their real feelings; but this we know concerning them, that when
they have renounced their birthright of hope, they have not been
able to divest themselves of fear. From the nature of the human
mind this might be presumed, and in fact it is so. They may deaden
the heart and stupify the conscience, but they cannot destroy the
imaginative faculty. There is a remarkable proof of this in Elia's
Essays, a book which wants only a sounder religious feeling, to be
as delightful as it is original. In that upon "Witches and other
Night Fears," he says: "It is not book, or picture, or the stories
of foolish servants, which create these terrors in children. They
can at most but give them a direction. Dear little T. H., who of
all children has been brought up with the most scrupulous exclusion
of every taint of superstition, who was never allowed to hear of
goblin or apparition, or scarcely to be told of bad men, or to hear
or read of any distressing story, finds all this world of fear,
from which he, has been so rigidly excluded _ab extra_, in his own
'thick-coming fancies; and from his little midnight pillow this
nurse-child of optimism will start at shapes, unborrowed of
tradition, in sweats to which the reveries of the cell-damned
murderer are tranquillity." This poor child, instead of being
trained up in the way which he should go, had been bred in the ways
of modern philosophy; he had systematically been prevented from
knowing any thing of that Saviour who said, "Suffer little children
to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of
heaven;" care had been taken that he should not pray to God, nor
lie down at night in reliance upon His good Providence.
Page 267, line 14 from foot. _"Given king" in bliss and a "given
chamberlain" in torment._ A reference to Southey's "Vision of Judgment,"
1820, wherein George III. is received into heaven, among those coming
from hell to arraign him being Wilkes, thus described:--
Beholding the foremost,
Him by the cast of his eye oblique, I knew as the firebrand
Whom the unthinking populace held for their idol and hero,
Lord of Misrule in his day.
Page 268, line 5. _A jest of the Devil._ Southey's early "Ballads and
Metrical Tales" are rich in legends of the Devil, somewhat in the vein
of Ingoldsby, though lacking Barham's rollicking fun.
Page 268, line 10. _A noble Lord._ Lord Byron, whose "Vision of
Judgment," written in 1821 in ridicule of Southey's, begins:--
Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate:
His keys were rusty, and the lock was dull.
Page 268, line 19. _A life of George Fox._ Southey was collecting for
some years materials for a life of George Fox, the first Quaker, but he
did not carry out the project.
Page 268, line 22. _The Methodists are shy._ Southey's _Life of Wesley_
was published in 1820. It was greatly admired by Coleridge.
Page 268, line 24. _The errors of that Church._ See Southey's "Ballads
and Metrical Tales" again, for comic versions of legends of saints.
Page 269, line 26. _And N._ Randal Norris, Sub-Treasurer of the Inner
Temple, who died in 1827.
Page 269, line 27. _T. N. T._ Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854), the
advocate, author of "Ion" who was to become Lamb's executor and
biographer. He wrote an enthusiastic and discriminating essay on
Wordsworth's genius in the _New Monthly Magazine_.
Page 269, line 31. _And W._ Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (1794-1852),
essayist, painter and criminal, who contributed gay and whimsical
articles to the _London Magazine_ over the signature "Janus
Weathercock." Subsequently Wainewright was convicted of forgery, and he
became also a poisoner; but he seems to have shown Lamb only his most
charming side.
Page 269, line 32. _The translator of Dante._ Henry Francis Cary
(1772-1844), whose _Inferno_ appeared in 1805, the whole poem being
completed in 1812. He contributed to the _London Magazine_. Later in
life Cary, then assistant keeper of the printed books in the British
Museum, became one of Lamb's closer friends. He wrote the epitaph on his
grave.
Page 269, line 33. _And Allan C._ Allan Cunningham (1784-1842), the
Scotch ballad writer and author, and a regular contributor to the
_London Magazine_ over the signature "Nalla."
Page 269, line 34. _And P----r._ Bryan Walter Procter (1787-1874),
better known as Barry Cornwall, another contributor to the _London
Magazine_. He afterwards, 1866-1868, wrote a Memoir of Lamb.
Page 269, line 35. _A----p._ Thomas Allsop (1795-1880), a stock-broker,
whose sympathies were with advanced social movements. He has been called
the favourite disciple of Coleridge. In 1836 he issued a volume entitled
_Letters, Conversations and Recollections of Coleridge_, which contains
many interesting references to Lamb.
Page 269, line 35. _G----n._ James Gillman, a doctor, residing at the
Grove, Highgate, who received Coleridge into his house, in 1816, as a
patient, and kept him there to the end as a friend. He afterwards began
a Life of him, which was not, however, completed. Coleridge at this
time, 1823, was nearly fifty-one.
Page 269, line 38. _Salutation tavern._ The Salutation and Cat, the
tavern at 17 Newgate Street, opposite Christ's Hospital, where Lamb and
Coleridge most resorted in the '90's. Now a new building.
Page 269, line 39. _Pantisocracy._ The chief Pantisocrats--Coleridge,
Southey and Robert Lovell--who all married sisters, a Miss Fricker
falling to each--were, with a few others--George Burnett among them and
Favell--to establish a new and ideal communism in America on the banks
of the Susquehanna. Two hours' work a day was to suffice them for
subsistence, the remaining time being spent in the cultivation of the
intellect. This was in 1794. Southey, however, went to Portugal, Lovell
died, Coleridge was Coleridge, and Pantisocracy disappeared.
Page 269, line 40. _W----th._ William Wordsworth, the poet.
Page 270, line 1. _And M._ Thomas Monkhouse, who died in 1825, a cousin
of Mary Hutchinson, William Wordsworth's wife, and of Sarah Hutchinson,
her sister, and Lamb's correspondent.
Page 270, line 2. _H. C. R._ Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867), the
diarist and the friend of the Lambs until their death. In Crabb
Robinson's reminiscences of Lamb is this passage:--
I felt flattered by the being mingled with the other of Lamb's
friends under the initials of my name. I mention it as an anecdote
which shows that Lamb's reputation was spread even among lawyers,
that a 4 guinea brief was brought to me by an Attorney an entire
stranger, at the following Assizes, by direction of another
Attorney also a stranger, who knew nothing more of me than that I
was Elia's H. C. R.
Page 270, line 3. _Clarkson._ Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846), the great
opponent of slavery, whom Lamb met in the Lakes in 1802.
Page 270, line 6. _Dyer._ George Dyer (1755-1841), whom we meet so often
in Lamb's writings.
Page 270, line 7. _The veteran Colonel._ Colonel Phillips, Admiral
Burney's brother-in-law. He married Susanna Burney, who died in 1800.
Phillips, once an officer in the Marines, had sailed with Cook, and was
a witness of his death. He had known Dr. Johnson, and a letter on the
great man from his pen is printed in J. T. Smith's _Book for a Rainy
Day_.
Page 270, line 9. _W. A._ William Ayrton (1777-1858), the musical
critic; in Hazlitt's praise, "the Will Honeycomb of our set."
Page 270, line 12. _Admiral Burney._ Rear-Admiral Burney (1750-1821),
brother of Fanny Burney, Madame D'Arblay. The Admiral lived in Little
James Street, Pimlico. For a further account of this circle of friends
see Hazlitt's essay "On the Conversation of Authors" (_The Plain
Speaker_). Hazlitt's own share in the gathering ceased after an
unfortunate discussion of Fanny Burney's _Wanderer_, which Hazlitt
condemned in terms that her brother, the Admiral, could not forgive.
Hence, perhaps, to some extent, Hazlitt's description of the old seaman
as one who "had you at an advantage by never understanding you." Later,
in his essay "On the Pleasures of Hating," also in _The Plain Speaker_,
Hazlitt wrote:--
What is become of "that set of whist-players," celebrated by ELIA
in his notable _Epistle to Robert Southey, Esq._ (and now I think
of it--that I myself have celebrated in this very volume), "that
for so many years called Admiral Burney friend?" They are
scattered, like last year's snow. Some of them are dead, or gone to
live at a distance, or pass one another in the street like
strangers, or if they stop to speak, do it as coolly and try to
_cut_ one another as soon as possible. Some of us have grown rich,
others poor. Some have got places under Government, others a
_niche_ in the _Quarterly Review_. Some of us have dearly earned a
name in the world; whilst others remain in their original privacy.
We despise the one, and envy and are glad to mortify the other.
On the next page Hazlitt added:--
I think I must be friends with Lamb again, since he has written
that magnanimous Letter to Southey, and told him a piece of his
mind!
It was very soon after that Hazlitt began to visit the Lambs once more;
and they never were on bad terms again.
Page 270, line 18. _Authors of "Rimini" and "Table Talk."_ Leigh Hunt
(1784-1859), whose _Story of Rimini_ was published in 1816; and William
Hazlitt (1778-1830), whose _Table Talk_, first series, which appeared in
the _London Magazine_, was published in 1821-1822; other series coming
later.
Page 271, line 15. _"Here," say you ..._ This is the passage in
Southey's article to which Lamb refers:--
But if the sincere inquirer would see the authenticity of the
Gospels proved by a chain of testimony, step by step, through all
ages, from the days of the Apostles, he is referred to the exact
and diligent Lardner. Even then, perhaps, it may surprize him to be
told that more critical labour, and that too of a severer kind, has
been bestowed upon the New Testament, than upon all other books of
all ages and countries; that there is not a difficult text, a
disputed meaning, or doubtful word, which has not been
investigated, not only through every accessible manuscript, but
through every ancient version; and that the most profound and
laborious scholars whom the world ever produced, generation after
generation, have devoted themselves to these researches, and past
in them their patient, meritorious, and honourable lives. Let him
read Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testament, and he will be
satisfied that there is no exaggeration in this statement. The
unwearied diligence, the profound sagacity, and the comprehensive
erudition with which the New Testament has been scrutinized, and
its authenticity ascertained, cannot be estimated too highly; and
we will boldly assert, cannot possibly have been conceived by any
person unacquainted with biblical studies. But here, as in the
history of the Mosaic dispensation, if the books are authentic, the
events which they relate must be true; if they were written by the
evangelists, Christ is our Redeemer and our God:--there is no other
possible conclusion.
Page 272, line 5. _The poor child._ Thornton Leigh Hunt, who afterwards
became a journalist, dying in 1873, was born in 1810. Lamb was very fond
of this little boy, whom he first saw when he visited Leigh Hunt in
prison (1813-1815). He addressed a poem to him, ending:--
Thornton Hunt, my favourite child.
Page 272, line 22. _Thomas Holcroft._ Thomas Holcroft (1745-1809), the
playwright and miscellaneous author, one of Lamb's friends, was a
republican and a freethinker.
Page 272, line 27. _Accident introduced me ..._ The first literary
connection between Lamb and Leigh Hunt was set up by _The Reflector_
(see note on page 445). Leigh Hunt, however, tells us in his
_Autobiography_ that he had as a schoolboy at Christ's Hospital seen
Lamb--then an old boy: he was by nine and a half years Hunt's senior.
Probably Lamb's first real intimacy with Leigh Hunt began with Lamb's
visits to him in prison, 1813-1815.
Page 272, line 6 from foot. _An equivocal term._ Hunt's _Story of
Rimini_ was reviewed, with Maga's deepest scorn, in _Blackwood_ for
November, 1817, under the heading, "The Cockney School of Poetry."
Precisely what was the equivocal term referred to by Lamb I do not
discover; but unfair emphasis was laid by the reviewer on the poem's
alleged incestuous character.
Page 273, line 11. _His handwriting._ In the postscript to his private
letter (of apology) to Southey (see above), Lamb took this back.
Page 273, line 18. The "_Political Justice._" Godwin's _Enquiry into
Political Justice_, 1793, wherein the marriage ceremony meets with
little respect.
Page 273, line 28. _Sundry harsh things ... against our friend C._
Perhaps a reference to _The Examiner's_ criticism of _Remorse_, in 1813.
Coleridge, writing to Southey about it, says:--
They were forced to affect admiration of the Tragedy, but yet abuse
me they must, and so comes the old infamous _crambe bis millies
cocta_ of the "sentimentalities, puerilities, whinings, and
meannesses, both of style and thought" in my former writings....
Page 274, line 3. "_Foliage._" Leigh Hunt published _Foliage_ in 1818.
