossible in England, while the theatres are so enormous. When the audience can no longer hear, they must degenerate into spectators of scenery and pantomime. I hope soon to see you in town — to hear from you again sooner. I knew not that Davy was hence till I learnt it from your letter. I daresay you find him well pleased with his change of situation. He will be a great man in this only theatre of greatness. Dan vers too is busy — a glorious thing for a commonsense man, like him. For my part I think in all men that science is a relaxation in business — business in science ; so two good things go on at a time. I am near the end of my paper — therefore dedicate it to send my remembrances to Mrs. Dan vers, Edith, Davy and Danvers — and to desire that I may hear of you again at your first leisure. When you see Mrs. Southey mention me to her.' 48 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 'London, July 24, 1801. ' . . . I was in a mistake about the rout of the English from Portugal ; and you about the rout of Pitt, for the same reason — distance from the scene. You speak of the Catholic question as involved in the last affair. It was a mere excuse — so compleatly so, that the titular Bishop (of Cork I think) the agent here for the Irish Catholics, had only to observe, when applied to by the Opposition, that his em- ployers in Ireland were well enough satisfied, as things are. And well they may be so, as what they call Emancipation, consists only in a right to sit in Parliament — they already vote for Members, which Catholics in England cannot do. If the point were conceded, only four or five Catholics would be returned — " Parturiunt montes." Here 's a plain tale ; the King quarrelled with Pitt about the rejection of an augmentation of Army pay and Army patronage for the amusement of young hopefull, the Duke of York. Pitt was in the right ; but in England the King's influence is omnipotent with the aid of the Opposition, which he would be sure of always against any Minister. So Pitt went out, and both parties had obvious reasons for a decent ostensible cause. ' I am in intention of visiting Hampshire in the commence- ment of August, then come back to arrange the last of the Population returns, then for Ireland. I am much distressed about Burnet : I never saw so unconvertible talents as his. I puzzle myself in thinking what he can ever be fit for. He thinks too highly of himself for common purposes ; and God knows he is fit for no other. I am trying to starve him into common sense and moderate expectations — but 1 fear he is incurable. At present he is confoundedly out of humour with me for administering tins horse medicine. Our Population business is so much beneath him, that he has not yet condescended to understand it, and does not 2 hours work in a day. I must dismiss all who cannot employ themselves without leading strings when I go for Christchurch ; so that his unwilling occupation will cease on Saturday week. He might be assistant at Hackney LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 49 School ; or at a private academy at Cork if he would ! but receives such proposals with indignation as a disparagement to his abilities. Yet, greater men than he, have submitted to this drudgery. I know not what to do about him. On some surgical whim he writes to you this week. I am con- vinced there is nothing solid to be expected by him on that speculation. A little clinical — Edinburgh — theory is not much to the purpose in London. I shall be glad to hear from you by August 1st before I depart hence.' On August 1 there is further news of Burnett in a letter written to Southey just before Rickman's departure from London. ' Burnet improves ; he has had a recommendatory letter from Norwich, from Mr. Taylor to Dr. Aikin. This letter extols the said Burnet as one of the first men of the age ; and has had the good effect thus to rouse him from his lethargy, and make him walk erect. Dr. Aikin will admit his productions into the Monthly Mag. and may perhaps get him some other literary employ. But at this Burnet can never thrive — anything like a task scares him, and givefs] him the Blue Devils, during whose influence he is fit for nothing but pestering his friends with moping epistles. I am pleased that he will soon come to knowledge of himself, of what he can do. At present it is all in the strong box. I am already lecturing him on this text, " Now that you are sure your labour will not be wasted, why don't you begin to write ? " He intends it, he says, and will doubtless intend it, till he discovers that he is incapable of any steady exertion. In the mean time on my expostulation, he has at length consented to condescend to understand our present business ; therefore of course he stays to the end of it. Hitherto he has always said that there was nothing to understand ; and therefore would not attend to thought about it. He has carried his abstraction, or the affecta- tion of it, so far, as to have asked, oftener than once, for instructions what he should do, when he had copied any- thing wrong. The answer, " Scratch it out, and correct it " D 50 