when received upon a rainy day, especially a rainy Sunday; which moves
me to send you somewhat, however short. This will find you sitting after
Breakfast, which you will have prolonged as far as you can with
consistency to the poor handmaid that has the reversion of the Tea
Leaves; making two nibbles of your last morsel of _stale_ roll (you
cannot have hot new ones on the Sabbath), and reluctantly coming to an
end, because when that is done, what can you do till dinner? You cannot
go to the Beach, for the rain is drowning the sea, turning rank Thetis
fresh, taking the brine out of Neptune's pickles, while mermaids sit
upon rocks with umbrellas, their ivory combs sheathed for spoiling in
the wet of waters foreign to them. You cannot go to the library, for
it's shut. You are not religious enough to go to church. O it is worth
while to cultivate piety to the gods, to have something to fill the
heart up on a wet Sunday! You cannot cast accounts, for your ledger is
being eaten up with moths in the Ancient Jewry. You cannot play at
draughts, for there is none to play with you, and besides there is not a
draught board in the house. You cannot go to market, for it closed last
night. You cannot look in to the shops, their backs are shut upon you.
You cannot read the Bible, for it is not good reading for the sick and
the hypochondriacal. You cannot while away an hour with a friend, for
you have no friend round that Wrekin. You cannot divert yourself with a
stray acquaintance, for you have picked none up. You cannot bear the
chiming of Bells, for they invite you to a banquet, where you are no
visitant. You cannot cheer yourself with the prospect of a tomorrow's
letter, for none come on Mondays. You cannot count those endless vials
on the mantlepiece with any hope of making a variation in their numbers.
You have counted your spiders: your Bastile is exhausted. You sit and
deliberately curse your hard exile from all familiar sights and sounds.
Old Ranking poking in his head unexpectedly would just now be as good to
you as Grimaldi. Any thing to deliver you from this intolerable weight
of Ennui. You are too ill to shake it off: not ill enough to submit to
it, and to lie down as a lamb under it. The Tyranny of Sickness is
nothing to the Cruelty of Convalescence: 'tis to have Thirty Tyrants for
one. That pattering rain drops on your brain. You'll be worse after
dinner, for you must dine at one to-day, that Betty may go to afternoon
service. She insists upon having her chopped hay. And then when she goes
out, who _was_ something to you, something to speak to--what an
interminable afternoon you'll have to go thro'. You can't break yourself
from your locality: you cannot say "Tomorrow morning I set off for
Banstead, by God": for you are book'd for Wednesday. Foreseeing this, I
thought a _cheerful letter_ would come in opportunely. If any of the
little topics for mirth I have thought upon should serve you in this
utter extinguishment of sunshine, to make you a little merry, I shall
have had my ends. I love to make things comfortable. [_Here is an
erasure._] This, which is scratch'd out was the most material thing I
had to say, but on maturer thoughts I defer it.
P.S.--We are just sitting down to dinner with a pleasant party,
Coleridge, Reynolds the dramatist, and Sam Bloxam: to-morrow (that is,
to_day_), Liston, and Wyat of the Wells, dine with us. May this find you
as jolly and freakish as we mean to be.
C. LAMB.
[Addressed to "T. Dibdin Esq're. No. 4 Meadow Cottages, Hastings,
Sussex."
"You have counted your spiders." Referring, I suppose, to Paul
Pellisson-Fontanier, the academician, and a famous prisoner in the
Bastille, who trained a spider to eat flies from his hand.
"Grimaldi"--Joseph Grimaldi, the clown. Ranking was one of Dibdin's
employers.
"A pleasant party." Reynolds, the dramatist, would be Frederic Reynolds
(1764-1841); Bloxam we have just met; and Wyat of the Wells was a comic
singer and utility actor at Sadler's Wells.
Canon Ainger remarks that as a matter of fact Dibdin was a religious
youth.]
LETTER 402
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[P.M. September 26, 1826.]
