that you never intended any harm by an innocent couplet, and that in the
revivification of it by blundering Barker you had no hand whatever. To
imagine that, at this time of day, Rogers broods over a fantastic
expression of more than thirty years' standing, would be to suppose him
indulging his "Pleasures of Memory" with a vengeance. You never penned a
line which for its own sake you need (dying) wish to blot. You mistake
your heart if you think you _can_ write a lampoon. Your whips are rods
of roses. Your spleen has ever had for its objects vices, not the
vicious-abstract offences, not the concrete sinner. But you are
sensitive, and wince as much at the consciousness of having committed a
compliment, as another man would at the perpetration of an affront. But
do not lug me into the same soreness of conscience with yourself. I
maintain, and will to the last hour, that I never writ of you but _con
amore_. That if any allusion was made to your near-sightedness, it was
not for the purpose of mocking an infirmity, but of connecting it with
scholar-like habits: for is it not erudite and scholarly to be somewhat
near of sight, before age naturally brings on the malady? You could not
then plead the _obrepens senectus_. Did I not moreover make it an
apology for a certain _absence_, which some of your friends may have
experienced, when you have not on a sudden made recognition of them in a
casual street-meeting, and did I not strengthen your excuse for this
slowness of recognition, by further accounting morally for the present
engagement of your mind in worthy objects? Did I not, in your person,
make the handsomest apology for absent-of-mind people that was ever
made? If these things be not so, I never knew what I wrote or meant by
my writing, and have been penning libels all my life without being aware
of it. Does it follow that I should have exprest myself exactly in the
same way of those dear old eyes of yours _now_--now that Father Time has
conspired with a hard task-master to put a last extinguisher upon them?
I should as soon have insulted the Answerer of Salmasius, when he awoke
up from his ended task, and saw no more with mortal vision. But you are
many films removed yet from Milton's calamity. You write perfectly
intelligibly. Marry, the letters are not all of the same size or
tallness; but that only shows your proficiency in the _hands_--text,
german-hand, court-hand, sometimes law-hand, and affords variety. You
pen better than you did a twelvemonth ago; and if you continue to
improve, you bid fair to win the golden pen which is the prize at your
young gentlemen's academy. But you must beware of Valpy, and his
printing-house, that hazy cave of Trophonius, out of which it was a
mercy that you escaped with a glimmer. Beware of MSS. and Variae
Lectiones. Settle the text for once in your mind, and stick to it. You
have some years' good sight in you yet, if you do not tamper with it. It
is not for you (for _us_ I should say) to go poring into Greek
contractions, and star-gazing upon slim Hebrew points. We have yet the
sight
Of sun, and moon, and star, throughout the year,
And man and woman.
You have vision enough to discern Mrs. Dyer from the other comely
gentlewoman who lives up at staircase No. 5; or, if you should make a
blunder in the twilight, Mrs. Dyer has too much good sense to be jealous
for a mere effect of imperfect optics. But don't try to write the Lord's
Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments, in the compass of a halfpenny; nor
run after a midge or a mote to catch it; and leave off hunting for
needles in bushels of hay, for all these things strain the eyes. The
snow is six feet deep in some parts here. I must put on jack-boots to
get at the post-office with this. It is not good for weak eyes to pore
upon snow too much. It lies in drifts. I wonder what its drift is; only
that it makes good pancakes, remind Mrs. Dyer. It turns a pretty green
world into a white one. It glares too much for an innocent colour,
methinks. I wonder why you think I dislike gilt edges. They set off a
letter marvellously. Yours, for instance, looks for all the world like a
tablet of curious _hieroglyphics_ in a gold frame. But don't go and lay
this to your eyes. You always wrote hieroglyphically, yet not to come up
to the mystical notations and conjuring characters of Dr. Parr. You
never wrote what I call a schoolmaster's hand, like Clarke; nor a
woman's hand, like Southey; nor a missal hand, like Porson; nor an
all-of-the-wrong-side-sloping hand, like Miss Hayes; nor a dogmatic,
Mede-and-Persian, peremptory hand, like Rickman; but you ever wrote what
I call a Grecian's hand; what the Grecians write (or used) at Christ's
Hospital; such as Whalley would have admired, and Boyer have applauded,
but Smith or Atwood (writing-masters) would have horsed you for. Your
boy-of-genius hand and your mercantile hand are various. By your
flourishes, I should think you never learned to make eagles or
corkscrews, or flourish the governors' names in the writing-school; and
by the tenor and cut of your letters I suspect you were never in it at
all. By the length of this scrawl you will think I have a design upon
your optics; but I have writ as large as I could out of respect to
them--too large, indeed, for beauty. Mine is a sort of deputy Grecian's
hand; a little better, and more of a worldly hand, than a Grecian's, but
still remote from the mercantile. I don't know how it is, but I keep my
rank in fancy still since school-days. I can never forget I was a deputy
Grecian! And writing to you, or to Coleridge, besides affection, I feel
a reverential deference as to Grecians still. I keep my soaring way
above the Great Erasmians, yet far beneath the other. Alas! what am I
now? what is a Leadenhall clerk or India pensioner to a deputy Grecian?
