History. I can give you no information about him. As a slight general
character of what I remember of them (for I have not look'd into them
latterly) I would say that "in the appearance of _truth_ in all the
incidents and conversations that occur in them they exceed any works of
fiction I am acquainted with. It is perfect illusion. The _Author_ never
appears in these self-narratives (for so they ought to be called or
rather Autobiographies) but the _narrator_ chains us down to an implicet
belief in every thing he says. There is all the minute detail of a
log-book in it. Dates are painfully pressed upon the memory. Facts are
repeated over and over in varying phrases, till you cannot chuse but
believe them. It is like reading Evidence given in a Court of Justice.
So anxious the story-teller seems, that the truth should be clearly
comprehended, that when he has told us a matter of fact, or a motive, in
a line or two farther down he _repeats_ it with his favorite figure of
speech, 'I say' so and so,--though he had made it abundantly plain
before. This is in imitation of the common people's way of speaking, or
rather of the way in which they are addressed by a master or mistress,
who wishes to impress something upon their memories; and has a wonderful
effect upon matter-of-fact readers. Indeed it is to such principally
that he writes. His style is elsewhere beautiful, but plain _& homely_.
Robinson Crusoe is delightful to all ranks and classes, but it is easy
to see that it is written in phraseology peculiarly adapted to the lower
conditions of readers: hence it is an especial favorite with seafaring
men, poor boys, servant maids &c. His novels are capital
kitchen-reading, while they are worthy from their deep interest to find
a shelf in the Libraries of the wealthiest, and the most learned. His
passion for _matter of fact narrative_ sometimes betrayed him into a
long relation of common incidents which might happen to any man, and
have no interest but the intense appearance of truth in them, to
recommend them. The whole latter half, or two thirds, of Colonel Jack is
of this description. The beginning of Colonel Jack is the most affecting
natural picture of a young thief that was ever drawn. His losing the
stolen money in the hollow of a tree, and finding it again when he was
in despair, and then being in equal distress at not knowing how to
dispose of it, and several similar touches in the early history of the
Colonel, evince a deep knowledge of human nature; and, putting out of
question the superior _romantic_ interest of the latter, in my mind very
much exceed Crusoe. Roxana (1st Edition) is the next in Interest, though
he left out the best part of it**in** subsequent Editions from a foolish
hypercriticism of his friend, Southerne. But Moll Flanders, the account
of the Plague &c. &c. are all of one family, and have the same stamp of
character."--
[_At the top of the first page is added:--_]
_Omitted at the end_ ... believe me with friendly recollections,
_Brother_ (as I used to call you) Yours C. LAMB.
[_Below the "Dear Wilson" is added in smaller writing:--_]
The review was not mine, nor have I seen it.
[Lamb's friend Walter Wilson was beginning his _Memoirs of the Life and
Times of Daniel Defoe_, 1830. The passage sent to him in this letter by
Lamb he printed in Vol. III., page 428. Some years later Lamb sent
Wilson a further criticism. See also letter below for the reference to
_Roxana_.
Dodwell we have met. Of Wadd we have no information, except, according
to Crabb Robinson's _Diary_, that he once accidentally discharged a pen
full of ink into Lamb's eye and that Lamb wrote this epigram upon him:--
What Wadd knows, God knows,
But God knows _what_ Wadd knows.]
LETTER 303
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[Dated at end: 23 December 1822.]
Dear Sir--I have been so distracted with business and one thing or
other, I have not had a quiet quarter of an hour for epistolary
purposes. Christmas too is come, which always puts a rattle into my
morning scull. It is a visiting unquiet un-Quakerish season. I get more
and more in love with solitude, and proportionately hampered with
company. I hope you have some holydays at this period. I have one day,
Christmas day, alas! too few to commemorate the season. All work and no
play dulls me. Company is not play, but many times hard work. To play,
is for a man to do what he pleases, or to do nothing--to go about
soothing his particular fancies. I have lived to a time of life, to have
outlived the good hours, the nine o'Clock suppers, with a bright hour or
two to clear up in afterwards. Now you cannot get tea before that hour,
and then sit gaping, music-bothered perhaps, till half-past 12 brings up
the tray, and what you steal of convivial enjoyment after, is heavily
paid for in the disquiet of to-morrow's head.
