my poor Lucy. But some wearisome weeks I must remain lonely yet. I have
had the loneliest time near 10 weeks, broken by a short apparition of
Emma for her holydays, whose departure only deepend the returning
solitude, and by 10 days I have past in Town. But Town, with all my
native hankering after it, is not what it was. The streets, the shops
are left, but all old friends are gone. And in London I was frightfully
convinced of this as I past houses and places--empty caskets now. I have
ceased to care almost about any body. The bodies I cared for are in
graves, or dispersed. My old Clubs, that lived so long and flourish'd so
steadily, are crumbled away. When I took leave of our adopted young
friend at Charing Cross, 'twas heavy unfeeling rain, and I had no where
to go. Home have I none--and not a sympathising house to turn to in the
great city. Never did the waters of the heaven pour down on a forlorner
head. Yet I tried 10 days at a sort of a friend's house, but it was
large and straggling--one of the individuals of my old long knot of
friends, card players, pleasant companions--that have tumbled to pieces
into dust and other things--and I got home on Thursday, convinced that I
was better to get home to my hole at Enfield, and hide like a sick cat
in my corner. Less than a month I hope will bring home Mary. She is at
Fulham, looking better in her health than ever, but sadly rambling, and
scarce showing any pleasure in seeing me, or curiosity when I should
come again. But the old feelings will come back again, and we shall
drown old sorrows over a game at Picquet again. But 'tis a tedious cut
out of a life of sixty four, to lose twelve or thirteen weeks every year
or two. And to make me more alone, our illtemperd maid is gone, who with
all her airs, was yet a home piece of furniture, a record of better
days; the young thing that has succeeded her is good and attentive, but
she is nothing--and I have no one here to talk over old matters with.
Scolding and quarreling have something of familiarity and a community of
interest--they imply acquaintance--they are of resentment, which is of
the family of dearness. I can neither scold nor quarrel at this
insignificant implement of household services; she is less than a cat,
and just better than a deal Dresser. What I can do, and do overdo, is to
walk, but deadly long are the days--these summer all-day days, with but
a half hour's candlelight and no firelight. I do not write, tell your
kind inquisitive Eliza, and can hardly read. In the ensuing Blackwood
will be an old rejected farce of mine, which may be new to you, if you
see that same dull Medley. What things are all the Magazines now! I
contrive studiously not to see them. The popular New Monthly is perfect
trash. Poor Hessey, I suppose you see, has failed. Hunt and Clarke too.
Your "Vulgar truths" will be a good name--and I think your prose must
please--me at least--but 'tis useless to write poetry with no
purchasers. 'Tis cold work Authorship without something to puff one into
fashion. Could you not write something on Quakerism--for Quakers to
read--but nominally addrest to Non Quakers? explaining your
dogmas--waiting on the Spirit--by the analogy of human calmness and
patient waiting on the judgment? I scarcely know what I mean, but to
make Non Quakers reconciled to your doctrines, by shewing something like
them in mere human operations--but I hardly understand myself, so let it
pass for nothing. I pity you for over-work, but I assure you no-work is
worse. The mind preys on itself, the most unwholesome food. I brag'd
formerly that I could not have too much time. I have a surfeit. With few
years to come, the days are wearisome. But weariness is not eternal.
Something will shine out to take the load off, that flags me, which is
at present intolerable. I have killed an hour or two in this poor
scrawl. I am a sanguinary murderer of time, and would kill him inchmeal
just now. But the snake is vital. Well, I shall write merrier
anon.--'Tis the present copy of my countenance I send--and to complain
is a little to alleviate.--May you enjoy yourself as far as the wicked
wood will let you--and think that you are not quite alone, as I am.
Health to Lucia and to Anna and kind rememb'ces.
Yours forlorn.
C.L.
["Out of a life of sixty-four." Mary Lamb was born December 3, 1764.
"Your kind ... Eliza"--Eliza Barton, Bernard's sister.
"Rejected farce." "The Pawnbroker's Daughter" was printed in
_Blackwood_, January, 1830.
"I brag'd formerly." Referring I think to his sonnet "Leisure."]