It contains, among other familiar epistles, one to Charles Lamb,
reprinted, as was the poem on his son, from _The Examiner_. This is one
stanza to Thornton Hunt:--
Ah, first-born of thy mother,
When life and hope were new,
Kind playmate of thy brother,
Thy sister, father too;
My light, where'er I go,
My bird, when prison bound,
My hand in hand companion,--no,
My prayers shall hold thee round.
Page 274, line 10. _The other gentleman._ William Hazlitt. Lamb first
met Hazlitt about 1805, and they were intimate, with occasional
differences, until Hazlitt's death in 1830. Lamb was with him at the
end.
Page 275, line 1. _You were pleased (you know where)._ Lamb had been a
Unitarian, as had Coleridge and many others of his friends. Later,
indeed, he claimed communion with no sect; while Coleridge became as
much against Unitarianism as he had once been for it. Southey was
himself converted to Unitarianism by Coleridge, in 1794. Later, however,
the Church of England had few stouter supporters. What Lamb means by
"You know where" I have not been able to discover--a memory possessed
possibly only by Lamb and Southey.
Page 275, line 12. _The last time._ The only portion of this "Letter"
which Lamb preserved began at this point. He rewrote this particular
paragraph and included the remainder in _Last Essays of Elia_, in 1833,
under the title, "The Tombs in the Abbey."
Page 276, line 25. _Two shillings._ The fees cannot have been reduced
for at least ten years, for in 1833 Lamb reprinted this passage as it
stood in 1823. The Abbey is not yet wholly free on every day of the
week; but there is no charge except to view the chapels, and that has
been reduced to sixpence. The first reduction after Lamb's protest was
made by Dean Ireland, whose term of office lasted from 1816 to 1842. It
was he also who appointed official guides. Lamb was not alone in this
protest against the fees. One of Hood and Reynolds' _Odes and
Addresses_, 1825, took up the point again.
Page 277, line 20. _Major André._ John André (1751-1780), a major in the
British army in America in the War of Independence. In his capacity as
Clinton's Adjutant-General he corresponded with one Arnold, who was
plotting to deliver West Point to the British. In the course of his
negotiations with Arnold, he crossed into the American lines and was
compelled by circumstances to adopt civilian clothes. Being caught in
this costume, he was charged as a spy, and, though every effort was made
to save him, was, by the necessities of war, shot as such by Washington
on October 2, 1780. He died like a hero. The British army donned
mourning for his death, and a monument to his memory was erected in
Westminster Abbey. Lamb alludes to the mutilation of this monument by
the fracture of a nose, but as a matter of fact the whole head of
Washington had to be renewed more than once. According to Mrs. Gordon's
_Life of Dean Buckland_, two heads taken from the monument were returned
from America to the Dean many years ago, with the request that they
might be replaced. They had been appropriated as relics. Lamb's
reference to Transatlantic Freedom was another hit at Southey's
Pantisocratic tendencies (see note above) and his _Joan of Arc_ rebel
days.
In the _London Magazine_ for December, 1823, under "The Lion's Head," is
the following:--
We have to thank an unknown correspondent for the following
SONNET
Occasioned by reading in ELIA'S LETTER to Dr. Southey, that the
admirable translator of Dante, the modest and amiable C----, still
remained a curate--or, as a waggish friend observed,--after such a
_Translation_ should still be without _Preferment_.[70]
O Thou! who enteredst the tangled wood,
By that same spirit trusting to be led,
That on the first discoverer's footsteps shed
The light with which another world was view'd;
Thou hast well scann'd the path, and firmly stood
With measured niceness in his holy tread,
Till, mounting up thy star-illumined head,
Thou lookedst in upon the perfect good!
What treasures does thy golden key unfold!
Riches immense, the pearl beyond all price,
And saintly truths to gross ears vainly told!
Say, gilds thy earthly path some Beatrice?--
If bread thou want'st, they will but give thee stones,
And when thou'rt gone, will quarrel for thy bones!
--AN UNWORTHY RECTOR.
[70] We suspect, by the way, this is not strictly the case, though
we believe it is very nearly so.
* * * * *
Page 278. GUY FAUX.
_London Magazine_, November, 1823. Not reprinted by Lamb.
This essay is a blend of new and old. The first portion is new; but at
the words (page 279, line 3 from foot) "The Gunpowder Treason was the
subject," begins a reprint, with very slight modifications, of an
article contributed by Lamb to _The Reflector_, No. II., in 1811, under
the title "On the Probable Effects of the Gunpowder Treason in this
country if the Conspirators had accomplished their Object." _The
Reflector_ essay was signed "Speculator."
Page 278, line 1. _Ingenious and subtle writer._ This was Hazlitt, whose
article on "Guy Faux," from which Lamb quotes, appeared in _The
Examiner_ of November 11, 18 and 25, 1821, signed "Z." Lamb seems to
have suggested to Hazlitt this whitewashing of Guido. See Hazlitt's
essay on "Persons one would wish to have seen" (1826), reprinted in
_Winterslow_, the report of a conversation "twenty years ago," where,
after stating that it was Lamb's wish that Guy Faux should be defended,
Hazlitt remarks that he supposes he will have to undertake the task
himself. Later in the same essay Hazlitt quotes Lamb as mentioning Guy
Faux and Judas Iscariot as two persons he would wish to see; adding, of
the conspirator:--
I cannot but think that Guy Faux, that poor, fluttering, annual
scarecrow of straw and rags, is an ill-used gentleman. I would give
something to see him sitting pale and emaciated, surrounded by his
matches and his barrels of gunpowder, and expecting the moment that
was to transport him to Paradise for his heroic self-devotion.
Again, in the article on "Lamb" in the _Spirit of the Age_ (1825)
Hazlitt wrote:--
Whittington and his Cat are a fine hallucination for Mr. Lamb's
historic Muse, and we believe he never heartily forgave a certain
writer who took the subject of Guy Faux out of his hands.
A few years afterwards Lamb told Carlyle he regretted that the Faux
conspiracy had failed--there would have been such a magnificent
_explosion_. Carlyle cites this remark in his diary in evidence of
Lamb's imbecility, but I fancy that Lamb had merely taken the measure of
his visitor.
Lamb's reference to Hazlitt as an ex-Jesuit with the mention of Douay
and M----th (Maynooth, the Irish Roman Catholic College), is, of course,
chaff, resulting from Hazlitt's defence of this arch-Romanist.
After "Father of the Church" (page 280, line 7) Lamb had written in _The
Reflector_:--
"The conclusion of his discourse is so pertinent to my subject, that
I must beg your patience while I transcribe it. He has been drawing
a parallel between the fire which Vaux and his accomplices
meditated, and that which James and John were willing to have called
down from heaven upon the heads of the Samaritans who would not
receive our Saviour into their houses. 'Lastly,' he says, 'it (the
powder treason) was a fire so strange that it had no example. The
apostles, indeed, pleaded a mistaken precedent for the
reasonableness of their demand, they desired leave to do but _even
as Elias did_. The Greeks only retain this clause, it is not in the
Bibles of the Church of Rome. And, really," etc.
I have collated the passage quoted by Lamb with the original edition of
the sermon. Of the Latin phrases which Taylor does not translate, the
first is from Sidonius Apollinaris, _Carm._, XXII.: "The stall of the
Thracian King, the altars of Busiris, the feasts of Antiphates, and the
Tauric sovereignty of Thoas." _Rex Bistonius_ was Diomed, King of the
Bistones, in Thrace, who fed his horses with human flesh, and was
himself thrown to be their food by Hercules. Busiris, King of Egypt,
seized and sacrificed all foreigners who visited this country, and he
also was slain by Hercules. Antiphates was King of the Læstrygonians in
Sicily, man-eating giants, who destroyed eleven of the ships of Ulysses.
Thoas was King of Lemnos, and when the Lemnian women killed all the men
in the island, his daughter, Hypsipylé, then elected queen, saved him,
and he fled to Taurus where he became a king. This is the only legend of
cruelty associated with the name of Thoas, and of course he is not the
prepetrator; the crime is that of the women.
Concerning Taylor's second quotation, I am informed that the words
"_ergo quæ ... tuas qui_" occur (virtually) in Prudentius,
_Cathemerinon_, V., 81. The Latin is monkish, but means evidently: "But
that massacre of princes who fell unavenged, Christ brooked not, lest
perchance the house that His Father had built should be overthrown. And
so what tongue can unfold Thy praise, O Christ, who dost abase the
disloyal people and its treacherous ruler?"
Page 284, line 11 from foot. _Bellamy's room._ The old refreshment room
of the House. There is a description of it in _Sketches by Boz_--"A
Parliamentary Sketch."
Page 284, line 6 from foot. _Berenice's curl._ After these words came,
in _The Reflector_ version of the essay, this passage:--
"--all, in their degrees, glittering somewhere. Sussex misses her
member[71] on earth, but is consoled to view him, on a starry night,
siding the Great Bear. Cambridge beholds hers[72] next Scorpio. The
gentle Castlereagh curdles in the Milky Way."
[71] "J---- F----, Esq."
[72] "Sir V---- G----."
The member for Sussex at the time this essay was written (1811) was John
Fuller, or Jack Fuller, of Rosehill, Sussex, and Devonshire Place, a
bluff, eccentric character about town in those days, of huge stature and
great wealth, whose house was famous for its musical soirées. Lamb calls
him Ursa Major; his friend Jekyll, the wit, and one of Lamb's Old
Benchers, called him the Hippopotamus. He once was forcibly removed from
the House for refusing to give way and calling the Speaker "the
insignificant little person in a wig." Fuller did not sit after 1812. He
died in 1834. The member for Cambridge University was Sir Vicary Gibbs,
then Attorney General, who in that capacity was a fierce opponent of the
press, amongst those prosecuted by him being John and Leigh Hunt. From
his caustic tongue he was known as Vinegar Gibbs--hence the reference to
Scorpio. Castlereagh was, in 1823, no more; he had committed suicide in
1821.
* * * * *
Page 285. ON A PASSAGE IN "THE TEMPEST."
_London Magazine_, November 1823. Not reprinted by Lamb.
In the _Magazine_ it was entitled "Nugæ Criticæ. By the author of
_Elia_. II. On a Passage in 'The Tempest,'" the first contribution under
this general title being the essay on Sir Philip Sidney's sonnets in the
_London Magazine_, September, 1823, reprinted in the _Last Essays of
Elia_. Lamb did not continue the series. The present paper was signed
"L."
An ingenious commentary upon Lamb's theory was contributed by "Lælius"
to the December _London Magazine_. After detailing his objections to
Ogilby's narrative as a final solution, he put forward a theory of his
own which is interesting enough to be reprinted here. Lælius wrote:--
The sense which I always attributed to the passage is this: _uno
verbo_, the Witch Sycorax was _pregnant_;--and that humanity which
teaches us to spare the guilty mother for the sake of her embryo
innocent, was imputed by Shakespeare to the Algerines on this
occasion.... The "one thing she did" is evidently what Shakespeare
in his "Merchant of Venice" with great delicacy calls "the deed of
kind;" and this sense, though by no means obvious, is justly
inferrible from the context. Why then should it not be preferred? I
have not been able to discover any thing in the rest of the piece
inconsistent with the meaning here attributed to these lines; you,
perhaps, may be more successful. A friend objected to me, that the
law is,--to spare the mother _only_ till the birth of her child,
and therefore that the Witch, instead of being exiled at once,
would have been kept till she was delivered, and then punished
with death for her "manifold mischiefs." But poets are not
expected to dispense justice with such nice and legal
discrimination,--not to speak of what might have been the immediate
necessity of expelling Sycorax from the Algerine community, either
by death or banishment; the former of which was forbidden by the
existing circumstances of her situation.
In connection with this theory it may be remarked that it was an old
belief that during pregnancy a woman's eyes became blue. Webster, in the
"Duchess of Malfi," makes Bosola say of the Duchess:--
The fins of her eyelids look most teeming blue.
I do not know of any editor of Shakespeare who has adopted Lamb's
suggestion.
* * * * *
Page 288. ORIGINAL LETTER OF JAMES THOMSON.
_London Magazine_, November, 1824. Not reprinted by Lamb.
This letter of James Thomson is printed in this edition, because Lamb
was sufficiently interested in it to copy it out; but it is believed to
be a genuine work of the author of the _Seasons_, and not, as has been
stated, a hoax of Lamb's. In the memoir of Thomson by Sir Harris Nicolas
(revised by Peter Cunningham), prefixed to the Aldine edition of
Thomson's poems, the letter will be found in its right place. It is
addressed to Dr. Cramston, September, 1725.
