you? You will find something new to you in the vol. particularly the
Translations. Moxon will send to you the moment it is out. He is the
young poet of Xmas, whom the Author of the Pleasures of Memory has set
up in the bookvending business with a volunteer'd loan of £500--such
munificence is rare to an almost stranger. But Rogers, I am told, has
done many goodnatured things of this nature. I need not say how glad to
see A.K. and Lucy we should have been,--and still shall be, if it be
practicable. Our direction is Mr. Westwood's, Chase Side Enfield, but
alas I know not theirs. We can give them a bed. Coaches come daily from
the Bell, Holborn.
You will see that I am worn to the poetical dregs, condescending to
Acrostics, which are nine fathom beneath Album verses--but they were
written at the request of the Lady where our Emma is, to whom I paid a
visit in April to bring home Emma for a change of air after a severe
illness, in which she had been treated like a daughter by the good
Parson and his whole family. She has since return'd to her occupation. I
thought on you in Suffolk, but was 40 miles from Woodbridge. I heard of
you the other day from Mr. Pulham of the India House.
Long live King William the 4th.
S.T.C. says, we have had wicked kings, foolish kings, wise kings, good
kings (but few) but never till now have we had a Blackguard King--
Charles 2d was profligate, but a Gentleman.
I have nineteen Letters to dispatch this leisure Sabbath for Moxon to
send about with Copies-so you will forgive me short measure--and believe
me
Yours ever
C.L.
Pray do let us see your Quakeresses if possible.
[Lamb's _Album Verses_ was almost ready. The translations were those
from Vincent Bourne.
William IV. came to the throne on June 26, 1830.
"I have nineteen Letters." The fact that none of these is forthcoming
helps to illustrate the imperfect state of Lamb's correspondence as
(even among so many differing editions) we now have it. But of course
the number may have been an exaggeration.
Here should come a note from Lamb to Hone, dated July 1, 1830, in which
Lamb asks that the newspaper be kept as he is meditating a town
residence (see next letter).
Here probably should come an undated letter to Mrs. John Rickman,
accompanying a gift of _Album Verses_. Lamb says: "Will you re-give, or
_lend_ me, by the bearer, the one Volume of juvenile Poetry? I have
tidings of a second at Brighton." He proposes that he and Mrs. Rickman
shall some day play old whist for the two.]
LETTER 522
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[P.M. 30 August, 1830.]
Dear B.B.--my address is 34 Southampton Buildings, Holborn. For God's
sake do not let me [be] pester'd with Annuals. They are all rogues who
edit them, and something else who write in them. I am still alone, and
very much out of sorts, and cannot spur up my mind to writing. The sight
of one of those Year Books makes me sick. I get nothing by any of 'em,
not even a Copy--
Thank you for your warm interest about my little volume, for the critics
on which I care [? not] the 5 hundred thousandth part of the tythe of a
half-farthing. I am too old a Militant for that. How noble, tho', in
R.S. to come forward for an old friend, who had treated him so
unworthily. Moxon has a shop without customers, I a Book without
readers. But what a clamour against a poor collection of album verses,
as if we had put forth an Epic. I cannot scribble a long Letter--I am,
when not at foot, very desolate, and take no interest in any thing,
scarce hate any thing, but annuals. I am in an interregnum of thought
and feeling--
What a beautiful Autumn morning this is, if it was but with me as in
times past when the candle of the Lord shined round me--
I cannot even muster enthusiasm to admire the French heroism.
In better times I hope we may some day meet, and discuss an old poem or
two. But if you'd have me not sick no more of Annuals.
C.L. Ex-Elia.
Love to Lucy and A.K. always.
[_The Literary Gazette_, Jerdan's paper, had written offensively of
_Album Verses_ and its author's vanity in the number for July 10, 1830.
Southey published in _The Times_ of August 6 some lines in praise of
Lamb and against Jerdan. It was Southey's first public utterance on Lamb
since the famous letter by Elia to himself, and is the more noble in
consequence. The lines ran thus:--
TO CHARLES LAMB
On the Reviewal of his _Album Verses_ in the _Literary Gazette_
Charles Lamb, to those who know thee justly dear
For rarest genius, and for sterling worth,
Unchanging friendship, warmth of heart sincere,
And wit that never gave an ill thought birth,
Nor ever in its sport infix'd a sting;
To us who have admired and loved thee long,
It is a proud as well as pleasant thing
To hear thy good report, now borne along
Upon the honest breath of public praise:
We know that with the elder sons of song
In honouring whom thou hast delighted still,
Thy name shall keep its course to after days.
