written nothing now for near 6 months. It is in vain to spur me on. I
must wait. I cannot write without a genial impulse, and I have none.
'Tis barren all and dearth. No matter; life is something without
scribbling. I have got rid of my bad spirits, and hold up pretty well
this rain-damn'd May.
So we have lost another Poet. I never much relished his Lordship's mind,
and shall be sorry if the Greeks have cause to miss him. He was to me
offensive, and I never can make out his great _power_, which his
admirers talk of. Why, a line of Wordsworth's is a lever to lift the
immortal spirit! Byron can only move the Spleen. He was at best a
Satyrist,--in any other way he was mean enough. I dare say I do him
injustice; but I cannot love him, nor squeeze a tear to his memory. He
did not like the world, and he has left it, as Alderman Curtis advised
the Radicals, "If they don't like their country, damn 'em, let 'em leave
it," they possessing no rood of ground in England, and he 10,000 acres.
Byron was better than many Curtises.
Farewell, and accept this apology for a letter from one who owes you so
much in that kind.
Yours ever truly, C.L.
[Lamb's portrait of his father is reproduced in Vol. II. of my large
edition. The first love verses are no more.
William Blake was at this time sixty-six years of age. He was living in
poverty and neglect at 3 Fountain Court, Strand. Blake made 537
illustrations to Young's _Night Thoughts_, of which only forty-seven
were published. Lamb is, however, thinking of his edition of Blair's
_Grave_. The exhibition of his works was held in 1809, and it was for
this that Blake wrote the descriptive catalogue. Lamb had sent Blake's
"Sweep Song," which, like "Tiger, Tiger," is in the _Songs of
Innocence_, to James Montgomery for his _Chimney-Sweepers' Friend and
Climbing Boys' Album_, 1824, a little book designed to ameliorate the
lot of those children, in whose interest a society existed. Barton also
contributed something. It was Blake's poem which had excited Barton's
curiosity. Probably he thought that Lamb wrote it. Lamb's mistake
concerning Blake's name is curious in so far as that it was Blake's
brother Robert, who died in 1787, who in a vision revealed to the poet
the method by which the _Songs of Innocence_ were to be reproduced.
"The Dream awkwardly paraphras'd from B." The book ended with three
"Climbing-Boys' Soliloquies" by Montgomery. The second was a dream in
which the dream in Blake's song was extended and prosified.
"An Epilogue for a Private Theatrical." Probably the epilogue for the
amateur performance of "Richard II.," given by the family of Henry
Field, Barren Field's father (see Vol. IV. of the present edition).
"Another great Poet." Byron died on April 19, 1824.
"Alderman Curtis." See note above.]
LETTER 347
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
July 7th, 1824.
DEAR B.B.--I have been suffering under a severe inflammation of the
eyes, notwithstanding which I resolutely went through your very pretty
volume at once, which I dare pronounce in no ways inferior to former
lucubrations. "_Abroad_" and "_lord_" are vile rhymes notwithstanding,
and if you count you will wonder how many times you have repeated the
word _unearthly_--thrice in one poem. It is become a slang word with the
bards; avoid it in future lustily. "Time" is fine; but there are better
a good deal, I think. The volume does not lie by me; and, after a long
day's smarting fatigue, which has almost put out my eyes (not blind
however to your merits), I dare not trust myself with long writing. The
verses to Bloomfield are the sweetest in the collection. Religion is
sometimes lugged in, as if it did not come naturally. I will go over
carefully when I get my seeing, and exemplify. You have also too much of
singing metre, such as requires no deep ear to make; lilting measure, in
which you have done Woolman injustice. Strike at less superficial
melodies. The piece on Nayler is more to my fancy.
My eye runs waters. But I will give you a fuller account some day. The
book is a very pretty one in more than one sense. The decorative harp,
perhaps, too ostentatious; a simple pipe preferable.
Farewell, and many thanks. C. LAMB.
[Barton's new book was _Poetic Vigils_, 1824. It contained among other
poems "An Ode to Time," "Verses to the Memory of Bloomfield," "A
Memorial of John Woolman," beginning--
There is glory to me in thy Name,
Meek follower of Bethlehem's Child,
More touching by far than the splendour of Fame
With which the vain world is beguil'd,
and "A Memorial of James Nayler." The following "Sonnet to Elia," from
the _London Magazine_, is also in the volume: it is odd that Lamb did
not mention it:--
SONNET TO ELIA
Delightful Author! unto whom I owe
Moments and moods of fancy and of feeling,
Afresh to grateful memory now appealing,
Fain would I "bless thee--ere I let thee go!"