* * * * *
Page 292. BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF MR. LISTON.
_London Magazine_, January, 1825. Not reprinted by Lamb.
This article was not signed, but we know it to be Lamb's from a
reference in a letter to Miss Hutchinson, of January 20, 1825:--
"But did you read the 'Memoir of Liston'? and did you guess whose it
was? Of all the Lies I ever put off, I value this most. It is from
top to toe, every paragraph, Pure Invention; and has passed for
Gospel, has been republished in newspapers, and in the penny
play-bills of the Night, as an authentic Account. I shall certainly
go to the Naughty Man some day for my Fibbings."
Writing to Barton on February 10, 1825, Lamb alludes to it again,
remarking, "A life more improbable for him [Liston] to have lived would
not be easily invented."
To come from Lamb to facts--according to the best accounts that we have,
the father of John Liston (1776?-1846) was either a watchmaker, or a
subordinate official in the Custom House. He went to Soho School,
afterwards became an usher at Dr. Burney's school at Gosport, and in
1799 was a master at the Grammar School of St. Martin's in Castle
Street, Leicester Square. His first appearance on the stage proper was
at Weymouth, where he failed utterly. Later he joined a touring company
in the north of England as a serious actor, and again failed. At last,
however, a manager induced him to take up comic old men's and bumpkins'
parts, and his real talents were at once discovered. Thereafter he
succeeded steadily, until his salary was larger than that paid to any
other comedian of his time. His greatest part was Paul Pry in John
Poole's play of that name, which was produced in September in the year
of Lamb's essay. Liston left the stage in 1837. He married a Miss Tyrer,
a favourite actress in burlesque. Liston's own tendency to punning and
practical jokes must have led him to look upon this spurious biography
with much favour.
Mrs. Cowden Clarke in her autobiography, _My Long Life_, says that she
often met Mr. and Mrs. Liston in the Lambs' rooms in Great Russell
Street.
It is interesting, in connection with Lamb's joke, to know that Liston's
library contained a number of works of biblical criticism.
* * * * *
Page 299. A VISION OF HORNS.
_London Magazine_, January, 1825. Signed "Elia." Not reprinted by Lamb.
I had some little doubt as to whether or no to include in the present
edition this fantasia on a theme no longer acceptable, since Lamb
himself says he did not care to be associated with it. "The Horns is in
poor taste [he wrote to Miss Hutchinson], resembling the most laboured
papers in the Spectator. I had sign'd it 'Jack Horner:' but Taylor and
Hessey said, it would be thought an offensive article, unless I put my
known signature to it; and wrung from me my slow consent." And again, to
Barton: "I am vexed that ugly paper should have offended. I kept it as
clear from objectionable phrases as possible, and it was Hessey's fault,
and my weakness, that it did not appear anonymous. No more of it, for
God's sake."
Lamb's objections being, however, lodged rather against the publicity of
the essay's paternity than the essay itself, and the aim of the present
edition being to be as complete as possible, the essay stands. Moreover
it has a peculiar interest as being to a large extent an experiment in
what we might call Congrevism: forming a whimsical appendix to the
_Elia_ essay on the "Artificial Comedy," wherein Lamb urges upon the
readers of the old licentious plays the value of dissociating them in
their minds altogether from real life; looking upon them purely as
fanciful dramas of an impossible society; and thus being able to enjoy
their wit and high spirits without shock to the moral sensibilities. In
his "Vision of Horns" Lamb seems to me to be himself dramatising this
genial and reasonable view. He has carried out Congreve's method to a
still higher power, and imagined a land peopled wholly by cuckolds--a
_reductio ad absurdum_ of the old English and modern French comedy
theory of society. Rightly the essay should follow that on the
"Artificial Comedy" as an ironical postscript.
* * * * *
Page 304. THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEFUNCT.
_New Monthly Magazine_, January, 1825. Not reprinted by Lamb.
The footnote with which the article properly begins refers to the last
effort, then in preparation, which was made to add to the life of the
State Lottery. Actually, the last State Lottery in England was held on
October 18, 1826.
Page 305, line 4. _Devout Chancellors of the Exchequer_. The lottery
produced between £250,000 and £300,000 per annum. Its death was decreed
by a Parliamentary Committee which had inquired into its merits and
demerits as a means of replenishing the national coffers.
Page 305, line 9. _Sorrowing contractors_. It was customary to apportion
the sale of lottery tickets among speculators, who sold them again, if
possible at a profit. The most prominent of these at the last was T.
Bish (see below).
Page 305, line 28. _The Blue-coat Boy_. It was the habit, which began
about 1694, for a dozen boys from Christ's Hospital to be requisitioned
by the lottery controllers, from whom two were selected to draw the
tickets from the wheels in Coopers' Hall. An old print, given in the
Rev. E. H. Pearce's _Annals of Christ's Hospital_, 1901, shows them at
their work.
Page 309, line 3. _The art and mystery of puffing_. An interesting
collection of lottery puffs will be found in Hone's _Every-Day Book_,
Vol. II., November 15. The arch-professor of puffery in the lottery's
later days was T. Bish, of Cornhill and Charing Cross, whose
blandishments to the public were often presented in ingenious verse. We
know from one of Mary Lamb's letters that Lamb (in addition to
speculating in lottery tickets) had himself written lottery puffs twenty
years earlier than this essay; but I have not been able confidently to
trace any to his hand.
* * * * *
Page 310. UNITARIAN PROTESTS.
_London Magazine_, February, 1825. Not reprinted by Lamb.
The marriages of Unitarian and other Dissenters had to be solemnised in
English established churches until the end of 1836. Lord Hardwicke's Act
of 1753, in force, with certain modifications, at the time of Lamb's
essay, provided that all marriages not performed in church, with due
publication of banns and licence duly granted, were null and void. It
was customary, after the ceremony in an established church, to lodge a
protest against the terms of the service. Hence Lamb's scathing
strictures. Lamb was himself nominally a Unitarian, as were many of his
friends. In 1796, as he told Coleridge, he adored Priestley almost to
the point of sin. But in later life Lamb dropped away from all sects,
although he says, in a late letter, that he is as old a "one-goddite" as
George Dyer himself. Hood, who knew Lamb well, and wrote of him as
lovingly as any one, remarked in his "Literary Reminiscences" in _Hood's
Own_, probably with truth:--
As regards his Unitarianism, it strikes me as more probable that he
was what the unco' guid people call "Nothing at all," which means
that he was every thing but a Bigot. As he was in spirit an Old
Author, so was he in faith an Ancient Christian, too ancient to
belong to any of the modern sub-hubbub divisions of--Ists,--Arians,
and--Inians.
And it is told of Lamb that he once complained that the Unitarians had
robbed him of two-thirds of his God.
I do not identify M----, the friend to whom this letter was written.
* * * * *
Page 314. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MR. MUNDEN.
_London Magazine_, February, 1825. Not reprinted by Lamb.
This skit followed "The Biography of Mr. Liston" (page 292) which was
printed in the preceding month's issue. Leigh Hunt, referring in his own
_Autobiography_ to this exercise of invention, says: "Munden he [Lamb]
made born at 'Stoke Pogis;' the very sound of which was like the actor
speaking and digging his words."
To come to fact, Joseph Shepherd Munden (b. 1758) was the son of a
poulterer in Leather Lane, Holborn, where he was born. At the age of
twelve he was errand boy to an apothecary and afterwards was apprenticed
to a law stationer. More than once--incited by admiration of Garrick--he
ran away to join strolling companies, and at last he took to the stage
altogether. Of his powers as an actor Lamb's other descriptions of him
(see page 397 of this volume and the famous Elia essay) say enough.
Munden's last appearance was on May 31, 1824. He died in 1832. His son
was Thomas Shepherd Munden, who died, aged fifty, in 1850. He wrote his
father's life.
In Raymond's _Memoirs of Elliston_ is an account of an excursion which
Lamb once made with Elliston and Munden. I quote it in the notes in Vol.
II.
* * * * *
Page 317. THE "LEPUS" PAPERS.
These papers appeared in _The New Times_ at various dates in 1825. We
know them to be Lamb's from internal evidence and from the following
allusion in Crabb Robinson's MS. Diary preserved at Dr. Williams'
Library:--
"January 7, 1825. Called on Lamb and chatted. He has written in _The New
Times_ an article against visitors. He means to express his feelings
towards young Godwin, for it is chiefly against the children of old
friends that he humorously vents his spleen." The article in question,
No. I. of the series, is No. X. of a series called Variorum. Lamb's
signature, Lepus (a hare), is appended to all that are here included.
The Variorum series lasted flaggingly until April, one of the last
articles in it being Lamb's review of the _Odes and Addresses_ (see page
335), which, however, was not signed Lepus. It then died. In August a
new series, entitled "Sketches Original and Select," was begun, with an
article--"A Character"--by Lepus, but this also soon flagged. Lamb does
not seem to have contributed to it again.
Page 317. I.--MANY FRIENDS.
_The New Times_, January 8, 1825. Signed "Lepus."
Another proof of Lamb's authorship of this essay will be found in a
letter from him to Walter Savage Landor on October 9, 1832, where he
writes:--
"Next, I forgot to tell you I knew all your Welsh annoyancers, the
measureless B.'s. I knew a quarter of a mile of them. Seventeen brothers
and sixteen sisters, as they appear to me in memory. There was one of
them that used to fix his long legs on my fender, and tell a tale of a
shark every night, endless, immortal. How have I grudged the salt-sea
ravener not having had his gorge of him! The shortest of the daughters
measured five foot eleven without her shoes. Well, some day we may
confer about them. But they were tall. Truly, I have discover'd the
longitude."
Lamb also returned to the charge a little later in the Popular Fallacy
"That Home is Home." The first idea for both this essay and the Fallacy
we find in the letter to Mrs. Wordsworth dated February 18, 1818. Lamb
also utilised a portion of this essay in his Popular Fallacy "That You
must Love Me, and Love My Dog," published in February, 1826.
Page 318, last line. _Captain Beacham._ From the letter to Landor we
know this name to have disguised that of a brother of the Lambs' friend,
Matilda Betham, the author of _The Lay of Marie_.
Page 319. II.--READERS AGAINST THE GRAIN.
_The New Times_, January 13, 1825. Signed "Lepus."
Page 322. III.--MORTIFICATIONS OF AN AUTHOR.
_The New Times_, January 31, 1825. Signed "Lepus."
Page 322, line 7 from foot. _A----n C----m_. Allan Cunningham.
Page 324. IV.--TOM PRY.
_The New Times_, February 8, 1825. Signed "Lepus."
The original of this character sketch was probably Thomas Hill, the
drysalter, whom Lamb knew well. S. C. Hall's _Book of Memories_, p. 157,
says: "His peculiar faculty was to find out what everybody did, from a
minister of state to a stable-boy," etc. etc. John Poole's famous play
"Paul Pry," in which Liston played so admirably, was not produced until
September of this year, 1825. Lamb and Poole had a slight acquaintance
through the _London Magazine_, to which Poole contributed dramatic
burlesques. Lamb had given to the landlord in "Mr. H.," in 1806, the
name and character of Pry.
Page 324, line 5 of essay. _Like the man in the play._ Chremes, in the
opening scene of the _Heauton Timoroumenos_ by Terence (line 77), says:
"Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto". I am a man and to nothing
that concerns mankind am I indifferent.
Page 325, line 8. "_Usque recurrit._" Horace's _Epist._, L, x., lines
24-25:--
Naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret,
Et mala perrumpet furtim fastidia victrix.
(You may drive Nature out with a pitchfork, yet she will persistently
return, and will stealthily break through depraved fancies, and be
winner.)
Page 326. V.--TOM PRY'S WIFE.
_The New Times_, February 28, 1825. Signed "Lepus."
