Betham's verses I am sorry not to be able to give; but the following
poem was addressed to Moxon by Lamb and printed in _The Athenaeum_ for
December 7, 1833:--
TO A FRIEND ON HIS MARRIAGE
What makes a happy wedlock? What has fate
Not given to thee in thy well-chosen mate?
Good sense--good humour;--these are trivial things,
Dear M-----, that each trite encomiast sings.
But she hath these, and more. A mind exempt
From every low-bred passion, where contempt,
Nor envy, nor detraction, ever found
A harbour yet; an understanding sound;
Just views of right and wrong; perception full
Of the deformed, and of the beautiful,
In life and manners; wit above her sex,
Which, as a gem, her sprightly converse decks;
Exuberant fancies, prodigal of mirth,
To gladden woodland walk, or winter hearth;
A noble nature, conqueror in the strife
Of conflict with a hard discouraging life,
Strengthening the veins of virtue, past the power
Of those whose days have been one silken hour,
Spoil'd fortune's pamper'd offspring; a keen sense
Alike of benefit, and of offence,
With reconcilement quick, that instant springs
From the charged heart with nimble angel wings;
While grateful feelings, like a signet sign'd
By a strong hand, seem burnt into her mind.
If these, dear friend, a dowry can confer
Richer than land, thou hast them all in her;
And beauty, which some hold the chiefest boon,
Is in thy bargain for a make-weight thrown.]
LETTER 590
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[P.M. Oct. 17, 1833.]
Dear M.--Get me Shirley (there's a dear fellow) and send it soon. We
sadly want books, and this will be readable again and again, and pay
itself. Tell Emma I grieve for the poor self-punishing self-baffling
Lady; with all our hearts we grieve for the pain and vexation she has
encounterd; but we do not swerve a pin's-thought from the propriety of
your measures. God comfort her, and there's an end of a painful
necessity. But I am glad she goes to see her. Let her keep up all the
kindness she can between them. In a week or two I hope Mary will be
stout enough to come among ye, but she is not now, and I have scruples
of coming alone, as she has no pleasant friend to sit with her in my
absence. We are lonely. I fear the visits must be mostly from you. By
the way omnibuses are 1's/3'd and coach _insides_ sunk to l/6--a hint.
Without disturbance to yourselves, or upsetting the economy of the dear
new mistress of a family, come and see us as often as ever you can. We
are so out of the world, that a letter from either of you now and then,
detailing any thing, Book or Town news, is as good as a newspaper. I
have desperate colds, cramps, megrims &c., but do not despond. My
fingers are numb'd, as you see by my writing. Tell E. I am _very good_
also. But we are poor devils, that's the truth of it. I won't apply to
Dilke-- just now at least--I sincerely hope the pastoral air of Dover
St. will recruit poor Harriet. With best loves to all.
Yours ever
C.L.
Ryle and Lowe dined here on Sunday; the manners of the latter, so
gentlemanly! have attracted the special admiration of our Landlady. She
guest R. to be nearly of my age. He always had an old head on young
shoulders. I fear I shall always have the opposite. Tell me any thing of
Foster [Forster] or any body. Write any thing you think will amuse me. I
do dearly hope in a week or two to surprise you with our appearance in
Dover St....
[Shirley would be Dyce's edition of James Shirley, the dramatist, in six
volumes, 1833.
Harriet was Harriet Isola.
"Ryle and Lowe." Ryle we have met, but I do not identify Lowe.
I have omitted some lines about family matters at the end of the
letter.]
LETTER 591
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD AND EMMA MOXON
Nov. 29th, 1833.
Mary is of opinion with me, that two of these Sonnets are of a higher
grade than any poetry you have done yet. The one to Emma is so pretty! I
have only allowed myself to transpose a word in the third line. Sacred
shall it be for any intermeddling of mine. But we jointly beg that you
will make four lines in the room of the four last. Read "Darby and
Joan," in Mrs. Moxon's first album. There you'll see how beautiful in
age the looking back to youthful years in an old couple is. But it is a
violence to the feelings to anticipate that time in youth. I hope you
and Emma will have many a quarrel and many a make-up (and she is
beautiful in reconciliation!) before the dark days shall come, in which
ye shall say "there is small comfort in them." You have begun a sort of
character of Emma in them very sweetly; carry it on, if you can, through
the last lines.
I love the sonnet to my heart, and you _shall_ finish it, and I'll be
damn'd if I furnish a line towards it. So much for that. The next best
is
TO THE OCEAN
"Ye gallant winds, if e'er your LUSTY CHEEKS
Blew longing lover to his mistress' side,
O, puff your loudest, spread the canvas wide,"
is spirited. The last line I altered, and have re-altered it as it
stood. It is closer. These two are your best. But take a good deal of
time in finishing the first. How proud should Emma be of her poets!