How art thou fallen, O Lucifer! Just room for our loves to Mrs. D., &c.
C. LAMB.
["I never writ of you but _con amore_." Lamb refers particularly to the
_Elia_ essay "Oxford in the Vacation" in the _London Magazine_, where
G.D.'s absence of mind and simplicity of character were dwelt upon more
intimately than Dyer liked (see Vol. II.).
Dyer was gradually going blind.
"The Answerer of Salmasius"--Milton.
"Comely" Mrs. Dyer. But in the letter to Mrs. Shelley, Mrs. D. had been
"plain"!
Dyer had been a Grecian before Lamb was born. Clarke would be Charles
Cowden Clarke, with whose father Dyer had been an usher. Miss Hayes we
have met. The Rev. Peter Whalley was Upper Grammar Master in Dyer's day;
Boyer, Lamb and Coleridge's master, succeeded him in 1776. Smith was
Writing Master at the end of the seventeenth century.
Lamb had never become a Grecian, having an impediment in his speech
which made it impossible that he should take orders, the natural fate of
Grecians, with profit. Great Erasmus and Little Erasmus are still the
names of classes in the Blue-Coat School. Grecians were the Little
Erasmians.
Here should come a letter from Lamb to P.G. Patmore, dated April 10,
1831, in which Lamb says of the publisher of the _New Monthly Magazine_:
"Nature never wrote Knave upon a face more legible than upon that
fellow's--'Coal-burn him in Beelzebub's deepest pit.' I can promise
little help if you mean literary, when I reflect that for 5 years I have
been feeling the necessity of scribbling but have never found the
power.... _Moxon_ is my go between, call on _him_, 63 New Bond St., he
is a very good fellow and the bookseller is not yet burn'd into him."
Patmore was seeking a publisher for, I imagine, his _Chatsworth_.
Here should come a letter from Lamb, dated April 13, 1831, which Canon
Ainger considers was written to Gary and Mr. Hazlitt to Coleridge. It
states that Lamb is daily expecting Wordsworth.]
LETTER 531
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
April 30, 1831.
Vir Bone!--Recepi literas tuas amicissimas, et in mentem venit
responsuro mihi, vel raro, vel nunquam, inter nos intercedisse Latinam
linguam, organum rescribendi, loquendive. Epistolae tuae, Plinianis
elegantiis (supra quod TREMULO deceat) refertae, tam a verbis Plinianis
adeo abhorrent, ut ne vocem quamquam (Romanam scilicet) habere videaris,
quam "ad canem," ut aiunt, "rejectare possis." Forsan desuetudo
Latinissandi ad vernaculam linguam usitandam, plusquam opus sit, coegit.
Per adagia quaedam nota, et in ore omnium pervulgata, ad Latinitatis
perditae recuperationem revocare te institui.
Felis in abaco est, et aegrè videt. Omne quod splendet nequaquam aurum
putes. Imponas equo mendicum, equitabit idem ad diabolum. Fur commodè a
fure prenditur. O MARIA, MARIA, valdè CONTRARIA, quomodo crescit
hortulus tuus? Nunc majora canamus. Thomas, Thomas, de Islington, uxorem
duxit die nupera Dominicâ. Reduxit domum posterâ. Succedenti baculum
emit. Postridiè ferit illam. Aegrescit ilia subsequenti. Proximâ (nempe
Veneris) est Mortua. Plurimum gestiit Thomas, quòd appropinquanti
Sabbato efferenda sit.
