"Short of the theatres." The injury done by the theatres is of course the subject of Lamb's Reflector essay on Shakespeare's Tragedies (see Vol. I.).
"Boydell's 'Shakespeare Gallery'"—the series of 170 illustrations to Shakespeare by leading artists of the day projected by Alderman Boydell in 1786.
"Coleridge's… exemplification." Lamb quoted incorrectly. The lines had just appeared in Friendship's Offering for 1834:—
In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column;
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.
Coleridge took the lines from Schiller.
At Dr. Williams' Library is a note from Thos. Robinson to Crabb Robinson, dated December 22, 1833, concerning Lamb's Christmas turkey, which went first to Crabb Robinson at the Temple and was then sent on to Lamb, presumably with the note in the hamper. Lamb adds at the foot of the note:—
"The parcel coming thro' you, I open'd this note, but find no treason in it.
With thanks
C. LAMB."
I give here three other notes to Dilke, belonging probably to the early days of 1834. The first refers to the proof of one of Lamb's contributions to The Athenaeum.]
LETTER 594
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE
[No date.]
May I now claim of you the benefit of the loan of some books. Do not fear sending too many. But do not if it be irksome to yourself,—such as shall make you say, 'damn it, here's Lamb's box come again.' Dog's leaves ensured! Any light stuff: no natural, history or useful learning, such as Pyramids, Catacombs, Giraffes, Adventures in Southern Africa, &c. &c.
With our joint compliments, yours,
C. LAMB.
Church Street, Edmonton.
Novels for the last two years, or further back-nonsense of any period.
LETTER 595
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE
[No date. Spring, 1834.]
Dear Sir, I return 44 volumes by Tate. If they are not all your own, and some of mine have slipt in, I do not think you will lose much. Shall I go on with the Table talk? I will, if you like it, when the Culinary article has appear'd.
Robins, the Carrier, from the Swan, Snow Hill, will bring any more contributions, thankfully to be receiv'd—I pay backwards and forwards.
C. LAMB.
["Table Talk by the late Elia" appeared in The Athenaeum on January 4, May 31, June 7 and July 19, 1834. The Culinary article is the paragraph that now closes the "Table Talk" (see Vol. I.).]
LETTER 596
CHARLES LAMB TO THE PRINTER OF THE ATHENAEUM
[No date.]
I have read the enclosed five and forty times over. I have submitted it to my Edmonton friends; at last (O Argus' penetration), I have discovered a dash that might be dispensed with. Pray don't trouble yourself with such useless courtesies. I can well trust your editor, when I don't use queer phrases which prove themselves wrong by creating a distrust in the sober compositor.
LETTER 597
CHARLES LAMB TO MARY BETHAM
January 24, 1834,
Church Street, Edmonton.
Dear Mary Betham—I received the Bill, and when it is payable, some ten or twelve days hence, will punctually do with the overplus as you direct: I thought you would like to know it came to hand, so I have not waited for the uncertainty of when your nephew sets out. I suppose my receipt will serve, for poor Mary is not in a capacity to sign it. After being well from the end of July to the end of December, she was taken ill almost on the first day of the New Year, and is as bad as poor creature can be. I expect her fever to last 14 or 15 weeks—if she gets well at all, which every successive illness puts me in fear of. She has less and less strength to throw it off, and they leave a dreadful depression after them. She was quite comfortable a few weeks since, when Matilda came down here to see us.
You shall excuse a short letter, for my hand is unsteady. Indeed, the situation I am in with her shakes me sadly. She was quite able to appreciate the kind legacy while she was well. Imagine her kindest love to you, which is but buried awhile, and believe all the good wishes for your restoration to health from
C. LAMB.
[This letter refers to the legacy mentioned above. It had now been paid.]
LETTER 598
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[P.M. Jan. 28, 1834.]
I met with a man at my half way house, who told me many anecdotes of Kean's younger life. He knew him thoroughly. His name is Wyatt, living near the Bell, Edmonton. Also he referred me to West, a publican, opposite St. Georges Church, Southwark, who knew him more intimately. Is it worth Forster's while to enquire after them?
C.L.
[Edmund Kean had died in the previous May. Forster, who was at this time theatrical critic of The Examiner, was probably at work upon a biographical article.
Here should come a note from Lamb to Matilda Betham, dated January 29, 1834. "My poor Mary is terribly ill again."
Here also, dated February 7, should come a letter to William Hone, in which Lamb, after mentioning his sister's illness, urges upon Hone the advisability of applying to the Literary Fund for some relief, and offers to support him in his appeal.]
LETTER 599
CHARLES LAMB TO Miss FRYER
Feb. 14, 1834.
Dear Miss Fryer,—Your letter found me just returned from keeping my birthday (pretty innocent!) at Dover-street. I see them pretty often. I have since had letters of business to write, or should have replied earlier. In one word, be less uneasy about me; I bear my privations very well; I am not in the depths of desolation, as heretofore. Your admonitions are not lost upon me. Your kindness has sunk into my heart. Have faith in me! It is no new thing for me to be left to my sister. When she is not violent, her rambling chat is better to me than the sense and sanity of this world. Her heart is obscured, not buried; it breaks out occasionally; and one can discern a strong mind struggling with the billows that have gone over it. I could be nowhere happier than under the same roof with her. Her memory is unnaturally strong; and from ages past, if we may so call the earliest records of our poor life, she fetches thousands of names and things that never would have dawned upon me again, and thousands from the ten years she lived before me. What took place from early girlhood to her coming of age principally lives again (every important thing and every trifle) in her brain with the vividness of real presence. For twelve hours incessantly she will pour out without intermission all her past life, forgetting nothing, pouring out name after name to the Waldens as a dream; sense and nonsense; truths and errors huddled together; a medley between inspiration and possession. What things we are! I know you will bear with me, talking of these things. It seems to ease me; for I have nobody to tell these things to now. Emma, I see, has got a harp! and is learning to play. She has framed her three Walton pictures, and pretty they look. That is a book you should read; such sweet religion in it—next to Woolman's! though the subject be baits and hooks, and worms, and fishes. She has my copy at present to do two more from.
