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The original of tinis book is in 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924105428498 
 
THE LETTERS OE CHAELES LAMB. 
 
/ 
 
 
 ffn.TeTruLn, 
 
 Zn^-nzved, ^ WTinSysn. 
 
 y 
 
 ilAMii 
 
 AMIB 
 
THE LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 CHARLES LAMB, 
 
 WITH 
 
 A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS NOON TALFOURD, 
 
 ONE OF HIS KXECUTORS. 
 
 A NEW EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : ^' 
 
 EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXLIX. 
 
LONDON : 
 BRADBURV A.VD EVAISS, YRINTEHS, WHITE IRIABS, 
 
 
 c^ 
 
 ^^- 1.; . :r\ ■'• 
 
TO 
 
 MARY ANNE LAMB, 
 
 THE MEMORIALS OF MANY YEARS WHICH SHE SPENT WITH THE WRITER 
 
 IN UNDIVIDED AFFECTION ; 
 
 OF THE SORROWS AND THE JOYS SHE SHARED, 
 
 OK 
 
 THE GENIUS WHICH SHE CHERISHED, 
 
 AND OF 
 
 THE EXCELLENCES WHICH SHE BEST KNEW ; 
 
 ARE 
 RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED, 
 
 BY THE EDITOR, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The share of the Editor in these volumes can 
 scarcely be regarded too slightly. The successive 
 pubKcations of Lamb^s works form almost the only 
 events of his life which can be recorded ; and upon 
 these criticism has been nearly exhausted. Little^ 
 therefore^ was necessary to accompany the Letters^ 
 except such thread of narrative as might connect 
 them together ; and such explanations as might 
 render their allusions generally understood. The 
 reader^s gratitude for the pleasure which he will 
 derive from these memorials of one of the most 
 dehghtful of English writers is wholly due to his 
 correspondents^ who have kindly entrusted the 
 precious relics to the care of the Editor^ and have 
 permitted them to be given to the world ; and to 
 Mr, Moxon^ by whose interest and zeal they have 
 been chiefly collected. He may be allowed to express 
 his personal sense of the honour which he has received 
 
Vm PEEFACE. 
 
 in such a trust from men, some of whom are among 
 the greatest of England's living authors, — to 
 Wordsworth, Southey, Manning, Barton, Procter, 
 Oilman, Patmore, Walter Wilson, Field, Robinson, 
 Dver, Carv, Ainsworth, to Mr. Green, the executor 
 of Coleridge^ and to the surviving relatives of Hazlitt. 
 He is also most grateful to Lamb^s esteemed school- 
 fellow, Mr. Le Grice, for supplying an interesting 
 part of his history. Of the few additional facts of 
 Lamb^s history, the chief have been supplied by 
 Mr. Moxon, in whose welfare he took a most aflfec- 
 tionate interest to the close of his life ; and who has 
 devoted some beautiful sonnets to his memorv. 
 
 The recentness of the period of some of the letters 
 has rendered it necessarv to omit many portions of 
 them, in which the humour and beauty are inter- 
 woven with personal references, which, although 
 whollj^ free from anything which, rightly understood, 
 could give pain to any human being, touch on sub- 
 jects too sacred for public exposure. Some of the 
 personal allusions which have been retained, may 
 seem, perhaps, too free to a stranger \ but they have 
 been retained only in cases in which the Editor is 
 well assured the parties would be rather gratified 
 than displeased at seeing their names connected in 
 life-like association with one so dear to their 
 memories. 
 
PEE FACE. IX 
 
 The italics and the capitals are invariably those 
 indicated by the MSS. It is to be regretted that in 
 the printed letters the reader must lose the curious 
 varieties of writing with which the originals abound^ 
 and which are scrupulously adapted to the subjects. 
 
 any letters yet remain unpublished^ which will 
 
 further illustrate the character of Mr. Lamb^ but 
 
 which must be reserved for a future time, when the 
 
 Editor hopes to do more justice to his own sense 
 
 of the genius and the excellence of his friend, than 
 
 it has been possible for him to accomplish in these 
 
 volumes. 
 
 T. N. T. 
 
 RussEL Square, 
 
 '2Qtk June, 1837. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 [1775 to 1796.] 
 
 PAGE 
 
 lamb's parentage^ and youth, to the commencement of 
 
 his correspondence with coleridge .... 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 [1796.] 
 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE 16 
 
 (CHAPTER III. 
 
 [1797.] 
 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE ........ 34 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 [1798.] 
 
 lamb's literary efforts and correspondence with southey 53 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 [1799, 1800J 
 LETTERS to SOUTHEY^ COLERIDGE^ MANNING, AND WORDSWORTH 75 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 [1800J 
 LETTERS TO MANNING AFTER LAMB's REMOVAL TO THE TEMPLE 10 o 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 [1801 to 1804.] 
 
 letters to manning, wordsworth, and coleridge ; john 
 
 woodWl rejected, published, and reviewed . .123 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 [1804 to 1806.] 
 
 letters to manning, WORDSWORTH, RICKMAN, AND HAZLITT. 
 
 ''MR. H." WRITTEN, — ACCEPTED, — DAJINED • . . 154 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 [1807 to 1814.] 
 LETTERS TO MANNING, MONTAGUE, WORDSWORTH, AND COLERIDGE 182 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 [1815 to 1817.] 
 LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH, SOUTHEY, AND MANNING . . 205 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 [1818 to 1820.] 
 LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH, SOUTHEY, MANNING, AND COLERIDGE 228 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 [1820 to 1823.] 
 
 LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH, COLERIDGE, FIELD, WILSON, AND 
 
 BARTON 243 
 
CONTENTS. XDl 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 [1823.] 
 
 lamb's controversy with southey 267 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 [1823 to 1825.] 
 LETTERS TO AINSWORTH, BARTON^ AND COLERIDGE , .292 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 [1825.] 
 lamb's EMANCIPATTON from the INDIA HOUSE . . .311 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 [1826 to 1828.] 
 
 LETTERS TO ROBINSON^ CARY, COLERIDGE, PATMORE^ PROCTER, 
 
 AND BARTON ... - 324 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 [1829, 1830.] 
 
 LETTERS TO ROBINSON, PROCTER, BARTON, WILSON, OILMAN, 
 
 WORDSWORTH, AND DYER 347 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 [1830 to 1834.] 
 lamb's LAST LETTERS, AND DEATH 380 
 
LETTERS, 
 
 <fec. 
 
 ■■■■■■ 
 
LETTERS, &c. OF CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 [1775 to 1796.] 
 
 lamb's parentage^ school-days, and youth, to the commencement 
 of his correspondence with coleridge. 
 
 Charles Lamb was bom on 10th February, 1775, in 
 Crown Office Eow, in the Inner Temple, where he spent 
 the first seven years of his Hfe. His parents were in a 
 humble station, but they were endued with sentiments and 
 with manners which might well become the gentlest blood ; 
 and fortune, which had denied them wealth, enabled them 
 to bestow on their children some of the happiest intel- 
 lectual advantages which wealth ever confers. His father, 
 Mr. John Lamb, who came up a little boy from Lincoln, 
 fortunately both for himself and his master, entered into 
 the service of Mr. Salt, one of the benchers of the Inner 
 Temple, a widower, who, growing old within its precincts, 
 was enabled to appreciate and to reward his devotedness 
 and intelligence ; and to whom he became, in the language 
 of his son, *' his clerk, his good servant, his dresser, his 
 friend, his flapper, his guide, stop-watch, auditor, treasurer."^ 
 
 * Lamb has given characters of his father (under the name of Lovel), 
 and of Mr. Salt, in one of the most exquisite of all the Essays of Elia — 
 " Thp Old Benchers of the Inner Temple." Of Lovel, he says, " He was 
 
 B 
 
2 PAEENTAGE, SCHOOL-DAYS, AND YOUTH. 
 
 Although contented with his lot, and discharging its duties 
 with the most patient assiduity, he was not without literary 
 ambition ; and having written some occasional verses to 
 grace the festivities of a benefit society of which he was a 
 member, was encouraged by his brother members to pub- 
 lish, in a thin quarto, " Poetical Pieces on several occasions." 
 This volume contains a lively picture of the life of a lady s 
 footman of the last century; the '' History of Joseph," told 
 in well-measured heroic couplets ; and a pleasant piece, 
 after the manner of " Gay's Fables," entitled the " Spar- 
 row's Wedding," which was the author's favourite, and which, 
 when he fell into the dotage of age, he delighted to hear 
 Charles read.^!^ His wife was a woman of appearance so 
 matronly and commanding, that, according to the recollec- 
 tion of one of Lamb's dearest schoolmates, *' she might be 
 taken for a sister of Mrs. Siddons." This excellent couple 
 were blessed with three children, John, Mary, and Charles; 
 John being twelve and Mary ten years older than Charles. 
 John, who is vividly described in the essay of Elia entitled 
 " My Relations," under the name of James Elia, rose to fill 
 
 a man of an incorrigible and losing honesty. A good fellow withal, and 
 ' would strike.' In the cause of the oppressed he never considered 
 inequalities, or calculated the number of his opponents. He once wrested 
 a sword out of the hand of a man of quality that had dra^vn upon him ; 
 and pummelled him severely with the hilt of it. The swordsman had offered 
 insult to a female — an occasion upon which no odds against him could have 
 prevented the interference of Lovel. He would stand next day bare- 
 headed to the same person, modestly to excuse his interference — for L. 
 never forgot rank, where something better was not concerned. L. was the 
 liveliest little fellow breathing ; had a face as gay as Garrick's, whom he was 
 said greatly to resemble ; (I have a portrait of him which confirms it ;) pos- 
 sessed a fine turn for humorous poetry — next to Swift and Prior ; moulded 
 heads in clay or plaster of Paris to admiration, by the dint of natural genius 
 merely ; turned cribbage-boards and such small cabinet toys to perfection ; 
 took a hand at quadrille or bowls with equal facility ; made punch better 
 than any man of his degree in England ; had the merriest quips and con- 
 ceits ; and was altogether as brimful of rogueries and inventions as you 
 could desire. He was a brother of the angle, moreover; and just such a 
 fiee, hearty, honest companion as Mr. Izaak Walton would have chosen to 
 go a fishing with." 
 
 * The following little poem, entitled ^^ A Letter from a Child to its 
 Grandmother/' written by Mr. John Lamb for his eldest son^ though 
 
PAEENTAGE, SCHOOL-DAYS, AND YOUTH. 3 
 
 a lucrative office in the South Sea House, and died a few 
 years ago, having to the last fulfilled the affectionate injunc- 
 tion of Charles, to ''keep the elder brother up in state." 
 Mary (the Bridget of the same essay) still survives, to mourn 
 the severance of a life-long association, as free from every 
 alloy of selfishness, as remarkable for moral beauty, as this 
 world ever witnessed in brother and sister. 
 
 On the 9th of October, 1782, when Charles Lamb had 
 attained the age of seven, he was presented to the school of 
 Christ's Hospital, by Timothy Yeates, Esq., Governor, as 
 *' the son of John Lamb, scrivener, and Elizabeth his wdfe," 
 and remained a scholar of that noble establishment till he 
 had entered into his fifteenth year. Small of stature, deli- 
 cate of frame, and constitutionally nervous and timid, he 
 would seem unfitted to encounter the discipline of a school 
 formed to restrain some hundreds of lads in the heart of the 
 metropolis, or to fight his way among them. But the sweet- 
 ness of his disposition won him favour from all ; and although 
 the antique peculiarities of the scliool tinged his opening 
 imagination, they did not sadden his childhood. One of his 
 schoolfellows, of whose genial qualities he has made affec- 
 tionate mention in his " Recollections of Christ's Hospital," 
 
 possessing no merit beyond simplicity of expression, may show the manner 
 in which he endeavoured to discharge his parental duties : — 
 
 " Dear Grandam, 
 
 Pray to God to bless 
 Your grandson dear, with happiness ; 
 That, as I do advance each year, 
 I may be taught my God to fear ; 
 My little frame from passion free, 
 To man's estate from infancy ; 
 From vice, that turns a youth aside. 
 And to have wisdom for my guide ; 
 That I may neither lie nor swear. 
 But in the path of virtue steer ; 
 My actions generous, firm, and just, 
 Be always faithful to my trust ; 
 And thee the Lord will ever bless. 
 Your grandson dear. 
 
 John L , the Less. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 PAKENTAGE, SCHOOL-DAYS, AND YOUTH. 
 
 Charles V. Le Grice, now of Treriefe, near Penzance, has 
 supplied me with some particulars of his school-days, for 
 which friends of a later date will be grateful. *'Lamb," 
 says Mr. Le Grice, '' was an amiable gentle boy, very sen- 
 sible and keenly observing, indulged by his schoolfellows 
 and by his master on account of his infirmity of speech. 
 His countenance was mild ; his complexion clear brown, 
 with an expression which might lead you to think that he 
 was of Jewish descent. His eyes were not each of the 
 same colour, one was hazel, the other had specks of grey in 
 the iris, mingled as we see red spots in the blood-stone. 
 His step was plantigrade, which made his walk slow and 
 peculiar, adding to the staid appearance of his figure. I 
 never heard his name mentioned without the addition of 
 Charles, although, as there was no other boy of the name 
 of Lamb, the addition was unnecessarv : but there was an 
 implied kindness in it, and it was a proof that his gentle 
 manners excited that kindness." 
 
 *'His delicate frame and his difficulty of utterance, which 
 was increased by agitation, unfitted him for joining in any 
 boisterous sport. The description which he gives, in his 
 ' Recollections of Christ's Hospital,' of the habits and feel- 
 ings of the schoolboy, is a true one in general, but is more 
 particularly a delineation of himself — the feelings were all 
 in his own heart — the portrait was his own : ' While others 
 were all fire and pla3% he stole along with all the self-con- 
 centration of a young monk.' These habits and feelings 
 were awakened and cherished in him by peculiar circum- 
 stances : he had been born and bred in the Inner Temple ; 
 and his parents continued to reside there while he was at 
 school, so that he passed from cloister to cloister, and this 
 was all the change his young mind ever knew. On every 
 half-holiday (and there were two in the week) in ten minutes 
 he was in the gardens, on the terrace, or at the fountain of 
 the Temple : here was his home, here his recreation ; and 
 the influence they had on his infant mind is vividly shown 
 in his description of the Old Benchers. He says, ' I was 
 
PARENTAGE, SCHOOL-DAYS, AND YOUTH. 5 
 
 bom and passed the first seven years of my life in the 
 Temple:' he might have added, that here he passed a great 
 portion of the second seven years of his life, a portion which 
 mixed itself with all his habits and enjoyments, and gave a 
 bias to the whole. Here he found a happy home, affec- 
 tionate parents, and a sister who watched over him to the 
 latest hour of his existence (God be with her!) with the 
 tenderest solicitude ; and here he had access to the library 
 of Mr. Salt, one of the Benchers, to whose memory his pen 
 has given, in return for this and greater favours — I do not 
 think it extravagant to say — immortality. To use his own 
 language, here he ' was tumbled into a spacious closet of 
 good old English reading, where he browsed at will upon 
 that fair and wholesome pasturage.' He applied these 
 words to his sister ; but there is no doubt they ' browsed ' 
 together ; they had walked hand in hand from a time 
 ' extending beyond the period of their memory.' " 
 
 When Lamb quitted school, he was in the lower division 
 of the second class — which in the language of the school is 
 termed '' being in Greek Form, but not Deputy Grecian." 
 He had read Virgil, Sallust, Terence, selections from Lucian's 
 Dialogues, and Xenophon ; and had evinced considerable 
 skill in the niceties of Latin composition, both in prose and 
 verse. His docility and aptitude for the attainment of clas- 
 sical knowledge would have insured him an exhibition ; but 
 to this the impediment in his speech proved an insuperable 
 obstacle. The exhibitions were given under the implied, if 
 not expressed, condition of entering into the Church ; the 
 whole course of education w^as preparatory to that end ; and 
 therefore Lamb, who was unfitted by nature for the clerical 
 profession, was not adopted into the class which led to it, 
 and quitted school to pursue the uncongenial labour of the 
 '' desk's dull wood." To this apparently hard lot he sub- 
 mitted with cheerfulness, and saw his schoolfellows of his 
 own standing depart, one after another, for the University 
 without a murmur. This acquiescence in his different for- 
 tune must have been a hard trial for the sweetness of his 
 
8 PARENTAGE, SCHOOL-DAYS, AND YOUTH. 
 
 James White, or rather, Jem White, as he always called 
 him. Lamb always insisted that for hearty joyous humour, 
 tinged with Shaksperian fancy, Jem never had an equal. 
 ''Jem White ! " said he, to Mr. Le Grice, when they met 
 for the last time, after many years' absence, at the Bell at 
 Edmonton, in June, 1833, " there never was his like ! We 
 never shall see such days as those in which Jem flourished ! " 
 All that now remains of Jem is the celebration of the sup- 
 pers which he gave the young chimney-sweepers, in the Elia 
 of his friend, and a thin duodecimo volume, which he pub- 
 lished in 1796, under the title of the " Letters of Sir John 
 Falstaff, with a dedication (printed in black letter) to Master 
 Samuel Irelaunde," which those who knew Lamb at the time 
 believed to be his. " White's Letters," said Lamb, in a 
 letter to a friend about this time, "are near publication. 
 His frontispiece is a good conceit ; Sir John learning to 
 dance, to please Madame Page, in dress of doublet, &c., from 
 the upper half, and modern pantaloons, with shoes of the 
 eighteenth century, from the lower half, and the whole work 
 is full of goodly quips and rare fancies, ' all deftly masked 
 like hoar antiquity ' — much superior to Dr. Kenrick's ' Fal- 
 staff s Wedding.'" The work was neglected, although Lamb 
 exerted all the influence he subsequently acquired with 
 more popular writers to obtain for it favourable notices, as 
 will be seen from various passages in his letters. He stuck, 
 however, gallantly by his favourite protege ; and even when 
 he could little afford to disburse sixpence, he made a point 
 of buying a copy of the book whenever he discovered one 
 amidst the refuse of a bookseller's stall, and would present 
 it to a friend in the hope of making a convert. He gave 
 me one of these copies soon after I became acquainted with 
 him, stating that he had purchased it in the morning for 
 sixpence, and assuring me 1 should enjoy a rare treat in the 
 perusal ; but if I must confess the truth, the mask of quaint- 
 ness was so closely worn, that it nearly concealed the 
 humour. To Lamb it was, doubtless, vivified by the eye 
 and voice of his old boon companion, forming to him an 
 
PARENTAGE, SCHOOL-DAYS, AND YOUTH. 9 
 
 undying commentary ; without which it was comparatively 
 spiritless. Alas ! how many even of his own most delicate 
 fancies, rich as they are in feeling and in wisdom, will be 
 lost to those who have not present to them the sweet broken 
 accents, and the half playful, half melancholy smile of the 
 WTiter ! 
 
 But if Jem White was the companion of his lighter moods, 
 the friend of his serious thoughts was a person of far nobler 
 powers — Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It was his good fortune 
 to be the schoolfellow of that extraordinarv man ; and if no 
 particular intimacy had been formed between them at Christ's 
 Hospital, a foundation was there laid for a friendship to 
 which the world is probably indebted for all that Lamb has 
 added to its sources of pleasure. Junior to Coleridge by two 
 years, and far inferior to him in all scholastic acquirements, 
 Lamb had listened to the rich discourse of " the inspired 
 charity-boy" with a wondering delight, pure from all envy, 
 and, it may be, enhanced by his sense of his own feebleness 
 and difficulty of expression. While Coleridge remained at 
 the university, they met occasionally on his visits to London ; 
 and when he quitted it, and came to town, full of mantling 
 hopes and glorious schemes. Lamb became his admiring 
 disciple. The scene of these happy meetings was a little 
 public-house, called the Salutation and Cat, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Smithfield, where they used to sup, and remain 
 long after they had " heard the chimes at midnight." There 
 they discoursed of Bowles, who was the god of Coleridge's 
 poetical idolatry, and of Burns and Cowper, who, of recent 
 poets, in that season of comparative barrenness, had made 
 the deepest impression on Lamb. There Coleridge talked 
 of " Fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute," to one who 
 desired " to find no end " of the golden maze ; and there he 
 recited his early poems with that deep sweetness of 
 intonation which sunk into the heart of his hearer. To 
 these meetings Lamb was accustomed at all periods of his 
 life to revert, as the season when his finer intellects were 
 quickened into action. Shortly after they had terminated, with 
 
10 PAKENTAGE, SCHOOL-DAYS, AND YOUTH. 
 
 Coleridge s departure from London, he thus recalled them 
 in a letter i^i-^ ''When I read in your little volume your 
 nineteenth effusion, or what you call 'the Sigh,' I think 
 I hear \jou again. I imagine to myself the little smoky 
 room at the Salutation and Cat, where we have sat together 
 through the winter nights beguiling the cares of life with 
 Poesy." This was early in 1796; and in 1818, when 
 dedicating his works, then first collected, to his earliest 
 friend, he thus spoke of the same meetings : " Some of 
 the sonnets, which shall be carelessly turned over by the 
 general reader, may happily awaken in you remembrances 
 which I should be sorry should be ever totally extinct, — the 
 memory ' of summer days and of delightful years,' even so 
 far back as those old suppers at our old Inn, — when life was 
 fresh, and. topics exhaustless, — and you first kindled in me, 
 if not the power, yet the love of poetry, and beauty, and 
 kindliness." And so he talked of these unforgotten hours 
 in that short interval during which death divided them ! 
 
 The warmth of Coleridge's friendship supplied the quick- 
 ening impulse to Lamb's genius; but the germ enfolding 
 all its nice peculiarities lay ready for the influence, and 
 expanded into forms and hues of its own. Lamb s earliest 
 poetry was not a faint reflection of Coleridge's, such as the 
 young lustre of original genius may cast on a polished and 
 sensitive mind, to glow and tremble for a season, but was 
 streaked with delicate yet distinct traits, which proved it an 
 emanation from within. There was, indeed, little resem- 
 blance between the two, except in the affection which they 
 bore towards each other. Coleridge's mind, not laden as 
 yet with the spoils of all systems and of all times, glowed 
 with the ardour of uncontrollable purpose, and thirsted for 
 glorious achievement and universal knowledge. The imagi- 
 
 * This, and other passages I have interwoven with my own slender 
 thread of narration, are from letters which I have thought either too per- 
 sonal for entire publication at present, or not of sufficient interest, in com- 
 parison with others, to occupy a portion of the space, to which the letters 
 are limited. 
 
PAPtENTAGE, SCHOOL-DAYS, AND YOUTH. 11 
 
 nation, which afterwards struggled gloriously but perhaps 
 vainly to overmaster the stupendous clouds of German 
 philosophies, breaking them into huge masses, and tinting 
 them with heavenly hues, then shone through the simple 
 articles of Unitarian faith, the graceful architecture of 
 Hartley s theory, and the well-compacted chain by which 
 Priestley and Edwards seemed to bind all things in neces- 
 sary connexion, as through transparencies of thought ; and, 
 finding no opposition worthy of its activity in this poor 
 foreground of the mind, opened for itself a bright succession 
 of fairy visions, which it sought to realise on earth. In its 
 light, oppression and force seemed to vanish like the phan- 
 toms of a feverish dream ; mankind were disposed in the 
 picturesque groups of universal brotherhood; and, in far 
 distance, the ladder which Jacob saw in solemn vision con- 
 nected earth with heaven, " and the angels of God were 
 ascending and descending upon it." Lamb had no sym- 
 pathy with these radiant hopes, except as they were part of 
 his friend. He clung to the realities of life ; to things 
 nearest to him, which the force of habit had made dear ; 
 and caught tremblingly hold of the past. He delighted, 
 indeed, to hear Coleridge talk of the distant and future ; to 
 see the palm-trees wave, and the pyramids tower in the long 
 perspective of his style ; and to catch the prophetic notes 
 of a universal harmony trembling in his voice ; but the 
 pleasure was only that of admiration unalloyed by envy, 
 and of the generous pride of friendship. The tendency of 
 his mind to detect the beautiful and good in surrounding 
 things, to nestle rather than to roam, was cherished by all 
 the circumstances of his boyish days. He had become 
 familiar with the vestiges of antiquity, both in his school 
 and in his home of the Temple ; and these became dear to 
 him in his serious and affectionate childhood. But, perhaps, 
 more even than those external associations, the situation of 
 his parents, as it was elevated and graced by their character, 
 moulded his young thoughts to the holy habit of a liberal 
 obedience, and unaspiring self-respect, which led rather to 
 
12 PARENTAGE, SCHOOL-DAYS, AND YOUTH. 
 
 the embellishment of what was near than to the creation of 
 visionary forms. He saw at home the daily beauty of a 
 cheerful submission to a state bordering on the servile ; he 
 looked upward to his father's master, and the old Benchers 
 who walked with him on the stately terrace, with a modest 
 erectness of mind ; and he saw in his own humble home 
 how well the decencies of life could be maintained on 
 slender means, by the exercise of generous principle. 
 Another circumstance, akin to these, tended also to impart 
 a tinge of venerableness to his early musings. His maternal 
 grandmother was for many years housekeeper in the old 
 and wealthy family of the Plumers of Hertfordshire, by 
 whom she was held in true esteem ; and his \dsits to their 
 ancient mansion, where he had the free range of every 
 apartment, gallery and terraced- walk, gave him " a peep at 
 the contrasting accidents of a great fortune," and an alliance 
 with that gentility of soul, which to appreciate, is to share. 
 He has beautifully recorded his own recollections of this 
 
 place in the essay entitled "Blakesmoor in H shire," 
 
 in which he modestly vindicates his claim to partake in the 
 associations of ancestry not his own, and shows the true 
 value of high lineage by detecting the spirit of nobleness 
 which breathes around it, for the enkindling of generous 
 affections, not only in those who may boast of its possession, 
 but in all who can feel its influences. 
 
 While the bias of the minds of Coleridge and Lamb thus 
 essentially differed, it is singular that their opinions on 
 religion, and on those philosophical questions which border 
 on religious belief, and receive their colour from it, agreed, 
 although probably derived from various sources. Both were 
 Unitarians, ardent admirers of the writings and character of 
 Dr. Priestley, and both believers in necessity, according to 
 Priestley's exposition, and in the inference which he drew 
 from that doctrine respecting moral responsibility, and the 
 ultimate destiny of the human race. The adoption of this 
 creed arose in Lamb from the accident of education ; he was 
 brought up to receive and love it; and attended, when circum- 
 
PARENTAGE, SCHOOL-DAYS, AND YOUTH. 13 
 
 Stances permitted, at the chapel at Hackney, of which 
 Mr. Belsham, afterwards of Essex Street, was then the 
 minister. It is remarkable that another of Lamb s most 
 intimate friends, in whose conversation, next to that of 
 Coleridge, he most delighted, Mr. Hazlitt, with whom he 
 became acquainted at a subsequent time, and who came 
 from a distant part of the country, was educated in the 
 same faith. With Coleridge, whose early impressions were 
 derived from the rites and services of the Church of England, 
 Unitarianism was the result of a strong conviction ; so 
 strong, that with all the ardour of a convert, he sought to 
 win proselytes to his chosen creed, and purposed to spend 
 his days in preaching it. Neither of these young men, 
 however, long continued to profess it. Lamb, in his maturer 
 life, rarely alluded to matters of religious doctrine ; and 
 when he did so, evinced no sympathy with the professors of 
 his once-loved creed. Hazlitt wrote of his father, who was 
 a Unitarian minister at Wem, with honouring affection ; and 
 of his dissenting associates with respect, but he had obvi- 
 ously ceased to think or feel with them; and Coleridge's 
 Remains indicate, what was well known to all who enjoyed 
 the privilege of his conversation, that he not only reverted 
 to a belief in the Trinitarian mysteries, but that he was 
 accustomed to express as much distaste for Unitarianism, 
 and for the spirit of its more active advocates, as the benig- 
 nity of liis nature would allow him to feel for any human 
 opinion honestly cherished. Perhaps this solitary approach 
 to intolerance in the universality of Coleridge's mind arose 
 from the disapproval with which he might justly regard his 
 own pride of understanding, as excited in defence of the 
 doctrines he had adopted. To him there was much of 
 devotional thought to be violated, many reverential associa- 
 tions, intertwined with the moral being, to be rent away in 
 the struggle of the intellect to grasp the doctrines which 
 were alien to its nurture. But to Lamb these formed the 
 simple creed of his childhood ; and slender and barren as 
 they seem, to those who are united in religious sympathy 
 
]4 PAKENTAGE, SCHOOL-DAYS^ AND YOUTH. 
 
 with the great body of their fellow-countrymen, they sufficed 
 for affections which had so strong a tendency to find out 
 resting-places for themselves as his. Those who only knew 
 him in his latter days, and who feel that if ever the spirit 
 of Christianity breathed through a human life, it breathed 
 in his, will, nevertheless, trace with surprise the extra- 
 ordinary vividness of impressions directly religious, and the 
 self-jealousy with which he watched the cares and distrac- 
 tions of the world, which might ejSace them, in his first 
 letters. If in a life of ungenial toil, diversified with frequent 
 sorrow, the train of these solemn meditations was broken ; 
 if he was led, in the distractions and labours of his course, 
 to cleave more closely to surrounding objects than those 
 early aspirations promised ; if, in his cravings after imme- 
 diate sympathy, he rather sought to perpetuate the social 
 circle which he charmed, than to expatiate in scenes of 
 untried being ; his pious feelings were only diverted, not 
 destroyed. The stream glided still, the under current of 
 thought sometimes breaking out in sallies which strangers 
 did not understand, but always feeding and nourishing the 
 most exquisite sweetness of disposition, and the most 
 unobtrusive proofs of self-denying love. 
 
 While Lamb was enjoying habits of the closest intimacy 
 with Coleridge in London, he was introduced by him to a 
 young poet whose name has often been associated with his — 
 Charles Lloyd — the son of a wealthy banker at Birming- 
 ham, who had recently cast off the trammels of the Society 
 of Friends, and, smitten with the love of poetry, had 
 become a student at the University of Cambridge. There 
 he had been attracted to Coleridge by the fascination of his 
 discourse ; and having been admitted to his regard, was 
 introduced by him to Lamb. Lloyd was endeared both to 
 Lamb and Coleridge by a very amiable disposition and a 
 pensive cast of thought ; but his intellect bore little 
 resemblance to that of either. He wrote, indeed, pleasing 
 verses and with great facility, — a facility fatal to excellence; 
 but his mind was chiefly remarkable for the fine power of 
 
PARENTAGE, SCHOOL-DAYS, AND YOUTH. 15 
 
 analysis which distinguishes his '' London," and other of 
 his later compositions. In this power of discriminating 
 and distinguishing — carried to a pitch almost of painfulness 
 — Lloyd has scarcely heen equalled ; and his poems, though 
 rugged in point of versification, will be found by those who 
 will read them with the calm attention they require, replete 
 with critical and moral suggestions of the highest value. 
 He and Coleridge were devoted w^holly to literary pursuits ; 
 while Lamb's days were given to accounts, and only at 
 snatches of time was he able to cultivate the faculty of 
 which the society of Coleridge had made him imperfectly 
 conscious. 
 
 Lamb's first compositions were in verse — produced slowly, 
 at long intervals, and w^ith self-distrust which the encourage- 
 ments of Coleridge could not subdue. With the exception 
 of a sonnet to Mrs. Siddons, whose acting, especially in the 
 character of Lady Randolph, had made a deep impression 
 upon him, they were exclusively personal. The longest and 
 most elaborate is that beautiful piece of blank verse entitled 
 *' The Grandame," in which he so affectionately celebrates 
 the virtues of the "antique world" of the aged housekeeper 
 of Mr. Plumer. A youthful passion, which lasted only a 
 few months, and which he afterwards attempted to regard 
 lightly as a folly past, inspired a few sonnets of very delicate 
 feeling and exquisite music. On the death of his parents, 
 he felt himself called upon by duty to repay to his sister 
 the solicitude with which she had wat(^hed over his infancy; — 
 and well indeed he performed it ! To her, from the age of 
 twenty-one, he devoted his existence; — seeking thenceforth 
 no connexion which <50uld interfere with her supremacy in 
 his affections, or impair his ability to sustain and to comfort 
 her. 
 
16 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 [1796.] 
 
 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 In the year 1796, Coleridge, having married, and relin- 
 quished his splendid dream of emigration, was resident at 
 Bristol ; and Lamb, who had quitted the Temple, and lived 
 with his father, then sinking into dotage, felt his absence 
 from London bitterly, and sought a correspondence with 
 him as, almost, his only comfort. " In your absence," he 
 writes, in one of the earliest of his letters,* " I feel a 
 stupor that makes me indifferent to the hopes and fears 
 of this life. I sometimes wish to introduce a religious turn 
 of mind ; but habits are strong things, and my religious fer- 
 vours are confined, alas ! to some fleeting moments of occa- 
 sional solitary devotion. A correspondence opening with you 
 has roused me a little from my lethargy, and made me con- 
 scious of existence. Indulge me in it! I will not be very 
 troublesome." And again, a few days after : " You are the 
 only correspondent, and, I might add, the only friend, I have 
 in the world. I go no- where, and have no acquaintance. Slow 
 of speech, and reserved of manners, no one seeks or cares for 
 my society, and I am left alone. Coleridge, I devoutly wish 
 that Fortune, which has made sport with you so long, may 
 play one freak more, throw you into London, or some spot 
 near it, and there snugify you for hfe. 'Tis a selfish, but 
 natural wish for me, cast as I am ' on life's wide plain friend- 
 less.' " These appeals, it may well be believed, were not 
 made in vain to one who delighted in the lavish communica- 
 tion of the riches of his own mind even to strangers ; but 
 none of the letters of Coleridge to Lamb have been pre- 
 served. He had just published his " Religious Musings," 
 
 * These and other passages are extracted from letters which are either 
 too personal or not sufficiently interesting for entire publication. 
 
LETTEKS TO COLEEIDGE. 17 
 
 and the glittering enthusiasm of its language excited Lamb's 
 pious feelings, almost to a degree of pain. " I dare not," 
 says he of this poem, '' criticise it. I like not to select any 
 part where all is excellent. I can only admire and thank 
 you for it, in the name of a lover of true poetry — 
 
 ^ Believe thou, O my soul, 
 Life is a vision shadowy of truth ; 
 And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave. 
 Shapes of a dream.' 
 
 I thank you for these lines in the name of a necessarian." 
 To Priestley, Lamb repeatedly alludes as to the object of 
 their common admiration. " In reading your Keligious 
 Musings," says he, ''I felt a transient superiority over 
 you : I have seen Priestley. I love to see his name 
 repeated in your writings ; — I love and honour him almost 
 profanely."* The same fervour glows in the sectarian piety 
 of the following letter addressed to Coleridge, when 
 fascinated with the idea of a cottage life. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 "Oct. 24th, 1796. 
 
 '^ Coleridge, I feel myself much your debtor for that 
 spirit of confidence and friendsliip which dictated your last 
 letter. May your soul find peace at last in your cottage 
 life ! I only wish you were but settled. Do continue to 
 write to me. I read your letters with my sister, and they 
 give us both abundance of delight. Especially they please 
 us two, when you talk in a religious strain, — not but we are 
 offended occasionally with a certain freedom of expression, 
 a certain air of mvsticism, more consonant to the conceits 
 of pagan philosophy, than consistent with the humility of 
 
 * He prohably refers to the following lines in the Religious Musings : — 
 
 So Priestley, their patiiot, and saint, and sage. 
 Him, full of years, from his loved native land, 
 Statesmen blood-stained, and priests idolatrous, 
 Drove with vain hate. Calm, pitying, he returned. 
 And mused expectant on those promised years ! 
 
18 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 genuine piety. To instance now in your last letter, — you 
 say, ' it is by the press, that God hath given finite spirits 
 both evil and good (I suppose you mean simphj bad men 
 and good men), a portion as it were of His Omnipresence ! ' 
 Now, high as the human intellect comparatively will soar, 
 and wide as its influence, malign or salutary, can extend, is 
 there not, Coleridge, a distance between the Divine Mind 
 and it, which makes such language blasphemy ? Again, in your 
 first fine consolatory epistle you say, ' you are a temporary 
 sharer in human misery, that you may be an eternal par- 
 taker of the Divine Nature.' What more than this do those 
 men say, who are for exalting the man Christ Jesus into 
 the second person of an unknown Trinity, — men, whom 
 you or I scruple not to call idolaters ? Man, full of imper- 
 fections, at best, and subject to wants which momentarily 
 remind him of dependence ; man, a weak and ignorant 
 being, ' servile ' from his birth ' to all the skiey influences,' 
 with eyes sometimes open to discern the right path, but a 
 head generally too dizzy to pursue it ; man, in the pride of 
 speculation, forgetting his nature, and hailing in himself 
 the future God, must make the angels laugh. Be not 
 angry \vith me, Coleridge ; I wish not to cavil ; I know I 
 cannot instruct you ; I only wish to remind you of that 
 humility which best becometh the Christian 'character. 
 God, in the New Testament {our best guide,) is represented 
 to us in the kind, condescending, amiable, familiar light of 
 a parent: and in my poor mind 'tis best for us so to consider 
 of him, as our heavenly father, and our best friend, without 
 indulging too bold conceptions of his nature. Let us learn 
 to think humbly of ourselves, and rejoice in the appellation 
 of ' dear children,' ' brethren,' and ' co-heirs with Christ of 
 the promises,' seeking to know no further. 
 
 *' I am not insensible, indeed I am not, of the value of 
 that first letter of yours, and I shall find reason to thank 
 you for it again and again long after that blemish in it is 
 forgotten. It will be a fine lesson of comfort to us, when- 
 ever we read it ; and read it we often shall, Mary and I, 
 
LETTEES TO COLERIDGE. 19 
 
 '^ Accept our loves and best kind wishes for the welfare 
 of yourself and wife and little one. Nor let me forget to 
 wish you joy on your birth-day, so lately past ; I thought 
 you had been older. My kind thanks and remembrances 
 to Lloyd. 
 
 " God love us all, and may he continue to be the father 
 and the friend of the whole human race ! 
 
 '' C. Lamb." 
 
 ^^ Sunday Evening.'" 
 
 The next letter, commencing in a similar strain, diverges 
 to literary topics, and especially alludes to ''Walton's 
 Angler," — a book which Lamb always loved as it were a 
 living friend. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 "Oct. 28th, 1796. 
 '' My dear friend, I am not ignorant that to be a 
 partaker of the Divine Nature is a phrase to be met with 
 in Scripture : I am only apprehensive, lest we in these 
 latter days, tinctured (some of us perhaps pretty deeply) 
 with mystical notions and the pride of metaphysics, might 
 be apt to affix to such phrases a meaning, which the 
 primitive users of them, the simple fisher of Galilee for 
 instance, never intended to convey. With that other part 
 of your apology I am not quite so well satisfied. You seem 
 to me to have been straining your comparing faculties to 
 bring together things infinitely distant and unlike ; the 
 feeble narrow-sphered operations of the human intellect; 
 and the everywhere diffused mind of Deity, the peerless 
 wisdom of Jehovah. Even the expression appears to me 
 inaccurate — portion of omnipresence — omnipresence is an 
 attribute whose very essence is unlimitedness. How can 
 omnipresence be affirmed of anything in part ? But enough 
 of this spirit of disputaciousness. Let us attend to the 
 proper business of human life, and talk a little together 
 respecting our domestic concerns. Do you continue to 
 
 c2 
 
20 LETTEBS TO COLEKIDGE. 
 
 make me acquainted with what you are doing, and how soon 
 you are likely to be settled once for all. 
 
 '' Have you seen Bowles's new poem on * Hope ?' What 
 character does it bear? Has he exhausted his stores of 
 tender plaintiveness ? or is he the same in this last as in all 
 his former pieces ? The duties of the day call me off from 
 this pleasant intercourse with my friend — so for the present 
 adieu. Now for the truant borrowing of a few minutes 
 from business. Have you met with a new poem called the 
 * Pursuits of Literature ? ' from the extracts in the ' British 
 Review ' I judge it to be a very humorous thing, in par- 
 ticular I remember what I thought a very happy character 
 of Dr. Darwin's poetry. Among all your quaint readings 
 did you ever light upon 'Walton's Complete Angler?' 
 I asked you the question once before ; it breathes the very 
 spirit of innocence, purity, and simplicity of heart ; there are 
 many choice old verses interspersed in it ; it would sweeten 
 a man's temper at any time to read it ; it would Christianise 
 every discordant angry passion; pray make yourself 
 acquainted with it. Have you made it up with Southey yet ? 
 Surely one of you two must have been a very silly fellow, 
 and the other not much better, to fall out like boarding 
 school misses ; kiss, shake hands, and make it up. 
 
 " When will he be delivered of his new epic? Madoc, 
 I think, is to be the name of it, though that is a name not 
 familiar to my ears. What progress do you make in your 
 hymns ? What ' Review ' are you connected with ? if with 
 any, why do you delay to notice White's book ? You are 
 justly offended at its profaneness, but surely you have 
 undervalued its wit, or you would have been more loud in 
 its praises. Do not you think that in Slender's death and 
 madness there is most exquisite humour, mingled with 
 tenderness, that is irresistible, truly Shakspearian ? Be 
 more full in your mention of it. Poor fellow, he has (very 
 undeservedly) lost by it, nor do I see that it is likely ever 
 to reimburse him the charge of printing, &c. Give it a lift, 
 if you can. I am just now wondering whether you will ever 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 21 
 
 come to town again, Coleridge; 'tis among the things 
 I dare not hope, but can't help wishing. For myself, I can 
 live in the midst of town luxury and superfluity, and not 
 long for them, and I can't see why your children might not 
 hereafter do the same. Remember, you are not in Arcadia, 
 when you are in the west of England, and they may catch 
 infection from the world without visiting the metropolis. 
 But you seem to have set your heart upon this same cottage 
 plan, and God prosper you in the experiment ! I am at a 
 loss for more to write about, so 'tis as well that I am arrived 
 at the bottom of my paper. 
 
 *' God love you, Coleridge ! — our best loves and tenderest 
 wishes await on you, your Sara, and your little one. 
 
 *'C.L." 
 
 Having been encouraged by Coleridge to entertain the 
 thought of publishing his verses, he submitted the poem 
 called "The Grandame" to his friend, with the following 
 letter : — 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 ^^ Monday night. 
 
 " Unfurnished at present with any sheet-filling subject, 
 I shall continue my letter gradually and journal- wise. My 
 second thoughts entirely coincide with your comments on 
 ' Joan of Arc,' and I can only wonder at my childish judg- 
 ment which overlooked the 1st book and could prefer the 
 9th ; not that I was insensible to the soberer beauties of 
 the former, but the latter caught me with its glare of magic, 
 — the former, however, left a more pleasing general recol- 
 lection in my mind. Let me add, the 1st book was the 
 favourite of my sister — and I now, with Joan, often ' think 
 on Domremi and the fields of Arc' I must not pass over 
 without acknowledging my obligations to your full and 
 satisfactory account of personifications. I have read it 
 again and again, and it will be a guide to my future taste. 
 Perhaps I had estimated Southey's merits too much by 
 number, weight, and measure. I now agree completely 
 
22 LETTERS TO COLEEIDGE. 
 
 and entirely in your opinion of the genius of Southey. 
 Your own image of melancholy is illustrative of what you 
 teach, and in itself masterly. I conjecture it is ' disbranched' 
 from one of your embryo ' hymns.' When they are mature 
 of birth (were I you) I should print 'em in one separate 
 volume, with ' Religious Musings,' and your part of the 'Joan 
 of Arc' Bkds of the same soaring wing should hold on 
 their flight in company. Once for all (and by renemng the 
 subject you will only renew in me the condemnation of 
 Tantalus), I hope to be able to pay you a visit (if you ai'e 
 then at Bristol) some time in the latter end of August or 
 beginning of September, for a week or fortnight — before 
 that time, office business puts an absolute veto on my 
 coming. 
 
 ^ And if a sigh that speaks regret of happier times appear, 
 A glimpse of joy that we have met shall shine and dry the tear.' 
 
 Of the blank verses I spoke of, the following lines are the 
 only tolerably complete ones I have writ out of not more 
 than one hundred and fifty. That I get on so slowly you 
 may fairly impute to want of practice in composition, when 
 I declare to you that (the few verses which you have seen 
 excepted) I have not writ fifty lines since I left school. It 
 may not be amiss to remark that my grandmother (on whom 
 the verses are written) lived housekeeper in a family the 
 fifty or sixty last years of her life — that she was a woman 
 of exemplary piety and goodness — and for many yeai's 
 before her death was tembly afflicted with a cancer in her 
 breast, which she bore with true Christian patience. You 
 may think that I have not kept enough apart the ideas of 
 her heavenly and her earthly master, but recollect I have 
 designedly given in to her own way of feeling — and if she 
 had a failing, 'twas that she respected her master s family 
 too much, not reverenced her Maker too little. The Imes 
 begin imperfectly, as I may probably connect em if I finish 
 at all, — and if I do. Biggs shall print 'em, in a more econo- 
 mical way that you yours, for (sonnets and all) they won't 
 
LETTERS TO COLEKTDGE. 23 
 
 make a thousand lines as I propose completing 'em, and the 
 substance must be wire-drawn." 
 
 The following letter, written at intervals, will give an 
 insight into Lamb's spirit at this time, in its lighter and 
 gayer moods. It would seem that his acquaintance with 
 the old English dramatists had just commenced with Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher, and Massinger : — 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 ^^ Tuesday evening, 
 
 '* To your list of illustrative personifications, into which 
 a fine imagination enters, I wdll take leave to add the fol- 
 lowing from Beaumont and Fletchers ' Wife for a Month;* 
 'tis the conclusion of a description of a sea-fight ; — ' The 
 game of death was never played so nobly ; the meagre thief 
 grew wanton in his mischiefs, and his shrunk hollow eyes 
 smiled on his ruins.' There is fancy in these of a lower 
 order, from ' Bonduca ; ' — ' Then did I see these valiant 
 men of Britain, like boding owls creep into tods of ivy, and 
 hoot their fears to one another nightly.' Not that it is a 
 personification ; only it just caught my eye in a little extract 
 book I keep, which is full of quotations from B. and F. in 
 particular, in which authors I can't help thinking there is a 
 greater richness of poetical fancy than in any one, Shak- 
 speare excepted. Are you acquainted wath Massinger? 
 At a hazard I will trouble you with a passage from a play 
 of his called 'A Very Woman.' The lines are spoken by a 
 lover (disguised) to his faithless mistress. You will remark 
 the fine effect of the double endings. You will by your ear 
 distinguish the lines, for I write 'em as prose. ' Not far 
 from w^here my father lives, a lady, a neighbour by, blest 
 with as great a beauty as nature durst bestow without 
 undoing, dwelt, and most happily, as I thought then, and 
 blest the house a thousand times she dwelt in. This beauty, 
 in the blossom of my youth, when my first fire knew no 
 adulterate incense, nor I no way to flatter but mj fondness ; 
 
24 LETTERS TO COLEEIDGE. 
 
 in all the bravery my friends could show me, in all the faith 
 my innocence could give me, in the best language my true 
 tongue could tell me, and all the broken sighs my sick heart 
 lend me, I sued and served ; long did I serve this lady, long 
 was my travail, long my trade to wiii her ; with all the duty 
 of my soul I served her.' ' Then she must love.' ' She 
 did, but never me : she could not love me ; she would not 
 love, she hated, — more, she scorn d me ; and in so poor and 
 base a way abused me for all my services, for all my bounties, 
 so bold neglects flung on me.' — ' What out of love, and 
 worthy love, I gave her, (shame to her most unworthy mind,) 
 to fools, to girls, to fiddlers and her boys she flung, all in 
 disdain of me.' One more passage strikes my eye from B. 
 and F.'s ' Palamon and Arcite.' One of 'em complains in 
 prison : ' This is all our world ; we shall know nothing here 
 but one another ; hear nothing but the clock that tells us 
 our woes; the vine shall grow, but we shall never see it,' 
 &c. — Is not the last circumstance exquisite ? I mean not 
 to lay myself open by saying they exceed Milton, and per- 
 haps Collins, in sublimity. But don't you conceive all 
 poets after Shakspeare yield to 'em in variety of genius ? 
 Massinger treads close on their heels; but you are most 
 probably as well acquainted with his writings as your 
 humble servant. My quotations, in that case, will only 
 serve to expose my barrenness of matter. Southey, in sim- 
 plicity and tenderness, is excelled decidedly only, I think, 
 by Beaumont and F. in his ' Maid s Tragedy,' and some 
 parts of ' Philaster ' in particular ; and elsewhere occasion- 
 ally; and perhaps by Cowper in his ' Crazy Kate,' and in 
 parts of his translation ; such as the speeches of Hecuba 
 and Andromache. I long to know your opinion of that 
 translation. The Odyssey especially is surely very Homeric. 
 What nobler than the appearance of Phoebus at the begin- 
 ning of the Iliad — the lines ending with ' Dread sounding, 
 bounding on the silver bow ! ' 
 
 " I beg you will give me your opinion of the translation ; 
 it afforded me high pleasure. As curious a specimen of 
 
LETTEKS TO COLERIDGE. 25 
 
 translation as ever fell into my hands, is a young man's in 
 our ofl&ce, of a French novel. What in the original was 
 literally ' amiable delusions of the fancy,' he proposed to 
 render ' the fair frauds of the imagination.' I had much 
 trouble in licking the book into any meaning at all. Yet 
 did the knave clear fifty or sixty pounds by subscription and 
 selling the copyright. The book itself not a week's work ! 
 To-day's portion of my journalising epistle has been Yery 
 dull and poverty-stricken. I will here end." 
 
 " Tuesday night. 
 
 " I have been drinking egg-hot and smoking Oronooko, 
 (associated circumstances, which ever forcibly recall to my 
 mind our evenings and nights at the Salutation,) my eyes 
 and brain are heavy and asleep, but my heart is awake ; and 
 if words came as ready as ideas, and ideas as feehngs, I could 
 say ten hundred kind things. Coleridge, you know not my 
 supreme happiness at having one on earth (though counties 
 separate us) whom I can call a friend. Eemember you 
 those tender lines of Logan ? — 
 
 * Our broken friendships we deplore, 
 And loves of youth that are no more ; 
 No after friendships e'er can raise 
 Th' endearments of our early days, 
 And ne'er the heart such fondness prove, 
 As when we first began to love.' 
 
 '* I am writing at random, and half-tipsy, what you may 
 not equally understand, as you will be sober when you read 
 it ; but 7ny sober and my half-tipsy hours you are alike a 
 sharer in. Good night. 
 
 ' Then up rose our bard, like a prophet in drink, 
 Craigdoroch, thou It soar when creation shall sink.' — Burns." 
 
 ^^ Thursday. 
 
 '' I am now in high hopes to be able to visit you, if per- 
 fectly convenient on your part, by the end of next month — 
 
26 LETTEKS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 perhaps the last week or fortnight in July. A change of 
 scene and a change of faces would do me good, even if that 
 scene were not to be Bristol, and those faces Coleridge's and 
 his friends'! In the words of Terence, a little altered, 
 * Taedet me hujus quotidian! inimdi.' I am heartily sick of 
 the every-day scenes of life. I shall half wish you unmar- 
 ried (don't show this to Mrs. C.) for one evening only, to 
 have the pleasure of smoking with you, and drinking egg- 
 hot in some little smoky room in a pot-house, for I know 
 not yet Jiow I shall like you in a decent room, and looking 
 quite happy. My best love and respects to Sara notwith- 
 standing. Yours sincerely, 
 
 " Charles Lamb." 
 
 A proposal by Coleridge to print Lamb's poems wdth a 
 new edition of his own (an association in which Lloyd was 
 ultimately included) occasioned reciprocal communications 
 of each other's verses, and many questions of small altera- 
 tions suggested and argued on both sides. I have thought 
 it better to omit much of this verbal criticism, which, not 
 very interesting in itself, is unintelligible without a con- 
 temporary reference to the poems which are its subject. 
 The next letter was written on hearing of Coleridge being 
 affiicted with a painful disease. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 "Nov. 8th, 1796. 
 *^ My brother, my friend, — T am distrest for you, believe 
 me I am ; not so much for your painful, troublesome com- 
 plaint, which, I trust, is only for a time, as for those 
 anxieties which brought it on, and perhaps even now may 
 be nursing its malignity. Tell me, dearest of my friends, 
 is your mind at peace, or has anything, jei unknown to me, 
 happened to give you fresh disquiet, and steal from you all 
 the pleasant dreams of future rest ? Are you still (I fear 
 you are) far from being comfortably settled? Would to 
 God it were in my power to contribute towards the bringing 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 27 
 
 of jou into the haven Tvhere you would be ! But you are 
 too well skilled in the philosophy of consolation to need my 
 humble tribute of advice ; in pain, and in sickness, and in 
 all manner of disappointments, I trust you have that within 
 you which shall speak peace to your mind. Make it, I 
 entreat you, one of your puny comforts, that I feel for you, 
 and share all your griefs with you. I feel as if I were 
 troubling you about little things; now I am going to resume 
 the subject of our last two letters, but it may divert us both 
 from unpleasanter feelings to make such matters, in a man- 
 ner, of importance. Without further apology, then, it was 
 not that I did not relish, that I did not in my heart thank 
 you for those little pictures of your feelings which you lately 
 sent me, if I neglected to mention them. You may remem- 
 ber you had said much the same things before to me on the 
 same subject in a former letter, and I considered those last 
 verses as only the identical thoughts better clothed ; either 
 way (in prose or verse) such poetry must be welcome to me. 
 I love them as I love the Confessions of Rousseau, and for 
 the same reason ; the same frankness, the same openness of 
 heart, the same disclosure of all the most hidden and delicate 
 affections of the mind : they make me proud to be thus 
 esteemed worthy of the place of friend-confessor, brother- 
 confessor, to a man like Coleridge. This last is, I acknow- 
 ledge, language too high for friendship ; but it is also, I 
 declare, too sincere for flatteiy. Now, to put on stilts, and 
 talk magnificently about trifles. I condescend, then, to your 
 counsel, Coleridge, and allow my first sonnet (sick to death 
 am I to make mention of my sonnets, and I blush to be so 
 taken up with them, indeed I do) ; I allow it to run thus, 
 'Fairy Land,'' &c. &c., as I last wrote it. 
 
 '' The fragments I now send you, I want printed to get 
 rid of 'em ; for, while they stick burr-like to my memory, 
 they tempt me to go on with the idle trade of versifying, 
 which I long, most sincerely I speak it, I long to leave off, 
 for it is unprofitable to my soul ; I feel it is ; and these 
 questions about words, and debates about alterations, take 
 
28 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 me off, I am conscious, from the properer business of my 
 life. Take my sonnets, once for all, and do not propose 
 any re-amendments, or mention them again in any shape to 
 me, I charge you. I blush that my mind can consider them 
 as things of any worth. And, pray, admit or reject these 
 fragments as you like or dislike them, without ceremony. 
 Call 'em sketches, fragments, or what you will, and do not 
 entitle any of my things love sonnets, as I told you to call 
 'em ; 'twill only make me look little in my own eyes ; for it 
 is a passion of which I retain notJiing ; 'twas a weakness, 
 concerning which I may say, in the words of Petrarch 
 (whose life is now open before me), ' if it drew me out of 
 some vices, it also prevented the growth of many virtues, 
 filling me with the love of the creature rather than the 
 Creator, which is the death of the soul.' Thank God, the 
 folly has left me for ever ; not even a review of my love 
 verses renews one wayward wish in me ; and if I am at all 
 solicitous to trim 'em out in their best apparel, it is because 
 they are to make their appearance in good company. Now 
 to my fragments. Lest you have lost my Grandame, she 
 shall be one. 'Tis among the few verses I ever wrote, that 
 to Mary is another, which profit me in the recollection. 
 God love her, and may we two never love each other less ! 
 
 *' These, Coleridge, are the few sketches I have thought 
 worth preserving ; how will they relish thus detached ? 
 Will you reject all or any of them ? They are thine, do 
 whatsoever thou listest with them. My eyes ache with 
 writing long and late, and I wax wondrous sleepy; God bless 
 you and yours, me and mine ! Good night. 
 
 '' C. Lamb. 
 
 '' I will keep my eyes open reluctantly a minute longer 
 to tell you, that I love you for those simple, tender, heart- 
 flowdng lines with which you conclude your last, and in my 
 eye best, sonnet (so you call 'em), 
 
 ^ So, for the mother's sake, the child was dear, 
 And dearer was the mother for the child.' 
 
 Cultivate simplicity, Coleridge ; or rather, I should say, 
 
LETTEKS TO COLEKIDGE. 29 
 
 banish elaborateness; for simplicity springs spontaneous 
 from the heart, and carries into day-light with it its own 
 modest buds, and genuine, sweet, and clear flowers of ex- 
 pression. I allow no hot beds in the gardens of Parnassus. 
 I am unwilling to go to bed, and leave my sheet unfilled (a 
 good piece of night-work for an idle body like me), so will 
 finish with begging you to send me the earliest account of 
 your complaint, its progress, or (as I hope to God you will 
 be able to send me) the tale of your recovery, or at least 
 
 amendment. My tenderest remembrances to your Sara. 
 
 " Once more good night." 
 
 A wish to dedicate his portion of the volume to his sister 
 gave occasion to the following touching letter : 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 ^^Nov. 14th, 1796. 
 
 '' Coleridge, I love you for dedicating your poetry to 
 Bowles : Genius of the sacred fountain of tears, it was he 
 who led you gently by the hand through all this valley of 
 weeping, showed you the dark green yew trees, and the 
 willow shades, where, by the fall of waters, you might 
 indulge an uncomplaining melancholy, a delicious regret for 
 the past, or weave fine visions of that awful future, 
 
 ' When all the vanities of life's brief day 
 Oblivion's hurrying hand hath swept away, 
 And all its sorrows, at the awful blast 
 Of the archan gel's trump, are but as shadows past,' 
 
 '' I have another sort of dedication in my head for my few 
 tilings, which I want to know if you approve of, and can 
 msert. I mean to inscribe them to my sister. It will be 
 unexpected, and it will give her pleasure ; or do you think 
 it will look whimsical at all ? as I have not spoke to her 
 about it, I can easily reject the idea. But there is a mo- 
 notony in the affections, which people living together, or, as 
 we do now, very frequently seeing each other, are apt to 
 give in to ; a sort of indifference in the expression of kind- 
 
30 LETTEES TO COLEKIDGE. 
 
 ness for each other, which demands that we should some- 
 times call to our aid the trickery of surprise. Do you 
 publish with Lloyd, or without him? in either case my little 
 portion may come last, and after the fashion of orders to a 
 country correspondent, I will give directions how I should 
 like to have 'em done. The title-page to stand thus : — 
 
 POEMS, 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES LAMB, OF THE INDIA-HOUSE. 
 
 '' Under this title the following motto, which, for want of 
 room, I put over leaf, and desire you to insert, whether you 
 like it or no. May not a gentleman choose what ai'ms, 
 mottoes, or armorial bearings the herald will give him leave, 
 without consulting his republican friend, who might advise 
 none? May not a publican put up the sign of the Saracen's 
 Head, even though his undiscerning neighbour should prefer, 
 as more genteel, the Cat and Gridiron ? 
 
 [Motto.] 
 
 ^ This beauty, in the blossom of my youth, 
 When my first fire knew no adulterate incense. 
 Nor I no way to flatter but my fondness, 
 In the best language my true tongue could tell me, 
 And all the broken sighs my sick heart lend me, 
 I sued and served. Long did I love this lady.' 
 
 Massingeb. 
 
 THE DEDICATION. 
 — • — 
 
 THE FEW FOLLOWING POEMS, 
 
 CREATURES OF THE FANCY AND THE FEELING 
 
 IN life's more VACANT HOURS^ 
 
 PRODUCED, FOR THE MOST PART, BY 
 
 LOVE AND IDLENESS, 
 
 ARE, 
 
 WITH ALL A brother's FONDNESS, 
 
 INSCRIBED TO 
 
 MARY ANNE LAMB, 
 
 THE author's BEST FRIEND AND SISTER. 
 
LETTEES TO COLEKIDGE. 31 
 
 ** This is the pomp and paraphernalia of parting, with 
 which I take my leave of a passion which has reigned so 
 royally (so long) within me ; thus, with its trappings of 
 laureatship, I fling it off, pleased and satisfied with myself 
 that the weakness troubles me no longer. I am w^edded, 
 Coleridge, to the fortunes of my sister and my poor old 
 father. Oh! my friend, I think sometimes, could I recall 
 the days that are past, which among them should I choose ? 
 not those * merrier days,' not the ' pleasant days of hope,' 
 not ' those wanderings with a fair hair'd maid,' which I have 
 so often and so feelingly regretted, but the days, Coleridge, 
 of a mothers fondness for her school-boy. What would I 
 give to call her back to earth for one day, on my knees to 
 ask her pardon for all those little asperities of temper which, 
 from time to time, have given her gentle spirit pain ; and 
 the day, my friend, I trust, will come ; there will be ' time 
 enough' for kind ofl&ces of love, if ' Heaven's eternal year' 
 be ours. Hereafter, her meek spirit shall not reproach me. 
 Oh, my friend, cultivate the filial feelings ! and let no man 
 think himself released from the kind ' charities' of relation- 
 ship : these shall give him peace at the last ; these are the 
 best foundation for every species of benevolence. I rejoice 
 to hear, by certain channels, that you, my friend, are re- 
 conciled with all your relations. 'Tis the most kindly and 
 natural species of love, and we have all the associated train 
 of early feelings to secure its strength and perpetuity. Send 
 me an account of your health ; indeed I am solicitous about 
 you. God love you and yours. '' C. Lamb." 
 
 The following, written about this time, alludes to some 
 desponding expression in a letter which is lost, and which 
 Coleridge had combated. 
 
 TO MK. COLEKIDGE. 
 
 "Dec. 10th, 1796. 
 
 '' I had put my letter into the post rather hastily, not ex- 
 pecting to have to acknowledge another from you so soon. 
 
32 LETTEKS TO COLEKIDGE. 
 
 This morning's present has made me alive again : my last 
 night's epistle was childishly querulous ; but you have put 
 a little life into me, and I v^ill thank you for your remem- 
 brance of me, while my sense of it is yet warm ; for if I 
 linger a day or two I may use the same phrase of acknow- 
 ledgment, or similar, but the feeling that dictates it now 
 will be gone. I shall send you a caput mortuitm, not a cor 
 vivens. Thy Watchman's, thy bellman's verses, I do retort 
 upon thee, thou libellous varlet, — why you cried the hours 
 yourself, and who made you so proud ! But I submit, to 
 show my humility most implicitly to your dogmas. I reject 
 entirely the copy of verses you reject. With regard to my 
 leaving off versifying you have said so many pretty things, 
 so many fine compliments, ingeniously decked out in the 
 garb of sincerity, and undoubtedly springing from a present 
 feeling somewhat like sincerity, that you might melt the 
 most un-muse-ical soul, — did you not (now for a Rowland 
 compliment for your profusion of Olivers), did you not in 
 your very epistle, by the many pretty fancies and profusion 
 of heart displayed in it, dissuade and discom^age me from 
 attempting anything after you. At present I have not 
 leisure to make verses, nor anything approaching to a fond- 
 ness for the exercise. In the ignorant present time, who 
 can answer for the future man? 'At lovers' perjuries Jove 
 laughs' — and poets have sometimes a disingenuous way of 
 forswearing their occupation. This though is not my case. 
 Publish your Burns when and how you like, it will be new 
 to me, — my memory of it is very confused, and tainted with 
 unpleasant associations. Burns was the god of my idolatry, 
 as Bowles of yours. I am jealous of your fraternising with 
 Bowles, when I think you relish him more than Burns, or 
 my old favourite, Cowper. But you conciliate matters 
 when you talk of the ' divine chit-chat' of the latter : by 
 the expression, I see you thoroughly relish him. I love 
 Mrs. Coleridge for her excuses an hundredfold more dearly, 
 than if she heaped ' line upon line,' out Hannah-ing Hannah 
 More ; and had rather hear you sing ' Did a veiy little baby' 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 33 
 
 by your family fire-side, than listen to yon, when you were 
 repeating one of Bowles's sweetest sonnets, in your sweet 
 manner, while we two were indulging sympathy, a solitary 
 luxury, by the fire-side at the Salutation. Yet have I no 
 higher ideas of heaven. Your company was one ' cordial 
 in this melancholy vale' — the remembrance of it is a blessing 
 partly, and partly a curse. When I can abstract myself 
 from things present, I can enjoy it with a freshness of 
 relish ; but it more constantly operates to an unfavourable 
 comparison with the uninteresting converse I always and 
 only can partake in. Not a soul loves Bowles here ; scarce 
 one has heard of Burns ; few but laugh at me for reading 
 my Testament, — they talk a language I understand not, I 
 conceal sentiments that would be a puzzle to them. I can 
 only converse with you by letter, and with the dead in their 
 books. My sister, indeed, is all I can wish in a coinpanion ; 
 but our sjoirits are alike poorly, our reading and knowledge 
 from the self-same sources ; our communication with the 
 scenes of the world alike narrow ; never having kept separate 
 company, or any ' company' together — never having read 
 separate books, and few books together — what knowledge 
 have we to convey to each other ? In our little range of 
 duties and connexions, how few sentiments can take place, 
 without friends, with few books, with a taste for religion, 
 rather than a strong religious habit ! We need some sup- 
 port, some leading-strings to cheer and direct us ; you talk 
 very wisely, and be not sparing of your advice. Continue 
 to remember us, and to show us you do remember us : we 
 will take as lively an interest in what concerns you and 
 yours. All I can acid to your happiness, will be sympathy: 
 you can add to mine more ; you can teach me wisdom. I 
 am indeed an unreasonable correspondent ; but I was un- 
 willing to let my last night s letter go off without this 
 qualifier : you will perceive by this my mind is easier, and 
 you will rejoice. I do not expect or wish you to write, till 
 you are moved; and, of course, shall not, till you an- 
 nounce to me that event, think of writing myself. Love to 
 
34 LETTEES TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 Mrs. Coleridge and David Hartley, and my kind remem- 
 brance to Lloyd if he is with you. *' C. Lamb." 
 
 " I will get 'Nature and Art,' — have not seen it yet — 
 nor any of Jeremy Taylors works." 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 [1797.] 
 
 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 The volume which was to combine the early poetry of the 
 three friends was not completed in the year 1796, and pro- 
 ceeded slowly through the press in the following year ; 
 Lamb occasionally submitting an additional sonnet, or cor- 
 rection of one already sent, to the judgment of Coleridge, 
 and filling long letters with minute suggestions on Cole- 
 ridge's share of the work, and high, but honest expressions 
 of praise of particular images and thoughts. The eulogy is 
 only interesting as indicative of the reverential feeling 
 with which Lamb regarded the genius of Coleridge ; — but 
 one or two specimens of the gentle rebuke w^hich he 
 ventured on, when the gorgeousness of Coleridge's language 
 seemed to oppress his sense, are worthy of preservation. 
 The following relates to a line in the noble Ode on the 
 Departing Year, in which Coleridge had written of 
 
 " Th"* ethereal multitude^ 
 Whose purple locks with snow-white glories shone." 
 
 " ' Purple locks, and snow-white glories ; ' — these are 
 things the muse talks about when, to borrow H. Walpole's 
 witty phrase, she is not finely-frenzied, only a little light- 
 headed, that 's all — * Purple locks ! ' They may manage 
 things differently in fairy land ; but your ' golden tresses ' 
 are to my fancy." 
 
 On this remonstrance Coleridge changed the " pui^le " 
 
LETTEES TO COLERIDGE. 35 
 
 into *' golden," defending his original epithet; and Lamb 
 thus gave up the point : — 
 
 " ' Golden locks and snow-white glories ' are as incon- 
 gruous as your former; and if the great Italian painters, of 
 whom my friend knows about as much as the man in the 
 moon — if these great gentlemen be on your side, I see no 
 harm in your retaining the purple. The glories that I 
 have observed to encircle the heads of saints and madonnas 
 in those old paintings, have been mostly of a dirty drab- 
 coloured yellow — a dull gambogium. Keep your old line ; 
 it will excite a confused kind of pleasurable idea in the 
 reader's mind, not clear enough to be called a conception, 
 nor just enough, I think, to reduce to painting. It is a 
 rich line, you say ; and riches hide a many faults." And 
 the word '' wreathed " was ultimately adopted, instead of 
 purple or golden : but the snow-white glories remain. 
 
 Not satisfied with the dedication of his portion of the 
 volume to his sister, and the sonnet which had been sent 
 to the press. Lamb urged on Coleridge the insertion of 
 another, which seems to have been ultimately withheld as 
 too poor in poetical merit for publication. The rejected 
 sonnet, and the references made to it by the writer, have 
 an interest now beyond what mere fancy can give. After 
 various critical remarks on an ode of Coleridge, he thus 
 introduced the subject : — 
 
 " If the fraternal sentiment conveyed in the following 
 lines will atone for the total want of anything like merit or 
 genius in it, I desire you will print it next after my other 
 sonnet to my sister. 
 
 ^ Friend of my earliest years and childish days. 
 My joys, my sorrows, thou with me hast shared, 
 Companion dear ; and we alike have fared, . 
 Poor pilgrims we, through life's unequal ways. 
 It were unwisely done, should we refuse 
 To cheer our path, as featly as we may, — 
 Our lonely path to cheer, as travellers use. 
 With merry song, quaint tale, or roundelay. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 LETTEKS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 * And we will sometimes talk past troubles o'er, 
 Of mercies shown^ and all our sickness heal'd, 
 And in his judgments God remembering love : 
 And we will learn to praise God evermore. 
 For those "glad tidings of great joy," reveal'd 
 By that sooth messenger, sent from above." — 1797. 
 
 " This has been a sad long letter of business, with no 
 room in it for what honest Bunyan terms heart-work. I 
 have just room left to congratulate you on your removal to 
 Stowey ; to wish success to all your projects ; to ' bid fair 
 peace ' be to that house ; to send my love and best wishes, 
 breathed warmly, after your dear Sara, and her little David 
 Hartley. If Lloyd be with you, bid him write to me : I 
 feel to whom I am obliged primarily, for two very friendly 
 letters I have received already from him. A dainty sweet 
 book that ' Nature and Art ' is. — I am at present re-re-read- 
 ing Priestley's Examination of the Scotch Doctors : how the 
 rogue strings 'em up ! three together ! You have no doubt 
 read that clear, strong, humorous, most entertaining piece 
 of reasoning ? If not, procure it, and be exquisitely amused. 
 I wish I could get more of Priestley's works. Can you 
 recommend me to any more books, easy of access, such as 
 circulating shops afford ? God bless you and yours. 
 
 ^^ Monday morning, at office." 
 
 '' Poor Mary is very unwell with a sore throat, and a 
 slight species of scarlet fever. God bless her too." 
 
 He recurs to the subject in his next letter, which is also 
 interesting, as urging Coleridge to attempt some great poem 
 worthy of his genius. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 ^^Jan. 10th, 1797. 
 
 " I need not repeat my wishes to have my little sonnets 
 printed verhatim my last way. In particular, I fear lest 
 3^ou should prefer printing my first sonnet, as you have 
 done more than once, ' did the wand of Merlin wave,' 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 37 
 
 it looks SO like Mr. Merlin, the ingenious successor of tlie 
 immortal Merlin, now living in good health and spirits, and 
 flourishing in magical reputation, in Oxford-street ; and, on 
 my life, one half who read it would understand it so. Do 
 put em forth finally, as I have, in various letters, settled it; 
 for first a man's self is to be pleased, and then his friends, 
 — and, of course, the greater number of his friends, if they 
 difter inte?' se. Thus taste may safely be put to the vote. 
 I do long to see our names together ; not for vanity's sake, 
 and naughty pride of heart altogether, for not a living soul 
 I know, or am intimate with, will scarce read the book, — 
 so I shall gain nothing, quoad famam ; and yet there is a 
 little vanity mixes in it, I cannot help denying. — I am 
 aware of the unpoetical cast of the six last lines of my 
 last sonnet, and think myself unwarranted in smuggling so 
 tame a thing into the book ; only the sentiments of those 
 six lines are thoroughly congenial to me in my state of 
 mind, and I wish to accumulate perpetuating tokens of my 
 affection to poor Mary, — that it has no originality in its 
 cast, nor anything in the feelings, but what is common and 
 natural to thousands, nor ought properly to be called poetry, 
 I see ; still it ^A\\ tend to keep present to my mind a view 
 of things which I ought to indulge. These six lines, too, 
 have not, to a reader, a connectedness with the foregoing. 
 Omit it, if you like. — What a treasure it is to my poor, 
 indolent, and unemployed mind, thus to lay hold on a 
 subject to talk about, though 'tis but a sonnet, and that of 
 the lowest order ! How mournfully inactive I am ! — 'Tis 
 night : good night. 
 
 '' My sister, I thank God, is nigh recovered : she was 
 seriously ill. Do, in your next letter, and that right soon, 
 give me some satisfaction respecting your present situation 
 at Stowey. Is it a farm you have got ? and w4iat does your 
 worship know about farming ? 
 
 '' Coleridge, I want you to write an epic poem. Nothing 
 short of it can satisfy the vast capacity of true poetic genius. 
 Having one great end to direct all your poetical faculties to, 
 
38 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 and on which to lay out your hopes, your ambition will 
 show you to what you are equal. By the sacred energies of 
 Milton! by the dainty, sweet, and soothing phantasies of 
 honey- tongued Spenser ! I adjure you to attempt the epic. 
 Or do something more ample than the wilting an occa- 
 sional brief ode or sonnet ; something ' to make yourself 
 for ever known, — to make the age to come your own.' But 
 I prate ; doubtless you meditate something. When you 
 are exalted among the lords of epic fame, I shall recall with 
 pleasure, and exultingly, the days of your humility, when 
 you disdained not to put forth, in the same volume with 
 mine, your ' Religious Musings,' and that other poem 
 from the ' Joan of Arc,' those promising first-fruits of high 
 renown to come. You have learning, you have fancy, you 
 have enthusiasm, you have strength, and amplitude of wing 
 enow for flights like those I recommend. In the vast and 
 unexplored regions of fairy-land, there is ground enough 
 unfound and uncultivated ; search there, and realise your 
 favourite Susquehannah scheme. In all our comparisons 
 of taste, I do not know whether I have ever heard your 
 opinion of a poet, veiy dear to me, — the now-out-of-fashion 
 Cowley. Favour me with your judgment of him, and tell 
 me if his prose essays, in particular, as well as no incon- 
 siderable part of his verse, be not delicious. I prefer the 
 graceful rambling of his essays, even to the courtly elegance 
 and ease of Addison ; abstracting from this the latter s 
 exquisite humour. 
 
 :1c ^ ^ 5}C 5ft 
 
 '* When the little volume is printed, send me three or 
 four, at all events not more than six copies, and tell me if 
 I put you to any additional expense, by printing with you^ 
 I have no thought of the kind, and in that case must reim- 
 burse you." 
 
 In the commencement of this year, Coleridge removed 
 from Bristol to a cottage at Nether Stowey, to embody his 
 favourite dream of a cottage life. This change of place 
 
LETTERS TO COLEKIDGE. 39 
 
 probably delayed the printing of the volume ; and Coleridge, 
 busy with a thousand speculations, became irregular in reply- 
 ing to the letters with writing which Lamb solaced his dreary 
 hours. The following are the most interesting portions of 
 the only letters which remain of this year. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 "Jean. 10th, 1797. 
 
 '* Priestley, whom I sin in almost adoring, speaks of 
 ' such a choice of company, as tends to keep up that right 
 bent, and firmness of mind, which a necessary intercourse 
 with the world would otherwise warp and relax.' ' Such 
 fellowship is the true balsam of life ; its cement is infinitely 
 more durable than that of the friendships of the world, and 
 it looks for its proper fruit, and complete gratification, to 
 the life beyond the grave.' Is there a possible chance for 
 such an one as I to realise in this world such friendships ? 
 Where am I to look for 'era ? What testimonials shall I 
 bring of my being worthy of such friendship ? Alas ! the 
 great and good go together in separate herds, and leave 
 such as I to lag far, far behind in all intellectual, and, far 
 more grievous to say, in all moral accomplishments. Cole- 
 ridge, I have not one truly elevated character among my 
 acquaintance : not one Christian : not one, but undervalues 
 Christianity — singly what am I to do ? Wesley (have you 
 read his life ?) was he not an elevated character ? Wesley 
 has said, 'Religion is not a solitary thing.' Alas ! it neces- 
 sarily is so with me, or next to solitary. 'Tis true you 
 write to me. But correspondence by letter, and personal 
 intimacy, are very widely different. Do, do write to me, 
 and do some good to my mind, already how much ' warped 
 and relaxed ' by the world ! 'Tis the conclusion of another 
 evening. Good night. God have us all in his keeping. 
 
 '' If you are sufficiently at leisure, oblige me with an 
 account of your plan of life at Stowey — your literary occu- 
 pations and prospects — in short, make me acquainted with 
 
40 LETTERS TO COLEETDGE. 
 
 every circumstance which, as relating to you, can be inter- 
 esting to me. Are you yet a Berkleyan ? Make me one. 
 I rejoice in being, speculatively, a necessarian. Would to 
 God, I were habitually a practical one ! Confirm me in 
 the faith of that great and glorious doctrine, and keep me 
 steady in the contemplation of it. You some time since 
 expressed an intention you had of finishing some extensive 
 work on the Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion. 
 Have you let that intention go ? Or are you doing any- 
 thing towards it ? Make to yourself other ten talents. 
 My letter is full of nothingness. I talk of nothing. But 
 I must talk. I love to write to you. I take a pride in it. 
 It makes me think less meanly of myself. It makes me 
 think myself not totally disconnected from the better part of 
 mankind. I know I am too dissatisfied with the beings 
 around me ; but I cannot help occasionally exclaiming, 
 ' Woe is me, that I am constrained to dwell with Meshecb, 
 and to have my habitation among the tents of Kedar.' I 
 know I am noways better in practice than my neighbours, 
 but I have a taste for religion, an occasional earnest aspira- 
 tion after perfection, which they have not. I gain nothing 
 by being with such as myself — w'e encourage one another in 
 mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more 
 excellent than myself. All this must sound odd to you, 
 but these are my predominant feelings, when I sit down to 
 write to you, and I should put force upon my mind were I 
 to reject them. Yet I rejoice, and feel my privilege with 
 gratitude, when I have been reading some wise book, such 
 as I have just been reading, ' Priestley on Philosophical 
 Necessity,' in the thought that I enjoy a kind of communion, 
 a kind of friendship even, with the great and good. Books 
 are to me instead of friends. I wdsh they did not resemble 
 the latter in their scarceness. 
 
 " And how does little David Hartley? ' Ecqitid in anti- 
 qiiam virtutem ? ' Does his mighty name w^ork wonders 
 yet upon his little frame and opening mind? I did not 
 distinctly understand you — you don't mean to make an 
 
LETTEKS TO COLEMDGE. 41 
 
 actual ploughman of him? Is Lloyd with you yet? Are 
 you intimate with Southey ? What poems is he about to 
 publish? — he hath a most prolific brain, and is indeed a 
 most sweet poet. But how can you answer all the various 
 mass of interrogation I have put to you in the course of the 
 sheet ? Write back just what you like, only write some- 
 thing, however brief. I have now nigh finished my page, 
 and got to the end of another evening (Monday evening), 
 and my eyes are heavy and sleepy, and my brain unsug- 
 gestive. I have just heart enough awake to say good night 
 once more, and God love you, my dear friend; God love us 
 all. Mary bears an affectionate remembrance of you. 
 
 '' Charles Lamb.'' 
 
 A poem of Coleridge, emulous of Southey 's "Joan of 
 Arc,'' which he proposed to call the " Maid of Orleans," on 
 which Lamb had made some critical remarks, produced the 
 humorous recantation with which the following letter opens. 
 
 TO ME. COLERIDGE. 
 
 "Feb. 13, 1797. 
 
 '* Your poem is altogether admirable — parts of it are 
 even exquisite — in particular your personal account of the 
 Maid far surpasses any thing of the sort in Southey. I 
 perceived all its excellences, on a first reading, as readily 
 as now you have been removing a supposed film from my 
 eyes. I was only struck with a certain faulty disproportion, 
 in the matter and the style, which I still think I perceive, 
 between these lines and the former ones. I had an end in 
 view, I wished to make you reject the poem, only as being 
 discordant with the other, and, in subservience to that end, 
 it was politically done in me to over-pass, and make no 
 mention of merit, which, could you think me capable of 
 overlooking, might reasonably damn for ever in your judg- 
 ment all pretensions, in me, to be critical. There — I will 
 be judged by Lloyd, whether I have not made a very hand- 
 
42 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 some recantation. I was in the case of a man, whose friend 
 has asked him his opinion of a certain young lady — the 
 deluded wight gives judgment against her m toto — don't 
 like her face, her walk, her manners ; finds fault with her 
 eyebrows; can see no wit in her ; his friend looks blank, he 
 begins to smell a rat — wind veers about — he acknowledges 
 her good sense, her judgment in dress, a certain simplicity 
 of manners and honesty of heart, something too in her 
 manners which gains upon you after a short acquaintance, — 
 and then her accurate pronunciation of the French lan- 
 guage, and a pretty uncultivated taste in drawing. The 
 reconciled gentleman smiles applause, squeezes him by the 
 hand, and hopes he will do him the honour of taking a bit 
 
 of dinner with Mrs. and him, — a pjlain family dinner, 
 
 — some day next week ; ' for, I suppose, you never heard 
 we were married. I m glad to see you like my wife, how- 
 ever ; youll come and see her, ha ? ' Now am I too proud 
 to retract entirely ? Yet I do perceive I am in some sort 
 straitened ; you are manifestly wedded to this poem, and 
 what fancy has joined let no man separate. I turn me to 
 the Joan of Arc, second book. 
 
 '' The solemn openings of it are with sounds, which LL 
 would say ' are silence to the mind.' The deep preluding 
 strains are fitted to initiate the mind, with a pleasing awe, 
 into the sublimest mysteries of theoiy concerning man's 
 nature, and his noblest destination — the philosophy of a 
 first cause — of subordinate agents in creation, superior to 
 man — the subserviency of Pagan worship and Pagan faith 
 to the introduction of a purer and more perfect religion, 
 which you so elegantly describe as winning, with gradual 
 steps, her difficult way northward from Bethabra. After all 
 this Cometh Joan, a j^^Micans daughter, sitting on an ale- 
 house bench, and marking the swingings of the signboard, 
 finding a poor man, his wife and six children, starved to 
 death with cold, and thence roused into a state of mind 
 proper to receive visions, emblematical of equality; which, 
 what the devil Joan had to do with, I don't know, or, 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 43 
 
 indeed, with the French and American revolutions, though 
 that needs no pardon, it is executed so nobly. After all, if 
 you perceive no disproportion, all argument is vain : I do 
 not so much object to parts. Again, when you talk of 
 building your fame on these lines in preference to the 
 ' Religious Musings,' I cannot help conceiving of you, and 
 of the author of that, as two different persons, and I think 
 you a very vain man. 
 