LETTER 490
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP
[No date. Late July, 1829.]
My dear Allsop--I thank you for thinking of my recreation. But I am best
here, I feel I am. I have tried town lately, but came back worse. Here I
must wait till my loneliness has its natural cure. Besides that, though
I am not very sanguine, yet I live in hopes of better news from Fulham,
and can not be out of the way. 'Tis ten weeks to-morrow.--I saw Mary a
week since, she was in excellent bodily health, but otherwise far from
well. But a week or so may give a turn. Love to Mrs. A. and children,
and fair weather accomp'y you.
C.L.
Tuesday.
LETTER 491
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[P.M. Sept. 22, 1829.]
Dear Moxon, If you can oblige me with the Garrick Papers or Ann of
Gierstien, I shall be thankful. I am almost fearful whether my Sister
will be able to enjoy any reading at present for since her coming home,
after 12 weeks, she has had an unusual relapse into the saddest low
spirits that ever poor creature had, and has been some weeks under
medical care. She is unable to see any yet. When she is better I shall
be very glad to talk over your ramble with you. Have you done any
sonnets, can you send me any to overlook? I am almost in despair, Mary's
case seems so hopeless.
Believe me
Yours
C.L.
I do not want Mr. Jameson or Lady Morgan.
Enfield
Wedn'y
["The Garrick Papers." Lamb refers, I suppose, to the _Private
Correspondence of David Garrick_, in some form previous to its
publication in 1832.
"Anne of Geierstein." Scott's novel was published this year.
"Mr. Jameson." I cannot find any book by a Mr. Jameson likely to have
been offered to Lamb; but Mrs. Jameson's _Loves of the Poets_ was
published this year. Probably he meant to write Mrs. Jameson. Lady
Morgan was the author of _The Wild Irish Girl_ and other novels. Her
1829 book was _The Book of the Boudoir_.]
LETTER 492
CHARLES LAMB TO JAMES GILLMAN
Chase-Side, Enfield, 26th Oct., 1829.
Dear Gillman,--Allsop brought me your kind message yesterday. How can I
account for having not visited Highgate this long time? Change of place
seemed to have changed me. How grieved I was to hear in what indifferent
health Coleridge has been, and I not to know of it! A little school
divinity, well applied, may be healing. I send him honest Tom of Aquin;
that was always an obscure great idea to me: I never thought or dreamed
to see him in the flesh, but t'other day I rescued him from a stall in
Barbican, and brought him off in triumph. He comes to greet Coleridge's
acceptance, for his shoe-latchets I am unworthy to unloose. Yet there
are pretty pro's and con's, and such unsatisfactory learning in him.
Commend me to the question of etiquette-- "_utrum annunciatio debuerit
fieri per angelum_"--_Quaest. 30, Articilus 2_. I protest, till now I
had thought Gabriel a fellow of some mark and livelihood, not a simple
esquire, as I find him. Well, do not break your lay brains, nor I
neither, with these curious nothings. They are nuts to our dear friend,
whom hoping to see at your first friendly hint that it will be
convenient, I end with begging our very kindest loves to Mrs. Gillman.
We have had a sorry house of it here. Our spirits have been reduced till
we were at hope's end what to do-- obliged to quit this house, and
afraid to engage another, till in extremity I took the desperate resolve
of kicking house and all down, like Bunyan's pack; and here we are in a
new life at board and lodging, with an honest couple our neighbours. We
have ridded ourselves of the cares of dirty acres; and the change,
though of less than a week, has had the most beneficial effects on Mary
already. She looks two years and a half younger for it. But we have had
sore trials.
God send us one happy meeting!--Yours faithfully,
C. LAMB.
["The question of etiquette." See the _Summa Theologies_, Pars Tertia,
Quest. XXX., Articulus II. It would be interesting to know whether Lamb
remembered an earlier letter in which he had set Coleridge some similar
"nuts."
"In a new life." The Lambs moved next door, to the Westwoods. The house,
altered externally, still stands (1912) and is known as "Westwood
Cottage."]
