[John Taylor (1781-1864), the publisher, with Hessey, of the _London
Magazine_ was, in 1813, the first publicly to identify Sir Philip
Francis with Junius. Taylor acted as editor of the _London Magazine_
from 1821 to 1824, assisted by Thomas Hood. Later his interests were
centred in currency questions.
"I am here at Margate." I do not know what review Lamb was writing. If
written and published it has not been reprinted. It was on this visit to
Margate that Lamb met Charles Cowden Clarke.
"My first contribution." The first number to bear Taylor & Hessey's name
was dated July, but they had presumably acquired the rights in the
magazine before then. Lamb's first contribution to the _London Magazine_
had been in August, 1820, "The South-Sea House."
The proof which Lamb returned was that of the _Elia_, essay on "Mackery
End in Hertfordshire," printed in the July number of the _London
Magazine_, in which he quoted a stanza from Wordsworth's "Yarrow
Visited":--
But thou, that didst appear so fair
To fond imagination,
Dost rival in the light of day
Her delicate creation.
Here should come a scrap from Lamb to Ayrton, dated July 17, 1821,
referring to the Coronation. Lamb says that in consequence of this event
he is postponing his Wednesday evening to Friday.]
LETTER 277
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN TAYLOR
July 21, 1821.
D'r Sir,--The _Lond. Mag._ is chiefly pleasant to me, because some of my
friends write in it. I hope Hazlitt intends to go on with it, we cannot
spare Table Talk. For myself I feel almost exhausted, but I will try my
hand a little longer, and shall not at all events be written out of it
by newspaper paragraphs. Your proofs do not seem to want my helping
hand, they are quite correct always. For God's sake change _Sisera_ to
_Jael_. This last paper will be a choke-pear I fear to some people, but
as you do not object to it, I can be under little apprehension of your
exerting your Censorship too rigidly.
Thanking you for your extract from M'r. E.'s letter,
I remain, D'r Sir,
Your obliged,
C. LAMB.
[Hazlitt continued his Table Talk in the _London Magazine_ until
December, 1821.
Lamb seems to have been treated foolishly by some newspaper critic; but
I have not traced the paragraphs in question.
The proof was that of the _Elia_ essay "Imperfect Sympathies," which was
printed (with a fuller title) in the number for August, 1821. The
reference to Jael is in the passage on Braham and the Jewish character.
I do not identify Mr. E. Possibly Elton. See next letter.
Here should come a further letter to Taylor, dated July 30, 1821, in
which Lamb refers to some verses addressed to him by "Olen" (Charles
Abraham Elton: see note to next letter) in the _London Magazine_ for
August, remonstrating with him for the pessimism of the _Elia_ essay
"New Year's Eve" (see Vol. II. of this edition).
Lamb also remarks that he borrowed the name Elia (pronounced Ellia) from
an old South-Sea House clerk who is now dead.
Elia has recently been identified by Mr. R.W. Goulding, the librarian at
Welbeck Abbey, as F. Augustus Elia, author of a French tract entitled
_Considération sur l'état actuel de la France au mois de Juin 1815. Par
une anglais_. It is privately reprinted in _Letters from the originals
at Welbeck Abbey_, 1909.]
LETTER 278
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES ABRAHAM ELTON
India House
to which place all letters addressed to C.L. commonly come.
[August 17, 1821 (?).]
My dear Sir, You have overwhelmed me with your favours. I have received
positively a little library from Baldwyn's. I do not know how I have
deserved such a bounty. We have been up to the ear in the classics ever
since it came. I have been greatly pleased, but most, I think, with the
Hesiod,--the Titan battle quite amazed me. Gad, it was no child's
play--and then the homely aphorisms at the end of the works--how
adroitly you have turned them! Can he be the same Hesiod who did the
Titans? the latter is--
"-----wine
Which to madness does incline."
But to read the Days and Works, is like eating nice brown bread, homely
sweet and nutritive. Apollonius was new to me. I had confounded him with
the conjuror of that name. Medea is glorious; but I cannot give up Dido.
She positively is the only Fine Lady of Antiquity: her courtesy to the
Trojans is altogether queen-like. Eneas is a most disagreeable person.
Ascanius a pretty young master. Mezentius for my money. His dying speech
shames Turpin--not the Archbishop I mean, but the roadster of that name.
I have been ashamed to find how many names of classics (and more than
their names) you have introduced me to, that before I was ignorant of.