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN did not disconcert him at all. His abstraction was to go for philosophy, and an indication of mental powers superior to the business-doing part of mankind. I begin to have hopes of him for all this, and as you may suppose, shall do for him as much real good as I can.' Of Rickman's departure Lamb wrote to his friend Manning on August 31 : — ' I have just lost Rickman, a faint idea of whose character I sent you. He has gone to Ireland for a year or two to make his fortune ; and I have lost by his going what 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 straight and honest.' Lamb constituted himself the chief news-writer to Rick- man during his absence from London, and six letters from him during the autumn of 1801 begin the collection of twenty which Rickman preserved. These letters were only published in the last edition of Lamb's Letters by Canon Ainger (1906), so that they are little known. I am, unfor- tunately, prevented from quoting them. The first letter, dated September 16, is from Margate, and refers to a letter from Rickman containing an offer about Lamb's play — probably the offer which was repeated later to defray the cost of its printing. Lamb refuses, as he is expecting the repayment of a loan. He proceeds to relate the fact that George Dyer has introduced him to the Morning Chronicle ; that Burnett (whom Lamb nicknamed George n., the Bishop, and G. B.) has just finished a metaphysical essay, on which he humorously comments, and is in very comfortable rooms with the son of a wine merchant who keeps them in two sorts of wine ; and that Godwin is about to married, his second play having been refused. Lamb follows this with an inimitable description (on October 9) of a visit to George Dyer, whom he found very dirty and inconsolable because he had no tribute ready to the memory of Gilbert Wakefield, the editor of Lucretius, who was just dead. George Burnett, who was nearly well of his ' metaphyz,' had supped with him LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 51 the night before, and Lamb gives the gist of his mad argu- ment about the ethics of prosecuting a highwayman when you had promised under violence not to do so. He also describes a visit from a needy visitor, for whom Lamb humorously asks Rickman to find a post. Rickman arrived in Ireland at the beginning of September ; Abbot, as we learn from his Diary, 1 having arrived in July. England was still at war, and there were considerable fears of rebellion and invasion at Dublin. The official fife of that ardent reformer was highly strenuous, and we can be sure that Rickman, who makes little reference to his official business, had all the work he could desire. In October Southey joined his friend at Dublin. Through Rickman's influence he had been appointed private secretary to Mr. Corry, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland. He held the post, which meant alternate residence in London and Dublin, for nearly a year. On October 16 Southey wrote to his wife 2 : — ' John Rickman is a great man in Dublin and in the eyes of the world, but not one jot altered from the John Rickman of Christchurch, save only that, in compliance with an extorted promise, he has deprived himself of the pleasure of scratching his head, by putting powder on it. He has astonished the people about him. The government stationer hinted to him that if he wanted anything in the pocket book way, he might as well put it down in the order. Out he palled his own — " Look sir, I have bought one for two shillings." His predecessor admonished him not to let himself down by speaking to any of the clerks. " Why, sir," said John Rickman, " I should not let myself down if I spoke to every man between this and the bridge." And so he goes on his own right way.' To his friend Grosvenor Bedford Southey wrote 3 : — ' I am reconciled to my lot, inasmuch as the neighbour- 1 Diary of Lord Colchester, i. xiv. 2 Life and Correspondence of E. S., ii. 168. 3 Selections from the Letters of E. S., i. 175. 52 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN hood of Dublin is very lovely, and in John Rickman's society I feel little want of any other. He and I, like a whale and a man, are of the same genus, though with great specific differences. If he lives long enough, I expect to see him one of the greatest and most useful men our country has produced. He bends everything to practice. His very various knowledge is always brought to bear upon some point of general importance ; and his situation will now give him the power of producing public benefit.' Early in November Lamb wrote again to Rickman. The following letter was found by Mr. Gordon Wordsworth, and by his permission and that of Mr. E. V. Lucas, who printed it in his edition of Lamb's works, I am permitted to reproduce it. It is one of the best Lamb ever wrote : — 1 A letter from G. Dyer will probably accompany this. I wish I could convey to you any notion of the whim- sical 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 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 medecine could reach it. I was dispatch'd for