 '' I have been re-reading your letter; much of it I could 
 dispute, but with the latter part of it, in which you compare 
 the two Joans with respect to their predispositions for fana- 
 ticism, I, toto corcle, coincide ; only I think that Southey's 
 strength rather lies in the description of the emotioDS of the 
 Maid under the weight of inspiration, — these (T see no mighty 
 difference between her describing them or you describing 
 them), these if you only equal, the previous admirers of his 
 poem, as is natural, will prefer his, — if you surpass, prejudice 
 will scarcely allow it, and I scarce think you will surpass, 
 though your specimen at the conclusion, I am in earnest, 
 I think very nigh equals them. And in an account of a 
 fanatic or of a prophet, the description of her emotions is 
 expected to be most highly finished. By the way, I spoke 
 far too disparagingly of your lines, and, I am ashamed to 
 say, purposely. I should like you to specify or particu- 
 larise; the story of the 'Tottering Eld,' of 'his eventful 
 years all come and gone,' is too general; why not make 
 him a soldier, or some character, however, in which he has 
 been witness to frequency of ' cruel wrong and strange dis- 
 tress ! ' I think I should. When I laughed at the ' miser- 
 able man crawling from beneath the coverture,' I wonder I 
 did not perceive that it was a laugh of horror — such as I 
 have laughed at Dante's picture of the famished Ugolino. 
 Without falsehood, I perceive an hundred beauties in your 
 narrative. Yet I wonder you do not perceive something 
 out-of-the-way, something unsimple and artificial, in the 
 expression 'voiced a sad tale.' I hate made-dishes at the 
 muses' banquet. I believe I was wrong in most of my 
 
44 LETTEES TO COLEKTDGE. 
 
 Other objections. But surely ' hailed him immortal,' adds 
 nothing to the terror of the man's death, which it was your 
 business to heighten, not diminish by a phrase, which takes 
 away all terror from it. I like that line, ' They closed their 
 eyes in sleep, nor knew 'twas death.' Indeed there is 
 scarce a line I do not like. ' Turbid ecstasy ' is surely not 
 so good as what you had written, ' troublous.' Turbid 
 rather suits the muddy kind of inspiration which London 
 porter confers. The versification is, throughout, to my ears 
 unexceptionable, with no disparagement to the measure of 
 the ' Religious Musings,' which is exactly fitted to the 
 thoughts. 
 
 '' You were building your house on a rock, when you 
 rested your fame on that poem. I can scarce bring myself 
 to believe, that I am admitted to a familiar correspondence, 
 and all the licence of friendship, with a man who writes 
 blank verse like Milton. Now, this is delicate flattery, 
 indirect flattery. Go on with your ' Maid of Orleans,' and 
 be content to be second to j^ourself. I shall become a con- 
 vert to it, when 'tis finished. 
 
 *'This afternoon I attend the funeral of my poor old 
 aunt, who died on Thursday. I own I am thankful that 
 the good creature has ended all her days of suff'ering and 
 infirmity. She was to me the ' cherisher of infancy,' and 
 one must fall on those occasions into reflections, which it 
 would be common-place to enumerate, concerning death, 
 ' of chance and change, and fate in human life.' Good 
 God, who could have foreseen all this but four months 
 back ! I had reckoned, in particular, on my aunt's living 
 many years ; she was a very hearty old woman. But she 
 was a mere skeleton before she died, looked more like a 
 corpse that had lain weeks in the grave, than one fresh 
 dead. ' Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is 
 for the eyes to behold the sun ; but let a man live many 
 days and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember the days 
 of darkness, for they shall be many.' Coleridge, why are 
 we to live on after all the strength and beauty of existence 
 
LETTERS TO COLEIilDGE. 45 
 
 are gone, when all the life of life is fled, as poor Burns 
 expresses it ? Tell Lloyd I have had thoughts of turning 
 Quaker, and have been reading, or am rather just begin- 
 ning to read, a most capital book, good thoughts in good 
 language, William Penn s ' No Cross, no Crown,' I like 
 it immensely. Unluckily I went to one of his meetings, 
 tell him, in St. John-street, yesterday, and saw a man 
 under all the agitations and workings of a fanatic, who 
 believed himself under the influence of some ' inevitable 
 presence.' Tliis cured me of Quakerism ; I love it in the 
 books of Penn and Woolman, but I detest the vanity of a 
 man thinking he speaks by the Spirit, when what he says 
 an ordinary man might say without all that quaking and 
 trembling. In the midst of his inspiration, and the effects 
 of it were most noisy, was handed into the midst of the 
 meeting a most terrible blackguard Wapping sailor ; the 
 poor man, I believe, had rather have been in the hottest 
 part of an engagement, for the congregation of broad-brims, 
 together with the ravings of the prophet, were too much 
 for his gravity, though I saw even he had delicacy enough 
 not to laugh out. And the inspired gentleman, though his 
 manner was so supernatural, yet neither talked nor pro- 
 fessed to talk anything more than good sober sense, common 
 morality, with now and then a declaration of not speaking 
 from himself. Among; other things, looking back to his 
 childhood and early youth, he told the meeting what a 
 graceless young dog he had been, that in his youth he had 
 a good share of wit : reader, if thou hadst seen the gentle- 
 man, thou wouldst have sworn that it must indeed have 
 been many years ago, for his rueful physiognomy would 
 have scared away the playful goddess from the meeting, 
 where he presided, for ever. A wit ! a wit ! what could he 
 mean ? Lloyd, it minded me of Falkland in the Ptivals, 
 'Am I full of wit and humour? No, indeed you are not. 
 Am I the life and soul of every company I come into ? 
 No, it cannot be said you are.' That hard-faced gentle- 
 man, a wit! Why, nature wrote on his fanatic forehead 
 
46 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 fifty years ago, 'Wit never comes, that comes to all.' I 
 should be as scandalised at a boii mot issuing from his 
 oracle-looking mouth, as to see Cato go down a country- 
 dance. God love you all. You are very good to submit to 
 be pleased with reading my nothings. 'Tis the privilege of 
 friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense 
 respected. — Yours ever, '' C. Lamb." 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 "April 7th, 1797. 
 
 ''Your last letter was dated the lOthFebmary; in it 
 you promised to w^ite again the next day. At least, I did 
 not expect so long, so unfriend-like a silence. There was a 
 time, Col., when a remissness of this sort in a dear friend 
 would have lain very heavy on my mind, but latterly I have 
 been too familiar with neglect to feel much from the sem- 
 blance of it. Yet, to suspect one's self overlooked, and in 
 the way to oblivion, is a feeling rather humbling ; perhaps, 
 as tending to self-mortificatiou, not unfavourable to the 
 spiritual state. Still, as you meant to confer no benefit on 
 the soul of your friend, you do not stand quite clear from 
 the imputation of unkindliness (a word, by which I mean the 
 diminutive of unkindness). And then David Hartley was 
 unwell ; and how is the small philosopher, the minute phi- 
 losopher? and Davids mother? Coleridge, I am not 
 trifling, nor are these matter-of-fact questions only. You 
 are all very dear and precious to me ; do what you will, 
 Col., you may hm't me and vex me by your silence, but you 
 cannot estrange my heart from you all. I cannot scatter 
 friendships like chuck-farthings, nor let them drop from 
 mine hand like hour-glass sand. I have but two or three 
 people in the world to whom I am more than indifferent, 
 and I can't afford to whistle them off to the winds. 
 
 My sister has recovered from her illness. May that merci- 
 ful God make tender my heart, and make me as thankful, as 
 in my distress I was earnest, in my prayers. Congratulate 
 
LETTEKS TO COLEKIDGE. 17 
 
 me on an ever-present and never-alienable friend like her. 
 And do, do insert, if you have not lost, my dedication. It 
 will have lost half its value by coming so late. If you really 
 are going on with that volume, I shall be enabled in a day 
 or two to send you a short poem to insert. Now, do 
 answer this. Friendship, and acts of friendship, should bo 
 reciprocal, and free as the air; a friend should never be 
 reduced to beg an alms of his fellow. Yet I will beg an 
 alms ; I entreat you to write, and tell me all about poor 
 Lloyd, and all of you. God love and preserve you alL 
 
 '' C. Lamb." 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 "June 13th, 1797. 
 
 " I stared with wild wonderment to see thy well-known 
 hand again. It revived many a pleasing recollection of an 
 epistolary intercourse, of late strangely suspended, once the 
 pride of my life. Before I even opened thy letter, I 
 figured to myself a sort of complacency which my little 
 hoard at home would feel at receiving the new-comer into 
 the little drawer where I keep my treasures of this kind. 
 You have done well in writing to me. The little room (was 
 it not a little one ?) at the Salutation was already in the way 
 of becoming a fading idea ! it had begun to be classed in my 
 memory with those ' wanderings with a fair hair'd maid/ in 
 the recollection of which I feel I have no property. You 
 press me, very kindly do you press me, to come to Stowey ; 
 obstacles, strong as death, prevent me at present; maybe I 
 may be able to come before the year is out ; believe me, 
 I will come as soon as I can, but I dread naming a probable 
 time. It depends on fifty things, besides the expence, 
 which is not nothing. As to Richardson, caprice may grant 
 what caprice only refused, and it is no more hardship, 
 rightly considered, to be dependent on him for pleasure, 
 than to lie at the mercy of the rain and sunshine for the 
 enjoyment of a holiday : in either case we are not to look 
 
48 LETTEES TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 for a suspension of the laws of nature. ' Grill will be grill.' 
 Vide Spenser. 
 
 '' I could not but smile at the compromise you make 
 with me for printing Lloyd s poems first ; but there is in 
 nature, I fear, too many tendencies to envy and jealousy 
 not to justify you in your apology. Yet, if any one is wel- 
 come to pre-eminence from me, it is Lloj^d, for he would be 
 the last to desire it. So, pray, let his name uniformlij pre- 
 cede mine, for it would be treating me like a child to 
 suppose it could give me pain. Yet, alas ! I am not insus- 
 ceptible of the bad passions. Thank God, I have the 
 ingenuousness to be ashamed of them. I am dearly fond of 
 Charles Lloyd ; he is all goodness, and I have too much of 
 the world in my composition to feel myseK thoroughly 
 deserving of his friendship. 
 
 " Lloyd tells me that Sheridan put you upon writing 
 your tragedy. I hope you are only Coleridgeizing when 
 you talk of finishing it in a few days. Shalvspeare was a 
 more modest man, but you best know yom^ own power. 
 
 " Of my last poem you speak slightingly ; surely the 
 longer stanzas were pretty tolerable ; at least there was one 
 good line in it, 
 
 ' Thick-sLaded trees, Avitli dark gi'een leaf rich clad.' * 
 
 '' To adopt your own expression, I call this a ' rich' line, 
 a fine full line. And some others I thousjht even beautiful. 
 Believe me, my little gentleman vrill feel some repugnance 
 at riding behind in the basket, though, I confess, in pretty 
 good company. Your pictm^e of idiocy, with the sugar-loaf 
 head, is exquisite ; but are you not too severe upon our 
 more favoured brethren in fatuity ? I send you a trifling 
 letter ; but you have only to think that I have been skiui- 
 ming the superficies of my mind, and found it only froth. 
 Now, do wTite again ; you cannot believe how I long and 
 love always to hear about you. Yours, most aff^ectionately, 
 
 ' ' Charles Lamb." 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 49 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 "June 24th, 1797. 
 
 " Did you seize the grand opportunity of seeing Kosciusko 
 while he was at Bristol ? I never saw a hero ; I wonder 
 how they look. I have been reading a most curious 
 romance-like work, called the Life of John Buncle, Esq. 
 'Tis very interesting, and an extraordinary compound of all 
 manner of subjects, from the depth of the ludicrous to the 
 heights of sublime religious truth. There is much abstruse 
 science in it above my cut, and an infinite fund of plea- 
 santry. John Buncle is a famous fine man, formed in 
 nature's most eccentric hour. I am ashamed of what I 
 write. But I have no topic to talk of. I see nobody ; and 
 sit, and read, or walk alone, and hear nothing. I am quite 
 lost to conversation from disuse ; and out of the sphere of 
 my little family, who, I am thankful, are dearer and dearer 
 to me every day, I see no face that brightens up at my 
 approach. My friends are at a distance (meaning Birming- 
 ham and Stowey) ; w^orldly hopes are at a low ebb with me, 
 and unworldly thoughts are not yet familiarised to me, 
 though I occasionally indulge in them. Still I feel a calm 
 not unlike content. I fear it is sometimes more aldn to 
 physical stupidity than to a heaven-flowing serenity and 
 peace. What right have I to obtrude all this upon you? 
 and what is such a letter to you ? and if I come to Stowey, 
 what conversation can I furnish to compensate my friend 
 for those stores of knowledge and of fancy ; those delightful 
 treasures of wisdom, which, I know, he will open to me ? 
 But it is better to give than to receive ; and I was a very 
 patient hearer, and docile scholar, in our winter evening 
 meetings at Mr. Mays; was I not. Col.? What I have 
 owed to thee, my heart can ne'er forget. 
 
 *' God love you and yours. *' C. L." 
 
 At length the small volume containing the poems of 
 Coleridge, Lloyd, and Lamb, was published by Mr. Cottle 
 at Bristol. It excited little attention ; but Lamb had the 
 
 E 
 
50 LETTEKS TO COLEEIDGE. 
 
 pleasure of seeing his dedication to bis sister printed in 
 good set form, after his own fashion, and of witnessing the 
 delight and pride with which she received it. This little 
 book, now very scarce, had the following motto expressive 
 of Coleridge^s feeling towards bis associates : — Duplex nobis 
 vinciilitm, etamicitice et similiiim junctarumqite Camcenarum ; 
 quod ittinam neque mors solvat, neque teinporis longinquitas. 
 Lamb's share of the work consists of eight sonnets ; four 
 short fragments of blank verse, of which the Grandame is 
 the principal ; a poem, called the Tomb of Douglas ; some 
 verses to Charles Lloyd ; and a vision of Eepentance ; 
 which are all published in the last edition of his poetical 
 works, except one of the sonnets, which was addressed to 
 Mrs. Siddons, and the Tomb of Douglas, which was justly 
 omitted as common-place and vapid. They only occupy 
 twenty-eight duodecimo pages, within which space was com- 
 prised all that Lamb at this time had written which he 
 deemed worth preserving. 
 
 The following letter from Lamb to Coleridge seems to 
 have been written on receiving the first copy of the work. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 "Dec. 10th, 1797. 
 
 *' I am sorr}^ I cannot now relish your poetical present so 
 thoroughly as I feel it deserves ; but I do not the less thank 
 Lloyd and you for it. 
 
 " Before I offer, what alone I have to offer, a few obvious 
 remarks, on the poems you sent me, I can but notice the 
 odd coincidence of two young men, in one age, carollin<^ 
 their grandmothers. Love, what L. calls the ' feverish and 
 romantic tie,' hath too long domineered over all the charities 
 of home : the dear domestic ties of father, brother, husband. 
 The amiable and benevolent Cowper has a beautiful passacre 
 in his ' Task,' — some natural and painful reflections on his 
 deceased parents : and Hayley's sweet lines to his mother 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 51 
 
 are notoriously the best things he ever wrote. ^Cowpers 
 lines, some of them are — 
 
 ' How gladly would the man recall to life 
 The boy's neglected sire ; a mother, too ! 
 That softer name, perhaps more gladly still, 
 Might he demand them at the gates of death.' 
 
 ^' I cannot but smile to see my granny so gaily decked 
 forth : though, I think, whoever altered ' thy ' praises to 
 'her' praises — 'thy' honoured memory to 'her' honoured 
 memory, did wrong — they best exprest my feelings. There 
 is a pensive state of recollection, in which the mind is dis- 
 posed to apostrophise the departed objects of its attachment; 
 and, breaking loose from grammatical precision, changes 
 from the first to the third, and from the third to the first 
 person, just as the random fancy or the feeling directs. 
 Among Lloyd's sonnets, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 11th, are 
 eminently beautiful. I think him too lavish of his exple- 
 tives ; the do's and did's, when they occur too often, bring a 
 quaintness with them along with their simplicity, or rather 
 air of antiquity, which the patrons of them seem desirous of 
 conveying. 
 
 " Another time, I may notice more particularly Lloyd's, 
 Southey's, Dermody's Sonnets. I shrink from them now : 
 my teasing lot makes me too confused for a clear judgment 
 of things, too selfish for sympathy ; and these ill-digested, 
 meaningless remarks, I have imposed on myself as a task, 
 to lull reflection, as well as to show you I did not neglect 
 reading your valuable present. Ptetum my acknowledgments 
 to Lloyd ; you two seem to be about realising an Elysium 
 upon earth, and, no doubt, I shall be happier. Take my 
 best wishes. Eemember me most affectionately to Mrs. 
 
 C , and give little David Hartley — God bless its little 
 
 heart ! — a kiss for me. Bring him up to know the meaning 
 of his Christian name, and what that name (imposed upon 
 him) will demand of him. 
 
 '' God love you ! '' 0. Lamb. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 '' I write, for one thing to say, that I shall write no more 
 till you send me word, where you are, for you are so soon to 
 move. 
 
 '' My sister is pretty well, thank God. We think of you 
 very often. God bless you : continue to be my corre- 
 spondent, and I will strive to fancy that this world is 7iot 
 * all barrenness.' " 
 
 After several disappointments, occasioned by the state of 
 business in the India House, Lamb achieved his long- 
 checked wish of visiting Coleridge at Stowey, in company 
 with his sister, without whom he felt it almost a sin to 
 enjoy anything. Coleridge, shortly after, abandoned his 
 scheme of a cottage-life ; and, in the following year, left 
 England for Germany. Lamb, however, was not now so 
 lonely as when he wrote to Coleridge imploring his corre- 
 spondence as the only comfort of his sorrows and labours ; 
 for, through the instrumentality of Coleridge, he was now 
 rich in friends. Among them he marked George Dyer, the 
 guileless and simple-hearted, whose love of learning was a 
 passion, and who found, even in the forms of verse, objects 
 of worship ; Southey, in the young vigour of his genius ; 
 and Wordsworth, the great regenerator of English poetiy, 
 preparing for his long contest with the glittering forms of 
 inane phraseolog}^ w^hich had usurped the dominion of the 
 public mind, and with the cold mockeries of scorn with 
 which their supremacy was defended. By those the beauty 
 of his character was felt ; the original cast of his powers 
 was appreciated ; and his peculiar humour was detected and 
 kindled into fitful life. 
 
CORRESPONDENCE WITH SOUTHEY. 53 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 [1798.] 
 
 lamb's literary efforts and correspondence with SOUTHEY. 
 
 In the year 1798, the blank verse of Lloyd and Lamb, 
 which had been contained in the volume published in con- 
 junction with Coleridge, was, with some additions by Lloyd, 
 published in a thin duodecimo, price 2s. dd., under the title 
 of '' Blank Verse, by Charles Lloyd and Charles Lamb." 
 This unpretending book was honoured by a brief and scornful 
 notice in the catalogue of ''The Monthly Review," in the 
 small print of which the works of the poets who are now 
 recognised as the greatest ornaments of their age, and who 
 have impressed it most deeply by their genius, were usually 
 named to be dismissed with a sneer. After a contemptuous 
 notice of '' The Mournful Muse " of Lloyd, Lamb receives 
 his qidetus in a line : — " Mr. Lamb, the joint author of this 
 little volume, seems to be very properly associated with his 
 plaintive companion."* 
 
 In this year Lamb composed his prose tale, *' Rosamund 
 Gray," and published it in a volume of the same size and 
 price with the last, under the title of ''A Tale of Rosamund 
 Gray and Old Blind Margaret," which, having a semblance 
 of story, sold much better than his poems, and added a few 
 pounds to his slender income. This miniature romance is 
 unique in English literature. It bears the impress of a 
 recent perusal of '' The Man of Feeling," and " Julia do 
 Roubigne ;" and while on the one hand it wants the graphic 
 force and delicate touches of Mackenzie, it is informed with 
 deeper feeling and breathes a diviner morality than the 
 most charming of his tales. Lamb never possessed the 
 faculty of constructing a plot either for drama or novel; 
 
 * Monthly Review, Sept. 1798. 
 
54 EOSAMUND GBAY. 
 
 and while he luxuriated in the humour of Smollett, the wit 
 of Fielding, or the solemn pathos of Pdchardson, he was not 
 amused, but perplexed, by the attempt to thread the windings 
 of story which conduct to their most exquisite passages 
 through the maze of adventure. In his tale, nothing is 
 made out with distinctness, except the rustic piety and 
 grace of the lovely girl and her venerable grandmother, 
 which are pictured with such earnestness and simplicity as 
 might beseem a fragment of the book of Ruth. The villain 
 who lays waste their humble joys is a murky phantom 
 without individuality ; the events are obscured by the haze 
 of sentiment which hovers over them ; and the narrative 
 gives way to the reflections of the author, who is mingled 
 with the persons of the tale in visionary confusion, and 
 gives to it the character of a sweet but disturbed dream. 
 It has an interest now beyond that of fiction ; for in it we 
 may trace, ''as in a glass darkly," the characteristics of the 
 mind and heart of the author, at a time when a change was 
 coming upon them. There are the dainty sense of beauty 
 just weaned from its palpable object, and quivering over its 
 lost images ; feeling grown retrospective before its time, and 
 tinging all things with a strange solemnity ; hints of that 
 craving after immediate apphances which might give impulse 
 to a harassed frame, and confidence to strugghng fancy, and 
 of that escape from the pressure of agony into fantastic 
 mirth, which in after life made Lamb a problem to a 
 stranger, while they endeared him a thousand-fold to those 
 who really knew him. While the fulness of the religious 
 sentiments, and the scriptural cast of the language, still 
 partake of his early manhood, the visit of the narrator of 
 the tale to the churchyard where his parents lie buried, 
 after his nerves had been strung for the endeavour by wine 
 at the village inn, and the half-frantic jollity of his old 
 heart-broken friend (the lover of the tale), whom he met 
 there, with the exquisite benignity of thought breathing 
 through the whole, prophesy the delightful peculiarities and 
 genial frailties of an after day. The reflections he makes 
 
INTRODUCTION TO SOUTHEY. ' 55 
 
 on the eulogistic character of all the inscriptions, are drawn 
 from his own childhood ; for when a very little bo}^ walking 
 with his sister in a churchyard, he suddenly asked her, 
 '^Mary, where do the naughty people lie V 
 
 '' Kosamund Gray" remained unreviewed till August, 
 1800, when it received the following notice in '' The 
 Monthly Review s " catalogue, the manufacturer of which 
 was probably more tolerant of heterodox composition in 
 prose than verse: — *'In the perusal of this pathetic and inte- 
 resting story, the reader who has a mind capable of enjoying 
 rational and moral sentiment will feel much gratification. 
 Mr. Lamb has here proved himself skilful, in touching the 
 nicest feelings of the heart ; and in affording great pleasure 
 to the imagination, by exhibiting events and situations 
 which, in the hands of a writer less conversant with the 
 springs and energies of the moral sense, would make a very 
 ^ sorry figure.''" While w^e acknowledge this scanty praise 
 as a redeeming trait in the long series of critical absurdities, 
 we cannot help observing how curiously misplaced all the 
 laudatoiy epithets are ; the sentiment being profound and 
 true, but not "rational,'' and the ''springs and energies 
 of the moral sense " being substituted for a weakness 
 which had a power of its own ! 
 
 Lamb was introduced by Coleridge to Southey as early as 
 the year 1795 ; but no intimacy ensued until he accom- 
 panied Lloyd in the summer of 1797 to the little village of 
 Burton, near Christchurch, in Hampshire, where Southey 
 was then residing, and where they spent a fortnight as the 
 poet's guests. After Coleridge's departure for Germany, in 
 1798, a correspondence began between Lamb and Southey, 
 which continued through that and part of the following 
 year ; — Southey communicates to Lamb his Eclogues, 
 which he was then preparing for the press, and Lamb 
 repaying the confidence by submitting the products of his 
 own leisure hours to his genial critic. If Southey did not, 
 in all respects, compensate Lamb for the absence of his 
 earlier friend, he excited in him a more entire and active 
 
56 LETTERS TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 intellectual sympathy ; as the character of Southey's mind 
 bore more resemblance to his own than that of Coleridge. 
 In purity of thought ; in the love of the minutest vestige 
 of antiquity ; in a certain primness of style bounding in 
 the rich humour which threatened to overflow it ; they were 
 nearly akin : both alike reverenced childhood, and both had 
 preserved its best attributes unspotted from the world. If 
 Lamb bowed to the genius of Coleridge with a fonder 
 reverence, he felt more at home with Southey; and although 
 he did not pour out the inmost secrets of his soul in his 
 letters to him as to Coleridge, he gave more scope to the 
 '' first sprightly runnings " of his humorous fancy. Here 
 is the first of his freaks : — 
 
 TO MR. SOUTHEY. 
 
 *' My tailor has brought me home a new coat lapelled, 
 with a velvet collar. He assures me everybody wears 
 velvet collars now. Some are bom fashionable, some achieve 
 fashion, and others, like your humble servant, have fashion 
 thrust upon them. The rogue has been making inroads 
 hitherto by modest degrees, foisting upon me an additional 
 button, recommending gaiters, but to come upon me thus 
 in a full tide of luxury, neither becomes him as a tailor or 
 the ninth of a man. My meek gentleman was robbed the 
 other day, coming with his wife and family in a one-horse 
 shay from Hampstead ; the villains rifled him of four 
 guineas, some shillings and half-pence, and a bundle of 
 customers' measures, which they swore were bank-notes. 
 They did not shoot him, and when they rode off he addrest 
 them with profound gratitude, making a congee : ' Gentle- 
 men, I wish you good night, and we are very much obliged 
 to you that you have not used us ill ! ' And this is the 
 cuckoo that has had the audacity to foist upon me ten 
 buttons on a side, and a black velvet collar. — A cursed ninth 
 of a scoundrel ! 
 
 *' When you write to Lloyd, he wishes his Jacobin cor- 
 respondents to address him as Mr. C. L." 
 
LETTEES TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 The following letter — yet richer in fun — bears date 
 Saturday, July 28th, 1798. In order to make its allusions 
 intelligible, it is only necessary to mention that Southey 
 was then contemplating a calendar illustrative of the 
 remarkable days of the year. 
 
 TO MR. SOUTHEY. 
 
 "July 28th, 1798. 
 
 " I am ashamed that I have not thanked you before this 
 for the ' Joan of Arc,' but I did not know your address, and 
 it did not occur to me to write through Cottle. The poem 
 delighted me, and the notes amused me, but methinks she 
 of Neufchatel, in the print, holds her sword too ' like a 
 dancer.' I sent your notice to Phillips, particularly request- 
 ing an immediate insertion, but I suppose it came too late. 
 I am sometimes curious to know what progress you make in 
 that same ' Calendar,' whether you insert the nine worthies 
 and Whittington ; what you do or how you can manage when 
 two Saints meet and quarrel for precedency ; Martlemas, 
 and Candlemas, and Christmas, are glorious themes for 
 a writer like you, antiquity-bitten, smit with the love of 
 boars' heads and rosemary ; but how you can ennoble the 
 1st of April I know not. By the way I had a thing to say, 
 but a certain false modesty has hitherto prevented me : 
 perhaps I can best communicate my wish by a hint, — my 
 birth-day is on the 10th of February, new style, but if it 
 interferes with any remarkable event, why rather than my 
 country should lose her fame, I care not if I put my nativity 
 back eleven days. Fine family patronage for your ' Calen- 
 dar,' if that old lady of proHfic memory were living, who 
 lies (or lyes) in some church in London (saints forgive me, 
 but I have forgot ivhat church), attesting that enormous 
 legend of as many children as days in the year. I marvel 
 her impudence did not grasp at a leap year. Three-hundred 
 and sixty-five dedications, and all in a family— you might 
 spit in spirit, on the oneness of Maecenas' patronage ! 
 
58 LETTEKS TO SOUTHS Y. 
 
 ** Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to the eternal regret of his 
 native Devonshire, emigrates to Westphalia — ' Poor Lamb 
 (these were his last words) if he wants any knowledge, he 
 
 may apply to me,' in ordinary cases I thanked him, I 
 
 have an ' Encyclopedia ' at hand, but on such an occasion 
 as going over to a German university, I could not refrain 
 from sending him the following propositions, to be by him 
 defended or oppugned (or both) at Leipsic or Gottingen. 
 
 THESES QUiEDAM THEOLOGICiE. 
 
 I. 
 
 '' Whether God loves a lying angel better than a true 
 man ? " 
 
 II. 
 
 '' Whether the archangel Uriel could knowingly affirm an 
 untruth, and whether, if he could, he icould ? " 
 
 III. 
 
 ** Whether honesty be an angelic virtue, or not rather 
 belonging to that class of qualities which the schoolmen term 
 * virtutes minus splendidse, et hominis et terras nimis 
 participes ? 
 
 ) >> 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Whether the seraphim ardentes do not manifest their 
 goodness by the way of vision and theory ? and whether 
 practice be not a sub-celestial, and merely human virtue ? '' 
 
 V. 
 
 *' Whether the higher order of seraphim illuminati ever 
 sneer ? 
 
 ?" 
 
 VI. 
 
 '' Whether pure intelligences can love, or whether they 
 can love anything besides pure intellect ? " 
 
LETTEES TO SOUTHEY. 59 
 
 VII. 
 
 *' Whether the beatific vision be anything more or less 
 than a perpetual representment to each individual angel of 
 his own present attainments, and future capabilities, some- 
 thing in the manner of mortal looking-glasses ?" 
 
 ' VIII. 
 
 " Whether an ' immortal and amenable soul ' may not 
 come to be damned at last, and the man never suspect it 
 heforehand ? " 
 
 *' Samuel Taylor hath not deigned an answer ; was it 
 impertinent of me to avail myself of that offered source of 
 knowledge ? 
 
 *' Wishing Madoc may be born into the world with as 
 splendid promise as the second birth, or purification, of the 
 Maid of Neufchatel, — I remain yours sincerely, 
 
 " C. Lamb. 
 
 " I hope Edith is better ; my kindest remembrances to 
 her. You have a good deal of trifling to forgive in this 
 letter." 
 
 The two next letters to Southey illustrate strikingly the 
 restless kindness and exquisite spirit of allowance in Lamb's 
 nature ; the first an earnest pleading for a poor fellow 
 whose distress actually haunted him ; the second an affect- 
 ing allusion to the real goodness of a wild untoward 
 school-mate, and fine self-reproval — in this instance how 
 unmerited ! 
 
 TO ME. SOUTHEY. 
 
 '' Dear Southey, — Your friend John May has formerly 
 made kind offers to Lloyd of serving me in the India House, 
 by the interest of his friend Sir Francis Baring. It is not 
 likely that I shall ever put his goodness to the test on my 
 own account, for my prospects are very comfortable. But 
 
60 LETTEKS TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 I know a man, a young man, whom he could serve through 
 the same channel, and, I think, would be disposed to serve 
 if he were acquainted with his case. This poor fellow 
 (whom I know just enough of to vouch for his strict integrity 
 and worth) has lost two or three employments from illness, 
 which he cannot regain ; he was once insane, and, from the 
 distressful uncertainty of his livelihood, has reason to appre- 
 hend a return of that malady. He has been for some time 
 dependent on a woman whose lodger he formerly was, but 
 who can ill afford to maintain him ; and I know that on 
 Christmas night last he actually walked about the streets 
 all night, rather than accept of her bed, which she offered 
 him, and offered herself to sleep in the kitchen ; and that, 
 in consequence of that severe cold, he is labouring under a 
 bilious disorder, besides a depression of spirits, which inca- 
 pacitates him from exertion when he most needs it. For 
 God's sake, Southey, if it does not go against you to ask 
 favours, do it now ; ask it as for me ; but do not do a violence 
 to your feelings, because he does not know of this applica- 
 tion, and will suffer no disappointment. What I meant to 
 say was this, — there are in the India House what are called 
 extra clerks^ not on the establishment, like me, but employed 
 in extra business, by-jobs; these get about 50Z. a-year, or 
 rather more, but never rise ; a director can put in at any 
 time a young man in this office, and it is by no means con- 
 sidered so great a favour as making an established clerk. 
 He would think himself as rich as an emperor if he could 
 get such a certain situation, and be relieved from those dis- 
 quietudes which, I do fear, may one day bring back his 
 distemper. 
 
 " You know John May better than I do, but I know 
 enough to believe that he is a good man ; he did make me 
 that offer I have mentioned, but you will perceive that 
 such an offer cannot authorise me in applying for another 
 person. 
 
 " But I cannot help writing to you on the subject, for the 
 young man is perpetually before my eyes, and I shall feel it 
 
LETTERS TO SOUTHET. 01 
 
 a crime not to strain all my petty interest to do him service, 
 though I put my own delicacy to the question by so doing. 
 I have made one other unsuccessful attempt already; at all 
 events I will thank you to write, for I am tormented with 
 anxiety. " C. Lamb." 
 
 '' Dear Southey, 
 
 ^' Poor Sam. Le Grice ! I am afraid the world, and the 
 camp, and the university, have spoilt him among them. 
 'Tis certain he had at one time a strong capacity of turning 
 out something better. I knew him, and that not long since, 
 when he had a most warm heart. I am ashamed of the 
 indifference I have sometimes felt towards him. I think 
 the devil is in one's heart. I am under obligations to that 
 man for the warmest friendship, and heartiest sympathy, 
 even for an agony of sympathy exprest both by word, and 
 deed, and tears for me, when I was in my greatest distress. 
 But I have forgot that ! as, I fear, he has nigh forgot the 
 awful scenes which were before his eyes when he served the 
 office of a comforter to me. No service was too mean or 
 troublesome for him to perform. I can't think what but the 
 devil, * that old spider,' could have suck'd my heart so dry 
 of its seuse of all gratitude. If he does come in your way, 
 Southey, fail not to tell him that I retain a most affectionate 
 remembrance of his old friendliness, and an eaiTiest wish to 
 resume our intercourse. In this I am serious. I cannot 
 recommend him to your society, because I am afraid whether 
 he be quite worthy of it. But I have no right to dismiss 
 him from 7ny regard. He was at one time, and in the 
 worst of times, my own famihar friend, and great comfort 
 to me then. I have known him to play at cards with my 
 father, meal-times excepted, literally all day long, in long 
 days too, to save me from being teased by the old man, 
 when I was not able to bear it. 
 
 *' God bless him for it, and God bless you, Southey. 
 
62 LETTEES TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 Lamb now began to write the tragedy of John WoodviL 
 His admiration of the dramatists of Elizabeth's age was yet 
 yomig, and had some of the indiscretion of an early love ; 
 but there was nothing affected in the antique cast of his 
 language, or the frequent roughness of his verse. His 
 delicate sense of beauty had found a congenial organ in the 
 style which he tasted with rapture ; and criticism gave him 
 little encouragement to adapt it to the frigid insipidities of 
 the time. " My tragedy," says he in the first letter to 
 South ey, which alludes to the play, '' will be a medley 
 (or I intend it to be a medley) of laughter and tears, prose 
 and verse ; and, in some places, rhyme ; songs, wit, pathos, 
 humour; and, if possible, sublimity; — at least, 'tis not a 
 fault in my intention if it does not comprehend most of 
 these discordant atoms — Heaven send they dance not the 
 dance of death ! " In another letter he there introduces 
 the delicious rhymed passage in the " Forest Scene," 
 which Godwin, having accidentally seen quoted, took for a 
 choice fragment of an old dramatist, and went to Lamb to 
 assist him in finding the author. 
 
 TO MR. SOUTHEY. 
 
 " I just send you a few rhymes from my play, the only 
 rhymes in it. A forest-liver giving an account of his 
 amusements. 
 
 ^ What sports have you in the forest ? 
 Not many, — some few, — as thus. 
 To see the sun to bed, and see him rise. 
 Like some hot amourist with glowing eyes, 
 Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him : 
 With all his fires and travellins: glories round him : 
 Sometimes the moon on soft night-clouds to rest, 
 Like beauty nestling in a young man's breast. 
 And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keep 
 Admiring silence, while those lovers sleep : 
 Sometimes outstretched in very idleness, 
 Nought doing, saying little, thinking less. 
 To view the leaves, thin dancers upon air, 
 Go eddying round ; and small birds how they fare, 
 
LETTEKS TO SOUTHEY. 63 
 
 When mother autumn fills their heaks with com, 
 
 Filch'd from the careless Amalthea's horn ; 
 
 And how the woods berries and worms provide, 
 
 Without their pains, when earth hath nought beside 
 
 To answer their small wants ; 
 
 To view the graceful deer come trooping by^ 
 
 Then pause, and gaze, then turn they know not why, 
 
 Like bashful younkers in society ; 
 
 To mark the structure of a plant or tree ; 
 
 And all fair things of earth, how fair they be !' &c. &c. 
 
 '' I love to anticipate charges of unoriginality : the first 
 line is almost Shakspeare's : — 
 
 ' To have my love to bed and to arise.** 
 
 Midsummer Niglifs Dream. 
 
 '' I think there is a sweetness in the versification not 
 unlike some rhymes in that exquisite play, and the last line 
 but three is yours : 
 
 * An eye 
 That met the gaze, or tum'd it knew not why.' 
 
 Rosamund's Epistle, 
 
 '' I shall anticipate all my play, and have nothing to 
 show you. An idea for Leviathan — Commentators on Job 
 have been puzzled to find out a meaning for Leviathan, — 
 'tis a whale, say some; a crocodile, say others. In my 
 simple conjecture, Leviathan is neither more nor less than 
 the Lord Mayor of London for the time being." 
 
 «1« «S* ti» «1^ ^f 
 
 #^ ffm 'f* *f» 1* 
 
 He seems also to have sent about this time the solemnly 
 fantastic poem of the '' Witch," as the following passage 
 relates to one of its conceits : 
 
 TO MK. SOUTHEY. 
 
 *' Your recipe for a Turk's poison is invaluable, and truly 
 Mario wish. . . . Lloyd objects to ' shutting up the 
 womb of his purse' in my curse, (which, for a Christian 
 witch in a Christian country, is not too mild, I hope,) do 
 
64 LETTEKS TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 you object? I think there is a strangeness in the idea, as 
 well as ' shaking the poor like snakes from his door,' which 
 suits the speaker. Witches illustrate, as fine ladies do, from 
 their own familiar objects, and snakes and shutting up of 
 wombs are in their way. I don't know that this last charge 
 has been before brought against 'em, nor either the sour 
 milk or the mandrake babe ; but I aflBrm these be things a 
 witch would do if she could." 
 
 Here is a specimen of Lamb's criticism on Southey's 
 poetical communications : — 
 
 TO MR. SOUTHEY. 
 
 ^' I have read your Eclogue repeatedly, and cannot call it 
 bald, or without interest ; the cast of it, and the design, are 
 completely original, and may set people upon thinking : it 
 is as poetical as the subject requires, which asks no poetry; 
 but it is defective in pathos. The woman's own stoiy is the 
 tamest part of it — I should like you to remould that — it too 
 much resembles the young maid's history, both had been in 
 service. Even the omission would not injure the poem; 
 after the words ' growing wants,' you might, not uncon- 
 nectedly, introduce ' look at that little chub ' down to 
 ' welcome one.' And, decidedly, I would have you end it 
 somehow thus, 
 
 ^ Give them at least this evening a good meal. 
 
 IGives her money. 
 
 Now, fare thee well ; hereafter you have taught me 
 To give sad meaning to the village-bells,' &c. 
 
 which would leave a stronger impression, (as well as more 
 pleasingly recall the beginning of the Eclogue,) than the 
 present commonplace reference to a better world, which the 
 woman ' must have heard at church.' I should like you too 
 a good deal to enlarge the most striking part, as it might 
 have been, of the poem — ' Is it idleness ? ' &c., that affords 
 
LETTERS TO SOUTHS Y. 65 
 
 a good field for dwelling on sicliness, and inabilities, and old 
 age. And you might also a good deal enrich the piece with 
 a picture of a countiy weddmg : the woman might very well, 
 in a transient fit of oblivion, dwell upon the ceremony and 
 circumstances of her own nuptials six years ago, the snucr- 
 ness of the bridegroom, the feastings, the cheap merriment, 
 the welcomings, and the secret envyings of the maidens — 
 then dropping all this, recur to her present lot. I do not 
 know that I can suggest anything else, or that I have sug- 
 gested anything new or material. I shall be very glad to 
 see some more poetry, though, I fear, your trouble in trans- 
 scribing will be greater than the service my remarks may 
 do them. 
 
 '' Yours affectionately, " C. Lamb. 
 
 *' I cut my letter short because I am called off to business." 
 
 The following, of the same character, is further interest- 
 ing, as tracing the origin of his "Rosamund," and exhibit- 
 ing his young enthusiasm for the old English drama, so 
 nobly developed in his '' Specimens " : — 
 
 to mr. southey. 
 
 " Dear Southey, 
 
 *' I thank you heartily for the Eclogue ; it pleases me 
 mightily, being so full of picture-work and circumstances. 
 I find no fault in it, unless perhaps that Joanna s ruin is a 
 catastrophe too trite : and this is not the first or second 
 time you have clothed your indignation, in verse, in a tale 
 of ruined innocence. The old lady, spinning in the sun, I 
 hope would not disdain to claim some kindred with old 
 Margaret. I could almost wish you to vary some circum- 
 stances in the conclusion. A gentleman seducer has so 
 often been described in prose and verse ; what if you had 
 accomplished Joanna's ruin by the clumsy arts and rustic 
 
66 LETTERS TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 gifts of some country fellow ? I am thinking, I believe, of 
 the song, 
 
 ' An old woman clothed in grey. 
 
 Whose daughter was charming and young. 
 And she was deluded away 
 
 By Roger's false flattering tongue.' 
 
 K Roger-Lothario would be a novel character ; I think you 
 might paint him very well. You may think this a very 
 silly suggestion, and so indeed it is ; but, in good truth, 
 nothing else but the first words of that foolish ballad put 
 me upon scribbling my ' Rosamund.' But I thank you 
 heartily for the poem. Not having anything of my own to 
 send you in return — though, to tell truth, I am at work upon 
 something, which, if I were to cut away and garble, perhaps 
 I might send you an extract or two that might not displease 
 you ; but I will not do that ; and whether it will come to 
 anything, I know not, for I am as slow as a Fleming painter 
 when I compose anything — I will crave leave to put down a 
 few lines of old Christopher Marlow s ; I take them from 
 his tragedy, 'The Jew of Malta.' The Jew is a famous 
 character, quite out of nature ; but, when we consider the 
 terrible idea our simple ancestors had of a Jew, not more to 
 be discommended for a certain discolouriuQ- (I think Addison 
 calls it) than the witches and fairies of Marlow's mighty 
 successor. The scene is betwixt Barabas, the Jew, and 
 Ithamore, a Turkish captive, exposed to sale for a slave. 
 
 BARABAS. 
 
 {A precious rascal.) 
 
 As for myself, I walk abroad a-nights, 
 
 And kill sick people groaning under walls : 
 
 Sometimes I go about^ and poison wells; 
 
 And now and then, to cherish Christian thieves, 
 
 I am content to lose some of my crowns, 
 
 That I may, Avalking in my gallery, 
 
 See 'm go pinioned along by my door. 
 
 Being young, I studied physic, and began 
 
 To practise first upon the Italian : 
 
LETTEKS TO SOUTHEY. 67 
 
 There T enriched the priests with burials, 
 
 And always kept the sexton's arms in use 
 
 With digging graves, and ringing dead men's knells ; 
 
 And, after that, was I an engineer, 
 
 And in the wars ^twixt France and Germany 
 
 Under pretence of serving Charles the Fifth, 
 
 Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems. 
 
 Then after that was I an usurer, 
 
 And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting, 
 
 And tricks belonging unto brokery, 
 
 I fill'd the jails with bankrupts in a year. 
 
 And with young orphans planted hospitals, 
 
 And every moon made some or other mad; 
 
 And now and then one hang himself for grief, 
 
 Pinning upon his breast a long great scroll, 
 
 How 1 with interest had tormented him. 
 
 (Now hear Ithamore, the other gentle nature). 
 
 ITHAMORE. 
 
 (A comical dog,) 
 
 Faith, master, and I have spent my time , 
 
 In setting Christian villages on fire. 
 
 Chaining of eunuchs, binding galley-slaves. 
 
 One time I was an hostler in an inn. 
 
 And in the night-time secretly w^ould I steal 
 
 To travellers' chambers, and there cut their throats. 
 
 Once at Jerusalem, where the pilgrims kneelM, 
 
 I strewed powder on the marble stones, 
 
 And therewithal their knees would rankle so, 
 
 That I have laugh'd a good to see the cripples 
 
 Go limping home to Christendom on stilts. 
 
 BARABAS. 
 
 Why, this is something — 
 
 '' There is a mixture of the ludicrous and the terrible in 
 these lines, brimful of genius and antique invention, that at 
 first reminded me of your old description of cruelty in hell, 
 which was in the true Hogarthian style. I need not tell 
 you that Marlow was author of that pretty madrigal, ' Come 
 live with me and be my Love,' and of the tragedy of 
 Edward II., in which are certain lines unequalled in our 
 English tongue. Honest Walton mentions the said madrigal 
 
 F 2 
 
68 LETTEES TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 under the denomination of ' certain smooth verses made 
 long since by Kit Mario w.' 
 
 I am glad you have put me on the scent after old Quarles. 
 If I do not put up those eclogues, and that shortly, say I 
 am no true-nosed hound. I have had a letter from Lloyd ; 
 the young metaphysician of Caius is well, and is busy re- 
 canting the new heresy, metaphysics, for the old dogma, 
 Greek. My sister, I thank you, is quite well. 
 
 " Yours sincerely, " C. Laimb." 
 
 The following letters, which must have been written after 
 a short interval, show a rapid change of opinion, very- 
 unusual with Lamb (who stuck to his favourite books as he 
 did to his friends), as to the relative merits of the " Emblems" 
 of Wither and of Quarles : 
 
 TO MR. SOUTHET. 
 
 ^^Oct. 18th, 1798. 
 
 ''Dear Southey, — I have at last been so fortunate as to 
 pick up Wither 's Emblems for you, that ' old book and 
 quaint,' as the brief author of Rosamund Gray hath it ; it 
 is in a most detestable state of preservation, and the cuts 
 are of a fainter impression than I have seen. Some child, 
 the curse of antiquaries and bane of bibliopical rarities, hath 
 been dabbling in some of them with its paint and dirty 
 fingers ; and, in particular, hath a little sullied the author's 
 own portraitm^e, which I think valuable, as the poem that 
 accompanies it is no common one, this last excepted ; the 
 Emblems are far inferior to old Quarles. I once told you 
 otherwise, but I had not then read old Q. with attention. 
 I have picked up, too, another copy of Quarles for nine- 
 pence ! ! ! tempera ! lectores ! so that if you have lost 
 or parted with your own copy, say so, and I can furnish you, 
 for you prize these things more than I do. You Avill be 
 amused, I think, with honest Wither's ' Supersedeas to all 
 
LETTEES TO SOUTHEY 69 
 
 them whose custom it is, without any deserving, to impor- 
 tune authors to give unto them their books.' I am sorry 
 'tis imperfect, as the lottery board annexed to it also is. 
 Methinks you might modernise and elegantise this Super- 
 sedeas, and place it in front of your Joan of Arc, as a gentle 
 hint to Messrs. Parke, &c. One of the happiest emblems, 
 and comicalest cuts, is the owl and little chirpers, page 63. 
 " Wishing you all amusement, which your true emblem- 
 fancier can scarce fail to find in even bad emblems, I remain 
 your caterer to command, '' C. Lamb. 
 
 " Love and respects to Edith. I hope she is well. How 
 does your Calendar prosper ? " 
 
 TO MK. SOUTHEY. 
 
 ^^Nov. 8th, 1798. 
 
 " I perfectly accord with your opinion of old Wither ; 
 Quarles is a wittier writer, but Wither lays more hold of 
 the heart. Quarles thinks of his audience when he lectures ; 
 Wither soliloquises in company with a full heart. What 
 wretched stuff are the ' Divine Fancies ' of Quarles ! EeH- 
 gion appears to him no longer valuable than it furnishes 
 matter for quibbles and riddles ; he turns God s grace into 
 wantonness. Wither is like an old friend, whose warm- 
 heartedness and estimable qualities make us wish he 
 possessed more genius, but at the same time make us willing 
 to dispense with that want. I always love W., and some- 
 times admire Q. Still that portrait poem is a fine one ; 
 and the extract from ' Shepherds' Hunting' places him in 
 a starry height far above Quarles. If you wrote that review 
 in ' Crit. Rev.,' I am sorry you are so sparing of praise to 
 the " Ancient Marinere ; " — so far from calling it as you do, 
 with some wit, but more severity, 'A Dutch Attempt,' &c., 
 T call it a right Enghsh attempt, and a successful one, to 
 dethrone German sublimity. You have selected a passage 
 fertile in unmeaning miracles, but have passed by fifty 
 
70 LETTEKS TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 passages as miraculous as the miracles they celebrate. I 
 never so deeply felt the pathetic as in that part, 
 
 ' A spring of love giish'd from my heart. 
 And I bless'd them unaware — ' 
 
 It Stung me into high pleasure through sufferings. Lloyd 
 does not like it ; his head is too metaphysical, and your 
 taste too correct ; at least I must allege something against 
 you both, to excuse my own dotage — 
 
 ^ So lonely ^twas, that God himself 
 Scarce seemed there to be ! ' — &c., &c. 
 
 But you allow some elaborate beauties — ^you should have 
 extracted 'em. ' The Ancient Marinere ' plays more tricks 
 with the mind than that last poem, which is yet one of the 
 finest written. But I am getting too dogmatical ; and 
 before I degenerate into abuse, I will conclude with assuring 
 you that I am '' Sincerely yours, 
 
 " C. Lamb. 
 
 " I am going to meet Lloyd at Ware on Saturday, to 
 return on Sunday. Have you any commands or commen- 
 dations to the metaphysician ? I shall be very happy if 
 you will dine or spend any time with me in your way 
 through the great ugly city ; but I know you have other 
 ties upon you in these parts. 
 
 '' Love and respects to Edith, and friendly remembrances 
 to Cottle." 
 
 In this year, Mr. Cottle proposed to publish an annual 
 volume of fugitive poetry by various hands, under the title 
 of the *' Annual Anthology ; '' to which Coleridge and 
 Southey were principal contributors, the first volume of 
 which was published in the following year. To this little 
 work Lamb contributed a short religious effusion in blank 
 verse, entitled '' Living without God in the World.'' The 
 
LETTEES TO SOUTHEY. 71 
 
 following letter to Southey refers to this poem by its first 
 words, "Mystery of God/' and recurs to the rejected 
 sonnet to his sister; and alludes to an intention, afterwards 
 changed, of entitling the proposed collection " Gleanings." 
 
 TO MR. SOUTHEY. 
 
 ^^Nov. 28th, 1798. 
 
 ^' I can have no objection to your printing ' Mystery of 
 God ' with my name, and all due acknowledgments for the 
 honour and favour of the communication ; indeed, 'tis a 
 poem that can dishonour no name. Now, that is in the 
 
 true strain of modern modesto-vanitas But for the 
 
 sonnet, I heartly wish it, as I thought it was, dead and 
 forgotten. If the exact circumstances under which I wrote 
 could be known or told, it would be an interesting sonnet ; 
 but, to an indifferent and stranger reader, it must appear a 
 very bald thing, certainly inadmissible in a compilation. I 
 wish you could affix a different name to the volume ; there 
 is a contemptible book, a wretched assortment of vapid 
 feelings, entitled Pratt's Gleanings, Avhich hath damned 
 and impropriated the title for ever. Pray think of some 
 other. The gentleman is better known (better had he 
 remained unknown) by an Ode to Benevolence, written and 
 spoken for and at the annual dinner of the Humane Society, 
 who walk in procession once a-year, with all the objects of 
 their charity before them, to return God thanks for giving 
 them such benevolent hearts." 
 
 «i^ «^ %^^ *iy ^1^ 
 
 ^ ^ ^^^ pf* ^ 
 
 At this time Lamb's most intimate associates were Lloyd 
 and Jem White, the author of the Falstaff Letters. When 
 Lloyd was in town, he and White lodged in the same 
 house, and were fast friends, though no two men could be 
 more unlike, Lloyd having no drollery in his nature, and 
 White nothing else. '' You will easily understand," observes 
 Mr. Southey, in a letter with which he favoured the pub- 
 lisher, '' how Lamb could sympathise with both." 
 
 ■i 
 
72 ATTACKS OF THE ANTI- JACOBIN. 
 
 The literary association of Lamb with Coleridge and 
 Southey drew down upon him the hostility of the young 
 scorners of the " Anti-jacobin," who, luxuriating in boyish 
 pride and aristocratic patronage, tossed the arrows of their 
 wit against all charged with innovation, whether in politics 
 or poetry, and cared little whom they wounded. No one 
 could be more innocent than Lamb of political heresy ; no 
 one more strongly opposed to new theories in morality, 
 which he always regarded with disgust ; and yet he not 
 only shared in the injustice which accused his friends of 
 the last^ but was confounded in the charge of the first, — 
 his only crime being that he had published a few poems 
 deeply coloured with religious enthusiasm, in conjunction 
 with two other men of genius, who were dazzled by the 
 glowing phantoms which the French Revolution had raised. 
 The very first number of the " Anti-jacobin Magazine and 
 Review " was adorned by a caricature of Gilray's, in which 
 Coleridge and Southey were introduced with asses' heads, 
 and Lloyd and Lamb as toad and frog. In the number 
 for July appeared the well-known poem of the '' New 
 Morahty," in which all the prominent objects of the hatred 
 of these champions of religion and order were introduced as 
 offering homage to Lepaux, a French charlatan, — of whose 
 existence Lamb had never even heard. 
 
 " Couriers and Stars, sedition's evening host. 
 Thou Morning Chronicle, and Morning Post, 
 Whether ye make the ^ Rights of Man ' your theme, 
 Your country libel, and your God blaspheme, 
 Or dirt on private worth and virtue throiUy 
 Still hlas2:)hemous or hlackguard, praise Lepaux. 
 
 And ye five other wandering bards, that move 
 In sweet accord of harmony and love, 
 
 C dge and S — th — y, L — d, and L — b & Co., 
 
 Tune all your mystic harps to praise Lepaux ! " 
 
 Not content with thus confounding persons of the most 
 opposite opinions and the most various characters in one 
 common hbel, the party returned to the charge in the 
 
ATTACKS OF THE ANTI-JACOBIN. 73 
 
 number for September, and thus denounced the young 
 poets, in a parody on the " Ode to the Passions," under the 
 title of '' The Anarchists." 
 
 " Next H — Ic — ft vow'd in doleful tone, 
 No more to fire a thankless a^e : 
 Oblivion mark'd his labours for her own, 
 
 Neglected from the press, and damn'd upon the stage. 
 
 See ! faithful to their mighty dam, 
 
 C dge, S — th — y, L — d, and L — b 
 
 In splay-foot madrigals of love, 
 Soft moaning like the widowed dove, 
 Pour, side-by-side, their sympathetic notes ; 
 Of equal rights, and civic feasts, 
 And tyrant kings, and knavish priests. 
 Swift through the land the tuneful mischief floats. 
 
 And now to softer strains they struck the lyre, 
 
 They sung the beetle or the mole, 
 
 The dying kid, or ass's foal. 
 By cruel man permitted to expire.'' 
 
 These effusions have the palliation which the excess of 
 sportive wit, impelled by youthful spirits and fostered by 
 the applause of the great, brings with it ; but it will be 
 difficult to palliate the coarse malignity of a passage in the 
 prose department of the same work, in which the writer 
 added to a statement that Mr. Coleridge was dishonoured at 
 Cambridge for preaching Deism : '' Since then he has left his 
 native country, commenced citizen of the world, left his poor 
 children fatherless, and his wife destitute. Ex his disce, 
 his friends Lamb and South ey." It was surely rather too 
 much even for partisans, when denouncing their political 
 opponents as men who '' dirt on private worth and virtue 
 threw," thus to slander two young men of the most exem- 
 plary character — one of an almost puritanical exactness of 
 demeanour and conduct — and the other persevering in a 
 life of noble self-sacrifice, chequered only by the frailties of 
 a sweet nature, which endeared him even to those who 
 were not admitted to the intimacy necessary to appreciate 
 the touching example of his severer virtues ! 
 
74 INTEODUCTION TO GODWIN. 
 
 If Lamb's acquaintance with Coleridge and Southey 
 procured for him the scora of the more virulent of the 
 Anti-jacobin party, he showed by his intimacy with another 
 distinguished object of their animosity, that he was not 
 solicitous to avert it. He was introduced by Mr. Coleridge 
 to one of the most remarkable persons of that stirrhig time 
 — the author of " Caleb Williams," and of the " Political 
 Justice." The first meeting between Lamb and Godwin 
 did not wear a promising aspect. Lamb grew warm as the 
 conviviality of the evening advanced, and indulged in some 
 freaks of humour which had not been dreamed of in God- 
 win s philosophy ; and the philosopher, forgetting the equa- 
 nimity with which he usually looked on the vicissitudes of 
 the world or the whist-table, broke into an allusion to 
 Gilray's caricature, and asked, '' Pray, Mr. Lamb, are you 
 toad or frog ? " Coleridge was apprehensive of a rupture ; 
 but calling the next morning on Lamb^ he found Godwin 
 seated at breakfast with him ; and an interchange of civili- 
 ties and card-parties was established, which lasted through 
 the life of Lamb, whom Godwin only survived a few 
 months. Indifferent altogether to the politics of the age, 
 Lamb could not help being struck with productions of its 
 new-born energies, so remarkable as the works and the 
 character of Godwin. He seemed to realise in himself 
 what Wordsworth long afterwards described, " the central 
 calm at the heart of all agitation." Through the medium 
 of his mind the stormy convulsions of society were seen 
 *' silent as in a picture." Paradoxes the most daring wore 
 the air of deliberate wisdom as he pronounced them. He 
 foretold the future happiness of manldnd, not wdth the 
 inspiration of the poet, but with the grave and passionless 
 voice of the oracle. There was nothing better calculated at 
 once to feed and to make steady the enthusiasm of youthful 
 patriots than the high speculations, in which he taught them 
 to engage on the nature of social evils and the great destiny 
 of his species. No one would have suspected the author of 
 those wild theories, which startled the wise and shocked the 
 
JOHN WOODVIL. 75 
 
 prudent, in the calm, gentlemanly person who rarely said 
 anything above the most gentle common-place, and took 
 interest in little beyond the whist-table. His peculiar 
 opinions were entirely subservient to his love of letters. 
 He thought any man who had written a book had attained 
 a superiority over his fellows which placed him in another 
 class, and could scarcely understand other distinctions. Of 
 all his works Lamb liked his '* Essay on Sepulchres " the 
 best — a short development of a scheme for preserving in 
 one place the memoiy of all great writers deceased, and 
 assigning to each his proper station, — quite chimerical in 
 itself, but accompanied with solemn and touching musings 
 on life and death and fame, embodied in a style of singular 
 refinement and beauty. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 [1799, 1800.] 
 
 LETTERS TO SOUTHEY, COLERIDGE, MANNING, AND WORDSWORTH. 
 
 The year 1799 found Lamb engaged during his leisure 
 hours in completing his tragedy of John Woodvil, which 
 seems to have been finished about Christmas, and trans- 
 mitted to Mr. Kemble. Like all young authors, who are 
 fascinated by the splendour of theatrical representation, he 
 longed to see his conceptions embodied on the stage, and to 
 receive his immediate reward in the sympathy of a crowd of 
 excited spectators. The hope was vain ; — but it cheered 
 him in many a lonely hour, and inspired him to write when 
 exhausted with the business of the day, and when the less 
 powerful stimulus of the press would have been insufficient 
 to rouse him. In the mean time he continued to correspond 
 with Mr. Southey, to send him portions of his play, and to 
 reciprocate criticisms with him. The following three letters, 
 addressed to Mr. Southey in the spring of this year, require 
 no commentary. 
 
76 LETTERS TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 TO MR. SOUTHEY. 
 
 ^^ Jan. 2 1 St, 1799. 
 
 " I am to blame for not writing to you before on my oivn 
 account ; but I know you can dispense with the expressions 
 of gratitude, or I should have thanked you before for all 
 May's kindness.^'-'- He has liberally supplied the person I 
 spoke to you of with money, and had procured him a situa- 
 tion just after himself had lighted upon a similar one, and 
 engaged too far to recede. But May's kindness was the 
 same, and my thanks to you and him are the same. May 
 went about on this business as if it had been his own. But 
 you knew John May before this, so I will be silent. 
 
 " I shall be very glad to hear from you when convenient. 
 I do not know how your Calendar and other affairs thrive ; 
 but, above all, I have not heard a great while of your Madoc 
 — the opus magnum. I would willingly send you something 
 to give a value to this letter; but I have only one slight 
 passage to send you, scarce worth the sending, which I want 
 to edge in somewhere into my play, which, by the way, 
 hath not received the addition of ten lines, besides, since 
 I saw you. A father, old Walter Woodvil, (the witch's 
 protege) relates this of his son John, who ' fought in 
 adverse armies,' being a royalist, and his father a parlia- 
 mentary man. 
 
 ^ I saw him in the day of Worcester fight, 
 Whither he came at twice seven yeai*s. 
 Under the discipline of the Lord Falkland, 
 (His uncle by the mother's side. 
 Who gave his youthful politics a bent 
 Quite /ro??i the principles of his father's house ;) 
 There did I see this valiant Lamb of Mars, 
 This sprig of honour, this unbearded John, 
 This veteran in green years, this sprout, this Woodvil, 
 (With dreadless ease guiding a fire-hot steed, 
 Which seem'd to scorn the manage of a boy,) 
 Prick forth with such a mirth into the field. 
 
 * See antey p. 59. 
 
LETTERS TO SOUTIIEY. 77 
 
 To mingle rivalship and acts of Avar 
 
 Even with the sinewy masters of the art, — 
 
 You would have thought the work of blood had been 
 
 A play-game merely, and the rabid Mars 
 
 Had put his harmful hostile nature off, 
 
 To instruct raw youth in images of war, 
 
 And practice of the unedged players' foils. 
 
 The rough fanatic and blood-practised soldiery 
 
 Seeing such hope and virtue in the boy, 
 
 Disclosed their ranks to let him pass unhurt, 
 
 Checking their swords' uncivil injuries. 
 
 As loath to mar that curious workmanship 
 
 Of Valour's beauty pourtray'd in his face,' 
 
 " Lloyd objects to ' pourtrayed in his face,' do you? T 
 like the line. 
 
 " I shall clap this in somewhere. I think there is a 
 spirit through the lines ; perhaps the 7th, 8th, and 9th owe 
 their origin to Shakspeare, though no image is borrowed. 
 He says in Hemy the Fourth — 
 
 ^ This infant Hotspur, 
 Mars in swathing clothes.' 
 
 But pray did Lord Falkland die before Worcester fight? 
 In that case I must make bold to unclify some other noble- 
 man. 
 
 " Kind love and respects to Edith. 
 
 " C. Lamb." 
 
 TO ME. SOUTHEY. 
 
 "March 15 th, 1799. 
 
 " Dear Southey, — I have received your httle volume, for 
 w^hich I thank you, though I do not entirely approve of this 
 sort of intercourse, where the presents are all on one side. 
 I have read the last Eclogue again with great pleasure. It 
 hath gained considerably by abridgment, and now I think it 
 wants nothing but enlargement. You will call this one of 
 tyrant Procrustes' criticisms, to cut and pull so to his own 
 standard ; but the old lady is so great a favourite with me, I 
 
78 LETTERS TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 want to hear more of her ; and of ' Joanna' you have given 
 us still less. But the picture of the rustics leaning over the 
 bridge, and the old lady travelling abroad on summer evening 
 to see her garden watered, are images so new and true, that 
 I decidedly prefer this ' Ruin'd Cottage' to any poem in the 
 book. Indeed I think it the only one that will bear com- 
 parison with your 'Hymn to the Penates,' in a former 
 volume. 
 
 *' I compare dissimilar things, as one would a rose and a 
 star, for the pleasure they give us, or as a child soon learns 
 to choose between a cake and a rattle ; for dissimilars have 
 mostly some points of comparison. The next best poem, I 
 think, is the first Eclogue ; 'tis very complete, and abounding 
 in little pictures and realities. The remainder Eclogues, 
 excepting only the 'Funeral,' I do not greatly admire. I 
 miss one, which had at least as good a title to publication as 
 the 'Witch,' or the 'Sailor's Mother.' You call'd it the 
 ' Last of the Family.' The ' Old Woman of Berkeley' comes 
 next ; in some humours I would give it the preference above 
 any. But who the devil is Matthew of Westminster ? You 
 are as familiar with these antiquated monastics, as Sweden- 
 borg, or, as his followers affect to call him, the Baron, with 
 his invisibles. But you have raised a very comic effect out 
 of the true narrative of Matthew of Westminster. 'Tis sur- 
 prising with how little addition you have been able to convert, 
 with so little alteration, his incidents, meant for terror, into 
 circumstances and food for the spleen. The Parody is not 
 so successful ; it has one famous line, indeed, which conveys 
 the finest death-bed image I ever met with. 
 
 * The doctor whisper' d the nurse, and the surgeon knew what he said ;' 
 
 But the offering the bride three times bears not the slightest 
 analogy or proportion to the fiendish noises three times heard ! 
 In 'Jaspar,' the circumstance of the great light is very 
 affecting. But I had heard you mention it before. The 
 ' Piose' is the only insipid piece in the volume : it hath 
 
LETTERS TO SOUTHEY. 79 
 
 neither thorns nor sweetness ; and, besides, sets all chronology 
 and probability at defiance. 
 
 " ' Cousin Margaret/ you know, I like. The allusions to 
 the Pilgrim's Progress are particularly happy, and harmonise 
 tacitly and delicately with old cousins and aunts. To familiar 
 faces we do associate familiar scenes, and accustomed objects; 
 but what hath Apollidon and his sea-nymphs to do in these 
 affairs ? Apollyon I could have borne, though he stands for 
 the devil, but who is ApolHdon ? I tliink you are too apt to 
 conclude faintly, with some cold moral, as in the end of the 
 poem called ' The Victory' — 
 
 ' Be thou her comforter, who art the widow's friend ;' 
 
 a single common-place line of comfort, which bears no pro- 
 portion in weight or number to the many lines which de- 
 scribe suffering. This is to convert religion into mediocre 
 feelings, which should burn, and glow, and tremble. A 
 moral should be wrought into the body and soul, the matter 
 and tendency, of a poem, not tagged to the end, like a ' God 
 send the good ship into harbour,' at the conclusion of our 
 bills of lading. The finishing of the ' Sailor' is also im- 
 perfect. Any dissenting minister may say and do as much. 
 
 " These remarks, I know, are crude and unwrought, but 
 I do not lay claim to much accurate thinking. I never 
 judge system-wise of things, but fasten upon particulars. 
 After all, there is a great deal in the book that I must, for 
 time, leave itnmentioned, to deserve my thanks for its own 
 sake, as well as for the friendly remembrances implied in 
 the gift. I again return you my thanks. 
 
 " Pray present my love to Edith. '' C. L." 
 
 TO ME. SOUTHEY. 
 
 " March 20th, 1799. 
 
 '' I am hugely pleased with your ' Spider,' ' your old free- 
 mason,' as you call him. The three first stanzas are de- 
 licious ; they seem to me a compound of Burns and Old 
 
80 
 
 LETTERS TO SOUTHET. 
 
 Quarles, those kind of home-strokes, where more is felt than 
 strikes the ear ; a terseness, a jocular pathos, which makes 
 one feel in laughter. The measure, too, is novel and 
 pleasing. I could almost wonder, Rob. Burns, in his life- 
 time, never stumbled upon it. The fourth stanza is less 
 striking, as being less original. The fifth falls off. It has 
 no felicity of phrase, no old-fashioned phrase or feeling. 
 
 ^ Young hopes, and love's delightful dreams,' 
 
 savour neither of Burns nor Quarles ; they seem more like 
 shreds of many a modern sentimental sonnet. The last 
 stanza hath nothing striking in it, if I except the two con- 
 cluding lines, which are Burns all over. I wish, if you 
 concur with me, these things could be looked to. I am sure 
 this is a kind of writing, which comes ten-fold better re- 
 commended to the heart, comes there more like a neighbour 
 or familiar, than thousands of Hamnels and Zillahs and 
 Madelons. I beg you will send me the ' Holly- tree,' if it 
 at all resemble this, for it must please me. I have never 
 seen it. I love this sort of poems, that open a new inter- 
 course with the most despised of the animal and insect race. 
 I think this vein may be further opened. Peter Pindar 
 hath very prettily apostrophised a fly ; Burns hath his 
 mouse and his louse ; Coleridge less successfully hath made 
 overtures of intimacy to a jackass, therein only following, at 
 unresembling distance, Sterne and greater Cervantes. 
 Besides these, I know of no other examples of breaking 
 down the partition between us and our ' poor earth-born 
 companions.' It is sometimes revolting to be put in a track 
 of feeling by other people, not one s own immediate thoughts, 
 else I would persuade you, if I could, I am in earnest, to 
 commence a series of these animal poems, which might have 
 a tendency to rescue some poor creatures from the antipathy 
 of mankind. Some thoughts come across me ; — for instance 
 — to a rat, to a toad, to a cockchafer, to a mole — people bake 
 moles alive by a slow^ oven-fire to cure consumption — rats 
 are, indeed, the most despised and contemptible parts of 
 
LETTEES TO SOUTHEY. 81 
 
 God*s earth. I killed a rat the other day by punchmg him 
 to pieces, and feel a weight of blood upon me to this hour. 
 Toads, you know, are made to iEly, and tumble down and 
 crush all to pieces. Cockchafers, are old sport ; then again 
 to a worm, with an apostrophe to anglers, those patient 
 tyrants, meek inflictors of pangs intolerable, cool devils ; to 
 an owl ; to all snakes, with an apology for their poison ; to 
 a cat in boots or bladders. Your own fancy, if it takes a 
 fancy to these hints, will suggest many more. A series of 
 such poems, suppose them accompanied with plates descrip- 
 tive of animal torments, cooks roasting lobsters, fishmongers 
 crimping skates, &c. &c. would take excessively. I will 
 willinglj^ enter into a partnership in the plan with you : I 
 think my heart and soul would go with it too — at least, give 
 it a thought. My plan is but this minute come into my 
 head ; but it strikes me instantaneously as something new, 
 good, and useful, full of pleasure, and full of moral. If old 
 Quarles and Wither could live again, we would invite them 
 into our firm. Burns hath done his part." 
 
 In the summer Lamb revisited the scenes in Hertford- 
 shire, where, in his grandmother s time, he had spent so 
 many happy holidays. In the following letter, he just 
 hints at feelings which, many years after, he so beautifully 
 developed in those essays of 'Elia,' — ' Blakesmoor,' and 
 'Mackery End.' 
 
 TO ME. SOUTHEY. 
 
 "Oct. 31st, 1799. 
 
 " Dear Southey, — I have but just got your letter, being 
 returned from Herts, where I have passed a few red-letter 
 days with much pleasure. I would describe the county to 
 you, as you have done by Devonshire, but, alas ! I am a 
 poor pen at that same. I could tell you of an old house with 
 a tapestry bedroom, the ' Judgment of Solomon' composing 
 one pannel, and ' Actseon spying Diana naked' the other. 
 
82 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 I could tell of an old marble-hall, with Hogarth's prints, and 
 the Eoman Caesars in marble hung round. I could tell of 
 a wilderness, and of a village church, and where the bones of 
 my honoured grandam lie ; but there are feelings which 
 refuse to be translated, sulky aborigines, which will not be 
 naturalised in another soil. Of this nature are old family 
 faces, and scenes of infancy. 
 
 " I have given your address, and the books you want, to 
 the Arch's ; they will send them as soon as they can get 
 them, but they do not seem quite familiar to their names. 
 I shall have nothing to communicate, I fear, to the Anthology. 
 You shall have some fragments of my play, if you desire 
 them, but I think I had rather print it whole. Have you 
 seen it, or shall I lend you a copy ? I want your opinion 
 of it. 
 
 " I must get to business, so farewell ; my kind remem- 
 brances to Edith. " C. L." 
 
 In the autumn of this year Lamb's choice list of friends 
 received a most important addition in Mr. Thomas Manning, 
 then a mathematical tutor at Cambridge ; of whom he be- 
 came a frequent correspondent, and to whom he remained 
 strongly attached through life. Lloyd had become a graduate 
 of the university, and to his introduction Lamb was indebted 
 for Manning's friendship. The following letters will show 
 how earnestly, yet how modestly, Lamb sought it. 
 
 • TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 "Dec. 1799. 
 
 '' Dear Manning, — The particular kindness, even up to a 
 degree of attachment, w^hich I have experienced from you, 
 seems to claim some distinct acknowledgment on my part. 
 I could not content myself with a bare remembrance to you, 
 conveyed in some letter to Lloyd. 
 
 " Will it be agreeable to you, if I occasionally recruit your 
 memory of me, which must else soon fade, if you consider 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. 83 
 
 the brief intercourse we have had. I am not likely to prove 
 a troublesome correspondent. My scribbling days are past. 
 I shall have no sentiments to communicate, but as they 
 spring up from some living and worthy occasion. 
 
 '' I look forward with great pleasure to the performance 
 of your promise, that we should meet in London early in the 
 ensuing year. The century must needs commence auspici- 
 ously for me, that brings with it Manning's friendship, as 
 an earnest of its after gifts. 
 
 " I should have written before, but for a troublesome in- 
 flammation in one of my eyes, brought on by night travelling 
 with the coach windows sometimes up. 
 
 " What more I have to say shall be reserved for a letter 
 to Lloyd. I must not prove tedious to you in my first 
 outset, lest I should afi^right you by my ill-judged loquacity. 
 
 "I am, yours most sincerely, '' C. Lamb." 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 Dec. 28tli, 1799. 
 
 *' Dear Manning, — Having suspended my correspondence 
 a decent interval, as knowing that even good things may be 
 taken to satiety, a wish cannot but recur to learn whether 
 you be still well and happy. Do all things continue in the 
 state I left them in Cambridge ? 
 
 "Do your night parties still flourish ? and do you con- 
 tinue to bewilder your company, with your thousand faces, 
 running down through all the keys of idiotism (like Lloyd 
 over his perpetual harpsichord), from the smile and the 
 glimmer of half-sense and quarter-sense, to the grin and 
 hanging lip of Betty Foy's own Johnny? And does the 
 face-dissolving curfew sound at twelve ? How unlike the 
 great originals were your petty terrors in the postscript, 
 not fearful enough to make a fairy shudder, or a Lilliputian 
 fine lady, eight months full of child, miscarry. Yet one of 
 them, which had more beast than the rest, I thought faintly 
 resembled one of your brutifications. But, seriously, I long 
 
 g3 
 
84 LETTEKS TO MANNING. 
 
 to see your own honest Manning-face again. I did not 
 mean a pun, — your mans face, you will be apt to say, I 
 know your wdcked will to pun. I cannot now write to Lloyd 
 and you too, so you must convey as much interesting intel- 
 ligence as this may contain, or be thought to contain, to 
 him and Sophia, with my dearest love and remembrances. 
 
 " By the by, I think you and Sophia both incorrect with 
 regard to the title of the play,^^ Allowing your objection 
 (which is not necessary, as pride may be, and is in real life 
 often, cured by misfortunes not directly originating from its 
 own acts, as Jeremy Taylor will tell you a naughty desire is 
 sometimes sent to cure it. I know you read these practical 
 divines) but allowing your objection, — does not the betraying 
 of his father s secret directly spring from pride ? — from the 
 pride of wine and a full heart, and a proud overstepping of 
 the ordinary rules of morality, and contempt of the preju- 
 dices of mankind, w^iich are not to bind superior souls — ' as 
 trust in the matter oi secrets all ties of blood, &c. &c., keeping 
 oi promises, the feeble mind's religion, binding our morning 
 knowledge to the performance of what last night's ignorance 
 spake ' — does he not prate, that * Great Spirits ' must do 
 more than die for their friend — does not the pride of wine 
 incite him to display some evidence of friendship, which its 
 own irregularity shall make great? This I know, that I 
 meant his punishment not alone to be a cure for his daily and 
 habitual pride, but the direct consequence and appropriate 
 punishment of a particular act of pride. 
 
 " If you do not understand it so, it is my fault in not 
 explaining my meaning. 
 
 " I have not seen Coleridge since, and scarcely expect to 
 see him, — perhaps he has been at Cambridge. 
 
 *' Need I turn over, to blot a fresh clean half-sheet? 
 merely to say, what I hope you are sure of without my 
 repeating it, that I would have you consider me, dear 
 
 Manning, u your sincere friend, " C. Lamb." 
 
 * It had been proposed to entitle John Woodvil " Pride's Cure.'* 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 85 
 
 Early in the following year (1800), Lamb, with his sister, 
 removed to Chapel-street, Pentonville. In the summer he 
 visited Coleridge, at Stowey, and spent a few delightful 
 holidays in his society and that of Wordsworth, who then 
 resided in the neighbourhood. This was the first oppor- 
 tunity Lamb had enjoyed of seeing much of the poet, who 
 was destined to exercise a beneficial and lasting influence 
 on the literature and moral sense of the opening century. 
 At this time Lamb was scarcely prepared to sympathise 
 with the naked simplicity of the ''Lyrical Ballads," which 
 Wordsworth was preparing for the press. The '* rich con- 
 ceits " of the writers of Elizabeth s reign had been blended 
 with his first love of poetry, and he could not at once 
 acknowledge the serene beauty of a style, in which language 
 was only the stainless mu'ror of thought, and which sought 
 no aid either from the grandeur of artificial life or the 
 pomp of words. In after days he was among the most 
 earnest of this great poet's admirers, and rejoiced as he 
 found the scoffers who sneered at his bold experiment gra- 
 dually owning his power. How he felt when the little 
 golden opportunity of conversation with Wordsworth and 
 Coleridge had passed will appear from the following letter, 
 which seems to have been addressed to Coleridge shortly 
 after his return to London. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 " I am scarcely yet so reconciled to the loss of you, or so 
 subsided into my wonted uniformity of feeling, as to sit calmly 
 down to think of you and write to you. But I reason myself 
 into the belief that those few and pleasant holidays shall not 
 have been spent in vain. I feel improvement in the recol- 
 lection of many a casual conversation. The names of Tom 
 Poole, of Wordsworth and his good sister, with thine and 
 Sarah's, are become ' familiar in my mouth as household 
 words.' You would make me very happy, if you think W. 
 has no objection, by transcribing for me that inscription of 
 
84 LETTEES TO ]\IANNINa. 
 
 to see your own honest Manning-face again. I did not 
 mean a pun, — your inans face, you will be apt to say, I 
 know your wdcked will to pun. I cannot now write to Lloyd 
 and you too, so you must convey as much interesting intel- 
 ligence as this may contain, or be thought to contain, to 
 him and Sophia, with my dearest love and remembrances. 
 
 " By the by, I think you and Sophia both incorrect with 
 regard to the title of the play,^^ Allowing your objection 
 (which is not necessary, as pride may be, and is in real life 
 often, cured by misfortunes not directly originating from its 
 own acts, as Jeremy Taylor will tell you a naughty desire is 
 sometimes sent to cure it. I know you read these practical 
 divines) but allowing your objection, — does not the betraying 
 of his father s secret directly spring from pride ? — from the 
 pride of wine and a full heart, and a proud overstepping of 
 the ordinary rules of morality, and contempt of the preju- 
 dices of mankind, which are not to bind superior souls — ' as 
 irusi in the matter oi secrets all ties of blood, &c. &c., keeping 
 of promises, the feeble mind s religion, binding our morning 
 knowledge to the performance of what last night's ignorance 
 spake ' — does he not prate, that ' Great Spirits ' must do 
 more than die for their friend — does not the pride of wine 
 incite him to display some evidence of friendship, which its 
 own irregularity shall make great? This I know, that I 
 meant his punishment not alone to be a cure for his daily and 
 habitual pride, but the direct consequence and appropriate 
 punishment of a particular act of pride. 
 
 " If you do not understand it so, it is my fault in not 
 explaining my meaning. 
 
 '' I have not seen Coleridge since, and scarcely expect to 
 see him, — perhaps he has been at Cambridge. 
 
 *' Need I turn over, to blot a fresh clean half-sheet? 
 merely to say, what I hope you are sure of without my 
 repeating it, that I would have you consider me, dear 
 
 Manning, u your sincere friend, '' C. Lamb." 
 
 * It had been proposed to entitle John Woodvil " Pride's Cure." 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 85 
 
 Early in the following year (1800), Lamb, with his sister, 
 removed to Chapel-street, Pentonville. In the summer he 
 visited Coleridge, at Stowey, and spent a few delightful 
 holidays in his society and that of Wordsworth, who then 
 resided in the neighbourhood. This was the first oppor- 
 tunity Lamb had enjoyed of seeing much of the poet, who 
 was destined to exercise a beneficial and lasting influence 
 on the literature and moral sense of the opening century. 
 At this time Lamb was scarcely prepared to sympathise 
 with the naked simplicity of the "Lyrical Ballads," which 
 Wordsworth was preparing for the press. The '* rich con- 
 ceits " of the writers of Elizabeth s reign had been blended 
 with his first love of poetry, and he could not at once 
 acknowledge the serene beauty of a style, in which language 
 was only the stainless mirror of thought, and which sought 
 no aid either from the grandeur of artificial life or the 
 pomp of words. In after days he was among the most 
 earnest of this great poet's admirers, and rejoiced as he 
 found the scoffers who sneered at his bold experiment gra- 
 dually owning his power. How he felt w^hen the little 
 golden opportunity of conversation with Wordsworth and 
 Coleridge had passed will appear from the following letter, 
 which seems to have been addressed to Coleridge shortly 
 after his return to London. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 *' I am scarcely yet so reconciled to the loss of you, or so 
 subsided into my wonted uniformity of feeling, as to sit calmly 
 down to think of you and write to you. But I reason myself 
 into the belief that those few and pleasant holidays shall not 
 have been spent in vain. I feel improvement in the recol- 
 lection of many a casual conversation. The names of Tom 
 Poole, of Wordsworth and his good sister, with thine and 
 Sarah's, are become ' familiar in my mouth as household 
 words.' You would make me very happy, if you think W. 
 has no objection, by transcribing for me that inscription of 
 
88 LETTEES TO MANNING. 
 
 of his mind, the more cause I see to love him, and 
 believe him a very good man, and all those foolish impres- 
 sions to the contrary fly off like morning slumbers. He is 
 engaged in translations, which I hope will keep him this 
 month to come. He is uncommonly kind and friendly to 
 me. He ferrets me day and night to do something. He 
 tends me, amidst all his own worrying and heart-oppressing 
 occupations, as a gardener tends his young tidip. Marry 
 come up ; what a pretty similitude, and how like your 
 humble servant ! He has lugged me to the brink of 
 engaging to a newspaper, and has suggested to me for a 
 first plan, the forgery of a supposed manuscript of Burton 
 the anatomist of melancholy. I have even written the intro- 
 ductory letter ; and, if I can pick up a few guineas this way, 
 I feel they will be most refreshing^ bread being so dear. If 
 T go on with it, I will apprise you of it, as you may like to 
 see my things ! and the tidiiJ, of all flowers, loves to be 
 admired most. 
 
 " Pray pardon me, if my letters do not come very thick. 
 I am so taken up with one thing or other, that I cannot 
 pick out (I will not say time, but) fitting times to write to 
 you. My dear love to Lloyd and Sophia, and pray split this 
 thin letter into three parts, and present them with the tioo 
 biggest in my name. 
 
 '' They are my oldest friends ; but, ever the new friend 
 driveth out the old, as the ballad sings ! God bless you all 
 three ! I would hear from LI. if I could. '' C. L." 
 
 '' Flour has just fallen nine shillings a sack ! we shall be 
 all too rich. 
 
 " Tell Charles I have seen his mamma, and have almost 
 fallen in love with her, since I mayn't with Olivia. She is 
 so fine and graceful, a complete matron-lady-quaker. She 
 has given me two little books. Olivia grows a charming 
 girl — full of feeling, and thinner than she was ; but I have 
 not time to fall in love. 
 
 '' Mary presents her general compliments. She keeps in 
 fine health ! " 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. 89 
 
 Coleridge, during this visit, recommended Lamb to Mr. 
 Daniel Stuart, then editor of the " Morning Post," as a 
 writer of light articles, by which he might add something to 
 an income, then barely sufficient for the decent support of 
 himself and his sister. It would seem from his next letter 
 to Manning, that he had made an offer to try his hand at 
 some personal squibs, which, ultimately, was not accepted. 
 Manning need not have feared that there would have been 
 a particle of malice in them ! Lamb afterwards became a 
 correspondent to the paper, and has recorded his experience 
 of the misery of toiling after pleasantries in one of the 
 ''Essays of Elia," entitled "Newspapers thirty-five years 
 ago." 
 
 TO ME. I\rANNING. 
 
 '' C. L.'s moral sense presents her compliments to Doctor 
 Manning, is very thankful for his medical advice, but is 
 happy to add that her disorder has died of itself. 
 