Horner quidam Johannulus in angulo sedebat, artocreas quasdam
deglutiens. Inseruit pollices, pruna nana evellens, et magnâ voce
exclamavit "Dii boni, quàm bonus puer fio!"
Diddle-diddle-dumkins! meus unicus filius Johannes cubitum ivit,
integris braccis, caligâ unâ tantum, indutus. Diddle-diddle, etc. DA
CAPO.
Hie adsum saltans Joannula. Cum nemo adsit mihi, semper resto sola.
Aenigma mihi hoc solvas, et Oedipus fies.
Quâ ratione assimulandus sit equus TREMULO?
Quippe cui tota communicatio sit per HAY et NEIGH, juxta consilium illud
Dominicum, "Fiat omnis communicatio vestra YEA et NAY."
In his nugis caram diem consume, dum invigilo valetudini carioris
nostras Emmae, quae apud nos jamdudum aegrotat. Salvere vos jubet mecum
Maria mea, ipsa integrâ valetudine.
ELIA.
Ab agro Enfeldiense datum, Aprilis nescio quibus Calendis-- Davus sum,
non Calendarius.
P.S.--Perdita in toto est Billa Reformatura.
[Mr. Stephen Gwynn gives me the following translation:--
Good Sir, I have received your most kind letter, and it has entered
my mind as I began to reply, that the Latin tongue has seldom or
never been used between us as the instrument of converse or
correspondence. Your letters, filled with Plinian elegancies (more
than becomes a Quaker), are so alien to Pliny's language, that you
seem not to have a word (that is, a Roman word) to throw, as the
saying is, at a dog. Perchance the disuse of Latinising had
constrained you more than is right to the use of the vernacular. I
have determined to recall you to the recovery of your lost Latinity
by certain well-known adages common in all mouths.
The cat's in the cupboard and she can't see.
All that glitters is not gold.
Set a beggar on horseback and he'll ride to the Devil.
Set a thief to catch a thief.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
Now let us sing of weightier matters.
Tom, Tom, of Islington, wed a wife on Sunday. He brought her home on
Monday. Bought a stick on Tuesday. Beat her well on Wednesday. She
was sick on Thursday. Dead on Friday. Tom was glad on Saturday night
to bury his wife on Sunday.
Little Jack Homer sat in a corner, eating his Christmas pie. He put
in his thumb and drew out a plum, and cried "Good Heavens, what a
good boy am I!"
Diddle, diddle, dumkins! my son John Went to bed with his breeches
on; One shoe off and the other shoe on, Diddle, diddle, etc. (Da
Capo.)
Here am I, jumping Joan. When no one's by, I'm all alone.
Solve me this enigma, you shall be an Oedipus.
Why is a horse like a Quaker?
Because all his communication is by Hay and Neigh, after the Lord's
counsel, "Let all your communication be Yea and Nay."
In these trifles I waste the precious day, while watching over the
health of our more precious Emma, who has been sick in our house
this long time. My Mary sends you greeting with me, she herself in
sound health.
Given from the Enfield country seat, on I know not what Calends of
April--I am Davus not an Almanac.[l]
P.S.--The Reform Bill is lost altogether.
The Reform Bill was introduced on March 1, 1831, by Lord John Russell;
the second reading was carried on March 22 by a majority of 1. On its
commitment on April 19 there was a majority of 8 against the Government.
Four days later the Government was again defeated by 22 and Parliament
was dissolved. But later, of course, the Reform Bill was passed.]
[Footnote 1: Allusion to the phrase of Davus the servant in
Plautus--"Davus sum non Oedipus."]
LETTER 532
CHARLES LAMB TO H.F. CARY
[Dated at end:] Datum ab agro Enfeldiensi, Maii die sextâ, 1831.
Assidens est mihi bona soror, Euripiden evolvens, donum vestrum,
carissime Cary, pro quo gratias agimus, lecturi atque iterum lecturi
idem. Pergratus est liber ambobus, nempe "Sacerdotis Commiserationis,"
sacrum opus a te ipso Humanissimae Religionis Sacerdote dono datum.