I am pleased with your liking John Woodvil, and amused with your
knowledge of our drama being confined to Shakspeare and Miss Bailly.
What a world of fine territory between Land's End and Johnny Grots have
you missed traversing. I almost envy you to have so much to read. I feel
as if I had read all the Books I want to read. O to forget Fielding,
Steele, &c., and read 'em new.
Can you tell me a likely place where I could pick up, cheap, Fox's
Journal? There are no Quaker Circulating Libraries? Ellwood, too, I must
have. I rather grudge that S[outhe]y has taken up the history of your
People. I am afraid he will put in some Levity. I am afraid I am not
quite exempt from that fault in certain magazine Articles, where I have
introduced mention of them. Were they to do again, I would reform them.
Why should not you write a poetical Account of your old Worthies,
deducing them from Fox to Woolman?--but I remember you did talk of
something in that kind, as a counterpart to the Ecclesiastical Sketches.
But would not a Poem be more consecutive than a string of Sonnets? You
have no Martyrs _quite to the Fire_, I think, among you. But plenty of
Heroic Confessors, Spirit-Martyrs--Lamb-Lions.--Think of it.
It would be better than a series of Sonnets on "Eminent Bankers."--I
like a hit at our way of life, tho' it does well for me, better than
anything short of _all one's time to one's self_, for which alone I
rankle with envy at the rich. Books are good, and Pictures are good, and
Money to buy them therefore good, but to buy _TIME!_ in other words,
LIFE--
The "compliments of the time to you" should end my letter; to a Friend I
suppose I must say the "sincerity of the season;" I hope they both mean
the same. With excuses for this hastily penn'd note, believe me with
great respect--
C. LAMB.
23 dec. 22.
[Miss Bailly would be Joanna Baillie (1762-1851), author of _Plays on
the Passions_.
The copy of Fox's _Journal_, 1694, which was lent to Lamb is now in the
possession of the Society of Friends. In it is written:
"This copy of George Fox's Journal, being the earliest edition of that
work, the property of John T. Shewell of Ipswich, is lent for six months
to Charles Lamb, at the request of Sam'l Alexander of Needham, Ipswich,
1st mo. 4 1823." Lamb has added: "Returned by Charles Lamb, within the
period, with many thanks to the Lender for the very great satisfaction
which he has derived from the perusal of it."
Southey was meditating a Life of George Fox and corresponded with Barton
on the subject. He did not write the book.
Barton had a plan to provide Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Sonnets with a
Quaker pendant. He did not carry it out.
Here might come an undated and unpublished letter from Lamb to Basil
Montagu, which is of little interest except as referring to Miss James,
Mary Lamb's nurse. Lamb says that she was one of four sisters, daughters
of a Welsh clergyman, who all became nurses at Mrs. Warburton's, Hoxton,
whither, I imagine, Mary Lamb had often retired. Mrs. Parsons, one of
the sisters, became Mary Lamb's nurse when, some time after Lamb's
death, she moved to 41 Alpha Road, Mrs. Parsons' house. The late John
Hollingshead, great-nephew of these ladies, says in his interesting
book, _My Lifetime_, that their father was rector of Beguildy, in
Shropshire.]
LETTER 304
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN HOWARD PAYNE
[January, 1823.]
Dear Payne--Your little books are most acceptable. 'Tis a delicate
edition. They are gone to the binder's. When they come home I shall have
two--the "Camp" and "Patrick's Day"--to read for the first time. I may
say three, for I never read the "School for Scandal." "_Seen_ it I have,
and in its happier days." With the books Harwood left a truncheon or
mathematical instrument, of which we have not yet ascertained the use.