Very, very tired, I began this epistle, having been epistolising all the morning, and very kindly would I end it, could I find adequate expressions to your kindness. We did set our minds on seeing you in spring. One of us will indubitably. But I am not skilled in almanac learning, to know when spring precisely begins and ends. Pardon my blots; I am glad you like your book. I wish it had been half as worthy of your acceptance as "John Woolman." But 'tis a good-natured book.
[Miss Fryer was a school-fellow of Mrs. Moxon's.
I append another letter, undated, to the same lady. It belongs obviously to an earlier period, but the exact position is unimportant:—]
LETTER 600
CHARLES LAMB TO Miss FRYER
[No date.]
My dear Miss Fryer, By desire of Emma I have attempted new words to the old nonsense of Tartar Drum; but with the nonsense the sound and spirit of the tune are unaccountably gone, and we have agreed to discard the new version altogether. As you may be more fastidious in singing mere silliness, and a string of well-sounding images without sense or coherence—Drums of Tartars, who use none, and Tulip trees ten foot high, not to mention Spirits in Sunbeams &c,—than we are, so you are at liberty to sacrifice an enspiriting movement to a little sense, tho' I like LITTLE-SENSE less than his vagarying younger sister NO-SENSE—so I send them——
The 4th line of 1st stanza is from an old Ballad.
Emma is looking weller and handsomer (as you say) than ever. Really, if she goes on thus improving, by the time she is nine and thirty she will be a tolerable comely person. But I may not live to see it.—I take Beauty to be catching— a Cholera sort of thing—Now, whether the constant presence of a handsome object—for there's only two of us—may not have the effect———but the subject is delicate, and as my old great Ant* used to say—"Andsome is as andsome duzz"—that was my great Ant's way of spelling——
Most and best kind things say to yourself and dear Mother for all your kindnesses to our Em., tho' in truth I am a little tired with her everlasting repetition of 'em. Yours very Truly,
CHS LAMB.
* Emma's way of spelling Miss Umfris, as I spell her Aunt.
LOVE WILL COME
Tune: "The Tartar Drum"
I
Guard thy feelings, pretty Vestal,
From the smooth Intruder free;
Cage thine heart in bars of chrystal,
Lock it with a golden key;
Thro' the bars demurely stealing—
Noiseless footstep, accent dumb,
His approach to none revealing—
Watch, or watch not, LOVE WILL COME.
His approach to none revealing—
Watch, or watch not, Love will come—Love,
Watch, or watch not, Love will come.
II
Scornful Beauty may deny him—
He hath spells to charm disdain;
Homely Features may defy him—
Both at length must wear the chain.
Haughty Youth in Courts of Princes—
Hermit poor with age oercome—
His soft plea at last convinces;
Sooner, later, LOVE WILL COME—
His soft plea at length convinces;
Sooner, later, Love will come—Love,
Sooner, later, Love will come.
LETTER 601
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Church S't, Edmonton,
22 feb. [1834].
Dear Wordsworth, I write from a house of mourning. The oldest and best friends I have left, are in trouble. A branch of them (and they of the best stock of God's creatures, I believe) is establishing a school at Carlisle. Her name is Louisa Martin, her address 75 Castle Street, Carlisle; her qualities (and her motives for this exertion) are the most amiable, most upright. For thirty years she has been tried by me, and on her behaviour I would stake my soul. O if you can recommend her, how would I love you—if I could love you better. Pray, pray, recommend her. She is as good a human creature,—next to my Sister, perhaps the most exemplary female I ever knew. Moxon tells me, you would like a Letter from me. You shall have one. This I cannot mingle up with any nonsense which you usually tolerate from, C. LAMB. Need he add loves to Wife, Sister, and all? Poor Mary is ill again, after a short lucid interval of 4 or 5 months. In short, I may call her half dead to me.
Good you are to me. Yours with fervor of friendship; for ever
turn over
If you want references, the Bishop of Carlisle may be one. Louisa's Sister, (as good as she, she cannot be better tho' she tries,) educated the daughters of the late Earl of Carnarvon, and he settled a handsome Annuity on her for life. In short all the family are a sound rock. The present Lord Carnarvon married Howard of Graystock's Sister.
[Wordsworth has written on the wrapper, "Lamb's last letter."
We met the Martins in the early correspondence. It was Louisa whom, many years, before, Lamb used to call "Monkey."
Here should come Lamb's last letter to Thomas Manning, dated May 10, 1834. Mary has, he says, been ill for nigh twenty weeks; "she is, I hope, recovering." "I struggle to town rarely, and then to see London, with little other motive—for what is left there hardly? The streets and shops entertaining ever, else I feel as in a desert, and get me home to my cave." Once a month, he adds, he passes a day with Cary at the Museum. When Mary was getting better in the previous year she would read all the auctioneers' advertisements on the walk. "These are my Play-bills," she said. "I walk 9 or 10 miles a day, always up the road, dear Londonwards." Addressed to Manning at Puckeridge.