Dear B.B.--I don't know why I have delay'd so long writing. 'Twas a
fault. The under current of excuse to my mind was that I had heard of
the Vessel in which Mitford's jars were to come; that it had been
obliged to put into Batavia to refit (which accounts for its delay) but
was daily expectated. Days are past, and it comes not, and the mermaids
may be drinking their Tea out of his China for ought I know; but let's
hope not. In the meantime I have paid £28, etc., for the freight and
prime cost, (which I a little expected he would have settled in London.)
But do not mention it. I was enabled to do it by a receipt of £30 from
Colburn, with whom however I have done. I should else have run short.
For I just make ends meet. We will wait the arrival of the Trinkets, and
to ascertain their full expence, and then bring in the bill. (Don't
mention it, for I daresay 'twas mere thoughtlessness.)
I am sorry you and yours have any plagues about dross matters. I have
been sadly puzzled at the defalcation of more than one third of my
income, out of which when entire I saved nothing. But cropping off wine,
old books, &c. and in short all that can be call'd pocket money, I hope
to be able to go on at the Cottage. Remember, I beg you not to say
anything to Mitford, for if he be honest it will vex him: if not, which
I as little expect as that you should [not] be, I have a hank still upon
the JARS.
Colburn had something of mine in last month, which he has had in hand
these 7 months, and had lost, or cou'dnt find room for: I was used to
different treatment in the London, and have forsworn Periodicals.
I am going thro' a course of reading at the Museum: the Garrick plays,
out of part of which I formed my Specimens: I have Two Thousand to go
thro'; and in a few weeks have despatch'd the tythe of 'em. It is a sort
of Office to me; hours, 10 to 4, the same. It does me good. Man must
have regular occupation, that has been used to it. So A.K. keeps a
School! She teaches nothing wrong, I'll answer for't. I have a Dutch
print of a Schoolmistress; little old-fashioned Fleminglings, with only
one face among them. She a Princess of Schoolmistress, wielding a rod
for form more than use; the scene an old monastic chapel, with a Madonna
over her head, looking just as serious, as thoughtful, as pure, as
gentle, as herself. Tis a type of thy friend.
Will you pardon my neglect? Mind, again I say, don't shew this to M.;
let me wait a little longer to know the event of his Luxuries. (I am
sure he is a good fellow, tho' I made a serious Yorkshire Lad, who met
him, stare when I said he was a Clergyman. He is a pleasant Layman
spoiled.) Heaven send him his jars uncrack'd, and me my---- Yours with
kindest wishes to your daughter and friend, in which Mary joins
C.L.
["I saved nothing." Lamb, however, according to Procter, left £2000 at
his death eight years later. He must have saved £200 a year from his
pension of £441, living at the rate of £241 per annum, plus small
earnings, for the rest of his life, and investing the £200 at 5 per
cent, compound interest.
"Colburn had something of mine." The Popular Fallacy "That a Deformed
Person is a Lord," not included by Lamb with the others when he
reprinted them. Printed in Vol. I. of this edition.
"Reading at the Museum." Lamb had begun to visit the Museum every day to
collect extracts from the Garrick plays for Hone's _Table Book_, 1827.
"A.K."--Anne Knight again.
The pleasant Yorkshire lad whom Mitford's secular air surprised was
probably Moxon.
Here might come a business letter, from Lamb to Barton, preserved in the
British Museum, relating to Mitford's jars.]
LETTER 403
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[No date. ? Sept., 1826.]
I have had much trouble to find Field to-day. No matter. He was packing
up for out of town. He has writ a handsomest letter, which you will
transmit to Murry with your proof-sheets. Seal it.--
Yours C. L----.
Mrs. Hood will drink tea with us on Thursday at 1/2 past 5 _at Latest_.
N.B. I have lost my Museum reading today: a day with Titus: owing to
your dam'd bisness.--I am the last to reproach anybody. I scorn it.
If you shall have the whole book ready soon, it will be best for Murry
to see.
[I am not clear as to what proof-sheets of Moxon's Lamb refers. His
second book, _Christmas_, 1829, was issued through Hurst, Chance & Co.