LETTER 493
CHARLES LAMB TO VINCENT NOVELLO
[P.M. Probably Nov. 10, 1829.]
Dear FUGUE-IST,
or hear'st thou rather
CONTRAPUNTIST--?
We expect you four (as many as the Table will hold without squeeging) at
Mrs. Westwood's Table D'Hote on Thursday. You will find the White House
shut up, and us moved under the wing of the Phoenix, which gives us
friendly refuge. Beds for guests, marry, we have none, but cleanly
accomodings at the Crown & Horseshoe.
Yours harmonically,
C.L.
[Addressed: Vincentio (what Ho!) Novello, a Squire, 66, Great Queen
Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields.]
["The Phoenix." Mr. Westwood was agent for the Phoenix Insurance
Company, and the badge of that office was probably on the house.]
LETTER 494
CHARLES LAMB TO WALTER WILSON
Enfield, 15th November, 1829.
My dear Wilson,--I have not opened a packet of unknown contents for many
years, that gave me so much pleasure as when I disclosed your three
volumes. I have given them a careful perusal, and they have taken their
degree of classical books upon my shelves. De Foe was always my darling;
but what darkness was I in as to far the larger part of his writings! I
have now an epitome of them all. I think the way in which you have done
the "Life" the most judicious you could have pitched upon. You have made
him tell his own story, and your comments are in keeping with the tale.
Why, I never heard of such a work as "the Review." Strange that in my
stall-hunting days I never so much as lit upon an odd volume of it. This
circumstance looks as if they were never of any great circulation. But I
may have met with 'em, and not knowing the prize, overpast 'em. I was
almost a stranger to the whole history of Dissenters in those reigns,
and picked my way through that strange book the "Consolidator" at
random. How affecting are some of his personal appeals! what a machine
of projects he set on foot! and following writers have picked his pocket
of the patents. I do not understand where-abouts in _Roxana_ he himself
left off. I always thought the complete-tourist-sort of description of
the town she passes through on her last embarkation miserably
unseasonable and out of place. I knew not they were spurious. Enlighten
me as to where the apocryphal matter commences. I, by accident, can
correct one A.D. "Family Instructor," vol. ii. 1718; you say his first
volume had then reached the fourth edition; now I have a fifth, printed
for Eman. Matthews, 1717. So have I plucked one rotten date, or rather
picked it up where it had inadvertently fallen, from your flourishing
date tree, the Palm of Engaddi. I may take it for my pains. I think
yours a book which every public library must have, and every English
scholar should have. I am sure it has enriched my meagre stock of the
author's works. I seem to be twice as opulent. Mary is by my side just
finishing the second volume. It must have interest to divert her away so
long from her modern novels. Colburn will be quite jealous. I was a
little disappointed at my "Ode to the Treadmill" not finding a place;
but it came out of time. The two papers of mine will puzzle the reader,
being so akin. Odd that, never keeping a scrap of my own letters, with
some fifteen years' interval I should nearly have said the same things.
But I shall always feel happy in having my name go down any how with De
Foe's, and that of his historiographer. I promise myself, if not
immortality, yet diuternity of being read in consequence. We have both
had much illness this year; and feeling infirmities and fretfulness grow
upon us, we have cast off the cares of housekeeping, sold off our goods,
and commenced boarding and lodging with a very comfortable old couple
next door to where you found us. We use a sort of common table.
Nevertheless, we have reserved a private one for an old friend; and when
Mrs. Wilson and you revisit Babylon, we shall pray you to make it yours
for a season. Our very kindest remembrances to you both. From your old
friend and _fellow-journalist_, now in _two instances_,
C. LAMB.
Hazlitt is going to make your book a basis for a review of De Foe's
Novels in the "Edinbro'." I wish I had health and spirits to do it. Hone
I have not seen, but I doubt not he will be much pleased with your
performance. I very much hope you will give us an account of Dunton, &c.
But what I should more like to see would be a Life and Times of Bunyan.
Wishing health to you and long life to your healthy book, again I
subscribe me,
Yours in verity,
C.L.
[Wilson's _Memoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel De Foe_ had just been
published in three volumes, with the date 1830.