Perhaps "O Ocean" (though I like it) is too much of the open vowels,
which Pope objects to. "Great Ocean!" is obvious. "To save sad thoughts"
I think is better (though not good) than for the mind to save herself.
But 'tis a noble Sonnet. "St. Cloud" I have no fault to find with.
If I return the Sonnets, think it no disrespect; for I look for a
printed copy. You have done better than ever. And now for a reason I did
not notice 'em earlier. On Wednesday they came, and on Wednesday I was
a-gadding. Mary gave me a holiday, and I set off to Snow Hill. From Snow
Hill I deliberately was marching down, with noble Holborn before me,
framing in mental cogitation a map of the dear London in prospect,
thinking to traverse Wardour-street, &c., when diabolically I was
interrupted by
Heigh-ho!
Little Barrow!--
Emma knows him,--and prevailed on to spend the day at his sister's,
where was an album, and (O march of intellect!) plenty of literary
conversation, and more acquaintance with the state of modern poetry than
I could keep up with. I was positively distanced. Knowles' play, which,
epilogued by me, lay on the PIANO, alone made me hold up my head. When I
came home I read your letter, and glimpsed at your beautiful sonnet,
"Fair art them as the morning, my young bride,"
and dwelt upon it in a confused brain, but determined not to open them
till next day, being in a state not to be told of at Chatteris. Tell it
not in Gath, Emma, lest the daughters triumph! I am at the end of my
tether. I wish you could come on Tuesday with your fair bride. Why can't
you! Do. We are thankful to your sister for being of the party. Come,
and _bring_ a sonnet on Mary's birthday. Love to the whole Moxonry, and
tell E. I every day love her more, and miss her less. Tell her so from
her loving uncle, as she has let me call myself. I bought a fine
embossed card yesterday, and wrote for the Pawnbrokeress's album. She is
a Miss Brown, engaged to a Mr. White. One of the lines was (I forget the
rest--but she had them at twenty-four hours' notice; she is going out to
India with her husband):--
"May your fame
And fortune, Frances, WHITEN with your name!"
Not bad as a pun. I _wil_ expect you before two on Tuesday. I am well
and happy, tell E.
[Moxon subsequently published his _Sonnets_, in two parts, one of which
was dedicated to his brother and one to Wordsworth. There are several to
his wife, so that it is difficult to identify that in which the last
lines were to be altered. Mrs. Moxon's first album was an extract book
in which Lamb had copied a number of old ballads and other poems.
I quote one of Moxon's many sonnets to Emma Moxon:--
Fair art thou as the morning, my young Bride!
Her freshness is about thee; like a river
To the sea gliding with sweet murmur ever
Thou sportest; and, wherever thou dost glide,
Humanity a livelier aspect wears.
Fair art thou as the morning of that land
Where Tuscan breezes in his youth have fanned
Thy grandsire oft. Thou hast not many tears,
Save such as pity from the heart will wring,
And then there is a smile in thy distress!
Meeker thou art than lily of the spring,
Yet is thy nature full of nobleness!
And gentle ways, that soothe and raise me so,
That henceforth I no worldly sorrow know!
"Heigh-ho! Little Barrow!" I cannot identify this acquaintance.
"Knowles's play"--"The Wife." Prologued by Lamb too.
"At Chatteris." I cannot say who were the teetotal, or abstinent,
Philistines.
"Mary's birthday." Mary Lamb would be sixty-nine on December 3, 1833.
Lamb's verses to Miss Brown seem to be no longer preserved. Mr. Hazlitt
prints a letter to a Miss Frances Brown, wherein Lamb offers the verses,
adding "I hope your sweetheart's name is WHITE. Else it would spoil all.
May be 'tis BLACK. Then we must alter it. And may your fortunes BLACKEN
with your name."]
LETTER 592
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE
[No date. Middle Dec., 1833.]
I hoped R. would like his Sonnet, but I fear'd S. that _fine old man_,
might not quite like the turn of it. This last was penn'd almost
literally extempore.
YOUR LAUREAT.
Is S.'s Christian name Thomas? if not, correct it.
["R."--Rogers; "S."--Stothard. See next letter.]
LETTER 593
CHARLES LAMB TO SAMUEL ROGERS
[No date. Probably Saturday, December 21, 1833.]
