the Tuft_, the fairy tale. We read in the Cowden Clarkes' _Recollections
of Writers:_ "The latter name ('Cowden with the Tuft') slyly implies the
smooth baldness with scant curly hair distinguishing the head of the
friend addressed, and which seemed to strike Charles Lamb so forcibly,
that one evening, after gazing at it for some time, he suddenly broke
forth with the exclamation, ''Gad, Clarke! what whiskers you have behind
your head!'"]
LETTER 478
CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON
[P.M. February 27, 1829.]
Dear R.--Expectation was alert on the receit of your strange-shaped
present, while yet undisclosed from its fuse envelope. Some said,'tis a
viol da Gamba, others pronounced it a fiddle. I myself hoped it a Liquer
case pregnant with Eau de Vie and such odd Nectar. When midwifed into
daylight, the gossips were at loss to pronounce upon its species. Most
took it for a marrow spoon, an apple scoop, a banker's guinea shovel. At
length its true scope appeared, its drift-- to save the backbone of my
sister stooping to scuttles. A philanthropic intent, borrowed no doubt
from some of the Colliers. You save people's backs one way, and break
'em again by loads of obligation. The spectacles are delicate and
Vulcanian. No lighter texture than their steel did the cuckoldy
blacksmith frame to catch Mrs. Vulcan and the Captain in. For ungalled
forehead, as for back unbursten, you have Mary's thanks. Marry, for my
own peculium of obligation, 'twas supererogatory. A second part of
Pamela was enough in conscience. Two Pamelas in a house is too much
without two Mr. B.'s to reward 'em.
Mary, who is handselling her new aerial perspectives upon a pair of old
worsted stockings trod out in Cheshunt lanes, sends love. I, great good
liking. Bid us a personal farewell before you see the Vatican.
Chas. Lamb, Enfield.
[Crabb Robinson, just starting for Rome, had sent Lamb a copy of
_Pamela_ under the impression that he had borrowed one.
"Two Mr. B.'s." In Richardson's novel Pamela marries the young Squire B.
and reforms him.]
LETTER 479
CHARLES LAMB TO SAMUEL ROGERS
Chase, Enfield: 22nd Mar., 1829.
My dear Sir,--I have but lately learned, by letter from Mr. Moxon, the
death of your brother. For the little I had seen of him, I greatly
respected him. I do not even know how recent your loss may have been,
and hope that I do not unseasonably present you with a few lines
suggested to me this morning by the thought of him. I beg to be most
kindly remembered to your remaining brother, and to Miss Rogers.
Your's truly, CHARLES LAMB.
Rogers, of all the men that I have known
But slightly, who have died, your brother's loss
Touched me most sensibly. There came across
My mind an image of the cordial tone
Of your fraternal meetings, where a guest
I more than once have sate; and grieve to think,
That of that threefold cord one precious link
By Death's rude hand is sever'd from the rest.
Of our old gentry he appear'd a stem;
A magistrate who, while the evil-doer
He kept in terror, could respect the poor,
And not for every trifle harass them--
As some, divine and laic, too oft do.
This man's a private loss and public too.
[Daniel Rogers, the banker's elder brother, had just died.]
LETTER 480
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[P.M. March 25, 1829.]
Dear B.B.--I send you by desire Barley's very poetical poem. You will
like, I think, the novel headings of each scene. Scenical directions in
verse are novelties. With it I send a few _duplicates_, which are
_therefore_ no value to me, and may amuse an idle hour. Read
"Christmas," 'tis the production of a young author, who reads all your
writings. A good word from you about his little book would be as balm to
him. It has no pretensions, and makes none. But parts are pretty. In
"Field's Appendix" turn to a Poem called the Kangaroo. It is in the best
way of our old poets, if I mistake not. I have just come from Town,
where I have been to get my bit of quarterly pension. And have brought
home, from stalls in Barbican, the old Pilgrim's Progress with the
prints--Vanity Fair, &c.--now scarce. Four shillings. Cheap. And also
one of whom I have oft heard and had dreams, but never saw in the
flesh--that is, in sheepskin--The whole theologic works of--
THOMAS AQUINAS!
