insisted on so frequently in consolatory addresses on the death of
Infants. I know something like it is in Scripture, but I think humanly
spoken. It is a natural thought, a sweet fallacy to the Survivors--but
still a fallacy. If it stands on the doctrine of this being a
probationary state, it is liable to this dilemma. Omniscience, to whom
possibility must be clear as act, must know of the child, what it would
hereafter turn out: if good, then the topic is false to say it is
secured from falling into future wilfulness, vice, &c. If bad, I do not
see how its exemption from certain future overt acts by being snatched
away at all tells in its favor. You stop the arm of a murderer, or
arrest the finger of a pickpurse, but is not the guilt incurred as much
by the intent as if never so much acted? Why children are hurried off,
and old reprobates of a hundred left, whose trial humanly we may think
was complete at fifty, is among the obscurities of providence. The very
notion of a state of probation has darkness in it. The all-knower has no
need of satisfying his eyes by seeing what we will do, when he knows
before what we will do. Methinks we might be condemn'd before
commission. In these things we grope and flounder, and if we can pick up
a little human comfort that the child taken is snatch'd from vice (no
great compliment to it, by the bye), let us take it. And as to where an
untried child goes, whether to join the assembly of its elders who have
borne the heat of the day--fire-purified martyrs, and torment-sifted
confessors--what know we? We promise heaven methinks too cheaply, and
assign large revenues to minors, incompetent to manage them. Epitaphs
run upon this topic of consolation, till the very frequency induces a
cheapness. Tickets for admission into Paradise are sculptured out at a
penny a letter, twopence a syllable, &c. It is all a mystery; and the
more I try to express my meaning (having none that is clear) the more I
flounder. Finally, write what your own conscience, which to you is the
unerring judge, seems best, and be careless about the whimsies of such a
half-baked notionist as I am. We are here in a most pleasant country,
full of walks, and idle to our hearts desire. Taylor has dropt the
London. It was indeed a dead weight. It has got in the Slough of
Despond. I shuffle off my part of the pack, and stand like Xtian with
light and merry shoulders. It had got silly, indecorous, pert, and every
thing that is bad. Both our kind _remembrances_ to Mrs. K. and yourself,
and stranger's-greeting to Lucy--is it Lucy or Ruth?--that gathers wise
sayings in a Book. C. LAMB.
[The London Magazine passed into the hands of Henry Southern in
September, 1825. Lamb's last article for it was in the August
number--"Imperfect Dramatic Illusion," reprinted in the _Last Essays of
Elia_ as "Stage Illusion."]
LETTER 380
CHARLES LAMB TO ROBERT SOUTHEY
August 10, 1825.
Dear Southey,--You'll know who this letter comes from by opening
slap-dash upon the text, as in the good old times. I never could come
into the custom of envelopes; 'tis a modern foppery; the Plinian
correspondence gives no hint of such. In singleness of sheet and meaning
then I thank you for your little book. I am ashamed to add a codicil of
thanks for your "Book of the Church." I scarce feel competent to give an
opinion of the latter; I have not reading enough of that kind to venture
at it. I can only say the fact, that I have read it with attention and
interest. Being, as you know, not quite a Churchman, I felt a jealousy
at the Church taking to herself the whole deserts of Christianity,
Catholic and Protestant, from Druid extirpation downwards. I call all
good Christians the Church, Capillarians and all. But I am in too light
a humour to touch these matters. May all our churches flourish! Two
things staggered me in the poem (and one of them staggered both of us).
I cannot away with a beautiful series of verses, as I protest they are,
commencing "Jenner." 'Tis like a choice banquet opened with a pill or an
electuary-- physic stuff. T'other is, we cannot make out how Edith
should be no more than ten years old. By'r Lady, we had taken her to be
some sixteen or upwards. We suppose you have only chosen the round
number for the metre. Or poem and dedication may be both older than they
pretend to; but then some hint might have been given; for, as it stands,
it may only serve some day to puzzle the parish reckoning. But without
inquiring further (for 'tis ungracious to look into a lady's years), the
dedication is eminently pleasing and tender, and we wish Edith May
Southey joy of it. Something, too, struck us as if we had heard of the
death of John May. A John May's death was a few years since in the
papers. We think the tale one of the quietest, prettiest things we have
seen. You have been temperate in the use of localities, which generally
spoil poems laid in exotic regions. You mostly cannot stir out (in such
things) for humming-birds and fire-flies. A tree is a Magnolia, &c.--Can
I but like the truly Catholic spirit? "Blame as thou mayest the Papist's
erring creed"--which and other passages brought me back to the old
Anthology days and the admonitory lesson to "Dear George" on the "The
Vesper Bell," a little poem which retains its first hold upon me
strangely.
