album. I have not seen them. That album was cut up for the value of its
autographs and exists now only in a mutilated state: where, I cannot
discover. The pocket-book was _The Bijou_, 1828, edited by William
Fraser for Pickering. Only one of Lamb's contributions was included: his
verses for his own album (see Vol. IV. of this edition).
Jameson was Robert Jameson, to whom Hartley Coleridge addressed the
sonnets in the _London Magazine_ to which Lamb alludes in a previous
letter. He was the husband of Mrs. Jameson, author of _Sacred and
Legendary Art_, but the marriage was not happy. He lived in Chenies
Street.
"Future Lord Byrons and sweet L.E.L.'s." A line from some verses written
by Lamb in more than one album. Probably originally intended for Emma
Isola's album. The passage runs, answering the question, "What is an
Album?"--
'Tis a Book kept by modern Young Ladies for show,
Of which their plain grandmothers nothing did know.
'Tis a medley of scraps, fine verse, and fine prose,
And some things not very like either, God knows.
The soft First Effusions of Beaux and of Belles,
Of future Lord Byrons and sweet L.E.L.'s.
L.E.L. was, of course, the unhappy Letitia Landon, a famous contributor
to the published albums.
"My tragi comedy." Still "The Wife's Trial." Kemble was Charles Kemble,
manager of Covent Garden Theatre. The play was never acted.
"Your refusal to lend your poetical sanction." This is not clear, but I
think the meaning to be deducible. The Icon was Pulham's etching of
Lamb. Evans was William Evans, who had grangerised Byron's _English
Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. I take it that he was now making another
collection of portraits of poets and was asking other poets, their
friends, to write verses upon them. In this way he had applied through
Lamb to Barton for verses on Pulham's Elia, and had been refused. This
is, of course, only conjecture.
"Your Drummonds"--your bankers. Barton's bankers were the Alexanders, a
Quaker firm.
"James Naylor." Barton had paraphrased Nayler's "Testimony."
Following this letter, under the date August 29, 1827, should come a
letter from Lamb to Robert Jameson (husband of Mrs. Jameson) asking him
to interest himself in Miss Isola's career. "Our friend Coleridge will
bear witness to the very excellent manner in which she read to him some
of the most difficult passages in the Paradise Lost."]
LETTER 426
CHARLES LAMB TO P.G. PATMORE
Mrs. Leishman's, Chace, Enfield,
September, 1827.
Dear Patmore--Excuse my anxiety--but how is Dash? (I should have asked
if Mrs. Patmore kept her rules, and was improving--but Dash came
uppermost. The order of our thoughts should be the order of our
writing.) Goes he muzzled, or _aperto ore_? Are his intellects sound, or
does he wander a little in _his_ conversation? You cannot be too careful
to watch the first symptoms of incoherence. The first illogical snarl he
makes, to St. Luke's with him! All the dogs here are going mad, if you
believe the overseers; but I protest they seem to me very rational and
collected. But nothing is so deceitful as mad people to those who are
not used to them. Try him with hot water. If he won't lick it up, it is
a sign he does not like it. Does his tail wag horizontally or
perpendicularly? That has decided the fate of many dogs in Enfield. Is
his general deportment cheerful? I mean when he is pleased--for
otherwise there is no judging. You can't be too careful. Has he bit any
of the children yet? If he has, have them shot, and keep _him_ for
curiosity, to see if it was the hydrophobia. They say all our army in
India had it at one time--but that was in _Hyder_-Ally's time. Do you
get paunch for him? Take care the sheep was sane. You might pull out his
teeth (if he would let you), and then you need not mind if he were as
mad as a Bedlamite. It would be rather fun to see his odd ways. It might
amuse Mrs. Patmore and the children. They'd have more sense than he!
He'd be like a Fool kept in the family, to keep the household in good
humour with their own understanding. You might teach him the mad dance
set to the mad howl. _Madge Owl-et_ would be nothing to him. "My, how he
capers!" [_In the margin is written_:] One of the children speaks this.
[_Three lines here are erased_.] What I scratch out is a German
quotation from Lessing on the bite of rabid animals; but, I remember,
you don't read German. But Mrs. Patmore may, so I wish I had let it
stand. The meaning in English is--"Avoid to approach an animal suspected
of madness, as you would avoid fire or a precipice:--" which I think is
a sensible observation. The Germans are certainly profounder than we.
If the slightest suspicion arises in your breast, that all is not right
with him (Dash), muzzle him, and lead him in a string (common
pack-thread will do; he don't care for twist) to Hood's, his quondam
master, and he'll take him in at any time. You may mention your
suspicion or not, as you like, or as you think it may wound or not Mr.