My arms aked with lugging it a mile to the stage, but the burden was a
pleasure, such as old Anchises was to the shoulders of Aeneas--or the
Lady to the Lover in old romance, who having to carry her to the top of
a high mountain--the price of obtaining her--clamber'd with her to the
top, and fell dead with fatigue.
O the glorious old Schoolmen!
There must be something in him. Such great names imply greatness. Who
hath seen Michael Angelo's things--of us that never pilgrimaged to
Rome--and yet which of us disbelieves his greatness. How I will revel in
his cobwebs and subtleties, till my brain spins!
N.B. I have writ in the old Hamlet, offer it to Mitford in my name, if
he have not seen it. Tis woefully below our editions of it. But keep it,
if you like. (What is M. to me?)
I do not mean this to go for a letter, only to apprize you, that the
parcel is booked for you this 25 March 1829 from the Four Swans
Bishopsgate.
With both our loves to Lucy and A.K. Yours Ever
C.L.
["Darley's... poem"--_Sylvia; or, The May Queen_, by George Darley.
"Christmas"--a poem by Edward Moxon, dedicated to Lamb.
"Field's Appendix"--_Geographical Memoirs on New South Wales_, edited by
Barron Field, with his _First-Fruits of Australian Poetry_ as Appendix.
The old romance, Dr. Paget Toynbee points out, is _Les Dous Amanz_ of
Marie of France, which Lamb had read in Miss Betham's metrical
translation, _The Lay of Marie_.]
LETTER 481
CHARLES LAMB TO MISS SARAH JAMES
[No date. ? April, 1829.]
We have just got your letter. I think Mother Reynolds will go on
quietly, Mrs. Scrimpshaw having kittened. The name of the late Laureat
was Henry James Pye, and when his 1st Birthday Ode came out, which was
very poor, somebody being asked his opinion of it, said:--
And when the Pye was open'd
The birds began to sing,
And was not this a dainty dish
To set before the King!
Pye was brother to old Major Pye, and father to Mrs. Arnold, and uncle
to a General Pye, all friends of Miss Kelly. Pye succeeded Thos. Warton,
Warton succeeded Wm. Whitehead, Whitehead succeeded Colley Cibber,
Cibber succeeded Eusden, Eusden succeeded Thos. Shadwell, Shadwell
succeeded Dryden, Dryden succeeded Davenant, Davenant God knows whom.
There never was a Rogers a Poet Laureat; there is an old living Poet of
that name, a Banker as you know, Author of the "Pleasures of Memory,"
where Moxon goes to breakfast in a fine house in the green Park, but he
was never Laureat. Southey is the present one, and for anything I know
or care, Moxon may succeed him. We have a copy of "Xmas" for you, so you
may give your own to Mary as soon as you please. We think you need not
have exhibited your mountain shyness before M.B. He is neither shy
himself, nor patronizes it in others.--So with many thanks, good-bye.
Emma comes on Thursday. C.L.
The Poet Laureat, whom Davenant succeeded was Rare 'Ben Jonson,' who I
believe was the first regular Laureat with the appointment of £100 a
year and a Butt of Sack or Canary--so add that to my little list.--C.L.
[Mr. Macdonald dates this letter December 31, 1828, perhaps rightly. I
have dated it at a venture April, 1829, because Moxon's _Christmas_ was
published in March of that year. It is the only letter to Mary Lamb's
nurse, Miss James, that exists. Mrs. Reynolds was Lamb's aged pensioner,
whom we have met. Pye died in 1813 and was succeeded by Southey. The
author of the witticism on his first ode was George Steevens, the
critic. The comment gained point from the circumstance that Pye had
drawn largely on images from bird life in his verses.]
LETTER 482
CHARLES LAMB TO H. CRABB ROBINSON
[P.M. April ? 1829.]