The compliment to the translatress is daintily conceived. Nothing is
choicer in that sort of writing than to bring in some remote, impossible
parallel,--as between a great empress and the inobtrusive quiet soul who
digged her noiseless way so perseveringly through that rugged Paraguay
mine. How she Dobrizhoffered it all out, it puzzles my slender Latinity
to conjecture. Why do you seem to sanction Lander's unfeeling
allegorising away of honest Quixote! He may as well say Strap is meant
to symbolise the Scottish nation before the Union, and Random since that
act of dubious issue; or that Partridge means the Mystical Man, and Lady
Bellaston typifies the Woman upon Many Waters. Gebir, indeed, may mean
the state of the hop markets last month, for anything I know to the
contrary. That all Spain overflowed with romancical books (as Madge
Newcastle calls them) was no reason that Cervantes should not smile at
the matter of them; nor even a reason that, in another mood, he might
not multiply them, deeply as he was tinctured with the essence of them.
Quixote is the father of gentle ridicule, and at the same time the very
depository and treasury of chivalry and highest notions. Marry, when
somebody persuaded Cervantes that he meant only fun, and put him upon
writing that unfortunate Second Part with the confederacies of that
unworthy duke and most contemptible duchess, Cervantes sacrificed his
instinct to his understanding.
We got your little book but last night, being at Enfield, to which place
we came about a month since, and are having quiet holydays. Mary walks
her twelve miles a day some days, and I my twenty on others. 'Tis all
holiday with me now, you know. The change works admirably.
For literary news, in my poor way, I have a one-act farce going to be
acted at the Haymarket; but when? is the question. 'Tis an extravaganza,
and like enough to follow "Mr. H." "The London Magazine" has shifted its
publishers once more, and I shall shift myself out of it. It is fallen.
My ambition is not at present higher than to write nonsense for the
playhouses, to eke out a somewhat contracted income. _Tempus erat_.
There was a time, my dear Cornwallis, when the Muse, &c. But I am now in
MacFleckno's predicament,--
"Promised a play, and dwindled to a farce."
Coleridge is better (was, at least, a few weeks since) than he has been
for years. His accomplishing his book at last has been a source of
vigour to him. We are on a half visit to his friend Allsop, at a Mrs.
Leishman's, Enfield, but expect to be at Colebrooke Cottage in a week or
so, where, or anywhere, I shall be always most happy to receive tidings
from you. G. Dyer is in the height of an uxorious paradise. His
honeymoon will not wane till he wax cold. Never was a more happy pair,
since Acme and Septimius, and longer. Farewell, with many thanks, dear
S. Our loves to all round your Wrekin.
Your old friend, C. LAMB.
[In the letter to Barton of March 20, 1826, Lamb continues or amplifies
his remarks on his own letter-writing habits.
"Capillarians." The _New English Dictionary_ gives Lamb's word in this
connection as its sole example, meaning without stem.
"The poem"--Southey's _Tale of Paraguay_, 1825, which begins with an
address to Jenner, the physiologist:--
Jenner! for ever shall thy honour'd name,
and is dedicated to Edith May Southey--
Edith! ten years are number'd, since the day.
Edith Southey was born in 1804. The dedication was dated 1814.
John May was Southey's friend and correspondent. It was not he that had
died.
"The Vesper Bell"--"The Chapel Bell," which was not in the _Annual
Anthology_, but in Southey's _Poems_, 1797. Dear George would perhaps be
Burnett, who was at Oxford with Southey when the verses were written.
"The compliment to the translatress." Southey took his _Tale of
Paraguay_ from Dobrizhoffer's _History of the Abipones_, which his
niece, Sara Coleridge, had translated. Southey remarks in the poem that
could Dobrizhoffer have foreseen by whom his words were to be turned
into English, he would have been as pleased as when he won the ear of
the Empress Queen.
"Landor's ... allegorising." Landor, in the conversation between "Peter
Leopold and the President du Paty," makes President du Paty say that
Cervantes had deeper purpose than the satirising of knight-errants, Don
Quixote standing for the Emperor Charles V. and Sancho Panza symbolising
the people. Southey quoted the passage in the Notes to the Proem. Lamb's
_Elia_ essay on the "Defect of Imagination" (see Vol. II.) amplifies
this criticism of Don Quixote.
"A one-act farce." This was, I imagine, "The Pawnbroker's Daughter,"
although that is in two acts. It was not, however, acted.