Barton Field and John Murray were friends.
"A day with Titus." Can this (a friend suggests) have any connection
with the phrase _Amici! diem perdidi?_ There is no Titus play among the
Garrick Extracts.]
LETTER 404
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[No postmark or date. Soon after preceding letter to Barton. 1826.]
Dear B.B.--the _Busy Bee_, as Hood after Dr. Watts apostrophises thee,
and well dost thou deserve it for thy labors in the Muses' gardens,
wandering over parterres of Think-on-me's and Forget-me-nots, to a total
impossibility of forgetting thee,--thy letter was acceptable, thy
scruples may be dismissed, thou art Rectus in Curiâ, not a word more to
be said, Verbum Sapienti and so forth, the matter is decided with a
white stone, Classically, mark me, and the apparitions vanishd which
haunted me, only the Cramp, Caliban's distemper, clawing me in the
calvish part of my nature, makes me ever and anon roar Bullishly, squeak
cowardishly, and limp cripple-ishly. Do I write quakerly and simply,
'tis my most Master Mathew-like intention to do it. See Ben Jonson.--I
think you told me your acquaint'ce with the Drama was confin'd to
Shakspeare and Miss Bailly: some read only Milton and Croly. The gap is
as from an ananas to a Turnip. I have fighting in my head the plots
characters situations and sentiments of 400 old Plays (bran new to me)
which I have been digesting at the Museum, and my appetite sharpens to
twice as many more, which I mean to course over this winter. I can
scarce avoid Dialogue fashion in this letter. I soliloquise my
meditations, and habitually speak dramatic blank verse without meaning
it. Do you see Mitford? he will tell you something of my labors. Tell
him I am sorry to have mist seeing him, to have talk'd over those OLD
TREASURES. I am still more sorry for his missing Pots. But I shall be
sure of the earliest intelligence of the Lost Tribes. His Sacred
Specimens are a thankful addition to my shelves. Marry, I could wish he
had been more careful of corrigenda. I have discover'd certain which
have slipt his Errata. I put 'em in the next page, as perhaps thou canst
transmit them to him. For what purpose, but to grieve him (which yet I
should be sorry to do), but then it shews my learning, and the excuse is
complimentary, as it implies their correction in a future Edition. His
own things in the book are magnificent, and as an old Christ's
Hospitaller I was particularly refreshd with his eulogy on our Edward.
Many of the choice excerpta were new to me. Old Christmas is a coming,
to the confusion of Puritans, Muggletonians, Anabaptists, Quakers, and
that Unwassailing Crew. He cometh not with his wonted gait, he is shrunk
9 inches in the girth, but is yet a Lusty fellow. Hood's book is mighty
clever, and went off 600 copies the 1st day. Sion's Songs do not
disperse so quickly. The next leaf is for Rev'd J.M. In this ADIEU thine
briefly in a tall friendship C. LAMB.
[Barton's letter, to which this is an answer, not being preserved, we do
not know what his scruples were. B.B. was a great contributor to
annuals.
"With a white stone." In trials at law a white stone was cast as a vote
for acquittal, a black stone for condemnation (see Ovid,
_Metamorphoses_, 15, 41).
"Master Mathew"--in Ben Jonson's "Every Man in His Humour."
"Croly"--the Rev. George Croly (1780-1860), of the _Literary Gazette_,
author of _The Angel of the World_ and other pretentious poems.
"Mitford's Sacred Specimens"--_Sacred Specimens Selected from the Early
English Poets_, 1827. The last poem, by Mitford himself, was "Lines
Written under the Portrait of Edward VI."
"Hood's book"--_Whims and Oddities_, second series, 1827.
Here should come a note to Allsop stating that Lamb is "near killed with
Christmassing."]
LETTER 405
CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON
Colebrooke Row, Islington,
Saturday, 20th Jan., 1827.
