and spirits, and cannot write letters. I only write to assure you, as
you wish'd, of my existence. All that which Mitford tells you of H.'s
book is rhodomontade, only H. has written unguardedly about me, and
nothing makes a man more foolish than his own foolish panegyric. But I
am pretty well cased to flattery, or its contrary. Neither affect[s] me
a turnip's worth. Do you see the Author of May you Like it? Do you write
to him? Will you give my present plea to him of ill health for not
acknowledge a pretty Book with a pretty frontispiece he sent me. He is
most esteem'd by me. As for subscribing to Books, in plain truth I am a
man of reduced income, and don't allow myself 12 shillings a-year to buy
OLD BOOKS with, which must be my Excuse. I am truly sorry for Murray's
demur, but I wash my hands of all booksellers, and hope to know them no
more. I am sick and poorly and must leave off, with our joint kind
remembrances to your daughter and friend A.K. C.L.
["H.'s book." In Hunt's _Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries_ Lamb
was praised very warmly.
"The Author of May you Like it"--the Rev. C.B. Tayler. The book with a
pretty frontispiece was _A Fireside Book_, 1828, with a frontispiece by
George Cruikshank.
"Murray's demur"-an unfavourable reply, possibly to a suggestion of
Barton's concerning a new volume.]
LETTER 453
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP
[May 1st, 1828.]
Dear A.--I am better. Mary quite well. We expected to see you before. I
can't write long letters. So a friendly love to you all.
Yours ever,
C.L.
Enfield.
This sunshine is healing.
LETTER 454
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[P.M. May 3rd, 1828.]
Dear M.,--My friend Patmore, author of the "Months," a very pretty
publication, [and] of sundry Essays in the "London," "New Monthly," &c.,
wants to dispose of a volume or two of "Tales." Perhaps they might
Chance to suit Hurst; but be that as it may, he will call upon you,
_under favor of my recommendation_; and as he is returning to France,
where he lives, if you can do anything for him in the Treaty line, to
save him dancing over the Channel every week, I am sure you will. I said
I'd never trouble you again; but how vain are the resolves of mortal
man! P. is a very hearty friendly fellow, and was poor John Scott's
second, as I will be yours when you want one. May you never be mine!
Yours truly, C.L.
Enfield.
[Patmore was the author of _The Mirror of the Months_, 1826.]
LETTER 455
CHARLES LAMB TO WALTER WILSON
[Dated at end: 17 May (1828).]
Dear Walter, The sight of your old name again was like a resurrection.
It had passed away into the dimness of a dead friend. We shall be most
joyful to see you here next week,--if I understand you right--for your
note dated the 10th arrived only yesterday, Friday the _16th_. Suppose I
name _Thursday_ next. If that don't suit, write to say so. A morning
coach comes from the Bell or Bell & Crown by Leather Lane Holborn, and
sets you down at our house on the Chase Side, next door to Mr.
Westwood's, whom all the coachmen know.
I have four more notes to write, so dispatch this with again assuring
you how happy we shall be to see you, & to discuss Defoe & old matters.
Yours truly
C. LAMB.
Enf'd. Satur'dy. 17th May.
[The last letter to Wilson was on Feb. 24, 1823. Lamb wrote to Hone a
few days later: "Valter Vilson dines with us to-morrow. Vell! How I
should like to see Hone!"]
LETTER 456
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS NOON TALFOURD
[P.M. May 20, 1828.]
My dear Talfourd, we propose being with you on Wednesday not unearly,
Mary to take a bed with you, and I with Crabbe, if, as I understand, he
be of the party.
Yours ever,
CH. LAMB.
[Lamb's future biographer was then living at 26 Henrietta Street,
Brunswick Square. He had married in 1822. Crabb Robinson's _Diary_ for
May 21 tells us that Talfourd's party consisted of the Lambs,
Wordsworth, Miss Anne Rutt, three barristers and himself. Lamb was in
excellent spirits. He slept at Robinson's that night.]
LETTER 457
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
[No date. May, 1828.]
Dear Wordsworth, we had meant to have tried to see Mrs. Wordsworth and
Dora next Wednesday, but we are intercepted by a violent toothache which
Mary has got by getting up next morning after parting with you, to be
with my going off at 1/2 past 8 Holborn. We are poor travellers, and
moreover we have company (damn 'em) good people, Mr. Hone and an old
crony not seen for 20 years, coming here on Tuesday, one stays night
with us, and Mary doubts my power to get up time enough, and comfort
enough, to be so far as you are. Will you name a day in the same or
coming week that we can come to you in the morning, for it would plague
us not to see the other two of you, whom we cannot individualize from
you, before you go. It is bad enough not to see your Sister Dorothy.