Manning lived on, an eccentric recluse, until 1840.
Here perhaps should come the following melancholy letter to Talfourd, which Mr. Dobell permits me to print:—]
LETTER 602
CHARLES LAMB TO T.N. TALFOURD
[No date. Early 1834?]
D'r T.—[1]Moxon & Knowles are coming to Enfield on Sunday afternoon. My poor shaken head cannot at present let me ask any dinner company; for two drinkings in a day, which must ensue, would incapacity me. I am very poorly. They can only get an Edmont'n stage, from which village 'tis but a 2 miles walk, & I have only inn beds to offer. Pray, join 'em if you can. Our first morning stage to London is 1/2 past 8. If that won't suit your avocations, arrange with Ryle (or without him)—but how can I separate him morally?—logically and legally, poetically and critically I can,—from you? No disparagement (for a better Christian exists not)—well arrange cum or absque illo—this is latin— the first Sunday you can, morning.
I am poorly, but I always am on these occasions, a week or two. Then I get sober,—I mean less insober. Yours till death; you are mine after. Don't mind a touch of pathos. Love to Mrs. Talfourd.
The Edmonton stages come almost every hour from Snow Hill.
[Footnote 1: Erratum, for M. & K. read K. & M. Booksellers after
Authors.]
[Ryle, as I have already said, was Lamb's executor, with Talfourd. Hence the phrase to Talfourd, "you are mine after."]
LETTER 603
(Fragment)
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE
[No date. End of June, 1834.]
We heard the Music in the Abbey at Winchmore Hill! and the notes were incomparably soften'd by the distance. Novello's chromatics were distinctly audible. Clara was faulty in B flat. Otherwise she sang like an angel. The trombone, and Beethoven's walzes, were the best. Who played the oboe?
[The letter refers to the performance of Handel's "Creation" at the
Musical Festival in Westminster Abbey on June 24, 1834, when Novello and
Atwood were the organists, and Clara Novello one of the singers.]
LETTER 604
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN FORSTER
[P.M. June 25, 1834.]
D'r F.—I simply sent for the Miltons because Alsop has some Books of mine, and I thought they might travel with them. But keep 'em as much longer as you like. I never trouble my head with other people's quarrels, I do not always understand my own. I seldom see them in Dover Street. I know as little as the Man in the Moon about your joint transactions, and care as little. If you have lost a little portion of my "good will," it is that you do not come and see me. Arrange with Procter, when you have done with your moving accidents.
Yours, ambulaturus,
C.L.
LETTER 605
CHARLES LAMB TO J. FULLER RUSSELL
[Summer, 1834.]
M'r Lamb's compt's and shall be happy to look over the lines as soon as ever Mr. Russell shall send them. He is at Mr. Walden's, Church, not Bury—St, Edm'd.
Line 10. "Ween," and "wist," and "wot," and "eke" are antiquated frippery, and unmodernize a poem rather than give it an antique air, as some strong old words may do. "I guess," "I know," "I knew," are quite as significant.
31. Why "ee"—barbarous Scoticism!—when "eye" is much better and chimes to "cavalry"? A sprinkling of dis-used words where all the style else is after the approved recent fashion teases and puzzles.
37. [Anon the storm begins to slake, The sullen clouds to melt away, The moon becalmed in a blue lake Looks down with melancholy ray.]
The moon becalmed in a blue lake would be more apt to look up. I see my error—the sky is the lake—and beg you to laugh at it.
59. What is a maiden's "een," south of the Tweed? You may as well call her prettily turned ears her "lugs."
"On the maiden's lugs they fall" (verse 79).
144. "A coy young Miss" will never do. For though you are presumed to be a modern, writing only of days of old, yet you should not write a word purely unintelligible to your heroine. Some understanding should be kept up between you. "Miss" is a nickname not two centuries old; came in at about the Restoration. The "King's Misses" is the oldest use of it I can remember. It is Mistress Anne Page, not Miss Page. Modern names and usages should be kept out of sight in an old subject. W. Scott was sadly faulty in this respect.
208. [Tear of sympathy.] Pity's sacred dew. Sympathy is a young lady's word, rife in modern novels, and is almost always wrongly applied. To sympathize is to feel—with, not simply for another. I write verses and sympathize with you. You have the tooth ache, I have not; I feel for you, I cannot sympathize.
243. What is "sheen"? Has it more significance than "bright"? Richmond in its old name was Shene. Would you call an omnibus to take you to Shene? How the "all's right" man would stare!
363. [The violet nestled in the shade,
Which fills with perfume all the glade,
Yet bashful as a timid maid
Thinks to elude the searching eye
Of every stranger passing by,
Might well compare with Emily.]
A strangely involved simile. The maiden is likend [sic] to a violet which has been just before likened to a maid. Yet it reads prettily, and I would not have it alter'd.
420. "Een" come again? In line 407 you speak it out "eye," bravely like an Englishman.