From month to month has the exhaustless flow
Of thy original mind, its wealth revealing,
With quaintest humour, and deep pathos healing
The World's rude wounds, revived Life's early glow:
And, mixt with this, at times, to earnest thought,
Glimpses of truth, most simple and sublime,
By thy imagination have been brought
Over my spirit. From the olden time
Of authorship thy patent should be dated,
And thou with Marvell, Brown, and Burton mated.]
LETTER 348
CHARLES LAMB TO W. MARTER [Dated at end: July 19 (1824).]
Dear Marter,--I have just rec'd your letter, having returned from a
month's holydays. My exertions for the London are, tho' not dead, in a
dead sleep for the present. If your club like scandal, Blackwood's is
your magazine; if you prefer light articles, and humorous without
offence, the New Monthly is very amusing. The best of it is by Horace
Smith, the author of the Rejected Addresses. The Old Monthly has more of
matter, information, but not so merry. I cannot safely recommend any
others, as not knowing them, or knowing them to their disadvantage. Of
Reviews, beside what you mention, I know of none except the Review on
Hounslow Heath, which I take it is too expensive for your ordering. Pity
me, that have been a Gentleman these four weeks, and am reduced in one
day to the state of a ready writer. I feel, I feel, my gentlemanly
qualities fast oozing away--such as a sense of honour, neckcloths twice
a day, abstinence from swearing, &c. The desk enters into my soul.
See my thoughts on business next Page.
SONNET
Who first invented _work?_--and bound the free
And holyday-rejoicing Spirit down
To the ever-haunting importunity
Of _Business_ in the green fields, and the Town--
To plough, loom, [anvil], spade, and (oh most sad!)
To this dry drudgery of the desk's dead wood?
Who but the Being unblest, alien from good,
Sabbathless Satan! He, who his unglad
Task ever plies 'mid rotatory burnings,
That round and round incalculably reel--
For wrath divine hath made him like a wheel--
In that red realm from whence are no returnings;
Where toiling & turmoiling ever & aye
He and his Thoughts keep pensive worky-day.
With many recollections of pleasanter times, my old compeer,
happily released before me, Adieu. C. LAMB.
E.I.H.
19 July [1824].
[Marter was an old India House clerk; we do not meet with him again. The
sonnet had been printed in _The Examiner_ in 1819. Lamb, who was fond of
it, reprinted it in _Album Verses_, 1830.]
LETTER 349
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN
[P.M. July 28, 1824.]
My dear Sir--I must appear negligent in not having thanked you for the
very pleasant books you sent me. Arthur, and the Novel, we have both of
us read with unmixed satisfaction. They are full of quaint conceits, and
running over with good humour and good nature. I naturally take little
interest in story, but in these the manner and not the end is the
interest; it is such pleasant travelling, one scarce cares whither it
leads us. Pray express our pleasure to your father with my best thanks.
I am involved in a routine of visiting among the family of Barren Field,
just ret'd, from Botany Bay--I shall hardly have an open Evening before
TUESDAY next. Will you come to us then?
Yours truly, C. LAMB.
Wensday
28 July 24.
[_Arthur_ and the Novel were two books by Charles Dibdin the Younger,
the father of Lamb's correspondent. Arthur was _Young Arthur; or, The
Child of Mystery: A Metrical Romance_, 1819, and the novel was _Isn't It
Odd?_ three volumes of high-spirited ramblings something in the manner
of _Tristram Shandy_, nominally written by Marmaduke Merrywhistle, and
published in 1822.
Barron Field had returned from his Judgeship in New South Wales on June
18.]
LETTER 350
(_Possibly incomplete_)
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS HOOD [P.M. August 10, 1824.]
And what dost thou at the Priory? _Cucullus non facit Monachum_. English
me that, and challenge old Lignum Janua to make a better.
My old New River has presented no extraordinary novelties lately; but
there Hope sits every day, speculating upon traditionary gudgeons. I
think she has taken the fisheries. I now know the reason why our
forefathers were denominated East and West Angles. Yet is there no lack
of spawn; for I wash my hands in fishets that come through the pump
every morning thick as motelings,--little things o o o like _that_, that
perish untimely, and never taste the brook. You do not tell me of those
romantic land bays that be as thou goest to Lover's Seat: neither of
that little churchling in the midst of a wood (in the opposite
direction, nine furlongs from the town), that seems dropped by the Angel
that was tired of carrying two packages; marry, with the other he made
shift to pick his flight to Loretto. Inquire out, and see my little
Protestant Loretto. It stands apart from trace of human habitation; yet
hath it pulpit, reading-desk, and trim front of massiest marble, as if
Robinson Crusoe had reared it to soothe himself with old church-going
images. I forget its Christian name, and what she-saint was its gossip.