Lachrymantes gavisuri sumus; est ubi dolor fiat voluptas; nee semper
dulce mihi est ridere; aliquando commutandum est he! he! he! cum heu!
heu! heu!
A Musis Tragicis me non penitus abhorruisse lestis sit Carmen
Calamitosum, nescio quo autore linguâ prius vernaculi scriptum, et
nuperrimè a me ipso Latine versum, scilicet, "Tom Tom of Islington."
Tenuistine?
"Thomas Thomas de Islington,
Uxorem duxit Die quâdam Solis,
Abduxit domum sequenti die,
Emit baculum subsequenti,
Vapulat ilia posterâ,
Aegrotat succedenti, Mortua fit crastina."
Et miro gaudio afficitur Thomas luce posterâ quod subsequenti (nempe,
Dominicâ) uxor sit efferenda.
"En Iliades Domesticas!
En circulum calamitatum!
Planè hebdomadalem tragoediam."
I nunc et confer Euripiden vestrum his luctibus, hâc morte uxoriâ;
confer Alcesten! Hecuben! quasnon antiquas Heroinas Dolorosas.
Suffundor genas lachrymis, tantas strages revolvens. Quid restat nisi
quod Tecum Tuam Caram salutamus ambosque valere jubeamus, nosmet ipsi
bene valentes. ELIA.
[Mr. Stephen Gwynn gives me the following translation:--
Sitting by me is my good sister, turning over Euripides, your gift,
dear Cary [a pun here, "carissime care"], for which we thank you,
and will read and re-read it. Most acceptable to both of us is this
book of "Pity's Priest," a sacred work of your bestowing, yourself a
priest of the most humane Religion. We shall take our pleasure
weeping; there are times when pain turns pleasure, and I would not
always be laughing: sometimes there should be a change--_heu heu!_
for _he! he!_
That I have not shrunk from the Tragic Muses, witness this
Lamentable Ballad, first written in the vernacular by I know not
what author and lately by myself put into Latin T. T. of Islington.
Have you heard it? (_See translation of preceding letter_.)
And Thomas is possessed with a wondrous joy on the following
morning, because on the next day, that is, Sunday, his wife must be
buried.
Lo, your domestic Iliads!
Lo, the wheel of Calamities
The true tragedy of a week.
Go to now, compare your Euripides with these sorrows, this death of
a wife! Compare Alcestis! Hecuba! or what not other sorrowing
Heroines of antiquity.
My cheeks are tear-bedewed as I revolve such slaughter. What more to
say, but to salute you Cary and your Cara, and wish you health,
ourselves enjoying it.
In _Mary and Charles Lamb_, 1874, by W.C. Hazlitt, in the Catalogue of
Charles Lamb's Library, for sale by Bartlett and Welford, New York, is
this item:--"_Euripidis Tragediae, interp. Lat_. 8vo. Oxonii, 1821". "C.
and M. Lamb, from H.F. Cary," on flyleaf. This must be the book
referred to. Euripides has been called the priest of pity.]
LETTER 533
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[P.M. July 14, 1831.]