George Dyer had just been married to the widow of a solicitor who lived
opposite him in Clifford's Inn.
Here should come three unimportant notes to Hone with reference to the
_Every-Day Book_--adding an invitation to Enfield to be shown "dainty
spots."]
LETTER 381
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP
[P.M. Sept. 9, 1825.]
My dear Allsop--We are exceedingly grieved for your loss. When your note
came, my sister went to Pall Mall, to find you, and saw Mrs. L. and was
a little comforted to find Mrs. A. had returned to Enfield before the
distresful event. I am very feeble, can scarce move a pen; got home from
Enfield on the Friday, and on Monday follow'g was laid up with a most
violent nervous fever second this summer, have had Leeches to my
Temples, have not had, nor can not get, a night's sleep. So you will
excuse more from Yours truly, C. LAMB.
Islington, 9 Sept.
Our most kind rememb'ces to poor Mrs. Allsop. A line to say how you both
are will be most acceptable.
[Allsop's loss was, I imagine, the death of one of his children.]
LETTER 382
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP
[P.M. Sept. 24, 1825.]
My dear Allsop--Come not near this unfortunate roof yet a while. My
disease is clearly but slowly going. Field is an excellent attendant.
But Mary's anxieties have overturned her. She has her old Miss James
with her, without whom I should not feel a support in the world. We keep
in separate apartments, and must weather it. Let me know all of your
healths. Kindest love to Mrs. Allsop. C. LAMB.
Saturday.
Can you call at Mrs. Burney 26 James Street, and _tell her_, & that I
can see no one here in this state. If Martin return-- if well enough, I
will meet him some where, _don't let him come_.
[Field was Henry Field, Barren Field's brother.
Here should come a note from Lamb to Hone, dated September 30, 1825, in
which Lamb describes the unhappy state of the house at Colebrooke Row,
with himself and his sister both ill.
Here also should come a similar note to William Ayrton. "All this summer
almost I have been ill. I have been laid up (the second nervous attack)
now six weeks."
On October 18 Lamb sends Hone the first "bit of writing" he has done
"these many weeks."]
LETTER 383
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HONE
[P.M. Oct. 24, 1825.]
I send a scrap. Is it worth postage? My friends are fairly surprised
that you should set me down so unequivocally for an ass, as you have
done, Page 1358.
HERE HE IS
what follows?
THE ASS
Call you this friendship?
Mercy! What a dose you have sent me of Burney!--a perfect _opening_*
draught.
*A Pun here is intended.
[This is written on the back of the MS. "In _re_ Squirrels" for Hone's
_Every-Day Book_ (see Vol. I. of this edition). Lamb's previous
contribution had been "The Ass" which Hone had introduced with a few
words.]
LETTER 384
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP
[Dec. 5, 1825.]
Dear A.--You will be glad to hear that _we_ are at home to visitors; not
too many or noisy. Some fine day shortly Mary will surprise Mrs. Allsop.
The weather is not seasonable for formal engagements.
Yours _most ever_,
C. LAMB.
Satr'd.
[Here should come a note to Manning at Totteridge, signed Charles and
Mary Lamb, and dated December 10, 1825. It indicates that both are well
again, and hoping to see Manning at Colebrooke.]
LETTER 385
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES OLLIER
[No date. ? Dec., 1825.]
Dear O.--I leave it _entirely to Mr. Colburn_; but if not too late, I
think the Proverbs had better have L. signd to them and reserve _Elia_
for Essays _more Eliacal_. May I trouble you to send my Magazine, not to
Norris, but H.C. Robinson Esq. King's bench walks, instead.
Yours truly
C. LAMB.
My friend Hood, a prime genius and hearty fellow, brings this.
[Lamb's "Popular Fallacies" began in the _New Monthly Magazine_ in
January, 1826. Henry Colburn was the publisher of that magazine, which
had now obtained Lamb's regular services. The nominal editor was
Campbell, the poet, who was assisted by Cyrus Redding. Ollier seems to
have been a sub-editor.]
LETTER 386
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES OLLIER
Colebrook Cottage, Colebrook Row, Tuesday [early 1826].
Dear Ollier,--I send you two more proverbs, which will be the last of
this batch, unless I send you one more by the post on THURSDAY; none
will come after that day; so do not leave any open room in that case.
Hood sups with me to-night. Can you come and eat grouse? 'Tis not often
I offer at delicacies.
Yours most kindly, C. LAMB.
LETTER 387
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES OLLIER
January, 1826.
