^AW:^ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A.KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID s I 66 THE WORKS CHARLES LAMB. THE WOEKS CHARLES LAMB INCLUDING HIS MOST INTERESTING LETTERS. COLLECTED AND EDITED, WITH MEMORIALS, By sir THOMAS NOON TALFOURD. A NEW EDITION. LONDON : BELL AND DALDY, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. LONDON : BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEKRIARS. 952 Lin TO THE REV. DERWENT COLERIDGE, M.A., HnlNCIPAL OF ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, CHELSRA, ■nils KDITIOX OK THE WORKS OF HIS FATHER'S FRIEND 13 RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED THE PUBLISHER. AuausT, 1852 CONTENTS. LETTERS. Chapter L— [1775 to 1796.] Page lamb's parentage, school days, and youth, to the commencement of his correspondence with coleridge 5 Chapter IL— [1796.] LETTERS TO COLERIDGE 11 Chapter IIL— [1797.] LETTERS TO COLERIDGE .20 Chapter IV.— [1798.] LAMB'S LITERARY EFFORTS AND CORRESPONDENCE WITH SOUTHEY . . 28 Chapter V.— [1799, 1800.] LETTERS TO SOUTHEY, COLERIDGE, MANNING, AND WORDSWORTH ... 37 Chapter VI.— [1800.] LETTERS TO MANNING AFTER LAMBS REMOVAL TO THE TEMPLE . . . 60 Chapter VIL— [1801 to 1804.] LETTERS TO MANNING, WORDSaVorTH, AND COLERIDGE; JOHN WOODVIL rejected, published, and reviewed 58 Chapter VIII.— [1304 to 1806.] letters to manning, wordsworth, rickman, and hazlitt.— " mr. 11." written,— accepted,— damned 72 WST7''^^^ CONTENTS. Chapter IX.— [1807 to 1814.] LETTERS TO MANNING, MONTAGUE, WORDSWOKTH, AND COLERIDGE I'agc 83 Chapter X.— [1815 to 1817.] LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH, SOUTHEY, AND MANNING . 92 Chapter XI.— [1818 to 1820,] LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH, SOUTHEY, MANNING, AND COLERIDGE . . .103 Chapter XII.— [1820 to 1823.] LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH, COLERIDGE, FIELD, WILSON, AND BARTON . . 110 Chapter XIIL— [1823.] LAMB'S CONTROVERSY WITH SOUTHEY ... .... 120 Chapter XIV.— [1823 to 1825.] LETTERS TO AINSWORTH, BARTON, AND COLERIDGE -131 Chapter XV.— [1825.] LAMB'S EMANCIPATION FROM THE INDIA HOUSE 139 Chapter XVI.— [1826 to 1828.] LETTERS TO ROBINSON, CARY, COLERIDGE, PATMORE, PROCTER, ^ ND BARTON 144 Chapter XVII.— [1829, 1830.] LETTERS TO ROBINSON, PROCTER, BARTON, WILSON, OILMAN, WORDS- WORTH, AND DYER 154 Chapter XVIII.- [1830 to 1834.J LAMB'S LAST LETTERS AND DEATH CONTENTS. FINAL MEMORIALS. — ♦ — Chapter I. I'aKc LETTERS OF LAMB TO COLERIDGE, IN THE SPRING AND SUMMER OF 1796 . . 189 Chapter II. LETTERS OF LAMB TO COLERIDGE, CHIEFLY RELATING TO THE DEATH OF MRS. LAMB. AND MISS LAMB'S SUBSEQUENT CONDITION .... '201 Chapter III. LETTERS TO COLERIDGE AND MANNING IN LAMB'S FIRST YEARS OP LIFE WITH HIS SISTER— 1797 to 1800 211 Chapter IV. MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS TO MANNING, COLERIDGE, AND WORDSWORTH — 1800 TO 1805 . . 219 Chapter V. LETTERS TO HAZLITT, ETC.,— 1805 to 1810 229 Chapter VI. LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH, ETC., CHIEFLY RESPECTING WORDSWORTH'S POEMS— 1815 to 1818 237 v'' Chapter VII. THE LONDON MAGAZINE— CHARACTER AND FATE OF MR. JOHN SCOTT, ITS EDITOR— GLIMPSE OF MR. THOMAS GRIFFITHS WAINWRIGHT, ONE OP ITS CONTRIBUTORS — MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS OF LAMB TO WORDSWORTH. COLERIDGE, AND OTHERS— 1818 TO 1825 248 Chapter VIII. LETTERS OF LAMB'S LAST YEARS— 1825 to 1834 256 / Chapter the Last. LAMB'S WEDNESDAY NIGHTS COMPARED WITH THE EVENINGS OF HOL- LAND HOUSE— HIS DEAD COMPANIONS, DYER, GODWIN, THELWALL, HAZLITT, BARNES, HAYDON, COLERIDGE, AND OTHERS— LAST GLIMPSES OF CHARLES AND MARY LAMB . . .... 279 CONTENTa ESSAYS OF ELIA. — ♦ — THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE . . 315 OXFORD IN THE VACATION 319 CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE-AND-THIRTY YEARS AGO 322 -=^ THE TWO RACES OF MEN 328 NEW-YEARS EVE 331 , - MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST 334 A CHAPTER ON EARS 338 — ALL FOOLS' DAY 340 A QUAKERS' MEETING 342 THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER 844 IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES 349 WITCHES, AND OTHER NIGHT FEARS 353 VALENTINE'S DAY 356 MY RELATIONS 358 MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE 361 MY FIRST PLAY 363 MODERN GALLANTRY .... 366 THE OLD BENCIIEUS OF THE INNER TEMPLE 36S — ■ GRACE BEFORE MEAT 373 DREAM-CHILDREN; A REVERIE 377 DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS 379 THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS 3S2 A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS . . . 3S5 — A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG 389 A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOl'LE 392 JON SO.ME OF THE OLD ACTORS 306 ON THE ARTIFICIAL COMEDY OF THE LAST CENTURY .... .402 ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN . 406 CONTENTS. THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA. Pase BLAKESMOOR IN H SHIRE 413 POOR RELATIONS 415 DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING 419 ^^ STAGE ILLUSION 42 \r TO THE SHADE OP ELLISTON 424 ELLISTONIANA 425 THE OLD MARGATE HOY 423 THE CONVALESCENT 432 SANITY OF TRUE GENIUS 434 \^ CAPTAIN JACKSON 435 THE SUPERANNUATED MAN 438 THE GENTEEL STYLE IN WRITING 441 ^ BARBARA S 441 THE TOMBS IN THE ABBEY 446 AMICUS REDIYIVUS 448 y SOME SONNETS OF SIR PHILIP SYDNEY 450 NEWSPAPERS THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO 453 BARRENNESS OF THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY IN THE PRODUCTIONS OF _ MODERN ART 437 i/ THE WEDDING 463 REJOICINGS UPON THE NEW YEAR'S COMING OF AGE 466 OLD CHINA 468 THE CHILD ANGEL; A DREAM ....... 471 CONFESSIONS OF A DRUNKARD 473 POPULAR FALLACIES :— r. THAT A BULLY IS ALWAYS A COWARD 477 ^ II. THAT ILL-GOTTEN GAIN NEVER PHOSPEBS 477 III. THAT A MAN MUST NOT LAU(Sh AT HIS OWN JEST . . . .477 IV. THAT SUCH A ONE SHOWS HIS BREEDINO. — THAT IT IS EASY TO PER- CEIVE HE IS NO GENTLEMAN 47^ V. THAT THE POOR COPY THE VICES OF THE RICH 47H VI. THAT ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST 479 VU. OF TWO DISPUTANTS THE WARMEST IS GENERALLY IN THE WRONG . 470 CONTENTS. POPULAR FALLACIES— continued. Pane VIII. THAT VERRAL ALLUSIONS ARE NOT WIT, BEOADSE THET WILL NOT BEAR A TRANSLATION 480 IX. THAT THE WOPST I'UNS ARE THE BEST 480 X. THAT HANDSOME IS THAT HANDSOME DOES 481 XI. THAT WE MUST NOT LOOK A GIFT-HORSE IN THE MOUTH . . . 4S2 XIL THAT HOME IS HOME THOUGH IT IS NEVER SO HOMELY . . . . 433 Xin. THAT YOU MUST LOVE ME, AND LOVE MY DOG 485 XIV. THAT WE SHOULD RISE WITH THE LARK 487 XV. THAT WE SHOULD LIE DOWN WITH THE LAMB 488 XVL THAT A SULKY TEMPER IS A MISFORTUNE 480 ROSAMUND GRAY, ESSAYS, Etc. — ♦ — ROSAMUND GRAY . . 49J ESSAYS :— RECOLLECTIONS OF CHRIST'S HOSPITAL . . 5U V ON THE TRAGEDIES OF SHAKSPEAKE, CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR FITNESS FOR STAGE-REPRESENTATION 517 "^ CHARACTERS OP DRAMATIC WRITERS, CONTEMPORARY WITH SHAKSPEAUE . 526 . SPECIMENS FROM THE WRITINGS OF FULLER, THE CHURCH HISTORIAN . . 535 < ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF HOGARTH ; WITH SOME REMARKS ON A PASSAGE IN THE WRITINGS OP THE LATE MR. BARRY . . .540 ON THE POETICAL WORKS OF GEORGE WITHER 660 LETTERS, UNDER ASSUMED SIGNATURES, PUBLISHED IN "THE REFLECTOR":— THE LONDONER 553 ON BURIAL SOCIETIES; AND THE CHARACTER OF AN UNDERTAKER . . . 554 ON THE DANGER OF CONFOUNDING MORAL WITH PERSONAL DEFORMITY; WITH A HINT TO THOSE WHO HAVE THE FRAMING OP ADVERTISEMENTS FOR APPREHENDING OFFENDERS 557 ON THE INCONVENIENCES RESULTING FROM BEING HANGED . . . . 060 ON THE MELANCHOLY OF TAILORS 565 HOSPITA ON THE IMMODERATE INDULGENCE OF THE PLEASURES OF THE PALATE 667 EDAX ON APPETITE ^^ CURIOUS FRAGMENTS, EXTRACTED FROM A COMMON-I'LACK BOOK WHICH BELONGED TO ROBERT BURTON, THE FAMOUS AUTHOR OF THE ANATOMY OF MKLANCIIOIiY 673 MR. H ., A FAUCE, IN TWO ACTS - • . . .... 677 CONTENTS. POEMS. I Thnse marked with an asterisk are by the Author'n Sister.] Pajte HESTER ... ... . . . . • -593 TO CHARLES LLOYD, AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR . . . ... 593 THE THREE FRIENDS 594 TO A RIVER IN WHICH A CHILD AVAS DROWNED 596 THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES 596 •HELEN 596 A VISION OF REPENTANCE 596 •DIALOGUE BETWEEN A MOTHER AND CHILD 587 QUEEN ORIANA'S DREAM 597 A BALLAD NOTING THE DIFFERENCE OF RICH AND POOR, IN THE WAYS OF A RICH NOBLE'S PALACE AND A POOR WORKHOUSE 598 HYPOCHONDRIACUS .... .... 598 A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO ... 599 TO T. L. H., A CHILD 600 BALLAD, FROM THE GERMAN 601 •DAVID IN THE CAVE OF ADULLAM 601 •SALOME 601 •LINES SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF TWO FEMALES, BY LIONARDO DA VINCI 602 •LINES ON THE SAME PICTURE BEING REMOVED TO MAKE PLACE FOR A PORTRAIT OF A LADY BY TITIAN 602 •LINES ON THE CELEBRATED PICTURE BY LIONARDO DA VINCI, CALLED THE VIRGIN OF THE ROCKS 602 •ON THE SAME 602 SONNETS :— I TO MISS KELLY ■-...... 603 I II. ON THE SIGHT OF SWANS IN KENSINGTON GARDEN . . • . . 603 III 603 IV 603 V. 60:} VI. THE FAMILY NAME .... 603 CONTENTS. SONNETS— contmuccZ. Page VII 604 VIIT 604 IX. TO JOHN LAMB, ESQ., OF THE SOUTII-SEA-HOUSE C04 X 604 XI 604 BLANK VERSE :— CHILDHOOD 606 THE GRANDAME COS THE SABBATH BELLS . . 605 FANCY EMPLOYED ON DIVINE SUBJECTS 605 COMPOSED AT MIDNIGHT 606 JOHN WOODVIL, A TRAGEDY .607 THE WITCH, A DRAMATIC SKETCH OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 623 ALBUM VERSES, WITH A FEW OTHERS. IN THE AUTOGRAPH BOOK OF MRS. SERGEANT W 624 TO DORA W , ON BEING ASKED BY HER FATHER TO WRITE IN HER ALBUM 624 IN THE ALBUM OF A CLERGYMAN'S LADY 625 IN THE ALBUM OF EDITH S 625 IN THE ALBUM OF BOTHA Q 626 IN THE ALl;UM OP CATHERINE ORKNEY 625 IN THE ALBUM OF LUCY BARTON 625 IN THE ALBUM OP MRS. JANE TOWERS 626 IN THE ALBUM OP MISS 626 IN MY OWN ALBUM 6i:6 MISCELLANEOUS :— ANGEL HELl' 627 ON AN INFANT DYING AS SOON AS BORN 627 THE CHRISTENING 628 THE YOUNG CATECHIST 628 TO A YOUNG FRIEND ON HEK TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY . . . . 628 SHE IS GOING 629 CONTENTS, SONNETS :— Page HARMONY IN UNMKRNESS 629 WRITTEN AT CAMBRIDGE 629 TO A CELEBRATED FEMALE PERFORMER IN THE "BLIND HOY" . . . 629 WORK 629 LEISURE 630 TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ. 630 THE GIPSY'S MALISON 630 COMMENDATORY VERSES, &c.— TO J. S. KNOVVLES, ESQ., ON HIS TRAGEDY OF VIRGINIUS . . . .630 TO THE AUTHOR OF POEMS, PUBLISHED UNDER THE NAME OF BARRY CORNWALL ... 631 TO THE EDITOR OP THE "E VERY-DAY BOOK" 631 TO T. STOTIIAKD, ESQ., ON HIS ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE POEMS OF MR. ROGERS 631 TO A FRIEND ON HIS MARRIAGE 631 " O LIFT WITH REVERENT HAND " 632 THE SELF-ENCHANTED 632 TO LOUISA M , WHOM I USED TO CALL "MONKEY" 632 TRANSLATIONS FROM THE LATIN OF VINCENT BOURNE :— THE BALLAD-SINGERS 633 TO DAVID COOK, OF THE PARISH OF ST. MARGARET'S, WESTMINSTER, WATCHMAN 633 ON A SEPULCHRAL STATUE OF AN INFANT SLEEPING 634 EPITAPH ON A DOG 634 THE RIVAL BELLS 634 NEWTON'S PRINCIPIA 634 THE HOUSEKEEPER 635 ON A DEAF AND DUMB ARTIST 635 THE FEMALE ORATORS 635 PINDARIC ODE TO THE TREAD-MILL 635 GOING OR GONE 636 FREE THOUGHTS ON SEVERAL EMINENT COMPOSERS 637 THE WIFE'S TRIAL; or, THE INTRUDING WIDOW. A Dramatic Pok.m . .638 THE LETTERS CHARLES LAMB. A SKETCH OY HIS LIFE SIR THOMAS NOON TALFOUUD, D.C.L. ONE OF HIS KXKCUTOES. MARY ANNE LAMB. THESE LETTERS, THE MEilOKIALS OF MANY TEARS WHICH SHE SPENT WITH THE WRITER IN UNDIVIDED AFFECTION J OF THE SORROWS AND THE JOYS SHE SHARED, OF THE GENIUS WHICH SHE CHERISHED, AND OF THE EXCELLENCES WHICH SHE BEST KNEW; BliSPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED, BY THE EDITOR. PREFACE. The share of the Editor in these volumes can scarcely be regarded too slightly. The successive publications of Lamb's works form almost the only events of his life which can be recorded ; and upon these criticism has been nearly exhausted. liittle, therefore, was necessary to accompany the Letters, except such thread of narrative as might connect them together ; and such explanations as might render their allusions generally understood. The reader's gratitude for the pleasure which he will derive fi-om these memoi'ials of one of the most delightful of English writers is wholly due to his correspondents, who have kindly entrusted the precioiis relics to the care of the Editor, and have permitted them to be given to the world ; and to Mr. Moxon, by whose interest and zeal they have been chiefly collected. He may be allowed to express his personal sense of the honour which he has received in such a trust from men, some of whom are among the greaiest of England's living authors, — to Wordsworth, Southey, Manning, Barton, Procter, Oilman, Patmore, Walter Wilson, Field, Eobinson, Dyer, Gary, Ainsworth, to Mr. Green, the executor of Coleridge, and to the surviving relatives of Hazlitt. He is also most grateful to Lamb's esteemed schoolfellow, Mr. Le Grice, for supplying an interesting part of his histoiy. Of the few additional facts of Lamb's history, the chief have been supplied by Mr. Moxon, in whose welfare he took a most affectionate interest to the close of his life ; and who has devoted some beautiful sonnets to his memory. The recentness of the period of sqme of the letters has rendered it necessary to omit many portions of them, in which the humour and beauty are interwoven with personal references, which, although wholly free from anything which, rightly understood, could give pain to any human being, touch on subjects too sacred foi public exposure. Some of the personal allusions which have been retained, may seem, perhaps, too free to a stranger ; but they have been retained only in cases - 2 Iv PREFACE. in -which the Editor is well assured the parties would be rather gratified than displeased at seeiug their names connected in life-like association with one so dear to their memories. The italics and the capitals are invariably those indicated by the !MSS. It is to be regretted that in the printed letters the reader must lose the curious varieties of writing with which the originals abound, and which are scrupulously adapted to the subjects. Many letters yet remain unpublished, which will further illustrate the chai*aoter of IVIr. Lamb, but which must be reserved for a future time, when the Editor hopes to do more justice to his own sense of the genius and the excellence of his friend, than it has been possible for him to accomplish in these volumes. T. N. T. KussEi.L Square, 26lh June, 1837, LETTERS, &c. OF CHARLES LAMB. CHAPTEE I. [1775 to 1796.] lamb's PAKESTAGE, SCHOOL-DATS, AND TOUTH, TO THE COMMENCEMEXT OF HIS COEHESPONDENCE WITH COLE- BTDCE. Charles Lamb was bom on lOth February, 1775, in Crown Office Eow, in the Inner Temple, where he spent the first seven years of his life. His parents were in a humble station, but they were endued with sentiments and with manners which might well become the gentlest blood ; and fortune, which had denied them wealth, enabled them to bestow on their children some of the happiest intellectual advantages which wealth ever confers. His father, IMr. John Lamb, who came up a little boy from Lincoln, fortunately both for himself and his master, entered into the service of SIi-. Salt, one of the benchers of the Inner Temple, a widower, who, growing old within its precincts, was enabled to appreciate and to reward his devotedness and intelligence ; and to whom he became, in the language of his son, " his elerk, his good servant, his di'esser, his friend, his flapper, his guide, stop-watch, auditor, treasurer."* Although contented with his * Lamb has given characters of his father (under tlie name of Lovcl), and of Mr. Salt, in one of the most exquisite of all the Essays of Elia — " The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple." Of Lovel, he says, "Ue was a man of an incorrigible and losing honestj-. A good fellow withal, and ' would strike.' In the cause of the oppressed he never considered inequalities, or calculated the number of his opponents, lie once wrested a sword out of the hand of a man of quality that had drawn upon him ; and pummelled him severely with the hilt of it. The swordsman had offered insult to a female — an occasion upon which no odds against him could have prevented the interference of Lovel. He would stand next day bare-headed to the same person, modestly to lot, and discharging its duties with the most patient assiduity, he was not without literary ambition ; and having written some occasional verses to grace the festivities of a benefit society of which he was a member, was encouraged by his brother members to pub- lish, in a thin quarto, " Poetical Pieces on sei'eral occasions." This volume contains a lively picture of the life of a lady's footman of the last century ; the " History of Joseph," told in well-measured heroic couplets ; and a pleasant piece, after the manner of "Gay's Fables," entitled the '• Simrrow's Wedding," which was the author's favourite, and wliich, when he fell into the dotage of age, he delighted to hear Charles read.t His wife excuse his interference — for L. never forgot tank, where something better was not concerned. L. was the liveliest little fellow breathing ; had a face as gay as Garrick's, whom he was said greatly to resemble ; (I have a por. trait of him which confirms it ;) possessed a fine turn for humorous poetry — next to Swiit and Prior ; moulded heads in clay or plaster of Paris to adm,iration, by the dint of natural genius merely ; turned cribbage-boards and such small cabinet toys to perfection ; took a hand at quadrille or bowls with equal facility ; made punch better than any man of his dcgi-ee in England ; had the merriest quips and conceits ; and was altogether as brimful of rogueries and inventions as you could desire, lie was a brother of the angle, moreover ; and just sue'a a free, hearty, honest companion as Mr. Izaak Walton would have chosen to go a fishing with." t The following little poem, entitled ' A Letter from a Child to its Grandmother," written by Mr. John Lamb for his eldest son, though possessing no merit beyond simplicity of expression, may show the manner in which he endeavoured to discharge his parental duties : — " Dear Grandam, Pray to God to bless Tour grandson dear, with happiness'; That, as I do advance each year, I may be taught my God to fear ; My little frame from passion free,. To man's estate from infancy ; 6 PARENTAGE, SCHOOL-DAYS, AND YOUTH. ■was a woman of appearance so matronly and commanding, that, according to the recollec- tion of one of Lamb's dearest schoolmates, " she might be taken for a sister of Mrs. Sid- dons." This excellent couple were blessed with three children, John, Mary, and Charles ; John being twelve and Mary ten years older than Charles. John, who is vividly described in the essay of Elia entitled " My Relations," imder the name of Jjimes Elia, rose to fill a lucrative office in the South Sea House, and died a few years ago, having to tlie last fulfilled the affectionate injunction of Charles, to " keep the elder brother up in state." Mary (the Bridget of the same essay) still survives, to mourn the severance of a life- long association, as free from evei'y alloy of selfishness, as remarkable for moral beauty, as this woi'ld ever witnessed in brother and sister. On the 9th of October, 1782, when Charles Lamb had attained tlie age of seven, he was jiresented to the school of Christ's HosiDital, by Timothy Yeates, Esq., Governor, as " the son of John Lamb, scrivener, and Elizabeth his wife," and remained a scholar of that noble establishment till he had entered into his fifteenth year. Small of stature, delicate of frame, and constitutionally nervous and timid, he would seem unfitted to encounter the discipline of a school formed to restrain some hundreds of lads in the heart of the metropolis, or to fight his way among them. But the sweetness of his disposition won him favour from all ; and although the antique peculiarities of the scliool tinged his opening imagination, they did not sadden his child- hood. One of his schoolfellows, of whose genial qualities he has made affectionate mention in his " Eecollections of Christ's Hospital," Charles V. Le Grice, now of Treriefe, near Penzance, has supplied mo with some particuhxrs of his school-days, for which friends of a later date will be gi-ateful. " Lamb," says Mr. Le Grice, " was an amiable gentle boy, very sensible and keenly observing, indulged by his schoolfellows and by his From vice, that turns a youth aside, And to have wisdom for my (ruidc ; That I may ncitlior lio nor swear, But in tlic path of virtue sleor ; My actions generous, (irm, and jvist. Be always faithful to my trust ; And thee the Lord will ever hlees Your grandson dear, John L , the Lcsr." master on account of his infirmity of speech. His countenance was mild ; his complexion clear brown, with an expression which might lead you to think that he was of Jewish descent. His eyes were not each of the same colour, one was hazel, the other liad specks of grey in the iris, mingled as we see red spots in the blood-stone. His step was plantigrade, which made his widk slow and peculiar, adding to the staid appearance of his figure. I never heard his name men- tioned without the addition of Charles, although, as there was no other boy of the name of Lamb, the addition was unnecessary ; but there was an implied kindness in it, and it was a proof that his gentle manners excited that kindness." " His delicate fi'ame and his difficulty of utterance, which was increased by agitation, unfitted him for joining in any boisterous sport. The description which he gives, in lus ' Eecollections of Christ's Hospital,' of the habits and feelings of the schoolboy, is a true one in general, but is more particularly a delineation of himself — the feelings were all in his own heart — the portrait was his own : ' Wliile others were all fire Jind play, he stole along with all the self-concentration of a young monk.' These habits and feelings were awakened and cherished in him by peculiar circumstances : he had been born and bred in the Inner Temple ; and his parents continued to reside there while he was at school, so that he passed from cloister to cloister, and this was all the change liia young mind ever knew. On every lialf- holiday (and there were two in the week) in ten minutes he was in the g;u-dens, on the terrace, or at the fountain of the Tenqjle : lu-re was his home, here his recreation ; and the influence they had on his infant miuil is vividly shown in his description of the Old Benchei's. He say.s, ' I was born and i)as.sed the first seven years of my life in the Temj)Ie :' he might have added, that here he pjissod a great portion of the second seven yejirs of liis life, a portion which mixed itself with all hia habits and enjoyments, and gave a bias to the whole. Here he found a haj>py liome, ail'octionate parents, and :>. sister wlio watclied over him to the latest hour of his existence (God be with hor !) with the tendurcst solici- tude ; and liero he luul access to the library of JVIi". Salt, one of the Benchers, to whoso PARENTAGE, SCHOOL-DAYS,. AND YOUTH. memory his pen has given, in return for this and greater favours- -I do not tliink it extra- vagant to say — immortality. To use his own language, here he ' was tumbled into a spacious closet of gc od old English reading, where he browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome pastura<;e.' He applied these words to his sister ; but there is no doubt they * browsed ' together ; they had walked hand in hand from a time ' extending beyond the period of their memoiy.' " ' "When Lamb quitted school, he was in the lower division of the second class — which in the language of the school is termed " being in Greek Form, but not Deputy Grecian." He had read Virgil, Sallust, Terence, selec- tions from Lucian's Dialogues, and Xenophon; and had e%'inced considerable skill in the niceties of Latin composition, both in prose and vei-se. His docility and aptitude for the attainment of classical knowledge would have insured him an exhibition ; but to this the impediment in his speech proved an insu- perable obstacle. The exhibitions were given under the implied, if not expressed, condition of entering into the Church ; the whole course of education was preparatory to that end ; and therefore Lamb, who was unfitted by nature for the clerical profession, was not adopted into the class which led to it, and quitted school to pursue the uncongenial labour of the " desk's dull wood." To this apparently hard lot he submitted with cheerfulness, and saw his schoolfellows of his own standing depart, one after another, for the University without a murmur. This acquiescence in his different fortune must have been a hai'd trial for the sweetness of his disposition ; as he always, in after life, regarded the ancient seats of learning with the fondness of one who had been hardly divorced from them. He delighted, when other duties did not hinder, to pass his vacations in their neighbourhood, and indulge in that fancied association with them which he has so beautifully mirrored in his "Sonnet written at Cambridge."* What worldly I -was not train'd in academic bowers, And to those learned streams 1 nothing owe AVhich copious from those twin fair founts do flow ; Mine have been anytliinp but studious hours. Yet can I fancy, wandering 'raid thy towers, Myself a nursling, Granta, of thy lap ; My brow seems tightening with the doctor's cap, And I walk gowned ; feel unusual powers. success can, indeed, ever compensate for the want of timely nurture beneath the shade of (me of these venerable institutions — for the sense of antiquity shading, not checking, the joyous impulses of opening manhood — for the I'efinement and the grace there interfused into the long labour of ambitious study — for young fi-iendships consecrated by the asso- ciaiions of long past time ; and for liberal emulation, crowned by successes restrained from ungenerous and selfish pride by palpable symbols of the genius and the learning of ages ? On 23rd November, 1789, Lamb finally quitted Christ's Hospital for the abode of his parents, who still resided in the Temple. At first he was employed in the South Sea House, under his brother John ; but on the 5th April, 1792, he obtained an appointment in the accountant's oifice of the East India Company. His salary, though then small, was a welcome addition to the scanty means of his parents ; who now were unable, by their own exertions, to increase it, his mother being in ill health, wliich confined her to her bed, and his father sinking into dotage. On their comfort, however, this, and what was more precious to him, his little leisure, were freely bestowed ; and his recreations were confined to a delightful visit to the two- shilling gallery of the theatre, in company with his sister, and an occasional supper with some of his schoolmates, when in town, from Cambridge. On one of these latter occasions he obtained the ajjpellation of Guf/, by which he was always called among them ; but of which few of his late friends heard till after his death. "In the first year of his clerk- ship," says Mr. Le Grice, in the communica- tion with which he favoured me, "Lamb spent the evening of the 5th November with some of his former schoolfellows, who, being amused with the particularly large and flapping brim of his round hat, pinned it up on the sides in the form of a cocked-hat. Lamb made no alteration in it, but walked home in his usual sauntering gait towai'ds the Temple. As he was going down Ludgate- Strange forms of logic clothe my admiring speech ; Old Ramus' ghost is busy at my brain ; And my skull teems with notions infinite. Be still, ye reeds of Camus, while I teach Truths which transcend the searching schoolmen'* vein, And half had stagger'd that stout Stagyrite I 8 PARENTAGE, SCHOOI^DAYS, AND YOUTH. hill, some gay young meu, who seemed not to have passed the London Tavern vrithout resting, exclaimed, ' Tlie veritable Guy ! — no man of straw ! ' and with this exclamation they took him up, making a chair with tiielr arms, carried him, seated him on a post in St. P.iurs-churchyard, and thei-e left him. This story Lamb told so seriously, that the truth of it was never doubted. He won- his three-cornered hat many evenings, and retained the name of Guy ever after. Like Nym, he quietly sympathised in the fun, and seemed to say, 'that was the humour of it.' A clergyman of tlie City lately wrote to mc, ' I have no recollection of Lamb. There was a gentleman culled Guy, to whom you once introduced me, and with whom I have occa- sionally interchanged nods fur more tlian thirty years ; but how is it that 1 never met Mr. Lamb ? If I was ever introduced to liim, I wonder that we never came in contact during my residence for ten years in Edmon- ton.' Imagine this gentleman's surprise when I informed him that his nods to Mr. Guy had been constantly reciprocated by Mr. Lamb ! " During these years Lamb's most frequent companion was James White, or rather, Jem Wliite, as he always called him. Lamb always insisted that for hearty joyous humour, tinged with Shaksperian f;mcy, Jem never had an equal. " Jem White ! " said he, to Mr. Le Grice, when they met for the last time, after many years' absence, at the Bell at Edmonton, in June, 1833, "there never was his like ! Wc never sliall see such days as those in which Jem flourished ! " All that now remains of Jem is the celebration of the suppers which he gave the young cliimney-sweepers in the Elia of his friend, and a thin duodecimo volume, which he published in 179G, under the title of the " Letters of Sir John Falstaff, with a dedi- cation (printed in black letter) to Master Samuel Irelaunde," which those who knew Lamb at the time believed to be his, "White's Letters," said Lamb, in a letter to a friend about this time, "are near jniblication. His frontispiece is a good conceit ; Sir John learning to dance, to please Madame Pago, in dress of doublet, &c., from tlin upper half, and modern p.-aitaloons, with shois of the fiighteenth century, fnmi the lower half, and the whole work is full of goodly quips ami rare fancies, 'all deftly masked like hoar antiquity' — much superior to Dr. Kenrick's. ' Falstaff 's Wedding.' " The work was neglected, although Lamb exerted all the influence he subsequently acquired with more popular writers to obtain for it favour- able notices, as will be seen from various passages in his letters. He stuck, however, gallantly by his favourite protege ; and even when he could little afford to disburse sixpence, he made a point of buying a copy of the book whenever he discovered one amidst the refuse of a bookseller's stall, and would present it to a friend in the hope of making a convert. He gave me one of these copies soon after I became acquainted with him, stating that he had purchased it in the morning for sixpence, and assuring me I should enjoy a rare treat in the perusal ; but if I must confess the truth, the mask of quaintness was so closely worn, that it neai'ly concealed the humour. To Lamb it was, doubtless, vivified by the eye and voice of his old boon companion, forming to him an undying commentary ; without which it was comparatively sjiiritless. Alas ! liow many even of his own most delicate fancies, rich as they are in feeling and in wisdom, I wHU be lost to those who have not present ' to them the sweet broken accents, and the half playful, half melancholy smile of the writer ! Eut if Jem "VMiite was the companion of his lighter moods, the friend of his serious thoughts was a pereon of far nobler powera — Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It was his good fortune to be the schoolfellow of that extra- ordinary man ; and if no particular intimacy had been formed between them at Christ's IIos]ntal, a foundation was there laid for a fiiendship to which the world is probably indebted for all that Lamb has added to its sources of pleasure. Junior to Coleridge by two years, and far inferior to him in all scholastic acquirements. Lamb haii listexied to the rich discourse of " the inspired charity- boy" with a wondering delight, pure fx-om all envy, and, it may be, enhanced by his sense of his own feebleness and dilnculty of expression. While Coleridge remained at tlie University, they met occasionally on his visits to London ; and when he quitted it, and came to town, fidl of mantling hopes and glorious schemes, Lamb b.canie liis PARENTAGE, SCHOOL-DAYS, AND YOUTH. 9 admiring disciple. The scene of these hap]-»y meetings was a little public-house, called tlie Salutation and Cat, in the neighbourhood of Smithfield, where they used to sup, and remain long after they had "heard the chimes at midnight." There they discoursed of Bowles, who was the god of Coleridge's poetical idolatry, and of Burns and Cowper, who, of recent poets, in that season of com- parative barrenness, had made the deepest impression on Lamb. There Coleridge talked of " Fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute," to one who desired "to find no end" of the golden maze ; and there he recited his early poems with that deep sweetness of intonation which sunk into the heart of his hearer. To these meetings Lamb was accustomed at -all periods of his life to revert, as the season when his finer intellects were quickened into action. Shortly after they had terminated, with Coleridge's departure from London, he thus recalled them in a letter : * " Wlien I read in your little volume your nineteenth effusion, or what you call ' the Sigh,' I think I hear yoii, again. I imagine to myself the little smoky room at the Salutation and Cat, where we have sat together through the winter nights beguiling the cares of life with Poesy." This was early in 1 796 ! and in 1818, when dedicating his works, then first collected, to his earliest friend, he thus spoke of the same meetings : " Some of the sonnets, which shall be carelessly turned over by the general reader, may happily awaken in you remembrances which I should be sorry should be ever totally extinct, — the memory 'of summer days and of delightful years,' even so far back as those old sujjpers at our old Inn, — when life was fresh, and topics L'xhaustless, — and you first kindled in me, if not the power, yet the love of poetry, and beauty, and kindliness." And so he talkea of these unforgotten hours in that short interval dui-ing which death divided them ! The warmth of Coleridge's friendship supplied the quickening impulse to Lamb's genius ; but the germ enfolding all its nice peculiarities lay ready for the influence, and • This, and other passages I have inter-wovcn witli my own slender thread of narration, are from letters vhich I have thouErht either too personal for entire publication at present, or not of sufficient interest, in comparison uith others, to occupy a portion of the space, to wliich the letters are limited. expanded into forms and hues of its own. Lamb's earliest poetry was not a faint reflection of Coleridge's, such as the young lustre of original genius may cast on a polished and sensitive mind, to glow and tremble for a season, but was streaked with delicate yet distinct traits, which proved it an emanation from within. . There was, indeed, little resemblance between the two, except in the affection which they bore towards each other. Coleridge's mind, not laden as yet with the spoils of all systems and of all times, glowed with the ardour of uncontrollable purpose, and thirsted for glorious achievement and universal know- ledge. The imagination, which afterwards struggled gloriously but perhaps vainly to overmaster the stupendous clouds of German philosophies, breaking them into huge masses, and tinting them with heavenly hues, then shone through the simple articles of Unitarian faith, the graceful architecture of Hartley's theory, and the well-compacted chain by which Priestley and Edwards seemed to bind all things in necessary connexion, as through transparencies of thouglit ; and, finding no opposition worthy of its activity in this poor foreground of the mind, opened for itself a bright succession of fairy visions, which it sought to realise on earth. In its light, oppression and force seemed to vanish like the phantoms of a feverish dream ; mankind were disj^osed in the picturesque groups of universal brotherhood ; and, in far distance, the ladder which Jacob saw in solemn vision connected earth with heaven, "and the angels of God were ascending anil descending upon it." Lamb had no sympatliy with these radiant hopes, except as they were ])art of his friend. He clung to the realities of life ; to things nearest to him, which the force of habit had made dear ; and caugiit tremblingly hold of the past. He deliglited, indeed, to hear Coleridge talk of the distant and future ; to see the palm-trees wave, and the pyi-amids tower in the long perspective of his style ; and to catch the prophetic notes of a universal harmony trembling in his voice ; but the pleasure was only that of admiration unalloyed by envy, and of the generous pride of friendship. The tendency of liis mind to detect the beautiful and good in surrounding things, to nestle rather tlian to roam, was cherislied by all the circum- 10 PARENTAGE, SCHOOL-DATS, AND YOUTH. stances ot his boyish days. He had become familiar with the vestiges of antiquity, both in his school and in his home of the Temple ; and these became dear to him in his serious and affectionate childhood. But, perhaps, more even than those external associations, the situation of his parents, as it was elevated and graced by their character, moulded his young thoughts to the holy habit of a liberal obedience, and unaspiring self-respect, which led i-ather to the embellishment of what was near than to the creation of visionary forms. He saw at home the daily beauty of a cheerful submission to a state bordering on the servile ; he looked upward to his father's master, and the old Benchers who walked with him on the stately terrace, with a modest erectness of mind ; and he saw in his own humble home how well the decencies of life could be maintained on slender means, by the exercise of generous principle. Another circumstance, akin to these, tended also to impart a tinge of venerableness to his early musings. His maternal grandmother was for many years housekeeper in the old and wealthy family of the Plumers of Hertfordshire, by whom she was held in true esteem; and his visits to their ancient mansion, where he had the free range of every apartment, gallery and terraced-walk, gave him "a peep at the contrasting accidents of a great fortune," and an alliance with that gentility of soul, which to appreciate, is to share. He has beautifully recorded his own recollections of this place in the essay entitled " Blakesmoor in H shire," in which he modestly vindicates his claim to partake in the associations of ancestry not his own, and shows the true value of high lineage by detecting the spirit of nobleness whicli breathes around it, for the enkindling of generous affections, not only in those who may boast of its possession, but in all who can feel its influences. While the bias of the minds of Coleridge and Lamb thus essentially ditlered, it is singular that their opinions on religion, and on those philosophical queatious which border on religious belief, and receive their colour from it, agi'eed, although probably derived from various sources. Both were Unitarians, ardent admirers of the writings and character of Dr. Priestley, and both believers in neces- sity, according to Priestley's exposition, and in the iutereuce which he drew from that doctrine respecting moral responsibility, and the ultimate destiny of the human race. The adoption of this creed arose in Lamb from the accident of education ; he was brought up to receive and love it ; and attended, when circumstances permitted, at the chapel at Hackney, of which Mr. Belsham, after- wards of Essex Street, was then the minister. It is remarkable that another of Lamb's most intimate friends, in whose conversation, next to that of Coleridge, he most delighted, Mr. Hazlitt, with whom he became acquainted at a subsequent time, and who came from a distant part of the country, was educated in the same faith. With Coleridge, whose early impressions were derived from the rites and services of the Church of England, Uuitarianism was the result of a strong conviction ; so strong, that with all the ardour of a convert, he sought to win prose- lytes to his chosen creed, and purposed to spend his days m preachuig it. Neither of these young men, however, long continued to profess it. Lamb, in his maturer life, rarely alluded to matters of religious doctrine ; and when he did so, evinced no sympathy with the professors of his once-loved creed. Hazlitt wrote to his father, who was a Unitarian minister at Wem, with honouring affection ; and ot his dissenting associates with respect, but he had obviously ceased to think or feel with them ; and Coleridge'^8 Eemains indicate, what was well known to all who enjoyed the privilege of his conver- sation, that he not only reverted to a belief in the Trinitarian mysteries, but that he waa accustomed to express as much distaste for Unitarianism, and for the spirit of its more active advocates, as the benignity of his nature would allow him to feel for any human opinion honestly cherished. Perhaps this solitary approach to intolerance in the universality of Coleridge's mind arose from the disapproval with which he might justly regard his own pride of understanding, as excited in defence of the doctrines he had adopted. To him there w;is much of devo- tional thought to be violated, many rever- ential a.ssociations, intertwined with the moral being, to be rent away in the struggle of the intellect to grasp the doctrines which were alien to its nurture. But to L:imb these formed the simple ci'eed of his child- hood ; and slender and bai-reu as they seem. to those who are united in religious sympathy with the great body of their fellow-country- men, they sufficed for affections which had so strong a tendency to find out resting-places for themselves as his. Those who only knew him in his latter days, and who feel that if ever the spirit of Christianity breathed through a human life, it breathed in his, will, nevertheless, trace with surprise the extra- ordinary vividness of impressions directly religious, and the self-jealousy with which he watched the cares and distractions of the world, which might efface them, in his first letters. If in a life of ungenial toil, diversified with frequent sorrow, the train of these solemn meditations was broken ; if he was led, in the distractions and labours of his course, to cleave more closely to surrounding objects than those early aspii'ations promised ; if, in his cravings after immediate sympathy, he rather sought to perpetuate the social circle which he charmed, than to exjjatiate in scenes of untried being ; his pious feelings were only diverted, not destroyed. The stream glided still, the under current of thought sometimes breaking out in sallies which strangers did not understand, but always feeding and nourishing the most exquisite sweetness of disposition, and the most unobtnisive proofs of self-denying love. While Lamb was enjoying habits of the closest intimacy with Coleridge in London, he was introduced by him to a young poet whose name has often been associated with his — Charles Lloyd — ^the son of a wealthy banker at Birmingham, who had recently cast off the trammels of the Society of Friends, and, smitten with the love of poetry, had become a student at the University of Cam- bridge. There he had been attracted to Coleridge by the fascination of his discourse ; and having been admitted to his regard, was introduced by him to Lamb. Lloyd was endeared both to Lamb and Coleridge by a very amiable disposition and a pensive cast of thought ; but his intellect bore litt/le resemblance to that of either. He wrote, indeed, ple;ising verses and with gi-eat facility, — a facility fatal to excellence ; but his mind was chiefiy remarkable for the fine power of ■ analysis which distinguishes his " London." j and other of his later compositions. In this j power of discriminating and distinguishing . — carried to a pitch almost of painfulness^ Lloyd has scarcely been equalled ; and his poems, though rugged in point of versification, will be found bj' those who will read them with the calm attention they require, replete with critical and moral suggestions of the highest value. He and Coleridge were devoted wholly to literary pursuits ; while Lamb's days were given to accounts, and only at snatches of time was he able to cultivate the faculty of which the society of Coleridge had made him imjierfectly conscious. Lamb's first compositions were in verse — • produced slowly, at long intervals, and with self-distrust which the encouragements of Coleridge could not subdue. With the exception of a sonnet to Mrs. Siddons, whose acting, especially in the character of Lady Randolph, had made a deep impression upon him, they were exclusively personal. The longest and most elaborate is that beautiful piece of blank verse entitled " The Gran- dame," in which he so affectionately celebrates the virtues of the " antique world " of the aged housekeeper of Mr. Plumer. A youthful passion, which lasted only a few months, and which he afterwards attempted to regard lightly as a folly past, inspired a few sonnets of very delicate feeling and exquisite music. On the death of his parents, he felt himself called upon by duty to repay to his sister the solicitude with which she had watched over his infancy ; — and well indeed he per- formed it ! To her, from the age of twenty- one, he devoted his existence ; — seeking thenceforth no connexion which could inter- fere with her supremacy in his aflections, or impair his ability to sustain and to comfoii; her. CHAPTER 11. [1796.] LETTERS TO COLERIDGE, In the year 1 796, Coleridge, having married, and x-eliuquished his splendid dream of emi- gration, was resident at Bristol ; and Lamb, who had quitted the Temple, and lived with his father, then sinking into dotage, felt his absence from London bitterly, and sought a correspondence with him as, almost, his only 12 LETTERS TO COLERIDaE. comfort. "In your absence," he writes, in one of the earliest of his letters,* " I feel a stupor that makes me indifferent to the hopes and fears of this life. I sometimes wish to introduce a religious turn of mind ; but habits are strong things, and my religious fervours are confmed, alas ! to some fleeting moments of occasional solitary devotion. A correspondence opening with you has roused me a little from my lethargy, and made me conscious of existence. Indulge me in it ! I will not be very troublesome." And again, a few days after : " You are the only corre- spondent, and, I might add, the only friend, I have in the world. I go no-where, and have no acquaintance. Slow of speech, and reserved of manners, no one seeks or cares for my society, and I am left alone. Cole- ridge, I devoutly wish that Fortune, which has made sport witli you so long, may jjlay one freak more, throw you into Loudon, or some spot near it, and there snugify you for life. Tis a selfish, but natural wish for me, cast as I am ' on life's wide plain friendless.' " These appeals, it may well be believed, were not made in vain to one who delighted in the lavish communication of the riches of his own mind even to strangers ; but none of the letters of Coleridge to Lamb have been preserved. He had just published his " Religious Musings," and the glittering enthusiasm of its language excited Lamb's ])ious feelings, almost to a degree of pain. " I dare not," says he of this poem, " criticise it. I like not to select any part where all is excellent. I can only admire and thank you for it, in the name of a lover of true poetry — ' Believe thou, O mj- soul, Life is a vision shadowy of truth ; Ami vice, and anguish, and the -vvorniy grave, Shapes of a dream.' I thank you for these lines in the name of a necessarian." To Priestley, Lamb repeatedly alludes as to the object of their common admiration. " In reading your * Religious Musings,' " says he, " I felt a transient supe- riority over you : I have seen Priestley. I love to see his name repeated in your writings ; — I love and honour him almost » These and other passajccs are extracted from letters which arc either too personal or not sullicieatly iuterchling for entire publication. profanely."* The same fervour glows in the sectarian piety of the following letter addressed to Coleridge, when fascinated with the idea of a cottage life. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "Oct. 21th, 1706. " Coleridge, I feel myself much your debtor for that spirit of confidence and friendship which dictated your last letter. ISIay your soul find peace at last in your cottage life ! I only wish you were hut settled. Do con- tinue to write to me. I read your letters with my sister, and they give us both abund- ance of delight. Especially they pleiuse us two, when you talk in a religious strain, — not but we are offended occasionally with a certain freedom of expression, a certain air of mysticism, more consonant to the conceits of pagan philosophy, than consistent with the humility of genuine piety. To instance now in your last letter — you say, ' it is by the press, that God hath given finite spirits both evil and good (I suppose you mean simply bad men and good men), a portion as it were of His Omnipresence ! ' Now, high as the human intellect comparatively will soar, and wide as its influence, malign or salutary, can extend, is there not, Coleridge, a distance between the Divine Mind and it, which makes such language blasphemy ? Again, in your first fine consolatory epistle you say, 'you are a temporary sharer in human misery, that you may be an eternal partaker of the Divine Nature.' What more than this do those men say, who are for exalting the man Christ Jesus into the second person ot an unknown Trinity, — men^ whom you or I scruple not to call idolaters ? ]\Lan, full of imperfections, at best, and sub- ject to wants which momentarily remind him of dependence ; man, a weak and igno- rant being, ' servile ' from his birth ' to all the skiey influences,' with eyes sonietime.1 open to discern the riglit path, but a head generally too dizzy to pursue it ; man, in the pride of s}>eculation, foi'getting his nature, * He probably refers to the following lines in the Religious Musings: — So I'riostley, their patriot, and snint, and sage, llim, full of years, iVom his loved native land, Statesmen blood-stained, and pi'iests idoli*rous. Drove with vain hate. Calm, pitying, he rcturn'd, And mused expectant on those pi-oaiLsed years ! LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 13 and hailing in himself the future God, must make the angels laugh. Be not angry with me, Coleridge ; I wish not to cavil ; I know I cannot instruct you ; I only wish to remind you of that humility which best bccometh the Christian character. God, in the New Testament {our best guide,) is rejjresented to us in the kind, condescending, amiable, familiar light of a parent : and in my poor mind 'tis best for us so to consider of him, as our heavenly father, and our best friend, without indulging too bold conceptions of his nature. Let us learn to think humbly of ourselves, and rejoice in the appellation of ' dear children,' ' brethren,' and ' co-lif irs with Christ of the promises,' seeking to know no further. " I am not insensible, indeed I am not, of the value of that first letter of yours, and I shall find reason to thank you for it again and again long after that blemish in it is forgotten. It will be a fine lesson of comfort to lis, whenever we read it ; and read it we often shall, Mary and I. " Accept our loves and best kind wishes for the welfare of yourself and wife and little one. Nor let me forget to wish you joy on your birth -day, so lately past ; I thought you had been older. My kind thanks and remem- brances to Lloyd. " God love us all, and may He continue to be the father and the friend of the whole human race ! " Sunday Evening." "C.Lamb." The next letter, commencing in a similar strain, diverges to literary topics, and espe- cially alludes to " Walton's Angler," — a book which Lamb always loved as it were a living friend. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "Oct. 28th, 1796. "My dear friend, I am not ignorant that to be a partaker of the Divine Natui-e is a phrase to be met with in Scripture : I am only apprehensive, lest we in these lattelr days, tinctured (some of us perhaps pretty deeply) with mystical notions and the pritle of metaphysics, might be apt to affix to such phrases a meaning, which the jirimitive users of them, the simple fisher of Galilee for instance, never intended to convey. With that other part of your apology I am not quite so well satisfied. You seem to me to have been straining your comparing faculties to bring together things infinitely distant and unlike ; the feeble narrow-sphered operations of the human intellect ; and the everywhere difi'used mind of Deity, the peerless wisdom of Jehovah. Even the expression appears to me inaccurate — portion of omnipresence — onniijjresence is an attribute whose very essence is unlimitedness. How can omni- presence be affirmed of anything in part l But enough of this spirit of disputatiousness. Ijet us attend to the proper business of human life, and talk a little together respecting our domestic concerns. Do you conthuie to make me acquainted with what you are doing, and how soon you are likely to be settled once for all. " Have you seen Bowles's new poem on ' Hope ] ' What character does it bear ? Has he exhausted his stores of tender plaintive- ness 1 or is he the same in this last as in all his former pieces 1 The duties of the day call nie off" from this pleasant intercourse witli my friend — so for the present adieu. Now for the truant borrowing of a few minutes fi-om business. Have you met with a new poem called the ' Pursuits of Literature ? ' from the extracts in the ' British Review' I judge it to be a very humorous thing, in particidar I remember what I thought a very hapjn' character of Dr. Darwin's poetry. Among all your quaint readings did you ever light upon ' Walton's Complete Angler '< ' I asked you the question once before ; it breathes the very spirit of innocence, purity, and sim])licity of heart; there are many choice old verses inter- spersed in it ; it would sweeten a man's temper at any time to read it ; it would Christianise every discordant angry passion ; pray make yourself acquainted with it. Have you made it up with Southeyyet 1 Surely one of you two must have been a very silly fellow, and the other not much better, to fall out like boarding school misses ; kiss, shake hands, and make it up. "When will he be delivered of his new epic 1 Madoc, I think, is to be the name of it, though that is a name not familiar to my ears. What progress do you make hi your hynms ? What * Eeview ' are you connected with 1 if with any, Avhy do you delay to notice V/liite's book ? You are justly offended at its profaneuess, but surely you have under- 14 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. valued ita wit, or you would have been more loud in its praises. Do not you think that in Slender'a death and madness there is most exquisite humour, mingled with tenderness, that is irresistible, truly Shakspearian ? Be more full in your mention of it. Poor fellow, he has (very undeservedly) lost by it, nor do I see that it is likely ever to reimburse him the charge of printing, &c. Give it a lift, if you can. I am just now wondering whether 3'ou will ever come to town again, Coleridge ; 'tis among the things I dare not hope, but can't help wishing. For myself, I can live in the midst of town luxury and supei"fluity, and not long for them, and I can't see why your children might not hereafter do the same. Remember, you are not in Ai-cadia, when you are in the west of England, and they may catch infection from the world without visiting the metropolis. But you seem to have set your heart upon this same cottage plan, and God prosper you in the experiment ! I am at a loss for more to write about, so 'tis as well that I am arrived at the bottom of my paper. " God love you, Coleridge ! — our best loves and tenderest wishes await on you, your Sara, and your little one. « ^ -r „ Having been encouraged by Coleridge to entertain the thought of publishing his verses, he submitted the poem called " Tlie Grandame " to his friend, with the following letter : — TO MR. COLERIDGE. " Monday night. " Unfurnished at present with any sheet- filling subject, I shall continue my letter gradually and journal-wise. My second thoughts entirely coincide with your com- ments on 'Joan of Arc,' and I can only wonder at my childish judgment whicli over- looked the 1st book and could prefer the 9th : not that I was insensible to the soberer beauties of the former, but the latter caught me with its glare of magic, — tlie former, how- ever, left a more pleasing general recollection in my mind. Let mo add, the Ist book w;i3 the favourite of my sister — and 1 now, with Joan, often ' think on Doniremi and the fields of Arc' I must not pass over witliout acknow- ledging my o])ligatious to your full and satis- factory account of personifications. I have read it again and again, and it will be a guide to ray future taste. Perhaps I had estimated Southey's merits too much by number, weight, and measure. I now agree completely and entirely in your opinion of the genius of Southey. Your o^vn image of melancholy is illustrative of what you teach, and in itself masterly. I conjecture it is * disbranched ' from one of your embryo ' hymns.' TSTien they are mature of birth (were I you) I should print 'em in one separate volume, with 'Religious Musings,' and your part of the ' Joan of Arc' Birds of the same soaring wing should hold on their flight in company. Once for all (and by renewing the subject you will only renew in me the condemnation of Tantalus), I hope to be able to pay you a visit (if you are then at Bristol) some time in the latter end of August or beginning of September, for a week or fortnight — before that time, office business puts an absolute veto on my coming. ' And if a sigh that speaks regret of happier times appear, A glimps-e of joy that we have met shall shine and dry the tear.' Of the blank verses I spoke of, the following lines are the only tolerably complete ones T have writ out of not more than one hundred and fifty. That I get on so slowly you may fairly impute to want of practice in com|)o- sition, when I declare to you that (the few verses which you have seen excepted) I have not wi'it fifty lines since I left school. It may not be amiss to remark that my grand- mother (on whom the verses are written) lived housekeeper in a family the fifty or sixty last years of her life — that she was a woman of exemplai'y piety and goodness — and for many years before her deatli was terribly aflHicted with a cancer in her breast which she bore with true Christian patience. You may think that I have not kept enough apart the ideas of her lieavenly^aml her eai'thly master, but recollect I have tlesigu- edly given in to her own way of feeling — and if she liad a failing, 'twas that she respected her master's family too mucli, not reverenced her Maker too little. The lines begin imi)er- fectly, 513 I may i)robahly connect 'em if I finish at all, — and if I do. Biggs shall print 'em, in a more economical wjiy than you yours, for (sonnets and all) they won't LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 15 make a thousand lines as I propose com- pleting 'em, and the substance must be wire-drawn." The following letter, written at intervals, will give an insight into Lamb's spirit at this time, in its lighter and gayer moods. It would seem tliat liis acquaintance with the old English dramatists had just com- menced with Beaumont aud Fletcher, and Massiuger : — TO ME, COLERIDGE. " Tuesday evening. "To your list of illustrative personifica- tions, into wliich a fine imagination enters, I will take leave to add the following from Beaumont and Fletcher's ' Wife for a Month ;' 'tis the conckision of a description of a sea- fight ; — ' The game of death was never played so nobly ; the meagi-e thief grew wanton in his mischiefs, aud his shrunk hollow eyes smiled on his ruins.' There is fancy in these of a lower order, from ' Bonduca ; ' — * Then did I see these valiant men of Britain, like boding owls creep into tods of i^^, aud hoot their fears to one another nightly.' Not that it is a personification ; only it just caught my eye in a little extract book I keep, which is full of quotations from B. and F. in parti- cular, in which authors I can't help thinking there is a greater richness of poetical fancy than in any one, Shakspeare excepted. Ai-e you acquainted with Massinger ? At a hazard I will trouble you with a passage from a play of his called ' A Very Woman.' The lines are spoken by a lover (disguised) to his fiiithless mistress. You will remark the fine effect of the double endings. You will by yom* ear distinguish the lines, for I wi'ite 'em as prose. * Not far from where my father lives, a lady, a neighbour by, blest with as great a beauty as nature durst bestow with- out undoing, dwelt, and most happily, as I thought then, and blest the house a thousand times she dwelt in. Tliis beauty, in the blossom of my youth, when my first fire knew no adulterate incense, nor I no way to flatter but my fondness; in all the bravery my friends could show me, in all the faith my innocence could give me, in the best language my true tongue could tell me, and all the broken sighs my sick heart lend me, I sued and served ; long did I serve this lady, long was my travail, long my trade to win her ; with all the duty of my soul I skrved her.' ' Then she must love.' ' She did, but never me : she could not love me ; she would not love, she hated, — more, she scorned me ; and in so poor and base a way abused Tne for all my services, for all my bounties, so bold neglects flung on me.' — ' What out of love, and worthy love I gave her, (shame to her most unworthy mind,) to fools, to girls, to fiddlers and her boys she flung, all in disdain of me.' One more passage strikes my eye from B. and F.'s 'Palamon and Arcite." One of 'em complains in prison : ' This is all our world ; we shall know nothing here but one another ; hear nothing but the clock that tells us our woes ; the vine shall gi'ow, but we shall never see it,' &c. — Is not the last circumstance exquisite 1 I mean not to lay myself open by saying they exceed Milton, and perhaps Collins, in sublimity. But don't you conceive all poets after Shaks- peare yield to 'em in variety of genius ? Massinger treads close on their heels ; but you are most probably as well acquainted with his writings as your humble servant. My quotations, in that case, wdl only serve to expose my barrenness of matter. Southey in simplicity and tenderness, is excelled decidedly only, I think, by Beaumont and F. in his ' Maid's Tragedy,' and some parts of ' Philaster ' in particular ; and elsewhere occasionally ; and perhaps by Cowper in his ' Crazy Kate,' and in parts of his translation ; such as the speeches of Hecuba and Andro- mache. I long to know your opinion of that translation. The Odyssey especially is surely very Homeric. What nobler than the appear- ance of Phoebus at the beginning of the Iliad — the lines ending with ' Dread sounding, bounding on the silver bow ! ' " I beg you wiU give me your opinion of the translation ; it afforded me high pleasure. As curious a specimen of ti'anslation as ever fell into my hands, is a yovmg man's in our ofllce, of a French novel. What in the original was literally ' amiable delusions of the fancy,' he proposed to render * the fair frauds of the imagination.' I had much trouble in licking the book into any meaning at all. Yet did the knave clear fifty or sixty pounds by subscription and selling the copy- right. The book itself not a week's work ! To-day's poition of my jotunahsing epistle 16 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. has been very dull and poverty-stricken. I will here end." " Tuesday night. " I have been drinking egg-hot and smoking Oronooko, (associated circumstances, which ever forcibly recall to my mind our evenings and nights at the Salutation,) my eyes and brain are heavy and asleep, but my heart is awake ; and if words came as ready as ideas, and ideas as feelings, I could say ten hundred kind things. Coleridge, you know not my supreme happiness at having one on earth (though counties separate us) whom I can call a friend. Eemember you tliose tender lines of Logan 1 — • * Our broken friendships we deplore, And loves of youth that are no more ; No after friendships e'er can raise Th' endearments of our early days. And ne'er the heart such fondness prove, As when we first began to love.' " I am writing at random, and half-tipsy, what you may not equally understand, as you will be sober when you read it ; but imj sober and my half-tipsy hours you are alike a sharer in. Good night. * Then up rose our bard, like a prophet in drink, Craigdoroch, thou'lt soar when creation shall sink.' Burns." " Thursday. " I am now in high hopes to be able to visit you, if perfectly convenient on your part, by the end of next month — perhaps the last week or fortnight in July. A change of scene and a change of faces would do me good, even if that scene were not to be Bristol, and those faces Coleridge's and his friends' ! In the words of Terence, a little altered, * Ta;det me hujus quotidiaui mundi' I am heartily sick of the every-day scenes of life. I shall half wish you unmarried (don't show this to Mrs. C.) for one evening only, to have the pleasure of smoking with you, and drhiking egg-hot in some little smoky room in a pot-house, for I know not yet how I shall like you in a decent room, and looking quite happy. My best lovo and respects to Sara notwithstanding. " Yours sincerely, "Charles Lamb." A proposal by Coleridge to print Lamb's poems with a new edition of his own (au jissociation in whicli Lloyd was ultimately included) occa-sioned reciprocal communica- tions of each other's verses, and many ques- tions of small alterations suggested and argued on both sides. I have thought it better to omit much of this verbal criticism, which, not very interesting in itself, is un- intelligible without a contemporary reference to the poems which are its subject. The next letter was written on hearing of Coleridge being afflicted with a painful disease. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "Nov. 8th, 1796. "My brother, my friend, — I am distrest for you, beUeve me I am ; not so much for your painful, troublesome complaint, which, I trust, is only for a time, as for those anxieties which brought it on, and perhaps even now may be nui*sing its malignity. Tell me, dearest of my friends, is your mind at peace, or has anything, yet unknown to me, happened to give you fresh disquiet, and steal from you all the pleasant di-eams of future rest ? Are you still (I fear you are) far from being comfortably settled 1 Would to God it were in my power to contribute towards the bringing of you into the haven whei-e you would be I But you are too well skilled in the philosophy of consolation to need my humble tribute of advice ; in pain, and in sickness, and in all manner of dis- appointments, I trust you have that within you which shall speak peace to your mind. Make it, I entreat you, one of your puny comforts, that I feel for you, and share all your griefs with you. I feel as if I were troubling you about little things ; now I am going to resume the subject of our last two letters, but it may divert us both from impleasanter feelings to make s\ich mattera, in a manner, of importance. Without further apology, then, it was not that I did not relish, that I did not in my heart thank you for those little pictures of your feelings which you lately sent nie, if I neglected to mention them. You may remomlier you had said much the same things before to rao on the same subject in a former letter, and I con- sidered tliose last vei-scs as only the identical thoughts better clothed ; either way (in pi'ose LETTERS TO COLEltlDGE. 17 or veree) such poetry must be welcome to me. I love them as I love the Confessions of Rousseau, and for the same reason ; the same frankness, the same openness of heart, the same disclosure of all the most hidden and delicate affections of the mind : they make me proud to be thus esteemed worthy of the place of friend-confessor, brother-confessor, to a man like Coleridge. This last is, I acknow- ledge, language too high for friend.ship ; but it is also, I declare, too sincere for flattery. Now, to put on stilts, and talk magnificently about trifles. 1 condescend, then, to your counsel, Coleridge, and allow my fii'st sonnet (sick to death am I to make mention of my sonnets, and I blush to be so taken up with them, indeed I do) ; I allow it to run thus, ^ Fairy Land^ &c. &c., as I last wrote it. " The fragments I now send you, I want printed to get rid of 'em ; for, while they stick burr-like to my memory, they tempt me to go on with the idle trade of versifying, which I long, most sincerely I speak it, I long to leave off, for it is unprofitable to my soul ; I feel it is ; and these questions about words, and debates about alterations, take me off, 1 am conscious, from the pi-operer business of my life. Take my sonnets, once for all, and do not propose any re-amendments, or men- tion them again in any shape to me, I chai'ge you. I blush that my mind can consider them as things of any worth. And, pray, admit or reject these fragments as you like or dislike them, without ceremony. Call 'em sketches, fragments, or what you will, and do not entitle any of my things love sonnets, 18 I told you to call 'em ; 'twill only make tne look little in my own eyes ; for it is a passion of which I retain nothing ; 'twas a weakness, concerning which I may say, in the words of Petrarch (whose life is now apen before me), ' if it drew me out of some vices, it also prevented the gi'owth of many virtues, filling me with the love of the creature rather than the Creator, which is the death of the soul.' Thank God, the folly lias left me for ever ; not even a review of my love verses renews one wayward wish in ne ; and if I am at all solicitous to trim 'em )ut in their best apparel, it is because they ire to make their appearance in good com- mny. Now to ray fragments. Lest you lave lost my Grandame, she shall be one, 'Tis among the few verses I ever wrote, that to Mary is another, which profit me in the recollection. God love her, and may we two never love each other less ! " These, Coleridge, are the few sketches I have thought worth preserving ; how will they relish thus detached ? Will you reject all or any of them ? They are thine, do whatsoever thou listest with them. My eyes ache with writing long and late, and I wax wondrous sleepy ; God bless you and yours, me and mine ! Good night. " C. Lamb. " I will keep my eyes open reluctantly a minute longer to tell you, that I love you for tliose simple, tender, heart-flowing lines with which you conclude your last, and in my eyes best, sonnet (so you call 'em), ' So, for the mother's sake, the child was dear, And dearer was the mother for the child.' Cultivate simplicity, Coleridge ; or rather, 1 should say, banish elaborateness ; for simpli- city springs spontaneous from the heart, and carries into day-light with it its own modest buds, and genuine, sweet, and clear flowers of expression, I allow no hot-beds in the gardens of Parnassus. 1 am unwilling to go to bed, and leave my sheet imfiUed (a good piece of night-work for an idle body like me), so will finish with begging you to send me the earliest account of your complaint, its progress, or (as I hope to God you will be able to send me) the tale of your recovery, or at least amendment. My tenderest remem- brances to your Sara. " Once more good night," A wish to dedicate his portion of the volume to his sister gave occasion to the following touching letter : TO MR. COLERIDGE, "Nov, Mth, 179C. " Coleridge, I love you for dedicating your poetry to Bowles: Genius of the sacred fountain of tears, it was he who led you gently by the hand through all this valley of weeping, showed you the dark green yew trees, and the willow shades, where, by the foil of waters, you might indulge an uncom- 18 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. plaining melancholy, a delicious regret for the past, or weave fine visions of that awfal future, ' "WTien all the vanities of life's brief day Oblivion's hurrying hand hath swept away, And all its sorrows, at the awful blast Of the archangel's trump, are but as shadows past.' " I have another sort of dedication in ray head for my few things, which I want to know if you approve of, and can insert. I mean to inscribe them to my sister. It will be unexpected, and it will give her pleasure ; or do you think it will look whimsical at all ? as I have not spoke to her about it, I can easily reject the idea. But there is a mono- tony in the affections, which people living together, or, as we do now, very frequently seeing each other, are apt to give in to ; a sort of indifi"erence in the expression of kind- ness for each other, which demands that we should sometimes caU to our aid the trickery of surprise. Do you publish with Lloyd, or without him 1 in either case my little portion may come last, and after the fashion of orders to a country coiTespondent, I will give direc- tions how I should like to have 'em done. The title-page to stand thus : — POEMS, BY CHARLES LAMB, OF THE INDLA. HOUSE. "Under this title the following motto, which, for want of room, I put over leaf, and desire you to insert, whether you like it or no. May not a gentleman choose what arms, mottoes, or armorial bearings the herald will give him leave, without consulting his repub- lican friend, who might advise none ? May not a publican put up the sign of the Saracen's Head, even though his midiscern- ing neighbour should prefer, as more genteel, the Cat and Gridiron ? [Motto.] • This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, AVbcn my first fire knew no adulterate incense, Nor I no way to flatter but my fondness, In the best language my true tongue could toll me, And all the broken sighs my sick heart lend me, I Bucd and served. Long did I love this lady.' Massinoer. THE DEDICATION. the pew followino poems, cheatvrf.s op the pancy and the feelixo IN life's more vacant hours, produced, fob the most part, by love and idleness, ARE, WITH ALL A brother's FONDNESS, INSCRIBED TO MARY ANNE LAMB, THE author's BBST FRIEND AXB SISTER. "This is the pomp and paraphernalia of parting, with which I take my leave of a passion which has reigned so royally (so long) within me ; thus, with its trappings of laureatship, I fling it oflf, pleased and satisfied with myself that the weakness troubles me no longer. I am wedded, Coleridge, to the fortunes of my sister and my poor old father. Oh ! my friend, I think sometimes, could I recall the days that are past, which among them should I choose 1 not those ' merrier days,' not the 'pleasant days of hope,' not ' those wanderings with a fair hair'd maid,' which I have so often and so feelingly regretted, but the days, Coleridge, of a mother'' s fondness for her school-hoy. What would I give to call her back to earth for one day, on my knees to ask her pardon for all those little asperities of temper which, from time to time, have given her gentle spirit pain ; and the day, my friend, I trust, will come ; there will be ' time enough ' for kind ofiices of love, if ' Heaven's eternal year ' be ours. Hereafter, her meek spirit shall not reproach me. Oh, my friend, cultivate the filial feelings ! and let no man think himself released from the kind ' charities ' of relation- ship : these shall give him peace at the last ; these are the best foundation for every species of benevolence. I rejoice to hear, by certain channels, that you, my friend, are reconciled with all your relations. 'Tis the most kindly and natural species of love, and we have all the associated train of early feelings to secure its strength and perpetuity. Send me an account of your health ; indeed I am solicitous about you. God love you and yours. " C. Lamb." The following, written about this time, alludes to some desponding expression in a LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 19 letter which is lost, and which Coleridge had combated. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "Dec. 10th, 1796. " I had put my letter into the post rather hastily, not expecting to have to acknowledge another from yon so soon. This morning's present has made me alive again : my last night's epistle was childishly querulous ; but you have put a little life into me, and I will thank you for your remembrance of me, while tny sense of it is yet warm ; for if I linger a day or two I may use the same phrase of acknowledgment, or similar, but the feeling that dictates it now will be gone. I shall 3eud you a caput morticum, not a cor vioeiis. riiy Watchman's, thy bellman's verses, I do retort upon thee, thou libellous varlet, — why you cried the hours yourself, and who made you so proud ! But I submit, to show my humility most implicitly to your dogmas. I reject entirely the copy of verses you reject. With regard to my leaving off versifying you have said so many pretty things, so many fine compliments, ingeniously decked out in the garb of sincerity, and undoubtedly springing from a present feeling somewhat like sincerity, that you might melt the most un-muse-ical soul, — did you not (now for a Rowland compliment for your profusion of Olivers), did you not in your very epistle, by the many pretty fancies and profusion of heai't displayed in it, dissuade and discourage me from attempting anything after you. At present I have not leisure to make verses, nor anything approaching to a fondness for the exercise. In the ignorant present time, who can answer for the future man ? ' At [overs' perjuries Jove laughs' — and poets have sometimes a disingenuous way of for- swearing their occupation. This though is not my case. Publish your Burns when and how you like, it will be new to me, — my memory of it is very confused, and tainted with unpleasant associations. Burns was the god of my idolatry, as Bowles of yours. I am jealous of your fraternising with Bowles, when I think you relish him more than Burns, or my old favourite, Cowper. But you conciliate matters when you talk of the ' divine chit-chat ' of the latter : by the expression, I see you thoroughly relish him. I love Mrs. Coleridge for her excuses an hundredfold more dearly, than if she heaped 'line upon line,' out Hannah-ing Hannah More ; and had rather hear you sing ' Did a very little baby ' by your family fire-side, than listen to you, when you were repeatinf one of Bowles's sweetest sonnets, in your sweet manner, while we two were indulfinof sympathy, a solitary luxury, by the fire-side at the Salutation. Yet have I no higher ideas of heaven. Your company was one 'cordial in this melancholy vale' — the remembrance of it is a blessing partly, and partly a curse. When I can abstract myself from things present, I can enjoy it with a freshness of relish ; but it more constantly operates to an unfavourable comparison witli the uninterestmg converse I always and only can partake in. Not a soul loves Bowles here ; scarce one has heard of Burns ; few but laugh at me for reading my Testament, — they talk a language I understand not, I conceal sentiments that would be a puzzle to them. I can only converse with you by letter, and with the dead in their books. My sister, indeed, is all I can wish in a companion ; but our spirits are alike poorly, our reading and knowledge from the self- same sources ; our communication with the scenes of the world alike narrow ; never having kept separate company, or any ' com- pany ' together — never having read sepai-ate books, and few books together — what know- ledge have we to convey to each other ? In our little range of duties and connexions, how few sentiments can take place, without friends, with few books, with a taste for religion, rather than a strong religious habit ! We need some support, some leading-strings to cheer and direct us ; you talk very wisely, and be not sparing oiyour advice. Continue to remember us, and to show us you do remember us : we will take as lively an interest in what concerns you and yours. All I can add to your happiness, will be sympathy : you can add to mine niore ; you can teach me wisdom. I am indeed an unreasonable correspondent ; but I was un- willing to let my last night's letter go off without this qualifier : you will perceive by this my mind is easier, and jou will rejoice, I do not expect or wish you to write, till you are moved ; and, of com-se, shall not, tdl you announce to me that event, think of writing myself. Love to Mrs. Coleridge and David C 2 20 LETTERS TO COLERIDGK Hartley, and my kind remembrance to Lloyd if he is with you. " C. Lamb. " 1 will get * Nature and Art,' — have not seen it yet — nor any of Jeremy Taylor's works." CHAPTER ni. [1797.] LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. The volume which was to combine the early poetry of the three friends was not completed in the year 1796, and proceeded slowly through the press in the following year ; Lamb occasionally submitting an additional sonnet, or correction of one already sent, to the judgment of Coleridge, and filling long letters with minute suggestions on Coleridge's share of the work, and high, but honest expressions of praise of particular images and thoughts. The eulogy is only interesting as indicative of the reverential feeling with which Lamb regarded the genius of Coleridge — but one or two specimens of the gentle rebuke which he ventured on, when the gorgeousness of Coleridge's lan- guage seemed to oppress hi.«i sense, are worthy of preservation. Ihe following relates to a line in the noble Ode on the Departing Year, in which Coleridge had written of " Th' ethereal multitude, Whose purple locks with suow-white glories shone." "'Purple locks, and snow-white glories ;' — these are things the muse talks about when, to borrow H. Walpole's witty phrase, she is not finely-frenzied, only a little light- headed, that's all—' Purple locks ! ' They may manage things differently in fairyland ; but your ' golden tresses ' are to my fancy." On this remonstrance Coleridge changed the " purple " into " golden," defending his original epithet ; and Lamb thus gave up the point : — "'Golden locks and snow-white glories' are as incongruous aa your former ; and if the great Italian painters, of whom my friend knows about aa much as the man in the moon — if these gi-eat gentlemen be on your side, I see no harm in your retaining the purple. The glories that / have observed to encircle the heads of saints and madonnas in those old paintings, have been mostly of a dirty drab-coloured yellow — a dull gam- bogium. Keep your old line ; it will excite a confused kind of pleasurable idea in the reader's mind, not clear enough to be called a conception, nor just enough, I think, to reduce to painting. It is a rich line, you say ; and riches hide a many faults." And the word " wreathed " was ultimately adopted, in.stead of purple or golden : but the snow-white glories remain. Not satisfied with the dedication of his portion of the volume to his sister, and the sonnet which had been sent to the press. Lamb urged on Coleridge the insertion of another, which seems to have been ultimately withheld as too poor in poetical merit for publication. The rejected sonnet, and the i-eferences made to it by the writer, have an interest now beyond what mere fancy can give. After various critical remarks on an ode of Coleridge, he thus introduced the subject : — " If the fraternal sentiment conveyed in the following lines will atone for the total want of anything like merit or genius in it, I desire you will print it next after my other sonnet to my sister. ' Friend of my earliest years and childish days. My joys, my sorrows, thou with me hast shared. Companion dear ; and we alike have fared. Poor pilgrims we, through life's unequal ways. It were unwisely done, should we refuse To cheer our path, as fcatly as we may, — Our lonely path to cheer, as travellers use, With merry song, quaint tale, or roundelay. And we will sometimes talk past troubles o'er, Of mercies shown, and all our sickness heal'd And in his judgments God remembering love : And we will learn to praise God evermore. For those " glad tidings of great joy," revcal'd By that sooth messenger, sent from above.' — 179T. "This has been a sad long letter of business, with no room in it for what honest P>unyan terms heart-work. I have jiust room left to congratulate you on your removal to Stowey ; to wish success to all your projects ; to ' bid fair peace ' be to that house ; to send my love and best wishes, breathed wahnily, after your dear Sara, ami her little David Hartley. If Lloyd be with you, bid hira write to me : I feel to whom I am obliged primarily, for two very friendly lettei-s I have received already from him. A dainty LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 21 weet book that * Nature and Art ' is. — T am d, present re-re-reading Pi'iestley's Examin- ation of the Scotch Doctors : how the rogue trings 'era up ! three together ! You have 10 doubt read that clear, strong, humourous, uost entertaining piece of reasoning ? If lot, procure it, and be exquisitely amused. [ wish I could get more of Priestley's works. IJan you recommend me to any more books, iasy of access, such as cii'culating shops ifTord ! God bless you and yours. " Monday morning, at office." " Poor Mary is very unwell with a sore .hroat and n slight species of scarlet fever. jod bless her too." He recurs to the subject in his next letter, yhich is also interesting, as m-ging Coleridge ,0 attempt some great poem worthy of his jenius. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "Jan. 10th, 1797. " I need not repeat my wishes to have my ittle sonnets printed verbatim my last way. [n particular, I fear lest you should prefer arinting my first sonnet, as you have done nore than once, ' did the wand of Merlin wave,' it looks so like Mr. Merlin, the inge- | aious successor of the immortal Merlin, now . [iving in good health and spirits, and flourish- ^ ing in magical reputation, in Oxford-street ; md, on my life, one half who read it would ' understand it so. Do put 'em forth finally, ' as I have, in various letters, settled it ; for | first a man's self is to be pleased, and then his friends, — and, of course, the greater number of his friends, if they differ inter se. Thus taste may safely be put to the vote. I do long to see our names together ; not for vanity's sake, and naughty pride of heart altogether, for not a living soul I know, or am intimate with, will scarce read the book, — so I shall gain nothing, quoad f amain ; and yet there is a little vanity mixes in it, I cannot help denj^ing. — I am aware of the unpoetical cast of the six last lines of my last sonnet, and think myself unwarranted in smuggling so tame a thing into the book ; only the sentiments of those six lines are thoroughly congenial to me in my state of mind, and I wish to accumulate perpetuating tokens of my affection to poor J*Iary, — that U: has no originality in its cast, nor anything in the feelings, but what is common and natural to thousands, nor ought properly to be called poetry, I see ; still it will tend to keep present to my mind a view of things which I ought to indulge. These six lines, too, have not, to a reader, a connectedness with the foregoing. Omit it, if you like. — What a treasure it is to my poor, indolent, and unemployed mind, thus to lay hold on a subject to talk about, though 'tia but a sonnet, and that of the lowest order ! How mournfully inactive I am ! — 'Tis night : good night. " My sister, I thank God, is nigh recovered : she was seriously ill. Do, in your next letter, and that right soon, give me some satisfac- tion respecting your present situation at Stowey. Is it a farm you have got ? and what does your worship know about farming ? " Coleridge, I want you to write an epic poem. Nothing short of it can satisfy the vast capacity of true poetic genius. Having one great end to direct all your poetical f!i?ulties to, and on which to lay out your hipes, your ambition will show you to what y>)U are equal. By the sacred energies of Iililton ! by the dainty, sweet, and soothing phantasies of honey-tongued Spenser ! I a'ljure you to attemiDt the epic. Or do some- thing more ample than the wi'iting an ooca- sio'.ial brief ode or sonnet; something 'to make yourself for ever known, — to make the age to come your own.' But I prate ; doubt- less you meditate something. When you are exalted among the lords of epic fame, I shall recall with pleasure, and exultingly, the days of your humility, when you disdained not to put forth, in the same volume with mine, your 'Eeligious Musings,' and that other poem from the ' Joan of Arc,' those promising I first-fruits of high renown to come. You have learning, you have fancy, you have ' enthusiasm, you have strength, and ampli- tude of wing enow for flights like those I recommend. In the vast and unexplored regions of faii-y-land, there is ground enough unfound and uncultivated ; search there, and i realise your favourite Susquehannah scheme. In all our comparisons of taste, I do not know whether I have ever heard your opinion of a poet, very dear to me, — the now-out-of- fashion Cowley. Favour me with your judgment of him, and tell me if his prose essays, in particular, as well as no incon- 22 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. siderable part of his verse, be not delicious. I prefer the gi'aceful rambling of his essays, even to the courtly elegance and ease of Addison ; abstracting from this the latter's exquisite humour. ♦ • • » * "When the little volume is printed, send me three or four, at all events not more than six copies, and tell me if I put you to any additional expense, by printing with you. I have no thought of the kind, and in that case must reimburse you." In the commencement of this year, Cole- ridge removed from Bristol to a cottage at Nether Stowey, to embody his favourite dream of a cottage life. This change of place probably delayed the printing of the volume ; and Coleridge, busy with a thousand specu- lations, became irregular in replying to the letters with writing which Lamb solaced his dreaiy hours. The following are the most interesting portions of the only letters which remain of this year. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "Jan. 10th, 1797. " Priestley, whom I sin in almost adoring, speaks of ' such a choice of company, as tends to keep up that right bent, and firmness, of mind, which a necessary intercourse with the world would otherwise warp and relax.' ' Such fellowship is the true balsam of life ; its cement is infinitely more durable than that of the friendsliips of the world, and it looks for its proper fruit, and complete grati- fication, to the life beyond the grave.' Is there a possible chance for such an one as I to realise in this world such friendships ? Where am I to look for 'em ? What testi- monials shall I bring of my being worthy of such friendship 1 Alas ! the great and good go together in separate herds, and leave svich as I to lag far, fur behind in all intellectual, and, far more grievous to say, in all moral accomplishments. Coleridge, I have not one truly elevated cliaracter among my acquaint- ance : not one Christian : not one, but uuder- vahies ChriaLianity — singly what am I to do ? Wesley (have you read his life 1) was he not an elevated character 1 Wesley has said, ' Religicju is not a solitary thing.' Alas ! it necessarily is so with me, or next to solitary. 'Tis true you write to me. But correspond- ence by letter, and personal intimacy, are very widely different. Do, do write to me, and do some good to my mind, already how much * warped and relaxed ' by the world ! 'Tis the conclusion of another evening. Good night. God have us all in his keeping. " If you are sufficiently at leisure, oblige me with an account of your plan of life at Stowey — your literai-y occupations and pros- pects — in short, make me acquainted with every circumstance which, as relating to you, can be interesting to me. Are you yet a Berkleyan 1 Make me one. I rejoice in being, speculatively, a necessarian. Would to God,j I were habitually a practical one ! Confirm me in the faith of that great and gloi'ious doctrine, and keep me steady in the contemplation of it. You some time since expressed an intention you had of finishing some extensive work on the Evidences of Natural and Eevealed Religion. Have you let that intention go ? Or are you doing any- thing towards it 1 Make to yoiirself other ten talents. My letter is full of nothingness. I talk of nothing. But I must talk. I love to write to you. I take a pride in it. It makes me think less meanly of myself. It makes me think myself not totally discon- nected from the better part of mankind. I know I am too dissatisfied with the beings around me ; but I cannot help occasionally exclaiming, ' Woe is me, that I am consti*ained to dwell with Meshech, and to have my habitation among the tents of Kedar.' I know I am noways better in practice than my neighbours, but I have a taste for religion, an occasional earnest aspiration after perfec- tion, which they have not. I gain nothing by being with such as myself — we encourage one another in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself. All this must sound odd to you, but these are my predominant feelings, when t sit down to write to you, and I should put force upon my mind woi-e 1 to reject them. Yet I rejoice, and feel my privilege with gratitude, when I liave been reading some wise book, such as I have just been reading, ' Priestley on Philosophical Necessity,' in the thought that 1 enjoy a kind of communion, a kind of friendship even, with the great and good. Books are to me instead of friends. I wish they did not resemble the latter in their scarceness. LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 23 " And how does little David Hai-tley ? ' Ecquid in antiquam virtutem ? ' Does his mighty name work wonders yet upon his little frame and opening mind ? I did not distinctly understand you — you don't mean to make an actual ploughman of him 1 Is Lloyd with you yet ? Are you intimate with Southey? What poems is he about to publish? — he hath a most prolific brain, and is indeed a most sweet poet. Bat how can you answer all the various mass of interrogation I have put to you in the course of the sheet ? Write back just what you like, only write some- thing, however brief. I have now nigh finished my page, and got to the end of another evening (Monday evening), and my eyes are heavy and sleepy, and my brain unsuggestive. I have just heart enough awake to say good night once more, and God love you, my dear friend ; God love us all. Mai'y bears an affectionate remembrance of you, " Charles Lamb." A poem of Coleridge, emulous of Southey's " Joan of Arc," which he proposed to call the "Maid of Orleans," on which Lamb had made some critical remarks, produced the humourous recantation with which the follow- ing letter opens. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "Feb. 13th, 1797. "Your poem is altogether admirable — parts of it are even exquisite — in particular your personal account of the Maid far sur- passes any thing of the soi-t in Southey. I perceived all its excellences, on a first read- ing, as readily as now you have been removing a supposed film from my eyes. I was only struck with certain faulty dispro- portion, in the matter and the style, which I still think I perceive, between these lines and the fonner ones. I had an end in view, I wished to make you reject the poem, only as being discordant with the other, and, in sub- seivience to that end, it was politically done in me to over-pass, and make no mention of mei-it, which, could you think me capable of overlooking, might reasonably damn for ever in your judgment all pretensions, in me, to be critical. There — I will be judged by Lloyd, whether I have not made a very handsome recantation. I was in the case of a man, whose friend has asked him hia opinion of a certain young lady — the deluded wight gives judgment against her in toto — don't like her face, her walk, her manners ; finds fault with her eyebrows ; can see no wit in her ; his friend looks blank, he begins to smell a rat — wind veers about — he acknowledges her good sense, her judgment in dress, a certain simplicity of manners and honesty of heart, something too in her manners which gains upon you after a short acquaintance, — and then her accurate pro- nunciation of the French language, and a pretty uncultivated taste in drawing. The reconciled gentleman smiles applause, squeezes him by the hand, and hopes he will do him the honour of taking a bit of diimer with Mrs. and him, — a plain family dinner, — some day next week ; ' for, I suppose, you never heai-d we were married. I 'm glad to see you like my wife, however ; you '11 come and see her, ha 1 ' Now am I too proud to retract entirely ? Yet I do perceive I am in some sort straitened ; you are manifestly wedded to this poem, and what fancy has joined let no man separate. I turn me to the Joan of Arc, second book. " The solemn openings of it are with sounds, which LI. would say ' are silence to the mind.' The deep preluding strains are fitted to initiate the mind, with a pleasing awe, into the sublimest mysteries of theory concernino- man's nature, and his noblest destination — the philosophy of a first cause — of subordi- nate agents in creation, superior to man — the subserviency of Pagan worship and Pagan faith to the introduction of a purer and more perfect religion, which you so elegantly describe as winning, with gradual steps, her difficult way northward from Betliabra. After all this Cometh Joan, a publican'' s daughter, sitting on an ale-house bench, and marking the swingings of the signboard, finding a poor man, his wife and six children, starved to death with cold, and thence roused into a state of mind proper to receive visions, emblematical of equality ; which, wliat the devil Joan had to do with, I don't know, or, indeed, with the French and American revo- lutions, though that needs no pardon, it is executed so nobly. After all, if you perceive no disproportion, all argument is vain : I do not so much object to parts. Again, when you talk of building your fame on these lines 24 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. in preference to the * Religious Musings,' I cannot help conceiving of you, and of the autlior of that, as two different persons, and I think you a very vain man. " I have been ro-readiug your letter ; much of it I could dispute, but with the latter part of it, in which you compare the two Joans with respect to their predispositions for fanaticism, I, toto corde, coincide ; only I thiuk that Southey's strength rather lies in the description of the emotions of the Maid imder the weight of inspiration, — these (I see no mighty diiference between her describing them or you describing them), these if you only equal, the previous admirers of his poem, as is natural, will prefer his, — if you surpass, prejudice will scarcely allow it, and I scarce think you will surpass, though your specimen at the conclusion, I am in earnest, I think very nigh equals them. And in an account of a fanatic or of a prophet, the description of her emotions is expected to be most highly finished. By the way, I spoke fur too disparagingly of your lines, and, I am ashamed to say, purposely. I should like you to specify or particularise ; the story of the ' Tottering Eld,' of ' his eventful years all come and gone,' is too general ; why not make him a soldier, or some character, however, in which he has been witness to frequency of ' cruel wrong and strange distress ! ' I think I should. "When I laughed at the ' miserable man crawling from beneatli the coverture,' I wonder I did not perceive that it was a laugh of horror — such as I have laughed at Dante's picture of the famished Ugolino. "Without falsehood, I perceive an hundred beauties in your narrative. Yet I wonder you do not perceive something out-of-tlie-way, something UBslmple and artificial, in the expression 'voiced a sad tale.' I hate made- dishes at the muses' banquet. I believe I was wrong in most of my other objections. But surely ' liailed him immortal,' adds nothing to the terror of tlie man's death, which it was your business to heighten, not diminish by a phrase, which takes away all terror from it. 1 like that line, ' Tlicy closed their eyes in sleep, nor knew 'twas death.' Indeed there is scarce a line I do not like. ' Turbid ecstacy' in surely not so good as what you had written, 'troublous.' Turbid rather suits the muddy kind of inspiration which London porter confers. The versification is, throughout, to my ears unexceptionable, ■with no disparagement to the measure of the ' Religious Musings,' which is exactly fitted to the thoughts. " You were building your house on a rock, •when you rested your fame on that poem. I can scarce bring myself to believe, that I am admitted to a familiar correspondence, and all the licence of friendship, with a man who writes blank verse like Milton. Now, this is delicate flattery, indirect flattery. Go on with your ' Maid of Orleans,' and be content to be second to yourself. I shall become a convert to it, when 'tis finished. " This afternoon I attend the funeral of my poor old aunt, who died on Thursday. I own I am thankful that the good creature has ended all her days of suffering and infirmity. She was to me the ' cherisher of infancy,' and one must fall on those occasions into reflec- tions, which it would be common-place to enumerate, concerning death, ' of chance and cliange, and fate in human life.' Good God, who could have foreseen all tliis but four months back ! I had reckoned, in particular, on my aunt's living many years ; she was a very he;irty old woman. But she was a mere skeleton before she died, looked more like a corjjse that had lain weeks in the grave, than one fresh dead. 'Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun ; but let a man live many days and rejoice in them all, yet let hira remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many.' Coleridge, why are we to live on after all the strength and beauty of existence Jire gone, when all the life of life is fled, as i)oor Burns expresses it ? Tell Lloyd I have had thoughts of turning Quaker, and have been reading, or am rather just begin- ning to read, a most capital book, good thoughts in good laugu;ige, William Penn's ' No Cross, no Crown,' I like it immen.sely. Unluckily I went to one of his meetings, tell him, in St. John-street, yesterday, and saw a man inider all the agitations and workings of a fanatic, who believed himself under the influence of some ' inevitjvble presence.' This cured me of Quakerism ; I love it in the books of Penu anil Woolman, but I detest the vanity of a man thinking he speaks by the Spirit, when what he says an ordinary man might say without all that LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 25 quaking and trembling. In the midst of his inspiration, and the effects of it were most noisy, was handed into the midst of the meeting a most terrible blackguard Wapping sailor ; the poor man, I believe, had rather have been in the hottest part of au engage- ment, for the congregation of broad-brims, together with the ravings of the prophet, were too much for his gravity, though I saw even he had delicacy enough, not to laugh out. And the inspired gentleman, though his manner was so supernatui'al, yet neither talked nor professed to talk anything more than good sober sense, common morality, with now and then a declaration of not speaking from himself. Among other things, looking back to his childhood and early youth, he told the meeting what a graceless young dog he had been, that in his youth he had a good share of wit : reader, if thou hadst seen the gentle- man, thou wouldst have sworn that it must indeed have been many years ago, for his rueful physiognomy would have scared away the playful goddess from the meeting, where he presided, for ever. A wit ! a wit ! what could he mean ? Lloyd, it minded me of Falkland in the Rivals, * Am I full of wit and humour ? No, indeed you are not. Am I the life and soul of every company I come into 1 No, it cannot be said you are.' That hard-faced gentleman, a wit ! Why, nature wrote on his fanatic forehead fifty years ago, 'Wit never comes, that comes to all.' I should be as scandalised at a bon mot issuing from his oracle-looking mouth, as to see Cato go down a country-dance. God love you all. You are very good to submit to be pleased with reading my nothings. 'Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected. — Yours ever, " C. Lamb." TO MR. COLERIDGE. "April 7th, 1797. " Your last letter was dated the 10th February ; in it you promised to write agciin the next day. At least, I did not expect so long, so unfriend-like a silence. There was a time, Col., when a remissness of this sort in a dear friend would have lain very heavy on my mind, but latterly I have been too familiar with neglect to feel much from the semblance of it. Yet, to suspect one's self overlooked, and in the way to oblivion, is a feeling rather humbling ; perhaps, as tending to self-mor- tification, not unfavourable to the sjnritual state. Still, as you meant to confer no benefit on the soul of your friend, you do not stand quite clear from the imputation of unkindli- ness (a word, by which I mean the diminutive of unkindness). And then David Hartley was unwell ; and how is the small philosoj^lier, the minute philosopher? and David's mother? Coleridge, I am not trifling, nor are these matter-of-fact questions only. You are all very dear and precious to me ; do what you will, Col., you may hurt me and vex me by your silence, but you cannot estrange my heart from you all. I cannot scatter friend- ships like chuck-farthings, nor let them drop from mine hand like hour-glass sand. I have but two or three people in the world to whom I am more than indifferent, and I can't afford to whistle them off to the winds. "My sister has recovered from her illness. May that merciful God make tender my heart, and make me as thankful, as in my distress I was earnest, in my prayers. Con- gratulate me on an ever-present and never- alienable friend like her. And do, do insert, if you have not lost, my dedication. It will have lost half its value by coming so late. If you really are going on with that volume, I shall be enabled in a day or two to send you a short poem to insert. Now, do answer this. Friendship, and acts of fi-iendship, should be reciprocal, and free as the air ; a friend should never be reduced to beg an alms of his fellow. Yet I will beg an alms ; I entreat you to write, and tell me all about poor Lloyd, and all of you. God love and preserve you all. " C. Lamb." TO MR. COLERIDGE. "June 13th, 1797. "I stared with wild wonderment to see thy well-known hand again. It revived many a pleasing recollection of an epistolary intercourse, of late strangely suspended, once the pride of my life. Before I even opened thy letter, I figured to myself a sort of complacency which my little hoard at home would feel at receiving the new-comer into the little drawer whei-e I keep my treasures of this kind. You have done well in writing to me. The little room (was it not a little one?) 26 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. at the Salutation was already in the way of becoming a fading idea ! it had begun to be classed in my memory with those ' wanderings with a fiiir hair'd maid,' in the recollection of which I feel I have no property. You press me, very kindly do you press me, to come to Stowey ; obstacles, strong as death, prevent me at present ; maybe I maybe able to come before the year is out ; believe me, I will come as soon as I can, but I dread naming a probable time. It depends on fifty things, besides the expense, which is not nothing. As to Richardson, caprice may grant what caprice only refused, and it is no more hardship, rightly considered, to be dependent on him for pleasure, than to lie at the mercy of the rain and sunshine for the enjoyment of a holiday : in either case we are not to look for a suspension of the laws of nature. ' Grill will be grill.' Vide Spenser. " I could not but smile at the compromise you make with me for printing Lloyd's poems first ; but there is in nature, I fear, too many tendencies to envy and jealousy not to justify you in your apology. Yet, if any one is welcome to pre-eminence from me, it is Lloyd, for he would be the last to desire it. So pray, let his name uniformly precede mine, for it would be treating me like a child to suppose it could give me pain. Yet, alas ! I am not insus- ceptible of the bad passions. Thank God, I have the ingenuousness to be ashamed of them. I am dearly fond of Charles Lloyd ; he is all goodness, and I have too much of the world in my composition to feel myself thoroughly desei-vingof his friendship. " Lloyd tells me that Sheridan put you upon writing your tragedy. I hope you are only Coleridgeizing when you talk of finishing it in a few days. Shakspeare was a more modest man, but you best know your own power. " Of my last poem you speak slightingly ; surely the longer stanzas were pretty toler- able ; at least there was one good line in it, ' Thick-shaded trees, -with dark preen leaf rich clad.' "To adopt your own expression, I call this a •'rich' line, a fine full line. And some others I thought even beautiful. Believe me, my little gentleman will feel some repugnance at riding behind in the basket, though, I confess, in pretty good company. Your picture of idiocy, with the sugar-loaf head, is exquisite ; but are you not too severe upon our more favoured brethren in fatuity % I send you a trifling letter ; but you have only to think that I have been skimming the superficies of my mind, and found it only froth. Now, do write again ; you cannot believe how I long and love always to hear about you. Yours, most afi"ectionately, " Charles Lamb." TO MR. COLKRIDGE. "June 24th, 1797. " Did you seize the grand opportunity of seeing Kosciusko while he was at Bristol ? I never saw a hero ; I wonder how they look. I have been reading a most curious romance-like work, called the Life of John Buncle, Esq. 'Tis very interesting, and an extraordinary compound of all manner ol subjects, from the depth of the ludicrous to the heights of sublime religious truth. There is much abstruse science in it above my cut, and an infinite fund of pleasantry. John Buncle is a famous fine man, formed in nature's most eccentric hour. I am ashamed of what I write. But I have no topic to talk of. I see nobody ; and sit, and read, or walk alone, and hear nothing. I am quite lost to conversation from disuse ; and out of the sphere of my little family, who, I am thankful, are dearer and dearer to me every day, I see no face that brightens up at my approach. My friends are at a distance (meaning Birmingham and Stowey) ; worldly hopes are at a low ebb with me, and un- worldly thoughts are not yet familiarised to me, though I occasionally indulge in them. Still I feel a calm not unlike content. I fear it is sometimes more akin to physical stupidity than to a heaven-flowing serenity and peace. What right have I to obtrude all this upon you I and what is such a letter to you ? and if I come to Stowey, what conversation can I furnish to compensate my friend for those stores of knowledge and of fancy ; those delightful treasures of wisdom, which, I know, he will open to me ? But it is better to give than to receive ; and I was a very patient hearer, and docile scholar, in our winter evening meetings at Mr. May's ; LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 27 ■was I not, Col.? Wliat I have owed to thee, my heart can ne'er forget. " God love you and yours. " C. L." At length the small volume containing the poems of Coleridge, Lloyd, and Lamb, was published by Mr. Cottle at Bristol. It excited little attention ; but Lamb had the pleasure of seeing his dedication to his sister printed in good set form, after his own fashion, and of witnessing the delight and pride with which she received it. This little book, now very scarce, had the following motto expressive of Coleridge's feeling towards his associates : — Duplex nobis vinculum, et ami- citice et similium junctarumque Camcenarum ; quod utinam neque mors solvat, neque temporis longinquitas. Lamb's share of the work consists of eight sonnets ; four short frag- ments of blank verse, of which the Grandame is the principal ; a poem, called the Tomb of Douglas ; some verses to Charles Lloyd ; and a vision of Repentance ; which are all pub- lished in the last edition of his poetical works, except one of the sonnets, which was addressed to Mrs. Siddons. and the Tomb of Douglas, which was justly omitted as common-place and vapid. They only occupy twenty-eight duodecimo pages, within which sjDace was comprised all that Lamb at this time had written which he deemed woi-th preserving. The following letter from Lamb to Cole- ridge seems to have been written on receiving the first copy of the work. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "Dec. 10th, 1797. " I am sorry I cannot now relish your poetical present so thoroughly as I feel it deserves ; biit I do not the less thank Lloyd and you for it. " Before I offer, what alone I have to offer, a few obvious remarks, on the poems you sent me, I can but notice the odd coincidence of two young men, in one age, carolling their grandmothei-s. Love, what L. calls tiie ' feverish and romantic tie,' hath too long domineered over all the charities of home : the dear domestic ties of father, brother, husband. The amiable and benevolent Cowper has a beautiful passage in his ' Task,' — some natural and painful reflections on his deceased parents : and Hayley's sweet lines to his mother are notoriously the best things he ever wrote. Cowper's lines, some of them are — ■ ' How gladly -would the man recall to life The boy's neglected sire ; a mother, too ! That softer name, perhaps more ghidly still, Might he demand them at the gates of death.' " I cannot but smile to see my granny so gaily decked forth : though, I think, whoever altered ' thy ' praises to ' her ' praises — ' thy' honoured memory to ' her ' honoured memory, did wrong — they best exprest my feelings. There is a pensive state of recollection, in which the mind is disposed to apostrophise the departed objects of its attachment ; and, breaking loose from grammatical precision, changes from the first to the third, and from the third to the first person, just as the random fancy or the feeling directs. Among Lloyd's sonnets, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 11th, are eminently beautiful. I think him too lavish of his expletives ; the do's and did's, when they occur too often, bring a quaintness with them along with their simplicity, or rather air of antiquity, which the patrons of them seem desirous of conveying. " Another time, I may notice more particu- larly Lloyd's, Southey's, Dermody's Sonnets. I shrink from them now : my teasing lot makes me too confused for a clear judgment of things, too selfish for sympathy ; and these ill-digested, meaningless remarks, I have imposed on myself as a task, to lull reflection, as well as to show you I did not neglect reading your valuable present. Eeturn my ackowledgments to Lloyd ; you two seem to be about realising an Elysium upon earth, and, no doubt, I shall be happier. Take my best wishes. Remember me most affection- ately to IVL's. C , and give little David Hartley — God bless its little heart ! — a kiss for me. Bring him up to know the meaning of his Christian name, and what that name (imposed upon him) will demand of him. " God love you ! " C. Lamb. " I write, for one thing to say, that I shall write no more till you send me word, where you are, for you are so soon to move. " My sister is pretty well, thank God. "We think of you very often. God bless you : continue to be my correspondent, and I will 28 CORRESPONDENCE WITH SOUTHEY. strive to fancy that thi3 world is not ' all barrenness.' " After several disappointments, occasioned by the state of business in the India House, Lamb achieved his long-checked wish of visiting Coleridge at Stowey, in company with his sister, without whom he felt it almost a sin to enjoy anything. Coleridge, shortly after, abandoned his scheme of a cottage-life ; and, in the following year, left England for Germany. Lamb, however, was not now so lonely as when he wrote to Cole- ridge imploring his correspondence as the only comfort of his sorrows and labours ; for, through the instrumentality of Coleridge, he was now rich in friends. Among them he marked George Dyer, the guileless andsimple- heai-ted, whose love of learning was a passion, and who found, even in the forms of verse, objects of worship ; Southey, in the young vigour of his genius ; and Wordsworth, the great regenerator of English poetry, preparing for his long contest with the glittering fonns of inane phraseology which had usurped the dominion of the public mind, and with the cold mockeries of scorn with which their supremacy was defended. By those the beauty of his character was felt ; the original east of his powers was appreciated ; and his peculiar humour was detected and kindled into fitful life. CHAPTER LV. [1798.] lamb's litekary efforts and correspondence with 80LTHEV. In the year 1798, the blank verse of Lloyd and Jjamb, which had been contained in the volume published in conjunction with Cole- ridge, was, with some additions by Lloyd, published in a thin duodecimo, price 2s. iid., under the title of " Blank Verse, by Charles Lloyd and Charles Lamb." This unpre- tending book was honoured by a brief and scornful notice in the catalogue of " The Monthly Review," in the small print of which the works of the poets wlio are now recognised as the greatest ornaments of their age, and who have impressed it most deeply by their genius, were usually named to be dismissed with a sneer. After a contemp- tuous notice of " The Mournful Muse " of Lloyd, Lamb receives his quietus in a line : — "Mr. Lamb, the joint author of this little volume, seems to be very properly associated with his plaintive companion." * In this year Lamb composed his prose tale, " Rosamund Gray," and published it in a volume of the same size and price with the last, under the title of " A Tale of Rosamund Gray and Old Blind Margaret," which, having a semblance of story, sold much better than his poems, and added a few pounds to his slender income. This miniature romance is unique in English literature. It bears the impress of a recent peinisal of " The Man of Feeling," and " Julia de Roubigne ; " and while on the one hand it wants the graphic force and delicate touches of Mac- kenzie, it is informed with deeper feeling and breathes a diviner morality than the most charming of his tales. Lamb never possessed the faculty of constructing a plot either for drama or novel ; and while he luxuriated in the humour of Smollett, the wit of Fielding, or the solemn pathos of Richardson, he Wixa not amused, but perplexed, by the attempt to thread the Avindings of story which con- duct to their most exquisite passages through the maze of adventure. In this tale, nothing is made out with distinctness, except the rustic piety and grace of the lovely girl and her venerable grandmother, which are pictured with such earnestness and simplicity as might beseem a fragment of the book of Ruth. The villain who lays waste their humble joys is a murky phantom without individuality ; the events are obscured by the haze of sentiment which hovere over them; and the narrative gives way to the reflections of the author, who is mingled with the persons of the tale in visionary confusion, and gives to it the character of a sweet but disturbed dream. It has an interest now beyond that of tiction ; for in it we may trace, " as in a glass darkly," the characteristics of the mind and he;u't of the author, at a time when a change was coming upon them. Tliere are the dainty sense of beauty just weaned from its palpable object, and quiver- ing over its lost images ; feeling grown • Monthly Review, Sept. 1798. INTRODUCTION TO SOUTHEr. 29 retrospective before its time, and tinging all things with a strange solemnity ; hints of that craving after immediate appliances which might give impulse to a harassed frame, and confidence to struggling fancy, and of that escape from the pressure of agony into fantastic mirth, which in after life made Lamb a problem to a stranger, while they endeared him a thousand-fold to those who really knew him. While the fulness of the religious sentiments, and the scriptural cast of the language, still partake of liis early manhood, the visit of the narrator of the tale to the churchyard where his parents lie buried, after his nerves had been strung for the endeavour by wine at the village inn, and the half-frantic jollity of his old heart-broken friend (the lover of the tale), whom he met there, with the exquisite benignity of thought breathing through the whole, prophesy the deliglitful peculiarities and genial frailties of an after day. The reflections he makes on the eiilogistic cha- racter of all the inscriptions, are drawn from his own childhood ; for when a very little boy, walking with his sister in a churchyard, he suddenly asked her, " Mary, where do the naughty people lie ? " " Rosamund Gray " remained unreviewed till August, 1800, when it received the following notice in "The Monthly Review's " catalogue, the manufacturer of which was probably more tolerant of heterodox com- position in pz'ose than verse: — "In the perusal of this pathetic and interesting story, the reader who has a mind capable of enjoy- ing rational and moral sentiment will feel much gratification. Mr. Lamb has here proved himself skilful in touching the nicest feelings of the heart, and in ailbrding great pleasure to the imagination, by exhibiting events and situations which, in the hands of a writer less conversant with the springs and energies of the moral sense, would make a very ' sorry figured " While we acknowledge this scanty praise as a redeeming trait in the long series of critical absurdities, we cannot help observing how curiously misplaced all the laudatory epithets are ; the sentiment being profound and true, but not " rational,'^ and the " springs and energies of the moral sense " being substituted for a weakness which had a power of its own ! Lamb was introduced by Coleridge to Sou they as early as the year 179o ; but no intimacy ensued until he accompanied Lloj'd in the summer of 1797 to the little village of Burton, near Cliristchurch, in Hampshire, where Southey was then residing, and where they spent a fortnight as the poet's guests. After Coleridge's departure for Germany, in 1798, a correspondence began between Lamb and Southey, which continued through that and part of the following year ; — Southey communicates to Lamb his Eclogues, which he was then preparing for the press, and Lamb repaying the confidence by subnutting the products of his own leisure hours to his genial critic. If Southey did not, in all respects, compensate Lamb for the absence of his earlier friend, he excited in him a more entire and active intellectual sympathy ; as the character of Southey's mind bore more resemblance to his own than that of Coleridge. In purity of thought ; in the love of the minutest vestige of antiquity ; in a certain primness of style bounding in the rich humour which threatened to overflow it ; they were nearly akin : both alike reverenced childhood, and both had pre- served its best attributes unspotted from the world. If Lamb bowed to the genius of Coleridge with a fonder reverence, he felt more at home with Southey ; and although he did not pour out the inmost secrets of his soul in his letters to him as to Coleridge, he gave more scope to the " first sprightly runnings" of his humorous fancy. Here is the fii-st of his freaks : — TO MR. SOUTHEY. " My tailor has brought me home a new coat lapeUed, with a velvet collar. He assures me everybody wears velvet collai'S now. Some are born fashionable, some achieve fashion, and others, like your humble servant, have fashion thrust upon them. The rogue has been making inroads hitherto by modest degrees, foisting upon me an additional button, recommending gaiters, but to come upon me thus in a fuU tide of luxury, neither becomes him as a tailor or the ninth of a man. My meek gentleman was robbed the other day, coming with his wife and family in a one-horse shay from Hampstead ; the villains rifled him of four guineas, some shillings and half-pence, and a bundle of 30 LETTERS TO SOUTHEY, customers' measures, which they swore were bank-notes. They did not shoot him, and when they rode off he addrest them with profound gratitude, making a congee : ' Gentlemen, I wish you good night, and we are very much obliged to you that you have not used us ill ! ' And this is the cuckoo that has had the audacity to foist upon me ten buttons on a side, and a black velvet collar. — A cursed ninth of a scoundrel ! " "When you write to Lloyd, he wishes his Jacobin correspondents to address him as Mr. C. L." The following letter — yet richer in fun — bears date Saturday, July 28th, 1798. In order to make its allusions intelligible, it is only necessary to mention that Southey was then contemplating a calendar illustrative of the remarkable days of the year. TO MR. SOUTHEY. "July 28th, 1798. " I am ashamed that I have not thanked you before this for the ' Joan of Ai'c,' but I did not know your address, and it did not occur to me to write through Cottle. The poem delighted me, and the notes amused me, but methinks she of Neufchatel, in the print, holds her sword too ' like a dancer.' I sent your notice to Phillips, particularly requesting an immediate insertion, but I .suppose it came too late. I am sometimes curious to know what progress you make in that same ' Calendar :' whether you insert the nine worthies and Whittingtou ? what you do or how you can manage when two Saints meet and quarrel for precedency? Martlemas, and Candlemas, and Christmas, are glorious themes for a writer like you, antiquity-bitten, smit with the love of boars' heads and ro.semary ; but how you can ennoble the Ibt of April I know not. By the way I had a thing to say, but a certain false modesty has hitherto prevented me : perhaps I can best comnuuiicate my wish by a hint, — my birth-day is on the 10th of February, New Stylo, but if it interferes with any remarkable event, why rather than my country should lose her fame, I care not if I put my nativity back eleven days. Fine family patronage for your ' Calendar,' if that old lady of prolific memory were living, who lies (or lyes) in Bome church in Loudon (saints forgive me, but I have forgot what church), attesting that enormous legend of as many children aa days in the year. I marvel her impudence did not grasp at a leap-year. Three-hundred and sixty-five dedications, and all in a family — you might spit in spirit, on the oneness of Macsenas' patronage ! " Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to the eternal regret of his native Devonshire, emigrates to Westphalia — ' Poor Lamb (these were his last words) if he wants any knowledge, he may apply to me,' in ordinary cases I tbanked him, I have an 'Encyclopedia' at hand, but on such an occasion as going over to a German university, I could not refrain from sending him the following propositions, to be by him defended or oppugned (or both) at Leipsic or Gottingen. THESES QU^DAM THEOLOGICJE. " ' Whether God loves a lying angel better than a true man ? ' II. " ' Whether the archangel Uriel covld knowingly affirm an untruth, and whether, if he coidd, he would V III. " ' Whether honesty be an angelic virtue, or not rather belonging to that class of qualities which the schoolmen term " virtutes minus splendidoe, et hominia et terrse uimis participes % " ' IV. "'Whether the seraphim ardentes do not manifest their goodness by the way of vision and theory ? and whether practice be not a sub-celestial, and merely human virtue ? ' " ' Whether the higher order of seraphim illuminati ever sineer f ' " ' Wliether pure intelligences can love, or whothcr they can love anything besides pure iutiillect ? ' Til. " ' Whether the beatific vision be anything more or less than a perpetual ri'prescntment to each individual angel of his own present attainments, and future capabilities, some- LETTERS TO SOUTHEY. 