In a letter from Lamb to the Kenneys, of which the date is uncertain, we
get an inkling as to the identity of Mrs. Pry:--
"I suppose you know we've left the Temple pro tempore. By the way,
this conduct has caused many strange surmises in a good lady of our
acquaintance. She lately sent for a young gentleman of the India
House, who lives opposite her at Monroe's the flute shop in Skinner
Street, Snowhill,--I mention no names. You shall never get out of me
what lady I mean,--on purpose to ask all he knew about us. I had
previously introduced him to her whist table. Her inquiries embraced
every possible thing that could be known of me--how I stood in the
India House, what was the amount of my salary, what it was likely to
be hereafter, whether I was thought clever in business, why I had
taken country lodgings, why at Kingsland in particular, had I
friends in that road, was anybody expected to visit me, did I wish
for visitors, would an unexpected call be gratifying or not, would
it be better that she sent beforehand, did any body come to see me,
was not there a gentleman of the name of Morgan, did he know him,
didn't he come to see me, did he know how Mr. Morgan lived, she
could never make out how they were maintained, was it true he lived
out of the profits of a linen draper's shop in Bishopsgate Street?"
Mrs. Godwin's address was 41 Skinner Street.
Again, Mary Lamb tells Sarah Hazlitt on November 7, 1809: "Charles told
Mrs. Godwin Hazlitt had found a well in his garden which, water being
scarce in your country, would bring him in two hundred a year; and she
came in great haste the next morning to ask me if it were true."
Page 327. VI.--A CHARACTER.
_The New Times_, August 25, 1825. Signed "Lepus."
This differed from the five papers that have preceded it in inaugurating
a new series entitled "Sketches Original and Select." Lepus, however,
contributed no more. I have no idea who the original Egomet was,
possibly an India House clerk. Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, the Janus
Weathercock of the _London Magazine_, had occasionally used the
pseudonym Egomet Bonmot, and Lamb may have borrowed it.
Page 328, line 26. "_There is no reciprocity._" Lamb may have been
remembering a story in Joe Miller about the reciprocity being "all on
one side."
Page 328, line 6 from foot. "_Nimium vicini._" In allusion to Virgil's
(_Ecl._, IX., 28) "Mantua væ miseræ nimium vicina Cremonæ"--"Mantua
alas, too near ill-starred Cremona" (for it shared the fate of Cremona,
which had rebelled against Augustus and suffered confiscation). Lamb
comments in his "Popular Fallacies" upon Swift's punning use of the
phrase.
* * * * *
Page 329. REFLECTIONS IN THE PILLORY.
_London Magazine_, March, 1825. Not reprinted by Lamb.
The editor's note is undoubtedly Lamb's, as is, of course, the whole
imaginary story. It must have been about this time that Lamb was writing
his "Ode to the Treadmill" which appeared in _The New Times_ in October,
1825.
The pillory, which has not been used in this country since 1837, was
latterly kept principally for seditious and libellous offenders. In May,
1812, for instance, Eaton, the publisher of Tom Paine's _Age of Reason_,
stood in the pillory. The time was usually one hour, as in the case of
Lamb's hero, the victim being a quarter turned at each fifteen minutes,
in order that every member of the crowd might witness the disgrace. The
offender's neck and wrists were fixed in holes cut for the purpose in a
plank fastened crosswise to an upright pole. The London pillories were
erected in different spots--at Charing Cross, in the Haymarket, in St.
Martin's Lane, opposite the Royal Exchange, and elsewhere.
Page 331, line 1. _My friends from over the water_. Referring to the
prisoners in the King's Bench Prison at Southwark, who would be allowed
out during the day--hence "ephemeral Romans," or freemen, and "flies of
a day": being obliged to return at night. (Shakespeare uses flies in
this sense. "The slaves of chance and flies of every wind that blows,"
he says in "The Winter's Tale.") Lamb's friend, William Hone, was
imprisoned in the King's Bench for a while from 1826, editing in
confinement the end of his _Every-Day Book_ and the whole of the _Table
Book_.
Page 332, lines 16 and 17. _Bastwick ... Prynne ... Defoe ...
Shebbeare._ John Bastwick (1593-1654) was condemned to lose his ears in
the pillory for writing the _Letanie of Dr. John Bastwicke_, an attack
on the bishops.--William Prynne (1600-1669) was pilloried twice, the
first time for his _Histrio-Mastix_ (referred to by Lamb in the
biography of Liston on page 292), and the second time for his support of
Bastwick against the bishops, particularly Laud. He also lost his
ears.--John Shebbeare (1709-1788) was pilloried for satirising the House
of Hanover. An Irishman held an umbrella over his head the
while.--Concerning Defoe and the pillory see Lamb's "Ode to the
Treadmill" and note in the volume devoted to his poems and plays.
Page 332, line 28. _Charles closed the Exchequer._ This was in 1671. In
Green's _Short History of the English People_ we read: "So great was the
national opposition to his schemes that Charles was driven to plunge
hastily into hostilities. The attack on a Dutch convoy was at once
followed by a declaration of war, and fresh supplies were obtained for
the coming struggle by closing the Exchequer, and suspending under
Clifford's advice the payment of either principal or interest on loans
advanced to the public Treasury." The present Royal Exchange was begun
in 1842.
* * * * *
Page 333. THE LAST PEACH.
_London Magazine_, April, 1825. Not reprinted by Lamb.
Lamb's letter to Bernard Barton of December 1, 1824, warning him against
peculation, probably suggested this essay, which contains yet another
glimpse of Blakesware house and Lamb's boyhood there.
Page 333, line 8. _That unfortunate man_. Henry Fauntleroy (1785-1824)
was partner in the bank of Marsh, Sibbald & Co., of Berners Street. In
1815 he began a series of forgeries of trustees' signatures--as he
affirmed, entirely in the interests of the credit of the house, and in
no way for his own gratification--which culminated in the failure of the
bank in 1824. His trial caused intense excitement in the country. On
November 2, 1824, sentence of death was passed, and on the 30th
Fauntleroy was hanged. Many attempts were made to obtain a reprieve, and
an Italian twice offered to suffer death in his place. The story was
long current that Fauntleroy had secreted a silver tube in his windpipe,
had thereby escaped strangulation, and was living abroad. This would
appeal peculiarly to Lamb, since his essay on "The Inconveniences of
Being Hanged" and his farce "The Pawnbroker's Daughter," alike bear on
that subject.
* * * * *
Page 335. "ODES AND ADDRESSES TO GREAT PEOPLE."
_The New Times_, April 12, 1825. Now reprinted for the first time.
We know this review to be by Lamb from the evidence of a letter to
Coleridge on July 2, 1825, in reply to one in which Coleridge taxed Lamb
with the authorship of the book. Coleridge wrote:--
But my dear Charles, it was certainly written by you, or under you,
or _una cum_ you. I know none of your frequent visitors capacious
and assimilative enough of your converse to have reproduced you so
honestly, supposing you had left yourself in pledge in his lockup
house.... [Added later] No! Charles, it is _you_. I have read them
over again, and I understand why you have an'on'd the book. The
puns are nine in ten good, many excellent, the Newgatory
transcendent!... Then moreover and besides, to speak with becoming
modesty, excepting my own self, who is there but you who could
write the musical lines and stanzas that are intermixed [with the
personalities and puns]?
(The "Newgatory" pun was in the Friendly Epistle to Mrs. Elizabeth
Fry:--
I like your carriage, and your silken grey,
Your dove-like habits, and your silent teaching,
But I don't like your Newgatory preaching.)
Lamb replied:--
"The Odes are four-fifths done by Hood, a silentish young man you
met at Islington one day, an invalid. The rest are Reynolds's, whose
sister H. has recently married. I have not had a broken finger in
them. They are hearty, good-natured things, and I would put my name
to 'em cheerfully, if I could as honestly. I complimented 'em in a
newspaper, with an abatement for those puns you laud so. They are
generally an excess. A Pun is a thing of too much consequence to be
thrown in as a make-weight. You shall read one of the 'Addresses'
over and miss the puns, and it shall be quite as good, and better,
than when you discover 'em. A Pun is a noble thing _per se_: O never
lug it in as an accessory. A Pun is a sole object for Reflection
(_vide my_ 'Aids' to that recessment from a savage state)--it is
entire, it fills the mind; it is perfect as a sonnet, better. It
limps ashamed in the train and retinue of Humour: it knows it should
have an establishment of its own. The one, for instance, I made the
other day,----I forget what it was.
"Hood will be gratified, as much as I am, by your mistake. I liked
'Grimaldi' the best; it is true painting of abstract clowning, and
that precious concrete of a clown: and the rich succession of
images, and words almost such, in the first half of the 'Magnum
Ignotum.'"
Other evidence is supplied by the Forster collection at South
Kensington, which contains a copy of the review with a message for Lamb
scribbled on it.
Thomas Hood (1799-1845), whom Lamb first met in connection with the
_London Magazine_, of which Hood acted as sub-editor, married Jane
Reynolds in 1824. John Hamilton Reynolds (1796-1852), her brother, wrote
for the _London Magazine_ over the signature "Edward Herbert." The _Odes
and Addresses_ appeared anonymously in the spring of 1825. Coleridge's
attribution of the work to Lamb was not very happy; its amazing agility
was quite out of his power. But Coleridge occasionally nodded in these
matters, or he would not have been equally positive a few years earlier
that Lamb was the author of Reynolds' _Peter Bell_.
In at least two of the odes and addresses the authors followed in Lamb's
own footsteps and adapted to their own use some of his thunder. In the
address to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster the argument for free
admission, as expressed in Lamb's "Letter to Southey" in 1823 (see pages
275-277), is extended, with additional levity; and again in the ode to
Mr. Bodkin, the Hon. Secretary to the Society for the Suppression of
Mendicity, Lamb's _Elia_ essay on "The Decay of Beggars" is emphasised.
According to a copy of the book marked by Hood, now in the possession of
Mr. Buxton Forman, Reynolds wrote only the odes to M'Adam, Dymoke,
Sylvanus Urban, Elliston and the Dean and Chapter.
Compare Lamb's other remarks on punning in "Popular Fallacies" and
"Distant Correspondents."
Page 335, line 9. _Peter Pindar ... Colman_. Peter Pindar was the name
assumed by Dr. John Wolcot (1738-1819) when he lashed and satirised his
contemporaries in his very numerous odes. Colman was George Colman the
younger (1762-1836), the dramatist, and author of _Broad Grins_, 1802, a
collection of free and easy comic verse.
Page 335, foot. _The immortal Grimaldi_. Joseph Grimaldi (1779-1837),
the clown. He did not actually leave the stage until 1828, but his
appearances had been only occasional for several years.
Page 336, second stanza. "_Berkeley's Foote_." This was Maria Foote
(1797?-1867), the actress, afterwards Countess of Harrington, who was
abandoned by Colonel Berkeley after the birth of two children, and whose
woes were made public through a breach-of-promise action brought by her
against "Pea Green" Hayes a little later.
* * * * *
Page 337. THE RELIGION OF ACTORS.
_New Monthly Magazine_, April, 1826. Not reprinted by Lamb; but known to
be his by a sentence in a letter to Bernard Barton. This paper is of
course as nonsensical as that on Liston.
Page 337, line 4 of essay. _A celebrated tragic actor_. Referring to the
action for criminal conversation brought by Alderman Cox against Edmund
Kean, in 1824, in which Kean was cast in £800 damages, and which led
during the following seasons to hostile demonstrations against him both
in England and America. For many performances he played only to men.
Page 337, line 11 of essay. _Miss Pope_. See note on page 465.
Page 338, line 1. _The present licenser_. George Colman the younger,
whose pedantic severity was out of all proportion to the freedom which
in his earlier play-writing and verse-writing days he had allowed
himself. In his evidence before a committee of the House of Commons, in
an inquiry into the state of the drama in 1832, he admitted having
refused to pass the term "angel," addressed by a lover to his lady, on
the ground that "an angel was a heavenly body."
Page 338, line 3. _Fawcett._ This would be John Fawcett (1768-1837),
famous in bluff parts. He was treasurer and trustee of the Covent Garden
Theatrical Fund for many years.
Page 338, line 3. _The five points._ The Five Points of Doctrine,
maintained by the Calvinists, were Original Sin, Predestination,
Irresistible Grace, Particular Redemption and the Final Perseverance of
the Saints.
Page 338, line 4. _Dicky Suett._ Richard Suett (1755-1805), the comedian
of whom Lamb wrote so enthusiastically in "The Old Actors."
Page 338, line 7. _Br----'s "Religio Dramatici."_ I imagine that John
Braham, the tenor (1774?-1856), _né_ Abraham, had put forth a manifesto
stating that he had embraced the Christian faith; but I can get no
information on the subject. See Lamb's other references to Braham in the
_Elia_ essay "Imperfect Sympathies."
