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compendious study of natural history, which might have superseded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.