Dear Robinson,--I called upon you this morning, and found that you were
gone to visit a dying friend. I had been upon a like errand. Poor Norris
has been lying dying for now almost a week, such is the penalty we pay
for having enjoyed a strong constitution! Whether he knew me or not, I
know not, or whether he saw me through his poor glazed eyes; but the
group I saw about him I shall not forget. Upon the bed, or about it,
were assembled his wife and two daughters, and poor deaf Richard, his
son, looking doubly stupified. There they were, and seemed to have been
sitting all the week. I could only reach out a hand to Mrs. Norris.
Speaking was impossible in that mute chamber. By this time I hope it is
all over with him. In him I have a loss the world cannot make up. He was
my friend and my father's friend all the life I can remember. I seem to
have made foolish friendships ever since. Those are friendships which
outlive a second generation. Old as I am waxing, in his eyes I was still
the child he first knew me. To the last he called me Charley. I have
none to call me Charley now. He was the last link that bound me to the
Temple. You are but of yesterday. In him seem to have died the old
plainness of manners and singleness of heart. Letters he knew nothing
of, nor did his reading extend beyond the pages of the "Gentleman's
Magazine." Yet there was a pride of literature about him from being
amongst books (he was librarian), and from some scraps of doubtful Latin
which he had picked up in his office of entering students, that gave him
very diverting airs of pedantry. Can I forget the erudite look with
which, when he had been in vain trying to make out a black-letter text
of Chaucer in the Temple Library, he laid it down and told me that--"in
those old books, Charley, there is sometimes a deal of very indifferent
spelling;" and seemed to console himself in the reflection! His jokes,
for he had his jokes, are now ended, but they were old trusty
perennials, staples that pleased after _decies repetita_, and were
always as good as new. One song he had, which was reserved for the night
of Christmas-day, which we always spent in the Temple. It was an old
thing, and spoke of the flat bottoms of our foes and the possibility of
their coming over in darkness, and alluded to threats of an invasion
many years blown over; and when he came to the part
"We'll still make 'em run, and we'll still make 'em sweat,
In spite of the devil and Brussels Gazette!"
his eyes would sparkle as with the freshness of an impending event. And
what is the "Brussels Gazette" now? I cry while I enumerate these
trifles. "How shall we tell them in a stranger's ear?" His poor good
girls will now have to receive their afflicted mother in an inaccessible
hovel in an obscure village in Herts, where they have been long
struggling to make a school without effect; and poor deaf Richard--and
the more helpless for being so--is thrown on the wide world.
My first motive in writing, and, indeed, in calling on you, was to ask
if you were enough acquainted with any of the Benchers, to lay a plain
statement before them of the circumstances of the family. I almost fear
not, for you are of another hall. But if you can oblige me and my poor
friend, who is now insensible to any favours, pray exert yourself. You
cannot say too much good of poor Norris and his poor wife.
Yours ever, CHARLES LAMB.
[This letter, describing the death of Randal Norris, Sub-Treasurer and
Librarian of the Inner Temple, was printed with only very slight
alterations in Hone's _Table Book_, 1827, and again in the _Last Essays
of Elia_, 1833, under the title "A Death-Bed." It was, however, taken
out of the second edition, and "Confessions of a Drunkard" substituted,
in deference to the wishes of Norris's family. Mrs. Norris, as I have
said, was a native of Widford, where she had known Mrs. Field, Lamb's
grandmother. With her son Richard, who was deaf and peculiar, Mrs.
Norris moved to Widford again, where the daughters, Miss Betsy and Miss
Jane, had opened a school--Goddard House; which they retained until a
legacy restored the family prosperity. Soon after that they both
married, each a farmer named Tween. They survived until quite recently.
Mrs. Coe, an old scholar at the Misses Morris's school in the twenties,
gave me, in 1902, some reminiscences of those days, from which I quote a
passage or so:--
When he joined the Norrises' dinner-table he kept every one
laughing. Mr. Richard sat at one end, and some of the school
children would be there too. One day Mr. Lamb gave every one a fancy
name all round the table, and made a verse on each. "You are
so-and-so," he said, "and you are so-and-so," adding the rhyme.