You should also go to No. 13, Standgate Street,--a baker, who has the
finest collection of marine monsters in ten sea counties,--sea dragons,
polypi, mer-people, most fantastic. You have only to name the old
gentleman in black (not the Devil) that lodged with him a week (he'll
remember) last July, and he will show courtesy. He is by far the
foremost of the savans. His wife is the funniest thwarting little
animal! They are decidedly the Lions of green Hastings. Well, I have
made an end of my say. My epistolary time is gone by when I could have
scribbled as long (I will not say as agreeable) as thine was to both of
us. I am dwindled to notes and letterets. But, in good earnest, I shall
be most happy to hail thy return to the waters of Old Sir Hugh. There is
nothing like inland murmurs, fresh ripples, and our native minnows.
"He sang in meads how sweet the brooklets ran,
To the rough ocean and red restless sands."
I design to give up smoking; but I have not yet fixed upon the
equivalent vice. I must have _quid pro quo;_ or _quo pro quid_, as Tom
Woodgate would correct me. My service to him. C.L.
[This is the first letter to Hood, then a young man of twenty-five, and
assistant editor of the _London Magazine_. He was now staying at
Hastings, on his honeymoon, presumably, and, like the Lambs, near the
Priory.
"_Cucullus non facit Monachum_"--A "Lamb-pun." The Hood does not make
the monk.
"Old Lignum Janua"--the Tom Woodgate mentioned at the end of the letter,
a boatman at Hastings. Hood wrote some verses to him.
"My old New River." This passage was placed by Hood as the motto of his
verses "Walton Redivivus," in _Whims and Oddities_, 1826.
"Little churchling." This is Lamb's second description of Hollingdon
Rural. The third and best is in a later letter.
"There is nothing like inland murmurs." Lamb is here remembering
Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey lines:--
With a sweet inland murmur.
In the _Elia_ essay "The Old Margate Hoy" Lamb, in speaking of Hastings,
had made the same objection.
In a letter to his sister, written from Hastings at this time, Hood
says:--
This is the last of our excursions. We have tried, but in vain, to
find out the baker and his wife recommended to us by Lamb as the
very lions of green Hastings. There is no such street as he has
named throughout the town, and the ovens are singularly numerous. We
have given up the search, therefore, but we have discovered the
little church in the wood, and it is such a church! It ought to have
been our St. Botolph's. ... Such a verdant covert wood Stothard
might paint for the haunting of Dioneus, Pamphillus, and Fiammetta
as they walk in the novel of Boccacce. The ground shadowed with
bluebells, even to the formation of a plumb-like bloom upon its
little knolls and ridges; and ever through the dell windeth a little
path chequered with the shades of aspens and ashes and the most
verdant and lively of all the family of trees. Here a broad, rude
stone steppeth over a lazy spring, oozing its way into grass and
weeds; anon a fresh pathway divergeth, you know not whither.
Meanwhile the wild blackbird startles across the way and singeth
anew in some other shade. To have seen Fiammetta there, stepping in
silk attire, like a flower, and the sunlight looking upon her
betwixt the branches! I had not walked (in the body) with Romance
before. Then suppose so much of a space cleared as maketh a small
church _lawn_ to be sprinkled with old gravestones, and in the midst
the church itself, a small Christian dovecot, such as Lamb has truly
described it, like a little temple of Juan Fernandes. I could have
been sentimental and wished to lie some day in that place, its calm
tenants seeming to come through such quiet ways, through those
verdant alleys, to their graves.
In coming home I killed a viper in our serpentine path, and Mrs.
Fernor says I am by that token to overcome an enemy. Is Taylor or
Hessey dead? The reptile was dark and dull, his blood being yet
sluggish from the cold; howbeit, he tried to bite, till I cut him in
two with a stone. I thought of Hessey's long back-bone when I did
it.
They are called _adders_, tell your father, because two and two of
them together make four.]
LETTER 351
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[P.M. August 17, 1824.]
Dear B.B.--I congratulate you on getting a house over your head. I find
the comfort of it I am sure. At my town lodgings the Mistress was always
quarrelling with our maid; and at my place of rustication, the whole
family were always beating one another, brothers beating sisters (one a
most beautiful girl lamed for life), father beating sons and daughters,
and son again beating his father, knocking him fairly down, a scene I
never before witnessed, but was called out of bed by the unnatural
blows, the parricidal colour of which, tho' my morals could not but
condemn, yet my reason did heartily approve, and in the issue the house
was quieter for a day or so than I had ever known. I am now all harmony
and quiet, even to the sometimes wishing back again some of the old
rufflings. There is something stirring in these civil broils.