Your commendation of Master Chapman arrideth me. Can any one read the
pert modern Frenchify'd notes, &c., in Pope's translation, and contrast
them with solemn weighty prefaces of Chapman, writing in full faith, as
he evidently does, of the plenary inspiration of his author--worshipping
his meanest scraps and relics as divine--without one sceptical misgiving
of their authenticity, and doubt which was the properest to expound
Homer to their countrymen. Reverend Chapman! you have read his hymn to
Pan (the Homeric)--why, it is Milton's blank verse clothed with rhyme.
Paradise Lost could scarce lose, could it be so accoutred.
I shall die in the belief that he has improved upon Homer, in the
Odyssey in particular--the disclosure of Ulysses of himself, to
Alcinous, his previous behaviour at the song of the stern strife arising
between Achilles and himself (how it raises him above the _Iliad_
Ulysses!) but you know all these things quite as well as I do. But what
a deaf ear old C. would have turned to the doubters in Homer's real
personality! They might as well have denied the appearance of J.C. in
the flesh.--He apparently believed all the fables of H.'s birth, &c.
Those notes of Bryant have caused the greatest disorder in my brain-pan.
Well, I will not flatter when I say that we have had two or three long
evening's _good reading_ out of your kind present.
I will say nothing of the tenderest parts in your own little volume, at
the end of such a slatternly scribble as this, but indeed they cost us
some tears. I scrawl away because of interruptions every moment. You
guess how it is in a busy office--papers thrust into your hand when your
hand is busiest--and every anti-classical disavocation.
[_Conclusion cut away_.]
[Sir Charles Abraham Elton (1778-1853) seems to have sent Lamb a number
of his books, principally his _Specimens of the Classical_ _Poets ...
from Homer to Tryphiodorus translated into English Verse_, Baldwin,
1814, in three volumes. Lamb refers first to the passage from Hesiod's
_Theogony_, and then to his _Works and Days_ (which Chapman
translated)--"Dispensation of Providence to the Just and Unjust."
Apollonius Rhodius was the author of _The Argonautics_. Lamb then passes
on to Virgil. For the death of Mezentius see the _Aeneid_, Book X., at
the end. The makers of broadsides had probably credited Dick Turpin with
a dying speech.
"Those notes of Bryant." Lamb possibly refers to Jacob Bryant's _Essay
on the Original Genius and Writings of Homer_, 1775, or his pamphlet on
the Trojan War, 1795, 1799.
"Your own little volume." Probably _The Brothers and Other Poems_, by
Elton, 1820.]
LETTER 279
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE
[Summer, 1821.]
My dear Sir--Your letter has lain in a drawer of my desk, upbraiding me
every time I open the said drawer, but it is almost impossible to answer
such a letter in such a place, and I am out of the habit of replying to
epistles otherwhere than at office. You express yourself concerning H.
like a true friend, and have made me feel that I have somehow neglected
him, but without knowing very well how to rectify it. I live so remote
from him--by Hackney--that he is almost out of the pale of visitation at
Hampstead. And I come but seldom to Cov't Gard'n this summer time--and
when I do, am sure to pay for the late hours and pleasant Novello
suppers which I incur. I also am an invalid. But I will hit upon some
way, that you shall not have cause for your reproof in future. But do
not think I take the hint unkindly. When I shall be brought low by any
sickness or untoward circumstance, write just such a letter to some
tardy friend of mine--or come up yourself with your friendly Henshaw
face--and that will be better. I shall not forget in haste our casual
day at Margate. May we have many such there or elsewhere! God bless you
for your kindness to H., which I will remember. But do not show N. this,
for the flouting infidel doth mock when Christians cry God bless us.
Yours and _his, too_, and all our little circle's most affect'e.
C. LAMB.
Mary's love included.
[Charles Cowden Clarke (1787-1877) was the son of a schoolmaster who had
served as usher with George Dyer at Northampton. Afterwards he
established a school at Enfield, where Keats was one of the scholars.
Charles Cowden Clarke, at this time a bookseller, remained one of Keats'
friends and was a friend also of Leigh Hunt's, on whose behalf he seems
to have written to Lamb. Later he became a partner of Alfred Novello,
the musical publisher, son of Vincent Novello. In 1828 he married Mary
Victoria Novello.
"Friendly Henshaw face." I cannot explain this.
Leigh Hunt left England for Italy in November, 1821, to join Shelley and
Byron.
Here should come a brief note to Allan Cunningham asking him to an
evening party of _London Magazine_ contributors at 20 Russell St., given
in the Boston Bibliophile edition.]