Dear Robinson, we are afraid you will slip from us from England without
again seeing us. It would be charity to come and see me. I have these
three days been laid up with strong rheumatic pains, in loins, back,
shoulders. I shriek sometimes from the violence of them. I get scarce
any sleep, and the consequence is, I am restless, and want to change
sides as I lie, and I cannot turn without resting on my hands, and so
turning all my body all at once like a log with a lever. While this
rainy weather lasts, I have no hope of alleviation. I have tried
flannels and embrocation in vain. Just at the hip joint the pangs
sometimes are so excruciating, that I cry out. It is as violent as the
cramp, and far more continuous. I am ashamed to whine about these
complaints to you, who can ill enter into them. But indeed they are
sharp. You go about, in rain or fine at all hours without discommodity.
I envy you your immunity at a time of life not much removed from my own.
But you owe your exemption to temperance, which it is too late for me to
pursue. I in my life time have had my good things. Hence my frame is
brittle--yours strong as brass. I never knew any ailment you had. You
can go out at night in all weathers, sit up all hours. Well, I don't
want to moralise. I only wish to say that if you are enclined to a game
at Doubly Dumby, I would try and bolster up myself in a chair for a
rubber or so. My days are tedious, but less so and less painful than my
nights. May you never know the pain and difficulty I have in writing so
much. Mary, who is most kind, joins in the wish.
C. LAMB.
LETTER 483
CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON
[P.M. April 17, 1829.]
I do confess to mischief. It was the subtlest diabolical piece of
malice, heart of man has contrived. I have no more rheumatism than that
poker. Never was freer from all pains and aches. Every joint sound, to
the tip of the ear from the extremity of the lesser toe. The report of
thy torments was blown circuitously here from Bury. I could not resist
the jeer. I conceived you writhing, when you should just receive my
congratulations. How mad you'd be. Well, it is not in my method to
inflict pangs. I leave that to heaven. But in the existing pangs of a
friend, I have a share. His disquietude crowns my exemption. I imagine
you howling, and pace across the room, shooting out my free arms legs
&c.
[Illustration: Handrawn lines]
this way and that way, with an assurance of not kindling a spark of pain
from them. I deny that Nature meant us to sympathise with agonies. Those
face-contortions, retortions, distortions, have the merriness of antics.
Nature meant them for farce--not so pleasant to the actor indeed, but
Grimaldi cries when we laugh, and 'tis but one that suffers to make
thousands rejoyce.
You say that Shampooing is ineffectual. But _per se_ it is good, to show
the introv[ol]utions, extravolutions, of which the animal frame is
capable. To show what the creature is receptible of, short of
dissolution.
You are worst of nights, a'nt you?
Twill be as good as a Sermon to you to lie abed all this night, and
meditate the subject of the day. 'Tis Good Friday. How appropriate!
Think when but your little finger pains you, what endured to white-wash
you and the rest of us.
Nobody will be the more justified for your endurance. You won't save the
soul of a mouse. 'Tis a pure selfish pleasure.
You never was rack'd, was you? I should like an authentic map of those
feelings.
You seem to have the flying gout.
You can scarcely scrue a smile out of your face--can you? I sit at
immunity, and sneer _ad libitum._
'Tis now the time for you to make good resolutions. I may go on breaking
'em, for any thing the worse I find myself.
Your Doctor seems to keep you on the long cure. Precipitate healings are
never good.
Don't come while you are so bad. I shan't be able to attend to your
throes and the dumbee at once.
I should like to know how slowly the pain goes off. But don't write,
unless the motion will be likely to make your sensibility more
exquisite.
Your affectionate and truly healthy friend C. LAMB.
Mary thought a Letter from me might amuse you in your torment--
[Robinson was the victim of a sudden attack of acute rheumatism. He had
a course of Turkish baths at Brighton to cure him.]
LETTER 484
CHARLES LAMB TO GEORGE DYER
Enfield, April 29, 1829.
Dear Dyer--As well as a bad pen can do it, I must thank you for your
friendly attention to the wishes of our young friend Emma, who was
packing up for Bury when your sonnet arrived, and was too hurried to
express her sense of its merits. I know she will treasure up that and
your second communication among her choicest rarities, as from her
_grandfather's_ friend, whom not having seen, she loves to hear talked
of. The second letter shall be sent after her, with our first parcel to
Suffolk, where she is, to us, alas dead and Bury'd; we solely miss her.