Dr. Dale, Mr. Phillips of St. Paul's Churchyard, 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 sub- scribers. Having done this and borrow'd two guineas of his bookseller 1 (to whom he imparted in confidence that he 1 Phillips. LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 53 should leave a great many loose papers behind him which would only want methodising 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 sus- pected 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 physio- gnomy 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 explained 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 be began to discourse what a happy thing it would be if there was a place where all 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 Neice (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 corro- borated 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 dissi- 54 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN pated 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 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 con- stant satellites. The Literary Fund has voted him season- ably £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 lost in which Lamb makes a transition to 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 nettles me to see him so proud and so help- less. If he is not serv'd he will never serve himself. I read his long letter to Southey, which I suppose you have LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 55 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 remembrances 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. 1 1 think if you could do anything for George in the way of an office (God knows whether you can in any haste, but you talk of it) it is my firm belief that it would be his only chance of settlement ; he will never five 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 dis- honour, 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 '11 work ; but when he goes about it there 's a lion in the way. He came dawdling to me for an Encyclopaedia 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 56 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 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.' This letter shows Lamb's solicitude for his ' ragged regiment ' of friends. That Burnett should have won his affection is sufficient proof that G. B. was not without many good qualities. He was at this time working for Phillips upon Dr. Mavor's Universal History, which appeared in 1802 — a dull enough compilation in some twenty volumes. The date of Lamb's letter which Mr. Lucas gives as ' ? Nov.' is approximately settled by Rickman's letter of November 7 (quoted below) enclosing it to Sou they x together with the letter from George Dyer which Lamb mentions as about to accompany his own. Dyer's letter has been preserved, and is interesting from the fact that no private letters from the incomparable G. D. have ever been published. Southey had left Dublin to attend Mr. Corry in London, and had doubtless shown to Rickman the foolish letter written by Burnett, who had a mania for bursting out into tirades against his friends, especially Southey, for not making a better man of him. Similar outbursts to 1 Southey must have sent the letter on to Wordsworth, in whose posses- sion it remained. LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 57 Rickman, as we shall see, brought down thunder upon his head in a very short time. His metaphysical essay does not seem to have been published. • Dublin Castle, ' Saturday Night, Novr. 7th, 1801. ' I have just received yours, from whence I gladly hear of your arrival in town. Your letter has arrived at a most awkward time for the immediate and solid answer, since the next post goes not till Monday night, and it is too late to procure English notes for transmissal. You would think me a little tardy in not being prepared ; but I had good reason for not moving in this business till necessary, since the exchange has been constantly more and more favourable, and I expect to transmit to you at 9| instead of 13|, which I believe you paid. This will be 40/ in the small sum to be sent. You know 8| is par : and we are now exporting beef and corn so fast that it will be there soon. That you will be idle enough, i.e. that you will have much time at your own disposal under Mr. Corry, I did and do believe — but I retract the idea I held about the non-existence of your office in peace, I have now cause almost to know the contrary. Be that as it may, so much the better for you and also so much the better for me. I like head work well, so that somebody follows science for me ; that is Irish science ; for I should be itching after some literary memory and tokens and monuments of the present Administration here, if I were alone, and perhaps itching in vain from over-much occupation, but if you will take care of that part of the business, I shall work on as comfortably and steadily as the dullest dray-horse. I have had divers letters from London since your departure, part of one packet I have remitted to you, and with this you receive the rest of it, except a