Page 338, line 8 from foot. _Dr. Watts._ Dr. Isaac Watts' version of the
Psalms, 1719, takes great liberties with the originals, evangelising
them, omitting much, and even substituting "Britain" for "Israel."
Page 338, foot. _St. Martin's ... St. Paul's, Covent Garden._ The two
parishes in which the chief theatres were situated.
Page 339, line 3. _Two great bodies._ The Covent Garden Company and the
Drury Lane Company.
Page 339, line 7. _Mr. Bengough ... Mr. Powell._ Two useful actors in
their day.
Page 339, line 18. _Notorious education of the manager._ Charles Kemble
(1775-1854), then manager of Covent Garden, had been educated at the
English Jesuit College at Douay, where his brother, John Philip Kemble,
had preceded him.
Page 339, line 20. _Mr. T----y._ This would probably be Daniel Terry
(1780-1829), then manager, with Yates, of the Adelphi. The allusion to
him as a member of the Kirk of Scotland probably refers to his
well-known adoration and imitation of Sir Walter Scott, whom he closely
resembled.
Page 339, line 25. _Mr. Fletcher._ The Rev. Alexander Fletcher, minister
of the Albion Chapel in Moorfields, who was suspended by the Synod of
the Presbyterian Church in 1824 for his share in a breach-of-promise
case.
Page 339, lines 29 and 30. _Miss F----e and Madame V----s._ Miss F----e
would probably be Miss Foote (see note on page 521). Madame Vestris
(1797-1856), the comedienne and wife of Charles James Mathews. It might
not be out of place to state that Sublapsarians consider the election
of grace as a remedy for an existing evil, and Supralapsarians view it
as a part of God's original purpose in regard to men.
Page 339, lines 32 and 33. _Mr. Pope_ ... _Mr. Sinclair_. Alexander Pope
(1752-1835), the comedian. John Sinclair (1791-1857), the singer.
Page 339, line 33. _Mr. Grimaldi_. See the note on page 521. Grimaldi's
son Joseph S. Grimaldi made his début as Man Friday in 1814 and died in
1832. The Jumpers were a Welsh sect of Calvinist Methodists.
Page 340, line 7. _Mr. Elliston_. Robert William Elliston (1774-1831),
the comedian, who had been manager of Drury Lane, 1821-1826. Lamb's
_Elia_ essays on this character lend point to his suggestion that
Elliston leaned towards the Muggletonians, a sect which by that time was
almost extinct, after two centuries' existence.
* * * * *
Page 340. A POPULAR FALLACY.
_New Monthly Magazine_, June, 1826, where it formed part of the series
of "Popular Fallacies," of which all the others were reprinted in the
_Last Essays of Elia_. Lamb did not reprint it.
The unnamed works referred to are _The Register of the Most Noble Order
of the Garter_, 1724, by John Anstis (not Anstey), Garter King-at-Arms,
and Elias Ashmole's _Institutions, Laws and Ceremonies of the Order of
the Garter_, 1672. In the passage quoted from William Hay's _Deformity,
an Essay_, 1754, the author is speaking of his experiences when in a
mob.
* * * * *
Page 342. REMINISCENCES OF JUKE JUDKINS, ESQ.
_New Monthly Magazine_, June, 1826. Signed "Elia." Not reprinted by
Lamb.
Lamb seems to have intended to write a story of some length, for the
promise "To be continued" was appended to the first instalment. But he
did not return to it.
* * * * *
Page 349. CONTRIBUTIONS TO HONE'S "EVERY-DAY BOOK" AND "TABLE BOOK."
I have arranged together all Lamb's prose contributions (except "A
Death-Bed" and the Garrick Extracts) to William Hone's volumes--the
_Every-Day Book_, both series, and the _Table Book_--in order to give
them unity. It seemed better to do this than to interrupt the series for
the sake of a chronological order which at this period of Lamb's life
(1825-1827) was of very little importance. Three not absolutely certain
pieces will be found in the Appendix.
William Hone (1780-1842) was a man of independent mind and chequered
career. He started life in an attorney's office, but in 1800 exchanged
the law for book-and-print selling, and began to exercise his thoughts
upon public questions, always siding with the unpopular minority. He
examined into what he considered public scandals with curiosity and
persistence, undiscouraged by such private calamities as bankruptcy, and
in many ways showed himself an "Enemy of the People." Some squibs
against the Government, in the form of parodies of the Litany, the
Church Catechism and the Athanasian Creed, led to a famous trial on
December 17-19, 1817, in which, after a prolonged sitting--Hone's speech
in his own defence lasting seven hours--he was acquitted, in spite of
the adverse summing up of Lord Ellenborough. The verdict is said to have
hastened Ellenborough's death. A public subscription for Hone realised
upwards of £3,000, and he thereupon entered upon a more materially
successful period of his career. He became more of a publisher and
author, and less of a firebrand. He issued a number of cheap but worthy
books, and in 1823 his own first important work, _Ancient Mysteries_.
Hone's title to fame, however, rests upon his discovery of George
Cruikshank's genius and his _Every-Day Book_ (Vol. I. running through
1825 and published in 1826; Vol. II. running through 1826 and published
in 1827), his _Table Talk_, 1827, and his _Year Book_, 1831. These are
admirable collections of old English lore, legends and curiosities,
brought together by a kind-hearted, simple-minded man, to whom thousands
of readers and hundreds of makers of books are indebted.
William Hone and financial complexity were unhappily never strangers,
and in 1826 he was in prison for debt; indeed he finished the _Every-Day
Book_ and edited the _Table Book_ there. A few years later, largely by
Lamb's instrumentality, he was placed by his friends in a
coffee-house--the Grasshopper, in Gracechurch Street--but he did not
make it succeed. He died in 1842.
Lamb and Hone first met probably in 1823. In May of that year Lamb
acknowledges Hone's gift of a copy of _Ancient Mysteries_ and asks him
to call. In 1825 Lamb is contributing to the _Every-Day Book_, and in
July he lends Hone his house at Islington, while Mary and himself are at
Enfield. The _Every-Day Book_, July 14, 1825, has a humorous letter from
Hone to Lamb, written from Islington, entitled "A Hot Letter," which
Lamb acknowledges in a reply to Hone on the 25th. This letter was
addressed to Captain Lion--Hone's joke upon Lamb's name. In the answers
to correspondents on the wrapper of one of the periodical parts of the
_Every-Day Book_ Mr. Bertram Dobell has found quoted one of Lion's good
things: "'J. M.' is a wag. His 'derivation' reminds the Editor of an
observation the other day by his witty friend Mr. LION. Being pressed to
take some rhubarb pie, Mr. L. declined because it was physic; to the
reply that it was pleasant and innocent, he rejoined, 'So is a daisy,
but I don't therefore like daisy pie.' 'Daisy pie! who ever heard of
daisy pies?' 'My authority is Shakespeare; he expressly mentions daisies
pied.'"
It was in the number of the _London Magazine_ for July, 1825, that
Lamb's signed verses to the editor of the _Every-Day Book_ appeared,
beginning:--
I like you, and your book, ingenuous Hone,
(still too often printed "ingenious"); a testimonial which must have
meant much to Hone at that time. Hone copied them into the _Every-Day
Book_ for July 9, 1825, with a rhymed reply.
Hone had for Lamb's genius and character an intense enthusiasm. The
_Every-Day Book_ is enriched by many quotations from Lamb's writings,
with occasional bursts of eulogy. For example, on December 31, of Vol.
I., when quoting from "New Year's Eve," he remarks:--
among the other delightful essays of his volume entitled "ELIA"--a
little book, whereof to say that it is of more gracious feeling and
truer beauty than any of our century is poor praise ...
And on September 23, of Vol. II., when quoting "My First Play":--
After the robbery of "ELIA," my conscience forces me to declare
that I wish every reader would save me from the shame of further
temptation to transgress, by ordering "ELIA" into his collection.
There is no volume in our language so full of beauty, truth and
feeling, as the volume of "ELIA." I am convinced that every person
who has not seen it, and may take the hint, will thank me for
acquainting him with a work which we cannot look into without
pleasure, nor lay down without regret. It is a delicious book.
The _Every-Day Book_ appeared periodically through 1825 and 1826. The
first volume was published as a book in May, 1826, with the following
dedication:--
TO
CHARLES LAMB, ESQ.
DEAR L----
Your letter to me, within the first two months from the
commencement of the present work, approving my notice of St. Chad's
Well, and your afterwards daring to publish me your "friend," with
your "proper name" annexed, I shall never forget. Nor can I forget
your and Miss Lamb's sympathy and kindness when glooms outmastered
me; and that your pen spontaneously sparkled in the book, when my
mind was in clouds and darkness. These "trifles," as each of you
would call them, are benefits scored upon my heart; and
I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME,
TO YOU AND MISS LAMB,
WITH AFFECTIONATE RESPECT,
W. HONE.
_May 5, 1826._
It has been held that the inference that Mary Lamb also contributed to
Vol. I. of the _Every-Day Book_ is a fair one to draw from these words.
But beyond her recollections in the paper on "Starkey" nothing from her
pen has been identified. Her brother's certain contributions to Vol. I.
are, the "Remarkable Correspondent," "Captain Starkey," the "Twelfth of
August," "The Ass," and "Squirrels." To Vol. II. he sent "An Appearance
of the Season," "The Months," and "Reminiscences of Jeffery Dunstan."
My impression is that Lamb's hand is to be seen far oftener than this:
but we have no definite proof. I feel convinced that many of Hone's
quotations from old plays and old books were supplied to him by his more
leisured friend.
In column 857 of _The Table Book_, 1827, Vol. II., for example, is the
following letter to Hone, which is very likely to be from Lamb's pen.
Waltham Abbey was a favourite objective of his in his long Essex and
Hertfordshire rambles:--
WALTHAM, ESSEX
_To the Editor_
SIR,--The following epitaph is upon a plain gravestone in the
churchyard of Waltham Abbey. Having some point, it may perhaps be
acceptable for the _Table Book_. I was told that the memory of the
worthy curate is still held in great esteem by the inhabitants of
that place.
REV. ISAAC COLNETT,
Fifteen years curate of this Parish,
Died March 1, 1801--Aged 43 years.
Shall pride a heap of sculptured marble raise,
Some worthless, unmourn'd, titled fool to praise,
And shall we not by one poor gravestone show
Where pious, worthy Colnett sleeps below?
Surely common decency, if they are deficient in antiquarian
feeling, should induce the inhabitants of Waltham Cross to take
some measures, if not to restore, at least to preserve from further
decay and dilapidation the remains of that beautiful monument of
conjugal affection, the cross erected by Edward I. It is now in a
sad disgraceful state.
I am, &c.,
Z.
Lamb's first contribution to the _Table Book_, always excepting his
regular supply of Garrick Play extracts was "A Death-Bed," an account of
the last moments of his friend, Randal Norris, which he included in the
_Last Essays of Elia_. His other original prose was the letter about
Mrs. Gilpin at Edmonton, and "The Defeat of Time." A few pages after "A
Death-Bed," there is an extract from an article from _Blackwood's
Magazine_ for April, 1827, entitled "Le Revenant"--the story of a man
who survived hanging. Lamb suggested to Hone that he should print
this.--"There is in _Blackwood_ this month [he wrote in a private
letter] an article MOST AFFECTING indeed, called _Le Revenant_, and
would do more towards abolishing capital punishment, than 40,000
Romillies or Montagues. I beg you to read it and see if you can extract
any of it--the trial scene in particular." This is another instance of
the fascination that resuscitation after hanging exerted upon Lamb.
We know also, as is stated in the note to "The Good Clerk" (page 455),
that Lamb supplied Hone with the extracts from Defoe and Mandeville in
columns 567-569 and 626-628 of the _Table Book_, Vol. I. He probably
sent many others.
In columns 773-774 of the _Table Book_, Vol. I., are Lamb's verses
"Going or Gone."
In column 55 of the _Table Book_, Vol. II., is Lamb's sonnet to Miss
Kelly, and in column 68 his explanation that Moxon probably sent it.