H.'s feelings. Hood, I know, will wink at a few follies in Dash, in
consideration of his former sense. Besides, Hood is deaf, and if you
hinted anything, ten to one he would not hear you. Besides, you will
have discharged your conscience, and laid the child at the right door,
as they say.
We are dawdling our time away very idly and pleasantly, at a Mrs.
Leishman's, Chace, Enfield, where, if you come a-hunting, we can give
you cold meat and a tankard. Her husband is a tailor; but that, you
know, does not make her one. I knew a jailor (which rhymes), but his
wife was a fine lady.
Let us hear from you respecting Mrs. Patmore's regimen. I send my love
in a ------ to Dash. C. LAMB.
[_On the outside of the letter was written_:--]
Seriously, I wish you would call upon Hood when you are that way. He's a
capital fellow. I sent him a couple of poems --one ordered by his wife,
and written to order; and 'tis a week since, and I've not heard from
him. I fear something is the matter.
_Omitted within_
Our kindest remembrance to Mrs. P.
[This is from Patmore's _My Friends and Acquaintances_, 1854; but again
I have no confidence in Patmore's transcription.
Dash had been Hood's dog, and afterwards was Lamb's; while at one time
Moxon seems to have had the care of it. Patmore possibly was taking Dash
while the Lambs were at Mrs. Leishman's. One of the children who might
be amused by the dog's mad ways was Coventry Patmore, afterwards the
poet, then nearly four years old.]
LETTER 427
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN
[P.M. September 5, 1827.]
Dear Dib,--Emma Isola, who is with us, has opened an ALBUM: bring some
verses with you for it on Sat'y evening. Any _fun_ will do. I am
teaching her Latin; you may make something of that. Don't be modest. For
in it you shall appear, if I rummage out some of your old pleasant
letters for rhymes. But an original is better.
Has your pa[1] any scrap? C.L.
We shall be MOST glad to see your sister or sisters with you. Can't you
contrive it? Write in that case.
[Footnote 1: the infantile word for father.]
[On the blank pages inside the letter Dibdin seems to have jotted down
ideas for his contribution to the album. Unfortunately, as I have said,
the album is not forthcoming.]
LETTER 428
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN
[P.M. September 13, 1827.]
Dear _John_--Your verses are very pleasant, and have been adopted into
the splendid Emmatic constellation, where they are not of the least
magnitude. She is delighted with their merit and readiness. They are
just the thing. The 14th line is found. We advertised it. Hell is
cooling for want of company. We shall make it up along with our kitchen
fire to roast you into our new House, where I hope you will find us in a
few Sundays. We have actually taken it, and a compact thing it will be.
Kemble does not return till the month's end. My heart sometimes is good,
sometimes bad, about it, as the day turns out wet or walky.
Emma has just died, choak'd with a Gerund in dum. On opening her we
found a Participle in rus in the pericordium. The king never dies, which
may be the reason that it always REIGNS here.
We join in loves. C.L. his orthograph.
what a pen!
the Umberella is cum bak.
LETTER 429
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN
[P.M. September 18, 1827.]
My dear, and now more so, JOHN--
How that name smacks! what an honest, full, English,
and yet withal holy and apostolic sound it bears, above the
methodistical priggish Bishoppy name of Timothy, under
which I had obscured your merits!
What I think of the paternal verses, you shall read within,
which I assure you is not pen praise but heart praise.
It is the gem of the Dibdin Muses.
I have got all my books into my new house, and their
readers in a fortnight will follow, to whose joint converse nobody
shall be more welcome than you, and _any of yours_.
The house is perfection to our use and comfort.
Milton is come. I wish Wordsworth were here to meet him.
The next importation is of pots and saucepans, window curtains,
crockery and such base ware.
The pleasure of moving, when Becky moves for you. O
the moving Becky!
I hope you will come and _warm_ the house with the first.
From my temporary domicile, Enfield.
ELIA, that "is to go."--
[The paternal verses were probably a contribution by Charles
Dibdin the Younger for Emma Isola's album. The Lambs were
just moving to Enfield for good, as they hoped (see next letter),
Milton was the portrait.]
LETTER 430
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS HOOD
Tuesday [September 18, 1827],
Dear Hood,
If I have any thing in my head, I will send it to Mr.