The empty pertness, and the vulgar wrong,
The flippant folly, the malicious will,
Which have assailed thee, now, or heretofore,
Find, soon or late, their proper meed of shame;
The more thy triumph, and our pride the more,
When witling critics to the world proclaim,
In lead, their own dolt incapacity.
Matter it is of mirthful memory
To think, when thou wert early in the field,
How doughtily small Jeffrey ran at thee
A-tilt, and broke a bulrush on thy shield.
And now, a veteran in the lists of fame,
I ween, old Friend! thou art not worse bested
When with a maudlin eye and drunken aim,
Dulness hath thrown a _jerdan_ at thy head.
SOUTHEY.
Leigh Hunt attacked Jerdan in the _Examiner_ in a number of "Rejected
Epigrams" signed T.A. See later. He also took up the matter in the
Tatler, in the first number of which the following "Inquest
Extraordinary" was printed:--
Last week a porter died beneath his burden;
Verdict: Found carrying a _Gazette_ from Jerdan.
Moxon's shop without customers was at 64 New Bond Street. "The candle of
the Lord." In my large edition I gave this reference very thoughtlessly
to Proverbs xx. 27. It is really to Job. xxix. 3.
"The French heroism." The July Revolution, in which the Bourbons were
routed and Louis Philippe placed on the throne.]
LETTER 523
CHARLES LAMB TO SAMUEL ROGERS
[Dated at end: Oct. 5, 1830.]
Dear Sir,--I know not what hath bewitch'd me that I have delayed
acknowledging your beautiful present. But I have been very unwell and
nervous of late. The poem was not new to me, tho' I have renewed
acquaintance with it. Its metre is none of the least of its
excellencies. 'Tis so far from the stiffness of blank verse--it gallops
like a traveller, as it should do--no crude Miltonisms in [it]. Dare I
pick out what most pleases me? It is the middle paragraph in page
thirty-four. It is most tasty. Though I look on every impression as a
_proof_ of your kindness, I am jealous of the ornaments, and should have
prized the verses naked on whitybrown paper.
I am, Sir, yours truly,
C. LAMB.
Oct. 5th.
[Rogers had sent Lamb a copy of his Italy, with illustrations by Turner
and Stothard, which was published by Moxon with other firms in 183O.
This is the middle paragraph on page 34:--
Here I received from thee, Basilico,
One of those _courtesies so sweet, so rare!_
When, as I rambled thro' thy vineyard-ground
On the hill-side, thou sent'st thy little son,
Charged with a bunch almost as big as he,
To press it on the stranger. May thy vats
O'erflow, and he, thy willing gift-bearer,
Live to become a giver; and, at length,
When thou art full of honour and wouldst rest,
The staff of thine old age!]
LETTER 524
CHARLES LAMB TO VINCENT NOVELLO
[P.M. November 8, 1830.]
Tears are for lighter griefs. Man weeps the doom
That seals a single victim to the tomb.
But when Death riots, when with whelming sway
Destruction sweeps a family away;
When Infancy and Youth, a huddled mass,
All in an instant to oblivion pass,
And Parent's hopes are crush'd; what lamentation
Can reach the depth of such a desolation?
Look upward, Feeble Ones! look up, and trust
That He, who lays this mortal frame in dust,
Still hath the immortal Spirit in His keeping.
In Jesus' sight they are not dead, but sleeping.
Dear N., will these lines do? I despair of better. Poor Mary is in a
deplorable state here at Enfield.
Love to all,
C. LAMB.
[The four sons and two daughters of John and Ann Rigg, of York, had been
drowned in the Ouse. A number of poets were asked for verses, the best
to be inscribed on a monument in York Minster. Those of James Montgomery
were chosen.
It was possibly the death of Hazlitt, on September 18, while the Lambs
were in their London lodgings, that brought on Mary Lamb's attack.]
LETTER 525
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
November 12, 1830.