Collier's Book would be right acceptable. And also a sixth vol. just
publish'd of Nichols's Illustrations of the Literary History of 18th
Century. I agree with you, and do yet _not disagree_ with W.W., as to
H. It rejoyced my heart to read his friendly spirited mention of your
publications. It might be a drawback to my pleasure, that he has tried
to decry my "Nicky," but on deliberate re- and reperusal of his censure
I cannot in the remotest degree understand what he means to say. He and
I used to dispute about Hell Eternities, I taking the affirmative. I
love to puzzle atheists, and--parsons. I fancy it runs in his head,
that I meant to rivet the idea of a personal devil. Then about the
glorious three days! there was never a year or day in my past life,
since I was pen-worthy, that I should not have written precisely as I
have. Logic and modesty are not among H.'s virtues. Talfourd flatters me
upon a poem which "nobody but I could have written," but which I have
neither seen nor heard of--"The Banquet," or "Banqueting Something,"
that has appeared in The Tatler. Know you of it? How capitally the
Frenchman has analysed Satan! I was hinder'd, or I was about doing the
same thing in English, for him to put into French, as I prosified Hood's
midsummer fairies. The garden of _cabbage_ escap'd him, he turns it into
a garden of pot herbs. So local allusions perish in translation. About 8
days before you told me of R.'s interview with the Premier, I, at the
desire of Badams, wrote a letter to him (Badams) in the most moving
terms setting forth the age, infirmities &c. of Coleridge. This letter
was convey'd to [by] B. to his friend Mr. Ellice of the Treasury,
Brother in Law to Lord Grey, who immediately pass'd it on [to] Lord
Grey, who assured him of immediate relief by a grant on the King's
Bounty, which news E. communicated to B. with a desire to confer with me
on the subject, on which I went up to THE Treasury (yesterday fortnight)
and was received by the Great Man with the utmost cordiality, (shook
hands with me coming and going) a fine hearty Gentleman, and, as seeming
willing to relieve any anxiety from me, promised me an answer thro'
Badams in 2 or 3 days at furthest. Meantime Gilman's extraordinary
insolent letter comes out in the Times! As to _my_ acquiescing in this
strange step, I told Mr. Ellice (who expressly said that the thing was
renewable three-yearly) that I consider'd such a grant as almost
equivalent to the lost pension, as from C.'s appearance and the
representations of the Gilmans, I scarce could think C.'s life worth 2
years' purchase. I did not know that the Chancellor had been previously
applied to. Well, after seeing Ellice I wrote in the most urgent manner
to the Gilmans, insisting on an immediate letter of acknowledgment from
Coleridge, or them _in his name_ to Badams, who not knowing C. had come
forward so disinterestedly amidst his complicated illnesses and
embarrassments, to _use up_ an interest, which he may so well need, in
favor of a stranger; and from that day not a letter has B. or even
myself, received from Highgate, unless _that publish'd one in the Times
is meant as a general answer to all the friends who have stirr'd to do
C. service_! Poor C. is not to blame, for he is in leading strings.--I
particularly wish you would read this part of my note to Mr. Rogers. Now
for home matters--Our next 2 Sundays will be choked up with all the
Sugdens. The third will be free, when we hope you will show your sister
the way to Enfield and leave her with us for a few days. In the mean
while, could you not run down some week day (afternoon, say) and sleep
at the Horse Shoe? I want to have my 2d vol. Elias bound Specimen
fashion, and to consult you about 'em. Kenney has just assured me, that
he has just touch'd £100 from the theatre; you are a damn'd fool if you
don't exact your Tythe of him, and with that assurance I rest
Your Brother fool C.L.
[Collier's book would be his _History of English Dramatic Poetry_, 1831.
Nichols's _Illustrations_ had been begun by John Nichols, and six
volumes were published between 1817 and 1831. It was completed in two
more volumes by his son, John Bowyer Nichols, in 1848 and 1858.
"H."--Leigh Hunt. We do not know what W.W., presumably Wordsworth, had
to say of him; but this is how Hunt had referred to Moxon's publications
and Lamb's _Satan in Search of a Wife_ in _The Tatler_ for June 4, 1831,
the occasion being a review of "Selections from Wordsworth" for
schools:--
Mr. Moxon has begun his career as a bookseller in singularly high
taste. He has no connection but with the select of the earth. The
least thing he does, is to give us a dandy poem, suitable to Bond
street, and not without wit. We allude to the Byronian brochure,
entitled "_Mischief_." But this is a mere condescension to the
elegance of the street he lives in. Mr. Moxon commenced with some of
the primaeval delicacies of _Charles Lamb_. He then astonished us
with Mr. Rogers' poems on _Italy_.... Of some of these publications
we have already spoken,--Mr. Lamb's _Album Verses_ among them. And
why (the reader may ask) not have noticed his _Satan in Search of a
Wife_? Because, to say the truth, we did not think it worthy of him.
We rejoice in Mr. Lamb's accession to the good cause advocated by
Sterne and Burns, refreshed by the wholesome mirth of Mr. Moncrieff,
and finally carried (like a number of other astonished humanities,
who little thought of the matter, and are not all sensible of it
now) on the triumphant shoulders of the Glorious Three Days. But Mr.