Watts. Strictly speaking he should have had my Album
verses, but a very intimate friend importund me for the trifles,
and I believe I forgot Mr. Watts, or lost sight at the time of his
similar Souvenir. Jamieson conveyed the farce from me to
Mrs. C. Kemble, _he_ will not be in town before the 27th. Give
our kind loves to all at Highgate, and tell them that we have
finally torn ourselves out right away from Colebrooke, where I
had no health, and are about to domiciliate for good at Enfield,
where I have experienced _good_.
Lord what good hours do we keep!
How quietly we sleep!
See the rest in the Complete Angler. We have got our books into our new
house. I am a drayhorse if I was not asham'd of the indigested dirty
lumber, as I toppled 'em out of the cart, and blest Becky that came with
'em for her having an unstuffd brain with such rubbish. We shall get in
by Michael's mass. Twas with some pain we were evuls'd from Colebrook.
You may find some of our flesh sticking to the door posts. To change
habitations is to die to them, and in my time I have died seven deaths.
But I don't know whether every such change does not bring with it a
rejuvenescence. Tis an enterprise, and shoves back the sense of death's
approximating, which tho' not terrible to me, is at all times
particularly distasteful. My house-deaths have generally been
periodical, recurring after seven years, but this last is premature by
half that time. Cut off in the flower of Colebrook. The Middletonian
stream and all its echoes mourn. Even minnows dwindle. A parvis fiunt
MINIMI. I fear to invite Mrs. Hood to our new mansion, lest she envy it,
& rote [? rout] us. But when we are fairly in, I hope she will come &
try it. I heard she & you were made uncomfortable by some unworthy to be
cared for attacks, and have tried to set up a feeble counteraction thro'
the Table Book of last Saturday. Has it not reach'd you, that you are
silent about it? Our new domicile is no manor house, but new, &
externally not inviting, but furnish'd within with every convenience.
Capital new locks to every door, capital grates in every room, with
nothing to pay for incoming & the rent £10 less than the Islington one.
It was built a few years since at £1100 expence, they tell me, & I
perfectly believe it. And I get it for £35 exclusive of moderate taxes.
We think ourselves most lucky. It is not our intention to abandon Regent
Street, & West End perambulations (monastic & terrible thought!), but
occasionally to breathe the FRESHER AIR of the metropolis. We shall put
up a bedroom or two (all we want) for occasional ex-rustication, where
we shall visit, not be visited. Plays too we'll see,--perhaps our own.
Urban! Sylvani, & Sylvan Urbanuses in turns. Courtiers for a spurt, then
philosophers. Old homely tell-truths and learn-truths in the virtuous
shades of Enfield, Liars again and mocking gibers in the coffee houses &
resorts of London. What can a mortal desire more for his bi-parted
nature?
O the curds & cream you shall eat with us here!
O the turtle soup and lobster sallads we shall devour with you there!
O the old books we shall peruse here!
O the new nonsense we shall trifle over there!
O Sir T. Browne!--here.
O Mr. Hood & Mr. Jerdan there,
thine,
C (urbanus) L (sylvanus) (ELIA ambo)--
Inclos'd are verses which Emma sat down to write, her first, on the eve
after your departure. Of course they are only for Mrs. H.'s perusal.
They will shew at least, that one of our party is not willing to cut old
friends. What to call 'em I don't know. Blank verse they are not,
because of the rhymes--Rhimes they are not, because of the blank verse.
Heroics they are not, because they are lyric, lyric they are not,
because of the Heroic measure. They must be call'd EMMAICS.------
[Mr. Watts was Alaric A. Watts.
"Thro' the _Table Book_." Lamb contributed to Hone's _Table Book_ a
prose paraphrase of Hood's _Plea, of the Midsummer Fairies_, just
published, which had been dedicated to him, under the title "The Defeat
of Time." In a previous number Moxon had addressed to Hood a eulogistic
sonnet on the same subject. The attacks on Hood I have not sought.
"We shall put up a bedroom." This project was very imperfectly carried
out. Indeed Lamb practically lost London from this date, his subsequent
visits there being as a rule not fortunate.
"Mr. Jerdan"--William Jerdan, editor of the _Literary Gazette_.
"Emmaics." These verses are no longer forthcoming.
Here should come a letter to Allsop dated September 25, 1827, saying
that Mary Lamb has her nurse Miss James and the house is melancholy.
Given in the Boston Bibliophile edition.]
LETTER 431
CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY COLBURN
[Dated at end: September 25, 1827.]