God bless you sincerely
C. LAMB.
[Robinson dates this letter 1810, but this is clearly wrong. It was
obviously written after Lamb's liberation from the India House. If, as I
suppose, the old crony is Walter Wilson, we get the date from Lamb's
letters to him and to Hone, mentioned above.
By "the other two of you" Lamb means Dora Wordsworth and Johnny
Wordsworth. Lamb had already seen William. The address of the present
letter is W. Wordsworth, Esq., 12 Bryanstone Street, Portman Square.
Here should come a letter from Lamb to Cary, dated June 10, 1828,
declining on account of ill-health an invitation to dinner, to meet
Wordsworth. Instead he asks Cary to Enfield with Darley and Procter.]
LETTER 458
CHARLES LAMB TO MRS. MORGAN
Enfield, 17 June, 1828.
The gentleman who brings this to you has been 12 years principal
assistant at the first School in Enfield, and bears the highest
character for carefulness and scholarship. He is about opening an
Establishment of his own, a Classical and _Commercial_ Academy at
Peckham. He has just married a very notable and amiable young person,
our next neighbour's daughter, and I do not doubt of their final
success, but everything must have a beginning and he wants pupils. It
strikes me, that one or two of Mr. Thompson's sons may be about leaving
you,--in that case, if you can recommend my friend's school, you will
much oblige me. I can answer for the very excellent manner in which he
has conducted himself here as an assistant, for I have talked it over
with Dr. May's brother and I _know_ him to be very learned. He will
explain to you the situation of our cottage, where we hope to see you
soon--with Mary's kind love.
[The gentleman was a Mr. Sugden.]
LETTER 459
MARY LAMB TO THE THOMAS HOODS
[No date. ? Summer, 1828.]
My dear Friends,--My brother and Emma are to send you a partnership
letter, but as I have a great dislike to my stupid scrap at the fag end
of a dull letter, and, as I am left alone, I will say my say first; and
in the first place thank you for your kind letter; it was a mighty
comfort to me. Ever since you left me, I have been thinking I know not
what, but every possible thing that I could invent, why you should be
angry with me for something I had done or left undone during your
uncomfortable sojourn with us, and now I read your letter and think and
feel all is well again. Emma and her sister Harriet are gone to
Theobalds Park, and Charles is gone to Barnet to cure his headache,
which a good old lady has talked him into. She came on Thursday and left
us yesterday evening. I mean she was Mrs. Paris, with whom Emma's aunt
lived at Cambridge, and she had so much to [tell] her about Cambridge
friends, and to [tell] us about London ditto, that her tongue was never
at rest through the whole day, and at night she took Hood's Whims and
Oddities to bed with her and laught all night. Bless her spirits! I wish
I had them and she were as mopey as I am. Emma came on Monday, and the
week has passed away I know not how. But we have promised all the week
that we should go and see the Picture friday or saturday, and stay a
night or so with you. Friday came and we could not turn Mrs. Paris out
so soon, and on friday evening the thing was wholly given up. Saturday
morning brought fresh hopes; Mrs. Paris agreed to go to see the picture
with us, and we were to walk to Edmonton. My Hat and my _new gown_ were
put on in great haste, and his honor, who decides all things here, would
have it that we could not get to Edmonton in time; and there was an end
of all things. Expecting to see you, I did not write.
Monday evening.
Charles and Emma are taking a second walk. Harriet is gone home. Charles
wishes to know more about the Widow. Is it to be made to match a
drawing? If you could throw a little more light on the subject, I think
he would do it, when Emma is gone; but his time will be quite taken up
with her; for, besides refreshing her Latin, he gives her long lessons
in arithmetic, which she is sadly deficient in. She leaves in a week,
unless she receives a renewal of her holydays, which Mrs. Williams has
half promised to send her. I do verily believe that I may hope to pass
the last one, or two, or three nights with you, as she is to go from
London to Bury. We will write to you the instant we receive Mrs. W.'s
letter. As to my poor sonnet--and it is a very poor sonnet, only [it]
answered very well the purpose it was written for--Emma left it behind
her, and nobody remembers more than one line of it, which is, I think,
sufficient to convince you it would make no great impression in an
Annual. So pray let it rest in peace, and I will make Charles write a
better one instead.
