LETTER 311
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[P.M. February 17, 1823.]
My dear Sir—I have read quite through the ponderous folio of G.F. I think Sewell 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 He luckily turns aside from that compendious study of natural history, which might have superseded Buffon, to his proper spiritual pursuits, only just hinting what a philosopher he might have been.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 figure. Also, pretences to miraculous healing and the like are more frequent than I should have suspected from the epitome in Sewell. He is nevertheless a great spiritual man, and I feel very much obliged by your procuring me the Loan of it. How I like the Quaker phrases—though I think they were hardly completed till Woolman. A pretty little manual of Quaker language (with an endeavour 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, both his life and his death. Are there more Last words of him? Pray, how may I venture to 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 skipt a word of it. I have quoted G.F. in my Quaker's meeting, as having said he was "lifted up in spirit" (which I felt at the time to be not a Quaker phrase), "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 every thing I touch turns into a Lye? I once quoted two Lines from a translation of Dante, which Hazlitt very greatly admired, and quoted in a Book as proof of the stupendous power of that poet, but no such lines are to be found in the translation, 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 misfortune to have a Lying memory.—Yes, I have seen Miss Coleridge, and wish I had just such a—daughter. God love her—to think that she should have had to toil thro' five octavos of that cursed (I forget I write to a Quaker) Abbeypony History, and then to abridge them to 3, and all for £113. At her years, to be doing stupid Jesuits' Latin into English, when she should be reading or writing Romances. Heaven send her Uncle do not breed her up a Quarterly Reviewer!—which reminds me, that he has spoken very respectfully of you in the last number, which is the next thing to having a Review all to one's self. Your description of Mr. Mitford's place makes me long for a pippin and some carraways and a cup of sack in his orchard, when the sweets of the night come in.
Farewell.
C. LAMB.
[In the 1694 folio of George Fox's Journal the revelation of the names of creatures occurs twice, once under Notts in 1647 and again under Mansfield in 1648.
"Sewell." The History of the Rise, Increase and Progress of the
Christian People called Quakers, 1722. By William Sewell (1654-1720).
"In my Quaker's meeting"—the Elia essay (see Vol. II.).
"I once quoted two Lines." Possibly, Mr. A.R. Waller suggests to me, the lines:—
Because on earth their names
In Fame's eternal volume shine for aye,
quoted by Hazlitt in his Round Table essay "On Posthumous Fame," and again in one of his Edinburgh Review articles. They are presumably based upon the Inferno, Canto IV. (see Haselfoot's translation, second edition, 1899, page 21, lines 74-78). But the "manufacturer" of them must have had Spenser's line in his mind, "On Fame's eternall bead-roll worthie to be fyled" (Faerie Queene, Bk. IV., Canto II., Stanza 32). They have not yet been found in any translation of Dante. This explanation would satisfy Lamb's words "quoted in a book," i.e., The Round Table, published in 1817.
"Miss Coleridge"—Coleridge's daughter Sara, born in 1802, who had been brought up by her uncle, Southey. She had translated Martin Dobrizhoffer's Latin history of the Abipones in order to gain funds for her brother Derwent's college expenses. Her father considered the translation "unsurpassed for pure mother English by anything I have read for a long time." Sara Coleridge married her cousin, Henry Nelson Coleridge, in 1829. She edited her father's works and died in 1852. At the present time she and her mother were visiting the Gillmans.
Mr. Mitford was John Mitford (1781-1859), rector of Benhall, in Suffolk, and editor of old poets. Later he became editor of the Gentleman's Magazine. He was a cousin of Mary Russell Mitford. In the Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1838, is a review of Talfourd's edition of Lamb's Letters, probably from his pen, in which he records a visit to the Lambs in 1827.]
LETTER 312
CHARLES LAMB TO WALTER WILSON
[Dated at end: February 24, 1823.]
Dear W.—I write that you may not think me neglectful, not that I have any thing to say. In answer to your questions, it was at your house I saw an edition of Roxana, the preface to which stated that the author had left out that part of it which related to Roxana's daughter persisting in imagining herself to be so, in spite of the mother's denial, from certain hints she had picked up, and throwing herself continually in her mother's way (as Savage is said to have done in his, prying in at windows to get a glimpse of her), and that it was by advice of Southern, who objected to the circumstances as being untrue, when the rest of the story was founded on fact; which shows S. to have been a stupid-ish fellow. The incidents so resemble Savage's story, that I taxed Godwin with taking Falconer from his life by Dr. Johnson. You should have the edition (if you have not parted with it), for I saw it never but at your place at the Mews' Gate, nor did I then read it to compare it with my own; only I know the daughter's curiosity is the best part of my Roxana. The prologue you speak of was mine, so named, but not worth much. You ask me for 2 or 3 pages of verse. I have not written so much since you knew me. I am altogether prosaic. May be I may touch off a sonnet in time. I do not prefer Col. Jack to either Rob. Cr. or Roxana. I only spoke of the beginning of it, his childish history. The rest is poor. I do not know anywhere any good character of De Foe besides what you mention. I do not know that Swift mentions him. Pope does. I forget if D'Israeli has. Dunlop I think has nothing of him. He is quite new ground, and scarce known beyond Crusoe. I do not know who wrote Quarll. I never thought of Quarll as having an author. It is a poor imitation; the monkey is the best in it, and his pretty dishes made of shells. Do you know the Paper in the Englishman by Sir Rd. Steele, giving an account of Selkirk? It is admirable, and has all the germs of Crusoe. You must quote it entire. Captain G. Carleton wrote his own Memoirs; they are about Lord Peterborough's campaign in Spain, & a good Book. Puzzelli puzzles me, and I am in a cloud about Donald M'Leod. I never heard of them; so you see, my dear Wilson, what poor assistances I can give in the way of information. I wish your Book out, for I shall like to see any thing about De Foe or from you.