Lamb, in the extreme sympathy of his delight, has taken for granted,
that everything that can be uttered on the subject will be held to
be worth uttering, purely for its own sake, and because it could not
well have been said twelve months ago. He merges himself, out of the
pure transport of his good will, into the joyous common-places of
others; just as if he had joined a great set of children in tossing
over some mighty bowl of snap-dragon, too scalding to bear; and
thought that nothing could be so good as to echo their "hurras!"
Furthermore, we fear that some of his old friends, on the wrong side
of the _House_, would think a little of his merriment profane:
though for our parts, if we are certain of anything in this world,
it is that nothing can be more Christian.
"The Banquet." I cannot find this poem. It is, I think, not in _The
Tatler_.
"How capitally the Frenchman ..." I cannot find any French paraphrase of
_Satan in Search of a Wife_, nor has a search at the Bibliotheque
Nationale in Paris revealed one.
"R.'s interview with the Premier." R. would be Rogers. Perhaps the best
explanation of this portion of Lamb's letter is the following passage
from Mr. Dykes Campbell's memoir of Coleridge:--
On June 26, 1830, died George IV., and with him died the pensions of the
Royal Associates. Apparently they did not find this out until the
following year. In the _Englishman's Magazine_ for June, 1831, attention
was directed to the fact that "intimation had been given to Mr.
Coleridge and his brother Associates that they must expect their
allowances 'very shortly' to cease"--the allowances having been a
personal bounty of the late King. On June 3, 1831, Gillman wrote a
letter to the _Times_, "in consequence of a paragraph which appeared in
the _Times_ of this day." He states that on the sudden suppression of
the honorarium, representations on Coleridge's behalf were made to Lord
Brougham, with the result that the Treasury (Lord Grey) offered a
private grant of £200, which Coleridge "had felt it his duty most
respectfully to decline." Stuart, however, wrote to King William's son,
the Earl of Munster, pointing out the hardship entailed on Coleridge,
"who is old and infirm, and without other means of subsistence." He begs
the Earl to lay the matter before his royal father. To this a reply
came, excusing the King on account of his "very reduced income," but
promising that the matter shall be laid before His Majesty. To these
letters, which are printed in _Letters from the Lake Poets_ (pages
319-322), the following note is appended: "The annuity ... was not
renewed, but a sum of £300 was ultimately handed over to Coleridge by
the Treasury." Even apart from this bounty, Coleridge was not a sufferer
by the withdrawal of the King's pension, for Frere made it up to him
annually.
It is interesting to know that Lamb played so useful and characteristic
a part in this matter.
"The Sugdens." I do not identify these friends.
"2d vol. Elias." This would refer, I think, to the American volume,
published without authority, in 1828, under the title _Elia; or, Second
Series_, which Lamb told N.P. Willis he liked. It contained three pieces
not by Lamb; the rest made up from the _Works_ and the _London
Magazine_ (see Vol. II., notes).]
LETTER 534
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
Pray forward the enclosed, or put it in the post.
[No date. Early August, 1831.]
Dear M.--The _R.A_. here memorised was George Dawe, whom I knew well and
heard many anecdotes of, from DANIELS and WESTALL, at H. Rogers's--_to
each of them_ it will be well to send a Mag. in my name. It will fly
like wild fire among the R. Academicians and artists. Could you get hold
of Proctor--his chambers are in Lincoln's Inn at Montagu's--or of Janus
Weathercock?--both of their _prose_ is capital. Don't encourage poetry.
The Peter's Net does not intend funny things only. All is fish. And
leave out the sickening Elia at the end. Then it may comprise letters
and characters addrest to Peter--but a signature forces it to be all
characteristic of the one man Elia, or the one man Peter, which cramped
me formerly. I have agreed _not_ for my sister to know the subjects I
chuse till the Mag. comes out; so beware of speaking of 'em, or writing
about 'em, save generally. Be particular about this warning. Can't you
drop in some afternoon, and take a bed?
The _Athenaeum_ has been hoaxed with some exquisite poetry that was 2 or
3 months ago in Hone's Book. I like your 1st No. capitally. But is it
not small? Come and see us, week day if possible. C.L.