LETTER 280
MARY LAMB TO MRS. WILLIAM AYRTON
[No date. ?1821.]
Thursday Morning.
MY dear friend,
The kind interest you took in my perplexities of yesterday makes me feel
that you will be well pleased to hear I got through my complicated
business far better than I had ventured to hope I should do. In the
first place let me thank you, my good friend, for your good advice; for,
had I not gone to Martin first he would have sent a senseless letter to
Mr. Rickman, and _now_ he is coming here to-day in order to frame one in
conjunction with my brother.
What will be Mr. Rickman's final determination I know not, but he and
Mrs. Rickman both gave me a most kind reception, and a most patient
hearing, and then Mr. R. walked with me as far as Bishopsgate Street,
conversing the whole way on the same unhappy subject. I will see you
again the very first opportunity till when farewel with grateful thanks.
How senseless I was not to make you go back in that empty coach. I never
have but one idea in my poor head at a time.
Yours affectionately
M. LAMB.
at Mr. Coston's
No. 14 Kingsland Row Dalston.
[The explanation of this letter is found in an entry in Crabb Robinson's
_Diary_, the unpublished portion, which tells us that owing to certain
irregularities Rickman, who was Clerk Assistant at the table of the
House of Commons, had been obliged to discharge Martin Burney, who was
one of his clerks.
Here should come another scrap from Lamb to Ayrton, dated August 14,
stating that at to-morrow's rubber the windows will be closed on account
of Her Majesty's death. Her Majesty was Queen Caroline, whom Lamb had
championed. She died on August 7.]
LETTER 281
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP
Oct. 21, 1819.
My dear Sir, I have to thank you for a fine hare, and unless I am
mistaken for _two_, the first I received a week since, the account given
with it was that it came from Mr. Alfourd--I have no friend of that
name, but two who come near it
Mr. Talfourd
Mr. Alsop
so my gratitude must be divided between you, till I know the true
sender. We are and shall be some time, I fear, at Dalston, a distance
which does not improve hares by the circuitous route of Cov't Garden,
though for the sweetness of _this last_ I will answer. We dress it
to-day. I suppose you know my sister has been & is ill. I do not see
much hopes, though there is a glimmer, of her speedy recovery. When we
are all well, I hope to come among our town friends, and shall have
great pleasure in welcoming you from Beresford Hall.
Yours, & old Mr. Walton's, & honest Mr. Cotton's Piscatorum Amicus, C.L.
India House 19 Oct. 21
LETTER 282
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM AYRTON
[Oct. 27, 1821.]
I Come, Grimalkin! Dalston, near Hackney, 27th Oct'r. One thousand 8
hundred and twenty one years and a wee-bit since you and I were
redeemed. I doubt if _you_ are done properly yet.
[A further letter to Ayrton, dated from Dalston, October 30, is printed
by Mr. Macdonald, in which Lamb speaks of his sister's illness and the
death of his brother John, who died on October 26, aged fifty-eight. It
is reasonable to suppose that Lamb, when the above note was written, was
unaware of his brother's death (see note to Letter 284 on page 610). On
October 26, however, he had written to the editor of the _London
Magazine_ saying that he was most uncomfortably situated at home and
expecting some trouble which might prevent further writing for some
time--which may have been an allusion to his brother's illness or to
signs of Mary Lamb's approaching malady.
Here should come a note to William Hone, evidently in reply to a comment
on Lamb's essay on "Saying Grace."
Here should come a letter from Lamb to Rickman, dated November 20, 1821,
referring to Admiral Burney's death. "I have been used to death lately.
Poor Jim White's departure last year first broke the spell. I had been
so fortunate as to have lost no friends in that way for many long years,
and began to think people did not die." He says that Mary Lamb has
recovered from a long illness and is pretty well resigned to John Lamb's
death.]
LETTER 283
CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE
March 9th, 1822.