It is like a telescope, but unglazed. Or a ruler, but not smooth enough.
It opens like a fan, and discovers a frame such as they weave lace upon
at Lyons and Chambery. Possibly it is from those parts. I do not value
the present the less, for not being quite able to detect its purport.
When I can find any one coming your way I have a volume for you, my
Elias collected. Tell Poole, his Cockney in the Lon. Mag. tickled me
exceedingly. Harwood is to be with us this evening with Fanny, who comes
to introduce a literary lady, who wants to see me,--and whose portentous
name is _Plura_, in English "many things." Now, of all God's creatures,
I detest letters-affecting, authors-hunting ladies. But Fanny "will have
it so." So Miss Many Things and I are to have a conference, of which you
shall have the result. I dare say she does not play at whist. Treasurer
Robertson, whose coffers are absolutely swelling with pantomimic
receipts, called on me yesterday to say he is going to write to you, but
if I were also, I might as well say that your last bill is at the
Banker's, and will be honored on the instant receipt of the third Piece,
which you have stipulated for. If you have any such in readiness, strike
while the iron is hot, before the Clown cools. Tell Mrs. Kenney, that
the Miss F.H. (or H.F.) Kelly, who has begun so splendidly in Juliet, is
the identical little Fanny Kelly who used to play on their green before
their great Lying-Inn Lodgings at Bayswater. Her career has stopt short
by the injudicious bringing her out in a vile new Tragedy, and for a
third character in a stupid old one,--the Earl of Essex. This is
Macready's doing, who taught her. Her recitation, &c. (_not her voice or
person_), is masculine. It is so clever, it seemed a male _Debut_. But
cleverness is the bane of Female Tragedy especially. Passions uttered
logically, &c. It is bad enough in men-actors. Could you do nothing for
little Clara Fisher? Are there no French Pieces with a Child in them? By
Pieces I mean here dramas, to prevent male-constructions. Did not the
Blue Girl remind you of some of Congreve's women? Angelica or Millamant?
To me she was a vision of Genteel Comedy realized. Those kind of people
never come to see one. _N'import_--havn't I Miss Many Things coming?
Will you ask Horace Smith to----[_The remainder of this letter has been
lost_.]
[Payne seems to have sent Lamb an edition of Sheridan. "The Camp" and
"St. Patrick's Day" are among Sheridan's less known plays.
Poole was writing articles on France in the _London Magazine_. Lamb
refers to "A Cockney's Rural Sports," in the number for December, 1822.
Fanny was Fanny Holcroft. Plura I do not identify.
The new tragedy in which Miss Kelly had to play was probably "The
Huguenot," produced December 11, 1822. "The Earl of Essex" was revived
December 30, 1822. Macready played in both.
"Cleverness is the bane." See Lamb's little article on "The New Acting"
in Vol. I.
The Blue Girl seems to refer to the lady mentioned at the end of the
first letter to Payne.
Angelica is in Congreve's "Love for Love"; Millamant in his "Way of the
World."]
LETTER 305
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
[No date. January, 1823.]
Dear Wordsworth, I beg your acceptance of ELIA, detached from any of its
old companions which might have been less agreeable to you. I hope your
eyes are better, but if you must spare them, there is nothing in my
pages which a Lady may not read aloud without indecorum, _which is more
than can be said of Shakspeare_.
What a nut this last sentence would be for Blackwood!
You will find I availed myself of your suggestion, in curtailing the
dissertation on Malvolio.
I have been on the Continent since I saw you.
I have eaten frogs.
I saw Monkhouse tother day, and Mrs. M. being too poorly to admit of
company, the annual goosepye was sent to Russell Street, and with its
capacity has fed "A hundred head" (not of Aristotle's) but "of Elia's
friends."
Mrs. Monkhouse is sadly confined, but chearful.--
This packet is going off, and I have neither time, place nor solitude
for a longer Letter.