The Album shall be attended to. If I can light upon a few appropriate
rhymes (but rhymes come with difficulty from me now) I shall beg a place
in the neat margin of your young housekeeper.
The Prometheus Unbound, is a capital story. The Literal rogue! What if
you had ordered Elfrida in _sheets!_ She'd have been sent up, I warrant
you. Or bid him clasp his bible (_i.e._ to his bosom)-he'd ha clapt on a
brass clasp, no doubt.--
I can no more understand Shelly than you can. His poetry is "thin sewn
with profit or delight." Yet I must point to your notice a sonnet
conceivd and expressed with a witty delicacy. It is that addressed to
one who hated him, but who could not persuade him to hate _him_ again.
His coyness to the other's passion (for hate demands a return as much as
Love, and starves without it) is most arch and pleasant. Pray, like it
very much.
For his theories and nostrums they are oracular enough, but I either
comprehend 'em not, or there is miching malice and mischief in 'em. But
for the most part ringing with their own emptiness. Hazlitt said well of
'em--Many are wiser and better for reading Shakspeare, but nobody was
ever wiser or better for reading Sh----y.
I wonder you will sow your correspondence on so barren a ground as I am,
that make such poor returns. But my head akes at the bare thought of
letter writing. I wish all the ink in the ocean dried up, and would
listen to the quills shivering [? shrivelling] up in the candle flame,
like parching martyrs. The same indisposit'n to write it is has stopt my
Elias, but you will see a futile Effort in the next No., "wrung from me
with slow pain."
The fact is, my head is seldom cool enough. I am dreadfully indolent. To
have to do anything-to order me a new coat, for instance, tho' my old
buttons are shelled like beans-- is an effort.
My pen stammers like my tongue. What cool craniums
those old enditers of Folios must have had. What a mortify'd
pulse. Well, once more I throw myself on your mercy--
Wishing peace in thy new dwelling-- C. LAMB.
[The Lambs gave up their "country lodgings" at Dalston on moving to
Colebrooke Row.
"The album." See next letter to Barton.
"The Prometheus Unbound." A bookseller, asked for _Prometheus Unbound_,
Shelley's poem, had replied that _Prometheus_ was not to be had "in
sheets." _Elfrida_ was a dramatic poem by William Mason, Gray's friend.
This is Shelley's poem (not a sonnet) which Lamb liked:--
LINES TO A REVIEWER
Alas! good friend, what profit can you see
In hating such an hateless thing as me?
There is no sport in hate, where all the rage
Is on one side. In vain would you assuage
Your frowns upon an unresisting smile,
In which not even contempt lurks, to beguile
Your heart by some faint sympathy of hate.
Oh conquer what you cannot satiate!
For to your passion I am far more coy
Then ever yet was coldest maid or boy
In winter-noon. Of your antipathy
If I am the Narcissus, you are free
To pine into a sound with hating me.
Hazlitt writes of Shelley in his essay "On Paradox and Commonplace" in
_Table Talk_; but he does not make this remark there. Perhaps he said it
in conversation.
"The next Number." The "futile Effort" was "Blakesmoor in H----shire" in
the _London Magazine_ for September, 1824.
Here should come a note from Lamb to Cary, August 19, 1824, in which
Lamb thanks him for his translation of _The Birds_ of Aristophanes and
accepts an invitation to dine.]
LETTER 352
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[Dated at end: September 30, 1824.]
Little Book! surnam'd of White;
Clean, as yet, and fair to sight;
Keep thy attribution right,
Never disproportion'd scrawl;
Ugly blot, that's worse than all;
On thy maiden clearness fall.
In each Letter, here design'd,
Let the Reader emblem'd find
Neatness of the Owner's mind.
Gilded margins count a sin;
Let thy leaves attraction win
By thy Golden Rules within:
Sayings, fetch'd from Sages old;
Saws, which Holy Writ unfold,
Worthy to be writ in Gold:
Lighter Fancies not excluding;
Blameless wit, with nothing rude in,
Sometimes mildly interluding
Amid strains of graver measure:--
Virtue's self hath oft her pleasure
In sweet Muses' groves of leisure.
Riddles dark, perplexing sense;
Darker meanings of offence;
What but _shades_, be banish'd hence.
Whitest Thoughts, in whitest dress--
Candid Meanings--best express
Mind of quiet Quakeress.
Dear B.B.--"I am ill at these numbers;" but if the above be not too
mean to have a place in thy Daughter's Sanctum, take them with pleasure.