 " Dr. Manning, Coleridge has left us, to go into the north, 
 on a visit to his God, Wordsworth. With him have flown 
 all my splendid prospects of engagement with the ' Monaing 
 Post,' all my visionary guineas, the deceitful wages of 
 unborn scandal. In truth, I wonder you took it up so 
 seriously. All my intention was but to make a little sport 
 with such public and fair game as Mr. Pitt, Mr. Wilberforce, 
 Mrs. Fitzherbert, the Devil, &c. — gentry dipped in Styx all 
 over, whom no paper javelin-lings can touch. To have 
 made free with these cattle, where was the harm ? 'twould 
 have been but giving a polish to lamp-black, not nigrifying 
 a negro primarily. After all, I cannot but regret my invo- 
 luntary virtue. Hang virtue that 's thrust upon us ; it 
 behaves itself with such constraint, till conscience opens the 
 window and lets out the goose. I had struck off two imita- 
 tions of Burton, quite abstracted from any modern allusions, 
 which was my intent only to lug in from time to time to 
 make 'em popular. 
 
90 LETTEKS TO MANNING. 
 
 *' Stuart has got these, with an introductory letter; but, 
 not hearing from him, I have ceased from my labours, but 
 I write to him to-day to get a final answer. I am afraid 
 they won't do for a paper. Burton is a scarce gentleman, 
 not much known, else I had done 'em pretty well. 
 
 " I have also hit off a few lines in the name of Burton, 
 being a ' Conceit of Diabolic Possession.' Burton was a 
 man often assailed by deepest melancholy, and at other 
 times much given to laughing, and jesting, as is the way 
 with melancholy men. I will send them you : they were 
 almost extempore, and no great things ; but you will indulge 
 them. Eobert Lloyd is come to town. Priscilla meditates 
 going to see Pizarro at Drury Lane to-night, (from her 
 uncle's) under cover of coming to dine with me . . heu ! 
 tenipora! heu! mores! — I have barely time to finish, as I 
 expect her and Robin every minute. — Yours as usual, 
 
 ''C. L." 
 
 The following is an extract from a letter addressed about 
 this time to Manning, who had taken a view of a personal 
 matter relating to a common friend of both, directly contrary 
 to that of Lamb. 
 
 TO ME. MANNING. 
 
 '' Dear Manning, — Rest you meriy in your opinion ! 
 Opinion is a species of property ; and though I am alwa}^ 
 desirous to share with my friend to a certain extent, I shall 
 ever like to keep some tenets, and some property, properly 
 my own. Some day, Manning, when we meet, substituting 
 
 Corydon and fair Amaryllis, for and , we will 
 
 discuss together this question of moral feeling, ' In what 
 cases, and how far sincerity is a virtue ? ' I do not mean 
 Truth, a good Olivia-like creature, God bless her, who, 
 meaning no offence, is always ready to give an answer when 
 she is asked why she did so and so ; but a certain forward- 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 91 
 
 talldng half-brother of hers, Sincerity, that amphibious 
 gentleman, who is so ready to perk up his obnoxious senti- 
 ments unasked into your notice, as Midas would his ears 
 into your face uncalled for. But I despair of doing anything 
 by a letter in the way of explaining or coming to explana- 
 tions. A good wish, or a pun, or a piece of secret history, 
 may be well enough that way conveyed ; nay, it has been 
 known, that intelligence of a turkey hath been conveyed by 
 that medium, without much ambiguity. Godwin I am a 
 good deal pleased with. He is a very well-behaved, decent 
 man, nothing very brilliant about him, or imposing, as you 
 may suppose ; quite another guess sort of gentleman from 
 what your Anti-jacobin Christians imagine him. I was well 
 pleased to find he has neither horns nor claws ; quite a tame 
 creature, I assure you. A middle-sized man, both in stature 
 and in understanding ; whereas, from his noisy fame, you 
 would expect to find a Briareus Centimanus, or a Tityus tall 
 enough to pull Jupiter from his heavens, 
 
 " Pray, is it a part of your sincerity to show my letters to 
 Lloyd ? for, really, gentlemen ought to explain their virtues 
 upon a first acquaintance, to prevent mistakes. 
 
 *' God bless you, Manning. Take my trifling as trifling ; 
 and believe me, seriously and deeply, — Your well-wisher 
 and friend, '' C. L." 
 
 The following letter was addressed to Coleridge shortly 
 after he had left London on a visit to Wordsworth, who in 
 the meantime had settled on the borders of Grasmere. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 ^' Aug. 6th, 1800. 
 
 '' Dear Coleridge, — I have taken to-day, and delivered to 
 L. & Co., imprimis, your books, viz., three ponderous 
 German dictionaries, one volume (I can find no more) of 
 German and French ditto, sundry other German books 
 unbound, as you left them, ' Percy's Ancient Poetry,' and 
 
92 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 one volume of 'Anderson's Poets.' I specify them, that 
 you may not lose any. Secundo, a dressing-gown (value, 
 fivepence) in which you used to sit and look like a conjuror, 
 when you were translating Wallenstein. A case of two 
 razors, and a shaving-box and strap. This it has cost me a 
 severe struggle to part with. They are in a brown-paper 
 parcel, which also contains sundry papers and poems, 
 sermons, so77ie feiv Epic Poems, — one about Cain and Abel, 
 which came from Poole, &c., &c., and also your tragedy ; 
 with one or two small German books, and that drama in 
 which Got-fader performs Tertio ; a small oblong box con- 
 taining all your letters, collected from all your waste papers, 
 and which fill the said little box. All other waste papers, 
 which I judged worth sending, are in the paper parcel afore- 
 said. But you will find all your letters in the box by them- 
 selves. Thus have I discharged my conscience and my 
 lumber-room of all your property, save and except a folio 
 entitled 'Tyrrell's Bibliotheca Politica,' which you used to 
 learn your politics out of when you wrote for the ' Post,' 
 mutatis mutandis, i.e., applying past inferences to modern 
 data. I retain that, because I am sensible I am very defi- 
 cient in the politics myself; and I have torn up — don't be 
 angry, waste paper has risen forty per cent., and I can't 
 afford to buy it — all ' Buonaparte^s Letters,' 'Arthur 
 Young's Treatise on Corn,' and one or two more hght-armed 
 infantry, which I thought better suited the flippancy of 
 London discussion, than the dignity of Keswick thinking. 
 Mary says you will be in a passion about them, when you 
 come to miss them ; but you must study philosophy. Read 
 ' Albertus Magnus de Chartis Amissis ' five times over after 
 phlebotomising, — 'tis Burton's recipe — and then be angry 
 with an absent friend if you can. Sara is obscure. Am I 
 to understand by her letter, that she sends a kiss to Eliza 
 
 B ? Pray tell your wife that a note of interrogation on 
 
 the superscription of a letter is highly ungrammatical — she 
 proposes writing my name Lamb ? Lamb^ is quite enough. 
 I have had the Anthology, and like only one thing in it, 
 
LETTEKS TO COLEETDGE. 93 
 
 Leivti; but of that the last stanza is detestable, the rest 
 most exquisite ! — the epithet enviable would dash the finest 
 poem. For God's sake (I never was more serious), don't 
 make me ridiculous any more by terming me gentle-hearted 
 in print, or do it in better verses. It did well enough five 
 years ago when I came to see you, and was moral coxcomb 
 enough at the time you wrote the lines, to feed upon such 
 epithets ; but, besides that, the meaning of gentle is equi- 
 vocal at best, and almost always means poor-spirited ; the 
 very quality of gentleness is abhorrent to such vile trumpet- 
 ings. My sentiment is long since vanished. I hope my 
 virtues have done sucking. I can scarce think but you 
 meant it in joke. I hope you did, for I should be ashamed 
 to think you could think to gratify me by such praise, fit 
 only to be a cordial to some green-sick sonneteer.^-^ 
 
 " I have hit off the following in imitation of old English 
 poetry, which, I imagine, I am a dab at. The measure is 
 unmeasureable ; but it most resembles that beautiful ballad 
 the Old and Young Courtier ; and in its feature of taking 
 the extremes of two situations for just parallel, it resembles 
 the old poetry certainly. If I could but stretch out the 
 circumstances to twelve more verses, i, e. if I had as much 
 genius as the writer of that old song, I think it would be 
 excellent. It was to follow an imitation of Burton in prose, 
 which you have not seen. But fate ' and wisest Stewart ' 
 say No.f 
 
 * This refers to a poem of Coleridge's, composed in l/QT, and published 
 in the Anthology of the year 1800, under the title of ^^ This Lime-tree 
 Bower my Prison," addressed to " Charles Lamb, of the India House, 
 London," in which Lamb is thus apostrophised, as taking more pleasure in 
 the country than Coleridge's other visitors — a compliment which even then 
 he scarcely merited : — 
 
 " But thou, methinks most glad, 
 
 My gentle-hearted Charles ! For thou hast pined 
 And lingered after nature many a year, 
 In the great city pent."" — &c. 
 f The quaint and pathetic poem, entitled " A Ballad, noticing the dif- 
 ference of rich and poor, in the ways of a rich noble's palace and a poor 
 workhouse." 
 
94 LETTEES TO COLEBIDaE. 
 
 " I can send you 200 pens and six quires of paper imme- 
 diately, if they will answer the carriage by coach. It would 
 be foolish to pack 'em up cum muUis libris et cceteris, — they 
 would all spoil. I only wait your commands to coach them. 
 I would pay five-and-forty thousand carriages to read W.'s 
 tragedy, of which I have heard so much and seen so little — 
 only what I saw at Stowey. Pray give me an order in 
 writing on Longman for " Lyrical Ballads." I have the 
 first volume, and, truth to tell, six shillings is a broad shot. 
 I cram all I can in, to save a multiplying of letters, — those 
 pretty comets with swinging tails. 
 
 '' 1 11 just crowd in God bless you ! 
 
 '' C. Lamb." 
 
 '' John Woodvil " was now printed, although not pub- 
 lished till a year afterwards ; probably withheld in the hope 
 of its representation on the stage. A copy was sent to 
 Coleridge for Wordsworth, with the following letter or 
 cluster of letters, written at several times. The ladies re- 
 ferred to, in the exquisite description of Coleridge's blue- 
 stocking friends, are beyond the reach of feeling its applica- 
 tion ; nor will it be detected by the most apprehensive of 
 their surviving friends. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 '' I send you, in this parcel, my play, which I beg you 
 to present in my name, with my respect and love, to Words- 
 worth and his sister. You blame us for giving your direc- 
 tion to Miss W ; the woman has been ten times after 
 
 us about it, and we gave it her at last, under the idea that 
 no further harm would ensue, but she would once write to 
 you, and you would bite your lips and forget to answer it, 
 and so it would end. You read us a dismal homily upon 
 " Eealities." We know, quite as well as you do, what are 
 shadows and what are realities. You, for instance, when 
 
LETTEES TO COLERIDGE. 95 
 
 you are over your foui'th or fifth jorum, chirping about old 
 school occurrences, are the best of realities. Shadows are 
 cold, thin tilings, that have no warmth or grasp in them. 
 
 Miss W , and her friend, and a tribe of authoresses 
 
 that come after you here daily, and, in defect of you, hive 
 and cluster upon us, are the shadows. You encouraged 
 
 that mopsey, Miss W , to dance after you, in the hope 
 
 of having her nonsense put into a nonsensical Anthology. 
 We have pretty well shaken her off, by that simple expe- 
 dient of referring her to you ; but there are more burrs in the 
 wind. I came home t'other day from business, hungry as 
 a hunter, to dinner, with nothing, I am sure, of the author 
 but hunger about me, and whom found I closeted with 
 
 Mary but a friend of this Miss W , one Miss B e, 
 
 or B y ; I don't know how she spells her name. I just 
 
 came in time enough, I believe, luckily to prevent them 
 from exchanging vows of eternal friendship. It seems she 
 is one of your authoresses, that you first foster, and then 
 upbraid us with. But I forgive you. ' The rogue has 
 given me potions to make me love him.' Well; go she 
 would not, nor step a step over our threshold, till we had 
 promised to come and drink tea with her next night. I 
 had never seen her before, and could not tell who the devil 
 it was that was so familiar. We went, how^ever, not to be 
 
 impolite. Her lodgings are up two pair of stairs in 
 
 Street. Tea and coffee, and macaroons — a kind of cake I 
 
 much love. We sat down. Presently Miss B broke 
 
 the silence, by declaring herself quite of a different opinion 
 from D' Israeli, who supposes the differences of human in- 
 tellect to be the mere effect of organisation. She begged 
 to know my opinion. I attempted to cany it off with a 
 pun upon organ, but that v;ent off very flat. She imme- 
 diately conceived a very low opinion of my metaphysics ; 
 and, turning round to Mary, put some question to her in 
 French, — possibly having heard that neither Mary nor I 
 understood French. The explanation that took place occa- 
 sioned some embarrassment and much wondering. She 
 
96 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 then fell into an insulting conversation about the compara- 
 tive genius and merits of all modern languages, and con- 
 cluded with asserting that the Saxon was esteemed the 
 purest dialect in Germany. From thence she passed into 
 the subject of poetry ; where I, who had hitherto sat mute, 
 and a hearer only, humbly hoped I might now put in a 
 word to some advantage, seeing that it was my own trade 
 in a manner. But I was stopped by a round assertion, 
 that no good poetry had appeared since Dr. Johnson's time. 
 It seems the Doctor has suppressed many hopeful geniuses 
 that way, by the severity of his critical strictures in his 
 ' Lives of the Poets.' I here ventured to question the fact, 
 and was beginning to appeal to names, but I was assured 
 ' it was certainly the case.' Then we discussed Miss More's 
 book on education, which I had never read. It seems Dr. 
 
 Gregory, another of Miss B 's friends, has found fault 
 
 with one of Miss More's metaphors. Miss More has been 
 at some pains to vindicate herself, — in the opinion of Miss 
 B , not without success. It seems the Doctor is in- 
 variably against the use of broken or mixed metaphor, 
 which he reprobates, against the authority of Shakspeare 
 himself. We next discussed the question, whether Pope 
 was a poet ? I find Dr. Gregory is of opinion he w^as not, 
 though Miss Seward does not at all concur with him in this. 
 We then sat upon the comparative merits of the ten trans- 
 lations of ' Pizarro,' and Miss B y or B e ad\dsed 
 
 Mary to take two of them home ; she thought it might 
 afford her some pleasure to compare them verbatim ; which 
 we declined. It being now nine o'clock, wine and maca- 
 roons were again served round, and we parted, with a pro- 
 mise to go again next week, and meet the Miss Porters, 
 who, it seems, have heard much of Mr. Coleridge, and wish 
 to meet us^ because we are his friends. I have been pre- 
 paring for the occasion. I crowd cotton in my ears. I 
 read all the reviews and magazines of the past month, 
 against the dreadful meeting, and I hope by these means 
 to cut a tolerable second-rate figure. 
 
LETTEKS TO COLEEIDGE. 97 
 
 '' Pray let us have no more complaints about shadows. 
 We are in a fair way, through you, to surfeit sick upon 
 them. 
 
 '' Our loves and respects to your host and hostess. 
 
 " Take no thought about your proof-sheets ; they shall be 
 done as if Woodfall himself did them. Pray send us word 
 of Mrs. Coleridge and little David Hartley, your little 
 reality. 
 
 *' Farewell, dear Substance. Take no umbrage at any- 
 thing I have written. '' C- Lamb, Umbra.'' 
 
 " Land of Shadows, 
 Shadow-month the 16th or 17th, 1800.'' 
 
 *' Coleridge, I find loose among your papers a copy of 
 Christabel. It wants about thirty lines ; you will very 
 much oblige me by sending me the beginning as far as 
 that line, — 
 
 ' And the spring comes slowly up this way ; ' 
 
 and the intermediate lines between — 
 
 ' The lady leaps up suddenly, 
 The lovely Lady Christahel ; ' 
 
 and the lines, — 
 
 ^ She folded her arms beneath her cloak, 
 And stole to the other side of the oak.' 
 
 The trouble to you will he small, and the benefit to us very 
 great ! A pretty antithesis ! A figure in speech I much 
 applaud. 
 
 " Godwin has called upon us. He spent one evening 
 here. Was very friendly. Kept us up till midnight. 
 Drank punch, and talked about you. He seems, above all 
 men, mortified at your going away. Suppose you were to 
 WTite to that good-natured heathen : 
 
 ^ Or is he a shadow ? ' 
 
 H 
 
98 LETTEKS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 '* If I do not write, impute it to the long postage, of which 
 you have so much cause to complain. I have scribbled 
 over a queer letter, as I find by perusal, but it means no 
 mischief. 
 
 '' I am, and will be, yours ever, in sober sadness, 
 
 " C. L. 
 
 *' Write your German as plain as sunshine, for that must 
 correct itself. You know I am homo unius linguse ; in 
 English, illiterate, a dunce, a ninny." 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 "Aug. 26th, 1800. 
 
 " How do you like this little epigram ? It is not my 
 writing, nor had I any finger in it. If you concur with me 
 in thinking it very elegant and very original, I shall be 
 tempted to name the author to you. I will just hint that 
 it is almost or quite a first attempt. 
 
 [Here Miss Lamb's little poem of Helen was introduced.] 
 
 '' By-the-by, I have a sort of recollection that somebody, 
 I think you, promised me a sight of Wordsworth's Tragedy. 
 I should be very glad of it just now; for I have got Manning 
 with me, and should like to read it with him. But this, I 
 confess, is a refinement. Under any circumstances, alone, 
 in Cold-Bath prison, or in the desert island, just when 
 Prospero and his crew had set off, with Caliban in a cage, 
 to Milan, it would be a treat to me to read that play. 
 Manning has read it, so has Lloyd, and all Lloyd's family ; 
 but I could not get him to betray his trust by giving me a 
 sight of it. Lloyd is sadly deficient in some of those virtuous 
 vices. 
 
 " George Dyer is the only literary character I am happily 
 acquainted with. The oftener I see him, the more deeply 
 
LETTEKS TO MANNING. 99 
 
 I admire him. He is goodness itself. If I could but cal- 
 culate the precise date of his death, I would write a novel 
 on purpose to make George the hero. I could hit him off 
 to a hair." 
 
 The tragedy which Lamb was thus anxious to read, has 
 been perseveringly withheld from the world. A fine passage, 
 quoted in one of Hazhtt's prose essays, makes us share in 
 his earnest curiosity : — 
 
 ^^ Action is momentary — a word, a blow — 
 The motion of a muscle — this way or that ; 
 Suffering is long, drear, and infinite." 
 
 Wordsworth's genius is perhaps more fitly employed in 
 thus tracing out the springs of heroic passion, and develop- 
 ing the profound elements of human character, than in 
 following them out through their exhibition in violent contest 
 or majestic repose. Surely he may now afford to gratify 
 the world ! 
 
 The next is a short but characteristic letter to Manning. 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 "Aug. 11th, 1800. 
 
 *' My dear fellow, (N.B. mighty familiar of late !) for me 
 to come to Cambridge now is one of Heaven's impossibilities. 
 Metaphysicians tell us, even it can work nothing which 
 implies a contradiction. I can explain this by telling you 
 that I am engaged to do double duty (this hot weather !) for 
 a man who has taken advantage of this very weather to 
 go and cool himself in ' green retreats ' all the month of 
 August. 
 
 " But for you to come to London instead ! — muse upon 
 it, revolve it, cast it about in your mind. I have a bed at 
 your command. You shall drink rum, brandy, gin, aqua- 
 vitae, usquebaugh, or whiskey a' nights ; and for the after- 
 dinner trick, I have eight bottles of genuine port, which, 
 
 H 2 
 
100 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 matliematically divided, gives Ij- for every day you stay, 
 provided you stay a v^eek. Hear John Milton sing, 
 
 ' Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause.' 
 
 Twenty-first Sonnet. 
 
 And elsewhere, — 
 
 * What neat repast shall feast us, light* and choice, 
 Of Attic taste, with wine,+ whence we may rise 
 To hear the lute well touch'd, or artful voice 
 Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air ? ' 
 
 '' Indeed the poets are full of this pleasing morality, — 
 
 ' Veni cito, Domine Manning !' 
 
 " Think upon it. Excuse the paper, it is all I have. 
 
 ^^C. Lamb." 
 
 Lamb now meditated a removal to the home-place of his 
 best and most solemn thoughts — the temple; and thus 
 announced it in a letter to Manning. 
 
 TO MK. MANNING. 
 
 '' You masters of logic ought to know (logic is nothing 
 more than a knowledge of words, as the Greek etymon 
 implies), that all words are no more to be taken in a Hteral 
 sense at all times than a promise given to a tailor. When 
 I exprest an apprehension that you were mortally offended, 
 I meant no more than by the application of a certain formula 
 of efl&cacious sounds, which had done in similar cases before, 
 to rouse a sense of decency in you, and a remembrance of 
 what was due to me ! You masters of logic should advert to 
 this phenomenon in human speech, before you arraign the 
 usage of us dramatic geniuses. Imagination is a good blood 
 
 * " We, poets ! generally give light dinners.'' 
 + No doubt the poet here alludes to port-wine at 38s. the dozen. 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. 101 
 
 mare, and goes well; but the misfortune is, she has too 
 many paths before her. 'Tis true I might have imaged to 
 myself, that you had trundled your frail carcass to Norfolk. 
 I might also, and did imagine, that you had not, but that 
 you were lazy, or inventing new properties in a triangle, 
 and for that purpose moulding and squeezing Landlord 
 Crisp's three-cornered beaver into fantastic experimental 
 forms ; or, that Archimedes was meditating to repulse the 
 French, in case of a Cambridge invasion, by a geometric 
 hurling of folios on their red caps ; or, peradventure, that 
 you were in extremities, in great wants, and just set out for 
 Trinity-bogs when my letters came. In short, my genius ! 
 (which is a short word now-a-days," for what-a-great-man-am- 
 I !) was absolutely stifled and overlaid with its own riches. 
 Truth is one and poor, like the cruse of Elijah's widow. 
 Imagination is the bold face that multiplies its oil ; and 
 thou, the old cracked pipkin, that could not believe it could 
 be put to such purposes. Dull pipkin, to have Elijah for 
 thy cook. Imbecile recipient of so fat a miracle. I send 
 you George Dyer's Poems, the richest production of the 
 lyrical muse this century can justly boast : for Wordsworth's 
 L. B. were published, or at least written, before Christmas. 
 '^Please to advert to pages 291 to 296 for the most 
 astonishing account of where Shakspeare's muse has been 
 all this while. I thought she had been dead, and buried 
 in Stratford Church, with the young man that kept her 
 company^ — 
 
 ' But it seems, like the Devil, 
 
 Buried in Cole Harbour, 
 Some say she's risen again, 
 
 Gone 'prentice to a Barber.' 
 
 " N.B. — I don't charge anything for the additional 
 manuscript notes, which are the joint productions of myself 
 and a learned translator of Schiller, Stoddart, Esq. 
 
 '^ N.B. the 2d. — I should not have blotted your book, 
 but I had sent my own out to be bound, as I was in duty 
 
103 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 bound. A liberal criticism upon the several pieces, lyrical, 
 heroical, amatory, and satirical, would be acceptable. So, 
 you don't think there's a Word's— worth of good poetry in 
 the Great L. B. ! I daren't put the dreaded syllables at 
 their just length, for my hack tingles from the northern 
 castigation. 
 
 " I am going to change my lodgings, having received a 
 hint that it would He agreeable, at our Lady's next feast. 
 I have partly fixed upon most delectable rooms, which look 
 out (when you stand a tip-toe) over the Thames, and Surrey 
 Hills; at the upper end of King's Bench walks, in the 
 Temple. There I shall have all the privacy of a house 
 without the encumbrance, and shall be able to lock my 
 friends out as often as I desire to hold free converse with 
 my immortal mind, for my present lodgings resemble a 
 minister's levee, I have so increased my acquaintance (as 
 they call 'em) since I have resided in town. Like the 
 country mouse, that had tasted a little of urbane manners, 
 I long to be nibbling my own cheese by my dear self, with- 
 out mouse- traps and time-traps. By my new plan, I shall 
 be as airy, up four pair of stairs, as in the country ; and in 
 a garden, in the midst of enchanting, more than Mahometan 
 paradise, London, whose dirtiest drab-frequented alley, and 
 her lowest bowing tradesman, I would not exchange for 
 Skiddaw, Helvellyn, James, Walter, and the parson into the 
 bargain. ! her lamps of a night ! her rich goldsmiths, 
 print-shops, toy-shops, mercers, hard waremen, pastry-cooks ! 
 St. Paul's churchyard, the Strand ! Exeter Change ! Charing 
 Cross, with the man upon a black horse ! These are thy 
 gods, London ! An't you mightily moped on the banks 
 of the Cam ? Had not you better come and set up here ? 
 You can't think what a difference. All the streets and 
 pavements are pure gold, I waiTant you. At least, I know 
 an alchymy that turns her mud into that metal, — a mind 
 that loves to be at home in crowds. 
 
 '' 'Tis half-past twelve o'clock, and all sober people ought 
 to be a-bed. '' C. Lamb (as you may guess)." 
 
LETTER TO COLERIDGE. 103 
 
 The following two letters appear to have been written 
 during Coleridge's visit to Wordsworth. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 *' By some fatality, unusual with me, I have mislaid the 
 list of books w^hich you want. Can you from memory, 
 easily supply me with another ? 
 
 '' I confess to Statins, and I detained him wilfully, out of 
 a reverent regard to your style. Statins, they tell me, is 
 turgid. As to that other Latin book, since you know 
 neither its name nor subject, your wants (I crave leave to 
 apprehend) cannot be very urgent. Meanwhile, dream that 
 it is one of the lost Decades of Livy. 
 
 '' Your partiality to me has led you to form an erroneous 
 opinion as to the measure of delight you suppose me to 
 take in obliging. Pray, be careful that it spread no further. 
 'Tis one of those heresies that is very pregnant. Pray, 
 rest more satisfied with the portion of learning which you 
 have got, and disturb my peaceful ignorance as little as 
 possible with such sort of commissions. 
 
 '' Did you never observe an appearance well known by 
 the name of the man in the moon ? Some scandalous old 
 maids have set on foot a report, that it is Endymion. 
 
 " Your theory about the first awkward step a man makes 
 being the consequence of learning to dance, is not universal. 
 We have known many youths bred up at Christ's, who 
 never learned to dance, yet the world imputes to them no 
 very graceful motions. I remember there was little Hudson, 
 the immortal precentor of St. Paul's, to teach us our 
 quavers ; but, to the best of my recollection, there was no 
 master of motions when we were at Chiist's. 
 
 '' Farewell, in haste. 
 
 "C.L." 
 
104 LETTER TO WORDSWORTH. 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 "Oct. 13th, 1800. 
 
 ''Dear Wordsworth, — I have not forgot your commissions. 
 But the truth is, — and why should I not confess it? — I 
 am not plethorically abounding in cash at this present. 
 Merit, God knows, is very little rewarded ; but it does not 
 become me to speak of myself. My motto is, ' contented 
 with little, yet wishing for more.' Now, the books you wish 
 for would require some pounds, which, I am sorry to say, 
 I have not by me ; so, I will say at once, if you will give 
 me a draft upon your town banker for any sum you propose 
 to lay out, I will dispose of it to the very best of my skill in 
 choice old books, such as my own soul loveth. In fact, 
 I have been waiting for the liquidation of a debt to enable 
 myself to set about your commission handsomely ; for it is 
 a scurvy thing to cry, ' Give me the money first,' and I am 
 the first of the family of the Lambs that have done it for 
 many centuries ; but the debt remains as it was, and my 
 old friend that I accommodated has generously forgot it ! 
 The books which you want, I calculate at about 8Z. Ben 
 Jonson is a guinea book. Beaumont and Fletcher, in foUo, 
 the right folio not now to be met with ; the octavos are 
 about B^. As to any other dramatists, I do not know 
 where to find them, except what are in Dodsley's Old Plays, 
 which are about 3Z. also. Massinger I never saw but at one 
 shop, but it is now gone ; but one of the editions of Dodsley 
 contains about a fourth (the best) of his plays. Congreve, 
 and the rest of King Charles's moralists, are cheap and 
 accessible. The works on Ireland I will inquire after, but, 
 I fear, Spenser's is not to be had apart from his poems ; I 
 never saw it. But you may depend upon my sparing no 
 pains to furnish you as complete a library of old poets and 
 dramatists as will be prudent to buy ; for, I suppose you 
 do not include the 20Z. edition of Hamlet, single play, 
 which Kemble has. Marlowe's plays and poems are totally 
 vanished ; only one edition of Dodsley retains one, and the 
 
LETTEES TO MANNING. 105 
 
 Other two of his plays : but John Ford is the man after 
 Shakspeare. Let me know your will and pleasure soon, 
 for I have observed, next to the pleasure of buying a 
 bargain for one's self, is the pleasure of persuading a friend 
 to buy it. It tickles one with the image of an imprudency, 
 without the penalty usually annexed. 
 
 " C. Lamb." 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 [1800.] 
 
 LETTERS TO IVIANNING^ AFTER LAMB's REMOVAL TO THE TEMPLE. 
 
 In the year 1800, Lamb carried into effect his purpose of 
 removing to Mitre-court Buildings, Temple. During this 
 time he wrote only a few small poems, which he transmitted 
 to Manning. In his letters to Manning a vein of wild 
 humour breaks out, of which there are but slight indications 
 in the correspondence with his more sentimental friends ; 
 as if the very opposition of Manning s more scientific 
 power to his own force of sympathy provoked the sallies 
 which the genial kindness of the mathematician fostered. 
 The prodigal and reckless humour of some of these letters 
 forms a striking contrast to the deep feeling of the earlier 
 letters to Coleridge. His ' Essays of Elia ' show the 
 harmonious union of both. The following letter contains 
 Lamb's description of his new abode. 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 '* I was not aware that you owed me anything beside 
 that guhiea; but I dare say you are right. I live at No. 16, 
 Mitre-court Buildings, a pistol-shot off Baron Maseres'. 
 You must introduce me to the Baron. I think we should 
 
106 LETTEES TO MANNING, 
 
 suit one another mainly. He lives on the ground floor, for 
 convenience of the gout ; I prefer the attic story, for the 
 air ! He keeps three footmen and two maids ; I have 
 neither maid nor laundress, not caring to be troubled with 
 them ! His forte, I understand, is the higher mathematics; 
 my turn, I confess, is more to poetry and the belles lettres. 
 The very antithesis of our characters would make up a 
 harmony. You must bring the baron and me together. — N.B. 
 when you come to see me, mount up to the top of the stairs — 
 I hope you are not asthmatical — and come in flannel, for 
 it 's pure airy up there. And bring your glass, and I will 
 show you the Surrey Hills. My bed faces the river, so as 
 by perking up upon my haunches, and supporting my 
 carcase with my elbows, without much wrying my neck, I 
 can see the white sails glide by the bottom of the Iving's 
 Bench walks as I lie in my bed. An excellent tiptoe 
 prospect in the best room : — casement windows, with small 
 panes, to look more like a cottage. Mind, I have got no 
 bed for you, that 's flat ; sold it to pay expenses of 
 moving. The very bed on which Manning lay; the friendly, 
 the mathematical Manning ! How forcibly does it remind 
 me of the interesting Otway ! ' The very bed which on 
 thy marriage night gave thee into the arms of Belvidera, 
 by the coarse hands of ruflBans — '(upholsterers' men,) &c. 
 My tears wdll not give me leave to go on. But a bed I 
 will get you, Manning, on condition you will be my day- 
 guest. 
 
 " 1 have been ill more than a month, with a bad cold, 
 which comes upon me (like a murderer's conscience) about 
 midnight, and vexes me for many hours. I have suc- 
 cessively been drugged with Spanish licorice, opium, 
 ipecacuanha, paregoric, and tincture of foxglove (tinctura 
 purpurae digitalis of the ancients). I am afraid I must 
 leave off drinldng." 
 
 Lamb then gives an account of his visit to an exhibition 
 of snakes — of a frightful vividness and interesting — as all 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. 107 
 
 details of these fascinating reptiles are, whom *we at once 
 loathe and long to look upon, as the old enemies and 
 tempters of our race. 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 "Oct. 16th, 1800. 
 
 '' Dear Manning, — Had you Tvritten one week before you 
 did, I certainly should have obeyed your injunction ; you 
 should have seen me before my letter. I will explain to 
 you my situation. There are six of us in one department. 
 Two of us (within these four days) are confined with severe 
 fevers ; and two more, who belong to the Tower Militia, 
 expect to have marching orders on Friday. Now six are 
 absolutely necessary. I have already asked and obtained 
 two young hands to supply the loss of the feverites. And, 
 with the other prospect before me, you may believe I can- 
 not decently ask leave of absence for myself. All I can 
 promise (and I do promise, with the sincerity of Saint 
 Peter, and the contrition of sinner Peter if I fail) that 
 I will come the very first spare iveek, and go nowhere till I 
 have been at Cambridge. No matter if you are in a state 
 of pupilage when I come ; for I can employ myself in Cam- 
 bridge very pleasantly in the mornings. Are there not 
 libraries, halls, colleges, books, pictures, statues ? I wish 
 you had made London in your way. There is an exhibition 
 quite uncommon in Europe, which could not have escaped 
 your genius, — a live rattlesnake, ten feet in length, and the 
 thickness of a big leg. I went to see it last night by 
 candlelight. We were ushered into a room very little 
 higger than ours at Pentonville. A man and woman and 
 four boys live in this room, joint tenants with nine snakes, 
 most of them such as no remedy has been discovered for 
 their bite. We walked into the middle, which is formed 
 by a half-moon of wired boxes, all mansions of snakes^ — 
 whip-snakes, thunder-snakes, pig-nose snakes, American 
 vipers, and this monster. He lies curled up in folds ; and 
 
108 LETTEES TO MAKNING-. 
 
 immediately a stranger enters (for he is used to the family, 
 and sees them play at cards,) he set up a rattle like a 
 watchman's in London, or near as loud, and reared up 
 a head, from the midst of these folds, like a toad, and shook 
 his head, and showed every sign a snake can show of irrita- 
 tion. I had the foolish curiosity to strike the wires ^vith 
 my finger, and the devil flew at me with his toad-mouth 
 wide open : the inside of his mouth is quite white. I had 
 got my finger away, nor could he well have bit me with his 
 big mouth, which would have been certain death in five 
 minutes. But it frightened me so much, that I did not 
 recover my voice for a minute's space. I forgot, in my fear, 
 that he was secured. You would have forgot too, for 'tis 
 incredible how such a monster can be confined in small 
 gauzy-looking wires. I dreamed of snakes in the night. 
 I wish to heaven you could see it. He absolutely swelled 
 with passion to the bigness of a large thigh. I could not 
 retreat without infringing on another box, and just behind, 
 a little devil, not an inch from my back, had got his nose 
 out, with some difficulty and pain, quite through the bars ! 
 He was soon taught better manners. All the snakes were 
 curious, and objects of terror; but this monster, like 
 Aaron's serpent, swallowed up the impression of the rest. 
 He opened his cursed mouth, when he made at me, as wide 
 as his head was broad. I hallooed out quite loud, and felt 
 pains all over my body with the fright. 
 
 " I have had the felicity of hearing George Dyer read 
 out one book of 'The Farmer's Boy.' I thought it rather 
 childish. No doubt, there is originality in it, (which, in 
 your self-taught geniuses, is a most rare quality, they gene- 
 rally getting hold of some bad models, in a scarcity of 
 books, and forming their taste on them,) but no selection. 
 All is described, 
 
 '' Mind, I have only heard read one book. 
 
 ** Yours sincerely, 
 
 " Philo-Snake, 
 
 ''C. L." 
 
LETTEES TO MA^'NING. 109 
 
 The following are fragments from a letter chiefly on 
 personal matters, the interest of which is gone by : — 
 
 TO :V[E. Z^klANXTN'G-. 
 
 '' x\nd now, when shall I catch a glimpse of your honest 
 face-to-face countenance again ? Your fine dogmatical, scep- 
 tical face by punch-light ? ! one glimpse of the human 
 face, and shake of the human hand, is better than whole 
 reams of this cold, thin correspondence ; yea, of more 
 worth than all the letters that have sweated the fingers of 
 sensibility, from Madame Sevigne and Balzac to Sterne and 
 Shenstone. 
 
 *' Coleridge is settled with his wife and the young philo- 
 pher at Keswick, mth the Wordsworths. They have con- 
 trived to spawn a new volume of lyrical ballads, which is to 
 see the light in about a month, and causes no little excite- 
 ment in the literary world. George Dyer too, that good- 
 natured heathen, is more than nine months gone with his 
 twin volumes of ode, pastoral, sonnet, elegy, Spenserian, 
 Horatian, Akensidish, and Masonic verse — Cho prosper 
 the birth ! it will be twelve shillings out of somebody's 
 pocket. I find he means to exclude ' personal satire,' so 
 it appears by his truly original advertisement. Well, God 
 put it into the hearts of the English gentiy to come in 
 shoals and subscribe to his poems, for He never put a 
 kinder heart into flesh of man than George Dyer's ! 
 
 " Now farewell, for dinner is at hand. 
 
 ^'C. L." 
 
 Lamb had engaged to spend a few days when he could 
 obtain leave, with Manning at Cambridge, and, just as he 
 hoped to accomplish his wish, received an invitation from 
 Lloyd to give his holiday to the poets assembled at the 
 Lakes. In the joyous excitement of spirits wliich the anti- 
 cipated visit to Manning produced, he thus plays off Man- 
 
110 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 ning's proposal on his friend, abuses mountains and luxuri- 
 ates in his love of London : — 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 '' Dear Manning, — I have received a very kind invita- 
 tion from Lloyd and Sophia, to go and spend a month with 
 them at the Lakes. Now it fortunately happens, (which is 
 so seldom the case !) that I have spare cash by me, enough 
 to answer the expenses of so long a journey ; and I am 
 determined to get away from the office by some means. 
 The purpose of this letter is to request of you (my dear 
 friend), that you will not take it unldnd, if I decline my 
 proposed visit to Cambridge for the present. Perhaps I 
 shall be able to take Cambridge in my way, going or coming. 
 I need not describe to you the expectations which such an 
 one as myself, pent up all my life in a dirty city, have 
 formed of a tour to the Lakes. Consider Grasmere ! 
 Ambleside ! Wordsworth ! Coleridge ! Hills, woods, lakes, 
 and mountains, to the eternal devil. I will eat snipes 
 with thee, Thomas Manning. Only confess, confess, a hite, 
 
 "P,S. I think you named the 16th; but was it not 
 modest of Lloyd to send such an invitation ! It shows his 
 knowledge of 7noney and time. I would be loath to think, 
 he meant 
 
 ^ Ironic satire sidelong sklented on my poor pursie.' — Burns. 
 
 For my part, with reference to my friends northward, I 
 must confess that I am not romance-bit about Nature. 
 The earth, and sea, and sky (when all is said,) is but as a 
 house to dwell in. If the inmates be courteous, and good 
 liquors flow like the conduits at an old coronation, if they 
 can talk sensibly, and feel properly, I have no need to 
 stand staring upon the gilded looking-glass (that strained 
 my friend's purse-strings in the purchase) nor his five- 
 shilling print over the mantel-piece of old Nabbs the 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. Ill 
 
 carrier (which onlj^ betrays his false taste). Just as import- 
 ant to me (in a sense) is all the furniture of my world ; 
 eye-pampering, hut satisfies no heart. Streets, streets, 
 streets, markets, theatres, churches, Covent Gardens, shops 
 sparkling with pretty faces of industrious milliners, neat 
 sempstresses, ladies cheapening, gentlemen behind counters 
 lying, authors in the street with spectacles, George Dyers, 
 (you may know them by their gait,) lamps lit at night, 
 pastry-cooks and silver- smiths' shops, beautiful Quakers of 
 Pentonville, noise of coaches, drowsy cry of mechanic 
 watchmen at night, with bucks reeling home drunk ; if you 
 happen to wake at midnight, cries of Fire, and Stop thief; 
 inns of court, with their learned air, and halls, and butteries, 
 just hke Cambridge colleges ; old book-stalls, ' Jeremy 
 Taylors,' 'Burtons on Melancholy,' and ' Religio Medicis,' 
 on every stall. These are thy pleasures, London ! with- 
 
 the-many-sins. 0, city, abounding in , for these may 
 
 Keswick and her giant brood go hang ! 
 
 '' C. L." 
 
 On this occasion Lamb was disappointed ; but he was 
 consoled by the acquisition of a new friend, in Mr. Rickman 
 of the House of Commons, and exults in a strain which he 
 never had reason to regret. This piece of rare felicity 
 enabled him even to bear the loss of his manuscripts, and 
 the delay of his hopes ; which, according to the old theatrical 
 usage, he was destined to endure. 
 
 TO MK. MANNING. 
 
 Nov. 3rd, 1800. 
 
 " Ecqiiid meditatur Archimedes ? What is Euclid doing? 
 What hath happened to learned Trismegist? — doth he take 
 it in ill part, that his humble friend did not comply with 
 his courteous invitation? Let it suffice, I could not 
 come — are impossibilities nothing? — be they abstractions 
 of the intellect? — or not (rather) most sharp and mortifying 
 
112 LETTEKS TO MANNING. 
 
 realities? nuts in the Wills mouth too hard for her to 
 crack ? brick and stone walls in her way, which she can by 
 no means eat through ? sore lets, impedimenta viaritm, no 
 thoroughfares ? racemi nimimn alte j^^^^dentes ? Is the 
 phrase classic ? I allude to the grapes in ^sop, which 
 cost the fox a strain, and gained the world an aphorism. 
 Observe the superscription of this letter. In adapting the 
 size of the letters, which constitute your name and Mr. 
 Crisp's name respectively, I had an eye to your different 
 stations in life. 'Tis truly curious, and must be soothing 
 to an aristocrat. I wonder it has never been hit on before 
 my time. I have made an acquisition latterly of a pleasant 
 hand, one Rickman, to whom I was introduced by George 
 Dyer, not the most flattering auspices under which one 
 man can be introduced to another — George brings all sorts 
 of people together, setting up a sort of agrarian law, or 
 common property, in matter of society ; but for once he 
 has done me a great pleasure, while he w^as only pursuing 
 a principle, as ignes fatui maij light you home. This Pack- 
 man lives in our Buildings, immediately opposite our house ; 
 the finest fellow to drop in a' nights, about nine or ten 
 o'clock — cold bread-and-cheese time — just in the wishing 
 time of the night, when you wish for somebody to come in, 
 without a distinct idea of a probable anybody. Just in the 
 nick, neither too early to be tedious, nor too late to sit a 
 reasonable time. He is a most pleasant hand ; a fine 
 rattling fellow, has gone through life laughing at solemn 
 apes ; — himself hugely literate, oppressively full of informa- 
 tion in all stuff of conversation, from matter of fact to 
 Xenophon and Plato — can talk Greek with Person, politics 
 with Thelwall, conjecture with George Dyer, nonsense with 
 me, and anything with anybody ; a great farmer, somewhat 
 concerned in an agricultural magazine — reads no poetry but 
 Shakspeare, very intimate with Southey, but never reads his 
 poetry, relishes George Dyer, thoroughly penetrates into the 
 ridiculous wherever found, understands the first time (a 
 great desideratum in common minds) — you need never twice 
 
LETTEES TO MANNING. 113 
 
 speak to him ; does not want explanations, translations, limi- 
 tations, as Professor Godwin does when you make an asser- 
 tion ; up to anything ; down to everything ; whatever sapit 
 hominem. A perfect man. All this farrago, which must per- 
 plex you to read, and has put me to a little trouble to select! 
 only proves how impossible it is to describe a pleasant hand. 
 You must see Rickman to know him, for he is a species in 
 one. A new class. An exotic, any slip of which I am 
 23roud to put in my garden-pot. The clearest-headed fellow. 
 Fullest of matter, with least verbosity. If there be any 
 alloy in my fortune to have met with such a man, it is that 
 he commonly divides his time between town and country, 
 having some foolish family ties at Chris tchurch, by which 
 means he can only gladden our London hemisphere with 
 returns of light. He is now going for six weeks." 
 
 '' At last I have written to Kemble, to know the event 
 of my play, which was presented last Christmas. As I 
 suspected, came an answer back that the copy was lost, and 
 could not be found — no hint that anybody had to this day 
 ever looked into it — with a courteous (reasonable !) request 
 of another copy (if I had one by me,) and a promise of a 
 definitive answer in a week. I could not resist so facile 
 and moderate demand, so scribbled out another, omitting 
 sundry things, such as the witch story, about half of the 
 forest scene (which is too leisurely for story), and trans- 
 posing that soliloquy about England getting drunk, which, 
 like its reciter, stupidly stood alone, nothing prevenient or 
 antevenient — and cleared away a good deal besides, and 
 sent this copy, written all oz^i(with alterations, &c. requiring 
 judgment) in one day and a half ! I sent it last night, and 
 am in weekly expectation of the tolling-bell, and death- 
 warrant. 
 
 " This is all my London news. Send me some from the 
 hanks of Cam, as the poets delight to speak, especially 
 George Dyer, w^ho has no other name, nor idea, nor defini- 
 tion of Cambridge, — namely, its being a market-to^vn, 
 
114 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 sending members to Parliament, never entered into his 
 definition — it was and is, simply, the banks of the Cam, or 
 the fair Cam ; as Oxford is the banks of the Isis, or the fair 
 Isis. Yours in all humiUty, most illustrious Trismegist, 
 
 " C. Lamb. 
 
 '' (Read on, there's more at the bottom.) 
 
 "You ask me about the 'Farmer's Boy,' — don't you 
 think the fellow who wrote it (who is a shoemaker) has a 
 poor mind ? Don't you find he is always silly about poor 
 Giles, and those abject kind of phrases, which mark a man 
 that looks up to w^ealth ? None of Burns 's poet dignity. 
 What do you tbink? I have just opened him; but he 
 makes me sick." 
 
 Constant to the fame of Jem White, Lamb did not fail 
 to enlist Manning among the admirers of the '' Falstaflf 's 
 Letters." The next letter, referring to them is, however, 
 more interesting for the ligbt which it casts on Lamb's 
 indifference to the politics of the time, and fond devotion to 
 the past. 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 '' I hope by this time you are prepared to say, the 
 ' Falstaff's Letters' are a bundle of the sharpest, queerest, 
 profoundest humours, of any these juice-drained latter 
 times have spawned. I should have advertised you, that 
 the meaning is frequently hard to be got at; and so are 
 the future guineas, that now lie ripening and aurifyino* in 
 the womb of some undiscovered Potosi ; but dig, dio-, di^^, 
 dig, Manning I I set to, with an unconquerable pro- 
 pulsion to write, with a lamentable want of what to write. 
 My private goings on are orderly as the movements 
 of the spheres, and stale as their music to angels' ears. 
 Public affairs — except as they touch upon me, and so 
 
LETTEES TO MANNING. 115 
 
 turn into private, — I cannot whip up my mind to feel 
 any interest in, I grieve, indeed, that War, and Nature, 
 and Mr. Pitt, that hangs up in Lloyd's best parlour, should 
 have conspired to call up three necessaries, simple com- 
 moners as our fathers knew them, into the upper house of 
 luxuries ; bread, and beer, and coals, Manning. But as to 
 France and Frenchmen, and the Abbe Sieyes and his 
 constitutions, I cannot make these present times present to 
 me. I read histories of the past, and I live in them ; 
 although, to abstract senses, they are far less momentous, 
 than the noises which keep Europe awake. I am reading 
 ' Burnet s own Times.' Did you ever read that garrulous, 
 pleasant history ? He tells his stoiy like an old man past 
 political service, bragging to his sons on winter evenings of 
 the part he took in public transactions, when ' his old cap 
 was new.' Full of scandal, which all true history is. No 
 palliatives ; but all the stark wickedness, that actually gives 
 the momentum to national actors. Quite the prattle of age, 
 and outlived importance. Truth and sincerity staring out 
 upon you perpetually in alto relievo. Himself a party man 
 — he makes you a party man. None of the cursed philo- 
 sophical Humeian indifference, so cold, and unnatural, and 
 inhuman ! None of the cursed Gibbonian fine writing, so 
 fine and composite. None of Dr. Robertson's periods with 
 three members. None of Mr. Roscoe's sage remarks, all so 
 apposite, and coming in so clever, lest the reader should 
 have had the trouble of drawing an inference. Burnet's 
 good old prattle I can bring present to my mind ; I can 
 make the revolution present to me — the French revolution, 
 by a converse perversity in my nature, I fling as far from 
 me. To quit this tiresome subject, and to relieve you from 
 two or three dismal yawns, which I hear in spirit, I here 
 conclude my more than commonly obtuse letter ; dull, up 
 to the dulness of a Dutch commentator on Shakspeare. 
 
 '' My love to Lloyd and to Sophia. 
 
 '' C. L." 
 
 i2 
 
116 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 While Lamb's dramatic destinies were in suspense, he 
 was called on ^Ho assist " at the production of a tragedy, by 
 a friend, whose more mature reputation gave him readier 
 access to the manager, but who had no better claim to success 
 than himself. Mr. Godwin, whose powerful romance of 
 Caleb Williams had supplied the materials for ''The Iron 
 Chest" of Colman, naturally aspired, on his own account, to 
 the glory of the scene, and completed a tragedy under the 
 title of ''Antonio, or the Soldier's Return," which was 
 accepted at Drury-Lane Theatre, and announced for repre- 
 sentation on Saturday the 18th December in this year. 
 Lamb supplied the epilogue, which he copied in the fol- 
 lowing letter addressed to Manning on the eventful day : — 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 ^^Dec. 13th, 1800. 
 
 *' I have received your letter this moment, not having 
 been at the office. I have just time to scribble down the 
 epilogue. To your epistle I will just reply, that I will 
 certainly come to Cambridge before January is out : I '11 
 come ivlien I can. You shall have an emended copy of my 
 play early next week. Mary thanks you; but her hand- 
 writing is too feminine to be exposed to a Cambridge 
 gentleman, though I endeavour to persuade her that you 
 understand algebra, and must understand her hand. The 
 play IS the man's you wot of; but for Heaven's sake do not 
 mention it — it is to come out in a feigned name, as one 
 Tobin's. I will omit the introductory lines which connect 
 it with the play, and give you the concluding tale, which is 
 the mass and bulk of the epilogue. The name is Jack 
 Incident. It is about promise-breaking — you will see it 
 all, if you read the ixiioers. 
 
 Jack, of dramatic genius justly vain^ 
 Purchased a renter's share at Drury-lane ; 
 A prudent man in every other matter. 
 Known at his club-room for an honest hatter ; 
 
LETTEES TO MANNING. 117 
 
 Humane and courteous, led a civil life. 
 And has been seldom known to beat his wife ; 
 But Jack is now grown quite another man, 
 Frequents the green-room, knows the plot and plan 
 
 Of each new piece, 
 And has been seen to talk with Sheridan ! 
 In at the play-house just at six he pops, 
 And never quits it till the curtain drops. 
 Is never absent on the author^ s nighty 
 
 Knows actresses and actors too by sight ; 
 
 So humble, that with Suett he '11 confer, 
 
 Or take a pipe with plain Jack Bannister ; 
 
 Naj, with an author has been known so free, 
 
 He once suggested a catastrophe — 
 
 In short, John dabbled till his head was turned : 
 
 His wife remonstrated, his neighbours mourn' d^ 
 
 His customers were dropping off apace. 
 
 And Jack's affairs began to wear a piteous face. 
 
 One night his wife began a curtain lecture ; 
 ^ My dearest Johnny, husband, spouse, protector, 
 Take pity on your helpless babes and me. 
 Save us from ruin, you from bankruptcy — 
 Look to your business, leave these cursed plays, 
 And try again your old industrious ways.' 
 
 Jack, who was always scared at the Gazette, 
 And had some bits of scull uninjured yet. 
 Promised amendment, vow'd his wife spake reason, 
 ' He would not see another play that season — ' 
 
 Three stubborn fortnights Jack his promise kept, 
 Was late and early in his shop, eat, slept, 
 And walk'd and talk'd, like ordinary men ; 
 No wit^ but John the hatter once again — 
 Visits his club : when lo ! one fatal night 
 His wife with horror view'd the well-known sight — 
 John's hat, ^(//^r, snitffhox — w^ell she knew his tricks — 
 And Jack decamping at the hour of six. 
 Just at the counter's edge a playbill lay, 
 Announcing that ^ Pizarro ' was the play — 
 ^ O Johnny, Johnny, this is your old doing.' 
 Quoth Jack, ' Why what the devil storm 's a-brewing.^ 
 About a harmless play why all this fright ? 
 I '11 go and see it, if it 's but for spite — 
 Zounds, woman ! Nelson 's* to be there to-night/ 
 
 <* N.B. — This was intended for Jack Bannister to speak ; 
 but the sage managers have chosen Miss Heard, except 
 
 * " A good clap-trap. Nelson has exhibited two or three times at both 
 theatres — and advertised himself." 
 
1 18 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 Miss Tidswell, the worst actress ever seen or heard. Now, 
 I remember I have promised the loan of my play. I will 
 lend it instantly, and you shall get it (pon honour !) by this 
 day week. 
 
 " I must go and dress for the boxes ! First night ! 
 Finding I have time, I transcribe the rest. Observe, you 
 have read the last first ; it begins thus : — The names I 
 took from a little outline G. gave me. I have not read the 
 play ! 
 
 ' Ladies^ ye Ve seen how Guzman''s consort died, 
 
 Poor victim of a Spaniard brother's pride, 
 
 When Spanish honour through the world was blown. 
 
 And Spanish beauty for the best was known"^. 
 
 In that romantic, unenlightened time, 
 
 A hreacJi oi promise^ ^^as a sort of crime — 
 
 Which of you handsome English ladies here. 
 
 But deems the penance bloody and severe ? 
 
 A whimsical old SaragossaJ fashion, 
 
 That a dead father's dying inclination 
 
 Should live to thwart a living daughter's passion §, 
 
 Unjustly on the sex we\\ men exclaim. 
 
 Rail at your^ vices, — and commit the same ; — 
 
 Man is a promise-breaker from the womb. 
 
 And goes a promise-breaker to the tomb — 
 
 What need we instance here the lover's vow, 
 
 The sick man's purpose, or the great man's bow^"* ? 
 
 The truth by few examples best is shown — 
 
 Instead of many which are better kno'v\'n, 
 
 Take poor Jack Incident, that ^s dead and gone. 
 
 Jack, &c., &c., &c.' 
 
 '' Now you have it all — how do you like it ? I am going 
 to hear it recited ! ! ! " 
 
 '' C. L." 
 
 Alas for human hopes ! The play was decisively damned, 
 and the epilogue shared its fate. The tragedy turned out 
 a miracle of dulness for the world to wonder at, although 
 Lamb always insisted it had one fine line, which he was 
 fond of repeating — sole relic of the else forgotten play. 
 
 * " Four easy lines." -|- '^ For which the heroine died.'''' 
 
 X '' In Spain/ 1 " § '^ Two neat lines." || '' Or you^^ 
 
 TI " Or om\ as tliey have altered it." ^"^ " Antithesis ! ! '* 
 
GODWIN. 119 
 
 Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, the brother and sister of the 
 drama, toiled through four acts and a half without applause 
 or disapprobation; one speech was not more vapid than 
 another ; and so dead was the level of the dialogue, that, 
 although its destiny was seen from afar, it presented no 
 opportunity for hissing. But as the play drew towards a 
 close, when, after a scene of frigid chiding not vivified by 
 any fire of Kemble s own, Antonio drew his sword and 
 plunged it into the heroine's bosom, the " sad civility " of 
 the audience vanished, they started as at a real murder, 
 and hooted the actors from the stage. " Philosophy " 
 which could not ''make a Juliet," sustained the author 
 through the trial. He sat on one of the front benches of 
 the pit, unmoved amidst the storm. When the first act 
 passed off without a hand, he expressed his satisfaction at 
 the good sense of the house ; '' the proper season of applause 
 had not arrived ; " all was exactly as it should be. The 
 second act proceeded to its close in the same uninterrupted 
 calm ; his friends became uneasy, but still his optimism 
 prevailed ; he could afford to wait. And though he did at 
 last admit the great movement was somewhat tardy, and 
 that the audience seemed rather patient than interested, he 
 did not lose his confidence till the tumult arose, and then 
 he submitted with quiet dignity to the fate of genius, too 
 lofty to be understood by a world as yet in its childhood ! 
 Notwithstanding this rude repulse, Mr. Godwin retained 
 his taste for the theatre to the last. On every first night 
 of a new piece, whether tragedy, comedy, or farce, wliether 
 of friend or foe, he sat with gentle interest in a side-box, 
 and bore its fate, whatever it might be, with resignation, as 
 he had done his own. The following is Lamb's account of 
 the catastrophe rendered to Manning, in which the facetious 
 charge against the unlucky author of " Violent and Satani- 
 cal Pride of Heart " has reference to some banter which 
 Lamb had encountered among his friends by the purposed 
 title of his own play, " Pride s Cure," and his disquisition 
 in its defence. 
 
120 LETTEES TO MANNING. 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 "Dec. I6th, 1800. 
 
 ''We are damned! — Not the facetious epilogue itself 
 could save us. For, as the editor of the Morning Post, 
 quick-sighted gentleman ! hath this morning tmly observed, 
 (I beg pardon if I falsify his words, their profound sense 
 I am sure I retain,) both prologue and epilogue were 
 worthy of accompanying such a piece ; and indeed (mark 
 the profundity. Mister Manning) were received with proper 
 indignation by such of the audience only as thought either 
 worth attending to. Professor, thy glories wax dim I Again, 
 the incomparable author of the True Briton declareth in his 
 paper (bearing same date) that the epilogue was an indif- 
 ferent attempt at humour and character, and failed in both. 
 I forbear to mention the other papers, because I have not 
 read them. O Professor, how dififerent thy feelings now 
 (quantum mutatus ab illo professore, qui in agris philo- 
 sophiae tantas victorias acquisivisti), — how different thy 
 proud feelings but one little week ago, — thy anticipation of 
 thy nine nights, — those visionary claps, which have soothed 
 thy soul by day, and thy dreams by night ! Calling in 
 accidentally on the Professor while he was out, I was 
 ushered into the study ; and my nose quickly (most saga- 
 cious always) pointed me to four tokens lying loose upon 
 thy table. Professor, which indicated thy violent and 
 satanical pride of heart. Imprimis, there caught mine eye 
 a list of six persons, thy friends, whom thou didst meditate 
 inviting to a sumptuous dinner on the Thursday, anticipat- 
 ing the profits of thy Saturday s play to answer charges ; I 
 was in the honoured file ! Next, a stronger evidence of 
 thy violent and almost satanical pride, lay a list of all the 
 morning papers (from the Morning Chronicle downwards to 
 the Porcupine), with the places of their respective offices, 
 where thou wast meditating to insert, and didst insert, an 
 elaborate sketch of the story of thy play ; stones in thy 
 
LETTEES TO MANNING. 121 
 
 > 
 
 enemy's hand to bruise thee with, and severely wast thou 
 bruised, Professor ! nor do I know what oil to pour into 
 thy wounds. Next, which convinced me to a dead convic- 
 tion, of thy pride, violent and almost satanical pride — lay a 
 list of books, which thy un-tragedy-favoured pocket could 
 never answer; Dodsley's Old Plays, Malone's Shakspeare 
 (still harping upon thy play, thy philosophy abandoned 
 meanwhile to christians and superstitious minds) ; nay, I 
 believe (if I can believe my memory), that the ambitious 
 Encyclopedia itself was part of thy meditated acquisitions ; 
 but many a playbook was there. All these visions are 
 damned; and thou, Professor, must read Shakspeare in 
 future out of a common edition ; and, hark ye, pray read 
 him to a little better purpose ! Last and strongest against 
 thee (in colours manifest as the hand upon Belshazzar s 
 wall), lay a volume of poems by C. Lloyd and C. Lamb. 
 Thy heart misgave thee, that thy assistant might possibly 
 not have talent enough to furnish thee an epilogue ! 
 Manning, all these things came over my mind ; all the gra- 
 tulations that would have thickened upon him, and even 
 some have glanced aside upon his humble friend ; the 
 vanity, and the fame, and the profits (the Professor is 500L 
 ideal money out of pocket by this failure, besides 200Z. he 
 would have got for the copyright, and the Professor is never 
 much beforehand with the world, what he gets is all by the 
 sweat of his brow and dint of brain, for the Professor, 
 though a sure man, is also a slow) ; and now to muse upon 
 thy altered physiognomy, thy pale and squalid appearance 
 (a kind of blue sickness about the eyelids), and thy crest 
 fallen, and thy proud demand of 200Z. from thy bookseller 
 changed to an uncertainty of his taking it at all, or giving 
 thee full 50/. The Professor has won my heart by this his 
 mournful catastrophe. You remember Marshall, who dined 
 with him at my house ; I met him in the lobby immedi- 
 ately after tlie damnation of the Professor s play, and he 
 looked to me like an angel : his face was lengthened, and 
 all over perspiration ; I never saw such a care-fraught 
 
132 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 visage ; I could have hugged him, I loved him so intensely. 
 ' From every pore of him a perfume fell.' I have seen 
 that man in many situations, and, from my soul, I think 
 that a more god-like honest soul exists not in this world. 
 The Professor's poor nerves trembling with the recent 
 shock, he hurried him away to my house to supper, and 
 there we comforted him as well as we could. He came to 
 consult me about a change of catastrophe ; but alas ! the 
 piece was condemned long before that crisis. I at first 
 humoured him with a specious proposition, but have since 
 joined his true friends in advising him to give it up. He 
 did it with a paug, and is to print it as his. 
 
 In another letter, a few days after, Lamb thus recurs to 
 the subject, and closes the century in anticipation of a visit 
 to his friend at Cambridge. 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 ^'Dec. 27th, 1800. 
 
 '' As for the other Professor, he has actually begun to 
 dive into Tavernier and Chardin's Persian Travels for a 
 story, to form a new drama for the sweet tooth of this fas- 
 tidious age. Has not Bethlehem College a fair action for 
 non-residence against such professors ? Are poets so feiv in 
 this age, that He must write poetry ? Is morals a subject 
 so exhausted, that he must quit that line ? Is the meta- 
 physic well (without a bottom) drained dry ? 
 
 " If I can guess at the wicked pride of the Professor s 
 heart, I would take a shrewd wager, that he disdains ever 
 again to dip his pen in Prose. Adieu, ye splendid theories ! 
 Farewell, dreams of political justice ! Lawsuits, where I 
 was counsel for Archbishop Fenelon versus my own mother, 
 in the famous fire cause ! 
 
 " Vanish from my mind, professors, one and all. I have 
 metal more attractive on foot. 
 
LETTEKS TO MANNING. 123 
 
 '' Man of many snipes, — I will sup with thee, Deo volente, 
 et diabolo nolente, on Monday night, the 5th of January, 
 in the new year, and crush a cup to the infant century. 
 
 " A word or two of my progress. Embark at six o'clock 
 in the morning, with a fresh gale, on a Cambridge one- 
 decker ; very cold till eight at night ; land at St. Mary's 
 lighthouse, muffins and coffee upon table (or any other 
 curious production of Turkey, or both Indies), snipes exactly 
 at nine, punch to commence at ten, with argument ; differ- 
 ence of opinion is expected to take place about eleven; 
 perfect unanimity, with some haziness and dimness, before 
 twelve. — N.B. My single affection is not so singly wedded 
 to snipes ; but the curious and epicurean eye would also 
 take a pleasure in beholding a delicate and well-chosen 
 assortment of teals, ortolans, the unctuous and palate- 
 soothing flesh of geese, wild and tame, nightingales' brains, 
 the sensorium of a young sucking pig, or any other 
 Christmas dish, which I leave to the judgment of you and 
 the cook of Gonville. 
 
 ^'C. Lamb," 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 [1801 to 1804.] 
 
 LETTERS TO MANNING, WORDSWORTH, AND COLERIDGE ; JOHN WOODVIL 
 REJECTED, PUBLISHED, AND REVIEWED. 
 
 The ominous postponement of Lamb's theatrical hopes 
 was followed by their disappointment at the commencement 
 of the century. He was favoured with at least one inter- 
 view by the stately manager of Drury-lane, Mr. Kemble, 
 who extended his high-bred courtesy even to authors, whom 
 he invariably attended to the door of his house in Great 
 Russell-street, and bade them " beware of the step." 
 Godwin's catastrophe had probably rendered him less 
 solicitous to encounter a similar peril ; which the fondest 
 
124 JOHN WOODVIL. 
 
 admirers of " John Woodvil " will not regret that it escaped. 
 While the occasional roughness of its verse would have been 
 felt as strange to ears as yet unused to the old dramatists 
 whom Lamb s Specimens had not then made familiar to the 
 town, the delicate beauties enshrined within it would 
 scarcely have been perceived in the glare of the theatre. 
 Exhibiting " the depth, and not the tumults of the soul," — 
 presenting a female character of modest and retiring loveli- 
 ness and noble purpose, but undistracted with any violent 
 emotion, — and developing a train of circumstances which 
 work out their gentle triumphs on the heart only of the 
 hero, without stirring accident or vivid grouping of persons, 
 — it would scarcely have supplied sufl&cient of coarse interest 
 to disarm the critical spirit which it would certainly have 
 encountered in all its bitterness. Lamb cheerfully con- 
 soled himself by publishing it ; and at the close of the year 
 1801 it appeared in a small volume, of humble appearance, 
 with the "Fragments of Burton," (to which Lamb alluded 
 in one of his previous letters,) two of his quarto ballads, 
 and the '' Helen " of his sister. 
 
 The daring peculiarities attracted the notice of the Edin- 
 burgh reviewers, then in the infancy of their slashing career, 
 and the volume was immolated, in due form, by the self- 
 constituted judges, who, taking for their motto '' Judex 
 damnatur cum nocens ahsolvitur,'" treated our author as a 
 criminal convicted of publishing, and awaiting his doom 
 from their sentence. With the gay recklessness of power, 
 at once usurped and irresponsible, they introduced Lord 
 Mansfield's wild construction of the law of Hbel into litera- 
 ture ; like him, holding every m^xi i^rimd facie guilty, who 
 should be caught in the act of publishing a hook, and 
 referring to the court to decide whether sentence should be 
 passed on him. The article on " John Woodvil," which 
 adorned their third number, is a curious example of the old 
 style of criticism vivified by the impulses of youth. We 
 wonder now — and probably the writer of the article, if he 
 is living, will wonder with us — that a young critic should 
 
EDINBUKGH REVIEW. 125 
 
 seize on a little eigliteen-penny book, simply printed, 
 without any preface ; make elaborate merriment of its 
 outline, and, giving no hint of its containing one profound 
 thought or happy expression, leave the reader of the review 
 at a loss to suggest a motive for noticing such vapid 
 absurdities. This article is written in a strain of grave 
 banter, the theme of which is to congratulate the world on 
 having a specimen of the rudest condition of the drama, " a 
 man of the age of Thespis." '' At length," says the re- 
 viewer, *' even in composition a mighty veteran has been 
 born. Older than ^schylus, and with all the spirit of 
 originality, in an age of poets who had before them the 
 imitations of some thousand years, he comes forward to 
 establish his claim to the ancient hircus, and to satiate the 
 most remote desires of the philosophic antiquary," On this 
 text the writer proceeds, selecting for his purpose whatever, 
 torn from its context, appeared extravagant and crude, and 
 ending without the slightest hint that there is merit, or 
 promise of merit, in the volume. There certainly was no 
 malice, or desire to give pain, in all this ; it was merely 
 the result of the thoughtless adoption, by lads of gaiety and 
 talent, of the old critical canons of the monthly reviews, 
 which had been accustomed to damn all works of unpatron- 
 ised genius in a more summary way, and after a duller 
 fashion. These very critics wrought themselves into good- 
 nature as they broke into deeper veins of thought ; grew 
 gentler as they grew wiser ; and sometimes, even when, 
 like Balaam, they came to curse, like him, they ended with 
 " blessing altogether," as in the review of the " Excursion," 
 which, beginning in the old strain, " This will never do," 
 proceeded to give examples of its noblest passages, and to 
 grace them with worthiest eulogy. And now, the spirit 
 of the writers thus ridiculed, especially of Wordsworth, 
 breathes through the pages of this very Review, and they 
 not seldom wear the '' rich embroidery " of the language of 
 the poet once scoffed at by their literary corporation as too 
 puerile for the nursery. 
 
126 LETTEES TO ISIANNING. 
 
 Lamb s occasional connexion with, newspapers introduced 
 him to some of the editors and contributors of that day, who 
 sought to repair the spirit wasted by perpetual exertion, in 
 the protracted conviviality of the evening, and these asso- 
 ciates sometimes left poor Lamb with an aching head, and 
 a purse exhausted by the claims of their necessities upon it. 
 Among those was Fenwick, immortalised as the Bigod of 
 " Elia," who edited several ill-fated newspapers in succes- 
 sion, and was the author of many libels, which did his 
 employers no good and his Majesty's government no harm. 
 These connexions will explain some of the allusions in the 
 following letters. 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 " I heard that you were going to China '^j with a com- 
 mission from the Wedgwoods to collect hints for their 
 pottery, and to teach the Chinese ^^^rs/^^cf/i'^. But I did 
 not know that London lay in your way to Pekin. I am 
 seriously glad of it, for I shall trouble you with a small 
 present for the Emperor of Usbeck Tartaiy, as you go by 
 his territories : it is a fragment of a ' Dissertation on the 
 state of jDolitical parties in England at the end of the 
 eighteenth century,' which will no doubt be very interesting 
 to his Imperial Majesty. It was written originally in 
 English for the use of the two and twenty readers of ' The 
 Albion,' (this calculation includes a printer, four pressmen, 
 and a devil) ; but becoming of no use, when ' The Albion ' 
 stopped, I got it translated into Usbeck Tartar by my good 
 friend Tibet Kulm, who is come to London with a civil 
 invitation from the Cham to the English nation to go over 
 to the worship of the Lama. 
 
 * Mr. Manning had begun to be haunted with the idea of China, and to 
 talk of going thither, which he accomplished some years afterwards, without 
 any motive but a desire to see that great nation. 
 
LETTEES TO MANNING. 127 
 
 *' ' The Albion' is dead — dead as nail in door — and my 
 revenues have died with it ; but I am not as a man without 
 hope. I have got a sort of an opening to ' The Morning 
 Chronicle ! ! ! ' Mr. Manning, by means of that common dis- 
 penser of benevolence, Mister Dyer. I have not seen Perry, 
 the editor, yet : but I am preparing a specimen. I shall 
 have a difficult job to manage, for you must know that 
 Mr. Perry, in common with the great body of the Whigs, 
 thinks ' The Albion' very loiv, 1 find I must rise a peg or 
 so, be a little more decent, and less abusive ; for, to confess 
 the truth, I had arrived to an abominable pitch ; I spared 
 neither age nor sex when my cue was given me. N'imjwrte, 
 (as they say in French,) any climate will suit me. So you 
 are about to bring your old face-making face to London. 
 You could not come in a better time for my purposes ; for I 
 have just lost Packman, a faint idea of whose character I sent 
 you. He is gone to Ireland for a year or two, to make his 
 fortune ; and I have lost by his going, what seems to me 
 I can never recover — a finished man. His memory will be 
 to me as the brazen serpent to the Israehtes, — I shall look 
 up to it, to keep me upright and honest. But he may yet 
 bring back his honest face to England one day. I wish 
 your affairs with the Emperor of China had not been so 
 urgent, that you might have stayed in Great Britain a year 
 or two longer, to have seen him ; for, judging from my 
 own experience, I almost dare pronounce you never saw 
 his equal. I never saw a man, that could be at all a second 
 or substitute for him in any sort. 
 
 '' Imagine that what is here erased, was an apology and 
 explanation, perfectly satisfactory you may be sure ! for 
 
 rating this man so highly at the expense of , and , 
 
 and , and M , and , and , and . 
 
 But Mr. Burke has explained this phenomenon of our 
 nature very prettily in his letter to a Member of the 
 National Assembly, or else in Appeal to the old Whigs, 
 I forget which — do you remember an instance from Homer, 
 (who understood these matters tolerably well,) of Priam 
 
128 LETTEK TO WOEDSWOETH. 
 
 driving away his other sons with expressions of wrath and 
 bitter reproach, when Hector was just dead. 
 
 " I Hve where I did in d, private manner, because I don't 
 like state. Nothing is so disagreeable to me as the clamours 
 and applauses of the mob. For this reason I live in an 
 obscure situation in one of the courts of the Temple. 
 
 - C. L." 
 
 " I send you all of Coleridge's letters '* to me, which I have 
 preserved : some of them are upon the subject of my play. 
 I also send you Kemble s two letters, and the prompter s 
 courteous epistle, with a curious critique on ' Pride's Cure,' 
 by a young Physician from Edinbro', who modestly sug- 
 gests quite another kind of a plot. These are monuments 
 of my disappointment which I like to preserve. 
 
 " In Coleridge's letters you will find a good deal of 
 amusement, to see genuine talent stiniggling against a 
 pompous display of it. I also send you the Professors 
 letter to me, (careful professor ! to conceal his name even 
 from his correspondent,) ere yet the Professor's pride was 
 cured. Oh ! monstrous and almost satanical pride! 
 
 " You will carefully keep all (except the Scotch Doctor's, 
 n^hicli hum) in statu quo, till I come to claim mine own. 
 
 " C. Lamb." 
 
 The follomng is in reply to a pressing invitation from 
 Mr. Wordsworth, to visit him at the Lakes. 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 "Jan. 30th, 180L 
 
 '' I ought before this to have replied to your very kind 
 invitation into Cumberland. With you and your sister 
 
 * Lamb afterwards, in some melancholy mood, destroyed all Coleridge's 
 Letters, and was so vexed with what he had done, that he never presci-ved 
 any letters which he received afterwards. 
 
LETTEK TO WORDSWOKTH. 129 
 
 I could gang anywhere ; but I am afraid whether I shall 
 ever be able to afford so desperate a journey. Separate 
 from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if 
 I never see a mountain in my life. I have passed all my 
 days in London, until I have formed as many and intense 
 local attachments, as any of you mountaineers can have 
 done with dead nature. The lighted shops of the Strand 
 and Fleet-street ; the innumerable trades, tradesmen, and 
 customers, coaches, waggons, playhouses ; all the bustle 
 and wickedness round about Covent Garden ; the very 
 women of the Town ; the watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles 
 — hfe awake, if you awake, at all hours of the night ; the 
 impossibility of being dull in Fleet-street ; the crowds, the 
 very dirt and mud, the sun shining upon houses and pave- 
 ments, the print-shops, the old-book stalls, parsons cheapen- 
 ing books, coffee-houses, steams of soups from kitchens, the 
 pantomimes — London itself a pantomime and a masquerade 
 — all these things work themselves into my mind, and feed 
 me without a power of satiating me. The wonder of these 
 sights impels me into night- walks about her crowded streets, 
 and I often shed tears in the motley Strand from fulness of 
 joy at so much life. All these emotions must be strange to 
 you ; so are your rural emotions to me. But consider, 
 what must I have been doing all my life, not to have lent 
 great portions of my heart with usury to such scenes ? 
 
 '' My attachments are all local, purely local — I have no 
 passion (or have had none since I w^as in love, and then it 
 was the spurious engendering of poetry and books,) to groves 
 and valleys. The rooms where I was born, the furniture 
 which has been before my eyes all my life, a book-case which 
 has followed me about like a faithful dog (only exceeding him 
 in knowledge,) wherever I have moved, old chairs, old tables, 
 streets, squares, where I have sunned myself, my old school, 
 — these are my mistresses — have I not enough, without your 
 mountains ? I do not envy you. I should pity you, did I 
 not know that the mind will make friends with anything. 
 Your sun, and moon, and skies, and hills, and lakes, affect 
 
 K 
 
130 LETTEES TO MANNING. 
 
 me no more, or scarcely come to me in more venerable 
 characters, than as a gilded room with tapestry and tapers, 
 where I might live with handsome visible objects. I con- 
 sider the clouds above me but as a roof beautifully painted, 
 but unable to satisfy the mind ; and at last, like the pictures 
 of the apartment of a connoisseur, unable to afford him any 
 longer a pleasure. So fading upon me, from disuse, have 
 been the beauties of Nature, as they have been confinedly 
 called; so ever fresh, and green, and warm are all the 
 inventions of men, and assemblies of men in this great city. 
 I should certainly have laughed with dear Joanna*. 
 
 " Give my kindest love, and my sister's, to D. and your- 
 self. And a kiss from me to little Barbara Lewthwaitef. 
 Thank you for liking my play ! 
 
 " C. L." 
 
 The next two letters were written to Manning when on a 
 tour upon the Continent 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 "Feb. 15th, 1802. 
 
 " Ajyrojws, I think you wrong about my play. All the 
 omissions are right. And the supplementaiy scene, in which 
 Sandford narrates the manner in which his master is affected, 
 is the best in the book. It stands where a hodge-podge of 
 German puerilities used to stand. I insist upon it that you 
 like that scene. Love me, love that scene. I will now 
 transcribe the ' Londoner' (No. 1), and wind up all with 
 affection and humble servant at the end." 
 
 [Here was transcribed the essay called " The Londoner," 
 which was published some years afterwards in " The 
 
 ^ Alluding to the Inscription of Wordsworth's, entitled " Joanna,'^ con- 
 taining a magnificent description of the effect of laughter echoing amidst 
 the great mountains of Westmoreland. 
 
 + Alluding to Wordsworth's poem^ ^^ The Pet Lamb." 
 
LETTEES TO MANNING. 131 
 
 Eeflector," and which forms part of Lamb's collected works.] 
 He then proceeds : — 
 
 " ' What is all this about ! ' said Mrs. Shandy. ' A story 
 of a cock and a bull,' said Yorick : and so it is ; but Manning 
 will take good-naturedly what God ivill send him across the 
 water : only I hope he won't shut his eyes, and open his 
 mouth, as the children say, for that is the way to gape, and 
 not to read. Manning, continue your laudable purpose of 
 making me your register. I will render back all your 
 remarks ; and 7, not you, shall have received usury by 
 having read them. In the mean time, may the great Spirit 
 have you in his keeping, and preserve our Englishman from 
 the inoculation of frivolity and sin upon French earth. 
 
 '' Allons — or what is it you say, instead of good-bye ? 
 
 '' Mary sends her kind remembrance, and covets the 
 remarks equally with me. 
 
 " C. Lamb." 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 " My dear Manning, — I must positively write, or I shall 
 miss you at Toulouse. I sit here like a decayed minute- 
 hand (I lie ; that does not sit,) and being myself the exponent 
 of no time, take no heed how the clocks about me are going. 
 You possibly by this time may have explored all Italy, and 
 toppled, unawares, into Etna, while you went too near those 
 rotten-jawed, gap-toothed, old worn-out chaps of hell, — while 
 I am meditating a quiescent letter to the honest post-master 
 of Toulouse. But in case you should not have been felo 
 de se, this is to tell you, that your letter was quite to my 
 palate — in particular your just remarks upon Industry, 
 cursed Industry, (though indeed you left me to explore the 
 reason,) were highly relishing. I have often wished I hved 
 in the golden age, when shepherds lay stretched upon flowers, 
 
 k2 
 
132 LETTEES TO ]\IANNING. 
 
 — the genius there is in a man's natural idle face, that has 
 not learned his multiplication table ! before doubt, and pro- 
 positions, and corollaries, got into the world ! 
 
 * >I^ 5ic :f: 5l^ 
 
 " Apropos : if you should go to Florence or to Kome, 
 inquire what works are extant in gold, silver, bronze, or 
 marble, of Benvenuto Cellini, a Florentine artist, whose 
 Life, doubtless, you have read ; or, if not, without con- 
 troversy, you must read, so hark ye, send for it immediately 
 from Lane s circulating library. It is always put among the 
 romances, very properly ; but you have read it, I suppose. 
 In particular, inquire at Florence for his colossal bronze 
 statue (in the grand square, or somewhere) of Perseus. 
 You may read the story in ' Tooke's Pantheon.' Nothing 
 material has transpired in these parts. Coleridge has in- 
 dited a violent philippic against Mr. Fox in the ' Morning 
 Post,' which is a compound of expressions of humility, 
 gentleman-ushering-in most arrogant charges. It will do 
 Mr. Fox no real injury among those that know him." 
 
 In the summer of 1803, Lamb, in company with his 
 sister, visited the lakes, and spent three weeks with Coleridge 
 at Keswick. There he also met the true annihilater of the 
 slave-trade, Thomas Clarkson, who was then enjoying a 
 necessary respite from his stupendous labours, in a cottage 
 on the borders of Ulswater. Lamb had no taste for oratorical 
 philanthropy; but he felt the grandeur and simplicity of 
 Clarkson's character, and appreciated the unexampled self- 
 denial with which he steeled his heart, trembling with 
 nervous sensibility, to endure intimate acquaintance with 
 the foulest details of guilt and wickedness which he lived, 
 and could have died, to abolish. Wordsworth was not in 
 the Lake-country during Lamb's visit ; but he made amends 
 by spending some time in town after Lamb's return, and 
 
LETTER TO COLERIDGE. ] 33 
 
 then quitted it for Yorkshire to be married. Lamb's fol- 
 lowing letters show that he made some advances towards 
 fellowship with the hills which at a distance he had treated 
 so cavalierly ; but his feelings never heartily associated with 
 " the bare earth, and mountains bare," which sufficed 
 Wordsworth ; he rather loved to cleave to the little hints 
 and suggestions of nature in the midst of crowded cities. In 
 his latter years I have heard him, when longing after London 
 among the pleasant fields of Enfield, declare that his love 
 of natural scenery would be abundantly satisfied by the 
 patches of long waving grass, and the stunted trees, that 
 blacken in the old-church-yard nooks which you may yet 
 find bordering on Thames-street. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 ^^Sept. 8th, 1802. 
 
 " Dear Coleridge, — I thought of not writing till we had 
 performed some of our commissions ; but we have been 
 hindered from setting about them, which yet shall be done 
 to a tittle. We got home very pleasantly on Sunday. Mary 
 is a good deal fatigued, and finds the difference of going to 
 a place, and coming from it. I feel that I shall remember 
 your momitains to the last day I live. They haunt me per- 
 petually. I am like a man who has been falling in love 
 unknown to himself, which he finds out when he leaves the 
 lady. I do not remember any very strong impression while 
 they were present; but, being gone, their mementos are 
 shelved in my brain. We passed a very pleasant little time 
 with the Clarksons. The Wordswortbs are at Montague's 
 rooms, near neighbours to us.^^ They dined with us yes- 
 terday, and I was their guide to Bartlemy Fair ! " 
 
 ^ Mr. Basil Montague and his lady^ who were, during LamVs life, 
 among his most cordial and most honoured friends. 
 