Defoe's _Review_ was started in February, 1704, under the title, _A
Review of the Affairs of France.... purged from the Errors and
Partiality of News-writers, and Petty-Statesmen, of all sides_. It
continued until May, 1713. _The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of sundry
Transactions from the world in the moon. Translated from the Lunar
Language_, was published in 1765, a political satire, which, it has been
thought, gave hints to Swift for Gulliver.
Lamb had sent Wilson his "Ode to the Treadmill." The substance of his
letter of December 16, 1822, was printed by Wilson in Chapter XXII. of
Vol. III.; the new material which he wrote especially for the book, was
printed in Chapter XVII. of the same volume. The space dividing them was
not fifteen years but seven.
"Diuternity." Spelt "diuturnity." A rare word signifying long duration.
"_Fellow-journalist_." The other instance would be in connection with
the journals of the India House, where Wilson had once been a clerk with
Lamb.
Hazlitt's review of Wilson's book is in the _Edinburgh_ for January,
1830, with this reference to Lamb's criticisms: "_Captain Singleton_ is
a hardened, brutal desperado, without one redeeming trait, or almost
human feeling; and, in spite of what Mr. Lamb says of his lonely musings
and agonies of a conscience-stricken repentance, we find nothing of this
in the text."
"Dunton." This would be John Dunton (1659-1733), the bookseller, and
author of _The Athenian Gazette, Dunton's Whipping-Post_, and scores of
pamphlets and satires.]
LETTER 495
(_? Fragment_)
CHARLES LAMB TO JAMES GILLMAN
[No date. ? November 29, 1829.]
Pray trust me with the "Church History," as well as the "Worthies." A
moon shall restore both. Also give me back Him of Aquinum. In return you
have the _light of my countenance_. Adieu.
P.S.--A sister also of mine comes with it. A son of Nimshi drives her.
Their driving will have been furious, impassioned. Pray God they have
not toppled over the tunnel! I promise you I fear their steed, bred out
of the wind without father, semi-Melchisedecish, hot, phaetontic. From
my country lodgings at Enfield.
C.L.
[The _Church History_ and the _Worthies_ are by Fuller.
"Light of my countenance." Mr. Hazlitt says that this was a copy of
Brook Pulham's etching.
"The tunnel"--the Highgate Archway.]
LETTER 496
CHARLES LAMB TO JAMES GILLMAN
30 Nov., 1829.
Dear G.,--The excursionists reached home, and the good town of Enfield a
little after four, without slip or dislocation. Little has transpired
concerning the events of the back-journey, save that on passing the
house of 'Squire Mellish, situate a stone-bow's cast from the hamlet,
Father Westwood, with a good-natured wonderment, exclaimed, "I cannot
think what is gone of Mr. Mellish's rooks. I fancy they have taken
flight somewhere; but I have missed them two or three years past." All
this while, according to his fellow-traveller's report, the rookery was
darkening the air above with undiminished population, and deafening all
ears but his with their cawings. But nature has been gently withdrawing
such phenomena from the notice of Thomas Westwood's senses, from the
time he began to miss the rooks. T. Westwood has passed a retired life
in this hamlet of thirty or forty years, living upon the minimum which
is consistent with gentility, yet a star among the minor gentry,
receiving the bows of the tradespeople and courtesies of the alms' women
daily. Children venerate him not less for his external show of gentry,
than they wonder at him for a gentle rising endorsation of the person,
not amounting to a hump, or if a hump, innocuous as the hump of the
buffalo, and coronative of as mild qualities. 'Tis a throne on which
patience seems to sit--the proud perch of a self-respecting humility,
stooping with condescension. Thereupon the cares of life have sate, and
rid him easily. For he has thrid the _angustiae domûs_ with dexterity.