This shall go to the Post to-night. If any [one] chooses to add anything
to it they may. It will glad my heart to see you again.
Yours (both yours) truly and affectionately, M. LAMB.
Becky is going by the Post office, so I will send it away. I mean to
commence letter-writer to the family.
[Mr. Hazlitt dates this letter April, 1828. The reference to the Widow,
towards the end, shows that Hood was preparing _The Gem_, and, what is
not generally known, that Lamb had been asked to write on that subject.
As it happened, Hood wrote the essay for him and signed it Elia (see
note below). Mrs. Paris we have met. Harriet, Emma Isola's sister, we do
not hear of again. I was recently shown a copy of Lamb's _Works_, 1818,
inscribed in his hand to Miss Isola: this would be Harriet Isola. Emma
had just begun her duties at Fornham, in Suffolk, where she taught the
children of a Mr. Williams, a clergyman. I cannot say what the Picture
was. The sonnet was probably that printed in the note to the letter to
Mrs. Shelley of July 26, 1827. Charles Lamb's and Emma's joint letter has
not been preserved.]
LETTER 460
CHARLES LAMB TO B.R. HAYDON
August, 1828.
Dear Haydon,--I have been tardy in telling you that your Chairing the
Member gave me great pleasure;--'tis true broad Hogarthian fun, the High
Sheriff capital. Considering, too, that you had the materials imposed
upon you, and that you did not select them from the rude world as H.
did, I hope to see many more such from your hand. If the former picture
went beyond this I have had a loss, and the King a bargain. I longed to
rub the back of my hand across the hearty canvas that two senses might
be gratified. Perhaps the subject is a little discordantly placed
opposite to another act of Chairing, where the huzzas were
Hosannahs,--but I was pleased to see so many of my old acquaintances
brought together notwithstanding.
Believe me, yours truly,
C. LAMB.
[Haydon's "Chairing the Member" was exhibited in Bond Street this year,
together with "Christ's Entry into Jerusalem," and other of his works.
"The former picture" was his "Mock Election," which the King had bought
for 500 guineas. For "Chairing the Member" Haydon received only half
that price.
Here should come a letter to Rickman, dated September 11, 1828, in which
Lamb thanks him for a present of nuts and apples, but is surprised that
apples should be offered to the owner of a "whole tree, almost an
orchard," and "an apple chamber redolent" to boot.
Here should come a letter from Lamb to Louisa Holcroft, dated October 2,
1828, in which, so soon after Mary Lamb's determination to be the letter
writer of the family, he says, "Mary Lamb has written her last letter in
this world," adding that he has been left her _writing legatee_. He
calls geese "those pretty birds that look like snow in summer, and
cackle like ice breaking up."
Here should come a long Latin letter to Rickman, dated October 4, 1828.
Canon Ainger prints the Latin. I append an English version:--]
LETTER 461
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN RICKMAN
(_Translation_)
[Postmark Oct. 3, 1828.]
I have been thinking of sending some kind of an answer in Latin to your
very elaborate letter, but something has arisen every day to hinder me.
To begin with our awkward friend M.B. has been with us for a while, and
every day and all day we have had such a lecture, you know how he
stutters, on legal, mind, nothing but legal notices, that I have been
afraid the Latin I want to write might prove rather barbaro-forensic
than Ciceronian. He is swallowed up, body and soul, in law; he eats,
drinks, plays (at the card table) Law, nothing but Law. He acts
Ignoramus in the play so thoroughly, that you w'd swear that in the
inmost marrow of his head (is not this the proper anatomical term?)
there have housed themselves not devils but pettifoggers, to bemuddle
with their noisy chatter his own and his friends' wits. He brought here,
'twas all his luggage, a book, Fearn on Contingent Remainders. This book
he has read so hard, and taken such infinite pains to understand, that
the reader's brain has few or no Remainders to continge. Enough,
however, of M.B. and his luggage. To come back to your claims upon me.
Your return journey, with notes, I read again and again, nor have I done
with them yet. You always make something fresh out of a hackneyed theme.
Our milestones, you say, bristle with blunders, but I must shortly
explain why I cannot comply with your directions herein.