Dear Moxon,--I have brought my sister to Enfield, being sure that she
had no hope of recovery in London. Her state of mind is deplorable
beyond any example. I almost fear whether she has strength at her time
of life ever to get out of it. Here she must be nursed, and neither see
nor hear of anything in the world out of her sick chamber. The mere
hearing that Southey had called at our lodgings totally upset her. Pray
see him, or hear of him at Mr. Rickman's, and excuse my not writing to
him. I dare not write or receive a letter in her presence; every little
task so agitates her. Westwood will receive any letter for me, and give
it me privately. Pray assure Southey of my kindliest feelings towards
him; and, if you do not see him, send this to him.
Kindest remembrances to your sister, and believe me ever yours, C. LAMB.
Remember me kindly to the Allsops.
[Southey was visiting Rickman, then Clerk Assistant to the House of
Commons, where he lived.]
LETTER 526
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[No date. ? Dec., 1830.]
Dear M. Something like this was what I meant. But on reading it over, I
see no great fun or use in it. It will only stuff up and encroach upon
the sheet you propose. Do as, and _what_, you please. Send Proof, or
not, as you like. If you send, send me a copy or 2 of the Album Verses,
and the Juvenile Poetry if _bound_.
I am happy to say Mary is mending, but not enough to give me hopes of
being able to leave her. I sadly regret that I shall possibly not see
Southey or Wordsworth, but I dare not invite either of them here, for
fear of exciting my sister, whose only chance is quiet. You don't know
in what a sad state we have been.
I think the Devil may come out without prefaces, but use your
discretion.
Make my kindest remembces to Southey, with my heart's thanks for his
kind intent. I am a little easier about my Will, and as Ryle is
Executor, and will do all a friend can do at the Office, and what little
I leave will buy an annuity to piece out tolerably, I am much easier.
Yours ever
C.L.
To 64 New Bond St.
[I cannot say to what the opening sentences refer: probably an
advertisement for _Satan in Search of a Wife_ ("the Devil"), which Lamb
had just written and Moxon was publishing.
The reference to the Juvenile Poetry suggests that Moxon had procured
some of the sheets of the _Poetry for Children_ which Godwin brought out
in 1809, and was binding up a few. This theory is borne out by the
statement in the letter to Mrs. Norris, later, that the book was not to
be had for love or money, and the circumstance that in 1833 Lamb seems
to send her a copy. Ryle was Charles Ryle. an India House clerk, and
Lamb's executor with Talfourd.]
LETTER 527
CHARLES LAMB TO GEORGE DYER
Dec. 20, 1830.
Dear Dyer,--I would have written before to thank you for your kind
letter, written with your own hand. It glads us to see your writing. It
will give you pleasure to hear that, after so much illness, we are in
tolerable health and spirits once more. Miss Isola intended to call upon
you after her night's lodging at Miss Buffam's, but found she was too
late for the stage. If she comes to town before she goes home, she will
not miss paying her respects to Mrs. Dyer and you, to whom she desires
best love. Poor Enfield, that has been so peaceable hitherto, has caught
the inflammatory fever, the tokens are upon her! and a great fire was
blazing last night in the barns and haystacks of a farmer, about half a
mile from us. Where will these things end? There is no doubt of its
being the work of some ill-disposed rustic; but how is he to be
discovered? They go to work in the dark with strange chemical
preparations unknown to our forefathers. There is not even a dark
lantern to have a chance of detecting these Guy Fauxes. We are past the
iron age, and are got into the fiery age, undream'd of by Ovid. You are
lucky in Clifford's Inn where, I think, you have few ricks or stacks
worth the burning. Pray keep as little corn by you as you can, for fear
of the worst.
It was never good times in England since the poor began to speculate
upon their condition. Formerly, they jogged on with as little reflection
as horses: the whistling ploughman went cheek by jowl with his brother
that neighed. Now the biped carries a box of phosphorus in his
leather-breeches; and in the dead of night the half-illuminated beast
steals his magic potion into a cleft in a barn, and half a country is
grinning with new fires. Farmer Graystock said something to the touchy
rustic that he did not relish, and he writes his distaste in flames.
What a power to intoxicate his crude brains, just muddlingly awake, to
perceive that something is wrong in the social system!-what a hellish
faculty above gunpowder!
Now the rich and poor are fairly pitted; we shall see who can hang or
burn fastest. It is not always revenge that stimulates these kindlings.