Your old friend,
C. LAMB.
From my and your old compound. 24 Feb. '23.
[With this letter compare the letter on September 9, 1801, to Godwin, and the letter on December 16, 1822, to Wilson.
Defoe's Roxana, first edition, does not, as a matter of fact, contain the episode of the daughter which Lamb so much admired. Later editions have it. Godwin says in his Preface to "Faulkener," 1807, the play to which Lamb wrote a prologue in praise of Defoe (see Vol. IV.), that the only accessible edition of Roxana in which the story of Susannah is fully told is that of 1745.
Richard Savage was considered to be the natural son of the Countess of Macclesfield and Earl Rivers. His mother at first disowned him, but afterwards, when this became impossible, repulsed him. Johnson says in his "Life of Savage," that it was his hero's "practice to walk in the dark evenings for several hours before her door in hopes of seeing her as she might come by accident to the window or cross her apartment with a candle in her hand."
Swift and Defoe were steady enemies, although I do not find that either mentions the other by name. But Swift in The Examiner often had Defoe in mind, and Defoe in one of his political writings refers to Swift, apropos Wood's halfpence, as "the copper farthing author."
Pope referred to Defoe twice in the Dunciad: once as standing high, fearless and unabashed in the pillory, and once, libellously, as the father of Norton, of the Flying Post.
Philip Quarll was the first imitation of Robinson Crusoe. It was published in 1727, purporting to be the narrative of one Dorrington, a merchant, and Quarll's discoverer. The title begins, The Hermit; or, The Unparalleled Sufferings and Surprising Adventures of Mr. Philip Quarll, an Englishman … Lamb says in his essay on Christ's Hospital that the Blue-Coat boys used to read the book. The authorship of the book is still unknown.
Steele's account of Selkirk is in The Englishman, No. 26, Dec. 1, 1713. Wilson quoted it.
Defoe's fictitious Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton was published in 1728.
I cannot explain Puzzelli or Donald M'Leod. Later Lamb sent Wilson, who seems to have asked for some verse about Defoe, the "Ode to the Treadmill," but Wilson did not use it.
"My old compound." Robinson's Diary (Vol. I., page 333) has this: "The large room in the accountant's office at the East India House is divided into boxes or compartments, in each of which sit six clerks, Charles Lamb himself in one. They are called Compounds. The meaning of the word was asked one day, and Lamb said it was 'a collection of simples.'"]
LETTER 313
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[Dated at end: March 11, 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 surprising 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 ever 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 be in town with your sister, mine bids me say that she shall have great pleasure in being introduced to her. I think I must give up the cause of the Bank—from nine to nine is galley-slavery, but I hope it is but temporary. 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 friend can make convenient to call for it.
They have dragged me again into the 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 poetry from the Lakes, Wordsworth and Southey are coming up strong from the North. The she Coleridges have taken flight, to my regret. With Sara's own-made acquisitions, her unaffectedness and no-pretensions are beautiful. You might pass an age with her without suspecting that she knew any thing but her mother's tongue. I don't mean any reflection on Mrs. Coleridge here. I had better have said her vernacular idiom. Poor C. I wish he had a home to receive his daughter in. But he is but as a stranger or a visitor in this world. How did you like Hartley's sonnets? The first, at least, is vastly fine. Lloyd has been in town a day or two on business, and is perfectly well. I am ashamed of the shabby letters I send, but I am by nature anything but neat. Therein my mother bore me no Quaker. I never could seal a letter without 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 Protectorial 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 disrespectful to your self if I send you such ungainly 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. I?
It is time to have done my incoherences.
Believe me Yours Truly
C. LAMB.
Tuesd 11 Ma 23.
[Lamb had sent Elia to Woodbridge. Bernard Barton's sister was Maria Hack, author of many books for children. The Quaker incident is in the essay "Imperfect Sympathies." Carlisle was Sir Anthony Carlisle.
"Your endeavour at explaining Fox's insight." See letter above. James Nayler (1617?-1660), an early Quaker who permitted his admirers to look upon him as a new Christ. He went to extremes totally foreign to the spirit of the Society. Barton made a paraphrase of Nayler's "Last Testimony."
"They have dragged me again." Lamb had been quite ready to give up Elia with the first essays. "Old China," one of his most charming papers, was in the March London Magazine.
"Some brains …" I had to give this up in my large edition. I now find that Swift says it, not Ben Jonson. "There is a brain that will endure but one scumming." Preface to Battle of the Books.
"Hartley's sonnets." Four sonnets by Hartley Coleridge were printed in the London Magazine for February, 1823, addressed to R.S. Jameson.
"Writing to a great man lately." This was Sir Walter Scott (see page 626). Barron Field would be the friend with the seal.
Here should come a letter from Lamb to Ayrton saying that there will be cards and cold mutton in Russell St. from 8 to 9 and gin and jokes from 9.30 to 12.]
LETTER 314
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[P.M. 5 April 1823.]