Suppose I were to consult the local magnates about a matter of this
kind.--Ha! says one of our waywardens or parish overseers,--What
business is this of _yours_? Do you want to drop the Lodger and come out
as a Householder?--Now you must know that I took this house of mine at
Enfield, by an obvious domiciliary fiction, in my Sister's name, to
avoid the bother and trouble of parish and vestry meetings, and to
escape finding myself one day an overseer or big-wig of some sort. What
then w'd be my reply to the above question?
Leisure I have secured: but of dignity, not a tittle. Besides, to tell
you the truth, the aforesaid irregularities are, to my thinking, most
entertaining, and in fact very touching indeed. Here am I, quit of
worldly affairs of every kind; for if superannuation does not mean that,
what does it mean? The world then, being, as the saying is, beyond my
ken, and being myself entirely removed from any accurate distinctions of
space or time, these mistakes in road-measure do not seriously offend
me. For in the infinite space of the heavens above (which in this
contracted sphere of mine I desire to imitate so far as may be) what
need is there of milestones? Local distance has to do with mortal
affairs. In my walks abroad, limited though they must be, I am quite at
my own disposal, and on that account I have a good word for our Enfield
clocks too. Their hands generally point without any servile reference to
this Sun of our World, in his _sub_-Empyrean position. They strike too
just as it happens, according to their own sweet
wiles,--one--two--three--anything they like, and thus to me, a more
fortunate Whittington, they pleasantly announce, that Time, so far as I
am concerned, is no more. Here you have my reasons for not attending in
this matter to the requests of a busy subsolar such as you are.
Furthermore, when I reach the milestone that counts from the Hicks-Hall
that stands now, I own at once the Aulic dignity, and, were I a
gaol-bird, I should shake in my shoes. When I reach the next which
counts from the site of the old Hall, my thoughts turn to the fallen
grandeur of the pile, and I reflect upon the perishable condition of the
most imposing of human structures. Thus I banish from my soul all pride
and arrogance, and with such meditations purify my heart from day to
day. A wayfarer such as I am, may learn from Vincent Bourne, in words
terser and neater than any of mine, the advantages of milestones
properly arranged. The lines are at the end of a little poem of his,
called Milestones--(Do you remember it or shall I write it all out?)
How well the Milestones' use doth this express,
Which make the miles [seem] more and way seem less.
What do you mean by this--I am borrowing hand and style from this
youngster of mine--your son, I take it. The style looks, nay on careful
inspection by these old eyes, is most clearly your very own, and the
writing too. Either R's or the Devil's. I will defer your explanation
till our next meeting--may it be soon.
My Latin failing me, as you may infer from erasures above, there is only
this to add. Farewell, and be sure to give Mrs. Rickman my kind
remembrances.
C. LAMB.
Enfield, Chase Side, 4th Oct., 1828. I can't put this properly into
Latin. Dabam--what is it?
LETTER 462
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[P.M. October 11, 1828.]
A splendid edition of Bunyan's Pilgrim--why, the thought is enough to
turn one's moral stomach. His cockle hat and staff transformed to a
smart cockd beaver and a jemmy cane, his amice gray to the last Regent
Street cut, and his painful Palmer's pace to the modern swagger. Stop
thy friend's sacriligious hand. Nothing can be done for B. but to
reprint the old cuts in as homely but good a style as possible. The
Vanity Fair, and the pilgrims there--the silly soothness in his setting
out countenance--the Christian idiocy (in a good sense) of his
admiration of the Shepherds on the Delectable Mountains--the Lions so
truly Allegorical and remote from any similitude to Pidcock's. The great
head (the author's) capacious of dreams and similitudes dreaming in the
dungeon. Perhaps you don't know _my_ edition, what I had when a child:
if you do, can you bear new designs from--Martin, enameld into copper or
silver plate by--Heath, accompanied with verses from Mrs. Heman's pen O
how unlike his own--
Wouldst thou divert thyself from melancholy?
Wouldst thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly?
Wouldst thou read riddles and their explanation?
Or else be drowned in thy contemplation?
Dost thou love picking meat? or wouldst thou see
A man i' th' clouds, and hear him speak to thee?
Wouldst thou be in a dream, and yet not sleep?
Or wouldst thou in a moment laugh and weep?
Or wouldst thou lose thyself, and catch no harm,
And find thyself again without a charm?
Wouldst read _thyself_, and read thou knowst not what,
And yet know whether thou art blest or not
By reading the same lines? O then come hither,
And lay my book, thy head and heart together.