Will you do me the favor to forward the other volume to Southey?
Mary is perfectly well, and joins me in kindest rememb'ces to you all.
[_Signature cut away_.]
["What a nut... for Blackwood." To help on Maga's great cause against
Cockney arrogance.
"The dissertation on Malvolio." In Elia the essays on the Old Actors
were much changed and rearranged (see Appendix to Vol. II. in this
edition).]
LETTER 306
CHARLES LAMB TO MR. AND MRS. J.D. COLLIER
Twelfth Day [January 6], 1823.
THE pig was above my feeble praise. It was a dear pigmy. There was some
contention as to who should have the ears, but in spite of his obstinacy
(deaf as these little creatures are to advice) I contrived to get at one
of them.
It came in boots too, which I took as a favor. Generally those petty
toes, pretty toes! are missing. But I suppose he wore them, to look
taller.
He must have been the least of his race. His little foots would have
gone into the silver slipper. I take him to have been Chinese, and a
female.--
If Evelyn could have seen him, he would never have farrowed two such
prodigious volumes, seeing how much good can be contained in--how small
a compass!
He crackled delicately.
John Collier Jun has sent me a Poem which (without the smallest bias
from the aforesaid present, believe me) I pronounce _sterling_.
I set about Evelyn, and finished the first volume in the course of a
natural day. To-day I attack the second--Parts are very interesting.--
I left a blank at top of my letter, not being determined _which_ to
address it to, so Farmer and Farmer's wife will please to divide our
thanks. May your granaries be full, and your rats empty, and your
chickens plump, and your envious neighbors lean, and your labourers
busy, and you as idle and as happy as the day is long!
VIVE L'AGRICULTURE!
Frank Field's marriage of course you have seen in the papers, and that
his brother Barron is expected home.
How do you make your pigs so little?
They are vastly engaging at that age.
I was so myself.
Now I am a disagreeable old hog--
A middle-aged-gentleman-and-a-half.
My faculties, thank God, are not much impaired. I have my sight,
hearing, taste, pretty perfect; and can read the Lord's Prayer in the
common type, by the help of a candle, without making many mistakes.
Believe me, while my faculties last, a proper appreciator of your many
kindnesses in this way; and that the last lingering relish of past
flavors upon my dying memory will be the smack of that little Ear. It
was the left ear, which is lucky. Many happy returns (not of the Pig)
but of the New Year to both.--
Mary for her share of the Pig and the memoirs desires to send the same--
D'r. M'r. C. and M'rs. C.--
Yours truly
C. LAMB.
[This letter is usually supposed to have been addressed by Lamb to Mr.
and Mrs. Bruton of Mackery End. The address is, however, Mrs. Collier,
Smallfield Place, East Grinstead, Sussex.
"If Evelyn could have seen him." John Evelyn's _Diary_ had recently been
published, in 1818 and 1819, in two large quarto volumes.]
LETTER 307
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES ADERS
[Jan. 8, 1823.]
Dear Sir--We shall have great pleasure in surprising Mrs. Aders on her
Birthday--You will perceive how cunningly I have contrived the direction
of this note, _to evade postage_.
Yours truly
C. LAMB.
8 Jan. '23.
[This note is sent to me by Mr. G. Dunlop of Kilmarnock. It is the only
note to Aders, a friend of Crabb Robinson, to whose house Lamb often
went for talk and whist. Aders had a fine collection of German pictures.
See the verses to him in Vol. IV. The cunning in the address consisted
apparently in obtaining the signature of an India House colleague to
certify that it was "official."]
LETTER 308
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
9 Jan., 1823.
"Throw yourself on the world without any rational plan of support,
beyond what the chance employ of Booksellers would afford you"!!!