I assume that her Name is Hannah, because it is a pretty scriptural
cognomen. I began on another sheet of paper, and just as I had penn'd
the second line of Stanza 2 an ugly Blot [_here is a blot_] as big as
this, fell, to illustrate my counsel.--I am sadly given to blot, and
modern blotting-paper gives no redress; it only smears and makes it
worse, as for example [_here is a smear_]. The only remedy is scratching
out, which gives it a Clerkish look. The most innocent blots are made
with red ink, and are rather ornamental. [_Here are two or three blots
in red ink._] Marry, they are not always to be distinguished from the
effusions of a cut finger.
Well, I hope and trust thy Tick doleru, or however you spell it, is
vanished, for I have frightful impressions of that Tick, and do
altogether hate it, as an unpaid score, or the Tick of a Death Watch. I
take it to be a species of Vitus's dance (I omit the Sanctity, writing
to "one of the men called Friends"). I knew a young Lady who could dance
no other, she danced thro' life, and very queer and fantastic were her
steps. Heaven bless thee from such measures, and keep thee from the Foul
Fiend, who delights to lead after False Fires in the night,
Flibbertigibit, that gives the web and the pin &c. I forget what else.--
From my den, as Bunyan has it, 30 Sep. 24. C.L.
[The verses were for the album of Barton's daughter, Lucy (afterwards
Mrs. Edward FitzGerald). Lucy was her only name. Lamb afterwards printed
them in his _Album Verses_, 1830.]
LETTER 353
CHARLES LAMB TO MRS. JOHN DYER COLLIER
[Dated at end: November 2, 1824.]
Dear Mrs. Collier--We receive so much pig from your kindness, that I
really have not phrase enough to vary successive acknowledg'mts.
I think I shall get a printed form: to serve on all occasions.
To say it was young, crisp, short, luscious, dainty-toed, is but to say
what all its predecessors have been. It was eaten on Sunday and Monday,
and doubts only exist as to which temperature it eat best, hot or cold.
I incline to the latter. The Petty-feet made a pretty surprising
proe-gustation for supper on Saturday night, just as I was loathingly in
expectation of bren-cheese. I spell as I speak.
I do not know what news to send you. You will have heard of Alsager's
death, and your Son John's success in the Lottery. I say he is a wise
man, if he leaves off while he is well. The weather is wet to weariness,
but Mary goes puddling about a-shopping after a gown for the winter. She
wants it good & cheap. Now I hold that no good things are cheap,
pig-presents always excepted. In this mournful weather I sit moping,
where I now write, in an office dark as Erebus, jammed in between 4
walls, and writing by Candle-light, most melancholy. Never see the light
of the Sun six hours in the day, and am surprised to find how pretty it
shines on Sundays. I wish I were a Caravan driver or a Penny post man,
to earn my bread in air & sunshine. Such a pedestrian as I am, to be
tied by the legs, like a Fauntleroy, without the pleasure of his
Exactions. I am interrupted here with an official question, which will
take me up till it's time to go to dinner, so with repeated thanks &
both our kindest rememb'ces to Mr. Collier & yourself, I conclude in
haste.
Yours & his sincerely, C. LAMB.
from my den in Leadenhall,
2 Nov. 24.
On further enquiry Alsager is not dead, but Mrs. A. is bro't. to bed.
[Mrs. Collier was the mother of John Payne Collier. Alsager we have
already met. Henry Fauntleroy was the banker, who had just been found
guilty of forgery and on the day that Lamb wrote was sentenced to death.
He was executed on the 30th (see a later letter).]
LETTER 354
CHARLES LAMB TO B.W. PROCTER
[Dated at end: November 11, '24.]
My dear Procter,--
I do agnise a shame in not having been to pay my congratulations to Mrs.
Procter and your happy self, but on Sunday (my only morning) I was
engaged to a country walk; and in virtue of the hypostatical union
between us, when Mary calls, it is understood that I call too, we being
univocal.
But indeed I am ill at these ceremonious inductions. I fancy I was not
born with a call on my head, though I have brought one down upon it with
a vengeance. I love not to pluck that sort of fruit crude, but to stay
its ripening into visits. In probability Mary will be at Southampton Row
this morning, and something of that kind be matured between you, but in
any case not many hours shall elapse before I shake you by the hand.
Meantime give my kindest felicitations to Mrs. Procter, and assure her I
look forward with the greatest delight to our acquaintance. By the way,
the deuce a bit of Cake has come to hand, which hath an inauspicious
look at first, but I comfort myself that that Mysterious Service hath
the property of Sacramental Bread, which mice cannot nibble, nor time
moulder.