My dear Sir,--Your book, by the unremitting punctuality of your
publisher, has reached me thus early. I have not opened it, nor will
till to-morrow, when I promise myself a thorough reading of it. "The
Pleasures of Memory" was the first school present I made to Mrs. Moxon,
it had those nice wood-cuts; and I believe she keeps it still. Believe
me, that all the kindness you have shown to the husband of that
excellent person seems done unto myself. I have tried my hand at a
sonnet in "The Times." But the turn I gave it, though I hoped it would
not displease you, I thought might not be equally agreeable to your
artist. I met that dear old man at poor Henry's--with you--and again at
Cary's--and it was sublime to see him sit deaf and enjoy all that was
going on in mirth with the company. He reposed upon the many graceful,
many fantastic images he had created; with them he dined and took wine.
I have ventured at an antagonist copy of verses in "The Athenaeum" to
_him_, in which he is as everything and you as nothing. He is no lawyer
who cannot take two sides. But I am jealous of the combination of the
sister arts. Let them sparkle apart. What injury (short of the theatres)
did not Boydell's "Shakespeare Gallery" do me with Shakespeare?--to have
Opie's Shakespeare, Northcote's Shakespeare, light-headed Fuseli's
Shakespeare, heavy-headed Romney's Shakespeare, wooden-headed West's
Shakespeare (though he did the best in "Lear"), deaf-headed Reynolds's
Shakespeare, instead of my, and everybody's Shakespeare. To be tied down
to an authentic face of Juliet! To have Imogen's portrait! To confine
the illimitable! I like you and Stothard (you best), but "out upon this
half-faced fellowship." Sir, when I have read the book I may trouble
you, through Moxon, with some faint criticisms. It is not the
flatteringest compliment, in a letter to an author, to say you have not
read his book yet. But the devil of a reader he must be who prances
through it in five minutes, and no longer have I received the parcel. It
was a little tantalizing to me to receive a letter from Landor, _Gebir_
Landor, from Florence, to say he was just sitting down to read my
"Elia," just received, but the letter was to go out before the reading.
There are calamities in authorship which only authors know. I am going
to call on Moxon on Monday, if the throng of carriages in Dover Street
on the morn of publication do not barricade me out.
With many thanks, and most respectful remembrances to your sister,
Yours,
C. LAMB.
Have you seen Coleridge's happy exemplification in English of the
Ovidian elegiac metre?--
In the Hexameter rises the fountain's silvery current,
In the Pentameter aye falling in melody down.
My sister is papering up the book--careful soul!
[Moxon published a superb edition of Rogers' _Poems_ illustrated by
Turner and Stothard. Lamb had received an advance copy. The sonnet to
Rogers in _The Times_ was printed on December 13, 1833. It ran thus:--
TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ., ON THE NEW EDITION OF
HIS "PLEASURES OF MEMORY"
When thy gay book hath paid its proud devoirs,
Poetic friend, and fed with luxury
The eye of pampered aristocracy
In glittering drawing-rooms and gilt boudoirs,
O'erlaid with comments of pictorial art,
However rich and rare, yet nothing leaving
Of healthful action to the soul-conceiving
Of the true reader--yet a nobler part
Awaits thy work, already classic styled.
Cheap-clad, accessible, in homeliest show
The modest beauty through the land shall go
From year to year, and render life more mild;
Refinement to the poor man's hearth shall give,
And in the moral heart of England live.
C. LAMB.
Thomas Stothard, then in his seventy-ninth year, Lamb had met at Henry
Rogers', who had died at Christmas, 1832. The following was the copy of
verses printed in _The Athenaeum_, December 21, 1833 ("that most
romantic tale" was _Peter Wilkins_):--
TO T. STOTHARD, ESQ.
_On his Illustrations of the Poems of Mr. Rogers_
Consummate Artist, whose undying name
With classic Rogers shall go down to fame,
Be this thy crowning work! In my young days
How often have I with a child's fond gaze
Pored on the pictured wonders thou hadst done:
Clarissa mournful, and prim Grandison!
All Fielding's, Smollett's heroes, rose to view;
I saw, and I believed the phantoms true.
But, above all, that most romantic tale
Did o'er my raw credulity prevail,
Where Glums and Gawries wear mysterious things,
That serve at once for jackets and for wings.
Age, that enfeebles other men's designs,
But heightens thine, and thy free draught refines.
In several ways distinct you make us feel--
_Graceful_ as Raphael, as Watteau _genteel_.
Your lights and shades, as Titianesque, we praise;
And warmly wish you Titian's length of days.
"Short of the theatres." The injury done by the theatres is of course
the subject of Lamb's _Reflector_ essay on Shakespeare's Tragedies (see
Vol. I.).