Life opened upon him with comparative brilliancy. He set out as a rider
or traveller for a wholesale house, in which capacity he tells of many
hair-breadth escapes that befell him; one especially, how he rode a mad
horse into the town of Devizes; how horse and rider arrived in a foam,
to the utter consternation of the expostulating hostlers, inn-keepers,
&c. It seems it was sultry weather, piping hot; the steed tormented into
frenzy with gad-flies, long past being roadworthy; but safety and the
interest of the house he rode for were incompatible things; a fall in
serge cloth was expected; and a mad entrance they made of it. Whether
the exploit was purely voluntary, or partially; or whether a certain
personal defiguration in the man part of this extraordinary centaur
(non-assistive to partition of natures) might not enforce the
conjunction, I stand not to inquire. I look not with 'skew eyes into the
deeds of heroes. The hosier that was burnt with his shop, in Field-lane,
on Tuesday night, shall have past to heaven for me like a Marian Martyr,
provided always, that he consecrated the fortuitous incremation with a
short ejaculation in the exit, as much as if he had taken his state
degrees of martyrdom _in formâ_ in the market vicinage. There is
adoptive as well as acquisitive sacrifice. Be the animus what it might,
the fact is indisputable, that this composition was seen flying all
abroad, and mine host of Daintry may yet remember its passing through
his town, if his scores are not more faithful than his memory. After
this exploit (enough for one man), Thomas Westwood seems to have
subsided into a less hazardous occupation; and in the twenty-fifth year
of his age we find him a haberdasher in Bow Lane: yet still retentive of
his early riding (though leaving it to rawer stomachs), and Christmasly
at night sithence to this last, and shall to his latest Christmas, hath
he, doth he, and shall he, tell after supper the story of the insane
steed and the desperate rider. Save for Bedlam or Luke's no eye could
have guessed that melting day what house he rid for. But he reposes on
his bridles, and after the ups and downs (metaphoric only) of a life
behind the counter--hard riding sometimes, I fear, for poor T.W.--with
the scrapings together of the shop, and _one anecdote_, he hath finally
settled at Enfield; by hard economising, gardening, building for
himself, hath reared a mansion, married a daughter, qualified a son for
a counting-house, gotten the respect of high and low, served for self or
substitute the greater parish offices: hath a special voice at vestries;
and, domiciliating us, hath reflected a portion of his house-keeping
respectability upon your humble servants. We are greater, being his
lodgers, than when we were substantial renters. His name is a passport
to take off the sneers of the native Enfielders against obnoxious
foreigners. We are endenizened. Thus much of T. Westwood have I thought
fit to acquaint you, that you may see the exemplary reliance upon
Providence with which I entrusted so dear a charge as my own sister to
the guidance of a man that rode the mad horse into Devizes. To come from
his heroic character, all the amiable qualities of domestic life
concentre in this tamed Bellerophon. He is excellent over a glass of
grog; just as pleasant without it; laughs when he hears a joke, and when
(which is much oftener) he hears it not; sings glorious old sea songs on
festival nights; and but upon a slight acquaintance of two years,
Coleridge, is as dear a deaf old man to us, as old Norris, rest his
soul! was after fifty. To him and his scanty literature (what there is
of it, _sound_) have we flown from the metropolis and its cursed
annualists, reviewers, authors, and the whole muddy ink press of that
stagnant pool.
Now, Gillman again, you do not know the treasure of the Fullers. I
calculate on having massy reading till Christmas. All I want here, is
books of the true sort, not those things in boards that moderns mistake
for books--what they club for at book clubs.
I did not mean to cheat you with a blank side; but my eye smarts, for
which I am taking medicine, and abstain, this day at least, from any
aliments but milk-porridge, the innocent taste of which I am anxious to
renew after a half-century's dis-acquaintance. If a blot fall here like
a tear, it is not pathos, but an angry eye.
Farewell, while my _specilla_ are sound.
Yours and yours,
C. LAMB.
[This letter records the safe return of Mary Lamb with the Fullers.
"Squire Mellish." William Mellish, M.P. for Middlesex for some years.
Thomas Westwood's son, for whom Lamb found an appointment, wrote some
excellent articles in _Notes and Queries_ many years later describing
the Lambs' life at his father's.
"Old Norris." See letter to Crabb Robinson, Jan. 20, 1827.
_Specilla_ is probably a slip for _Conspicilla_.]