134 LETTER TO MANNING. 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 <'24th Sept. 1802, London. 
 
 '' My dear Manning, — Since the date of my last letter, I 
 have been a traveller. A strong desire seized me of visiting 
 remote regions. My first impulse was to go and see Paris. 
 It was a trivial objection to my aspiring mind, that I did 
 not understand a word of the language, since I certainly 
 intend some time in my life to see Paris, and equally cer- 
 tainly intend never to learn the language ; therefore that 
 could be no objection. However, I am very glad I did not 
 go, because you had left Paris (I see) before I could have 
 set out. I believe, Stoddart promising to go with me another 
 year, prevented that plan. My next scheme (for to my 
 restless, ambitious mind London was become abed of thorns) 
 was to visit the far-famed peak in Derbyshire, where the 
 Devil sits, they say, without breeches. This my purer 
 mind rejected as indelicate. And my final resolve was, a 
 tour to the lakes. I set out with Mary to Keswick, without 
 giving Coleridge any notice, for, my time being precious, 
 did not admit of it. He received us with all the hospitality 
 in the world, and gave up his time to show us all the wonders 
 of the country. He dwells upon a small hill by the side of 
 Keswick, in a comfortable house, quite enveloped on all sides 
 by a net of mountains : great floundering bears and monsters 
 they seemed, all couchant and asleep. We got in in the 
 evening, travelling in a post-chaise from Penrith, in the 
 midst of a gorgeous sunshine, which transmuted all the 
 mountains into colours, purple, &c. &c. We thought we 
 had got into fairy-land. But that went off (as it never came 
 again, while we stayed we had no more fine sunsets) ; and 
 we entered Coleridge's comfortable study just in the dusk, 
 when the mountains were all dark with clouds upon their 
 heads. Such an impression I never received from objects 
 of sight before, nor do I suppose that I can ever again. 
 Glorious creatures, fine old fellows, Skiddaw, &c. I never 
 
LETTER TO MANNING. 135 
 
 shall forget ye, how ye lay about that night, like an intrench- 
 ment; gone to bed, as it seemed for the night, but promising 
 that ye were to be seen in the morning. Coleridge had got 
 a blazing fire in his study ; which is a large, antique, ill- 
 shaped room, with an old-fashioned organ, never played 
 upon, big enough for a church, shelves of scattered folios, an 
 iEolian harp, and an old sofa, half bed, &c. And all looking 
 out upon the last fading view of Skiddaw, and his broad- 
 breasted brethren : what a night ! Here we stayed three 
 full weeks, in which time I visited Wordsworth's cottage, 
 where we stayed a day or two with the Clarksons (good 
 people, and most hospitable, at whose house we tarried one 
 day and night,) and saw Lloyd. The Words worths were 
 gone to Calais. They have since been in London, and past 
 much time with us : he is now gone into Yorkshire to be 
 married. So we have seen Keswick, Grasmere, Ambleside, 
 CJls water (where the Clarksons live), and a place at the 
 other end of Ulswater ; I forget the name ^- ; to which we 
 travelled on a very sultry day, over the middle of Helvellyn. 
 We have clambered up to the top of Skiddaw, and I have 
 waded up the bed of Lodore. In fine, I have satisfied 
 myself, that there is such a thing as that which tourists call 
 romantic, which I very much suspected before : they make 
 such a spluttering about it, and toss their splendid epithets 
 around them, till they give as dim a light as at four o'clock 
 next morning the lamps do after an illumination. Mary was 
 excessively tired, when she got about half-way up Skiddaw, 
 but we came to a cold rill (than which nothing can be 
 imagined more cold, running over cold stones), and with the 
 reinforcement of a draught of cold water she surmounted it 
 most manfully. Oh, its fine black head, and the bleak air 
 atop of it, with a prospect of mountains all about and about, 
 making you giddy; and then Scotland afar off, and the 
 border countries so famous in song and ballad ! It was a 
 day that will stand out, like a mountain, I am sure, in my 
 
 * Patterdale. 
 
136 LETTEE TO MANNING. 
 
 life. But I am returned (I have now been come home near 
 three weeks — I was a month out), and you cannot conceive 
 the degradation I felt at first, from being accustomed to 
 wander free as air among mountains, and bathe in rivers 
 without being controlled by any one, to come home and 
 work. I felt very little, I had been dreaming I was a very 
 great man. But that is going off, and I find I shall conform 
 in time to that state of life to which it has pleased God to 
 call me. Besides, after all, Fleet Street and the Strand are 
 better places to live in for good and all than amidst Skiddaw. 
 Still, I turn back to those great places where I wandered 
 about, participating in their greatness. After all, I could 
 not live in Skiddaw. I could spend a year, two, tliree years 
 among them, but I must have a prospect of seeing Fleet 
 Street at the end of that time, or I should mope and pine 
 away, I know. Still, Skiddaw is a fine creature. My habits 
 are changing, I think, i. e. from drunk to sober. Whether 
 I shall be happier or not, remains to be proved. I shall cer- 
 tainly be more happy in a morning ; but whether I shall 
 not sacrifice the fat, and the marrow, and the Iddneys, 
 i. e, the night, glorious care-drowning night, that heals all 
 our wrongs, pours wine into our mortifications, changes the 
 scene from indifferent and flat to bright and brilliant ? — 
 O Manning, if I should have formed a diabolical resolution, 
 by the time you come to England, of not admitting any 
 spirituous liquors into my house, will you be my guest on 
 such shame-worthy terms ? Is life, with such limitations, 
 worth trying? The truth is, that my liquors bring a nest 
 of friendly harpies about my house, who consume me. This 
 is a pitiful tale to be read at St. Gothard, but it is just now 
 
 nearest my heart. F is a ruined man. He is hiding 
 
 himself from his creditors, and has sent his wife and children 
 
 into the countiy. , my other drunken companion (that 
 
 has been : nam hie cEestus artemque repono), is turned 
 editor of a Naval Chronicle. Godwin continues a steady 
 friend, though the same facility does not remain of visiting 
 him often. Holcroft is not yet come to town. I expect to 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 137 
 
 see him, and will deliver your message. Things come 
 crowding in to say, and no room for 'em. Some things are 
 too little to be told, i. e. to have a preference ; some are 
 too big and circumstantial. Thanks for yours, which was 
 most delicious. Would I had been with you, benighted, &c. 
 I fear my head is turned with w^andering. I shall never be 
 the same acquiescent being. Farewell ; write again quickly, 
 for I shall not like to hazard a letter, not knowing where 
 the fates have carried you. Farewell, my dear fellow. 
 
 ££ 
 
 C. Lamb." 
 
 Lamb was fond of Latin composition when at school, and 
 was then praised for it. He was always fond of reading 
 Latin verse, and late in life taught his sister to read it. 
 About this time, he hazarded the following Latin letter to 
 Coleridge, of whose classical acquirements he stood in awe. 
 
 CAROLUS AGNUS COLERIDGIO SUO S. 
 
 *' Carissime, — Scribis, ut nummos scilicet epistolarios 
 solvam et postremo in Tartara abeam : immo tu potius Tar- 
 taricum (ut aiunt) deprehendisti, qui me vernacula mea 
 lingua pro scriba conductitio per tot annos satis eleganter 
 usum ad Latine impure et canino fere ore latrandum per 
 tuasmet epistolas bene compositas et concinnatas percellire 
 studueris. Conabor tamen : Attamen vereor, ut ^des istas 
 nostri Christi, inter quas tanta diligentia magistri improba 
 bonis literulis, quasi per clysterem quondam injectis, infra 
 supraque olim penitus imbutus fui, Barnesii et Marklandii 
 doctissimorum virorum nominibus adhuc gaudentes, barba- 
 rismis meis peregrinis et aliunde queesitis valde dehonestav- 
 ero. Sed pergere quocunque placet. Adeste igitur, quotquot 
 estis, conjugationum declinationumve turmse, terribilia spec- 
 tra, et tu imprimis ades. Umbra et Imago maxima obsoletae 
 (Diis gratise) Virgse, qua novissime in mentem recepta, 
 
138 
 
 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 horrescunt subito natales, et parum cleest quo minus braccas 
 meas ultro usque ad crura demittam, et ipse puer pueri.liter 
 ejulem. 
 
 '' Ista tua Carmina Chamouniana satis grandia esse mihi 
 constat ; sed hoc mihi nonnihil displicet, quod in iis illse 
 montium Grisosonum inter se responsiones totidem reboant 
 anglice, God, God, baud alitor atque temet audivi tuas 
 montes Cumbrianas resonare docentes, Tod, Tod, nempe 
 Doctorem infelicem: vocem certe baud Deum Sonantem. 
 Pro caeteris plaudo. 
 
 " Itidem comparationes istas tuas satis callidas et lepidas 
 certe novi : sed quid boc ad verum ? cum illi Consulari viro 
 et mentem irritabilem istum Julianum; et etiam astutias 
 frigidulas quasdem Augusto propriores, nequaquam con- 
 gruenter uno afflatu comparationis causa insedisse affirma- 
 veris : necnon nescio quid similitudinis etiam cum Tiberio 
 tertio in loco solicite produxeris. Quid tibi equidem cum 
 uno vel altero Caesare, cum universi Duodecim ad compara- 
 tiones tuas se ultro tulerint ? Praeterea, vetustati adnutans, 
 comparationes iniquas odi. 
 
 " Istas Wordswortbianas nuptias (vel potius cujusdam 
 Edrnwidii tui) te retulisse mirificum gaudeo. Valeas, 
 Maria, fortunata nimium, et antiquae illae Mariae Virgini 
 (comparatione plusquam Caesareana) forsitan comparanda, 
 quoniam * beata inter mulieres:' et etiam fortasse Words- 
 wortbium ipsum tuum maritum Angelo Salutatori aequare 
 fas erit, quoniam e Coelo (ut ille) descendunt et Musae et 
 ipsae Musicolae : at Wordswortbium Musarum observantis- 
 simum semper novi. Necnon te quoque affinitate bac nova, 
 Dorothea, gratulor : et tu certe alteinim donum Dei. 
 
 " Istum Ludum, quem tu, Coleridgi, Americanum garris, 
 a Ludo (ut Ludi sunt) maxime abborrentem praetereo : 
 nempe quid ad Ludum attinet, totius illae gentis Columbianae, 
 a nostra gente, eadem stirpe orta, ludi singuli causa volun- 
 tatem perperam alienare ? Quaeso ego materiam ludi : te 
 Bella ingeris. 
 
 *' Denique valeas, et quid de Latinitate mea putes, dicas : 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 189 
 
 facias ut opossum ilium nostrum volantem vel (ut tu mails) 
 quendam Piscem errabundum, a me salvum et pulclierrimum 
 esse jubeas. Valeant uxor tua cum Hartleiio nostro. Soror 
 mea salva est et ego : vos et ipsa salvere jubet. Ulterius 
 progrediri non liquet : homo sum aeratus. 
 
 " P.S. Pene mihi exciderat, apud me esse Librorum a 
 Johanno Miltono Latine scrip torum volumina duo, quae 
 (Deo volente) cum caeteris tuis libris ocyus citius per Maria 
 ad te missura curabo ; sed me in hoc tali genere rerum 
 nullo modo festinmitem novisti : habes confitentem reum. 
 Hoc solum dici restat, praedicta volumina pulchra esse et 
 omnia opera Latina J. M. in se continere. Circa defen- 
 sionem istam Pro Pop^. Ang^. acerrimam in prsesens ipse 
 praeclaro gaudio moror. 
 
 '' Jussa tua Stuartina faciam ut diligenter colam. 
 
 *' Iterum iterumque valeas : 
 
 '' Et facias memor sis nostri." 
 
 The publication of the second volume of the " Antho- 
 logy" gave occasion to the following letter : — 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 " In the next edition of the ' Anthology' (which Phoebus 
 avert, and those nine other wandering maids also !) please to 
 blot out gentle-hearted, and substitute drunken dog, ragged- 
 head, seld-shaven, odd-eyed, stuttering, or any other epithet 
 which truly and properly belongs to the gentleman in ques- 
 tion. And for Charles read Tom, or Bob, or Ptichard, for 
 mere delicacy. Hang you, I was beginning to forgive you, 
 and believe in earnest that the lugging in of my proper 
 name was purely unintentional on your part, when looking 
 back for further conviction, stares me in the face Charles 
 Lamb of the India House. Noiv I am convinced it was all 
 done in malice, heaped, sack-upon-sack, congregated, studied 
 
140 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 malice. You dog ! your 141st page shall not save you. I 
 own I was just ready to acknowledge that there is a some- 
 thing not unlike good poetry in that page, if you had not 
 run into the uninteUigible abstraction-fit about the manner 
 of the Deity s making spirits perceive his presence. God, 
 nor created thing alive, can receive any honour from such 
 thin, show-box attributes. By-the-by, where did you pick 
 up that scandalous piece of private history about the angel 
 and the Duchess of Devonshire ? If it is a fiction of your 
 own, why truly it is a very modest one for you. Now I do 
 affirm, that Lewti is a very beautiful poem. I ivas in 
 earnest when I praised it. It describes a silly species of 
 one not the wisest of passions. Therefore it cannot deeply 
 affect a disenthralled mind. But such imagery, such 
 novelty, such delicacy, and such versification never got into 
 an ' Anthology' before. I am only sorry that the cause of 
 all the passionate complaint is not greater than the trifling 
 circumstance of Lewti being out of temper one day. Gaul- 
 berto certainly has considerable originality, but sadly wants 
 finishing. It is, as it is, one of the very best in the book. 
 Next to Lewti I like the Raven, which has a good deal of 
 humour. I was pleased to see it again, for you once sent it 
 me, and I have lost the letter which contained it. Now I 
 am on the subject of Anthologies, I must say I am sorry 
 the old pastoral way is fallen into disrepute. The gentry 
 which now indite sonnets are certainly the legitimate 
 descendants of the ancient shepherds. The same simpering 
 face of description, the old family face, is visibly continued 
 in the line. Some of their ancestors' labours are yet to be 
 found in Allan Ramsay s and Jacob Tonson's Miscellanies. 
 But miscellanies decaying, and the old pastoral way dying 
 of mere want, their successors (driven from their paternal 
 acres) now-a-days settle and live upon Magazines and Antho- 
 logies. This race of men are uncommonly addicted to 
 superstition. Some of them are idolaters and worship the 
 moon. Others deify qualities, as love, friendship, sensibi- 
 lity ; or bare accidents, as Solitude. Grief and Melancholy 
 
LETTERS TO COI.EEIDGE. 141 
 
 have their respective altars and temples among them, as the 
 heathens builded theirs to Mors, Febris, Pallor, &c. They 
 all agree in ascribing a peculiar sanctity to the number 
 fourteen. One of their own legislators affirmeth, that what- 
 ever exceeds that number ' encroacheth upon the province 
 of the elegy ' — vice versa, whatever ' cometh short of that 
 number abutteth upon the premises of the epigram.' I have 
 been able to discover but few images in their temples, 
 which, like the caves of Delphos of old, are famous for 
 giving ecJioes. They impute a religious importance to the 
 letter O, whether because by its roundness it is thought to 
 typify the moon, their principal goddess, or for its analogies 
 to their own labours, all ending where they began, or for 
 whatever other high and mystical reference, I have never 
 been able to discover, but I observe they never begin their 
 invocations to tbeir gods without it, except indeed one 
 insignificant sect among them, who use the Doric A, pro- 
 nounced like Ah ! broad, instead. These boast to have 
 restored the old Dorian mood. " C. L." 
 
 The follomng fragment of a letter about this time to 
 Coleridge refers to an offer of Coleridge to supply Lamb 
 with literal translations from the German, which he 
 might versify for the " Morning Post," for the increase of 
 Lamb's slender income. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 "Oct. 11th, 1802. 
 
 *' Dear Coleridge, — Your offer about the German poems 
 is exceedingly kind ; but I do not think it a wise specula- 
 tion, because the time it would take you to put them into 
 prose would be nearly as great as if you versified them. 
 Indeed I am sure you could do the one nearly as soon as 
 the other ; so that instead of a division of labour, it 
 would be only a multiplication. But I wdll think of your 
 
142 LETTERS TO COLEEIDGE. 
 
 offer in another light. I dare say I could find many things, 
 of a hght nature, to suit that paper, which you would not 
 object to pass upon Stuart as your own, and I should come 
 in for some light profits, and Stuart think the more highly 
 of your assiduity. ' Bishop Hall's Characters ' I know nothing 
 about, having never seen them. But I will reconsider 
 your offer, which is very plausible ; for as to the drudgery 
 of going every day to an editor with my scraps, like a 
 pedlar, for him to pick out and tumble about my ribbons 
 and posies, and to wait in his lobby, &c., no money could 
 make up for the degradation. You are in too high request 
 with him to have anything unpleasant of that sort to 
 submit to. 
 
 [The letter refers to several articles and books which 
 Lamb promised to send to Coleridge, and proceeds : — ] 
 
 ''You must write me word whether the Miltons are 
 worth paying carriage for. You have a Milton ; but it is 
 pleasanter to eat one s own peas out of one s own garden, 
 than to buy them by the peck at Covent Garden ; and a 
 book reads the better, which is our own, and has been so 
 long known to us, that we know the topography of its blots, 
 and dog's-ears, and can trace the dirt in it to having read 
 it at tea with buttered muffins, or over a pipe, which I 
 think is the maximum. But, Coleridge, you must accept 
 these little things, and not think of returning money for 
 them, for I do not set up for a factor or general agent. As 
 for fantastic debts of 161, , 111 think you were dreaming, 
 and not trouble myself seriously to attend to you. My 
 bad Latin you properly correct ; but natales for nates was 
 an inadvertency : I knew better. Progrediri, or progredi, 
 I thought indifferent, my authority being Ainsworth. 
 However, as I have got a fit of Latin, you will now and 
 then indulge me with an epistola. I pay the postage of 
 this, and propose doing it by turns. In that case I can 
 now and then write to you without remorse ; not that you 
 
LETTEES TO COLERIDGE. 143 
 
 would mind the money, but you have not always ready 
 cash to answer small demands, the epistolarii nummi. 
 
 " Your ' Epigram on the Sun and Moon in Germany ' is 
 admirable. Take 'em all together, they are as good as 
 Harrington's. I will muster up all the conceits I can, and 
 you shall have a packet some day. You and I together can 
 answer all demands surely : you, mounted on a terrible 
 charger, (like Homer, in the Battle of the Books,) at the 
 head of the cavalry : I will lead the light horse. I have 
 just heard from Stoddart. Allen and he intend taking 
 Keswick in their way home. Allen wished particularly to 
 have it a secret that he is in Scotland, and wrote to 
 me accordingly very urgently. As luck was, I had told 
 not above three or four ; but Mary had told Mrs. Green, 
 of Christ's Hospital ! For the present, farewell : never 
 forgetting love to Pipes and his friends. '' C. Lamb." 
 
 The following letter embodies in strong language Lamb's 
 disgust at the rational mode of educating children. While 
 he gave utterance to a deep and hearted feeling of jealousy 
 for the old delightful books of fancy, which were banished 
 by the sense of Mrs. Barbauld, he cherished great respect 
 for that lady's power as a true English prose writer; and 
 spoke often of her "Essay on Inconsistent Expectations," 
 as alike bold and original in thought and elegant in 
 style. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 "Oct. 23rd, 1802. 
 
 '' I read daily your political essays. I was particularly 
 pleased with ' Once a Jacobin : ' though the argument is 
 obvious enough, the style was less swelling than your 
 things sometimes are, and it was plausible ad j^ojmliim. A 
 vessel has just arrived from Jamaica with the news of poor 
 Sam. Le Grice's death. He died at Jamaica of the 
 yellow fever. His course was rapid and he had been very 
 
144 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 foolish, but I believe there was more of kindness and 
 warmth in him than in almost any other of our school- 
 fellows. The annual meeting of the Blues is to-morrow, 
 at the London Tavern, where poor Sammy dined with them 
 two years ago, and attracted the notice of all by the singular 
 foppishness of his dress. When men go off the stage so 
 early, it scarce seems a noticeable thing in their epitaphs, 
 whether they had been wise or silly in their lifetime. 
 
 "lam glad the snuff and Pi-pos's- books please. 
 ' Goody Two Shoes ' is almost out of print. Mrs. Bar- 
 bauld's stuff has banished all the old classics of the 
 nursery ; and the shopman at Newbery s hardly deigned to 
 reach them off an old exploded corner of a shelf, when 
 Mary asked for them. Mrs. B.'s and Mrs. Trimmer's 
 nonsense lay in piles about. Knowledge insignificant and 
 vapid as Mrs. B. s books convey, it seems, must come to a 
 child in the shape of knoivledge, and his empty noddle must 
 be turned with conceit of his own powers when he has 
 learnt, that a horse is an animal, and Billy is better than a 
 horse, and such like : instead of that beautiful interest in 
 wild tales, which made the child a man, while all the time 
 he suspected himself to be no bigger than a child. Science 
 has succeeded to poetry no less in the little walks of 
 children than with men. Is there no possibility of avert- 
 ing this sore evil ? Think what you would have been now, 
 if instead of being fed with tales and old wives' fables in 
 childhood, you had been crammed with geography and 
 natural history ! 
 
 '' Hang them! — I mean the cursed Barbauld crew, those 
 blights and blasts of all that is human in man and child. 
 
 ''As to the translations, let me do two or three hundred 
 lines, and then do you try the nostrums upon Stuart in any 
 way you please. If they go down, I will bray more. In 
 fact, if I got or could but get 601. a year only, in addition 
 to what I have, I should live in affluence. 
 
 * A nickname of endearment for little Hartley Coleridge. 
 
LETTEES TO COLEKTDGE. 145 
 
 " Have you anticipated it, or could not you give a parallel 
 of Bonaparte with Cromwell, particularly as to the contrast 
 in their deeds affecting foreign states ? Cromwells inter- 
 ference for the Albigenses, B.'s against the Swiss. Then 
 religion would come in ; and Milton and you could rant 
 about our countrymen of that period. This is a hasty 
 suggestion, the more hasty because I want my supper. I 
 have just finished Chapman's Homer. Did you ever read 
 it ? — it has most the continuous power of interesting you 
 all along, like a rapid original, of any ; and in the uncom- 
 mon excellence of the more finished parts goes beyond 
 Fairfax or any of 'em. The metre is fourteen syllables, 
 and capable of all sweetness and grandeur. Cowper's pon- 
 derous blank verse detains you every step with some heavy 
 Miltonism ; Chapman gallops off with you his own free pace. 
 Take a simile for example. The council breaks up — 
 
 ^ Being abroad, the earth was overlaid 
 
 With flockers to them, that came forth ; as when of frequent bees 
 
 Swarms rise out of a hollow rock, repairing the degrees 
 
 Of their egression endlessly^ ivith ever rising neiv 
 
 From forth their sweet nest ; as their store, still as it faded, grew, 
 
 A7id never woidd cease sending forth her clusters to the spiing. 
 
 They still crc»wd out so ; this flock here, that there, belabouring 
 
 The loaded flowers. So/ &c. &c. 
 
 *' What endless egression of phrases the dog commands ! 
 
 *' Take another, Agamemnon wounded, bearing his wound 
 heroically for the sake of the army (look below) to a woman 
 in labour. 
 
 ^ He, with his lance, sword, mighty stones, pour'd his heroic wreak 
 
 On other squadrons of the foe, whiles yet warm blood did break 
 
 Thro' his cleft veins : but when the wound was quite exhaust and crude, 
 
 The eager anguish did approve his princely fortitude. 
 
 As when most sharp and bitter pangs distract a labouring dame, 
 
 Which the divine Ilithise, that rule the painful frame 
 
 Of human childbirth, pour on her ; the Ilithiae that are 
 
 The daughters of Saturnia ; with whose extreme repair 
 
 The woman in her travail strives to take the worst it gives; 
 
 With thought, it must be^ 'tis lovers fruit, the end for which she lives; 
 
 The mean to make herself new born^ what comforts will redound : 
 
 So,' &c. 
 
 L 
 
146 LETTEKS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 " I will tell you more about Chapman and his pe^culiari- 
 ties in my next. I am much interested in him. 
 
 '' Yours ever affectionately, and Pi-Pos's, 
 
 -C. L." 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 Nov. 4th, 1802. 
 
 '' Observe, there comes to you, by the Kendal waggon 
 to-morrow, the illustrious 5th of November, a box, contain- 
 ing the Miltons, the strange American Bible, with White's 
 brief note, to which you will attend ; ' Baxter's Holy Com- 
 monwealth,' for which you stand indebted to me 3^. Qd. ; an 
 odd volume of Montaigne, being of no use to me, I having 
 the whole ; certain books belonging to Wordsworth, as do 
 also the strange thick-hoofed shoes, which are very much 
 admired at in London. iVll these sundries I commend to 
 your most strenuous looking after. If you find the Miltons 
 in certain parts dirtied and soiled with a crumb of right 
 Gloucester blacked in the candle, (my usual supper,) or per- 
 adventure a stray ash of tobacco wafted into the crevices, 
 look to that passage more especially : depend upon it, it 
 contains good matter. I have got your little Milton, which, 
 as it contains ' Salmasius' — and I make a rule of never 
 hearing but one side of the question (why should I distract 
 myself?) I shall return to you, when I pick up the Latina 
 opera. The first Defence is the greatest work among 
 them, because it is uniformly great, and such as is befitting 
 the very mouth of a great nation, speaking for itself. But 
 the second Defence, which is but a succession of splendid 
 episodes, slightly tied together, has one passage which, if 
 you have not read, I conjure you to lose no time, but read 
 it ; it is his consolations in his blindness, which had been 
 made a reproach to him. It begins whimsically, with 
 poetical flourishes about Tiresias and other blind worthies, 
 (which still are mainly interesting as displaying his singular 
 mind, and in what degree poetry entered into his daily soul, 
 
LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 147 
 
 not by fits and impulses, but engrained and innate,) but the 
 concluding page, i.e. of this loassage, (not of the Defensio,) 
 which you will easily find, divested of all brags and 
 flourishes, gives so rational, so true an enumeration of his 
 comforts, so human, that it cannot be read without the 
 deepest interest. Take one touch of the religious part : — 
 ' Et sane baud ultima Dei cura cseci — {we blind folks, I 
 understand it ; not nos for ego) — sumus ; qui nos, quominus 
 quicquam aliud prseter ipsum cemere valemus, eo clemen- 
 tius atque benignius respicere dignatur. Vae qui illudit nos, 
 vae qui Isedit, execratione publica devovendo ; nos ab injuriis 
 hominum non modo incolumes, sed pene sacros diviua lex 
 reddidit, divinus favor ; nee tam oculorum hehetudiiie quam 
 ccelestmm alarimi umbra has nobis fecisse tenebras videtur, 
 factas illustrare rursus interiore ac longe praestabiliore 
 lumine baud raro solet. Hue refero, quod et amici oJBficio- 
 sius nunc etiam quam solebant, colunt, observant, adsunt; 
 quod et nonnulli sunt, quibuscum Pyladeas atque Theseas 
 alternare voces verorum amicorum liceat, 
 
 '^ Vade gubernacukim mei pedis. 
 Da manum ministro amico. 
 Da coUo manum tuam^ ductor autem vise ero tibi ego."' 
 
 All this, and much more, is highly pleasing to know. But 
 you may easily find it ; — and I don't know why I put down 
 so many words about it, but for the pleasure of writing to 
 you, and the want of another topic. 
 
 '' Yours ever, " C, Lamb. 
 
 '* To-morrow I expect with anxiety S. T. C.'s letter to 
 Mr. Fox." 
 
 The year 1803 passed without any event to disturb the 
 duU current of Lamb's toilsome life. He wrote nothing 
 this year, except some newspaper squibs, and the delightful 
 little poem on the death of Hester Savory. This he sent 
 
 L 2 
 
148 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 to Manning at Paris, with the following account of its 
 subject : — 
 
 *' Dear Manning, I send you some verses I have made on 
 the death of a young Quaker you may have heard me speak 
 of as being in love with for some years while I lived at 
 Pentonville, though I had never spoken to her in my life. 
 She died about a month since. If you have interest with 
 the Abbe de Lisle, you may get 'em translated : he has done 
 as much for the Georgics." 
 
 The verses must have been written in the very happiest 
 of Lamb's serious mood. I cannot refrain from the luxury 
 of quoting the conclusion, though many readers have it by 
 heart. 
 
 ^^ My sprightly neighbour, gone before 
 To that unknown and silent shore! 
 Shall we not meet as heretofore, 
 
 Some summer morning. 
 
 When from thy cheerful eyes a ray 
 Hath struck a bliss upon the day, 
 A bliss that would not go away, 
 
 A sweet forewarning ? '* 
 
 The following letters were written to Manning, at Paris, 
 while still haunted with the idea of oriental adventm'e. 
 
 TO MK. MANNINa. 
 
 "Feb. 19th, 1803. 
 
 '' My dear Manning, — The general scope of your letter 
 afforded no indications of insanity, but some particular 
 points raised a scruple. For God's sake don't think any 
 more of ' Independent Tartary.' What are you to do 
 among such Ethiopians ? Is there no lineal descendant of 
 Prester John ? Is the chair empty ? Is the sword un- 
 swayed ? — depend upon it they '11 never make you their 
 king, as long as any branch of that great stock is remaining. 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. ' 149 
 
 I tremble for your Christianity. They will certainly 
 circumcise you. Read Sir John Mandeville's travels to 
 cure you, or come over to England. There is a Tartar- 
 man now exhibiting at Exeter Change. Come and talk 
 with him, and hear what he says first. Indeed, he is no 
 very favourable specimen of his countrymen ! But perhaps 
 the best thing you can do, is to try to get the idea out of 
 your head. For this purpose repeat to yourself every night, 
 after you have said your prayers, the words. Independent 
 Tartary, Independent Tartary, two or three times, and 
 associate with them the idea of oblivion^ ('tis Hartley's 
 method with obstinate memories,) or say, Independent, 
 Independent, have I not already got an independence ? 
 That was a clever way of the old puritans, pun-divinity. 
 My dear friend, think what a sad pity it would be to bury 
 such parts in heathen countries, among nasty, unconversable, 
 horse-belching, Tartar-people ! Some say, they are Canni- 
 bals ; and then, conceive a Tartar- fellow eating my friend, 
 and adding the cool malignity of mustard and vinegar ! I 
 am afraid 'tis the reading of Chaucer has misled you ; his 
 foolish stories about Cambuscan, and the ring, and the horse 
 of brass. Believe me, there are no such things, 'tis all the 
 poet's invention; but if there were such darling things as 
 old Chaucer sings, I would u^j behind you on the horse of 
 brass, and frisk off for Prester John's country. But these 
 are all tales; a horse of brass never flew, and a king's 
 daughter never talked with birds ! The Tartars, really, 
 are a cold, insipid, smouchy set. You'll be sadly moped (if 
 you are not eaten) among them. Pray try and cure your- 
 self. Take hellebore (the counsel is Horace's, 'twas none 
 of my thought originally). Shave yourself oftener. Eat 
 no saffron, for saffron- eaters contract a terrible Tartar-like 
 yellow. Pray, to avoid the fiend. Eat nothing that gives 
 the heart-burn. Shave the upper lip. Go about like an 
 European. Read no books of voyages (they are nothing but 
 lies), only now and then a romance, to keep the fancy under. 
 Above all, don't go to any sights of wild beasts. That has 
 
150 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 been your ruin. Accustom yourself to write familiar letters, 
 on common subjects, to your friends in England, such as 
 are of a moderate understanding. And think about common 
 things more. I supped last night with Packman, and met 
 a merry natural captain, who pleases himself vastly with 
 once having made a pun at Otaheite in the 0. language/^ 
 'Tis the same man who said Shakspeare he liked, because 
 he was so much of the gentleman. Rickman is a man 
 'absolute in all numbers.' I think I may one day bring 
 you acquainted, if you do not go to Tartary first ; for you '11 
 never come back. Have a care, my dear friend, of Anthro- 
 pophagi ! their stomachs are always craving. 'Tis terrible 
 to be weighed out at fivepence a-pound. To sit at table 
 (the reverse of fishes in Holland), not as a guest, but as a 
 meat. 
 
 " God bless you : do come to England. Air and exer- 
 cise may do great things. Talk with some minister. Why 
 not your father ? 
 
 " God dispose all for the best. I have discharged my 
 duty. " Your sincere friend, 
 
 " C. Lamb." 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 **Not a sentence, not a syllable of Trismegistus, shall be 
 lost through my neglect. I am his word-banker, his store- 
 keeper of puns and syllogisms. You cannot conceive (and 
 if Trismegistus cannot, no man can) the strange joy which 
 I felt at the receipt of a letter from Paris. It seemed to 
 give me a learned importance, which placed me above all 
 who had not Parisian correspondents. BeHeve that I shall 
 carefully liusband every scrap, which will save you the 
 
 * Captain, afterwards Admiral Burney, "who became one of the most 
 constant attendants on Lamb's parties, and whose son, Martin, grew up in 
 his strongest regard, and received the honour of the dedication of the second 
 volume of his works. 
 
LETTEES TO MANNING. 151 
 
 trouble of memory, when you come back. You cannot write 
 things so trifling, let them only be about Paris, which I 
 shall not treasure. In particular, I must have parallels of 
 actors and actresses. I must be told if any building in 
 Paris is at all comparable to St. Paul's, which, contrary to 
 the usual mode of that part of our nature called admiration, 
 I have looked up to with unfading wonder, every morning 
 at ten o'clock, ever since it has lain in my way to business. 
 At noon I casually glance upon it, being hungry ; and 
 hunger has not much taste for the fine arts. Is any night- 
 walk comparable to a walk from St. Paul's to Charing Cross, 
 for lighting, and paving, crowds going and coming without 
 respite, the rattle of coaches, and the cheerfulness of shops ? 
 Have you seen a man guillotined yet ? is it as good as 
 hanging? are the women all painted, and the men all 
 monkeys ? or are there not a feiv that look like rational of 
 hoth sexes ? Are you and the first consul thick ? All this 
 expense of ink I may fairly put you to, as your letters will 
 not be solely for my proper pleasure ; but are to serve as 
 memoranda and notices, helps for short memory, a kind of 
 Ptumfordising recollection, for yourself on your return. 
 Your letter was just what a letter should be, crammed, and 
 very funny. Every part of it pleased me, till you came to 
 Paris, and your philosophical indolence, or indifference, 
 stung me. You cannot stir from your rooms till you know 
 the language ! What the devil ! — are men nothing but 
 word-trumpets ? are men all tongue and ear ? have these 
 creatures, that you and I profess to know something about, 
 no faces, gestures, gabble, no folly, no absurdity, no induc- 
 tion of French education upon the abstract idea of men and 
 women, no similitude nor dissimilitude to English ! Why ! 
 thou cursed Smellfungus ! your account of your landing and 
 reception, and Bullen, (I forget how you spell it, it was 
 spelt my way in Harry the Eighth's time,) was exactly in 
 that minute style which strong impressions inspike (writing 
 to a Frenchman, I write as a Frenchman would). It appears 
 to me, as if I should die with joy at the first landing in a 
 
152 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 foreign country. It is the nearest pleasure, which a grown 
 man can substitute for that unknown one, which he can 
 never know, the pleasure of the first entrance into life from 
 the womb. I dare say, in a short time, my habits would 
 come back like a ' stronger man ' armed, and drive out that 
 new pleasure; and I should soon sicken for known objects. 
 Nothing has transpired here that seems to me of sufficient 
 importance to send dry-shod over the water : but I suppose 
 you will want to be told some news. The best and the 
 worst to me is, that I have given up two guineas a week 
 at the * Post,' and regained my health and spirits, which 
 were upon the wane. I grew sick, and Stuart unsatisfied. 
 Ludisti satis, tempits abire est ; I must cut closer, that's all. 
 Mister Fell, or as you, with your usual facetiousness and 
 drollery, call him Mr. F + 11 has stopped short in the 
 middle of his play. Some friend has told him that it has 
 not the least merit in it. ! that I had the rectifying of 
 the Litany ! I would put in a libera nos [ScriiUores videlicet) 
 ab amicis ! That's all the news. A j^ropos (is it pedantry, 
 writing to a Frenchman, to express myself sometimes by a 
 French word, when an English one would not do as well ? 
 methinks, my thoughts fall naturally into it) — 
 
 ''C. L." 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 ''My dear Manning, — Although something of the latest, 
 and after two months' w^aiting, your letter was highly grati- 
 fying. Some parts want a little explication ; for example, 
 'the god-like face of the first consul.' What god does he 
 most resemble, Mars, Bacchus, or Apollo ? or the god 
 Serapis, who, flying (as Egyptian chronicles deliver) from the 
 fury of the dog Anubis (the hieroglyph of an English mas- 
 tiiff ), lighted upon Monomotapa (or the land of apes), by some 
 thought to be Old France, and there set up a tyranny, &c. 
 Our London prints of him represent him gloomy and 
 
LETTEES TO MANNING. ]53 
 
 sulky, like an angry Jupiter. 1 hear that he is very small, 
 even less than me. I envy you your access to this great 
 man, much more than your seances and conversaziones, 
 which I have a shrewd suspicion must be something dull. 
 What you assert concerning the actors of Paris, that they 
 exceed our comedians, bad as ours are, is impossible. In 
 one sense it may be true, that their fine gentlemen, in what 
 is called genteel comedy, may possibly be more brisk and 
 degage than Mr. Caulfield, or Mr. Whitfield ; but have any 
 of them the power to move laughter in excess ? or can a 
 Frenchman laugh ? Can they batter at your judicious ribs 
 till they shake, nothing loath to be so shaken ? This is 
 John Bull's criterion, and it shall be mine. You are 
 Frenchified. Both your taste and morals are corrupt and 
 perverted. By-and-by you will come to assert, that Buona- 
 parte is as great a general as the old Duke of Cumberland, 
 and deny that one Englishman can beat three Frenchmen. 
 Bead Henry the Fifth to restore your orthodoxy. All 
 things continue at a stay-still in London. I cannot repay 
 your new novelties with my stale reminiscences. Like the 
 e prodigal, I have spent my patrimony, and feed upon the 
 superannuated chaff and dry husks of repentance ; yet 
 sometimes I remember with pleasure the hounds and 
 horses, which I kept in the days of my prodigality. I find 
 nothing new, nor anything that has so much of the gloss 
 and dazzle of novelty, as may rebound in narrative, and 
 cast a reflective glimmer across the channel. Did I send 
 you an epitaph I scribbled upon a poor girl who died at 
 nineteen, a good girl, and a pretty girl, and a clever girl, 
 but strangely neglected by all her friends and kin ? 
 
 ' Under this cold marble stone 
 
 Sleep the sad remains of one 
 
 Who, when alive, by few or none 
 
 Was loved, as loved she might have been, 
 
 If she prosperous days had seen^ 
 
 Or had thriving been, I w^een. 
 
 Only this cold funeral stone 
 
 Tells she was beloved by one, 
 Who on the marble graves his moan.' 
 
154 HAZLITT. 
 
 *' Brief, and pretty, and tender, is it not? I send you 
 this, being the only piece of poetry ^ have done, since the 
 muses all went with T. M. to Paris. I have neither stuff 
 in my brain, nor paper in my drawer, to write you a longer 
 letter. Liquor, and company, and wicked tobacco, a' nights, 
 have quite dispericraniated me, as one may say ; but you, 
 who spiritualize upon Champagne, may continue to write 
 long long letters, and stuff em with amusement to the end. 
 Too long they cannot be, any more than a codicil to a will, 
 which leaves me sundry parks and manors not specified in 
 the deed. But don't be tivo months before you write again. 
 — These from merry old England, on the day of her valiant 
 patron St. George. " C. Lamb." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 [1804 to 1806.] 
 
 LETTERS TO MANNING, WORDSWORTH, RICKMAN, AND HAZLITT. 
 
 *' MR. H." WRITTEN, ACCEPTED, DAMNED. 
 
 Theee is no vestige of Lamb's correspondence in the 
 year 1804, nor does he seem to have written for the press. 
 This year, however, added to his list of friends — one in 
 whose conversation he took great delight, mitil death 
 severed them — William Hazlitt. This remarkable meta- 
 physician and critic had then just completed his first work, 
 the '' Essay on the Principles of Human Action," but had 
 not entirely given up his hope of excelling as a painter. 
 After a professional tour through part of England, during 
 which he satisfied his sitters better than himself, he 
 remained some time at the house of his brother, then prac- 
 tising as a portrait-painter with considerable success ; and 
 while endeavouring to procure a publisher for his w^ork, 
 painted a portrait of Lamb, of which an engraving is pre- 
 
LETTEKS TO MANNING. 155 
 
 fixed to the present volume/'i'' It is one of the last of Haz- 
 litt's efforts in an art which he afterwards illustrated with 
 the most exquisite criticism which the knowledge and love 
 of it could inspire. 
 
 Among the vestiges of the early part of 1805, are the 
 four following letters to Manning. If the hero of the next 
 letter, Mr. Richard Hopkins, is living, I trust he will not 
 repine at being ranked with those who 
 
 " Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame." 
 
 TO ME. MANNING. 
 
 "' 16, Mitre-court Buildings, 
 
 " Saturday, 24th Feb. 1805. 
 
 " Dear Manning, — I have been very unwell since I saw 
 you. A sad depression of spirits, a most unaccountable 
 nervousness ; from which I have been partially relieved by 
 an odd accident. You knew Dick Hopkins, the swearing 
 scullion of Caius ? This fellow, by industry and agility, 
 has thrust himself into the important situations (no sine- 
 cures, believe me) of cook to Trinity Hall and Caius 
 College : and the generous creature has contrived, with the 
 greatest delicacy imaginable, to send me a present of Cam- 
 bridge brawn. What makes it the more extraordinary is, 
 that the man never saw me in his life that I know of. I 
 suppose he has heard of me. I did not immediately recog- 
 nise the donor ; but one of Pdchard s cards, which had acci- 
 dentally fallen into the straw, detected him in a moment. 
 Dick, you know, was always remarkable for flourishing. 
 His card imports, that ' orders (to wit, for brawn) from any 
 part of England, Scotland, or Ireland, will be duly exe- 
 cuted,' &c. At first, I thought of declining the present ; 
 but Richard knew my blind side when he pitched upon 
 brawn. Tis of all my hobbies the supreme in the eating 
 
 * Edition, 1837. 
 
156 LETTEES TO MANNING. 
 
 way. He might have sent sops from the pan, skimmings, 
 crumpets, chips, hogs lard, the tender brown judiciously 
 scalped from a fillet of veal (dexterously replaced by a sala- 
 mander), the tops of asparagus, fugitive livers, runaway 
 gizzards of fowls, the eyes of martyred pigs, tender effu- 
 sions of laxative woodcocks, the red spawn of lobsters, 
 leveret's ears, and such pretty filchings common to cooks ; 
 but these had been ordinary presents, the everyday courte- 
 sies of dish washers to their sweethearts. Brawn was a noble 
 thought. It is not every common gullet-fancier that can pro- 
 perly esteem of it. It is like a picture of one of the choice 
 old Italian masters. Its gusto is of that hidden sort. As 
 Wordsworth sings of a modest poet, — ' you must love him, 
 ere to you he will seem worthy of your love ;' so brawn, 
 you must taste it ere to you it will seem to have any taste 
 at all. But 'tis nuts to the adept : those that will send out 
 their tongue and feelers to find it out. It will be wooed, 
 and not unsought be won. Now, ham-essence, lobsters, 
 turtle, such popular minions, absolutely court you, lay 
 themselves out to strike you at first smack, like one of 
 David s pictures (they call him Darveed), compared with 
 the plain russet-coated wealth of a Titian or a Correggio, as 
 I illustrated above. Such are the obvious glaring heathen 
 virtues of a corporation dinner, compared with the reserved 
 collegiate worth of brawn. Do me the favour to leave off 
 the business which you may be at present upon, and go 
 immediately to the kitchens of Trinity and Caius, and 
 make my most respectful compliments to Mr. Pdchard 
 Hopkins, and assure him that his brawn is most excellent ; 
 and that I am moreover obliged to him for his inuendo 
 about salt water and bran, which I shall not fail to improve. 
 I leave it to you whether you shall choose to pay him the 
 civility of asking him to dinner while you stay in Cam- 
 bridge, or in whatever other way you may best like to show 
 your gratitude to my friend. Richard Hopkins, considered 
 in many points of view, is a very extraordinary character. 
 Adieu : I hope to see you to supper in London soon, where 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING, 157 
 
 we will taste Kichard's brawn, and drink his health in a 
 cheerful but moderate cup. We have not many such men 
 in any rank of life as Mr. R. Hopkins. Crisp, the barber 
 of St. Mary s, was just such another. I wonder he never 
 sent me any little token, some chesnuts, or a pufF, or 
 two pound of hair : just to remember him by. Gifts are 
 like nails. Praesens ut absens ; that is, your present makes 
 amends for your absence. 
 
 " Yours, " C. Lamb." 
 
 TO MK. MANNING. 
 
 " Dear Archimedes, — Things have gone on badly with 
 thy ungeometrical friend ; but they are on the turn. My 
 old housekeeper has shown signs of convalescence, and will 
 shortly resume the power of the keys, so I shan't be cheated 
 of my tea and liquors. Wind in the west, which promotes 
 tranquillity. Have leisure now to anticipate seeing thee 
 again. Have been taking leave of tobacco in a rhyming 
 address. Had thought that vein had long since closed up. 
 Find I can rhyme and reason too. Think of studying 
 mathematics, to restrain the fire of my genius, which G. D. 
 recommends. Have frequent bleedings at the nose, which 
 shows plethoric. Maybe shall try the sea myself, that 
 great scene of wonders. Got incredibly sober and regular ; 
 shave oftener, and hum a tune, to signify cheerfulness and 
 gallantry. 
 
 " Suddenly disposed to sleep, having taken a quart of 
 peas with bacon, and stout. Will not refuse Nature, who 
 has done such things for me ! 
 
 " Nurse ! don't call me unless Mr. Manning comes. — 
 What ! the gentleman in spectacles ? — Yes. 
 
 *' Bormit. " C. L. 
 
 " Saturday, 
 
 " Hot Noon.'' 
 
158 
 
 LETTEKS TO MANNING. 
 
 TO MK. MANNING. 
 
 '' Dear Manning, — I sent to Brown's immediately. Mr. 
 Brown (or Pijou, as he is called by the moderns) denied the 
 having received a letter from you. The one for you he 
 remembered receiving, and remitting to Leadenhall-street ; 
 whither I immediately posted (it being the middle of 
 dinner), my teeth unpicked. There I learned that if you 
 want a letter set right, you must apply at the first door on 
 the left hand before one o'clock. I returned and picked 
 my teeth. And this morning I made my application in 
 form, and have seen the vagabond letter, which most likely 
 accompanies this. If it does not, I will get Pdclanan to 
 name it to the Speaker, who will not fail to lay the matter 
 before Parliament the next sessions, when you may be sure 
 to have all abuses in the Post Dej)artment rectified. 
 
 '' N.B. There seems to be some informality epidemical. 
 You direct yours to me in Mitre-court ; my true address is 
 Mitre-court Buildings. By the pleasantries of Fortune, who 
 likes a joke or a double entendre as well as the best of us 
 her children, there happens to be another Mr. Lamb (that 
 there should be two ! !) in Mitre-court. 
 
 " Farewell, and thmk upon it. '' C. L." 
 
 TO MK. MANNING. 
 
 *' Dear Manning, — Certainly you could not have called 
 at all hours from two till ten, for we have been only out of 
 an evening Monday and Tuesday in this week. But if you 
 think you have, your thought shall go for the deed. We 
 did pray for you on Wednesday night. Oysters unusually 
 luscious — pearls of extraordinary magnitude found in them. 
 I have made bracelets of them — given them in clusters to 
 
LETTER TO MISS WORDSWORTH. 159 
 
 ladies. Last night we went out in despite, because you 
 were not come at your hour. 
 
 " This night we shall be at home, so shall we certainly 
 both Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Take your 
 choice, mind I don't say of one : but choose which evening 
 you will not, and come the other four. Doors open at five 
 clock. Shells forced about nine. Every gentleman smokes 
 or not as he pleases. '' C. L." 
 
 During the last five years, tobacco had been at once 
 Lamb's solace and his bane. In the hope of resisting the 
 temptation of late conviviality to which it ministered, he 
 formed a resolution, the virtue of which can be but dimly 
 guessed, to abandon its use, and embodied the floating 
 fancies which had attended on his long wavering in one of 
 the richest of his poems — '* The Farewell to Tobacco." 
 After many struggles he divorced himself from his genial 
 enemy; and though he afterwards renewed acquaintance 
 with milder dalliance, he ultimately abandoned it, and was 
 guiltless of a pipe in liis later years. The following letter, 
 addressed while his sister was laid up with severe and pro- 
 tracted illness, will show his feelings at this time. Its 
 affecting self-upbraidings refer to no greater failings than 
 the social indulgences against which he was manfully 
 struggling. 
 
 TO MISS WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " 14tli June, 1805. 
 
 '' My dear Miss Wordsworth, — I have every reason to 
 suppose that this illness, like all Mary's former ones, will 
 be but temporary. But I cannot always feel so. Meantime 
 she is dead to me, and I miss a prop. All my strength is 
 gone, and I am like a fool, bereft of her co-operation. I 
 dare not think, lest I should think wrong ; so used am I to 
 look up to her in the least and the biggest perplexity. To 
 say all that I know of her would be more than I think any- 
 
160 LETTEK TO MISS WOKDSWORTH. 
 
 body could believe or ever understand ; and when I hope to 
 have her well again with me, it would be sinning against 
 her feelings to go about to praise her ; for I can conceal 
 nothing that I do from her. She is older, and wiser, and 
 better than me, and all my wretched imperfections I cover 
 to myself by resolutely thinking on her goodness. She 
 would share life and death, heaven and hell, with me. She 
 lives but for me ; and I know I have been wasting and 
 teasing her life for five years past incessantly with my 
 cursed ways of going on. But even in this upbraiding of 
 myself, I am offending against her, for I know that she has 
 cleaved to me for better, for worse ; and if the balance has 
 been against her hitherto, it was a noble trade. I am 
 stupid, and lose myself in what I write. I write rather 
 what answers to my feelings (which are sometimes sharp 
 enough) than express my present ones, for I am only flat 
 and stupid. 
 
 '' I cannot resist transcribing three or four lines which 
 poor Mary made upon a picture (a Holy Family) which we 
 saw at an auction only one week before she left home. 
 They are sweet lines and upon a sweet pictm^e. But I send 
 them only as the last memorial of her. 
 
 ^VIRGIN AND CHILD, Lc DA VINCI. 
 
 ' Maternal Lady with thy virgin-grace, 
 Heaven-born, thy Jesus seemeth sure, 
 And thou a virgin pure. 
 Lady most perfect, when thy angel face 
 Men look upon, they wish to be 
 A Catholic, Madonna fair, to worship thee.' 
 
 '' You had her lines about the * Lady Blanch.' You have 
 not had some which she wrote upon a copy of a girl from 
 Titian, which I had hmig up where that print of Blanch 
 and the Abbess (as she beautifully interpreted two female 
 figures from L. da Vinci) had hung in our room. 'Tis light 
 and pretty. 
 
 m 
 
 ' Who art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the place 
 Of Blanch, the lady of the matchless grace ? 
 
LETTER TO MR. AND MISS WORDSWORTH. 161 
 
 Come, fair and pretty, tell to me, 
 
 Who in thy lifetime thou mightst be ? 
 
 Thou pretty art and fair, 
 
 But with the Lady Blanch thou never must compare. 
 
 No need for Blanch her history to tell, 
 
 Whoever saw her face, they there did read it well ; 
 
 But when I look on thee, I only know, 
 
 There lived a pretty maid some hundred years ago.' 
 
 '' This is a little unfair, to tell so much about ourselves, 
 and to advert so little to your letter, so full of comfortable 
 tidings of you all. But my own cares press pretty close 
 upon me, and you can make allowance. That you may go 
 on gathering strength and peace is the next wish to Mary's 
 recovery. 
 
 " I had almost forgot your repeated invitation. Sup- 
 posing that Mary will be well and able, there is another 
 ability which you may guess at, which I cannot promise 
 myself. In prudence we ought not to come. This illness 
 will make it still more prudential to wait. It is not a 
 balance of this way of spending our money against another 
 way, but an absolute question of whether we shall stop now, 
 or go on wasting away the little we have got beforehand. 
 My best love, however, to you all ; and to that most friendly 
 creature, Mrs. Clarkson, and better health to her, when you 
 see or write to her. " Chaeles Lamb." 
 
 The '' Farewell to Tobacco " was shortly after transmitted 
 to Mr. and Miss Wordsworth with the following : — 
 
 TO MR. AND Miss WORDSWORTH. 
 
 ^ « Sept. 28th, 1805. 
 
 " 1 wish you may think this a handsome farewell to my 
 ' Friendly Traitress.' Tobacco has been my evening com- 
 fort and my morning curse for these five years ; and you 
 know how difficult it is from refraining to pick one's lips 
 even, when it has become a habit. This poem is the only 
 
 M 
 
102 LETTERS TO HAZLITT. 
 
 one which I have finished since so long as when I wrote 
 ' Hester Savory.' I have had it in my head to do it these 
 two years, but tobacco stood in its own light when it gave 
 me headaches that prevented my singing its praises. Now 
 you have got it, you have got all my store, for I have abso- 
 lutely not another line. No more has Mary. We have 
 nobody about us that cares for poetry, and who will rear 
 grapes when he shall be the sole eater ? Perhaps if you 
 encourage us to show you what we may write, we may do 
 something now and then before we absolutely forget the 
 quantity of an English line for want of practice. The 
 ' Tobacco,' being a little in the way of Withers (whom 
 Southey so much likes), perhaps you will somehow convey 
 it to him with my kind remembrances. Then, eveiybody 
 will have seen it that I wish to see it, I having sent it to 
 Malta. 
 
 " I remain, dear W. and D., yours truly, 
 
 " C. Lamb." 
 
 The following letter to Hazlitt bears date 18th Nov. 
 1805 :— 
 
 TO MR. HAZLITT. 
 
 " Dear Hazlitt, — I was very glad to hear from you, and 
 that your journey was so picturesque. We miss you, as we 
 foretold we should. One or two things have happened, 
 which are beneath the dignity of epistolary communication, 
 but which, seated about our fireside at night, (the winter 
 hands of pork have begun,) gesture and emphasis might 
 
 have talked into some importance. Something about 's 
 
 wife ; for instance, how tall she is, and that she visits 
 pranked up like a Queen of the May, with green streamers : 
 a good-natured woman though, which is as much as you can 
 expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with 
 
LETTERS TO HAZLITT. 163 
 
 a bachelor. Some things too about Monkey^, which can't 
 so well be written : how it set up for a fine lady, and 
 thought it had got lovers, and was obliged to be convinced 
 of its age from the parish register, where it was proved to 
 be only twelve ; and an edict issued, that it should not give 
 itself airs yet these four years ; and how it got leave to be 
 called Miss, by grace : these, and such like hows, were in 
 my head to tell you, but who can write ? Also how Manning 
 is come to town in spectacles, and studies physic ; is melan- 
 choly, and seems to have something in his head, which he 
 don't impart. Then, how I am going to leave off smoking. 
 
 la ! your Leonardos of Oxford made my mouth water. I 
 was hurried through the gallery, and they escaped me. 
 What do I say ? I was a Goth then, and should not have 
 noticed them. I had not settled my notions of beauty ; — 
 
 1 have now for ever ! — the small head, the long eye, — that 
 sort of peering curve, — the wicked Italian mischief; the 
 stick-at-nothing, Herodias' daughter-kind of grace. You 
 understand me ? But you disappoint me, in passing over 
 in absolute silence the Blenheim Leonardo. Didn't you 
 see it ? Excuse a lover's curiosity. I have seen no pic- 
 tures of note since, except Mr. Dawe's gallery. It is curious 
 to see how differently two great men treat the same subject, 
 yet both excellent in their way. For instance, Milton and 
 Mr. Dawe. Mr. D. has chosen to illustrate the story of 
 Samson exactly in the point of view in which Milton has 
 been most happy : the interview between the Jewish hero, 
 blind and captive, and Dalilah. Milton has imagined his 
 locks grown again, strong as horse-hair or porcupine's 
 bristles ; doubtless shaggy and black, as being hairs ' which, 
 of a nation armed, contained the strength.' I don't remem- 
 ber he says black ; but could Milton imagine them to be 
 yellow ? Do you ? Mr. Dawe, with striking originality of 
 
 * The daughter of a friend, whom Lamb exceedingly liked from a child, 
 and always called by this epithet. 
 
 M 2 
 
3 64 LETTERS TO HAZLITT. 
 
 conception, has crowned him with a thin yellow wig, in 
 colour precisely like Dyson's ; in curl and quantity, resem- 
 bling Mrs. P 's ; his limbs rather stout, — about such a 
 
 man as my brother or Packman, — but no Atlas nor Hercules, 
 nor yet so long as Dubois, the clown of Sadler's Wells. 
 This was judicious, taking the spirit of the story rather 
 than the fact ; for doubtless God could communicate na- 
 tional salvation to the trust of flax and tow as well as hemp 
 and cordage, and could draw down a temple with a golden 
 tress as soon as with all the cables of the British naxj. 
 
 *' Wasn't you sorry for Lord Nelson? I have followed 
 him in fancy ever since I saw him walking in Pall Mall, (I 
 was prejudiced against him before,) looking just as a hero 
 should look; and I have been very much cut about it 
 indeed. He was the only pretence of a great man we had. 
 Nobody is left of any name at all. His secretary died by 
 his side. I imagined him, a Mr. Scott, to be the man you 
 met at Hume's ; but I learnt from Mrs. Hume that it is 
 not the same. I met Mrs. H. one day and agreed to go on 
 the Sunday to tea, but the rain prevented us, and the dis- 
 tance. I have been to apologise, and we are to dine there 
 the first fine Sunday! Strange perverseness. I never 
 went while you stayed here, and now I go to find you. 
 What other news is there, Mary ? What puns have I made 
 in the last fortnight ? You never remember them. You 
 have no relish of the comic. ' Oh ! tell Hazlitt not to 
 forget to send the American Fai^mer. I dare say it is 
 not so good as he fancies ; but a book 's a book.' I have 
 not heard from Wordsworth or from Malta since. Charles 
 Kemble, it seems, enters into possession to-morrow. We 
 sup at 109, Russell-street, this evening. I wdsh your friend 
 would not drink. It 's a blemish in the greatest characters. 
 You send me a modern quotation poetical. How do you 
 like this in an old play ? Vittoria Corombona, a spunky 
 Italian lady, a Leonardo one, nick-named the White Devil, 
 being on her trial for murder, &c. — and questioned about 
 
LETTERS TO HAZLITT. 165 
 
 seducing a duke from his wife and the state, makes 
 answer : — 
 
 ' Condemn you me for that the Duke did love me ? 
 So may you blame some fair and crystal river. 
 For that some melancholic distracted man 
 Hath drown'd himself in it/ 
 
 " N.B. I shall expect a line from you, if but a bare line, 
 whenever you write to Russell-street, and a letter often 
 when you do not. I pay no postage. But I will have con- 
 sideration for you until Parliament time and franks. Luck 
 to Ned Search and the new art of colouring. Monkey sends 
 her love ; and Mary especially. 
 
 " Yours truly, C. Lamb." 
 
 Lamb introduced Hazlitt to Godwin ; and we find him 
 early in the following year thus writing respecting the 
 oflfer of Hazlitt's work to Johnson, and his literary pursuits. 
 
 TO MR. HAZLITT. 
 
 « 15th Jan. 1806. 
 
 '' Dear Hazlitt, — Godwin went to Johnson's yesterday 
 about your business. Johnson would not come down, or 
 give any answer, but has promised to open the manuscript, 
 and to give you an answer in one month. Godwin will 
 punctually go again (Wednesday is Johnson s open day) 
 yesterday four weeks next : i. e. in one lunar month from 
 this time. Till when, Johnson positively declines giving 
 any answer. I wish you joy on ending your Search. 
 Mrs. H. was naming something about a ' Life of Fawcett,' 
 to be by you undertaken : the great Fawcett, as she 
 explained to Manning, when he asked 'What Faivcett?' 
 He innocently thought Fawcett the player. But Fawcett 
 the divine is known to many people, albeit unknown to the 
 Chinese inquirer. I should think, if you liked it, and 
 Johnson declined it, that Phillips is the man. He is 
 
166 LETTERS TO HAZLITT. 
 
 perpetually bringing out biographies, Richardson, Wilks, 
 Foot, Lee Lewis, without number : little trim things in two 
 easy volumes, price 12s. the two, made up of letters to and 
 from, scraps, posthumous trifles, anecdotes, and about forty 
 pages of hard biography ; you might dish up a Fawcettiad in 
 three months and ask 60/. or 80Z. for it. I dare say that 
 Phillips would catch at it. I wrote you the other day in a 
 great hurry. Did you get it ? This is merely a letter of 
 business at Godwin's request. Lord Nelson is quiet at last. 
 His ghost only keeps a slight fluttering in odes and elegies 
 in newspapers, and impromptus, which could not be got 
 ready before the funeral. 
 
 " As for news, is coming to town on Monday (if no 
 
 kind angel intervene) to surrender himself to prison. He 
 hopes to get the rules of the Fleet. On the same, or nearly 
 the same day, F — , my other quondam co-friend and drinker, 
 will go to Newgate, and his wife and four children, I sup- 
 pose, to the parish. Plenty of reflection and motives of 
 gratitude to the wise Disposer of all things in us, whose 
 prudent conduct has hitherto ensured us a warm fire and 
 snug roof over our heads. Nullum numen abest si sit Pru- 
 dentia. Alas ! Prudentia is in the last quarter of her tutelary 
 
 shining over me. A little time and I ; but maybe I 
 
 may, at last, hit upon some mode of collecting some of the 
 vast superfluities of this money-voiding town. Much is to 
 be got, and I do not want much. All I ask is time and 
 leisure ; and I am cruelly ofl* for them. When you have 
 the inclination, I shall be very glad to have a letter from 
 you. Your brother and Mrs. H., I am afraid, think hardly 
 of us for not coming oftener to see them, but we are dis- 
 tracted beyond what they can conceive with visitors and 
 visitings. I never have an hour for my head to work 
 quietly its own workings ; which you know is as necessary 
 to the human system as sleep. Sleep, too, I can't get for 
 these winds of a night : and without sleep and rest w^hat 
 should ensue ? Lunacy. But I trust it won't. 
 
 '' Yours, dear H., C. Lamb." 
 
LETTEES TO HAZLITT. 167 
 
 TO MR. HAZLITT. 
 
 ''Feb. 19th, 1806. 
 
 *' Dear H. — Godwin has just been here in his way from 
 Johnson's. Johnson has had a fire in his house ; this hap- 
 pened about five weeks ago ; it was in the day-time, 
 so it did not burn the house down, but it did so much 
 damage that the house must come down, to be repaired. 
 His nephew that we met on Hampstead Hill put it out. 
 Well, this fire has put him so back, that he craves one more 
 month before he gives you an answer. I will certainly goad 
 Godwin (if necessary) to go again this very day four weeks ; 
 but I am confident he will want no goading. Three or four 
 most capital auctions of pictures advertised in May, Wellbore 
 Ellis Agars, the first private collection in England, so 
 Holcroft says. In March, Sir George Young's in Stratford- 
 place (where Cosway lives), and a Mr. Hulse's at Blackheath, 
 both very capital collections, and have been announced for 
 some months. Also the Marquis of Lansdown's pictures 
 in March ; and though inferior to mention, lastly, the 
 Tructhsessian Gallery. Don't your mouth water to be 
 here? T'other night Loftus called, whom we have not 
 seen since you went before. We meditate a stroll next 
 Wednesday, fast-day. He happened to light upon Mr. 
 Holcroft, wife, and daughter, their first visit at our house. 
 Your brother called last night. We keep up our intimacy. 
 He is going to begin a large Madonna and child from 
 Mrs. H. and baby. I fear he goes astray after ignes fatui. 
 He is a clever man. By-the-by I saw a miniature of his as 
 far excelling any in his show cupboard (that of your sister 
 not excepted) as that show cupboard excels the show things 
 you see in windows — an old woman — hang her name — but 
 most superlative ; he has it to clean — I'll ask him the 
 name — but the best miniature I ever saw. But for oil 
 pictures! — what has he to do with Madonnas? — if the 
 Virgin Mary were alive and visitable, he would not hazard 
 himself in a Covent-Garden-pit-door-crowd to see her. It 
 
168 LETTEKS TO HAZLITT. 
 
 an't his style of beauty, is it ? But he will go on painting 
 things he ought not to paint, and not painting things he 
 ought to paint. Manning not gone to China, but talks of 
 going this spring. God forbid. Coleridge not heard of. 
 I am going to leave off smoke. In the meantime I am so 
 smoky with last night's ten pipes, that I must leave off. 
 Mary begs her kind remembrances. Pray write to us. 
 This is no letter, but I supposed you grew anxious about 
 Johnson. 
 
 " N.B. Have taken a room at three shillings a- week, to 
 be in between five and eight at night, to avoid my nocturnal 
 alias knock-eternal visitors. The first-fruits of my retire- 
 ment has been a farce which goes to manager to-morrow. 
 Wish my ticket luck. God bless you and do write. — Yours, 
 fumosissimuSy '' C. Lamb." 
 
 The farce referred to in the foregoing letter is the delight- 
 ful jeii-d'' esprit y " Mk. H.'* destined to only one night s 
 stage existence, but to become ''good jest for ever." It 
 must be confessed that it has not substance enough for a 
 dramatic piece in two acts — a piece which must present a 
 show of real interest — involve its pair of young lovers in 
 actual perplexities — and terminate in the seriousness of 
 marriage ! It would be rare sport in Milton's '' Limbo of 
 Vanity," but is too airy for the ponderous sentimentalism 
 of the modern school of farce. As Swift, hi " Gulliver," 
 brings everything to the standard of size, so in this farce 
 everything is reduced to an alphabetical standard. Humour 
 is sent to school to learn its letters ; or, rather, letters are 
 made instinct with the most delicate humour. It is the 
 apotheosis of the alphabet, and teaches the value of a good 
 name without the least hint of moral purpose. This mere 
 pleasantry — this refining on sounds and letters — this verbal 
 banter, and watery collision of the pale reflexions of words, 
 could not succeed on a stage which had begun to require 
 interest, moral or immoral, to be interwoven with the web 
 
LETTEE TO WORDSWORTH. 169 
 
 of all its actions ; which no longer rejoiced in the riot of 
 animal spirits and careless gaiety ; which no longer per- 
 mitted wit to take the sting from evil, as well as the load 
 from care ; but infected even its prince of rakes, Charles 
 Surface, with a cant of sentiment which makes us turn for 
 relief to the more honest hjrpocrite his brother. Mr. H. 
 " could never do ;" but its composition was pleasant, and 
 its acceptance gave Lamb some of the happiest moments he 
 ever spent. Thus he announces it to Wordsworth, in reply 
 to a letter communicating to him that the poet was a father. 
 
 TO ME. WOEDSWORTH. 
 
 " Dear Wordsworth, — We are pleased, you may be sure, 
 
 with the good news of Mrs W . Hope all is well over 
 
 by this time. ' A fine boy ! — have you any more, — one 
 more and a girl — poor copies of me ! ' vide Mr. H., a farce 
 which the proprietors have done me the honour ; but I will 
 set down Mr. Wroughtons own words. N.B. The ensuing 
 letter was sent in answer to one which I wrote, begging to 
 know if my piece had any chance, as I might make altera- 
 tions, &c. I, writing on the Monday, there comes this 
 letter on the Wednesday. Attend ! 
 
 [Copy of a Letter from Mr. R. Wroughton.] 
 
 « ^'lY, — Your piece of Mr. H., I am desired to say, is 
 accepted at Drury-Lane Theatre, by the proprietors, and, if 
 agreeable to you, will be brought forwards when the proper 
 opportunity serves. The piece shall be sent to you, for 
 your alterations, in the course of a few days, as the same is 
 not in my hands, but with the proprietors. 
 
 ' I am, sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 ' Richard Wroughton.' 
 
 [Dated] 
 ' 66, Gower Street, 
 
 ' Wednesday, June 11, 1806.' 
 
170 
 
 LETTER TO WORDSWOETH. 
 
 '' On the following Sunday Mr. Tobin comes. The scent 
 of a manager's letter brought him. He would have gone 
 further any day on such a business. I read the letter to 
 him. He deems it authentic and peremptory. Our con- 
 versation naturally fell upon pieces, different sorts of pieces; 
 w4iat is the best way of offering a piece, how far the caprice 
 of managers is an obstacle in the way of a piece, how to judge 
 of the merits of a piece, how long a piece may remain in the 
 hands of the managers before it is acted ; and my piece, 
 and your piece, and my poor brother's piece — my poor 
 brother was all his life endeavouring to get a piece accepted. 
 
 " I wrote that, in mere wantonness of triumph. Have 
 nothing more to say about it. The managers, I thank 
 my stars, have decided its merits for ever. They are the 
 best judges of pieces, and it w^ould be insensible in me to 
 affect a false modesty after the Yery flattering letter which 
 I have received. 
 
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 " I think this will be as good a pattern for orders as I 
 can think on. A little thin flowery border, round, neat, 
 not gaudy, and the Drury-lane Apollo, with the harp at 
 the top. Or shall I have no Apollo? — simply nothing? 
 Or perhaps the comic muse ? 
 
 " The same form, only I think without the Apollo, will 
 serve for the pit and galleries. I think it will be best to 
 
LETTEE TO WOEDSWORTH. 171 
 
 write my name at full length ; but then if I give away a 
 great many, that will be tedious. Perhaps Ch. Lamh 
 will do. 
 
 " BOXES, now I think on it, I '11 have in capitals. 
 The rest, in a neat Italian hand. Or better, perhaps, 
 33O3C0S, in old English characters, like Madoc or 
 Thalaba ? 
 
 " A'propos of Spenser (you will find him mentioned a 
 page or two before, near enough for an a-propos\ I was 
 discoursing on poetry (as one's apt to deceive one's self, 
 and when a person is willing to talk of what one likes, 
 to believe that he also likes the same, as lovers do) with a 
 young gentleman of my office, who is deep read in Ana- 
 creon Moore, Lord Strangford, and the principal modern 
 poets, and I happened to mention Epithalamiums, and that 
 I could show him a very fine one of Spenser's. At the 
 mention of this, my gentleman, who is a very fine gentle- 
 man, pricked up his ears and expressed great pleasure, and 
 begged that I would give him leave to copy it : he did not 
 care how long it was (for I objected the length), he should 
 be veiy haj)py to see anything by him. Then pausing, and 
 looking sad, he ejaculated ' Pooe Spencee ! ' I begged 
 to know the reason of his ejaculation, thinking that time 
 had by this time softened down any calamities which the 
 bard might have endured. ' Why, poor fellow ! ' said he, 
 ' he has lost his wife ! ' ' Lost his wife ! ' said I, ' who 
 are you talking of ? ' ' Why, Spencer ! ' said he ; 'I 've 
 read the ' Monody ' he wrote on the occasion, and a very 
 pretty thing it is.' This led to an explanation (it could be 
 delayed no longer), that the sound Spenser, which, when 
 poetry is talked off, generally excites an image of an old 
 bard in a ruff, and sometimes with it dim notions of Sir 
 P. Sydney, and perhaps Lord Burleigh, had raised in my 
 gentleman a quite contrary image of The Honourable 
 William Spencer, who has translated some things from the 
 German very prettily, which are pubhshed with Lady Di. 
 Beauclerk's designs. Nothing like defining of terms when 
 
173 LETTEES TO HICKMAN. 
 
 we talk. What blunders might I have fallen into of quite 
 inapplicable criticism, but for this timely explanation. 
 
 '' N.B. At the beginning of Edm. Spenser, (to prevent 
 mistakes,) I have copied from my own copy, and primarily 
 from a book of Chalmers' on Shakspeare, a sonnet of 
 Spenser s never printed among his poems. It is curious, 
 as being manly, and rather Miltonic, and as a sonnet of 
 Spenser's with nothing in it about love or knighthood. I 
 have no room for remembrances ; but I hope our doing 
 your commission will prove we do not quite forget you. 
 
 -C. L." 
 
 The interval between the completion of the farce, '' and 
 its first acting," though full of bright hopes of dramatic 
 success, was not all a phantasm. The following two letters 
 to Mr. Packman, now one of the Clerks of the House of 
 Commons, show Lamb s unwearied kindness. 
 
 TO MR. RICEMAN. 
 
 '' Dear Packman, — You do not happen to have any place 
 at your disposal which would suit a decayed Literatus ? I 
 do not much expect that you have, or that you will go much 
 out of the way to serve the object, when you hear it is F. 
 But the case is, by a mistaking of his turn, as they call it, 
 he is reduced, I am afraid, to extremities, and would be 
 extremely glad of a place in an office. Now it does some- 
 times happen, that just as a man wants a place, a place 
 wants him ; and though this is a lottery to which none but 
 G. B. would choose to trust his all, there is no hai'm just 
 to call in at Despair's office for a friend, and see if his 
 number is come up (B.'s further case I enclose by way of 
 episode). Now, if you should happen, or anybody you 
 know, to want a hand, here is a young man of solid but 
 
LETTERS TO EICKMAN. 173 
 
 not brilliant genius, who would turn his hand to the making 
 out dockets, penning a manifesto, or scoring a tally, not the 
 worse (I hope) for knowing Latin and Greek, and having 
 in youth conversed with the philosophers. But from these 
 follies I believe he is thoroughly awakened, and would bind 
 himself by a terrible oath never to imagine himself an 
 extraordinary genius again. 
 
 '' Yours, &c. C. Lamb. 
 
 ?> 
 
 TO ME. EICKMAN. 
 
 ^^ March 1806. 
 
 " Dear Rickman, — I send you some papers about a salt- 
 water soap, for which the inventor is desirous of getting a 
 parliamentary reward, like Dr. Jenner. Whether such a 
 prospect be feasible, I mainly doubt, taking for granted the 
 equal utility. I should suppose the usual way of paying 
 such projectors is by patents and contracts. The patent, 
 you see, he has got. A contract he is about with the navy 
 board. Meantime, the projector is hungry. Will you 
 answer me two questions, and return them with the papers 
 as soon as you can ? Imprimis, is there any chance of 
 success in application to Parliament for a reward ? Did you 
 ever hear of the invention ? You see its benefits and saving 
 to the nation (always the first motive with a true projector) 
 are feelingly set forth : the last paragraph but one of the 
 estimate, in enumerating the shifts poor seamen are put to, 
 even approaches to the pathetic. But, agreeing to all he 
 says, is there the remotest chance of Parliament giving the 
 projector anything; and wheii should application be made, 
 now or after a report (if he can get it) from the navy board ? 
 Secondly, let the infeasibility be as great as you will, you 
 will oblige me by telling me the way of introducing such an 
 application to Parliament, without buying over a majority of 
 members, which is totally out of projector's power. I vouch 
 
174 
 
 LETTEES TO MANNING-. 
 
 nothing for the soap myself; for I always wash m fresh 
 ivater, and find it answer tolerably well for all purposes of 
 cleanliaess; nor do I know the projector; but a relation of 
 mine has put me on writing to you, for whose parliamentary 
 knowledge he has great veneration. 
 
 ''P.S. The Capt. and Mrs. Bumey and Phillips take 
 their chance at cribbage here on Wednesday. Will you and 
 Mrs. R. join the party? Mary desires her compliments to 
 Mrs. Pi., and joins in the invitation. 
 
 " Yours truly, C. Lamb." 
 
 Before the production of Mr. H., Lamb w^as obliged, in 
 sad earnest, to part from Manning, who, after talking and 
 thinking about China for years, took the heroic resolution of 
 going thither, not to acquire wealth or fame, but to realise 
 the phantom of his restless thought. Happy was he to have 
 a friend, like Mr. Burney, to indulge and to soften his grief, 
 which he thus expresses in his first letter to his friend. 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 May 10th, 1806. 
 
 " My dear Manning, — I didn^t know what your going 
 was till I shook a last fist with you, and then 'tw^as just like 
 having shaken hands with a w^retch on the fatal scaiffold, and, 
 when you are down the ladder, you can never stretch out to 
 him again. Mary says you are dead, and there's nothing to 
 do but to leave it to time to do for us in the end what it 
 always does for those who mourn for people in such a case. 
 But she'll see by your letter you are not quite dead. A little 
 
 kicldng and agony, and then . Martin Bumey took 
 
 vie out a walking that evening, and we talked of Manning ; 
 and then I came home and smoked for you, and at twelve 
 o'clock came home Mary and Monkey Louisa from the play, 
 and there was more talk and more smoking, and they all 
 
LETTEBS TO MANNING. 175 
 
 seemed first-rate characters, because they knew a certain 
 joerson. But what's the use of talking about 'em ? By the 
 time you'll have made your escape from the Kalmuks, you'll 
 have stayed so long I shall never be able to bring to your 
 mind who Mary was, who will have died about a year before, 
 nor who the Holcrofts were ! me perhaps you will mistake 
 for Phillips, or confound me with Mr. Dawe, because you saw 
 us together. Mary (whom you seem to remember yet) is 
 not quite easy that she had not a formal parting from you. 
 I wish it had so happened. But you must bring her a 
 token, a shawl or something, and remember a sprightly 
 little mandarin for our mantel-piece, as a companion to the 
 child I am going to purchase at the museum. She says 
 you saw her writings about the other day, and she wishes 
 you should know what they are. She is domg for Godwin's 
 bookseller twenty of Shakspeare's plays, to be made into 
 children's tales. Six are already done by her, to wit, ' The 
 Tempest,' 'Winter's Tale,' * Midsummer Night,' 'Much 
 Ado,' 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' and 'Cymbeline;' and 
 the ' Merchant of Venice' is in forwardness. I have done 
 ' Othello' and ' Macbeth,' and mean to do all the tragedies. 
 I think it will be popular among the little people, besides 
 money. It's to bring in sixty guineas. Mary has done 
 them capitally, I think, you'd think. These are the humble 
 amusements we propose, while you are gone to plant the 
 cross of Christ among barbarous pagan anthropophagi. Quam 
 homo homini praestat ! but then, perhaps, you'll get mur- 
 dered, and we shall die in our beds with a fair literary repu- 
 tation. Be sure, if you see any of those people, whose heads 
 do grow beneath their shoulders, that you make a draught of 
 them. It will be very cmious. Oh ! Manning, I am 
 serious to sinking almost, when I think that all those 
 evenings, which you have made so pleasant, are gone perhaps 
 for ever. Four years, you talk of, may be ten, and you may 
 come back and find such alterations ! Some circumstances 
 may grow up to you or to me, that may be a bar to the 
 return of any such intimacy. I dare say all this is hum ! 
 
176 
 
 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 and that all will come back ; but, indeed, we die many 
 deaths before we die, and I am almost sick when I think 
 that such a hold as I had of you is gone. I have friends, 
 but some of 'em are changed. Marriage, or some circum- 
 stance, rises up to make them not the same. But I felt 
 sure of you. And that last token you gave me of expressing 
 a wish to have my name joined with yours, you know not 
 how it affected me : like a legacy. 
 
 " God bless you in every way you can form a wish. May 
 he give you health, and safety, and the accomplishment of 
 all your objects, and return you again to us, to gladden some 
 fireside or other (I suppose we shall be moved from the 
 Temple). I will nurse the remembrance of your steadiness 
 and quiet, which used to infuse something like itself into 
 our nervous minds. Mary called you our ventilator. Fare- 
 well, and take her best wishes and mine. 
 
 ^' Good bye, C. L." 
 
 Christmas approached, and Lamb then conveyed to 
 Manning, now at the antipodes, news of poor Holcroft's 
 failure in his play of '' The Vmdictivc Man," and his own 
 approaching trial. 
 
 TO ME. MANNING. 
 
 "5tli December, 1806. 
 
 '' Manning, your letter dated Hottentots, August the 
 what-was-it ? came to hand. I can scarce hope that mine 
 will have the same luck. China — Canton — bless us — how 
 it strains the imagination and makes it ache ! I write under 
 another uncertainty, whether it can go to-morrow by a ship 
 which I have just learned is going off direct to your pait of 
 the world, or whether the despatches may not be sealed up 
 and this have to wait, for if it is detained here, it will grow 
 staler in a fortnight than in a five months' voyage coming to 
 you. It will be a point of conscience to send you none but 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. 177 
 
 bran-new news (the latest edition), which will but grow the 
 better, like oranges, for a sea voyage. that you should be 
 so many hemispheres off — if I speak' incorrectly you can 
 correct me — why the simplest death or marriage that takes 
 place here must be important to you as news in the old 
 Bastile. There 's your friend Tuthill has got away from 
 France — you remember France ? and Tuthill ? — ten-to-one 
 but he writes by this post, if he don't get my note in time, 
 apprising him of the vessel sailing. Know then that he has 
 found means to obtain leave from Bonaparte, without making 
 use of any incredihle romantic pretences as some have done, 
 who never meant to fulfil them, to come home, and I have 
 seen him here and at Holcroft's. An't you glad about 
 Tuthill ? Now then be sorry for Holcroft, whose new play, 
 called * The Vindictive Man,' was damned about a fortnight 
 since. It died in part of its own weakness, and in part for 
 being choked up with bad actors. The two principal parts 
 were destined to Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Bannister, but Mrs. J. 
 has not come to terms with the managers, they have had 
 some squabble, and Bannister shot some of his fingers off 
 by the going off of a gun. So Miss Duncan had her part, 
 and Mr. De Camp took his. His part, the principal comic 
 hope of the play, was most unluckily Goldfinch, taken 
 out of the ' Ptoad to Euin,' not only the same character, 
 but the identical Goldfinch — the same as Falstaff is in 
 two plays of Shakspeare — as the devil of ill-luck would 
 have it, half the audience did not know that H. had 
 written it, but were displeased at his stealing from the ' Eoad 
 to Euin ;' and those who might have borne a gentlemanly 
 coxcomb with his 'That's your sort,' 'Go it' — such as 
 Lewis is — did not relish the intolerable vulgarity and 
 inanity of the idea stript of liis manner. De Camp was 
 hooted, more than hist, hooted and bellowed off the stage 
 before the second act was finished, so that the remainder of 
 his part was forced to be, with some violence to the play, 
 omitted. In addition to this, a woman of the town was 
 another principal character — a most unfortunate choice in 
 
 N 
 
178 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 this moral day. The audience were as scandalised as if 
 you were to introduce such a personage to their private tea- 
 tables. Besides, her action in the play was gross — wheed- 
 ling an old man into marriage. But the mortal blunder of 
 the play was that which, oddly enough, H. took pride in, 
 and exultingly told me of the night before it came out, that 
 there were no less than eleven principal characters in it, and 
 I believe he meant of the men only, for the playbill exprest 
 as much, not reckoning one woman — and true it was, for 
 Mr. Powell, Mr. Raymond, Mr. Bartlett, Mr. H. Siddons, 
 Mr. Barrymore, &c., &c. — to the number of eleven, had all 
 parts equally prominent, and there was as much of them in 
 quantity and rank as of the hero and heroine — and most of 
 them gentlemen who seldom appear but as the hero's friend 
 in a farce — for a minute or two — and here they all had their 
 ten-minute speeches, and one of them gave the audience a 
 serious account how he was now a lawyer but had been a 
 poet, and then a long enumeration of the inconveniences of 
 authorship, rascally booksellers, reviewers, &c. ; which first 
 set the audience a gaping ; but I have said enough. You 
 will be so sorry, that you will not think the best of me for 
 my detail ; but news is news at Canton. Poor H. I fear 
 will feel the disappointment very seriously in a pecuniary 
 light. From what I can learn he has saved nothing. You 
 and I were hoping one day that he had, but I fear he has 
 nothing but his pictures and books, and a no very flourish- 
 ing business, and to be obliged to part with his long-necked 
 Guide that hangs opposite as you enter, and the game-piece 
 that hangs in the back drawing-room, and all those Van- 
 dykes, &c. God should temper the wind to the shorn 
 connoisseur. I hope I need not say to you, that I feel for 
 the weather-beaten author, and for all his household. I 
 assure you his fate has soured a good deal the pleasure 
 I should have otherwise taken in my own little farce being 
 accepted, and I hope about to be acted — it is in rehearsal 
 actually, and I expect it to come out next week. It is kept 
 a sort of secret, and the rehearsals have gone on privately, 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. 179 
 
 lest by many folks knowing it, the story should come out, 
 which would infallibly damn it. You remember I had sent 
 it before you went. Wroughton read it, and was much 
 pleased with it. I speedily got an answer. I took it to 
 make alterations, and lazily kept it some months, then took 
 courage and furbished it up in a day or two and took it. In 
 less than a fortnight I heard the principal part was given to 
 El listen, who liked it and only wanted a prologue, which I 
 have since done and sent, and I had a note the day before 
 yesterday from the manager, Wroughton (bless his fat face 
 — he is not a bad actor in some things), to say that I should 
 be summoned to the rehearsal after the next, which next 
 was to be yesterday. I had no idea it was so forward. I 
 have had no trouble, attended no reading or rehearsal, made 
 no interest ; what a contrast to the usual parade of authors ! 
 But it is peculiar to modesty to do all things without 
 noise or pomp ! I have some suspicion it will appear in 
 public on Wednesday next, for W. says in his note, it is so 
 forward that if wanted it may come out next week, and a 
 new melo-drame is announced for every day till then ; and 
 * a new farce is in rehearsal,' is put up in the bills. Now 
 you 'd like to know the subject. The title is ' Mr. H.' no 
 more ; how simple, how taking ! A great H. sprawling 
 over the play-bill and attracting eyes at every corner. The 
 story is a coxcomb appearing at Bath, vastly rich — all the 
 ladies dying for him — all bursting to know who he is — but 
 he goes by no other name than Mr. H, — a curiosity like 
 that of the dames of Strasburg about the man with the 
 great nose. But I won't tell you any more about it. Yes, 
 I will : but I can't give you an idea how I have done it. 
 I '11 just tell you that after much vehement admiration, 
 when his true name comes out, ' Hogsflesh,' all the women 
 shun him, avoid him^ and not one can be found to change 
 their name for him — that 's the idea — how flat it is here — 
 but how whimsical in the farce ! and only think how hard 
 upon me it is that the ship is despatched to-morrow, and 
 my triumph cannot be ascertained till the Wednesday after 
 
 n2 
 
180 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 —but all China will ring of it by and by. N.B. (But this 
 is a secret) The Professor has got a tragedy coming out with 
 the young Roscius in it in January next, as we say — January 
 last it will be with you— and though it is a profound secret 
 now, as all his affairs are, it cannot be much of one by the 
 time you read this. However, don't let it go any further. 
 I understand there are dramatic exhibitions in China. One 
 would not like to be forestalled. Do you find in all this 
 stuff I have written anything like those feelings which one 
 should send my old adventuring friend, that is gone to 
 wander among Tartars and may never come again ? I don't 
 — but your going away, and all about you, is a thread-bare 
 topic. I have worn it out with thinking — it has come to me 
 when I have been dull with anything, till my sadness has 
 seemed more to have come from it than to have introduced 
 it. I want you, you don't know how much — but if I had 
 you here in my European garret, we should but talk over 
 such stuff as I have written — so — Those 'Tales from 
 Shakspeare' are near coming out, and Mary has begun a 
 new work. Mr. Dawe is turned author, he has been in such 
 a way lately — Dawe, the painter, I mean — he sits and 
 stands about at Holcroft s and says nothing — then sighs and 
 leans his head on his hand. I took him to be in love — but 
 it seems he was only meditating a work, — ' The Life of 
 Morland,' — the young man is not used to composition. 
 Packman and Captain Burney are well ; they assemble at 
 my house pretty regularly of a Wednesday — a new institu- 
 tion. Like other great men I have a public day, cribbage 
 
 and pipes, with Phillips and noisy . 
 