Should you at any hour think of four or six lines, to send her,
addressed to herself simply, naming her grandsire, and to wish she may
pass through life as much respected, with your own G. Dyer at the end,
she would feel rich indeed, for the nature of an Album asks for verses
that have not been in print before; but this quite at your convenience:
and to be less trouble to yourself, four lines would be sufficient.
Enfield has come out in summer beauty. Come when you will and we will
give you a bed. Emma has left hers, you know. I remain, my dear Dyer,
your affectionate friend,
CHARLES LAMB.
[From _The Mirror_, 1841. Lamb made the same pun--Bury'd--to George Dyer
in his letter of December 5, 1808. His Album verses for Miss Isola I
have not seen.]
LETTER 485
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS HOOD
[No date. ? May, 1829.]
Dear Hood,--We will look out for you on Wednesday, be sure, tho' we have
not eyes like Emma, who, when I made her sit with her back to the window
to keep her to her Latin, literally saw round backwards every one that
past, and, O, [that] she were here to jump up and shriek out "There are
the Hoods!" We have had two pretty letters from her, which I long to
show you--together with Enfield in her May beauty.
Loves to Jane.
[_Here follow rough caricatures of Charles and his sister, and_] "I
can't draw no better."
[I have dated this letter May, 1829, because Miss Isola had just gone to
Fornham, in Suffolk, whence presumably the two letters had come.]
LETTER 486
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[No date.]
Calamy is _good reading_. Mary is always thankful for Books in her way.
I won't trouble you for any in _my way_ yet, having enough to read.
Young Hazlitt lives, at least his father does, at _3_ or _36_ [36 I have
it down, with the _6_ scratch'd out] Bouverie Street, Fleet Street. If
not to be found, his mother's address is, Mrs. Hazlitt, Mrs.
Tomlinson's, Potters Bar. At one or other he must be heard of. We shall
expect you with the full moon. Meantime, our thanks.
C.L.
We go on very quietly &c.
["Calamy" would be Edmund Calamy (1671-1732), the historian of
Nonconformity.
Mr. W.C. Hazlitt in his _Memoir of Hazlitt_ says that his grandfather
moved in 1829 to 3 Bouverie Street, and in the beginning of 1830 to 6
Frith Street, Soho. Young Hazlitt was William junior, afterwards Mr.
Registrar Hazlitt and then seventeen years of age.]
LETTER 487
CHARLES LAMB TO WALTER WILSON
May 28, 1829.
Dear W.,--Introduce this, or omit it, as you like. I think I wrote
better about it in a letter to you from India H. If you have that,
perhaps out of the two I could patch up a better thing, if you'd return
both. But I am very poorly, and have been harassed with an illness of my
sister's.
The Ode was printed in the "New Times" nearly the end of 1825, and I
have only omitted some silly lines. Call it a corrected copy.
Yours ever, C. LAMB.
Put my name to either or both, as you like.
[This letter contains Lamb's remarks on the Secondary Novels of Defoe,
printed in Wilson's _Life and Times of De Foe_, Chapter XVII. of Vol.
III., and also his "Ode to the Treadmill," which Wilson omitted from
that work. See Vols. I. and IV. of the present edition for both pieces.]
LETTER 488
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[P.M. June 3, 1829.]
Dear B.B.--I am very much grieved indeed for the indisposition of poor
Lucy. Your letter found me in domestic troubles. My sister is again
taken ill, and I am obliged to remove her out of the house for many
weeks, I fear, before I can hope to have her again. I have been very
desolate indeed. My loneliness is a little abated by our young friend
Emma having just come here for her holydays, and a schoolfellow of hers
that was, with her. Still the house is not the same, tho' she is the
same. Mary had been pleasing herself with the prospect of seeing her at
this time; and with all their company, the house feels at times a
frightful solitude. May you and I in no very long time have a more
cheerful theme to write about, and congratulate upon a daughter's and a
Sister's perfect recovery. Do not be long without telling me how Lucy
goes on. I have a right to call her by her quaker-name, you know.