Dear Sir—You must think me ill mannered not to have replied to your first letter sooner, but I have an ugly habit of aversion from letter writing, which makes me an unworthy correspondent. I have had no spring, or cordial call to the occupation of late. I have been not well lately, which must be my lame excuse. Your poem, which I consider very affecting, found me engaged about a humorous Paper for the London, which I had called a "Letter to an Old Gentleman whose Education had been neglected"—and when it was done Taylor and Hessey would not print it, and it discouraged me from doing any thing else, so I took up Scott, where I had scribbled some petulant remarks, and for a make shift father'd them on Ritson. It is obvious I could not make your Poem a part of them, and as I did not know whether I should ever be able to do to my mind what you suggested, I thought it not fair to keep back the verses for the chance. Mr. Mitford's sonnet I like very well; but as I also have my reasons against interfering at all with the Editorial arrangement of the London, I transmitted it (not in my own hand-writing) to them, who I doubt not will be glad to insert it. What eventual benefit it can be to you (otherwise than that a kind man's wish is a benefit) I cannot conjecture. Your Society are eminently men of Business, and will probably regard you as an idle fellow, possibly disown you, that is to say, if you had put your own name to a sonnet of that sort, but they cannot excommunicate Mr. Mitford, therefore I thoroughly approve of printing the said verses. When I see any Quaker names to the Concert of Antient Music, or as Directors of the British Institution, or bequeathing medals to Oxford for the best classical themes, etc.—then I shall begin to hope they will emancipate you. But what as a Society can they do for you? you would not accept a Commission in the Army, nor they be likely to procure it; Posts in Church or State have they none in their giving; and then if they disown you—think—you must live "a man forbid."
I wishd for you yesterday. I dined in Parnassus, with Wordsworth, Coleridge, Rogers, and Tom Moore—half the Poetry of England constellated and clustered in Gloster Place! It was a delightful Even! 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 aking head, for we did not quaff Hippocrene last night. Many, it was Hippocras rather. Pray accept this as a letter in the mean time, and do me the favor to mention my respects to Mr. Mitford, who is so good as to entertain good thoughts of Elia, but don't show this almost impertinent scrawl. I will write more respectfully next time, for believe me, if not in words, in feelings, yours most so.
["Your poem." Barton's poem was entitled "A Poet's Thanks," and was printed in the London Magazine for April, 1823, the same number that contained Lamb's article on Ritson and Scott. It is one of his best poems, an expression of contentment in simplicity. The "Letter to an Old Gentleman," a parody of De Quincey's series of "Letters to a Young Gentleman" in the London Magazine, was not published until January, 1825. Scott was John Scott of Amwell (Barton's predecessor as the Quaker poet), who had written a rather foolish book of prose, Critical Essays on the English Poets. Ritson was Joseph Ritson, the critic and antiquarian. See Vol. I. of the present edition for the essay. Barton seems to have suggested to Lamb that he should write an essay around the poem "A Poet's Thanks." Mitford's sonnet, which was printed in the London Magazine for June, 1823, was addressed commiseratingly to Bernard Barton. It began:—
What to thy broken Spirit can atone,
Unhappy victim of the Tyrant's fears;
and continued in the same strain, the point being that Barton was the victim of his Quaker employers, who made him "prisoner at once and slave." Lamb's previous letter shows us that Barton was being worked from nine till nine, and we must suppose also that an objection to his poetical exercises had been lodged or suggested. The matter righted itself in time.
"I dined in Parnassus." This dinner, at Thomas Monkhouse's, No. 34 Gloucester Place, is described both by Moore and by Crabb Robinson, who was present. Moore wrote in his Journal:—
"Dined at Mr. Monkhouse's (a gentleman I had never seen before) on Wordsworth's invitation, who lives there whenever he comes to town. A singular party. Coleridge, Rogers, Wordsworth and wife, Charles Lamb (the hero at present of the London Magazine), and his sister (the poor woman who went mad in a diligence on the way to Paris), and a Mr. Robinson, one of the minora sidera of this constellation of the Lakes; the host himself, a Maecenas of the school, contributing nothing but good dinners and silence. Charles Lamb, a clever fellow, certainly, but full of villainous and abortive puns, which he miscarries of every minute. Some excellent things, however, have come from him."
Lamb told Moore that he had hitherto always felt an antipathy to him, but henceforward should like him.
Crabb Robinson writes:—
"April 4th.—Dined at Monkhouse's. Our party consisted of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, Moore, and Rogers. Five poets of very unequal worth and most disproportionate popularity, whom the public probably would arrange in the very inverse order, except that it would place Moore above Rogers. During this afternoon, Coleridge alone displayed any of his peculiar talent. He talked much and well. I have not for years seen him in such excellent health and spirits. His subjects metaphysical criticism—Wordsworth he chiefly talked to. Rogers occasionally let fall a remark. Moore seemed conscious of his inferiority. He was very attentive to Coleridge, but seemed to relish Lamb, whom he sat next. L. was in a good frame—kept himself within bounds and was only cheerful at last…. I was at the bottom of the table, where I very ill performed my part…. I walked home late with Lamb."
Many years later Robinson sent to The Athenaeum (June 25, 1853) a further and fuller account of the evening.]
LETTER 315
CHARLES LAMB TO B.W. PROCTER
April 13th, 1823.
Dear Lad,—You must think me a brute beast, a rhinoceros, never to have acknowledged 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 much 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 for your 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 think he has just made out the last lines of the "Epistle to Jervis," between gay and tender,
"And other beauties envy Worsley's eyes."
I'll be damn'd 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 earliest 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 dined with T. Moore and breakfasted with Rogers, 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 since 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?
T. Moore asked me your address in a manner which made me believe he meant to call upon you.
Rogers spake very kindly of you, as every body does, and none with so much reason as your
C.L.
[This is the first important letter to Bryan Waller Procter, better known as Barry Cornwall, who was afterwards to write, in his old age, so pleasant a memoir of Lamb. He was then thirty-five, was practising law, and had already published Marcian Colonna and A Sicilian Story.
The Epistle to Mr. Jervas (with Mr. Dryden's translation of Fresnoy's Art of Painting) did not end upon this line, but some eighteen lines later. I give the portrait in my large edition.