31 thing in the manner of mortal looking- glasses 1 ' ■VIII. "'Whether an "immortal and amenable soul" may not come to he damned at last, and the man never suspect it beforehand ? ' "Samuel Taylor hath not deigned an answer ; was it impertinent of me to avail myself of that offered source of knowledge 1 " Wishing Madoc may be born into the world with as splendid promise as the second birth, or purification, of the Maid of Neufchatel, — I remain yours sincerely, « C. Lamb. " I hope Edith is better ; my kindest remembrances to her. You have a good deal of trifling to forgive in this letter," The two next letters to Southey illustrate strikingly the restless kindness and exquisite spirit of allowance in Lamb's nature ; the first an earnest pleading for a poor fellow whose distress actually haunted him ; the second an affecting allusion to the real good- ness of a wild untoward school-mate, and fine self-reproval — in this instance how unmerited ! TO MR. SOUTHEY. " Dear Southey, — Your friend John May has formerly made kind offers to Lloyd of serving me in the India House, by the interest of his friend Sir Francis Baring. It is not likely that I shall ever put his goodness to the test on my own account, for my prospects are very comfortable. But I know a man, a young man, whom he coidd serve through the same channel, and, I think, would be disposed to serve if he were acquainted with his case. This poor fellow (whom I know just enough of to vouch for his strict integrity and worth) has lost two or three employments from illness, which he cannot regain ; he vas once insane, and, from the distressful Vicertainty of his livelihood, has reason to apprehend a return of that malady. He has ■ been for some time dependent on a woman whose lodger he formerly was, but who can iU afford to maintain him ; and I know that on Christmas night last he actually walked about the street,s all night, rather than accept of her bed, which she ofitn-ed him, and offered herself to sleep in the kitchen ; and that, in consequence of that severe cold, he is labouring under a bilious disorder, besides a depression of spirits, which incapacitates him from exertion when he most needs it. For God's sake, Southey, if it does not go against you to ask fiivours, do it now ; ask it as for me ; but do not do a violence to your feelings, because he does not know of this application, and will suffer no disappoint- ment. What I meant to say was this, — there are in the India House what are called extra clerks, not on the establishment, like me, but employed in extra business, by-jobs ; these get about 50^. a year, or rather more, but never rise ; a director can put in at any time a young man in this office, and it is by no means considered so great a favour as making an established clerk. He would think himself as rich as an emperor if he could get such a certain situation, and be relieved from those disquietudes which, I do fear, may one day bring back his distemper. " You know John May better than I do, but I know enough to believe that he is a good man ; he did make me that off'er I have mentioned, but you will perceive that such an ofier cannot authorise me in applying for another person. " But I cannot help writing to you on the subject, for the young man is perpetually before my eyes, and I shall feel it a crime not to strain all my petty interest to do him service, though I put my own delicacy to the question by so doing. I have made one other unsuccessful attempt already ; at all events I will thank you to write, for I am tormented with anxiety. " C. Lamb." "Dear Southet, " Poor Sam. Le Grice ! I am afraid the world, and the camp, and the university, have spoilt him among them. 'Tis certain he had at one time a strong capacity of turning out something better. I knew him, and that not long since, when he had a most warm heart. I am ashamed of the indifi'erence I have sometimes felt towards him. I think the devil is in one's heai't. I am under obligations to that man for the warmest friendship, and heartiest sympathy, even for an agony of sympathy exprest both by word, and deed, 32 LETTERS TO SOUTHEY. and tears for me, when I was in my greatest distress. But I have forgot that ! as, I fear, he has nigh forgot the awful scenes which were before his eyes when he served tiie office of a comforter to me. No service was too mean or troublesome for him to perform. I can't think what but the devil, ' that ohi spider,' could have suck'd my heart so dry of its sense of all gratitude. If he does come in your way, Southey, fail not to tell liim that I retain a most affectionate remembrance of his old friendliness, and an earnest wish to resume our intercourse. In this I am serious. I cannot reconmiend him to your society, because I am afraid whether he be quite worthy of it. But I have no right to dismiss him from my regard. He was at one time, and in the worst of times, my own familiar friend, and great comfort to me then, I have known him to play at cards with my father, meal-times excepted, literally all day long, in long days too, to save me from being teased by the old man, when 1 was not able to bear it. " God bless him for it, and God bless you, Southey. " C. L." Lamb now began to write the tragedy of John Woodvil. His admiration of the dramatists of Elizabeth's age was yet young, and had some of the indiscretion of an early love ; but there was nothing affected in the antique cast of his language, or the fi-equent roughness of his verse. His delicate sense of beauty had found a congenial organ in the style which he tasted with rapture ; and criticism gave him little encouragement to adapt it to the fi-igid insipidities of the time. " My tragedy," says he in the first letter to Southey, which alludes to the play, " will be a medley (or I intend it to be a medley) of laughter and tears, prose and verse ; and, in some places, rhyme ; songs, wit, pathos, humour ; and, if possible, sublimity ; — at least, 'tis not a fault in my intention if it does not comprehend most of these discordant atoms — Heaven send tliey dance not the dance of death ! " In another letter he there introduces the delicious rhymed passage in the " Forest Scene," which Godwin, having accidentally seen quoted, took for a choice fragment of an old dramatist, arid went to Lamb to assist him in finding the author. TO MR. SOUTnEY. " I just send you a few rhymes from my play, the only rhymes in it. A forest-liver giving an account of his amusements. ' What sports have you in the forest ? Not many, — some few, — as thus, To see the sun to bed, and sec him rise, Like some hot amourist with plowing eyes, Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him : With all his fires and travelling glories round him : Sometimes the moon on soft night-clouds to rest. Like beauty nestling in a young man's breast, And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keep Admiring silence, while those lovers sleep : Sometimes outstretched in very idleness, Nought doing, saying little, tliinking less. To view tlie leaves, thin dancers upon air, Go eddying round ; and small birds how they fare, When mother Autumn fills their beaks with corn, Filch'd from the careless Amalthea's horn ; And how the woods berries and worms provide, Without their pains, -when earth hath nought beside To answer their small wants ; To view the graceful deer come trooping hy, Then pause, and gaze, then turn they know not why, Like bashful younkers in society ; To nuirk the structure of a plant or tree ; And all fair things of earth, how fair they be I ' &c. &c. " I love to anticipate charges of unorigin- ality : the first line is almost Shakspeare's : — ' To have my love to bed and to arise.' Midsummer Night's Dream. " I think there is a sweetness in the versi- fication not unlike some rhymes in that exquisite play, and the last line but three is yours : ' Au eye That met the gaze, or turn'd it knew not why.* Jiosamuiid's £pis(le. " I shall anticipate all my play, and have nothing to show you. An idea for Le\'iathan — Commentators on Job have been puzzled to find out a meaning for Leviathan, — 'tis a whale, say some ; a crocodile, say others. In my simple conjecture, Leviatlnui is neither more nor less tlian the Lord Mayor of London for the time being." He seems also to have sent about this time the solemnly fantastic poem of the " Witch," as the following passage relates to one of its conceits : TO MR. SOUTHET. " Your recipe for a Turk's poison ia invaluable, and truly Marlowish. . . . Lloyd objects to ' shutting up the womb of LETTERS TO SOUTHEY. his purse ' in ray curse, (which, for a Chris- tiau witch in a Christian country, is not too mild, I hope,) do you object ? I think there is a strangeness in the idea, as well as * shaking the poor like snakes from his door,' which suits the speaker. Witches illustrate, as fine ladies do, from their own familiar objects, and snakes and shutting up of wombs are in their way. I don't know that this last charge has been before brought against 'em, nor either the sour milk or the mandrake babe ; but I affirm these be things a witch would do if she could." Here is a siiecimen of Lamb's criticism on Southey's poetical communications : — TO MR. SOUTHEY. " I have read your Eclogue repeatedly, and cannot call it bald, or without interest ; the cast of it, and the design, are completely original, and may set people upon thinking : it is as poetical as the subject requires, which asks no poetry ; but it is defective in pathos. The woman's own story is the tamest part of it — I should like you to remould that — it too much resembles the young maid's history, both had been in service. Even the omission would not inj are the poem ; after the words 'growing wants,' you might, not uncon- nectedly, introduce ' look at that little chub ' down to 'welcome one.' And, decidedly, I would have you end it somehow thus, ' Give them at least this evening a good meal. [Gives her money. Now, fare thee well ; hereafter you have taught me To give sad meaning to the village-bells,' &c. which would leave a stronger impression, (as well as more pleasingly recall the beginning of the Eclogue,) than the present common- place reference to a better world, which the woman ' must have heard at church.' 1 j should like you too a good deal to enlarge the most striking part, as it might have been, of the poem — ' Is it idleness ? ' &c., that affords a good field for dwelling on sickness, and inabilities, and old age. And you might also a good deal enrich the piece with a picture of a country wedding : the woman might very well, in a transient fit of oblivion, dwell upon the ceremony and circumstances of her own nuptials six years ago, the snugucss of the bridegroom, the feastings, the cheap merriment, the welcomings, and the secret cnvyings of the maidens — then dropping all this, recur to her present lot. I do not know that I can suggest anything else, or that I have suggested an}i,hing rfew or materiaL I shall be very glad to see some more poetry, though, I fear, your trouble in transcribing will be greater than the service my remarks may do them. " Yours affectionately, " C. Lamb. " I cut my letter short because I am called off to business." The following, of the same character, is further interesting, as tracing the origin of his "Rosamund," and exhibiting his young enthusiasm for the old English di-ama, so nobly developed in his " f?pecimens : " — TO MR. SOUTHET. " Dear Southey,— I thank you heartily for the Eclogue ; it pleases me mightily, being so full of picture-work and circumstances. I find no fault in it, unless perhaps that Joanna's ruin is a catastrophe too trite : and this is not the first or second time you have clothed your indignation, in verse, in a tale of ruined innocence. The old lady, spinning in the sun, I hope would not disdain to claim some kindred with old Margaret. I could almost wish you to vary some circumstances in the conclusion. A gentleman seducer has so often been described in prose and verse ; what if you had accomplished Joanna's ruin by the clumsy arts and rustic gifts of some country-fellow ? I am thinking, I believe, of the song, ' An old woman clothed in grey, Whose daughter was charming and young, And she was deluded away By Roger's false flattering tongue.' A Roger-Lothario would be a novel character, I think you might paint him very well. You may think this a very silly suggestion, and so, indeed, it is ; but, in good truth, nothing else but the first words of that foolish ballad put me upon scribbling my ' Rosamund.' But I thank you heartily for the poem. Not having anything of my own to send you in return — tliough, to tell truth, I am at w^/ik upon sometliing, wh'ch, if I were to cut away and garble, perhaps I might send yoj au extract or two that might not displease 3'ou ; but I will not do that ; and whether it will come to anything, 1 know not, for I am as slow as a Fleiniiig painter when I compose anything — I will crave leave to put down a few lines of old Christopher Marlow's ; I take them from his tragedy, 'The Jew of Malta.' Tlie Jew is a famous character, quite out of nature ; but, when we consider the terrible idea our simjile ancestors had of a Jew, not more to be discommended for a certain discolouring (I think Addison calls it) than the witches and fairies of Marlow's mighty successor. The scene is betwixt Barabas, the Jew, and Ithamore, a Turkish captive, exposed to sale for a slave. BA&ABA8. {A precious rascal.) As for myself, I walk abroad a-nights, And kill sick people gioaniiig under walls : Sometimes I go about, and poi.son wells ; And now and then, to cherish Christian thieves, I am content to lose some of my crowns, That I may, walking in my gallery. See 'm go pinioned along by my door. Being young, I studied physic, and began To practise first upon the Italian : There I enriched the priests with burials, And always kept the sexton's arms in use With digging graves, and ringing dead men's kneUs ; And, after that, was I an engineer. And in the wars 'twixt France and Germany Under pretence of serving Charles the Fifth, Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems. Then after that was I an usurer. And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting, And tricks belonging unto brokcry, I fiU'd the jails with bankrupts in a year, And with young orphans planted hospitals. And every moon made some or other mad ; And now and then one hang himself for grief, Pinning upon his breast a long great scroll, How I with interest had tormented him. (Now hear Ithamore, the other gentle nature.) ITHAMORE. {A comical dog.) Faith, master, and I have spent my time In setting Christian villages on fire, Chaining of eunuchs, binding galley-slave*. One time I was an hostler in an inn. And in the night-time secretly would I steal To travellers' chambers, and there cut their throats. Once at Jerusalem, where the pilgrims knecl'd, I strewed powder on the marble stones, And therewithal their knees would rankle so. That I have laiigh'd a good to see the cripples Go limping home to Christendom on stilts. BARABAS. Wty, this Is something — "There is a mixture of the ludicrous and the terrible in these lines, brimful of genius and antique invention, that at first reminded me of your old description of cruelty in hell, wliich was in the true Hogarthian style. I need not tell 7/021 that Marlow was author of that pretty madrigal, ' Come live with me and be my Love,' and of the tragedy of Edward II., in which are certain lines unequalled in our Engli.sh tongue. Honest Walton mentions the said madrigal under the denomination of * certain smooth verses made long since by Kit Marlow.' "I am glad you have put me on the scent after old Quarles. If I do not put up those eclogues, and that shortly, say I am no true- nosed hound. I have had a letter from Lloyd J the yoiuig metaphysician of Caius is well, and is busy recanting the new heresy, metaphysics, for the old dogma, Greek. My sister, I thank you, is quite well. " Yours sincerely, " C. Lamb." The following lettei-s, which must have been written after a short interval, show a rapid change of opinion, very unusual with Lamb (who stuck to his favourite books as he did to his friends), as to the relative merits of the "Emblems" of Wither and of Quarles : TO MR. SOUTHEY. "Oct. 18th, 1798. " Dear Southey,— I have at last been so fortunate as to pick up Wither's Emblems for you, that ' old book and quaint,' as the brief author of Hosamund Gray hath it ; it is in a most detestable state of preservation, and the cuts are of a fainter impression than I have seen. Some child, the curse of anti- quaries and bane of bibliopical rarities, hath been dabbling in some of them with its paint and dirty fingers ; and, in particular, hath a little sullied the author's own portraiture, which I think valuable, as the poem that accompanies it is no common one ; this last excepted, the Emblems are far inferior tc old Quarles. I once told you otherwise, but I had nut then read old Q. with attention. I have picked up, too, another copy of Quarles for iiinepeuce ! ! ! O tempora ! O lectores ! so that if you have lost or parted with your own copy, say so, and I can furnish you, for you prize these things more than I do. You will be amused, I think, with honest Wither s ' h^upereedeiis to all them LETTERS TO SOUTHEY. ■whose custom it is, without any deserving, to importune authors to give unto them their books.' I am sorry 'tis imperfect, as the lotteiy board annexed to it also is. Methinksyou might modernise and elegantise this Supersedeas, and place it in front of your Joan of Arc, as a gentle hint to Messi's. Parke, &c. One of the happiest emblems, and comicalest cuts, is the owl and little chir]')ers, page 63. " Wishing you all amusement, which your true emblem-fancier can scarce fail to find in even bad emblems, I remain your caterer to command, " C. Lamb. " Love and respects to Edith. I hope she is well. How does your Calendar prosper ?" TO MR. SOUTHEY. . "Nov. 8th, 1798. " I perfectly accord with your opinion of old "Wither ; Quarles is a wittier writer, but Wither lays more hold of the heart. Quarles thinks of his audience when he lectures ; Wither soliloquises in company with a full heart. What wretched stuff are the ' Divine Fancies ' of Quarles ! Religion appears to him no longer valuable than it fiu-nishes matter for quibbles and riddles ; he turns God's grace into wantonness. Wither is like an old friend, whose warm-heartedness and estimable qualities make us wish he possessed more genius, but at the same time make us wilUng to dispense with that want. I always love W., and sometimes admire Q. Still that portrait poem is a fine one ; and the extract from ' Shepherds' Hunting ' places him in a starry height far above Quarles. If you wrote that review in ' Ciit. Rev.,' I am sorry you are so sparing of praise to the ' Ancient Marinere ; ' — so far from calling it as you do, with some wit, but more severity, ' A Dutch Attempt,' &c., I call it a right English attempt, and a successful one, to dethrone German sublimity. You have selected a passage fertile in unmeaiiing miracles, but have passed by fifty passages as miraculous as the mii'acles they celebrate. I never so deeply felt the pathetic as in that part, ' A spring of love gush'd from my heart, And I bless'd them unaware — ' It stimg me into high pleasure through sufferings. Lloyd does not like it ; his head is too metaphj^sical, and your taste too con'ect ; at least I must allege somethincr against you both, to excuse my own dotage — ' So lonely 'twas, that God himself Scarce seemed there to be ! ' — &c., &c. But you allow some elaborate beauties — you should have extracted 'em. ' The Ancient Marinere ' plays more tricks with the mind than that last poem, which is yet one of the finest written. But I am getting too dog- matical ; and before I degenerate into abuse, I will conclude with assuring you that I am " Sincerely yours, " C. Lamb. " I am going to meet Lloyd at Ware on Saturday, to return on Sunday. Have you any commands or commendations to the metaphysician ? I shall be very happy if you will dine or spend any time with me in your way through the great ugly city ; but I know you have other ties upon you in these parts. " Love and respects to Edith, and friendly remembrances to Cottle." In this year, ]\Ir. Cottle proposed to publish an annual volume of fugitive poetry by various hands, under the title of the " Annual Anthology ;" to which Coleridge and Southey were principal contributors, the first volume of which was published in the following year. To this little work Lamb contributed a short religious effusion in blank verse, entitled " Living without God in the World." The following letter to Southey refers to this poem by its first words, " Mystery of God," and recurs to the rejected sonnet to his sister ; and alludes to an intention, after- wards changed, of entitling the proposed collection " Gleanings." TO MR. SOUTHEY "Nov. 28th, 1798. " I can have no objection to your printing ' Mystciy of God ' with my name, and all due acknowledgments for the honour and favour of the communication ; indeed, 'tis a poem that can dishonom- no name. Now, that is in the true strain of modern modesto- vanitas But for the sonnet, I heartily wish it, as I thougbt it was, dead and D 2 36 ATTACKS OF THE ANTI-JACOBIN. foi gotten. If the exact circumstances under which I -wrote could be kuo\\Ti or told, it would be an interesting sonnet ; but, to an inilifFerent and stranger reader, it must appear a very bald thing, certainly inadmis- sible in a comj^ilation. I Avish you could affix a different name to the volume ; there is a contemptible book, a wretched assort- ment of vapid feelings, entitled Pratt's Glean- ings, which hath damned and impropriated the title for ever. Pray think of some other. The gentleman is better known (better had he remained unknown) by an Ode to Bene- volence, written and spoken for and at the annual dinner of the Humane Soc-iety, who walk in procession once a-j^ear, a\ ith all the objects of their charity befure them, to return God thanks for giving them such benevolent hearts." by a caricat\ire of Gilray's, in which Cole- ridge and Southey were introduced with asses' heads, and Lloyd and Lamb as toad and frog. In the number for July appeared the well-known poem of the " New Morality," in which all tlie prominent objects of the hatred of these champions of religion and order were introduced as offering homage to Lepaux, a French charlatan, — of whose existence Lamb had never even heard. " Couriers and Stars, sedition's evening host, Thou Morning Chronicle, and Morning Post, Whether yc make the ' Rights of Man' your theme. Your country libel, and your God hlasiihcme, Or dirt on private wnrth arid virtue thrnir. Still blasphemous or blackguard, praise Lepaux. And ye five other wandering bards, that move In sweet accord of harmony and love, C dge and S — th— y, L^d, and I.— b and Co., Tune all your mystic harps to praise Lepaux ! " At this time Lamb's most intimate asso- ciates were Lloyd and Jem White, the author of the Falstaff Letters. "When Lloyd was in town, he and White lodged in the same house, and were fast friends, though no two men could be more unlike, Lloyd having no drollery in his nature, and White nothing else, " You will easily understand," observes Mr. Southey, in a letter with which he favoured the publisher, " liow Lamb could sympathise with both." The literary association of Lamb with Coleridge and Southey drew down upon him the hostility of the young scorners of the " Anti-Jacobin," who luxuriating in boyish pride and aristocratic patronage, tossed the arrows of their wit against all charged with innovation, whether in politics or poetry, and cared little whom they wounded. No one could be more innocent than Lamb of political heresy ; no one more sti-ongly opposed to new theories in morality, which he always regarded with disgust ; and yet he not only shared in the injustice which accused his friends of the last, but was con- founded in the charge of the first, — his only crime being that he had published a few poems deeply coloured with religious enthu- siasm, in conjunction with two other men of genius, who were dazzled by the glowing phantoms which the French llevolution had raised. The very first number of the " Anti- Jacobin Magazine and Review " was adorned Not content with thus confounding persons of the most opposite opinions and the most various characters in one common libel, the party returned to the charge in the number for September, and thus denounced the young poets, in a parody on the "Ode to the Passions," under the title of "The Anarchists." " Next H — Ic — ft vow'd in doleful tone^ No more to Are a thankless age : Oblivion mark'd his labours for her own, Neglected from the press, and damu'd upon the stage. See ! faithful to their mighty dam, C— — dge, S— th — y, L — d, and L — b In splay-foot madrigals of love. Soft moaning like the widow'd dove. Pour, side-by-side, their sympathetic notes ; Of equal rights, and civic feasts. And tyrant kings, and knavish priests. Swift through the land the tuneful mischief floats. And now to softer strains they struck the IjTe, They sung the beetle or the mole, The dying kid, or uss's foal. By cruel man permitted to expire." These effusions have the palliation which the excess of sportive wit, impelled by youth- ful spirits and fostered by the applause of the great, brings with it ; but it will be difficult to palliate the coar.se malignity of a passage in the prose department of the same work, in which the writer added to a state- ment that Mr. Coleridge was dishonoured at ("ambridge for preaching Deism : " Since then he has left his native country, commenced citizen of the world, left his poor children LETTERS TO SOUTHEY. 87 fatherless, and his wife destitute. Ex his disce, his friends Lamb and Southey." It was surely rather too much even for partisans, wlien denouncing their political opponents as men who " dirt on private worth and virtue threw," thus to slander two young men of the most exemplary character — one, of an almost puritanical exactness of demea- nour and conduct — and the other, persevering in a life of noble self-sacrifice, chequered only by the frailties of a sweet nature, which endeared him even to those who were not admitted to the intimacy necessary to appre- ciate the touching example of his severer virtues ! If Lamb's acquaintance with Coleridge and Southey procured for him the scom of the more -vnrulent of the Anti-Jacobin party, he showed by his intimacy with another dis- tinguished object of their animosity, that he was not solicitous to avert it. He was introduced by ]\Ir. Coleridge to one of the most remarkable persons of that stirring time — the author of " Caleb Williams," and of the " Political Justice." The first meeting between Lamb and Godwin did not wear a promising aspect. Lamb grew wai'm as the conviAdality of the CA^ening advanced, and indulged in some freaks of humour which had not been dreamed of in Godwin's philo- sophy ; and the philosopher, forgetting the equanimity with which he usually looked on the vicissitudes of the world or the whist- table, broke into an allusion to Gilray's caricature, and asked, " Pray, Mr. Lamb, are you toad or frog ? " Coleridge was appre- hensive of a rupture ; but calling the next morning on Lamb, he found Godwin seated at breakfast with him ; and an interchange of civilities and card-parties was established, which lasted through the life of Lamb, whom Godwin only survived a few months. Indif- ferent altogether to the politics of the age. Lamb could not nelp being struck with pro- ductions of its new-bom energies, so remark- able as the works and the char.-xjter of Godwin. He seemed to realise in himself what Wordsworth long afterwards described, " the central calm at the heart of all agita- tion." Through the medium of his mind the stormy convulsions of society were seen "silent as in a picture." Paradoxes tlie most daring wore the air of delibei-ato wisdom as he i)ronoanced them. He foretold the future happiness of mankind, not with the inspiration of the poet, but with the grave and passionless voice of the oracle. There was nothing better calculated at once to feed and to make steady the enthusiasm of youthful patriots than the high specula- tions, in which he taught them to engage on the nature of social evils and the great destiny of his species. No one would have suspected the author of those wild theories, which startled the wise and shocked the prudent, in the calm, gentlemanly person wlio rarely said anything above the most gentle commevonshire, but alas ! I am a poor pen at that same. I could tell you of an old house with a tapestry bed- room, the ' Judgment of Solomon ' composing one pannel, and 'Actaeon spying Diana naked' the other. I could tell of an old marble hall, with Hogarth's prints, and the Roman Caesars in marble hung round. I could tell of a wilderness, and of a village chui-ch, and where the bones of my honoured grandam lie ; but there ai-e feelings which refuse to be translated, sulky aborigines, which will not be naturalised in another soil. Of this nature are old family faces, and scenes of infancy. " I have given your address, and the books you want, to the Arch's ; they will send them as soon as they can get them, but they do not seem quite familiar to their names. I shall have nothing to communicate, I fear to the Anthology. You shall have some fragments of my play, if you desire them, but I think I had rather print it whole. Have you seen it, or shall I lend you a copy ? I want your opinion of it. " I must get to business, so farewell ; my kind remembrances to Edith. " C. L." In the autumn of this year Lamb's choice list of friends received a most important addition in Mr. Thomas Manning, then a matliematical tutor at Cambridge ; of whom he became a frequent correspondent, and to whom he remained strongly attached through life. Lloyd had become a graduate of the university, and to his introduction Lamb \\a8 indebted for Miuming's friendship. The following letters will show how earnestly, yet how modestly, Lamb sought it. TO MR. MANNING. "Dec. 1799. " Dear Manning, — The particular kiiidncss, even up to a degree of attachment, which I have experienced from you, seems to claim some distinct acknowledgment on my ]>art, I could not content myself with a bare LETTERS TO MANNING. 41 remembrance to you, conveyed in some letter to Lloyd. " Will it be agreeable to you, if I occasion- ally recruit your memory of me, which must else soon fade, if you consider the brief inter- course we have had. I am not likely to prove a troublesome correspondent. My scribbling days are past. I shall have no sentiments to communicate, but as they spring up from some living and worthy occasion. " I look forward with gi-eat pleasure to the performance of your promise, that we should meet in London early in the ensuing year. The century must needs commence auspi- ciously for me, that brings with it Manning's friendship, as an earnest of its after gifts. " I should have written before, but for a troublesome inflammation in one of my eyes, brought on by night travelling with the coach windows sometimes up. "What more I have to saj' shall be reserved for a letter to Lloyd. I must not prove tedious to you in my first outset, lest I should aflfright you by my ill-judged loquacity. " I am, youi's most sincerely, "C. Lamb." TO MR. MANNING. "Dec. 2Sth, 1799. "Dear Manning, — Having suspended my correspondence a decent intei-val, as knowing that even good things may be taken to satiety, a wish cannot but recur to learn whether you be still well and happy. Do all things continue in the state I left them in Cam- bridge ? " Do your night parties still flourish ? and do you continue to bewilder your company, with your thousand faces, running down through all the keys of idiotism (like Lloyd over his perpetual harpsichord), from the smile and the glimmer of half-sense and quarter-sense, to the grin and hanging lip of Betty Foy's own Johnny ? And does the face -dissolving curfew .«iound at twelve? How unlike the great originals were your petty terrors in the postscript, not fearful enough to make a fairy shudder, or a Lilli- putian fine lady, eight months full of child, miscarry. Yet one of them, which had more beast than the rest, I thought faintly resem- bled otie of your biutifications. But, seriously, I long to see your own honest Manning-face again. I did not mean a pun, — your marCa face, you will be apt to say, I know your wicked will to pun. I cannot now write to Lloyd and you too, so you must convey as much interesting intelligence as this may contain or be thought to contain, to him and Sophia, with my dearest love and remem- brances. " By the by, I think you and Sophia both incorrect with regard to the title of the play* Allowing your objection (which is not neces- sary, as pride may be, and is in real life often, cured by misfortunes not directly originating from its own acts, as Jeremy Taylor will tell you a naughty desire is sometimes sent to cure it. I know you read these practical divines) — but allowing your objection, does not the betraying of his fother's secret directly spring from pride ? — from the pride of wine and a full heart, and a proud over- stepping of the ordinary rules of morality, and contempt of the prejudices of mankind, which are not to bind superior souls — 'as ti'ust in the matter of secrets all ties of blood, &c. &c., keeping of promises, the feeble mind's religion, binding our o)iorniny the acquisition of a new friend, in Mr. Hickman of the House of Commons, and e.xults iu a strain which he never had reason to regret. This piece of rare felicity enabled him even to bear the loss of his manuscripts, and the delay of his hopes; which, according to the old theatrical usage, he was destined to endure. TO MR. MANNING, "Nov. 3rd, 1800. " Ecquid meditatur Archiynedes ? What is Euclid doing? "What hath happened to learned Trismegist ?— doth he take it in ill part, that his humble friend did not comply witli his courteous invitation ? Let it siilfice, I could not come — are impossibilities nothmg? — be they abstractions of the intellect ? — or not (i-ather) most sharp and mortifying realities ? nuts in the Will's mouth too hard for her to crack ? brick and stone walls in her way, which she can by no means eat through 1 sore lets, impedimenta viarum,, no thoroughfares ? racemi nimium alte pendentes? Is the phrase classic ? I allude to the grapes in ^^sop, whicli cost the fox a strain, and gained the world an aphorism. Observe the superscription of this letter. In adapting the size of the letters, which constitute your name and Mr. Crisp's name respectively, I had an eye to your different stations in life. 'Tis truly curious, and must be soothing to an aristocrat. I wonder it has never been hit on before my time. I have made an acquisi- tion 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 brcad-and- cheese time — just in the wishing time of the night, when you tcish for somebody to come iu, without a distinct idea of a probable any- body. 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 tlirough life laughing at solemn apes ; — himself hugely literate, oppressively full of information in all stuli" of conversation, from matter of fact to Xenophon and Plato — can talk Greek with Porson, politics with Thelwall, conjecture with George 54 LETTERS TO MANNING. Dyer, nonsense with me, and anything with anybody ; a great farmer, somewhat con- cerned in an agi-icultural magazine — reads no poetry but Shakspeare, very intimate with Southey, but never reads his poetry, relishes George Dyer, thoroughly penetrates into the ridiculous wherever found, understands the first time (a gi-eat desideratum in common minds) — you need never twice speak to him ; does not want explanations, translations, limitations, as Professor Godwin does when you make an assertion ; up to anything ; down to everything ; whatever sapit hominem. A perfect man. All this farrago, which must perplex you to read, and has put me to a little trouble to select! only proves how impossible it is to describe a ^j?ea5a?i^ hand. You must see Eickman to know him, for he is a sj^ecies 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 hemi- sphere with retui'ns of light. He is now going for six weeks." "At last 1 have written to Kemble, to know the event of my play, which was pre- sented last Christmas. As I suspected, came an answer back that the copy was lost, and could not be found — no hint that anybody had to this day ever looked into it — with a courteous (reasonable !) request of another copy (if I had one by me,) and a promise of a definitive answer in a week. I could not resist so facile and moderate demand, so scribbled out another, omitting sundry things, such as the witch story, about half of the forest scene (which is too leisurely for story), and transposing that soliloquy about England getting drunk, which, like its reciter, stupidly stood alone, nothing prevenient oranteveuieiit — and cleared away a good deal besides, and sent this copy, written all out (with altera- tions, &c. req^Uring judgment) in one day and a half! I sent it last night, and am in weekly expectation of the tolling-bell, and death-warrant. "This is all my London news. Send me Bome from the banks of Cam, as the poets delight to speak, especially George Dyer, who has no other name, nor idea, nor definition ot Cambridge, — namely, its being a market- to^vn, sending members to Parliament, never entered into his definition — it was and is, simply, the banks of the Cam, or the fair Cam ; as Oxford is the banks of the Isis, or the fair Isis. Yours in all humility, most illustrious Trismegist, " C. Lamb. " (Read on, there 's more at the bottom.) " You ask me about the ' Farmer's Boy,' — don't you think the fellow who wrote it (who is a shoemaker) has a poor mind 1 Don't you find he is always silly about poor Giles, and those abject kind of phrases, which mark a man that looks up to wealth ? None of Bums's poet dignity. What do you think ? I have just opened him ; but he makes me sick." Constant to the fame of Jem White, Lamb did not fail to enlist Manning among the admirers of the " Falstaflf's Lettei-s." The next letter, referring to them is, however, more interesting for the light which it casts on Lamb's indiiference to the politics of the time, and fond devotion to the past. TO MR. MANNING. " I hope by this time you are prepared to say, the ' Falstaff 's letters ' are a bundle of the shari)est, queerest, profoundest liumours, of any these juice-drained latter times have spawned. I should have advertised you, that the meaning is frequently hard to be got at ; and so are the future guineas, that now lie ripening and aurifying in the womb of some undiscovered Potosi ; but dig, dig, dig, dig. Manning ! I set to, with an iincouquoKible propulsion to write, with a lamentable want of what to write. My private goings on are orderly as the movements of the sj)heros, and stale as their music to angels' ears. Public affairs — except as they touch upon me, ami so turn into private, — I cannot whip uj) my mind to feel any interest in. I grieve, imleed, that AVar, and Nature, and Mr. Pitt, that hangs up in Lloyd's best parlour, should havo conspired to call up three necessaries, simple commoners as our fathers knew tliem, into the upper house of luxuries ; bread, and beer, and coals, Maiming. But as to Fnuice and LETTERS TO MANNING. 55 Frenchmen, and the Abb6 Sidyes and his constitutions, I cannot make tliese present times pi'esent to me. I read histories of the past, and I live in them ; although, to abstract senses, they are far less momentous, than the noises which keep Europe awake. I am reading ' Burnet's own Times.' Did you ever read that garralous, pleasant history ? He tells his story like an old man past political service, bragging to his sons on winter evenings of the part he took in public transactions, when 'his old cap was new.' Full of scandal, which all true history is. No palliatives ; but all the stark wickedness, that actually gives the inomentum to national actors. Quite the prattle of age, and outlived importance. Truth and sincerity staring out upon you perpetually in alto relievo. Himself a party man — he makes you a party man. None of the cursed philosophical Humeian indifference, so cold, and unnatural, and inhuman ! None of the cursed Gibbonian fine writing, so fine and composite. None of Dr. Robertson's periods with three mem- bers. None of Mr. Eoscoe's sage remarks, all so apposite, and coming in so clever, lest the reader should have had tlie trouble of drawing an inference. Burnet's good old prattle I can bring present to my mind ; I can make the revolution present to me — the Fi'ench revolution, by a converse perversity in my nature, I fling as far from me. To quit this tiresome subject, and to relieve you frum two or three dismal yawns, which I hear in spirit, I here conclude my more than commonly obtuse letter ; dull, up to the dulness of a Dutch commentator on Shaks- j)eare. " My love to Lloyd and to Sophia. " C. L." While Lamb's dramatic destinies were in suspense, he was called on " to assist " at the production of a tragedy," by a fiiend, whose more mature reputation gave him readier acces^s to the manager, but who had no better claim to success than himself. Mr. Godwin, whose powerful romance of Caleb Williams had supplied the materials for " The Iron Chest " of Colraan, naturally aspired, on his own account, to the glory of the scene, and completed a tragedy under the title of " An- tonio, or the Soldier's Return," which was accepted at Drury-Lane Theatre, and an- nounced for representation on Saturday the 13th December in this year. Lamb supplied the epilogue, which he copied in the following letter addressed to Manning on the eventful day: — TO MR. MANNING. "Dec. 13th, 1800. " I have received your letter tJiis moment, not having been at the office. I have just time to scribble down the epilogue. To your epistle I will just reply, that I will certainly come to Cambridge before January is out : I'll come tvhen I can. You shall have an emended copy of my play early next week. Mary thanks you ; but her handwriting is too feminine to be exposed to a Cambridge gentleman, though I endeavour to persuade her that you understand algebra, and must understand her hand. The play is the man's you wot of; but for Heaven's sake do not mention it — it is to come out in a feigned name, as one Tobin's. I will omit the intro- ductory lines which connect it with the play, and give you the concluding tale, which is the mass and bulk of the epilogue. The name is Jack Incident. It is about promise- breaking — ^you will see it all, if you read the papers. Jack, of dramatic genius justly vain, Purchased a renter's share at Drury-lane ; A prudent man in every other matter, Known at his club-room for an honest hatter ; Humane and courteous, led a civil life. And has been seldom known to beat his wife ; But Jack is now grown quite another man. Frequents the green-room, knows the plot and plan Of each new piece. And has been seen to talk with Sheridan 1 In at the play-house just at six he pops, And never quits it till the curtain drops, Is never absent on the author's night. Knows actresses and actors too by sight ; So humble, that with Suett he'll confer, Or take a pipe with plain Jack Bannister ; Nay, with an author has been known so free, He once suggested a catastrophe — In short, John dabbled till his head was turn'd : His wife remonstrated, his neighbours mourn'd. His customers were dropping oft' apace, And Jack's affairs began to wear a piteous face. One night his wife began a curtain lecture ; ' My dearest Johnny, husband, spouse, protector, Take pity on your helpless babes and me. Save us from ruin, you from bankruptcy — Look to your business, leave these cursed plays, And try again your old industrious ways.' Jack, who was always scared at the Gazette, And had some bits of scull uninjured yet, Promised amendment, vow'd his wife spake reason, ' He would not see another play that season — ' 56 GODWIN. Three stubboin fortnights Jack his promise kept, AVas late and early in his shop, eat, slept, And walk'd and talk'd, like ordinary men ; No wit, but John the hatter once ajfain — Visits his club : when lo! one fatal night His wife with horror view'd the well-known sifrht — John's hat, wig, snuff-box — well she knew his tricks — And Jack decamping at the hour of six. Just at the counter's edu'C a plaj-bill lay, Announcing that ' Pizarro ' was the play — ' O Johnny, Johnny, this is your old doing.' Quoth Jack, ' Why what the dovil storm's a-brcwing ? About a harmless play why all this fright \ I'U go and see it, if it's but for spite — Zounds, woman ! Nelson's* to be there to-night.' " N.B. — This was intended for Jack Ban- nister to speak ; but the sage managers have chosen Miss Heard, except Miss Tidswell, the woi-st actress ever seen or heard. Now, X remember I have promised the loan of my play. I will lend it instantly, and you shall get it ('pon honour !) by this day week. " I must go and dress for the boxes ! First night ! Finding I have time, I transcribe the rest. Observe, you have read the last first ; it begins thus : — The names I took from a little outline G. gave me. I have not read the play ! ' Ladies, ye've seen how Guzman's consort died, Poor victim of a Spaniard brother's pride. When Spanish honour through the world was blown. And Spanish beauty for the best was known.-t In that romantic, uncnlighten'd time, A breach o( promise* was a sort of crime— WTiich of you handsome English ladies here. But deems the penance bloody and severe 1 A whimsical old Saragossa g fashion. That a dead father's dying inclination, Should live to thwart a living daughter's passion, Unjustly on the sex we^ men exclaim, Hail at your'"' vices, — and commit the same ; — Man is a promise-breaker from the womb. And goes a promise-breaker to the tomb — • What need we instance here the lover's vow. The sick man's purpose, or the great man's bow!tt The truth by few examples best is shown— Instead of many which are better known. Take poor Jack Incident, that's dead and gone. Jack, &c. &c. &c.' " Now you have it all — ^liow do you like it ? I am going to hear it recited ! ! ! " C. L." Alas for human hopes ! The play was de- cisively damned, and the epilogue shared its • " A good clap-trap. Nelson has exhibited two or three times at both theatres — and advertised himself." t " Four easy lines." J " For wliich the heroine died." ^ " In Hpnin / / " \\ " Two neaninrs." % " Or you." •• " Or our, as they have altered it." tf " Antithesis ! I " fate. The tragedy turned out a miracle of dulness for the world to wonder at, although Lamb always insisted it had one fine line, which he was fond of repeating — sole relic of the else forgotten play. Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, the brother and sister of the drama, toiled tlirough four acts and a lialf without a])plause or disapprobation ; one speech was not more vapid than another ; and so dead was the level of the dialogue, that, although its destiny was seen from afar, it presented no opportunity for hissing. But as the play drew towards a close, when, after a scene of frigid chiding not vivified by any fire of Kemble's own, Antonio drew his sword and plunged it into the heroine's bosom, the " sad civility " of the audience vanished, they started as at a real murder, and hooted the actors from the stage. " Philosophy," which could not " make a Juliet," sustained the author through the trial. He sat on one of the front benches of the pit, unmoved amidst the storm. When the first act passed oflF without a hand, he expressed his satisfaction at the good sense of the house ; " the proper season of applause had not arrived ; " all was exactly as it should be. The second act proceeded to its close in the same uninterrupted calm ; his fi'iends became uneasy, but still his optimism prevailed ; he could aflFord to wait. And though he did at hist admit the great move- ment was somewhat tardy, and that the audience seemed rather patient thiui inter- ested, he did not lose his confidence till the tumult arose, and then he submitted with quiet dignity to the fate of genius, too lofty to be understood by a world as yet in its cliildhood ! Notwithstanding this rude re- pulse, Mr. Godwin retained his taste for the theatre to the List. On every first night of a new piece, whether tragedy, comedy, or farce, whether of friend or foe, he sat with gentle interest iu a sidc-bo.x, and bore its fate, whatever it might be, with resignation, as he had done his own. The following is Lamb's account of the catastrophe rendered to Manning, iu wliich the facetious charge against the unlucky author of " Violent and Satauical Pride of Heart," has reference to some banter which Lamb had encountered among his friends by the purposed title of his own play, " Pride's Cure," and his dia- quisition in its defence. TO MR. MANNING. "Dec. ICth, 1800. " We are damned ! — Not the facetious epilogue itself could save us. For, as the editor of the Moruing Post, quick-sighted gentleman ! hath this morning truly ob- sei*ved, (I beg pardon if I falsify his ivords, their profound se)ise I am sure I retain,) both prologue and epilogue were worthy of accom- panying such a piece ; and indeed (mark the profundity, Mr. Manning) were received with proper indignation by such of the audience only as thought either worth attending to. Professor, thy glories wax dim ! Again, the incomparable author of the ' True Briton ' declareth in his paper (bearing same date) that the epilogue was an indifferent attempt at humour and character, and failed in both. I forbear to mention the other papers, because I have not read them. O Professor, how different thy feelings no^r (quantum mutatus ab illo professore, qui ia agi'is philosophise tantas victorias acquisivisti), — how different thy proud feelings but one little week ago, — thy anticipation of thy nine nights, — those visionary claps, "which have soothed thy soul by day, and thy dreams by night ! Calling in accidentally on the Pro- fessor while he was out, I was ushered into the study ; and my nose quickly (most sagacious always) pointed me to four tokens lying loose upon thy table, Professor, which indicated thy violent and satanical pride of heart. Imprimis, tliere caught mine eye a list of six pereons, thy friends, whom thou didst meditate inviting to a sumptuous dinner on the Thursday, anticipating the profits of thy Saturday's play to answer charges ; I was in the honoured file 1 Next, a stronger evidence of thy violent and almost satanical pride, lay a list of all the morning papers (from the ' Morning Chronicle ' downwards to the ' Porcupine '), with the places of their respective offices, where thou wast meditating to insert, and didst insert, an elaborate sketch of the story of thy play ; stones in thy enemy's hand to bruise thee with, and severely wast thou bruised, O Professor ! nor do I know what oil to pour into thy wounds. Next, which convinced me to a dead conviction, of thy pride, violent and almost satanical pride — lay a list of books, which thy un-tragedy-favoured pocket could never answer ; Dodsley's Old Plays, Malone'a Shakspeare (still harping upon thy play, thy philosophy abandoned meanwhile to chris- tians and superstitious minds) ; nay, I be- lieve (if I can believe my memory), that the ambitious Encyclopedia itself was part of thy meditated acquisitions ; but many a playbook was there. All these visions are danmed; and thou, Px'ofessor, must read Shakspeare in future out of a common edition ; and, hark ye, pray read him to a little better purpose ! Last and strongest against thee (in colours manifest as the hand upon Belshazzar's wall), lay a volume of poems by C. Lloyd and C. Lamb. Thy heart misgave thee, that thy assistant might pos- sibly not have talent enough to furnish thee an epilogue ! Manning, all these things came over my mind ; all the gratulations that would have thickened upon him, and even some have glanced aside upon his humble friend ; the vanity, and the fame, and the profits (the Professor is 5001. ideal money out of pocket by this failure, besides 200^. he would have got for the copyright, and the Professor is never much beforehand with the world ; what he gets is all by the sweat of his brow and dint of brain, for the Professor, though a sure man, is also a slow) ; and now to muse upon thy altered physiognomy, thy pale and squalid appearance (a kind of bhie sickness about the eyelids), and thy crest fallen, and thy proud demand of 200^. from thy bookseller changed to an uncertainty of his taking it at all, or giving thee full 50^. The Professor has won my heart by this his mournful catastrophe. You remember Mar- shall, who dined with him at my house ; I met him in the lobby immediately after the damnation of the Professor's play, and he looked to me like an angel : his face wa,s lengthened, and all over perspiration ; I never saw such a care-fraught visage ; I could have hugged him, I loved him so intensely. ' From every pore of him a perft-me fell.' I have seen that man in many situations, and, from my soul, I think tha*. a more god-like honest soul exists not hi this world. The Professor's poor nerves trembling with the recent shock, he hurried liim away to my house to supper, and there we comforted him as well as we couUi. He came to consult me about a clu -ge of catastrophe ; but ahvs ! the piece was condemned long before that crisis. I at 58 LETTERS TO MANNING. lii-st humourefl liiiii with a specious proposi- tion, but have since joined his true friends in advising him to give it up. He did it with a paug, and is to print it as his. "L." In another letter, a few days after, Lamb thus recurs to the subject, and closes the centuiy in anticipation of a visit to his friend at Cambridge. TO MR. MANNING. "Dec. 27th, 1800. " As for the other Professor, he has actually begun to dive into Tavernier and Chardin's Persian Travels for a story, to form a new drama for the sweet tooth of this fastidious age. Hath not Bethlehem College a fair action for non-residence against such profes- sors ? Are poets so feio in this a/je, that He must write poetry 1 Is morals a subject so exhausted, that he must quit that line ? Is the metaphysic well (without a bottom) drained dry ? " If I can guess at the wicked pride of the Professor's heart, I would take a shrewd wager, that he disdains ever again to dip his pen in Prose. Adieu, ye splendid theories! Farewell, dreams of political justice ! Law- suits, where I was counsel for Archbishop Fenelon versus my own mother, in the famous fire cause ! "Vanish from my mind, professors, one and all. I have metal more attractive on foot. "Man of many snipes, — I will sup with thee, Deo volente, et diabolo nolente, on Monday night, the 6th of January, in the new year, and crush a cup to the infant century. " A word or two of my progress. Embark at AiK o'clock in the morning, with a fresh gale, on a Cambridge one-decker ; very cold till eight at night ; land at St. Mary's light-house, muffins and coffee ujion table (or any other curious production of Turkey, or both Indies), snipes exactly at nine, punch to commence at ten, with ari/ument ; difference of opinion is expected to take place about eleven ; perfect unanimity, with some haziness and dimness, befoi'e twelve. — N. B. My single affection is not 80 singly wedded to snipes ; but the curious and epicurean eye would also tiUco a pleasure in beholding a delicate and well- chosen a.sso)-tuient of teals, ortolans, the unctuous and palate-soothing flesh of geese, wild and tame, nightingales' brains, the sensorium of a yoimg sucking pig, or any other Christmas disli, which I leave to the judgment of you and the cook of Gonville. "C.Lamb." CHAPTER VII. [1801 to 1804.] LETTERS TO MANNING, WOUDSWOKTH, AND COLEIIIDGE ; I JOHN WOODVIL REJECTED, PUULISIIKD, AND KEVIEWKD. Tn E ominous postponement of Lamb's theat- I rical hopes was followed by their disappoint- ment at the commencement of the century. i He was favoured with at least one inter- view by the stately manager of Drury-lane, j Mr. Kemble, who extended his high-bred courtesy even to authors, whom he inva- riably attended to the door of his house in Great Russell-street, and bade them " beware of the step." Godwin's catastrophe had probably rendered him less solicitous to encounter a similar peril ; which the fondest admirers of " John Woodvil " will not regret that it escaped. While the occasional rough- ness of its verse would liave been felt as strange to ears as yet xmused to tiie old dramatists whom Lamb's Specimens had not then made familiar to the town, the delicate beauties enshrined within it would scarcely have been perceived in the glare of the theatre. Exhibiting " the depth, and not the tumults of the soul," — presenting a female character of modest and retiring loveliness and noble purpose, but undistracted with any violent emotion, — and developing a train of circumstances which work out their gentle triumphs on the heart only of the hero, without stirring accident or vivid grou]iing of persons, — it would scarcely have supplied sufficient of coarse interest to disarm the critical spirit which it would certainly have encountered in all its bitterness. Lamb cheerfully consoled himself by publishing it ; and at the close of the year 1801 it appeared in a small volume, of humble ai)pearance, with the " Fragments of Burton," (to wliieh Lamb alluded in one of his previous letters,) EDINBURGH REVIEW. C9 two of his quarto ballads, and the " Helen " of his sister. The daring peculiarities attracted the notice of the Edinburgh reviewers, then in the infancy of their slashing career, and the volume was immolated, in due form, by the self-constituted judges, who, taking for their motto ^^ Judex danuuttur cum nocens absol- vitur" treated our author as a criminal con- victed of publishing, and awaiting his doom from their sentence. With the gay reckless- ness of power, at once usui-ped and irrespon- sible, they introduced Lord Mansfield's wild construction of the law of libel into litera- ture ; like him, holding every man primd facie guilty, who should be caught in the act of publishing a hook, and referring to the court to decide whether sentence should be passed on him. The article on "John "Woodvil," which adorned their third num- ber, is a curious example of the old style of criticism vi\dfied by the impulses of youth. We wonder now — and probably the writer of the article, if he is living, will wonder with us — that a young critic should seize on a little eighteen-penny book, simply printed, without any preface ; make elaborate merri- ment of its outline, and, giving no hint of its containing one profound thought or happy expression, leave the reader of the review at a loss to suggest a motive for noticing such vapid absurdities. This article is written in a strain of grave banter, the theme of which is to congratulate the world on having a specimen of the rudest condition of the drama, " a man of the age of Thespis." " At length," says the reviewer, " even in compo- sition a mighty veteran has been born. Older than yEschylus, and with all the spii-it of originality, in an age of poets who had before them the imitations of some thousand years, he comes forward to establish his claim to the ancient hircus, and to satiate the most remote desires of the philosophic antiquary." On this text the writer proceeds, selecting for his purpose whatever, torn from its context, appeared extravagant and crude, and ending without the slightest hint that there is merit, or promise of merit, in the volume. There certainly was no malice, or desire to give pain, in all this ; it was merely the result of the thoughtless adoption, by lads of gaiety and talent, of the old critical canons of the Monthly Eeviews, which had been accustomed to damn all works of un patronised genius in a more summary way, and after a duller fashion. These very critics wrought themselves into good-nature as they broke into deeper veins of thought ; grew gentler as they grew wiser : and sometimes, even when, like Balaam, they came to curse, like him, they ended with "blessing alto- gether," as in the review of the " Excursion," which, beginning in the old strain, "This will never do," proceeded to give examples of its noblest passages, and to grace them with worthiest eulogy. And now, the spirit of the wi'iters thus ridiculed, especially of Wordsworth, breathes through the pages of this very Review, and they not seldom wear the " rich embroidery " of the language of the poet once scoffed at by their literary corporation as too jjuerile for the nursery. Lamb's occasional connexion with news- papers inti-oduced him to some of the editors and contributors of that day, who sought to repair the spirit wasted by perpetual exer- tion, in the protracted conviviality of the evening, and these associates sometimes left poor Lamb with an aching head, and a purse exhausted by the claims of their necessities upon it. Among those was Fen wick, immor- talised as the Bigod of " Elia," who edited several ill-fated newspapers in succession, and was the author of many libels, which did his employers no good and his Majesty's government no harm. These connexions will explain some of the allusions in the following letters. TO MR. MANNING. " I heard that you were going to China,* with a commission from the Wedgwoods to collect hints for their pottery, and to teach the Chinese perspective. But I did not know that London lay in your way to Pekin. I am seriously glad of it, for I shall trouble you with a small present for the Emperor of Usbeck Tax-taiy, as you go by his teiTitories ; it is a fragment of a ' Dissertation on the state of political parties in England at the end of the eighteenth century,' which will no doubt be very interesting to his Imperial Majesty. It wjis written originally in English • Mr. Manning had begun to be haunted with the idea of China, and to talk of going thither, which he accomplished some years afterwards, without any motive but a desii-e to see that great nation. 