"What's he saying? What are you laughing at?" Mr. Richard asked
testily, for he was short-tempered. Miss Betsy explained the joke to
him, and Mr. Lamb, coming to his turn, said--only he said it in
verse--"Now, Dick, it's your turn. I shall call you Gruborum;
because all you think of is your food and your stomach." Mr. Richard
pushed back his chair in a rage and stamped out of the room. "Now
I've done it," said Mr. Lamb: "I must go and make friends with my
old chum. Give me a large plate of pudding to take to him." When he
came back he said, "It's all right. I thought the pudding would do
it." Mr. Lamb and Mr. Richard never got on very well, and Mr.
Richard didn't like his teasing ways at all; but Mr. Lamb often went
for long walks with him, because no one else would. He did many kind
things like that.
There used to be a half-holiday when Mr. Lamb came, partly because
he would force his way into the schoolroom and make seriousness
impossible. His head would suddenly appear at the door in the midst
of lessons, with "Well, Betsy! How do, Jane?" "O, Mr. Lamb!" they
would say, and that was the end of work for that day. He was really
rather naughty with the children. One of his tricks was to teach
them a new kind of catechism (Mrs. Coe does not remember it, but we
may rest assured, I fear, that it was secular), and he made a great
fuss with Lizzie Hunt for her skill in saying the Lord's Prayer
backwards, which he had taught her.
"We'll still make 'em run..." Garrick's "Hearts of Oak," sung in
"Harlequin's Invasion."
"How shall we tell them in a stranger's ear?" A quotation from Lamb
himself, in the lines "Written soon after the Preceding Poem," in 1798
(see Vol. IV.).]
LETTER 406
CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON
[No date. Jan. 20, 1827.]
Dear R.N. is dead. I have writ as nearly as I could to look like a
letter meant for _your eye only_. Will it do?
Could you distantly hint (do as your own judgment suggests) that if his
son could be got in as Clerk to the new Subtreasurer, it would be all
his father wish'd? But I leave that to you. I don't want to put you upon
anything disagreeable.
Yours thankfully
C.L.
[The reference at the beginning is to the preceding letter, which was
probably enclosed with this note.
Here should come a note to Allsop dated Jan. 25, 1827, complaining of
the cold.]
LETTER 407
CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON
[Dated by H.C.R. Jan. 29, 1827.]
Dear Robinson, If you have not seen Mr. Gurney, leave him quite alone
for the present, I have seen Mr. Jekyll, who is as friendly as heart can
desire, he entirely approves of my formula of petition, and gave your
very reasons for the propriety of the "little village of Hertf'shire."
Now, Mr. G. might not approve of it, and then we should clash. Also, Mr.
J. wishes it to be presented next week, and Mr. G. might fix earlier,
which would be aukward. Mr. J. was so civil to me, that I _think it
would be better NOT for you to show him that letter you intended_.
Nothing can increase his zeal in the cause of poor Mr. Norris. Mr.
Gardiner will see you with this, and learn from you all about it, &
consult, if you have seen Mr. G. & he has fixed a time, how to put it
off. Mr. J. is most friendly to the boy: I think you had better not
teaze the Treasurer any more about _him_, as it may make him less
friendly to the Petition
Yours Ever
C.L.
[Writing to Dorothy Wordsworth on February 13, 1827, Robinson says: "The
Lambs are well. I have been so busy that I have not lately seen them.
Charles has been occupied about the affair of the widow of his old
friend Norris whose death he has felt. But the health of both is good."
Gurney would probably be John Gurney (afterwards Baron Gurney), the
counsel and judge. Jekyll was Joseph Jekyll, the wit, mentioned by Lamb
in his essay on "The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple." He was a friend
of George Dyer.]
LETTER 408
CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON
[Dated by H.C. R. Jan., 1827.]