"Lady Mary." By Lady Mary Lamb means, as Pope did in the first edition,
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. But after his quarrel with that lady Pope
altered it to Worsley, signifying Lady Frances Worsley, daughter of the
Duke of Marlborough and wife of Sir Robert Worsley.]
LETTER 316
CHARLES LAMB TO SARAH HUTCHINSON
[P.M. April 25, 1823.]
Dear Miss H——, Mary has such an invincible reluctance to any epistolary exertion, that I am sparing her a mortification by taking the pen from her. The plain truth is, she writes such a pimping, mean, detestable hand, that she is ashamed of the formation of her letters. There is an essential poverty and abjectness in the frame of them. They look like begging letters. And then she is sure to omit a most substantial word in the second draught (for she never ventures an epistle, without a foul copy first) which is obliged to be interlined, which spoils the neatest epistle, you know [the word "epistle" is underlined). Her figures, 1, 2, 3, 4, &c., where she has occasion to express numerals, as in the date (25 Apr 1823), are not figures, but Figurantes. And the combined posse go staggering up and down shameless as drunkards in the day time. It is no better when she rules her paper, her lines are "not less erring" than her words—a sort of unnatural parallel lines, that are perpetually threatening to meet, which you know is quite contrary to Euclid [here Lamb has ruled lines grossly unparallel]. Her very blots are not bold like this [here a bold blot], but poor smears [here a poor smear] half left in and half scratched out with another smear left in their place. I like a clean letter. A bold free hand, and a fearless flourish. Then she has always to go thro' them (a second operation) to dot her i s, and cross her t s. I don't think she can make a cork screw, if she tried—which has such a fine effect at the end or middle of an epistle—and fills up—
[Here Lamb has made a corkscrew two inches long.]
There is a corkscrew, one of the best I ever drew. By the way what incomparable whiskey that was of Monkhouse's. But if I am to write a letter, let me begin, and not stand flourishing like a fencer at a fair.
It gives me great pleasure (the letter now begins) to hear that you got down smoothly, and that Mrs. Monkhouse's spirits are so good and enterprising. It shews, whatever her posture may be, that her mind at least is not supine. I hope the excursion will enable the former to keep pace with its out-stripping neighbor. Pray present our kindest wishes to her, and all. (That sentence should properly have come in the Post Script, but we airy Mercurial Spirits, there is no keeping us in). Time—as was said of one of us—toils after us in vain. I am afraid our co-visit with Coleridge was a dream. I shall not get away before the end (or middle) of June, and then you will be frog-hopping at Boulogne. And besides I think the Gilmans would scarce trust him with us, I have a malicious knack at cutting of apron strings. The Saints' days you speak of have long since fled to heaven, with Astraea, and the cold piety of the age lacks fervor to recall them—only Peter left his key—the iron one of the two, that shuts amain—and that's the reason I am lockd up. Meanwhile of afternoons we pick up primroses at Dalston, and Mary corrects me when I call 'em cowslips. God bless you all, and pray remember me euphoneously to Mr. Gnwellegan. That Lee Priory must be a dainty bower, is it built of flints, and does it stand at Kingsgate? Did you remem
[This is apparently the proper end of the letter. At least there is no indication of another sheet.]
[Addressed to "Miss Hutchinson, 17 Sion Hill, Ramsgate, Kent," where she was staying with Mrs. Monkhouse. I give a facsimile of it in my large edition.
"'Time'—as was said of one of us." Johnson wrote of Shakespeare, in the
Prologue at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre in 1747:—
And panting Time toil'd after him in vain.
"The Saints' days." See note to the letter to Mrs. Wordsworth, Feb. 18, 1818.
"Mr. Gnwellegan." Probably Lamb's effort to write the name of Edward Quillinan, afterwards Wordsworth's son-in-law, whose first wife had been a Miss Brydges of Lee Priory.
"Lee Priory"—the home of Sir Egerton Brydges, at Ickham, near Canterbury, for some years. He had, however, now left, and the private press was closed.
In Notes and Queries, November 11, 1876, was printed the following scrap, a postscript by Charles Lamb to a letter from Mary Lamb to Miss H. I place it here, having no clue as to date, nor does it matter:—]
LETTER 317
(Fragment)
CHARLES LAMB TO MISS HUTCHINSON (?)
A propos of birds—the other day at a large dinner, being call'd upon for a toast, I gave, as the best toast I knew, "Wood-cock toast," which was drunk with 3 cheers.
Yours affect'y
C. LAMB.
LETTER 318
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN
[No date. Probably 1823.]
It is hard when a Gentleman cannot remain concealed, who affecteth obscurity with greater avidity than most do seek to have their good deeds brought to light—to haye a prying inquisitive finger, (to the danger of its own scorching), busied in removing the little peck measure (scripturally a bushel) under which one had hoped to bury his small candle. The receipt of fern-seed, I think, in this curious age, would scarce help a man to walk invisible.
Well, I am discovered—and thou thyself, who thoughtest to shelter under the pease-cod of initiality (a stale and shallow device), art no less dragged to light—Thy slender anatomy—thy skeletonian D—— fleshed and sinewed out to the plump expansion of six characters—thy tuneful genealogy deduced—
By the way, what a name is Timothy!
Lay it down, I beseech thee, and in its place take up the properer sound of Timotheus—
Then mayst thou with unblushing fingers handle the Lyre "familiar to the
D——n name."