There is a love of exerting mischief. Think of a disrespected clod that
was trod into earth, that was nothing, on a sudden by damned arts
refined into an exterminating angel, devouring the fruits of the earth
and their growers in a mass of fire! What a new existence!--what a
temptation above Lucifer's! Would clod be any thing but a clod, if he
could resist it? Why, here was a spectacle last night for a whole
country!--a Bonfire visible to London, alarming her guilty towers, and
shaking the Monument with an ague fit--all done by a little vial of
phosphor in a Clown's fob! How he must grin, and shake his empty noddle
in clouds, the Vulcanian Epicure! Can we ring the bells backward? Can we
unlearn the arts that pretend to civilize, and then burn the world?
There is a march of Science; but who shall beat the drums for its
retreat? Who shall persuade the boor that phosphor will not ignite?
Seven goodly stacks of hay, with corn-barns proportionable, lie smoking
ashes and chaff, which man and beast would sputter out and reject like
those apples of Asphaltes and bitumen. The food for the inhabitants of
earth will quickly disappear. Hot rolls may say: "Fuimus panes, fuit
quartern-loaf, et ingens gloria Apple-pasty-orum." That the good old
munching system may last thy time and mine, good un-incendiary George,
is the devout prayer of thine,
To the last crust,
CH. LAMB.
[Incendiarism, the result of agricultural distress and in opposition to
the competition of the new machinery, was rife in the country at this
time.]
LETTER 528
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[No date. ? Christmas, 1830.]
Dear M. A thousand thanks for your punctualities. What a cheap Book is
the last Hogarth you sent me! I am pleased now that Hunt _diddled_ me
out of the old one. Speaking of this, only think of the new farmer with
his 30 acres. There is a portion of land in Lambeth parish called Knaves
Acre. I wonder he overlook'd it. Don't show this to the firm of Dilk &
C'o. I next want one copy of Leicester School, and wish you to pay
Leishman, Taylor, 2 Blandford Place, Pall Mall, opposite the British
Institution, £6. 10. for coat waistcoat &c. And I vehemently thirst for
the 4th No. of Nichols's Hogarth, to bind 'em up (the 2 books) as
"Hogarth, and Supplement." But as you know the price, don't stay for its
appearance; but come as soon as ever you can with your bill of all
demands in full, and, as I have none but £5 notes, bring with you
sufficient change. Weather is beautiful. I grieve sadly for Miss
Wordsworth. We are all well again. Emma is with us, and we all shall be
glad of a sight of you. COME ON Sunday, if you _can_; better, if you
come before. Perhaps Rogers would smile at this.--A pert half chemist
half apothecary, in our town, who smatters of literature and is
immeasurable unletterd, said to me "Pray, Sir, may not Hood (he of the
acres) be reckon'd the Prince of wits in the present day?" to which I
assenting, he adds "I had always thought that Rogers had been reckon'd
the Prince of Wits, but I suppose that now Mr. Hood has the better title
to that appellation." To which I replied that Mr. R. had wit with much
better qualities, but did not aspire to the principality. He had taken
all the puns manufactured in John Bull for our friend, in sad and stupid
earnest. One more Album verses, please.
Adieu.
C.L.
["Hunt." This would, I think, be not Leigh Hunt but his nephew, Hunt of
Hunt & Clarke. The diddling I cannot explain. Leishman was the husband
of Mrs. Leishman, the Lambs' old landlady at Enfield.
"Miss Wordsworth"--Dorothy Wordsworth, who was ill.
"Perhaps Rogers would smile at this." I take the following passage from
the _Maclise Portrait Gallery:_--
In the early days of the _John Bull_ it was the fashion to lay every
foundling witticism at the door of Sam Rogers; and thus the refined
poet and man of letters became known as a sorry jester.
_John Bull_ was Theodore Hook's paper. Maginn wrote in _Fraser's
Magazine:_--
Joe Miller vails his bonnet to Sam Rogers; in all the newspapers,
not only of the kingdom but its dependencies,--Hindostan, Canada,
the West Indies, the Cape, from the tropics,--nay, from the
Antipodes to the Orkneys, Sam is godfather-- general to all the bad
jokes in existence. The Yankees have caught the fancy, and from New
Orleans to New York it is the same,--Rogers is synonymous with a
pun. All British-born or descended people,--yea the very negro and
the Hindoo--father their calembourgs on Rogers. Quashee, or
Ramee-Samee, who knows nothing of Sir Isaac Newton, John Milton, or
_Fraser's Magazine_, grins from ear to ear at the name of the
illustrious banker, and with gratified voice exclaims, "Him dam
funny, dat Sam!"]