To Hone's _Year Book_, 1831, Lamb contributed no original prose that is
identifiable. On April 30, however, was printed Sir T. Overbury's
character of a "Free and Happy Milkmaid," of which we know Lamb to have
been fond--he copied it into one of his Extract Books--together with two
passages from Jeremy Taylor, all probably sent to Hone by Lamb. It was
on this day that FitzGerald's "Meadows in Spring" was printed in the
_Year Book_, and afterwards copied in _The Athenæum_, where it was
attributed by suggestion to Lamb.
* * * * *
Page 349. I.--REMARKABLE CORRESPONDENT.
Hone's _Every-Day Book_, Vol. I., May 1, 1825. Not reprinted by Lamb.
Hone's _Every-Day Book_, which purported to take account of every day in
the year, had passed without a word from February 28 to March 1. Hence
this protest.
Page 350, line 13. _An antique scroll_. On February 28 Hone printed
these lines:--
FOR THE MEMORY
_Old Memorandum of the Months_
Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November,
All the rest have thirty and one,
Except February, which hath twenty-eight alone.
The omitted couplet runs:--
Except in Leap Year, at which time
February's days are twenty-nine.
To Lamb's protests Hone replied as follows, on May 1:--
To this correspondent it may be demurred and given in proof, that
neither in February, nor at any other time in the year 1825, had
he, or could he, have had existence; and that whenever he is seen,
he is only an impertinence and an interpolation upon his betters.
To his "floral honours" he is welcome; in the year 992, he slew St.
Oswald, archbishop of York, in the midst of his monks, to whom the
greater periwinkle, _Vinca Major_, is dedicated. For this honour
our correspondent should have waited till his turn arrived for
distinction. His ignorant impatience of notoriety is a mark of
weakness, and indeed it is only in compassion to his infirmity that
he has been condescended to; his brothers have seen more of the
world, and he should have been satisfied by having been allowed to
be in their company at stated times, and like all little ones, he
ought to have kept respectful silence. Besides, he forgets his
origin; he is illegitimate; and as a burthen to "the family," and
an upstart, it has been long in contemplation to disown him, and
then what will become of him? If he has done any good in the world
he may have some claim upon it, but whenever he appears, he seems
to throw things into confusion. His desire to alter the title of
this work excites a smile--however, when he calls upon the editor
he shall have justice, and be compelled to own that it is calumny
to call this the _Every-Day--but--one--Book_.
In Vol. II. of the _Every-Day Book_ February 29 was again omitted. He
did not come to his own until the _Year Book_ in 1831.
Page 351. II.--CAPTAIN STARKEY.
Hone's _Every-Day Book_, Vol. I., July 21, 1825. Signed "C. L." Not
reprinted by Lamb.
On July 9 Hone gave extracts from a small pamphlet entitled _Memoirs of
the Life of Benj. Starkey, late of London, but now an inmate of the
Freemen's Hospital, in Newcastle. Written by himself. With a portrait of
the Author and a Facsimile of his handwriting_. William Hall, Newcastle,
1818. This pamphlet is not interesting, except in calling forth Lamb's
reminiscences.
Page 351, line 9. _My sister._ Mary Lamb, who was born in 1764, would
probably have been at Bird's school at the time of her brother's birth.
Her period there may have been 1774-1778.
Page 351, line 25. _Fetter Lane._ In a directory for 1773 I find William
Bird, Academy, 3 Bond Stables, Fetter Lane. Bond Stables have now
disappeared, although there is still the passage joining Fetter Lane and
Bartlett's Buildings.
Page 354. III.--TWELFTH OF AUGUST.
Hone's _Every-Day Book_, Vol. I., August 12, 1825. Not reprinted by
Lamb.
While George IV., who was born on August 12, 1762, was Prince of Wales,
a very long period, his birthday was kept on its true date. But after
his accession to the throne in 1820 his birthday was kept on April 23,
St. George's Day. Hence Lamb's protest. This is probably the only kind
reference to George IV. in all Lamb's writings.
Lamb already (_Morning Post_, 1802, see page 44, and _London Magazine_,
1823) had rehearsed the theme both of this letter and of that on the
"Twenty-ninth of February." In his "Rejoicings upon the New Year's
Coming of Age" the forlorn condition of February 29 is more than once
mentioned, while the grievance of August 12 against April 23 is thus
described:--
"The King's health being called for after this, a notable dispute
arose between the _Twelfth of August_ (a jealous old Whig
gentlewoman) and the _Twenty-Third of April_ (a new-fangled lady of
the Tory stamp) as to which of them should have the honour to
propose it. _August_ grew hot upon the matter, affirming time out of
mind the prescriptive right to have lain with her, till her rival
had basely supplanted her; whom she represented as little better
than a _kept_ mistress, who went about in _fine clothes_, while she
(the legitimate BIRTHDAY) had scarcely a rag, &c."
Page 354, line 4 of letter. _Poor relative of ours._ February 29 (see
page 349).
Page 355, line 11. _George of Cappadocia, etc._ George of Cappadocia was
a Bishop of Alexandria in the fourth century, murdered by the populace.
There was once a tendency to confuse him with St. George of England.
George of Leyden was probably a slip of the pen for John of Leyden, the
Anabaptist of Münster. George-a-Green, the hero of the _History of
George-a-Green, the Pindar of Wakefield_, the stoutest opponent that
Robin Hood ever met. The story was dramatised in a play attributed to
Robert Green. George Dyer was Lamb's friend.
Page 355, line 15. _Dismission of a set of men._ Referring to the King's
overthrow of the Whigs in the Caroline of Brunswick ferment.
To Lamb's letter Hone printed a clever reply.
Page 356. IV.--THE ASS.
Hone's _Every-Day Book_, Vol. I., October 5, 1825. Signed "C. L." Not
reprinted by Lamb.
The germ of this paper is found in a letter from Lamb to John Payne
Collier in 1821 thanking him for the gift of his _Poetical Decameron_.
After quoting the three lines also quoted in this essay, Lamb remarks,
in the letter, "Cervantes, Sterne, and Coleridge, have said positively
nothing for asses compared with this."
The immediate cause of the communication to the _Every-Day Book_ was a
previous article in praise of asses. Hone prefixed to Lamb's paper the
following remarks: "The cantering of TIM TIMS [who had written of asses
on September 19] startles him who told of his 'youthful days,' at the
school wherein poor 'Starkey' cyphered part of his little life. C. L.,
'getting well, but weak' from painful and severe indisposition, is 'off
and away' for a short discursion. Better health to him, and good be to
him all his life. Here he is."
Lamb wrote to Hone in humorous protest against the implication of the
phrase "Here he is," immediately above the title "The Ass." "My friends
are fairly surprised [he said] that you should set me down so
unequivocally for an ass.... Call you that friendship?"
Page 356, foot. "_Between the years 1790 and 1800._" This passage refers
to an article in a previous issue of the _Every-Day Book_ (see Vol. I.,
September 19) on cruelty to animals, where we read:--
Legislative discussion and interference have raised a feeling of
kindness towards the brute creation which slumbered and slept in
our forefathers. Formerly, the costermonger was accustomed to make
wounds for the express purpose of producing torture. He prepared to
drive an ass, that had not been driven, with his knife. On each
side of the back bone, at the lower end, just above the tail, he
made an incision of two or three inches in length through the skin,
and beat into these incisions with his stick till they became open
wounds, and so remained, while the ass lived to be driven to and
from market, or through the streets of the metropolis. A
costermonger, now, would shrink from this, which was a common
practice between the years 1790 and 1800.
Page 357, line 9. "_Lay on," etc._ Anaxarchus, the philosopher, having
offended Alexander the Great, was pounded in a stone mortar. During the
process he exclaimed: "Pound the body of Anaxarchus; thou dost not pound
the soul." Lamb proposed to use the phrase "You beat but on the case of
Elia" in the preface to the _Essays of Elia_ as a monition to adverse
critics, but he changed his mind.
Page 358, foot. _Jem Boyer._ See the Elia essay on "Christ's Hospital"
in Vol. II. (page 22), and notes to same. "_As_ in præsenti perfectum
format in _avi_"--"as in the present tense makes _avi_ in the
perfect"--was the first of the mnemonic rules for the formation of verbs
in the old Latin primer (see the old Eton _Latin Grammar_). Lamb himself
makes the pun in a letter to Mrs. Shelley in 1827.
Page 359. V.--IN RE SQUIRRELS.
Hone's _Every-Day Book_, Vol. I., October 18, 1825. Signed "C. L." Not
reprinted by Lamb.
On October 7 Hone had reprinted a letter on squirrels from the
_Gentleman's Magazine_. Lamb's postscript to that letter, as this little
communication may be called, was thus introduced:--
"_Be it remembered_, that C. L. comes here and represents his
relations, that is to say, on behalf of the recollections, being the
next of kin, of him, the said C. L., and of sundry persons who are
'aye treading' in the manner of squirrels aforesaid; and thus he
saith:--"
Page 359, line 12. _Mr. Urban's correspondent._ Mr. Urban--Sylvanus
Urban--the dynastic name of the editor of the _Gentleman's Magazine_.
"I know not," says the correspondent, "whether any naturalist has
observed that their [squirrels'] teeth are of a deep orange colour."
Page 359, line 22. _The author of the "Task" somewhere ..._
The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play,
He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird,
Ascends the neighb'ring beech; there whisks his brush,
And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds aloud,
With all the prettiness of feigned alarm,
And anger insignificantly fierce.
Cowper, _The Task_, Book VI., "The Winter's Walk at
Noon," lines 315-320.
Page 359, foot. _As for their "six quavers," etc._ The writer in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ describes his squirrels as dancing in their cages
to exact time.
Page 359, foot. _Along with the "melodious," etc._ Referring to the
preceding essay, "The Ass."
Page 360. VI.--AN APPEARANCE OF THE SEASON.
_Every-Day Book_, Vol. II., January 28, 1826. Not reprinted by Lamb.
We know this to be Lamb's because the original copy was preserved at
Rowfant, together with that of many other of Lamb's contributions to
Hone's books.
The article in the _London Magazine_ for December, 1822, to which Lamb
refers, is entitled "A Few Words about Christmas." It is one of the best
of the imitations of Lamb, of which there are many in that periodical,
and was possibly from Hood's pen. A full description of Hood's "Progress
of Cant" follows Lamb's little paper in the _Every-Day Book_, probably
written by Hone. See page 431.
The motto under the Beadle's picture is from "Lear," Act IV., Scene 6,
line 162.
Page 360, line 6 of essay. _Within the bills._ Within the bills of
mortality. Geographically speaking, the phrase "within the bills" was
the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth century counterpart of
our phrase "within the radius." But the associations of the two terms
are very different. The bills were the Bills of Mortality, or lists of
deaths (also births) drawn up by the Parish Clerks of London and
published by them on Thursdays. Devised as a means of publishing the
increase or decrease of the ever-recurrent Plague, the bills were begun
in 1592, were resumed during a visitation in 1603, and from that year,
except for some interruption at the time of the Great Fire, they
appeared week by week, until the middle of the nineteenth century.
Page 361. VII.--THE MONTHS.
Hone's _Every-Day Book_, Vol. II., April 16, 1826. Signed "C. L." Not
reprinted by Lamb. I have collated the extracts with Lamb's edition of
_The Queene-like Closet_.
Hone's prefixed note runs: "C. L., whose papers under these initials on
'Captain Starkey,' 'The Ass, No. 2,' and 'Squirrels,' besides other
communications, are in the first volume, drops the following pleasant
article 'in an hour of need.'"
Mrs. Hannah Woolley, afterwards Mrs. Challinor, was born about 1623. The
first edition of _The Queene-like Closet_ was 1672; she wrote also, or
is supposed to have written, _The Ladies' Directory, or Choice
Experiments of Preserving and Candying_, 1661; _The Cook's Guide_, 1664;
_The Ladies' Delight_, 1672; _The Gentlewoman's Companion_, 1675.
Page 365, line 3. _I remember Bacon ..._ This possibly is the passage
referred to:--
Neither let us be thought to sacrifice to our mother the earth,
though we advise, that in digging or ploughing the earth for
health, a quantity of claret wine be poured thereon (_History of
Life and Death_, Operation 5, No. 33).
Page 365, last line of essay. _Surely Swift must have seen ..._ Swift's
_Directions to Servants_ was published in 1745, after the author's
death.
Page 366. VIII.--REMINISCENCE OF SIR JEFFERY DUNSTAN.