 " Good Heaven ! what a bit only I 've got left ! How 
 shall I squeeze all I know into this morsel ! Coleridge is 
 come home, and is going to turn lecturer on taste at the 
 Royal Institution. I shall get 200Z. from the theatre if 
 ' Mr. H.' has a good run, and I hope lOOl. for the copyright. 
 Nothing if it fails ; and there never was a more ticklish 
 thing. The whole depends on the manner in which the 
 name is brought out, which I value myself on, as a chef- 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. 181 
 
 d ceitvre. How the paper grows less and less ! In less than 
 two minutes I shall cease to talk to you, and you may rave 
 to the great Wall of China. N.B. Is there such a wall ! 
 Is it as big as Old London Wall, by Bedlam ? Have you 
 met with a friend of mine, named Ball, at Canton ? — if you 
 are acquainted, remember me kindly to him. N.B. If my 
 little thing don't succeed, I shall easily survive, having, as 
 it were, compared to H.'s venture, but a sixteenth in the 
 lottery. Mary and I are to sit next the orchestra in the 
 pit, next the tweedle-dees. She remembers you. You are 
 more to us than five hundred farces, clappings, &c. 
 
 '' Come back one day. " C. Lamb." 
 
 Wednesday, 10th December, 1806, was the wished-for 
 evening which decided the fate of " Mr. H." on the boards 
 of Drury. Great curiosity was excited by the announce- 
 ment; the house was crowded to the ceiling; and the 
 audience impatiently awaited the conclusion of the long, 
 dull, intolerable opera of " The Travellers," by which it 
 was preceded. At length, Mr. Elliston, the hero of the 
 farce, entered, gaily dressed, and in happiest spirits, — 
 enough, but not too much, elated, — and delivered the pro- 
 logue with great vivacity and success. The farce began ; 
 at first it was much applauded ; but the wit seemed wire- 
 drawn ; and when the curtain fell on the first act, the friends 
 of the author began to fear. The second act dragged 
 heavily on, as second acts of farces will do ; a rout at 
 Bath, peopled with ill-dressed and over-dressed actors and 
 actresses, increased the disposition to yawn ; and when the 
 moment of disclosure came, and nothing worse than the 
 name Hogsflesh was heard, the audience resented the long 
 play on their curiosity, and would hear no more. Lamb, 
 with his sister, sat, as he anticipated, in the front of the pit, 
 and having joined in encoring the epilogue, the brilliancy of 
 which iujured the farce, he gave way with equal pliancy to 
 the common feeling, and hissed and hooted as loudly as any 
 
182 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 of his neighbours. The next morning's play-bill contained 
 a veracious announcement, that "the 7ieiv farce of Mb. H., 
 performed for the first time last night, was received by an 
 overfioiving audience with universal applause, and will be 
 repeated for the second time to-morrow ;'' but the stage 
 lamps never that morrow saw ! Elliston would have tried it 
 again ; but Lamb saw at once that the case was hopeless, 
 and consoled his friends with a century of puns for the 
 wreck of his dramatic hopes. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 [1807 to 1814.] 
 
 LETTERS TO MANNING, MONTAGUE, WORDSWORTH, AND COLERIDGE, 
 
 Feom this period, the letters of Lamb which have been 
 preserved are comparatively few, with reference to the 
 years through which they are scattered. He began to write 
 in earnest for the press, and the time thus occupied was 
 withdrawn from his correspondents, while his thoughts and 
 feelings were developed by a different excitement, and 
 expressed in other forms. In the year 1807 the series of 
 stories founded on the plays of Shakspeare, referred to in 
 his last letter to Manning, was published ; in which the 
 outlines of his plots are happily brought within the appre- 
 hension of children, and his language preserved wherever it 
 was possible to retain it ; a fit counterpoise to those works 
 addressed to the young understanding, to which Lamb still 
 cherished the strong distaste which broke out in one of his 
 previous letters. Of these tales, King Lear, Macbeth, 
 Timon of Athens, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello, 
 are by Charles, and the others by Mary Lamb ; hers being, 
 as Lamb always insisted, the most felicitous, but all well 
 adapted to infuse some sense of the nobleness of the poet s 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. 183 
 
 thoughts into the hearts of their httle readers. Of two 
 other works preparing for the press, he thus speaks in a 
 letter which bears date 26th February, 1808, addressed to 
 Manning, at Canton, in reply to a letter received thence, in 
 which Manning informed Lamb, that he had consigned a 
 parcel of silk to a Mr. Knox for him. 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 *' Dear Missionary, — Your letters from the farthest ends 
 of the world have arrived safe. Mary is very thankful for 
 your remembrance of her ; and with the less suspicion of 
 mercenariness, as the silk, the symholitm materiale of your 
 friendship, has not yet appeared. I think Horace says 
 somewhere, nox longa. I would not impute negligence or 
 unhandsome delays to a person whom you have honoured 
 with your confidence, but I have not heard of the silk, or of 
 Mr. Knox, save by your letter. Maybe he expects the first 
 advances ! or it may be that he has not succeeded in getting 
 the article on shore, for it is among the res prohibitcB et noii 
 nisi smuggle-ationis via fruendcB, But so it is, in the 
 friendships between ivicked men, the very expressions of 
 their good-will cannot but be sinful. I suppose you know 
 my farce was damned. The noise still rings in my ears. 
 Was you ever in the pillory ? — being damned is something 
 like that. A treaty of marriage is on foot between William 
 Hazlitt and Miss Stoddart. Something about settlements 
 only retards it. Little Fenwick (you don't see the con- 
 nexion of ideas here, how the devil should you ?) is in the 
 rules of the Fleet. Cruel creditors ! operation of iniquitous 
 laws ; is Magna Charta then a mockery ? Why, in general 
 (here I suppose you to ask a question) my spirits are pretty 
 good, but I have my depressions, black as a smith's beard, 
 Vulcanic, Stygian. At such times I have recourse to a pipe, 
 which is like not being at home to a dun ; he comes again 
 
184: LETTEKS TO MANNING. 
 
 with tenfold bitterness the next day. — (Mind, I ana not in 
 debt, I only borrow a similitude from others; it shows 
 imagination,) I have done two books since the failure of 
 my farce ; they will both be out this summer. The one is 
 a juvenile book — ' The Adventures of Ulysses,' intended to 
 be an introduction to the reading of Telemachus ! it is done 
 out of the Odyssey, not from the Greek. I would not 
 mislead you : nor yet from Pope's Odyssey, but from an 
 older translation of one Chapman. The ' Shakspeare 
 Tales' suggested the doing it. Godwin is in both those 
 cases my bookseller. The other is done for Longman, and 
 is * Specimens of English Dramatic Poets contemporary 
 with Shakspeare.' Specimens are becoming fashionable. 
 We have — ' Specimens of Ancient English Poets' — ' Speci- 
 mens of Modern English Poets' — ' Specimens of Ancient 
 English Prose Writers,' without end. They used to be 
 called ' Beauties.' You have seen ' Beauties of Shak- 
 speare ? ' so have many people that never saw any beauties 
 in Shakspeare. Longman is to print it, and be at all the 
 expense and risk, and I am to share the profits after all 
 deductions, i. e. a year or two hence I must pocket what 
 they please to tell me is due to me. But the book is such 
 as I am glad there should be. It is done out of old plays 
 at the Museum, and out of Dodsley s collection, &c. It is 
 to have notes. So I go creeping on since I was lamed with 
 that cursed fall from off the top of Drury-lane Theatre into 
 the pit, something more than a year ago. However, I have 
 been free of the house ever since, and the house was pretty 
 free with me upon that occasion. Hang 'em how they 
 hissed ! it was not a hiss neither, but a sort of a frantic yell, 
 like a congregation of mad geese, with roaring something 
 like bears, mows and mops like apes, sometimes snakes, 
 that hiss'd me into madness. 'Twas like St. Anthony's 
 temptations. Mercy on us, that God should give his 
 favourite children, men, mouths to speak with, to discourse 
 rationally, to promise smoothly, to flatter agreeably, to 
 encourage warmly, to counsel wisely, to sing with, to drink 
 
LETTEKS TO MANNING. 185 
 
 with, and to kiss with, and that they should turn them into 
 mouths of adders, bears, wolves, hyenas, and whistle like 
 tempests, and emit breath through them like distillations of 
 aspic poison, to asperse and vilify the innocent labours of 
 their fellow-creatures who are desirous to please them ! 
 Heaven be pleased to make the teeth rot out of them all, 
 therefore ! Make them a reproach, and all that pass by 
 them to loll out their tongue at them ! Blind mouths ! as 
 Milton somewhere calls them. Do you like Braham's 
 singing? The little Jew has bewitched me. I follow him 
 like as the boys followed Tom the Piper. I was insensible 
 to music till he gave me a new sense. that you could go 
 to the new opera of Kais to-night ! 'Tis all about Eastern 
 manners; it would just suit you. It describes the wild 
 Arabs, wandering Egyptians, lying dervises, and all that 
 sort of people, to a hair. You needn't ha' gone so far to see 
 what you see, if you saw it as I do every night at Drury- 
 lane Theatre. Braham's singing, when it is impassioned, 
 is finer than Mrs. Siddons', or Mr. Kemble's acting; and 
 when it is not impassioned, it is as good as hearing a person 
 of fine sense talking. The brave little Jew ! I made a pun 
 the other day, and palmed it upon Holcroft, who grinned 
 like a Cheshire cat. (Why do cats grin in Cheshire? — 
 Because it was once a county palatine, and the cats cannot 
 help laughing whenever they think of it, though I see no 
 great joke in it.) T said that Holcroft said, being asked 
 who were the best dramatic writers of the day, ' Hook and 
 I.' Mr. Hook is author of several pieces, Tekeli, &c. You 
 Imow what hooks and eyes are, don't you? Your letter had 
 many things in it hard to be understood : the puns were 
 ready and Swift-like ; but don't you begin to be melancholy 
 in the midst of Eastern customs ! ' The mind does not 
 easily conform to foreign usages, even in trifles : it requires 
 something that it has been familiar with.' That begins one 
 of Dr. Hawkesworth's papers in the Adventurer, and is, 
 T think, as sensible a remark as ever fell from the Doctor's 
 mouth. White is at Christ's Hospital, a wit of the first 
 
186 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 magnitude, but had rather be thought a gentleman, like 
 Congreve. You know Congreve's repulse which he gave to 
 Voltaire, when he came to visit him as a literary man, that 
 he wished to be considered only in the light of a private 
 gentleman. I think the impertinent Frenchman was pro- 
 perly answered. I should just serve any member of the 
 French Institute in the same manner, that wished to be 
 introduced to me. 
 
 " Does any one read at Canton? Lord Moira is Presi- 
 dent of the Westminster Library, I suppose you might 
 have interest with Sir Joseph Banks to get to be president 
 of any similar institution that should be set up at Canton. 
 I think public reading-rooms the best mode of educating 
 young men. Solitary reading is apt to give the headache. 
 Besides, who knows that you do read? There are ten 
 thousand institutions similar to the Royal Institution which 
 have sprung up from it. There is the London Institution, 
 the Southwark Institution, the Russell-square Rooms Insti- 
 tion, &c. — College quasi Con-lege, a place where people read 
 together. Wordsworth, the great poet, is coming to town ; 
 he is to have apartments in the Mansion-House. Well, my 
 dear Manning, talking cannot be infinite ; I have said all 
 I have to say; the rest is but remembrances, which we 
 shall bear in our heads of you while we have heads. Here 
 is a packet of trifles nothing worth ; but it is a trifling part 
 of the world where I live ; emptiness abomids. But in 
 fulness of affection, we remain yours, '* C. L." 
 
 The two books referred to in this letter were shortly after 
 published. '' The Adventures of Ulysses" had some tinge 
 of the quaintness of Chapman ; it gives the plot of the 
 earliest and one of the most charming of romances, without 
 spoiling its interest. The " Specimens of English Dra- 
 matic Poets who lived about the time of Shakspeare," were 
 received with more favour than Lamb s previous works, 
 though it was only by slow and imperceptible degrees that 
 they won their way to the apprehensions of the most influ- 
 
DEAMATIC SPECIMENS. 187 
 
 ential minds, and wrought out the genial purpose of the 
 editor in renewing a taste for the great contemporaries of 
 Shakspeare. " The Monthly Eeview" vouchsafed a notice^ 
 in its large print, upon the whole favourable, according to 
 the existing fashion of criticism, but still " craftily qualified." 
 It will scarcely be credited, without reference to the article 
 itself, that on the notes the critic pronounces this judgment: 
 " The notes before us indeed have nothing very remarkable, 
 except the style, which is formally abrupt and elaborately 
 quaint. Some of the most studied attempts to display 
 excessive feeling we had noted for animadversion, but the 
 task is unnecessary," &c. 
 
 It is easy to conceive of readers strongly dissenting 
 from some of the passionate eulogies of these notes, and 
 even taking offence at the boldness of the allusions ; but 
 that any one should read these essences of criticism, sug- 
 gesting the profoundest thoughts, and replete throughout 
 with fine imagery, and find in them '' nothing remarkable," 
 is a mystery which puzzles us. But when the same critic 
 speaks of the heroine of the " Broken Heart " as " the 
 light-heeled Calantha," it is easy to appreciate his fitness 
 for sitting in judgment on the old English drama and the 
 congenial expositor of its grandeurs ! 
 
 In this year Miss Lamb published her charming work, 
 entitled ''Mrs. Leicester's School," to which Lamb contri- 
 buted three of the tales. The best, however, are his 
 sister's, as he delighted to insist ; and no tales more happily 
 adapted to nurture all sweet and childlike feelings in chil- 
 dren were ever written. Another joint-publication, " Poetry 
 for Children," followed, which also is worthy of its title. 
 
 Early in 1809, Lamb removed from Mitre-court Build- 
 ings to Southampton Buildings, but only for a few months, 
 and preparatory to a settlement (which he meant to be 
 final) in the Temple. The next letter to Manning, (still 
 in China,) of 28th March, 1809, is from Southampton 
 Buildings. 
 
 * April, 1809. 
 
188 
 
 LETTEES TO MANNING. 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 *' Dear Manning, — I sent you a long letter by the ships 
 which sailed the beginning of last month, accompanied with 
 
 books, &c. Since I last wrote is dead. So there is one 
 
 of your friends whom you will never see again ! Perhaps the 
 next fleet may bring you a letter from Martin Burney, to 
 say that he writes by desire of Miss Lamb, who is not well 
 enough to write herself, to inform you that her brother died 
 on Thursday last, 14th June, &c. But I hope not. I should 
 be sorry to give occasion to open a correspondence between 
 Martin and you. This letter must be short, for I have 
 driven it off to the very moment of doing up the packets ; 
 and besides, that which I refer to above is a very long one ; 
 and if you have received my books, you will have enough to 
 do to read them. While I think on it, let me tell you, we 
 are moved. Don't come any more to Mitre-court Build- 
 ings. We are at 34, Southampton Buildings, Chancery- 
 lane, and shall be here till about the end of May, then we 
 remove to No. 4, Inner Temple-lane, where I mean to live 
 and die ; for I have such horror of moving, that I would 
 not take a benefice from the King, if I was not indulged 
 with non-residence. What a dislocation of comfort is com- 
 prised in that word moving ! Such a heap of little nasty 
 things, after you think all is got into the cart : old dredging- 
 boxes, worn-out brushes, gallipots, vials, things that it is 
 impossible the most necessitous person can ever want, but 
 which the women, who preside on these occasions, will not 
 leave behind if it was to save your soul ; they 'd keep the 
 cart ten minutes to stow in dirty pipes and broken matches, 
 to show their economy. Then you can find nothing you 
 want for many days after you get into your new lodgings. 
 You must comb your hair with your fingers, wash your hands 
 without soap, go about in dirty gaiters. Was I Diogenes, I 
 would not move out of a kilderkin into a hogshead, though the 
 
LETTEKS TO MANNING. 189 
 
 first had had nothhig but small beer in it, and the second 
 reeked claret. Our place of final destination, — I don't mean 
 the grave, but No. 4, Inner Temple-lane, — looks out upon 
 a gloomy churchyard-like court, called Hare-court, with 
 three trees and a pump in it. Do you know it ? I was 
 born near it, and used to drink at that pump when I was a 
 Eechabite of six years old. If you see newspapers you will 
 read about Mrs. Clarke. The sensation in London about this 
 nonsensical business is marvellous. I remember nothing 
 in my life like it. Thousands of ballads, caricatures, lives 
 of Mrs. Clarke, in every blind alley. Yet in the midst of 
 this stir, a sublime abstracted dancing-master, who attends 
 a family we know at Kensington, being asked a question 
 about the progress of the examinations in the House, 
 inquired who Mrs. Clarke was ? He had heard nothing of 
 it. He had evaded this omnipresence by utter insignifi- 
 cancy ! The Duke should make that man his confidential 
 valet. I proposed locking him up, barring him the use of 
 his fiddle and red pumps, until he had minutely perused 
 and committed to memory, the whole body of the examina- 
 tions, which employed the House of Commons a fortnight, 
 to teach him to be more attentive to what concerns the 
 public. I think I told you of Godwin's little book, and of 
 Coleridge's prospectus, in my last ; if I did not, remind me 
 of it, and I will send you them, or an account of them, 
 next fleet. I have no conveniency of doing it by this. 
 
 Mrs. grows every day in disfavour with me. I will 
 
 be buried with this inscription over me : — ' Here lies C. L., 
 the woman-hater :' I mean that hated one woman : for the 
 rest, God bless them ! How do you like the Mandarin- 
 esses ? Are you on some little footing with any of them ? 
 This is Wednesday. On Wednesdays is my levee. The 
 Captain, Martin, Phillips, (not the Sheriff,) Rickman, and 
 some more, are constant attendants, besides stray visitors. 
 We play at whist, eat cold meat and hot potatoes, and any 
 gentleman that chooses smokes. Why do you never drop 
 in ? You '11 come some day, won't you ? 
 
 '' C. Lamb, &c." 
 
190 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 His next is after his removal to the Temple : — • 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 "Jan. 2ii(l, 1810. 
 
 '' Dear Manning, — When I last wrote you I was in 
 lodgings. I am now in chambers, No. 4, Inner Temple 
 Lane, where I should be happy to see you any evening. 
 Bring any of your friends, the Mandarins, with you. I 
 have two sitting-rooms : I call them so 7:>ar excellence^ for 
 you may stand, or loll, or lean, or try any posture in them, 
 but they are best for sitting ; not squatting down Japanese 
 fashion, but the more decorous mode which European usage 
 has consecrated. I have two of these rooms on the third 
 floor, and five sleeping, cooking, &c. rooms, on the fourth 
 floor. In my best room is a choice collection of the works 
 of Hogarth, an English painter, of some humour. In my 
 next best are shelves containing a small, but well-chosen 
 library. My best room commands a court, in which there 
 are trees and a pump, the water of which is excellent cold, 
 with brandy, and not very insipid without. Here I hope to 
 set up my rest, and not quit till Mr. Powell, the undertaker, 
 gives me notice that I may have possession of my last 
 lodging. He lets lodgings for single gentlemen. I sent 
 you a parcel of books by my last to give you some idea of 
 the state of European literature. There comes with this 
 two volumes, done up as letters, of minor poetry, a sequel 
 to 'Mrs. Leicester;' the best you may suppose mine; the 
 next best are my coadjutor s ; you may amuse yourself in 
 guessing them out ; but I must tell you mine are but one- 
 third in quantity of the whole. So much for a Yerj delicate 
 subject. It is hard to speak of one's self, &c. Holcroft 
 had finished his life when I wrote to you, and Hazlitt has 
 since finished his life ; I do not mean his own life, but he 
 has finished a life of Holcroft, which is going to press. 
 Tuthill is Dr. Tuthill. I continue Mr. Lamb. I have pub- 
 lished a little book for children on titles of honour : and to 
 
LETTEES TO MANNING. 191 
 
 give them some idea of the difference of rank and gradual 
 rising, I have made a little scale, supposing myself to receive 
 the following various accessions of dignity from the king, 
 who is the fountain of honour — As at first, 1, Mr. C. Lamb; 
 2, C. Lamb, Esq. ; 3, Sir C. Lamb, Bart. ; 4, Baron Lamb 
 of Stamford ; -'^^ 5, Viscount Lamb ; 6, Earl Lamb ; 7, Mar- 
 quis Lamb ; 8, Duke Lamb. It would look like quibbling 
 to carry it on further, and especially as it is not necessary 
 for children to go beyond the ordinary titles of sub-regal 
 dignity in our own country, otherwise I have sometimes in 
 my dreams imagined myself still advancing, as 9th, King 
 Lamb; 10th, Emperor Lamb; 11th, Pope Innocent, higher 
 than which is nothing. Puns I have not made many, (nor 
 punch much,) since the date of my last ; one I cannot help 
 relating. A constable in Salisbury Cathedral was telling 
 me that eight people dined at the top of the spire of the 
 cathedral, upon which I remarked, that they must be very 
 sharp set. But in general I cultivate the reasoning part of 
 my mind more than the imaginative. I am stuffed out 
 so with eating turkey for dinner, and another turkey for 
 supper yesterday (Turkey in Europe and Turkey in Asia,) 
 that I can't jog on. It is New-year here. That is, it was 
 New-year half-a-year back, when I was writing this. Nothing 
 puzzles me more than time and space, and yet nothing 
 puzzles me less, for I never think about them. The Per- 
 sian ambassador is the principal thing talked of now. I 
 sent some people to see him worship the sun on Primrose 
 Hill, at half-past six in the morning, 28th November ; but 
 he did not come, which makes me think the old fire- wor- 
 shippers are a sect almost extinct in Persia. The Persian 
 ambassador's name is Shaw Ali Mirza. The common 
 people call him Shaw nonsense. While I think of it, I 
 have put three letters besides my own three into the India 
 post for you, from your brother, sister, and some gentleman 
 whose name I forget. Will they, have they, did they come 
 
 * ^^ Where my family came from. I have chosen that, it ever I should 
 have my choice/' 
 
192 
 
 LETTEES TO MANNING. 
 
 safe ? The distance you are at, cuts up tenses by the root. 
 I think you said you did not know Kate t^>i''^s<^<t>>i'>K**. I 
 express her by nine stars, though she is but one. You 
 must have seen her at her father's. Try and remember 
 her. Coleridge is bringing out a paper in weekly numbers, 
 called the * Friend,' which I would send, if I could; but 
 the difficulty I had in getting the packets of books out to 
 you before deters me ; and you 11 want something new to 
 read when you come home. Except Kate, I have had no 
 vision of excellence this year, and she passed by like the 
 queen on her coronation day ; you don't know whether you 
 saw her or not. Kate is fifteen : I go about moping, and 
 sing the old pathetic ballad I used to like in my youth — 
 
 ^ She 's sweet fifteen, 
 I 'm OTie yea?' moreJ* 
 
 " Mrs. Bland sung it in boy's clothes the first time I 
 heard it. I sometimes think the lower notes in my voice 
 are like Mrs. Bland's. That glorious singer, Braham, one 
 of my lights, is fled. He was for a season. He was a rare 
 composition of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel, yet 
 all these elements mixed up so kindly in him, that you 
 could not tell which preponderated ; but he is gone, and 
 one Phillips is engaged instead. Kate is vanished, but 
 Miss B is always to be met with ! 
 
 * Queens drop away, while blue-legged Maukin thrives ; 
 And courtly Mildred dies while country Madge survives.' 
 
 That is not my poetry, but Quarles's; but haven't you 
 observed that the rarest things are the least obvious ? 
 Don't show anybody the names in this letter. I WTite 
 confidentially, and wish this letter to be considered as pri- 
 vate. Hazlitt has written a grammar for Godwin ; Godwin 
 sells it bound up with a treatise of his own on language, 
 but the grey mare is the better Jiorse. I don't allude to 
 Mrs. , but to the word grammar^ which comes near to 
 
LETTER TO MONTAGUE. 193 
 
 grey mare, if you observe, in sound. That figure is called 
 paranomasia in Greek. I am sometimes happy in it. An 
 old woman begged of me for charity. 'Ah ! sir,' said she, 
 ' I have seen better days ;' 'So have I, good woman,' I 
 replied ; but I meant literally, days not so rainy and overcast 
 as that on which she begged : she meant more prosperous 
 days. Mr. Dawe is made associate of the Royal Academy. 
 By what law of association I can't guess. Mrs. Holcroft, 
 Miss Holcroft, Mr. and Mrs. Godwin, Mr. and Mrs. Hazlitt, 
 Mrs. Martin and Louisa, Mrs. Lum, Capt. Burney, Mrs. 
 Burney, Martin Burney, Mr. Packman, Mrs. Piickman, 
 Dr. Stoddart, William DoUin, Mr. Thompson, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Norris, Mr. Fenwick, Mrs. Fenwick, Miss Fenwick, a 
 man that saw you at our house one day, and a lady that 
 heard me speak of you ; Mrs. Buffam that heard Hazlitt 
 mention you. Dr. Tuthill, Mrs. Tuthill, Colonel Harwood, 
 Mrs. Harwood, Mr. Colher, Mrs. Collier, Mr. Sutton, 
 Nurse, Mr. Fell, Mrs. Fell, Mr. Marshall, are very well, 
 and occasionally inquire after you. 
 
 '' I remain yours ever, Ch. Lamb." 
 
 In the summer of 1810, Lamb and his sister spent their 
 holidays with Hazlitt, who, having married Miss Stoddart, 
 was living in a house belonging to his wife's family at 
 Winterslow, on the border of Salisbury Plain. The fol- 
 lowing letter, of 12th July, in this year, was addressed to 
 Mr. Montague, who had urged him to employ a part of his 
 leisure in a compilation. 
 
 TO MR. MONTAGUE. 
 
 "Sarum, July 12th, 1810. 
 
 '.' Dear Montague, — I have turned and twisted the MSS. 
 in my head, and can make nothing of them. I knew when 
 I took them that I could not, but I do not like to do an act 
 of ungracious necessity at once ; so I am ever committing 
 
 
 
194 
 
 LETTER TO MONTAGUE. 
 
 m3^self by half engagements, and total failures. I cannot 
 make anybody understand why I can't do such things ; it is 
 a defect in my occiput. I cannot put other people's thoughts 
 together ; I forget every paragraph as fast as I read it ; and 
 my head has received such a shock by an all-night journey 
 on the top of the coach, that I shall have enough to do to 
 nurse it into its natural pace before I go home. I must 
 devote myself to imbecility ; I must be gloriously useless 
 while I stay here. How is Mrs. M. ? will she pardon my 
 inefficiency ? The city of Salisbury is full of weeping and 
 wailing. The bank has stopped payment ; and everybody 
 in the town kept money at it, or has got some of its notes. 
 Some have lost all they had in the world. It is the next 
 thing to seeing a city with the plague within its walls. The 
 Wilton people are all undone ; all the manufactm^ers there 
 kept cash at the Salisbury bank ; and I do suppose it to be 
 the unhappiest county in England this, where I am making 
 holiday. We purpose setting out for Oxford Tuesday foit- 
 night, and coming thereby home. But no more night 
 travelling. My head is sore (understand it of the inside) 
 with that deduction from my natural rest which I suffered 
 coming down. Neither Mary nor I can spare a morsel of 
 our rest : it is incumbent on us to be misers of it. Travel- 
 ling is not good for us, we travel so seldom. If the sun be 
 hell, it is not for the fire, but for the sempiternal motion of 
 that miserable body of light. How much more dignified 
 leisure hath a muscle glued to his unpassable rocky limit, 
 two inch square ! He hears the tide roll over him, back- 
 wards and forwards twice a-day (as the Salisbury long coach 
 goes and returns in eight- and-f or ty hours), but knows better 
 than to take an outside night-place a top on't. He is the 
 owl of the sea — Minerva s fish — the fish of wisdom. 
 
 " Our kindest remembrances to Mrs. M. 
 
 '' Youi's truly, 
 
 "C. Lamb." 
 
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ''REFLECTOR." 195 
 
 The following is Lamb's postscript to a letter of Miss 
 Larab to Miss Wordsworth, after their return to London : 
 
 " Mary has left a little space for me to fill up with non- 
 sense, as the geographers used to cram monsters in the 
 voids of the maps, and call it Terra Incognita. She has 
 told you how she has taken to water like a hungry otter. I 
 too limp after her in lame imitation, but it goes against me 
 a little at first. I have been acquaintance with it now for 
 full four days, and it seems a moon. I am full of cramps, 
 and rheumatisms, and cold internally, so that fire won't 
 warm me ; yet I bear all for virtue's sake. Must I then 
 leave you, gin, rum, brandy, aqua-vitae, pleasant jolly fel- 
 lows ? Hang temperance and he that first invented it ! — 
 
 some Anti-Noahite. C has powdered his head, and 
 
 looks like Bacchus, Bacchus ever sleek and young. He is 
 going to turn sober, but his clock has not struck yet ; 
 meantime he pours down goblet after goblet, the second to 
 see where the first is gone, the third to see no harm hap- 
 pens to the second, a fourth to say there is another coming, 
 and a fifth to say he is not sure he is the last." 
 
 In the autumn of this year, the establishment of a Quar- 
 terly Magazine, entitled the " Reflector," opened a new 
 sphere for Lamb's powers as a humourist and critic. Its 
 editor, Mr. Leigh Hunt, having been educated in the same 
 school, enjoyed many associations and friendships in common 
 with him, and was thus able to excite in Lamb the greatest 
 motive for exertion in the zeal of kindness. In this Maga- 
 zine appeared some of Lamb s noblest effusions ; his essay 
 " On Garrick and Acting," which contains the character of 
 Lear, perhaps the noblest criticism ever written, and on the 
 noblest human subject; his delightful *' Essays on Hogarth;" 
 his " Farewell to Tobacco," and several of the choicest of his 
 gayer pieces. 
 
 o2 
 
196 attace: of the quarterly review. 
 
 The number of the Quarterly Keview, for December, 
 181 J, contained an attack upon Lamb, which it would be 
 difficult, as well as painful, to characterise as it deserves. 
 Mr. Weber, in his edition of '' Ford," had extracted Lamb's 
 note on the catastrophe of " The Broken Heart," in which 
 Lamb, speaking of that which he regarded as the highest 
 exhibition of tragic suffering which human genius had 
 depicted, dared an allusion which was perhaps too bold for 
 those who did not understand the peculiar feeling by which 
 it was suggested, but which no unprejudiced mind could 
 mistake for the breathing of other than a pious spirit. In 
 reviewing Mr. Weber, the critic, who was also the editor of 
 the Review, thus complains of the quotation. — '' We have a 
 more serious charge to bring against the editor than the 
 omission of points, or the misapprehension of words. He 
 has polluted his pages with the blasphemies of a poor 
 maniac, who, it seems, once published some detached 
 scenes of the ' Broken Heart. ' For this unfortunate crea- 
 ture, every feeling mind will j&nd an apology in his calami- 
 tous situation ; but for Mr. Weber, we know not where the 
 warmest of his friends will find j)alliation or excuse." It 
 would be unjust to attribute this pai^agraph to the accidental 
 association of Lamb in literary undertakings with persons 
 like Mr. Hunt, strongly opposed to the political opinions of 
 Mr. Gifford. It seems rather the peculiar expression of 
 the distaste of a small though acute mind for an original 
 power which it could not appreciate, and which disturbed 
 the conventional associations of which it was master, aggra- 
 vated by bodily weakness and disease. Notwithstanding 
 this attack. Lamb was prompted by his admiration for 
 Wordsworth's ''Excursion" to contribute a review of that 
 work, on its appearance, to the Quarterly, and he antici- 
 pated great pleasure in the poet's approval of his criticism ; 
 but when the review appeared, the article was so mercilessly 
 mangled by the editor, that Lamb entreated Wordsworth 
 not to read it. For these gTievances Lamb at length took 
 a very gentle revenge in the following 
 
TRIUMPH OF THE WHALE. 197 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 SAINT CRISPIN TO MR. GIFFORD. 
 
 All unadvised and in an evil hour, 
 
 Lured by aspiring thoughts, my son, you daft 
 
 The lowly labours of the " Gentle Craft " 
 
 For learned toils, which blood and spirits sour. 
 
 All things, dear pledge, are not in all men's power ; 
 
 The wiser sort of shrub affects the ground ; 
 
 And sweet content of mind is oftener found 
 
 In cobbler's parlour than in critic's bower. 
 
 The sorest work is what doth cross the grain ; 
 
 And better to this hour you had been plying 
 
 The obsequious awl, with well- waxed finger flying, 
 
 Than ceaseless thus to till a thankless vein : 
 
 Still teasing muses, which are still denying ; 
 
 Making a stretching-leather of your brain. 
 
 St. CrispiTi^s Eve. 
 
 Lamb, as we have seen, cared nothing for pohtics ; yet 
 his desire to serve his friends sometimes induced him to 
 adopt for a short time their view of pubUc aflairs, and assist 
 them with a harmless pleasantry. The following epigram, 
 on the disappointment of the Whig associates of the Regent, 
 appeared in the " Examiner," 
 
 Ye politicians, tell me, pray. 
 Why thus with woe and care rent ? 
 This is the worst that you can say, 
 Some wind has blown the Wig away 
 And left the Sai}' Apparent. 
 
 The following, also published in the same paper, would 
 probably have only caused a smile if read by the Regent 
 himself> and may now be republished without offence to any 
 one. At the time when he wrote it. Lamb used to stop 
 any passionate attacks upon the prince, with the smiling 
 remark, "I love my Regent." 
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF THE WHALE. 
 
 lo ! Paean ! lo ! sing. 
 To the finny people's king. 
 Not a mightier whale than this 
 In the vast Atlantic is, 
 
198 TRIUMPH OF THE WHALE. 
 
 Not a fatter fish than he 
 Flounders round the Polar sea. 
 See his blubher — at his gills 
 What a world of drink he swills ! 
 From his trunk, as from a spout, 
 Which next moment he pours out. 
 
 Such his person. — Next declare, 
 Muse, who his companions are : — 
 Every fish of generous kind 
 Scuds aside, or slinks behind ; 
 But about his presence keep 
 All the monsters of the deep ; 
 Mermaids, with their tails and singing 
 His delighted fancy stinging ; 
 Crooked dolphins, they surround him ; 
 Dog-like seals, they fawn around him ; 
 Following hard, the progress mark 
 Of the intolerant salt sea shark ; 
 For his solace and relief, 
 Flat-fish are his courtiers chief; 
 Last, and lowest in his train. 
 Ink-fish (libellers of the main) 
 Their black liquor shed in spite : 
 (Such on earth the things that write.) 
 In his stomach, some do say, 
 No good thing can ever stay : 
 Had it been the fortune of it 
 To have swallowM that old prophet, 
 Three days there he 'd not have dwell'd, 
 But in one have been expell'd. 
 Hapless mariners are they, 
 Who beguiled (as seamen say) 
 Deeming him some rock or island. 
 Footing sure, safe spot, and dry land, 
 Anchor in his scaly rind — 
 Soon the difference they find ; 
 Sudden, plumb ! he sinks beneath them. 
 Does to ruthless seas bequeath them. 
 
 Name or title what has he ? 
 Is he Regent of the Sea ? 
 From this difficulty free us, 
 Buflfon, Banks, or sage Linnaeus. 
 With his wondrous attributes. 
 Say what appellation suits ? 
 By his bulk, and by his size. 
 By his oily qualities, 
 This (or else my eyesight fails). 
 This should be the Prince of W/jales. 
 
LETTER TO WORDSWOETH. 199 
 
 The devastation of the Parks in the summer of 1814, by- 
 reason of the rejoicings on the visit of the Allied Sovereigns, 
 produced the following letter from Lamb to Wordsworth. 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 ^^Aug. 9th, 1814. 
 
 '* Save for a late excursion to Harrow, and a day or two 
 on the banks of the Thames this summer, rural images were 
 fast fading from my mind, and by the wise provision of the 
 Regent all that was countryfied in the parks is all but 
 obliterated. The very colour of green is vanished, the whole 
 surface of Hyde Park is dry crumbling sand (Arabia 
 Arenosa), not a vestige or hint of grass ever having grown 
 there ; booths and drinking-places go all round it, for a 
 mile and a half I am confident — I might say two miles, in 
 circuit — the stench of liquors, had tobacco, dirty people and 
 provisions, conquers the air, and we are all stifled and 
 suffocated in Hyde Park. Order after order has been 
 issued by Lord Sidmouth in the name of the Regent 
 (acting in behalf of his Royal father) for the dispersion 
 of the varlets, but in vain. The vis unita of all the pub- 
 licans in London, Westminster, Marylebone, and miles 
 round, is too powerful a force to put down. The Regent 
 has raised a phantom which he cannot lay. There they '11 
 stay probably for ever. The whole beauty of the place is 
 gone — that lake-look of the Serpentine — it has got foolish 
 ships upon it — but something whispers to have confidence 
 in nature and its revival — 
 
 At the coming of the milder day, 
 These monuments shall all be overgrown. 
 
 Meantime I confess to have smoked one delicious pipe in 
 one of the cleanliest and goodliest of the booths ; a tent 
 rather — 
 
 ' call it not a booth ! ' 
 
 erected by the public spirit of Watson, who keeps the 
 
200 
 
 LETTEKS TO COLEBIDGE. 
 
 Adam and Eve at Pancras, (the ale-houses have all 
 emigrated, with their train of Lotties, mugs, cork-screws, 
 waiters, into Hyde Park — whole ale-houses, with all their 
 ale !) in company with some of the Guards that had been in 
 France, and a fine French girl, habited like a princess of 
 banditti, which one of the dogs had transported from the 
 Garonne to the Serpentine. The unusual scene in Hyde 
 Park, by candle-light^ in open air, — good tobacco, bottled 
 stout, — made it look like an interval in a campaign, a 
 repose after battle. I almost fancied scars smarting, and 
 w^as ready to club a story with my comrades, of some of my 
 lying deeds. After all, the fireworks were splendid ; the 
 rockets in clusters, in trees and all shapes, spreading about 
 like young stars in the making, floundering about in space, 
 (like unbroke horses,) till some of Newton s calculations 
 should fix them ; but then they went out. x\ny one who 
 could see 'em, and the still finer showers of gloomy rain-fire 
 that fell sulkily and angrily from 'em, and could go to bed 
 without dreaming of the last da}^ must be as hardened an 
 atheist as . 
 
 '* Again let me thank you for your present, and assure 
 you that fireworks and triumphs have not distracted me 
 from receiving a calm and noble enjoyment from it, (which 
 I trust I shall often,) and I sincerely congratulate you on 
 its appearance. 
 
 " With kindest remembrances to you and household, we 
 remain, yours sincerely, 
 
 '' C. Lamb and Sister." 
 
 The following are fragments of letters to Coleridge in 
 the same month. The first is in answer to a solicitation of 
 Coleridge for a supply of German books. 
 
LETTERS TO COLEKIDGE. 201 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 "13th Aug. 1814. 
 
 " Dear Resuscitate, — There comes to you by the vehicle 
 from Lad-lane this day a volume of German ; what it is, 
 I cannot justly say, the characters of those northern nations 
 having been always singularly harsh and unpleasant to me. 
 
 It is a contribution of Dr. towards your wants, and 
 
 you would have had it sooner but for an odd accident. 
 I wrote for it three days ago, and the Doctor as he thought, 
 sent it me. A book of like exterior he did send, but 
 being disclosed, how far unlike ! It was the ' Well-bred 
 Scholar,' — a book with which it seems the Doctor laudably 
 fills up those hours which he can steal from his medical 
 avocations. Chesterfield, Blair, Beattie, portions from ' The 
 Life of Savage,' make up a prettyish system of morality and 
 the belles-lettres, w^hich Mr. Mylne, a schoolmaster, has 
 properly brought together, and calls the collection by the 
 denomination above mentioned. The Doctor had no sooner 
 discovered his error, than he dispatched man and horse to 
 rectify the mistake, and with a pretty kind of ingenuous 
 modesty in his note, seemeth to deny any knowledge of the 
 ' Well-bred Scholar ; ' false modesty surely, and a blush 
 misplaced ; for, what more pleasing than the consideration 
 of professional austerity thus relaxing, thus improving ! 
 But so, when a child I remember blushing, being caught 
 on my knees to my Maker, or doing otherwise some pious 
 and praiseworthy action : 7ioiv I rather love such things to 
 be seen. Henry Crabb Robinson is out upon his circuit, 
 and his books are inaccessible without his leave and key. 
 He is attending the Norfolk Circuit, — a short term, but to 
 him, as to many young lawyers, a long vacation, sufficiently 
 dreary*. I thought I could do no better than transmit to 
 
 * A mistake of Lamb's, at which the excellent person referred to may- 
 smile, now that he has retired from his profession, and has no business but 
 the offices of kindness. 
 
202 LETTERS TO COLEEIDGE. 
 
 him, not extracts, but your very letter itself, than which I 
 think I never read anything more moving, more pathetic, or 
 more conducive to the purpose of persuasion. The Crab is 
 a sour Crab if it does not sweeten him. I think it would 
 draw another third volume of Dodsley out of me ; but you 
 say you don't want any English books ? Perhaps after all, 
 that's as well ; one's romantic credulity is for ever mislead- 
 ing one into misplaced acts of foolery. Crab might have 
 answered by this time; his juices take a long time supply- 
 ing, but they '11 run at last, — I know they will, — pure 
 golden pippin. A fearful rumour has since reached me 
 that the Crab is on the eve of setting out for France. If 
 he is in England your letter will reach him, and T flatter 
 myself a touch of the persuasive of my own, which accom- 
 panies it, will not be thrown away : if it be, he is a sloe, 
 and no true-hearted crab, and there's an end. For that 
 life of the German conjuror which you speak of, ' Colerus 
 de Vita Doctoris vix-Intelligibilis,' I perfectly remember 
 the last evening we spent with Mrs. Morgan and Miss Brent, 
 in London-street, — (by that token we had raw rabbits for 
 supper, and Miss B. prevailed uj)on me to take a glass of 
 brandy and water after supper, which is not my habit,) — 
 I perfectly remember reading portions of that life in their 
 parlour, and I think it must be among their packages. It 
 was the very last evening we were at that house. What is 
 gone of that frank-hearted circle, Morgan, and his cos- 
 lettuces ? He ate walnuts better than any man I ever 
 knew. Friendships in these parts stagnate. 
 
 " I am going to eat turbot, turtle, venison, marrow 
 pudding, — cold punch, claret, Madeira, — at our annual 
 feast, at half-past four this day. They keep bothering me, 
 (I m at office,) and my ideas are confused. Let me know 
 if I can be of any service as to books. God forbid the 
 Architectonican should be sacrificed to a foolish scruple 
 of some book-proprietor, as if books did not belong with 
 the highest propriety to those that understand em best. 
 
 '' C. Lamb." 
 
LETTEES TO COLEETDGE. 203 
 
 TO MR. COLEEIDGE. 
 
 ^^26th August, 1814. 
 
 *' Let the hungry soul rejoice, there is corn in Egypt. 
 Whatever thou hast been told to the contrary by designing 
 friends, who perhaps inquired carelessly, or did not inquire 
 at all, in hope of saving their money, there is a stock of 
 ' Remorse' on hand, enough, as Pople conjectures, for seven 
 years' consumption ; judging from experience of the last 
 two years. Metbinks it makes for the benefit of sound 
 literature, that the best books do not always go off best. 
 Inquire in seven years' time for the ' Rokebys ' and the 
 'Laras,' and where shall they be found? — fluttering frag- 
 mentally in some thread-paper — whereas thy 'Wallenstein,' 
 and thy ' Remorse,' are safe on Longman's or Pople's 
 shelves, as in some Bodleian ; there they shall remain ; no 
 need of a chain to hold them fast — -perhaps for ages — tall 
 copies — and people shan't run about hunting for them as in 
 old Ezra's shrievalty they did for a Bible, almost without 
 effect till the great-great-grand-niece (by the mother's side) 
 of Jeremiah or Ezekiel (which was it ?) remembered some- 
 thing of a book, with odd reading in it, that used to lie in 
 the green closet in her aunt Judith's bedchamber. 
 
 " Thy caterer, Price, was at Hamburgh when last Pople 
 heard of him, laying up for thee like some miserly old 
 father for his generous hearted son to squander. 
 
 " Mr. Charles Aders, whose books also pant for that free 
 circulation which thy custody is sure to give them, is to be 
 heard of at his kinsmen, Messrs. Jameson and Aders, No. 
 7, Laurence Pountney-lane, London, according to the 
 information which Crabius with his parting breath left me. 
 Crabius is gone to Paris. I prophesy he and the Parisians 
 will part with mutual contempt. His head has a twist 
 Allemagne, like thine, dear mystic. 
 
 " I have been reading Madame Stael on Germany. An 
 impudent clever woman. But if ' Faust ' be no better 
 
204 LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 than in her abstract of it, I counsel thee to let it alone. 
 How canst thou translate the language of cat-monkeys ? 
 Fie on such fantasies ! But I will not forget to look for 
 Proclus. It is a kind of book when one meets with it oue 
 shuts the lid faster than one opened it. Yet I have some 
 bastard kind of recollection that some where, some time 
 ago, upon some stall or other, I saw it. It was either that 
 or Plotinus, or Saint Augustine's ' City of God.' So little 
 do some folks value, what to others, sc. to you, ' well used,' 
 had been the * Pledge of Immortality.' Bishop Bruno I 
 never touched upon. Stuffing too good for the brains of 
 such ' a Hare ' as thou describest. May it burst his peri- 
 cranium, as the gobbets of fat and turpentine (a nasty 
 thought of the seer) did that old dragon in the Apocrypha ! 
 May he go mad in trying to understand his author ! May 
 he lend the third volume of him before he has quite 
 translated the second, to a friend who shall lose it, and so 
 spoil the publication, and may his friend find it and send 
 it him just as thou or some such less dilatory spirit shall 
 have announced the whole for the press ; lastly, may he be 
 hunted by Reviewers, and the devil jug him. Canst think 
 of any other queries in the solution of which I can give 
 thee satisfaction ? Do you want any books that I can 
 procure for you ? Old Jimmy Boyer is dead at last. 
 TroUope has got his living, worth lOOOi. a-year net. See, 
 thou sluggard, thou heretic-sluggard, w^hat mightest thou 
 not have arrived at. Lay thy animosity against Jimmy in 
 the grave. Do not entail it on thy posterity. 
 
 " Charles Lamb." 
 
205 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 [1815 to 1817.] 
 
 LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH^ SOUTHEY, AND MANNING. 
 
 It w^as at the beginning of the year 1815 that I had first 
 the happiness of a personal acquaintance with Mr. Lamb. 
 With his scattered essays and poems I had become famiUar 
 a few weeks before, through the instrumentahty of Mr. 
 Baron Field, now Chief Justice of Gibraltar, who had been 
 brought into close intimacy with Lamb by the association 
 of his own family with Christ's Hospital, of which his 
 father was the surgeon, and by his own participation in the 
 '' Reflector." Living then in chambers in Inner Temple- 
 lane, and attending those of Mr. Chitty, the special pleader, 
 which were on the next staircase to Mr. Lamb's, I had 
 been possessed some time by a desire to become acquainted 
 with the writings of my gifted neighbour, which my friend 
 was able only partially to gratify. "John Woodvil," and 
 the number of the '* Reflector " enriched with Lamb's 
 article, he indeed lent me, but he had no copy of " Rosa- 
 mund Gray," which I was most anxious to read, and which, 
 after earnest search through all the bookstalls within the 
 scope of my walks, I found, exhibiting proper marks of due 
 appreciation, in the store of a little circulating library near 
 Holborn. There was something in this little romance so 
 entirely new, yet breathing the air of old acquaintance ; 
 a sense of beauty so delicate and so intense ; and a morality 
 so benignant and so profound, that, as I read it, my 
 curiosity to see its author rose almost to the height of pain. 
 The commencement of the new year brought me that grati- 
 fication ; I was invited to^ meet Lamb at dinner, at the 
 house of Mr. William Evans, a gentleman holding an office 
 
206 INTRODUCTION TO LAMB. 
 
 in the India House, who then lived in Weymouth-street, 
 and who was a proprietor of the " Pamphleteer," to which 
 I had contributed some idle scribblings. My duties at the 
 ofifice did not allow me to avail myself of this invitation to 
 dinner, but I went up at ten oV.lock, through a deep snow, 
 palpably congealing into ice, and was amply repaid when I 
 reached the hospitable abode of my friend. There was 
 Lamb, preparing to depart, but he staid half an hour in 
 kindness to me, and then accompanied me to our common 
 home — the Temple. 
 
 Methinks I see him before me now, as he appeared then, 
 and as he continued, with scarcely any perceptible altera- 
 tion to me, during the twenty years of intimacy which 
 followed, and were closed by his death. A light frame, so 
 fragile that it seemed as if a breath would overthrow it, 
 clad in clerk-like black, was surmounted by a head of form 
 and expression the most noble and sweet. His black hair 
 curled crisply about an expanded forehead ; his eyes, softly 
 brown, twinkled with varying expression, though the preva- 
 lent feeling was sad; and the nose slightly curved, and 
 delicately carved at the nostril, with the lower outline of 
 the face regularly oval, completed a head which was finely 
 placed on the shoulders, and gave importance, and even 
 dignity, to a diminutive and shadowy stem. Who shall 
 describe his countenance — catch its quivering sweetness — 
 and fix it for ever in words ? There are none, alas ! to 
 answer the vain desire of friendship. Deep thought, striv- 
 ing with humour ; the lines of suffering wreathed into 
 cordial mirth ; and a smile of painful sweetness, present an 
 image to the mind it can as little describe as lose. His 
 personal appearance and manner are not unfitly character- 
 ised by what he himself says in one of his letters to Man- 
 ning of Braham — " a compound of the Jew, the gentleman, 
 and the angel." He took my arm, and we walked to the 
 Temple, Lamb stammering out fine remarks as we walked; 
 and when we reached liis staircase, he detained me with an 
 urgency which would not be denied, and we mounted to the 
 
INTRODUCTION TO LAMB. 207 
 
 top Story, where an old petted servant, called Becky, was 
 ready to receive us. We were soon seated beside a cheer- 
 ful fire ; hot water and its better adjuncts were before us ; 
 and Lamb insisted on mv sitting with him while he smoked 
 " one pipe " — for, alas ! for poor human nature — he had 
 resumed his acquaintance with his " fair traitress." How 
 often the pipe and the glasses were replenished, I will not 
 undertake to disclose ; but I can never forget the conversa- 
 tion : though the first, it was more solemn, and in higher 
 mood, than any I ever after had with Lamb through the 
 whole of our friendship. How it took such a turn between 
 two strangers, one of them a lad of not quite twenty, I 
 cannot tell ; but so it happened. We discoursed then of 
 life and death, and our anticipation of a world beyond the 
 grave. Lamb spoke of these awful themes with the simplest 
 piety, but expressed his own fond cleavings to life — to all 
 well-known accustomed things — and a shivering (not shud- 
 dering) sense of that which is to come, which he so finely 
 indicated in his ''New Years Eve," years afterwards. It 
 was two o'clock before we parted, when Lamb gave me a 
 hearty invitation to renew my visit at pleasure ; but two or 
 three months elapsed before I saw him again. In the 
 meantime, a number of the " Pamphleteer " contained an 
 " Essay on the Chief Living Poets," among whom on the 
 title appeared the name of Lamb, and some page or two 
 were expressly devoted to his praises. It was a poor tissue 
 of tawdry eulogies — a shallow outpouring of young enthusi- 
 asm in fine words, which it mistakes for thoughts ; yet it 
 gave Lamb, who had hitherto received scarcely civil notice 
 from reviewers, great pleasure to find that any one recog- 
 nised him as having a place among poets. The next time 
 I saw him, he came almost breathless into the office, and 
 proposed to give me what I should have chosen as the 
 greatest of all possible honours and delights — an introduc- 
 tion to Wordsworth, who I learned, with a palpitating 
 heart, was actually at the next door. I hurried out with 
 my kind conductor, and a minute after was presented by 
 
208 LETTEE TO WORDSWORTH, 
 
 Lamb to the person whom in all the world I venerated 
 most, with this preface : — " Wordsworth, give me leave to 
 introduce to you my only admirer." 
 
 The following letter was addressed to Wordsworth, after 
 his return to Westmoreland from this visit : — 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " 9th Aug. 1815. 
 
 " Dear Wordsworth, — Mary and I felt quite queer after 
 your taking leave (you W. W.) of us in St. Giles's. We 
 wished we had seen more of you, but felt we had scarce been 
 sufficiently acknowledging for the share we had enjoyed of 
 your company. We felt as if we had been not enough expres- 
 sive of our pleasure. But our manners both are a little too 
 much on this side of too-much-cordiality. We want pre- 
 sence of mind and presence of heart. What we feel comes 
 too late, like an after-thought impromptu. But perhaps 
 you observed nothing of that which we have been painfully 
 conscious of, and are every day in our intercourse with 
 those we stand affected to through all the degrees of love. 
 Robinson is on the circuit — our panegyrist I thought had 
 forgotten one of the objects of his youthful admiration, but 
 I was agreeably removed from that scruple by the laundress 
 knocking at my door this morning, almost before I was up, 
 with a present of fruit from my young friend, &c. There is 
 something inexpressibly pleasant to me in these presents, 
 be it fruit, or fowl, or brawn, or what not. Books are 
 a legitimate cause of acceptance. If presents be not the 
 soul of friendship, undoubtedly they are the most spiritual 
 part of the body of that intercourse. There is too much 
 narrowness of thinking in this point. The punctilio of 
 acceptance, methinks, is too confined and strait-laced. I 
 could be content to receive money, or clothes, or a joint of 
 meat from a friend. Why should he not send me a dinner 
 
LETTEK TO WORDSWORTH. 209 
 
 as well as a dessert ? I would taste him in the beasts of 
 the field, and through all creation. Therefore did the 
 basket of fruit of the juvenile Talfourd not displease me ; 
 not that I have any thoughts of bartering or reciprocating 
 these things. To send him anything in return, would be 
 to reflect suspicion of mercenariness upon what I know lie 
 meant a free-will offering. Let him overcome me in bounty. 
 In this strife a generous nature loves to be overcome. You 
 wish me some of your leisure. 1 have a glimmering aspect, 
 a chink-light of liberty before me, which, I pray God, prove 
 not fallacious. My remonstrances have stirred up others 
 to remonstrate, and, altogether, there is a plan for separat- 
 ing certain parts of business from our department ; which, 
 if it take place, will produce me more time, i. e. my even- 
 ings free. It may be a means of placing me in a more 
 conspicuous situation, which will knock at my nerves 
 another way, but I wait the issue in submission. If I can 
 but begin my own day at four o'clock in the afternoon, I 
 shall think myself to have Eden days of peace and liberty 
 to what I have had. As you say, how a man can fill three 
 volumes up with an essay on the drama, is wonderful ; I am 
 sure a very few sheets would hold all I had to say on the 
 subject. 
 
 *' Did you ever read ' Charon on Wisdom ? ' or ' Patrick s 
 Pilgrim ? ' If neither, you have two great pleasures to come. 
 I mean some day to attack Caryl on Job, six folios. What 
 any man can write, surely I may read. If I do but get rid 
 of auditing warehousekeepers' accounts, and get no worse- 
 harassing task in the place of it, what a lord of liberty I 
 shall be ! I shall dance, and skip, and make mouths at 
 the invisible event, and pick the thorns out of my pillow, 
 and throw em at rich men's night-caps, and talk blank 
 verse, hoity, toity, and sing — ' A clerk I was in London 
 gay,' ' Ban, ban, Ca-Caliban,' like the emancipated monster, 
 and go where I like, up this street or down that alley. 
 Adieu, and pray that it may be my luck. 
 
 *' Good bye to you all. G. Lamb." 
 
210 
 
 LETTEKS TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 The following letter was inclosed in the same parcel with 
 the last. 
 
 TO MR. SOUTHEY. 
 
 " Aug. 9th, 1815. 
 
 '' Dear Southev, — Rohinson is not on the circuit, as I 
 erroneously stated in a letter to W. W., which travels with 
 this, but is gone to Brussels, Ostend, Ghent, &c. But his 
 friends, the Colliers, whom I consulted respecting your 
 friend s fate, remember to have heard him say, that Father 
 Pardo had effected his escape (the cunning greasy rogue), 
 and to the best of their behef is at present in Paris. To 
 my thinking, it is a small matter whether there be one fat 
 friar more or less in the world. I have rather a taste for 
 clerical executions, imbibed from early recollections of the 
 fate of the excellent Dodd. I hear Bonaparte has sued his 
 habeas corpus, and the twelve judges are now sitting upon 
 it at the Rolls. 
 
 '' Your boute-feu (bonfire) must be excellent of its kind. 
 Poet Settle presided at the last great thing of the kind in 
 London, when the pope was burnt in form. Do you pro- 
 vide any verses on this occasion? Your fear for Hartleys 
 intellectuals is just and rational. Could not the chancellor 
 be petitioned to remove him ? His lordship took Mr. Betty 
 from under the paternal wing. I think at least he should 
 go through a course of matter-of-fact with some sober man 
 after the mysteries. Could not he spend a week at Poole's 
 before he goes back to Oxford ? Tobin is dead. But there 
 is a man in my ofl&ce, a Mr. H., who proses it away from 
 morning to night, and never gets beyond corporal and 
 material verities. He 'd get these crack-brain metaphysics 
 out of the young gentleman's head as soon as any one I 
 know. When I can't sleep o' nights, I imagine a dialogue 
 with Mr. H., upon any given subject, and go prosing on in 
 fancy with him, till I either laugh or fall asleep. I have 
 literally found it answer. I am going to stand godfather; 
 I don't like the business ; I cannot muster up decorum for 
 
LETTEKS TO SOUTHEY. 211 
 
 these occasions ; I shall certainly disgrace the font. I was 
 at Hazlitt's marriage, and had hke to have been turned out 
 several times during the ceremony. Any thing awful makes 
 me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral. Yet I can 
 read about these ceremonies with pious and proper feelings. 
 The realities of life only seem the mockeries. I fear I 
 must get cured along with Hartley, if not too inveterate. 
 Don't you think Louis the Desirable is in a sort of 
 quandary ? 
 
 ''After all, Bonaparte is a fine fellow, as my barber says, 
 and I should not mind standing bareheaded at his table to 
 do him service in his fall. They should have given him 
 Hampton Court or Kensington, with a tether extending 
 forty miles round London. Qu. Would not the people 
 have ejected the Brunswicks some day in his favour? 
 Well, we shall see. C. Lamb." 
 
 The following was addressed to Southey in acknowleilg- 
 ment of his " Roderick," the most sustained and noble of 
 his poems. 
 
 TO ME. SOUTHEY. 
 
 ^^May 6th, 1815. 
 
 " Dear Southey, — I have received from Longman a copy 
 of 'Roderick,' with the authors compliments, for which I 
 much thank you. I don't know where I shall put all the 
 noble presents I have lately received in that w^ay ; the 
 'Excursion,' Wordsworth's two last vols., and now ' Rode- 
 rick,' have come pouring in upon me like some irruption 
 from Helicon. The story of the brave Maccabee was 
 already, you may be sure, familiar to me in all its parts. 
 I have, since the receipt of your present, read it quite 
 through again, and with no diminished pleasure. I don't 
 know whether I ought to say that it has given me more 
 pleasure than any of your long poems. ' Kehama ' is doubt- 
 less more powerful, but I don't feel that firm footing in it 
 
 p2 
 
212 
 
 LETTEBS TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 that 1 do in ' Roderick ; ' my imagination goes sinking and 
 floundering in the vast spaces of unopened- before systems 
 and faiths ; I am put out of the pale of my old sympathies; 
 my moral sense is almost outraged ; I can't believe, or, 
 with horror am made to believe, such desperate chances 
 against omnipotences, such disturbances of faith to the 
 centre ; the more potent the more painful the spell. Jove, 
 and his brotherhood of gods, tottering with the giant assail- 
 ings, I can bear, for the soul's hopes are not struck at in 
 such contests ; but your Oriental almighties are too much 
 types of the intangible prototype to be meddled with with- 
 out shuddering. One never connects what are called the 
 attributes with Jupiter. I mention only what diminishes 
 my delight at the wonder- workings of ' Kehama,' not what 
 impeaches its power, which I confess with trembhng ; but 
 ' Roderick ' is a comfortable poem. It reminds me of the 
 delight I took in the first reading of the ' Joan of Arc.' It 
 is maturer and better than that, though not better to me 
 now than that was then. It suits me better than Madoc. 
 I am at home in Spain and Christendom. I have a timid 
 imagination, I am afraid. I do not willingly admit of 
 strange beliefs, or out-of-the-way creeds or places. I never 
 read books of travels, at least not farther than Paris, or 
 Rome. I can just endure Moors, because of their connec- 
 tion as foes with Christians ; but Abyssinians, Ethiops, 
 Esquimaux, Dervises, and all that tribe, I hate. I believe 
 I fear them in some manner. A Mahometan turban on 
 the stage, though enveloping some well known face 
 (Mr. Cook or Mr. Maddox, whom I see another day good 
 Christian and English waiters, innkeepers, etc.), does not 
 give me pleasure unalloyed. I am a Christian, English- 
 man, Londoner, Temj^lar. God help me when I come to 
 put off these snug relations, and to get abroad into the 
 world to come ! I shall be like the crow on the sand, as 
 Wordsworth has it ; but I won't think on it ; no need I 
 hope yet. 
 
 '' The parts I have been most pleased with, both on first 
 
LETTEES TO SOUTHEY. 213 
 
 and second readings, perhaps, are Florindas palliation of 
 Roderick's crime, confessed to him in his disguise — the 
 retreat of the Palayos family first discovered, — his being 
 made king — ' For acclamation one form must serve, more 
 solemn for the breach of old observances.'' Roderick's vow 
 is extremely fine, and his blessing on the vow of Alphonso : 
 
 ^ Towards the troop he spread his arms, 
 As if the expanded soul diffused itself, 
 And carried to all spirits with the act 
 Its affluent inspiration.' 
 
 *' Tt struck me forcibly that the feeling of these last lines 
 might have been suggested to you by the Cartoon of Paul 
 at Athens. Certain it is that a better motto or guide to 
 that famous attitude can no where be found. I shall adopt 
 it as explanatory of that violent, but dignified motion. I 
 must read again Lander's 'Julian.' I have not read it 
 some time. I think he must have failed in Roderick, for I 
 remember nothing of him, nor of any distinct character as 
 a character — only fine sounding passages. I remember 
 thinking also he had chosen a point of time after the event, 
 as it were, for Roderick survives to no use; but my memory 
 is weak, and I will not wrong a fine poem by trusting to it. 
 The notes to your poem I have not read again ; but it will 
 be a take-downable book on my shelf, and they will serve 
 sometimes at breakfast, or times too light for the text to be 
 duly appreciated. Though some of em, one of the ser- 
 pent penance, is serious enough, now I think on't. Of 
 Coleridge I hear nothing, nor of the Morgans. I hope to 
 have him like a re- appearing star, standing up before me 
 some time when least expected in London, as has been the 
 case whylear. 
 
 *' I am doing nothing (as the phrase is) but reading 
 presents, and walk away what of the day-hours I can get 
 from hard occupation. Pray accept once more my hearty 
 thanks, and expression of pleasure for your remembrance 
 of me. My sister desires her kind respects to Mrs. S. and 
 to all at Keswick. Yours truly, C. Lamb. 
 
214 LETTER TO WORDSWORTH. 
 
 '' The next present I look for is the ' White Doe.' Have 
 you seen Mat. Betham's ' Lay of Marie?' I think it very 
 delicately pretty as to sentiment, &c." 
 
 The following is an extract of a letter, addressed shortly 
 afterwards, 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 '' Since I saw you I have had a treat in the reading way, 
 which comes not every day ; the Latin poems of Vincent 
 Bourne, which were quite new to me. What a heart that 
 man had, all laid out upon town scenes, a proper counter- 
 part to some 2^eoples extravagances. — Why I mention him 
 is, that your ' Power of Music' reminded me of his poem of 
 the ballad-singer in the Seven Dials. Do you remember 
 his epigram on the old woman who taught Newton the 
 A, B, C, which, after all, he says, he hesitates not to call 
 Newton's Princijyia ? 
 
 '' I was lately fatiguing mj^self with going over a volume 
 
 of fine words by , excellent words ; and if the heart 
 
 could live by words alone, it could desire no better regale ; 
 hut what an aching vacuum of matter! I don't stick at 
 the madness of if, for that is only a consequence of shutting 
 his eyes, and thinking he is in the age of the old Elizabeth 
 poets From thence I turned to V. Bourne ; what a sweet, 
 unpretending, pretty-manner 'd, matterfiil creature ! sucking 
 from every flower, making a flower of everything. His 
 diction all Latin, and his thoughts ail English. Bless 
 him ! Latin wasn't good enough for him. Why wasn't he 
 content with the language which Gay and Prior wrote in ? " 
 
 The associations of Christmas increased the fervour of 
 Lamb's wishes for Manning's return, which he now really 
 hoped for. On Christmas-day he addressed a letter to him 
 
LETTERS TO MANNING. 215 
 
 at Canton, and the next day another to meet him half-way 
 home, at St. Helena, &c. There seems the distance of half 
 a globe between these letters. The first, in which Lamb 
 pictures their dearest common friends as in a melancholy 
 future, and makes it present — lying-like dismal truths — 
 yet with a relieving consciousness of a power to dispel the 
 sad enchantments he has woven, has perhaps more of what 
 was peculiar in Lamb's cast of thought, than anything of 
 the same length which he has left us. 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 '' Dec. 25th, 1815. 
 
 " Dear old friend and absentee, — This is Christmas-day 
 1815 with us; what it may be with you I don't know, the 
 12th of June next year perhaps; and if it should be the 
 consecrated season with you, I don't see how you can keep 
 it. You have no turkeys; you would not desecrate the 
 festival by offering up a withered Chinese bantam, instead 
 of the savoury grand Norfolcian holocaust, that smokes all 
 around my nostrils at this moment, from a thousand fire- 
 sides. Then what puddings have you ? Where will you 
 get holly to stick in your churches, or churches to stick 
 your dried tea-leaves (that must be the substitute) in? 
 What memorials you can have of the holy time, I see not. 
 A chopped missionary or two may keep up the thin idea of 
 Lent and the wilderness; but what standing evidence have 
 you of the Nativity? — 'tis our rosy-cheeked, homestalled 
 divines, whose faces shine to the tune of unto us a child 
 was born; faces fragrant with the mince-pies of half a 
 century, that alone can authenticate the cheerful mystery — 
 I feel, I feel my bowels refreshed with the holy tide — my 
 zeal is great against the uneditied heathen. Down with the 
 Pagodas — down with the idols — Ching-chong-fo — and his 
 foolish priesthood ! Come out of Babylon, my friend ! 
 
216 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 for her time is come, and the child that is native, and the 
 Proselyte of her gates, shall kindle and smoke together ! 
 And in sober sense, what makes you so long from among 
 us, Mannmg? You must not expect to see the same 
 England again which you left. 
 
 '' Empires have been overturned, crowns trodden into 
 dust, the face of the western world quite changed : your 
 friends have all got old — those you left blooming — myself 
 (who am one of the few that remember you) those golden 
 hairs which you recollect my taking a pride in, turned to 
 silvery and grey. Mary has been dead and buried many 
 years — she desired to be buried in the silk gown you sent 
 her. Rickman, that you remember active and strong, now 
 walks out supported by a servant-maid and a stick. Martin 
 Burney is a very old man. The other day an aged woman 
 knocked at my door, and pretended to my acquaintance : 
 it was long before I had the most distant cognition of her ; 
 but at last together we made her out to be Louisa, the 
 daughter of Mrs. Topham, formerly Mrs. Morton, wholiad 
 been Mrs. Reynolds, formerly Mrs. Kenney, whose first 
 husband was Holcroft, the dramatic wTiter of the last 
 century. St. Pauls church is a heap of ruins ; the Monu- 
 ment isn't half so high as you knew it, divers parts being 
 successively taken down which the ravages of time had 
 rendered dangerous ; the horse at Charing Cross is gone, 
 no one knows whither, — and all this has taken place while 
 you have been settling whether Ho-hing-tong should be 
 
 spelt with a , or a . For aught I see you had 
 
 almost as well remain where you are, and not come like a 
 Struldbrug into a world where few were born when you went 
 away. Scarce here and there one will be able to make out 
 your face ; all your opinions will be out of date, your jokes 
 obsolete, your puns rejected with fastidiousness as wit of the 
 last age. Your way of mathematics has already given way 
 to a new method, which after all is I believe the old doctrine 
 of Maclaurin, new- vamped up with what he borrowed of the 
 negative quantity of fluxions from Euler. 
 
LETTEES TO MANNING. 217 
 
 '* Poor Godwin ! I was passing his tomb the other day 
 in Cripplegate churchyard. There are some verses upon it 
 
 written by Miss , which if I thought good enough I 
 
 would send you. He was one of those who would have 
 hailed your return, not with boisterous shouts and clamours, 
 but with the complacent gratulations of a philosopher 
 anxious to promote knowledge as leading to happiness — but 
 his systems and his theories are ten feet deep in Cripple- 
 gate mould. Coleridge is just dead, having lived just long 
 enough to close the eyes of Wordsworth, who paid the debt 
 to nature but a week or two before — poor Col., but two 
 days before he died, he wrote to a bookseller proposing an 
 epic poem on the ' Wanderings of Cain,' in twenty-four 
 books. It is said he has left behind him more than forty 
 thousand treatises in criticism, metaphysics, and divinity, 
 but few of them in a state of completion. They are now 
 destined, perhaps, to wrap up spices. You see what muta- 
 tions the busy hand of Time has produced, while you have 
 consumed in foolish voluntary exile that time which might 
 have gladdened your friends — benefited your country ; but 
 reproaches are useless. Gather up the wretched reliques, 
 my friend, as fast as you can, and come to your old home. 
 I will rub my eyes and try to recognise you. We will 
 shake withered hands together, and talk of old things — of 
 St. Mary's church and the barbers opposite, where the 
 young students iu mathematics used to assemble. Poor 
 Crips, that kept it afterwards, set up a fruiterer's shop in 
 Trumpington- street, and for aught I know resides there 
 still, for I saw the name up in the last journey I took there 
 with my sister just before she died. I suppose you heard 
 that I had left the India House, and gone into the Fish- 
 mongers' Almshouses over the bridge. I have a little cabin 
 there, small and homely, but you shall be welcome to it. 
 You like oysters, and to open them yourself ; I '11 get you 
 some if you come in oyster time. Marshall, Godwin's old 
 friend, is still alive, and talks of the faces you used to make. 
 
 " Come as soon as you can. C. Lamb." 
 
218 LETTERS TO MANNING. 
 
 Here is the next day's reverse of the picture, 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 '' Dec. 26, 1815. 
 
 '* Dear Manning, — Following your brother's example, 
 I have just ventured one letter to Canton, and am now 
 hazarding another (not exactly a duplicate) to St. Helena. 
 The first was full of unprobable romantic fictions, fitting 
 the remoteness of the mission it goes upon ; in the present 
 I mean to confine myself nearer to truth as you come 
 nearer home. A correspondence with the uttermost parts 
 of the earth necessarily involves in it some heat of fancy, 
 it sets the brain agoing, but I can think on the half-way 
 house tranquilly. Your friends then are not all dead or 
 grown forgetful of you through old age, as that lying letter 
 asserted, anticipating rather what must happen if you kept 
 tarrying on for ever on the skirts of creation, as there 
 seemed a danger of your doing — but they are all tolerably 
 well and in full and perfect comprehension of w^hat is meant 
 
 by Manning's coming home again. Mrs. never lets her 
 
 tongue run riot more than in remembrances of you. 
 Fanny expends herself in phrases that can only be justified 
 by her romantic nature. Mary reserves a portion of your 
 silk, not to be buried in (as the false nuncio asserts) but to 
 make up spick and span into a bran-new gown to wear when 
 you come. I am the same as when you knew me, almost 
 to a surfeiting identity. This very night I am going to 
 leave off tobacco ! Surely there must be some other world 
 in which this unconquerable purpose shall be realised. 
 The soul hath not her generous aspirings implanted in her 
 in vain. One that you knew, and I think the only one of 
 those friends we knew much of in common, has died in 
 earnest. Poor Priscilla ! Her brother Robert is also 
 dead, and several of the grown up brothers and sisters, in 
 the compass of a very few years. Death has not otherwise 
 
LETTEES TO MANNING. 219 
 
 meddled much in families that I know. Not but he has 
 his horrid eye upon us, and is whetting his infernal 
 feathered dart every instant, as you see him truly pictured 
 in that impressive moral picture, ' The good man at the 
 hour of death.' I have in trust to put in the post four 
 letters from Diss, and one from Lynn, to St. Helena, which 
 I hope will accompany this safe, and one from Lynn, and 
 the one before spoken of from me, to Canton. But we all 
 hope that these letters may be waste paper. I don't know 
 why I have forborne writing so long. But it is such a 
 forlorn hope to send a scrap of paper straggling over wide 
 oceans. And yet I know when you come home, I shall 
 have you sitting before me at our fire-side just as if you had 
 never been away. In such an instant does the return of a 
 person dissipate all the weight of imaginary perplexity from 
 distance of time and space ! I '11 promise you good oysters. 
 Cory is dead that kept the shop opposite St. Dunstan's, but 
 the tougher materials of the shop survive the perishing 
 frame of its keeper. Oysters continue to flourish there 
 under as good auspices. Poor Cory ! But if you will 
 absent yourself twenty years together, you must not expect 
 numerically the same population to congratulate your return 
 which wetted the sea-beach with their tears when you went 
 away. Have you recovered the breathless stone-staring 
 astonishment into which you must have been thrown upon 
 learning at landing that an Emperor of France was living 
 in St. Helena? What an event in the solitude of the seas ! 
 like finding a fish's bone at the top of Plinlimmon ; but 
 these things are nothing in our western world. Novelties 
 cease to affect. Come and try what your presence can. 
 
 '' God bless you. — Your old friend, 
 
 " C. Lamb." 
 
 The years which Lamb passed in his chambers in Inner 
 Temple-lane were, perhaps, the happiest of his life. His 
 salary was considerably augmented, his fame as an author was 
 
220 Coleridge's discourse. 
 
 rapidly extendiDg ; he resided near the spot which he best 
 loved : and was surrounded by a motley group of attached 
 friends, some of them men of rarest parts, and all strongly 
 attached to him and to his sister. Here the glory of his 
 Wednesday nights shone forth in its greatest lustre. If 
 you did not meet there the favourites of fortune ; authors 
 whose works bore the highest price in Paternoster-row, and 
 who glittered in the circles of fashion ; you might find 
 those who had thought most deeply ; felt most keenly ; 
 and were destined to produce the most lasting influences on 
 the literature and manners of the age. There Hazlitt, 
 sometimes kindling into fierce passion at any mention of 
 the great reverses of his idol Napoleon, at other times 
 bashfully enunciated the finest criticism on art ; or dwelt 
 with genial iteration on a passage in Chaucer ; or, fresh 
 from the theatre, expatiated on some new instance of 
 energy in Kean, or reluctantly conceded a greatness to 
 Kemble ; or detected some popular fallacy with the fairest 
 and the subtlest reasoning. There Godwin, as he played 
 his quiet rubber, or benignantly joined in the gossip of the 
 day, sat an object of curiosity and wonder to the stranger, 
 who had been at one time shocked or charmed with his 
 high speculation, and at another awe-struck by the force and 
 graphic power of his novels. There Coleridge sometimes, 
 though rarely, took his seat; and then the genial hubbub 
 of voices was still ; critics, philosophers, and poets, were 
 contented to listen ; and toil-worn lawyers, clerks from the 
 India House, and members of the Stock Exchange, grew 
 romantic while he spoke. Lamb used to say that he was 
 inferior then to what he had been in his youth ; but I can 
 scarcely believe it ; at least there is nothing in his early 
 writing which gives any idea of the richness of his mind so 
 lavishly poured out at this time in his happiest moods. 
 Although he looked much older than he was, his hair being 
 silvered all over, and his person tending to corpulency, 
 there was about him no trace of bodily sickness or mental 
 decay, but rather an air of voluptuous repose. His benig- 
 
coleeidge's disccuese. 221 
 
 nity of manner placed bis auditors entirely at their ease ; 
 and inclined them to listen delighted to the sweet, low 
 tone in which he began to discourse on some high theme. 
 Whether he had won for his greedy listener only some raw 
 lad, or charmed a circle of beauty, rank, and wit, who hung 
 breathless on his words, he talked with equal eloquence ; 
 for his subject, not his audience, inspired him. At first his 
 tones were conversational ; he seemed to dally with the 
 shallows of the subject and with fantastic images which 
 bordered it ; but gradually the thought grew deeper, and 
 the voice deepened with the thought ; the stream gathering 
 strength, seemed to bear along with it all things which 
 opposed its progress, and blended them with its current ; 
 and stretching away among regions tinted with ethereal 
 colours, was lost at airy distance in the horizon of fancy. 
 His hearers were unable to grasp his theories, which were 
 indeed too vast to be exhibited in the longest conversation ; 
 but they perceived noble images, generous suggestions, 
 affecting pictures of virtue, which enriched their minds 
 and nurtured their best affections. Coleridge was some- 
 times induced to recite portions of " Christabel," then 
 enshrined in manuscript from eyes profane, and gave a 
 bewitching effect to its wizard lines. But more peculiar in 
 its beauty than this, was his recitation of Kubla Khan. As 
 he repeated the passage — 
 
 A damsel with a dulcimer 
 In a vision once I saw : 
 
 It was an Abyssinian maid, 
 And on her dulcimer she played, 
 Singing of Mont Abora ! 
 
 his voice seemed to mount, and melt into air, as the images 
 grew more visionary, and the suggested associations more 
 remote. He usually met opposition by conceding the point 
 to the objector, and then went on with his high argument 
 as if it had never been raised: thus satisfying his antagonist, 
 himself, and all who heard him ; none of whom desired to 
 
222 Coleridge's discourse. 
 
 hear his discourse frittered into points, or displaced by the 
 near encounter even of the most brilliant wits. The first 
 time I met him, which was on one of those Wednesday even- 
 ings, we quitted the party together between one and two in 
 the morning ; Coleridge took my arm, and led me nothing 
 loath, at a very gentle pace, to his lodgings, at the Glouces- 
 ter Coffee-house, pouring into my ear the whole way an 
 argument by which he sought to reconcile the doctrines of 
 Necessity and Free-will, winding on through a golden maze 
 of exquisite illustration ; but finding no end, except with 
 the termination of that (to me) enchanted walk. He was 
 only then on the threshold of the Temple of Truth, into 
 which his genius darted its quivering and uncertain rays, 
 but which he promised shortly to light up with unbroken 
 lustre. " I understood a beauty in the words, but not the 
 words : '' 
 
 '' And when the stream of sound, 
 Which overflowed the soul, had passed away, 
 A consciousness survived that it had left, 
 Deposited upon the silent shore 
 Of memory, images and gentle thoughts. 
 Which cannot die, and will not he destroyed." 
 
 Men of ''great mark and likelihood" — attended those 
 delightful suppers, where the utmost freedom prevailed — 
 including politicians of every grade, from Godwin up to the 
 editor of the '' New Times." 
 
 Hazlitt has alluded con amove to these meetings in his 
 Essay " On the Conversation of Authors," and has reported 
 one of the most remarkable discussions which graced them 
 in his Essay " On Persons one would wish to have seen," 
 published by his son, in the two volumes of his remains, 
 which with so affectionate a care he has given to the world. 
 In this was a fine touch of Lamb's pious feeling, breaking 
 through his fancies and his humours, which Hazlitt has 
 recorded, but w^iich cannot be duly appreciated, except by 
 tliose who can recall to memory the suffused eye and qui- 
 vering lip with which he stammered out a reference to the 
 
EPISTLE TO AYRTON. 223 
 
 name which he would not utter. " There is only one other 
 person I can ever think of after this," said he. " If 
 Shakspeare was to come into the room, we should all rise 
 to meet him ; but if That Person were to come into it, we 
 should all fall down and kiss the hem of his garment." 
 
 Among the frequent guests in Inner-Temple Lane was 
 Mr. Ayrton, the director of the music at the Italian Opera. 
 To him Lamb addressed the following rhymed epistle on 
 17th May, 1817. 
 
 TO WILLIAM AYRTON, ESQ. 
 
 My dear friend, 
 Before I end. 
 Have you any 
 More orders for Don Giovanni, 
 To give 
 Him that doth live 
 Your faithful Zany ? 
 
 Without raillery, 
 I mean Gallery 
 Ones: 
 For I am a person that shuns 
 
 % All 
 
 Ail ostentation, 
 And being at the top of the fashion ; 
 And seldom go to operas 
 But in forma iKiuperu! 
 
 I go to the play 
 In a very economical sort of a way, 
 Rather to see 
 Than be seen ; 
 Though I 'm no ill sight 
 Neither, 
 By candle-light 
 And in some kinds of weather. 
 You might pit me 
 
 For height 
 Against Kean ; 
 But in a grand tragic scene 
 I 'm nothing : 
 It would create a kind of loathing 
 To see me act Hamlet ; 
 
^*^4 EPISTLE TO ATKTON. 
 
 There 'd be many a damn let 
 
 Fly 
 At my presumption, 
 If I should try, 
 Being a fellow of no gumption. 
 
 By the way, tell me candidly how you relish 
 This, which they call 
 The lapidary style ? 
 
 Opinions vary. 
 The late Mr. Hellish 
 Could never abide it ; 
 
 He thought it vile. 
 
 And coxcombical. 
 My friend the poet laureat, 
 Who is a great lawyer at 
 
 Anything comical, 
 Was the first who tried it ; 
 But Mellish could never abide it ; 
 But it signifies very little what Mellish said, 
 
 Because he is dead. 
 
 For who can confute 
 A body that's mute ? 
 Or who would fight 
 With a senseless sprite ? 
 Or think of troubling 
 * An impenetrable old goblin, 
 That 's dead and gone, 
 And stiff as stone. 
 To convince him with arguments pro and con ? 
 As if some live logician. 
 Bred up at Merton, 
 Or Mr. Hazlitt, the metaphysician, — 
 Hey, Mr. Ayrton ! 
 With all your rare tone*. 
 