letter of ineffable absurdity from G. B. to J. R. Lamb will shew you an extract speciminis ergo. The joke was going too far, and I have endeavoured to cure the man's insanity by a paper containing horse medicine : coarse in itself and rather 58 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN caustic, but (as you say of cod-fish) a good substratum for medicaments of the best kind which you must administer. In his answer it seems that he still reveres honesty — a good symptom. When you read his essay — P. 25 — push him once and again upon the consequences of that page : it contains the metaphysical gradations to determined villainy, stopping short of the mark which the writer could not see to. Nevertheless I am vexed that I cannot oppose anything to such arguments, but the old, true observation — " By their fruits shall ye know them." If you can quash them better, and a priori, I reckon it a serious good. I send you herewith what I much value ; a letter from Lamb of exquisite, per- haps unparallelled description ; and of an interesting affair ; literally and seriously, of G. Dyer starving to death and rescued from that ruefull fate by the said C. Lamb. What strange men do we know ! Dyer who can starve to death, without knoiving it, Lamb who can rescue him, and enjoy it as a joke, and Burnet of whom no mortal can make any thing : certainly most unaccountable of all. The Goule also must be put on your list of remarkables ; he is high on mine. If you see him not at Lamb's, call at the Cockpit ; if the Population gentry are at work ask for Mr. Beaumont — and say who you are. If you converse with him three minutes, and in casting round your eyes in pursuit of ugliness you do not detect Simmonds, I pronounce you have no taste or nose for Goules. . . . ' G. Dyer's letter lyes before me ; I must send it, garnished with mischievous scrawls. Give my compts. to Burnet — the writer of his own times — and tell him that his essay is, mejudice, very good in choice of words, though tinged with what my brutal taste calls modern jargon. That it is commonplace, but very good commonplace — and that I doubt no part of his ability to write his Introduction or future history, except his industry and perseverance — of which no one can pronounce, as Solon I think said, before the end. That I have reced. his last letter, and am well pleased with it, though I think he ought to have been a little more angry, finally that I wish him well.' LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 59 Here is Dyer's letter. The exclamations in parentheses are in Rickman's hand. 'Dear Sir, — I am much obliged by your favour, and ought to have replied sooner, tho' indeed I have been lately so unwell, that I have been obliged to lay aside attention to letter writing. Yes, I have had a fever, and have been this fortnight past the guest, night and day with our good friend Charles Lamb ; his sister has been my kind nurse, and by help of her, and a physician I am brought right again. How dare you call me a railer at all Governments ? (Exquisite George ! ! ! ) My opinion is, I think both modest and generous, viz. : that some govern too much, and too much govern- ment, sooner or later, defeats its own purposes, and brings on troubles. Rulers therefore should be taught moderation ; and should understand, that if their interest, and the interest of the people are not the same, they are, so far, not standing on good and solid ground. I am glad you find employment, that you like, and I most heartily wish you could find some for Burnett. I begin very much to fear ; from what Lamb says, that he will succeed but poorly in authorship, for it is not for every one, even of talents, to live by authorship (climax here) ; and Burnett will not engage in tuition. In short, Rickman, I fear, if you do not stand his friend he is likely to fare but ill. I can render him, I fear, no service. His objects are out of my sight, and his wishes are beyond my reach. The truth is I can, now, render nobody any service, and must confine my attention to a very few subjects, and a very few persons : I shall be obliged to do so, as well from the weak state of my health, as from my total inability ; much seclusion, little company, and few anxieties I am determined to seek after, as the only means, that can now make me tolerably easy or render an existence for a few years either probable or desirable. So among other cases of distress I must give up Burnett, for, I fear his will prove one case of distress (G. Dyer still), unless you can find him some snug birth in Ireland ; you know the man. If I could render him service I should be happy : but things that I 60 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN proposed to him he disapproves, and therefore I entreat you to think of him, for he seems to me to possess some good qualities (G. Dyer again), and if you could serve him, I think you would have no reason to accuse your own humanity only to cause you folly. I intend to have two volumes of poems out in the winter, and I hope they will be more readable, and appear in a more agreeable form, than my last, smaller size, better print, and paper, than the first. I shall always be very happy to hear from you. This is one of the first letters I have written this fortnight ; for Charles Lambe (I have not been able to write myself) has been condescending enough to be my scribe. So I may say, see how large a letter I have written with my own hand. — Yrs. truly, G. Dyer. 