"Boydell's 'Shakespeare Gallery'"--the series of 170 illustrations to
Shakespeare by leading artists of the day projected by Alderman Boydell
in 1786.
"Coleridge's... exemplification." Lamb quoted incorrectly. The lines had
just appeared in _Friendship's Offering_ for 1834:--
In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column;
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.
Coleridge took the lines from Schiller.
At Dr. Williams' Library is a note from Thos. Robinson to Crabb
Robinson, dated December 22, 1833, concerning Lamb's Christmas turkey,
which went first to Crabb Robinson at the Temple and was then sent on to
Lamb, presumably with the note in the hamper. Lamb adds at the foot of
the note:--
"The parcel coming thro' _you_, I open'd this note, but find no treason
in it.
With thanks
C. LAMB."
I give here three other notes to Dilke, belonging probably to the early
days of 1834. The first refers to the proof of one of Lamb's
contributions to The Athenaeum.]
LETTER 594
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE
[No date.]
May I now claim of you the benefit of the loan of some books. Do not
fear sending too many. But do not if it be irksome to yourself,--such as
shall make you say, 'damn it, here's Lamb's box come again.' Dog's
leaves ensured! Any light stuff: no natural, history or useful learning,
such as Pyramids, Catacombs, Giraffes, Adventures in Southern Africa,
&c. &c.
With our joint compliments, yours,
C. LAMB.
Church Street, Edmonton.
Novels for the last two years, or further back-nonsense of any period.
LETTER 595
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE
[No date. Spring, 1834.]
Dear Sir, I return 44 volumes by Tate. If they are not all your own, and
some of mine have slipt in, I do not think you will lose much. Shall I
go on with the Table talk? I will, if you like it, when the Culinary
article has appear'd.
_Robins_, the Carrier, from the _Swan_, Snow Hill, will bring any more
contributions, thankfully to be receiv'd--I pay backwards and forwards.
C. LAMB.
["Table Talk by the late Elia" appeared in _The Athenaeum_ on January 4,
May 31, June 7 and July 19, 1834. The Culinary article is the paragraph
that now closes the "Table Talk" (see Vol. I.).]
LETTER 596
CHARLES LAMB TO THE PRINTER OF THE _ATHENAEUM_
[No date.]
I have read the enclosed five and forty times over. I have submitted it
to my Edmonton friends; at last (O Argus' penetration), I have
discovered a dash that might be dispensed with. Pray don't trouble
yourself with such useless courtesies. I can well trust your editor,
when I don't use queer phrases which prove themselves wrong by creating
a distrust in the sober compositor.
LETTER 597
CHARLES LAMB TO MARY BETHAM
January 24, 1834,
Church Street, Edmonton.
Dear Mary Betham--I received the Bill, and when it is payable, some ten
or twelve days hence, will punctually do with the overplus as you
direct: I thought you would like to know it came to hand, so I have not
waited for the uncertainty of when your nephew sets out. I suppose my
receipt will serve, for poor Mary is not in a capacity to sign it. After
being well from the end of July to the end of December, she was taken
ill almost on the first day of the New Year, and is as bad as poor
creature can be. I expect her fever to last 14 or 15 weeks--if she gets
well at all, which every successive illness puts me in fear of. She has
less and less strength to throw it off, and they leave a dreadful
depression after them. She was quite comfortable a few weeks since, when
Matilda came down here to see us.
You shall excuse a short letter, for my hand is unsteady. Indeed, the
situation I am in with her shakes me sadly. She was quite able to
appreciate the kind legacy while she was well. Imagine her kindest love
to you, which is but buried awhile, and believe all the good wishes for
your restoration to health from
C. LAMB.
[This letter refers to the legacy mentioned above. It had now been
paid.]
LETTER 598
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[P.M. Jan. 28, 1834.]
I met with a man at my half way house, who told me many anecdotes of
Kean's younger life. He knew him thoroughly. His name is Wyatt, living
near the Bell, Edmonton. Also he referred me to West, a publican,
opposite St. Georges Church, Southwark, who knew him _more_ intimately.
Is it worth Forster's while to enquire after them?
C.L.
[Edmund Kean had died in the previous May. Forster, who was at this time
theatrical critic of _The Examiner_, was probably at work upon a
biographical article.
Here should come a note from Lamb to Matilda Betham, dated January 29,
1834. "My poor Mary is terribly ill again."
Here also, dated February 7, should come a letter to William Hone, in
which Lamb, after mentioning his sister's illness, urges upon Hone the
advisability of applying to the Literary Fund for some relief, and
offers to support him in his appeal.]
LETTER 599
CHARLES LAMB TO Miss FRYER
Feb. 14, 1834.