Dear C.,--It gives me great satisfaction to hear that the pig turned out
so well--they are interesting creatures at a certain age--what a pity
such buds should blow out into the maturity of rank bacon! You had all
some of the crackling --and brain sauce--did you remember to rub it with
butter, and gently dredge it a little, just before the crisis? Did the
eyes come away kindly with no Oedipean avulsion? Was the crackling the
colour of the ripe pomegranate? Had you no complement of boiled neck of
mutton before it, to blunt the edge of delicate desire? Did you flesh
maiden teeth in it? Not that I sent the pig, or can form the remotest
guess what part Owen could play in the business. I never knew him give
anything away in my life. He would not begin with strangers. I suspect
the pig, after all, was meant for me; but at the unlucky juncture of
time being absent, the present somehow went round to Highgate. To
confess an honest truth, a pig is one of those things I could never
think of sending away. Teals, wigeons, snipes, barn-door fowl, ducks,
geese--your tame villatic things--Welsh mutton, collars of brawn,
sturgeon, fresh or pickled, your potted char, Swiss cheeses, French
pies, early grapes, muscadines, I impart as freely unto my friends as to
myself. They are but self-extended; but pardon me if I stop
somewhere--where the fine feeling of benevolence giveth a higher smack
than the sensual rarity--there my friends (or any good man) may command
me; but pigs are pigs, and I myself therein am nearest to myself. Nay, I
should think it an affront, an undervaluing done to Nature who bestowed
such a boon upon me, if in a churlish mood I parted with the precious
gift. One of the bitterest pangs of remorse I ever felt was when a
child--when my kind old aunt had strained her pocketstrings to bestow a
sixpenny whole plum-cake upon me. In my way home through the Borough, I
met a venerable old man, not a mendicant, but thereabouts--a
look-beggar, not a verbal petitionist; and in the coxcombry of
taught-charity I gave away the cake to him. I walked on a little in all
the pride of an Evangelical peacock, when of a sudden my old aunt's
kindness crossed me--the sum it was to her--the pleasure she had a right
to expect that I--not the old impostor --should take in eating her
cake--the cursed ingratitude by which, under the colour of a Christian
virtue, I had frustrated her cherished purpose. I sobbed, wept, and took
it to heart so grievously, that I think I never suffered the like--and I
was right. It was a piece of unfeeling hypocrisy, and proved a lesson to
me ever after. The cake has long been masticated, consigned to dunghill
with the ashes of that unseasonable pauper.
But when Providence, who is better to us all than our aunts, gives me a
pig, remembering my temptation and my fall, I shall endeavour to act
towards it more in the spirit of the donor's purpose.
Yours (short of pig) to command in everything. C.L.
[This letter probably led to the immediate composition of the _Elia_
essay "A Dissertation on Roast Pig" (see Vol. II. of the present
edition), which was printed in the _London Magazine_ for September,
1822. See also "Thoughts on Presents of Game," Vol. I. of this edition.
"Owen." Lamb's landlord in Russell Street.
"My kind old aunt... the Borough." This is rather perplexing. Lamb, to
the best of our knowledge, never as a child lived anywhere but in the
Temple. His only aunt of whom we know anything lived with the family
also in the Temple. But John Lamb's will proves Lamb to have had two
aunts. The reference to the Borough suggests therefore that the aunt in
question was not Sarah Lamb (Aunt Hetty) but her sister.]
LETTER 284
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
20th March, 1822.
My dear Wordsworth--A letter from you is very grateful, I have not seen
a Kendal postmark so long! We are pretty well save colds and rheumatics,
and a certain deadness to every thing, which I think I may date from
poor John's Loss, and another accident or two at the same time, that has
made me almost bury myself at Dalston, where yet I see more faces than I
could wish. Deaths over-set one and put one out long after the recent
grief. Two or three have died within this last two twelvem'ths, and so
many parts of me have been numbed. One sees a picture, reads an
anecdote, starts a casual fancy, and thinks to tell of it to this person
in preference to every other--the person is gone whom it would have
peculiarly suited. It won't do for _another_. Every departure destroys a
class of sympathies. There's Capt. Burney gone!--what fun has whist now?
what matters it what you lead, if you can no longer fancy him looking
over you? One never hears any thing, but the image of the particular
person occurs with whom alone almost you would care to share the
intelligence. Thus one distributes oneself about--and now for so many
parts of me I have lost the market. Common natures do not suffice me.