'P.S. Lamb and sister unite in good wishes. Having filled my letter, I am obliged to make an odd bundle of a letter to put under cover to an M.P. — I intended to have written to R. Southey, by this conveyance, but was not sure he was with you ; and, indeed, he has been travelling so about, that I never knew where I could send to him with safety. I owe him a letter, which I shall be happy to pay him : have however written full enough for me at present/ The letter from Burnett to Rickman must have arrived late in October or early in November, for in a short, undated letter to Rickman Lamb alludes to his having received Rickman's extract from it — a demand for a place at six weeks' notice — and takes upon himself the blame of having so addressed the packet that it cost Rickman seventeen shillings, a fact which added considerably to the latter's in- dignation. In this letter Lamb says that Southey is not arrived, which dates his own letter before November 7, though Canon Ainger has wrongly printed it after Lamb's of November 24. A postscript to this same letter speaks of having received ' this moment ' a packet for Southey — probably the letter quoted above. If so, Lamb's undated letter certainly should be dated November 9 or 10. As we LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 61 shall see, Rickman's ire had also been roused by accounts of Burnett's laziness over the population business, and this, added to the fact that he received Burnett's letter after drinking claret, which (as he says) always put him in a bad humour, seems to have produced a downright anathema for poor Burnett, in which he was cruelly informed that both Rickman and Southey considered him a mediocrity. In his letter of November 24 Lamb says he has seen this ' rouzing ' letter, and deprecates its harshness, while bowing to Rickman's better judgment. Southey's first letter from town, in which he begins by humorously describing his duties, 1 which he obviously found trivial and vexatious, makes no allusion to Rickman's ' horse medicine,' for he proceeds : — 'Nov. 20th, 1801. ' . . . Burnett's essay may be entitled Much Ado About Nothing. It is well written in its way, but a damned ugly long way it is. These metaphysicians tease me — wire spin- ning and gold beating their meaning — they have to tell you the amount of ten times ten — they take an hour in getting at the sum unit by unit. I am sorry you did not see his letter to me. That is curious. It is the history of his own mind — the out-blaze of a vanity that has been smoking under green weeds for seven good years. Written with warmth and feeling, for the subject was at his heart and in his heart, if he could but be as animated by anything else — it would do. A fair trial of the trade will do him good. At work he is, and where no great despatch is needful George can work as well as any of Mr. Phillips' merry-men, when he has found out that his metaphysics are not saleable, that he has not quickness enough ever to acquire much knowledge, and that what knowledge he has is not ready at need, then I suppose he will condescend to the common employment of life. Poor fellow ! he would think himself degraded by giving to boys the elements of learning — and yet he will 1 The first part (which I omit) and the last part of this letter are pub- lished in Lije and Correspondence of E. S., ii. 174. 62 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN write for Mr. Phillips' hire, restricted as to subject and even as to pages — and under Dr. Mavor's name ! If this be not great straining and camel swallowing with a vengeance ! — he should be sowing the grain — and he will be making the bread. EvprjKa. Evpq/ca. Evprj/ca. ' You remember your heretical proposition de Cambro- Britannis that the principality had never produced and never could produce a great man, that I opposed Owen Glendwr and Sir Henry Morgan to the assertion but in vain, but I have found the Great man — and not merely the Great man — the Maximus homo — the /u,e 59, 60, 65, 69, 75, 76, 87, 89, 90, 106, 128, 129, 130, 156, 247,313,314. Lancaster, Joseph, 160. Lansdowne, Lord, 136, 239, 240. Ley, John Henry, 2()8, 308, 311. Liberalism, 11, 171, 176, 183, 184, 196, 197, 211, 212, 218, 244, 245, 251, 252, 257, 258, 259, 267, 268. Liverpool, Lord, administration of, 160, 168, 180, 184, 185, 187, 189, 192, 195, 207, 208, 210-12, 213, 218, 219-25, 22S-31, 233, 235. and Manchester Railway, opening of, 267. Lincoln College, Rickman at, 22. INDEX 325 Longmans' piiblishing house, 36, 37, 38, 47, 88, 89, 296. Lords, House of, 14, 139, 140, 147, 153, 168, 222, 229, 231, 244, 245, 268, 280, 282, 284, 285, 286, 2S9, 293-95, 308-12, 314. Lord Miltonians, the, 303. Lovell, Robert, 204, 205, 268, 272, 273, 281. Lucas, E. V., 1, 6, 17, 18, 26, 129, 247. Lyndhurst, Lord, 294. Macatjlay, Lord, 13, 253, 254. Macculloch, John Ramsay, 242, 249, 260, 261. Mackintosh, Sir James, 243, 291, 292. 