Hone's _Every-Day Book_, Vol. II., June 22, 1826. Signed "C. L." Not
reprinted by Lamb.
The following account of the Garrat election was given in Sir Richard
Phillips' _A Morning's Walk from London to Kew_, 1817, quoted by Hone:--
Southward of Wandsworth, a road extends nearly two miles to the
village of Lower Tooting, and nearly midway are a few houses, or
hamlet, by the side of a small common, called _Garrat_, from which
the road itself is called _Garrat Lane_. Various encroachments on
this common led to an association of the neighbours about
three-score years since, when they chose a president, or _mayor_,
to protect their rights; and the time of their first election being
the period of a new parliament, it was agreed that the mayor should
be re-chosen after every general election. Some facetious members
of the club gave, in a few years, local notoriety to this election;
and, when party spirit ran high in the days of _Wilkes and
Liberty_, it was easy to create an appetite for a burlesque
election among the lower orders of the Metropolis. The publicans at
Wandsworth, Tooting, Battersea, Clapham, and Vauxhall, made a purse
to give it character; and Mr. Foote rendered its interest
universal, by calling one of his inimitable farces "The Mayor of
Garrat."
In 1826, the year of Hone's literary outburst on the subject, which
should be referred to by any one curious in the matter, an attempt was
made to revive the Garrat humours; but it was too late for success; the
joke was dead.
Dunstan was a stunted, quick-witted and quick-tongued dealer in old
wigs--a well-known street and tavern figure in his day. He contested
Garrat in 1781 against "Sir" John Harper ("who made an oath against work
in his youth and was never known to break it"). Sir John then won.
Dunstan's speech is quoted in full by Hone from an old broadside.
"Gentlemen," he said, "as I am not an orator or personable man, be
assured I am an honest member." When Harper died in 1785 Sir Jeffery was
returned, as many as 50,000 people attending the election. Dunstan used
to recite his speeches in public-houses, where collections were made for
him; but this means of livelihood was impaired by the loss of his teeth,
which he sold one night for ten shillings and a sufficiency of liquor to
some merry London Hospital students. He died in 1797 when Lamb was
twenty-two.
Page 366, line 5 of essay. _About 1790 or 1791._ Lamb was at the
South-Sea House.
Page 367, line 27. _Dr. Last._ In Samuel Foote's play, "The Devil on Two
Sticks," 1778.
Page 367, foot. _My Lord Foppington._ Lord Foppington in "The Relapse,"
by Congreve. Foppington remarks: "To mind the inside of a book is to
entertain one's self with the forced product of another man's brain. Now
I think a man of quality and breeding may be much amused with the
natural sprouts of his own." Lamb uses the same speech for the motto of
his "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading."
Page 368. IX.--MRS. GILPIN RIDING TO EDMONTON.
Hone's _Table Book_, Vol. II., columns 79-81, 1827. Not reprinted by
Lamb.
We know Lamb to have written this, from the evidence of an unpublished
letter and the original "copy" and picture, once preserved at Rowfant.
Lamb's letter to Hone, enclosing Hood's drawing, runs thus:--
[No date: early July, 1827.]
"DEAR H.,
"This is Hood's, done from the life, of Mary getting over a style
here. Mary, out of a pleasant revenge, wants you to get it
_engrav'd_ in Table Book to surprise H., who I know will be amus'd
with you so doing.
"Append some observations about the awkwardness of country styles
about Edmonton, and the difficulty of elderly Ladies getting over
'em.----
"That is to say, if you think the sketch good enough.
"I take on myself the warranty.
"Can you slip down here some day and go a Green-dragoning?
"C. L.
"Enfield (Mrs. Leishman's, Chase).
"If you do, send Hood the number, No. 2 Robert St., Adelphi, and
keep the sketch for me."
Lamb subsequently appended the observations himself. The text of his
little article, changing Mary Lamb into Mrs. Gilpin, followed in Mr.
Locker-Lampson's album. The postmark is July 17, 1827.
Lamb was fond of jokes about styles. Writing to Dodwell, of the India
House, from Calne, in the summer of 1816, he said, after dating his
letter old style: "No new style here, all the styles are old, and some
of the gates too for that matter."
Page 369. X.--THE DEFEAT OF TIME.
Hone's _Table Book_, Vol. II., columns 335-340, 1827. Not reprinted by
Lamb.
In 1827 was published Thomas Hood's poem, _The Plea of the Midsummer
Fairies_, with the following dedication to Lamb:--
TO CHARLES LAMB
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I thank my literary fortune that I am not reduced, like many better
wits, to barter dedications, for the hope or promise of patronage,
with some nominally great man; but that where true affection
points, and honest respect, I am free to gratify my head and heart
by a sincere inscription. An intimacy and dearness, worthy of a
much earlier date than our acquaintance can refer to, direct me at
once to your name: and with this acknowledgment of your ever kind
feeling towards me, I desire to record a respect and admiration for
you as a writer, which no one acquainted with our literature, save
Elia himself, will think disproportionate or misplaced. If I had
not these better reasons to govern me, I should be guided to the
same selection by your intense yet critical relish for the works of
our great Dramatist, and for that favourite play in particular
which has furnished the subject of my verses.
It is my design, in the following Poem, to celebrate an allegory,
that immortality which Shakespeare has conferred on the Fairy
mythology by his Midsummer Night's Dream. But for him, those pretty
children of our childhood would leave barely their names to our
maturer years; they belong, as the mites upon the plum, to the
bloom of fancy, a thing generally too frail and beautiful to
withstand the rude handling of Time: but the Poet has made this
most perishable part of the mind's creation equal to the most
enduring; he has so intertwined the Elfins with human sympathies,
and linked them by so many delightful associations with the
productions of nature, that they are as real to the mind's eye, as
their green magical circles to the outer sense.
It would have been a pity for such a race to go extinct, even
though they were but as the butterflies that hover about the leaves
and blossoms of the visible world.
I am,
My dear Friend,
Yours most truly,
T. HOOD.
Lamb's "Defeat of Time" is a paraphrase of the first part of Hood's
poem.
Page 371, line 10. _"In the flowery spring," etc._ From Chapman's
Translation of Homer's "Hymn to Pan," 31-33.
Page 373, line 15 from foot. _Sir Thomas Gresham._ It is told of Sir
Thomas Gresham (1519?-1579), the founder of the Royal Exchange, that as
a baby his life was saved by the chirping of a grasshopper, as related
here. But cold veracity says not. The legend seems to have had its
origin in the grasshopper crest of the Greshams, but it has been found
that this crest was worn by an ancestor of Sir Thomas's who lived a
hundred years earlier.
* * * * *
Page 375. AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
Lamb wrote this little sketch for William Upcott (1779-1845), the
autograph collector and assistant librarian of the London Institution.
Upcott permitted John Forster to quote it in the _New Monthly Magazine_
for April, 1835, shortly after Lamb's death. It is here printed from the
original MS. in the possession of Mr. B. B. MacGeorge, of Glasgow,
contained in a MS. volume entitled "Reliques of my Contemporaries.
William Upcott." Whether or no Lamb ever caught a swallow flying is not
known; but everything else in the autobiography is true. The reference
to Mr. Upcott's book may be to the album in which this sketch was
written, or to a new edition of the _Biographical Dictionary of Living
Authors_, published in 1816, in which Upcott is supposed to have had a
hand. I cannot discover whether a second edition of this work was
published. There is none at the British Museum, nor at the London
Institution, of which Upcott was librarian. In the first edition, _A
Biographical Dictionary of the Living Authors of Great Britain and
Ireland ..._ 1816, Lamb figures thus:--
"LAMB, CHARLES, was born in London, in 1775, and educated at Christ's
Hospital. He is at present a clerk in the India House, and has published
[a list of six books follows] ..."
"LAMB, MISS, sister of the preceding, has published _Mrs. Leicester's
School_, 12mo, 1808; _Poetry for Children_, 2 vs., 12mo, 1809."
Upcott is not considered to have done more than to collect some of the
materials for the _Dictionary_, which was the work of John Watkins and
Frederick Shoberl.
Lamb's sense of time was never good: the _Elia_ essays were published in
1823 and the _Specimens_ in 1808, fully four years and nineteen years
before the date of this autobiography. The joke about the _Works_ will
be found also in the original version of the "Character of the Late
Elia."
* * * * *
Page 376. SHAKESPEARE'S IMPROVERS.
_The Spectator_, November 22, 1828. Not reprinted by Lamb.
This letter was drawn forth by some remarks on the spurious version of
"King Lear," which was then being played; or, as _The Spectator_
phrased it, "Shakespeare murdered by Nahum Tate--Covent Garden aiding
and abetting." See page 383 for another letter to the same paper. See
also the essay on "Shakespeare's Tragedies," 1810, for a first idea of
the indictment now more fully drawn up.
Page 376, line 2 of letter. _Tate's "King Lear."_ Nahum Tate
(1652-1715), Poet Laureate, was the author, with Nicholas Brady
(1659-1726), of the rhymed version of the Psalms which bears their
names, 1696, a rival of the version of 1549 by Thomas Sternhold and John
Hopkins. He also wrote verses and plays, original and doctored. His
version of "King Lear"--"The History of King Lear"--was produced in
1681. Therein Cordelia and Edgar are at the outset shown to be in love.
After the usual frustrations they are united at the close, and Lear, who
does not die, pronounces his blessing over them. Cordelia thus addresses
Edgar in the first act:--
When, Edgar, I permitted your addresses,
I was the darling daughter of a king,
Nor can I now forget my royal birth,
And live dependent on my lover's fortune.
I cannot to so low a fate submit,
And therefore study to forget your passions,
And trouble me upon this theme no more.
Tate also rewrote "Richard II." and Webster's "White Devil."
Page 376, foot. "_Coriolanus._" Lamb refers to Tate's play, "The
Ingratitude of a Commonwealth," produced in 1682. Aufidius threatens to
violate only Virgilia:--
For soon as I've secur'd my rival's life,
All stain'd i' th' husband's blood, I'll force the wife.--
She stabs herself rather than be dishonoured; and it is Nigridius who
mangles, gashes, racks and distorts the little son of Coriolanus.
Page 377, line 3. _Shadwell._ The version of "Timon of Athens," by
Thomas Shadwell (1642?-1692), Poet Laureate, is "The History of Timon of
Athens, the Man Hater," produced at the Dorset Garden Theatre in 1678.
Timon's last words are:--
_Timon._ I charge thee live, Evandra.
Thou lov'st me not if thou wilt not obey me;
Thou only! Dearest! Kind! Constant thing on earth,
Farewell.
_Dies._
_Evandra._ He's gone! he's gone! would all the world were so.
I must make haste, or I shall not o'ertake
Him in his flight. Timon, I come, stay for me,
Farewell, base world.
_Stabs herself. Dies._
Evandra was played not only by Mrs. Betterton, but also by Mrs.
Bracegirdle.
Page 377, foot. "_Macbeth._" The new version of "Macbeth" was probably
by Sir William Davenant (1606-1668). There is an edition as early as
1673.
Macduff's chariot is greatly insisted upon. His servant remarks in the
same scene:--
This is the entrance o' th' Heath; and here
He order'd me to attend him with the chariot,
and a little later, to Macduff's question, "Where are our children?"
Lady Macduff replies:--
They are securely sleeping in the chariot.
Lady Macbeth's final repentance leads her to address her husband thus:--
You may in peace resign the ill-gain'd crown.
Why should you labour still to be unjust?
There has been too much blood already spilt.
Make not the subjects victims to your guilt.
* * * * *
resign your kingdom now,
And with your crown put off your guilt.
* * * * *
Page 379. SATURDAY NIGHT.
_The Gem_, 1830. Signed "Nepos." Not reprinted by Lamb.
This little essay was written to accompany an engraving of Wilkie's
picture with the same title. Whether Lamb's grandmother was as he has
recorded we cannot know; his reminiscences of her in "Dream Children"
and "The Grandam" are very different. That was Mrs. Field; Lamb, I
think, never knew a paternal grandmother. The recollection of the fly in
the eye seems to have an authentic air.
Page 380, line 9. _Burking._ After Burke and Hare, who suffocated their
victims and sold them to the hospitals for dissection. Burke was
executed in January, 1829.
* * * * *
Page 381. ESTIMATE OF DE FOE'S SECONDARY NOVELS.