60 LETTERS TO MANNING. for the use of the tioo ami iivenfi/ readers of ' The Albion,' (this calculation includes a printer, four pressmen, and a devil) ; but becoming of no use, when ' The Albion ' stopped, I got it translated into Usbeck Tartar by my good friend Tibet Kulm, who is come to London with a civil invitation from the Cham to the English nation to go over to the worship of the I^ama. " ' The Albion ' is dead — dead as nail in door — and my revenues have died with it ; but I am not as a man without hope. I have got a sort of an opening to the ' Morning Chronicle ! ! ! ' Mr. Manning, by means of that common dispenser of benevolence. Mister Dyer. I have not seen Perry, the editor, yet : but I am preparing a specimen. I shall have a difficult job to manage, for you must know that Mr. Perry, in common with the great body of the Whigs, thinks 'The Albion ' very low. I find I must rise a peg or so, be a little more decent, and less abusive ; for, to confess the truth, I had arrived to an abominable pitch ; I spared neither age nor sex when my cue was given me. NHmporte, (as they say in French,) any climate will suit me. So you are about to bring your old fjice-makiug face to London. You could not come in a better time for my purposes ; for I have just lost Rickman, a faint idea of whose chai'acter I sent you. He is gone to Ireland for a year or two, to make his fortune ; and I have lost by his going, what seems to me I can never recover — ajimshed man. His memory will be to me as the bi'azen serpent to the Israelites, — I shall look up to it, to keep me upright and honest. But he may yet bring back his honest face to England one day. I wish your affairs witli the Emperor of China had not been so urgent, that you might have stayed in Great Britain a year or two longer, to have seen him ; for, judging from my own experience, I almost dare pronounce you never saw his equal. I never saw a man, that could be at all a second or substitute for him in any sort. " Imagine that what is here erased, was an apology and explanation, perfectly satisfac- tory you may be sure ! for rating this man 80 highly at the expense of , and , and , and M , and , and , and . But Mr. Burke has explained this phenomenon of our nature very prettily in his letter to a Member of the National Assembly, or else in Appeal to the olil Whigs, 1 forget which — do you remember an instance from Homer, (who understood these matters tolerably well,) of Priam driving away his other suns with expressions of wrath and bitter reproach, when Hector w;is just dead. "I live where I did in a jyrivate manner, because I don't like state. Nothing is so disagreeable to me as the clamours and applauses of the mob. For this reason I live in an obscure situation in one of the courts of the Temple. " C. L. " I send you all of Coleridge's letters* to me, which I have preserved : some of them are upon the subject of my play. I also send you Kemble's two letters, and the prompter's courteous epistle, with a curious critique on ' Pride's Cure,' by a young physi- cian from Edinbro', who modestly suggests quite another kind of a plot. Tliese are monuments of my disappointment which I like to preserve. " In Coleridge's letters you will find a good deal of amusement, to see genuine talent struggling against a pompous display of it. I also send you the Professor's letter to me, (careful professor ! to conceal his 7iam€ even from his coi-respondent,) ere yet the Profes- sor's pride was cured. Oh ! monstrous and almost satanical priile ! "You will carefully keep all (except the Scotch Doctoi-'s, which burn) in statu quo, till I come to claim mine own. " C. Lamb." Tlie following is in reply to a pressing invitation from Mr. Wordsworth, to visit him at the Lakes. TO MR. WORDSWORTn. "Jan. 30th, laoi. "I ought before this to have replied to your very kind invitation into Cumberland. With you and your sister I could gang any- where ; but I am afraid whether I shall ever be able to afford so desperate a journey. Separate from the j)loasuro of your company, I don't much caro if I never see a • I.amb afterwards, in some melancholy mood, de- slroyi'd all Coleridge's hetters, and whs so vexed with what ho had done, that Uc never preserved any letters which ho received afterwards. LETTERS TO MANNING. 61 mountain in my life. I have passed aU my days in London, until I have formed as many and intense local attachments, as any of you j mountaineers can have done with dead ', nature. The lighted shops of the Strand and Fleet-street ; the innumerable trades, tradesmen, and customers, coaches, waggons, playliouses ; all the bustle and wickedness round about Covent Garden ; the very women of the Town ; the watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles — life awake, if you awake, at all hours of the night; the impossibility of being dull in Fleet-street ; the crowds, the very dirt and mud, the sun shining upon houses and pavements, the print-shops, the old-book stalls, parsons cheapening books, coffee-houses, steams of soups from kitchens, the pantomimes — London itself a pantomime and a masquerade — all tliese things work themselves into my mind, and feed me with- out a power of satiating me. The wonder of these sights impels me into night-walks about her crowded streets, and I ofteii shed tears in the motley Strand from fulness of joy at so much life. All these emotions must be strange to you ; so are your rural emo- tions to me. But considei*, what must I have been doing all my life, not to have lent great portions of my heart with usury to such scenes ? " My attachments are all local, purely local • — I have no passion (or have had none since I was in love, and then it was the spurious engendering of poetry and books,) to groves and valleys. The rooms where I was born, the furniture which has been before my eyes all my life, a book-case which has followed me about like a faithful dog, (only exceeding him in knowledge,) wherever I have moved, old chairs, old tables, streets, squares, where I have sunned myself, my old school, — these are my mistresses — have I not enough, without your mountains ? I do not envy you. I should pity you, did I not know that the mind will make friends with anything. Your sun, and moon, and skies, and hills, and lakes, affect me no more, or scarcely come to me in more venerable cliaractei-s, than as a gilded room with tapestry and tapers, where I might live with handsome visible objects. I consider the clouds above me but as a roof beautifully painted, but unable to satisfy the mind : and at last, like the pictures of the apartment of a connoisseur, unable to afford him any longer a pleasure. So fading upon me, from disuse, have been the beauties of Nature, as they have been confidently called ; so ever fresh, and green, and warm are all the inventions of men, and assemblies of men in this great city. I shoidd certainly have laughed with dear Joanna.* " Give my kindest love, and my sister's to D. and yourself. And a kiss from me to little Barbara Lewthwaite.f Thank you for liking my play ! " C. L." The next two letters were written to Manning when on a tour upon the Conti- nent, TO MR. MANNIKO. "Feb. 15th, 1802. " Apropos, I think you wrong about my play. All the omissions are right. And the supplementary scene, in which Sandford narrates the manner in which his master is affected, is the best in the book. It stands where a hodge-podge of German puerilities used to stand. I insist upon it that you like that scene. Love me, love that scene. I will now transcribe the ' Londoner ' (No. 1), and wind up all with affection and humble servant at the end." [Here was transciibed the essay called " The Londoner," which was published some years afterwards in " The Eeflector," and which forms part of LamVj's collected works.] He then proceeds : — " * What is all this about ! ' said Mrs. Shandy. ' A story of a cock and a bull,' said Yorick : and so it is ; but Manning will take good-naturedly what God will send him across the water : only I hope he won't shut his eyes, and open his mouth, as the childi'en say, for that is the way to gape, and not to read- Manning, continue your laudible pur- pose of making me your register. I will render back all your remarks ; and /, not you, shall have received usury by havuig read them. In the mean time, may the great Spii'it have you in liLs keeping, and preserve • Alluding to the Inscription of Wordsworth's, en- titled " Joanna," containing a magnificent description of the effect of laughter echoing auiidst the great moun- tains of Westmoreland. t Alluding to Wordsworth's poem, " The Pet Lamb." 62 LETTER TO COLERmGE. our Englishman from the inoculation of frivolity and sin upon French earth. " AUotis — or what is it you say, instead of good-hye ? " Mary sends hor kind remembrance, and covets the remarks equally with me. " C. Lamb." TO MR. MANNING. "My dear Manning, — I must positively ■write, or I shall miss you at Touloiise. I sit here like a decayed minute-hand (T lie ; that does not sit,) and being myself the exponent of no time, take no heed how the clocks about me are going. You possibly by this time may have explored all Italy, and toppled, unawares, into Etna, while you went too near those rotten-jawed, gap-toothed, old worn-out chaps of hell, — while I am medi- tating a quiescent letter to the honest post- master of Toulouse. But in case you should not have been/e^o de se, this is to tell you, that your letter was quite to my palate — in particular your just remarks upon Industry, cursed Industry, (though indeed you left me to explore the reason,) were higldy relishing. I have often wished I lived in the golden age, when shepherds lay stretched upon flowers, — the genius there is in a man's natural idle face, that has not learned his multiplication table ! before doubt, and pro- positions, and corollaries, got into the world ! « * * « * " Apropos : if you should go to Florence or to Rome, inquire what works are extant in gold, silver, bronze, or marble, of Benvenuto Cellini, a Floiciitine artist, whose Life, doubt- less, you have reatl ; or, if not, without con- troversy, you must read, so hark ye, send for it immediately from Lane's circulating library. It is always i)ut among the romances, very properly ; but you have read it, I suj)- pose. In particular, inquire at Florence for his colossal bronze statue (in the grand square, or somewhere) of Perseus. You may read the story in * Tooke's Pantheon.' Nothing material has transpired in these parts. Coleridge has indited a violent philippic against Mr. Fox in the ' Morning Post,' wliich is a compound of ex])ressions of humility, gentlemen-ushering-in most arrog.aut charges. It will do Mr. Fox no real injury among those that know him." In the summer of 1802, Lamb, in company with his sister, visited the Lakes, and spent three weeks with Coleridge at Keswick. There he also met the true annihilator of the slave-trade, Thomas Ciarkson, who was then enjoying a necessary respite from his stupendous laboui's, in a cottage on the borders of Ulswater. Lamb liad no taste for oratorical philanthropy ; but lie felt the grandeur and simplicity of Clarkson's character, and appreciated the unexampled self-denial with which he steeled his heart, trembling with nervous sensibility, to endure intimate acquaintance with the foulest details of guilt and wickedness which he lived, and could have died, to abolish. Wordsworth was not in the Lake-coimtry during Lamb's visit ; but he made amends by spending some time in town after Lamb's return, and then quitted it for Yorkshire to be married. Lamb's following letters show that he made some advances towards fellowship with the hills which at a distance he had treated so cavalierly ; but his feelings never heartily associated with " the bare earth, and moim- tains bare," which sufliced AVordsworth ; he rather loved to cleave to the little hints and suggestions of nature in the midst of crowded cities. In his latter years I have heard him, when longing after London among the pleasant fields of Enfield, declare that his love of natural scenery would be abundantly satisfied by the patches of long waving gi-ass, and the stunted trees, that blacken in the old-church-yard nooks which you may yet find bordering on Thames-street. TO MU. COLERIDGE. "Sept. 8th, 1802. " Dear Coleridge, — I thought of not writing till we had performed some of our commis- sions ; but we have been hindered from setting about them, which yet shall be iloue to a tittle. We got home very pleasantly on Sunday. Mary is a good deal fatigued, and finds the dillerence of going to a place, and coraiug/ro/H it. I feel that I shall remember your mountains to the l;ist day I live. They haunt me ])erpotually. I am like a man who ha.s been falling in love mikuown to himself, which ho finds out when he leaves the lady. I do not remember any very strong impression while they were present ; but, being gone, their mementos are shelvfld in my braiu. LETTER TO MANNING. 63 "We pjissed a very pleasant little time with the Clarksons. The "Wordsworths are at Montague's rooms, near neiglibours to us.* They dined with us yestei'day, and I was their guide to Bartlemy Fair ! " TO MR. MANNING. "24tti Sept. 1S02, London. "My dear Manning, — Since the date of my last letter, I have been a traveller. A strong desire seized me of visiting remote regions. My first impulse was to go and see Paris. It was a trivial objection to my aspiring mind, that I did not understand a word of the language, since I certainly intend some time in my life to see Paris, and equally certainly intend never to learn the language ; therefore that could be no objection. How- ever, I am very glad I did not go, because you had left Paris (I see) before I could have set out. I believe, Stoddart promising to go with me another year, prevented that plan, ^ly next scheme, (for to my restless, ambitious mind London was become a bed of thorns) was to visit the far-famed peak in Derby- shire, where the Devil sits, they say, without breeches. This my purer mind rejected as indelicate. And my final resolve was, a tour to the Lakes. I set out with Mary to Keswick, without giving Coleridge any notice, for, my time being precious, did not admit of it. He received us with all the hospitality in the world, and gave up his time to show us all the wonders of the country. He dwells upon a small hill by the side of Keswick, in a comfortable house, quite en- veloped on all sides by a net of mountains : great floundering bears and monsters they seemed, all couchant and asleep. We got in in the evening, travelling in a post-chaise from Penrith, in the midst of a gorgeous sunshine, which transmuted all the mountains into colours, purple, &c. &c. We thought we had got into fairy-land. But that went off i (as it never came again, while we stayed we ' had no more fine sunsets) ; and we entered Coleridge's comfortable study just in tKe dusk, when the mountains were all dark with clouds upon their heads. Such an impression I never received from objects of sight before, » Mr. Basil Montajfue and his lady, who -were, during Lamb's life, among his most cordial and most honoured friends. nor do I suppose that I can ever again. Glorious creatures, fine old fellows, Skiddaw, &c. I never shall forget ye, how ye lay about that night, like an intrenchmcnt ; gone to bed, as it seemed for the night, but promising that ye were to be seen in the morning. Coleridge had got a blazing fire in his study; which is a large, antique, ill-shaped room, with an old-fashioned organ, never played upon, big enough for a church, shelves of scattered folios, an ^olian hai-p, and an old sofa, half bed, &c. And all looking out upon the last fading view of Skiddaw, and his broad-breasted brethren : what a night ! Here we stayed three full weeks, in which time I visited Wordsworth's cottage, where we stayed a day or two with the Clarksons (good people, and most hospitable, at whose house we tarried one day and night,) and saw Lloyd. The Wordsworths were gone to Calais. They have since been in London, and past much time with us : he is now gone into Yorkshire to be married. So we have seen Keswick, Grasmere, Ambleside. Uls- water (where the Clarksons live), and a place at the other end of Ulswater : I forget the name ;* to which we travelled on a very sultry day, over the middle of Helvellyn. We have clambered up to the top of Skiddaw, and I have waded up the bed of Lodore. In fine, I have satisfied myself, that there is such a thing as that which tourists call romantic, \'{\\.ich. I very much suspected before : they make such a spluttering about it, and toss their splendid epithets around them, till they give as dim a light as at four o'clock next morning the lamps do after an illumina- tion. Mary was excessively tired, when she got about half-way up Skiddaw, but we came to a cold rill (than which nothing can be imagined more cold,running over cold stones), and with the reinforcement of a draught of cold water she surmounted it most manfully. Oh, its fine black head, and the bleak air atop of it, with a prospect of mountains all about and about, making you giddy ; and then Scotland afar ofij and the border countries so famous in song and ballad ! It was a day that will stand out, like a mountain, I am sure, in my life. But I am returned (I have now been come home near three weeks — I was a month out), and you cannot conceive the degradation I felt at first, from being * Patterdale. 64 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. accustomed to wander free as air among mountains, and bathe in rivers without being controlled by any one, to come home and work. I felt very little. I had been dream- ing I was a very great man. But that is going off, and I find I shall conform in time to that state of life to which it has pleased God to call me. Besides, after all. Fleet- street and the Strand are better places to live in for good and all than amidst Skiddaw. Still, I turn back to those great places where 1 wandered about, participating in their greatness. After all, I could not live in Skiddaw. I could spend a year, two, three years among them, but I must have a prospect of seeing Fleet-street at the end of j that time, or I should mope and pine away, ' I know. Still, Skiddaw is a fine creature. My habits are changing, I think, i. e. from drunk to sober. Whether I shall be happier or not, remains to be proved. I shall cer- tainly be more happy in a morning ; but ; whether I shall not sacrifice the fat, and the i marrow, and the kidneys, i. e. the night, | glorious care-drowning night, that heals all I our wrongs, pours wine into our moi'tifica- tions, changes the scene from indifferent and flat to bright and brilliant 1 — O Manning, if '. I should have fonned a diabolical resolution, I by the time you come to England, of not . admitting any spirituous liquors into my ' house, will you be my guest on such shame- worthy terms ? Is life, with such limitations, worth trying ? The truth is, that my liquors bring a nest of friendly harpies about my house, who consume me. This is a pitiful tale to be read at St. Gothard, but it is just now nearest my heart. F is a ruined man. He is hiding himself from his credi- tors, and has sent his wife and children into the counti-y. , my other drunken com- panion (that has been : nam hie csestus artemque repono), is turned editor of a Naval Chronicle. Godwin continues a steady friend, though the same facility does not remain of visiting him often. Holcroft is not yet come to town. I expect to see him, and will deliver your message. Things come crowding in to say, and no room for 'em. Some things are too little to be told, i. e. to have a preference ; some are too big and circumstantial. Thanks for yours, which was most delicious. Would I had been with you, benighted, &c. I feai- my head is turned with wandering. I shall never be the same acquiescent being. Farewell ; write again quickly, for I shall not like to hazard a letter, not knowing where the fates have carried you. Farewell, my dear fellow. " C. Lamb." Lamb was fond of Latin composition when at school, and was then praised for it. He was always fond of reading Latin verse, and late in life taught his sister to read it. About this time, he hazarded the following Latin letter to Coleridge, of whose classical acquire- ments he stood in awe. CAROLTJS AGNUS COLERIDGIO STJO S. "Carissirae, — Scribis, ut nummos scilicet epistolarios solvam et postremo in Tartara abeam : immo tu potius Tart;iricum (ut aiunt) deprehendisti, qui me vernaculd meS linguS, pro scribS, conductitio per tot annos satis eleganter usum ad Latind impure et canino fere ore latrandum per tuasmet epis- tolas bene compositas et concinnatas percellire studueris. Conabor tamen : Attamen vereor, ut ^^des istas nostri Christi, inter quas tantd diligentiS, magistri improbd bonis literulis, quasi per clysterem quendam injectis, infr^ supraque olim penitiis imbutus fui, Barnesii et Marklandii doctissimorum virorum nomin- ibus adhuc gaudentes, barbarismis meis peregrinis et aliunde quaesitis valde dehoues- tavero. Sed pergere quocunque placet. Adeste igitur, quotquot estis, conjugationum declinationumve turmce, tenibilia spectra, et tu imprimis ades. Umbra et Imago maxima obsoletse (Diis gratise) Virgae, quS, novissime in mentem recepta, horrescunt subito na tales, et parum deest quo minils braccas meas ultro usque ad crura demittam, et ipse puer pueril- iter ejulem. "Ista tua Carmiua Chamouniana satis grandia esse mihi constat ; sed hoc mihi non- nihil displicet, qudd in iis illie montiura Gi'isosonum inter se resjionsiones totidem reboant anglicti, God, God, hand alitor atquo temet audivi tuaa montes Cumbrianaa resonare docentes, Tod, Tod, nempe Dootorem infelicem : vocem certe hand Deum Sonau- tem. Pro caeteris j)laudo. " Itidem comparatioues istas tuas satis callidas et lepidaa certd novi : sed quid hoo LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 65 ad vei'UTu ? cum illi Consulari viro et mentem irritabilem istuni Julianum ; et etiam astutias trigidulas quasdem Augusto propriores, nequaqiiara coiigi'uenter uno afflatu compara- tionis caus.1 insedisse affirmaveris : necnon ii'jscio quid siuiilitudiuis etiam cum Tibcrio tertio iu loco solicite produxeris. Quid tibi equidem cum uno vel altero Ceesare, cilm uuiversi Diiodecim ad comparationes tuas se ultro tuloriut ? Praeterea, vetustati adnutans, comparationes iniquas odi. " Istas Words wortliianas nuptias (velpotius cujusdam Edmundii tui) te retulisse mirifi- cum gaudeo. Valeas, Maria, fortunata nimium, et antiquse illse Marise Virgin! (comparatione plusquam Csesareaut^) forsitau comparanda, quoniam 'beata inter mulieres:' et etiam fortasse Wordsworthiuni ipsum tuum maritum Angelo Salutatori sequare fas erit, quoniam e Coelo (ut ille) descendant et ISIusae et ipste Musicolas : at Wordsworthium Musarum observantissimum semper novi. Necnon te quoque affinitate liac novA, Doro- thea, gratulor : et tu carte alterum domom Dei. "Istum Ludum, qnem tu, Coleridgi, Ameri- canum garris, a Ludo (ut Ludi sunt) maximd abhorrentem prsetereo : nempe quid ad Ludum attinet, totius illse gentis Columbianae, a uostr^ gente, eadem stirpe ort3,, ludi siiiguli causa voluntatem perperam alienare ? Quaeso ego materiam ludi : te Bella ingeris. " Denique valeas, et quid de Latinitate me4 putes, dicas : fticias ut opossum ilium nostrum volantem vel (ut tu mails) quendam Piscem en'abundum, a me salvum et pulcherrimum esse jubeas. Valeant uxor tua cum Hartleiio nostro. Soror mea salva est et ego : vos et ipsa salvere j ubet. Ulterius progrediri non liquet : homo sum seratus. " P.S. Pene mihi exciderat, apud me esse Librorum a Johanno Miltono Latine scripto- rum volumina duo, qu^ (Deo volente) cum cseteris tuis libris ocyiis citiils per Maria ad te missura curabo ; sed me in hoc tali gencre rerum nuUo moAo festinantem novisti : halics confitentem reum. Hoc solum dici restat, pra^dicta volumina pulchra esse et omn^a opera Latina J. M. in se continore. Circa defeusionem istam Pro Pop". Ang". acerrimam in prsesens ipse proeclaro gaudio moror. " Jussa tua Stuartina faciam ut diligejiter colam. / *' Itenim iteramque valeas . " Et facias memor sis uostri." The publication of the second volume of the " Anthology " gave occasion to the fol- lowing letter : — TO MR. COLERIDGE. "In the next edition of the 'Anthology' (which Phoebus avert, and those nine other wandering maids also !) please to blot out gentle-hearted, and substitute drunken dog, ragged-head, seld-shaven, odd-eyed, stut- tering, or any other ejjithet which truly and properly belongs to the gentleman in question. And for Charles read Tom, or B(jb, or Richard for mere delicacy. Hang you, I was beginning to forgive you, and believe in earnest that the lugging in of my proper name was purely unintentional on your part, when looking back for further conviction, stares me in the face Charles Lamb of the India House. Now I am convinced it was all done in malice, heaped sack-upon-sack, con- gregated, studied malice. You dog ! your 141st page shall not save you. I own I was just ready to acknowledge that there is a something not unlike good poetry in that page, if you had not run into the unintelli- gible abstraction-fit about the manner of the Deity's making spirits perceive his presence. God, nor created thing alive, can receive any honour from such thin show-box attributes. By-the-by, where did you pick up that scan- dalous 'piece of private history about the angel and the Duchess of Devonshire ? If it is a fiction of your own, why truly it is a very modest one for you. Now I do affirm, that Lewti is a very beautiful poem. I was iu earnest when I praised it. It describes a silly species of one not the wisest of jiassions. Therefore it cannot deeply aftect a disen- thralled mind. But such imagery, such novelty, such delicacy, and such versification nover got into an 'Anthology ' before. I am only sorry that the cause of all the passionate complaint is not greater than the trifling circumstance of Lewti being out of temper one da)'. Gaulberto certainly has considerable originality, but sadly wants finishing. It is, as it is, one of the very best in tlie book. Next to Lewti I like the Eaveu, which has a good deal of humour. I was pleased to see it again, for you once sent it me, and I have lost the letter which contained it. Now I am on the subject of Anthologies, I must say I am sony the old ijastoral way is fallen into 69 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. disrepute. The gentry which now indite sonnets are certainly the legitimate descen- dants of the ancient sliepherds. The same simpering face of description, tlie old family face, is visibly continued in the line. Some of their ancestors' labours are yet to be found in Allan Ramsay's and Jacob Tonson's Mis- cellanies. But miscellanies decaying, and the old pastoral way dying of mere want, their successors (cWven from their paternal acres) now-a-days settle and live upon ^Magazines and Anthologies. This race of men are uncommonly addicted to superstition. Some of them are idolators and worship the moon. Others deify qualities, as love, friendshi]), sensibility ; or bare accidents, as Solitude. Grief and Melancholy have their respective altars and temples among them, as the heathens builded theirs to Mors, Febris, Pallor, &c. They all agi-ee in ascribing a peculiar sanctity to the number fourteen. One of their own legislators affirmeth, that whatever exceeds that number ' encroacheth upon the province of the elegy ' — vice versa, whatever 'cometh short of that number abutteth upon the premises of the epigram.' I have been able to discover but few iinacjes in their temples, which, like the caves of Delphos of old, are famous for giving echoes. They impute a religious importance to the letter O, whether because by its roundness it is thought to typify the moon, their principal goddess, or for its analogies to their own labours, all ending where they began, or for whatever other high and mystical reference, I have never been able to discover, but I observe they never begin their invocations to their gods without it, except indeed one insignificant sect among them, who use the Doric A, pronounced like Ah ! broad, instead. These boast to have restored the old Dorian mood. C. L." The following fragment of a letter about this time to Coleridge refers to an offer of Coleridge to supply Lamb with literal trans- lations from the German, which he might versify for the "Morning Post," for the increase of Lamb's slender income. TO MR. COLERinOE. "Oct. 11th, 1802. "Dear Coleridge, — Your offer about the German poems is exceedingly kind ; but 1 do not think it a wise speculation, because the time it would take you to put them into prose would be nearly as great as if you versified them. Indeed I am sure you could do the one nearly as soon as the other ; so that instead of a division of labour, it would be only a multiplication. But I will think of your offer in another light. I dare saj' I could find many things, of a light nature, to suit that paper, which you would not object to pass upon Stuart as your own, and I shoidd come in for some light profits, and Stuart think the more highly of your assiduity. ' Bishop Hall's Characters ' I know nothing about, having never seen them. But I will reconsider your offer, which is very plausible ; for as to the drudgery of going eveiy day to an editor with my scraps, like a pedlar, for him to pick out and tumble about my ribbons and posies, and to wait in his lobby, &c., no money could make up for the degradation. You are in too high request with him to have anj'thing unpleasant of that sort to submit to. [The letter refers to several articles and books which Lamb promised to send to Coleridge, and proceeds : — ] " You must write me word whether the !Miltons are worth paying carriage for. You have a JNIilton ; but it is jileasanter to eat one's own peas out of one's own garden, than to buy them by the peck at Covent Garden ; and a book reads the better, which is our own, and has been so long known to us, that we know the topography of its blots, and dog's-ears, and can trace the dirt in it to having read it at tea with buttered muffins, or over a pipe, which I think is the maximum. But, Coleridge, you must accept these little things, and not think of returning money for them, for 1 do not set up for a factor or general agiiit. As for fantastic debts of 15/., I'll think you were dreaming, and not trouble myself seriously to attend to you. My bad Latin you properly correct ; but natales for niitcs was an inadvertency : I knew better. Progreiliri, or progredi, I thought indifferent, my authority being Ainsworth. However, as I have got a fit of Latin, you will now and then indulge me with an epistola. I p.iy tiio l)ostage of this, and propose doing it by turns, lu that ciise I can now and then write to you LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 67 without remorse ; not that you would mind the money, but you have not always ready cash to answer small demands, the epistolarii nummi. " Your ' Ejjigram on the Sun and Moon in Germany ' is admirable. Take 'em all together, they are as good as Harrington's. I will muster up all the conceits I can, and you shall have a packet some day. You and I together can answer all demands surely : 3'ou, mounted on a terrible charger, (like Homer, in the Battle of the Books,) at the head of the cavalry : I will lead the light horse. I have just heard from Stoddart. Allen and he intend taking Keswick in their way home. Allen wished particularly to have it a seci'et that he is in Scotland, and wrote to me accordingly very urgently. As luck was, I had told not above three or four ; but Mary had told Mrs. Green of Christ's Hospital ! For the present, farewell : never forgetting love to Pipos and his friends. " C. Lamb." The following letter embodies in strong language Lamb's disgust at the rational mode of educating children. While he gave utterance to a deep and hearted feeling of jealousy for the old delightful books of fancy, whicl\ were banished by the sense of JMrs. Barbauld, he cherished great respect for that lady's power as a true English prose writer ; and spoke often of her " Essay on Inconsistent Expectations," as alike bold and original in thought and elegant in style. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "Oct. 23id, 1802. " T read daily your political essays. I was pai-ticularly pleased with ' Once a Jacobin : ' though the argument is obvious enough, the style was less swelling than your things sometimes are, and it was plausible ad popu- lum. A vessel has just arrived from Jamaica with the news of poor Sam Le Grice's death. He died at Jamaica of the yellow fevei*. His course was raj^id and he had been veliy foolish, but I believe there was more of kindness and warmth in him than in almost any other of our schoolfellows. The annual meeting of the Blues is to-morrow, at the London Tavern, where poor Sammy dined with them two years ago, and attracted the notice of all by the singular foppishness of his dress. When men go off the 8t liicliard knew my blind side when he pitched upon brawn. 'Tis of all my hobbies the supreme in the eating way. He might have sent sops from the pan, skimmings, crumpets, chips, hog's lard, the tender brown judiciously scalped from a fillet of ve?J (dexterously rejilaced by a salamander), the tops of asparagus, fugitive livers, runaAvay gizzards of fowls, tlie eyes of martyi'cd pigs, tender effusions of laxative woodcocks, the red sjmwn of lobsters, leveret's ears, and such pretty filchiugs common to cooks ; but these had been ordinary presents, the eveiyday courtesies of dish washers to their sweethearts. Brawn was a noble thought. It is not every common gullet-fancier that can properly esteem of it. It is like a picture of one of the choice old Italian masters. Its gusto is of that hidden sort. As Wordsworth sings of a modest poet, — ' you must love him, ei-e to you he will seem worthy of your love ; ' so bi-awn, you must taste it ere to you it will seem to have any taste at all. But 'tis nuts to the adept : those that will send out their tongue and feelers to find it out. It will be wooed, and not unsought be won. Now, ham-essence, lobsters, turtle, such popubu* minions, abso- lutely cotirt you, lay themselves out to strike you at first smack, like one of David's pictures (tliey call liim Darceed), compared Avith the plain russet-coated Avcalth of a Titian or a Correggio, as I illustrated aboA'e. Such are the obvious glaring heathen virtues of a coi'poration dinner, compared Avith the reserved collegiate Avorth of brawn. Do mo the faA'our to leave off the business which you may be at present upon, and go imme- diately to the kitchens of Trinity and Civius, and make my most respectful compliments to Mr. liichard Hopkins, and assure him that his brawn is most excellent ; and that I am moreover obli'cd to him for his innuendo LETTERS TO MANNING. 73 about salt water aud bran, wliich I shall not fail to improve. I leave it to you whether you shall choose to pay him the civility of asking liim to dinner while you stay in Cambridge, or in whatever other way you may best like to show your gratitude to mj friend. Eicliard Hopkins, considered in many points of view, is a very extraordinary oliaracter. Adieu : I hope to see you to supper in London soon, where we will taste Richard's brawn, and drink his health in a cheerful but moderate cup. We have not many such men in any rank of life as Mr. K. Hopkins. Crisp, the barber, of St. Maiy's, wasjustsiich another. I wonder he never sent me any little token, some chesnuts, or a puif, or two pound of hair : just to remember him by. Gifts are like nails. Prresens ut absens ; that is, your present makes amends for yoiu" absence. "Yours, C.Lamb." TO MR. MANNING. " Dear Archimedes, — Things have gone on badly with thy ungeometrical friend ; but tliey are on the turn. My old housekeeper has shown signs of convalescence, and will shortly resume the power of the keys, so I sha'u't be cheated of my tea and liquors. Wind in the west, which promotes tx-au- quillity. Have leisure now to anticipate seeing thee again. Have been taking leave of tobacco in a rhyming address. Had thought that vein had long since closed up. Find I can rhyme and reason too. Think of studying mathematics, to restrain the fire of my genius, which G. D. recommends. Have frequent bleedings at the nose, which shows plethoric. Maybe shall try the sea myself, that great scene of wonders. Got incredibly sober and regular ; shave oftener, and hum a tune, to signify cheerfulness and gallantry. " Suddenly disposed to sleep, having taken a quart of peas with bacon, and stout. Will not refuse Nature, who has done such tLin^i-s lor me ! / " Nurse ! don't call me unless Mr. Manning comes. — What ! the gentleman in spectacles / —Yes. "Dormit. C.L. " Saturday, " Uot Noon." TO MR. MANNING. "Dear Manning, — I sent to Brown's im- mediately. Mr. Brown (or Pijou, as he is called by the moderns) denied the having received a letter from you. The one for you he remembered receiving, and remitting to Leadenhall Street ; whither I immediately posted (it being the middle of dinner), my teeth unpicked. There I learned that if you want a letter set right, you must ai)ply at tlie first door on the left hand before one o'clock. I returned and picked my teeth. And this morning I made my application in form, and have seen the vagabond letter, which most likely accompanies this. If it does not, I will get Hickman to name it to the Speaker, who will not fail to lay the matter before Parliament the next sessions, when you may be sure to have all abuses in tlie Post Department rectified. " N.B. There seems to be some informality epidemical. You direct yours to me in Mitre Court; my true address is Mitre Court Buildings. By the pleasantries of Fortune, who likes a joke or a doi(ble entendre as well as the best of us her children, tliere happens to be another Mr. Lamb (that there should be two ! !) in Miti-e Court. " Farewell, and think upon it. C. L." TO MR. MANNING. " Dear Manning, — Certainly you could not have called at all hours from two till ten, for we have been only out of an evening Monday and Tuesday in this week. But if you think you have, your thought shall go for the deed. We did pray for you on Wednesday nigl.t. Oysters unusually luscious — pearls of extra- ordinary magnitude found in them. I have made bracelets of them — given them in clusters to ladies. Last night we went out in despite, because you were not come at your hour. " This night we shall be at home, so shall we certainly both Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Take your choice, mind I don't say of one : but choose which evening you will not, and come the other four. Doora open at five o'clock. Shells forced about nine. Every gentleman smokes or not as he pleases. C. L." LETTER TO MISS WORDSWORTH. During the last five years, tobacco had been at once Lamb's solace and his bane. In the hope of resisting the temptation of late conviviality to which it ministered, he formed a resolution, the virtue of which can be but dimly guessed, to abandon its use, and em- bodied the floating fancies which had attended on his long wavering in one of the richest of his poems — " The Farewell to Tobacco." After many struggles he divorced himself from his genial enemy ; and though he after- wards renewed acquaintance with milder dalliance, he ultimately abandoned it, and was guiltless of a pipe in his later years. The following letter, addressed while his sister was laid up with severe and protracted illness, will show his feelings at this time. Its affecting self-upbraidiugs refer to no greater failings than the social indulgences against which he was manfully straggling. TO MISS WORDSWORTH. "14th June, 1805. "My dear Miss Wordsworth, — I have every reason to suppose that this illness, like all Mary's former ones, will be but temporary. But I cannot always feel so. Meantime she is dead to me, and I miss a prop. All mj' strength is gone, and I am like a fool, bereft of her co-operation. I dare not think, lest I shoidd think wrong; so used am I to look up to her in the least and the biggest per- ' plexity. To say all that I know of her ! would be more than I think anybody could believe or ever understand ; and when I hope to have her well again with me, it would be sinning against her feelings to go about to praise her ; for I can conceal nothing that I do from her. Slie is older, and wiser, and better than me, and all my wretched impei-- | fections I cover to myself by resolutely thinking on her goodness. She would share life and death, heaven and hell, with me. j She lives but for me ; and I know I havo been wasting and teasing her life for live years past incessantly with my cursed ways ; of going on. Eut even in this upbraiding of myself, I am offending against her, for I know that she has cleaved to me for better, \ for worse ; and if the balance has been ' against her hitherto, it was a nolde trade. 1 am slu[)id, and lose myself in wliat I write. I wiile rather what answers to my feelings (which are someLimes shai-p eatnigli) than express my present ones, for I am only flat and stupid. " I cannot resist transcribing three or four lines which poor Mary made upon a picture (a Holy Family) which we saw at an auction only one week before she left home. They ai'e sweet lines and upon a sweet picture. But I send them only us the last memorial of her. ' TinOIN AND CHILD, L. DA TINXI. ' JIatcrnal Lady mth thy virpin-prace, Ileaven-boin, tliy Jesus seemcth sure. And thou a virgin pure. I.ady most perfect, when thy anpcl face Men look upon, they wish to he A Catholic, Madonna fair, to worship thee.' " You had her lines about the ' Lady Blanch.' You have not had some which she wrote upon a copy of a girl from Titian, which I had hung up where that print of Blanch and the Abbess (as she beautifully interpreted two female figures from L. da VLuci) had hung in our room. 'Tis light and pretty. ' Who art thou, fnir ono, who usurp'st the place Of Blanch, the lady of the matchles-s grace ? Come, fair and pretty, tell to me AVho in thy lifetime thou mightst be 1 Thou pretty art and fair, But with the Lady Blanch thou never must compare. No need for Blanch her history to tell, Whoever saw her face, they there did read it well ; But when I look on thee, I only know. There lived a pretty maid some hundred years ago.' "This is a little unfair, to tell so much about ourselves, and to advert so little to your letter, so full of comfortable tidings of you all. But my own cares j)ress pretty close upon me, and you can make allowance. That you may go on gathering strengtli and peace is the next wish to Mary's recovery. " I had jJmost forgot your repeated invita- tion. Supposing that Mary will be well and able, there is another abiliti/ which you may guess at, which I cannot j^romise myself. In prudence we ought not to come. This illness will make it stiU more ]>rudential to wait. It is not a balance of this way of sjjending our money against another way, but an absolute question of wlicther we shall stop now, or go on w:isting away the little we have got befurcliand. My best love, liowever, to you all ; and to tiiat most friendly creature, Mrs. Clarksou, and better health to her, wheu you soe or write to her. " CriAKLEs LAJia" LETTER TO MR. AND MISS WORDSWORTH. 76 The " Farewell to Tobacco " was shortly after transmitted to Mr. and Miss Words- worth with the following ; — TO Mil. AND MISS WORDSWORTH. "Sept. 28th, 1805. " I wish you may think this a handsome farewell to my ' Friendly Traitress.' Tobacco has been my evening comfort and my morning curse for these five years ; and you know how difficult it is from refraining to pick one's lips even, when it has become a habit. This poem is the only one which I have finished since so long as when I wrote ' Hester Savory.' I have had it in my head to do it these two years, but tobacco stood in its own light when it gave me headaches that prevented my singing its praises. Now you have got it, you have got all my store, for I have absolutely not another line. No more has Mary. We have nobody about us that cares for poetry, and who will rear grapes when he shall be the sole eater ? Perhaps if you encourage us to show you what we may write, we may do something now and then before we absolutely forget the quantity of an English line for want of practice. The 'Tobacco,' being a little in the way of Withers (whom Southey so much likes), perhaps you will somehow convey it to him with my kind remembrances. Then, every- body will have seen it that I wish to see it, I having sent it to Malta. " I remain, dear W. and D., yours truly, " C. Lamb." The following le'tter to Hazlitt bears date 18th Nov. 1805 :— TO MR. HAZLITT. " Dear Hazlitt, — I was very glad to hear from you, and that your journey was so picturesque. We miss you, as we foretold we should. One or two things have happened, which are beneath the dignity of epistolary communication, but which, seated about pur fireside at night, (tiie winter hands of pork have begun,) gesture and emphasis might have talked into some importance. Some- thing about 's wife ; for instance, how tall she is, and that she visits pranked up like a Queen of the May, with green streamers : a good-natured woman though, which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor. Some things too about Monkey,* which can't so well be written : how it set up for a fine lady, and thought it had got lovers, and was obliged to be convinced of its age from the parisli register, where it was proved to be only twelve ; and an edict issued, that it should not give itself airs yet these four years ; and how it got leave to be called Miss, by grace : these, and such like hows, were in my head to tell you, but who can write ? Also how Manning is come to town in spectacles, and studies physic ; ia melancholy, and ceems to have something in his head, which he don't impart. Then, how I am going to leave oft' smoking. O la ! your Leonardos of Oxford made my mouth water. I was hurried through the gallery, and they escaped me. What do I say 1 I was a Goth then, and should not have noticed them. I had not settled my notions of beauty ; — I have now for ever !• — the small head, the long eye, — that sort of peering cuiwe, — the wicked Italian mischief ; the stick-at-nothing, Herodia,s' daugliter-kind of grace. You un- derstand me ? But you disappoint me, in passing over in absolute silence the Blenheim Leonardo. Didn't you see it ? Excuse a lover's curiosity. I have seen no pictures of note since, except IVIi-. Dawe's galler}'. It is curious to see how differently two great men treat the same subject, yet both excellent in their way. For instance, Milton and Mr. Dawe. Mr. D. has chosen to illustrate the story of Samson exactly in the point of view in which Milton has been most happy : the interview between the Jewish hero, blind and captive, and Dalilah. Milton has imagined his locks grown again, strong as horse-hair or porcupine's bristles ; doubtless shaggy and black, as being hairs ' which, of a nation armed, contained the strength.' I don't remember he says black ; but could Milton imagine them to be yellow ? Do you ? J\Ir. Dawe, with striking origimJity of conception, has crowned him with a thin yellow wig, in colour precisely like Dyson's ; in curl and quantity, resembling Mrs.P 'sj his limbs rather stout, — about such a man as my brother or Rickmau, — but no Athia nor Hercules, nor yet so long as Dubois, the ' The daughter of a friend, whom Lamb exceedingly liked from a child, and always called by this epithet. 76 LETTERS TO HAZLITT. clown of Sadler's Wells. Tliis was judicious, taking the spirit of the story rather than the fact ; for doubtless God could communi- cate national salvation to the trust of flax and tow as well as hemp and cordage, and could draw down a temple with a golden tress as soon as with all the cables of the British navy. "Wasn't you soiTy for Lord Nelson? I have followed him in fancy ever since I saw him walking in Pall Mall, (I was prejudiced agauist hiui before,) looking just as a hero ehould look ; and I have been veiy much cut about it indeed. He was the only pre- tence of a great man we had. Nobody is left of any name at all. His secretary died by his side. I imagined him, a Mr. Scott, to be the man you met at Hume's ; but I learnt from Mrs. Hume that it is not the same. I met Mi-s. H. one day and agreed to go on the Sunday to tea, but the rain prevented us, and the distance. I have been to apologise, and we are to dine there the first fine Sunday ! Strange perverseness. I never went while you stayed here, and now I go to find you. What other news is there, Mary 1 What puns have I made in the last fort- night ? You never remember them. You have no relish of the comic. ' Oh ! tell Hazlitt not to forget to send the American Farmer. I dare say it is not so good as he fancies ; but a book's a book.' I have not heard from Wordsworth or from Malta since. Charles Kemble, it seems, enters into pos- session to-morrow. We sup at 109, Russell- street, this evening. I wish your friend would not drink. It's a blemish in the greatest characters. You send me a modern quotation poetical. How do you like this in an old play ? Vittoria Corombona, a spunky Italian lady, a Leonardo one, nick-named tlie White Devil, being on her trial lor murder, &c. — and questioned about seducing a duke from his wife and the state, makes answer : — ' Condemn you mc for tliat the Duke did love mo ? So may you blame sonic fair and crystal river, For that Bome melancholic distracted man Hath drown'd himoclf in it." " N. B. I shall expect a line from you, if but a bare line, whenever you write to llussell-street, and a letter often when you do not. I pay no postage. But I will have consideration lor you until rarhameut time and franks. Luck to Ned Search and the new art of colouring. Monkey sends her love ; and Mary especially. " Yours truly, C. Lamb." Lamb introduced Hazlitt to Godwin ; and we find him early in the following year thus writing respecting the offer of ILizlitt's work | to Johnson, and his literary pursuits. I TO MR. HAZLITT. "Jan. 15th, 1806. " Dear Hazlitt, — Godwin went to Johnson's yesterday about your business. Johnson would not come down, or give any answer, but has promised to open the manuscript, and to give you an answer in one month. Godwin will punctually go again (Wednesday is Johnson's open day) yesterday four weeks next : i. e. in one lunar month from this time. Till when, Johnson positively declines giving any answer. I wish you joy on ending your Search. Mrs. H. was naming some- thing about a * Life of Fawcett,' to be by you undertaken : the great Fawcett, as she explained to Manning, when he asked, ' What Fawcett V He innocently thought Fawcett the Player. But Fawcett the divine is known to many people, albeit unknown to the Chinese inquirer. I should think, if you liked it, and Johnson declined it, that Phillips is the man. He is perpetually bringing out biographies, Kichai'dson, Wilks, Foot, Lee Lewis, without niunber : little trim things in two easy volumes, price 12s. the two, made up of letters to and from, scrajjs, posthumous trifles, anecdotes, and about forty pages of hard biography ; you might dish up a Faw- cettiad in three months and ask 60^. or 80/. for it. I dare say that Phillips would catch at it. I wrote you the other day in a great • hurry. Did you get it ? This is merely a letter of business at Godwin's retjuost. Lord Nelson is quiet at last. . S[is ghost only keeps a slight fluttering in ode»*i^nd elcgits in news- papers, and impromptus, which could not be got ready befoi'e the funeral. "As for news, is coming to town on Monday (if no kind angel intervene) to surrender himself to prison. He lioj)es to get the rules of the Fleet. On the siuue, or nearly the same day, F — , my other quondam co-friend and drinker, will go to Newgate, LETTERS TO HAZLITT. 77 and his wife and four children, I suppose, to the parish. Plenty of reflection and motives of gratitude to the wise Disposer of all things in ns, whose prudent conduct has hitherto ensured us a warm fire and snug roof over our heads. Nulhim numen abest si sit Prudentia. Alas ! Prudentia is in the last quarter of her tutelary shining over me. A little time and I ; but maybe I may, at last, hit upon some mode of collecting some of the vast superfluities of this money- voiding town. Much is to be got, and I do not want much. All I ask is time and leisure ; and I am cruelly ofl" for them. Wlien you have the inclination, I shall be very glad to have a letter from you. Your brother and Mrs. H., I am afraid, think hardly of us for not coming oftener to see them, but we are distracted beyond what they can conceive with visitors and visitings. I never have an hour for my head to work quietly its own workings ; which you know is as necessary to the human system as sleep. Sleep, too, I can't get for these winds of a night ; and without sleep and rest what should ensue ? Lunacy. But I trust it won't. " Yours, dear H., C. Lamb." TO MR. HAZLITT. "Feb. 19th, 1806. " Dear II. — Godwin has just been here in his way from Johnson's. Johnson has had a fire in his house ; this happened about five weeks ago ; it was in the day-time, so it did not burn the house down, but it did so much damage that the house must come down, to be repaired. His nephew that we met on Hampstead Hill put it out. Well, this fire has put him so back, that he craves one more month before he gives y^ou an answer. I will certainly goad Godwin (if necessary) to go again this very day four weeks ; but I am confident he will want no goading. Three or four most capital auctions of pictures adver- tised in May, Wellbore Ellis Agar's, the first private collection in England, so Holci/oft says. In March, Sir George Young's in Stratford-place (where Cosway lives), and a Mr. Hulse's at Blackheath, both very capital collections, and have been announced for some months. Also the Marquis of Lans- downe's pictures in March ; and though infe- rior to mention, lastly, the Tructhsessian Gallery. Don't your mouth water to be here ? T' other night Loftus called, whom we have not seen since you went before. We meditate a stroll next Wednesday, fasb- day. He happened to light upon Mr. Holcroft, wife, and daughter, their first visit at our house. Your brother called last night. We keep up our intimacy. He is going to begin a large Madonna and child from Mrs. H. and baby. I fear he goes astray after ignesfatui. He is a clever man. By-the-by I saw a miniature of his as far excelling any in his show cupboard (tliat of your sister not excepted) as that show cupboard excels the show things you see in windows — an old woman — hang her name — but most superla- tive ; he has it to clean — I'll ask him the name — but the best miniature I ever saw. But for oil pictures ! — what has he to do with Madonnas ? — if the Virgin Mary were alive and visitable, he would not hazard himself in a Covent-Gai'den-pit-door-crowd to see her. It an't his style of beauty, is it ? But he will go on painting things he ought not to paint, and not painting things he ought to paint. Manning not gone to China, but talks of going this spring. God forbid. Coleridge not heard of. I am going to leave off" smoke. In the meantime I am so smoky with last night's ten pipes, that I must leave off". Mary begs her kind remembrances. Pray write to us. This is no letter, but I supposed you grew anxious about Johnson. " N. B. Have taken a room at three shil- lings a-week, to be in between five and eight at night, to avoid my nocturnal alias knock- eternal visitors. The first-fruits of my retire- ment has been a farce which goes to manager to-morrow. Wish my ticket luck. God bless you and do write. — Yours, furnosissimus, "C.Lamb." The farce referred to in the foregoing letter is the do\ig\\t{\i\ jeu-d'esprit, "Mr. H.," destined to only one night's stage existence, but to become " good jest for ever." It must be confessed that it has not substance enough for a dramatic piece in two acts — a piece which must present a show of real interest — involve its pair of young lovers in actual perplexities — and terminate in the serious- ness of marriage ! It would be rare sport in Milton's " Limbo of Vanity," but is too 78 LETTER TO "WORDSWORTH. air}"^ for the ponderous sentimentalism of the moderu school of farce. As Swift, in " Gulliver," brings everything to the standard of size, so iu tliis farce everything is reduced to an alphabetical standard. Humour is sent to school to learn its letters ; or, rather, letters are made instinct with the most delicate humour. It is the apotheosis of the alphabet, and teaches the value of a good name without the least hint of moral purpose. This mere jDleasautry — this refining on sounds and letters — tliis verbal banter, and watery collision of the pale reflexions of words, could not succeed on a stage which had begun to requii'e interest, moral or immoral, to be interwoven with the Aveb of all its actions ; which no longer rejoiced in the riot of animal spirits and careless gaiety ; which no longer joermitted wit to take the sting from evil, as well as the loail from care ; but infected even its prince of rakes, Charles Surface, with a cant of sentiment which makes us turn for relief to the more honest hypocrite his brother. 'Mx. H. " could never do ;" but its composition was pleasant, and its acceptance gave Lamb some of the hap- piest moments he ever spent. Thus he announces it to Wordsworth, in reply to a letter communicatmg to him that the poet was a father. TO MR. WORDSWORTn. " Dear "Wordsworth, — "We are pleased, you may be sure, with the good news of Mrs. "W -. Hope all is well over by tliis time. *A fine boy! — have you any more, — one more and a girl — poor copies of me ! ' vide Mr. H., a farce which the proprietors have done roe the honour ; but I will set down Mr. "Wroughton's own words. N. B. The ensuing letter was sent in answer to one which I wrote, begging to know if my piece had any cliance, as I might make alterations, &c. I, writing on Monday, there comes this letter on the Wednesday. Attend ! [Copy of a Letter from Mr. R. Wroughton.] * Sir, — Your piece of Mr. II., I am desired to say, is accepted at Drury-Lane Theatre, by the |)roprietors, and, if agreeable to you, will be brought forwards when the proper opportunity serves. Tlie piece shall be sent to you, for your alterations, in the course of a few days, as the same is not in my hands, hut with the proprietors. ' I am, sir, your obedient servant. 'lllCUARD WrOUGUTOX.' [D;\tcd] ' 6G, Gowcr Street, 'Wednesday, June 11, 1806.' " On the following Sunday Mr. Tobin comes. The scent of a manager's letter brought him. He would have gone further any day on such a business. I read the letter to him. He deems it authentic and peremptory. Our conversation naturally fell upon pieces, different sorts of pieces ; what is the best way of offering a piece, how far the caprice of managers is an obstacle in the way of a piece, how to judge of the merits of a piece, how long a piece may remain in the hands of the managers before it is acted ; and my piece, and your piece, and my poor brother's piece — my poor brother was all his life endeavouring to get a piece accepted. " I wrote that, in mere wantonness of triumph. Have nothing more to say about it. The managers, I thank my stars, have decided its merits for ever. They are the best judges of pieces, and it would be insen- sible iu me to aH'ect a false modesty after the very flattering letter which I have received. ADMIT TO BOXES. Me. H. Kiiith Kiglit, CiiAnr.Es Lamb. " I think this will be as good a jiattcrn for orders as I can think on. A little thin flowery border, round, neat, not gaudy, and the Drury-lane Apollo, with the liarp at the top. Or sliall I have no Apollo ? — simply nothing ? Or perhaps the comic muse ? "The same form, only I think without the Apollo, will serve for the pit and galleries. I think it will be best to write my name at full length ; but then if I give away a great many, that will be tedious. Perhaps Ch.Lamb will do. "BOXES, now I thmk on it. Ill have in LETTERS TO RICKMAN. 