Dear Sir--I beg leave in the warmest manner to recommend to your notice
Mr. Moxon, the Bearer of this, if by any chance yourself should want a
steady hand in your business, or know of any Publisher that may want
such a one. He is at present in the house of Messrs. Longman and Co.,
where he has been established for more than six years, and has the
conduct of one of the four departments of the Country line. A difference
respecting Salary, which he expected to be a little raised on his last
promotion, makes him wish to try to better himself. I believe him to be
a young man of the highest integrity, and a thorough man of business;
and should not have taken the liberty of recommending him, if I had not
thought him capable of being highly useful.
I am,
Sir,
with great respect,
your hble Serv't
CHARLES LAMB.
Enfield, Chace Side, 25th Sep. 1827.
[Moxon did not go to Colburn, but to Hurst & Co. in St. Paul's
Churchyard.]
LETTER 432
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[No date. ?Sept. 26, 1827.]
Pray, send me the Table Book.
Dear M. Our pleasant meeting[s] for some time are suspended. My sister
was taken very ill in a few hours after you left us (I had suspected
it),--and I must wait eight or nine weeks in slow hope of her recovery.
It is her old complaint. You will say as much to the Hoods, and to Mrs.
Lovekin, and Mrs. Hazlitt, with my kind love.
We are in the House, that is all. I hope one day we shall both enjoy it,
and see our friends again. But till then I must be a solitary nurse.
I am trying Becky's sister to be with her, so don't say anything to Miss
James.
Yours truly
CH. LAMB.
Monday. I will send your books soon.
[Miss James was, as we have seen, Mary Lamb's regular nurse. She had
subsequently to be sent for. I do not identify Mrs. Lovekin.]
LETTER 433
CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON
[Dated at end: October 1 (1827).]
Dear R.--I am settled for life I hope, at Enfield. I have taken the
prettiest compactest house I ever saw, near to Antony Robinson's, but
alas! at the expence of poor Mary, who was taken ill of her old
complaint the night before we got into it. So I must suspend the
pleasure I expected in the surprise you would have had in coming down
and finding us householders.
Farewell, till we can all meet comfortable. Pray, apprise Martin Burney.
Him I longed to have seen with you, but our house is too small to meet
either of you without her knowledge.
God bless you.
C. LAMB.
Chase Side 1st Oct'r
[Antony Robinson, a prominent Unitarian, a friend but no relation of
Crabb Robinson's, had died in the previous January. His widow still
lived at Enfield.]
LETTER 434
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN
[P.M. October 2, 1827.]
My dear Dibdin, It gives me great pain to have to say that I cannot have
the pleasure of seeing you for some time. We are in our house, but Mary
has been seized with one of her periodical disorders--a temporary
derangement--which commonly lasts for two months. You shall have the
first notice of her convalescence. Can you not send your manuscript by
the Coach? directed to Chase Side, next to Mr. Westwood's Insurance
office. I will take great care of it.
Yours most Truly C. LAMB.
LETTER 435
CHARLES LAMB TO BARRON FIELD
Oct. 4th, 1827.
I am not in humour to return a fit reply to your pleasant letter. We are
fairly housed at Enfield, and an angel shall not persuade me to wicked
London again. We have now six sabbath days in a week for--_none_! The
change has worked on my sister's mind, to make her ill; and I must wait
a tedious time before we can hope to enjoy this place in unison. Enjoy
it, when she recovers, I know we shall. I see no shadow, but in her
illness, for repenting the step! For Mathews --I know my own utter
unfitness for such a task. I am no hand at describing costumes, a great
requisite in an account of mannered pictures. I have not the slightest
acquaintance with pictorial language even. An imitator of me, or rather
pretender to be _me_, in his Rejected Articles, has made me minutely
describe the dresses of the poissardes at Calais!--I could as soon
resolve Euclid. I have no eye for forms and fashions. I substitute
analysis, and get rid of the phenomenon by slurring in for it its
impression. I am sure you must have observed this defect, or
peculiarity, in my writings; else the delight would be incalculable in
doing such a thing for Mathews, whom I greatly like--and Mrs. Mathews,
whom I almost greatlier like. What a feast 'twould be to be sitting at
the pictures painting 'em into words; but I could almost as soon make
words into pictures. I speak this deliberately, and not out of modesty.
I pretty well know what I can't do.
My sister's verses are homely, but just what they should be; I send
them, not for the poetry, but the good sense and good-will of them. I
was beginning to transcribe; but Emma is sadly jealous of its getting
into more hands, and I won't spoil it in her eyes by divulging it. Come
to Enfield, and _read it_. As my poor cousin, the bookbinder, now with
God, told me, most sentimentally, that having purchased a picture of
fish at a dead man's sale, his heart ached to see how the widow grieved
to part with it, being her dear husband's favourite; and he almost
apologised for his generosity by saying he could not help telling the
widow she was "welcome to come and look at it"--e.g. at _his house_--"as
often as she pleased." There was the germ of generosity in an uneducated
mind. He had just _reading_ enough from the backs of books for the "_nec
sinit esse feros_"--had he read inside, the same impulse would have led
him to give back the two-guinea thing--with a request to see it, now and
then, at _her_ house. We are parroted into delicacy.--Thus you have a
tale for a Sonnet.