Dear O.,--We lamented your absence last night. The grouse were piquant,
the backs incomparable. You must come in to cold mutton and oysters some
evening. Name your evening; though I have qualms at the distance. Do you
never leave early? My head is very queerish, and indisposed for much
company; but we will get Hood, that half Hogarth, to meet you. The scrap
I send should come in AFTER the "Rising with the Lark."
Yours truly.
Colburn, I take it, pays postages.
[The scrap was the Fallacy "That we Should Lie Down with the Lamb,"
which has perhaps the rarest quality of the series.
Here perhaps should come two further notes to Ollier, referring to some
articles on Chinese jests by Manning.
Here should come a letter to Mr. Hudson dated February 1, 1826,
recommending a nurse for a mental case. Given in the Boston Bibliophile
edition.]
LETTER 388
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[P.M. February 7, 1826.]
My kind remembrances to your daughter and A.K. always.
Dear B.B.--I got your book not more than five days ago, so am not so
negligent as I must have appeared to you with a fortnight's sin upon my
shoulders. I tell you with sincerity that I think you have completely
succeeded in what you intended to do. What is poetry may be disputed.
These are poetry to me at least. They are concise, pithy, and moving.
Uniform as they are, and unhistorify'd, I read them thro' at two
sittings without one sensation approaching to tedium. I do not know that
among your many kind presents of this nature this is not my favourite
volume. The language is never lax, and there is a unity of design and
feeling, you wrote them _with love_--to avoid the cox-_combical_ phrase,
con amore. I am particularly pleased with the "Spiritual Law," page
34-5. It reminded me of Quarles, and Holy Mr. Herbert, as Izaak Walton
calls him: the two best, if not only, of our devotional poets, tho' some
prefer Watts, and some _Tom Moore_.
I am far from well or in my right spirits, and shudder at pen and ink
work. I poke out a monthly crudity for Colburn in his magazine, which I
call "Popular Fallacies," and periodically crush a proverb or two,
setting up my folly against the wisdom of nations. Do you see the "New
Monthly"?
One word I must object to in your little book, and it recurs
more than once--FADELESS is no genuine compound; loveless
is, because love is a noun as well as verb, but what is a
fade?--and I do not quite like whipping the Greek drama upon
the back of "Genesis," page 8. I do not like praise handed
in by disparagement: as I objected to a side censure on Byron,
etc., in the lines on Bloomfield: with these poor cavils excepted,
your verses are without a flaw. C. LAMB.
[Barton's new book was _Devotional Verses: founded on, and illustrative
of Select Texts of Scripture_, 1826. See the Appendix for "The Spiritual
Law."
"Holy Mr. Herbert." Writing to Lady Beaumont in 1826 Coleridge says: "My
dear old friend Charles Lamb and I differ widely (and in point of taste
and moral feeling this is a rare occurrence) in our estimate and liking
of George Herbert's sacred poems. He greatly prefers Quarles--nay, he
dislikes Herbert."
Barton whipped the Greek drama on the back of Genesis in the following
stanza, referring to Abraham's words before preparing to sacrifice
Isaac:--
Brief colloquy, yet more sublime,
To every feeling heart,
Than all the boast of classic time,
Or Drama's proudest art:
Far, far beyond the Grecian stage,
Or Poesy's most glowing page.
For Lamb's reference to Byron, see above.]
LETTER 389
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES OLLIER
[P.M. March 16, 1826.]
D'r Ollier if not too late, pray omit the last paragraph in "Actor's
Religion," which is clumsy. It will then end with the word Mugletonian.
I shall not often trouble you in this manner, but I am suspicious of
this article as lame.
C. LAMB.
["The Religion of Actors" was printed in the _New Monthly Magazine_ for
April, 1826. The essay ends at "Muggletonian." See Vol. I. of this
edition.]
LETTER 390
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[P.M. March 20, 1826.]