'Madoc,' Southey's poem, Rickman on, 112, 113. Magdalen Hall, Rickman at, 22. Malthus, Thomas Robert, 43, 148, 167, 203, 204, 237, 272, 302. Manners-Sutton, Charles, 239, 294, 314. Mavor's Universal History, 56, 62, 70. May, John, 25, 36, 39. Melbourne, Lord, 209, 272, 307, 312, 314. Melville, Lord, 30, 115, 139-41, 255. (son of the above), 239. Moira, Lord, 137, 138. More, Hannah, 71, 15S. Morning Post, the, 67, 69, 70, 72, 105, 106. Morpeth, Lord, 261. Murray, John, 195, 201, 203, 241, 268, 272, 281, 282, 285, 290, 291, 292, 296, 318. Napoleon, 31,63, 64, 79, 113, 135, 143, 144, 145, 169, 171, 173, 174, 175, 215, 235. Natural beauty, Rickman on, 108. Navarino, battle of, 237, 240. Netherlands, the, Packman visits, 232, 233. Normandy, Rickman in, 231. O'Connell, Daniel, 13, 14, 229, 240, 241, 243, 275, 279, 282, 285, 2SS, 294, 299, 300. x2 Ompteda, 255. Opie, Mrs., 33. Owen of Lanark, 180, 182. Palmerston, Lord, 210, 272, 275. Pautisocracy, 23, 44, 45, 96. Parliamentary reform, 12, 118, 138, 162, 163, 179, 180, 208, 214, 222, 236, 240, 249-96, 312. Parnell, Sir Henry, 316. Peel, Sir Robert, 13, 209, 219, 221, 228, 233, 235, 238, 239, 240, 242- 45, 264, 274, 275, 277, 282, 283, 285, 286, 287, 289, 290, 292, 294, 295, 299, 300, 304, 306, 312, 314, 315. Penryn, disenfranchisement of, 208, 250. Perceval, Spencer, 12, 13, 135, 145- 47, 153, 160, 161, 228. 'Peterloo' massacre, the, 206, 211, 250, 255. Petty, Lord Henry. See Lansdowne. Phillips, Colonel, 127. Phillips, Edward, 111, 112, 113-15. the bookseller, 52, 53-55, 61, 95 Pitt, William, 12, 22, 30, 31, 37, 44, 45, 46, 48, 105, 108, 109, 113, 115, 135, 136, 138-41, 147, 228, 255. Place, Francis, 273. Plunket, Lord, 209, 224, 229, 241. Poetry, Rickman on, 23, 35, 47. Poland, Burnett in, 103, 104, 111. Political economists, Rickman's dis- like of, 241, 242, 249, 260, 261, 290, 302, 303. Poole, Thomas, 3, 78, 80, 81, SO, 88, 89, 90, 95-103, 105, 118, 136, 191 ; letters of, to Rickman, 99- 102. Poor Law reform, 15, 80, 86, 88, 89, 134, 135, 136, 143, 151, 152, 157, 167, 168, 180, 181, 182, 190-94, 196-204, 206, 237, 241, 246-48, 270, 290, 306, 307. report of 1834, 306, 307. Population Acts, the, 40-43. - returns, 15, 38, 40-43, 46, 48, 86, 162, 182, 219, 220, 237, 260, 326 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN 261, 262, 285, 287, 290, 298, 302 318, 319. Porson, Richard, 35, 306. Portland, Lord, administration of. 137, 145-47, 149. Portugal, Southey in, 5, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35-39, 45, 75. Press, the, Packman on, 13, 160. 161, 166, 180, 185, 187, 191, 192, 194, 202, 208, 211, 213, 214, 218, 221, 222, 267, 278, 281, 286, 288, 289, 292. Previous question, motion of the, 300. Prison reform, 201, 202. Privy Council and the Reform Bill, 274, 275, 283. Pugilism, Rickman on, 136. Quarterly Review, the, 10, 13, 148. 154, 155, 157, 177, 178, 186, 188, 189, 191, 195, 197, 198, 203, 204, 219, 225, 234-37, 238, 241, 272, 291, 292, 305, 318. Radicals, the. See Reform Party. Reform Bill, the first, 11, 13, 14, 147, 188, 248, 249-51, 273-96, 299, 311. Party, the, 11, 12, 152, 186, 212, 214, 215, 218, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 229, 251, 256, 258, 261, 266, 273, 280, 283, 287, 289, 299, 300, 301, 303, 308, 314, 315. Regency, Bill, the, 153, 154. Religious epithets, Rickman on, 169-72. ' Remorse,' by Coleridge, 6, 163-66. Representative, the, 291. Rickman family, origin of, 19. Ann (Mrs. Lefroy), 119, 120-22, 124, 125, 130, 131, 147, 166, 198, 226, 227, 254, 305, 308. reminiscences of, 3, 6, 9, 10, 18, 22, 119, 120, 124-28, 319. Frances, 119, 122, 123, 124, 125, 198, 254, 308-11, 312, 318. letter of, to Ann Rick- man, 308-11. John — introduction passim. born in 1771, 21. Rickman, John — continued. educated at Guildford Grammar School, Magdalen Hall, and Lincoln College, Oxford, 21, 22. early idea of entering the Church, 22. life at Christchurch, 22-25. makes acquaintance of Robert Southey, 22. stays with Southey at Bristol in 1800, 24. goes to London, 25. life in London, 26-39. meets George Dyer, 26. becomes editor of the Commercial, A gricultural, and Manufacturers' Magazine, 28. acts as Southey's literary agent, 29, 36, 37. first acquaintance with Lamb, 35, 36. employed in digesting the first census, 38. his work on the population re- turns 1801-1840,40-43. And see Population returns, meets George Burnett, 46. appointed secretary to Abbot, Chief Secretary for Ireland, 46. goes to Dublin, 50. procures Southey a secretaryship in Ireland, 51. his troubles with Burnett, 57, 58, 60,61, 64-67, 90-92, 94-9S, 102, 152. appointed Speaker's Secretary in 1S02, 76. comes to live at Westminster, 77. meeting with Thomas Poole, 80, 81. first thoughts of marriage, 83. Lamb stays at his house in 1803, 87. Southey visits him, 88, 89, 110, 136, 147, 268. his hospitality, 88, 89. visits Sadlers Wells with Southey and the Lambs, S9. procures work for Thomas Poole, 80, 89. has a tiff with Thomas Poole, 98-102. finds a ship for Coleridge in 1804, 103-107. INDEX 327 Rickman, John — continued. marries Miss Postlethwaite in 1805, 115-17. his family life at Westminster, 118-34. at Lamb's Wednesday evenings, 6, 128, 129. his views on education, 119-23, 152, 176. his first honse at Westminster, 123-25, 127-29. his house as Clerk Assistant, 125. his holiday tours, 130, 131, 254. his official work, 132-34. his writings, 130, 134, 190-204, 234-37. visits Thomas Poole, 136, 142. visits Southey, 130, 147. checks Southey's truculence, 169-74. becomes second Clerk Assistant, 129, 130, 135, 175. his work on the poor rate returns, 191. indexes Hatsell's Precedents, 196. depressed by the political situa- tion, 206, 207. tours in Scotland with Southey and Telford, 210. becomes Clerk Assistant, 124, 125, 130. Bertha Southey stays at his house, 225-28. builds a house at Chidham, 226-28. tours in Normandy, 231. tours in the Netherlands with Southey, 232, 233. witnesses debates on the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, 243-45. visited by Lamb in 1829, 247. rouses Southey to action against the reform movement, 259-264. his views on Parliamentary reform, 262, 263, 265, 266, 267. describes debates on the Reform Bill, 273-90, 291-95. wishes to retire in 1832, 297, 298. sends in a plan for combating the Radicals, 301. witnesses the burning of the Houses of Parliament, 308-12. Rickman, John — continued. on Lamb's death, 312. leaves Palace Yard for Judge Jeffreys' house in Duke Street, 316-18. falls ill and dies in 1S40, 318, 319. tributes to him in the House of Commons, 319, 320. his artistic tastes, 10. his dress, 10, 78, 83, 126, 127. character of, 4, 5, 9, 14, 16, 17, 51, 98, 110, 115, 116, 119, 120-23, 127, 129, 178, 231, 305, 306. his emoluments, 77, 78, 83, 132, 133. his honours, 43. letters of, to his daughter Ann, 3, 9, 19-21, 77, 115, 116, 120-22. to Lord Colchester, 3, 72-74, 130, 207-10, 224, 225, 232, 233. to Southey, 3, 9, 10, 17, 23, 24, 26, 27-29, 30-34, 36-39, 44-50, 57, 58, 63-65, 67, 68, 70-72, 76, 81, 83-85, 88,91,92, 93, 94, 102, 103, 107-109, 110, 113, 115, 116, 129, 134, 135, 136, 143-45, 147-49, 152-56, 166-75, 176-87,188-207,210-24, 225-28, 229-31, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237-41, 243-48, 250-98, 299-305, 306-30S, 311, 312, 313-17. to Thomas Poole, 3, 9, 86, 87, 89, 92, 96, 98, 109, 110, 111-17, 136-43, 145, 146, 149-52, 175, 176, 236. political opinions of, 11, 12, 14, 42, 45, 46, 47, 48, 79, 92, 117, 138-47, 149, 150, 153-55, 168, 172, 176, 210-16, 218, 219, 220-24, 229-31, 235, 236, 237, 238, 240, 241, 243-45, 250-68, 273-290, 293-95, 298, 299-304, 306-308, 314, 315. See also Bur- nett, Coleridge, Dyer, Lamb (C. ), and Southey (R.). and Southey, proposed Colloquies of, 6, 13, 14, 249, 262-64, 265, 268-74, 280, 281, 282, 289, 290, 291, 292, 296, 297, 318. Martha, 119. — Mary, 89, 162. 328 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN Rickman, Mrs., 115-17, 119, 126, 129, 131, 136, 162, 166, 172, 178, 179, 198, 221, 227, 228, 264, 282, 292, 309, 311, 318. Rev. Thomas, 19, 21, 149. William, 19, 20, 21. W. C, 119, 124, 125, 198, 225, 226, 241, 242, 319. his Memoir of John Rick- man, 1, 40, 318-20. Roman Catholic Emancipation, 12, 13, 48, 113, 144-46, 150, 167, 168, 209, 210, 222-25, 228-31, 233, 234, 237, 240-45, 248, 256, 258, 268, 2S4, 292, 304, 307, 312. Romilly, Sir Samuel, 201. Rose, Sir George, 38, 40, SO, 142. Russell, Lord John, 14, 214, 240, 250, 273-80, 2S2, 293, 319. Ryle, Mr., Lamb's executor, 313. Sadlers Wells, 89. St. Margaret's, Westminster, 1, 130, 280, 319. St. Vincent, Lord, 139, 141. Sandford, Mrs., Thomas Poole and his Friends, 1, 3, 8, 44. Scarlett, Jas. (Lord Abinger), 261,262. Selfishness, Rickman on, 1S3, 193, 194, 196, 230, 252, 270. Shaftesbury, Lord, 284. Shelley, P. Bysshe, expelled from Oxford, 158-60. Sheridan, R. B., 12, 145, 146, 153, 154, 163. Six Acts, the, ISO, 210, 211. Slave Trade Bill, the, 110. Smith, William, 1SS, 189. Southey, Bertha, 9, 119, 225-2S, 249, 270. Herbert, 178, 179. Mrs., 33, 34, 38, 39, 44, 47, 72, 91, 179, 185,308,318. Robert — his friendship with Rickman, passim. meets Rickman at Christchurch, 22, 23. his work criticised by Rickman, 23, 79, 112, 113, 136, 169-74, 176-78, 223. visited by Rickman at Bristol, 24, 25. Southey, Robert — continued. goes to Portugal, 26, 29. sale of ' Thalaba ' negotiated by Rickman, 29, 36, 37, 39, 63, 68. introduces Rickman to Dyer, 26. returns to Bristol, 44. his early connection with Burnett, 44, 45. becomes secretary to Mr. Corry, 51,56, 63, 66, 69, 71, 75. his life at Dublin, 51, 52. Burnett quarrels with him, 8, 56, 82, 84, 85. goes to London, 56, 60, 63, 66, 69. his opinion of Burnett, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 70, 75, 82, 84, 85, 90, 91, 95, 156. Dyer visits him, 63. his opinion of Lamb's play, 74, 75. quarrels with Godwin, 80. leaves London to settle at Kes- wick, 79. introduces Poole to Rickman, 80, 81. Lamb's opinion of his influence on Burnett, 85. visits Rickman at Westminster, 88, 89, 110, 125, 136, 147, 268. goes to Sadlers Wells with the Lambs and Rickmans, 89. loses his daughter, 91. praised by Coleridge, 104, 105. his poem ' Madoc,' 112, 113. on Coleridge's habits, 144. his