 For tell me how should an apparition 
 List to your call. 
 Though you talkM for ever, 
 
 Ever so clever : 
 When his ear itself, 
 
 * From this it may at first appear, that the author meant to ascribe 
 vocal talents to his friend, the Director of the Italian Opera; but it is 
 merely a " line for rhyme." For, though the public were indebted to 
 Mr. A. for many fine foreign singers, we believe that he never claimed to 
 be himself a singer. 
 
LETTER TO FIELD. 225 
 
 By which he must hear, or not hear at all, 
 Is laid on the shelf? 
 Or put the case 
 (For more grace), 
 It were a female spectre — 
 How could you expect her 
 To take much gust 
 In long speeches. 
 With her tongue as dry as dust, 
 In a sandy place. 
 Where no peaches. 
 Nor lemons, nor limes, nor oranges hang. 
 To drop on the drought of an arid harangue, 
 Or quench. 
 With their sweet drench. 
 The fiery pangs which the worms inflict, 
 With their endless nibblings, 
 Like quibblings, 
 Which the corpse may dislike, but can ne'er contradict — 
 
 Hey, Mr. Ayrton ? 
 With all your rare tone. 
 
 I am, 
 
 C. LAMB. 
 
 One of Lamb's most intimate friends and warmest ad- 
 mirers, Barron Field, disappeared from the circle on being 
 appointed to a judicial situation in New South Wales. In 
 the following letter to him. Lamb renewed the feeling with 
 which he had addressed Manning at the distance of a 
 hemisphere. 
 
 TO MR. FIELD. 
 
 ^^Aug. 31st, 1817. 
 
 *' My dear Barron, — The bearer of this letter so far 
 across the seas is Mr. Lawrey, who comes out to you as a 
 missionary, and whom I have been strongly importuned to 
 recommend to you as a most worthy creature by Mr. Fen wick, 
 a very old, honest friend of mine ; of whom, if my memory 
 does not deceive me, you have had some knowledge hereto- 
 fore as editor of *The Statesman,' a man of talent, and 
 patriotic. If you can show him any facilities in his arduous 
 
226 
 
 LETTEK TO FIELD. 
 
 undertaking, you will oblige us much. Well, and how does 
 the land of thieves use you? and how do you pass your 
 time, in your extra-judicial intervals ? Going about the 
 streets with a lantern, like Diogenes, looking for an honest 
 man ? You may look long enough, I fancy. Do give me 
 some notion of the manners of the inhabitants where you 
 are. They don't thieve all day long, do they ? No human 
 property could stand such continuous battery. And what 
 do they do when they an't stealing ? 
 
 " Have you got a theatre ? What pieces are performed ? 
 Shakspeare s, I suppose ; not so much for the poetry, as for 
 his having once been in danger of leaving his country on 
 account of certain ' small deer/ 
 
 " Have you poets among you ? Cursed plagiarists, I 
 fancy, if you have any. I would not trust an idea, or a 
 pocket-handkerchief of mine, among 'em. You are almost 
 competent to ansv/er Lord Bacon s problem, whether a 
 nation of atheists can subsist together. You are practically 
 in one : 
 
 ' So thievish 'tis, that the eighth commandment itself 
 Scarce seemeth there to be.' 
 
 Our old honest world goes on with little perceptible varia- 
 tion. Of course you have heard of poor Mitch ells death, 
 and that G. Dyer is one of Lord Stanhope's residuaries. I 
 am afraid he has not touched much of the residue yet. He 
 is positively as lean as Cassius. Barnes is going to Deme- 
 
 rara, or Essequibo, I am not quite certain which. A is 
 
 turned actor. He came out in genteel comedy at Cheltenham 
 this season, and has hopes of a London engagement. 
 
 '* For my own history, I am just in the same spot, doing 
 the same thing, (videlicet, little or nothing,) as when you 
 left me ; only I have positive hopes that I shall be able to 
 conquer that inveterate habit of smoldng which you may 
 remember I indulged in. I think of making a beginning 
 this evening, viz., Sunday, 31st Aug., 1817, not Wednesday, 
 2nd Feb., 1818, as it will be perhaps when you read this 
 
LETTER TO MISS WOKDSWOKTH. 227 
 
 for the first time. There is the difficulty of writin^r from 
 one end of the globe (hemispheres I call 'em) to another ! 
 Why, half the truths I have sent you in this letter will 
 become lies before they reach you, and some of the lies 
 (which I have mixed for variety's sake, and to exercise your 
 judgment in the finding of them out) may be turned into 
 sad realities before you shall be called upon to detect them. 
 Such are the defects of going by different chronologies. 
 Your now is not my now ; and again, your then is not my 
 then; but my now may be your then, and vice versa. 
 Whose head is competent to these things ? 
 
 " How does Mrs. Field get on in her geography? Does 
 she know where she is by this time ? I am not sure some- 
 times you are not in another planet ; but then I don't like 
 to ask Capt. Burney, or any of those that know anything 
 about it, for fear of exposing my ignorance. 
 
 " Our kindest remembrances, however, to Mrs. F., if she 
 will accept of reminiscences from another planet, or at least 
 another hemisphere. C. L." 
 
 Lamb's intention of spending the rest of his days in the 
 Middle Temple was not to be realised. The inconve- 
 niences of being in chambers began to be felt as he and his 
 sister grew older, and in the autumn of this year they 
 removed to lodgings in Russell-street, Covent Garden, the 
 corner house, delightfully situated between the two great 
 theatres. In November 1817, Miss Lamb announced the 
 removal to Miss Wordsworth in a letter, to which Lamb 
 added the following : — 
 
 TO MISS WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " Nov. 21st, 1817. 
 
 *' Dear Miss Wordsworth, — Here we are, transplanted 
 from our native soil. I thought we never could have been 
 torn up from the Temple. Indeed it was an ugly wrench, 
 but like a tooth, now 'tis out, and I am easy. We never 
 
 (i2 
 
228 
 
 LETTEE TO MISS WORDSWORTH. 
 
 can strike root so deep in any other ground. This, where 
 we are, is a light bit of gardener s mould, and if they take 
 US up from it, it will cost no blood and groans, hke man- 
 drakes pulled up. We are in the individual spot I like 
 best, in all this great city. The theatres, with all their 
 noises. Covent Garden, dearer to me than any gardens of 
 Alcinoiis, where we are morally sure of the earliest peas 
 and 'sparagus. Bow-street, where the thieves are examined, 
 within a few yards of us. Maiy had not been here four- 
 and-twenty hours before she saw a thief. She sits at the 
 window working ; and casually throwing out her eyes, she 
 sees a concourse of people coming this way, with a constable 
 to conduct the solemnity. These little incidents agreeably 
 diversify a female life. 
 
 " Mary has brought her part of this letter to an orthodox 
 and loving conclusion, which is very well, for I have no 
 room for pansies and remembrances. What a nice holyday 
 I got on Wednesday by favour of a princess dying ! 
 
 " C. L." 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 [1818 to 1820.] 
 
 LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH, SOUTHEY, MANNING, AND COLERIDGEJ 
 
 Lamb, now in the immediate neighbourhood of the theatres, 
 renewed the dramatic associations of his youth, which the 
 failure of one experiment had not chilled. Although he 
 rather loved to dwell on the recollections of the actors who 
 had passed from the stage, than to mingle with the happy 
 crowds who hailed the successive triumphs of Mr. Kean, he 
 formed some new and steady theatrical attachments. His 
 chief favourites of this time were Miss Kellv, Miss Burrell 
 of the Olympic, and Munden. The first, then the sole sup- 
 
LETTER TO MRS. WORDSWORTH. 229 
 
 port of the English Opera, became a frequent guest in Great 
 Russell- street, and charmed the circle there by the hearti- 
 ness of her manners, the delicacy and gentleness of her 
 remarks, and her unaffected sensibility, as much as she had 
 done on the stage. Miss Burrell, a lady of more limited 
 powers, but with a frank and noble style, was discovered by 
 Lamb on one of the visits which he paid, on the invitation 
 of his old friend Elliston, to the Olympic, where the lady 
 performed the hero of that happy parody of Moncrieff s, 
 Giovanni in London. To her Lamb devoted a little article, 
 which he sent to the Examiner, in which he thus addresses 
 her : — " But Giovanni, free, fine, frank-spirited, single- 
 hearted creature, turning all the mischief into fun as harm- 
 less as toys, or children's make believe, what praise can we 
 repay to you adequate to the pleasure which you have given 
 us ? We had better be silent, for you have no name, and 
 our mention will but be thought fantastical. You have taken 
 out the sting from the evil thing, by what magic we know 
 not, for there are actresses of greater merit and likelihood 
 than you. With you and your Giovanni our spirits will hold 
 communion, whenever sorrow or suffering shall be our lot. 
 We have seen you triumph over the infernal powers ; and 
 pain and Erebus, and the powers of darkness, are shapes of 
 a dream." Miss Burrell soon married a person named Gold, 
 and disappeared from the stage. To Munden in prose, and 
 Miss Kelly in verse. Lamb has done ample justice. 
 
 Lamb's increasing celebrity, and universal kindness, 
 rapidly increased the number of his visitors. He thus com- 
 plained, in wayward mood, of them to Mrs. Wordsworth : — 
 
 TO MRS. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 " East-India House, 18th Feb., 1818. 
 
 '' My dear Mrs. Wordsworth, — I have repeatedly taken 
 pen in hand to answer your kind letter. My sister should 
 more properly have done it, but she having failed, I consider 
 
230 
 
 LETTEK TO MRS. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 myself answerable for her debts. I am now trying to do it 
 in the midst of commercial noises, and with a quill which 
 seems more ready to glide into arithmetical figiures and 
 names of gourds, cassia, cardemoms, aloes, ginger, or tea, 
 than into kindly responses and friendly recollections. The 
 reason why I cannot write letters at home, is, that I am 
 never alone. Plato's — (I write to W. W. now) — Plato's 
 doable-animal parted never longed more to be reciprocally 
 re-united in the system of its first creation, than I some- 
 times do to be but for a moment single and separate. Except 
 my morning's walk to the office, which is like treading on 
 sands of gold for that reason, I am never so. I cannot walk 
 home from office, but some officious friend offers his unwel- 
 come courtesies to accompany me. All the morning I am 
 pestered. I could sit and gravely cast up sums in great 
 books, or compare sum with sum, and write ' paid ' against 
 this, and ' unpaid ' against t'other, and yet reserve in some 
 comer of my mind, ' some darling thoughts all my own ' — 
 faint memory of some passage in a book, or the tone of an 
 absent friend's voice — a snatch of Miss Burrell's singing, or 
 a gleam of Fanny Kelly's divine plain face. The two ope- 
 rations might be going on at the same time without thwart- 
 ing, as the sun's two motions (earth's I mean), or, as I 
 sometimes turn round till I am giddy, in my back parlour, 
 while my sister is walking longitudinally in the front ; or, 
 as the shoulder of veal twists round with the spit, while the 
 smoke wreathes up the chimney. But there are a set of 
 amateurs of the Belles Lettres — the gay science — who come 
 to me as a sort of rendezvous, putting questions of criti- 
 cism, of British Institutions, Lalla Piookhs, &c. — what 
 Coleridge said at the lecture last night — who have the form 
 of reading men, but, for any possible use reading can be to 
 them, but to talk of, might as well have been Ante- Cadmeans 
 born, or have lain sucking out the sense of an Egyptian 
 hieroglyph as long as the pyramids will last, before they 
 should find it. These pests worrit me at business, and in 
 all its intervals, perplexing my accounts, poisoning my little 
 
LETTER TO MRS WORDSWORTH. 231 
 
 salutaiy warming- time at the fire, puzzling my paragraphs 
 if I take a new^spaper, cramming in between my own free 
 thoughts and a column of figures, which had come to an 
 amicable compromise but for them. Their noise ended, one 
 of them, as I said, accompanies me home, lest I should be 
 solitary for a moment ; he at length takes his welcome leave 
 at the door ; up I go, mutton on table, hungry as hunter, 
 hope to forget my cares, and bury them in the agreeable 
 abstraction of mastication ; knock at the door, in comes 
 
 Mr, , or M , or Demi-gorgon, or my brother, or 
 
 somebody, to prevent my eating alone — a process absolutely 
 necessary to my poor wretched digestion. 0, the pleasure 
 of eating alone ! — eating my dinner alone ! let me think of 
 it. But in they come, and make it absolutely necessaiy that 
 I should open a bottle of orange — for my meat turns into 
 stone when any one dines with me, if I have not wine. 
 Wine can mollify stones ; tlien that wine turns into acidity, 
 acerbity, misanthropy, a hatred of my interrupters — (God 
 bless 'em I I love some of 'em dearly), and with the hatred, 
 a still greater aversion to their going away. Bad is the 
 dead sea they bring upon me, choking and deadening, but 
 worse is the deader dry sand they leave me on, if they go 
 before bed-time. Come never, I would say to these spoilers 
 of my dinner ; but if you come, never go ! The fact is, this 
 interruption does not happen very often, but every time it 
 comes by surprise, that present bane of my life, orange 
 wine, with all its dreary stifling consequences, follows. 
 Evening company I should always like had I any mornings, 
 but I am saturated with human faces (divine forsooth !) and 
 voices, all the golden morning ; and five evenings in a week, 
 would be as much as I should covet to be in company, but 
 I assure you that is a wonderful week in which I can get 
 two, or one to myself. I am never C L., but always C> L. 
 & Co. He, who thought it not good for man to be alone, 
 preserve me from the more prodigious monstrosity of being 
 never by myself! I forget bed time, but even there these 
 sociable frogs clamber up to annoy me. Once a week^ 
 
232 LETTEK TO MRS. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 generally some singular evening that being alone, I go to 
 bed at the hour I ought always to be a-bed ; just close to 
 my bed-room window is the club-room of a public-house, 
 where a set of singers, I take them to be chorus singers of 
 the two theatres (it must be both of them), begin their orgies. 
 They are a set of fellows (as I conceive) who, being limited 
 by their talents to the burthen of the song at the play- 
 houses, in revenge have got the common popular airs by 
 Bishop, or some cheap composer, arranged for choruses, 
 that is, to be sung all in chorus. At least, I never can 
 catch any of the text of the plain song, nothing but the 
 Babylonish choral howl at the tail on't. ' That fury being 
 quenched ' — the howl I mean — a burden succeeds of shouts 
 and clapping, and knocking of the table. At length over- 
 tasked nature drops under it, and escapes for a few hours 
 into the society of the sweet silent creatures of dreams, 
 which go away with mocks and mows at cockcrow. And 
 then I think of the words Christabel's father used (bless 
 me, I have dipt in the wrong ink) to say every morning by 
 way of variety when he awoke : 
 
 ^ Every knell, the Baron saith, 
 Wakes us up to a world of death' — 
 
 or something like it. All I mean by this senseless inter- 
 rupted tale, is, that by my central situation, I am a little 
 over-companied. Not that I have any animosity against 
 the good creatures that are so anxious to drive away the 
 harpy solitude from me. I Hke em, and cards, and a 
 cheerful glass ; but I mean merely to give you an idea 
 between ofi&ce confinement and after-office society, how little 
 time I can call my own. I mean only to draw^ a picture, 
 not to make an inference. I would not that I know of 
 have it otherwise. I only wish sometimes I could exchange 
 some of my faces and voices for the faces and voices which 
 a late visitation brought most welcome, and carried away, 
 leaving regret but more pleasure, even a kind of gratitude, 
 at being so often favoured with that kind northern visita- 
 
LETTER TO MRS. WORDSWORTH. 233 
 
 tion. My London faces and noises don't hear me — I mean 
 no disrespect, or I should explain myself, that instead of 
 their retm^n 220 times a year, and the return of W. W,, 
 &c., seven times in 104 weeks, some more equal distribu- 
 tion might be found. I have scarce room to put in Mary's 
 kind love, and my poor name, C. Lamb. 
 
 '' S. T. C. is lecturing with success. I mean to hear 
 some of the course, but lectures are not much to my taste, 
 whatever the lecturer may be. If read, they are dismal 
 flat, and you can't think why you are brought together to 
 hear a man read his works, which you could read so much 
 better at leisure yourself; if delivered extempore, I am 
 always in pain, lest the gift of utterance should suddenly 
 fail the orator in the middle, as it did me at the dinner 
 given in honour of me at the London Tavern. ' Gentle- 
 men,' said I, and there I stopped ; the rest my feelings 
 were under the necessity of supplying. Mrs. Wordsworth 
 will go on, kindly haunting us with visions of seeing the 
 lakes once more, which never can be realised. Between 
 us there is a great gulf, not of inexplicable moral antipa- 
 thies and distances, I hope, as there seemed to be between 
 me and that gentleman concerned in the stamp-office, that 
 I so strangely recoiled from at Haydon's. 1 think I had 
 an instinct that he was the head of an office. I hate all 
 such people — accountants' deputy accountants. The dear 
 abstract notion of the East India Company, as long as 
 she is unseen, is pretty, rather poetical ; but as she 
 makes herself manifest by the persons of such beasts, I 
 loathe and detest her as the scarlet what-do-you-call-her of 
 Babylon. I thought, after abridging us of all our red-letter 
 days, they had done their worst, but I was deceived in the 
 length to which heads of offices, those true liberty-haters, 
 can go. They are the tyrants, not Ferdinand, nor Nero — 
 by a decree passed this week, they have abridged us of the 
 immemorially-observed custom of going at one o'clock of a 
 Saturday, the little shadow of a holiday left us. Dear 
 W. W. be thanldul for liberty." 
 
234 
 
 LETTER TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 Among Lambs new acquaintances was Mr. Charles 
 Oilier, a young bookseller of considerable literary talent, 
 which he has since exhibited in the original and beautiful 
 tale of "Inesilla," who proposed to him the publication of 
 his scattered writings in a collected form. Lamb acceded ; 
 and nearly all he had then written in prose and verse, were 
 published this year by Mr. Oilier and his brother, in two 
 small and elegant volumes. Early copies w^ere despatched 
 to Southey and Wordsworth ; the acknowledgments of the 
 former of whom produced a reply, from which the following 
 is an extract: — 
 
 TO MR. SOUTHET. 
 
 " Monday, Oct. 26,1818. 
 
 *'Dear Southey, — I am pleased with your friendly re- 
 membrances of my little things. I do not know whether 
 I have done a silly thing or a wise one, but it is of no great 
 consequence. I run no risk, and care for no censures. 
 My bread and cheese is stable as the foundations of Leaden- 
 hall-street, and if it hold out as long as the 'founda- 
 tions of our empire in the East,' I shall do pretty well. 
 You and W. W. should have had your presentation copies 
 more ceremoniously sent, but I had no copies when I was 
 leaving town for my holidays, and rather than delay, com- 
 missioned my bookseller to send them thus nakedly. By 
 not hearing from W. W. or you, I began to be afraid 
 Murray had not sent them. I do not see S. T. C. so often 
 as I could wish. I am better than I deserve to be. The 
 hot weather has been such a treat ! Mary joins in this 
 little corner in kindest remembrances to you all. 
 
 '*C. L." 
 
 Lamb's interest was strongly excited for Mr. Kenney on 
 the production of his comedy, entitled " A Word to the 
 Ladies.'' Lamb had engaged to contribute the prologue; 
 
LETTER TO COLERIDGE. 235 
 
 but the promise pressed hard upon him, and he procured 
 the requisite quantity of verse from a very inferior hand. 
 Kenney, who had married Holcroft s widow, had more than 
 succeeded to him in Lamb's regards. Holcroft had consi- 
 derable dramatic skill ; great force and earnestness of style, 
 and noble sincerity and uprightness of disposition ; but he 
 was an austere observer of morals and manners ; and even 
 his grotesque characters were hardly and painfully sculp- 
 tured ; while Kenney, with as fine a perception of the 
 ludicrous and the peculiar, was more airy, more indulgent, 
 more graceful, and exhibited more frequent glimpses of 
 " the gayest, happiest attitude of things." The comedy met 
 with less success than the reputation of the author and 
 brilliant experience of the past had rendered probable, and 
 Lamb had to perform the office of comforter, as he had 
 done on the more unlucky event to Godwin. To this play 
 Lamb refers in the following note to Coleridge, who was 
 contemplating a course of lectures on Shakspeare, and who 
 sent Lamb a ticket, with sad forebodings that the course 
 would be his last. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 '' Dec. 24tli, 1818. ' 
 
 *' My dear Coleridge, — I have been in a state of inces- 
 sant hurry ever since the receipt of your ticket. It found 
 me incapable of attending you, it being the night of Ken- 
 ney 's new comedy. You know my local aptitudes at such 
 a time ; I have been a thorough rendezvous for all consul- 
 tations ; my head begins to clear up a little, but it has had 
 bells in it. Thank you kindly for your ticket, though the 
 momTiful prognostic which accompanies it certainly renders 
 its permanent pretensions less marketable ; but I trust to 
 hear many a course yet. You excepted Christmas week, 
 by which I understood next week; I thought Christmas 
 week was that which Christmas Sunday ushered in. We 
 
236 LETTEK TO WORDSWORTH. 
 
 are sorry it never lies in your way to come to us; but, 
 dear Mahomet, we will come to you. Will it be conve- 
 nient to all the good people at Highgate, if we take a stage 
 up, not next Sunday, but the following, viz., 3rd January, 
 ]819 — shall we be too late to catch a skirt of the old out- 
 goer? — how the years crumble from under us ! We shall 
 hope to see you before then ; but, if not, let us know if then 
 will be convenient. Can we secure a coach home ? 
 
 *^ Believe me ever yours, 
 
 " C. Lamb." 
 
 '' I have but one holiday, which is Christmas-day itself 
 nakedly ; no pretty garnish and fringes of St. John's-day, 
 Holy Innocents, &c., that used to bestud it all around in 
 the calendar. Lnj^robe labor ! I write six hom^s every day 
 in this candle-light fog-den at Leadenhall." 
 
 In the next year [1819], Lamb was greatly pleased by 
 the dedication to him of Wordsworth's poem of '' The 
 Waggoner," which Wordsworth had read to him in MS. 
 thirteen years before. On receipt of the little volume, 
 Lamb acknowledged it as follows : — 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 "June 7tli, 1819. 
 
 " My dear Wordsworth, — You cannot imagine how proud 
 we are here of the dedication. We read it tmce for once 
 that we do the poem. I mean all through ; yet ' Benjamin' 
 is no common favourite ; there is a spirit of beautiful 
 tolerance in it ; it is as good as it was in 1806 ; and it wiU 
 be as good in 1829, if our dim eyes shall be awake to peruse 
 it. Methinks there is a kind of shadowing affinity between 
 the subject of the narrative and the subject of the dedica- 
 tion ; — but I will not enter into personal themes, else, sub- 
 stituting >!' ^1^ ^i-^ t^ 5}^ ^ 5ic >i< He ♦ ♦ for Ben, and the 
 
LETTEE TO WOEDS WORTH. 237 
 
 Honourable United Company of Merchants, trading to the 
 East Indies, for the master of the misused team, it might 
 seem, by no far-fetched analogy, to point its dim warnings 
 hitherward; but I reject the omen, especially as its import 
 seems to have been diverted to another victim. 
 
 " I will never write another letter with alternate inks. 
 You cannot imagine how it cramps the flow of the style. 
 I can conceive, Pindar (I do not mean to compare myself 
 to him), by the command of Hiero, the Sicilian tyrant (was 
 not he the tyrant of some place? fie on my neglect of 
 history); I can conceive him by command of Hiero or 
 Perillus set down to pen an Isthmian or Nemean panegyric 
 in lines, alternate red and black. I maintain he couldn't 
 have done it ; it would have been a strait-laced torture to 
 his muse ; he would have call'd for the bull for a relief. 
 Neither could Lycidas, or the Chorics (how do you like the 
 word ?) of Samson Agonistes, have been written with two 
 inks. Your couplets with points, epilogues to Mr. H.'s, &c., 
 might be even benefited by the twy-fount, where one line 
 (the second) is for point, and the first for rhyme. I think 
 the alternation would assist, like a mould. I maintain it, 
 you could not have written your stanzas on pre-existence 
 with two inks. Try another ; and Piogers, with his silver 
 standish, having one ink only, I will bet my ' Ode on 
 Tobacco ' against the ' Pleasures of Memory,' — and ' Hope,' 
 too, shall put more fervour of enthusiasm into the same 
 subject than you can with your two ; he shall do it starts 
 pede in wio, as it were. 
 
 " The ' Waggoner' is very ill put up in boards, at least 
 it seems to me always to open at the dedication ; but that 
 is a mechanical fault. I re-read the ' White Doe of Eyl- 
 stone;' the title should be always written at length, as 
 Mary Sabilla N , a very nice woman of our acquaint- 
 ance, always signs hers at the bottom of the shortest note. 
 Mary told her, if her name had been Mary Ann, she would 
 
 have signed M. A. N , or M. only, dropping the A. ; 
 
 which makes me think, with some other trifles, that she 
 
238 LETTEE TO WOKDSWORTH. 
 
 understands something of human nature. My pen goes 
 galloping on most rhapsodically, glad to have escaped the 
 bondage of two inks. 
 
 '' Manning has just sent it home, and it came as fresh to 
 me as the immortal creature it speaks of. M. sent it home 
 with a note, having this passage in it : ' I cannot help 
 writing to you while I am reading Wordsworth's poem. 
 I am got into the third canto, and say that it raises my 
 opinion of him very much indeed/-*' 'Tis broad, noble, 
 poetical, with a masterly scanning of human actions, abso- 
 lutely above common readers. What a manly (implied) 
 interpretation of (bad) party-actions, as trampling the Bible,' 
 &c., and so he goes on. 
 
 '' I do not know which I like best, — the prologue (the 
 latter part especially) to P. Bell, or the epilogue to Ben- 
 jamin. Yes, I tell stories ; I do know I like the last 
 best ; and the ' Waggoner ' altogether is a pleasanter 
 remembrance to me than the ' Itinerant.' If it were not, 
 the page before the first page would and ought to make 
 it so. 
 
 '* If, as you say, the ' Waggoner,' in some sort, came at 
 my call, for a potent voice to call forth the ' Eecluse ' 
 from his profound dormitory, where he sleeps forgetful of 
 his foolish charge — the world. 
 
 " Had I three inks, I would invoke him ! Talfourd has 
 written a most kind review of J. Woodvil, &c., in the 
 ' Champion.' He is your most zealous admirer, in solitude 
 and in crowds. H. Crabb Robinson gives me any dear 
 prints that I happen to admire, and I love him for it and 
 for other things. Alsager shall have his copy, but at 
 present I have lent it /or a day only, not choosing to part 
 with my own. Mary's love. How do you all do, amanu- 
 enses both — marital and sororal ? 
 
 '' C. Lamb." 
 
 * '^ N.B. — M., from his peregrinations, is twelve or fourteen years 
 behind in his knowledge of who has or has not written good verse 
 of late." 
 
LETTER TO MANNING. 239 
 
 The next letter which remains is addressed to Manning 
 (returned to England, and domiciled in Hertfordshire), in 
 the spring of 18J9. 
 
 TO MR. MANNING. 
 
 " My dear M. — I want to know how your brother is, if 
 you have heard lately. I want to know about you. I wish 
 you were nearer. How are my cousins, the Gladmans of 
 Wheathamstead, and farmer Bruton ? Mrs. Bruton is a 
 glorious woman. 
 
 ' Hail, Mackery End' — 
 
 This is a fragment of a blank verse poem which I once 
 meditated, but got no further.^ The E. I. H. has been 
 thrown into a quandary by the strange phenomenon of poor 
 
 , whom I have known man and mad-man 
 
 twenty-seven years, he being elder here than myself by 
 nine years and more. He was always a pleasant, gossip- 
 ping, half-headed, muzzy, dozing, dreaming, walk-about, 
 inoflfensive chap ; a little too fond of the creature ; who 
 
 isn't at times ? but had not brains to w^ork off an 
 
 over-night's surfeit by ten o'clock next morning, and unfor- 
 tunately, in he wandered the other morning drunk with 
 last night, and with a super- foetation of drink taken in since 
 he set out from bed. He came staggering under his double 
 burthen, like trees in Java, bearing at once blossom, fruit, 
 and falling fruit, as I have heard you or some other 
 traveller tell, with his face literally as blue as the bluest 
 firmament; some wretched calico that he had mopped his 
 poor oozy front with had rendered up its native dye, and 
 the devil a bit would he consent to wash it, but swore it 
 was characteristic, for he was going to the sale of indigo, 
 
 * See "Mackery End, in Hertfordshire," — Esmys of Elia, p. 100, — 
 for a charming account of a visit to their cousin in the country with 
 Mr. Barron Field. 
 
240 LETTEE TO MANNING. 
 
 and set up a laugh which I did not think the lungs of 
 mortal man were competent to. It was like a thousand 
 people laughing, or the Goblin Page. He imagined after- 
 wards that the whole office had been laughing at him, so 
 strange did his own sounds strike upon his nonsensormm. 
 
 But has laughed his last laugh, and awoke the next 
 
 day to jfind himself reduced from an abused income of 600Z. 
 per annum to one-sixth of the sum, after thirty-six years' 
 tolerably good service. The quality of mercy was not 
 strained in his behalf ; the gentle dews dropt not on him 
 from heaven. It just came across me that I was writing 
 to Canton. Will you drop in to-morrow night ? Fanny 
 Kelly is coming, if she does not cheat us. Mrs. Gold is 
 well, but proves ' uncoined,' as the lovers about Wheatham- 
 stead would say. 
 
 " I have not had such a quiet half hour to sit down to a 
 quiet letter for many years. I have not been interrupted 
 above four times. I wrote a letter the other day, in alter- 
 nate lines, black ink and red, and you cannot think how it 
 chilled the flow of ideas. Next Monday is Whit-Monday. 
 What a reflection ! Twelve years ago, and I should have kept 
 that and the following holiday in the fields a Maying. All 
 of those pretty pastoral delights are over. This dead, ever- 
 lasting dead desk, — how it weighs the spirit of a gentleman 
 down ! This dead wood of the desk, instead of your living 
 trees ! But then again, I hate the Joskins, a name for 
 Hertfordshire bumpkins. Each state of life has its incon- 
 venience ; but then again, mine has more than one. Not 
 that I repine, or grudge, or murmur at my destiny. I have 
 meat and drink, and decent apparel ; I shall, at least, \vhen 
 I get a new hat. 
 
 " A red-haired man just interrupted me. He has broke 
 the current of my thouglits. I haven't a word to add. 
 I don't know why I send this letter, but I have had a 
 hankering to hear about you some days. Perhaps it will go 
 off before your reply comes. If it don't, I assure you no 
 letter was ever welcomer from you, from Paris or Macao. 
 
 '*C. Lamb." 
 
LETTER TO MISS WORDSWORTH. 241 
 
 The following letter, dated 25th November, 1819, is 
 addressed to Miss Wordsworth, on Wordswoilh s youngest 
 son visiting Lamb in London. 
 
 TO MISS WORDSWORTH. 
 
 '* Dear Miss Wordsworth, — You will think me negligent; 
 but I wanted to see more of Willy before I ventured to 
 express a prediction. Till yesterday I had barely seen 
 him, — Virgilimn tantuin vicli, — but yesterday he gave us 
 his small company to a bullock's heart, and I can pro- 
 nounce him a lad of promise. He is no pedant, nor book- 
 worm ; so far I can answer. Perhaps he has hitherto paid 
 too little attention to other men s inventions, preferring, 
 like Lord Foppington, the 'natural sprouts of his own.' 
 But he has observation, and seems thoroughly awake. I 
 am ill at remembering other people's hon mots, but the 
 following are a few : — Being taken over Waterloo Bridge, 
 he remarked, that if we had no mountains, we liad a fine 
 river at least ; which was a touch of the comparative : but 
 then he added, in a strain which augured less for his future 
 abilities as a political economist, that he supposed they must 
 take at least a pound a week toll. Like a curious natu- 
 ralist, he inquired if the tide did not come up a little salty. 
 Tliis being satisfactorily answered, he put another question, 
 as to the flux and reflux ; which being rather cunningly 
 evaded than artfully solved by that she- Aristotle, Mary, — 
 who muttered something about its getting up an hour 
 sooner and sooner eveiy day, — he sagely replied, ' Then it 
 must come to the same thing at last ; ' which was a speech 
 worthy of an infant Halley ! The lion in the 'Change by 
 no means came up to his ideal standard; so impossible is it 
 for Nature, in any of her works, to come up to the standard 
 of a child s imagination ! The whelps (lionets) he was sorry 
 to find were dead ; and, on particular inquiry, his old friend 
 the ourang outang had gone the way of all flesh also. The 
 
242 LETTEK TO MISS WOEDSWORTH. 
 
 grand tiger was also sick, and expected in no short time to 
 exchange this transitory world for another, or none. But 
 again, there was a golden eagle (I do not mean that of 
 Charing) which did much arride and console him. William s 
 genius, I take it, leans a little to the figurative ; for, being 
 at play at tricktrack (a kind of minor billiard -table which 
 we keep for smaller wights, and sometimes refresh our own 
 mature fatigues with taking a hand at), not being able to 
 hit a ball he had iterate aimed at, he cried out ,' I cannot hit 
 that beast.' Now the balls are usually called men, but he 
 felicitously hit upon a middle term ; a term of approxima- 
 tion and imaginative reconciliation ; a sometliing where the 
 two ends of the brute matter (ivory), and their human and 
 rather violent personification into men, might meet, as 
 I take it : illustrative of that excellent remark, in a certain 
 preface about imagination, explaining ' Like a sea-beast that 
 had crawled forth to sun himself ! ' Not that I accuse 
 William Minor of hereditary plagiary, or conceive the image 
 to have come ex traduce. Rather he seemeth to keep aloof 
 from any source of imitation, and purposely to remain ignorant 
 of what mighty poets have done in this kind before him ; 
 for, being asked if his father had ever been on Westminster 
 Bridge, he answered that he did not know ! 
 
 " It is hard to discern the oak in the acorn, or a temple 
 like St. Paul's in the first stone which is laid ; nor can I 
 quite prefigure what destination the genius of William 
 Minor hath to take. Some few hints I have set down, to 
 guide my future observations. He hath the power of calcu- 
 lation, in no ordinary degree for a chit. He combineth 
 figures, after the first boggle, rapidly ; as in the tricktrack 
 board, where the hits are figured, at first he did not perceive 
 that 15 and 7 made 33, but by a little use he could combine 
 8 with 25, and 33 again with 16, which approacheth some- 
 thing in kind (far let me be from flattering him by saying 
 in degree) to that of the famous American boy. I am some- 
 times inclined to think I perceive the future satirist in him, 
 for he hath a sub-sardonic smile which bursteth out upon 
 
BARRY CORNWALL. 243 
 
 occasion ; as when he was asked if London were as big as 
 Ambleside; and indeed no other answer was given, or proper 
 to be given, to so ensnaring and provoking a question. In 
 the contour of skull, certainly I discern something paternal. 
 But whether in all respects the future man shall transcend 
 his father s fame. Time, the trier of Geniuses, must decide. 
 Be it pronounced peremptorily at present, that Willy is a 
 well-mannered child, and though no great student, hath yet 
 a lively eye for things that lie before him. 
 
 '' Given in haste from my desk at Leadenhall. 
 " Yours, and yours most sincerely, 
 
 '' C. Lamb." 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 [1820 to 1823.] 
 
 LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH, COLERIDGE, FIELD, WILSON, AND BARTON. 
 
 The widening circle of Lamh's literary friends now em- 
 braced additional authors and actors, — famous, or just 
 bursting into fame. He welcomed in the author of the 
 " Dramatic Scenes," who chose to appear in print as Barry 
 Cornwall, a spirit most congenial with his own in its serious 
 moods, — one whose genius he had assisted to impel towards 
 its kindred models, the great dramatists of Elizabeth's time, 
 and in whose success he received the first and best reward 
 of the efforts he had made to inspire a taste for these old 
 masters of humanity. Mr. Macready, who had just eman- 
 cipated himself from the drudgery of representing the 
 villains of tragedy, by his splendid performance of Richard, 
 was introduced to him by his old friend Charles Lloyd, who 
 had visited London for change of scene, under great depres- 
 sion of spirits. Lloyd owed a debt of gratitude to Macready 
 which exemplified the true uses of the acted drama with a 
 force which it would take many sermons of its stoutest 
 
 R 2 
 
244 LONDON MAGAZINE. 
 
 opponents to reason away. A deep gloom had gradually 
 overcast his mind, and threatened wholly to encircle it, 
 when he was induced to look in at Covent-Garden Theatre 
 and witness the performance of Rob Boy. The picture 
 which he then beheld of the generous outlaw, — the frank, 
 gallant, noble bearing, — the air and movements, as of one 
 " free of mountain solitudes," — the touches of manly pathos 
 and irresistible cordiality, delighted and melted him, won 
 him from his painful introspections, and brought to him the 
 unwonted relief of tears. He went home "a gayer and a 
 wiser man ;" returned again to the theatre, whenever the 
 healing enjoyments could be renewed there ; and sought the 
 acquaintance of the actor who had broken the melancholy 
 spell in which he was enthralled, and had restored the 
 pulses of his nature to their healthful beatings. The year 
 1820 gave Lamb an interest in Macready beyond that 
 which he had derived from the introduction of Lloyd, 
 arising from the power with which he animated the fijst 
 production of one of his oldest friends — " Virginius." 
 Knowles had been a friend and disciple of Hazlitt from a 
 boy ; and Lamb had hked and esteemed him as a hearty 
 companion; but he had not guessed at the extraordinary 
 dramatic power which lay ready for kindling in his brain, 
 and still less at the deHcacy of tact vdth which he had 
 unveiled tlie sources of the most profound affections. Lamb 
 had almost lost his taste for acted tragedy, as the sad 
 realities of life had pressed more nearly on him ; yet he 
 made an exception in favour of the first and happiest part 
 of " Virginius," tliose paternal scenes, which stand alone in 
 the modern drama, and w^hich Macready informed with the 
 fulness of a father s affection. 
 
 The establishment of the " London Magazine," under 
 the auspices of Mr. John Scott, occasioned Lamb's intro- 
 duction to the public by the name, under colom' of which 
 he acquired his most brilliant reputation — "Elia." The 
 adoption of this signature was purely accidental. His first 
 contribution to the magazine was a description of the Old 
 
LETTEK TO WOEDSWOETH. 245 
 
 South-Sea House, where Lamb had passed a few months' 
 noviciate as a clerk, thirty years before, and of its inmates 
 who had long passed away ; and remembering the name of 
 a gay, light-hearted foreigner, who fluttered there at that 
 time, he subscribed his name to the essay. It was after- 
 wards affixed to subsequent contributions ; and Lamb used 
 it until, in his "Last Essays of Elia," he bade it a sad 
 farewell. 
 
 The perpetual influx of visitors whom he could not repel ; 
 whom indeed he was always glad to welcome, but whose 
 visits unstrung him, induced him to take lodgings at Dalston, 
 to which he occasionally retired when he wished for repose. 
 The deaths of some who were dear to him cast a melancholy 
 tinge on his mind, as may be seen in the following : — 
 
 TO MR. WOEDSWOETH. 
 
 " 20th March, 1822. 
 
 " My dear Wordsworth, — A letter from you is very 
 grateful ; I have not seen a Kendal postmark so long ! We 
 are pretty well, save colds and rheumatics, and a certain 
 deadness to everything, which I think I may date from poor 
 John s loss, and another accident or two at the same time, 
 that has made me almost bury myself at Dalston, where yet 
 I see more faces than I could wish. Deaths overset one, 
 and put one out long after the recent grief. Two or three 
 have died within this last two twelvemonths, and so many 
 parts of me have been numbed. One sees a picture, reads 
 an anecdote, starts a casual fancy, and thinks to tell of it to 
 this person in preference to every other : the person is gone 
 whom it would have peculiarly suited. It won't do for 
 another. Every departure destroys a class of sympathies. 
 There's Capt. Burney gone ! What fun has whist now ? 
 what matters it what you lead, if you can no longer fancy 
 him looking over you ? One never hears anything, but the 
 image of the particular person occurs with whom alone 
 
946 
 
 LETTER TO WOEDSWORTH. 
 
 almost you would care to share the intelligence — thus one 
 distributes oneself about — and now for so many parts of me 
 I have lost the market. Common natures do not suffice 
 me. Good people, as they are called, won't serve. I want 
 individuals. I am made up of queer points, and I w^ant so 
 many answering needles. The going away of friends does 
 not make the remainder more precious. It takes so much 
 from them as there was a common link. A. B. and C. 
 make a party. A. dies. B. not only loses A. ; but all A/s 
 part in C. C. loses A. s part in B., and so the alphabet 
 sickens by subtraction of interchangeables. I express myself 
 muddily, capite dolente, I have a dulling cold. My theory 
 is to enjoy life, but my practice is against it. I grow 
 ominously tired of official confinement. Thirty years have 
 I served the Philistines, and my neck is not subdued to the 
 yoke. You don't know how wearisome it is to breathe the 
 air of four pent walls, without relief, day after day, all the 
 golden hours of the day between ten and four, without 
 ease or interposition. Tadet me haritm qiiotidianarum for- 
 marum, these pestilential clerk- faces always in one's dish. 
 O for a few years between the grave and the desk : they are 
 the same, save that at the latter you are the outside machine. 
 
 The foul enchanter , ' letters four do form his name' — 
 
 Busirare is his name in hell — that has curtailed you of some 
 domestic comforts, hath laid a heavier hand on me, not in 
 present inffiction, but in the taking away the hope of enfran- 
 chisement. I dare not whisper to myself a pension on this 
 side of absolute incapacitation and infirmity, till years have 
 sucked me dry ; — Otium cum indignitate. I had thought 
 in a green old age (0 green thought !) to have retired to 
 Ponder's End, emblematic name, how beautiful ! in the 
 Ware Road, there to have made up my accounts with heaven 
 and the company, toddling about between it and Cheshunt, 
 anon stretching, on some fine Isaac Walton morning, to 
 Hoddesdon or Amwell, careless as a beggar ; but walking, 
 walking ever till I fairly walked myself off my legs, dying 
 walking ! The hope is gone. I sit like Philomel all day 
 
LETTER TO WOEDSWORTH. 247 
 
 (but not singing), with my breast against this thorn of a 
 desk, with the only hope that some pulmonary affliction may 
 relieve me. Vide Lord Palmerston's report of the clerks 
 in the War-office, (Debates this morning's ' Times,') by 
 which it appears, in twenty years as many clerks have been 
 coughed and catarrhed out of it into their freer graves. 
 Thank you for asking about the pictures. Milton hangs 
 over my fire-side in Covent Garden, (when I am there,) the 
 rest have been sold for an old song, wanting the eloquent 
 tongue that should have set them off! You have gratified 
 me with hking my meeting with Dodd.'"^ For the Malvolio 
 story — the thing is become in verity a sad task, and I eke 
 it out with anything. If I could sHp out of it I should be 
 happy, but our chief-reputed assistants have forsaken us. 
 The Opium-Eater crossed us once with a dazzling path, and 
 hath as suddenly left us darkling ; and, in short, I shall go 
 on from dull to worse, because I cannot resist the book- 
 sellers' importunity — the old plea you know of authors, but 
 I believe on my part sincere. Hartley I do not so often 
 see ; but I never see him in unwelcome hour. I thoroughly 
 love and honour him. I send you a frozen epistle, but it is 
 winter and dead time of the year with me. May heaven 
 keep something like spring and summer up with you, 
 strengthen your eyes, and make mine a little lighter to 
 encounter with them, as I hope they shall yet and again, 
 before all are closed. 
 
 " Yours, with every kind remembrance. 
 
 ''C. L." 
 
 '^ I had almost forgot to say, I think you thoroughly right 
 about presentation copies. I should like to see you print a 
 book I should grudge to purchase for its size. Hang me, 
 but I would have it though ! " 
 
 * See the account of the meeting between Dodd and Jem White, in 
 Elia's Essay, " On some of the Old Actors." 
 
248 LETTER TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 The following letter, containing the germ of the well- 
 known " Dissertation on Roast Pig," was addressed to 
 Coleridge, who had received a pig as a present, and 
 attributed it erroneously to Lamb. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 *' Dear C. — It gives me great satisfaction to hear that the 
 pig turned out so well — they are interesting creatures at a 
 certain age — what a pity such buds should blow out into 
 the maturity of rank bacon ! You had all some of the 
 crackhng — and brain sauce — did you remember to rub it 
 with butter, and gently dredge it a little, just before the 
 crisis ? Did the eyes come away kindly, with no QEdipean 
 avulsion ? Was the crackling the colour of the ripe pome- 
 granate ? Had you no cursed complement of boiled neck 
 of mutton before it, to blunt the edge of delicate desire? 
 Did you flesh maiden teeth in it ? Not that I sent the 
 
 pig, or can form the remotest guess what part could 
 
 play in the business. I never knew him give anything 
 away in my life. He would not begin with strangers. 
 I suspect the pig, after all, was meant for me ; but at the 
 unlucky juncture of time being absent, the present somehow 
 went round to Highgate. To confess an honest truth, a pig 
 is one of those things I could never think of sending 
 away. Teals, wigeons, snipes, barn-door fowl, ducks, geese 
 — your tame villatic things — Welsh mutton, collars of 
 brawn, sturgeon, fresh or pickled, your potted char, Swiss 
 cheeses, French pies, early grapes, muscadines, I impart as 
 freely unto my friends as to myself. They are but self 
 extended ; but pardon me if I stop somewhere — where the 
 fine feeling of benevolence giveth a higher smack than the 
 sensual rarity, there my friends (or any good man) may 
 command me ; but pigs are pigs, and I myself therein am 
 nearest to myself. Nay, I should think it an affront, an 
 undervaluing done to Nature who bestowed such a boon 
 
LETTER TO FIETJD. 249 
 
 upon me, if in a churlish mood I parted with the precious 
 gift. One of the bitterest pangs 1 ever felt of remorse was 
 when a child — my kind old aunt had strained her pocket- 
 strings to bestow a sixpenny whole plum-cake upon me. 
 In my way home through the Borough, I met a venerable 
 old man, not a mendicant, — but thereabouts ; a look-beggar, 
 not a verbal petitionist ; and in the coxcombry of taught- 
 charity, I gave away the cake to him. I walked on a little 
 in all the pride of an Evangelical peacock, when of a sadden 
 my old aunt's kindness crossed me ; the sum it was to her ; 
 the pleasure she had a right to expect that I — not the old 
 impostor — should take in eating her cake; the cursed 
 ingratitude by which, under the colour of a Christian 
 virtue, I had frustrated her cherished purpose. I sobbed, 
 wept, and took it to heart so grievously, that I think I 
 never suffered the like — and I was right. It was a piece 
 of unfeeling hypocrisy, and proved a lesson to me ever 
 after. The cake has long been masticated, consigned to 
 dunghill with the ashes of that unseasonable pauper. 
 
 " But when Providence, who is better to us all than our 
 aunts, gives me a pig, remembering my temptation and my 
 fall, I shall endeavour to act towards it more in the spirit 
 of the donor's purpose. 
 
 " Yours (short of pig) to command in everything, 
 
 *'C. L." 
 
 In the summer of 1822 Lamb and his sister visited 
 Paris. The following is a hasty letter addressed to Field 
 on his return. 
 
 TO MR. BARRON FIELD. 
 
 " My dear F. — I scribble hastily at office. Frank wants 
 my letter presently. I and sister are just returned from 
 Paris ! ! We have eaten frogs. It has been such a treat ! 
 You know our monotonous tenor. Frogs are the nicest 
 little delicate things — rabbity-flavoured. Imagine a Lilli- 
 
250 LETTEK TO FIELD. 
 
 putian rabbit ! They fricassee them ; but in my mind, drest, 
 seethed, plain, with parsley and butter, would have been the 
 decision of Apicius. Paris is a glorious picturesque old 
 city. London looks mean and new to it, as the town of 
 Washington would, seen after it. But they have no 
 St.. Paul's, or Westminster Abbey. The Seine, so much 
 despised by Cockneys, is exactly the size to run through a 
 magnificent street ; palaces a mile long on one side, lofty 
 Edinbro' stone (0 the glorious antiques !) houses on the 
 other. The Thames disunites London and Southwark. 
 I had Talma to supper with me. He has picked up, as I 
 believe, an authentic portrait of Shakspeare. He paid a 
 broker about 40Z. English for it. It is painted on the one 
 half of a pair of bellows — a lovely picture, corresponding 
 with the folio head. The bellows has old carved iimigs 
 round it, and round the visnomy is inscribed, as near as 
 I remember, not divided into rhyme — I found out the 
 rhyme — 
 
 Whom have we here 
 
 Stuck on this bellows, 
 
 But the Prince of good fellows, 
 
 Willy Shakspeare ? 
 
 At top — 
 
 O base and coward luck ! 
 To be here stuck. — Poins. 
 
 At bottom — 
 
 Nay ! rather a glorious lot is to him assigned, 
 
 Who, like the Almighty, rides upon the wind, — Pistol. 
 
 '* This is all in old carved wooden letters. The counte- 
 nance smiling, sweet, and intellectual beyond measure, even 
 as he was immeasurable. It may be a forgery. They laugh 
 at me and tell me, Ireland is in Paris, and has been putting 
 off a portrait of the Black Prince. How far old wood may 
 be imitated I cannot say. Ireland was not found out by 
 his parchments, but by his poetry. I am confident no 
 painter on either side the Channel could have painted any 
 
LETTERS TO BARTON. 251 
 
 thing near like the face I saw. Again, would such a painter 
 and forger have taken 40?. for a thing, if authentic, worth 
 4000Z. ? Talma is not in the secret, for he had not even 
 found out the rhymes in the first inscription. He is coming 
 over with it, and, my life to Southey's Thalaha, it will gain 
 universal faith. 
 
 '' The letter is wanted, and I am wanted. Imagine the 
 blank filled up with all kind things. 
 
 '' Our joint hearty remembrances to both of you. Yours, 
 as ever, C. Lamb." 
 
 Soon after Lamb's return from Paris he became acquainted 
 with the poet of the Quakers, Bernard Barton, who, like 
 himself, was engaged in the drudgery of figures. The pure 
 and gentle tone of the poems of his new acquaintance was 
 welcome to Lamb, who had more sympathy with the truth 
 of nature in modest guise than in the affected fury of Lord 
 Byron, or the dreamy extravangances of Shelley. Lamb 
 had written in " Elia " of the Society of Friends with the 
 freedom of one, who, with great respect for the principles of 
 the founders of their faith, had little in common with a sect 
 who shunned the pleasures while they mingled in the busi- 
 ness of the world ; and a friendly expostulation on the part 
 of Mr. Barton led to such cordial excuses as completely 
 won the heart of the Quaker bard. Some expression which 
 Lamb let fall at their meeting in London, from which 
 Mr. Barton had supposed that Lamb objected to a Quaker's 
 writing poetry as inconsistent with his creed, induced 
 Mr. Barton to write to Lamb on his return to Woodbridge, 
 who replied as follows : — 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 " India House, 11th Sept. 1822. 
 
 '' Dear Sir, — You have misapprehended me sadly, if you 
 suppose that I meant to impute any inconsistency in your 
 writing poetry with your religious profession. I do not 
 remember what I said, but it was spoken sportively, I am 
 
252 
 
 LETTEES TO BAETON. 
 
 sure — one of my levities, which you are not so used to as 
 my older friends. I probably was thinking of the light in 
 which your so indulging yourself would appear to Quakers, 
 and put their objection in my own foolish mouth. I would 
 eat my words (provided they should be written on not very 
 coarse paper) rather than I would throw cold water upon 
 your, and my once, harmless occupation. 
 
 " I have read Napoleon and the rest with delight. I like 
 them for what they are, and for what they are not. I have 
 sickened on the modern rhodomontade and Byronism, and 
 your plain Quakerish beauty has captivated me. It is all 
 wholesome cates, ay, and toothsome too, and withal Qua- 
 kerish. If I were George Fox, and George Fox licenser of 
 the press, they should have my absolute imprimatur, I hope 
 I have removed the impression. 
 
 "I am, like you, a prisoner to the desk. I have been 
 chained to that galley thirty years, a long shot. I have 
 almost grown to the wood. If no imaginative poet, I am 
 sure I am a figurative one. Do ' Friends ' allow puns ? 
 verbal equivocations? — they are unjustly accused of it, and 
 I did my little best in the ' Imperfect Sympathies ' to vin- 
 dicate them. I am very tired of clerking it, but have no 
 remedy. Did you see a Sonnet to this purpose in the 
 Examiner ? — 
 
 ' Who first invented work, and bound ttie free 
 And holy-day rejoicing spirit down 
 To the ever-haunting importunity 
 Of business, in the green fields and the town. 
 To plough, loom, anvil, spade ; and oh, most sad, 
 To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood? 
 Who but the being unblest, alien from good, 
 Sabbathless Satan ! he wdio his unglad 
 Task ever plies, 'mid rotatory burnings, 
 That round and round incalculably reel ; 
 For wrath Divine hath made him like a wdieel 
 In that red realm from w^hich are no returnings ; 
 Where, toiling and turmoiling, ever and aye. 
 He and his thoughts keep pensive working-day.' 
 
 " I fancy the sentiment exprest above will be nearly your 
 
LETTERS TO BAETON. 253 
 
 own. The expression of it probably would not so well suit 
 with a follower of John Woolman. But I do not know 
 whether diabolism is a part of your creed, or where, indeed, 
 to find an exposition of your creed at all. In feelings and 
 matters not dogmatical, I hope I am half a Quaker. Believe 
 me, with great respect, yours, C. Lamb. 
 
 " I shall always be happy to see or hear from you." 
 
 Encouraged by Lamb's kindness, Mr. Barton continued 
 the correspondence, which became the most frequent in 
 which Lamb had engaged for many years. The following 
 letter is in acknowledgment of a publication of Mr. Barton's, 
 chiefly directed to oppose the theories and tastes of Lord 
 Byron and his friends : — 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 " East-India House, 9tli Oct. 1822. 
 
 " Dear Sir, — I am ashamed not sooner to have acknow- 
 ledged your letter and poem. I think the latter very 
 temperate, very serious, and very seasonable. I do not 
 think it will convert the club at Pisa, neither do I think it 
 will satisfy the bigots on our side the water. Something 
 like a parody on the song of Aiiel would please them 
 better : 
 
 ' Full fathom five the Atheist lies, 
 Of his bones are hell-dice made/ 
 
 " I want time, or fancy, to fill up the rest. I sincerely 
 sympathise with you on your doleful confinement. Of time, 
 health, and riches, the first in order is not last in excellence. 
 Ptiches are chiefly good, because they give us Time. What 
 a weight of wearisome prison hours have I to look back and 
 forward to, as quite cut out of life ! and the sting of the 
 thing is, that for six hours every day I have no business 
 
254 LETTERS TO BAETON.^ 
 
 which I could not contract into two, if they would let me 
 work task- work. I shall be glad to hear that your grievance 
 is mitigated. 
 
 " I am returning a poor letter. I was formerly a great 
 scribbler in that way, but my hand is out of order. If I 
 said my head too, I should not be very much out, but I will 
 tell no tales of myself; I will therefore end (after my best 
 thanks, with a hope to see you again some time in London), 
 begging you to accept this letteret for a letter — a leveret 
 makes a better present than a grown hare, and short troubles 
 (as the old excuse goes) are best. 
 
 '' I remain, dear sir, yours truly, 
 
 '' C. Lamb." 
 
 The next letter will speak for itself. 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 "23r(iDec. 1822. 
 
 '' Dear Sir, — I have been so distracted with business and 
 one thing or other, I have not had a quiet quarter of an 
 hour for epistolary purposes. Christmas, too, is come, 
 which always puts a rattle into my morning skull. It is a 
 visiting, unquiet, unquakerish season. I get more and 
 more in love with solitude, and proportionately hampered 
 with company. I hope you have some holidays at this 
 period. I have one day — Christmas-day ; alas ! too few to 
 commemorate the season. All work and no play dulls me. 
 Company is not play, but many times hard work. To play, 
 is for a man to do what he please, or to do nothing — to go 
 about soothing his particular fancies. I have lived to a 
 time of life to have outlived the good hours, the nine- 
 o'clock suppers, with a bright hour or two to clear up in 
 afterwards. Now you cannot get tea before that hour, and 
 then sit gaping, music-bothered perhaps, till half-past 
 twelve brings up the tray ; and what you steal of convivial 
 
LETTEES TO BAKTON. 255 
 
 enjoyment after, is heavily paid for in the disquiet of 
 to-morrow s head. 
 
 " I am pleased with yom^ liking ' John Woodvil,' and 
 amused with your knowledge of our drama being confined to 
 Shakspeare and Miss Baillie. What a world of fine terri- 
 tory between Land's End and Johnny Groat's have you 
 missed traversing ! I could almost envy you to have so 
 much to read. I feel as if I had read all the books I want 
 to read. ! to forget Fielding, Steele, &c., and read 
 em new ! 
 
 "Can you tell me a likely place where I could pick up, 
 cheap, Fox's Journal ? There are no Quaker circulating 
 libraries ? El wood, too, I must have. I rather grudge 
 
 that S y has taken up the history of your people ; I am 
 
 afraid he will put in some levity. I am afraid I am not 
 quite exempt from that fault in certain magazine articles, 
 where I have introduced mention of them. Were they to 
 do again, I would reform them. Why should not you write 
 a poetical account of your old worthies, deducing them from 
 Fox to Woolman ? but I remember you did talk of some- 
 thing of that kind, as a counterpart to the ' Ecclesiastical 
 Sketches.' But would not a poem be more consecutive 
 than a string of sonnets ? You have no martyrs quite to the 
 fire, I think, among you; but plenty of heroic confessors, 
 spirit-martyrs, lamb-lions. Think of it ; it would be better 
 than a series of sonnets on ' Eminent Bankers.' I like a 
 hit at our way of life, though it does well for me, better 
 than anything short of all one's time to one's self ; for which 
 alone I rankle with envy at the rich. Books are good, and 
 pictures are good, and money to buy them therefore good, 
 but to buy time ! in other words, life ! 
 
 " The ' compliments of the time ' to you, should end my 
 letter ; to a Friend, I suppose, I must say the ' sincerity 
 of the season:' I hope they both mean the same. With 
 excuses for this hastily-penned note, believe me, with great 
 
 respect, 
 
 '' C. Lamb." 
 
256 
 
 LETTER TO WILSON. 
 
 In this winter Mi\ Walter Wilson, one of the friends of 
 Lamb s youth, applied to him for information respecting 
 De Foe, whose life he was about to write. The renewal of 
 the acquaintance was very pleasant to Lamb ; who many 
 years before used to take daily walks with Wilson, and to 
 call him '' brother." The following is Lamb s reply : — 
 
 TO MR. WALTER WILSON, 
 
 " E. I. H., 16tli December, 1822. 
 
 " Dear Wilson, — Lightning, I was going to call you. 
 You must have thought me negligent in not answering 
 your letter sooner. But I have a habit of never writing 
 letters but at the office ; 'tis so much time cribbed out of 
 the Company; and I am but just got out of the thick of a 
 tea-sale, in which most of the entry of notes, deposits, &c., 
 usually falls to my share. 
 
 "I have nothing of De Foe's but two or three novels, 
 and the 'Plague History.' I can give you no information 
 about him. As a slight general character of what I reEiem- 
 ber of them (for I have not look'd into them latterly), I 
 would say that in the appearance of truth, in all the inci- 
 dents and conversations that occur m 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 auto-biographies), 
 but the narrator chains us down to an implicit belief in 
 everything 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 choose but believe them. It is 
 like reading evidence given in a court of justice. So 
 anxious the story-teller 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, 
 
LETTEK TO WILSON. 257 
 
 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 everywhere 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 seafaring men, poor boys, servant- 
 maids, &c. His novels are capital Idtchen-reading, while 
 they are worthy, from their deep interest, to find a shelf in 
 the libraries of the w^ealthiest, and the most learned. His 
 passion for vtatter-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 he was 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. 
 ' Pioxana ' (first edition) is the next in interest, though he 
 left out the best part of it in subsequent editions from a 
 foolish hypercriticism of his friend Southerne. But ' Moll 
 Flanders,' the ' Account of the Plague,' &c., are all of one 
 family, and have the same stamp of character. Believe 
 me, with friendly recollections, Brother (as I used to call 
 
 you), 
 
 ^' Yours, C. Lamb." 
 
258 LETTERS TO BARTON. 
 
 How bitterly Lamb felt his East-India bondage, has 
 abundantly appeared from his letters during many years. 
 Yet there never was wanting a secret consciousness of the 
 benefits which it ensured for him, the precious independ- 
 ence which he won by his hours of toil, and the freedom of 
 his mind, to work only '' at its own sweet will," which his 
 confinement to the desk obtained. This sense of the bless- 
 ings which a fixed income, derived from ascertained duties, 
 confers, was nobly expressed in reference to a casual fancy 
 in one of the letters of his fellow in clerkly as well as in 
 poetical labours, Bernard Barton — a fancy as alien to the 
 habitual thoughts of his friend, as to his own — for no one 
 has pursued a steadier course on the weary way of duty 
 than the poet whose brief dream of literaiy engrossment 
 incited Lamb to make a generous amends to his ledger for 
 all his unjust reproaches. The references to the book- 
 sellers have the colouring of fantastical exaggeration, hj 
 which he delighted to give effect to the immediate feeling ; 
 but making allowance for this mere play of fancy, how just 
 is the following advice — how wholesome for every youth 
 who hesitates whether he shall abandon the certain reward 
 of plodding industry for the splendid miseries of author- 
 ship * ! 
 
 * It is singular that, some years before, Mr. Barton had received similar 
 advice from a very different poet — Lord Byron. As the letter has never 
 been published, and it may be interesting to compare the expressions of two 
 men so different on the same subject, I subjoin it here : — 
 
 '' TO BERNARD BARTON, ESQ. 
 
 " St. James' Street, June 1, 1812. 
 
 " Sir, — The most satisfactory answer to the concluding part of your 
 letter is, that Mr. Murray will republish your volume, if you still retain 
 your inclination for the experiment, which I trust will be successful. Some 
 weeks ago my friend Mr. Rogers showed me some of the stanzas in MS., 
 and I then expressed my opinion of their merit, which a further perusal of 
 the printed volume has given me no reason to revoke. I mention this, as 
 it may not be disagreeable to you to learn, that I entertained a very favour- 
 able opinion of your powers before I was aware that such sentiments were 
 reciprocal. Waving your obliging expressions as to my own productions, 
 for which I thank you very sincerely, and assm'e you that think not lightly 
 
LETTERS TO BARTON. 259 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 " 9th January, 1823. 
 
 *' 'Throw yourself on the world without any rational plan 
 of support, beyond what the chance employ of booksellers 
 would afford you ' I ! ! 
 
 " Throw yourself rather, my dear sir, from the steep 
 Tarpeian rock, slap-dash headlong upon iron spikes. If 
 you had but five consolatory minutes between the desk and 
 the bed, make much of them, and live a century in them, 
 rather than turn slave to the booksellers. They are Turks 
 and Tartars, when they have poor authors at their beck. 
 Hitherto you have been at arm s length from them. Come 
 not within their grasp. I have known many authors want 
 
 of the praise of one whose approbation is valuable ; will you allow me to 
 talk to you candidly, not critically, on the subject of yours ? You will 
 not suspect me of a wish to discourage, since I pointed out to the publisher 
 the propriety of complying with your wishes. I think more highly of your 
 poetical talents than it would perhaps gratify you to hear expressed, for I 
 believe, from what I observe of your mind, that you are above flattery. 
 To come to the point, you deserve success ; but we knew before Addison 
 wrote his Cato, that desert does not always command it. But suppose it 
 attained, 
 
 * You know what ills the author's life assail, 
 Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.' 
 
 Do not renounce writing, hut never trust entirely to authorship. If you 
 have a profession, retain it ; it will be like Prior's fellowship, a last and 
 sure resource. Compare Mr. Rogers with other authors of the day ; assuredly 
 he is among the first of living poets, but is it to that he owes his station in 
 society, and his intimacy in the best circles ? — no, it is to his prudence and 
 respectability. The world (a bad one, I own) courts him because he has 
 no occasion to court it. He is a poet, nor is he less so because he is some- 
 thing more. I am not sorry to hear that you were not tempted by the 
 vicinity of Capel Lofft, Esq., — though, if he had done for you what he has 
 for the Bloomfields, I should never have laughed at his rage for patronising. 
 But a truly well-constituted mind will ever be independent. That you 
 may be so is my sincere wish ; and if others think as well of your poetry as 
 I do, you will have no cause to complain of your readers. Beheve me, 
 
 " Your obliged and obedient servant, 
 
 " Byron." 
 82 
 
260 LETTERS TO BARTON. 
 
 for bread, some repining, others envying the blessed security 
 of a counting-house, all agreeing they had rather have been 
 tailors, weavers — what not ? rather than the things they 
 were. I have known some starved, some to go mad, one 
 dear friend literally dying in a workhouse. You know not 
 what a rapacious, dishonest set these booksellers are. Ask 
 even Southey, who (a single case almost) has made a for- 
 tune by book-drudgery, what he has found them. Oh, you 
 know not, may you never know ! the miseries of subsisting 
 by authorship. 'Tis a pretty appendage to a situation like 
 yours or mine ; but a slavery, worse than all slavery, to be 
 a bookseller's dependant, to drudge your brains for pots of 
 ale, and breasts of mutton, to change your free thoughts 
 and voluntary numbers for ungracious task-work. Those 
 fellows hate us. The reason I take to be, that contrary to 
 other trades, in which the master gets all the credit, (a 
 jeweller or silversmith for instance,) and the journeyman, 
 who really does the fine work, is in the back-gromid : in 
 our work the world gives all the credit to us, whom they 
 consider as their journeymen, and therefore do they hate 
 us, and cheat us, and oppress us^ and would wring the 
 blood of us out, to put another skpence in their mechanic 
 pouches ! I contend that a bookseller has a relative honesty 
 towards authors, not like his honesty to the rest of the 
 world. 
 
 " Keep to your bank, and the bank will keep you. Trust 
 not to the public; you may hang, starve, drown your- 
 self, for anything that worthy personage cares. I bless 
 every star, that Providence, not seeing good to make me 
 independent, has seen it next good to settle me upon the 
 stable foundation of Leadenhall. Sit down, good B. B., in 
 the banking-office; what! is there not from six to eleven p.m. 
 six days in the week, and is there not all Sunday ? Fie, 
 what a superfluity of man's-time, if you could think so ! 
 Enough for relaxation, mirth, converse, poetry, good 
 thoughts, quiet thoughts. O the corroding, torturing, tor- 
 menting thoughts, that disturb the brain of the unlucky 
 
LETTERS TO BARTON. 261 
 
 wight, who must draw upon it for daily sustenance ! Hence- 
 forth I retract all my fond complaiots of mercantile employ- 
 ment ; look upon them as lovers' quarrels. I was but half 
 in earnest. Welcome dead timber of a desk, that makes me 
 live. A little grumbling is a wholesome medicine for the 
 spleen, but in my inner heart do I approve and embrace 
 this our close, but unharassing way of life, I am quite 
 serious. If you can send me Fox, I will not keep it six 
 weeks, and will return it, with warm thanks to yourself and 
 friend, without blot or dog s-ear. You will much oblige me 
 by this kindness. 
 
 '' Yours truly, C. Lamb." 
 
 Lamb thus communicated to Mr. Barton his prosecution 
 of his researches into Primitive Quakerism. 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 " February ITth, 1823. 
 
 '' My dear sir, — I have read quite through the ponderous 
 folio of George Fox. I think Sewell has been judicious in 
 omitting certain parts, as for instance where G. F, has 
 revealed to him the natures of all the creatures in their 
 names, as Adam had. He luckily turns aside from that 
 compendious study of natural history, which might have 
 superseded BuiFon, to his proper spiritual pursuits, only 
 just hinting what a philosopher he might have been. The 
 ominous passage is near the beginning of the book. It is 
 clear he means a physical knowledge, without trope or 
 fio-ure. Also, pretences to miraculous healing, and the like, 
 are more frequent than I should have suspected from the 
 epitome in Sewell. He is nevertheless a great spiritual 
 man, and I feel very much obhged by your procuring me 
 the loan of it. How I like the Quaker phrases, though I 
 think they were hardly completed till Woolman. A pretty 
 little manual of Quaker language (with an endeavour to 
 
262 
 
 LETTEES TO BAETON. 
 
 explain them) might be gathered out of his book. Could 
 not you do it ? I have read through G. F. without finding 
 any explanation of the term first volume in the title-page. 
 It takes in all, both his life and his death. Are there more 
 last words of him ? Pray how may I return it to Mr. 
 Shewell, at Ipswich ? I fear to send such a treasure by a 
 stage-coach ; not that I am afraid of the coachman or the 
 guard reading it ; but it might be lost. Can you put me in 
 a way of sending it in safety? The kind-hearted owner 
 trusted it to me for six months ; I think I was about as 
 many days in getting through it, and I do not think that I 
 skipt a word of it. I have quoted G. F. in my ' Quaker s 
 Meeting,' as having said he was ' lifted up in spirit,' (which 
 I felt at the time to be not a Quaker phrase,) ' and the 
 judge and jury were as dead men under his feet.' I find no 
 such words in his journal, and I did not get them from Sewell, 
 and the latter sentence I am sure I did not mean to invent ; 
 I must have put some other Quaker s words into his mouth. 
 Is it a fatality in me, that everything I touch, turns into ' a 
 lie ?' I once quoted two lines from a translation of Dante, 
 which Hazlitt very greatly admired, and quoted in a book 
 as proof of the stupendous power of that poet, but no such 
 lines are to be found in the translation, which has been 
 searched for the purpose. I must have dreamed them, for 
 I am quite certain I did not forge them knowingly. What 
 a misfortune to have a lying memory ! Your description of 
 Mr. Mitford s place makes me long for a pippin and some 
 caraways, and a cup of sack in his orchard, when the sweets 
 of the night come in. Farewell. C. Lamb." 
 
 In the beginning of the year 1823, the '* Essays of Elia," 
 collected in a volume, were published by Messrs. Taylor and 
 Hessey, who had become the proprietors of the '' London 
 Magazine." The book met with a rapid sale, while the 
 magazine in which its contents had appeared, declined. 
 The anecdote of the three Quakers gravely walking out of 
 
LETTERS TO BARTON. 263 
 
 the inn where they had taken tea on the road, on an extor- 
 tionate demand, one after the other, without paying any- 
 thing >5^, had excited some gentle remonstrance on the part 
 of Barton s sister, to which Lamb thus replied. 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 "March 11th, 1823. 
 
 *' Dear sir, — The approbation of my little book by your 
 sister is very pleasing to me. The Quaker incident did not 
 happen to me, but to Carlisle the surgeon, from whose 
 mouth I have tw^ice heard it, at an interval of ten or twelve 
 years, with little or no variation, and have given it as 
 exactly as I could remember it. The gloss which your 
 sister or you have put upon it, does not strike me as cor- 
 rect. Carlisle drew no inference from it against the honesty 
 of the Quakers, but only in favour of their surprising cool- 
 ness ; that they should be capable of committing a good 
 joke, with an utter insensibility to its being any jest at all. 
 I have reason to believe in the truth of it, because, as I 
 have said, I heard him repeat it without variation at such 
 an interval. The story loses sadly in print, for Carlisle is 
 the best storv-teller I ever heard. The idea of the disco- 
 very of roasting pigs I also borrowed, from my friend 
 Manning, and am willing to confess both my plagiarisms. 
 Should fate ever so order it that you shall be in town with 
 your sister, mine bids me say, that she shall have great 
 pleasure in being introduced to her. Your endeavour at 
 explaining Fox's insight into the natures of animals must 
 fail, as I shall transcribe the passage. It appears to me 
 that he stopt short in time, and was on the brink of falling 
 with his friend Naylor, my favourite. The book shall be 
 forthcoming whenever your friend can make convenient to 
 call for it. 
 
 '' They have dragged me again into the Magazine, but I 
 feel the spirit of the thing in my own mind quite gone. 
 
 * See ^' Imperfect Sympathies.'" — Essays of Elia, p. 74. 
 
264 LETTEES TO BARTON, 
 
 * Some brains * (I think Ben Jonson saj^s it) ' will endure 
 but one skimming/ We are about to have an inundation 
 of poetry from the Lakes — Wordsworth and Southey are 
 coming up strong from the north. How did you like 
 Hartley's sonnets? The first, at least, is vastly fine. I 
 am ashamed of the shabby letters I send, but I am by 
 nature anything but neat. Therein my mother bore me 
 no Quaker. I never could seal a letter without dropping 
 the wax on one side, besides scalding my fingers. I never 
 had a seal, too, of my own. Writing to a great man lately, 
 who is moreover very heraldic, I borrowed a seal of a friend, 
 who by the female side quarters the Protectoral arms of 
 Cromwell. How they must have puzzled my correspondent ! 
 My letters are generally charged as double at the Post-office, 
 from their inveterate clumsiness of foldure ; so you must 
 not take it disrespectful to yourself, if I send you such un- 
 gainly scraps. I think I lose 100?. a year at the India 
 House, owing solely to my want of neatness in making up 
 accounts. How I puzzle 'em out at last is the wonder. I 
 have to do with millions ? ? 
 
 " It is time to have done my incoherences. 
 
 *' Believe me, yours truly, C. Lamb." 
 
 Lamb thus records a meeting with the poets. 
 
 TO BERNAKD BAETON. 
 
 " April 5th, 1823. 
 
 Dear sir, — I wished for you yesterday. I dined in 
 Parnassus, with Wordsworth, Coleridge, Rogers, and Tom 
 j^QOi^e, — half the poetry of England constellated and clus- 
 tered in Gloucester Place ! It was a dehghtful evening ! 
 Coleridge was in his finest vein of talk — had all the talk ; 
 and let 'em talk as evilly as they do of the envy of poets, 
 I am sure not one there but was content to be nothing but 
 a listener. The Muses were dumb, while Apollo lectured. 
 
 a 
 
LETTEKS TO BARTON. 265 
 
 on his and their fine art. It is a lie that poets are envious ; 
 I have known the best of them, and can speak to it, that 
 they give each other their merits, and are the kindest critics 
 as well as best authors. I am scribbling a muddy epistle 
 with an aching head, for we did not quaff Hippocrene last 
 night ; marry, it was hippocrass rather. Pray accept this 
 as a letter in the mean time, C. L.'' 
 
 Here is an apology for a letter, referring to a seal used 
 on the letter to which this is an answer — the device was a 
 pelican feeding her young from her own breast. 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 " May 3rd, 1823. 
 
 '* Dear sir, — I am vexed to be two letters in your debt, 
 but I have been quite out of the vein lately. A philosophical 
 treatise is wanting, of the causes of the backwardness with 
 which persons after a certain time of life set about writing 
 a letter. I always feel as if I had nothing to say, and the 
 performance generally justifies the presentiment. 
 
 '' I do not exactly see why the goose and little goslings 
 should emblematise a Quaker-poet that has no children. 
 But after all perhaps it is a pelican. The ' Mene, Mene, 
 Tekel, Qpharsin ' around it I cannot decipher. The songster 
 of the night pouring out her effusions amid a silent meeting 
 of madge-owlets, would be at least intelligible. A full pause 
 here comes upon me as if I had not a word more left. I 
 will shake my brain. Once ! Twice ! — nothing comes up. 
 George Fox recommends waiting on these occasions. I 
 wait. Nothing comes. G. Fox — that sets me off again. 
 I have finished the 'Journal,' and 400 more pages of the 
 'Doctrinals,' which I picked up for 7s. 6d. If I get on at 
 this rate, the society will be in danger of having two Quaker 
 poets — to patronise. 
 
 " Believe me cordially yours, C. Lamb." 
 
266 LETTER TO PROCTER. 
 
 The following letter was addressed to Mr. Procter, in 
 acknowledgment of a miniature of Pope which he had pre- 
 sented to Lamb. 
 
 TO ME. PROCTER. 
 
 "April 13th, 1823. 
 
 ** Dear Lad, — You must think me a brute beast, a rhino- 
 ceros, never to have acknowledged the receipt of your precious 
 present. But indeed I am none of those shocking things, 
 but have arrived at that indisposition to letter-writing, 
 which would make it a hard exertion to write three lines to 
 a king to spare a friend's life. Whether it is that the 
 Magazine paying me so much a page, I am loath to throw 
 away composition — how much a sheet do you give your 
 correspondents ? I have hung up Pope, and a gem it is, 
 in my town room ; I hope for your approval. Though it 
 accompanies the ' Essay on Man,' I think that was not the 
 poem he is here meditating. He would have looked up, 
 somehow affectedly, if he were just conceiving 'Awake, 
 my St. John.' Neither is he in the 'Rape of the Lock' 
 mood exactly. I think he has just made out the last lines 
 of the ' Epistle to Jervis,' betw^een gay and tender, 
 
 * And other beauties envy Worsley's eyes.' 
 
 " I '11 be hanged if that isn't the line. He is brooding 
 over it, with a dreamy phantom of Lady Mary floating 
 before him. He is thinking which is the earliest possible 
 day and hour that she will first see it. What a miniature 
 piece of gentility it is ! Why did you give it me ? I do 
 not like you enough to give you anything so good. 
 
 '' I have dined with T. Moore and breakfasted with 
 Rogers, since I saw you ; have much to say about them 
 when we meet, which I trust will be in a week or two. I 
 have been over- watched and over poeted since Wordsworth 
 has been in town. I was obliged for health sake to wish 
 
lamb's controversy with southey. 267 
 
 him gone, but now he is gone I feel a great loss. I am 
 going to Dalston to recruit, and have serious thoughts of — 
 altering my condition, that is, of taking to sobriety. What 
 do you advise me ? 
 
 " Rogers spake very kindly of you, as every body does, 
 and none with so much reason as your 
 
 - C. L." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 [1823.] 
 lamb's controversy with southey. 
 
 In the year 1823, Lamb appeared, for the first and only 
 time of his life before the public, as an assailant : and the 
 object of his attack was one of his oldest and fastest friends, 
 Mr. Southey. It might, indeed, have been predicted of Lamb, 
 that if ever he did enter the arena of personal controversy, it 
 would be with one who had obtained a place in his affection; 
 for no motive less powerful than the resentment of friendship 
 which deemed itself wounded, could place him in a situa- 
 tion so abhorrent to his habitual thoughts. Lamb had, up 
 to this time, little reason to love reviews or reviewers ; and 
 the connexion of Southey with " The Quarterly Review," 
 while he felt that it raised, and softened, and refined the 
 tone of that powerful organ of a great party, sometimes 
 vexed him for his friend. His indignation also had been 
 enlisted on behalf of Hazlitt and Hunt, who had been 
 attacked in this work in a manner which he regarded as 
 unfair ; for the critics had not been content with descanting 
 on the peculiarities in the style and taste of the one, or 
 reprobating the political or personal vehemence of the 
 Qther, — which were fair subjects of controversy, — but spoke 
 of them with a contempt which every man of letters had a 
 
268 UlMbs controversy with southey. 
 
 right to resent as unjust. He had heen much annoyed by 
 an allusion to himself in an article on "Hazlitt's Political 
 Essays/' which appeared in the Review for November, 
 1819, as ''one whom we should wish to see in more respect- 
 able company ; " for he felt a compliment paid him, at the 
 expense of a friend, as a grievance far beyond any direct 
 attack on himself. He was also exceedingly hurt by a 
 reference made in an article on Dr. Reid s work *' On 
 Nervous Affections," which appeared in July, 1822, to an 
 essay which he had contributed some years before to a col- 
 lection of tracts published by his friend, Mr. Basil Montague, 
 on the effect of spirituous liquors, entitled ''The Confessions 
 of a Drunkard." The contribution of this paper is a striking 
 proof of the prevalence of Lamb's personal regards over 
 all selfish feelings and tastes ; for no one was less disposed 
 than he to Montague s theoiy or practice of abstinence ; 
 yet he was willing to gratify his friend by this terrible 
 picture of the extreme effects of intemperance, of which 
 his own occasional deviations from the right line of sobriety 
 had given him hints and glimpses. The reviewer of 
 Dr. Reid, adverting to this essay, speaks of it as "a fearful 
 picture of the consequences of intemperance, which we 
 happen to know is a true tale." How far it was from actual 
 truth the " Essays of Elia," the production of a later day, 
 in which the maturity of his feeling, humour, and reason is 
 exhibited, may sufficiently witness. These articles were 
 not written by Mr. Southey ; but they prepared Lamb to 
 feel acutely any attack from the Review ; and a paragraph 
 in an article in the number for July, 1823, entitled " Pro- 
 gress of Infidelity," in which he recognised the hand of his 
 old friend, gave poignancy to all the painful associations 
 which had arisen from the same work, and concentrated 
 them in one bitter feeling. After recording some of the 
 confessions of unbelievers of the wretchedness which their 
 infidelity brought on them, Mr. Southey thus proceeded: — 
 " Unbelievers have not always been honest enough thus 
 to express their real feelings ; but this we know concerning 
 
lamb's controversy with southey. 269 
 
 them, that when they have renounced their birthright of 
 hope, they have not been able to divest tliemselves of fear. 
 From the nature of the human mind, this might be pre- 
 sumed, 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 the other Night Fears,' he says, ' It 
 is not book, or picture, or the stories of foolish servants, 
 which create these terrors in children ; thev can at most 
 but give them a direction. Dear little T. H., who of all 
 children has been brought up with the most scrupulous exclu- 
 sion 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 
 ah 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 well-damned murderer are tranquillity.' 
 — This poor child, instead of being trained up in the way 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 king- 
 dom of heaven ; ' care had been taken that he should not 
 pray to God, nor lie down at night in reliance upon his 
 good providence ! Nor let it be supposed that terrors of 
 imagination belong to childhood alone. The reprobate 
 heart, which has discarded all love of God, cannot so easily 
 rid itself of the fear of the devil ; and even when it 
 succeeds in that also, it will then create a hell for itself. 
 We have heard of unbelievers who thought it probable 
 that they should be awake in their graves ; and this was 
 the opinion for which they had exchanged a Christian's hope 
 of immortalitv ! " 
 
270 
 
 LETTEES TO BARTON. 
 
 The allusion in this paragraph was really, as Lamb was 
 afterwards convinced, intended by Mr. Southey to assist 
 the sale of the book. In haste, having expunged some 
 word which he thought improper, he wrote " sounder 
 religious feeling," not satisfied with the epithet, but mean- 
 ing to correct it in the proof, which unfortunately was 
 never sent him. Lamb saw it on his return from a month s 
 pleasant holidays at Hastings, and expressed his first im- 
 pression respecting it in a letter. 
 
 TO BEENARD BAETON. 
 
 ^'July 10th, 1823. 
 
 '* Dear Sir, — I have just returned from Hastings, where 
 are exquisite view^s and walks, and where I have given up 
 my soul to walking, and I am now suffering sedentary con- 
 trasts. I am a long time reconciling to town after one of 
 these excursions. Home is become strange, and will remain 
 so yet a while ; home is the most unforgiving of friends, 
 and always resents absence ; I know its old cordial looks 
 will return, but they are slow in clearing up. That is one 
 of the features of this our galley-slavery, that peregrination 
 ended makes things worse. I felt out of water (with all 
 the sea about me) at Hastings ; and just as I had learned 
 to domiciliate there, I must come back to find a home 
 which is no home. I abused Hastings, but learned its 
 value. There are spots, inland bays, &c., which realise the 
 notions of Juan Fernandez. The best thing I lit upon by 
 accident w^as a small country church, (by whom or when 
 built unknown,) standing bare and single in the midst of a 
 grove, with no house or appearance of habitation within a 
 quarter of a mile^ only passages diverging from it through 
 beautiful w^oods to so many farm-houses. There it stands 
 like the first idea of a church, before parishioners were 
 thought of, nothing but birds for its congregation ; or like 
 a hermit s oratory (the hermit dead), or a mausoleum ; its 
 
LETTERS TO BARTON. 271 
 
 effect singularly impressive, like a church found in a desert 
 isle to startle Crusoe with a home image ; you must make 
 out a vicar and a congregation from fancy, for surely none 
 come there ; yet it wants not its pulpit, and its font, and 
 all its seemly additaments of our worship. 
 