468. Sorceresses do not entice by wrinkles, but, being essentially aged, appear in assumed beauty.
[This communication and that which follows (with trifling omissions) were sent to Notes and Queries by the late Mr. J. Fuller Russell, F.S.A., with this explanation: "I was residing at Enfield in the Cambridge Long Vacation, 1834, and—perhaps to the neglect of more improving pursuits—composed a metrical novel, named 'Emily de Wilton,' in three parts. When the first of them was completed, I ventured to introduce myself to Charles Lamb (who was living at Edmonton at the time), and telling him what I had done, and that I had 'scarcely heart to proceed until I had obtained the opinion of a competent judge respecting my verses,' I asked him to 'while away an idle hour in their perusal,' adding, 'I fear you will think me very rude and very intrusive, but I am one of the most nervous souls in Christendom.' Moved, possibly, by this diffident (not to say unusual) confession, Elia speedily gave his consent."
The poem was never printed. Lamb's pains in this matter serve to show how kindly disposed he was in these later years to all young men; and how exact a sense of words he had.
In the British Museum is preserved a sheet of similar comments made by Lamb upon a manuscript of P.G. Patmore's, from which I have quoted a few passages above. In Charles Lamb and the Lloyds will also be found a number of interesting criticisms on a translation of Homer.]
LETTER 606
CHARLES LAMB TO J. FULLER RUSSELL
[Summer, 1834.]
Sir,—I hope you will finish "Emily." The story I cannot at this stage anticipate. Some looseness of diction I have taken liberty to advert to. It wants a little more severity of style. There are too many prettinesses, but parts of the Poem are better than pretty, and I thank you for the perusal.
Your humble Servt.
C. LAMB.
Perhaps you will favour me with a call while you stay.
Line 42. "The old abbaye" (if abbey was so spelt) I do not object to, because it does not seem your own language, but humoursomely adapted to the "how folks called it in those times."
82. "Flares"! Think of the vulgarism "flare up;" let it be "burns."
112. [In her pale countenance is blent
The majesty of high intent
With meekness by devotion lent,
And when she bends in prayer
Before the Virgin's awful shrine,—
The rapt enthusiast might deem
The seraph of his brightest dream,
Were meekly kneeling there.]
"Was" decidedly, not "were." The deeming or supposition, is of a reality, not a contingency. The enthusiast does not deem that a thing may be, but that it is.
118. [When first young Vernon's flight she knew,
The lady deemed the tale untrue.]
"Deemed"! This word is just repeated above; say "thought" or "held."
"Deem" is half-cousin to "ween" and "wot."
143. [By pure intent and soul sincere
Sustained and nerved, I will not fear
Reproach, shame, scorn, the taunting jeer,
And worse than all, a father's sneer.]
A father's "sneer"? Would a high-born man in those days sneer at a daughter's disgrace—would he only sneer?
Reproach, and biting shame, and—worse
Than all—the estranged father's curse.
I only throw this hint out in a hurry.
177. "Stern and sear"? I see a meaning in it, but no word is good that startles one at first, and then you have to make it out: "drear," perhaps. Then why "to minstrel's glance"? "To fancy's eye," you would say, not "to fiddler's eye."
422. A knight thinks, he don't "trow."
424. "Mayhap" is vulgarish. Perchance.
464. "Sensation" is a philosophic prose word. Feeling.
27. [The hill, where ne'er rang woodman's stroke,
Was clothed with elm and spreading oak,
Through whose black boughs the moon's mild ray
As hardly strove to win a way,
As pity to a miser's heart.]
Natural illustrations come more naturally when by them we expound mental operations than when we deduce from natural objects similes of the mind's workings. The miser's struggle thus compared is a beautiful image. But the storm and clouds do not inversely so readily suggest the miser.
160. [Havock and Wrath, his maniac bride, Wheel o'er the conflict, &c.]
These personified gentry I think are not in taste. Besides, Fear has been pallid any time these 2,000 years. It is mixing the style of Aeschylus and the Last Minstrel.
175. Bracy is a good rough vocative. No better suggests itself, unless Grim, Baron Grimm, or Grimoald, which is Saxon, or Grimbald! Tracy would obviate your objection [that the name Bracy occurs in Ivanhoe] but Bracy is stronger.
231. [The frown of night Conceals him, and bewrays their sight.]
Betrays. The other has an unlucky association.
243. [The glinting moon's half-shrouded ray.]
Why "glinting," Scotch, when "glancing" is English?
421. [Then solemnly the monk did say,
(The Abbot of Saint Mary's gray,)
The leman of a wanton youth
Perhaps may gain her father's ruth,
But never on his injured breast
May lie, caressing and caressed.
Bethink you of the vow you made
When your light daughter, all distraught,
From yonder slaughter-plain was brought,
That if in some secluded cell
She might till death securely dwell,
The house of God should share her wealth.]
Holy abbots surely never so undisguisedly blurted out their secular aims.
I think there is so much of this kind of poetry, that it would not be very taking, but it is well worthy of pleasing a private circle. One blemish runs thro', the perpetual accompaniment of natural images. Seasons of the year, times of day, phases of the moon, phenomena of flowers, are quite as much your dramatis personae as the warriors and the ladies. This last part is as good as what precedes.
LETTER 607
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE
[No date. End of July, 1834.]
Dear Sir, I am totally incapable of doing what you suggest at present, and think it right to tell you so without delay. It would shock me, who am shocked enough already, to sit down to write about it. I have no letters of poor C. By and bye what scraps I have shall be yours. Pray excuse me. It is not for want of obliging you, I assure you. For your Box we most cordially feel thankful. I shall be your debtor in my poor way. I do assure you I am incapable.