This criticism was written for Wilson's _Memoirs of the Life and Times
of Daniel de Foe_, 1830. It will be found on page 636 of the third of
Wilson's volumes. Lamb never reprinted it.
Walter Wilson (1781-1847) had been a bookseller, and a fellow-clerk of
Lamb's at the India House. Later he entered at the Inner Temple. In
addition to his work on De Foe, he wrote _The History and Antiquities of
Dissenting Churches in London, Westminster and Southwark, including the
Lives of their Ministers_, a work in four volumes. Lamb, as his
_Letters_ tell us, helped Wilson with advice concerning De Foe. He also
seems to have wished the "Ode to the Treadmill" to be included; but it
was not.
This criticism of the Secondary Novels is usually preceded in the
editions of Lamb's works by the following remarks contained in Lamb's
letter to Wilson of December 16, 1822, which Wilson printed as page 428
of Vol. III., but they do not rightly form part of the article, which
Lamb wrote seven years later, in 1829. I quote from the original MS. in
the Bodleian:--
"In the appearance of _truth_, in all the incidents and conversations
that occur in them, they exceed any works of fiction I am acquainted
with. It is perfect illusion. The _Author_ never appears in these
self-narratives (for so they ought to be called, or rather
Autobiographies) but the _Narrator_ chains us down to an implicit belief
in every thing he says. There is all the minute detail of a log-book in
it. Dates are painfully pressed upon the memory. Facts are repeated over
and over in varying phrases, till you cannot chuse but believe them. It
is like reading Evidence given in a Court of Justice. So anxious the
storyteller seems that the truth should be clearly comprehended, that
when he has told us a matter of fact, or a motive, in a line or two
farther down he _repeats_ it, with his favourite figure of speech, 'I
say,' so and so--though he had made it abundantly plain before. This is
in imitation of the common people's way of speaking, or rather of the
way in which they are addressed by a master or mistress, who wishes to
impress something upon their memories, and has a wonderful effect upon
matter-of-fact readers. Indeed it is to such principally that he writes.
His style is elsewhere beautiful, but plain and _homely_. Robinson
Crusoe is delightful to all ranks and classes, but it is easy to see
that it is written in phraseology peculiarly adapted to the lower
conditions of readers; hence it is an especial favourite with sea-faring
men, poor boys, servant-maids, &c. His novels are capital
kitchen-reading, while they are worthy from their deep interest to find
a shelf in the Libraries of the wealthiest, and the most learned. His
passion for _matter-of-fact narrative_, sometimes betrayed him into a
long relation of common incidents which might happen to any man, and
have no interest but the intense appearance of truth in them, to
recommend them. The whole latter half, or two thirds, of Colonel Jack is
of this description. The beginning of Colonel Jack is the most affecting
natural picture of a young thief that was ever drawn. His losing the
stolen money in the hollow of a tree, and finding it again when in
despair, and then being in equal distress at not knowing how to dispose
of it, and several similar touches in the early history of the Colonel,
evince a deep knowledge of human nature; and, putting out of question
the superior _romantic_ interest of the latter, in my mind very much
exceed Crusoe. Roxana (1st edition) is the next in Interest, though he
left out the best part of it [in] subsequent Editions, from a foolish
hyper criticism of his friend Southerne. But Moll Flanders, the account
of the Plague, &c. &c. are all of one family, and have the same stamp of
character."
One point in this 1822 criticism requires notice--that touching the
first edition of _Roxana_. According to a letter from Lamb to Wilson,
Lamb considered the curiosity of Roxana's daughter to be the best part
of _Roxana_. But the episode of the daughter does not come into the
first edition of the book (1724) at all, and is thought by some critics
not to be De Foe's. Mr. Aitken, De Foe's latest editor, doubts the
Southerne story altogether. In any case, Lamb was wrong in recommending
the first edition for its completeness, for the later ones are fuller.
It was upon the episode of Susannah that Godwin based his play,
"Faulkener," for which Lamb wrote a prologue in praise of De Foe.
Godwin's preface stated that the only edition of _Roxana_ then
available--in 1807--in which to find the full story of Roxana's
daughter, was that of 1745. Godwin turned the avenging daughter into a
son.
Writing to Wilson on the publication of his _Memoirs of De Foe_, Lamb
says: "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 have nearly said the same things." (According
to the dating of the letters the interval was not fifteen years, but
seven.) Lamb also remarks, "De Foe was always my darling."
For a further criticism of De Foe see "The Good Clerk," page 148 of the
present volume, and the notes to the same.
In introducing the criticism of the Secondary Novels, Wilson wrote:--
It may call for some surprise that De Foe should be so little known
as a novelist, beyond the range of "Robinson Crusoe." To recall the
attention of the public to his other fictions, the present writer
is happy to enrich his work with some original remarks upon his
secondary novels by his early friend, Charles Lamb, whose
competency to form an accurate judgment upon the subject, no one
will doubt who is acquainted with his genius.
Page 382, foot. _Mr. Coleridge has anticipated us...._ Referring to
Coleridge's remarks, see the _Biographia Literaria_, Vol. II., chapter
iv.
Page 383, line 8. _An ingenious critic._ Lamb himself, in the 1822
criticism quoted above.
* * * * *
Page 383. CLARENCE SONGS.
_The Spectator_, July 24, 1830.
Concerning Lamb's theory that "Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill" was written
upon Prince William, the editor of _The Spectator_ remarks that it had
reference to George IV.--a monarch upon whom Lamb himself had done his
share of rhyming. Lamb was at Christ's Hospital from 1782-1789. Prince
William, who was born in 1765, became a midshipman in 1779. His
promotion to lieutenant came in 1785, and to captain in the following
year. The ballad to which Lamb refers is called "Duke William's
Frolic." It relates how Duke William and a nobleman, dressing themselves
like sailors, repaired to an inn to drink. While there the Press gang
came; the Duke was said to have been impudent to the lieutenant and was
condemned to be flogged. The ballad (as given in Mr. John Ashton's
_Modern Street Ballads_, 1888) ends:--
Then instantly the boatswain's mate began for to undress him,
But, presently, he did espy the star upon his breast, sir;
Then on their knees they straight did fall, and for mercy soon did
call,
He replied, You're base villains, thus using us poor sailors.
No wonder that my royal father cannot man his shipping,
'Tis by using them so barbarously, and always them a-whipping.
But for the future, sailors all, shall have good usage, great and
small,
To hear the news, together all cried, May God bless Duke William.
He ordered them fresh officers that stood in need of wealth,
And with the crew he left some gold, that they might drink his
health,
And when that they did go away, the sailors loud huzzaèd,
Crying, Blessed be that happy day whereon was born Duke William.
Tom Sheridan, the dramatist's son, was born in 1775, and died in 1817,
so that in 1783 he was only eight years old.
* * * * *
Page 385. RECOLLECTIONS OF A LATE ROYAL ACADEMICIAN.
_The Englishman's Magazine_, September, 1831. Not reprinted by Lamb.
In the magazine the title ran:--
"PETER'S NET
"'_All is fish that comes to my net_'
"_No. 1.--Recollections of a Late Royal Academician_"
Moxon had taken over _The Englishman's Magazine_, started in April,
1831, in time to control the August number, in which had appeared a
notice stating, of Elia, that "in succeeding months he promiseth to
grace" the pages of the magazine "with a series of essays, under the
quaint appellation of 'PETER'S NET.'" The magazine, however, lived only
until the October number. Writing to Moxon at the time that he sent the
MS. of this essay, Lamb remarked:--
"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 magazine in my name. It will fly like
wildfire among the Royal Academicians and artists.... 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
addressed 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."
George Dawe was born in 1781, the son of Philip Dawe, a mezzotint
engraver. At first he engraved too, but after a course of study in the
Royal Academy schools he took to portrait-painting, among his early
sitters being William Godwin. Throughout his career he painted
portraits, varied at first with figure subjects of the kind described by
Lamb. He was made an Associate in 1809 and an R.A. in 1814. His
introduction to royal circles came with the marriage of the Princess
Charlotte and Prince Leopold in 1816. After her death he went to
Brussels in the suite of the Duke of Kent, and painted the Duke of
Wellington. It was in 1819 that he visited St. Petersburg, remaining
nine years, and painting nearly four hundred portraits, first of the
officers who fought against Napoleon, and afterwards of other
personages. He left in 1828, but returned in 1829 after a visit to
England, and a short but profitable sojourn in Berlin. He died in 1829,
and was buried in the crypt of St. Paul's. A passage in his will shows
Dawe to have been a rather more interesting character than Lamb
suggests, and his _Life of George Morland_, 1807, has considerable
merit.
Coleridge also knew Dawe well. Dawe painted a picture on a subject in
"Love," drew Coleridge's portrait and took a cast of his face; and in
1812 Coleridge thus recommends him to Mrs. Coleridge's hospitality:--
He is a very modest man, his manners not over polished, and his
worst point is that he is (at least, I have found him so) a fearful
questionist, whenever he thinks he can pick up any information, or
ideas, poetical, historical, topographical, or artistical, that he
can make bear on his own profession. But he is sincere, friendly,
strictly _moral_ in every respect, I firmly believe even to
_innocence_, and in point of cheerful indefatigableness of
industry, in regularity, and temperance--in short, in a glad, yet
quiet, devotion of his whole being to the art he has made choice
of, he is the only man I ever knew who goes near to rival
Southey--gentlemanly address, person, physiognomy, knowledge,
learning and genius being of course wholly excluded from the
comparison.
Many years later, however, Coleridge endorsed Dawe's funeral card in the
following terms, "The Grub" being the nickname by which Dawe was
known:--
I really would have attended the Grub's Canonization in St. Paul's,
under the impression that it would gratify his sister, Mrs. Wright;
but Mr. G. interposed a conditional but sufficiently decorous
negative. "No! Unless you wish to follow his Grubship still further
_down_." So I pleaded ill health. But the very Thursday morning I
went to Town to see my daughter, for the first time, as _Mrs. Henry
Coleridge_, in Gower Street, and, odd enough, the stage was stopped
by the Pompous Funeral of the unchangeable and predestinated Grub,
and I extemporised:--
"As Grub Dawe pass'd beneath the Hearse's Lid,
On which a large RESURGAM met the eye,
_Col_, who well knew the Grub, cried, Lord forbid!
I trust, he's only telling us a lie!"
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Page 385, line 2 of essay. _To the Russian._ Among Dawe's court
paintings was an equestrian portrait of Alexander I., twenty feet high.
His collection of portraits painted during his residence in Russia was
lodged in a gallery built for it in the Winter Palace.
Page 385, line 11 of essay. _"Timon" as it was last acted._ Referring to
the performance of "Timon of Athens," given exactly as in Shakespeare's
day, with no women in the cast, at Drury Lane on October 28, 1816.
Page 385, line 9 from foot. _The Haytian._ I can find no authority for
Lamb's suggestion that Dawe might have gone to Hayti to paint the court
of Christophe. Probably Lamb based the theory, as a joke, upon a story
of Dawe which Sir Anthony Carlisle, the surgeon, and a friend of Lamb's,
used to tell. The story is told in _The Library of the Fine Arts_, 1831,
in the following terms:--
In a conversation with Sir A. Carlisle, that eminent surgeon told
Dawe that he had lately sent to Bartholemew's Hospital a negro of
prodigious power and fine form, such as he had never before seen,
and the sight of whom had given him better conceptions of the
beauty of Grecian sculpture than he had previously possessed.
Struck with this account Dawe went to the Hospital where he found
the man had been discharged. Any other person would here have given
up the pursuit, but Dawe was not to be baffled in a favourite
object; he accordingly commenced a strict search through all those
parts of the town where such a person was likely to be found; and
at length, after much inquiry, found him on board a ship about to
sail for the West Indies. Dawe, though his means at that time were
not so great as they afterwards became, induced the man to go home
with him, where he maintained him some time; and the Negro having
among other instances of his strength, told him of his once seizing
a buffalo by the nostrils and bearing it down to the ground, Dawe
was so struck by the fact as suited for the composition of a
powerful picture, that he placed the man in the posture he
described, and drew him in that attitude. When the picture was sent
for the premium of the British Institution, several of the
governors objected to it as being a portrait and not an historical
picture; notwithstanding this, however, the better judgment of the
majority awarded it the prize.