With much difficulty have I traced thee to thy lurking-place. Many a goodly name did I run over, bewildered between Dorrien, and Doxat, and Dover, and Dakin, and Daintry—a wilderness of D's—till at last I thought I had hit it—my conjectures wandering upon a melancholy Jew—you wot the Israelite upon Change—Master Daniels—a contemplative Hebrew— to the which guess I was the rather led, by the consideration that most of his nation are great readers—
Nothing is so common as to see them in the Jews' Walk, with a bundle of script in one hand, and the Man of Feeling, or a volume of Sterne, in the other—
I am a rogue if I can collect what manner of face thou carriest, though thou seemest so familiar with mine—If I remember, thou didst not dimly resemble the man Daniels, whom at first I took thee for—a care-worn, mortified, economical, commercio-political countenance, with an agreeable limp in thy gait, if Elia mistake thee not. I think I sh'd shake hands with thee, if I met thee.
[John Bates Dibdin, the son of Charles Dibdin the younger and grandson of the great Charles Dibdin, was at this time a young man of about twenty-four, engaged as a clerk in a shipping office in the city. I borrow from Canon Ainger an interesting letter from a sister of Dibdin on the beginning of the correspondence:—
My brother … had constant occasion to conduct the giving or taking of cheques, as it might be, at the India House. There he always selected "the little clever man" in preference to the other clerks. At that time the Elia Essays were appearing in print. No one had the slightest conception who "Elia" was. He was talked of everywhere, and everybody was trying to find him out, but without success. At last, from the style and manner of conveying his ideas and opinions on different subjects, my brother began to suspect that Lamb was the individual so widely sought for, and wrote some lines to him, anonymously, sending them by post to his residence, with the hope of sifting him on the subject. Although Lamb could not know who sent him the lines, yet he looked very hard at the writer of them the next time they met, when he walked up, as usual, to Lamb's desk in the most unconcerned manner, to transact the necessary business. Shortly after, when they were again in conversation, something dropped from Lamb's lips which convinced his hearer, beyond a doubt, that his suspicions were correct. He therefore wrote some more lines (anonymously, as before), beginning—
"I've found thee out, O Elia!"
and sent them to Colebrook Row. The consequence was that at their next meeting Lamb produced the lines, and after much laughing, confessed himself to be Elia. This led to a warm friendship between them.
Dibdin's letter of discovery was signed D. Hence Lamb's fumbling after his Christian name, which he probably knew all the time.]
LETTER 319
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[P.M. 3 May, 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 performance generally justifies the presentiment. Taylor and Hessey did foolishly in not admitting the sonnet. Surely it might have followed the B.B. I agree with you in thinking Bowring's paper better than the former. I will inquire about my Letter to the Old Gentleman, but I expect it to go in, after those to the Young Gent'n are completed. I do not exactly see why the Goose and little Goslings should emblematize a Quaker poet that has no children. But after all—perhaps it is a Pelican. The Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin around it I cannot decypher. 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. I am at Dalston now, but if, when I go back to Cov. Gar., I find thy friend has not call'd for the Journal, thee must put me in a way of sending it; and if it should happen that the Lender of it, having that volume, has not the other, I shall be most happy in his accepting the Doctrinals, which I shall read but once certainly. It is not a splendid copy, but perfect, save a leaf of Index.
I cannot but think the London drags heavily. I miss Janus. And O how it misses Hazlitt! Procter too is affronted (as Janus has been) with their abominable curtailment of his things—some meddling Editor or other—or phantom of one —for neither he nor Janus know their busy friend. But they always find the best part cut out; and they have done well to cut also. I am not so fortunate as to be served in this manner, for I would give a clean sum of money in sincerity to leave them handsomely. But the dogs—T. and H. I mean— will not affront me, and what can I do? must I go on to drivelling? Poor Relations is tolerable—but where shall I get another subject—or who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I assure you it teases me more than it used to please me. Ch. Lloyd has published a sort of Quaker poem, he tells me, and that he has order'd me a copy, but I have not got it. Have you seen it? I must leave a little wafer space, which brings me to an apology for a conclusion. I am afraid of looking back, for I feel all this while I have been writing nothing, but it may show I am alive. Believe me, cordially yours C. LAMB.
[The sonnet probably was Mitford's, which was printed in the June number (see above). Bowring, afterwards Sir John, was writing in the London Magazine on "Spanish Romances."
"The Goose and little Goslings." Possibly the design upon the seal of
Barton's last letter.
"Janus." The first mention of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (see note below), who sometimes wrote in the London over the pseudonym Janus Weathercock. John Taylor, Hood and perhaps John Hamilton Reynolds, made up the magazine for press. In the May number, in addition to Lamb's "Poor Relations," were contributions from De Quincey, Hartley Coleridge, Cary, and Barton. But it was not what it had been.
Lloyd's Quaker poem would probably be one of those in his Poems, 1823, which contains some of his most interesting work.]
LETTER 320
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN
[P.M. May 6, 1823.]
Dear Sir—Your verses were very pleasant, and I shall like to see more of them—I do not mean addressed to me.
I do not know whether you live in town or country, but if it suits your convenience I shall be glad to see you some evening— say Thursday—at 20 Great Russell Street, Cov't Garden. If you can come, do not trouble yourself to write. We are old fashiond people who drink tea at six, or not much later, and give cold mutton and pickle at nine, the good old hour. I assure you (if it suit you) we shall be glad to see you.—
Yours, etc. C. LAMB.
E.I.H., Tuesday, My love to Mr. Railton.
Some day of May 1823. The same to Mr. Rankin,
Not official. to the whole Firm indeed.
[The verses are not, I fear, now recoverable. Dibdin's firm was Railton,
Rankin & Co., in Old Jury.
Here should come a letter from Lamb to Hone, dated May 19, 1823. William Hone (1780-1842), who then, his stormy political days over, was publishing antiquarian works on Ludgate Hill, had sent Lamb his Ancient Mysteries Described, 1823. Lamb thanks him for it, and invites him to 14 Kingsland Row, Dalston, the next Sunday: "We dine exactly at 4."]