79 capitals. The rest, in a neat Italian hand. Or better, perhaps 33oifS, in old English characters, like Madoc or Thalaba 1 " A-propos of Spenser (you will find him mentioned a page or two before, near enough for an a-2->ropos), I was discoursing on poetry (as one's apt to deceive one's self, and when a person is willing to talk of what one likes, to believe that he also likes the same, as lovers do) with a young gentleman of my office, who is deep read in Anacreon Moore, Lord Strangford, and the principal modern poets, and I happened to mention Epithalamiums, and that I could show him a very fine one of Spenser's. At the mention of this, my gentle- man, who is a very fine gentleman, pricked up his ears and expressed great pleasure, and begged that I would give him leave to copy it : he did not care how long it was (for I objected the length), he should be very hapjjy to see anything hy him. Then pausing, and looking sad, be ejaculated ' Poor SrENCER ! ' I begged to know the reason of his ejacula- tion, thinking that time had by this time softened down any calamities which the bard might have endured. ' Why, poor fellow ! ' said he, 'he has lost his wife ! ' 'Lost his wife ! ' said I, ' who are you talking of '] ' 'Why, Spencer!' said he; 'I've read the " Monody " he wrote on the occasion, and a very fretty thing it is.'' This led to an ex- planation (it could be delayed no longer), that the sound Spenser, which, when poetry is talked of, generally excites an image of an old bard in a ruff, and sometimes with it dim notions of Sir P. Sydney, and perhaps Lord Burleigh, had raised in my gentleman a quite contrary image of the Honourable William Spencer, who has translated some things from the German very prettily, which are published with Lady Di. Beauclerk's designs. Nothing like defining of terms when we talk. What blunders might I have fallen into of quite inapplicable criticism, but for this timely explanation. " N.B. At the beginning of Edm. Spenser, (to prevent mistakes,) I have copied from toy own copy, and primarily from a book of Chalmei-a' on Shakspeare, a sonnet of Spen- ser's never printed among his poems. It is curious, as being manly, and rather Miltonic, and as a sonnet of Spenser's with nothing in it about love or knighthood. I have no room for remembrances ; but I hope our doing your commission will prove we do not quite forgot you. C. L." The interval between the completion of the farce, " and its first acting," though full of bright ho])es of dramatic success, was not all a phantom. The following two letters to Mr. Eickraan, now one of the Clerks of the House of Commons, show Lamb's unwearied kindness. TO MR. RICKMAN. " Dear Eickman, — You do not happen to have any place at your disposal which would suit a decayed Literatus ? I do not much expect that you have, or that you will go much out of the way to serve the object, when )^ou hear it is F. But the case is, by a mistaking of his turn, as they call it, he is reduced, I am afraid, to extremities, and would be extremely glad of a place in an office. Now it does sometimes happen, that just as a man wants a place, a place wants him ; and though this is a lottery to which none but G. B. would choose to trust his all, there is no harm just to call in at Despair's oflace for a friend, and see if his number is come up (B.'s further case I enclose by way of episode). Now, if you should happen, or anybody you know, to want a liand, here is a young man of solid but not brilliant genius, who would turn his hand to the making out dockets, penning a manifesto, or scoring a tally, not the worse (I hope) for knowing Latin and Greek, and having in youth con- versed with the philosophers. But from these follies I believe he is thoroughly awakened, and would bind himself by a ter- rible oath never to imagine himself an extraordinary genius again. "Yours, &c. C.Lamb." TO MR. RICKMAK. "March, 1806. " Dear Eickman, — I send you some papers about a salt-water soap, for which the inventor is desirous of getting a parlia- mentary reward, like Dr. Jenner. Whether such a project be feasible, I mainly doubt, taking for granted the equal utility. I should suppose the usual way of paying such pro- jectors is by patents and contracts. The patent, you see, he has got. A contract he is about with the navy board. Meantime, the projector is hungry. Will you answer me two questions, and return them with the ] papers as soon as you can ? Imprimis, is ' there any chance of success in application to Parliament for a reward ? Did you ever hear of the invention ? You see its benefits j and saving to the nation (always the first ' motive with a true projector) ai-e feelingly set forth : the last paragi-aph but one of the estimate, in enumerating the shifts poor seamen are put to, even approaches to the pathetic. But, agreeing to all he says, is there the remotest chance of Parliament giving the projector anything ; and v:h€7i 1 should application be made, now or after a report (if he can get it) from the navy | board ? Secondly, let the infeasibility be as , great as you will, you will oblige me by i telling me the way of introducing such an application to Parliament, without buying over a majority of membei"s, which is totally out of projector's power. I vouch nothing for the soap myself; for I always wash in fresh water, and find it answer tole- rably well for all purposes of cleanliness ; nor do I know the projector ; but a relation of mine has put me on writing to you, for whose parliamentary knowledge he has great veneration. "P.S. The Capt. and Mrs. Barney and Phillips take their chance at cribbage here on Wednesday. Will you and Mrs. R. join the party ? Mary desires her compliments to !^Il•s. E., and joins in the invitation. " Yours truly, C. Lamb." Before the production of " Mr. H.," Lamb was obliged, in sad earnest, to part from Manning, who, after talking and tl»inking about China for yeai-s, took the heroic reso- lution of going thitlier, not to acquire wealth or fame, but to realise the phantom of his restless thought. Happy was he to have a friend, like Mr. Burney, to indulge and to soften his gi'ief, which he thus e.\presses in his first letter to his friend. rO MU. MANNING. "May- 10th, iSOfi. "My dear Manning, — I didn't know what your going was till I shook a last fist with you, and then 'twas just like having sh:ikcn hands with a wretch on the fatal scaffold, and, when you are down the ladder, you can never stretch out to him again. Mary says you are dead, and there's nothing to do but to leave it to time to do for us in the end what it always does for those who mourn for people in such a case. But she'll see by your letter you are not quite dead. A little kicking and agony, and then . Martin Buniey took me out a walking that evening, and Ave talked of Manning ; and then I came home and smoked for you, and at twelve o'clock came home Mary and Monkey Louisa from the play, and there was more talk and more smoking, and they all seemed first-rate characters, because they knew a cei-tain person. But what's the use of talking about 'em ? By the time you'll have made your escape from the Kalmuks, you'll have stayed so long I shall never be able to bring to your mind who Mary was, who will have died about a year before, nor who the Holcrofts were ! me perhaps you will mistake for Phillips, or confound me with Mi*. Dawe, because you saw us together. Mary (whom you seem to remember yet) is not quite easy that she had not a formal parting from you. I wish it had so happened. But you must bring her a token, a shawl or something, and remember a sprightly little mandarin for our mantel-piece, as a companion to the child I am going to purchase at tlie museum. She says you saw her writings abimt the other day, and she wislies you should know what they are. She is doing for Godwin's book- seller twenty of Shakspeare's Jilays, to be made into children's tales. Six are already done by her, to wit, 'The Tempest,' ' Winter's Tale,' ' Midsummer Night,' ' Much Ado,' 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' and 'Cymbe- line ; ' and ' The Merchant of Venice ' is in forwardness. I have done ' Othello ' and ' Macbeth,' and mean to do all the tragedies. I think it will be popular among the little people, besides money. It's to bring in sixty guineas. Mary h:is done them cajjitally, I think, you'd think. These are the humble amusements we propose, while you are gone to plant the cross of Christ among barbai'ous pagan anthropophagi. Quam homo homini pricstat ! but theu, perhaps, you'll get mur- dered, and we shall die in our beds with a fair literary reputation. Bo sure, if you see any of those people, whose heads do grow LETTERS TO MANNING. 81 beneath their shoulders, that you make a draught of them. It will be veiy curious. Oh ! Manning, I am serious to sinking almost, •when I think that all those evenings, which you have made so pleasant, are gone perhaps for ever. Four yeai-s, you talk of, may be ten, and you may come back and find such alterations ! Some circumstances may gi'ow up to you or to me, that may be a bar to the return of any such intimacy. I dare say all this is hum ! and that all will come back ; but, indeed, we die many deaths before we die, and I am abnost sick when I think that such a hold as I had of you is gone. I have friends, but some of 'em are changed. Mar- riage, or some circumstance, rises Mp to make them not the same. But I felt sure of you. And that last token you gave me of express- ing a vnsh to have my name joined with yours, you know not how it affected me : like a legacy, '•' God bless you in every way you can form a wish. May He give you health, and safety, and the accomplishment of all your objects, and return you again to us, to gladden some fireside or other (I suppose we shall be moved from the Temple). I will nurse the remem- brance of your steadiness and quiet, which used to infuse something like itself into our nervous minds. Mary called you our venti- lator. Fai-ewell, and take her best wishes and mine. " Good bye, C. L." Christmas approached, and Lamb then conveyed to Manning, now at the antipodes, news of poor Holcroft's failure in his play of "The Vindictive Mjm," and his own approach- ing trial. TO MR. MANNING. "December 5th, ISOO. " Manning, your letter dated Hottentots, August the what-was-it ? came to hand. I can scarce hope that mine will have the same luck. China — Canton — bless us — how it strains the imagination and makes it ache ! I write under another uncertainty, whether it can go to-moi'row by a ship which I have just learned is going oif direct to your part of the world, or whether the despatches may not be sealed up and this have to wait, for if it is detained here, it will grow staler in a fortnight than in a five months' voyage coming to you. It will be a point of con- science to send you none but bran-new news (the latest edition), which will but grow the better, like oranges, for a sea voyage. Oh that you should be so many hemispheres off — if I speak incorrectly you can correct me — why the simplest death or marriage that takes place here must be important to you as news in the old Bastile. There's your friend Tuthill has got away from France — you remember France 1 and Tuthill ? — ten- to-one but he writes by this post, if he don't get my note in time, apprising him of the vessel sailing. Know then that he has found means to obtain leave from Bonapai-te, without making use of any incredible romantic pretences as some have done, who never meant to fulfil them, to come home, and I have seen him here and at Holcroft's, An't you glad about Tuthill ? Now then be sorry for Holcroft, whose new play, called ' The Vindictive Man,' was damned about a fort- night since. It died in part of its own weak- ness, and in part for being choked up with bad actors. The two principal parts were destined to ^Irs. Jordan and jSIi\ Bannister, but !Mrs. J. has not come to terms with the managei-s, they have had some squabble, and Bamiister shot some of his fingers off by the going off of a gun. So Miss Duncan had her part, and Mr. De Camp took his. His part, the principal comic hope of the play, was most unluckily Goldfinch, taken out of the ' Eoad to Euiu,' not only the same character, but the identical Goldfinch — the same as Falstaff is in two plays of Shakspeare. As the devil of ill-luck would have it, half the audience did not know that H. had written it, but were displeased at his stealing from the ' Koad to Euin ; ' and those who might have borne a gentlemanly coxcomb with his ' That's your sort,' ' Go it ' — such as Lewis is — did not relish the intolerable -N-ulgarity and inanity of the idea stript of his manner. De Camp was hooted, more than hist, hooted and bellowed off the stage before the second act was finished, so that the remainder of his pjirt was forced to be, with some violence to the play, omitted. In addition to this, a woman of the town was another principal character — a most unfortuuate choice in this moral day. The audience were as scandalised as if you were to introduce such a pei*sonage to theii- piivate tea-tables. Besides, her action 82 LETTERS TO MAXNINQ. in the play was gross — wheedling an old man into marriage. But the nioi-tal blunder of the play was that which, oddly enough, H. took pride in, and exultingly told me of the j night before it came out, that there were no less than eleven principal characters in it, and I believe he meant of the men only, for the playbill c-xprcst as much, not reckonmg one woman — and true it was, for Mr. Powell, Mr. Kaymond, Mr. Bartlett, Mr. H. Siddons, Mr. Barrymore, &c. &c., — to the number of eleven, had all parts equally prominent, and , tliere was as much of them in quantity and | rank as of the hero and heroine — and most of them gentlemen who seldom appear but ' as the hero's friend in a farce — for a minute i or two — and here they all had their ten- | minute speeches, and one of them gave the audience a serious account how he was now a lawyer but had been a poet, and then a long enumeration of the inconveniences of authorslii]), rascally booksellers, reviewers, &c. ; which first set the audience a gajnng ; but I haVe said enough. You will be so sorry, that you will not think the best of me for my detail ; but news is news at Canton. Poor H. I fear will feel the disappointment very seriously in a pecuniary light. From what I can learn he has saved nothing. You and I were hoping one day that he had, but I fear he has nothing but his pictures and books, and a no very flourishing business, and to be obliged to part with his long-necked Guido that hangs opposite as you enter, and the game-piece that hangs in the back di'aw- ing-roora, and all those Vandykes, &c. God should temper the wind to the .shorn connois- seur. I hope I need not say to you, that I feel for the weather-beaten author, and for all his household. I assure you his fate has soured a good deal the pleasure I sliould have otherwise taken in my own little farce being accepted, and I hope about to be acted j — it is in rehearsal actually, and I cxi)cct it i to come out next week. It is kept a sort of secret, and the rehearsals have gone on privately, lest by many folks knowing it, the story should come out, which would infallll)ly danni it. You romeniber 1 had scut it bcfoi-e you went. Wroughton read it, and was much j pleased with it. I speedily got an answer, j I took it to make alterations, and lazily kept it some months, then took courage and ' furbished it up in a day or two and took it. ' In less than a fortnight I heard the principal part was given to Elliston, who liked it and only wanted a prologue, which I have since done and sent, and I had a note the day before yesterday from the manager, Wroughton (bless his fat face — he is not a bad actor in some things), to say that I should be summoned to the rehearsal after the next, which next was to be yesterday. I had no idea it was so forward. I have had no trouble, attended no reading or reheai-sal, made no interest ; what a contrast to the usual pai-ade of authors ! But it is peculiar to modesty to do all things without noise or pomp ! I have some suspicion it will appear in public on "Wednesday next, for W. says in his note, it is so forward that if wanted it may come out next week, and a new melo- drame is announced for eveiy day till then ; and ' a new farce is in rehearsal,' is put up in the bills. Now you'd like to know the subject. The title is ' Mr. H.,' no moi-e ; how simi^le, 11 ow taking ! A great H. sprawling over the play-bill and attracting eyes at every corner. The story is a coxcomb appearing at Bath, vastly rich — all the ladies dying for him — all bui-sting to know who he is — but he goes by no other name than Mr. 11. — a curiosity like that of the dames of Strasburg aboiit the man with the great nose. But I won't tell you any more about it. Yes, I will : but I can't give you an idea how I have done it. I'll just tell you that after much vehement admiration, when his true name comes out, ' Ilogsflesh,' all the women shun him, avoid him, and not one can be found to change their name for him — that's the idea — how flat it is here — but how whimsical in the farce ! and only think how hard upon me it is that the shij^ is despatched to-morrow, and my triumph cannot be :uscer- tained till the Wednesday after — but all Ciiina will ring of it by and by. N.B. (liut this is a secret.) The Professor has got a tragedy coming out with the young Koscius in it in January next, as we say — January last it will be with you — ami though it is a profound secret now, as all his aflairs are, it cannot be much of one by the time yuu read this. However, don't let it go any furtlier. I understand there are dramatic exhibitions in China. One would not like to be fore- stalled. Do you find in all this stufl' I have written anything like those feelings which LETTERS TO MAN^TINQ 83 one sliould send my old adventuring friend, that is gone to wander among Tartars and may never come again ? I don't — but your going away, and all about you, is a tliread- bare topic. I have worn it out witli thinking — it has come to me wlien I have been dull with anything, till my sadness has seemed more to have come from it than to have introduced it. I want you, you don't know how much — but if I had you here in my European garret, we shoukl but talk over such stuff as I have written — so — Those ' Tales from Shakspeare ' are near coming out, and Mary has begun a new work. Mr. Dawe is turned author, he has been in such a way lately — Dawe, the painter, I mean — he sits and stands about at Holcroft's and says nothing — then sighs and leans his head on his hand. I took him to be in love — but it seems he was only meditating a work, — ' The Life of Morland,' — the young man is not used to composition. Eicknian and Captain Burney are well ; they assemble at my house pretty regulai-ly of a Wednesday • — a new institution. Like other great men I have a public day, cribbage and pipes, with Phillips and noisy . " Good Heaven ! what a bit only I 've got left ! How shall I squeeze all 1 know into this morsel ! Coleridge is come home, and is going to turn lecturer on taste at the Eoyal Institution. I shall get 200^. from the theatre if ' Mr. H.' has a good run, and I hope 100^. for the cojiyright. Nothing if it fails ; and there never was a more ticklish thing. The whole depends on the manner in which the name is brought out, which I value myself on, as a chcf-d'ceuvre. How the paper grows less and less ! In less than two minutes I shall cease to talk to you, and you may rave to tlie great Wall of China. N.B. Is there such a wall ! Is it as big as Old London Wall, by Bedlam 1 Have you met with a friend of mine, named Ball, at Canton ? — if you are acquainted, remember me kindly to him. N.B. If my little thing don't succeed. I shall easily survive, having, as it were/, compared to H.'s venture, but a sixteenth in tlie lottery. ^Mary and I are to sit next the orchestra in the pit, next the tweedle- dees. She remembei-s you. You are more to us than five hundred farces, clappings, &c. " Come back one day. C. Lamb." Wednesday, 10th December, 180(5, was the wished-for evening which decided the fate of "Mr. H." on the boards of Drury. Gi-eat curiosity was excited by the announcement ; the liouse was crowded to the ceiling ; and the audience impatiently awaited the con- clusion of the long, dull, intolerable opera of " The Travellers," by which it was preceded. At length, Mr. Elliston, the hero of the farce, entered, gaily dressed, and in happiest spirits, — enough, but not too much, elated, — and delivered the prologue with great vivacity and success. The farce began ; at first it was much applauded ; but the wit seemed wire- drawn ; and when the curtain fell on the first act, the friends of the author began to fear. The second act dragged heavily on, as second acts of farces will do ; a rout at Bath, peopled with ill-dressed and over-dressed actors and actresses, increased the disposition to yawn ; and when the moment of disclosure came, and nothing worse than the name Hogsjlcsh was heard, the audience resented the long play on their curiosity, and would hear no more. Lamb, with his sister, sat, as he anticipated, in the front of the pit, and having joined in encoring the epilogue, the brilliancy of which injured the farce, he gave way with equal pliancy to the common feeling, and hissed and hooted as loudly as any of his neighbours. The next morning's play-bill contained a veracious announcement, that " the neiv farce of Mr. H., performed for the first time last night, was received hy an overfloioing audience with tmiversal applause, and ivill be repeated for the second time to- morrow ; " but the stage lamps never that morrow saw ! Elliston would have tried it again ; but Lamb saw at once that the case was hopeless, and consoled his friends with a century of puns for the wreck of his dramatic hopes. CHAPTER IX. [1807 to 1814.] LETTERS TO MANSINO, MONT.VOIE, 'WOnDS'VrOnTU, AND COLERIDGE. From this period, the letters of Lamb wliich have been preserved are comparatively few, with reference to the years through wliieh they are scattered. He began to write in G 2 84 LETTERS TO MANNING. earnest for the press, and the time thus occupied was withdrawn from his coiTespon- dents, while his thoughts and feelings were developed by a different excitement, and expressed in other forms. In the year 1807 the series of stories founded on the plays of Shakspeare, referred to in his last letter to Manning, was published ; in which the outlines of his plots are happily brought within the apprehension of children, and his language preserved wherever it was possible to retain it ; a fit counterpoise to those works addressed to the young understanding, to which Lamb still cherished the strong distaste which broke out in one of his previous lettei-s. Of tliese tales. King Lear, Macbeth, Timon of Athens, Eomeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello, arc by Charles, and the others | by Mary Lamb ; hers being, as Lamb always insisted, the most felicitous, but all well adapted to infuse some sense of the nobleness of the poet's thoughts into the hearts of their little readers. Of tAvo other works preparing for the press, he thus speaks in a letter which bears date 26th February, 1808, addressed to Manning at Canton, in reply to a letter received thence, in which Manning informed Lamb, that he had consigned a parcel of silk to a Mr. Knox for him. TO ME. MANNING. " De.ar Missionary, — Your letters from the farthest ends of the world have arrived safe. Mary is very thankful for your remembrance of her ; and with the less suspicion of mer- cenariness, as the silk, the symlolum matericde of your friendship, has not yet appeared. I think Horace says somewhere, nox longa. I would not impute negligence or unhand- some delays to a person whom you have honoured with your confidence, but I have not heard of the silk, or of Mr. Knox, save by your letter. Maybe he expects the first advances ! or it may be that he has not succeeded in getting the article on shore, for it is among the res prohibitce et non nisi smuggle-ationin vid fruendce. But so it is, in the friendships between wicked men, the veiy expressions of their good-will cannot but be sinful. I suppose you know my farce was damned. The noise still rings in my cars. Was you ever in the pillory ? — being damned is something like that. A treaty of m.arringe is on foot between William Hazlitt and Miss Stoddart. Something about settlements only retards it. Little Fenwick (you don't see the connexion of ideas here, how the (\ev\\ should you ?) is in the rules of the Fleet. Cruel creditors ! operation of iniquitous laws ; is Magna Charta then a mockei-y ? Why, in general (here I suppose you to ask a question) my spirits are pretty good, but I have my depressions, black as a smith's beaitl, Vulcanic, Stygian, At such times I have recourse to a pipe, which is like not being at home to a dun ; he comes again with tenfold bitterness the next day. — (Mind, I am not in debt, I only borrow a similitude from others ; it shows imagination.) I have done two books since the ftxilure of my foi'ce ; they will both be out this summer. The one is a juvenile book — 'The Adventures of Ulysses,' intended to be an introduction to the reading of Telemachus ! it is done out of the Odyssey, not from the Greek. I would not mislead you : nor yet from Pope's Odyssey, but from an older translation of one Chapman. The ' Shakspeare Tales ' suggested the doing it. Godwin is in both those cases my book- seller. The other is done for Longman, and is ' Specimens of English Dramatic Poets contemporary with Shakspeare.' Specimens are becoming fashionable. We have — ' Specimens of Ancient English Poets ' — ' Specimens of Modern English Poets ' — 'Specimens of Ancient English Prose Writei'S,' without end. They used to be called ' Beauties.' You have seen ' Beauties of Shakspeare ? ' so have many people that never saw any beauties in Shakspeare. Longman is to print it, and be at all the expense and risk, and I am to share the profits after all deductions, i. e. a year or two hence T must pocket Avhat they please to tell me is due to me. But the book is such as I am glad there should be. It is done out of old plays at the Museum, and out of Podsley's collection, &c. It is to have notes. So I go creeping on since I was lamed with that cursed fall from off the top of Drury-lanc Theatre into the pit, .something more th:ui a year ago. However, I have been free of the house ever since, and the house was pretty free with me ujwn that occasion. Hang 'em how they hissed ! it was not a hiss neither, but a sort of a frantic yell, like a congregation of mad geese, with roaring something like bears, mows and mops like apes, sometimes LETTERS TO MANNING. 85 snakes, that liiss'd me into madness. 'Twas like St. Anthony's temptations. Mercy on us, that God should give his favourite childi-eu, men, mouths to speak with, to discourse rationally, to jnomise smoothly, to flatter agreeably, to encourage Avarmly, to counsel wisely, to sing with, to drink with, and to kiss with, and that they should turn them into mouths of adders, bears, wolves, hyenas, and whistle like tempests, and emit breath through them like distillations of aspic poison, to asperse and vilify the innocent labours of their fellow-creatures who are desirous to please them ! Heaven be pleased to make the teeth rot out of them all, there- fore ! Make them a reproach, and all that pass by them to loll out their tongue at them ! Blind mouths ! as Milton somewhere calls them. Do you like Braham's singing 1 The little Jew has bewitched me. I follow him like as the boj's follow Tom the Piper. I was insensible to music till he gave me a new sense. Oh that you coidd go to the new opera of Kais to-night ! 'Tis all about Eastern manners ; it would just suit you. It describes the wild Arabs, wandeiing Egyptians, lying dervises, and all that sort of people, to a hair. You needn't ha' gone so far to see what you see, if you saw it as I do every night at Drury- lane Theatre. Braham's singing, when it is impassioned, is finer than Mi-s. Siddons', or JSIr. Kerable's acting ; and when it is not impassioned, it is as good as hearing a person of tine sense talking. The brave little Jew ! I made a pun the other day, and palmed it upon Holcrott, who grinned like a Cheshire cat. (Why do cats grin in Cheshire ? — Because it was once a county palatine, and the cats cannot help laughing whenever 1 hey think of it, though I see no great joke in it.) I said that Holcroft said, being asked who were the best dramatic writei's of the day, 'Hook and I.' Iklr. Hook is author of several pieces, Tekeli, &c. You know what hools and eyes are, don't you ? Your letter had many things in it hard to be understood : the puns were ready and Swift-like ; but don't you begin to be melancholy in the midst of Eiii^tern customs ! ' The mind docs not easily conform to foreign usages, even in trifles : it requires something that it has been familiar with.' That begins one of Dr. Hawkesworth's papers in the Adventurer, and is, I tliiuk, as sensible a rem.ark as over fell from the Doctor's mouth. White is at Christ's Hospital, a wit of the first magni- tude, but had rather be thought a gentleman, like Congi-eve. You know Congreve's repulse which he gave to Voltaire, when he came to. visit him as a literary man, that he wished to be considered only in the light of a private gentleman. I think the impertinent French- man was properly answered. I should just serve any member of the French institute in the same manner, that wished to be intro- duced to me. "Does any one read at Canton? Lord Moira is President of the Westminster Library. I suppose you might have interest with Sir Josepli Banks to get to be president of any similar institution that should be set up at Canton. I think public reading-rooms the best mode of educating young men. Solitary reading is apt to give the headache. Besides, who knows that you do read ? There are ten thousand institutions similar to the Eoyal Institution which have sprung up from it. There is the London Institution, the Southwark Institution, the Eussell- square Eooms Institution, &c. — Collecje quasi Con-lege, a place where people read together. Wordsworth, the great poet, is coming to town ; he is to have apartments in the Mansion-House. Well, my dear Manning, talking caimot be infinite ; I have said all I have to say ; the rest is but remembrances, wdiich Ave shall bear in our heads of yoii while we have heads. Here is a packet of trifles nothing Avorth ; but it is a trifling part of the Avorld where I live ; emptiness abounds. But in fulness of aflection, w© remain yours, " C. L." The two books referred to in this letter Avere shortly after published. " The Adven- tures of Ulysses" had some tinge of the quaintness of Chapman ; it gives the plot of the earliest and one of the most charming of romances, without spoiling its interest. The " Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of Shakspeare," were received with more fiivour than Lamb's pi-evious Avorks, though it was only by slow and imperceptible degrees that they avou their way to the apprehensions of the most influenti;U minds, and Avrought out the genial purpose of the editor in renewing a taste lor the great contompuriuies of Shakspeur«^ SG LETTERS TO MANNING. "The Monthly Eeview" vouchsafed a notice* in its large print, upon the whole favourable, according to the existing fosliion of criticism, but still " craftily qualilied." It will scarcely be credited, without reference to the article itself, that on the notes the critic pronounces this judgment : " The notes before us indeed have nothing very remarkable, except the style, which is formally abrupt and elabo- rately quaint. Some of tlie most studied attempts to display excessive feeling we had noted for animadvei-sion, but the task is unnecessary," &c. It is easy to conceive of readers strongly dissenting from some of the passionate eulo- gies of these notes, and even taking offence at the boldness of the allusions ; but that any one should read these essences of criticism, suggesting the profouudest thoughts, and replete throughout with fine imagery, and find in tliem "nothing remarkable," is a mystery which puzzles us. But when the same critic speaks of the heroine of the "Broken Heart" as "the light-heeled Ca- lantha," it is easy to appreciate his fitness for sitting in judgment on the old English drama and the congenial expositor of its grandeurs ! In this year Miss Lamb published her charming work, entitled "INlrs. Leicester's School," to which Lamb contributed three of the tales. The best, however, are his sister's, as he delighted to insist ; and no tales more hapijily adapted to nurture all sweet and childlike feelings in children were ever wi'itten. Another joint-publication, "Poetry for Children," followed, which also is worthy of its title. Early in 1809, Lamb removed from Mitre- court Buildings to Southampton Buildings, but only for a few months, and preparatory to a settlement (which he meant to be final) in the Temple. The next letter to Manning, (still in China,) of 28th March, 1609, is fiom youthaniptou Buildings. TO MR. MANNING. " Dear Manning, — I sent you a long letter by the ships which sailed tlie beginning of last month, acconii)anied with books, &c. Since I last wrote is dead. So tlierc is one of your friends whom you will never see * Aiiril, 1809. again ! Perhaps the next fleet may bring you a letter from Martin Burney,to say that he writes by de.sire of Miss Lamb, who is not well enough to wnte herself, to inform you that her brother died on Thursday hist, 14th June, &c. But I hope not. I should be sorry to give occasion to open a corres- pondence betwcn Martin and you. This letter must be short, for I have driven it off to the very moment of doing up the packets ; and besides, that which I refer to above is a very long one ; and if you have received my books, you will have enough to do to read them. While I think on it, let me tell you, we are moved. Don't come any more to Mitre-court Buildings. We are at 34, Southampton Buildings, Chancery-lane, and shall be here till about the end of May, then we remove to No. 4, Inner Temple-hme, where I mean to live and die ; for I have such horror of moving, that I would not take a benefice from the King, if I was not indulged with non-i-esidence. What a dis- location of comfort is comprised in that word moving ! Sucli a heap of little nasty things, after you think all is got into the cart : old dredging-boxes, worn-out brushes, gallipots, vials, things that it is impossible the most necessitous person can ever want, but which the women, who preside on these occasions, will not leave behind if it was to save your soul ; they'd keep the cart ten minutes to stow in dii'ty jjipes and broken matches, to show their economy. Then you can find nothing you want for many days after you get into your new lodguigs. You must comb your hair with your fingers, wash your hands without soap, go about in dirty gaiters. Was I Diogenes, I would not move out of a kilderkin into a hogshead, though the fii*st had had nothing but smjill beer in it, and the second reeked claret. Our place of final destination, — I don't mean the grave, but No. 4, Inner Tem]>le-lane, — looks out upon a gloomy churehyard-like court, called Hare- court, with three trees and a pump in it. Do you know it l I was born near it, and used to drink at that ])unjp when I was a Rechabite of six years old. If you see ncws- pajters you will reail about !Mrs. Clarke. The sensation in London about this nonsensical business is marvellous. I remember nothing in my life like it. Thousands of ballads, caricatures, lives of Mrs. Clarke, in every LETTERS TO MANNING. 87 blinil alley. Yet in the midst of this stir, a sublime aVstracted dancing-master, who attends a family we know at Kensington, being asked a question about the progress of the examinations in the House, inquired who Mrs. Clarke was ? He had heard nothing of it. He had evaded this omnipresence by utter insignificancy ! The Duke should make that man his confidential valet. I proposed locking him up, barrmg him the use of his fiddle and red pumps, until he had mim;tely perused and committed to memory, the whole body of the examinations, which employed the House of Commons a fortnight, to teach him to be more attentive to what concerns the public. I think I told you of Godwin's little book, and of Coleridge's pro- spectus, in my last ; if I did not, remind me of it, and I will send you them, or an account of them, next fleet. I have no conveniency of doing it by this. ISIi's. grows every day in disfavour with me. I will be buried with this inscription over me : — ' Here lies C. L., the woman-hater :' I mean that hated one woman : for the rest, God bless them ! How do you like the jMandariuesses ? Are you on some little footing with any of them ? This is Wednesday. On Wednesdays is my levee. The Captain, Mai-tin, Phillips, (not the Sheriff,) Rickman, and some more, are constant attendants, besides stray visitors. We play at whist, eat cold meat and hot potatoes, and any gentleman that chooses smokes. Why do you never drop in ? You'll come some day, won't you ? " C. LAilE, &c." His next is after his removal to the Temple : — TO MR. MAXXIXG. "Jan. 2nd, 1810. " Dear Manning, — When I last wrote you I was in lodgings. I am now in chambers, No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, where I should be happy to see you any evening. Bring any of your friends, the JNIandarins, with you. I have two sitting-rooms : I call them so par excellence, for you ma\' stand, or loll, or lean, or try ai^y posture in them, but they are best for sitting ; not squatting down Japanese fashion, but the more decorous mode which European usage has consecrated. I have two of these rooms on the third lloor, and five sleeping, cooking, &c. rooms, on the fourth floor. In my best room is a choice collection of the works of Hogarth, an English painter, of some humour. In my next best are shelves containing a small, but well- chosen library. My best room commands a court, in which thei-e are trees and a pump, the water of which is excellent cold, with brandy, and not very insipid without. Here I hope to set up my re.^t, and not quit till Mr. Powell, the undertaker, gives me notice that I may have possession of my last lodging. He lets lodgings for single gentlemen. I sent you a parcel of books by my last, to give you some idea of the state of European literature. There comes with this two volumes, done up as letters, of minor poetry, a sequel to ' Mrs. Leicester ;' the best you may suppose mine ; the next best are my coadjutor's ; you may amuse yourself in guessing them ovit ; but I must tell you mine are but one-third in quantity of the whole. So much for a very delicate subject. It is hard to speak of one's self, &c. Holcroft had finished his life when I wi'ote to you, and Hazlitt has since finished his life ; I do not mean his own life, but he has finished a life of Holcroft, which is going to press. Tuthill is Dr. Tuthill. I continue Mr. Lamb. I have published a little book for children on titles of honour : and to give them some idea of the difierence of rank and gradual rising, I have made a little scale, supposing myself to receive the following various accessions of dignity from the king, who is the fountain of honour — As at first, 1, IVfr. C. Lamb ; 2, C. Lamb, Esq. ; 3, Sir C. Lamb, Bart. ; 4, Baron Lamb of Stamford ; * 5, Viscount Lamb ; 6, Earl Lamb ; 7, Marquis Lamb ; 8, Duke Lamb. It would look like quibbling to carry it on further, and especially as it is not necessary for children to go beyond the ordinary titles of sub-regal dignity in our own country, otherwise I have sometimes in my dreams imagined myself still advancing, as 9th, King Lamb ; 10th, Emperor Lamb ; 11th, Pope Innocent, hi^ier than which is nothing. Puns I have not made many, (nor punch much), since the date of my last ; one I cannot htlp relating. A constable in Salisbury Cathedral was telling me that eight people dined at the top of the si)ire of the cathedral, upon which I remarked, • " Where my family caino from. I have chosen that, if ever 1 should have my choice." S8 LETTER TO MONTAGUE. tliat they must be very shai^) set. But in general I cultivate the reasoning part of my mind more than the imaginative. I am stuffed out so witli eating turkey for dinner, and another turkey for supper yesterday (Turkey in Europe and Turkey in Asia), that I can't jog on. It is New-year here. That is, it was New-year half a-year back, when I was "writing this. Nothing puzzles me more than time and space, and yet nothing ])uzzles me less, for I never think about them. Tlie Persian ambassador is the principal thing talked of now. I sent some people to see him woi'ship the sun on Primrose Hill, at half past six in the morning, 28th No- vember ; but he did not come, which makes me think the old fire-worshippers are a sect almost extinct in Persia. The Persian ambassador's name is Shaw Ali Mirza. The common people call him Shaw nonsense. AVliile I think of it, I have put three letters besides my own three into the India post for you, from your brother, sister, and some gen- t leman whose name I forget. Will they, have they, did they come safe ? The distance you are at, cuts up tenses by the root. I think you said you did not know Kate •♦*******, I express her by nine stars, though she is but one. You must have seen her at her father's. Try and remember her. Coleridge is bringing out a paper in weekly numbers, called the ' Friend,' which I would send, if I could ; but the difticidty I had in getting the packets of books out to yo\i before deters me ; and you'll want something new to read when you come homo. Except Kate, I have had no vision of excellence this year, and she passed by like the queen on her coronation day ; you don't know whether you saw her or not. Kate is fifteen : I go about moping, and sing the old pathetic ballad I used to like in my youth — ' She's sweet fifteen, I'm one year more' " Mrs. Bland sung it in boy's clothes the first time I heard it. I sometimes think tlie lower notes in my voice are like Mrs. Bland's. That glorious singer, Braham, one of my lights, is fled. He was for a season. He was a rare composition of the Jew, the gentle- man, and the angel, yet all these elements mixed up so kindly in him, tliat you could net tell which preponderated ; but he is gone, and one Phillips is engaged instead. Elate is vanished, but Miss B is always to be met with ! ' Queens drop away, -while bhie-leirped ^laukin thrives ; And courtly Mildred dies while countrj- Madge survives.' Tliat is not my poetry, but Quarles's ; but haven't you observed that the rarest things are the least obvious ? Don't show anybody the names in this letter. I write confidentially, and wish this letter to be considered as private. Hazlitt has written a grammar for Godwin ; Godwin sella it bound up with a treatise of his own on language, but the^rrey mare is the better horse. I don't allude to Mrs. , but to the word grammar, which comes near to grey mare, if you observe, in soimd. That figure is called paranomasia in Greek. I am sometimes happy in it. An old woman begged of me for charity. * Ah ! sir,' said she, ' I have seen better days ;' ' So have I, good woman,' I replied ; but I meant lite- rally, days not so rainy and overcast as that on which she begged : she meant more prosperous days. Mr. Dawe is made asso- ciate of the Eoyal Academy. By what law of association I can't guess. Mrs. Holcroft, Miss Holcroft, Mr. and Mrs. Godwin, Mr. and ]\Irs. Hazlitt, Mrs. Martin and Louisa, Mrs. Lum, Capt. Burney, Mi-s. Burney, Martin Burney, IMr. Rickman, Mrs. Rickman, Dr. Stoddart, William DoUiu, ISIr. Thompson, Mr. and INIrs. Norris, IMr. Fenwick, Mrs. Fenwick, Miss Fenwick, a man that saw you at our house one day, and a lady that heard me speak of you ; Mrs. Buffam that heard Hazlitt mention 3'ou,Dr.Tuthill,Mrs. Tuthill, Colonel Harwood, ISfrs. Harwood, Air. Collier, Mi-s. Collier, Mr. Sutton, Nurse, Mr. Fell, Mrs. Fell, Mr. Marshall, are very well, and occasionally inquire after you. " I remain youra ever, "Ch. Lamb." In the summer of 1810, Lamb and his sister spent their holidays with Hazlitt, who, having married Miss Stoddart, w;is living in a house belonging to his wife's family at Winterslow, on the border of Salishury Plain. The following letter of 12th July, in this year, w.'is addressed to Mr. Montague, who had urged him to employ a part of his leisure in a compilation. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE "REFLECTOR." 89 TO MR. MONTAGUE. "Sarum, July 12th, 1810. "Dear Montague, — I Lave turned and twisted the MSS. in my head, and can make nothing of them. I knew when I took them that I could not, but I do not like to do an act of ungracious necessity at once ; so I am ever committing myself by half engagements, and total failures. I cannot make anybody understand why I can't do such things ; it is a defect in my occiput. I cannot put other people's thoughts together ; I forget every paragraph as fast as I read it ; and my head has received such a shock by an all- night journey on the top of the coach, that I shall have enough to do to nurse it into its natural pace before I go home. I must devote myself to imbecility ; I must be gloriously useless while I stay here. How is Mrs. M. ? will she pardon my inefficiency ? The city of Salisbury is full of weeping and wailing. The bank has stopped pajTueut ; and everybody in the town kept money at it, or has got some of its notes. Some have lost all they had in the world. It is the next thing to seeing a city with a plague within its walls. The Wilton people are all undone ; all the manufacturers there kept ca.sh at the Salisbury bank ; and I do suppose it to be the unhappiest county in England this, where I am making holiday. "VVe propose setting out for Oxford Tuesday fortnight, and coming thereby home. But no more night travelling. My head is sore (understand it of the inside) with that deduction from my natural rest which I sufl'ered coming down. Neither Mary nor I can spare a morsel of our rest : it is incumbent on us to be misers of it. Travelling is not good for us, we travel so seldom. If the sun be hell, it is not for the fire, biit for the sempiternal motion of that miserable body of light. How much more dignified leisure hath a mussel glued to his unpassable rocky limit, two inch square ! He hears the tide roll over him, backwards and forwards twice a-day (as the Salisbury long coach goes and returns in eight-and-forty hours), but knows better than to take an outside night -place a top on't. He is the owl of the sea — Minerva's fish — the fish of wisdom. " Our kindest remembrances to Mrs. M. " Yours truly, C. Lamb." The following is Lamb's postscript to a letter of Miss Lamb to Miss Wordsworth, after their return to liOndon : "Mary has left a little space for me to fill up with nonsense, as the geographers used to cram monstei's in the voids of the maps, and call it Terra Incognita. She has told you how she has taken to water like a hungry otter. I too limp after her in lame imitation, but it goes against me a little at first. I have been acquaintance with it now for full four days, and it seems a moon. I am full of cramps, and rheumatisms, and cold internally, so that fire won't warm me ; yet I bear all for virtue's sake. Must I then leave you, gin, rum, brandy, aqua-vitae, pleasant jolly fellows ? Hang temperance and he that first invented it ! — some Anti- Noahite. C has powdered his head, and looks like Bacchus, Bacchus ever sleek and young. He is going to turn sober, but his clock has not struck yet ; meantime he pours down goblet after goblet, the second to see wliere the first is gone, the third to see no harm happens to the second, a fourth to say there is another coming, and a fifth to say he is not sure he is the last," In the autumn of this year, the establish- ment of a Quarterly Magazine, entitled the " Eeflector," opened a new sphere for Lamb's powers as a humourist and critic. Its editor, Mr. Leigh Hunt, having been educated in the same school, enjoyed many associations and friendships in common with him, and was thus able to excite in Lamb the greatest motive for exertion in tlie zeal of kindness. In this Magazine appeared some of Lamb's noblest efiusions ; his essay " On Garriek and Acting," which contains the character of Lear, perhaps the noblest criticism ever written, and on the noblest human subject ; his delightful "Essays on Hogarth;" his " Farewell to Tobacco," and several of the choicest of his gayer pieces. The number of the Quarterly Eeview, for December, 1811, contained an attack upon Lamb, which it would be dilHcult, as well as painful, to characterise as it deserves. Mr. Weber, in his edition of "Ford," had extracted Lamb's note on the catastrophe of "The Broken Heart," in which Lamb, 90 TRIUMPH OF THE WHALE. speaking of that which he regarded as the highest exhibition of tragic suffering which human genius had depicted, dared an allusion which was perhaps too boM for those who did not understand the peculiar feeling by which it was suggested, but which no unpre- judiced mind could mistake for the breathing of other tlian a pious spirit. In reviewing Mr. Weber, the critic, who was also the editor of the Review, thus complains of the quotation. — " We have a more serious charge to bring against the editor than the omission of pouats, or the misapprehension of words. He has polluted his pages with the blas- phemies of a poor maniac, who, it seems, once published some detached scenes of tlie ' Broken Heart.' For this unfortunate creature, every feeling mind will find an apology in liis calamitous situation ; but for Mr. Weber, we know not where the warmest of his friends will find palliation or excuse." It would be unjust to attribute this paragraph to the accidental association of Lamb in literary imdertakings with jjei'sons like Ml'. Hunt, strongly opposed to the political opinions of IMi*. Gifford. It seems rather the peculiar expression of the distaste of a small though acute mind for an original power which it could not appreciate, and which disturbed the conventional associations of v/hicli it was master, aggravated by bodily weakness and disease. Kotwithstanding this attack. Lamb was ijrompted by his admiration for Wordsworth's " Excursion " to contribute a review of that work, on its appearance, to the Quai'terly, and he anticipated great pleasure in the poet's approval of his criti- cism ; but when the review api^eared, the article was so mei'cilessly mangled by the editor, that Lamb entreated Wordswoitli not to read it. For these gi'ieviuices Lamb at length took a very gentle revenge in the following SONNET. BAINT CRISPIN TO MR. OIFFORD. All unadvised and in an evil hour, Lured by asitiring tliouglits, my son, you daft The lowly lahours of the " Gentle Craft " l'"or learnc'd toils, which blood and spirits sour. All things, dear pledge, are not in all men's power ; The wiser sort of shrub affects the ground ; And sweet content of mind is oftencr found In cobbler's parlour than in critic's bower. The sorest work is what doth cross the grain ; And better to this hour you had been plying The obsequious awl, with wcU-waxcd Ungcr flying, Than ceaseless thus to till a thankless vein : Still teasing muses, which are still denj-ing ; Making a stretching-leather of your brain. St. Crispin's Ere. Lamb, as we have seen, cared nothing for politics ; yet his desire to serve his friends sometimes induced him to adopt for a short time their view of public alt'airs, and assist them with a harmless pleasantry. The following epigram, on the disappointment of the Whig associates of the llegent appeai'ed in the " Examiner." Ye politicians, tell me, pray. Why thus with woe and care rent I This is the worst that you can say. Some wind has blown the ^yig away And left the llair Apparent. The following, also published in the same paper would probably have only caused a smile if read by the Eegcnt himself, and may now be i-epublished without offence to any one. At the time when he wrote it. Lamb used to stop any pasfeiouate attacks upon the jjrince, with the smiling remark, " J love my Eegcnt." THE TRIUMPH OF THE WlIALi:. lo ! Piran ! lo ! sing. To the finny people's king. Not a mightier whale than this In the vast Atlantic is. Not a fatter fish than he Flounders round the Polar sea. Sec his blubber — at his gills What a world of drink he swills ! From his trunk, as from a s|)out, Which next moment he pours out. Such his person. — Next declare. Muse, who his companions are : — Every iish of generous kind [Scuds aside, or slinks behind ; But about his presence keep All the monsters of the deep; Mcrmai is, with their tails and singing His delighted fancy stinging ; Crooked dolphins, they surround him ; Dog-like seals, they fawn around him ; Following hard, the progress mark Of the intolerant salt sea shark For his solace and relief. Flat-fish are his courtiers chief; Last, and lowest in liis tiain. Ink-fish (libellers of the main) Their black liipior shed in spite : (Such on earth the tliiiii/s that tcrite.) In his stomach, some do say, No gnod tiling can ever stay ; Had it been the fortune of it To have swallow'd that old prophet. Three days there he'd not have dwell'd. But in one have been expcU'd. Haplesu marincis are they, ^\ bo beguiled (as seamen say) Deeming him .-onu' rock or island, Footing sure, safe spot, and dry liwd. I LETTER TO WORDSWORTH, 91 Anchor in his scaly rind — Soon the difference they find ; Sudden, plumb ! he sinks beneath them, Does to ruthless seas bequeath them. Name or title what has he ? Is he Kesjent of the Sea 1 From this difficulty free us, TiufTon, Banks, or sape Linnajus. ■With his wondrous attributes Say what appellation suits ? By his bulk, and by his size, By his oily qualities. This (or else my eyesiirht fails), This should be the Prince of W/ialcs. The devastation of the Parks in the summer of 1814, by reason of the rejoicings on the visit of the Allied Sovereigns, produced the following letter from Lamb to Wordsworth. TO MR. WORDSWORTH. " Auff. 9th, 1814. " Save for a late excnrsion to Harrow, and a day or two on the banks of the Thames this summer, rural images were fast fading from my mind, and by the wise provision of the Regent all that was conntryfied in the parks is all but obliterated. The very colour of green is vanished, the whole surface of Hyde Pai-k is diy crumbling sand (iVrabia Arenosa), not a vestige or hint of grass ever having grown there ; booths and drinking- places go all round it, for a mile and a half I am confident — I might say two miles, in circuit — the stench of liquors, bad tobacco, dirty people and provisions, conquers the air, and we are all stifled and suffocated in Hj^de Park. Order after order has been issued by Lord Sidmouth in the name of the Eegent (acting in behalf of his Eoyal father) for the dispersion of the varlets, but in vain. The vis unita of all the publicans in London, "Westminster, ]\Iarylebone, and miles round, is too powerful a force to put down. The Eegent has raised a phantom which he cannot lay. There they'll stay probably for ever. The whole beauty of the place is gone — that lake-look of the Serpentine — it has got foolish ships upon it — but something whispers to have confidence in nature and its revival — i At the coming of the milder day. These monuments shall all be overgrown. Meantime I confess to have smoked one delicious pipe in one of the cleanliest and goodliest of the booths ; a tent rather — ' Oh call it not a booth ! ' erected by the public spirit of Watson, who keeps the Adam and Eve at Pancras, (the ale-houses have all emigrated, with their train of bottles, mugs, cork-screws, waiters, into Hyde Park — whole ale-houses, with all their ale !) in company with some of the Guards that had been in France, and a fine French girl, habited like a princess of ban- ditti, which one of the dogs had transported from the Garonne to the Serpentine. The unusual scene in Hyde Park, by candle- light, in open air, — good tobacco, bottled stout, — made it look like an interval in a campaig-n, a repose after battle. I almost fancied scars smarting, and was ready to club a story with my comrades, of some of my lying deeds. After all, the fireworks were splendid ; the rockets in clusters, in trees and all shapes, spreading about like young stai's in the making, floundering about in space (like unbroke horses,) till some of Newton's calculations should fix them ; but then they went out. Any one who could see 'em, and the still finer showers of gloomy rain-fire that fell sulkily and angrily from 'ejQ, and could go to bed without dreaming of the last day, must be as hardened an atheist as . " Again let me thank you for your present, and assure you that fireworks and triumphs have not distracted me from receiving a calm and noble enjoyment from it, (which I trust I shall often,) and I sincerely congratulate you on its appearance. " With kindest remembrances to you and household, we remain, yours sincerely, " C. Lamb and Sister." The following are fragments of letters to Coleridge in the same month. The first is in answer to a solicitation of Coleridge for a supply of German books. TO MR. COLERIDGE. " 13th Augr. 1814. " Dear Eesuscitate, — There comes to you by the vehicle from Lad-lane this day a volume of German ; what it is I cannot justly say, the characters of those northern nations having been always singularly harsh and unpleasant to me. It is a contribution of Dr. towards your wants, and you would have had it sooner but for an odd accident. I wrote for it three days ago, and 92 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. the Doctor, as he thought, sent it me. A , book of like exterior he did send, but being disclosed, how far unlike ! It was the ' Well- bred Scholar,' — a book with which it seems | the Doctor laudably fills up those houi-s j which he can steal from his medical avoca- tiou.«. Chesterfield, Blair, Beattie, portions from ' The Life of Savage,' make up a prettvish system of morality and the belles- ! lettrcs, which IMr. Mylne, a schoolmaster, 1 has properly brought together, and calls the j collection by the denomination above men- ' tioned. The Doctor had no sooner discovered ; his en-or, than he dispatched man and horse , to rectify the mistake, and with a pretty kind of ingenuous modesty in his note, seemeth to deny any knowledge of the ' Well-bred Scholar ; ' false modesty surely, and a blush misplaced ; for, what more pleasing than the consideration of profes- sional austerity thus relaxing, thus im- proving ! But so, when a child I remember blushing, being caught on my knees to my Maker, or doing otherwise some pious and praiseworthy action ; noiv I rather love such things to be seen. Henry Crabb Robinson is out upon his circuit, and his books are inaccessible without his leave and key. He is attending the Norfolk Circuit, — a short term, but to him, as to many young laAvyers, a long vacation, sufficiently dreary.* I thought I could do no better than transmit to him, not extracts, but your very letter itself, than which I think I never read any thing more moving, more pathetic, or more conducive to the jjurpose of persuasion. The Crab is a sour Crab if it does not sweeten him. I think it would draw another third volume of Dodsley out of me ; but you say you don't want any English books 1 Per- liaps after all, that's as well ; one's romantic credulity is for ever misleading one into misplaced acts of foolery. Crab might have answered by this time : his juices take a long time supplying, but theyU run at last, —I know tiioy will, — pure golden pippin. A fearful rumour has since reached me that the Crab is on tiie eve of setting out for France. If he is in England your letter will reach him, and I flatter myself a touch of • A mistake of Lamb's at which the excellent person referred to may »mile, now that he has retired fronj his prufchbiun, anil has nu bubinc>le's shelves, as in some Bodkian ; there they shall remain ; no need of a chain to hold them fast — perhaps for ages — tall copies— ;uid people shan't run about hunting for LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 93 them as in oltl Ezra's slirievalty they did for n, Bible, almost without effect till the great- great-f,Tan(l-niece (by the mother's side) of Jeremiah or Ezekiel (which was it ?) re- membered something of a book, with odd reading in it, that used to lie in the green closet in her aunt Judith's bedchamber. "Thy caterer, Price, was at Hamburgh when last Poplo heard of him, laying up for thee like some miserly old father for his generous hearted son to squander. "Mr. Charles Aders, whose books also pant for that free circulation which thy cus- tody is sure to give them, is to be heard of at his kinsmen, Messrs. Jameson and Aders, No. 7, Laurence Pountney-lane, London, according to the information which Crabius with his parting breath left me. Crabius is gone to Paris. I prophesy he and the Parisians will part with mutual contempt. His head has a twist Allemagne, like thine, dear mystic. " I have been reading Madame Stael on Germany. An impudent clever woman. But if ' Faust ' be no better than in her abstract of it, I counsel thee to let it alone. How canst thou translate the language of cat-monkeys ? Fie on such fantasies ! But I will not forget to look for Proclus. It is a kind of book Avhen one meets with it one ' shuts the lid fivster than one opened it. Yet I have some bastard kind of recollection that some where, some time ago, upon some stall or other, I saw it. It was either that or Plotinus, or Saint Augustine's ' City of God.' So little do some folks value, what to others, sc. to you, ' well used,' had been the ' Pledge of Immortality.' Bishop Bruno I never touched upon. Stuffing too good for the brains of such ' a He3, musca- dines, I impart as freely unto my friends as to myself. They are but self-extended ; but pardon me if I stop somewhere — where the fine feeling of benevolence giveth a higher smack than the sensual rarity, there my friends (or any good man) may command me ; but pigs are pigs, and I myself therein am nearest to myself. Nay, I should think it an affront, an undervaluing done to Nature who bestowed such a boon upon me, if in a churUsh mood I parted with the precious gift. One of the bitterest pangs I ever felt of remorse was when a child — my kind old aunt had strained her pocket-strings to bestow a sixpenny whole plum-cake upon me. In my way home through the Borough, I met a venerable old man, not a mendicant, — but thereabouts ; a look-beggar, not a verbal petitionist ; and in the coxcombry of taught-charity, I gave away the cake to him. I walked on a little in all the pride of an Evangelical peacock, when of a sudden my old aimt's kindness crossed me ; the sum it was to her ; the pleasure she had a right to expect that I — not the old impostor — shoidd take in eating her cake ; the cursed ingrati- tude by which, under the colour of a Chris- tian virtue, I had frustrated her cherished purpose. I sobbed, wept, and took it to heart so grievously, that I think I never suffered the like — and I was light. It was a piece of unfeeling hypocrisy, and proved a lesson to me ever after. The cake has long been masticated, consigned to dunghill with the ashes of that unseasonable pauper. " But when Providence, who is better to us all than our aunts, gives me a pig, remembering my temptation and my fall, I shall endeavour to act towards it more in the spirit of the donor's purpose. " Yours (short of pig) to command in everything. C. L." In the sunmier of 1822 Lamb and his sister visited Paris. The following is a hasty letter addressed to Field on his retui'u. ro MR. BARRON FIELD. " My dear F., — I scribble hastily at office. Frank wants my letter presently. 