Good people, as they are called, won't serve. I want individuals. I am
made up of queer points and I want so many answering needles. The going
away of friends does not make the remainder more precious. It takes so
much from them as there was a common link. A. B. and C. make a party. A.
dies. B. not only loses A. but all A.'s part in C. C. loses A.'s part in
B., and so the alphabet sickens by subtraction of interchangeables. I
express myself muddily, capite dolente. I have a dulling cold. My theory
is to enjoy life, but the practice is against it. I grow ominously tired
of official confinement. Thirty years have I served the Philistines, and
my neck is not subdued to the yoke. You don't know how wearisome it is
to breathe the air of four pent walls without relief day after day, all
the golden hours of the day between 10 and 4 without ease or
interposition. Taedet me harum quotidianarum formarum, these
pestilential clerk faces always in one's dish. O for a few years between
the grave and the desk! they are the same, save that at the latter you
are outside the machine. The foul enchanter--letters four do form his
name--Busirane is his name in hell--that has curtailed you of some
domestic comforts, hath laid a heavier hand on me, not in present
infliction, but in taking away the hope of enfranchisement. I dare not
whisper to myself a Pension on this side of absolute incapacitation and
infirmity, till years have sucked me dry. Otium cum indignitate. I had
thought in a green old age (O green thought!) to have retired to
Ponder's End--emblematic name how beautiful! in the Ware road, there to
have made up my accounts with Heaven and the Company, toddling about
between it and Cheshunt, anon stretching on some fine Izaac Walton
morning to Hoddesdon or Amwell, careless as a Beggar, but walking,
walking ever, till I fairly walkd myself off my legs, dying walking!
The hope is gone. I sit like Philomel all day (but not singing) with my
breast against this thorn of a Desk, with the only hope that some
Pulmonary affliction may relieve me. Vide Lord Palmerston's report of
the Clerks in the war office (Debates, this morning's Times) by which it
appears in 20 years, as many Clerks have been coughd and catarrhd out of
it into their freer graves.
Thank you for asking about the Pictures. Milton hangs over my fire side
in Covt. Card, (when I am there), the rest have been sold for an old
song, wanting the eloquent tongue that should have set them off!
You have gratifyd me with liking my meeting with Dodd. For the Malvolio
story--the thing is become in verity a sad task and I eke it out with
any thing. If I could slip out of it I sh'd be happy, but our chief
reputed assistants have forsaken us. The opium eater crossed us once
with a dazzling path, and hath as suddenly left us darkling; and in
short I shall go on from dull to worse, because I cannot resist the
Bookseller's importunity--the old plea you know of authors, but I
believe on my part sincere.
Hartley I do not so often see, but I never see him in unwelcome hour. I
thoroughly love and honor him.
I send you a frozen Epistle, but it is winter and dead time of the year
with me. May heaven keep something like spring and summer up with you,
strengthen your eyes and make mine a little lighter to encounter with
them, as I hope they shall yet and again, before all are closed.
Yours, with every kind rem'be.
C.L.
I had almost forgot to say, I think you thoroughly right about
presentation copies. I should like to see you print a book I should
grudge to purchase for its size. D----n me, but I would have it though!
[John Lamb's will left everything to his brother. We must suppose that
his widow was independently provided for. I doubt if the brothers had
seen each other except casually for some time. The _Elia_ essay "My
Relations" contains John Lamb's full-length portrait under the name of
James Elia.
Captain Burney died on November 17, 1821,
"The foul enchanter--letters four do form his name." From Coleridge's
war eclogue, "Fire, Famine and Slaughter," where the letters form the
name of Pitt. Here they stand for Joseph Hume, not Lamb's friend, but
Joseph Hume, M.P. (1777-1855), who had attacked with success abuses in
the East India Company; had revised economically the system of
collecting the revenue, thus touching Wordsworth as Distributor of
Stamps; and had opposed Vansittart's scheme for the reduction of pension
charges.
"_Vide_ Lord Palmerston's report." In the _Times_ of March 21 is the
report of a debate on the estimates. Palmerston proved a certain amount
of reduction of salary in the War Office. Incidentally he remarked that
"since 1810 not fewer than twenty-six clerks had died of pulmonary
complaints, and disorders arising from sedentary habits."
Milton was the portrait, already described, which had been left to Lamb.
Lamb gave it as a dowry to Emma Isola when she became Mrs. Moxon.
"My meeting with Dodd ... Malvolio story." In the essay "The Old
Actors," in the London Magazine for February, 1822 (see Vol. II. of this
edition).
"Our chief reputed assistants." Hazlitt had left the _London Magazine_;
Scott, the original editor, was dead.
De Quincey, whose _Confessions of an Opium-Eater_ were appearing in its
pages, has left a record of a visit to the Lambs about this time. See
his "London Reminiscences."
"Hartley." Hartley Coleridge, then a young man of twenty-five, was
living in London after the unhappy sudden termination of his Oxford
career.
Here should come a brief note to Mrs. Norris, dated March 26, 1822,
given in the Boston Bibliophile edition.