LETTER 529
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[P.M. February 3, 1831.]
Dear Moxon, The snows are ancle deep slush and mire, that 'tis hard to
get to the post office, and cruel to send the maid out. 'Tis a slough of
despair, or I should sooner have thankd you for your offer of the
_Life_, which we shall very much like to have, and will return duly. I
do not know when I shall be in town, but in a week or two at farthest,
when I will come as far as you if I can. We are moped to death with
confinement within doors. I send you a curiosity of G. Dyer's
tender-conscience. Between 30 and 40 years since, G. published the
Poet's Fate, in which were two very harmless lines about Mr. Rogers, but
Mr. R. not quite approving of them, they were left out in a subsequent
edition 1801. But G. has been worryting about them ever since; if I have
heard him once, I have heard him a hundred times express a remorse
proportiond to a consciousness of having been guilty of an atrocious
libel. As the devil would have it, a fool they call _Barker_, in his
Parriana has quoted the identical two lines as they stood in some
obscure edition anterior to 1801, and the withers of poor G. are again
wrung. His letter is a gem--with his poor blind eyes it has been
laboured out at six sittings. The history of the couplet is in page 3 of
this irregular production, in which every variety of shape and size that
Letters can be twisted into, is to be found. Do _shew_ his part of it to
Mr. R. some day. If he has bowels, they must melt at the contrition so
queerly character'd of a contrite sinner. G. was born I verily think
without original sin, but chuses to have a conscience, as every
Christian Gentleman should have. His dear old face is insusceptible of
the twist they call a sneer, yet he is apprehensive of being suspected
of that ugly appearance. When he makes a compliment, he thinks he has
given an affront. A name is personality. But shew (no hurry) this unique
recantation to Mr. R. 'Tis like a dirty pocket handkerchief muck'd with
tears of some indigent Magdalen. There is the impress of sincerity in
every pot-hook and hanger. And then the gilt frame to such a pauper
picture! It should go into the Museum. I am heartily sorry my Devil does
not answer. We must try it a little longer, and after all I think I must
insist on taking a portion of the loss upon myself. It is too much you
should lose by two adventures. You do not say how your general business
goes on, and I should very much like to talk over it with you here. Come
when the weather will possibly let you. I want to see the Wordsworths,
but I do not much like to be all night away. It is dull enough to be
here together, but it is duller to leave Mary; in short it is painful,
and in a flying visit I should hardly catch them. I have no beds for
them, if they came down, and but a sort of a house to receive them in,
yet I shall regret their departure unseen. I feel cramped and straiten'd
every way. Where are they?
We have heard from Emma but once, and that a month ago, and are very
anxious for another letter.
You say we have forgot your powers of being serviceable to us. _That_ we
never shall. I do not know what I should do without you when I want a
little commission. Now then. There are left at Miss Buffam's, the Tales
of the Castle, and certain vols. Retrospective Review. The first should
be conveyd to Novello's, and the Reviews should be taken to Talfourd's
office, ground floor, East side, Elm Court, Middle Temple, to whom I
should have written, but my spirits are wretched. It is quite an effort
to write this. So, with the _Life_, I have cut you out 3 Pieces of
service. What can I do for you here, but hope to see you very soon, and
think of you with most kindness. I fear tomorrow, between rains and
snows, it would be impossible to expect you, but do not let a
practicable Sunday pass. We are always at home!
Mary joins in remembrances to your sister, whom we hope to see in any
fine-ish weather, when she'll venture.
Remember us to Allsop, and all the dead people--to whom, and to London,
we seem dead.
["The _Life_." The Life which every one was then reading was Moore's
_Life of Byron_.
"George Dyer's." The explanation is that years before, in his _Poems_,
1801, Dyer had written in a piece called "The Poet's Fate"--
And Rogers, if he shares the town's regard,
Was first a banker ere he rose a bard.
In the second edition Dyer altered this to--
And Darwin, if he share the town's regard,
Was first a doctor ere he rose a bard.
Lamb notes the alteration in his copy of the second edition, now in the
British Museum. In 1828-1829 appeared _Parriana_, by Edmund Henry
Barker, which quoted the couplet in its original form, to Dyer's
distress.
_Tales of the Castle_. By the Countess de Genlis. Translated by Thomas
Holcroft]
LETTER 530
CHARLES LAMB TO GEORGE DYER
Feb. 22nd, 1831.