1 ami sister are just returned from Paris!! We have eaten frogs. It has been such a treat ! You know our monotonous tenor. Frogs are the nicest little delicate things — rabbity- flavoured. Imagine a Lilliputian rabbit ! They fricassee them ; but in my mind, drest, LETTERS TO BARTON. 113 seethed, plain, with parsley and butter, would have been the decision of Apicius. Paris i3 a glorious picturesque old city. London looks mean and new to it, as the town of Washington would, seen after it. But they have no St. Paul's, or Westminster Abbey. Tlie Seine, so much despised by Cockneys, is exactly the size to run through a magnificent street ; jialaces a mile long on one side, lofty Edinbro' stone (O the glorious antiques !) houses on the other. The Thames disunites London and Southwark. I had Talma to supper with me. He has picked up, as I believe, an authentic portrait of Shakspeare. He paid a broker about 40^. English for it. It is painted on the one half of a pair of bellows — a lovely picture, corresponding with the folio head. Tlie bellows has old carved wings I'ound it, and round the visnomy is inscribed, as near as I remember, not divided into rhjme — I found out the rhyme — Whom have -we here Stuck on this bellows, But the Prince of good fellows, Willy Shakspeare X At top — O base and coward luck ! To be here stuck. — Poins. At bottom — Nay I rather a glorious lot is to him assign'd. Who, like the Almighty, rides upon the wind. Pistol. " This is all in old carved wooden lettera. The countenance smiling, sweet, and intel- lectual beyond measure, even as he was immeasurable. It may l)e a forgery. They laugh at me and tell me, Ireland is in Paris, and has been putting oif a portrait of the Black Prince. How far old wood may be imitated I cannot say. Ireland was not found out by his parchments, but by his poetry. I am confident no painter on either side the Channel could have painted any thing near like the face I saw. Again, would such a painter and forger have taken 40^. for a thing, if authentic, worth 4000^. 1 Talma is not in the secret, for he had not even found out the i-hymes in the first inscription. He 'is coming over with it, and, my life to Southey's Thalaba, it will gain univei-sal faith. "The letter is wanted, and I am wanted. Imagine the blank filled up with all kind things. " Our joint hearty remembrances to both of you. Yours, as ever, C. Lamb." Soon after Lamb's return from Paris he became acquainted with the poet of the Quakers, Bernard Barton, who, like himself, was engaged in the drudgery of figures. The pure and gentle tone of the poems of his new acquaintance was welcome to Lamb, who liad more sympathy with the truth of nature in modest guise than in the aflfected fux-y of Lord Byron, or the dreamy extravagancies of Shelley. Lamb had written in " Elia " of the Society of Friends with the freedom of one, who, with great respect for the ijrhiciples of the founders of their faith, had little in common with a sect who shunned the pleasures while they mingled in the business of the world ; and a friendly expostulation on the part of Mr. Barton led to such cordial excuses as completely won the heart of tlie Quaker bax'd. Some expression which Lamb let fall at their meeting in Lontlon, from which Mr. Barton had supposed that Lamb objected to a Quaker's writing poetry as inconsistent with his creed, induced Mr. Barton to write to Lamb on his return to Woodbridge, who replied as follows ; — TO BERXARD BARTON. " India House, 11th Sept. 1822, " Dear Sir, — You have misappi-ehended me sadly, if you suppose that I meant to impute any inconsistency in your wi'iting poetry with your religious profession. I do not remember what I said, but it was spoken sportively, I am sure — one of my levities, whicli you are not so used to as iny older friends. I probably was thinking of the light in which your so indulging youi-self would apjjcar to Quakers, and put their objection in my own foolish mouth. I would eat my words (provided they should be written on not very coarse jxxper) rather than I would throw cold water upon your, and my ouce, harmless occupation. " I have read Napoleon and the rest with delight. I like them for what they are, and for what they are not. I have sickened on the modern rhodomontade and Byronism, and your plain Quakerish beauty has capti- vated me. It is all wholesome cates, ay, and toothsome too, and withal Quakerish. If I I were George Fox, iind George Fox licenser 114 LETTERS TO BARTON. of the press, they should have my absolute imprimatur. I hope I have removed the impression. " I am, like you, a pi-isoner to the desk. I have been chained to that galley thirty years, a long shot. I have almost grown to the wood. If no imaginative poet, I am sure I am a figurative one. Do 'Friends' allow puns ? verbal equivocations ? — they are un- justly accused of it, and I did my little best in the ' Imperfect Sympathies ' to vindicate them. I am very tired of clerking it, but have no remedy. Did you see a Sonnet to this purpose in the Examiner ? — ' Who first invented -work, and bound the free And holy-day rejoicing spirit down To the ever-haunting importunity Of business, in the green fields and the town. To plough, loom, anvil, spade ; and oh, most sad. To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood ? \C\\a but the being unblest, alien from good, Sabbathless S.itan 1 he who his unglad Task ever plies, 'mid rotatory burnings, That round and round incalculably reel ; For wrath Divine hath made him Uke a wheel In that red realm from which are no returnings ; Where, toiling and ttirmoiling, ever and aye. He and his thoughts keep pensive working-day.' " I fancy the sentiment exprest above will be nearly your own. The expression of it probably would not so well suit with a follower of John Woolman. But I do not know whether diabolism is a part of your creed, or where, indeed, to find an exposition of your creed at all. In feelings and mattei-s not dogmatical, I hope I am half a Quaker. Believe me, with great respect, yours, " C. Lamb." " I shall always be happy to see or hear from you." Encouraged by Lamb's kindness, Mr. Barton continued the correspondence, which became the most frequent in whicli Lamb had engaged for many years. The following letter is in acknowledgment of a publication of Mr. Barton's chiefly directed to oppose the theories and tastes of Lord Byron and his friends : — TO BERNARD BARTON. "Kast-India House, 9th Oct. 1S22. " Dear Sir, — I am a.shamed not sooner to have acknowledged your letter and jioem. I think the latter veiy temperate, very serious, and very seasonable. I do not think it will convert the club at Pisa, neither do I think it will satisfy the bigots on our side the water. Something like a parody oil the song of Ariel would please them better : — ' Full fathom five the Atheist lies, Of his bones are hell-dice made.' " I want time, or fancy, to fill up the rest. I sincerely sympathise with you on your doleful confinement. Of time, health, and riches, the first in order is not la.st in excel- lence. Eiches are chiefly good, because they give us Time. "What a weight of wearisome prison hours have I to look back and forward to, as quite cut out of life ! and the sting of the thing is, that for six hours evei-y day I have no business which I could not conti-act into two, if they would let me work task- work. I shall be glad to hear that your grievance is mitigated. " I am returning a poor letter. I was formerly a great scribbler in that way, but my hand is out of order. If I said my head too, I should not be very much out, but I will tell no tales of myself; I will therefore end (after my best thanks, with a hope to see you again some time in London), begging you to accept this letteret for a letter — a leveret makes a better present than a gro^s-n hare, and short troubles (as the old excuse goes) are best. " I remain, dear sir, yours truly, " C. Lamb." The next letter will speak for itself. TO BERNARD BARTON. "Die. 23rd, 1822. " Dear Sir, — I have been so distracted with business and one thing or other, I have not had a quiet quarter of an hour for epistolary purposes. Christmas, too, is come, which always puts a rattle into my morning skull. It is a visiting, unquiet, unquakerish season. I get more and more in love with solitude, and proportionately hampered with company. I hope you have some holidays at this period. I have one day — Christmas-day ; alas ! t<)0 few to commemorate the season. All work and no l)lay dulls me. Compjiny is not play, but many times hiird work. To play, is for a man to do what he pleases, or to do nothing — to go about soothing his particular fancies. I have lived to a time of life to have outlived the good houi-s, the nine o'clock suppers, with a bright hour or two to clear up in aftor- LETTER TO WILSON. 115 wards. Now you cannot get tea before that hour, and then sit gaping, music-bothered perhaps, till half-past twelve brings up the tray ; and what you steal of convivial enjoy- ment after, is heavily paid for in the disquiet of to-morrow's head. " I am pleased with your liking ' John Woodvil,' and amused with your knowledge of our drama being confined to Shakspeare and Miss Baillie. "What a woi-ld of fine ter- ritory between Land's End and Johnny Groat's have you missed traversing ! I could almost envy you to have so much to read. I feel as if I had read all the books I want to read. Oh to forget Fielding, Steele, &c., and read 'em new ! " Can you tell me a likely place where I could pick up, cheap, Fox's Journal ? There are no Quaker circulating libraries ? El wood, too, I must have. I rather gi'udge that S y has taken up the history of your people : I am afraid he will put in some levity. I am afi'aid I am not quite exempt from that fault in certain magazine articles, where I have introduced mention of them. Were they to do again, I would reform them. Why should not you write a poetical account of your old worthies, deducing them from Fox to Woolman ? but I remember you did talk of something of that kind, as a counter- part to the ' Ecclesiastical Sketches.' But would not a poem be more consecutive than a string of sonnets ? You have no martyrs quite to the fire, I think, among you ; but plenty of heroic confessors, spirit-martyi-s, lamb-lions. Think of it ; it would be better than a series of sonnets on ' Eminent Bankers.' I like a hit at our way of life, though it does well for me, better than anything short of all one's time to one's self ; for which alone I rankle with envy at the rich. Books are good, and pictures ai-e good, and money to buy them therefore good, but to buy tirae ! in other words, life ! " The ' compliments of the time ' to you, should end my letter ; to a Friend, I suppose, I must say the 'sincerity of the season ; ' I hope they both mean the same. With excuses for this hastily-penned note, believe me, with great respect, C. Lamb." In this winter Mr. Walter Wilson, one of the friends of Lamb's youth, applied to him for information respecting De Foe, whose life he was about to write. The renewal of the acquaintance was very pleasant to Lamb ; who many years before used to take daily walks with Wilson, and to call him "brother." The following is Lamb's rej^ly : — TO MR. WALTER WILSON. "E. I. II., IGth December, 1822. "Dear Wilson, — Lightning, I was going to call you. You must have thought me negli- gent in not answering your letter sooner. But I have a habit of never writing letters but at the office ; 'tis so much time cribbed out of the Company ; and I am but just got out of the thick of a tea-sale, in which most of the entry of notes, deposits, &c., usually falls to my share. " I have nothing of De Foe's but two or three novels, and the 'Plague History.' I can give you no information about him. As a slight general character of what I remem- ber of them (for I have not looked into tliem latterly), I would say that in the appearance oi truth, in all the incidents and conversations that occur in them, they exceed any works of fiction I am acquainted with. It is perfect illusion. The author never appeai-s in these self-narratives (for so they ought to be called, or rather auto-biographies), but the narrator chains us down to an implicit belief in everything he says. There is all the minute detail of a log-book in it. Dates are painfully pressed upon the memory. Facts are repeated over and over in varying phrases, till you cannot choose but believe them. It is like reading evidence given in a court of justice. So anxious the story-teller seems that the truth should be clearly com- prehended, that when he has told us a matter-of-fact, or a motive, in a line or two farther down he repeats it, with his favourite figure of speech, ' I sa}',' so and so, though he had made it abundantly plain before. Tliis is in imitation of the common people's way of speaking, or rather of the way in which they are addressed by a master or mistress, whj wishes to impress something upon their memories, and has a won lerful etftjct upon matter-of-fact readers. Indeed, it is to such principally that he writes. His style is everywhere beautiful, but yJain and homely Robinson Crusoe is delightful to all ranks and classes, but it is easy to see that it is written in phr;iseology peculiarly adapted to I 2 116 LETTERS TO BARTON. the lower conditions of readers ; heuce it is an especial favourite with seafaring men, poor boys, servant-maids, &c. His novels are capital kitchen-reading, while they are ■worthy, from their deep interest, to find a shelf in the libraries of the wealthiest, and the most learned. His passion for matter-of- fact narrative sometimes betrayed him into a long relation of common incidents, which might hapjDen to any man, and have no mterest but the intense appearance of tnith in them, to recommend them. The whole latter half or two-thirds of ' Colonel Jack ' is of this description. The beginning of ' Colonel Jack ' is the most affecting natural picti;re of a young thief that was ever drawn. His losing the stolen money in the hollow of a tree, and finding it again when he was in despair, and then being in equal distress at not knowing how to dispose of it, and several similar touches in the early history of the Colonel, evince a deep knowledge of human nature ; and putting out of question the superior romantic interest of the latter, in my mind very . much exceed Crusoe. ' Roxana ' (first edition) is the next in inter- est, though he left out the best pai-t of it in subsequent editions from a foolish hyper- criticism of his friend Southerne. But ' Moll Flanders,' the ' Account of the Plague,' &c., are all of one family, and have the same stamp of character. Believe me, with friendly recollections, Brother (as I used to call you), " Yours, C. Lamr." How bitterly Lamb felt his East-India bondage, has abundantly appeared from his letters during many years. Yet there never was wanting a secret consciousness of the benefits which it ensured for him, the pre- cious independence which he won by his hours of toil, and the freedom of his mind, to work only "at its own sweet will," which his confinement to the desk obtaiiwjd. This sense of the blessings which a fixed income, derived from ascertained duties, confers, was nobly expressed in reference to a casual fancy in one of the letters of his fellow in clerkly as well as in poetical labours, Bernard Barton — a fancy as alien to the habitual thoughts of his friend, aa to his own — for no one has pursued a steadier course on the weary way of duty than the poet whose brief di'eam of literary engrossment incited Lamb to make a generous amends to his ledger for all his unjust reproaches.- The refei-cnces to the booksellers have the colouring of fantas- tical exaggeration, by which he delighted to give effect to the immediate feeling ; but making allowance for this mere play of fancy, how just is the following advice — how wholesome for every youth who hesitates whether he shaU abandon the certain reward of plodding industry for the splendid miseries of authorship ! * • It is singular that, some years before, Mr. Barton had received similar advice from a very different poet — Lord Byron. Aa the letter has never been published, and it may be interesting to compare the expressions of two men so different on the same subject, I subjoin it here : — "TO BERNARD BARTON, ESQ. " St. James' Street, June 1, 1812. " Sir, — The most satisfactory answer to the concluding part of j-our letter is, that Mr. Murray ■will republish your volume, if you still rehiin j-our inclination for the experiment, ■which I trust -will be successful. Some •weeks ago my friend Mr. Rogers showed me some of the stanzas in MS., and I then expressed my opinion of their merit, which a further perusal of the printed volume has given me no reason to revoke. I mention this, as it may not be disagreeable to you to learn, that I enter- tained a very favourable opinion of your powers before I was awaie that such sentiments were reciprocal. Waving your obliging expressions as to my own produc- tions, for wliich I thank you very sincerely, and assure you that I think not lightly of the praise of one ■whose apjirobation is valuable ; will you allow me to talk to you candidly, not critically, on the subject of yours ? You will not suspect me of a wish to discourage, since I pointed out to the publisher the propriety of complying with your wishes. I think more highly of your poetical talents than it would perhaps gratify you to hear ex- pressed, for I believe, from what I observe of your mind, that you arc above flattery. To come to the point, you deserve success ; but ■we knew before Addison wrote his Cato, that desert dues not always command it. But suppose it attained, ' You know what ills the aiithor's life assail, Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.' Do not renounce writing, hut never trust entirely to authorship. If you have a profession, retain it ; it will be like Prior's fellowship, a last and sure resource. Compare Mr. Rogers willi other authors of the day ; assuredly he is among the (irst of living poets, but is it to that he owes his station in society, .and his intim.icy in the best circles ? — no, it is to his prudence and respect- ability. The world (a bad one, 1 own) courts him be- cause he has no occasion to court it. He is a poet, nor is he less so because he is something more. I am not sorry to heir that you were not tempted by the vicinity of Capel I.ofTt, Esq., — though, if he had done lor you what he has for the Bloomfiolds, I should never have laughed at his rage for i)atronising. But a truly well- constituted mind will ever be independent. That you may be so is my sincere ■wish ; and if others think as well of your poetry as I do, you will have no cause to complain of your readers. Believe me, " Your obliged and obedient servant, " liviiov." i LETTERS TO BARTON, 117 TO BERNARD BARTON. "January 9th, 1823, " ' Throw yourself on the world without any rational plan of support, beyond what the chance employ of booksellers would afford you ! ! ! ' " Throw yourself rather, my dear sir, from the steep Tarpeian rock, slap-dash headlong upon iron spikes. If you had but five con- solatory minutes between the desk and the bed, make much of them, and live a century in them, rather than turn slave to the book- sellers. They are Turks and Tartars, when they have poor authors at their beck. Hitherto you have been at arm's length from tliem. Come not within their grasp. I have known many authors want for bread, some repining, otliers envjang the blessed security of a counting-house, all agreeing they had rather have been tailors, weavers — what not ? rather than the things they were. I have knoM'n some starved, some to go mad, one dear friend literally dying in a workhouse. You know not what a rapacious, dishonest set these booksellers are. Ask even Southey, who (a single case almost) has made a fortune by book-drudgeiy, what he has found them. Oh, you know not, may you never know ! the miseries of subsisting by authorship. 'Tis a i^retty appendage to a situation like yours or mine ; but a slavery, worse than all slavery, to be a bookseller's dejiendant, to drudge your brains for pots of ale, and breasts of mutton, to change your free thoughts and voluntary numbers for ungracious task- work. Those fellows hate us. The reason I take to be, that contrary to other trades, in which the master gets all the credit, (a jeweller or silversmith for instance,) and the journey- man, who really does the fine work, is in the back-ground : in our work the world gives all the credit to us, whom they consider as their jom-neymen, and therefore do they hate us, and cheat us, and oppress us, and would wring the blood of us out, to put another sixpence in their mechanic pouches ! I con- tend that a bookseller has a relative honesty towards authors, not like his honesty to the rest of the world. " Keep to your bank, and the bank will keep you. Trust not to the public ; you may hang, starve, drown yourself, for any- thing that worthy personage cares. I bless every star, that Providence, not seeing good to make me independent, has seen it next good to settle me upon the stable foundation j of Leadenhall. Sit down, good B. B., in the j banking-office ; what ! is there not from six I to eleven p.m. six days in the week, and is [ there not all Sunday ? Fie, what a super- fluity of man's-time, if you could think so ! Enough for relaxation, mirth, converse, poetry, good thoughts, quiet thoughts. Oh the cozToding, torturing, tormenting thoughts, that disturb the brain of the unlucky wight, who must draw upon it for daily sustenance ! Henceforth I retract all my fond complaints of mercantile employment ; look upon them as lovers' quarrels. I was but half in earnest. "Welcome dead timber of a desk, that makes me live. A little grumbling is a wholesome medicine for the spleen, but in my inner heart do I apjjrove and embrace this our close, but unharassing way of life. I am quite serious. If you can send me Fox, I will not keep it six weeks, and will return it, with warm thanks to yourself and friend, without blot or dog's-ear. You will much oblige me by this kindness. " Yours truly, C. Lamb." Lamb thus communicated to Mr. Barton his prosecution of his researches into Primi- tive Quakerism, TO BERNARD BARTON. "February irth, 1S23. " My dear Sir, — I have read quite through the ponderous folio of George Fox. I think SeweU has been judicious in omitting certain parts, as for instance where G. F. has revealed to him the natures of all the creatures in their names, as Adam had. He luckily turns aside from that compendious study of natucal history, which might have superseded Buffon, to his proper spiritual pui*suit3, only just hinting what a philosopher he might have been. The ominous passage is near the beginning of the book. It is clear he means a physical knowledge, without trope or figui'e. Also, pretences to miraculous healing, and the like, are more frequent than I should have suspected from the epitome in SeweU, He is nevei-theless a great sph-itual man, and I feel very much obliged by your procuring me the loan of it. How I like the Quaker plu-ases, though I think they were hardly 118 LETTERS TO BARTON. completed till Woolman. A pretty little manual of Quaker language (v/ith an endea- vour to explain them) might be gathered out of his book. Could not you do it ? I have read through G. F. without finding any explanation of the term first volume in the title-page. It takes in all, botli his life and his death. Are there more last words of him ? Pray how may I return it to Mr. Shewell at Ipswich ? I fear to send such a treasure by a stage-coach ; not that I am afraid of the coachman or the guard reading it ; but it might be lost. Can you put me in a way of sending it in safety ? The kind- hearted owner trusted it to me for six months ; I think I was about as many days in getting through it, and I do not think that I ckipt a word of it. I have quoted G. F. in my ' Quakers' ISIeeting,' as having said he was ' lifted up in spirit,' (which I felt at the time to be not a Quaker phi-a-se.) ' and the judge and jury were as dead men under his feet.' I find no such words in his journal, and I did not get them from Sewell, and the latter sentence I am sure I did not mean to invent : I must have put some other Quaker's words into his mouth. Is it a fatality in me, that everything I touch turns into ' a lie ? ' I once quoted two lines from a translation of Dante, which Hazlitt very gi'eatly admired, and quoted in a book as proof of the stupend- ous power of that poet, but no such lines are to be found in the ti-auslation, which has been searched for the purpose. I must have dreamed them, for I am quite certain I did not forge them knowingly. What a mis- fortune to have a lying memory ! Your description of Mr. Mitford's jilace makes me long for a pippin and some caraways, and a cup of sack in his orchard, when the sweets of the night come in. " Farewell. " C. Lamb." In the beginning of the year 1823, the *' Essays of Elia," collected in a volume, were published by Messrs. Taylor and Hessey, who had become tlie proprietors of the " London Magazine." The book met with a rapid sale, while the magazine in which its contents had apjieared, declined. The anecdote of the three Quakera gravely walking out of the inn where tliey had taken tea on the road, on an extortionate demand, one Jitter the other, without paying anything,* had excited some gentle remonstrance on the part of Barton's sister, to which Lamb thus replied. TO BERNARD BARTON. "March Hth, 1823. " Dear Sir, — The approbation of my little book by your sister is very pleasing to me. The Quaker incident did not happen to me, but to Carlisle the surgeon, from whose mouth I have twice heard it, at an interval of ten or twelve years, with little or no variation, and have given it as exactly as I could remember it. The gloss which your sister or you have put upon it, does not strike me as correct. Carlisle drew no inference from it against the honesty of the Quakers, but only in favour of their surpassing coolness ; that they should be capable of committing a good joke, with an utter insensibility to its being any jest at all. I have reason to believe in the truth of it, because, as I have said, I heard him repeat it without variation at such an interval. The story loses sadly in print, for Carlisle is the best story-teller I evir heard. The idea of the discovery of roasting pigs I also borrowed, from my friend Manning, and am willing to confess both my plagiarisms. Should fate ever so order it that you shall ever be in town with your sister, mine bids me say, that she shall have great pleasure in being intro- duced to her. Your endeavour at explaining Fox's insight into the natures of animals must fail, as I shall transcribe the passage. It appears to me that he stopt short in time, and was on the brink of falling with his friend Naylor, my favourite. The book shall be forthcoming whenever your fi"ieud can make convenient to call for it. " They have dragged me again into tlie Magazine, but I feel the spirit of the thing in my own mind quite gone. ' Some brains ' (I think Ben Jonson says it) ' will endure but one skimming.' We are about to have an inundation of poetiy from the Lakes — ■ Wordsworth and Southey are coming up strong from the north. How did you like Hartley's sonnets ? The first, at least, ia vastly fine. I am ashamed of the shabby letters I .send, but I am by nature anything but neat. Therein my mother bore mo no Quaker. 1 never could seal a letter without " .Sec " Innirilrcl Sympathies." — KHMiys of Elia, p. 74. dropping the wax on one side, besides scalding my fingers. I never had a seal, too, of my own. Writing to a great man lately, who is moreover very heraldic, I borrowed a seal of a friend, who by the female side quarters the Protectoral arms of Cromwell. How they must have puzzled my correspondent ! My letters are generally charged as double at the Post-office, from their inveterate clumsiness of foldure ; so you must not take it disre- spectful to yourself, if I send you such un- gainly scraps. I think I lose 100^. a-year at the India House, owing solely to my want of neatness in making up accounts. How I puzzle 'em out at last is the wonder. I have to do with millions ! ! " It is time to have done my incoherences. " Believe me, yours truly, " C. Lamb." Lamb thus records a meeting with the poets. TO BERNARD BARTON. "April 5th, 1823. " Dear Sir,-Trl wished for you yesterday. I dined in Parnassus, with Wordsworth, Coleridge, Rogers, and Tom Moore, — ^half the poetry of England constellated and clustered in Gloucester Place ! It was a delightful evening ! Coleridge was in his finest vein of talk — ^had all the talk ; and let 'em talk as evilly as they do of the envy of poets, I am sure not one there but was content to be nothing but a listener. The Muses were dumb, while Apollo lectured, on his and their fine art. It is a lie that poets are envious ; I have known the best of them, and can speak to it, that they give each other their merits, and are the kindest critics as well as best authors. I am scribbling a muddy epistle with an aching head, for we did not quaff Hippocrene last night ; many, it w as hippocrass rather. Pray accept tliis ; s a letter in the mean time, C. L." Here is an apology for a letter, referring to a seal used on the letter to which this is an answer — the device was a pelican feeding her young from her own breast. . TO BERNARD BARTON. " May 3rd, 1823. " Dear Sir, — I am vexed to be two letters in your debt, but I have been quite out of the vein lately. A philosophical treatise is wanting, of the causes of the backwardness with which persons after a certain time of life set about writing a letter. I always feel as if I had nothing to say, and the iierform- ance generally justifies the presentiment. " I do not exactly see why the goose and little goslings should emblematise a Quaker poet that has no children. But after all perhaps it is a pelican. The ' Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsiu' around it I cannot deci- pher. The songster of the night pouring out her effusions amid a silent meeting of madge-owlets, would be at least intelligible. A full pause here comes upon me as if I had not a word more left. I will shake my brain, Once ! Twice ! — nothing comes up. George Fox recommends waiting on these occasions. I wait. Nothing comes. G. Fox — that sets me off again. I have finished the ' Journal,' and 400 more pages of the ' Doctrinals,' which I picked up for 7s. 6d. If I get on at this rate, the society will be in danger of having two Quaker poets — to patronise. " Believe me cordially yours, « C. Lamb." The following letter was addressed to Mr. Procter, in acknowledgment of a minia- ture of Pope which he had presented to Lamb. TO MR. PROCTER. "April 13th, 1823. " Dear Lad, — You must think me a brute beast, a rhinoceros, never to have acknow- ledged the receipt of your precious present. But indeed I am none of those shocking things, but have arrived at that indisposition to letter- writing, which would make it a hard exertion to write three lines to a king to spare a friend's life. Whether it is that the Magazine paying me so niucli a page, I am loath to throw away composition — how much a sheet do you give your correspondents ? I have hung up Pope, and a gem it is, in my town room; I hope foryour approval. Though it accompanies the * Essay on Man,' I think that was not the poem he is here meditating. He would have looked up, somehow affectedly, if he were just conceiving ' Awake, my St. John.' Neither is he in the ' Rape of the Lock ' mood exactly. I tliink he has just 120 LAMB'S CONTROVEllSY WITH SOUTHEY. made out the last lines of the 'Epistle to Jervis,' between gay and tender, ' And other beauties envj* Worsley's eyes.' " I '11 be hanged if that isn't the line. He is brooding over it, with a dreamy phantom of Lady Mary floating before him. He is thinking which is the eai-liest possible day and hour that she will first see it. What a miniature piece of gentility it is ! Why did you give it me ? I do not like 'you enough to give you anything so good. " I have diued with T. Moore and break- fasted with Eogers, since I saw you ; have much to say about them when we meet, which I trust will be in a week or two. I have been over- watched and over-poeted shice Wordsworth has been in town. I was obliged for health sake to wish him gone, but now he is gone I feel a great loss. I am going to Dalston to recruit, and have serious thoughts of — altering my condition, that is, of taking to sobriety. What do you advise me? "Eogers spake very kindly of you, as every body does, and none with so much reason as your C. L." CHAPTER XIII. [1823.] lamb's controversy with SOUTHEY. In the year 1823, Lamb appeared, for the first and only time of his life before the public, as an assailant : and the object of his attack was one of his oldest and fastest friends, Mr. Southey. It might, indeed, have been predicted of Lamb, that if ever he did enter the arena of personal controversy, it would be with one who had obtained a place in his affection ; for no motive less powerful enlisted on behalf of Hazlitt and Hunt, who had been attacked in this work in a manner which he regarded as unfair ; for the critics had not been content with descanting on the peculiarities in the style and taste of the one, or reprobating the political or personal vehemence of the other, — which were fair subjects of controversy, — but spoke of them witli a contemjjt which every man of lettei-s had a right to resent, as unjust. He had been much annoyed by an allusion to himself in an article on " Hazlitt's PoUtical Essays," which appeared in the Review for November, 1819, as " one whom we should wish to see in more respectable company ;" for he felt a compliment paid him at the expense of a friend, as a grievance far beyond any direct attack on himself. He was also exceedingly hurt by a reference made in an article on Dr. Reid's woi-k " On Nervous Afiections," which appeared in July, 1822, to an essay wdiich he had contributed some years before to a collection of tracts published by his friend, Mr. Basil Montague, on the eflfect of spirituous liquors, entitled "' The Confessions of a Diunkard." The contribution of this paper is a striking proof of the prevalence of Lamb's personal regards over all selfish feelings and tastes ; for no one was le.ss disposed than he to Montague's theory or practice of abstinence ; yet he was willing to gratify his friend by this terrible pictme of the extreme effects of intemperance, of which his own occasional deviations fi-om the right line of sobriety had given him hints and glimpses. I'he reviewer of Dr. Reid, ad- verting to this essay, speaks of it as "a fearful picture of the consequences of intemperance, which WE happen to know is a true tale." How far it was from actual truth the " Essays of Elia," the production of a later day, in which the maturity of his feeling, humour, and reason is exhibited, may sutKciently witness. These articles were not written by Mr. Southey ; but they prepared Lamb to than the resentment of friendship which deemed itself wounded, could place him iu ' feel acutely any attack from the Review ; a situation so abhorrent to his habitual and a paragraph in an article in the number thoughts. Lamb had, up to this time, little for July, 1823, entitled " Progress of Inli- reason to love reviews or reviewers ; and the delity," in which he recognised the hand of connexion of Southey with " The Quarterly his old friend, gave poignancy to all the Review," while he felt that it raised, and painful associations which had arisen from softened, and refined tlie tone of that powerful 1 the same work, and concentrated them in one organ of a great party, sometimes vexed him bitter feeling. After recording some of the for his friend. Ili.si indiguiition also liad been I confessions of unbelievers of the wreteheduesa LETTERS TO BARTON. 121 which their infidelity brought on them, Mr. Southey thus proceeded : — " Unbelievers have not alwnys been honest enough thus to express their real feelings ; but this we know concerning them, that when they have renounced their birthright of hope, they have not been able to divest themselves of fear. From the nature of the human mind, this might be presumed, and in fact it is so. Tliey may deaden the heart and stupify the conscience, but they cannot destroy the imaginative f;vcult3^ There is a i-emaikable proof of this in ' Elia's Essay's,' a book which wants only a sounder religious feeling, to be as delightful as it is original. In that upon ' Witches and the other Night Fears,' he says, ' It is not book, or picture, or the stories of foolish servants, which create these terrors in children ; they can at most but give them a direction. Dear little T. H., who of all children has been brought up with the most scrupulous exclusion of every taint of superstition, who was never allowed to hear of goblin or appai-ition, or scarcely to be told of bad men, or to hear or read of any distressing story, finds all this world of fear, from which he has been so rigidly excluded ah extra, in his own " thick- coming fancies," and from his little midnight pillow this nurse child of optimism will start at shapes, unborrowed of tradition, in sweats to which the reveries of the well-damned murderer are tranquillity.' — This poor child, instead of being trained up in the way he should go, had been bred in the ways of modern philosophy ; he had systematically been prevented from knowing anything of that Saviour who said, ' Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven ;' care had been taken that he should not pray to God, nor lie do%vn at night in reliance upon his good providence ! Nor let it be supposed that teri'ors of imagination belong to child- hood alone. The reprobate heart, which has discarded all love of God, cannot so easily rid itself of the fear of the devil ; and even when it succeeds in that also, it will then create a hell for itself. We have heard of unbelievers who thought it probable that they should be awake in their graves ; and this was the opinion for which they had exchanged a Christian's hope of immortality ! " The allusion in this paragraph was really, as Lamb was afterwards convinced, intended by Mr. Southey to assist the sale of the book. In haste, having expunged some word which he thought improper, he wi'ote, ^^ sounder religious feeling," not satisfied with the epithet, but meaning to correct it in the proof, which unfortunately was never sent him. Lamb saw it on his return from a month's pleasant holidays at Hastings, and expressed his first impression respecting it in a letter. TO BKRNARD BARTON. "July 10th, 1823. "Dear Sir, — I have just returned from Hastings, whei-e are exquisite views and walks, and where I have given up my soul to walking, and I am now suffering sedentaiy contrasts. I am a long time reconciling to town after one of these excursions. Home is become strange, and will remain so yet a while ; home is the most unforgiving of friends, and always resents absence ; I know its old cordial look will return, but they are slow in clearing up. That is one of the features of this our galley-slavery, that peregrination ended makes things worse. I felt out of water (with aU the sea about me) at Hastings ; and just as I had learned to domiciliate there, I must come back to find a home which is no home. I abused Hastings, but learned its value. There are spots, inland bays, &c., which realise the notions of Juan Fernandez. The best thing I lit upon by accident was a small country church, (by whom or when built unknown,) standing bare and single in the midst of a grove, with no house or appearance of habitation within a quarter of a mile, only passages diverging from it through beautiful woods to so many farm-houses. There it stands like the first • idea of a church, before parishioners were thought of, nothing but birds for its congre- gation ; or like a hermit's oratory (the hei-mit dead), or a mausoleum ; its effect singularly impressive, like a church found in a desert isle to startle Crusoe with a home image ; you must make out a vicar and a congrega- tion from fancy, for surely none come there ; yet it wants not its pulpit, and its font, and all its seemly additaments of our worship. " Southey has attacked ' Elia ' on the score of infidelity, in the Quarterly article, ' Pro- gress of Infidelity.' I had not, nor have seen the Monthly. He might have spared an old friend such a construction of a few careless flights, that meant no hai-m to religion. If all his unguarded expressions on the subject were to be collected — but I love and respect Southey, and will not retort. I hate his review, and his being a reviewer. The hint he has dropped will knock the sale of the book on the head, which was almost at a stop before. Let it stop, — there is coi-n in Tlgypt, while there is cash at Leadenhall ! You and I are something besides being writers, thank God ! " Yours truly, C. L." This feeling was a little diverted by the execution of a scheme, rather suddenly adopted, of removing to a neat cottage at Islington, where Lamb first found himself installed in the dignity of a householder. He thus describes his residence : — TO BERNARD BARTON. "September 2nd, 1823. " Dear B. B., — What will you not say for my not writing 1 You cannot say, I do not write now. When you come London-ward, you will find me no longer in Covent Garilen ; I have a cottage, in Colebrook Eow, Islington ; a cottage, for it is detached ; a white house, with six good rooms ; the New River (rather elderly by this time) runs (if a moderate walking pace can be so termed) close to the foot of the house ; and behind is a spacious garden with vines (I assure you), Ijears, strawberries, parsnips, leeks, carrots, cabbages, to delight the heart of old i\ Icinous. You enter without passage into a cheerful dining-room, all studded over and rough with old books ; and above is a lightsome tlrawing-room, three windows, full of choice prints. I feel like a great lord, never having liad a house before. " The ' London,' I fear, falls oflf. I linger among its creaking rafters, like the last rat ; it will topple down if they don't get some buttresses. They have pulled down tliree ; Hazlitt, Procter, and tlieir beat stay, kind, light-hearted Wainwright, their Janus. The beat is, neither of our fortunes is concerned iu it. "I heard of you from Mr. Pulham this morning, and that gave a fillip to my laziness, which has been intolerable ; but I am so taken up with pniniug and gardening, quite a new sort of occupation to me. I have gathered my jargonels, but my Windsor pears are backward. The former were of exquisite raciness. I do now sit under my own vine, and contemplate the growth of vegetable nature. I can now understand in what sense they speak of father Adam. I recognise the paternity, while I watch my tulips. I almost fell with him, for the first day I turned a drunken gardener (as he let in the serpent) into my Eden, and he laid about him, lojiping oflf some choice boughs, &c., which hung over from a neighbour's garden, and in his blind zeal laid waste a shade, which had sheltered their window from the gaze of passers-by. The old gentle- woman (fury made her not handsome) coiild scarcely be reconciled by all my fine words. There was no buttering her parsnips. She talked of the law. What a lapse to commit on the first day of my happy ' garden-state ! ' " I hope you transmitted the Fox-Journal to its owner, with suitable thanks. Mr. Gary, the Dante-man, dines with me to-day. He is a model of a country parson, lean (as a curate ought to be), modest, sensible, no obtruder of church dogmas, quite a difierent man from . You would like him. Pray accept this for a letter, and believe me, with sincere regards, Yours, C. L." In the next letter to Barton, Lamb referred to an intended letter to Southey in the M.agazinc. TO BERNARD BARTON. "September 17th, 1823. " Dear Sir, — I have again been reading your ' Stanzas on Bloomfield,' which are the most appropriate that can be imagined, — sweet with Doric delicacy. I like that, — ' Oni own more chaste Theocritus ' — • just hinting at the fault of the Grecian. I love that stanza ending with, ' Words, phrases, fashions, pass away ; But truth and nature live through all.' But I shall omit in my own copy the one ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 128 Btauza which alludes to Lord B. I suppose. It spoils the sweetness and oneness of the feeling. Cannot we think of Burns, or Thom- son, without sullying the thought with a reflection out of place upon Lord Rochester ? These verses might have been inscribed upon a tomb ; are in fact an epitaph ; satire does not look pretty upon a tomb-stone. Besides, there is a quotation in it, always bad in verse, seldom advisable in prose. I doubt if their having been in a paper will not prevent T. and H. from insertion, but I shall have a thing to send in a day or two, and shall try them. Omitting that stanza, a very little alteration is wanting in the beginning of the next. You see, I use freedom. How happily, (I flatter not) you have brought in his subjects ; and (I suppose) his fovourite measure, though I am not acquainted with any of his writings but the ' Farmer's Boy.' He dined with me once, and his manners took me exceedingly. " I rejoice that you forgive my long silence. I continue to estimate my own-roof comforts highly. How could I remain all my life a lodger 1 My garden thrives (I am told), though I have yet reaped nothing but some tiny salad, and withered carrots. But a garden's a garden anywhere, and twice a garden in London. " Do you go on with your ' Quaker Son- nets ? ' have 'em ready with ' Southey's Book of the Church.' I meditate a letter to S. in the ' London,' which perhaps will meet the fate of the Sonnet. " Excuse my brevity, for I write painfully at office, liable to a hundred callings off ; and I can never sit down to an epistle elsewhere. I read or walk. If you return this letter to the Post-ofl&ce, I think they will retui-n fourpence, seeing it is but half a one. Believe me, though, Entirely yours, C. L." The contemplated expostulation with Southey was written, and appeared in the " London Magazine for October 1823." Lamb did not print it in any subsequent collection of his essays ; but I give it now, as I have reason to know that its publication will cause no painful feelings in the mind of Mr. Southey, and as it forms the only ripple on the kindli- ness of Lamb's personal and literary life. LETTER OF ELIA TO ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ. " Sir, — You have done me an unfriendly office, without perhaps much considering what you were doing. You have given an ill name to ray poor lucubrations. In a recent paper on Infidelity, you usher in a conditional commendation of them with an exception : which, preceding the encomium, and taking up nearly the same space with it, must impress your readers with the notion, that the objectionable parts in them are at least equal in quantity to the pardonable. The censure is in fact the criticism ; the praise — a concession merely. Exceptions usually follow, to qualify praise or blame. But there stands your reproof, in the very front of your notice, in ugly characters, like some bugbear, to frighten all good Christians from pur- chasing. Through you I become an object of suspicion to preceptors of youth, and fathers of families. 'A book, which wants ordy a sounder religious feeling to be as delightful as it is originaU With no further explanation, what must your readers conjecture, but that my little volume is some vehicle for heresy or infidelity ? The quotation, which you honour me by subjoining, oddly enough, is of a character which bespeaks a temperament in the writer the very revei-se of that your reproof goes to insinuate. Had you been taxing me with superstition, the passage would have been pertinent to the censure. Was it worth your while to go so far out of your way to affront the feelings of an old friend, and commit yourself by an irrelevant quotation, for the pleasure of reflecting upon a poor child, an exile at Genoa ? " I am at a loss what particular essay you had in view (if my poor ramblings amount to that appellation) when you were in such a hurry to thrust in your objection, like bad news, foremost. — Perhaps the paper on ' Say- ing Graces ' was the obnoxious feature. I have endeavoured there to rescue a voluntary duty — good in place, but never,as I remember, literally commanded — from the charge of an undecent formality. Rightly taken, sir, that paper was not against graces, but want of grace ; not against the ceremony, but the carelessness and slovenliness so often observed in the performance of it. " Or was it that on the 'New Year' — in which I have described the feelings of the 121 ELIA TO SOUTHEY. merelj' natural man, on a consideration of the amazing change, which is supposable to take place on our removal from this fleshly scene 1 If men would honestly confess their mis- givings (which few men will) there are times when the strongest Christian of us, I believe, has reeled under questions of such staggering obscurity. I do not accuse you of this weak- ness. There are some who tremblingly reach out shaking hands to the guidance of Faith — others who stoutly venture into the dark (their Human Confidence their leader, whom they mistake for Faith) ; and, investing themselves beforehand with cherubic wings. to be desperate. Others (with stronger optics), as plainly as witli the eye of flesh, shall behold a (/ive7i king in bliss, and a f/iven chamberlain in torment ; even to the eternising of a cast of the eye in the latter, his own self-mocked and good-humouredly-bome de- formity on e;trth, but supposed to aggravate the uncouth and hideous expression of his pangs in the other place. That one man can presume so far, and that another woidd with shuddering disclaim such confidences, is, I believe, an effect of the nerves purely. " If in either of these papers, or elsewhere, I have been betrayed into some levities — not as they fancy, find their new robes as fami- afi"ronting the sanctuary,butglancingperhap3 liar, and fitting to their supposed growth and stature in godliness, as the coat they left off yesterday — some whose hope totters upon ci-utches — others who stalk into futurity upon stilts. " The contemplation of a Spiritual World, — which, without the addition of a misgiving conscience, is enough to shake some natures to their foundation — is smoothly got over by others, who shall float over the black billows in their little boat of No-Distrust, as uncon- cernedly as over a summer sea. The differ- ence is chiefly constitutional. " One man shall love his friends and his friends' faces ; and, under the uncertainty of conversing with them again, in the same manner and familiar circumstances of sight, speech, &c. as upon earth — in a moment of no irreverent weakness — for a di'eam-while — no more — would be almost content, for a reward of a life of virtue (if he could ascribe such acceptance to his lame performances), to take up liis portion with those he loved, and was made to love, in this good world, which he knows — which was created so lovely, beyond his deservings. Another, embracing a more exalted vision — so that he might receive indefinite additaments of power, knowledge, beauty, glory, &c. — is ready to forego the recognition of humbler indivi- dualities of earth, and the old familiar faces. The shapings of our heavens are the modi- fications of our constitution ; and Mr. Feeble Mind, or Mr. Great Heart, is born in every one of us. " Some (and such have been accounted the safest divines) have shrunk from pro- nouncing upon the final sUite of any man ; nor dare they pronounce the case of Judas at some of the outskirts and extreme edges, the debateable laud between the holy and profane regions — (for the admixture of man's inventions, twisting themselves with the name of the religion itself, has artfully made it difficult to touch even the alloy, w ithout, in some men's estimation, soiling the fine gold) • — if I have sported within the purlieus of serious matter — it was, I dare say, a humour — be not startled, sir, — which I have iinwit- tingly derived from yourself You have all your life been making a jest of the Devil. Not of the scriptural meaning of that dark essence — personal or allegorical ; for the natm'e is nowhere plainly delivered. I acquit you of intentional irreverence. But indeed you have made wonderfully fi-ee with, and been mighty pleasant ujion, the popular idea and attributes of him. A Noble Lord, your brother Visionary, has scarcely taken greater liberties with the material keys, and merely Catholic notion of St. Peter. — You have flattered him in prose : you have chanted him in goodly odes. You have been his Jester ; volunteer liaureat, and self-elected Court Poet to Beelzebub. " You have never ridiculed, I believe, what you thought to be religion, but you are idways girding at what some pious, but per- haps mistaken folks, think to be so. For this reason I am sorry to hear, that you are engaged upon a life of George Fox. I know you will fall into the error of intermixing some comic stuff with your seriousness. The Quakers tremble at the subject in your hands. The Methodists arc shy of you, upon account uUlieir founder. But, above all, our Popish lirethren are most in your debt. The errora of that Church have proved a fruitful source ELIA TO SOUTHET. 125 to your scoffing vein. Their Legend has been a Golden one to you. And here your friends, sir, have noticed a notable incon- sistency. To the imposing rites, the solemn penances, devout austerities of that commu- nion ; the affecting though erring piety of their hermits ; the silence and solitude of the Chartreux — their crossings, their holy waters — their Virgin, and their saints — to these, they say, you have been indebted for the best feelings, and the richest imagery, of your Epic poetry. You have drawn copious drafts upon Loretto. We thought at one time you were going post to Kome — but that in the facetious commentaries, which it is your custom to append so plentifully, and (some say) injudiciously, to your loftiest perform- ances iu this kind, you spurn the uplifted toe, which you but just now seemed to court ; leave his holiness in the lurch ; and show him a fair pair of Protestant heels under 3'our Romish vestment. When we think you already at the wicket, suddenly a violent cross wind blows you transverse ' Ten thousand leagues awry ■ Then might we see Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tost And flutter'd into rags ; then reliques, heads, Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls, The sport of winds.' You pick up pence by showing the hallowed bones, shrine, and crucifix ; and you take money a second time by exposing the trick of them afterwards. You carry your verse to Castle Angelo for sale in a morning ; and swifter than a pedlar can transmute his pack, you are at Canterbury with your prose ware before night. " Sir, is it that I dislike you in this merry vein ? The very reverse. No countenance becomes an intelligent jest better than your own. It is your grave aspect, when you look awful upon your poor friends, which I would deprecate. " In more than one place, if I mistake not, you have been pleased to compliment me at the expense of my companions. I cannot accept your compliment at such a price. The upbraiding a man's poverty naturally makes him look about him, to see whether he be so poor indeed as he is pre- sumed to be. You have put me upon counting my riches. Eeally, sir, I did not know I was so wealthy in the article of friendships. There is , and , whom you never heard of, but exemplary characters both, and excellent church-goers ; and N., mine and my father's friend for nearly half a century ; and the enthusiast for Wordsworth's poetiy, , a little tainted with Socinianism, it is to be feared, but constant in his attachments, and a capital critic ; and , a sturdy old Athanasian, so that sets all to rights again ; and W., the light, and warm-as-light hearted, Janus of the London ; and the translator of Dante, still a curate, modest and amiable C. ; and Allan C, the large-hearted Scot ; and P — r, candid and affectionate as his own poetry ; and A — p, Coleridge's friend ; and G — n, his more than friend ; and Coleridge himself, the same to me still, as in those old evenings, when we used to sit and speculate (do you remember them, sir 1) at our old Salutation tavern, upon Pantisocracy and golden days to come on earth ; and W th (why, sir, I might drop my rent-roll here ; such goodly farms and manors have I reck- oned up already. In what possession has not this last name alone est'ated me ! — but I will go on) — and M., the noble-minded kinsman, by wedlock, of W th ; and H. C. R, unwearied in the offices of a friend ; and Clarkson, almost above the narrowness of that relation, yet condescending not seldom heretofore from the labours of his world- embi-acing charity to bless my humble roof ; and the gall-less and single-minded Dyer ; and the high-minded associate of Cook, the veteran Colonel, with his lusty heart still sending cartels of defiance to old Time ; and, not least, W. A., the last and steadiest left to me of that little knot of whist-players, that used to assemble weekly, for so many years, at the Queen's Gate (you remember them, sir ?) and called Admiral Burney friend. "I will come to the point at once. I believe you will not make many exceptions to my associates so far. But I have purposely omitted some intimacies, which I do not yet repent of having contracted, with two gentle- men, diametrically opposed to yourself in principles. You will understand me to allude to the authors of ' Rimini ' and of the ' Table Talk.' And first of the former.— " It is an error more particularly inciileni to persons of tlie correctest principles and habits, to seclude themselves from the I'eat 126 ELIA TO SOUTHEY. of mankind, as from another species, and form into knots and clubs. The best people herding thus exclusively, are in danger of contracting a narrowness. Heat and cold, dryness and moisture, in the natural world, do not fly asunder, to split the globe into sectarian parts and separations ; but mingling, as they best may, correct the malignity of any single predominance. The analogy holds, I suppose, in the moral world. If all the good people were to ship themselves ofi" to Terra Incognita, what, in humanity's name, is to become of the refuse 1 If the persons, whom I have chiefly in view, have not pushed matters to this extremity yet, they carry them as far as they can go. Instead of mixing with the infidel and the free- thinker — in the room of opening a negocia- tion, to try at least to find out at which gate the error entered — they huddle close together, in a weak fear of infection, like that pusil- lanimous underling in Spenser — ' This is the wandering wood, this Error's den ; A monster vile, whom God and man does hate : Therefore, I reed, heware. Fly, fly, quoth then The fearful Dwarf.' j\nd, if they be writers in orthodox journals addressing themselves only to the irritable passions of the unbeliever — they proceed in a safe system of strengthening the strong hands, and confirming the valiant knees ; of converting the already converted, and prose- lyting their own party. I am the more con- vinced of this from a passage in the very treatise which occasioned this letter. It is where, having recommended to the doubter the writings of Michaelis and Lardner, you ride triumphant over the necks of all infidels, sceptics, and dissenters, from this time to the world's end, upon the wheels of two un- answerable deductions. I do not hold it meet to set down, in a miscellaneous com- pilation like this, such religious words as you have thought fit to introduce into the pages of a petulant literary journal. I therefore beg leave to substitute numerals, and refer to the ' Quarterly Review ' (for January) for filling of them up. 