JOHN BUNYAN.
Shew me such poetry in any of the 15 forthcoming combinations of show
and emptiness, yclept Annuals. Let me whisper in your ear that wholesome
sacramental bread is not more nutritious than papistical wafer stuff,
than these (to head and heart) exceed the visual frippery of Mitford's
Salamander God, baking himself up to the work of creation in a solar
oven, not yet by the terms of the context itself existing. Blake's
ravings made genteel. So there's verses for thy verses; and now let me
tell you that the sight of your hand gladdend me. I have been daily
trying to write to you, but paralysed. You have spurd me on this tiny
effort, and at intervals I hope to hear from and talk to you. But my
spirits have been in a deprest way for a long long time, and they are
things which must be to you of faith, for who can explain depression?
Yes I am hooked into the Gem, but only for some lines written on a dead
infant of the Editor's, which being as it were his property, I could not
refuse their appearing, but I hate the paper, the type, the gloss, the
dandy plates, the names of contributors poked up into your eyes in 1st
page, and whistled thro' all the covers of magazines, the barefaced sort
of emulation, the unmodest candidateship, bro't into so little space--in
those old Londons a signature was lost in the wood of matter--the paper
coarse (till latterly, which spoil'd them)--in short I detest to appear
in an Annual. What a fertile genius (an[d] a quiet good soul withal) is
Hood. He has 50 things in hand, farces to supply the Adelphi for the
season, a comedy for one of the great theatres, just ready, a whole
entertainment by himself for Mathews and Yates to figure in, a meditated
Comic Annual for next year, to be nearly done by himself.-- You'd like
him very much. Wordsworth I see has a good many pieces announced in one
of em, not our Gem. W. Scott has distributed himself like a bribe haunch
among 'em. Of all the poets, Cary has had the good sense to keep quite
clear of 'em, with Clergy-gentle-manly right notions. Don't think I set
up for being proud in this point, I like a bit of flattery tickling my
vanity as well as any one. But these pompous masquerades without masks
(naked names or faces) I hate. So there's a bit of my mind. Besides they
infallibly cheat you, I mean the booksellers. If I get but a copy, I
only expect it from Hood's being my friend. Coleridge has lately been
here. He too is deep among the Prophets--the Yearservers--the mob of
Gentlemen Annuals. But they'll cheat him, I know.
And now, dear B.B., the Sun shining out merrily, and the dirty clouds
we had yesterday having washd their own faces clean with their own rain,
tempts me to wander up Winchmore Hill, or into some of the delightful
vicinages of Enfield, which I hope to show you at some time when you can
get a few days up to the great Town. Believe me it would give both of us
great pleasure to show you all three (we can lodge you) our pleasant
farms and villages.--
We both join in kindest loves to you and yours.--
CH. LAMB REDIVIVUS.
Saturday.
[The edition of Bunyan was that published for Barton's friend, John
Major, and John Murray in 1830, with a life of Bunyan by Southey, and
illustrations by John Martin and W. Harvey, and a prefatory poem not by
Mrs. Hemans but by Bernard Barton immediately before Bunyan's "Author's
Apology for his Book," from which Lamb quotes.
"Pidcock's." Pidcock showed his lions at Bartholomew Fair; he was
succeeded by Polito of Exeter Change.
"Heath." This was Charles Heath (1785-1848), son of James Heath, a great
engraver of steel plates for the Annuals.
"Mitford's Salamander God." I cannot explain this, except by Mr.
Macdonald's supposition that Lamb meant to write "Martin's."
"The Gem." See note below, p. 839.
Hood's entertainment for Mathews and Frederick Yates, then
joint-managers of the Adelphi, I have not identified. Authors' names on
play-bills were, in those days, unimportant. The play was the thing.
Cary. The Rev. H.F. Cary, translator of Dante.
Coleridge and the Annuals. For example, Coleridge's "Names" was in the
_Keepsake_ for 1829; his "Lines written in the Album at Elbingerode" in
part in the _Amulet_ for 1829. He had also contributed previously to the
_Literary Souvenir_, the _Amulet_ and the _Bijou_.
Here should come an unprinted note from Lamb to Charles Mathews, dated
October 27, 1828, referring to the farce "The Pawnbroker's Daughter,"
which Lamb offered to Mathews for the Adelphi. As I have said, this
farce was never acted.]
LETTER 463
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE
[Enfield, October, 1828.]