Dear B.B.--You may know my letters by the paper and the folding. For the
former, I live on scraps obtained in charity from an old friend whose
stationary is a permanent perquisite; for folding, I shall do it neatly
when I learn to tye my neckcloths. I surprise most of my friends by
writing to them on ruled paper, as if I had not got past pothooks and
hangers. Sealing wax, I have none on my establishment. Wafers of the
coarsest bran supply its place. When my Epistles come to be weighed with
Pliny's, however superior to the Roman in delicate irony, judicious
reflexions, etc., his gilt post will bribe over the judges to him. All
the time I was at the E.I.H. I never mended a pen; I now cut 'em to the
stumps, marring rather than mending the primitive goose quill. I cannot
bear to pay for articles I used to get for nothing. When Adam laid out
his first penny upon nonpareils at some stall in Mesopotamos, I think it
went hard with him, reflecting upon his old goodly orchard, where he had
so many for nothing. When I write to a Great man, at the Court end, he
opens with surprise upon a naked note, such as Whitechapel people
interchange, with no sweet degrees of envelope: I never inclosed one bit
of paper in another, nor understand the rationale of it. Once only I
seald with borrow'd wax, to set Walter Scott a wondering, sign'd with
the imperial quarterd arms of England, which my friend Field gives in
compliment to his descent in the female line from O. Cromwell. It must
have set his antiquarian curiosity upon watering. To your questions upon
the currency, I refer you to Mr. Robinson's last speech, where, if you
can find a solution, I cannot. I think this tho' the best ministry we
ever stumbled upon. Gin reduced four shillings in the gallon, wine 2
shillings in the quart. This comes home to men's minds and bosoms. My
tirade against visitors was not meant _particularly_ at you or A.K. I
scarce know what I meant, for I do not just now feel the grievance. I
wanted to make an _article_. So in another thing I talkd of somebody's
_insipid wife_, without a correspondent object in my head: and a good
lady, a friend's wife, whom I really _love_ (don't startle, I mean in a
licit way) has looked shyly on me ever since. The blunders of personal
application are ludicrous. I send out a character every now and then, on
purpose to exercise the ingenuity of my friends. "Popular Fallacies"
will go on; that word concluded is an erratum, I suppose, for continued.
I do not know how it got stuff'd in there. A little thing without name
will also be printed on the Religion of the Actors, but it is out of
your way, so I recommend you, with true Author's hypocrisy, to skip it.
We are about to sit down to Roast beef, at which we could wish A.K.,
B.B., and B.B.'s pleasant daughter to be humble partakers. So much for
my hint at visitors, which was scarcely calculated for droppers in from
Woodbridge. The sky does not drop such larks every day.
My very kindest wishes to you all three, with my sister's best love.
C. LAMB.
["Mr. Robinson's last speech." Frederick John Robinson, afterwards Earl
of Ripon, then Chancellor of the Exchequer under the Earl of Liverpool.
The Government had decided to check the use of paper-money by stopping
the issue of notes for less than £5; and Robinson had made a speech on
the subject on February 10. The motion was carried, but to some extent
was compromised. It was Robinson who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer,
found the money for building the new British Museum and purchasing
Angerstein's pictures as the beginning of the National Gallery.
"My tirade against visitors"--the Popular Fallacy "That Home is Home,"
in the _New Monthly Magazine_ for March.
"Somebody's insipid wife." In the Popular Fallacy "That You Must Love Me
and Love My Dog," in the February number, Lamb had spoken of Honorius'
"vapid wife."
Barton and his daughter visited Lamb at Colebrooke Cottage somewhen
about this time. Mrs. FitzGerald, in 1893, wrote out for me her
recollections of the day. Lamb, who was alone, opened the door himself.
He sent out for a luncheon of oysters. The books on his shelves, Mrs.
FitzGerald remembered, retained the price-labels of the stalls where he
had bought them. She also remembered a portrait over the fireplace. This
would be the Milton. In the _Gem_ for 1831 was a poem by Barton, "To
Milton's Portrait in a Friend's Parlour."]
LETTER 391
CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE
March 22nd, 1826.
Dear C.,--We will with great pleasure be with you on Thursday in the
next week early. Your finding out my style in your nephew's pleasant
book is surprising to me. I want eyes to descry it. You are a little too
hard upon his morality, though I confess he has more of Sterne about him
than of Sternhold. But he saddens into excellent sense before the
conclusion. Your query shall be submitted to Miss Kelly, though it is
obvious that the pantomime, when done, will be more easy to decide upon
than in proposal. I say, do it by all means. I have Decker's play by me,
if you can filch anything out of it. Miss Gray, with her kitten eyes, is
an actress, though she shows it not at all, and pupil to the former,
whose gestures she mimics in comedy to the disparagement of her own
natural manner, which is agreeable. It is funny to see her bridling up
her neck, which is native to F.K.; but there is no setting another's
manners upon one's shoulders any more than their head. I am glad you
esteem Manning, though you see but his husk or shrine. He discloses not,
save to select worshippers, and will leave the world without any one
hardly but me knowing how stupendous a creature he is. I am perfecting
myself in the "Ode to Eton College" against Thursday, that I may not
appear unclassic. I have just discovered that it is much better than the
"Elegy."
In haste, C.L.