Dear R. do not say any thing to Mr. G. about the day _or_ Petition, for
Mr. Jekyll wishes it to be next week, and thoroughly approves of my
formula, and Mr. G. might not, and then they will clash. Only speak to
him of Gardner's wish to have the Lad. Mr. Jekyll was excessive
friendly. C.L.
[The matter referred to is still the Norrises' welfare. Mr. Hazlitt says
that an annuity of £80 was settled by the Inn on Mrs. Norris.
Here perhaps should come a letter from Lamb to Allsop, printed by Mr.
Fitzgerald, urging Allsop to go to Highgate to see Coleridge and tell
him of the unhappy state of his, Allsop's, affairs. In Crabb Robinson's
_Diary_ for February 1, 1827, I read: "I went to Lamb. Found him in
trouble about his friend Allsop, who is a ruined man. Allsop is a very
good creature who has been a generous friend to Coleridge." Writing of
his troubles in _Letters, Conversations and Recollections of S.T.
Coleridge_, Allsop says: "Charles Lamb, Charles and Mary Lamb, 'union is
partition,' were never wanting in the hour of need."]
LETTER 409
CHARLES LAMB TO B.R. HAYDON
[March, 1827.]
Dear Raffaele Haydon,--Did the maid tell you I came to see your picture,
not on Sunday but the day before? I think the face and bearing of the
Bucephalus-tamer very noble, his flesh too effeminate or painty. The
skin of the female's back kneeling is much more carnous. I had small
time to pick out praise or blame, for two lord-like Bucks came in, upon
whose strictures my presence seemed to impose restraint: I plebeian'd
off therefore.
I think I have hit on a subject for you, but can't swear it was never
executed,--I never heard of its being,--"Chaucer beating a Franciscan
Friar in Fleet Street." Think of the old dresses, houses, &c. "It
seemeth that both these learned men (Gower and Chaucer) were of the
Inner Temple; for not many years since Master Buckley did see a record
in the same house where Geoffry Chaucer was fined two shillings for
beating a Franciscan Friar in Fleet Street." _Chaucer's Life by T.
Speght, prefixed to the black letter folio of Chaucer_, 1598.
Yours in haste (salt fish waiting), C. LAMB.
[Haydon's picture was his "Alexander and Bucephalus." The two Bucks, he
tells us in his _Diary_, were the Duke of Devonshire and Mr. Agar Ellis.
Haydon did not take up the Chaucer subject.]
LETTER 410
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HONE [No date. April, 1827.]
Dear H. Never come to our house and not come in. I was quite vex'd.
Yours truly. C.L.
There is in Blackwood this month an article MOST AFFECTING indeed called
Le Revenant, and would do more towards abolishing Capital Punishments
than 400000 Romillies or Montagues. I beg you read it and see if you can
extract any of it. _The Trial scene in particular_.
[Written on the fourteenth instalment of the Garrick Play extracts. The
article was in _Blackwood_ for April, 1827. Hone took Lamb's advice, and
the extract from it will be found in the _Table Book_, Vol. I., col.
455.
Lamb was peculiarly interested in the subject of survival after hanging.
He wrote an early _Reflector_ essay, "On the Inconveniences of Being
Hanged," on the subject, and it is the pivot of his farce "The
Pawnbroker's Daughter."
"Romillies or Montagues." Two prominent advocates for the abolition of
capital punishment were Sir Samuel Romilly (who died in 1818) and Basil
Montagu.]
LETTER 411
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS HOOD
[No date. May, 1827.]
Dearest Hood,--Your news has spoil'd us a merry meeting. Miss Kelly and
we were coming, but your letter elicited a flood of tears from Mary, and
I saw she was not fit for a party. God bless you and the mother (or
should be mother) of your sweet girl that should have been. I have won
sexpence of Moxon by the _sex_ of the dear gone one.
Yours most truly and hers,
[C.L.]
[This note refers to one of the Hoods' children, which was still-born.
It was upon this occasion that Lamb wrote the beautiful lines "On an
Infant Dying as soon as Born" (see Vol. IV.).]
LETTER 412
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[No date. (1827.)]