Again, excuse me
Yours sincerely
C.L.
[Coleridge's death had occurred on July 25, in his sixty-second year; and Dilke had written to Lamb asking for some words on that event, for The Athenaeum. A little while later a request was made by John Forster that Lamb would write something for the album of a Mr. Keymer. It was then that Lamb wrote the few words that stand under the title "On the Death of Coleridge" (see Vol. I.). Forster wrote thus of the effect of Coleridge's death upon Lamb:—
He thought of little else (his sister was but another portion of himself) until his own great spirit joined his friend. He had a habit of venting his melancholy in a sort of mirth. He would, with nothing graver than a pun, "cleanse his bosom of the perilous stuff that weighed" upon it. In a jest, or a few light phrases, he would lay open the last recesses of his heart. So in respect of the death of Coleridge. Some old friends of his saw him two or three weeks ago, and remarked the constant turning and reference of his mind. He interrupted himself and them almost every instant with some play of affected wonder, or astonishment, or humorous melancholy, on the words, "Coleridge is dead." Nothing could divert him from that, for the thought of it never left him.
Wordsworth said that Coleridge's death hastened Lamb's.]
LETTER 608
CHARLES LAMB TO REV. JAMES GILLMAN
Mr. Walden's, Church Street,
Edmonton, August 5, 1834.
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 regards 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. LAMB.
[Talfourd writes: "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 manifested towards his friend, insisted on her receiving five guineas from him."
Here should come a letter to J.H. Green dated August 26, 1834, thanking him for a copy of Coleridge's will and offering to send all letters, etc., and "fragments of handwriting from leaves of good old books."]
LETTER 609
CHARLES AND MARY LAMB TO H.F. CARY
Sept. 12, 1834.
"By Cot's plessing we will not be absence at the grace."
DEAR C.,—We long to see you, and hear account of your peregrinations, of the Tun at Heidelburg, the Clock at Strasburg, the statue at Rotterdam, the dainty Rhenish and poignant Moselle wines, Westphalian hams, and Botargoes of Altona. But perhaps you have seen nor tasted any of these things.
Yours, very glad to claim you back again to your proper centre, books and Bibliothecae,
C. AND M. LAMB.
I have only got your note just now per negligentiam per iniqui Moxoni.
[Charles and Mary Lamb at this time were supposed to dine at Cary's on the third Wednesday in every month. When the plan was suggested by Cary, Lamb was for declining, but Mary Lamb said, "Ah, when we went to Edmonton, I told Charles that something would turn up, and so it did, you see."]
LETTER 610
CHARLES LAMB TO H.F. CARY
Oct., 1834.
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 manufacturer'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 seen deliberately to go out of the house of a clergyman drunk! a clergyman of the Church of England too! not that alone, but of an expounder of that dark Italian Hierophant, 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 repository 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 recognised, 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 arrangement, this finding everything in the morning in exact diametrical rectitude, torments me. By whom was I divested? Burning blushes! not by the fair hands of nymphs, the Buffam Graces? Remote whispers suggested that I coached it home in triumph—far be that from working pride in me, for I was unconscious of the locomotion; that a young Mentor accompanied a reprobate 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 my 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 more 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. I 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. Cary's." I passed by the walls of Balclutha. I had imaged to myself a zodiac of third Wednesdays irradiating by glimpses the Edmonton dulness. 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 dissolute Silenus, lecturing natural philosophy to a jeering Chromius or a Mnasilus. Pudet. From the context gather the lost name of ——.
["The Buffam Graces." Lamb's landladies at Southampton Buildings.
"I passed by the walls of Balclutha." From Ossian. Lamb uses this quotation in his Elia essay on the South-Sea House.
"Highmore." I cannot explain this reference.
Not long before Mrs. Procter's death a letter from Charles Lamb to Mrs. Basil Montagu was sold, in which Lamb apologised for having become intoxicated while visiting her the night before. Some one mentioned the letter in Mrs. Procter's presence. "Ah," she said, "but they haven't seen the second letter, which I have upstairs, written next day, in which he said that my mother might ask him again with safety as he never got drunk twice in the same house." Unhappily, a large number of Lamb's and other letters were burned by Mrs. Procter.]
LETTER 611
CHARLES LAMB TO H.F. CARY
[Oct. 18, 1834.]
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 is an anomaly: there can be no Mrs. Hogg. No. 34 ensnares me. No. 73 should not have met so foolish a person. No. 92 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 Wednesday,
C.L.
[Talfourd states that the note is in answer to a letter enclosing a list of candidates for a Widow's Fund Society, for which he was entitled to vote. A Mrs. Southey headed the list.
Here, according to Mr. Hazlitt's dating, should come a note from Lamb to Mrs. Randal Norris, belonging to November, in which Lamb says that he found Mary on his return no worse and she is now no better. He sends all his nonsense that he can scrape together and hopes the young ladies will like "Amwell" (Mrs. Leicester's School).]
LETTER 612
CHARLES LAMB TO MR. CHILDS
Monday. Church Street, EDMONTON (not Enfield, as you erroneously direct yours). [? Dec., 1834.]
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. I cannot gather from your letter, whether you are aware that a second series of the Essays is published by Moxon, in 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!
[Some lines scratched out.]
The part I have scratched out is the best of the letter. Let me have your commands.
CH. LAMB, alias ELIA.