 " Southey has attacked ' Elia' on the score of infidelity, 
 in the Quarterly article, ' Progress of Infidelity.' I had 
 not, nor have seen the Monthly^ He might have spared 
 an old friend such a construction of a few careless flights, 
 that meant no harm to religion. If all his unguarded 
 expressions on the subject were to be collected — but I love 
 and respect Southey, and will not retort. I hate his 
 review, and his being a reviewer. The hint he has dropped 
 will knock the sale of the book on the head, which was 
 almost at a stop before. Let it stop, — there is corn in 
 Egypt, while there is cash at Leadenhall ! You and I are 
 something besides being writers, thank God ! 
 
 ''Yours truly, C. L." 
 
 This feeling was a little diverted by the execution of a 
 scheme, rather suddenly adopted, of removing to a neat 
 cottage at Islington, where Lamb first found himself 
 installed in the dignity of a householder. He thus describes 
 his residence : — 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 " 2nd September, 1823. 
 
 *' Dear B. B. — What will you say to my not writing^ 
 You cannot say, I do not write now. When you come 
 London- ward, you will find me no longer in Covent Garden; 
 I have a cottage, in Colebrook Row, Islington ; a cottage, 
 for it is detached ; a white house, with six good rooms ; 
 the New River (rather elderly by this time) runs (if a 
 moderate walking pace can be so termed) close to the foot 
 of the house ; and behind is a spacious garden, with vines 
 I assure you), pears, strawberries, parsnips, leeks, carrots. 
 
272 
 
 LETTERS TO BAETON. 
 
 cabbages, to delight the heart of old Alcinous. You enter 
 without passage into a cheerful dining-room, all studded 
 over and rough with old books ; and above is a lightsome 
 drawing-room, three windows, full of choice prints. I feel 
 like a great lord, never having had a house before. 
 
 "The 'London,' I fear, falls off. I linger among its 
 creaking rafters, like the last rat ; it will topple down if 
 they don't get some buttresses. They have pulled down 
 three; Hazlitt, Procter, and their best stay, kind, light- 
 hearted Wainwright, their Janus. The best is, neither of 
 our fortunes is concerned in it. 
 
 " I heard of you from Mr. Pulham this morning, and 
 that gave a fillip to my laziness, which has been intolerable; 
 but I am so taken up with pruning and gardening, quite a 
 new sort of occupation to me. I have gathered my jargonels, 
 but my Windsor pears are backward. The former were of 
 exquisite raciness. I do now sit under my own vine, and 
 contemplate the growth of vegetable nature. I can now 
 understand in what sense they speak of father Adam. I 
 recognise the paternity, while I watch my tulips. I almost 
 fell with him, for the first day I turned a drunken gar- 
 dener (as he let in the serpent) into my Eden, and he laid 
 about him, lopping off some choice boughs, &c., which hung 
 over from a neighbour's garden, and in his bhnd zeal laid 
 waste a shade, which had sheltered their window from the 
 gaze of passers-by. The old gentlewoman (fury made her 
 not handsome) could scarcely be reconciled by all my fine 
 words. There was no buttering her parsnips. She talked 
 of the law. What a lapse to commit on the first day of 
 my happy ' garden-state ! ' 
 
 " I hope you transmitted the Fox- Journal to its owner, 
 with suitable thanks. Mr. Gary, the Dante-man, dines 
 with me to-day. He is a model of a country parson, lean, 
 (as a curate ought to be), modest, sensible, no obtruder of 
 
 church dogmas, quite a different man from . You 
 
 would like him. Pray accept this for a letter, and believe 
 me, with sincere regards, Yours, C. L." 
 
LETTEES TO BARTON. 273 
 
 In the next letter to Barton, Lamb referred to an 
 intended letter to Southey in the Magazine. 
 
 TO BEBNARD BARTON. 
 
 ^^ September 17th, 1823. 
 
 '' Dear Sir, — I have again been reading your ' Stanzas 
 on Bloomfield,' which are the most appropriate that can be 
 imagined, — sweet with Doric delicacy. I like that, — 
 
 ' Our own more chaste Theocritus ' — 
 
 just hinting at the fault of the Grecian. I love that stanza 
 ending with, 
 
 * Words, phrases, fashions, pass away ; 
 But truth and nature live through all.^ 
 
 But I shall omit in my own copy the one stanza which alludes 
 to Lord B. I suppose. It spoils the sweetness and oneness 
 of the feeling. Cannot we think of Burns, or Thomson, 
 without sullying the thought with a reflection out of place 
 upon Lord Rochester? These verses might have been 
 inscribed upon a tomb ; are in fact an epitaph ; satire does 
 not look pretty upon a tomb-stone. Besides, there is a quo- 
 tation in it, always bad in verse, seldom advisable in prose. 
 I doubt if their having been in a paper will not prevent 
 T. and H. from insertion, but I shall have a thing to send 
 in a day or two, and shall try them. Omitting that stanza, 
 a very little alteration is wanting in the beginning of the 
 next. You see, I use freedom. How happily (I flatter 
 not) you have brought in his subjects ; and (I suppose) his 
 favourite measure, though I am not acquainted with any of 
 his writings but the ' Farmer's Boy.' He dined with me 
 once, and his manners took me exceedingly. 
 
 " I rejoice that you forgive my long silence. I continue 
 to estimate my own-roof comforts highly. How could 
 I remain all my life a lodger? My garden thrives (I am 
 
Ji74 ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 told), though I have yet reaped nothing but some tiny 
 salad, and withered carrots. But a garden's a garden any- 
 where, and twice a garden in London. 
 
 *' Do you go on with your ' Quaker Sonnets ?' have 'em 
 ready whh ' Southey's Book of the Church.' I meditate 
 a letter to S. in the ' London,' which perhaps will meet the 
 fate of the Sonnet. 
 
 '' Excuse my brevity, for I write painfully at ofl&ce, liable 
 to a hundred callings off; and I can never sit down to an 
 epistle elsewhere. I read or walk. If you return this 
 letter to the Post-office, I think they will return fourpence, 
 seeing it is but half a one. Believe me, though, 
 
 " Entirely yours, C. L." 
 
 The contemplated expostulation with Southey was written, 
 and appeared in the 'London Magazine for October 1823.' 
 Lamb did not print it in any subsequent collection of his 
 essays ; but I give it now, as I have reason to know that 
 its publication will cause no painful feelings in the mind of 
 Mr. Southey, and as it forms the only ripple on the 
 kindliness of Lamb s personal and literary life. 
 
 LETTER OF ELIA TO ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ. 
 
 '' Sir, — You have done me an unfriendly office, without 
 perhaps much considering what you were doing. You have 
 given an ill name to my poor lucubrations. In a recent 
 paper on Infidelity, you usher in a conditional commenda- 
 tion of them with an exception ; which, preceding the 
 encomium, and taking up nearly the same space with it, 
 must impress your readers with the notion, that the objec- 
 tionable parts in them are at least equal in quantity to the 
 pardonable. The censure is in fact the criticism ; the 
 praise — a concession merely. Exceptions usually follow, 
 to qualify praise or blame. But there stands your reproof, 
 
ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 275 
 
 in the very front of your notice, in ugly characters, like some 
 bugbear, to frighten all good Christians from purchasing. 
 Through you I am become an object of suspicion to pre- 
 ceptors of youth, and fathers of families. 'A book, which 
 wants only a sounder religious feeling to he as delightful as 
 it is original.' With no further explanation, what must 
 your readers conjecture, but that my little volume is some 
 vehicle for heresy or infidelity ? The quotation, which 
 you honour me by subjoining, oddly enough, is of a charac- 
 ter which bespeaks a temperament in the writer the very 
 reverse of that your reproof goes to insinuate. Had you 
 been taxing me with superstition, the passage would have 
 been pertinent to the censure. Was it worth your while to 
 go so far out of your way to affront the feelings of an old 
 friend, and commit yourself by an irrelevant quotation, for 
 the pleasure of reflecting upon a poor child, an exile at 
 Genoa ? 
 
 " I am at a loss what particular essay you had in view 
 (if my poor ramblings amount to that appellation) when you 
 were in such a hurry to thrust in j^our objection, like bad 
 new^s, foremost. — Perhaps the paper on ' Saying Graces ' 
 was the obnoxious feature. I have endeavoured there to 
 rescue a voluntary duty — good in place, but never, as I 
 remember, literally commanded — from the charge of an 
 undecent formality. Rightly taken, sir, that paper was not 
 against graces, but want of grace ; not against the ceremony, 
 but the carelessness and slovenliness so often observed in 
 the performance of it. 
 
 '' Or was it that on the 'New Year' — in \vhich I have 
 described the feelings of the merely natural man, on a con- 
 sideration of the amazing change, which is supposable to 
 take place on our removal from this fleshly scene ? If men 
 would honestly confess their misgivings (which few men 
 will) there are times when the strongest Christian of us, 
 I believe, has reeled under questionings of such staggering 
 obscurity. I do not accuse you of this weakness. There 
 are some who tremblingly reach out shaking hands to the 
 
 t2 
 
276 ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 guidance of Faith — others who stoutly venture into the 
 dark (their Human Confidence their leader, whom they 
 mistake for Faith) ; and, investing themselves beforehand 
 with cherubic wings, as they fancy, find their new robes as 
 familiar, and fitting to their supposed growth and stature in 
 godhness, as the coat they left off yesterday — some w^hose 
 hope totters upon crutches — others who stalk into futurity 
 upon stilts. 
 
 ** The contemplation of a Spiritual World, — which, with- 
 out the addition of a misgiving conscience, is enough to 
 shake some natures to their foundation — is smoothly got 
 over by others, who shall float over the black billows, in 
 their little boat of No-Distrust, as unconcernedly as over a 
 summer sea. The difference is chiefly constitutional. 
 
 " One man shall love his friends and his friends' faces; 
 and, under the uncertainty of conversing with them again, 
 in the same manner and familiar circumstances of sight, 
 speech, &c. as upon earth — in a moment of no irreverent 
 weakness — for a dream-while — no more — would be almost 
 content, for a reward of a life of virtue (if he could ascribe 
 such acceptance to his lame performances), to take up his 
 portion with those he loved, and was made to love, in this 
 good world, which he knows — which was created so lovely, 
 beyond his deservings. Another, embracing a more exalted 
 vision — so that he might receive indefinite additaments of 
 power, knowledge, beauty, glory, &c. — is ready to forego 
 the recognition of humbler individualities of earth, and the 
 old familiar faces. The shapings of our heavens are the 
 modifications of our constitution ; and Mr. Feeble Mind, or 
 Mr. Great Heart, is born in every one of us. 
 
 " Some (and such have been accounted the safest divines) 
 have shrimk from pronouncing upon the final state of any 
 man ; nor dare they pronounce the case of Judas to be 
 desperate. Others (with stronger optics), as plainly as wuth 
 the eye of flesh, shall behold a given king in bliss, and a 
 given chamberlain in torment ; even to the eternising of a 
 cast of the eye in the latter, his own self-mocked and good- 
 
ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 277 
 
 humouredly-borne deformity on earth, but supposed to 
 aggravate the uncouth and hideous expression of his pangs 
 in the other place. That one man can presume so far, 
 and that another would with shuddering disclaim such 
 confidences, is, I believe, an effect of the nerves purely. 
 
 " If in either of these papers, or elsewhere, I have been 
 betrayed into some levities — not affronting the sanctuary, 
 but glancing perhaps at some of the outskirts and extreme 
 edges, the debateable land between the holy and the profane 
 regions — (for the admixture of mans inventions, twisting 
 themselves with the name of the religion itself, has artfully 
 made it difficult to touch even the alloy, without, in some 
 men's estimation, soiling the fine gold) — if I have sported 
 within the purlieus of serious matter — it was, I dare say, a 
 humour — be not startled, sir, — which I have unwittingly 
 derived from yourself. You have all your life been making 
 a jest of the Devil. Not of the scriptural meaning of that 
 dark essence — personal or allegorical ; for the nature is 
 nowhere plainly delivered. I acquit you of intentional 
 irreverence. But indeed you have made wonderfully free 
 with, and been mighty pleasant upon, the popular idea and 
 attributes of him. A Noble Lord, your brother Visionary, 
 has scarcely taken greater liberties with the material keys, 
 and merely Catholic notion of St. Peter. — You have flat- 
 tered him in prose : you have chanted him in goodly odes. 
 You have been his Jester; volunteer Laureat, and self- 
 elected Court Poet to Beelzebub. 
 
 You have never ridiculed, I believe, what you thought to 
 be religion, but you are always girding at what some pious, 
 but perhaps mistaken folks, think to be so. For this reason 
 I am sorry to hear, that you are engaged upon a life of 
 George Fox. I know you will fall into the error of inter- 
 mixing some comic stuff with your seriousness. The 
 Quakers tremble at the subject in your hands. The 
 Methodists are shy of you, upon account of their founder. 
 But, above all, our Popish brethren are most in your debt. 
 The errors of that Church have proved a fruitful source to 
 
278 
 
 ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 your scoffing vein. Their Legend has been a Golden one 
 to you. And here your friends, sir, have noticed a noteable 
 inconsistency. To the imposing rites, the solemn penances, 
 devout austerities of that communion ; the affecting though 
 erring piety of their hermits ; the silence and solitude of 
 the Chartreux — their crossings, their holy waters — their 
 Virgin, and their saints — to these, they say, you have been 
 indebted for the best feelings, and the richest imagery, of 
 your Epic poetry. You have drawn copious drafts upon 
 Loretto. We thought at one time you were going post to 
 Rome — but that in the facetious commentaries, which it is 
 your custom to append so plentifully, and (some say) inju- 
 diciously, to your loftiest performances in this kind, you 
 spurn the uplifted toe, which you but just now seemed to 
 court; leave his holiness in the lurch; and show him a 
 fair pair of Protestant heels under your Eomish vestment. 
 When we think you already at the wicket, suddenly a 
 violent cross wind blows you transverse — 
 
 ' Ten thousand leagues awry 
 
 Then might we see 
 
 Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tost 
 And flutter'd into rags ; then reliques, beads, 
 Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls, 
 The sport of winds.' 
 
 You pick up pence by showing the hallowed bones, shrine, 
 and crucifix ; and you take money a second time by exposing 
 the trick of them afterwards. You carry your verse to 
 Castle Angelo for sale in a morning ; and swifter than a 
 pedlar can transmute his pack, you are at Canterbury with 
 your prose ware before night. 
 
 " Sir, is it that I dislike you in this merry vein? The 
 very reverse. No countenance becomes an intelligent jest 
 better than your own. It is yoiu* grave aspect, when you 
 look awful upon your poor friends, which I would deprecate. 
 
 " In more than one place, if I mistake not, you have 
 been pleased to compliment me at the expense of my com- 
 panions. I cannot accept your compliment at such a price. 
 
ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 279 
 
 The upbraiding a man's poverty naturally makes him look 
 about him, to see whether he be so poor indeed as he is 
 presumed to be. You have put me upon counting my 
 riches. Really, sir, I did not know I was so wealthy in the 
 
 article of friendships. There is , and , whom you 
 
 never heard of, but exemplary characters both, and excel- 
 lent church-goers ; and N., mine and my father's friend for 
 nearly half a century ; and the enthusiast for Wordsworth's 
 
 poetry, , a little tainted with Socinianism, it is to be 
 
 feared, but constant in his attachments, and a capital critic ; 
 
 and , a sturdy old Athanasian, so that sets all to rights 
 
 again ; and W., the light, and warm- as-light hearted, Janus 
 of the London ; and the translator of Dante, still a curate, 
 modest and amiable C. ; and Allan C, the large-hearted 
 Scot ; and P — r, candid and affectionate as his own poetry ; 
 and A — p, Coleridge's friend ; and G — n, his more than 
 friend ; and Coleridge himself, the same to me still, as in 
 those old evenings, when we used to sit and speculate (do 
 you remember them, sir?) at our old Salutation tavern, 
 upon Pantisocracy and golden days to come on earth ; and 
 
 W th (why, sir, I might drop my rent-roll here ; such 
 
 goodly farms and manors have I reckoned up already. In what 
 possession has not this last name alone estated me ! — but 
 I will go on) — and M., the noble-minded kinsman, by wed- 
 lock, of W th; and H. C. B., unwearied in the offices 
 
 of a friend ; and Clarkson, almost above the narrowness of 
 that relation, yet condescending not seldom heretofore from 
 the labours of his world-embracing charity to bless my 
 humble roof; and the gall-less and single-minded Dyer; 
 and the high-minded associate of Cook, the veteran Colonel, 
 with his lusty heart still sending cartels of defiance to old 
 Time ; and, not least, W. A., the last and steadiest left to 
 me of that little knot of whist-players, that used to assemble 
 weekly, for so many years, at the Queen's Gate (you remem- 
 ber them, sir ?) and called Admiral Burney friend. 
 
 *' I will come to the point at once. 1 believe you will 
 not make many exceptions to my associates so far. But I 
 
280 
 
 ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 have purposely omitted some intimacies, which I do not yet 
 repent of having contracted, with two gentlemen, diametri- 
 cally opposed to yourself in principles. You will under- 
 stand me to allude to the authors of ' Pdmini ' and of the 
 ' Table Talk.' And first of the former. — 
 
 " It is an error more particularly incident to persons of 
 the correctest principles and habits, to seclude themselves 
 from the rest of mankind, as from another species, and 
 form into knots and clubs. The best people, herding thus 
 exclusively, are in danger of contracting a narrowness. 
 Heat and cold, dryness and moisture, in the natural world, 
 do not fly asunder, to spHt the globe into sectarian parts 
 and separations; but mingling, as they best may, correct 
 the malignity of any single predominance. The analogy 
 holds, I suppose, in the moral world. If all the good 
 people were to ship themselves off to Terra Incognita, 
 what, in humanity's name, is to become of the refuse ? If 
 the persons, whom I have chiefly in view, have not pushed 
 matters to this extremity yet, they carry them as far as 
 they can go. Instead of mixing with the infidel and the 
 free-thinker — in the room of opening a negociation, to try 
 at least to find out at which gate the en^or entered — they 
 huddle close together, in a weak fear of infection, like that 
 pusillanimous underling in Spenser — 
 
 * This is the wandering wood, this Error** s den ; 
 A monster vile, whom God and man does hate : 
 Therefore, I reed, beware. Fly^ fly, quoth then 
 The fearful Dwarf.' 
 
 And, if they be writers in orthodox journals — addressing 
 themselves only to the irritable passions of the unbeliever 
 — they proceed in a safe system of strengthening the 
 strong hands, and confirming the valiant knees ; of con- 
 verting the already converted, and proselyting their own 
 party. I am the more convinced of this from a passage in 
 the very treatise which occasioned this letter. It is where, 
 having recommended to the doubter the writings of Michaelis 
 
ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 281 
 
 and Lardner, you ride triumphant over the necks of all 
 infidels, sceptics, and dissenters, from this time to the 
 world's end, upon the wheels of two unanswerable deduc- 
 tions. I do not hold it meet to set down, in a miscella- 
 neous compilation like this, such religious words as you 
 have thought fit to introduce into the pages of a petulant 
 literary journal. I therefore beg leave to substitute mime' 
 rals, and refer to the ' Quarterly Review ' (for January) for 
 filling of them up. ' Here,' say you, ' as in the history 
 of 7, if these books are authentic, the events which they 
 relate must be true ; if they were written by 8, 9 is 10 and 
 11.' Your first deduction, if it means honestly, rests upon 
 two identical propositions ; though I suspect an unfairness 
 in one of the terms, which this would not be quite the 
 proper place for explicating. At all events you have no 
 cause to triumph ; you have not been proving the premises, 
 but refer for satisfaction therein to very long and laborious 
 works, which may well employ the sceptic a twelvemonth or 
 two to digest, before he can possibly be ripe for your con- 
 clusion. When he has satisfied himself about the premises, 
 he will concede to you the inference, I dare say, most 
 readily. — But your latter deduction, viz. that because 8 has 
 written a book concerning 9, therefore 10 and 11 was cer- 
 tainly his meaning, is one of the most extraordinary conclu- 
 sions per saltum, that I have had the good fortune to meet 
 with. As far as 10 is verbally asserted in the writings, all 
 sects must agree with you ; but jow cannot be ignorant of 
 the many various ways in which the doctrine of the *'i^t^^>i^'K^i^ 
 has been understood, from a low figurative expression (with 
 the Unitarians) up to the most mysterious actuality ; in 
 which highest sense alone you and your church take it. 
 And for 11, that there is no other j^ossible conclusion — to 
 hazard this in the face of so many thousands of Arians and 
 Socinians, &c., who have drawn so opposite a one, is such a 
 piece of theological hardihood, as, I think, warrants me in 
 concluding that, when you sit down to pen theology, you do 
 not at all consider your opponents ; but have in your eye, 
 
*^82 ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 merely and exclusively, readers of the same way of thinking 
 with yourself, and therefore have no occasion to trouble 
 yourself with the quality of the logic to which you treat 
 them. 
 
 " Neither can I think, if you had had the welfare of the 
 poor child — over whose hopeless condition you whine so 
 lamentably and (I must think) unseasonably — seriously at 
 heart, that you could have taken the step of sticking him 
 up by name — T. H. is as good as naming him — to perpe- 
 tuate an outrage upon the parental feelings, as long as 
 the 'Quarterly Eeview' shall last. Was it necessary to 
 specify an hidividual case, and give to Christian compassion 
 the appearance of personal attack ? Is this the way to 
 conciliate unbelievers, or not rather to widen the breach 
 irreparably ? 
 
 '' I own I could never think so considerably of myself as 
 to decline the society of an agreeable or worthy man upon 
 difference of opinion only. The impediments and the 
 facilitations to a sound belief are various and inscrutable as 
 the heart of man. Some believe upon weak principles. 
 Others cannot feel the efficacy of the strongest. One of 
 the most candid, most upright, and single-meaning men, I 
 ever knew, was the late Thomas Holcroft. I believe he 
 never said one thing and meant another, in his life ; and, 
 as near as I can guess, he never acted othermse than with 
 the most scrupulous attention to conscience. Ought we to 
 wish the character false, for the sake of a hollow compliment 
 to Christianity ? 
 
 " Accident introduced me to the acquaintance of Mr. L. H. 
 — and the experience of his many friendly qualities con- 
 firmed a friendship between us. You, who have been mis- 
 represented yourself, I should hope, have not lent an idle 
 ear to the calumnies which have been spread abroad 
 respecting this gentleman. I was admitted to his house- 
 hold for some years, and do most solemnly aver that I 
 believe him to be in his domestic relations as correct as any 
 man. He chose an ill-judged subject for a poem; the 
 
ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 283 
 
 peccant humours of \vliich have been visited on him tenfold 
 by the artful use, which his adversaries have made, of an 
 equivocal term. The subject itself was started by Dante, 
 but better because brieflier treated of. But the crime of 
 the lovers, in the Italian and the English poet, with its 
 aggravated enormity of circumstance, is not of a kind (as 
 the critics of the latter well knew) with those conjunctions, 
 for which Nature herself has provided no excuse, because 
 no temptation. — It has nothing in common with the black 
 horrors, sung by Ford and Massinger. The familiarising 
 of it in tale or fable may be for that reason incidentally 
 more contagious. In spite of Eimini, I must look upon its 
 author as a man of taste, and a poet. He is better than 
 so ; he is one of the most cordial-minded men I ever knew, 
 and matchless as a fire-side companion. I mean not to 
 affront or w^ound your feelings when I say that, in his more 
 genial moods, he has often reminded me of you. There is 
 the same air of mild dogmatism — the same condescending 
 to a boyish sportiveness — in both your conversations. His 
 handwriting is so much the same with your own, that I 
 have opened more than one letter of his, hoping, nay, not 
 doubting, but it was from you, and have been disappointed 
 (he will bear with my saying so) at the discovery of my 
 error. L. H. is unfortunate in holding some loose and not 
 very definite speculations (for at times I think he hardly 
 knows whither his premises would carry him) on marriage 
 — the tenets, I conceive, of the ' Political Justice ' carried a 
 little further. For anything I could discover in his prac- 
 tice, they have reference, like those, to some future possible 
 condition of society, and not to the present times. But 
 neither for these obliquities of thinking (upon which my 
 own conclusions are as distant as the poles asunder) — nor 
 for his political asperities and petulancies, which are wear- 
 inct out with the heats and vanities of youth — did I select 
 him for a friend ; but for qualities which fitted him for that 
 relation. T do not know whether I flatter myself with 
 being the occasion, but certain it is, that, touched with 
 
284 ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 some misgivings for sundry harsh things which he had 
 written aforetime against our friend C, — before he left 
 this country he sought a reconciliation with that gentleman 
 (himself being his own introducer), and found it. 
 
 L. H. is now in Italy ; on his departure to which land 
 with much regret I took my leave of him and of his little 
 family — seven of them, sir, with their mother — and as kind 
 a set of little people (T. H. and all), as affectionate children 
 as ever blessed a parent. Had you seen them, sir, I think 
 you could not have looked upon them as so many little 
 Jonases — but rather as pledges of the vessels safety, that 
 was to bear such a freight of love. 
 
 *' I wish you would read Mr. H. s lines to that same 
 T. H. ' six years old, during a sickness :' — 
 
 'Sleep breaks at last from out thee, 
 My little patient boy ' — 
 
 (they are to be found in the 47th page of ' Foliage') — and 
 ask yourself how far they are out of the spirit of Chris- 
 tianity. I have a letter from Italy, received but the other 
 day, into which L. H. has put as much heart, and as many 
 friendly yearnings after old associates, and native country, 
 as, I think, paper can well hold. It would do you no hurt 
 to give that the perusal also. 
 
 " From the other gentleman I neither expect nor desire 
 (as he is well assured) any such concessions as L. H. made 
 to C. What hath soured him, and made him to suspect his 
 friends of infidelity towards him, when there was no such 
 matter, I know not. I stood well with him for fifteen years 
 (the proudest of my life), and have ever spoken my full 
 mind of him to some, to whom his panegyric must naturally 
 be least tasteful. I never in thought swerved from him, I 
 never betrayed him, I never slackened in my admiration of 
 him ; I was the same to him (neither better nor worse) 
 though he could not see it, as in the days when he thought 
 fit to trust me. At this instant, he may be preparing for 
 me some compliment, above my deserts, as he has sprinkled 
 
ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 285 
 
 maDy such among his admirable books, for which I rest his^ 
 debtor ; or, for anything I know, or can guess to the con- 
 trary, he may be about to read a lecture on my weaknesses. 
 He is welcome to them (as he was to my humble hearth), 
 if they can divert a spleen, or ventilate a fit of sullenness. 
 I wish he w^ould not quarrel with the world at the rate he 
 does ; but the reconciliation must be effected by himself, 
 and I despair of Hving to see that day. But, protesting 
 against much that he has written, and some things which 
 he chooses to do; judging him by his conversation which I 
 enjoyed so long, and relished so deeply ; or by his books, in 
 those places where no clouding passion intervenes — I should 
 belie my own conscience, if I said less, than that I think 
 W. H. to be, in his natural and healthy state, one of the 
 wisest and finest spirits breathing. So far from being 
 ashamed of that intimacy, which was betwixt us, it is my 
 boast that I was able for so many years to have preserved it 
 entire ; and I think I shall go to my grave without finding, 
 or expecting to find, such another companion. But I forget 
 my manners — ^you will pardon me, sir — I return to the 
 correspondence. 
 
 '* Sir, you were pleased (you know where) to invite me to 
 a compliance with the wholesome forms and doctrines of the 
 Church of England, I take your ad\dce with as much kind- 
 ness as it was meant. But I must think the invitation 
 rather more kind than seasonable. I am a Dissenter. The 
 last sect, with which you can remember me to have made 
 common profession, were the Unitarians. You would think 
 it not very pertinent, if (fearing that all was not well with 
 you), I were gravely to invite you (for a remedy) to attend 
 with me a course of Mr. Belsham's Lectinres at Hackney. 
 Perhaps I have scruples to some of your forms and doc- 
 trines. But if I come, am I secure of civil treatment ? — 
 The last time I was in any of your places of worship was on 
 Easter Sunday last. I had the satisfaction of listening to 
 a very sensible sermon of an argumentative turn, delivered 
 with great propriety, by one of your bishops. The place 
 
286 ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 was Westminster Abbey. As such religion, as I have, has 
 alwaj^s acted on me more by way of sentiment than argu- 
 mentative process, I was not unwilling, after sermon ended, 
 by no unbecoming transition, to pass over to some serious 
 feelings, impossible to be disconnected from the sight of 
 those old tombs, &c. But, by whose order I know not, I 
 was debarred that privilege even for so short a space as a 
 few minutes ; and turned, like a dog or some profane 
 person, out into the common street ; with feelings, which I 
 could not help, but not very congenial to the day or the 
 discourse. I do not know that I shall ever venture myself 
 again into one of your churches. 
 
 You had your education at Westminster ; and, doubtless, 
 among those dim aisles and cloisters, you must have gathered 
 much of that devotional feeling in those young years, on 
 which your purest mind feeds still — and may it feed ! The 
 antiquarian spirit, strong in you, and gracefully blending 
 ever with the religious, may have been sown in you among 
 those wrecks of splendid mortality. You owe it to the place 
 of your education ; you owe it to your learned fondness for 
 the architecture of your ancestors ; you owe it to the vener- 
 ableness of your ecclesiastical establishment, which is daily 
 lessened and called in question through these practices — to 
 speak aloud your sense of them ; never to desist raising your 
 voice against them, till they be totally done away with and 
 abolished ; till the doors of Westmmster Abbey be no longer 
 closed against the decent, though low-in-purse, enthusiast, or 
 blameless devotee, who must commit an injury against his 
 family economy, if he would be indulged with a bare ad- 
 mission within its walls. You owe it to the decencies, which 
 you wish to see maintained in its impressive services, that 
 our Cathedral be no longer an object of inspection to the 
 poor at those times only, in which they must rob from their 
 attendance on the worship every minute which they can 
 bestow upon the fabric. In vain the public prints have 
 taken up this subject, in vain such poor nameless writers as 
 myself express their indignation. A word from you, sir — 
 
ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 287 
 
 a hint in your journal — would be sufficient to fling open the 
 doors of the beautiful temple again, as we can remember 
 them when we were boys. At that time of life, what would 
 the imaginative faculty (such as it is) in both of us, have 
 suffered, if the entrance to so much reflection had been 
 obstructed by the demand of so much silver ! — If we had 
 scraped it up to gain an occasional admission (as we cer- 
 tainly should have done) would the sight of those old tombs 
 have been as impressive to us (while we had been weighing 
 anxiously prudence against sentiment) as when the gates 
 stood open, as those of the adjacent Park ; when we 
 could walk in at any time, as the mood brought us, for 
 a shorter or longer time, as that lasted ? Is the being 
 shown over a place the same as silently for ourselves 
 detecting the genius of it ? In no part of our beloved 
 Abbey now can a person find entrance (out of service- 
 time) under the sum of two shillings. The rich and the 
 great will smile at the anti-climax, presumed to lie in 
 these two short words. But you can tell them, sir, how 
 much quiet worth, how much capacity for enlarged feeling, 
 how much taste and genius, may co-exist, especially in 
 youth, with a purse incompetent to this demand. — A 
 respected friend of ours, during his late visit to the metro- 
 polis, presented himself for admission to Saint Paul's. At 
 the same time a decently-clothed man, with as decent a 
 wife, and child, were bargaining for the same indulgence. 
 The price was only two-pence each person. The poor but 
 decent man hesitated, desirous to go in : but there were 
 three of them, and he turned away reluctantly. Perhaps 
 he wished to have seen the tomb of Nelson. Perhaps the 
 interior of the cathedral was his object. But in the state 
 of his finances, even sixpence might reasonably seem too 
 much. Tell the aristocracy of the country (no man can do 
 it more impressively) ; instruct them of what value these 
 insignificant pieces of money, these minims to their sight, 
 may be to their humbler brethren. Shame these sellers 
 out of the Temple ! Show the poor, that you can some- 
 
288 
 
 ELIA TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 times think of them in some other light than as mutineers 
 and mal-contents. Conciliate them by such kind methods 
 to their superiors, civil and ecclesiastical. Stop the mouths 
 of the railers; and suffer your old friends, upon the old 
 terms, again to honour and admire you. Stifle not the sug- 
 gestions of your better nature with the stale evasion, that 
 an indiscriminate admission would expose the tombs to 
 violation. Remember your boy-days. Did you ever see, or 
 hear, of a mob in the Abbey, while it was free to all ? Do 
 the rabble come there, or trouble their heads about such 
 speculations ? It is all that you can do to drive them into 
 your churches; they do not voluntarily offer themselves. 
 They have, alas ! no passion for antiquities ; for tomb of 
 king or prelate, sage or poet. If they had, they would no 
 longer be the rabble. 
 
 " For forty years that I have known the fabric, the only 
 well-attested charge of violation adduced, has been — a ridi- 
 culous dismemberment committed upon the effigy of that 
 amiable spy, Major Andre. And is it for this — the wanton 
 mischief of some school-boy, fired perhaps with raw notions 
 of transatlantic freedom — or the remote possibility of such 
 a mischief occurring again, so easily to be prevented by 
 stationing a constable within the walls, if the vergers are 
 incompetent to the duty — is it upon such wretched pre- 
 tences, that the people of England are made to pay a new 
 Peter's pence, so long abrogated ; or must content them- 
 selves with contemplating the ragged exterior of their 
 Cathedral? The mischief was done about the time that 
 you were a scholar there. Do you know anything about the 
 unfortunate relic ? — can you help us in this emergency to 
 find the nose ? — or can you give Chantrey a notion (from 
 memory) of its pristine life and vigour? I am willing for 
 peace' sake to subscribe my guinea towards a restoration of 
 the lamented feature. 
 
 " I am, sir, your humble servant, 
 
 '' Elia." 
 
LETTEB TO SOUTHEY. 289 
 
 The feeling with which this letter was received by 
 Southey may be best described in his own words in a letter 
 to the publisher. '^ On my part there was not even a 
 momentary feeling of anger; I was very much surprised 
 and grieved, because I knew how much he would condemn 
 himself. And yet no resentful letter was ever written less 
 offensively : his gentle nature may be seen in it throughout.'' 
 Southey was right in his belief in the revulsion Lamb's 
 feelings would undergo, when the excitement under which 
 he had written subsided; for although he would retract 
 nothing he had ever said or written in defence of his friends, 
 he was ready at once to surrender every resentment of his 
 own. Southey came to London in the following month, 
 and wrote proposing to call at Islington; and 21st of 
 November Lamb thus replied : — 
 
 TO ME. SOUTHEY. 
 
 " E. I. H. 21st November, 1823. 
 
 *' Dear Southey, — The kindness of your note has melted 
 away the mist which w^as upon me. I have been fighting 
 against a shadow. That accursed Q. Pt. had vexed me by a 
 gratuitous speaking, of its own knowledge, that the ' Con- 
 fessions of a D d ' was a genuine description of the state 
 
 of the writer. Little things, that are not ill meant, may 
 produce much ill. That might have injured me alive and 
 dead. I am in a public office, and my life is insured. I 
 was prepared for anger, and I thought I saw, in a few 
 obnoxious words, a hard case of repetition directed against 
 me. I wish both magazine and review at the bottom of the 
 sea. I shall be ashamed to see you, and my sister (though 
 innocent) will be still more so ; for the folly was done 
 without her knowledge, and has made her uneasy ever 
 since. My guardian angel was absent at that time. 
 
 " I will muster up courage to see you, however, any day 
 next week (Wednesday excepted). We shall hope that you 
 
 u 
 
290 LETTER TO BARTON. 
 
 will bring Edith with you. That will be a second mortifi- 
 cation. She will hate to see us, but come and heap embers. 
 We deserve it, I for what I Ve done, and she for being my 
 sister. 
 
 ''Do come early in the day, by sun-light, that you may 
 see my Milton. 
 
 '' I am at Colebrook-cottage, Colebrook-row, Islington. 
 A detached whitish house, close to the New Paver, end of 
 Colebrook Terrace, left hand from Sadler's Wells. 
 
 ''Will you let me know the day before? 
 
 " Your penitent, C. Lamb. 
 
 "P.S. — I do not think your hand-writing at all like 
 *^''i^* s. I do not think many things I did think." 
 
 In the following letter, of the same date, Lamb antici- 
 pates the meeting. 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 " Dear B. B., — I am ashamed at not acknowledging 
 your kind little poem, which I must needs like much ; but 
 I protest I thought I had done it at the moment. Is it 
 possible a letter has miscarried ? Did you get one in which 
 I sent you an extract from the poems of Lord Sterling ? I 
 should wonder if you did, for I sent you none such. There 
 was an incipient lie strangled in the birth. Some people s 
 conscience is so tender ! But, in plain truth, I thank you 
 very much for the verses. I have a very kind letter from 
 the Laureat, with a self-invitation to come and shake hands 
 with me. This is truly handsome and noble. 'Tis worthy 
 of my old idea of Southey. Shall not I, think you, be 
 covered with a red suffusion ? 
 
 " You are too much apprehensive of your complaint : I 
 know many that are always aihng of it, and live on to a 
 good old age. I know a merry fellow (you partly know 
 him) who, when his medical adviser told him he had drunk 
 
LETTER TO BARTON. 291 
 
 away all that part, congratulated himself (now his liver was 
 gone) that he should be the longest liver of the two. 
 
 ''The best way in these cases is to keep yourself as ignorant 
 as you can, as ignorant as the world was before Galen, of the 
 entire inner construction of the animal man ; not to be con- 
 conscious of a midriff ; to hold kidneys (save of sheep and 
 swine) to be an agreeable fiction ; not to know whereabouts 
 the gall grows ; to account the circulation of the blood an idle 
 whimsey of Harvey's ; to acknowledge no mechanism not 
 visible. For, once fix the seat of your disorder, and your 
 fancies flux into it like bad humours. Those medical gentries 
 choose each his favourite part ; one takes the lungs, another 
 the aforesaid liver, and refer to that, whatever in the animal 
 economy is amiss. Above all, use exercise, take a little more 
 spirituous liquors, learn to smoke, continue to keep a good 
 conscience, and avoid tampering with hard terms of art — 
 viscosit)^ scirrhosit}^ and those bugbears by which simple 
 patients are scared into their grave. Believe the general 
 sense of the mercantile world, which holds that desks are 
 not deadl}^ It is the mind, good B.B., and not the limbs, 
 that taints by long sitting. Think of the patience of tailors, 
 think how long the Lord Chancellor sits, think of the brood- 
 ing hen ! I protest I cannot answer thy sister s kind 
 inquiry; but I judge, I shall put forth no second volume. 
 More praise than buy ; and T. and H. are not particularly 
 disposed for martyrs. Thou wilt see a funny passage, and 
 yet a true history, of George Dyer s aquatic incursion m the 
 next ' London.' Beware his fate, when thou comest to see 
 me at my Colebrook-cottage. I have filled my little space 
 with my little thoughts. I wish thee ease on thy sofa ; but 
 not too much indulgence on it. From my poor desk, thy 
 fellow-sufierer, this bright November, C. L." 
 
 Southey went to Colebrook-cottage, as proposed ; the 
 awkwardness of meeting went off in a moment ; and the 
 affectionate intimacy, which had lasted for almost twenty 
 years, was renewed, to be interrupted only by death. 
 
 u2 
 
292 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 [1823 to 1825.] 
 
 LETTERS TO AINSWORTH, BARTON, AND COLERIDGE. 
 
 Lamb was fond of visiting the Universities in the summer 
 vacation, and repeatedly spent his holiday month at Cam- 
 bridge with his sister. On one of these occasions they met 
 with a little girl, who being in a manner alone in the world, 
 engaged their sympathy, and soon riveted their affections. 
 Emma Isola was the daughter of Mr. Charles Isola, who 
 had been one of the esquire bedells of the University ; her 
 grandfather, Agostino Isola, had been compelled to fly from 
 Milan, because a friend took up an English book in his 
 apartment, which he had carelessly left in view. This good 
 old man numbered among his pupils, Gray the poet, 
 Mr. Pitt, and, in his old age, Wordsworth, whom he 
 instructed in the Italian language. His little grand- 
 daughter, at the time when she had the good fortune to win 
 the regard of Mr. Lamb, had lost both her parents, and 
 was spending her holidays with an aunt, who lived with a 
 sister of Mr. Ayrton, at whose house Lamb generally played 
 his evening rubber during his stay at Cambridge. The liking 
 which both Lamb and his sister took for the little orphan, 
 led to their begging her of her aunt for the next holidays ; 
 their regard for her increased ; she regularly spent the holi- 
 days with them till she left school, and afterwards was 
 adopted as a daughter, and lived generally with them until 
 1833, when she married Mr. Moxon. Lamb was fond of 
 taking long walks in the country, and as Miss Lamb's 
 strength was not always equal to these pedestrian excursions, 
 she became his constant companion in walks which even 
 extended "to the green fields of pleasant Hertfordshire." 
 
LETTERS TO AINSWORTH. 293 
 
 About this time, Lamb added to his list of friends, 
 Mr. Hood, the dehghtful humourist ; Hone, lifted for a 
 short time into political fame by the prosecution of his 
 Parodies, and the signal energy and success of his defence, 
 but now striving by unwearied researches, which were guided 
 by a pure taste and an honest heart, to support a numerous 
 family; and Amsworth, then a youth, who has since 
 acquired so splendid a reputation as the author of *' Rook- 
 wood " and " Crichton." Mr. Ainsworth, then resident at 
 Manchester, excited by an enthusiastic admiration of Elia, 
 had sent him some books, for which he thus conveyed his 
 thanks to his unseen friend. 
 
 TO MR. AINSWORTH. 
 
 '' India-House, 9th Dec. 1823. 
 
 *' Dear Sir, — I should have thanked you for your books 
 and compliments sooner, but have been waiting for a revise 
 to be sent, which does not come, though I returned the 
 proof on the receipt of your letter. I have read Warner 
 with great pleasure. What an elaborate piece of allitera- 
 tion and antithesis ! why it must have been a labour far 
 above the most difficult versification. There is a fine simile 
 or picture of Semiramis arming to repel a siege. I do not 
 mean to keep the book, for I suspect you are forming a 
 curious collection, and I do not pretend to anything of the 
 kind. I have not a black-letter book among mine, old 
 Chaucer excepted, and am not bibliomanist enough to like 
 black-letter. It is painful to read ; therefore I must insist 
 on returning it at opportunity, not from contumacy and re- 
 luctance to be obliged, but because it must suit you better 
 than me. The loss of a present f^^oyn should never exceed 
 the gain of a present to. I hold this maxim infallible in 
 the accepting line. — I read your magazines with satisfac- 
 tion. I thoroughly agree with you as to ' The German 
 Faust,' as far as I can do justice to it from an English 
 
294 
 
 LETTEKS TO AINSWORTH. 
 
 translation. 'Tis a disagreeable canting tale of seduction, 
 which has nothing to do with the spirit of Faustus — 
 Curiosity. Was the dark secret to be explored, to end 
 in the seducing of a weak girl, which might have been 
 accomplished by earthly agency? When Marlow gives 
 his Faustus a mistress, he flies him at Helen, flower of 
 Greece, to be sure, and not at Miss Betsy, or Miss Sally 
 Thoughtless. 
 
 'Cut is the biancli that bore the goodly fruit, 
 And \vitherM is Apollo's laurel tree : 
 Faustus is dead.** 
 
 '' What a noble natural transition from metaphor to 
 plain speaking ! as if the figurative had flagged in descrip- 
 tion of such a loss, and was reduced to tell the flict simply. 
 
 *' I must now thank you for your very kind invitation. 
 It is not out of prospect that I may see Manchester some 
 day, and then I will avail myself of your kindness. But 
 holidays are scarce things with me, and the laws of attend- 
 ance are getting stronger and stronger at Leadenhall. But 
 I shall bear it in mind. Meantime, something may (more 
 probably) bring you to town, where I shall be happy to see 
 you. I am always to be found (alas !) at my desk in the 
 fore part of the day. 
 
 *' I wonder why they do not send the revise. I leave 
 late at ofl&ce, and my abode lies out of the way, or I should 
 have seen about it. If you are impatient, perhaps a line to 
 the printer, directing him to send it me, at Accountant's 
 Office, may answer. You will see by the scrawl that I only 
 snatch a few minutes from intermitting business. 
 " Your obliged servant, 
 
 '' C. Lamb. 
 
 ** (If I had time, I would go over this letter again, and 
 dot all my is.)'' 
 
 To Ainsworth, still pressing him to visit Manchester, he 
 sent the following reply. 
 
LETTERS TO AINSWORTH. 295 
 
 TO MR. AINSWORTH. 
 
 "I. H., Dec. 29th, 1823. 
 
 *' My dear sir, — You talk of months at a time, and I 
 know not what inducements to visit Manchester, Heaven 
 knows how gratifying ! but I have had my little month of 
 1823 already. It is all over, and without incurring a dis- 
 agreeable favour, I cannot so much as get a single holiday 
 till the season returns with the next year. Even our half- 
 hour s absences from office are set down in a book ! Next 
 year, if I can spare a day or two of it, I will come to 
 Manchester, but I have reasons at home against longer 
 absences. 
 
 '' I am so ill just at present — (an illness of my own pro- 
 curing last night ; who is perfect ?) — that nothing but your 
 very great kindness could make me write. I will bear in 
 mind the letter to W. W., and you shall have it quite in 
 time, before the 1 2th. 
 
 '' My aching and confused head warns me to leave off. 
 With a muddled sense of gratefulness, which I shall appre- 
 hend more clearly to-morrow, 
 
 '^ I remain, your friend unseen, C. L. 
 
 '' Will your occasions or inclination bring you to London ! 
 It will give me great pleasure to show you everything that 
 Islington can boast, if you know the meaning of that very 
 Cockney sound. We have the New River ! I am ashamed 
 of this scrawl, but I beg you to accept it for the present. I 
 am full of qualms. 
 
 ^ A fool at fifty is a fool indeed. 
 
 9 99 
 
 Bernard Barton still frequently wrote to him ; and he 
 did not withhold the wished- for reply even when letter- 
 writing was a burthen. The following gives a ludicrous 
 account of his indisposition : — 
 
296 
 
 LETTERS TO BARTON. 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 ^^Jan. 9th, 1824. 
 
 '* Dear B. B., — Do you know what it is to succumb 
 under an insurmountable day-mare, — ' a whoreson lethargy/ 
 Falstaff calls it, — an indisposition to do anything, or to be 
 anything, — a total deadness and distaste, — a suspension of 
 vitality, — an indifference to locality, — a numb, soporifical, 
 good-for-nothingness, — an ossification all over, — an oyster- 
 like insensibility to the passing events, — a mind-stupor, — 
 a brawny defiance to the needles of a thrusting-in con- 
 science ! Did you ever have a very bad cold, with a total 
 irresolution to submit to water-gruel processes ? This has 
 been for many weeks my lot, and my excuse ; my fingers 
 drag heavily over this paper, and to my thinking it is 
 three-and-twenty furlongs from here to the end of this 
 demi-sheet. I have not a thing to say ; nothing is of more 
 importance than another ; I am flatter than a denial or a 
 
 pancake; emptier than Judge s wig when the head 
 
 is in it ; duller than a country stage when the actors are 
 off it ; a cipher, an ! I acknowledge life at all, only by 
 an occasional convulsional cough, and a permanent phleg- 
 matic pain in the chest. I am weary of the world ; life is 
 weary of me. My day is gone into twilight, and I don't 
 think it worth the expense of candles. My wick hath a 
 thief in it, but I can't muster courage to snuff it. I inhale 
 suffocation ; I can't distinguish veal from mutton ; nothing 
 interests me. 'Tis twelve o'clock, and Thurtell is just now 
 coming out upon the New Drop, Jack Ketch alertly tucldng 
 up his greasy sleeves to do the last office of mortality, yet 
 cannot I elicit a groan or a moral reflection. If you told 
 me the world will be at an end to-morrow, I should just 
 say, ' Will it ? ' I have not volition enough left to dot my 
 is, much less to comb my eyebrows ; my ejes are set in 
 my head ; my brains are gone out to see a poor relation in 
 Moorfields, and they did not say when they'd come back 
 
LETTERS TO BARTON. 297 
 
 again ; my skull is a Grub-street attic, to let — not so much 
 as a joint-stool or a crack'd Jordan left in it ; my hand writes, 
 not I, from habit, as chickens run about a little, when their 
 heads are off. for a vigorous fit of gout, cholic, tooth- 
 ache, — an earwig in my auditory, a fly in my visual organs ; 
 pain is life — the sharper, the more evidence of life ; but 
 this apathy, this death ! Did you ever have an obstinate 
 cold, — a six or seven weeks' unintermitting chill and sus- 
 pension of hope, fear, conscience, and everything? Yet 
 do I try all I can to cure it ; I try wine, and spirits, and 
 smoking, and snuff in unsparing quantities, but they all 
 only seem to make me worse, instead of better. I sleep 
 in a damp room, but it does me no good ; I come home late 
 o' nights, but do not find any visible amendment ! Who 
 shall deliver me from the body of this death ? 
 
 " It is just fifteen minutes after twelve ; Thurtell is by 
 this time a good way on his journey, baiting at Scorpion 
 perhaps ; Ketch is bargaining for his cast coat and waist- 
 coat ; the Jew demurs at first at three half-crowns, but, on 
 consideration that he may get somewhat by showing 'em in 
 the town, finally closes. 
 
 " C. L." 
 
 Barton took this letter rather too seriously, and Lamb 
 thus sought to remove his friendly anxieties. 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 "Jan. 23rd, 1824. 
 
 '' My dear sir, — That peevish letter of mine, which was 
 meant to convey an apology for my incapacity to write, 
 seems to have been taken by you in too serious a light ; it 
 was only my way of telling you I had a severe cold. The 
 fact is, I have been insuperably dull and lethargic for many 
 weeks, and cannot rise to the vigour of a letter, much less 
 an essay. The ' London ' must do without me for a time, 
 for I have lost all interest about it ; and whether I shall 
 
298 LETTERS TO BARTON. 
 
 recover it again I know not. I will bridle my pen another 
 time, and not teaze and puzzle you with my aridities. I 
 shall begin to feel a little more alive with the spring. 
 Winter is to me (mild or harsh) always a great trial of the 
 spirits. I am ashamed not to have noticed your tribute to 
 Woolman, whom we love so much. It is done in your 
 good manner. Your friend Tayler called upon me some 
 time since, and seems a very amiable man. His last story 
 is painfully fine. His book I ' like ; ' it is only too stuffed 
 with scripture, too parsonish. The best thing in it is the 
 boy's own story. When I say it is too full of scripture, I 
 mean it is too full of direct quotations ; no book can have 
 too much of silent scripture in it ; but the natural power 
 of a story is diminished when the uppermost purpose in the 
 writer seems to be to recommend something else, viz. 
 Religion. You know what Horace sajs of the Deus intersit? 
 I am not able to explain myself, — you must do it for me. 
 My sister's part in the ' Leicester School ' (about two-thirds) 
 was purely her own ; as it was (to the same quantity) in the 
 * Shakspeare Tales ' which bear my name. I wrote only 
 the ' Witch Aunt ; ' the ' First Going to Chmxh ; ' and the 
 final story, about ' A little Indian girl,' in a ship. Your 
 account of my black-balling amused me. I think, as 
 Quakers they did right. There are some things hard to be 
 understood. The more I think, the more I am vexed at 
 having puzzled you with that letter ; but I have been so 
 out of letter- writing of late years, that it is a sore effort to 
 sit down to it ; and I felt in your debt, and sat down way- 
 wardly to pay you in bad money. Never mind my dulness ; 
 I am used to long intervals of it. The heavens seem brass 
 to me ; then again comes the refreshing shower — 
 
 * I have been merry once or t\7ice ere now.' 
 
 " You said something about Mr. Mitford in a late letter, 
 which I believe I did not advert to. I shall be happy to 
 show him my Milton (it is all the show things I have) at 
 
LETTERS TO BARTON. 299 
 
 any time he will take the trouble of a jaunt to Islington. 
 T do also hope to see Mr. Tajler there some day. Pray 
 say so to both. Coleridge's book is in good part printed, 
 but sticks a little for more copy. It bears an unsaleable 
 title, ' Extracts from Bishop Leighton,' but I am confident 
 there will be plenty of good notes in it. 
 
 " Keep your good spirits up, dear B. B., mine will return ; 
 they are at present in abeyance ; but I am rather lethargic 
 than miserable. I don't know but a good horse-whip would 
 be more beneficial to me than physic. My head, without 
 aching, will teach yours to ache. It is well I am getting to 
 the conclusion. I will send a better letter when I am a 
 better man. Let me thank you for your kind concern for 
 me, (which I trust will have reason soon to be dissipated,) 
 and assure you that it gives me pleasure to hear from you. 
 
 *' Yours truly, 0. L." 
 
 The following sufficiently indicate the circumstances 
 under which they were written : — 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 "February 25th, 1824. 
 
 '* My dear sir, — Your title of ' Poetic Vigils ' arrides me 
 much more than a volume of verse, which has no meaning. 
 The motto says nothing, but I cannot suggest a better. I 
 do not like mottoes, but where they are singularly felici- 
 tous ; there is foppery in them ; they are un-plain, un- 
 Quakerish; they are good only where they flow from the 
 title, and are a kind of justification of it. There is nothing 
 about watchings or lucubrations in the one you suggest, no 
 commentary on vigils. By the way, a wag would recommend 
 you to the line of Pope, 
 
 ^ Sleepless himself — to give his readers sleep.' — 
 
 I by no means wish it ; but it may explain what I mean, — 
 
300 LETTERS TO BARTON. 
 
 that a neat motto is child of the title. I think ' Poetic 
 Vigils ' as short and sweet as can be desired ; only have an 
 eye on the proof, that the printer do not substitute Virgils, 
 which would ill accord with your modesty or meaning. 
 Your suggested motto is antique enough in spelling, and 
 modern enough in phrases, — a good modern antique ; but 
 the matter of it is germain to the purpose, only supposing 
 the title proposed a vindication of yourself from the pre- 
 sumption of authorship. The first title was liable to this 
 objection — that if you were disposed to enlarge it, and the 
 bookseller insisted on its appearance in two tomes, how 
 oddly it would sound, ' A Volume of Verse in two Volumes, 
 Second Edition,' &c. You see thro' my wicked intention 
 of curtailing this epistolet by the above device of large 
 margin. But in truth the idea of letterising has been 
 oppressive to me of late above your candour to give me 
 credit for. There is Southey, whom I ought to have 
 thanked a fortnight ago for a present of the ' Church 
 Book : ' I have never had courage to bucMe myself in 
 earnest even to acknowledge it by sLx words ; and yet I am 
 accounted by some people a good man. How cheap that 
 character is acquired ! Pay your debts, don't borrow money, 
 nor twist your kitten's neck off, or disturb a congregation, 
 &c., your business is done. I know things (thoughts or 
 things, thoughts are things,) of myself, which would make 
 every friend I have fly me as a plague patient. I once 
 ^. ^. :^^ ai^(j get a dog upon a crab's leg that was shoved out 
 under a mass of sea w^eeds, — a pretty little feeler. Oh ! 
 pah ! how sick I am of that ; and a lie, a mean one, I once 
 told. I stink in the midst of respect. I am much hypt. 
 The fact is, my head is heavy, but there is hope ; or if not, 
 I am better than a poor shell-fish ; not morally, when I set 
 the whelp upon it, but have more blood and spirits. Things 
 may turn up, and I may creep again into a decent opinion 
 of myself. Vanity will return with sunshine. Till when, 
 pardon my neglects, and impute it to the wintry solstice. 
 
 ''C. Lamb." 
 
LETTERS TO BAETON. 301 
 
 TO BERNAED BAETON. 
 
 [No date.] 
 
 '' Dear B. B., — I am sure I cannot fill a letter, though I 
 should disfurnish my skull to fill it ; but you expect some- 
 thing and shall have a notelet. Is Sunday, not divinely 
 speaking, but humanly and holidaysically, a blessing? 
 Without its institution, would our rugged taskmasters have 
 given us a leisure day, so often, think you, as once in a 
 month ? or, if it had not been instituted, might they not 
 have given us every sixth day ? Solve me this problem. 
 If we are to go three times a-day to church, why has Sunday 
 slipt into the notion of a hollidaj? A HoLY-day I grant 
 it. The Puritans, I have read in Southey's book, knew 
 the distinction. They made people observe Sunday rigor- 
 ously, would not let a nurserymaid walk out in the fields 
 with children for recreation on that day. But then — they 
 gave the people a holliday from all sorts of work every 
 second Tuesday. This was giving to the two Caesars that 
 which was his respective. Wise, beautiful, thoughtful, 
 generous legislators ! Would Wilberforce give us our Tues- 
 days ? No ! — he would turn the six days into sevenths, 
 
 ' And those three smiling seasons of the year 
 Into a Russian winter.' — Old Play. 
 
 " I am sitting opposite a person who is making strange 
 distortions with the gout, which is not unpleasant — to me 
 at least. What is the reason we do not sympathise with 
 pain, short of some terrible surgical operation ? Hazlitt, 
 w^ho boldly says all he feels, avows that not only he does 
 not pity sick people, but he hates them. I obscurely 
 recognise his meaning. Pain is probably too selfish a con- 
 sideration, too simply a consideration of self-attention. We 
 pity poverty, loss of friends, &c. — more complex things, in 
 which the sufferer's feelings are associated with others. 
 This is a rough thought suggested by the presence of gout ; 
 
302 LETTERS TO BARTON. 
 
 I want head to extricate it and plane it. What is all this 
 to your letter ? I felt it to be a good one, but my turn 
 when I write at all, is perversely to travel out of the record, 
 so that my letters are anything but answers. So you still 
 want a motto ? You must not take my ironical one, because 
 your book, I take it, is too serious for it. Bickerstaff might 
 have used it for his lucubrations. What do you think of (for 
 a title) Religio Tremuli ? or Tremebundi ? There is Religio- 
 Medici and Laici. But perhaps the volume is not quite 
 Quakerish enough, or exclusively so, for it. Your own 
 ' Vigils ' is perhaps the best. While I have space, let me 
 congratulate with you the return of spring, what a summery 
 spring too ! all those qualms about the dog and cray-fish 
 melt before it. I am going to be happy and vain again. 
 
 "A hasty farewell. 
 
 " C. Lamb." 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 *' July 7th, 1824. 
 
 " Dear B. B., — I have been suffering under a severe 
 inflammation of the eyes, notwithstanding which I resolutely 
 went through youi* very pretty volume at once, which I dare 
 pronounce in no ways inferior to former lucubrations. 
 ' Abroad ' and ' lord ' are vile rhymes notwithstanding, and 
 if you count you will wonder how many times you have 
 repeated the word unearthly; thrice in one poem. It is 
 become a slang word with the bards ; avoid it in future 
 lustily. ' Time ' is fine, but there are better a good deal, I 
 think. The volume does not lie by me ; and, after a long 
 day's smarting fatigue, which has almost put out my eyes 
 (not blind however to your merits), I dare not trust myself 
 with long writing. The verses to Bloomfield are the 
 sweetest in the collection. Pieligion is sometimes lugged 
 in, as if it did not come naturally. I will go over carefully 
 when I get my seeing, and exemplify. You have also too 
 much of singing metre, such as requires no deep ear to 
 
LETTEKS TO BAKTON. 303 
 
 make ; lilting measure, in which you have done Woolman 
 injustice. Strike at less superficial melodies. The piece 
 on Nayler is more to my fancy. 
 
 " My eye runs waters. But I will give you a fuller 
 account some day. The book is a very pretty one in more 
 than one sense. The decorative harp, perhaps, too osten- 
 tatious ; a simple pipe preferable. 
 
 '' Farewell, and many thanks. 
 
 " C. Lamb." 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 ^^ August, 1824. 
 
 *' Dear B. B., — I congratulate you on getting a house 
 over your head. I find the comfort of it I am sure. The 
 ' Prometheus,' unbound, is a capital story. The literal 
 rogue ! What if you had ordered ' Elfrida,' in sheets ! 
 she 'd have been sent up, I warrant you. Or bid him clasp 
 his Bible {i. e. to his bosomj, he 'd have clapt on a brass 
 clasp, no doubt. 
 
 " I can no more understand Shelley than you can. His 
 poetry is 'thin sown with profit or delight.' Yet I must 
 point to your notice, a sonnet conceived and expressed with 
 a witty delicacy. It is that addressed to one who hated 
 him, but w^ho could not persuade him to hate him again. 
 His coyness to the others passion — (for hate demands a 
 return as much as love, and starves without it) — is most 
 arch and pleasant. Pray, like it very much. For his 
 theories and nostrums, they are oracular enough, but I 
 either comprehend 'em not, or there is ' miching malice ' 
 and mischief in em, but, for the most part, ringing with 
 their ow^i emptiness. Hazlitt said well of 'em — ' Many are 
 the wiser and better for reading Shakspeare, but nobody 
 was ever wiser or better for reading Shelley.' I w^onder 
 you will sow your correspondence on so barren a ground as 
 I am, that make such poor returns. But my head aches at 
 
304 LETTEKS TO BARTON. 
 
 the bare thought of letter- writing. I wish all the ink in the 
 ocean dried up, and would listen to the quills shivering up 
 in the candle flame, like parching martyrs. The same indis- 
 position to write it is has stopt my ' Elias,' but you will see 
 a futile effort in the next number, ' wrung from me with 
 slow pain.' The fact is, my head is seldom cool enough. I 
 am dreadfully indolent. To have to do anything — to order 
 me a new coat, for instance, though my old buttons are 
 shelled like beans — is an effort. My pen stammers like 
 my tongue. What cool craniums those old inditers of folios 
 must have had, what a mortified pulse ! Well ; once more 
 I throw myself on your mercy. Wishing peace in thy new 
 dwelling, '' C. Lamb." 
 
 Mr. Barton, having requested of Lamb some verses for 
 his daughter s album, received the following, with the accom- 
 panying letter beneath, on 30th September in this year. 
 Surely the neat loveliness of female Quakerism never 
 received before so delicate a compliment ! 
 
 " THE ALBUM OF LUCY BARTON. 
 
 Little book, surnamed of ivhite^ 
 Clean as yet, and fair to siglit, 
 Keep thy attribution right. 
 
 Never disproportion 'd scrawl, 
 L^gly, old, (that's ^vorse than all,) 
 On thy maiden clearness fall ! 
 
 In each letter here designed, 
 Let the reader emblem find 
 Neatness of the owner's mind. 
 
 Gilded margins count a sin ; 
 Let thy leaves attraction win 
 By the golden rules within ; 
 
 Sayings fetched from sages old ; 
 Laws which Holy Writ unfold, 
 Worthy to be graved in c;old : 
 
 Lighter fancies ; not excluding 
 Blameless wit, with nothing rude in, 
 Sometimes mildly interluding 
 
LETTERS TO BAETON. 305 
 
 Amid strains of graver measure : 
 Virtue's self hatli oft her pleasure 
 In sweet Muses' groves of leisure. 
 
 Riddles dark, perplexing sense ; 
 
 Darker meanings of offence ; 
 
 What but shades — be banish'd hence ! 
 
 Whitest thoughts, in whitest dress, 
 Candid meanings best express 
 Mind of quiet Quakeress.'' 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 '' Dear B. B., — ' I am ill at these numbers ;' but if the 
 above be not too mean to have a place in thy daughter s 
 sanctimi, take them with pleasure. 
 
 *' I began on another sheet of paper, and just as I had 
 penned the second line of stanza two, an ugly blot fell, to 
 illustrate my counsel. I am sadly given to blot, and modern 
 blotting-paper gives no redress ; it only smears, and makes 
 it worse. The only remedy is scratching out, which gives 
 it a clerkish look. The most innocent blots are made with 
 red ink, and are rather ornamental. Marry, they are not 
 always to be distinguished from the effusions of a cut finger. 
 Well, I hope and trust thy tick doleru, or, however you 
 spell it, is vanished, for I have frightful impressions of 
 that tick, and do altogether hate it, as an unpaid score, 
 or the tick of a death-watch. I take it to be a species of 
 Vitus 's dance (I omit the sanctity, writing to ' one of the 
 men called friends '). I knew a young lady who could dance 
 no other ; she danced it through life, and very queer and 
 fantastic were her steps. 
 
 ''Heaven bless thee from such measures, and keep thee 
 from the foul fiend, who delights to lead after false fires in 
 the night. Flibbertigibbet, that gives the web, and I forget 
 what else. 
 
 " From my den, as Bunyan has it, 30th Sep. 1824. 
 
306 LETTEK TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 Here is a humorous expostulation with Coleridge for 
 carrying away a book from the cottage, in the absence of its 
 inmates. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 [No date.] 
 
 *' Dear C, — Why will you make your visits, which should 
 give pleasure, matter of regret to your friends ? you never 
 come but you take away some folio, that is part of my exist- 
 ence. With a great deal of difficulty I was made to compre- 
 hend the extent of my loss. My maid, Becky, brought me 
 a dirty bit of paper, which contained her description of some 
 book which Mr. Coleridge had taken away. It was ' Luster's 
 Tables,' which, for some time, I could not make out. 'What! 
 has he carried away any of the tables, Becky?' *No, it 
 wasn't any tables, but it was a book that he called Luster s 
 Tables.' I was obliged to search personally among my 
 shelves, and a huge fissure suddenly disclosed to me the 
 true nature of the damage I had sustained. That book, C, 
 you should not have taken away, for it is not mine, it is the 
 property of a friend, who does not know its value, nor 
 indeed have I been very sedulous in explaining to him the 
 estimate of it ; but was rather contented in giving a sort of 
 corroboration to a hint that he let fall, as to its being sus- 
 pected to be not genuine, so that in all probability it would 
 have fallen to me as a deodand, not but I am as sure it is 
 Luther's, as I am sure that Jack Bunyan wrote the ' Pil- 
 grim's Progress,' but it was not for me to pronounce upon 
 the validity of testimony that liad been disputed by learneder 
 clerks than I, so I quietly let it occupy the place it had 
 usurped upon my shelves, and should never have thought 
 of issuing an ejectment against it ; for why should I be so 
 bigoted as to allow rites of hospitality to none but my own 
 books, children, &c. ? — a species of egotism I abhor from 
 my heart. No ; let 'em all snug together, Hebrews and 
 
LETTER TO COLERIDGE. 307 
 
 Proselytes of the gate ; no selfish partiality of mine shall 
 make distinction between them; I charge no warehouse- 
 room for my friends' commodities ; they are welcome to 
 come and stay as long as they like, without paying rent. I 
 have several such strangers that I treat with more than 
 Arabian courtesy ; there 's a copy of More's fine poem, 
 which is none of mine, but I cherish it as my own ; I am 
 none of those churlish landlords that advertise the goods to 
 be taken away in ten days' time, or then to be sold to pay 
 expenses. So you see I had no right to lend you that book ; 
 I may lend you my own books, because it is at my own 
 hazard, but it is not honest to hazard a friend s property ; 
 I always make that distinction. I hope you will bring it 
 with you, or send it by Hartley; or he can bring that, and 
 you the ' Polemical Discourses,' and come and eat some 
 atoning mutton with us one of these days shortly. We are 
 engaged two or three Sundays deep, but alwaj^s dine at 
 home on w^eek-days at half-past four. So come all four — 
 men and books I mean — my third shelf (northern compart- 
 ment) from the top has two devilish gaps, where you have 
 knocked out its two eye-teeth. 
 
 " Your wronged friend, 
 
 " C. Lamb." 
 
 The following preface to a letter, addressed to Miss 
 Hutchinson, Mrs. Wordsworth's sister, playing on the pre- 
 tended defects of Miss Lamb's handwriting, is one of those 
 artifices of affection which, not finding scope in eulogistic 
 epithets, takes refuge in apparent abuse. Lamb himself, at 
 this time, wrote a singularly neat hand, having greatly 
 improved in the India House, where he also learned to 
 flourish, — a facility he took a pride in, and sometimes 
 indulged ; but his flourishes (wherefore it would be too 
 curious to inquire) almost always shaped themselves into a 
 visionary corkscrew, '' never made to draw." 
 
 X 2 
 
308 LETTER TO MISS HUTCHINSON. 
 
 TO MISS HUTCHINSON. 
 
 *' Dear Miss H., — Mary has such an invincible reluctance 
 to any epistolary exertion, that I am sparing her a morti- 
 fication by taking the pen from her. The plain truth is, 
 she writes such a pimping, mean, detestable hand, that she 
 is ashamed of the formation of her letters. There is an 
 essential poverty and abjectness in the frame of them. 
 They look like begging letters. And then she is sure to 
 omit a most substantial word in the second draught (for she 
 never ventures an epistle without a foul copy first), which is 
 obliged to be interlined ; which spoils the neatest epistle, you 
 know. Her figures, 1, 2, 3, 4, &c., where she has occasion to 
 express numerals, as in the date (25th April, 1823), are not 
 figures, but figurantes ; and the combined posse go stagger- 
 ing up and down shameless, as drunkards in the day-time. 
 It is no better when she rules her paper. Her lines ' are 
 not less erring' than her words. A sort of unnatural 
 parallel lines, that are perpetually threatening to meet; 
 which, you know, is quite contraiy to Euclid. Her veiy 
 blots are not bold like this \]iere a large blot is inserted], but 
 poor smears, half left in and half scratched out, with another 
 smear left in their place. I like a clear letter. A bold 
 free hand, and a fearless flourish. Then she has always to 
 go through them (a second operation) to dot her is, and 
 cross her fs. I don't think she can make a corkscrew if 
 she tried, which has such a fine efifect at the end or middle 
 of an epistle, and fills up. 
 
 " There is a corkscrew ! One of the best I ever drew. 
 By the way, what incomparable whisky that was of M.'s! 
 But if I am to write a letter, let me begin, and not stand 
 flourishing, like a fencer at a fair. 
 
 " It gives me great pleasure, &c. &c. &c. 
 
 [The letter now begins.] 
 
LETTER TO BARTON. 309 
 
 What a strange mingling of humour and solemn truth is 
 there in the following reflection on Fauntleroy s fate, in a 
 letter addressed to Bernard Barton ? 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 « Dec. 1st, 1824. 
 
 " And now, my dear sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catas- 
 trophe of yesterday morning prompts a sadder vein. The 
 fate of the unfortunate Fauntleroy makes me, whether I 
 will or no, to cast reflecting eyes around on such of my 
 friends as, by a parity of situation, are exposed to a simi- 
 larity of temptation. My very style seems to myself to 
 become more impressive than usual, with the change of 
 theme. Who that standeth, knoweth but he may yet fall ? 
 Your hands as yet, I am most willing to believe, have never 
 deviated into other s property. You think it impossible 
 that you could ever commit so heinous an offence ; but so 
 thought Fauntleroy once; so have thought many besides 
 him, who at last have expiated as he hath done. You are as 
 yet upright ; but you are a banker, at least the next thing 
 to it. I feel the delicacy of the subject ; but cash must 
 pass through j^our hands, sometimes to a great amount. 
 
 If in an unguarded hour but I will hope better. 
 
 Consider the scandal it will bring upon those of your per- 
 suasion. Thousands would go to see a Quaker hanged, that 
 would be indifferent to the fate of a Presbyterian or an 
 Anabaptist. Think of the effect it would have on the sale 
 of your poems alone, not to mention higher considerations ! 
 I tremble, I am sure, at myself, when I think that so many 
 poor victims of the law, at one time of their life, made as 
 sure of never being hanged, as I in my presumption am too 
 ready to do myself. What are we better than they? Do 
 we come into the world with different necks ? Is there any 
 distinctive mark under our left ears? Are we unstran- 
 gulable, I ask you ? Think of these things. I am shocked 
 
310 
 
 LETTER TO BARTON. 
 
 sometimes at the shape of my own fingers, not for their 
 resemblance to the ape tribe (\Yhich is something), but for 
 the exquisite adaptation of them to the purposes of picking, 
 fingering, &c. No one that is so framed, I maintain it, 
 but should tremble. C. L." 
 
 In the year 1824, one of Lamb s last ties to the theatre, 
 as a scene of present enjoyment, was severed. Munden, 
 the rich peculiarities of whose acting he has embalmed in 
 one of the choicest " Essays of Elia," quitted the stage in 
 the mellowness of his powers. His relish for Munden's 
 acting was almost a new sense ; he did not compare him 
 with the old comedians, as having common qualities with 
 them, but regarded him as altogether of a different and 
 original style. On the last night of his appearance. Lamb 
 was very desirous to attend, but every place in the boxes 
 had long been secured ; and Lamb was not strong enough 
 to stand the tremendous rush, by enduring which, alone, he 
 could hope to obtain a place in the pit ; when Munden's 
 gratitude for his exquisite praise anticipated his msh, by 
 providing for him and Miss Lamb places in a corner of the 
 orchestra, close to the stage. The play of the " Poor Gen- 
 tleman," in which Munden played " Sir Robert Bramble," 
 had concluded, and the audience were impatiently waiting 
 for the farce, in which the great comedian was to delight 
 them for the last time, when my attention was suddenly 
 called to Lamb by Miss Kelly, who sat with my party far 
 withdrawn into the obscurity of one of the upper boxes, but 
 overlooking the radiant hollow which waved below us, to 
 our friend. In his hand, directly beneath the line of stage- 
 lights, glistened a huge porter-pot, which he was draining ; 
 while the broad face of old Munden was seen thrust out 
 from the door by which the musicians enter, watching the 
 close of the draught, when he might receive and hide the 
 portentous beaker from the gaze of the admiring neigh- 
 bours. Some unknown benefactor had sent four pots of 
 
EMANCIPATION FEOM THE INDIA HOUSE. 311 
 
 stout to keep up the veteran's heart during his last trial ; 
 and, not able to drink them all, he bethought him of Lamb, 
 and without considering the wonder which would be excited 
 in the brilliant crowd who surrounded him, conveyed him- 
 self the cordial chalice to Lamb's parched lips. At the end 
 of the same farce, Munden found himself unable to deliver 
 from memory a short and elegant address which one of his 
 sons had written for him ; but, provided against accidents, 
 took it from his pocket, wiped his eyes, put on his spec- 
 tacles, read it, and made his last bow. This was, perhaps, 
 the last night when Lamb took a hearty mterest in the pre- 
 sent business scene ; for though he went now and then to 
 the theatre to gratify Miss Isola, or to please an author who 
 was his friend, his real stage henceforth only spread itself 
 out in the selectest chambers of his memory. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 [1825.] 
 
 lamb's emancipation from the INDIA HOUSE. 
 
 The year 1825 is marked by one of the principal events 
 in LamVs uneventful life — his retirement from the drudgery 
 of the desk, with a pension equal to two-thirds of his now 
 liberal salary. The following letters vividly exhibit his 
 hopes and his apprehensions before he received this noble 
 boon from the East India Company, and his bewilderment 
 of pleasure when he found himself in reality free. He has 
 recorded his feelings in one of the most beautiful of his 
 " Last Essays of Elia," entitled " The Superannuated 
 Man;" but it will be interesting to contemplate them, 
 " living as they rose," in the unstudied letters to which 
 this chapter is devoted. 
 
 A New Series of the London Magazine was commenced 
 with this year, in an increased size and price ; but the spirit 
 
313 MEMOIR OF LISTON. 
 
 of the work had evaporated, as often happens to periodical 
 works, as the store of rich fancies with which its contributors 
 had begun, was in a measure exhausted. Lamb contributed 
 a '' Memoir of Listen," who occasionally enlivened Lamb's 
 evening parties with his society ; and who, besides the 
 interest which he derived from his theatrical fame, was 
 recommended to Lamb by the cordial admiration he 
 expressed for Munden, whom he used to imitate in a style 
 delightfully blending his own humour with that of his 
 sometime rival. The " Memoir" is altogether a fiction — 
 of which, as Lamb did not think it worthy of republication, 
 I will only give a specimen. After a ludicrously improbable 
 account of his hero's pedigree, birth, and early habits. Lamb 
 thus represents his entrance on the life of an actor. 
 
 ** We accordingly find him shortly after making his debut, 
 as it is called, upon the Norwich boards, in the season of 
 that year, being then in the 22d year of his age. Having 
 a natural bent to tragedy, he chose the part of ' Pyrrhus,' 
 in the ' Distrest Mother,' to Sally Parker's ' Hermione.' 
 We find him afterwards as ' Barnwell,' ' Altamont,' 
 ' Chamont,' &c. ; but, as if nature had destined him to 
 the sock, an unavoidable infirmity absolutely discapacitated 
 him for tragedy. His person at this latter period of which 
 I have been speaking, was graceful, and even commanding ; 
 his countenance set to gravity ; he had the power of arrest- 
 ing the attention of an audience at first sight almost beyond 
 any other tragic actor. But he could not hold it. To 
 understand this obstacle, we must go back a few years, to 
 those appalling reveries at Chamwood. Those illusions, 
 which had vanished before the dissipation of a less recluse 
 life, and more free society, now in his solitary tragic 
 studies, and amid the intense calls upon feeling incident 
 to tragic acting, came back upon him with tenfold vivid- 
 ness. In the midst of some most pathetic passage — the 
 parting of Jaffier with his dying friend, for instance — he 
 would suddenly be surprised with a fit of violent horse 
 
LETTERS TO BARTON. 313 
 
 laughter. While the spectators were all sobbing before 
 him with emotion, suddenly one of those grotesque faces 
 would peep out upon him, and he could not resist the 
 impulse. A timely excuse once or twice served his purpose, 
 but no audiences could be expected to bear repeatedly this 
 violation of the continuity of feeling. He describes them 
 (the illusions) as so many demons haunting him, and 
 paralysing every effort. Even now, I am told, he cannot 
 recite the famous soliloquy in Hamlet, even in private, 
 without immoderate bursts of laughter. However, what he 
 had not force of reason sufl&cient to overcome, he had good 
 sense enough to turn to emolument, and determined to 
 make a commodity of his distemper. He prudently 
 exchanged the buskin for the sock, and the illusions 
 instantly ceased ; or, if they occurred for a short season, 
 by their very co-operation, added a zest to his comic vein ; 
 some of his most catching faces being (as he expresses it) 
 little more than transcripts and copies of those extraordinary 
 phantasmata." 
 
 He completed his half century on the day when he 
 addressed the following letter 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 '' lOtb February, 1825. 
 
 " Dear B. B.,— The ' Spirit of the Age ' is by Hazlitt, 
 the characters of Coleridge, &c. he had done better in 
 former publications, the praise and the abuse much stronger, 
 &c., but the new ones are capitally done. Home Tooke is 
 a matchless portrait. My advice is, to borrow it rather 
 than buy it. I have it. He has laid too many colours on 
 my likeness ; but I have had so much injustice done me in 
 my own name, that I make a rule of accepting as much 
 over-measure to Elia as gentlemen think proper to bestow. 
 Lay it on, and spare not. Your gentleman brother sets my 
 mouth a-watermg after liberty. Oh that I were kicked out 
 
314 LETTEES TO BARTON. 
 
 of Leadenhall with every mark of indignity, and a compe- 
 tence in my fob. The birds of the air would not be so free 
 as I should. How I would prance and curvet it, and pick 
 up cowshps, and ramble about purposeless, as an idiot ! 
 The author-mometer is a good fancy. I have caused great 
 speculation in the dramatic (not thy) world by a lying 'Life 
 of Liston,' all pure invention. The town has swallowed it, 
 and it is copied into newspapers, play-bills, &c., as authentic. 
 You do not know the Droll, and possibly missed reading the 
 article (in our first number, new series). A life more 
 improbable for him to have lived would not be easily 
 invented. But your rebuke, coupled with ' Dream on 
 J. Bunyan,' checks me. I 'd rather do more in my favour- 
 ite way, but feel dry. I must laugh sometimes. I am 
 poor Hypochondriacus, and not Liston. 
 
 " I have been harassed more than usually at office, which 
 has stopt my correspondence lately. I write with a con- 
 fused aching head, and you must accept this apology for a 
 letter. 
 
 " I will do something soon, if I can, as a peace-offering 
 to the queen of the East Angles — something she shan't 
 scold about. For the present farewell. 
 
 ''Thme, C. L." 
 
 '' I am fifty years old this day. Drink my health." 
 
 Freedom now gleamed on him, and he became restless 
 with the approach of deliverance. 
 
 TO BEKNARD BARTON. 
 
 " Marcli 23rd, 1825. 
 
 " Dear B. B., — I have had no impulse to write, or attend 
 to any single object but myself for weeks past — my single 
 self, I by myself — I. I am sick of hope deferred. The 
 grand wheel is in agitation, that is to turn up my fortune ; 
 
LETTEKS TO BARTON. 315 
 
 but round it rolls, and will turn up nothing. I have a 
 glimpse of freedom, of becoming a gentleman at large ; but 
 I am put off from day to day. I have offered my resigna- 
 tion, and it is neither accepted nor rejected. Eight weeks 
 am I kept in this fearful suspense. Guess what an absorb- 
 ing stake I feel it. I am not conscious of the existence of 
 friends present or absent. The East India Directors alone 
 can be that thing to me or not. I have just learned that 
 nothing will be decided this week. Why the next ? Why 
 any week ? It has fretted me into an itch of the fingers ; 
 I rub 'em against paper, and write to you, rather than not 
 allay this scorbuta. 
 
 " While I can write, let me abjure you to have no doubts 
 
 of Irving. Let Mr. M drop his disrespect. Irving 
 
 has prefixed a dedication (of a missionary subject, first part) 
 to Coleridge, the most beautiful, cordial, and sincere. He 
 there acknowledges his obligation to S. T. C. for his know- 
 ledge of Gospel truths, the nature of a Christian Church, 
 &c., to the talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (at whose 
 Gamaliel feet he sits weekly), rather than to that of all the 
 men living. This from him, the great dandled and petted 
 sectarian — to a religious character so equivocal in the world's 
 eye as that of S. T. C, so foreign to the Kirk's estimate — 
 can this man be a quack ? The language is as affecting as 
 the spirit of the dedication. Some friend told him, ' This 
 dedication will do you no good,' i. e,, not in the world's repute, 
 or with your own people. ' That is a reason for doing it,' 
 quoth Irving. 
 
 ''I am thoroughly pleased with him. He is firm, out- 
 speaking, intrepid, and docile as a pupil of Pythagoras. You 
 must like him. 
 
 *' Yours, in tremors of painful hope, 
 
 '' C. Lamb." 
 
 These tremors of painful hope were soon changed into 
 certain joy. The following letters contain his own expres- 
 
316 LETTER TO WORDSWORTH. 
 
 sions of delight on his deliverance, as conveyed to several 
 of his dearest friends. In the first his happiness is a little 
 checked by the death of Mr. Monkhouse, a relation of Mrs. 
 Wordsworth, who had gradually won Lamb's affections, and 
 who nobly deserved them. 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 ^' Colebrook Cottage, 6th April, 1825. 
 
 *' Dear Wordsworth, — I have been several times medi- 
 tating a letter to you concerning the good thing which has 
 befallen me, but the thought of poor Monkhouse came 
 across me. He was one that I had exulted in the prospect 
 of congratulating me. He and you were to have been the 
 first participators, for indeed it has been ten weeks since 
 the first motion of it. Here am I then, after thirty-three 
 years' slavery, sitting in my own room at eleven o'clock 
 this finest of all April mornings, a freed man, with 44 IZ. 
 a year for the remainder of my life, live I as long as John 
 Dennis, who outlived his annuity and starved at ninety : 
 4:4:11. y i.e., 450Z , with a deduction of 91. for a provision 
 secured to my sister, she being survivor, the pension 
 guaranteed by Act Georgii Tertii, &c. 
 
 *' I came home for ever on Tuesday in last week. The 
 incomprehensibleness of my condition overwhelmed me. 
 It was like passing from life into eternity. Every year to 
 be as long as three, i.e., to have three times as much real 
 time — time that is my own, in it! I wandered about 
 thinking I was happy, but feeling I was not. But that 
 tumultuousness is passing off, and I begin to understand 
 the nature of the gift. Holydays, even the annual month, 
 were always uneasy joys; their conscious fugitiveness ; the 
 craving after making the most of them. Now, when all is 
 holyday, there are no holydays. I can sit at home, in rain 
 or shine, without a restless impulse for walkings. I am 
 daily steadying, and shall soon find it as natural to me to 
 
LETTER TO WORDSWORTH. 317 
 
 be my own master, as it has been irksome to have had a 
 master. Mary wakes every morning with an obscure feeling 
 that some good has happened to us. 
 