Dear Miss Fryer,--Your letter found me just returned from keeping my
birthday (pretty innocent!) at Dover-street. I see them pretty often. I
have since had letters of business to write, or should have replied
earlier. In one word, be less uneasy about me; I bear my privations very
well; I am not in the depths of desolation, as heretofore. Your
admonitions are not lost upon me. Your kindness has sunk into my heart.
Have faith in me! It is no new thing for me to be left to my sister.
When she is not violent, her rambling chat is better to me than the
sense and sanity of this world. Her heart is obscured, not buried; it
breaks out occasionally; and one can discern a strong mind struggling
with the billows that have gone over it. I could be nowhere happier than
under the same roof with her. Her memory is unnaturally strong; and from
ages past, if we may so call the earliest records of our poor life, she
fetches thousands of names and things that never would have dawned upon
me again, and thousands from the ten years she lived before me. What
took place from early girlhood to her coming of age principally lives
again (every important thing and every trifle) in her brain with the
vividness of real presence. For twelve hours incessantly she will pour
out without intermission all her past life, forgetting nothing, pouring
out name after name to the Waldens as a dream; sense and nonsense;
truths and errors huddled together; a medley between inspiration and
possession. What things we are! I know you will bear with me, talking of
these things. It seems to ease me; for I have nobody to tell these
things to now. Emma, I see, has got a harp! and is learning to play. She
has framed her three Walton pictures, and pretty they look. That is a
book you should read; such sweet religion in it--next to Woolman's!
though the subject be baits and hooks, and worms, and fishes. She has my
copy at present to do two more from.
Very, very tired, I began this epistle, having been epistolising all the
morning, and very kindly would I end it, could I find adequate
expressions to your kindness. We did set our minds on seeing you in
spring. One of us will indubitably. But I am not skilled in almanac
learning, to know when spring precisely begins and ends. Pardon my
blots; I am glad you like your book. I wish it had been half as worthy
of your acceptance as "John Woolman." But 'tis a good-natured book.
[Miss Fryer was a school-fellow of Mrs. Moxon's.
I append another letter, undated, to the same lady. It belongs obviously
to an earlier period, but the exact position is unimportant:--]
LETTER 600
CHARLES LAMB TO Miss FRYER
[No date.]
My dear Miss Fryer, By desire of Emma I have attempted new words to the
old nonsense of Tartar Drum; but _with_ the nonsense the sound and
spirit of the tune are unaccountably gone, and _we_ have agreed to
discard the new version altogether. As _you_ may be more fastidious in
singing mere silliness, and a string of well-sounding images without
sense or coherence--Drums of Tartars, who use _none_, and Tulip trees
ten foot high, not to mention Spirits in Sunbeams &c,--than we are, so
you are at liberty to sacrifice an enspiriting movement to a little
sense, tho' I like LITTLE-SENSE less than his vagarying younger sister
NO-SENSE--so I send them----
The 4th line of 1st stanza is from an old Ballad.
Emma is looking weller and handsomer (as you say) than ever. Really, if
she goes on thus improving, by the time she is nine and thirty she will
be a tolerable comely person. But I may not live to see it.--I take
Beauty to be _catching_-- a Cholera sort of thing--Now, whether the
constant presence of a handsome object--for there's only two of us--may
not have the effect------but the subject is delicate, and as my old
great Ant* used to say--"Andsome is as andsome duzz"--that was my
great Ant's way of spelling----
Most and best kind things say to yourself and dear Mother for all your
kindnesses to our Em., tho' in truth I am a little tired with her
everlasting repetition of 'em. Yours very Truly,
CHS LAMB.
* Emma's way of spelling Miss _Umfris_, as I spell her
_Aunt_.
LOVE WILL COME
_Tune: "The Tartar Drum"_
I
Guard thy feelings, pretty Vestal,
From the smooth Intruder free;
Cage thine heart in bars of chrystal,
Lock it with a golden key;
Thro' the bars demurely stealing--
Noiseless footstep, accent dumb,
His approach to none revealing--
Watch, or watch not, LOVE WILL COME.
His approach to none revealing--
Watch, or watch not, Love will come--Love,
Watch, or watch not, Love will come.
II
Scornful Beauty may deny him--
He hath spells to charm disdain;
Homely Features may defy him--
Both at length must wear the chain.
Haughty Youth in Courts of Princes--
Hermit poor with age oercome--
His soft plea at last convinces;
Sooner, later, LOVE WILL COME--
His soft plea at length convinces;
Sooner, later, Love will come--Love,
Sooner, later, Love will come.
LETTER 601
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Church S't, Edmonton,
22 feb. [1834].