work for the Quarterly Review, 148, 154, 155, 157, 167, 178, 186, 190, 195, 218, 219, 225, 238, 241, 291, 292, 305, 318. his work for the Edinburgh Annual Register, 154, 169. Rickman sends him material, 134, 144, 191-94, 305. describes Shelley's escapade, 158- 60. his Life of Nelson, 166, 167. becomes Poet Laureate, 172. on the death of his son, 178. invited to write for the Govern- ment, 180. Rickman's advice on the invita- tion, 183, 184. INDEX 329 Soutbey, Robert — continued. bis « Wat Tyler ' attacked by W. Smith, M.P., 188-90. visited at Keswick by Rickman, 130, 194. Rickman's share in bis published work, 197-201, 203, 204, 234- 37. writes to Hansard on behalf of R. Lovell, 204, 205. tours with Rickman in Scotland, 210. his Colloquies ivith Sir T. More, 213,221. his quarrel with Byron, 219. writes inscriptions for the Cale- donian Canal, 223. his quarrel with Lamb, 225. voyages in Holland, 231. on Rickman's capacity for work, 232. tours in the Netherlands with Rickman and Henry Taylor, 22, 232, 233. elected M.P., 233. on Rickman's son intending to enter the Church, 242. interests Rickman in co-operation, 246, 247, 248. his message to Lamb, 247. on Macaulay, 254. roused by Rickman to write on Parliamentary reform, 259-64. the proposed joint Colloquies, 6, 13, 14, 249, 262-64, 265, 268- 74, 280-82, 289-92, 296, 297, 318. on his wife's illness, 308. on Lamb's death, 313. on Rickman's house in Palace Yard, 316, 317. marries Caroline Bowles, 318. political opinions of, 11, 175, ISO, 222, 250, 290. letter of, to Danvers, 89. to W. S. Landor, 88, 89. letters of, to G. C. Bedford, 51, 52, 148. to his wife, 51. to Rickman, 3, 5, 18, 24, 29, 30, 35, 61-62, 65-67, 68- 70, 74-76, 81, 84, 85, 90, 111, 147, 156, 158-60, 172, 173,175, Southey, Robert— continued. 200, 201, 203, 231, 232, 234, 235, 242, 247, 254, 270, 271, 281, 282, 290, 308, 313, 316, 317, 318. Southampton Buildings, Lamb and Rickman at, 34, 35, 39. Speaker's Secretary, functions of, 77, 78. Spottiswoode, the firm of, 290, 291, 296, 297. Spring Rice, Thomas, 252, 253. Spurzeim, Dr., 241. Stafford, Lord, 284. Stage, the, Rickman on, 9, 47. Stanhope, Lord, 70, 71, 72, 75, 82, 83, 84. Stoddart, Dr., 186, 211. Strathmore, Countess of, 32. Talfourd, Sergeant, 5, 128, 313. 'Tarn worth Manifesto,' Peel's, 312. Taylor, Sir Henry, 130, 232, 233, 309-12, 315, 316. Sir Herbert, 137, 138. William, 45, 49, 94, 107, 118, 157. Telford, Thomas, 8, 15, 131, 132, 181, 210, 213, 231, 249, 308, 318. Ten-pound freeholders, Rickman on, 279, 286, 287, 289, 293. Test Act, repeal of, 240, 292. 'Thalaba,' Southey's poem, 29, 36, 37, 62, 63. Thomson, Poulett (Lord Sydenham), 257. Tierney, George, 152, 153, 208, 211, 234. Tobin, George, 104, 106. Tories, 5, 11, 12, 79, 118, 150, 160, 168, 208, 233, 234, 240, 242-45, 248, 249. 250, 251, 263, 264, 277, 284, 285, 288, 289, 294, 295, 298, 299, 304, 314, 315. Turner, Sharon, letter of, to W, C. Rickman on John Rickman's death, 16, 17. Ulloa, Don, 20. Vansittart, Nicholas (Lord Bexley), 150, 207, 208. Vesey Fitzgerald, 240. 330 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN RICKMAN Villiers, Edward, 310. Votes and Proceedings of the House of Commons, the, 15, 133, 134, 188. Vyvyan, Sir Richard, 263. Wall, Baring, 275. Ward, Colonel, 255. Warter, Rev. J., on Rickman, 305, 306. Waterloo, battle of, 177, 178, 225, 226, 255. Wedgwood, Josiah, 99, 100, 102. Wellesley, Lord, 138, 139, 150, 160, 161, 219, 229. Wellington, Duke of, 12, 13, 177, 216, 228, 233, 234, 239, 240, 242, 245, 248, 250, 251, 253, 256, 258, 261, 266, 268, 289, 294, 295, 304, 307,308,312; administrations of, 237-45, 248, 250-53, 256, 257, 258-68, 312, 314, 315. Westall, William, 290. Westbrook, Miss, and Shelley, 159. Westminster, life at, 10, 77-79, 81, 83, 115, 118-30, 132-34. Palace of, 10, 123-26, 227, 308-12, 310, 317. Whigs, 11, 14, 79, 108, 118, 141, 142, 150, 152, 153, 154, 160, 168, 174, 208, 211, 212, 215, 218, 224, 225, 235, 238, 239, 240, 242-45, 248, 249, 250, 251, 253, 255, 256, 258, 261, 263, 265, 267, 276, 277- 89, 292-96, 298, 299, 301, 303, 304, 311, 314,315. Whiggamores. See Whigs. Whitbread, Samuel, 12, 13, 139, 140, 150, 175. Wilberforce, William, 110. Wilde, Mr., 124, 126, 127, 309. William in., 238. William iv., 251, 261, 264, 265, 26S, 276, 277, 278, 293, 294, 295, 300, 310. Windbam, William, 141. Wordsworth, Dorothy, 89, 194. William, 10, 108, 151, 194, 195, 281, 285. Wynn, C. Williams, 61, 189, 209, 219, 239, 240. York, Duke of, 12, 48, 136, 138, 141, 229, 231. Zamoyski, Count, 111. Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL RNeToF 25 CENTS JUN 9 ^ a I Deo'53WB N0V17I953LU 9Jun'60At UK*** fcEC'D UD JUN 8 - I960 ^ iMA'ttJC 'SJ33REC D UD JAN 1 8 1962 *W2 81980 ., RECEIVED B' NOV 1 1 j 9 g CIRCULATION Def-> LD 21-50m-l,'3 3 f w \ LIBRARY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. THIS BOOK IS DUE BEFORE CLOSING TIME ON LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW LiBRMY USE QtC2 i '6 5 «« REC'D DEC 21 'R5 -KM LOAN DEPT, RECEIVEC^B¥ Mf|w i n iQpn IMUV 1 l-TOtr~ CIRCULATION DEPT General Library LD 62A-50m-2,'64 University of California (E3494sl0)9412A Berkeley Ill I « h m.