Throw yourself rather, my dear Sir, from the steep Tarpeian rock,
slap-dash headlong upon iron spikes. If you had but five consolatory
minutes between the desk and the bed, make much of them, and live a
century in them, rather than turn slave to the Booksellers. They are
Turks and Tartars, when they have poor Authors at their beck. Hitherto
you have been at arm's length from them. Come not within their grasp. I
have known many authors for bread, some repining, others envying the
blessed security of a Counting House, all agreeing they had rather have
been Taylors, Weavers, what not? rather than the things they were. I
have known some starved, some to go mad, one clear friend literally
dying in a workhouse. You know not what a rapacious, dishonest set those
booksellers are. Ask even Southey, who (a single case almost) has made a
fortune by book drudgery, what he has found them. O you know not, may
you never know! the miseries of subsisting by authorship. 'Tis a pretty
appendage to a situation like yours or mine, but a slavery worse than
all slavery to be a book-seller's dependent, to drudge your brains for
pots of ale and breasts of mutton, to change your free thoughts and
voluntary numbers for ungracious TASK-WORK. Those fellows hate _us_. The
reason I take to be, that, contrary to other trades, in which the Master
gets all the credit (a Jeweller or Silversmith for instance), and the
Journeyman, who really does the fine work, is in the background, in
_our_ work the world gives all the credit to Us, whom _they_ consider
as
_their_ Journeymen, and therefore do they hate us, and cheat us, and
oppress us, and would wring the blood of us out, to put another sixpence
in their mechanic pouches. I contend, that a Bookseller has a _relative
honesty_ towards Authors, not like his honesty to the rest of the world.
B[aldwin], who first engag'd me as Elia, has not paid me up yet (nor any
of us without repeated mortifying applials), yet how the Knave fawned
while I was of service to him! Yet I dare say the fellow is punctual in
settling his milk-score, &c. Keep to your Bank, and the Bank will keep
you. Trust not to the Public, you may hang, starve, drown yourself, for
anything that worthy _Personage_ cares. I bless every star that
Providence, not seeing good to make me independent, has seen it next
good to settle me upon the stable foundation of Leadenhall. Sit down,
good B.B., in the Banking Office; what, is there not from six to Eleven
P.M. 6 days in the week, and is there not all Sunday? Fie, what a
superfluity of man's time,--if you could think so! Enough for
relaxation, mirth, converse, poetry, good thoughts, quiet thoughts. O
the corroding torturing tormenting thoughts, that disturb the Brain of
the unlucky wight, who must draw upon it for daily sustenance.
Henceforth I retract all my fond complaints of mercantile employment,
look upon them as Lovers' quarrels. I was but half in earnest. Welcome,
dead timber of a desk, that makes me live. A little grumbling is a
wholesome medicine for the spleen; but in my inner heart do I approve
and embrace this our close but unharassing way of life. I am quite
serious. If you can send me Fox, I will not keep it six _weeks_, and
will return it, with warm thanks to yourself and friend, without blot or
dog's ear. You much oblige me by this kindness.
Yours truly,
C. LAMB.
Please to direct to me at India Ho. in future. [? I am] not always at
Russell St.
[Barton had long been meditating the advisability of giving up his place
in the bank at Woodbridge and depending upon his pen. Lamb's letter of
dissuasion is not the only one which he received. Byron had written to
him in 1812: "You deserve success; but we knew, before Addison wrote his
Cato, that desert does not always command it. But suppose it attained--
'You know what ills the author's life assail--
Toil, envy, want, the _patron_, and the jail.'
Do not renounce writing, but never trust entirely to authorship. If you
have a profession, retain it; it will be like Prior's fellowship, a last
and sure resource." Barton had now broken again into dissatisfaction
with his life. He did not, however, leave the bank.
Southey made no "fortune" by his pen. He almost always had to forestall
his new works.]