Adieu! with (imagine both) our loves. C. LAMB.
[The suggestion had been made to Lamb, through Barron Field, that he
should write a descriptive catalogue of Charles Mathews' collection of
theatrical portraits; Lamb having already touched upon them in his "Old
Actors" articles in the _London Magazine_ (see Vol. II. of this
edition). When they were exhibited, after Mathews' death, at the
Pantheon in Oxford Street, Lamb's remarks were appended to the catalogue
_raisonné_. They are now at the Garrick Club.
"An imitator of me." P.G. Patmore's _Rejected Articles_, 1826, leads off
with "An Unsentimental Journey" by Elia which is, except for a fitful
superficial imitation of some of Lamb's mannerisms, as unlike him as
could well be. The description of the butterwomen's dress, to which Lamb
refers, will illustrate the divergence between Elia and his parodist:--
Her attire is fashioned as follows: and it differs from all her
tribe only in the relative arrangement of its colours. On the body a
crimson jacket, of a thick, solid texture, and tight to the shape;
but without any pretence at ornament. This is met at the waist
(which is neither long, nor short, but exactly where nature placed
it) by a dark blue petticoat, of a still thicker texture, so that it
hangs in large plaits where it is gathered in behind. Over this, in
front, is tied tightly round the waist, so as to keep all trim and
compact, a dark apron, the string of which passes over the little
fulled skirt of the jacket behind, and makes it stick out smartly
and tastily, while it clips the waist in. The head-gear consists of
a sort of mob cap, nothing of which but the edge round the face can
be seen, on account of the kerchief (of flowered cotton) which is
passed over it, hood fashion, and half tied under the chin. This
head-kerchief is in place of the bonnet--a thing not to be seen
among the whole five hundred females who make up this pleasant show.
Indeed, varying the colours of the different articles, this
description applies to every dress of the whole assembly; except
that in some the fineness of the day has dispensed with the
kerchief, and left the snow-white cap exposed; and in others, the
whole figure (except the head) is coyishly covered and concealed by
a large hooded cloak of black cloth, daintily lined with silk, and
confined close up to the throat by an embossed silver clasp, but
hanging loosely down to the heels, in thick, full folds. The
petticoat is very short; the trim ancles are cased in close-fit hose
of dark, sober, slate colour; and the shoes, though thick and
serviceable like all the rest of the costume, fit the foot as neatly
as those which are not made to walk in.
Patmore tells us that his first meeting with the Lambs was immediately
after they had first seen his book; and they left the house intent upon
reading it.
"My sister's verses." I think these would probably be the lines on Emma
learning Latin which I have quoted above.
Here should come a very pleasant letter from Lamb to Dodwell, of the
India House, dated October 7, 1827. Lamb thanks Dodwell, to whom there
is an earlier letter extant, for a pig. He first describes his new house
at Enfield, and then breaks off about the cooking of the pig, bidding
Becky do it "nice and _crips_." The rest is chaff concerning the India
House and Dodwell's fellow-clerks.]
LETTER 436
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HONE
[No date. ? Oct., 1827.]
Dear Hone,--having occasion to write to Clarke I put in a bit to you. I
see no Extracts in this N'o. You should have three sets in hand, one
long one in particular from Atreus and Thyestes, terribly fine. Don't
spare 'em; with fragments, divided as you please, they'll hold out to
Xmas. What I have to say is enjoined me most seriously to say to you by
Moxon. Their country customers grieve at getting the Table Book so late.
It is indispensable it should appear on Friday. Do it but _once_, &
you'll never know the difference.
FABLE
A boy at my school, a cunning fox, for one penny ensured himself a hot
roll & butter every morning for ever. Some favor'd ones were allowed a
roll & butter to their breakfasts. He had none. But he bought one one
morning. What did he do? He did not eat it, but cutting it in two, sold
each one of the halves to a half-breakfasted Blue Boy for _his_ whole
roll to-morrow. The next day he had a whole roll to eat, and two halves
to swap with other two boys, who had eat their cake & were still not
satiated, for whole ones to-morrow. So on ad infinitum. By one morning's
abstinence he feasted seven years after.
APPLICATION