Emma knows that I am writing to you, and begs to be remembered to you
with thankfulness for your ready contribution. Her album is filling
apace. But of her contributors one, almost the flower of it, a most
amiable young man and late acquaintance of mine, has been carried off by
consumption, on return from one of the Azores islands, to which he went
with hopes of mastering the disease, came back improved, went back to a
most close and confined counting house, and relapsed. His name was
Dibdin, Grandson of the Songster. You will be glad to hear that Emma,
tho' unknown to you, has given the highest satisfaction in her little
place of Governante in a Clergyman's family, which you may believe by
the Parson and his Lady drinking poor Mary's health on her birthday,
tho' they never saw her, merely because she was a friend of Emma's, and
the Vicar also sent me a brace of partridges. To get out of home themes,
have you seen Southey's Dialogues? His lake descriptions, and the
account of his Library at Keswick, are very fine. But he needed not have
called up the Ghost of More to hold the conversations with, which might
as well have pass'd between A and B, or Caius and Lucius. It is making
too free with a defunct Chancellor and Martyr.
I feel as if I had nothing farther to write about--O! I forget the
prettiest letter I ever read, that I have received from "Pleasures of
Memory" Rogers, in acknowledgment of a Sonnet I sent him on the Loss of
his Brother. It is too long to transcribe, but I hope to shew it you
some day, as I hope sometime again to see you, when all of us are well.
Only it ends thus "We were nearly of an age (he was the elder). He was
the only person in the world in whose eyes I always appeared young."--
I will now take my leave with assuring you that I am most interested in
hoping to hear favorable accounts from you.--
With kindest regards to A.K. and you
Yours truly, C.L.
["Lucy"--Lucy Barton.
"Your ready contribution." I do not find that Barton ever printed his
lines for Emma Isola's album.
"Dibdin"-John Bates Dibdin died in May, 1828.
Southey's _Sir Thomas More; or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects
of Society_, had just been published.
This was Rogers' letter:--
Many, many thanks. The verses are beautiful. I need not say with
what feelings they were read. Pray accept the grateful
acknowledgments of us all, and believe me when I say that nothing
could have been a greater cordial to us in our affliction than such
a testimony from such a quarter. He was --for none knew him so
well--we were born within a year or two of each other--a man of a
very high mind, and with less disguise than perhaps any that ever
lived. Whatever he was, _that_ we saw. He stood before his fellow
beings (if I may be forgiven for saying so) almost as before his
Maker: and God grant that we may all bear as severe an examination.
He was an admirable scholar. His Dante and his Homer were as
familiar to him as his Alphabets: and he had the tenderest heart.
When a flock of turkies was stolen from his farm, the indignation of
the poor far and wide was great and loud. To me he is the greatest
loss, for we were nearly of an age; and there is now no human being
alive in whose eyes I have always been young.
Under the date June 10, 1829, Mr. Macdonald prints a note from Lamb to
Ayrton, which states that he has two young friends in the house. Here,
therefore, I think, should come a letter from Lamb to William Hazlitt,
Junior, in which Lamb says that he cannot see Mrs. Hazlitt this time. He
adds that the ladies are very pleasant. Emma Isola adds a letter which
tells us that the ladies are herself and her friend Maria. This would be
the Maria of Lamb's sonnet "Harmony in Unlikeness," evidently written at
this time (see Vol. IV.).]
LETTER 489
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
Enfield Chase Side
Saturday 25 July A.D. 1829.--11 A.M.
There--a fuller plumper juiceier date never dropt from Idumean palm. Am
I in the dateive case now? if not, a fig for dates, which is more than a
date is worth. I never stood much affected to these limitary
specialities. Least of all since the date of my superannuation.
What have I with Time to do? } Dear B.B.--Your hand writing has
Slaves of desks, twas meant for you.} conveyed much pleasure to me