'Here,' say you, *as in the history of 7, if these books are authentic, the events which they relate must be true ; if they were written by 8, 9 is 10 and 11.' Your fimt deduction, if it means honestly, rests upon two identical propositions ; though I suspect an unfairness in one of the terms, which this would not be quite the proper place for explicating. At all events, you have no cause to triumph ; you have not been proving the premises, but refer for satisfaction therein to very long and laborious works, which may well employ the sceptic a twelvemonth or two to digest, before he can possibly be ripe for your conclusion. When he has satisfied himself about the premises, he will concede to you the inference, I dare say, most readily. — But your latter deduction, viz. that because 8 has written a book con- cerning 9, therefore 10 and 11 was certainly his meaning, is one of the most extraordinary conclusions per saltum, that I have had the good fortune to meet with. As far as 10 is verbally asserted in the writings, all sects must agree with you ; but you cannot be ignorant of the many various ways in which the doctrine of the ******* has been under- stood, from a low figurative expression (with the Unitarians) up to the most mysterious actuality ; in which highest sense alone you and your church take it. And for 11, that there is 7io other possible conclusion — to hazard this in the face of so many thousands of Arians and Socinians, &c., who have drawn so opposite a one, is such a piece of theological hardihood, as, I think, warrants me in con- cluding that, when you sit down to pen theology, you do not at all consider your opponents ; but have in your eye, merely and exclusively, readers of the same way of thinking with yourself, and therefore have no occasion to trouble yourself with the quality of the logic to which you treat them. " Neither can I think, if you had had the welfare of the poor child — over whose hope- less condition you whine so lamentably and (I must think) unseasonably — seriously at heart, that you could have taken the step of sticking him up by name — T. H. is as good as naining him — to perpetuate an outrage upon the parental feelings, as long as the ' Quar- terly Review ' shall last. Was it necessary to specify an individual case, and give to Christian compjission the appearance of j)ersonal attack ? Is this the way to con- ciliate unbelievers, or not rather to widen the breach irreparably ? "I own I could never think so considerably of myself as to decline the society of an agree- able or worthy man ui)o!i diHorence of oi)iuiou only. Tlu- impediments and tlie facilitations ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 127 to a sound belief are various and inscrutable as the heart of man. Some believe upon weak principles. Others cannot feel the efficacy of the strongest. One of the most candid, most upright, and single-meaning men, I ever knew, was the late Thomas Holcroft. I believe he never said one thing and meant another, in his life ; and, as near as I can guess, he never acted otherwise than with the most scrupulous attention to conscience. Ought we to wish the character false, for the sake of a hollow compliment to Christianity ? " Accident introduced me to the acquaint- ance of Mr. L. H. — and the experience of his many friendly qualities confirmed a friend- ship between us. You, who have been mis- represented yourself, I should hope, have not lent an idle ear to the calumnies which have been spread abroad i-especting this gentle- man. I was admitted to his household for some years, and do most solemnly aver that I believe him to be in his domestic relations as correct as any man. He chose an ill- judged subject for a poem ; the peccant humours of which have been visited on him tenfold by the artful use, which his adver- saries have made, of an equivocal term. The subject itself was started by Dante, but better because brieflier treated of. But the crime of the lovers, in the Italian and the English poet, with its aggravated enormity of circumstance, is not of a kind (as the critics of the latter well knew) with those conjunctions, for which Nature herself has provided no excuse, because no temptation. — It has nothing in common with the black horrors, sung by Ford and Massinger. The familiarising of it in tale and fable may be for that reason incidentally more contagious. In spite of Rimini, I must look upon its author as a man of taste, and a poet. He is better than so ; he is one of the most cordial- minded men I ever knew, and matchless as a tire- side companion. I mean not to affront or wound your feelings when I say that, in his more genial moods, he has often reminded me of you. There is the same air of mild dogmatism — the same condescending to a boyish sportiveness — in both your conversa- tions. His handwriting is so much the same with your own, that I have opened more than one letter of his, hoping, nay, not doubting, but it was from you, and have been disappointed (he will bear with my saying so) at the discovery of my error. L. H. is unfortunate in holding some loose and not very definite speculations (for at times I think he hardly knows whither his premises would carry him) on marriage — the tenets, I conceive, of the ' Political Justice ' carried a little further. For anything I could discover in his practice, they have reference, like those, to some future possible condition of society, and not to the present times. But neither for these obliquities of thinking (upon which my own conclusions are as distant as the poles asunder) — nor for his political asperities and petulancies, which are wearing out with the heats and vanities of youth — did I select him for a friend ; but for qualities which fitted him for that rela- tion. I do not know whether I flatter myself with being the occasion, but certain it is, that, touched with some misgivings for simdry harsh things which he had written aforetime against our fiiend C, — before he left this country he sought a reconciliation with that gentleman (himself being his own introducer), and found it. " L. H. is now in Italy ; on his departure to which land with much regret I took my leave of him and of his little family — seven of them, sir, with their mother — and as kind a set of little people (T. H. and all), as affec- tionate children as ever blessed a parent. Had you seen them, sir, I think you could not have looked upon them as so many little Jonases — but rather as pledges of the vessel's safety, that was to bear such a freight of love. " I wish you would read Mr. H.'s lines to that same T. H. ' six years' old, during a sickness : ' — ' Sleep breaks at last from out thee. My little patient boy' — (they are to be found in the 47th page of * Foliage ') — and ask yourself how far they are out of the spirit of Christianity. I have a letter fi-om Italy, received but the other day, into which L. H. has put as much heart, and as many friendly yearnings after old associates, and native country, as, I think, paper can well hold. It would do you no hurt to give that the perusal also. " From the other gentleman I neither expect nor desire (as he is well assured) any 128 ELIA TO SOUTHEY. such concessions as Ij. H. made to C. What hath soured him, and made him to suspect his friends of infideUty towards him, when there was no such matter, I know not. I stood well with him for fifteen years (the proudest of my life), and have ever spoken my full mind of him to some, to whom his panegjTic must naturally be least tasteful. I never in thought swerved from him, I never betrayed him, I never slackened in my admii-ation of him ; I was the same to him (neither better nor worse), though lie could not see it, as in the days when he tliought fit to trust me. At this instant, he may be preparing for me some compliment, above my deserts, as he has sprinkled many such among his admirable books, for which I rest his debtor ; or, for anything I know, or can guess to the contrary, he may be about to read a lecture on my weaknesses. He is welcome to them (as he was to my humble hearth), if they can divert a spleen, or ventilate a fit of suUenness. I wish he would not quarrel with the world at the rate he does ; but the reconciliation must be eff"ected by himself, and I despair of living to see that day. But, protesting against much that he has written, and some things which he chooses to do ; judging him by his conversation which I enjoyed so long, and relished so deeply ; or by his books, in those places where no clouding passion intervenes — I should belie my own conscience, if I said less, than tliat I think W. H. to be, in his natural and healthy state, one of the wisest and finest spirits breathing. So far from being ashamed of that intimacy, which was betwixt us, it is my boast that I was able for so many years to have preserved it entire ; and I think I shall go to my grave without finding, or expecting to find, such another companion. But I forget my man- ners — you will pardon me, sir — I return to the correspondence. " Sir, you were pleased (you know where) to invite me to a compliance with the whole- some forms and doctrines of the Church of England. I take your advice with as much kindness as it was meant. But I must think the invitation rather more kind than season- able. I am a Dissenter. The last sect, witli which you can remember me to have made common j)rofession, were the Unitarians. You would think it not very pertinent, if (fearing that all was not well with you), I were gravely to invite you (for a remedy) to attend with me a course of Mr. Belsham'a Lectures at Hackney. Perhaps I have scruples to some of your forms and doctrines. But if I come, am I secure of civil treat- ment 1 — The last time I was in any of your places of worship was on Easter Sunday last. I had the satisfaction of listening to a very sensible sei-mon of an argumentative turn, delivered with great propriety, by one of your bishops. The place was Westminster Abbey. As such religion, as I have, has always acted on me more by way of senti- ment than argumentative process, I was not unwilling, after sermon ended, by no un- becoming transition, to pass over to some serious feelings, impossible to be disconnected fx-om the sight of those old tombs, &c. But, by whose order I know not, I was debarred that privilege even for so short a space as a few minutes ; and turned, like a dog or some profane person, out into the common street ; with feelings, which I could not help, but not very congenial to the day or the discourse. I do not know that I f;hall ever venture myself again into one of your churches. " You had your education at Westminster ; and, doubtless, among those dim aisles and cloistei-s, you must have gathered much of that devotional feeling in those young yeai-s, on which your purest mind feeds still — and may it feed ! The antiquarian spirit, strong in you, and gracefully blending ever with the religious, may have been sown in you among those wrecks of splendid niortjility. You owe it to the place of your education ; you owe it to your learned fondness for the architecture of your ancestors ; you owe it to the venerablencss of your ecclesiastical establishment, which is daily lessened and called in question through these practices — to speak aloud yf)ur sense of them ; never to desist raising your voice against tliera, till they be totally done away with and abolished ; till the doors of Westminster Abbey be no longer closed against the decent, though low- in-purse, enthusiast, or blameless devotee, who nuist commit an injury against his family economy, if he would be indulged with a bare adniission witliin ils w.dls. You owe it to the decencies, wliich you wish to see maintaint'd in its impressive services, that our Cathedral be no longer an object of inspection to the poor at those times only, in which they must rob from their attendance on the worship every minute which they can bestow upon the fabric. In vain the public prints have taken up this subject, in vain such poor nameless writers as myself express their indignation. A word from you, sir — a hint in your journal — would be sufficient to fling open the doors of the beautiful temple again, as we can remember them when we were boys. At that time of life, what would the imaginative faculty (such as it is) in both of us, have suffered, if the entrance to so much reflection had been obstructed by the demand of so much silver ! — If we had scraped it up to gain an occasional admission (as we certainly should have done) would the sight of those old tombs have been as impressive to us (while we had been weighing anxiously prudence against sentiment) as when the gates stood open, as those of the adjacent Park ; when we could walk in at any time, as the mood brought us, for a shorter or longer time, as that lasted 1 Is the being shown over a place the same as silently for ourselves detecting the genius of it ? In no part of our beloved Abbey now can a person find entrance (out of service- time) under the sum of two shillings. The rich and the great will smile at the anti- climax, presumed to lie in these two short words. But you can tell them, sir, how much quiet worth, how much capacity for enlarged feeling, how much taste and genius, may co- exist, especially in youth, with a purse incompetent to this demand. — A respected friend of ours, during his late visit to the metropolis, presented himself for admission to Saint Paul's. At the same time a deceutly- clothed man, with as decent a wife, and child, were bargaining for the same indul- I gence. The price was only two-pence each ' person. The poor but decent man hesitated, ' desirous to go in : but there were three of them, and he turned away reluctantly. | Perhaps he wished to have seen the tomb of Nelson. Perhaps the interior of the cathe- dral was his object. But in the state of his finances, even sixpence miglit reasonably seem too much. Tell the aristocracy of the country (no man can do it more impres- sively) ; instruct them of what value these insignificant pieces of money, these minims to their sight, may be to their humbler brethren. Shame these sellers out of the Temple ! Show the poor, that you can sometimes think of them in some other light than as mutineers and mal-contents. Con- ciliate them by such kind methods to their superior.t of his sometime I'ival. The " Memoir " is altogether a fiction — of whicli, as Lamb did not think it worthy of republication, I will only give a specimen. After a ludicrously improbable account of his hero's pedigree, birth, and early habits, Lamb thus represents his entrance on the life of an actor. "We accordingly find him shortly aft r making his debut, as it is called, upon the 140 LETTERS TO BARTOX. Norwich boards, in the season of that year, being then in the 22nd year of his age. Having a natural bent to tragedy, he chose the part of ' Pjrrhus,' in the * Distrest Mother,' to Sally Parker's * Hermione.' We find him afterwards lus 'Barnwell,' ' Alta- mont,' ' Chrimont,' &c. ; but, as if nature had destined him to the sock, an unavoidable infirmity absolutely discapacitated him for tragedy. His person at this latter period of which I have been speaking, was graceful, and even commanding ; his countenance set to gravity ; he had the power of arresting the attention of an audience at first sight almost beyond any other ti-agic actor. But he could not hold it. To understand this obstacle, we must go back a few years, to those appalling reveries at Charnwood. Those illusions, which had vanished before i the dissipation of a less recluse life, and more I free society, now in his solitary tragic studies, and amid the intense calls upon feeling incident to tragic acting, came back upon him with tenfold vividness. In the midst of some most pathetic passage — the parting of Jaffier | with his dying friend, for instance — he would suddenly be sui'prised with a fit of violent j horse laughter. While the spectators were! all sobbing before him with emotion, suddenly ] one of those grotesque faces would peep out upon him, and he could not resist the impulse. A timely excuse once or twice served his purpose, but no audiences could be expected to bear repeatedly this violation of the continuity of feeling. He describes them (the illusions) as so many demons haunting liim, and paralysing every efiFort. Even now, I am told, he cannot recite the famous soliloquy in Hamlet, even in private, without immoderate bursts of laughter. However, what he had not force of reason sufficient to overcome, he had good sense enough to turn to emolument, and determined to make a commodity of his distemper. He prudently exchanged the buskin for the sock, and the illusions instantly ceased, or, if they occurred for a short season, by their very co-operation, added a zest to his comic vein ; some of his most catching faces being (as he expresses it) little more than transcripts and copies of those extraordinary phantasmata." He completed his half century on the day Wh&a he addreaaed the following letter TO BERNARD BARTON. "February 1"*^, 1825. " Dear B. B.,— The ' Spirit of the Age ' is by Hazlitt, the characters of Coleridge, &c. he had done better in former publications, the praise and the abuse much stronger, &c., but the new ones are capitally done. Home Tooke is a matchless portrait. My advice is, to borrow it rather than buy it. I have it. He has laid too many colours on my like- ness ; but I have had so much injustice done me in my own name, that T make a rule of accepting as much over-measure to Elia as gentlemen think proper to bestow. Lay it on and spare not. Your gentleman brother sets my mouth a-watering after liberty. Oh that I were kicked out of Leadeuhall with evtry mark of indignity, and a competence in my fob. The birds of the air would not be 60 free as I should. How I would prance and curvet it, and pick up cowslips, and ramble about purposeless, as an idiot ! The author-mometer is a good fancy. I have caused great speculation in the dramatic (not t/iT/) world by a lying 'Life of Liston,' all pure invention. The town has swallowed it, and it is copied into newspapers, play-bills, &c., as authentic. You do not know the Droll, and possibly missed reading the article (in our first number, new series). A life more improbable for him to have lived would not be easily invented. But your rebuke, coupled with ' Dream on J. Bunyan,' checks me. I'd rather do more in my favourite way, but feel dry. I must laugh sometimes. I am poor Hypochondriacus, and 7iot Liston. " I have been harassed more than usually at office, which has stopt my correspondence lately. I write with a confused aching head, and you must accept tliis apology for a letter. " I will do something soon, if I can, as a peace-olferiug to the queen of the East Angles — something she shan't scold about. For the present farewell. "Thine, C. L." "I am fifty years old this day. Druik my health." EYeedom now gleamed on him, and ho became reatlesfi with the api)roach of dclivtw- ance. LETTER TO WORDSWORTH. 141 TO BERNARD BARTON. "March 23rd, 1825. " Dear B. B., — I have had no impulse to write, or attend to any single object but myself for weeks past — my single self, I by myself — I, I am sick of hope defeiTed. The grand wheel is in agitation, that is to turn up my fortune ; but round it rolls, and will turn up nothing. I have a glimpse of freedom, of becoming a gentleman at large ; biit I am put off from day to day. I have offered my resignation, and it is neither accepted nor rejected. Eight weeks am I kept in this feai*ful suspense. Guess what an absorbing stake I feel it. I am not conscious of the existence of friends present or absent. The East India Directors alone can be that thing to me or not. I have just learned that nothing will be decided this week. "Why the next 1 Why any week 1 It has fretted me into an itch of the fingers ; I rub 'em against paper, and write to you, rather than not allay this scorbuta. " While I can write, let me abjure you to have no doubts of Irving. Let Mr. M drop his disrespect. Irving has prefixed a dedication (of a missionary subject, first part) to Coleridge, the most beautiful, cordial, and sincere. He there acknowledges his obliga- tion to S. T. C. for his knowledge of Gospel truths, the nature of a Christian Church, &c., to the talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (at whose Gamaliel feet he sits weekly), rather than to that of all the men living. This from him, the great dandled and petted sectarian — to a religious character so equivocal in the world's eye as that of S. T. C, so foreign to the Kirk's estimate — can this man be a quack ? The language is as affecting as the spirit of the dedication. Some friend told him, ' This dedication will do you no good,' i.e., not in the world's repute, or with your own people. * That is a reason for doing it,' quoth Irving. " I am thoroughly pleased with him. He is firm, out-speakiiig, intrepid, and docile as a pupil of Pythagoras. You must like him. " Yours, in tremors of painful hope, " C. Lamb." These tremors of painful hope were soon changed into certain joy. The following. letters contain his own expressions of delight on his deliverance, as conveyed to several of his dearest friends. In the first his happiness is a little checked by the death of Mr. Monk- house, a relation of Mrs. Wordsworth, who had gi-adually won Lamb's affections, and who nobly deserved them. TO MR. WORDSWORTH. "Colebrook Cottage, 6th April, 1825. " Dear Wordsworth, — I have been several times meditating a letter to you concerning the good thing which has befallen me, but the thought of poor Monkhouse came across me. He was one that I had exulted in the prospect of congi-atulating me. He and you were to have been the first participators, for indeed it has been ten weeks since the first motion of it. Here am I then, after thirty- three years' slavery, sitting in my own room at eleven o'clock this finest of all April mornings, a freed man, with 441 ^. a year for the remainder of my life, live I as long as John Dennis, who outlived his annuity and starved at ninety: 441^., i. e., 450^., with a deduction of 91. for a provision secured to my sister, she being survivor, the pension guaranteed by Act Georgii Tertii, &c. "I came home for ever on Tuesday in last week. The incomprehensibleness of my condition overwhelmed me. It was like passing from life into eternity. Every year to be as long as three, i. e., to have three times as much real time — time that is my own, in it ! I wandered about thinking I was happy, but feeling I was not. But that tumultuousness is passing off, and I begin to understand the nature of the gift. Plolydays, even tlie annual month, were always uneasy joys ; their conscious fugitiveness ; the craving after making the most of them. Now, when all is holyday, there are no holydays. I can sit at home, in rain or shine, without a rest- less impulse for walkings. I am daily steady- ing, and shall soon find it as natural to me to be my own master, as it has been irksome to have had a master. !Mary wakes every morning with an obscure feiling that some good has happened to us. " and , after their I'eleasements, describe the shock of their emancipation much as I feel mine. But it hurt their frames. I eat, drink, and sleep sound as ever. I lay 142 LETTERS TO BARTON AND MISS HUTCHINSON. no anxious schemes for going hitlier and thither, but take tilings as they occur. Yes- terday I excursioned twenty miles ; to-day I write a few letters. Pleasuring was for fugitive play-days, mine are fugitive only in the sense that life is fugitive. Freedom and life co-existent ! " At the foot of such a call upon you for gratulation, I am ashamed to advert to that melancholy event. Moukhouse was a cha- racter I learned to love slowly, but it grew upon me, yearly, monthly, daily. What a chasm has it made in our pleasant parties ! His noble friendly face was always coming before me, till this hun-ying event in my life came, and for the time has absorbed all interest ; in fact it has shaken me a little. My old desk companions, with whom I have had such merry hours, seem to repi'oach me for removing my lot fi'om among them. They were pleasant creatures ; but to the anxieties of business, and a weight of possible worse ever impending, I was not equal. Indeed this last winter I was jaded out — winters were always worse than other parts of the year, because the spirits are worse, and I had no day-light. In summer I had day- light evenings. The relief was hinted to me from a superior power when I, poor slave, had not a hope but that I must wait another seven years with Jacob — and lo ! the Eachel which I coveted is brought to me. "Have you read the noble dedication of Irving's 'Missionaiy Orations' to S. T. C. "Who shall call this man a quack hereafter 1 What the Kirk will think of it neither I nor Irving care. When somebody suggested to him that it would not be likely to do him good, videlicet, among his own people, ' That is a reason for doing it,' was his noble answer. That Irving thinks he has profited mainly by S. T. C, I have no doubt. The very style of the Dedication shows it. " Communicate my news to Southey, and beg his pardon for my being so long acknow- ledging his kind present of the ' Church,' which circumstances, having no reference to himself, prevented at the time. Assure him of my deep respect and friendliest feelings. " Divide the same, or rather each take the whole to you — I mean you and all yours. To Miss Hutchinson I must write st'parate. " Farewell ! and end at last, long selfish letter ! C. Lamb." TO BERNARD BARTON. "April, 1825. " Dear B. B. — My spirits are so tumultuary with the novelty of my recent emancipation, that I have scarce steadiness of hand, much more mind, to compose a letter. I am free, B. B. — free as air ! ' Th"^ little bird that wings the sky Knows no such liberty.' I was set free on Tuesday in last week at four o'clock. I came home for ever ! " I have been describing my feelings as well as I can to Wordsworth in a long letter, and don't care to repeat. Take it briefly, that for a few days I was painfully oppressed by so mighty a change, but it is becoming daily more natural to me. I went and sat among 'em all at my old thirty-three-years' desk yester morning ; and, deuce take me, if I had not yearnings at leaving all my old pen-and-ink fellows, merry, sociable lads, at leaving them in the lurch, fag, fag, fag ! — The comparison of my own superior felicity gave me an}'thing but pleasure. " B. B., I would not serve another seven years for seven hundred thousand pounds ! I have got 441^. net for life, sanctioned by act of parliament, with a provision for Mary if she survives me. I will live another fifty years ; or, if I live but ten, they will be thirty, reckoning the quantity of real time in them, i.e. the time that is a man's own. Tell me how you like ' Barbara S.* ; ' will it be received in atonement for the foolish * Vision ' — I mean by the lady 1 A-propos, I never saw Mrs. Crawford in my life ; never- theless it's all true of somebody. "Address me, in future, Colebrook- cottage, Islington. I am really nervous (but that will wear off), so take this brief announcement. " Yours truly, C. L." TO MISS HUTCHINSON. ".April 18th, 1825. " Dear Miss Hutchinson, — You want to know all about my gaol delivery. Take it then. About twelve weeks since I had a sort • The true heroine of this benutiful story is still living, thoiiifh shi; bus left the stage. It is enou(;h to mnlie a sevcret ermanent perquisite ; for folding, I shall do it neatly when I learn to tie my neckcloths. I surprise most of my friends, by writing to them on ruled paper, as if I had not got past jwt- hooks ami hangei-s. Sealing-w;iX, I have none on my establishment ; wafers of the coarsest bran supply its place. When my epistles come to be weighed with Pliny's, however superior to the liomau in di-lioute irony, judicious reflections, &c., his gilt ])08t LETTERS TO BARTON. 147 will bribe over the judges to him. All the time I was at the E. I. H., I never mended a pen ; I now cut 'em to the stumps, marring rather than mending the primitive goose-quill. T cannot bear to pay for articles I used to get for nothing. When Adam laid out his first penny upon nonpareils at some stall in ^lesopotamos, I think it went hard with him, reflecting upon his old goodly orchard, where he had so many for nothing. When I write to a great man at the court end, he opens with surprise upon a naked note, such as Whitechapel people interchange, with no sweet degrees of envelope. I never enclosed one bit of paper in another, nor under- stood the rationale of it. Once only I sealed with borrowed wax, to set Walter Scott a wondering, signed with the imperial quartered arms of England, which my friend Field bears in compliment to his descent, in the female line, from Oliver Cromwell. It must have set his antiquarian curiosity upon watering. To your questions upon the currency, I refer you to Mr. Eobinson's last speech, where, if you can find a solution, I cannot. I think this, though, the best ministry we ever stumbled upon ; — gin reduced four shillings in the gallon, wine two shillings in the quart ! This comes home to men's minds and bosoms. ISIy tirade against visitors was not meant particularly at you or A. K . I scarce know what I meant, for I do not just now feel the grievance. I wanted to make an article. So in another thing I talked of somebody's insipid wife, without a corres- pondent object in my head : and a good lady, a friend's wife, whom I really love, (don't startle, I mean in a licit way,) has looked shyly on me ever since. The blunders of personal application are ludicrous. I send out a character every now and then, on purpose to exercise the ingenuity of my friends. ' Popular Fallacies ' will go on ; that word concluded is an erratum, I suppose for continued. I do not know how it got stuffed in there. A little thing without name will also be printed on the JReligion of the Actors, but it is out of your way, so I recom^ mend you, with true author's hypocrisy, to skip it. We are about to sit down to roast beef, at which we could wish A. K., B. B., and B. B.'s pleasant daughter to be humble partakers. So much for my hint at visitors, which was scarcely calculated for droppers- in from Woodbridge ; the sky does not drop such larks every day. My very kindest wishes to you all three, with my sister's best love. C. Lamb." TO BERNARD BARTON. "May IGth, 1826. " Dear B. B., — I have had no spirits lately to begin a letter to you, though I am under obligations to you (how many !) for your neat little poem. 'Tis just what it professes to be, a simple tribute, in chaste verse, serious and sincere. "1 do not know how friends will relish it, but we outlyers, honorary friends, like it veiy well. I have had my head and ears stufiFed up with the east ,winds. A continual ringing in my brain of bells jangled, or the spheres touched by some raw angel. It is not George the Third trying the Hundredth Psalm 1 I get my music for nothing. But the weather seems to be softening, and will thaw my stunnings. Coleridge, writing to me a week or two since, begins his note — ' Summer has set in with its usual severity.' A cold summer is all I know of disagreeable in cold. I do not mind the utmost rigour of real winter, but these smiling hypocrities of Mays wither me to death. My head has been a ringing chaos, like the day the winds were made, befoi-e they submitted to the discipline of a weathercock, before the quarters were made. In the street, with the blended noises of life about me, I hear, and my head is lightened ; but in a room the hubbub comes back, and I am deaf as a sinner. Did I tell you of a pleasant sketch Hood has done, which he calls — ' Very deaf indeed ? ' It is of a good-natured stupid-looking old gentleman, whom a footpad has stopped, but for his extreme deafness cannot make him understand what he wants. The unconscious old gentleman is extending his ear trumpet very complacently, and the fellow is firing a pistol into it to make him hear, but the ball will pierce his skull sooner than the report reach his sensorium. I choose a very little bit of paper, for my ear hisses when I bend down to write. I can hardly read a book, for I miss that small soft voice which the idea of articulated words raises (almost impercept- ibly to you) in a silent reader. I seem too deaf to see what I read. But with a touch or two of returning zej>hyr my head will L 2 148 LETTERS TO COLERIDQE AXD GARY. melt. What lies you poets tell about the May ! It is the most uugenial part of the year. Cold crocuses, cold primroses, you take your blossoms in ice — a painted sun. ' Unmeaning joy around appears, And nature smiles as if she sneers.' " It is ill with me when I begin to look which way the wind sits. Ten years ago, I literally did not know the point from the broad end of the vane, which it was that indicated the quai-ter. I hope these ill winds have blo^sTi over you as they do through me. " So A. K. keeps a school ; she teaches nothing wrong, I 'II answer for 't. I have a Dutch print of a school-mistress ; little old- fashioned Fleming! ings, with only one face among them. She a princess of a school- mistress, wielding a rod for form more than use ; the scene, an old monastic chajjel, with a Madonna over her head, looking just as serious, as thoughtful, as pure, as gentle as herself. 'Tis a type of thy friend. "Yours with kindest wishes to your daughter and friend, in which Mary joins, «C. Lamb." About this time a little sketch was taken of Lamb, and published. It is certainly not flattering ; but there is a touch of Lamb's character in it. He sent one of the prints to Coleridge, with the following note. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "June 1st, 1826. " Dear Coleridge, — If I know myself, nobody more detests the display of pereonal vanity, which is implied in the act of sitting for one's picture, than myself. But the fact is, that the likeness which accompanies this letter was stolen from my person at one of my un- guarded moments by some too partial artist, and my friends are pleased to think that he has not much flattered me. Whatever its merits may be, you, who have so great an interest in the original, will have a satisfaction in tracing the features of one that luis so long esteemed you. There are times when in a friend's absence these graphic representations of him almost seem to bring back the man himself The painter, whoever he was, seems to have taken me in one of those disengaged moments, if I may so term them, when the native character is so much more honestly displayed than can be possible in the restraints of an inforced sitting attitude. Perhaps it rather describes me as a thinking man, than a man in the act of thought. Whatever its pretensions, I know it will be dear to you, towards whom I should wish my thoughts to flow in a sort of an undress ratlier than in the more studied graces of diction. " I am, dear Coleridge, yours sincerely, " C. Lamb." In the following summer, Lamb and his sister went on a long visit to Enfield, which ultimately led to his giving up Colebrooke- cottage, and becoming a constant resident at that place. It was a great sacrifice to him, who loved London so well ; but his sister's health and his own required a secession from the crowd of visitors who pressed on him at Islington, and whom he could not help wel- coming. He thus invited Mr. Cary, once librarian of the British Museum, to look in upon his retreat. TO MR. CART. " Dear Sir, — It is whispered me that you will not be imwilling to look into our doleful hermitage. Without more preface, you will gladden our cell by accompanying our old chums of the London, Djirley and A. C, to Enfield on Wednesday. You shall have her- mit's fare, with talk as seraphical as the novelty ©f tlie divine life will permit, with an innocent retrospect to the world which we have left, when I will thank you for your hospitable ofi'er at Chiswick, and with plain hermit reasons evince the necessity of abiding here. " Without hearing from you, then, you shall give us leave to expect you. I have long had it on my conscience to invite you, but spirits have been low ; juid I am indebted to chance for this awkward but most sincere invitation. " Yours, with best loves to Mrs. Cary, " C. LASm." " D. knows all about the coaches. Oh, for a Museum in the wilderness ! " The following letter was addressed about LETTERS TO COLERIDGE AND BARTON. 149 this time to Coleridge, who was seriously contemplating a poetical pantomime. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "1826. "Dear C, — ^We will with great pleasure be with you on Thursday in the next week early. Your finding out my style in your nephew's pleasant book is surprising to me. I want eyes to descry it. You are a little too hard upon his morality, though I confess he has more of Sterne about him than of Sternhold. But he saddens into excellent sense before the conclusion. Your query shall be submitted to Miss Kelly, though it is obvious that the pantomime, when done, will be more easy to decide upon than in proposal. 1 say, do it by all means. I have Decker's play by me, if you can filch any- thing out of it. Miss G — , with her kitten eyes, is an actress, though she shows it not at all ; and pupil to the former, whose ges- tures she mimics in comedy to the disparage- ment of her own natural manner, which is agreeable. It is funny to see her bridling up her neck, which is native to F. K. ; but there is no setting another's manners ujion one's shoulders any more than their head. I am glad you esteem Manning, though you see but his husk or shrine. He discloses not, save to select worshippers, and will leave the world without any one hardly but me know- ing how stupendous a creature he is. I am perfecting myself in the ' Ode to Eton Col- lege ' against Thursday, that I may not appear unclassic. I have just discovered that it is much better than the ' Elegy.' "In haste, C. L." " PS. — I do not know what to say to your latest theory about Nero being the Messiah, though by all accounts he was a 'nointed one." Lamb's desire for dramatic success was not even yet wholly chilled. In this summer he wrote a little piece on the story 6f Crabbe's tale of the " Confidant," which was never produced, but ultimately published in " Blackwood's Magazine." It runs on agree- ably in melodious blank verse, entirely free from the occ;isional roughnesses of " John Woodvil," but has not sufficient breadth or point for the stage, following letter. He alludes to it in the TO BERNARD BARTON. " Aupr. 10th, lft27. " Dear B. B., — I have not been able to answer you, for we have had, and are having, (I just snatch a moment,) our poor quiet retreat, to which we fled from society, full of company, — some staying with us, and this moment, as I write, almost, a heavy iniporta- tion of two old ladies has come in. Whither can I take wing, from the oppression of human faces ? Would I were in a wilderness of apes, tossing cocoa-nuts about, grinning and grinned at ! "M was hoaxing you, surely, about my engraving ; 'tis a little sixpenny thing, too like by half, in which the draughtsman has done his best to avoid flattery. Tliere have been two editions of it, which I think are all gone, as they have vanished from the window where they hung, — a print-shop, corner of Great and Little Queen-streets, Lincoln's Inn Fields, — where any London friend of yours may inquire for it ; for I am (though you wo7i't understand it) at Enfield Chase. We have been here near three months, and shall stay two more, if people will let us alone ; but tliey persecute us from village to village. So, don't direct to Isling- ton again, till further notice. I am trying my hand at a drama, in two acts, founded on Crabbe's 'Confidant,' mutatis mutandis. You like the Odyssey; did you ever read my 'Adventures of Ulysses,' founded on Chapman's old translation of it ? for children or men. Chapman is divine, and my abridg- ment has not quite emptied him of his divinity. When you come to town I'll show it you. You have well described your old fiishioned grand paternal hall. Is it not odd that every one's earliest recollections are of some such place ! I had my Blakesware (Blakesmoor in the ' London '). Nothing tills a child's mind like a large old mansion ; bettor if un — or partially — occupied; peopled with the spirits of deceased members of the county, and justices of the quorum. Would I were buried in the peopled solitudes of one, with my feelings at seven years old ! Those marble busts of the emperors, they seemed as if they were to stand for ever^ as they had stood from the living days of Home, in that 150 LETTERS TO BARTON AND PATMORE. old marble hall, and I too partake of their permanency. Eternity was, while I thought not of Time. But he thought of me, and they are toppled down, and com covers the spot of the noble old dwelling and its princely gardens. I feel like a grasshopper that, chirping about the grounds, escaped the scythe only by my littleness. Even now he is whetting one of his smallest razors to clean wipe me out, perhaps. Well ! " The following is an acknowledgment of some verses which Lamb had begged for Miss Isola's album. "Aug. 28th, 1827. " Dear B. B., — I am thankful to you for your ready compliance with my wishes. Emma is delighted with your verses ; I have sent them, with four album poems of my own, to a Mr. E , who is to be editor of a more superb pocket-book than has yet appeared, by far ! the property of some wealthy booksellers ; but whom, or what its name, I forgot to ask. It is actually to have in it schoolboy exercises by his present Majesty and the late Duke of York. "Words- worth is named as a contributor. E , whom I have slightly seen, is editor of a forthcome or coming review of foreign books, and is intimately connected with Lockhart, &c. So I take it that this is a concern of Murray's. Walter Scott also contributes mainly. I have stood off a long time from these annuals, which are ostentatious trum- pery, but could not withstand the request of Jameson, a particular friend of mine and Coleridge. " I shall hate myself in frippery, strutting along, and vying finery with beaux and belles, with ' future Lord Byrons and sweet L. E. Ls.' Your taste, I see, is less simple than mine, which the difference in our per- suasions has doubtless effected. In fact, of late you have so Frenchifii'd your style, larding it with hors de combats, and au deso- poirs, that o' my conscience the Foxian blood is quite dried out of you, and the skipping Monsieur si)irit has been infused. "If you have anything you'd like to send further, I dare say an hunourablo place would be given to it ; but I have not heard from F since I sent mine, nor shall probably again, and therefore I do not solicit it as from him. Yesterday I sent off my tragi- comedy to Mr. Keiable. Wish it luck. I made it all ('tis blank verse, and I think of the true old dramatic cut) or most of it, in the green lanes about Enfield, where I am, and mean to remain, in spite of your per- emptory doubts on that head. Your refusal to lend your poetical sanction to my ' Icon,' and your reasons to Evans, are most sensible. Maybe I may hit on a line or two of my own jocular ; maybe not. Do you never London- ize again ? I should like to taik over old poetry with you, of which I have much, and you, I think, little. Do your Drummonds allow no holydays ? I would willingly come and work for you a three weeks or so, to let you loose. Would I could sell or give you some of my leisure ! Positively, the best thing a man can have to do is nothing, and next to that perhaps — good works. I am but poorlyish, and feel myself writing a dull letter ; poorlyish from company ; not gener- ally, for I never was better, nor took more walks, fourteen miles a day on an average, with a sporting dog, Dash. You would not know the plain jjoet, any more than he doth recognise James Naylor trick'd out au deser- poy (how do you spell it ?). " C. L.i3iB." The following was written to the friend to whom Lamb had intrusted Dash, a few days after the parting. TO MR. PATMORE. " Mrs. Lcishinan's, Chase, Enfield. " Dear P., — Excuse my anxiety, but how is Dash ? I should have asked if Mrs. P 6 kept her rules, and was improving ; but Dash came uppermost. The order of our thoughts shoulil be the order of our writing. Goes he muzzled, or aperto ore? Are his intellects sound, or does he w.-iuder a little in his conversation ? You cannot be too careful to watch the first syiui)tom3 of incoherence. The fii-st illogical snarl he makes, to St. Luke's with him. All the dogs liere are going mail, if you believe tlie over- seers ; but I protest they seem to me very rational and collected. But nothing is so deceitful as mad people, to tliose who Jire not used to them. Try him with hot water : if LETTERS TO BARTON, 151 he won't lick it up it is a sign — he does not like it. Does his tail wag horizontally, or perpendicularly 1 That has decided the fate of many dogs in Enfield. Is his general depoi-tment cheerful ? I mean when he is pleased — for otherwise there is no judging. You can't be too careful. Has he bit any of the children yet 1 If he has, have them shot, and keep him for curiosity, to see if it was the hydrophobia. They say all our army in India had it at one time ; but that was in Hi/der-Ally's time. Do you get paunch for him ? Take care the sheep was sane. You might pull out his teeth (if he would let you), and then you need not mind if he were as mad as a Bedlamite. It would be rather fun to see his odd ways. It might amuse Mrs. P and the children. They'd have more sense than he. He'd be like a fool kept in a family, to keep the household in good humour with their own understanding. You might teach him the mad dance, set to the mad howL Madge Owlet would be nothing to him. ' My ! how he capers ! ' [/?i the margin is written, ' One of the children speaks this.*'''] • • * What I scratch out is a German quotation, from Lessing, on the bite of rabid animals ; but I remember you don't read German. But ^Mrs. P niay, so I wish I had let it stand. The meaning in English is — 'Avoid to approach an animal suspected of madness, as you would avoid fire or a pz'ecipice,' which I think is a sensible observation. The Germans are certainly profounder than we. If the slightest sus- picion arises in your breast that all is not right with him, muzzle him and lead him in a string (common pack-thread will do — he don't care for twist) to Mr. Hood's, his quondam master, and he'U take him in at any time. You may mention your suspicion, or not, as you like, or as you think it may wound or not Mir. H.'s feelings. Hood, I know, will wink at a few follies in Dash, in j consideration of his former sense. Besides, Hood is deaf, and, if you hinted anything, ten to one he would not hear you. Besides you will have discharged your conscience, and laid the child at the right door, as they say. " We are dawdling our time away very idly and pleasantly at a Mrs. Leishman's, • Here three lines are carefully erased. Chase, Enfield, where, if you come a-hunting, we can give you cold meat and a tankard. Her husband is a tailor ; but that, you know, does not make her one. I knew a jailor (which rhymes), but his wife was a fine lady, " Let us hear from you respecting Mrs. P 's regimen. I send my love in a to Dash. « C. Lamb." On the outside of the letter is written : " Seriously, I wish you would call upon Hood when you are that way. He's a capital fellow. I've sent him two poems, one ordered by his wife, and written to order ; and 'tis a week since, and I've not heard from him. I fear something is the matter. " Our kindest remembrance to Mrs. P." He thus, in December, expresses his misery in a letter. TO BERNARD BARTON, "Dec. 4th, 1827. " My dear B. B., — I have scarce spirits to write, yet am harassed with not writing. Nine weeks are completed, and Mary does not get any better. It is pei-fectly exhausting. Enfield, and everything, is very gloomy. But for long experience I should fear her ever getting well. I feel most thankful for the spinsterly attentions of your sister. Thank the kind ' knitter in the sim ! ' What nonsense seems verse, when one is seriously out of hope and spirits ! I mean, that at this time I have some nonsense to write, under pain of incivility. Would to the fifth heaven no coxcombess had invented Albums. " I have not had a Bijoux, nor the slightest notice from about omitting four out of five of my things. The best thing is never to hear of such a thing as a bookseller again, or to think there are publishers. Second- hand stationers and old book-stalls for me. Authorship should be an idea of the past. Old kings, old bishops, are venerable ; all present is hollow. I cannot make a letter. I have no straw, not a pennyworth of chaff, only this may stop your kind importunity' to 152 LETTER TO A LADY. know about us. Here is a comfortable house, but no tenants. One does not make a house- hold. Do not thuik I am quite in despair ; but, in addition to hope protracted, I have a stupifying cold and obsti'ucting headache, and the sun is dead. " I will not fail to apprise you of the revival of a beam. Meantime accept this, rather than think I have forgotten you all. Best remembrances. " Yours and theirs truly, " C. Lamb." A proposal to erect a memorial to Clarkson, upon the spot by the way-side where he stopped when on a journey fx-om Cambridge to London, and formed the great resolution of devoting his life to the abolition of tlie slave-trade, produced from Lamb the follow- ing letter to the lady who had announced it to him : — " Dear Madam, — I return your list with my name. I sliould be sorry that any respect should be going on towards Clarkson, and I be left out of the conspiracy. Otherwise I frankly own that to pillarise a man's good feelings in his lifetime is not to my taste. Monuments to goodness, even after death, are equivocal. I turn av/ay from Howard's, T scarce know why. Goodness blows no trumpet, nor desires to have it blown. We should be modest for a modest m,an — as he is for himself The vanities of life — art, poetry, skill military — are subjects for trophies ; not the silent thoughts arising in a good man's mind in lonely places. Was I Clarkson, I should never be able to walk or ride near the spot again. Instead of bread, we are giving him a atone. Instead of the locality recalling the noblest nKjment of his existence, it is a place at which his friends (that is, himself) blow to the world, * What a good man is he ! ' I sat down upon a hillock at Forty Hill yesternight, — a tine contemplative evening, — with a tliousand good speculations about mankind. How I yeju'nod with cheap benevolence ! I shall go and inquire of the stone-cutter, that cuts the tombstones here, what a stone with a short inscription will cost ; just to say, ' Here C. Lamb loved his brethren of mankind.' Everybody will come there to love. As I can't well put my own name, I shall put about a subscription : Mrs. . .£0 5 Procter . . . . 2 6 G. Dvcr . . . 1 Mr. Godwin . . Mrs. Godwin . Mr. Irving . a watch-chain. Mr. . . ( the proceeds of \ first edition. £0 8 6 " I scribble in haste from here, where we shall be some time. Pray request Mr. to advance the guinea for me, which shall fiiithfully be forthcoming, and pardon me that I don't see the proposal in quite the light that he may. The kindness of his iiioti\'es, and his power of appreciating the noble j)assage, I thoroughly agree in. " With most kind regai'ds to him, I conclude " Dear madam, your.s truly, "C. Lajib." " From Mrs. Leishman's, Chase, Enfield." The following appears to have been written in October 1828. TO BERNARD BARTON. "Oct. nth, 1828. " A splendid edition (jf 'Banyan's Pilgrim !' Why, the thought is enough to turn one's moral stomach. His cockle-hat and staff transformed to a smart cock'd beaver, and a jemmy cane ; his amice grey, to the last Regent-street cut : and his painful p;dmer's pace to the modern swagger. Stop thy friend's sacrilegious hand. Nothing can be done for B. but to reprint the old cuts in as homely but good a style as possible. The Vanity Fair, and the Pilgrims there — the Silly-soothness in his setting-out counteujince — the Christian Idiocy (in a good sense), of his admiration of the sheplierds on the Delectable mountains ; the lions, so truly allegorical, and remote from any similitude to Pidcock's ; the great head (the author's), capacious of dreams and similitudes, dream- ing in the dungeon. Perhaps you ilon't know my edition, what I had when a child. If you do, can you bear new designs from M;u-tin, enamelled into copper or silver plate by Heath, accompanied with verses from Mrs. Hemans' pen. O how unlike his own ! LETTERS TO BARTON'. 163 tt'ouUht thou divert thyself from melancholr ? \Vo\il(lst thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly? ■\Voul(lst thou read riddles, and their explanation t Or else be drowned in thy contemplation ? Dost thou love picking meat ? or wouldst thou see A man i' the clouds, and hear him speak to thee J Wouldst thou be in a dream, and yet not sleep ? Or wouldst thou in a. moment lau^h and weep ? Or woiildst thou lose thyself, and catch no harm, And find thyself apain without a charm I Wouldst read thyself, and read thou knowest not what, And yet know whether thou art blest or not By reading the same lines ? O then come hither, And lay my book, thy head, and heart together. John Buntan. Show me any such poetry in any one of the fifteen forthcoming combinations of show and emptiness, yclept ' Annuals.' So there's verses for thy vei'ses ; and now let me tell you, that the sight of your hand gladdened me, I have been daily trying to write to you, but paralysed. You have spurred me on this tiny effort, and at intervals I hope to hear from and talk to you. But my spirits have been in an opprest way for a long long time, and they are things ■which must be to you of faith, for who can explain denression ? Yes, 1 am hooked into the ' Gem,' but only for some lines written on a dead infant of the Editor's, which being, as it were, his pro- perty, I could not refuse their appearing ; but 1 hate the paper, the type, the gloss, the daudy plates, the names of contributors poked up into your eyes in first page, and wliitkcd through all the covers of magazines, the barefaced sort of emulation, the immodect candidateship. Brought into so little space — in those old ' Londons,' a signature was lost in the wood of matter, the paper coarse (till latterly, which spoiled them) ; in shoi-t, I detest to appear in an Annual. What a fertile genius (and a quiet good soul witlial) is Hood ! He has fifty things in hand ; farces to supply the Adelphi for the season ; a comedy for one of the great theatres, just ready ; a whole entertainment, by himself, for Mathews and Yates to figure in ; a medi- tated Comic Annual for next year, to be nearly done by himself. You'd like him very much. " Wordsworth, I see, has a good ijtiany pieces announced in one of 'em, not our Gem. W. Scott has distributed himself like a bribe haunch among 'em. Of all the poets, Gary has had the good sense to keep quite clear of 'em, with clergy-gentle-mauly right notions. Don't think I set up for being proud on this point ; I like a bit of flattery, tickling my vanity, as well as any one. But these pompous masquerades without masks (naked names or faces) I hate. So there's a bit of my mind. Besides, they infallibly cheat you ; I mean the booksellers. If I get but a copy, I only expect it from Hood's being my friend. Coleridge has lately been here. He too is deep among the prophets, the year- servers, — the mob of gentlemen annuals. But they'll cheat him, I know. And now, dear B. B., the sun shining out merrily, and the dirty clouds we had yesterday having washed their own faces cle;in with their own rain, tempts me to wander up Winchmore Hill, or into some of the delightful vicinages of Enfield, which I hope to show you at some time when you can get a few days up to the great town. Believe me, it would give both of us great pleasure to show you our pleasant farms and villages. " We both join in kindest loves to you and youi's. C. Lamb, redivivus." The following is of December, and closes the letters which remain of this year. TO BERNARD BARTON. "Dec. 5th, 1828. " Dear B. B., — I am ashamed to receive so many nice books from j-^ou, and to have none to send you in return. You are always sending me some fruits or wholesome pot- herbs, and mine is the garden of the Sluggard, nothing but weeds, or scarce they. Never- theless, if I knew how to ti-ansmit it, I would send you Blackwood's of this month, which contains a little drama, to have your opinion of it, and how far I have improved, or other- wise, upon its prototj-pe. Thank you for your kind sonnet. It does me good to see the Dedication to a Christian Bishop. I am for a comprehension, as divines call it ; but so as that the Church shall go a good deal more than half way over to the silent Meeting-house. I have ever said that the Quakers are the only professors of Christian- ity, as I read it in the Evangiles ; I say pro- fessors — marry, as to practice, with their gaudy hot types and poeticid vanities, they are much as one with the sinful. Martin's Frontispiece is a very fine thing, let C. L. say what he please to the contraiy. Of the Foems» 154 LETTERS TO BARTON. I like them as a volume, better than any one of the preceding ; particularly, ' Power and Gentleness' — 'The Present' — 'Lady Russell ;' with the exception that I do not like the noble act of Curtius, true or false — one of the grand foundations of the old Roman pa- triotism — to be sacrificed to Lady R.'s taking notes on her husband's trial. If a tiling is good, why invidiously bring it into light with something better ? There are too few heroic things in this world, to admit of our mar- shalling them in anxious etiquettes of prece- dence. Would you make a poem on the story of Ruth, (pretty story !) and then say — Ay, but how much better is the story of Joseph and his brethren ! To go on, the stanzas to ' Chalon ' want the name of Clark- son in the body of them ; it is left to infer- ence. The 'Battle of Gibeon' is spirited, again ; but you sacrifice it in last stanza to the song at Bethlehem. Is it quite orthodox to do so ? The first was good, you suppose, for that dispensation. Why set the word against the word ? It puzzles a weak Christian. So Watts' Psalms are an imjslied censure on David's. But as long as the Bible is supposed to be an equally divine emanation with the Testament, so long it will stagger weaklings to have them set in oppo- sition. 'Godiva' is delicately touched. I have always thought it a beautiful story, characteristic of the old English times. But I could not help amusing myself with the thought — if Martin had chosen this subject for a frontispiece — there would have been in some dark corner a white lady, white as the walker on the waves, riding upon some mystical quadruped ; and high above would have risen ' tower above tower a massy structure high' — the Tenterden steeples of Coventry, till the poor cross would scarce have known itself among the clouds ; and far above them all the distant Clint hills peering over chimney-pots, piled up, Ossa-on-Olympus fashion, till the admiring spectator (admirer of a noble deed) might have gone look for the lady, as you must hunt for the other in the lobster. But M. should be made royal architect. What palaces he would pile ! But then, what par- liamentary grants to make them good ! Nevertheless, I like the frontispiece. ' The Elephant ' is pleasant ; and I am glad you are getting into a wider scope of subjects. There may be too much, not religion, but too many good words in a book, till it becomes a rhapsody of words. I will just name, that you have brought in the 'Song to the Shepherds ' in four or five, if not six places. Now this is not good economy. The 'Enoch' is fine ; and here I can sacrifice ' Elijah ' to it, because 'tis illustrative only, and not dis- paraging of the latter prophet's departure. I like this best in the book. Lastly, I much like the ' Heron ; ' 'tis exquisite. Know you Lord Thurlow's Sonnet to a biixl of that sort on Lacken water ? If not, 'tis indispensable I send it you, with my Blackwood. 'Fludyer' is pleasant, — you are getting gay and Hood- ish. What is the enigma ? Money ? If not, I fairly confess I am foiled, and sphynx must eat me. Four times I've tried to write — eat me, and the blotting pen turns it into — cat me. And now I will take my leave with saying, I esteem thy verses, like thy present, honour thy frontispicer, and right reverence thy patron and dedicatee, and am, dear B. B., " Yours heartily, C. Lamb." CHAPTER XVII. [1829, 1830.] LETTERS TO KOBINSON, PROCTEB, BAllTON, ■WILSON, OILMAN, WOnDSWORTH, AND DYER. Having decided on residing entirely at Enfield, Lamb gave up Colebrooke-cottage, and took what he described in a notelet to me as "an odd-looking gambogish-coloured house," at Chase-side, Enfield. The situation was far from picturesque, for the opposite side of the road only presented some middling tenements, two dissenting-chapels, and a ])ublic house decorated with a swinging sign of a Rising Sun ; but the neighbouring field- walks were j)lcasant, and the country, i\a he liked to say, quite as good as Westmoreland. He continued occasional contributions to the New Monthly, especially the sorios of " Popular Fallacies ; " w^rote short articles in the Athenseum ; and a great many acrostics on the names of his friends. He had now a neiglibour in Mr. Serjeant Wilde, to whom he was introduced by Mr Burney, and whom LETTERS TO ROBINSON AND PROCTER. 155 he held in high esteem, though Lamb cared nothing for forensic eloquence, and thought very little of eloquence of any kind ; which, it must be confessed, when printed is the most vapid of all reading. What political interest could not excite, personal regard produced in favour of his new friend ; and Lamb supplied several versified squibs and snatches of electioneering songs to grace Wilde's contests at Newark. With these slender avocations his life was dull, and only a sense of duty induced him to persist in absence from London. The following letter was written in ac- knowledgment of a parcel sent to Miss Lamb, comprising (what she had expressed a wish to have) a copper coal-scoop, and a pair of elastic spectacles, accompanied by a copy of "Pamela," which having been bor- rowed and supposed to be lost, had been replaced by another in Lamb's library. TO MR. H. C. ROBINSON. "Enfield, Feb. 27th, 1829. " Dear E., — Expectation was alert on the receipt of your strange-shaped present, while yet undisclosed from its fuse envelope. Some said, 'tis a viol da Gamba, others pronounced it a fiddle ; I, myself, hoped it a liqueur case, pregnant vfiih eau,-de-vie &ndi such odd nectar. When midwifed into daylight, the gossips were at a loss to pronounce upon its species. Most took it for a marrow-spoon, an apple- scoop, a banker's guinea-shovel ; at length its true scope appeared, its drift, to save the back-bone of my sister stooping to scuttles. A philanthropic intent, borrowed, no doubt, from some of the Colliers. You save people's backs one way, and break 'em again by loads of obligation. The spectacles are delicate and Vulcanian. No lighter texture than their steel did the cuckoldy blacksmith frame to catch Mrs. Vulcan and the Captain in. For ungalled forehead, as for back uubursten, you have !