[Talfourd thus explains this letter: "In December, 1834, 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." Mr. Childs was a printer. His business subsequently became that of Messrs. R.&R. Clark, which still flourishes.
This letter practically disposes of the statement made by more than one bibliographer that a second edition of Elia was published in 1833. The tale of Bo-Bo is in the "Dissertation on Roast Pig."
Lamb sent Mr. Childs a copy of John Woodvil, in which he wrote:—]
LETTER 613
FROM THE AUTHOR
In great haste, the Pig was faultless,—we got decently merry after it and chirpt and sang "Heigh! Bessy Bungay!" in honour of the Sender. Pray let me have a line to say you got the Books; keep the 1st vol.—two or three months, so long as it comes home at last.
LETTER 614
CHARLES LAMB TO MRS. GEORGE DYER
Dec. 22nd, 1834.
Dear Mrs. Dyer,—I am very uneasy about a Book which I either have lost or left at your house on Thursday. It was the book I went out to fetch from Miss Buffam's, while the tripe was frying. It is called Phillip's Theatrum Poetarum; but it is an English book. I think I left it in the parlour. It is Mr. Cary's book, and I would not lose it for the world. Pray, if you find it, book it at the Swan, Snow Hill, by an Edmonton stage immediately, directed to Mr. Lamb, Church-street, Edmonton, or write to say you cannot find it. I am quite anxious about it. If it is lost, I shall never like tripe again.
With kindest love to Mr. Dyer and all,
Yours truly,
C. LAMB.
[In the life of H.F. Cary by his son we read: "He [Lamb] had borrowed of my father Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum, which was returned by Lamb's friend, Mr. Moxon, with the leaf folded down at the account of Sir Philip Sydney." Mr. Cary acknowledged the receipt of the book by the following
LINES TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES LAMB
So should it be, my gentle friend;
Thy leaf last closed at Sydney's end.
Thou too, like Sydney, wouldst have given
The water, thirsting and near heaven;
Nay were it wine, fill'd to the brim,
Thou hadst look'd hard, but given, like him.
And art thou mingled then among
Those famous sons of ancient song?
And do they gather round, and praise
Thy relish Of their nobler lays?
Waxing in mirth to hear thee tell
With what strange mortals thou didst dwell!
At thy quaint sallies more delighted,
Than any's long among them lighted!
'Tis done: and thou hast join'd a crew,
To whom thy soul was justly due;
And yet I think, where'er thou be,
They'll scarcely love thee more than we.
This is the last letter of Charles Lamb, who tripped and fell in Church
Street, Edmonton, on December 22, and died of erysipelas on December 27.
At the time of his death Lamb was very nearly sixty. His birthday was
February 10.
Mary Lamb, with occasional lapses into sound health, survived him until May 20, 1847. At first she continued to live at Edmonton, but a few years later moved to the house of Mrs. Parsons, sister of her old nurse, Miss James, in St. John's Wood. I append three letters, two written and one inspired, by her, to Miss Jane Norris, one of the daughters of Randal Norris. Of the friends mentioned therein I might add that Edward Moxon lived until 1858; Mrs. Edward Moxon until 1891; James Kenney until 1849; Thomas Hood until 1845; and Barron Field until 1846.]
LETTER 615
MARY LAMB TO JANE NORRIS
[41 Alpha Road, Regent's Park]
Christmas Day [1841].
My dear Jane,—Many thanks for your kind presents—your Michalmas goose. I thought Mr. Moxon had written to thank you—the turkeys and nice apples came yesterday.
Give my love to your dear Mother. I was unhappy to find your note in the basket, for I am always thinking of you all, and wondering when I shall ever see any of you again. I long to shew you what a nice snug place I have got into—in the midst of a pleasant little garden. I have a room for myself and my old books on the ground floor, and a little bedroom up two pairs of stairs. When you come to town, if you have not time to go [to] the Moxons, an Omnibus from the Bell and Crown in Holborn would [bring] you to our door in [a] quarter of an hour. If your dear Mother does not venture so far, I will contrive to pop down to see [her]. Love and all seasonable wishes to your sister and Mary, &c. I am in the midst of many friends—Mr. & Mrs. Kenney, Mr. & Mrs. Hood, Bar[r]on Field & his brother Frank, & their wives &c., all within a short walk.
If the lodger is gone, I shall have a bedroom will hold two! Heaven bless & preserve you all in health and happiness many a long year.
Yours affectionately,
M.A. LAMB.
LETTER 616
MARY LAMB TO JANE NORRIS
Oct. 3, 1842.
My dear Jane Norris,—Thanks, many thanks, my dear friend, for your kind remembrances. What a nice Goose! That, and all its accompaniments in the basket, we all devoured; the two legs fell to my share!!!
Your chearful [letter,] my Jane, made me feel "almost as good as new."
Your Mother and I must meet again. Do not be surprized if I pop in again for a half-hour's call some fine frosty morning.
Thank you, dear Jane, for the happy tidings that my old friend Miss Bangham is alive, an[d] that Mary is still with you, unmarried. Heaven bless you all.
Love to Mother, Betsey, Mary, &c. How I do long to see you.
I am always your affecately grateful friend,
MARY ANN LAMB.
LAST LETTER
Miss JAMES TO JANE NORRIS
41 Alpha Road, Regent's Park,
London, July 25, 1843.