LETTER 309
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN HOWARD PAYNE
23 January, '23.
Dear Payne--I have no mornings (my day begins at 5 P.M.) to transact
business in, or talents for it, so I employ Mary, who has seen
Robertson, who says that the Piece which is to be Operafied was sent to
you six weeks since by a Mr. Hunter, whose journey has been delayed, but
he supposes you have it by this time. On receiving it back properly
done, the rest of your dues will be forthcoming. You have received £30
from Harwood, I hope? Bishop was at the theatre when Mary called, and he
has put your other piece into C. Kemble's hands (the piece you talk of
offering Elliston) and C.K. sent down word that he had not yet had time
to read it. So stand your affairs at present. Glossop has got the
Murderer. Will you address him on the subject, or shall I--that is,
Mary? She says you must write more _showable_ letters about these
matters, for, with all our trouble of crossing out this word, and giving
a cleaner turn to th' other, and folding down at this part, and
squeezing an obnoxious epithet into a corner, she can hardly communicate
their contents without offence. What, man, put less gall in your ink, or
write me a biting tragedy!
C. LAMB.
[Here should come a letter from Lamb to Ayrton asking him to meet the
Burneys and Paynes on Wednesday at half-past four.]
LETTER 310
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN HOWARD PAYNE
February [9], 1823.
My dear Miss Lamb--I have enclosed for you Mr. Payne's piece called
Grandpapa, which I regret to say is not thought to be of the nature that
will suit this theatre; but as there appears to be much merit in it, Mr.
Kemble strongly recommends that you should send it to the English Opera
House, for which it seems to be excellently adapted. As you have already
been kind enough to be our medium of communication with Mr. Payne, I
have imposed this trouble upon you; but if you do not like to act for
Mr. Payne in the business, and have no means of disposing of the piece,
I will forward it to Paris or elsewhere as you think he may prefer.
Very truly yours,
HENRY ROBERTSON.
T.R.C.G., 8 Feb. 1823.
Dear P---- We have just received the above, and want your instructions.
It strikes me as a very merry little piece, that should be played by
_very young actors_. It strikes me that Miss Clara Fisher would play the
_boy_ exactly. She is just such a forward chit. No young _man_ would do
it without its appearing absurd, but in a girl's hands it would have
just all the reality that a short dream of an act requires. Then for the
sister, if Miss Stevenson that was, were Miss Stevenson and younger,
they two would carry it off. I do not know who they have got in that
young line, besides Miss C.F., at Drury, nor how you would like Elliston
to have it--has he not had it? I am thick with Arnold, but I have always
heard that the very slender profits of the English Opera House do not
admit of his giving above a trifle, or next to none, for a piece of this
kind. Write me what I should do, what you would ask, &c. The music
(printed) is returned with the piece, and the French original. Tell Mr.
Grattan I thank him for his book, which as far as I have read it is a
very _companionable one_. I have but just received it. It came the same
hour with your packet from Cov. Gar., i.e. yester-night late, to my
summer residence, where, tell Kenney, the cow is quiet. Love to all at
Versailles. Write quickly.
C.L.
I have no acquaintance with Kemble at all, having only met him once or
twice; but any information, &c., I can get from R., who is a good
fellow, you may command. I am sorry the rogues are so dilitory, but I
distinctly believe they mean to fulfill their engagement. I am sorry you
are not here to see to these things. I am a poor man of business, but
command me to the short extent of my tether. My sister's kind
remembrance ever.
C.L.
[The "Grandpapa" was eventually produced at Drury Lane, May 25, 1825,
and played thrice. Miss Stevenson was an actress praised by Lamb in _The
Examiner_ (see Vol. I. of this edition). C.F. was Clara Fisher,
mentioned above.
Samuel James Arnold was manager of the Lyceum, then known as the English
Opera House; he was the brother of Mrs. William Ayrton, Lamb's friend.
Mr. Grattan was Thomas Colley Grattan (1792-1864), who was then living
in Paris. His book would be _Highways and Byways_, first series, 1823.
There is one other note to Payne in the _Century Magazine_, unimportant
and undated, suggesting a walk one Sunday.]
LETTER 311
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[P.M. February 17, 1823.]