^Llry's thanks. Marry, for my own peculium of obligation, 'twas superero- gatory. A second part of Pamela was eiough in conscience. Two Pamelas in a house are too much, without two Mr. B.'s to reward 'em. " Mary, who is handselling her new aerial perspectives upon a pair of old worsted stockings trod out in Cheshunt lanes, sends her love : I, great good-liking. Bid us a personal farewell before you see the Vatican. " Charles Lamb." The following letter to his friend, who so prosperously combines conveyancing with poetry, is a fair sample of Lamb's elaborate and good-natured fictions. It is hardly necessary to say, that the reference to a coolness between him and two of his legal friends, is part of the fiction. TO MR. PROCTER. "Jan. 19tb, 1829. " My dear Procter, — I am ashamed not to have taken the di'ift of yoiu* pleasant letter, which I find to have been pure invention. But jokes are not suspected in Boeotian Enfield. We are plain people, and our talk is of corn, and cattle, and Waltham markets. Besides, I was a little out of sorts when I received it. The fact is, I am involved in a case which has fretted me to death, and I have no reliance except on you to extricate me. I am sure you will give me your best legal advice, having no professional friend besides, but Eobinson and Talfourd, with neither of whom, at present, I am on the best of terms. My brother's widow left a will, made during the lifetime of my brother, in which I am named sole executor, by which she bequeaths forty acres of arable property, which it seems .she held under covert baron, unknown to my brother, to the heirs of the body of Elizabeth Dowden, her married daughter by a first husband, in fee simjile, recoverable by fine ; invested property, mind, for there is the difficulty ; subject to leet and quit-rent ; in short, worded in the most guarded temis, to shut out the property from Isaac Dowden, the husband. Intelligence has just come of the death of this person in India, where he made a will, entailing this property (which seemed entangled enough already) to the heirs of his body, that should not be born of his wife, for it seems by the law in India, natural children can recover. They have put the cause into Exchequer process here, removed by certiorari from the native courts ; and the question is, whether I should, as executor, try the cause here, or again re-remove it to the Supreme Sessions at Bangalore, wliich I understand I can, or 156 LETTERS TO PROCTER. plead a hearing before the Privy Council here. As it involves all the little property of Elizabeth Dowden, I am anxious to t;ike the fittest steps, and what may be least expensive. For God's sake assist me, for the case is so embarrassed that it deprives me of sleep and appetite. M. Burney thinks there is a case like it in chap. 170, sec. 5, in ' Fearn's Contingent Remainders.' Pray read it over with him dispassion.ately, and let me have the result. The complexity lies in the ques- tionable power of the husband to aUenate ui usum ; enfeoffments whereof he was only collaterally seised, &c. " I had another favour to beg, which is the beggarliest of beggings. A few lines of verse for a young friend's album (six will be enough). M. Bm-ney will tell you who she is I want 'em for. A girl of gold. ' Six lines — make 'em eight — signed Barry C . They need not be very good, as I chiefly want 'era as a foil to mine. But I shall be seriously obliged by any refuse scrap. We are in the last ages of the world, when St. Paul pro- phesied that women should be ' headstrong, lovers of their own wills, having albums.' I fled hither to escape the albumean persecution, and had not been in my new house twenty- four hours, when the daughter of the next house came in with a friend's album to beg a contribution, and the following day inti- mated she had one of her own. Two more have sprung up since. If I take the wings of the morning and fly mito the uttermost parts of the earth, there will albums be. New Holland has albums. But the age is to be complied with. M. B. will tell you the sort of girl I request the ten lines for. Some- what of a pensive cast, what you admire. The lines may come before the law question, as that cannot be determined before Hilary Term, and I wish your deliberate judgment on that. The other may be flimsy and super- ficial. And if you have not burnt your returned letter, pray resend it me, as a monumental token of my stupidity." Lamb was as unfortunate in his commu- nications with the annuals, as unhappy in the importunities of the fair owners of albums. His favourite pieces were omitted ; and a piece not Lis, called " The Widow," was, by a license of friendship, which Lamb forgave, inserted in one of them. He thus complains of these grievances in a letter which he wrote on the marriage of the daughter of a fi'iend to a great theoretical chemist. TO MR. PROCTER. "Jan. 22nd, 1829. " Rumour tells us that Miss is mar- ried. Who is 1 Have I seen him at Montacutes ? I hear he is a great chemist. I am sometimes chemical myself. A thought strikes me with horror. Pray heaven he may not have done it for the sake of trying chemical experiments upon her, — young female subjects are so scarce. An't you glad about Burke's case ! We may set off the Scotch murders against the Scotch novels. Hare, the Great Unhanged. " M. B. is richly worth your knowing. He is on the top scale of my friendship ladder, on which an angel or two is still climbing, and some, alas ! descending. Did you cee a sonnet of mine in Blackwood's last ? Curious construction ! Elaborata facilitas ! And now I'll tell. 'Twas written for ' The Gem,' but the editors declined it, on the plea that it would shock all mothers; so they published ' The Widow ' instead. I am born out of time. I have no conjecture about what the present world calls delicacy, I thought ' Rosamund Gray' was a pretty modest thing. He.^sey assures me that the world would not bear it. I have lived to grow into an indecent charac- ter. When my sonnet was rejected, I ex- cl.'iimed, ' Hang the age, I will write for antiquity ! " " Erratum in sonnet. — Last line but some- thing, for tender, read tend. The Scotch do not know our law terms ; but I find some remains of honest, plain, old writing lurking there still. They were not so mealy-mouthed as to I'efuse my verses. Maybe 'tis their oatmeal. " Blackwood sent me 20^. for the drama. Somebody cheated me out of it next day ; and my new pair of breeches, just sent home, cracking at first putting on, I exclaimed, in my wrath, 'All tailors are cheats, and all men are tadors,' Then I was better. "C. L." The next contains Lamb's thanks for the vei'ses he had begged for Miss Isola's album. LETTERS TO PROCTER. 157 They comprehended a compliment turning on the words Isola Bella. TO MR. PROCTER. "The comings in of an incipient convey- ancer are not adequate to the receipt of three twopenny post non-paids in a week. There- fore, after this, T condemn my stub to long and deep silence, or shall awaken it to write to lords. Lest those raptures in this honey- moon of my correspondence, which you avow for the gentle person of my Nuncio, after passing through certain natural grades, as Love, Love and Water, Love with the chill off, then subsiding to that point which the heroic suitor of his wedded dame, the noble- spirited Lord Eaudolph in the play, declares to be the ambition of his passion, a recipro- cation of ' complacent kindness,' — should suddenly plum down (scarce staying to bait at the mid point of indifference, so hungry it is for distaste) to a loathing and blank aver- sion, to the rendering probable such counter expressions as this, — 'Hang that infernal two-penny postman,' (words which make the not yet glutted inamorato ' lift up his hands and wonder who can use them.') While, then, you are not ruined, let me assure thee, O thou above the painter, and next only under Giraldus Oambrensis, the most immor- tal and worthy to be immortal Barry, thy most ingenious and golden cadences do take my fancy mightily. But tell me, and tell me truly, gentle swain, is that Isola Bella a true spot in geographical denomination, or a floating Delos in thy brain. Lurks that fair island in verity in the bosom of Lake Mag- giore, or some other with less poetic name, which thou hast Cornwallized for the occa- sion. And what if Maggiore itself be but a coinage of adaptation ? Of this, pray resolve me immediately, for my albuniess will be catechised on this subject ; and how can I prompt her 1 Lake Leman I know, and Lemon Lake (in a punch bowl) I have swum in, though those lymphs be long since dry. But Maggiore may be in the moon. Un- sphinx this riddle for me, for my sjielves have no gazetteer." The following letters contain a noble instance of Lamb's fine consideration, and exquisite feeling in morality. TO MR. PROCTER* "Jan. 29th, 1829. "When Miss was at Enfield, which she was in summertime, and owed her health to its sun and genial influences, she visited (with young lady like impertinence) a poor man's cottage that had a pretty baby (O the yearning !), gave it fine caps and sweetmeats. On a day, broke into the parlour our two maids uproarious. ' O ma'am, who do you think Miss has been working a cap for ? ' 'A child,' answered Mary, in true Shandean female simplicity. ' It's the man's child as was taken up for sheep- stealing.' Miss was staggered, and would have cut the connection, but by main force I made her go and take her leave of her protegee. I thought, if she went no more, the Abactor or Abactor's wife (vide Ainsworth) would suppose she had heard something ; and I have delicacy for a sheep- stealer. The overseers actually overhauled a mutton-pie at the baker's (his first, last, and only hope of mutton-pie), which he never came to eat, and thence inferred his guilt. Per occasionem cuj us, I framed the sonnet ; observe its elaborate construction. I was four days about it. ' THE GIPSY'S MALISON. " Suck, baby, suck ! mother's love grows by giving, Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting ; Black manho(;cl comes, when riotous guilty living Hands thee the cup that shall be death in tasting. Kiss, baby, kiss ! mother's lips shine by kisses, Choke the warm breath that else would fall in blessings ; Black manhood comes, when turbulent guilty blisses Tend thee the kiss that poisons 'mid caressings. Hang, baby, hang ! mother's love loves such forces, Strain the fond neck that bends still to thy clinging ; Black manhood comes, when violent lawless courses Leave thee a spectacle in rude air swinging." So sang a withcr'd beldam energetical, And bann'd the ungiving door with lips pro- phetical.' " Barry, study that sonnet. It is curiously and perversely elaborate. 'Tis a choking subject, and therefore the reader is directed to the structure of it. See you ? and was this a fourtecner to be rejected by a trumpery annual I foi-sooth, 'twould shock all mothers ; and may all mothers, who would so be shocked, be hanged ! as if mothers were such sort of logicians as to infer the future hanging 158 LETTERS TO PROCTER AND BARTON. of their cliild from the theoretical liangibility (or capacity of being hanged, if the judge pleases) of every infant born with a neck on. Oh B. C. my whole heart ia faint, and my whole head is sick (how is it 1) at this cursed, canting, unmasculine age ! " There is a little Latin letter about the same time to the same friend. TO MR. PROCTER. "Feb. 2nd, 1829. " Facundissime Poeta ! quanquam istius- modi epitheta oratoribus potitis quam poetis attinere facild scio — tamen, facundissime ! "Commoratur nobiscum jamdiu, in agro Enfeldiense, scilicet, leguleius futurus, illus- trissimus Martinus Burneius, otium agens, negotia nominalia, et officinam clientum vacuam, paululum fugiens. Orat, implorat te — nempe, Martinus — ut si (qu6d Dii faciant) fort^ fortunS,, absente ipso, advenerit tardus cliens, eum certiorem feceris per literas hAc missas. Intelligisne ? an me Anglic^ et barbarice ad te hominem perdoc- tum scribere oportet ? C. Agnus." " Si status de franco tenemento datur avo, et in eodem facto si mediate vel immediate datur hceredibus vel hwredibus corporis dicti avi, postrema hsec verba sunt Limitationis non Perquisitionis. " Dixi. Carlagnulus." An allusion to Eogers, worthy of both, occurs in a letter TO BERNARD BARTON. "June 3rd, 1829. " Dear B. B., — to get out of home themes, have you seen Southey's ' Dialogues ? ' His lake descriptions, and the account of his library at Keswick, are very fine. But he needed not have called up the ghost of More to hold the conversations with ; which might as well have passed between A. and B., or Caius and Lucius. It is making too free with a defunct Chancellor and Martyr. " I feel as if I had nothing farther to write about. O ! I forget the prettiest letter I ever read, that I have received from ' Pleasures of Memory ' Rogers, in acknow- ledgment of a sonnet I sent him on the loss of his brother. " It is too long to transcribe, but I hope to show it you some day, as I hope some time again to see you, when all of us are well. Only it ends thus, 'We were nearly of an age (he was the elder) ; he was the only person in the world in whose eyes I always ajjpeared young.' " What a lesson does the following read to lis from one who, while condemned to unin- teresting industry, thought happiness con- sisted in an affluence of time ! TO BERNARD BARTON. " Enfield Chase-side, Saturday, 25th July. A.D. 1829, 11 A.M. "There — a fuller, plumper, juicier date never dropt from Idumean palm. Am I in the dative case now 1 if not, a fig for dates, which is more than a date is worth. I never stood much affected to these limitary speci- alities. Least of all, since the date of my superannuation. ' What have I with time to do ? Slaves of desks, 'twas meant for you.' But town, with all my native hankering after it, is not what it was. Tiie streets, the shops are left, but all old friends are gone. And in London I was frightfully convinced of this as I passed houses and places, empty caskets now. I have ceased to care almost about anybody. The bodies I cared for are in graves, or dispersed. My old clubs, that lived so long, and flourished so steadily, are crumbled away. When I took leave of our adopted young friend at Charing Cross, 'twas heavy unfeeling rain, and I had no where to go. Home have I none, and not a symjm- thising house to turn to in the great city. Never did the waters of heaven pour down on a forlorner head. Yet I tried ten days at a sort of a friend's house, but it was large and straggling, — 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 ; and I got home on Thursday, convinced that I was better to get home to my hole at Enfield, and hide like a sick cat in my corner. And to make LETTER TO WILSON. 169 me more aloue, our ill-tempered maid is gone, •who, with all her airs, was yet a home-piece of furniture, a record of better days ; the young thing that has succeeded her is good and attentive, but she is nothing. And I have no one here to talk over old matters with. Scolding and quarrelling have something of familiarity, and a community of interest; they imply acquaintance ; they are of re- sentment, which is of the family of dear- ness. " I can neither scold nor quarrel at this insignificant implement of household services ; she is less than a cat, and just better than a deal dresser. What I can do, and do over-do, is to walk ; but deadly long are the days, these summer all-day days, with but a half hour's candle-light, and no fire-light. I do not write, tell your kind inquisitive Eliza, and can hardly read. In the ensuing Blackwood will be an old rejected farce of mine, which may be new to you, if you see that same medley. 'Tis cold work authorship, without something to puff one into fashion. Could you not vrrite something on Quakerism, for Quakers to read, but nominally addressed to Non-Quakers, explaining your dogmas — waiting on the Spirit — by the analogy of human calmness and patient waiting on the judgment 1 I scarcely know what I mean, but to make Non-Quakers reconciled to your doctrines, by showing something like them in mere human operations ; but I hardly understand myself, so let it pass for nothing. I pity you for over-work, but, I assure you, no work is worse. The mind preys on itself, the most unwholesome food. I bragged formerly that I could not have too much time. I have a surfeit. With few years to come, the days are wearisome. But weari- ness is not eternal. Something will shine out to take the load off that flags me, which is at present intolerable. I have killed an hour or two ta this poor scrawl. I am a sanguinary murderer of time, and would kill him inch- meal just now. But the snake is vital. Well : I shall write merrier anon. 'Tis the present copy of my countenance I send, and to complain is a little to alle\-iate. May you enjoy yourself as far as the wicked world wiU let you, and think that you are not quite alone, as I am ! Health to Lucia, and to Anna, and kind remembrances. " Your forlorn C. L." The cares of housekeeping pressed too heavily on Miss Lamb, and her brother resolved to resign the dignity of a house- keeper for the independence of a lodger. A couple of old dwellers in Enfield, hard by his cottage, had the good fortune to receive them. Lamb refers to the change in the following letter, acknowledging the receipt of Wilson's " Life of De Foe," in which a criticism from his pen was inserted, embody- ing the sentiments which he had expressed some years before. TO MR. WALTER WILSON. "Enfield, 15th November, 1829. " My dear Wilson, — I have not opened a packet of unknown contents for many years, that gave me so much pleasure as when I disclosed your three volumes. I have given them a careful i^erusal, and they have taken their degree of classical books iipon my shelves. De Foe was always my darling, but what darkness was I in as to far the larger part of his writings ! I have now an epi- tome of them all. I think the way in which you have done the 'Life' the most judicious you could have pitched upon. You have made him tell his own story, and your com- ments are in keeping with the tale. Why, I never heard of such a work as ' the Review.' Strange that in my stall-hunting days I never so much as lit upon an odd volume of it. This circumstance looks as if they were never of any great circulation. But I may have met with 'em, and not knowing the prize, overpast 'em. I was almost a stranger to the whole history of Dissenters in those reigns, and picked my way through that strange book the ' Consolidator ' at random. How affecting are some of his personal appeals : what a machine of projects he set on foot, and following wi-iters have picked his pocket of the patents ! I do not under- stand whereabouts in Eoxana he himself left off. I always thought the complete-tourist- sort of description of the town she passes through on her last embarkation miserably unseasonable, and out of place. I knew not they were spurious. Enlighten me as to where the apocryphal matter commences. I, by accident, can coxTect one A. D., ' Family Instructor,' vol. ii. 1718 ; you say his first volume had then reached the fourth edition ; 160 LETTER TO OILMAN. now I have a fifth, printed for Eman Matthews, 1717. So have I plucked one rotten date, or rather picked it up where it had inadvertently fallen, from your flourisli- ing date tree, the Palm of Engaddi, I may take it for my pains. I think yours a book which every public library must have, and every English scholar should have. I am sure it has enriched my meagre stock of the author's works. I seem to be twice as opulent. Mary is by my side just finishing the second volume. It must have interest to divert her away so long from her modern novels. Colburn will be quite jealous. I was a little disappointed at ray ' Ode to the Treadmill ' not finding a place, but it came out of time. The two papers of mine will puzzle the reader, being so akin. Odd, that , never keeping a scrap of my own letters, ' with some fifteen years' interval I should nearly have said the same things. But 1 shall always feel happy in having my name go down any how with De Foe's, and that of his historiographer. T promise myself, if not immortality, yet diuternity of being read in consequence. We have both had much illness this year ; and feeling infirmities and fretfulness grow upon us, we have cast oS" the cares of housekeeping, sold off our goods, and commenced boarding and lodging with a very comfortable old couple next door to where you found us. We use a sort of com- mon table. Nevertheless, we have reserved a private one for an old friend ; and when Mrs. Wilson and you revisit Babylon, we shall pray you to make it yours for a season. Our very kindest remembrances to you both. " From your old friend &uA. fellow-journalist, now in two instances. « C. Lamb." " Hazlitt is going to make your book a basis for a review of De Foe's Novels in ' the Edinbro.' I wish I had liealth and spirits to do it. Hone I have not seen, but I doubt not he will be much pleased with your per- formance. I very much hope you will give us an account of Duntun, &c. But wliat I shouUl more like to see would be a life and times of Bunyan. Wishing health to you, and long life to your healthy book, again I Bubscribe me, " Yours ill verity, C. L." About the same time, the following letter was written, alluduig to the same change. TO MR. OILMAN. "Chase-side, Enfield, 26th Oct. 182.'). " Dear Oilman, — Allsop brought me your kind message yesterday. How can 1 account for having not visited Highgate this long time 1 Change of place seemed to have changed me. How grieved I was to hear in what indifferent liealth Coleridge has been, and I not to know of it ! A little school divinity, well applied, may be healing. I send him honest Tom of Aquin ; that was always an obscure great idea to me : I never thought or dreamed to see him in the flesh, but t'other day I rescued him from a .stall in Barbican, and brought him off in triumph. He comes to greet Coleridge's acceptance, for his shoe-latchets I am unworthy to unloose. Yet there are pretty pro's and con's, and such unsatisfactory learning in him. Commend me to the question of etiquette — ' utriim anminciatio debuerit fi^ri per angelum ' — Qucest. 30, Articidus 2. I protest, till now I had thought Gabriel a fellow of some mark and livelihood, not a simple esquire, as I find him. Well, do not break your lay brains, nor I neither, with these curious nothings. They are nuts to our dear friend, whom hoping to see at your first friendly hint that it will be convenient, I end with begging our very kindest loves to Mrs. Oilman. We have had a sorry house of it here. Our spirits have been reduced till we were at hope's end what to do. Obliged to quit this house, and afraid to engage another, till in exti-emity, I took the desperate resolve of kicking house and all down, like Bunyan's pack ; and here we are in a new life at board and lodging, with an honest couple our neighbours. We have ridded ourselves of the cares of dirty acres ; and the change, thoutrh of less than a week, has had the most beneficial effects on Mary already. She looks two years and a half younger for it. j But we have had sore trials. ! " God send us one happy meeting ! — Yours faithfully, C. Lamb." The first result of the experiment was happy, as it brought improved health to Miss Lamb; to which Lamb refers in tlio following letter to his Suffolk friend, who had announced to him his appointment as assignee under a bankruptcy. TO BERNARD BARTON. " December 8th, 1829. " My dear B. B., — ^You are very good to have been uneasy about us, and I have the .satisfaction to tell you, that we are both in better health and spirits than we have been for a year or two past ; I may say, than we have been since we have been at Enfield. The cause may not appear quite adequate, when I tell you, that a course of ill-health and spirits brought us to the determination of giving up our house here, and we are boarding and lodging with a worthy old couple, long inhabitants of Enfield, where everything is done for us without our trouble, further than a reasonable weekly payment. "We should have done so before, but it is not easy to flesh and blood to give up an ancient establishment, to discard old Penates, and from house-keepers to turn house-sharers. (N.B. We are not in the workhouse.) Dio- cletian, in his garden, found more repose than on the imperial seat of Eome ; and the nob of Charles the Fifth ached seldomer under a monk's cowl than under the diadem. "With such shadows of assimilation we coun- tenance our degradation. With such a load of dignified cares just removed from our ; shoulders, we can the more understand and i pity the accession to yours, by the advance- | ment to an assigneeship. I will tell you I honestly, B. B., that it has been long my deliberate judgment that all bankrupts, of what denomination, civil or religious, soever, ought to be hanged. The pity of mankind 1 has for ages run in a wrong channel, and has been diverted from poor creditors — (how many have I known sufferers ! Hazlitt has just been defrauded of 100^. by his bookseller-friend's breaking) — to scoundrel ! debtoi-s. I know all the topics, — that dis- tress may come upon an honest man withput his fault ; that the failure of one that' he ' trusted was his calamity, &c. Then let both ; be hanged. O how careful this would make ' traders ! These are my deliberate thoughts, I after many years' experience in mattei-s of trade. What a world of trouble it would save you, if Friend **•** had been imme- diately hanged, without benefit of clergy, which (being a Quaker 1 presume) he could not reasonably insist upon. Why, after slaving twelve months in your assign- business, you will be enabled to declare 7d. in the pound in all human probability. B. B., he should be hanged. Trade will never re- flourish in this land till such a law is established. I write big, not to save ink but eyes, mine having been troubled with reading through three folios of old Fuller in almost as few days, and I went to bed last night in agony, and am writing with a vial of eye- water before me, alternately dipping in vial and inkstand. This may inflame my zeal against bankrupts, but it was my speculation when I could see better. Half the world's misery (Eden else) is owing to want of money, and all that want is owing to bank- rupts. I declare I would, if the state wanted practitioners, turn hangman myself, and should have great pleasure in hanging the first after my salutary law should be estab- lished. I have seen no annuals, and wish to see none. I like your fun upon them, and was quite pleased with Bowles's sonnet. Hood is, or was, at Brighton ; but a note (prose or rhyme) to him, Eobert-street, Adelphi, I am sure, would extract a copy of his, which also I have not seen. Wishing you and yours all health, I conclude whUe these frail glasses are to me — eyes. «C. L." Tlie following letter, written in the begin- ning of 1830, describes his landlord and land- lady, and expresses, with a fine solemnity, the feelings which still held him at Enfield. TO MR. WORDSWORTH. "Jan. 22nd, 1S30. " And is it a year since we parted from you at the steps of Edmonton stage ? There are not now the years that there used to be. The tale of the dwindled age of men, reported of succcssional mankind, is tnie of the same man only. We do not live a year in a year now. 'Tis a punctum stans. The seasons pa.s3 us with indifference. Spring cheei-s not, nor winter heightens our gloom ; autumn hath foregone its moralities, — they are ' hey- p;iss repass,' as in a show-box. Yet, as fur a.s last year, occurs back, — for they scarce 162 LETTER TO WORDSWORTH. show a reflex now, they make no memory as lieretofore, — 'twas sufficiently gloomy. Let the sullen nothing pass. Suffice it, that after sad spirits, prolonged through many of its months, as it called them, we have cast our skins ; have taken a farewell of the pompous, troublesome trifle, called housekeeping, and are settled down into poor boarders and lodgers at next door with an old couple, the Baucis and Baucida of dull Enfield. Here we have nothing to do with our victuals but to eat them ; with the garden bvit to see it grow ; with the tax-gatherer but to hear him knock ; with the maid but to hear her scolded. Scot and lot, butcher, baker, are things unknown to us, save as spectators of the pageant. We are fed we know not how ; quietists, — confiding ravens. We have the otium pro dignitate, a respectable insignifi- cance. Yet in the self-condemned oblivious- ness, in the stagnation, some molesting yearnings of life, not quite killed, rise, prompting me that there was a London, and that I was of that old Jerusalem. In dreams I am in Fleet Market, but I wake and cry to sleep again. I die hard, a stubborn Eloisa in this detestable Paraclete. What have I gained by health 1 Intolerable dullness. What by early hours and moderate meals 1 A total blank. O ! never let the Ipng poets be believed, who 'tice men from the cheerful haunts of streets, or think they mean it not of a countx-y village. In the ruins of Pal- myra I could gird myself up to solitude, or muse to the snorings of the Seven Sleepers ; but to have a little teazing image of a town about one ; country folks that do not look like country folks ; shops two yards square, half a dozen apples and two penn'orth of overlooked ginger-bread for the lofty fruiterers of Oxford-street ; and, for the immortal book and print stalls, a circulating library that stands stiU, where the sliow- picture is a last year's Valentine, and whither the fame of the last ten Scotch novels has not yet travelled, — (maiTy, they just begin to be conscious of the Redgauntlet :) — to have a new plastered flat church, and to be wishing that it was but a cathedral ! Tlie very blackguards here are degenerate ; the top- ping gentry stock brokers ; the passengers too many to insure your quiet, or let you go about whistling or gaping, too few to be the fine indifl'ereiit pageants of Fleet-street. Confining, room-keeping, thickest winter, is yet more bearable here than the gaudy months. Among one's books at one's fire by candle, one is soothed into an oblivion that one is not in the country ; but with the light the gi'een fields return, till I gaze, and in a calenture can plunge myself into St. Giles's. O ! let no native Londoner imagine that health, and rest, and innocent occupa- tion, interchange of converse sweet, and recreative study, can make the country any- thing better than altogether odious and detestable. A garden was the primitive prison, till man, with Promethean felicity and boldness, luckily sinned himself out of it. Thence followed Babylon, Nineveh, Venice, London, haberdashers, goldsmiths, taverns, playhouses, satires, epigrams, puns, — these all came in on the town part, and the thither side of innocence. Man found out inven- tions. From my den I return you condolence for your decaying sight ; not for anything there is to see in the coimtry, but for the miss of the pleasure of reading a London newspaper. The poets are as well to listen to ; anything high may, nay must, be read out ; you read it to yourself with an imaginary auditor ; but the light paragraphs must be glid over by the proper eye ; mouthing mumbles their gossamery sub- stance. 'Tis these trifles I should mourn in fading sight. A newspaper is the single gleam of comfort I receive here ; it comes from rich Cathay with tidings of mankind. Yet I could not attend to it, read out by the most beloved voice. But your eyes do not get worse, I gather. O for the collyrium of Tobias inclosed in a whiting's liver, to send you with no apocryphal good wishes ! The last long time I heard from you, you had knocked your head against something. Do not do so ; for your head (I do not flatter) is not a knob, or the top of a brass nail, or the end of a nine-pin, — unless a Vulcanian ham- mer could fairly batter a * Recluse ' out of it ; then would I bid the smirched god knock and knock lustily, the two-handed skinker. Mary must squeeze out a \me proprid manu, but indeed her fingers have been incorrigibly nervous to letter writing for a long interval. 'Twill please you all to hear, that though I fret like a lion in a net, her present health and spirits are better than they have been for some time past ; she is ab.-m, the Gilmans when I come. " Yours, semper idem, C. L. " If you ever thought an oflFence, much more wrote it, against me, it must have l^een in the times of Noah, and the great waiters swept it away. Mary's most kind love, and maybe a wrong prophet of your bodings ! — here she is crying for mere love over your letter. I wring out less, but not sincerer showers. " IMy direction is simply, Enfield." Lamb's regard for !Mr. Caiy had now ripened into a fast friendship ; and by agree- ment he dined every third Wednesday in the month at the Museum. In general, these were occasions on which Lamb observed the strictest rules of temperance ; but once accident of stomach or of sentiment caused a woful deviation, which Lamb deplored in the following letter. TO MR. CART. " I protest I know not in what words to invest my sense of the shameful violation of hospitality, which I was guilty of on that fatal Wednesday. Let it be blotted from the calendar. Had it been committed at a layman's house, say a merchant's or a manu- facturer's, a cheesemonger's, or greengrocer's, or, to go higher, a barrister's, a member of Parliament's, a rich banker's, I should have felt alleviation, a drop of self-pity. But to be s ^en deliberately to go out of the house of a clergyman drunk ! a clergj^man of the Church of England too ! not that alone, but of an expounder of that dark Italian Hiei-ophant, an exposition little short of his who dared unfold the Apocalypse : divine riddles both ; and, without supernal grace vouchsafed, Arks not to be fingered without present blasting to the touchers. And then, from what house ! Not a common glebe, or vicarage (which yet had been shameful), but from a kingly reposi- tory of sciences, human and divine, with the primate of England for its guardian, arrayed in public majesty, from which the profane vulgar are bid fly. Could all those volumes have taught me nothing better ! With feverish eyes on the succeeding dawn I opened upon the faint light, enough to distinguish, in a strange chamber, not immediately to be recog- nised, garters, hose, waistcoat, neckerchief, arranged in dreadful order and proportion, which I knew was not mine own. 'Tis the common symptom, on awaking, I judge my last night's condition from. A tolerable scattering on the floor I hail as being too probably my own, and if the candlestick be not removed, I assoil myself. But this finical aiTangement, this finding everything in the morning in exact diametrical rectitude, torments me. By whom Avas I divested ? Bui'ning blushes ! not by the fair hands of nymphs, the Buft'am Gi'aces ? Eemote whispers suggested that I coached it home in 174 LETTER TO CART, triumph. Far be that from -working pride in nie, for I was unconscious of the locomotion. That a young Mentor accompanied a repro- bate old Telemachus ; that, the Trojan like, he bore his charge upon his shoulders, while the wretched incubus, in glimmering sense, hiccuped drunken snatches of flying on the bats' wings after sunset. An aged servitor was also hinted at, to make disgrace more complete, one, to whom ray ignominy may offer further occasions of revolt (to which he was before too fondly inclining) from the true faith ; for, at a sight of my helplessness, what move was needed to drive him to the advocacy of independency ? Occasion led me through Great Russell Street yesterday. I gazed at the great knocker. My feeble hands in vain essayed to lift it. T dreaded that Argus Portitor, who doubtless lanterned me out on that prodigious night. I called the Elginian marbles. They were cold to my suit. I shall never again, I said, on the wide gates unfolding, say, without fear of thrusting back, in a light but a peremptory air, ' I am going to Mr. Gary's.' I passed by the walls of Balclutha. I had imaged to myself a zodiac of third Wednesdays irradiating by glimpses the Edmonton duluess. I dreamed of Highmore ! I am de-vited to come on Wednesdays. Villanous old age, that, with second childhood, brings linked hand in hand her inseparable twin, new inexperience, which knows not effects of liquor. Where I was to have .sate for a sober, middle-aged- and-a-half-gentleman, literary too, the neat fingered artist can educe no notions but of a dissoluted Silenus, lecturing natural philo- sophy to a jeering Chromius, or a Muasilus. Pudet. From the context gather the lost name of ." In 1833 the choicest prose essays, which Lamb had written since the publication of Elia, were collected and published — as witli a melancholy foreboding — under the title of " The Last Essays of Elia ; " by Mr. Moxon. The work contains ample proof that the powers of the author had ripened rather than declined ; for tlic paper called "Blakes- moor in H-^sliire." which embodies hia recollection of tlie old mansion in which his grandmother lived as housekeeper ; those on EllistoD, " Captain Jackson," and " The Old Margate Hoy," are among the most original, the least constrained, and the most richly coloured of his works. It was favour- ably noticed by almost all the i)rincipal critics — by many enthusiastically and siu- cerely praised — and an admirable notice in "The Quarterly" was published just after the foreboding of the title was fulfilled. His indisposition to write, however, increased ; but in creating so much, excellent in its kind, so complete in itself, and so little tinged with alloy, he had, in truth, done enough, and had earned in literature, as in the drudgeiy of the desk, a right to repose. Yet, still ready to obey the call of friendship, he wrote both prologue and epilogue to Knowles's play of " The Wife ; " the composition of which must have been mere labour, as they are only decently suited to the occasion, and have no mark or likelihood to repay the vanity of the poet. Miss Isola's marriage, which left Lamb and his sister once more alone, induced them to draw a little nearer to theii- friends ; and they fixed their abode in Ghurch-street, Edmonton, within reach of the Enfield walks which custom had endeared to them. There with his sister he continued, regidarly visiting London and dining with Mr. Gary on every third Wednesday. The following notelet is in answer to a letter inclosing a list of candidates for a widows' fund society, for which he was entitled to vote. TO MR. CART, "Dear Sir, — The unbounded range of munificence presented to my choice, staggers me. What can twenty votes do for one hundred and two widows ? I cast my eyes hopeless among the viduage. N.B. Southey* might be ashamed of himself to let his aged mother stand at the top of the list, with his 100^. a year and butt of sack. Sometimes I sigh over No. 12, Mrs. Carve-ill, some poor relation of mine, no doubt. No. 15 has my wishes, but then she is a Welsh one. I have Ruth upon No. 21. I'd tug hard for No. 24. No. 25 ip an anomaly, there can be no Mrs. Hogg. No. 34 ensnares me. No. 73 should not have met so foolish a person. No. 92 • A .Mis'. Soutlioy hoiulcd tlio inclosed list. may bob it as she likes, but she catches no cherry of me. So I have even fixed at hap- hazard, as you'll see. " Yours, every third Wednesda}', " C. L." Lamb was entirely destitute of what is commonly called " a taste for music." A few old tunes ran in his head ; now and then the expression of a sentiment, though never of song, touched him with rare and exquisite delight ; and Braham in his youth, Miss Rennell, who died too soon, and who used to sing the charming air, " In infancy our hopes and fears," and Miss Burrell, won his ear and his heart. But usually music only confused him, and an opera — to which he once or twice tried to accompany Miss Isola — was to him a maze of sound in which he almost lost his wits. But he did not, therefore, take less pleasure in the success of Miss Clara Novello, — whose family he had known for many years, — and to whom he addressed the following lines, which were inserted in the "Athenaeum," of July 26, in this his last year. TO CLARA X . The Gods have made me most unmusical, With feelings that respond not to the call Of stringed harp, or voice — obtuse and mute To hautboy, sackbut, dulcimer, and flute ; King David's lyre, that made the madness flee From Saul, had been but a jew's-harp to me : Theorbos, violins, French horns, guitars, I/cave in my wounded ears inflicted scars ; I hate those triUs, and shakes, and sounds that float Upon the captive air ; I know no note, Nor ever shall, whatever folks may say. Of the strange mysteries of Sol and Fa ; I sit at oratorios like a fish, Incapable of sound, and only ^vish The thing was over. Yet do I admire, O tuneful daughter of a tuneful sire. Thy painful labours in a science, which To your deserts I pray may make you rich As much as you are loved, and add a gi-ace To the most musical Novello race. Women lead men by the nose, some cynics say ; You draw them by the eai- — a delicater way. C. Lamb. He had now to sustain the severest of his losses. After a long and painful ilhiess — borne with an heroic patience which con- cealed the intensity of his sufferings from the bystanders, Coleridge died. As in the instance of Hazlitt, Lamb did not feel the immediate blow so acutely as he himself expected — ^but the calamity sank deep into his mind, and was, I believe, seldom far from his thoughts. It had been arranged that the attendance at the funeral should be confined to the family of the departed poet and philo- sopher, and Lamb, therefore, was spared the misery of going through the dismal ceremony of mourning. For the first week he forebore to write ; but at its close he addressed the following short letter to one of the family of him whom he once so justly denominated Coleridge's " more than friend." Like most of Lamb's letters, it is undated, but the post- mark is Aug. 3, 1834. TO THE REV. JAMES OILMAN. " My dear Sir, — The sad week being over, I must write to you to say, that I was glad of being spared from attending ; I have no words to express my feeling with you all. I can only say that when you think a short visit from me would be acceptable, when your father and mother shall be able to see me with comfort, I will come to the bereaved house. Express to them my tenderest re- gards and hopes that they will continue our friends still. We both love and respect them as much as a human being can, and finally thank them with our hearts for what they have been to the poor departed. " God bless you all. C. Lajib." "Mr. Walden's, " Church-street, Edmont^m." Shortly after, assured that his presence would be welcome, Lamb went to Highgate. There he asked leave to see the nurse who had attended upon Coleridge ; and being struck and affected by the feeling she mani- fested towards his friend, insisted on her receiving five guineas from him, — a gratuity which seemed almost incomprehensible to I the poor woman, but which Lamb could not ' help giving as an immediate expression of his own gratitude. From her he learned the effort by which Coleridge had suppressed the expre.ssion of his sufferings, and the discovery affected him even more than the news of liia death. He would startle his friends some- times by suddenly exclaiming, " Coleridge is dead ! " and then pass on to common themes, having obtained the momentary relief of oppressed spirits. He still continued, how- ever, his monthly visits to Mr. Gary ; and was ready to write an acrostic, or a compli- mentary epigram, at the suggestion of any friend. The following is the last of his effu- sions in verse. TO MARGARET W .. Margaret, in happy lionr Christcn'd from tliat humble flower ^Vllich we a daisy * call ! May thy pretty namesake be In all things a type of thee, And image thee in all. Like it you show a modest face. An unpretending native grace ; — The tulip, and the pink, The china and the damask rose. And every flaunting flower that blows. In the comparing shrink. Of lowly fields you think no scorn ; Yet gayest gardens would adorn, And grace wherever set. Home-seated in your lonely bower, Or wedded — a transplanted flower — I bless you, Margaret ! Chakles Lamb. Edmonton, Oct. 8th, 1834. A present of game, from an unknown admirer, produced the following acknowledg- ment, in the "Athenaeum " of 30th November, destined to be, in sad verity, the last essay of Elia. THOUGHTS ON PRESENTS OF GAME, &C. " "We love to have our friend in the country sitting thus at our table % proxy ; to appre- hend his presence (though a hundred miles may be between us) by a turkey, whose goodly aspect reflects to us his ' plump cor- pusculum ;' to taste hiin in grouse or wood- cock ; to feel him gliding down in the toast peculiar to the latter ; to concorporate liira m a slice of Canterbury brawn. This is indeed to have him within ourselves ; to know him intimately ; such participation is metliinks unitive, as tlie old theologians phrase it." — Last Essays of Elia. " Elia presents his acknowledgments to his 'Correspondent unknown,' for a basket of pro- digiously fine game. He takes for granted that so amiable a character nmst be a reader of the " Athenajum," else he had meditated a notice in the " Times." Now if this friend had consulted the Delphic oracle for a present • Mnrgueritc, in French, signifies a daisy. suited to the palate of Elia, he could not have hit upon a morsel so acceptable. The birds he is barely thankful for : pheasants are poor fowls disguised in fine feathers. But a hare roasted hard and brown, with gravy and melted butter ! — old Mr. Chambers, the sensible clergyman in Warwickshire, whose son's acquaintance has made many hours happy in the life of Elia, used to allow a pound of Epping to every hare. Perhaps that was over-doing it. But, in spite of the note of Philomel, who, like some fine poets, that think no scorn to adopt plagiarisms from a humble brother, reiterates every spring her cuckoo cry of 'Jug, Jug, Jug,' Elia pronoances that a hare, to be truly palated, must be roasted. Jugging sophisti- cates her. In our way it eats so ' crips,' as Mrs. Minikin says. Time was, when Elia was not arrived at his taste, that he preferred to all luxuries a roasted pig. But he dis- claims all such green-sickness appetites in future, though he hath to acknowledge the receipt of many a delicacy in that kind from correspondents — good, but mistaken men — in consequence of their eiToueous suj)posi- tion, that he had carried up into mature life the prepossessions of childhood. From the worthy Vicar of Enfield he acknowledges a tithe contribution of extraordinary sapor. The ancients must have loved hares. Else why adopt the word lepores (obviouslv from lepus) but for some subtle analogy betweer. the delicate flavour of the latter, and the finer relishes of wit in what we most poorly translate pleasantries. The fine madnesses of the poet are the very decoction of liis diet. Thence is he hare-brained. Harum-scarum is a libellous unfounded phrase, of modern usage. 'Tis true the liare is the most cir- cumspect of animals, slee])ing with her eye open. Her ears, ever erect, keep them in that wholesome exercise, which conduces them to form the very tit-bit of the admirei's of this noble animal. Noble will I call her, in spite of her detractors, who from occa- sional domon.strations of the principle of self-preservation (common to all animals), ! infer in her a defect of heroism. Half a hundred hoi-semen, with thrice the number of dogs, scour the couutr}' in pursuit of puss across three counties ; and because the well- Havoured beast, weighing the odds, is willing to evade the hue and cry, with her delicate LETTER TO CHILDS. 177 eai's shrinking perchance from discord — comes the grave naturalist, Linnajus per- chance, or Buffon, and gravely sets down the hare as a — timid animal. Why Acliilles, or Bally Dawson, would have declined the preposterous combat. " In fact, how light of digestion we feel after a hare ! How tender its processes after swallowing ! What chyle it promotes ! How ethereal ! as if its living celerity were a type of its nimble coursing through the animal juices. The notice might be longer. It is intended less as a Natural History of the Hare, than a cursory thanks to the country 'good Unknown.' The hare has many friends, but none sincerer than "Elia." A short time only before Lamb's fatal illness, he yielded to my urgent importunity, and met a small party of his friends at dinner at my house, where we had provided for him some of the few articles of food which now seemed to hit his fancy, and among them the hare, which had supplanted pig in his just esteem, with the hope of exciting his very delicate appetite. We were not disappointed ; he ate wnth a relish not usual with him of late years, and passed the evening in his happiest mood. Among the four or five who met him on this occasion, the last on which I saw him in health, were his old friends Mr. Barron Field, INIr. Procter, and Mr. Forster, the author of the " Lives of Eminent English Statesmen," a friend of comparatively recent date, but one with whom Lamb found himself as much at home as if he had known him for years. Mr. Field, in a short but excellent memoir of Lamb, in the " Annual Biogi-aphy and Obituary " of 1836, has brovight this evening vividly to recollection ; and I have a melancholy satisfaction in quoting a passage from it as he has recorded it. After justly eulogising Lamb's sense of " The Virtue of Suppression in Writing," Mr. Field proceeds : — i " We remember, at the very last supper we ate with him, he quoted a passage from Prioi*'s ' Henry and Emma,' illustrative of this discipline ; and yet he said that he loved Prior as much as any man, but that his * Henry and Emma ' was a vapid paraphrase of the old poem of ' The Nutbrowne Maydc.' For example, at the denoueinent of the ballad Prior makes Henry rant out to his devoted Emma — ' In me behold the potent Edgar's heir, Illustrious Earl ; him terrible in -war. Lot Loire confess, for she has felt his sword. And trembling fled before the British lord.* And so on for a dozen couplets, heroic, as they are called. And then Mr. Lamb made us mark the modest simplicity with which the noble youth discloses himself to his mistress in the old poem : — ' Now, understand. To Westmoreland, yVTiich is my heritage, (in a iiarenthcsis, as it were,) I will you bring. And with a ring, By way of marriage, I will you take, And lady make. As shortly as I can. So have you won An Earle's son. And not a banish'd man.' " How he loved these old rhymes, and with what justice ! " In December !Mr. Lamb received a letter from a gentleman, a stranger to him, — Mr. Childs, of Bungay, whose copy of "Elia" had been sent on an oriental voyage, and who, in order to replace it, applied to Mr, Lamb. The following is his reply : — TO MR. CHILDS. ••Monday. Church-street, Edmostom, (not Eniicid, as you erroneously direct yours). " Dear Sir, — The volume which you seem to want, is not to be had for love or money. I with difficulty procured a copy for myself. Yours is gone to enlighten the tawny Hindoos. What a supreme felicity to the author (only he is no traveller) on the Ganges or Hydaspes (Indian streams) to meet a smutty Gentoo ready to burst with laughing at the tale of Bo-Bo ! for doubtless it hath been translated into all the dialects of the East. I grieve the less, that Europe should want it. 1 cannot gather from your letter, whether you are aware that a second series of the Essays is published by Moxon, iu 178 DEATH OF LAMB. Dover-street, Piccadilly, called 'The Last Essays of Elia,' and, I am told, is not inferior to the former. Shall I order a copy for you, and -will you accept it. Shall I lend you, at the same time, my sole copy of the former volume (Oh ! return it) for a month or two ? In return, you shall favour me with the loan of one of those Norfolk-bred grunters that you laud so highly ; I promise not to keep it above a day. What a funny name Bungay is ! I never dreamt of a correspondent thence. I used to think of it as some Utopian town, or borough in Gotham land. I now believe in its existence, as part of merry England. [Here are some lines scratched out.] The part I have scratched out is the best of the letter Let me have your commands. " Ch. Lamb, alias Eua." A few days after this letter was written, an accident befel Mr. Lamb, which seemed trifling at first, but which terruinated in a fatal issue. In taking his daily morning walk on the London road as far as the inn where John Gilpin's ride is pictured, he stumbled against a stone, fell, and slightly injured his face. The wounds seemed healing, when erysipelas in the head came on, and he sunk beneath the disease, happily without pain. On Friday evening Mr. Eyle, of the India House, who had been appointed co- executor with me of his will some years before, called on me, and informed me that he was in danger. I went over to Edmonton on the ftllowing morning, and found hira very weak, and nearly insensible to things passmg around him. Now and then a few words were audible, from which it seemed that his mind, in its feebleness, was intent on kind and hospitable thoughts. His last cori'espondent, Mr. Childs, had sent a present of a turkey, instead of the suggested pig ; and the broken sentences which could be heard, were of some meeting of friends to J arlake of it. I do not think he knew me ; aud having vainly tried to engage his atten- tion, I quitted him, not believing his death BO near at hand. In less than an liour afterwards, his voice gradually grew fainter, as he still murmurod tlie names of Moxon, Procter, aud some other old friends, and he sank inio deatli as placidly as into sleep. On the following Saturday his remains were laid in a deep grave in Edmonton churchyard, made in a spot which, about a fortnight before, he had pointed out to his sister, on an afternoon wintry walk, as the place where he wished to be buried. So died, in the sixtieth year of his age, one of the most remarkable and amiable men who have ever lived. Few of his numerous friends were aware of his illness before they heard of his death ; and, until that illness seized him, he had appeared so little changed by time, so likely to continue for several years, and he was so intimately associated with every-day engagements and feelings, that the news was aa strange as it was mournful. When the first sad surprise was over, several of his friends strove to do justice to their own recollections of hira; and articles upon his character and writings, all written out of the heart, appeared from Mr. Procter in the " Athenajum," from Mr. Forster in the " New Monthly Magazine," from Mr. Patmore in the " Court Magazine," and from Mr. Moxon in Leigh Hunt's " London Journal," besides others whose authors ai-e unknown to me ; and subsequently many affectionate allusions, from pens which his own had inspired, have been gleaned out in various passages of " Blackwood," " Eraser," "Tait," and almost every periodical work of reputation. The " Recollections of Coleridge " by Mr. Allsop, also breathed the spirit of admiration for his elevated genius, which the author — one whom Lamb held in the highest esteem for himself, and for his devotion to Coleridge — had for yeai-s ex- pressed both in his words and in deeds. But it is not possible for the subtlest chiu-acter- islic power, even when animated by the warmest personal regard, to give to those who never had the privilege of his com- panionship an idea of what Lamb was. There was an apparent contradiction in him, which seemed an inconsistency between thoughts closely Jissociated, and whieii was in reality notliiug but the contradiction of his genius and his fortune, fanUistically exhibitmg itself in diflerent aspects, which close iutimacy could alone appreciate. Ue would stai'tle you with the finest perception of truth, separating, by a i)lirase, tlie real from a tissue of conventional falsehoods, juul the next luomonL, by some whimsical iuveu- CHARACTER OF LAMB. 179 tion, make you "doubt truth to be a liar." He would touch the inmost pulse of pro- found affection, and then break off in some jest, which would seem profane "to ears polite," but carry as profound a meaning to those who had the right key, as his most pathetic suggestions ; and where he loved and doted most, he would vent the over- flowing of his feelings in words that looked like rudeness. He touches on this strange resource of love in his " Farewell to Tobacco," in a passage which may explain some startling freedoms with those he himself loved most deiu'ly. " Irony all, and feign'd abuse, Such as perplext lovers use, At a need, when in despair, To paint forth the fairest fair ; Or in part but to express That exceeding comeliness \\'hich their fancies doth so strike. They borrow language of dislike; And, instead of ' dearest Miss,' Jewel, honey, sweetheart, bliss, And those forms of old admiring. Call her cockatrice and siren, Basilisk, and all that's evil, AVitch, hyena, mermaid, devil, Ethiop, wench, and blackamoor. Monkey, ape, and twenty more ; Friendly traitress, loving foe, — Not that she is truly so. But no other way they know A contentment to express. Borders so upon excess, That they do not rightly wot Whether it be pain or not." Thus, in the very excess of affection to his sister, whom he loved above all else on eartli, he would sometimes address to her some words of seeming reproach, yet so tinged with a humorous irony that none but an entire sti-anger could mistake his drift. His anxiety for her health, even in his most convivial moments, was unceasing. If, in company, he perceived she looked languid, he would repeatedly ask her, "Mary, does your head ache ]" "Don't you feel unwell ? " and would be satisfied by none of her gentle assurances, that his fears were groundless. He was always afraid of her sensibilities being too deeply engaged, and if in her presence any painful accident or history ^vas discussed, he would turn the conversation with some desperate joke. Miss Beetham, the author of the " Lay of Marie," which Lamb esteemed one of the most graceful and truly feminine works in a literature rich in female genius, who has reminded me of the trait in some recollections of Lamb, with which she has furnished me, relate.s, that once wlien she was speaking to Miss Lamb of Charles, and in her earnestness Miss Lamb had laid her hand kindly on the eulogi.st's shoulder, he came up hastily and interrupted them, saying, " Come, come, we must not talk sentimentally," and took up the conver- sation in his gayest strain. Many of Lamb's witty and curious sayings have been repeated since his death, which are worthy to be held in undying remem- brance ; but tliey give no idea of the general tenor of his conversation, which was far more singular and delightful in the traits, which could never be recalled, than in the epigram- matic turns which it is possible to quote. It was fretted into perpetual eddies of verbal felicity and happy tliought, with little tranquil intervals reflecting images of exceeding ele- gance and grace. He sometimes poured out puns in startling succession ; sometimes curiously contrived a train of sentences to introduce the catastrojihe of a pun, which, in that case, was often startling from its own demerit. At Mr. Cary's one day, he intro- duced and kept up an elaborate dissertation on the various uses and abuses of the word nice; and when its variations were exhausted, showed what he had been driving at by exclaiming, " Well ! now we have held a Council of Nice." "A pun," said he in a letter to Coleridge, in which he eulogised the Odes and Addresses of his friends Hood and Reynolds, " is a thing of too much consequence to be tlirown in as a make- weight. Yoa shall read one of the Addresses twice over and miss the puns, and it sliall be quite as good, or better, than when you discover them. A pun is a noble thing per se. O never bring it in as an accessory ! A pun is a sole digest of reflection (vide my * Aids ' to that awaking from a savage state) ; it is entire ; it fills the mind ; it is as perfect as a sonnet ; better. It limps ashamed in the train and retinue of humour. It knows it should have an establishment of its own. The one, for instance, I made the other day ; I forget which it was." Indeed, Lamb's choicest puns and humorous expressions could not be recollected. They were born of the evanescent feeling, and died with it ; " one moment hriyht, then gone for ever." The shocks of ple;isurable surprise were so N 2 180 CHARACTER OF LAMB. rapid in succession, and the thoughts suggested so new, that one destroyed the other, and left only the sense of delight behind. Frequently as I had the happiness of seeing him during twenty years, I can add nothing from my o\\Ti store of recollection to those which have been collected by othei-s, and those I will abstain from repeating, so vapid would be their effect when printed com- pared to that which they produced when, stammered out, they gave to the moment its victory. It cannot be denied or concealed that Lamb's excellences, moral and intellectual, were blended with a single frailty ; so inti- mately associating itself with all that was most charming in the one, and sweetest in the other, that, even if it were right to with- draw it wholly from notice, it would be impossible without it to do justice to his virtues. The eagerness with which he would quaff exciting liquors, from an eai'ly period of life, proved that to a physical peculiarity of constitution was to be ascribed, in the first instance, the strength of the temptation with which he was assailed. This kind of corpoi-eal need ; the struggles of deep thought to over- come the bashfuluess and the impediment of speech which obstructed its utterance ; the dull, heavy, ii'ksome labours which hung heavy on his mornings, and dried up his spirits ; and still more, the sorrows which had environed him, and which prompted him to snatch a fearful joy ; and the unboiiuded craving after sympathy with human feelings, conspired to disarm his power of resisting when the means of indulgence were actually before him. Great exaggerations have been prevalent on this subject, countenanced, no doubt, by the "Confessions" which, in the proiijgality of his kindness, he contributed to his friend's collection of essays antl uutlio- rities against the use of spirituous liquors ; for, ulthough he had rarely the power to ov(!rcome the temptation when presented, he made heroic sacrifices in flight. His final abaiidonmcnt of tol)acco, after many inef- fectual atteni])ts, was one of these — a princely sacrifice. lie liad loved smoking, "'not wisely, but too well," for he had been content to use the coarsest varieties of the " great plant," When Dr. Pari', — who took only the finest tobacco, used to half fill his l)ipe with tuilt, and smoked with a philusophic calmness. — saw Ijamb smoking the strongest prepa- ration of the weed, puffing out smoke like some furious Enchanter, he gently laid down his pipe, and asked him, how he had acquired his power of smoking at such a rate ? Lamb replied, " I toiled after it, sir, as some men toil after virtue." Partly to .shun the temptations of society, and partly to preserve his sister's health, he fled from London, where his pleasures and his heart were, and buried himself in the solitude of the country, to him always dismal. He would even deny himself the gratification of meeting Words- worth or Southey, or use it very sparingly during their visits to London, in order that the accompaniments of the taljle might not entice him to excess. And if sometimes, after miles of solitary communing with- his own sad thoughts, the village inn did invite him to quaff a glass of sparkling ale ; and if when his retreat was lighted up with the presence of some old friend, he was unable to refrain from the small portion which was too much for his feeble frame, let not the stout- limbed and the happy exult over the conse- quence ! Drinking with him, except so far as it cooled a feverish thii-st, was not a scnsitel, but an intellectual pleasure ; it lighted up his fading fancy, enriched his humour, and impelled the struggling thought or beautiful image into day ; and perhaps by requiring for him some portion of that allowance which he extended to all human frailties, endeared him the more to those who so often received, and were delighted to bestow it. Lamb's indulgence to the failings of othei-s could hardly indeed be termed allowance ; the name of charity is too cold to suit it. He did not merely love hii^ friends in spite of their errors, but he loved them errors and all ; so near to him was everything human. Ho numbered among his associates, men of all varieties of ojnnion — philosophical, reli- gious, and political — and found something to like, not only in the men themselves, but in themst'lves as associated with their theories and their schemes. In the high and calm, but devious speculations of dodwiii ; in the fierce hatreds of Hazlitt ; in the gentle and glorious mystieLsm of Coleridge; in the sturdy opposition of Tlielwall to tlic goveriunent ; in Leigh Hunt's softened and funcy-8treak