LETTER 497
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[P.M. December 8, 1829.]
My dear B.B.--You are very good to have been uneasy
about us, and I have the satisfaction to tell you, that we
are both in better health and spirits than we have been for a year
or two past; I may say, than we have been since we have been
at Enfield. The cause may not appear quite adequate, when
I tell you, that a course of ill health and spirits brought us to the
determination of giving up our house here, and we are boarding
and lodging with a worthy old couple, long inhabitants
of Enfield, where everything is done for us without our trouble,
further than a reasonable weekly payment. We should have
done so before, but it is not easy to flesh and blood to give up an
ancient establishment, to discard old Penates, and from house
keepers to turn house-sharers. (N.B. We are not in the Work-house.)
Dioclesian in his garden found more repose than
on the imperial seat of Rome, and the nob of Charles the Fifth
aked seldomer under a monk's cowl than under the diadem.
With such shadows of assimilation we countenance our degradation.
With such a load of dignifyd cares just removed from
our shoulders, we can the more understand and pity the accession
to yours, by the advancement to an Assigneeship. I will
tell you honestly B.B. that it has been long my deliberate judgment,
that all Bankrupts, of what denomination civil or religious
whatever, ought to be hang'd. The pity of mankind has for
ages run in a wrong channel, and has been diverted from poor
Creditors (how many I have known sufferers! Hazlitt has just
been defrauded of £100 by his Bookseller-friend's breaking)
to scoundrel Debtors. I know all the topics, that distress may
come upon an honest man without his fault, that the failure of
one that he trusted was his calamity &c. &c. Then let _both_ be
hang'd. O how careful it would make traders! These are
my deliberate thoughts after many years' experience in matters
of trade. What a world of trouble it would save you, if Friend
* * * * * had been immediately hangd, without benefit of
clergy, which (being a Quaker I presume) he could not
reasonably insist upon. Why, after slaving twelve months
in your assign-business, you will be enabled to declare seven
pence in the Pound in all human probabilty. B.B., he should
be _hanged_. Trade will never re-flourish in this land till such
a Law is establish'd. I write big not to save ink but eyes,
mine having been troubled with reading thro' three folios of
old Fuller in almost as few days, and I went to bed last
night in agony, and am writing with a vial of eye water before
me, alternately dipping in vial and inkstand. This may enflame
my zeal against Bankrupts--but it was my speculation when
I could see better. Half the world's misery (Eden else) is
owing to want of money, and all that want is owing to Bankrupts.
I declare I would, if the State wanted Practitioners,
turn Hangman myself, and should have great pleasure in
hanging the first after my salutary law should be establish'd.
I have seen no annuals and wish to see none. I like your
fun upon them, and was quite pleased with Bowles's sonnet.
Hood is or was at Brighton, but a note, prose or rhime, to him,
Robert Street, Adelphi, I am sure would extract a copy of
_his_, which also I have not seen. Wishing you and yours all
Health, I conclude while these frail glasses are to me--eyes.
C.L.
["Dioclesian." The Emperor Diocletian abdicated the throne after
twenty-one years' reign, and retired to his garden. Charles V. of
Germany imitated the Roman Emperor, and after thirty-six years took the
cowl.
"Hazlitt has just been defrauded." The failure of Hunt & Clarke, the
publishers of the _Life of Napoleon_, cost Hazlitt £500. He had received
only £140 towards this, in a bill which on their insolvency became
worthless.
"Friend * * * * *." Not identifiable.]
LETTER 498
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
[P.M. January 22, 1830.]
And is it a year since we parted from you at the steps of Edmonton
Stage? There are not now the years that there used to be. The tale of
the dwindled age of men, reported of successional mankind, is true of
the same man only. We do not live a year in a year now. 'Tis a punctum
stans. The seasons pass us with indifference. Spring cheers not, nor
winter heightens our gloom, Autumn hath foregone its moralities, they
are hey-pass re-pass [as] in a show-box. Yet as far as last year occurs
back, for they scarce shew a reflex now, they make no memory as
heretofore--'twas sufficiently gloomy. Let the sullen nothing pass.