LETTER 321
MARY LAMB TO MRS. RANDAL NORRIS
Hastings, at Mrs. Gibbs, York Cottage, Priory, No. 4. [June 18, 1823.]
My dear Friend,—Day after day has passed away, and my brother has said, "I will write to Mrs. [? Mr.] Norris to-morrow," and therefore I am resolved to write to Mrs. Norris to-day, and trust him no longer. We took our places for Sevenoaks, intending to remain there all night in order to see Knole, but when we got there we chang'd our minds, and went on to Tunbridge Wells. About a mile short of the Wells the coach stopped at a little inn, and I saw, "Lodgings to let" on a little, very little house opposite. I ran over the way, and secured them before the coach drove away, and we took immediate possession: it proved a very comfortable place, and we remained there nine days. The first evening, as we were wandering about, we met a lady, the wife of one of the India House clerks, with whom we had been slightly acquainted some years ago, which slight acquaintance has been ripened into a great intimacy during the nine pleasant days that we passed at the Wells. She and her two daughters went with us in an open chaise to Knole, and as the chaise held only five, we mounted Miss James upon a little horse, which she rode famously. I was very much pleased with Knole, and still more with Penshurst, which we also visited. We saw Frant and the Rocks, and made much use of your Guide Book, only Charles lost his way once going by the map. We were in constant exercise the whole time, and spent our time so pleasantly that when we came here on Monday we missed our new friends and found ourselves very dull. We are by the seaside in a still less house, and we have exchanged a very pretty landlady for a very ugly one, but she is equally attractive to us. We eat turbot, and we drink smuggled Hollands, and we walk up hill and down hill all day long. In the little intervals of rest that we allow ourselves I teach Miss James French; she picked up a few words during her foreign Tour with us, and she has had a hankering after it ever since.
We came from Tunbridge Wells in a Postchaise, and would have seen Battle Abbey on the way, but it is only shewn on a Monday. We are trying to coax Charles into a Monday's excursion. And Bexhill we are also thinking about. Yesterday evening we found out by chance the most beautiful view I ever saw. It is called "The Lovers' Seat."… You have been here, therefore you must have seen [it, or] is it only Mr. and Mrs. Faint who have visited Hastings? [Tell Mrs.] Faint that though in my haste to get housed I d[ecided on] … ice's lodgings, yet it comforted all th … to know that I had a place in view.
I suppose you are so busy that it is not fair to ask you to write me a line to say how you are going on. Yet if any one of you have half an hour to spare for that purpose, it will be most thankfully received. Charles joins with me in love to you all together, and to each one in particular upstairs and downstairs.
Yours most affectionately, M. LAMB. June 18
[Mr. Hazlitt dates this letter 1825 or 1826, and considers it to refer to a second visit to Hastings; but I think most probably it refers to the 1823 visit, especially as the Lovers' Seat would assuredly have been discovered then. Miss James was Mary Lamb's nurse. Mrs. Randal Norris had been a Miss Faint.
There is a curious similarity between a passage in this letter and in one of Byron's, written in 1814: "I have been swimming, and eating turbot, and smuggling neat brandies, and silk handkerchiefs … and walking on cliffs and tumbling down hills."
A Hastings guide book for 1825 gives Mrs. Gibbs' address as 4 York Cottages, near Priory Bridge. Near by, in Pelham Place, a Mr. Hogsflesh had a lodging-house.]
LETTER 322
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[P.M. 10 July, 1823.]
Dear Sir—I shall be happy to read the MS. and to forward it; but T. and
H. must judge for themselves of publication. If it prove interesting (as
I doubt not) I shall not spare to say so, you may depend upon it.
Suppose you direct it to Acco'ts. Office, India House.
I am glad you have met with some sweetening circumstances to your unpalatable draught. I have just returned from Hastings, where are exquisite views and walks, and where I have given up my soul to walking, and I am now suffering sedentary 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 looks 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 all 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, etc., 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 thro' 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 congregation, or like a Hermit's oratory (the Hermit 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 congregation from fancy, for surely none come there. Yet it wants not its pulpit, and its font, and all the seemly additaments of our worship.
Southey has attacked Elia on the score of infidelity, in the Quarterly, Article, "Progress of Infidels [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 harm 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 corn in Egypt, while there is cash at Leadenhall.
You and I are something besides being Writers. Thank God.
Yours truly C.L.
[What the MS. was I do not know. Lamb recurs more fully to the description of the little church—probably Hollingdon Rural, about three miles north-west from the town—in later letters.
The thoughts in the second paragraph of this letter were amplified in the Elia essay "The Old Margate Hoy," in the London Magazine for July, 1823.
"Southey has attacked Elia." In an article in the Quarterly for January, 1823, in a review of a work by Grégoire on Deism in France, under the title "The Progress of Infidelity," Southey had a reference to Elia in the following terms:—
"Unbelievers have not always 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. They may deaden the heart and stupify the conscience, but they cannot destroy the imaginative faculty. There is a remarkable proof of this in Elia's Essays, a book which wants only a sounder religious feeling, to be as delightful as it is original."
And then Southey went on to draw attention to the case of Thornton Hunt, the little child of Leigh Hunt, the (to Southey) notorious free-thinker, who, as Lamb had stated in the essay "Witches and Other Night Fears," would wake at night in terror of images of fear.
"I will not retort." Lamb, as we shall see, changed his mind.
"Almost at a stop before." Elia was never popular until long after Lamb's death. It did not reach a second edition until 1836. There are now several new editions every year.]