Madam,—Miss Lamb, having seen the Death of your dear Mother in the Times News Paper, is most anxious to hear from or to see one of you, as she wishes to know how you intend settling yourselves, and to have a full account of your dear Mother's last illness. She was much shocked on reading of her death, and appeared very vexed that she had not been to see her, [and] wanted very much to come down and see you both; but we were really afraid to let her take the journey. If either of you are coming up to town, she would be glad if you would call upon her, but should you not be likely to come soon, she would be very much pleased if one of you would have the goodness to write a few lines to her, as she is most anxious about you. She begs you to excuse her writing to you herself, as she don't feel equal to it; she asked me yesterday to write for her. I am happy to say she is at present pretty well, although your dear Mother's death appears to dwell much upon her mind. She desires her kindest love to you both, and hopes to hear from you very soon, if you are equal to writing. I sincerely hope you will oblige her, and am,
Madam,
Your obedient, &c.,
SARAH JAMES.
Pray don't invite her to come down to see you.
APPENDIX
CONSISTING OF THE LONGER PASSAGES FROM BOOKS REFERRED TO BY LAMB IN HIS LETTERS
BERNARD BARTON'S "THE SPIRITUAL LAW"
FROM DEVOTIONAL VERSES, 1826 (See Letter 388, page 746)
"But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that them mayest do it."—Deut. xxx. 14.
Say not The law divine
Is hidden from thee, or far remov'd:
That law within would shine,
If there its glorious light were sought and lov'd.
Soar not on high,
Nor ask who thence shall bring it down to earth;
That vaulted sky
Hath no such star, didst thou but know its worth.
Nor launch thy bark
In search thereof upon a shoreless sea,
Which has no ark,
No dove to bring this olive-branch to thee.
Then do not roam
In search of that which wandering cannot win;
At home! At home!
That word is plac'd, thy mouth, thy heart within.
Oh! seek it there,
Turn to its teachings with devoted will;
Watch unto prayer,
And in the power of faith this law fulfil.
BARTON'S "THE TRANSLATION OF ENOCH"
FROM NEW YEAR'S EVE, 1828
(See Letter 467, page 841)
"And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him."
Genesis.
Through proudly through the vaulted sky
Was borne Elisha's sire,
And dazzling unto mortal eye
His car and steeds of fire:
To me as glorious seems the change
Accorded to thy worth;
As instantaneous and as strange
Thy exit from this earth.
Something which wakes a deeper thrill,
These few brief words unfold,
Than all description's proudest skill
Could of that hour have told.
Fancy's keen eye may trace the course
Elijah held on high:
The car of flame, each fiery horse,
Her visions may supply;—
But THY transition mocks each dream
Framed by her wildest power,
Nor can her mastery supreme
Conceive thy parting hour.
Were angels, with expanded wings,
As guides and guardians given?
Or did sweet sounds from seraphs' strings
Waft thee from earth to heaven?
'Twere vain to ask: we know but this—
Thy path from grief and time
Unto eternity and bliss,
Mysterious and sublime!
With God thou walkedst: and wast not!
And thought and fancy fail
Further than this to paint thy lot,
Or tell thy wondrous tale.
TALFOURD'S "VERSES IN MEMORY OF A CHILD NAMED AFTER CHARLES LAMB"
FROM THE FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB
(See Letter 469, page 846)
Our gentle Charles has pass'd away
From Earth's short bondage free,
And left to us its leaden day
And mist-enshrouded sea.
Here, by the restless ocean's side,
Sweet hours of hope have flown,
When first the triumph of its tide
Seem'd omen of our own.
That eager joy the sea-breeze gave,
When first it raised his hair,
Sunk with each day's retiring wave,
Beyond the reach of prayer.
The sun-blink that through drizzling mist,
To flickering hope akin,
Lone waves with feeble fondness kiss'd,
No smile as faint can win;
Yet not in vain, with radiance weak,
The heavenly stranger gleams—
Not of the world it lights to speak,
But that from whence it streams.
That world our patient sufferer sought,
Serene with pitying eyes,
As if his mounting Spirit caught
The wisdom of the skies.
With boundless love it look'd abroad
For one bright moment given;
Shone with a loveliness that aw'd,
And quiver'd into Heaven.
A year made slow by care and toil
Has paced its weary round,
Since Death enrich'd with kindred spoil
The snow-clad, frost-ribb'd ground.
Then LAMB, with whose endearing name
Our boy we proudly graced,
Shrank from the warmth of sweeter fame
Than mightier Bards embraced.
Still 'twas a mournful joy to think
Our darling might supply
For years to us, a living link,
To name that cannot die.
And though such fancy gleam no more
On earthly sorrow's night,
Truth's nobler torch unveils the shore
Which lends to both its light.
The nurseling there that hand may take,
None ever grasp'd in vain,
And smiles of well-known sweetness wake,
Without their tinge of pain.
Though,'twixt the Child and child-like Bard,
Late seemed distinction wide.
They now may trace in Heaven's regard,
How near they were allied.
Within the infant's ample brow
Blythe fancies lay unfurl'd,
Which, all uncrush'd, may open now,
To charm a sinless world.
Though the soft spirit of those eyes
Might ne'er with LAMB'S compete—
Ne'er sparkle with a wit as wise,
Or melt in tears, as sweet;
That calm and unforgotten look
A kindred love reveals,
With his who never friend forsook,
Or hurt a thing that feels.
In thought profound, in wildest glee,
In sorrows dark and strange,
The soul of Lamb's bright infancy
Endured no spot or change.
