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.