LETTER 323
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP
[July, 1823.]
D'r A.—I expect Proctor and Wainwright (Janus W.) this evening; will you come? I suppose it is but a comp't to ask Mrs. Alsop; but it is none to say that we should be most glad to see her. Yours ever. How vexed I am at your Dalston expedit'n. C.L. Tuesday.
[Mrs. Allsop was a daughter of Mrs. Jordan, and had herself been an actress.]
LETTER 324
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[Dated at end: 2 September (1823).]
Dear B.B.—What will you say to my not writing? You cannot say I do not write now. Hessey has not used your kind sonnet, nor have I seen it. Pray send me a Copy. Neither have I heard any more of your Friend's MS., which I will reclaim, whenever you please. When you come London-ward you will find me no longer in Cov't Gard. I have a Cottage, in Colebrook row, Islington. A cottage, for it is detach'd; a white house, with 6 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), pears, strawberries, parsnips, leeks, carrots, cabbages, to delight the heart of old Alcinous. You enter without passage into a cheerful dining room, all studded over and rough with old Books, and above is a lightsome Drawing room, 3 windows, full of choice prints. I feel like a great Lord, never having had a house before.
The London I fear falls off.—I linger among its creaking rafters, like the last rat. It will topple down, if they don't get some Buttresses. They have pull'd down three, W. Hazlitt, Proctor, and their best stay, kind light hearted Wainwright —their Janus. The best is, neither of our fortunes is concern'd in 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 pruning and gardening, quite a new sort of occupation to me. I have gather'd 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 gard'ner (as he let in the serpent) into my Eden, and he laid about him, lopping off some choice boughs, &c., which hung over from a neighbor's garden, and in his blind zeal laid waste a shade, which had sheltered their window from the gaze of passers by. The old gentlewoman (fury made her not handsome) could scarcely be reconciled by all my fine words. There was no buttering her parsnips. She talk'd 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. Cary, 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 different man from Southey,—you would like him.
Pray accept this for a Letter, and believe me with sincere regards
Yours C.L.
2 Sept.
["Your kind sonnet." Barton's well-known sonnet to Elia (quoted below) had been printed in the London Magazine long before—in the previous February. I do not identify this one among his writings.
"I have a Cottage." This cottage still stands (1912). Within it is much as in Lamb's day, but outwardly changed, for a new house has been built on one side and it is thus no longer detached. The New River still runs before it, but subterraneously.
Barton was so attracted by one at least of Lamb's similes that, I fancy, he borrowed it for an account of his grandfather's house at Tottenham which he wrote some time later; for I find that gentleman's garden described as "equal to that of old Alcinous."
"Kind light hearted Wainwright." Lamb has caused much surprise by using such words of one who was destined to become almost the most cold-blooded criminal in English history; but, as Hartley Coleridge wrote in another connection, it was Lamb's way to take things by the better handle, and Wainewright's worst faults in those days seem to have been extravagance and affectation. Lamb at any rate liked him and Wainewright was proud to be on a footing with Elia and his sister, as we know from his writings. Wainewright at this time was not quite twenty-nine; he had painted several pictures, some of which were accepted by the academy, and he had written a number of essays over several different pseudonyms, chief of which was Janus Weathercock. He lived in Great Marlborough Street in some style and there entertained many literary men, among them Lamb. It was not until 1826 that his criminal career began.
"Mr. Pulham"—Brook Pulham of the India House, who made the caricature etching of Elia.
"While I watch my tulips." Lamb is, of course, embroidering here, but we have it on the authority of George Daniel, the antiquary, that with his removal to Colebrooke Cottage began an interest in horticulture, particularly in roses.
"Mr. Cary." The Rev. Henry Francis Cary (1772-1844), the translator of
Dante and afterwards, 1826, Assistant-Keeper of the Printed Books in the
British Museum. A regular contributor to the London Magazine.]
LETTER 325
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP
[Dated at end: Sept. 6 (1823).]
Dear Alsop—I am snugly seated at the cottage; Mary is well but weak, and comes home on Monday; she will soon be strong enough to see her friends here. In the mean time will you dine with me at 1/2 past four to-morrow? Ayrton and Mr. Burney are coming.
Colebrook Cottage, left hand side, end of Colebrook Row on the western brink of the New River, a detach'd whitish house. No answer is required but come if you can. C. LAMB.
Saturday 6th Sep.
I call'd on you on Sunday. Resp'cts to Mrs. A. & boy.
LETTER 326
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP
[P.M. Sept. 9, 1823.]
My dear A.—I am going to ask you to do me the greatest favour which a man can do to another. I want to make my will, and to leave my property in trust for my sister. N.B. I am not therefore going to die.—Would it be unpleasant for you to be named for one? The other two I shall beg the same favor of are Talfourd and Proctor. If you feel reluctant, tell me, and it sha'n't abate one jot of my friendly feeling toward you.
Yours ever, C. LAMB.
E.I. House, Aug. [i.e., Sept.] 9, 1823.
LETTER 327
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP
[P.M. September 10, 1823.]
My dear A.—Your kindness in accepting my request no words of mine can repay. It has made you overflow into some romance which I should have check'd at another time. I hope it may be in the scheme of Providence that my sister may go first (if ever so little a precedence), myself next, and my good Ex'rs survive to remembr us with kindness many years. God bless you.
I will set Proctor about the will forthwith. C. LAMB.
[Here should come another note to Allsop dated Sept. 16, 1823, saying that Mary Lamb is still ill at Fulham. Given in the Boston Bibliophile edition.]
LETTER 328
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP
[September, 1823.]