From traits of each our love receives
For comfort, nobler scope;
While light, which child-like genius leaves.
Confirms the infant's hope;
And in that hope with sweetness fraught
Be aching hearts beguiled,
To blend in one delightful thought
The POET and the CHILD!
EDWARD FITZGERALD'S "THE MEADOWS IN SPRING"
FROM HONE'S YEAR BOOK
(See Letter 535, page 938)
'Tis a sad sight
To see the year dying;
When autumn's last wind
Sets the yellow wood sighing;
Sighing, oh sighing!
When such a time cometh,
I do retire
Into an old room,
Beside a bright fire;
Oh! pile a bright fire!
And there I sit
Reading old things
Of knights and ladies,
While the wind sings:
Oh! drearily sings!
I never look out,
Nor attend to the blast;
For, all to be seen,
Is the leaves falling fast:
Falling, falling!
But, close at the hearth,
Like a cricket, sit I;
Reading of summer
And chivalry:
Gallant chivalry!
Then, with an old friend,
I talk of our youth;
How 'twas gladsome, but often
Foolish, forsooth,
But gladsome, gladsome.
Or, to get merry,
We sing an old rhyme
That made the wood ring again
In summer time:
Sweet summer time!
Then take we to smoking,
Silent and snug:
Naught passes between us,
Save a brown jug;
Sometimes! sometimes!
And sometimes a tear
Will rise in each eye,
Seeing the two old friends,
So merrily;
So merrily!
And ere to bed
Go we, go we,
Down by the ashes
We kneel on the knee;
Praying, praying!
Thus then live I,
Till, breaking the gloom
Of winter, the bold sun
Is with me in the room!
Shining, shining!
Then the clouds part,
Swallows soaring between:
The spring is awake,
And the meadows are green,—
I jump up like mad;
Break the old pipe in twain;
And away to the meadows,
The meadows again!
EPSILON.
JAMES MONTGOMERY'S "THE COMMON LOT"
(See Letter 535, page 938)
A Birth-day Meditation, during a solitary winter walk of seven miles, between a village in Derbyshire and Sheffield, when the ground was covered with snow, the sky serene, and the morning air intensely pure.
Once in the flight of ages past,
There lived a man:—and WHO was HE?
—Mortal! howe'er thy lot be cast,
That man resembled Thee.
Unknown the region of his birth,
The land in which he died unknown:
His name has perish'd from the earth;
This truth survives alone:—
That joy and grief, and hope and fear,
Alternate triumph'd in his breast;
His bliss and woe,—a smile, a tear!—
Oblivion hides the rest.
The bounding pulse, the languid limb,
The changing spirits' rise and fall;
We know that these were felt by him,
For these are felt by all.
He suffer'd,—but his pangs are o'er;
Enjoy'd,—but his delights are fled;
Had friends,—his friends are now no more;
And foes,—his foes are dead.
He loved,—but whom he loved, the grave
Hath lost in its unconscious womb:
O. she was fair!—but nought could save
Her beauty from the tomb.
He saw whatever thou hast seen;
Encounter'd all that troubles thee:
He was—whatever thou hast been;
He is—what thou shalt be.
The rolling seasons, day and night,
Sun, moon, and stars, the earth and main,
Erewhile his portion, life and light,
To him exist in vain.
The clouds and sunbeams, o'er his eye
That once their shades and glory threw,
Have left in yonder silent sky
No vestige where they flew.
The annals of the human race,
Their ruins, since the world began,
Of HIM afford no other trace
Than this,—THERE LIVED A MAN!
November 4, 1805. BARRY CORNWALL'S "EPISTLE TO CHARLES LAMB;
ON HIS EMANCIPATION FROM CLERKSHIP"
(WRITTEN OVER A FLASK OF SHERRIS)
FROM ENGLISH SONGS
(See Letter 551, page 952)
Dear Lamb! I drink to thee,—to thee
Married to sweet Liberty!
What, old friend, and art thou freed
From the bondage of the pen?
Free from care and toil indeed?
Free to wander amongst men
When and howsoe'er thou wilt?
All thy drops of labour spilt,
On those huge and figured pages,
Which will sleep unclasp'd for ages,
Little knowing who did wield
The quill that traversed their white field?
Come,—another mighty health!
Thou hast earn'd thy sum of wealth,—
Countless ease,—immortal leisure,—
Days and nights of boundless pleasure,
Checquer'd by no dreams of pain,
Such as hangs on clerk-like brain
Like a night-mare, and doth press
The happy soul from happiness.
Oh! happy thou,—whose all of time
(Day and eve, and morning prime)
Is fill'd with talk on pleasant themes,—
Or visions quaint, which come in dreams
Such as panther'd Bacchus rules,
When his rod is on "the schools,"
Mixing wisdom with their wine;—
Or, perhaps, thy wit so fine
Strayeth in some elder book,
Whereon our modern Solons look
With severe ungifted eyes,
Wondering what thou seest to prize.
Happy thou, whose skill can take
Pleasure at each turn, and slake
Thy thirst by every fountain's brink,
Where less wise men would pause to shrink:
Sometimes, 'mid stately avenues
With Cowley thou, or Marvel's muse,
Dost walk; or Gray, by Eton's towers;
Or Pope, in Hampton's chesnut bowers;
Or Walton, by his loved Lea stream:
Or dost thou with our Milton dream,
Of Eden and the Apocalypse,
And hear the words from his great lips?