Dear A.—Your Cheese is the best I ever tasted; Mary will tell you so hereafter. She is at home, but has disappointed me. She has gone back rather than improved. However, she has sense enough to value the present, for she is greatly fond of Stilton. Yours is the delicatest rain-bow-hued melting piece I ever flavoured. Believe me. I took it the more kindly, following so great a kindness.
Depend upon't, yours shall be one of the first houses we shall present ourselves at, when we have got our Bill of Health.
Being both yours and Mrs. Allsop's truly. C.L. & M.L.
[Allsop and Procter may have been named as executors of Lamb's will at one time, but when it came to be proved the executors were Talfourd and Ryle, a fellow-clerk in the India House.]
LETTER 329
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[P.M. September 17, 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
Our 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 stanza which alludes to Lord B.—I suppose. It spoils the sweetness and oneness of the feeling. Cannot we think of Burns, or Thompson, 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 tombstone. 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 want'g in the beginn'g of the next. You see, I use freedom. How happily (I flatter not!) you have bro't in his subjects; and, (I suppose) his favorite 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 rejoyce that you forgive my long silence. I continue to estimate my own-roof comforts highly. How could I remain all my life a lodger! My garden thrives (I am told) tho' I have yet reaped nothing but some tiny sallad, and withered carrots. But a garden's a garden anywhere, and twice a garden in London.
Somehow I cannot relish that word Horkey. Cannot you supply it by circumlocution, and direct the reader by a note to explain that it means the Horkey. But Horkey choaks me in the Text. It raises crowds of mean associations, Hawking and sp——-g, Gauky, Stalky, Maukin. The sound is every thing, in such dulcet modulations 'specially. I like
Gilbert Meldrum's sterner tones,
without knowing who Gilbert Meldrum is. You have slipt in your rhymes as if they grew there, so natural-artificially, or artificial-naturally. There's a vile phrase.
Do you go on with your Quaker Sonnets—[to] 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 100 callings off. And I can never sit down to an epistle elsewhere. I read or walk. If you return this letter to the Post Office, I think they will return 4d, seeing it is but half a one. Believe me tho' entirely yours C.L.
[Barton's "Verses to the Memory of Bloomfield, the Suffolk Poet" (who died in August, 1823), were printed in book form in his Poetic Vigils, 1824. This is the stanza that Lamb most liked:—
It is not quaint and local terms
Besprinkled o'er thy rustic lay,
Though well such dialect confirms
Its power unletter'd minds to sway,
It is not these that most display
Thy sweetest charms, thy gentlest thrall,—
Words, phrases, fashions, pass away,
But TRUTH and NATURE live through all.
The stanza referring to Byron was not reprinted, nor was the word Horkey, which means Harvest Home in Suffolk. Gilbert Meldrum is a character in one of Bloomfield's Rural Tales.
"Quaker Sonnets." Barton did not carry out this project. Southey's Book of the Church was published in 1824.
"I meditate a letter to S." The "Letter of Elia to Mr. Southey" was published in the London Magazine for October, 1823.]
LETTER 330
(Fragment)
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES LLOYD
[No date. Autumn, 1823.]
Your lines are not to be understood reading on one leg. They are sinuous, and to be won with wrestling. I assure you in sincerity that nothing you have done has given me greater satisfaction. Your obscurity, where you are dark, which is seldom, is that of too much meaning, not the painful obscurity which no toil of the reader can dissipate; not the dead vacuum and floundering place in which imagination finds no footing; it is not the dimness of positive darkness, but of distance; and he that reads and not discerns must get a better pair of spectacles. I admire every piece in the collection; I cannot say the first is best; when I do so, the last read rises up in judgment. To your Mother—to your Sister—to Mary dead—they are all weighty with thought and tender with sentiment. Your poetry is like no other:—those cursed Dryads and Pagan trumperies of modern verse have put me out of conceit of the very name of poetry. Your verses are as good and as wholesome as prose; and I have made a sad blunder if I do not leave you with an impression that your present is rarely valued.
CHARLES LAMB.
[This scrap is in Selections from the Poems and Letters of Bernard Barton, 1849, edited by Edward FitzGerald and Lucy Barton. Lloyd says: "I had a very ample testimony from C. Lamb to the character of my last little volume. I will transcribe to you what he says, as it is but a note, and his manner is always so original, that I am sure the introduction of the merest trifle from his pen will well compensate for the absence of anything of mine." The volume was Poems, 1823, one of the chief of which was "Stanzas on the Difficulty with which, in Youth, we Bring Home to our Habitual Consciousness, the Idea of Death," to which Lloyd appended the following sentence from Elia's essay on "New Year's Eve," as motto: "Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, never feels practically that he is mortal. He knows it indeed, and, if need were, he could preach a homily on the fragility of life; but he brings it not home to himself, any more than in a hot June, we can appropriate to our imagination the freezing days of December."]
LETTER 331
CHARLES LAMB TO REV. H.F. CARY
India Office, 14th Oct., 1823.
Dear Sir,—If convenient, will you give us house room on Saturday next? I can sleep anywhere. If another Sunday suit you better, pray let me know. We were talking of Roast Shoulder of Mutton with onion sauce; but I scorn to prescribe to the hospitalities of mine host.
With respects to Mrs. C., yours truly, C. LAMB.
LETTER 332
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP
[No date. ?Oct., 1823.]
Dear Sir—Mary has got a cold, and the nights are dreadful; but at the first indication of Spring (alias the first dry weather in Nov'r early) it is our intention to surprise you early some even'g.
Believe me, most truly yours,
C.L.
The Cottage, Saturday night.
Mary regrets very much Mrs. Allsop's fruitless visit. It made her swear!
She was gone to visit Miss Hutchins'n, whom she found OUT.