 " • and , after their releasements, describe the 
 
 shock of their emancipation much as I feel mine. But it 
 hurt their frames. I eat, drink, and sleep sound as ever, 
 I lay no anxious schemes for going hither and thither, but 
 take things as they occur. Yesterday I excursioned twenty 
 miles ; to-day I write a few letters. Pleasuring was for 
 fugitive play-days, mine are fugitive only in the sense that 
 life is fugitive. Freedom and life co-existent ! 
 
 " At the foot of such a call upon you for gratulation, I am 
 ashamed to advert to that melancholy event. Monkhouse 
 was a character I learned to love slowly, but it grew upon 
 me, yearly, monthly, daily. What a chasm has it made in 
 our pleasant parties ! His noble friendly face was always 
 coming before me, till this hurrying event in my life came, 
 and for the time has absorbed all interest ; in fact it has 
 shaken me a little. My old desk companions, with whom 
 I have had such merry hours, seem to reproach me for 
 removing my lot from among them. They were pleasant 
 creatures ; but to the anxieties of business, and a weight of 
 possible worse ever impending, I was not equal. Indeed 
 this last winter I was jaded out — winters were always worse 
 than other parts of the year, because the spirits are worse, 
 and I had no day-light. In summer I had day-light even- 
 ings. The relief was hinted to me from a superior powder 
 when I, poor slave, had not a hope but that I must wait 
 another seven years with Jacob — and loi the Rachel which 
 I coveted is brought to me. 
 
 " Have you read the noble dedication of Irving s 
 'Missionary Orations' to S. T. C. Who shall call this 
 man a quack hereafter? What the Kirk will think of it 
 neither I nor Irving care. When somebody suggested to 
 him that it would not be likely to do him good, videlicet, 
 among his own people, ' That is a reason for doing it,' was 
 his noble answer. That Irving thinks he has profited 
 
318 
 
 LETTEE TO BARTON. 
 
 mainly by S. T C, I have no doubt. The very style of the 
 Dedication shows it. 
 
 '' Communicate my news to Southey, and beg his pardon 
 for my being so long acknowledging his kind present of the 
 ' Church,' which circumstances, having no reference to him- 
 self, prevented at the time. Assure him of my deep respect 
 and friendliest feelings. 
 
 " Divide the same, or rather each take the whole to you 
 — I mean you and all yours. To Miss Hutchinson I must 
 write separate. 
 
 " Farewell ! and end at last, long selfish letter ! 
 
 *^C. Lamb." 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 "April, 1825. 
 
 *' Dear B. B., — My spirits are so tumultuary with the 
 novelty of my recent emancipation, that I have scarce 
 steadiness of hand, much more mind, to compose a letter. 
 I am free, B. B. — free as air ! 
 
 ^ The little bird that wings the sky 
 Knows no such liberty.' 
 
 I was set free on Tuesday in last week at four o'clock. 
 I came home for ever ! 
 
 '' I have been describing my feelings as well as I can to 
 Wordsw^orth in a long letter, and don't care to repeat. 
 Take it briefly, that for a few days I was painfully 
 oppressed by so mighty a change, but it is becoming daily 
 more natural to me. I w^ent and sat among 'em all at my 
 old thirty-three-years' desk yester morning ; and, deuce take 
 me, if I had not yearnings at leaving all my old pen-and-ink 
 fellows, merry, sociable lads, at leaving them in the lurch, 
 fag, fag, fag ! — The comparison of my own superior felicity 
 gave me anything but pleasure. 
 
LETTER TO MISS HUTCHINSON. 319 
 
 ** B, B., I would not serve another seven years for seven 
 hundred thousand pounds ! I have got 44 IZ. net for life, 
 sanctioned by act of parHament, with a provision for Mary 
 if she survives me. I will live another fifty years ; or, if 
 I live but ten, they will be thirty, reckoning the quantity of 
 real time in them, i, e. the time that is a man's own. Tell 
 me how yo\i like 'Barbara S.-J^s' will it be received in 
 atonement for the foolish 'Vision' — I mean by the lady? 
 A-propos, I never saw Mrs. Crawford in my life; never- 
 theless it 's all true of somebody. 
 
 " Address me, in future, Colebrooke-cottage, Islington. 
 I am really nervous (but that will wear off), so take this 
 brief announcement. 
 
 " Yours truly, C. L." 
 
 TO MISS HUTCHINSON. 
 
 "April 18th, 1825. 
 
 *' Dear Miss Hutchinson, — You want to know all about 
 my gaol delivery. Take it then. About twelve weeks since 
 I had a sort of intimation that a resignation might be well 
 accepted from me. This was a kind bird's whisper. On 
 
 that hint I spake. G and T furnished me with 
 
 certificates of wasted health and sore spirits — not much 
 more than the truth, I promise you — and for nine weeks 
 I was kept in a fright. I had gone too far to recede, and 
 they might take advantage, and dismiss me with a much 
 less sum than I had reckoned on. However, liberty came 
 at last, with a liberal provision. I have given up what I 
 could have lived on in the country ; but have enough to live 
 here, by management and scribbling occasionally. I would 
 not go back to my prison for seven years longer for 10,000Z. 
 
 * The true heroine of this heautiful story is still living, though she 
 has left the stage. It is enough to make a severer quaker than B. B. 
 feel " that there is some soul of goodness " in players. 
 
320 LETTER TO MISS HUTCHINSON. 
 
 a-year — seven years after one is fifty, is no trifle to give up. 
 Still I am a young pensioner ^ and have served but thirty- 
 three years; very few, I assure you, retire before forty, 
 forty-five, or fifty years' service. 
 
 '' You will ask how I bear my freedom ? Faith, for some 
 days I was staggered ; could not comprehend the magnitude 
 of my deliverance ; was confused, giddy ; knew not whether 
 I was on my head or my heel, as they say. But those giddy 
 feelings have gone away, and my weather-glass stands at a 
 degree or two above 
 
 CONTENT. 
 
 '' I go about quiet, and have none of that restless hunt- 
 ing after recreation, which made holydays foiTaerly uneasy 
 joys. All being holydays, I feel as if I had none, as they 
 do in heaven, where 'tis all red-letter days. I have a kind 
 letter from the Wordsworths, congratulatory not a little. 
 It is a damp, I do assure you, amid all my prospects, that I 
 can receive 7ione from a quarter upon which I had calculated, 
 almost more than from any, upon receiving congratulations. 
 I had grown to hke poor Monkhouse more and more. I do 
 not esteem a soul living or not living more warmly than 
 I had grown to esteem and value him. But words are vain. 
 We have none of us to count upon many years. That is 
 the only cure for sad thoughts. If only some died, and the 
 rest were permanent on earth, what a thing a friend's death 
 would be then ! 
 
 " 1 must take leave, having put oiST answering a load of 
 letters to this morning, and this, alas ! is the first. Our 
 kindest remembrances to Mrs. Monkhouse, 
 
 " And believe us yom's most truly, 
 
 '^C. Lamb." 
 
 In this summer Lamb and his sister paid a long visit to 
 Enfield, which induced their removing thither some time 
 afterwards. The following letter is addressed thence. 
 
LlETTER TO SOUTHEY. 331 
 
 TO MR. SOUTHEY. 
 
 "]9tli August 1825. 
 
 ** Dear Soutliey, — ^Youll know who tins letter comes 
 from by opening slap-dash upon the text, as in the good 
 old times. I never could come into the custom of envelopes; 
 'tis a modern foppery ; the Plinian correspondence gives no 
 hint of such. In singleness of sheet and meaning, then, 
 I thank you for your little book. I am ashamed to add a 
 codicil of thanks for your ' Book of the Church.' I scarce 
 feel competent to give an opinion of the latter; I have not 
 reading enough of that kind to venture at it. I can only 
 say the fact, that I have read it with attention and interest. 
 Being, as you know, not quite a Churchman, I felt a jealousy 
 at the Church taking to herself the whole deserts of Chris- 
 tianity, Catholic and Protestant, from Druid extirpation 
 downwards. I call all good Christians the Church, Capilla- 
 rians and all. But I am in too light a humour to touch 
 these matters. May all our churches flourish ! Two things 
 staggered me in the poem, (and one of them staggered both 
 of us), I cannot away with a beautiful series of verses, as I 
 protest they are, commencing ' Jenner.' 'Tis like a choice 
 banquet opened with a pill or an electuary — physic stuff. 
 T'other is, we cannot make out how Edith should be no 
 more than ten years old. By r Lady, we had taken her to 
 be some sixteen or upwards. We suppose you have only 
 chosen the round number for the metre. Or poem and 
 dedication may be both older than they pretend to ; but 
 then some hint might have been given ; for, as it stands, it 
 may only serve some day to puzzle the parish reckoning. 
 But without inquiring further, (for 'tis ungracious to look 
 into a lady's years,) the dedication is evidently pleasing and 
 tender, and we wish Edith May Southey joy of it. Some- 
 thing, too, struck us as if we had heard of the death of John 
 May. A John May's death was a few years since in the 
 papers. We think the tale one of the quietest, prettiest 
 
322 
 
 LETTER TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 things we have seen. You have been temperate in the use 
 of localities, which generally spoil poems laid in exotic 
 regions. You mostly cannot stir out (in such things) for 
 humming-birds and fire-flies. A tree is a Magnolia, &c. — 
 Can I but like the truly Catholic spirit ? ' Blame as thou 
 mayest the Papist s erring creed ' — which, and other pas- 
 sages, brought me back to the old Anthology days, and 
 the admonitory lesson to ' Dear George ' on ' The Vesper 
 Bell/ a little poem which retains its first hold upon me 
 strangely. 
 
 '*Tlie compliment to the translatress is daintily con- 
 ceived. Nothing is choicer in that sort of writing than to 
 bring in some remote, impossible parallel, — as between a 
 great empress and the inobtrusive quiet soul who digged 
 her noiseless way so perseveringly through that rugged 
 Paraguay mine. How she Dobrizhoffered it all out, it 
 puzzles my slender Latinity to conjecture. Why do you 
 seem to sanction Landor s unfeeling allegorising away of 
 honest Quixote ! He may as well say Strap is meant to 
 symbolise the Scottish nation before the Union, and Piandom 
 since that act of dubious issue ; or that Partridge means the 
 Mystical Man, and Lady Bellaston typifies the Woman upon 
 Many Waters. Gebir, indeed, may mean the state of the 
 hop markets last month, for anything I know to the con- 
 trary. That all Spain overflowed with romancical books (as 
 Madge Newcastle calls them) was no reason that Cervantes 
 should not smile at the matter of them ; nor even a reason 
 that, in another mood, he might not multiply them, deeply 
 as he was tinctured with the essence of them. Quixote is 
 the father of gentle ridicule, and at the same time the very 
 depository and treasury of chivalry and highest notions. 
 Marry, when somebody persuaded Cervantes that he meant 
 only fun, and put him upon writing that unfortunate Second 
 Part with the confederacies of that unworthy duke and most 
 contemptible duchess, Cervantes sacrificed his instinct to his 
 understandinsf. 
 
 *' We got your little book but last night, being at Enfield, 
 
LETTER TO SOUTHEY. 3*23 
 
 to which place we came about a month since, and are having 
 quiet holydays. Mary walks her twelve miles a day some 
 days, and I my twenty on others. Tis all holiday with me 
 now, you know. The change works admirably. 
 
 " For literary news, in my poor way, I have a one-act 
 farce gomg to be acted at Haymarket ; but when ? is the 
 question. 'Tis an extravaganza, and like enough to follow 
 Mr. H. ' The London Magazine ' has shifted its publishers 
 once more, and I shall shift myself out of it. It is fallen. 
 My ambition is not at present higher than to write nonsense 
 for the playhouses, to eke out a something contracted in- 
 come. Temjnis erat. There was a time, my dear Cornwallis, 
 when the Muse, &c. But I am now in Mac Fleckno s 
 predicament, — 
 
 ' Projnised a play, and dwindled to a farce.' 
 
 '' Coleridge is better (was, at least, a few weeks since) 
 than he has been for years. His accomplishing his l)ook at 
 last has been a source of vigour to him. We are on a half 
 visit to his friend Allsop, at a Mrs. Leishman's, Enfield, but 
 expect to be at Colebrooke Cottage in a week or so, where, 
 or anywhere, I shall be always most happy to receive tidings 
 from you. G. Dyer is in the height of an uxorious paradise. 
 His honeymoon will not wane till he wax cold. Never was 
 a more happy pair, since Acme and Septimius, and longer. 
 Farewell, with many thanks, dear S. Our loves to all round 
 your Wrekin. 
 
 " Your old friend, 
 
 '' C. Lamb." 
 
 The farce referred to in this letter was founded on Lamb s 
 essay " On the Inconvenience of being Hanged." It was, 
 perhaps, too shght for the stage, and never was honoured 
 by a trial ; but was ultimately published in '' Blackwood s 
 Magazine." 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 [1826 to 1828.] 
 
 LETTERS TO ROBINSON, GARY, COLERIDGE, PATMORE, PROCTER, AND 
 
 BARTON. 
 
 When the first enjoyment of freedom was over, it may be 
 doubted whether Lamb was happier for the change. He 
 lost a grievance on which he could lavish all the fantastical 
 exaggeration of a sufferer without wounding the feelings of 
 any individual, and j)erhaps the loss was scarcely compen- 
 sated by the listless leisure which it brought him. When- 
 ever the facile kindness of his disposition permitted, he fled 
 from those temptations of society, which he could only avoid 
 by flight ; and his evening hours of solitude were hardly so 
 sweet as when they were the reliefs and resting-places of 
 his mind, — " glimpses w^hich might make him less forlorn" 
 of the world of poetry and romance. His mornings were 
 chiefly occupied in long w^alks, sometimes extending to ten 
 or twelve miles, in which at this time he was accompanied 
 by a noble dog, the property of Mr. Hood, to whose humours 
 Lamb became almost a slaved, and who, at last, acquired so 
 l^ortentous an ascendancy that Lamb requested his friend 
 Mr. Patmore to take him under his cai^e. At length the 
 
 * The follo\ving allusion to Lamb's subservience to Dash is extracted 
 from one of a series of papers, \yritten in a most cordial spirit, and with 
 great characteristic power, by the friend to whom Dash was assigned^ which 
 appeared in tlie " Court Magazine." " During these interminable i^ambles 
 — heretofore pleasant in virtue of their profound loneliness and freedom 
 from restraint, Lamb made himself a perfect slave to the dog — whose 
 liabits were of the most extravagantly errant nature, for^ generally speaking, 
 the creature was half a mile off from his companion either before or behind, 
 
LETTER TO ROBINSON. 325 
 
 desire of assisting Mr. Hone, in his struggle to support his 
 family by antiquarian research and modern pleasantry, re- 
 newed to him the blessing of regular labour ; he began the 
 task of reading through the glorious heap of dramas collected 
 at the British Museum under the title of the " Garrick 
 Plays," to glean scenes of interest and beauty for the work 
 of his friend ; and the work of Idndness brought with it its 
 own reward. 
 
 '^ It is a sort of ofl&ce work to me," says Lamb, in a letter 
 to Barton; "hours ten to four, the same. It does me 
 good. Man must have regular occupation that has been 
 used to it." 
 
 The Christmas of 1825 was a melancholy season for 
 Lamb. He had always from a boy spent Christmas in the 
 Temple with Mr. Norris, an officer of the Inner Temple, 
 and this Christmas was made wretched by the last illness of 
 his oldest friend. Anxious to excite the sympathy of the 
 Benchers of the Inn for the survivors, Lamb addressed the 
 following letter to a friend as zealous as himself in all 
 generous offices, in order that he might show it to some of 
 the Benchers. 
 
 scouring the fields or roads in all directions, scampering up or down ^ all 
 manner of streets,' and leaving Lamb in a perfect fever of irritation and 
 annoyance ; for lie was afraid of losing the dog when it was out of sight, 
 and yet could not persuade himself to keep it in sight for a moment, by 
 curbing its roving spirit. Dash knew Lamb's weakness in these particulars 
 as well as he did himself, and took a dog-like advantage of it. In the 
 Regent's Park^ in particular, Dash had his master completely at his mercy ; 
 for the moment they got into the ring, he used to get through tlie 
 paling on to the green sward, and disappear for a quarter or half an 
 hour together, knowing perfectly well that Lamb did not dare move 
 from the spot where he (Dash) had disappeared, till such time as he 
 thought proper to show himself again. And they used to take this par- 
 ticular walk much oftener than they otherwise would, precisely because 
 Dash liked it and Lamb did not." — Under his second master, we learn 
 from the same source, that Dash " subsided into the best bred and best 
 behaved of his species.' 
 
 11 
 
326 LETTEK TO KOBINSON. 
 
 TO MR. H. C. ROBINSON. 
 
 " Colebrooke Row, Islington, 
 
 " Saturday 20th Jan. 1826. 
 
 ''Dear Robinson,— I called upon jo\x this morning, and 
 found that you were gone to visit a dying friend. I had 
 been upon a like errand. Poor Norris has been lying dying 
 for now almost a week, such is the penalty we pay for having 
 enjoyed a strong constitution ! Whether he knew me or not, 
 I know not ; or whether he saw me through his poor glazed 
 eyes ; but the group I saw about him I shall not forget. 
 Upon the bed, or about it, were assembled his wife and two 
 daughters, and poor deaf Richard, his son, looking doubly 
 stupified. There they were, and seemed to have been sit- 
 ting all the week. I could only reach out a hand to Mrs. 
 Norris. Speaking was impossible in that mute chamber. 
 By this time I hope it is all over with him. In him I have 
 a loss the world cannot make up. He was my friend and 
 my father's friend all the life I can remember. I seem to 
 have made foolish friendships ever since. Those are friend- 
 ships which outlive a second generation. Old as I am 
 waxing, in his eyes I was still the child he first knew me. 
 To the last he called me Charley. I have none to call me 
 Charley now. He was the last link that bound me to the 
 Temple. You are but of yesterday. In him seem to have 
 died the old plainness of mannei^ and singleness of heart. 
 Letters he knew nothing of, nor did his reading extend 
 beyond the pages of the ' Gentleman's Magazine.' Yet there 
 was a pride of literature about him from being amongst 
 books (he was librarian), and from some scraps of doubtful 
 Latin which he had picked up in his ofiice of entering stu- 
 dents, that gave him very diverting airs of pedantry. Can 
 I forget the erudite look with which, when he had been in 
 vain trying to make out a black-letter text of Chaucer in 
 the Temple Library, he laid it down and told me that — ' in 
 those old books, Charley, there is sometimes a deal of very 
 
LETTEES TO BAETON. 327 
 
 indifferent spelling;' and seemed to console himself in the 
 reflection ! His jokes, for he had his jokes, are now ended ; 
 but they were old trusty perennials, staples that pleased 
 after clecies repetita, and were always as good as new. One 
 song he had, which was reserved for the night of Christmas- 
 day, which we always spent in the Temple. It was an old 
 thing, and spoke of the flat bottoms of our foes, and the 
 possibility of their coming over in darkness, and alluded to 
 threats of an invasion many years blown over ; and when he 
 came to the part 
 
 ^ We'll still make 'em run, and we'll still make 'em sweat. 
 In spite of tlie devil, and Brussels Gazette !' 
 
 his eyes would sparkle as with the freshness of an impend- 
 ing event. And what is the Brussels Gazette now ? I cry 
 while I enumerate these trifles. ' How shall we tell them 
 in a strano'er's ear ? ' 
 
 o 
 
 '' My first motive in writing, and, indeed, in calling on 
 you, was to ask if you were enough acquainted with any of 
 the benchers, to lay a plain statement before them of the 
 circumstances of the family. I almost fear not, for you 
 are of another hall. But if you can oblige me and my 
 poor friend, who is now insensible to any favours, pray 
 exert yourself. You cannot say too much good of poor 
 Norris and his poor wife. 
 
 " Yours ever, Chaeles Lamb." 
 
 In the spring of 1826, the following letters to Bernard 
 Barton were written. 
 
 TO BEENARD BARTON. 
 
 ^^Feb. 7th, 1826. 
 
 '' Dear B. B., — I got your book not more than five days 
 ago, so am not so negligent as I must have appeared to you 
 with a fortnight's sin upon my shoulders. I tell you with 
 sincerity, that I think you have completely succeeded in 
 
328 LETTERS TO BARTON. 
 
 wliat you intended to do. What is poetry may be dis- 
 puted. These are poetry to me at least. They are concise, 
 pithy, and moving. Uniform as they are, and untristorify'd, 
 I read them through at two sittings, without one sensation 
 approaching to tedium. I do not know that among your 
 many kind presents of this nature, this is not my favourite 
 volume. The language is never lax, and there is a unity 
 of design and feeling. You wrote them ivith love — to 
 avoid the coxcomhical phrase, con amove. I am particularly 
 pleased with the 'Spiritual Law,' pages 34 and 35. It 
 reminded me of Quarles, and 'holy Mr. Herbert,' as Izaak 
 Walton calls him ; the two best, if not only, of our devo- 
 tional poets, though some prefer Watts, and some Tom 
 Moore. I am far from well, or in my right spirits, and 
 shudder at pen-and-ink work. I poke out a monthly crudity 
 for Colburn in his magazine, which I call ' Popular Fal- 
 lacies,' and periodically crush a proverb or two, setting up 
 my folly against the wisdom of nations. Do you see the 
 ' New Monthly ? ' 
 
 " One word I must object to in yom* little book, and it 
 recurs more than once — -fadeless is no genuine compound ; 
 loveless is, because love is a noun as well as verb ; but 
 what is a fade ? And I do not quite like whipping the 
 Greek drama upon the back of ' Genesis,' page 8. I do 
 not like praise handed in by disparagement ; as I objected 
 to a side censure on Bvron, c^^c. in the ' Lines on Bloom- 
 field.' With these poor cavils excepted, your verses are 
 without a flaw. C. Lamb." 
 
 TO BKRNARD BARTON. 
 
 "March 20th, 1826. 
 
 " Dear B. B., — You may know my letters by the paper 
 and the folding. For the former, I live on scraps obtained 
 in charity from an old friend, whose stationeiy is a per- 
 manent perquisite ; for folding, I shall do it neatly when 
 I learn to tie my neckcloths. I sm'prise most of my 
 
LETTERS TO BARTON, 329 
 
 friends, by writing to them on ruled paper, as if I had not 
 got past pot-hooks and hangers. Seahng-wax, I have 
 none on my estabhshment ; wafers of the coarsest bran 
 supply its place. When my epistles come to be weighed 
 with Pliny s, however superior to the Roman in delicate 
 irony, judicious reflections, &c., his gilt post will bribe over 
 the judges to him. All the time I was at the E. I. H. I 
 never mended a pen; I now cut 'em to the stumps, marring 
 rather than mending the primitive goose-quill. I cannot 
 bear to pay for articles I used to get for nothing. When 
 Adam laid out his first penny upon nonpareils at some stall 
 in Mesopotamos, I think it went hard with him, reflecting 
 upon his old goodly orchard, where he had so many for 
 nothing. When I write to a great man at the court end, 
 he opens with surprise upon a naked note, such as White- 
 chapel people interchange, with no sweet degrees of 
 envelope. I never enclosed one bit of paper in another, 
 nor understood the rationale of it. Once only I sealed with 
 borrowed wax, to set Walter Scott a wondering, signed with 
 the imperial quartered arms of England, which my friend 
 Field bears in compliment to his descent, in the female 
 line, from Oliver Cromwell. It must have set his anti- 
 quarian curiosity upon watering. To your questions upon 
 the currency, I refer you to Mr. Robinson's last speech, 
 where, if you can find a solution, I cannot. I think this, 
 though, the best ministry we ever stumbled upon ; — gin 
 reduced four shillings in the gallon, wine two shillings 
 in the quart ! This comes home to men's minds and 
 bosoms. My tirade against visitors was not meant par- 
 
 ticularly at you or A. K . I scarce know what I 
 
 meant, for I do not just now feel the grievance. I wanted 
 to make an article. So in another thing I talked of some- 
 body's msipid ivife, without a correspondent object in my 
 bead : and a good lady, a friend's wife, whom I really love, 
 (don't startle, I mean in a licit way,) has looked shyly on 
 me ever since. The blunders of personal application are 
 ludicrous. I send out a character every now and then, on 
 
330 
 
 LETTERS TO BARTON. 
 
 purpose to exercise the iDgenuity of ray friends. ' Popular- 
 Fallacies ' will cfo on ; that word concluded is an erratum, 
 I suppose for continued. I do not know bow it got stuffed 
 in there. A little thing without name will also be printed on 
 the Religion of the Actors, but it is out of your way, so I 
 recommend you, with true authors hypocrisy, to skip it. 
 We are about to sit down to roast beef, at which we could 
 wish xl. K., B. B. and B. B.'s pleasant daughter to be humble 
 partakers. So much for my hint at visitors, wliich was 
 scarcely calculated for droppers-in from Woodbridge ; the 
 sky does not drop such larks every day. My very kindest 
 wishes to you all three, with my sister s best love. 
 
 '' C. La^b." 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 "Mav 16, 1826. 
 
 " Dear B. B., — I have had no spirits lately to begin a 
 letter to you, though I am under obligations to you (how 
 many I) for your neat little poem. Tis just what it professes 
 to be, a simple tribute, in chaste verse, serious and sincere. 
 
 ''I do not know how Friends will relish it, but we out- 
 lyers, honorary friends, like it very well. I have had my 
 head and ears stuffed up with tlie east winds. A continual 
 ringing in my brain of bells jangled, or the spheres touched 
 bv some raw an^^el. It is not GeorM the Third trving the 
 Hundredth Psalm? I q-et mv music for nothinor. But 
 the weather seems to be softening, and will thaw my 
 stunnings. Coleridge, writing to me a week or two since, 
 begins his note — ' Summer has set in wdtli its usual 
 severity.' A cold summer is all I know of disagreeable in 
 cold. I do not mind the utmost rigour of real winter, but 
 these smiling hypocrities of Mays wither me to death. My 
 head has been a ringing chaos, like the day the winds 
 were made, before they submitted to the discipline of a 
 weathercock, before the quarters were made. In the street, 
 with the blended noises of life about me, I heai', and my 
 
LETTERS TO BARTON. 331 
 
 head is lightened ; but in a room the hubbub comes back, 
 and I am deaf as a sinner. Did I tell you of a pleasant 
 sketch Hood has done, which he calls — 'Veiy deaf indeed?' 
 It is of a good-natured stupid-looking old gentleman, whom 
 a footpad has stopped, but for his extreme deafness cannot 
 make him understand what he wants. The unconscious 
 old gentleman is extending his ear trumpet very compla- 
 cently, and the fellow is firing a pistol into it to make him 
 hear, but the ball will pierce his skull sooner than the 
 report reach his sensorium. I choose a very little bit of 
 paper, for my ear hisses w^hen I bend down to write. I can 
 hardly read a book, for I miss that small soft voice which 
 the idea of articulated words raises (almost imperceptibly to 
 you) in a silent reader. I seem too deaf to see what I read. 
 But with a touch or tw^o of returning zephyr my head will 
 melt. What lies you poets tell about the May ! It is the 
 most ungenial part of the year. Cold crocuses, cold prim- 
 roses, you take your blossoms in ice — a painted sun. 
 
 Unmeaning joy around appears, 
 And nature smiles as if she sneers. 
 
 "It is ill with me when I begin to look which way the 
 wind sits. Ten years ago, I literally did not know the 
 point from the broad end of the vane, which it was that 
 indicated the quarter. I hope these ill winds have blown 
 over you as they do through me. 
 
 " So A. K. keeps a school ; she teaches nothing wrong, 
 111 answer for't. I have a Dutch print of a school- 
 mistress ; little old-fashioned Flemingliugs, with only one 
 face among them. She a princess of a school-mistress, 
 wieldimj a rod for form more than use ; the scene, an old 
 monastic chapel, with a Madonna over her head, looking 
 just as serious, as thoughtful, as pure, as gentle as herself. 
 'Tis a type of thy friend. 
 
 '' Yours with kindest wishes to your daughter and friend, 
 in which Mary joins, C. Lamb." 
 
333 LETTER TO COLERIDGE. 
 
 About this time a little sketch was taken of Lamb, and 
 published. It is certainly not flattering ; but there is a 
 touch of Lamb's character in it. He sent one of the prints 
 to Coleridge, with the following note. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 ^^June 1st, 1826. 
 
 "Dear Coleridge,— -If I know myself, nobody more 
 detests the display of personal vanity, which is implied in 
 the act of sitting for one's picture, than myself. But the 
 fact is, that the likeness which accompanies this letter was 
 stolen from my person at one of my unguarded moments by 
 some too partial artist, and my friends are pleased to think 
 that he has not much flattered me. Whatever its merits 
 may be, you, who have so great an interest in the original, 
 will have a satisfaction in tracing the features of one that 
 has so long esteemed you. There are times when in a 
 friend's absence these graphic representations of him almost 
 seem to bring back the man himself. The painter, whoever 
 he was, seems to have taken me in one of those disengaged 
 moments, if I may so term tbem, when the native character 
 is so much more honestly displayed than can be possible in 
 the restraints of an inforced sitting attitude. Perhaps it 
 rather describes me as a thinking man, than a man in the 
 act of thought. Whatever its pretensions, I know it will 
 be dear to you, towards whom I should wish my thoughts to 
 flow in a sort of an imdress rather than in the more studied 
 graces of diction. 
 
 '* I am, dear Coleridge, yom's sincerely, 
 
 *'C. Lamb." 
 
 In the following summer. Lamb and his sister went on a 
 long visit to Enfield, which ultimately led to his giving up 
 Colebrooke-cottage, and becoming a constant resident at 
 that place. It was a great sacrifice to him, who loved 
 London so well ; but his sister's health and his own required 
 
LETTEK TO CAKY. 333 
 
 a secession from the crowd of visitors who pressed on him 
 at Islington, and whom he could not help welcoming. He 
 thus invited Mr. Carv, once librarian of the British Museum, 
 to look in upon his retreat. 
 
 TO ME. CAEY. 
 
 " Dear Sir, — It is whispered me that you will not be 
 unwilling to look into our doleful hermitage. Without 
 more preface, you will gladden our cell by accompanymg 
 our old chums of the London, Darley and A. C, to Enfield 
 on Wednesday. You shall have hermit s fare, with talk as 
 seraphical as the novelty of the divine life will permit, with 
 an innocent retrospect to the world which we have left, 
 when I will thank you for your hospitable offer at Chiswick, 
 and with plain hermit reasons evince the necessity of 
 abiding here. 
 
 " Without hearing from you, then, you shall give us leave 
 to expect you. I have long had it on my conscience to 
 invite you, but spirits have been low ; and I am indebted 
 to chance for this awkward but most sincere invitation. 
 
 '' Yours, with best loves to Mrs. Gary, 
 
 '' C. Lamb. 
 
 '' D. knows all about the coaches. for a Museum in 
 
 the wilderness ! " 
 
 The following letter was addressed about this time to 
 Coleridge, who was seriously contemplating a poetical pan- 
 tomime, 
 
 TO ME. COLEEIDGE. 
 
 "1826. 
 
 '' Dear C, — We will with great pleasure be with you on 
 Thursday in the next week early. Your finding out my 
 style in your nephew's pleasant book is surprising to me. 
 
334 LETTER TO COLEKIDGE. 
 
 I want eyes to descry it. You are a little too hard upon 
 his morality, though I confess he has more of Sterne about 
 him than of Sternhold. But he saddens into excellent 
 sense before the conclusion. Your query shall be sub- 
 mitted to Miss Kelly, though it is obvious that the panto- 
 mime, when done, will be more easy to decide upon than in 
 proposal. I say, do it by all means. I have Deckers 
 play by me, if you can filch anything out of it. Miss G — , 
 with her kitten eyes, is an actress, though she shows it not 
 at all ; and pupil to the former, whose gestures she mimics 
 in comedy to the disparagement of her own natural manner, 
 which is agreeable. It is funny to see her bridling up her 
 neck, which is native to F. K. ; but there is no setting 
 another's manners upon ones shoulders any more than 
 their head. I am glad you esteem Manning, though you 
 see but his husk or shrine. He discloses not, save to select 
 worshippers, and wall leave the world without any one 
 hardly but me knowing how stupendous a creature he is. 
 I am perfecting myself in the ' Ode to Eton College ' 
 against Thursday, that I may not appear unclassic. I have 
 just discovered that it is much better than the 'Elegy.' 
 
 " In haste, C. L. 
 
 "P,S, — I do not know what to say to your latest theory 
 about Nero being the Messiah, though by all accounts he 
 was a nointed one." 
 
 Lamb's desire for dramatic success was not even yet 
 wholly chilled. In this summer he wrote a little piece on- 
 the story of Crabbe's tale of the " Confidant," which was 
 never produced, but ultimately published in " Blackwood's 
 Magazine." It runs on agreeably in melodious blank verse, 
 entirely free from the occasional roughnesses of "John 
 Woodvil,'' but has not sufficient breadth or point for the 
 stage. He alludes to it in the following letter. 
 
LETTERS TO BARTON. 336 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 ^^Aug. 10th, 1827. 
 
 ''Dear B. B., — I have not been able to answer you, for 
 we have had, and are having, (I just snatch a moment,) our 
 poor quiet retreat, to which we fled from society^ full of 
 company, — some staying with us, and this moment, as I 
 write, almost, a heavy importation of two old ladies has 
 come in. Whither can 1 take wing, from the oppression of 
 human faces ? Would I were in a w^ilderness of apes, 
 tossing cocoa-nuts about, grinning and grinned at ! 
 
 "M was hoaxing you, surely, about my engraving; 
 
 'tis a little sixpenny thing, too like by half, in which the 
 draughtsman has done his best to avoid flattery. There 
 have been two editions of it, which I think are all gone, as 
 they have vanished froni the window where they hung, — a 
 print-shop, corner of Great and Little Queen-streets, Lin- 
 coln's Inn Fields, — where any London friend of yours may 
 inquire for it ; for I am (though you ivont imderstand it) at 
 Enfield Chase. We have been here near three months, 
 and shall stay two more, if people will let us alone ; but 
 they persecute us from village to village. So, don't direct 
 to Islinrjton again, till further notice. I am trying my 
 hand at a drama, in two acts, founded on Crabbe's ' Confi- 
 dant,' 777iitoi{5 mutandis. You like the Odyssey; did you 
 ever read my 'Adventures of Ulysses,' founded on Chap- 
 man's old translation of it ? for children or men. Chapman 
 is divine, and my abridgment has not quite emptied him 
 of his divinity. When you come to town 1 11 show it you. 
 You have well described your old fashioned grand paternal 
 hall. Is it not odd that every one's earhest recollections 
 are of some such place ! I had my Blakesware (Blakes- 
 moor in the ' London '). Nothing fills a child s mind like 
 a large old mansion ; better if un — or partially — occupied; 
 peopled with the spirits of deceased members of the county, 
 
336 LETTEES TO BARTON. 
 
 and justices of the quorum. Would I were buried in the 
 peopled solitudes of one, with my feelings at seven years 
 old ! Those marble busts of the emperors, they seemed as 
 if they were to stand for ever, as they had stood from the 
 living days of Rome, in that old marble hall, and I to par- 
 take of their permanency. Eternity was, while I thought 
 not of Time. But he thought of me, and they are toppled 
 down, and corn covers the spot of the noble old dwelling 
 and its princely gardens. I feel like a grasshopper that, 
 chirping about the grounds, escaped the scythe only by my 
 littleness. Even now he is whetting one of his smallest 
 razors to clean wipe me out, perhaps. Well ! " 
 
 The following is an acknowledgment of some verses which 
 Lamb had begged for Miss Isola s album. 
 
 ^^ Aug. 28th, 1827. 
 
 *'Dear B. B., — I am thankful to you for your ready 
 compliance with my wishes. Emma is delighted with your 
 verses ; I have sent them, w^ith four album poems of my 
 
 own, to a Mr. F , who is to be editor of a more superb 
 
 pocket-book than has yet appeared, by far ! the property of 
 some wealthy booksellers ; but whom, or what its name, I 
 forgot to ask. It is actually to have in it schoolboy exer- 
 cises by his present Majesty and the late Duke of York. 
 
 Wordsworth is named as a contributor. F , whom I 
 
 have slightly seen, is editor of a forthcome or coming 
 review of foreign books, and is intimately connected with 
 Lockhart, &c. So I take it that this is a concern of Mur- 
 ray's. Walter Scott also contributes mainly. I have stood 
 off a long time from these annuals, which are ostentatious 
 trumpery, but could not withstand the request of Jameson, 
 a particular friend of mine and Coleridge. 
 
 " I shall hate myself in frippery, strutting along, and 
 Vjdng finery with beaux and belles, with ' future Lord 
 
LETTEKS TO BARTON. 337 
 
 Byrons and sweet L. E. Ls.' Your taste, I see, is less 
 simple than mine, which the difference in our persuasions 
 has doubtless effected. In fact, of late you have so French- 
 ified your style, larding it with hors de combats, and an 
 desox>oirs, that o' my conscience the Foxian blood is quite 
 dried out of you, and the skipping Monsieur spirit has been 
 infused. 
 
 '' If you have anything you'd like to send further, I dare 
 say an honourable place would be given to it ; but I have 
 
 not heard from F since I sent mine, nor shall probably 
 
 again, and therefore I do not solicit it as from him. Yes- 
 terday I sent off my tragi-comedy to Mr. Kemble. Wish it 
 luck. I made it all ('tis blank verse, and I think of the 
 true old dramatic cut) or most of it, in the green lanes 
 about Enfield, where I am, and mean to remain, in spite of 
 your peremptory doubts on that head. Your refusal to lend 
 your poetical sanction to my 'Icon,' and your reasons to 
 Evans, are most sensible. Maybe I may hit on a line or 
 two of my own jocular ; maybe not. Do you never Londonize 
 again ? I should like to talk over old poetry with you, of 
 which I have much, and you, I think, little. Do your 
 Dinimmonds allow no holydays ? I would willingly come 
 and work for you a three weeks or so, to let you loose. 
 Would I could sell or give you some of my leisure ! Posi- 
 tively, the best thing a man can have to do is nothing, and 
 next to that perhaps — good works. I am but poorlyish, and 
 feel myself writing a dull letter ; poorlyish from company ; 
 not generally, for I never was better, nor took more walks, 
 fourteen miles a day on an average, with a sporting dog, 
 Dash. You would not know the plain poet, any more than 
 he doth recognize James Naylor trick'd out au deserpoy 
 (how do you spell it ?) 
 
 " C. Lamb." 
 
 The following was written to the friend to whom Lamb 
 had intrusted Dash, a few days after the parting. 
 
338 LETTER TO PATMORE. 
 
 TO MR. PATMORE. 
 
 " Mrs. Leishman's;, Chace, Enfield. 
 
 ** Dear P., — Excuse my anxiety, but how is Dash? I 
 
 should have asked if Mrs. P e kept her rules, and was 
 
 improving ; but Dash came uppermost. The order of our 
 thoughts should be the order of our writing. Goes he 
 muzzled, or aperto ore ? Are his intellects sound, or does 
 he wander a little in his conversation ? You cannot be too 
 careful to watch the first symptoms of incoherence. The 
 first illogical snarl he makes, to St. Luke's with him. All 
 the dogs here are going mad, if you believe the overseers ; 
 but I protest they seem to me very rational and collected. 
 But nothing is so deceitful as mad people, to those who are 
 not used to them. Try him with hot water : if he won't 
 lick it up it is a sign — he does not like it. Does his tail 
 wag horizontally, or perpendicularly? That has decided 
 the fate of many dogs in Enfield. Is his general deport- 
 ment cheerful ? I mean when he is pleased — for otherwise 
 there is no judging. You can't be too careful. Has he bit 
 any of the children yet ? If he has, have them shot, and 
 keep him for curiosity, to see if it was the hydrophobia. 
 They say all our army in India had it at one time ; but that 
 was in Hyder'Alljs time. Do you get paunch for him? 
 Take care the sheep was sane. You might pull out his 
 teeth (if he would let you), and then you need not mind if 
 he were as mad as a Bedlamite. It would be rather fun to 
 
 see his odd ways. It might amuse Mrs. P and the 
 
 children. They'd have more sense than he. He 'd be hke 
 a fool kept in a family, to keep the household in good 
 humour with their own understanding. You might teach 
 him the mad dance, set to the mad howl. Madge Owlet 
 would be nothing to him. ' My ! how he capers ! ' [In the 
 margin is written, ' One of the children speaks this^^. '] 
 
 * Here three lines are carefully erased. 
 
LETTER TO PATMORE. 339 
 
 "^ * * What I scratch out is a German quotation, from 
 Lessing, on the bite of rabid animals ; but I remember you 
 
 don't read German. But Mrs. P may, so I wish I 
 
 had let it stand. The meaning in English is — ' Avoid to 
 approach an animal suspected of madness, as you would 
 avoid fire or a precipice,' which I think is a sensible obser- 
 vation. The Germans are certainly profounder than we. 
 If the slightest suspicion arises in your breast that all is not 
 right with him, muzzle him and lead him in a string 
 (common pack-thread will do — he don't care for twist) to 
 Mr. Hood s, his quondam master, and he '11 take him in at 
 any time. You may mention your suspicion, or not, as you 
 like, or as you think it may wound or not Mr. H.'s feelings. 
 Hood, I know, will wink at a few follies in Dash, in consi- 
 deration of his former sense. Besides, Hood is deaf, and, 
 if you hinted anything, ten to one he would not hear you. 
 Besides, you will have discharged your conscience, and laid 
 the child at the right door, as they say. 
 
 '' We are dawdling our time away very idly and plea- 
 santly at a Mrs. Leishman's, Chace, Enfield, where, if you 
 come a-hunting, we can give you cold meat and a tankard. 
 Her husband is a tailor ; but that, you know, does not make 
 her one. I knew a jailor (which rhymes), but his wife was 
 a fine lady. 
 
 " Let us hear from you respecting Mrs. P 's regimen. 
 
 I send my love in a to Dash. C. Lamb." 
 
 On the outside of the letter is written : 
 
 " Seriously, I wish you would call upon Hood when you 
 are that way. He 's a capital fellow. I 've sent him two 
 poems, one ordered by his wife, and written to order ; and 
 'tis a week since, and I 've not heard from him. I fear 
 something is the matter. 
 
 " Our kindest remembrance to Mrs. P.'' 
 
 He thus, in December, expresses his misery in a letter 
 
 z2 
 
340 LETTEES TO BARTON. 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 "Dec. 4th, 1827. 
 
 *' My dear B. B., — I have scarce spirits to write, yet am 
 harassed with not writing. Nine weeks are completed, and 
 Mary does not get any better. It is perfectly exhausting. 
 Enfield, and everything, is very gloomy. But for long 
 experience I should fear her ever getting well. I feel most 
 thankful for the spinsterly attentions of your sister. Thank 
 the kind ' knitter in the sun ! ' What nonsense seems 
 verse, when one is seriously out of hope and spirits ! I mean, 
 that at this time I have some nonsense to write, under pain 
 of incivility. Would to the fifth heaven no coxcombess had 
 invented Albums. 
 
 " I have not had a Bijoux, nor the shghtest notice from 
 
 about omitting four out of five of my things. The 
 
 best thing is never to hear of such a thing as a bookseller 
 again, or to think there are publishers. Second-hand 
 stationers and old book-stalls for me. Authorship should 
 be an idea of the past. Old kings, old bishops, are vener- 
 able ; all present is hollow. I cannot make a letter. I 
 have no straw, not a pennyworth of chaff, only this may 
 stop your kind importunity to know about us. Here is a 
 comfortable house, but no tenants. One does not make a 
 household. Do not think I am quite in despair ; but, in 
 addition to hope protracted, I have a stupifying cold and 
 obstructing headache, and the sun is dead. 
 
 *' I will not fail to apprise you of the revival of a beam. 
 Meantime accept this, rather than think I have forgotten 
 you all. Best remembrances. 
 
 " Yours and theirs truly, C. Lamb." 
 
 A proposal to erect a memorial to Clarkson, upon the 
 spot by the way-side where he stopped when on a journey 
 from Cambridge to London, and formed the great resolution 
 of devoting his life to the abolition of the slave-trade, 
 
LETTERS TO BARTON. 341 
 
 produced from Lamb the following letter to the lady who 
 had announced it to him : — 
 
 " Dear Madam, — I return your list with my name. I 
 should be sorry that any respect should be going on towards 
 Clarkson, and I be left out of the conspiracy. Otherwise, 
 I frankly own that to pillarise a man's good feelings in his 
 lifetime is not to my taste. Monuments to goodness, even 
 after death, are equivocal. I turn away from Howard's, I 
 scarce know why. Goodness blows no trumpet, nor desires 
 to have it blown. We should be modest for a modest man 
 — as he is for himself. The vanities of life — art, poetry, 
 skill military — are subjects for trophies ; not the silent 
 thoughts arising in a good man's mind in lonely places. 
 Was I Clarkson, I should never be able to walk or ride 
 near the spot again. Instead of bread, we are gi\ing him 
 a stone. Instead of the locality recalling the noblest 
 moment of his existence, it is a place at which his friends 
 (that is, himself) blow to the world, ' What a good man is 
 he ! ' I sate down upon a hillock at Forty Hill yesternight, 
 — a fine contemplative evening, — with a thousand good 
 speculations about mankind. How I yearned with cheap 
 benevolence ! I shall go and inquire of the stone-cutter, that 
 cuts the tombstones here, what a stone with a short inscription 
 will cost ; just to say, ' Here C. Lamb loved his brethren of 
 mankind.' Everybody will come there to love. As I can't 
 well put my own name, I shall put about a subscription : 
 
 Mrs. . 
 
 Proctor . 
 G. Dyer . . 
 Mr. Godwin 
 Mrs. Godwin . 
 Mr. Irving . 
 Mr. . . 
 
 ^0 5 
 
 2 6 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 a watch-chain. 
 
 the proceeds of — first edition, 
 
 £0 6 
 
 *' I scribble in haste from here, where we shall be some 
 
342 LETTERS TO BARTON. 
 
 time. Pray request Mr. to advance the guinea for me, 
 
 which shall faithfully be forthcoming ; and pardon me that 
 I don't see the proposal in quite the light that he may. The 
 kindness of his motives, and his power of appreciating the 
 noble passage, I thoroughly agree in. 
 
 '' With most kind regards to him, I conclude, 
 
 " Dear madam, yours truly, 
 
 *' C. Lamb." 
 
 " From Mrs. Leishman's, Chase, Enfield." 
 
 The following appears to have been written, in October 
 
 1828, 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 «^Oct. 11th, 1828. 
 
 '* A splendid edition of ' Bunyan's Pilgrim ! ' Why, the 
 thought is enough to turn one's moral stomach. His cockle- 
 hat and staff transformed to a smart cock'd beaver, and a 
 jemmy cane; his amice grey, to the last Regent-street cut; 
 and his painful palmer s pace to the modern swagger. Stop 
 thy friend s sacrilegious hand. Nothing can be done for B. 
 but to reprint the old cuts in as homely but good a style as 
 possible. The Vanity Fair, and the Pilgrims there — the 
 Silly-soothness in his setting-out countenance — the Christian 
 Idiocy (in a good sense), of his admiration of the shepherds 
 on the Delectable Mountains ; the lions, so truly allegorical, 
 and remote from any similitude to Pidcock's ; the great head 
 (the author's), capacious of dreams and similitudes, dreaming 
 in the dungeon. Perhaps you don't know my edition, what 
 I had when a cliild. If you do, can you bear new designs 
 from Martin, enamelled into copper or silver plate by Heath, 
 accompanied with verses from Mrs. Hemans' pen. how 
 unhke his own ! 
 
 Wouldst thou divert thyself from melancholy ? 
 Wouldst thou he pleasant, yet he far from folly ? 
 Wouldst thou read riddles, and their explanation ? 
 Or else he drowned in thy contemplation ? 
 
LETTEES TO BAETON. 343 
 
 Dost thou love picking meat ? or wouldst thou see 
 
 A man i' the clouds, and hear him speak to thee ? 
 
 Wouldst thou he in a dream, and yet not sleep ? 
 
 Or wouldst thou in a moment laugh and weep ? 
 
 Or wouldst thou lose thyself, and catch no harm, 
 
 And find thyself again without a charm ? 
 
 Wouldst read thyself, and read thou knowest not what, 
 
 And yet know whether thou art hlest or not 
 
 By reading the same lines ? O then come hither, 
 
 And lay my book, thy head, and heart together. 
 
 John Bunyan. 
 
 Show me any such poetry in any one of the fifteen forth- 
 coming combinations of show and emptiness, yclept 
 ' Annuals.' So there 's verses for thy verses ; and now let 
 me tell you, that the sight of your hand gladdened me. I 
 have been daily trying to write to you, but paralysed. You 
 have spurred me on this tiny effort, and at intervals I hope 
 to hear from and talk to you. But my spirits have been in 
 an opprest way for a long long time, and they are things 
 which must be to you of faith, for who can explain depres- 
 sion ? Yes, I am hooked into the ' Gem,' but only for some 
 lines written on a dead infant of the Editor's, which being, as 
 it were, his property, I could not refuse their appearing ; but 
 I hate the paper, the type, the gloss, the dandy plates, the 
 names of contributors poked up into your eyes in first 
 page, and whisked through all the covers of magazines, the 
 barefaced sort of emulation, the immodest candidateship. 
 Brought into so little space — in those old 'Londons,' a 
 signature was lost in the wood of matter, the paper coarse 
 (till latterly, which spoiled them); in short, I detest to 
 appear in an Annual. What a fertile genius (and a quiet 
 good soul withal) is Hood ! He has fifty things in hand ; 
 farces to supply the Adelphi for the season ; a comedy for 
 one of the great theatres, just ready; a whole entertainment, 
 by himself, for Mathews and Yates to figure in; a meditated 
 Comic Annual for next year, to be nearly done by himself. 
 You'd like him very much. 
 
 *' Wordsworth, I see, has a good many pieces announced 
 in one of 'em, not our Gem. W. Scott has distributed him- 
 
344 LETTERS TO BAKTON. 
 
 self like a bribe haunch among 'em. Of all the poets, Gary 
 has had the good sense to keep quite clear of 'em, with 
 clergy-gentlcrmanly right notions. Don't think I set up for 
 being proud on this point ; I like a bit of flattery, tickling 
 my vanity, as well as any one. But these pompous masque- 
 rades without masks (naked names or faces) I hate. So 
 there 's a bit of my mind. Besides, they infallibly cheat 
 you ; I mean the booksellers. If I get but a copy, I only 
 expect it from Hood's being my friend. Coleridge has 
 lately been here. He too is deep among the prophets, the 
 year-servers, — the mob of gentlemen annuals. But they'll 
 cheat him, I know. And now, dear B. B., the sun shining 
 out merrily, and the dirty clouds we had yesterday having 
 washed their own faces clean with their own rain, tempts me 
 to wander up Winchmore Hill, or into some of the dehghtful 
 vicinages of Enfield, which I hope to show you at some time 
 when you can get a few days up to the great town. Believe 
 me, it would give both of us great pleasure to show you our 
 pleasant farms and villages. 
 
 '' We both join in kindest loves to you and yours. 
 
 '' C. Lamb, redivivus.'' 
 
 The following is of December, and closes the letters 
 which remain of this year. 
 
 TO BERNAKD BAETON. 
 
 "Dec. 5th, 1828. 
 
 '' Dear B. B., — I am ashamed to receive so many nice 
 books from you, and to have none to send you in return. 
 You are always sending me some fruits or wholesome pot- 
 herbs, and mine is the garden of the Sluggard, nothing but 
 weeds, or scarce they. Nevertheless, if I knew how to 
 transmit it, I would send you Blackwood's of this month, 
 which contains a little drama, to have your opinion of it, 
 and how^ far I have improved, or otherwise, upon its pro- 
 totype. Thank you for your kind sonnet. It does me good 
 
LETTEES TO BARTON. 345 
 
 to see the Dedication to a Christian Bishop. I am for a com- 
 prehension, as divines call it ; but so as that the Church 
 shall go a good deal more than half way over to the silent 
 Meeting-house. I have ever said that the Quakers are the 
 only professors of Christianity, as I read it in the Evangiles ; 
 I say professors — marry, as to practice, with their gaudy hot 
 types and poetical vanities, they are much as one with the 
 sinful. Martin s Frontispiece is a very fine thing, let C. L. 
 say what he please to the contrary. Of the Poems, I like 
 them as a volume, better than any one of the preceding ; 
 particularly, ' Power and Gentleness' — 'The Present' — 
 * Lady Russell;' with the exception that I do not like the 
 noble act of Curtius, true or false — one of the grand founda- 
 tions of the old Roman patriotism — to be sacrificed to Lady 
 R.'s taking notes on her husband's trial. If a thing is good, 
 why invidiously bring it into light with something better ? 
 There are too few heroic things in this world, to admit of 
 our marshalling them in anxious etiquettes of precedence. 
 Would you make a poem on the story of Ruth, (pretty story !) 
 and then say — Ay, but how much better is the story of 
 Joseph and his Brethren ! To go on, the stanzas to ' Chalon' 
 want the name of Clarkson in the body of them ; it is left 
 to inference. The ' Battle of Gibeon' is spirited, again ; 
 but you sacrifice it in last stanza to the song at Bethlehem. 
 Is it quite orthodox to do so ? The first was good, you 
 suppose, for that dispensation. Why set the word against 
 the word ? It puzzles a weak Christian. So Watts' Psalms 
 are an implied censure on David's. But as long as the 
 Bible is supposed to be an equally divine emanation with 
 the Testament, so long it vtlII stagger weaklings to have 
 them set in opposition. ' Godiva' is delicately touched. 
 I have always thought it a beautiful story, characteristic of 
 the old English times. But I could not help amusing 
 myself with the thought — if Martin had chosen this subject 
 for a frontispiece — there would have been in some dark 
 corner a white lady, white as the walker on the waves, 
 riding upon some mystical quadruped ; and high above 
 
346 LETTERS TO BARTON. 
 
 would have risen ' tower above tower a massy structure 
 high' — the Tenterden steeples of Coventry, till the poor 
 cross would scarce have known itself among the clouds ; 
 and far above them all the distant Clint hills peering 
 over chimney-pots, piled up, Ossa-on-Olympus fashion, till 
 the admiring spectator (admirer of a noble deed) might 
 have gone look for the lady, as you must hunt for the other 
 in the lobster. But M. should be made royal architect 
 What palaces he would pile ! But then, what parliamentary 
 grants to make them good ! Nevertheless, I like the fron- 
 tispiece. ' The Elephant' is pleasant ; and I am glad you 
 are getting into a wider scope of subjects. There may be 
 too much, not religion, but too many good words in a book, 
 till it becomes a rhapsody of words. I will just name, that 
 you have brought in the ' Song to the Shepherds' in four or 
 five, if not six places. Now this is not good economy. 
 The ' Enoch' is fine ; and here I can sacrifice ' Elijah' to it, 
 because 'tis illustrative only, and not disparaging of the 
 latter prophet's departure. I like this best in the book. 
 Lastly, I much like the * Heron ;' 'tis exquisite. Know 
 you Lord Thurlow's Sonnet to a bird of that sort on Lacken 
 water ? If not, 'tis indispensable I send it you, with my 
 Blackwood. ' Fludyer' is pleasant, — you are getting gay 
 and Hood-ish. What is the enigma ? Money ? If not, I 
 
 fairly confess I am foiled, and sphynx piust 
 
 eat me. Four times I've tried to write — eat me, and the 
 blotting pen turns it into — cat me. And now I will take 
 my leave with saying, I esteem thy verses, like thy present, 
 honour thy frontispicer, and right reverence thy patron and 
 dedicatee, and am, dear B. B., 
 
 " Yours heartily, C. Lamb." 
 
347 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 [1829, 1830.] 
 
 LETTERS TO ROBINSON, PROCTER, BA.RTON, WILSON^ OILMAN, 
 
 WORDSWORTH, AND DYER. 
 
 Having decided on residing entirely at Enfield, Lamb gave 
 up Colebrook-cottage, and took what he described in a notelet 
 to me as "an odd-looking gambogish-coloured house," at 
 Chace-side, Enfield. The situation was far from picturesque, 
 for the opposite side of the road only presented some mid- 
 dling tenements, two dissenting chapels, and a public-house 
 decorated with a swinging sign of a Rising Sun ; but the 
 neighbouring field-walks were pleasant, and the country, as 
 he liked to say, quite as good as Westmoreland. 
 
 He continued occasional contributions to the New Monthly, 
 especially the series of " Popular Fallacies ;" wrote short 
 articles in the Athenaeum ; and a great many acrostics on 
 the names of his friends. He had now a neighbour in Mr. 
 Sergeant Wilde, to whom he was introduced by Mr. Burney, 
 and whom he held in high esteem, though Lamb cared 
 nothing for forensic eloquence, and thought very little of 
 eloquence of any kind ; which, it must be confessed, when 
 printed is the most vapid of all reading. What political 
 interest could not excite, personal regard produced in favour 
 of his new friend; and Lamb supplied several versified 
 squibs and snatches of electioneering songs to grace Wilde's 
 contests at Newark. With these slender avocations his life 
 was dull, and only a sense of duty induced him to persist in 
 absence from London. 
 
 The following letter was written in acknowledgment of a 
 parcel sent to Miss Lamb, comprising (what she had 
 
348 
 
 LETTER TO ROBINSON. 
 
 expressed a wish to have) a copper coal-scoop, and a pair of 
 elastic spectacles, accompanied by a copy of " Pamela," 
 which having been borrowed and supposed to be lost, had 
 been replaced by another in Lamb s library. 
 
 TO MR. H. C. ROBINSON. 
 
 "Enfield, Feb. 27th, 1829. 
 
 '' Dear R., — Expectation was alert on the receipt of your 
 strange-shaped present, while yet undisclosed from its fuse 
 envelope. Some said, 'tis a viol da Gamba, others pro- 
 nounced it a fiddle ; I, myself, hoped it a liqueur case, 
 pregnant with eau-de-vie and such odd nectar. When mid- 
 wifed into daylight, the gossips were at a loss to pronounce 
 upon its species. Most took it for a marrow-spoon, an 
 apple-scoop, a banker's guinea-shovel ; at length its true 
 scope appeared, its drift, to save the back-bone of my sister 
 stooping to scuttles. A philanthropic intent^ borrowed, no 
 doubt, from some of the Colliers. You save people's backs 
 one way, and break 'em again by loads of obligation. The 
 spectacles are deHcate and Vulcanian. No lighter texture 
 than their steel did tlie cuckoldy blacksmith frame to catch 
 Mrs. Vulcan and the Captain in. For ungalled forehead, 
 as for back unbursten, you have Mary's thanks. Marry, for 
 my own peculium of obligation, 'twas supererogatory. A 
 second part of Pamela was enough in conscience. Two 
 Pamelas in a house are too much, without two Mr. B.'s to 
 reward 'em. 
 
 "Mary, who is handselling her new aerial perspectives 
 upon a pair of old worsted stockings trod out in Cheshunt 
 lanes, sends her love : I, great good-liking. Bid us a 
 personal farewell before you see the Vatican. 
 
 ''Charles Lamb." 
 
 The following letter to his friend, who so prosperously 
 combines conveyancing with poetiy, is a fail' sample of 
 
LETTERS TO PROCTER. 349 
 
 Lamb's elaborate and good-natured fictions. It is hardly 
 necessary to say, that the reference to a coolness between 
 him and two of his legal friends, is part of the fiction. 
 
 TO MR. PROCTER. 
 
 ^^Jcan. 19th, 1829. 
 
 *' My dear Procter, — I am ashamed not to have taken 
 the drift of your pleasant letter, which I find to have been 
 pure invention. But jokes are not suspected in Boeotian 
 Enfield. We are plain people, and our talk is of com, and 
 cattle, and Waltham markets. Besides, I was a little out 
 of sorts when I received it. The fact is, I am involved in a 
 case which has fretted me to death, and I have no reliance 
 except on you to extricate me. I am sure you will give me 
 your best legal advice, having no professional friend besides, 
 but Eobinson and Talfourd, with neither of whom, at pre- 
 sent, I am on the best of terms. My brother's widow left 
 a will, made during the life-time of my brother, in which I 
 am named sole executor, by wliich she bequeaths forty acres 
 of arable property, which it seems she held under covert 
 baron, unknown to my brother, to the heirs of the body of 
 Elizabeth Dowden, her married daughter by a first husband, 
 in fee simple, recoverable by fine; invested property, mind, 
 for there is the difficulty; subject to leet and quit-rent ; in 
 short, worded in the most guarded terms, to shut out the 
 property from Isaac Dowden, the husband. Intelligence 
 has just come of the death of this person in India, where 
 he made a will, entailing this property (which seemed en- 
 tangled enough already) to the heirs of his body, that should 
 not be born of his wife, for it seems by the law in India, 
 natural children can recover. They have put the cause into 
 Exchequer process here, removed by certiorari from the 
 native courts ; and the question is, whether I should, as 
 executor, try the cause here, or again re-remove it to the 
 Supreme Sessions at Bangalore, which I understand I can. 
 
350 
 
 LETTEKS TO PEOCTER. 
 
 or plead a hearing before the Privy Council here. As it 
 involves all the little property of Elizabeth Dowden, I am 
 anxious to take the fittest steps, and what may be least 
 expensive. For God's sake assist me, for the case is so 
 embarrassed that it deprives me of sleep and appetite. 
 M. Burney thinks there is a case like it in chap. 170, sec. 5, 
 in ' Fearn's Contingent Ptemainders.' Pray read it over with 
 him dispassionately, and let me have the result. The com- 
 plexity lies in the questionable power of the husband to alie- 
 nate in usum ; enfeoffments whereof he was only collaterally 
 seised, &c. 
 
 " I had another favour to beg, which is the beggarliest of 
 beggings. A few Hues of verse for a young friend^s album 
 (six will be enough). M. Burney will tell you who she is I 
 want 'em for. A girl of gold. Six lines — make 'em eight 
 
 — signed Barry C . They need not be very good, as I 
 
 chiefly want 'em as a foil to mine. But I shall be seriously 
 obliged by any refuse scrap. We are in the last ages of the 
 world, when St. Paul prophesied that women should be 
 ' headstrong, lovers of their own wills, having albums.' I 
 fled hither to escape the albumean persecution, and had not 
 been in my new house twenty-four hom's, when the daughter 
 of the next house came in with a friend s album to beg a 
 contribution, and the following day intimated she had one 
 of her own. Two more have sprung up since. If I take 
 the wings of the morning and fly unto the uttermost parts 
 of the earth, there will albums be. New Holland has 
 albums. But the age is to be complied with. M. B. will 
 tell you the sort of girl I request the ten lines for. Some- 
 what of a pensive cast, what you admire. The lines may 
 come before the law question, as that cannot be determined 
 before Hilary Term, and I wish your deliberate judgment 
 on that. The other may be flimsy and superficial. And if 
 you have not burnt your returned letter, pray resend it me, 
 as a monumental token of my stupidity." 
 
 Lamb was as unfortunate in his communications with the 
 
LETTEK3 TO PROCTER, 351 
 
 annuals, as unhappy in the importunities of the fair owners 
 of albums. His favourite pieces were omitted ; and a piece 
 not his, called " The Widow," was, by a license of friend- 
 ship, which Lamb forgave, inserted in one of them. He 
 thus complains of these grievances in a letter which he 
 wrote on the marriage of the daughter of a frieiid to a great 
 theoretical chemist. 
 
 TO MR. PROCTER. 
 
 "JaD. 22nd, 1829. 
 
 '* Eumour tells us that Miss is married. Who is 
 
 — ? Have I seen him at Montacutes ? I hear he is 
 
 a great chemist. I am sometimes chemical myself. A 
 thought strikes me with horror. Pray heaven he may not 
 have done it for the sake of trying chemical experiments upon 
 * her, — young female subjects are so scarce. An't you glad 
 about Burke's case ! We may set off the Scotch murders 
 against the Scotch novels. Hare, the Great Unhaiiged. 
 
 '*M. B. is richly worth your knowing. He is on the top 
 scale of my friendship ladder, on which an angel or two is 
 still climbing, and some, alas ! descending. Did you see a 
 sonnet of mine in Blackwood's last? Curious construction! 
 Elaborata facilitas ! And now 1 11 tell. 'Twas written for 
 ' The Gem,' but the editors declined it, on the plea that it 
 would shock all mothers; so they published ' The Widow* 
 instead. I am born out of time. I have no conjecture 
 about what the present world calls delicacy. I thought 
 ' Ptosamund Gray ' was a pretty modest thing. Hessey 
 assures me that the world would not bear it. I ha.ve lived 
 to grow into an indecent character. When my sonnet was 
 rejected, I exclaimed ' Hang the age, I will write for 
 antiquity ! " 
 
 ''Erratum in sonnet. — Last line but something, for 
 tender, read tend. The Scotch do not know our law terms; 
 but I find some remains of honest, plain, old writing lurk- 
 
352 LETTERS TO PROCTER. 
 
 ing there still. They were not so mealy-mouthed as to 
 refuse my verses. Maybe *tis their oatmeal. 
 
 ** Blackwood sent me 20?. for the drama. Somebody 
 cheated me out of it next day ; and my new pair of breeches, 
 just sent home, cracking at first putting on, I exclaimed, 
 in my wrath, ' All tailors are cheats, and all men are tailors.' 
 Then I was better. C. L." 
 
 The next contains Lamb's thanks for the verses he had 
 begged for Miss Isola's album. They comprehended a 
 compliment turning on the words Isola Bella. 
 
 TO MR. PROCTER. 
 
 '' The comings in of an incipient conveyancer are not 
 adequate to the receipt of three twopenny post non-paids in 
 a week. Therefore, after this, I condemn my stub to long 
 and deep silence, or shall awaken it to write to lords. Lest 
 those raptures in this honey-moon of my correspondence, 
 which you avow for the gentle person of my Nuncio, after 
 passing through certain natural grades, as Love, Love and 
 Water, Love with the chill off, then subsiding to that point 
 which the heroic suitor of his wedded dame, the noble- 
 spirited Lord Randolph in the play, declares to be the 
 ambition of his passion, a reciprocation of ' complacent 
 kindness,' — should suddenly plump down (scarce staying to 
 bait at the mid point of indifference, so hungry it is for dis- 
 taste) to a loathing and blank aversion, to the rendering 
 probable such counter expressions as this, — ' Hang that 
 infernal two-penny postman, (words which make the not yet 
 glutted inamorato ' lift up his hands and wonder who can 
 use them.') While, then, you are not ruined, let me assure 
 thee, thou above the painter, and next only under Giral- 
 dus Cambrensis, the most immortal and worthy to be 
 immortal Barry, thy most ingenious and golden cadences 
 
LETTERS TO PROCTER. 353 
 
 do take my fancy mightily. But tell me, and tell me truly, 
 gentle swain, is that Isola Bella a true spot in geographical 
 denomination, or a floating Delos in thy brain. Lurks 
 that fair island in verity in the bosom of Lake Maggiore, or 
 some other with less poetic name, which thou hast Corn- 
 wallized for the occasion. And what if Maggiore itself be 
 but a coinage of adaptation? Of this, pray resolve me 
 immediately, for my albumess will be catechised on this 
 subject; and how can I prompt her? Lake Leman I 
 know, and Lemon Lake (in a punch bowl) I have swum in, 
 though those lymphs be long since dry. But Maggiore 
 may be in the moon. Unsphinx this riddle for me, for my 
 shelves have no gazetteer." 
 
 The following letters contain a noble instance of Lamb s 
 fine consideration, and exquisite feeling in morality. 
 
 TO MR. PROCTER. 
 
 "Jan. 29th, 1829. 
 
 ** When Miss was at Enfield, which she was in 
 
 summer-time, and owed her health to its sun and genial 
 influences, she visited (with young lady-like impertiaence) a 
 poor man's cottage that had a pretty baby (0 the yearn- 
 ling !), gave it fine caps and sweetmeats. On a day, broke 
 into the parlour our two maids uproarious, ' ma'am, who 
 
 do you think Miss has been working a cap for?' ' A 
 
 child,' answered Mary, in true Shandean female simplicity. 
 ' It 's the man's child as was taken up for sheep-stealing.' 
 Miss was staggered, and would have cut the connec- 
 tion, but by main force I made her go and take her leave 
 of her protegee. I thought, if she went no more, the 
 Abactor or Abactor's wife (vide Ainsworth) would suppose 
 she had heard something ; and I have delicacy for a sheep- 
 stealer. The overseers actually overhauled a mutton-pie 
 at the baker's (his first, last, and only hope of mutton-pie), 
 which he never came to eat, and thence inferred his guilt. 
 
 A A 
 
354 LETTEES TO PROCTEE. 
 
 Per occasionem cujus, I framed the sonnet; observe its 
 elaborate construction. I was four days about it. 
 
 ' THE GIPSY'S MALISON. 
 
 ^^ Suck, baby, suck ! mother's love grows by giving, 
 
 Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting ; 
 Black manhood comes, when riotous guilty living 
 
 Hands thee the cup that shall be death in tasting. 
 Kiss, baby, kiss! mother's lips shine by kisses, 
 
 Choke the warm breath that else would fall in blessings ; 
 Black manhood comes, when turbulent guilty blisses 
 
 Tend thee the kiss that poisons 'mid caressings. 
 Hang, baby, hang ! mother s love loves such forces, 
 
 Strain the fond neck that bends still to thy clinging ; 
 Black manhood comes, when violent lawless courses 
 Leave thee a spectacle in rude air swinging." 
 So sang a wither'd beldam energetical, 
 And bann'd the ungiving door with lips prophetical ' 
 
 '' Barry, study that sonnet. It is curiously and per- 
 versely elaborate. 'Tis a choking subject, and therefore 
 the reader is directed to the structure of it. See you? and 
 was this a fourteener to be rejected by a trumpeiy annual ? 
 forsooth, 'twould shock all mothers ; and may all mothers, 
 who w^ould so be shocked, be hanged ! as if mothers were 
 such sort of logicians as to infer the future hanging of 
 their child from the theoretical hangibility (or capacity of 
 being hanged, if the judge pleases) of every infant bom 
 with a neck on. Oh B. C. my whole heart is faint, and 
 my whole head is sick (how is it ?) at this cursed, canting, 
 unmasculine age ! " 
 
 There is a little Latin letter about the same time to the 
 same friend. 
 
 TO MR. PEOCTER. 
 
 "Feb. 2nd, 1829. 
 
 '* Facundissime Poeta ! quanquam istiusmodi epitheta 
 oratoribus potius quam poetis attinere facile scio — tamen, 
 facundissime ! 
 
 " Commoratur nobiscum jamdiu, in agro Enfeldiense, 
 scilicet, leguleius futurus, illustrissimus Martinus Burneius, 
 
LETTERS TO BARTON. 355 
 
 otium agens, negotia nominalia, et officinam clientum 
 vacuam, paululum fugiens. Orat, implorat te — nempe, 
 Martinus — ut si (quod Dii faciant) forte fortuna, absente 
 ipso, advenerit tardus cliens, eum certiorem feceris per 
 literas hue missas. Intelligisne ? an me Anglice et barba- 
 rice ad te liominem perdoctum scribere oportet ? 
 
 '* C. Agnus. 
 
 " Si status de franco tenemento datur avo, et in eodem 
 facto si mediate vel immediate datur hcBredihns vel hceredi- 
 biis cor2:)oris dicti avi, postrema haec verba sunt Limitationis 
 non Perquisitionis. 
 
 '' Dixi. Carlagnulus." 
 
 An allusion to Rogers, worthy of both, occurs in a letter 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 "June 3, 1829. 
 
 " Dear B. B., — to get out of home themes, have you 
 seen Southey's ' Dialogues ? ' His lake descriptions, and 
 the account of his library at Keswick, are very fine. But 
 he needed not have called up the ghost of More to hold 
 the conversations with ; which might as well have passed 
 between A. and B., or Caius and Lucius. It is making too 
 free with a defunct Chancellor and Martyr. 
 
 '' I feel as if I had nothing farther to write about. ! 
 I forget the prettiest letter I ever read, that I have received 
 from ' Pleasures of Memory ' Rogers, in acknowledgment of 
 a sonnet I sent him on the loss of his brother. 
 
 *' It is too long to transcribe, but I hope to show it you 
 some day, as I hope sometime again to see you, when all of 
 us are well. Only it ends thus, ' We were nearly of an age 
 (he was the elder) ; he was the only person in the world in 
 whose eyes I always appeared young.' " 
 
 What a lesson does the following read to us from one 
 who, while condemned to uninteresting industry, thought 
 happiness consisted in an affluence of time I 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 LETTERS TO BARTON. 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 " Enfield Chase-side, Saturday, 25tli July, 
 
 A.D. 18295 11 A.M. 
 
 " There — a fuller, plumper, juicier date never dropt from 
 Idumean palm. Am I in the dative case now? if not, a fig 
 for dates, which is more than a date is w^orth. I never 
 stood much affected to these hmitary specialities. Least of 
 all, since the date of my superannuation. 
 
 What have I with time to do ? 
 Slaves of desks, 'twas meant for you. 
 
 ^ :¥ ^ ^ t- 
 
 But town, with all my native hankering after it, is not what 
 it was. The streets, the shops are left, but all old friends 
 are gone. And in London I was frightfully convinced of 
 this as I passed houses and places, empty caskets now. 
 I have ceased to care almost about anybody. The bodies 
 I cared for are in graves, or dis2:)ersed. My old clubs, that 
 lived so long, and flourished so steadily, are crumbled away. 
 When I took leave of our adopted young friend at Charing 
 Cross, 'twas heavy unfeeling rain, and I had no where to 
 go. Home have I none, and not a sympathising house to 
 turn to in the great city. Never did the waters of heaven 
 pour down on a forlorner head. Yet I tried ten days at a 
 sort of a friend's house, but it was large and straggling, — 
 one of the individuals of my old long knot of friends, card- 
 players, pleasant companions, that have tumbled to pieces, 
 into dust and other things ; and I got home on Thursday, 
 convinced that I was better to get home to my hole at 
 Enfield, and hide like a sick cat in my corner. And to 
 make me more alone, our ill-tempered maid is gone, who, 
 with all her airs, was yet a home-piece of furniture, a record 
 of better days ; the young thing that has succeeded her 
 is good and attentive, but she is nothim^. And I have no 
 
LETTERS TO BARTON. 357 
 
 one here to talk over old matters with. Scolding and 
 quarrelluig have something of familiarity, and a community 
 of interest; they imply acquaintance; they are of resentment, 
 which is of the family of dearness. 
 
 " I can neither scold nor quarrel at this insignificant 
 implement of household services ; she is less than a cat, 
 and just better than a deal dresser. What I can do, and do 
 over-do, is to walk; but deadly long are the days, these 
 summer all-day days, with but a half hour's candle-light, 
 and no fire-light. I do not write, tell your kind inquisitive 
 Eliza, and can hardly read. In the ensuing Blackwood 
 will be an old rejected farce of mine, which may be new 
 to you, if you see that same medley. 'Tis cold work 
 authorship, without something to puff one into fashion. 
 Could you not write something on Quakerism, for Quakers 
 to read, but nominally addressed to Non-Quakers, explain- 
 ing your dogmas — waiting on the Spirit — by the analogy of 
 human calmness and patient waiting on the judgment? 
 I scarcely know what I mean, but to make Non-Quakers 
 reconciled to your doctrines, by showing something like 
 them in mere human operations ; but I hardly understand 
 myself, so let it pass for nothing. I pity you for over- work, 
 but, I assure you, no work is worse. The mind preys on 
 itself, the most unwholesome food. I bragged formerly 
 that I could not have too much time. I have a surfeit. 
 With few years to come, the days are wearisome. But 
 weariness is not eternal. Something will shine out to take 
 the load off that flags me, which is at present intolerable. 
 I have killed an hour or two in this poor scrawl. I am 
 a sanguinary murderer of time, and would kill him inch- 
 meal just now. But the snake is vital. Well; I shall 
 write merrier anon. 'Tis the present copy of my coun- 
 tenance I send, and to complain is a little to alleviate. 
 May you enjoy yourself as far as the wicked world will let 
 you, and think that you are not quite alone, as I am ! 
 Health to Lucia, and to Anna, and kind remembrances. 
 
 ^^ Your forlorn C. L." 
 
358 LETTEK TO WILSON. 
 
 The cares of housekeeping pressed too heavily on Miss 
 Lamb, and her brother resolved to resign the dignity of a 
 housekeeper for the independence of a lodger. A couple 
 of old dwellers in Enfield, hard by his cottage, had the 
 good fortune to receive them. Lamb refers to the change 
 in the following letter, acknowledging the receipt of 
 Wilson's '' Life of De Foe,'' in which a criticism from his 
 pen was inserted, embodying the sentiments which he had 
 expressed some years before. 
 
 TO MB. WALTER WILSON. 
 
 " Enfield, I5th November, 1829. 
 
 '' My dear Wilson, — I have not opened a packet of 
 unknown contents for many years, that gave me so much 
 pleasure as when I disclosed your three volumes. I have 
 given them a careful perusal, and they have taken their 
 degree of classical books upon my shelves. De Foe was 
 always my darling, but, what dai^kness was I in as to far 
 the larger part of his writings ! I have now an epitome of 
 them all. I think the way in which you have done the 
 ' Life ' the most judicious you could have pitched upon. 
 You have made him tell his own story, and your comments 
 are in keeping with the tale. Why, I never heard of such 
 a work as ' the Review.' Strange that in my stall-hunting 
 days I never so much as lit upon an odd volume of it. 
 This circumstance looks as if they were never of any great 
 circulation. But I may have met with 'em, and not knowing 
 the prize, overpast 'em. I was almost a stranger to the 
 whole history of Dissenters in those reigns, and picked my 
 way through that strange book the ' Consolidator ' at 
 random. How affecting are some of his personal appeals : 
 what a machine of projects he set on foot, and following 
 writers have picked his pocket of the patents ! I do not 
 understand whereabouts in Roxana he himself left off. 
 I always thought the complete-tourist-sort of description of 
 
LETTER TO WILSON. 359 
 
 the towTL she passes through on her last embarkation 
 miserably unseasonable, and out of place. I knew not 
 they were spurious. Enlighten me as to where the apocry- 
 phal matter commences. I, by accident, can correct one 
 A. D., ' Family Instructor/ vol. ii. 1718 ; you say his first 
 volume had then reached the fourth edition ; now I have a 
 fifth, printed for Eman Matthews, 1717. So have I plucked 
 one rotten date, or rather picked it up where it had inad- 
 vertently fallen, from your flourishing date tree, the Palm 
 of Engaddi. I may take it for my pains. I think yours 
 a book which every public library must have, and every 
 English scholar should have. I am sure it has enriched 
 my meagre stock of the author s works. I seem to be twice 
 as opulent. Mary is by my side just finishing the second 
 volume. It must have interest to divert her away so long 
 from her modern novels. Colburn will be quite jealous. 
 I was a little disappointed at my ' Ode to the Treadmill' 
 not finding a place, but it came out of time. The two 
 papers of mine will puzzle the reader, being so akin. Odd, 
 that never keeping a scrap of m}^ own letters, with some 
 fifteen years' interval I should nearly have said the same 
 things. But I shall always feel happy in having my name 
 go down any how with De Foe's, and that of his historio- 
 grapher. I promise myself, if not immortality, yet diuternity 
 of being read in consequence. We have both had much 
 illness this year; and feeling infirmities and fretfulness 
 grow upon us, we have cast off the cares of housekeeping, 
 sold off our goods, and commenced boardiiig and lodging 
 with a very comfortable old couple next door to where you 
 found us. We use a sort of common table. Nevertheless, 
 we have reserved a private one for an old friend ; and when 
 Mrs. Wilson and you revisit Babylon, we shall pray you to 
 make it yours for a season. Our very kindest remembrances 
 to you both. 
 
 '' From your old friend and fellow-journalist, now in tivo 
 instances. 
 
 "C. Lamb. 
 
360 
 
 LETTEK TO OILMAN. 
 
 '' Hazlitt is going to make your book a basis for a review 
 of De Foe s Novels in ' the Edinbro.' I wish I had health 
 and spirits to do it. Hone I have not seen, but I doubt 
 not he will be much pleased with your performance. 
 I very much hope you will give us an account of Dun ton, 
 &c. But what I should more like to see would be a life 
 and times of Bunyan. Wishing health to you, and long 
 life to your healthy book, again I subscribe me, 
 
 " Yours in verity, C. L." 
 
 About the same time, the following letter was written, 
 alluding to the same change. 
 
 TO MR. OILMAN. 
 
 ^^ Chase-side, Enfield, 26tli Oct. 1829. 
 
 '' Dear Oilman, — Allsop brought me your kind message 
 yesterday. How can I account for having not visited High- 
 gate this long time? Change of place seemed to have 
 changed me. How grieved I was to hear in what indiffer- 
 ent health Coleridge has been, and I not to know of it ! 
 A little school divinity, well applied, may be healing. 
 I send him honest Tom of Aquin; that was always an 
 obscure great idea to me ; I never thought or dreamed to 
 see him in the flesh, but t'other day I rescued him from a 
 stall in Barbican, and brought him off in triumph. He 
 comes to greet Coleridge's acceptance, for his shoe-latchets 
 I am unworthy to unloose. Yet there are pretty pro's and 
 con's, and such unsatisfactory learning in him. Commend 
 me to the question of etiquette — 'utrimi annunciatio dehuerit 
 fieri per angelum' — QucEst. 30, Articithis '2. I protest, till 
 now I had thought Gabriel a fellow of some mark and liveli- 
 hood, not a simple esquire, as I find him. Well, do not 
 break your lay brains, nor I neither, with these curious 
 nothings. They are nuts to our dear friend, whom hoping 
 to see at your first friendly hint that it will be convenient, 
 I end with begging our very kindest loves to Mrs. Gilman. 
 We have had a sorry house of it here. Our spirits have 
 
LETTER TO BARTON. 361 
 
 been reduced till we were at hope's end what to do. Obliged 
 to quit this house, and afraid to engage another, till in 
 extremity, I took the desperate resolve of kicking house 
 and all down, like Bunyan's pack ; and here we are in a 
 new life at board and lodging, with an honest couple our 
 neighbours. We have ridded ourselves of the cares of dirty 
 acres ; and the change, though of less than a week, has had 
 the most beneficial effects on Mary already. She looks two 
 years and a half younger for it. But we have had sore 
 trials. 
 
 '' God send us one happy meeting ! — Yours faithfully^ 
 
 '^C. Lamb." 
 
 The first result of the experiment was happy, as it brought 
 improved health to Miss Lamb ; to which Lamb refers m 
 the following letter to his Suffolk friend, who had announced 
 to him his appointment as assignee under a bankruptcy. 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 "December 8th, 1829. 
 
 '' My dear B. B., — You are very good to have been uneasy 
 about us, and I have the satisfaction to tell you, that we are 
 both in better health and spirits than we have been for a 
 year or two past ; I may say, than we have been, since we 
 have been at Enfield. The cause may not appear quite 
 adequate, when I tell you, that a course of ill health and 
 spirits brought us to the determination of giving up our 
 house here, and we are boarding and lodging with a worthy 
 old couple, long inhabitants of Enfield, where everything is 
 done for us without our trouble, further than a reasonable 
 weekly payment. We should have done so before, but it is 
 not easy to flesh and blood to give up an ancient establish- 
 ment, to discard old Penates, and from house-keepers to 
 turn house-sharers. (N.B. We are not in the workhouse.) 
 Diocletian, in his garden, found more repose than on the 
 imperial seat of Rome ; and the nob of Charles the Fifth 
 ached seldomer under a monk's cowl than under the diadem. 
 
862 
 
 LETTER TO BARTON. 
 
 With such shadows of assimilation we countenance our 
 degradation. With such a load of dignified cares just 
 removed from our shoulders, we can the more understand 
 and pity the accession to yours, by the advancement to an 
 assigneeship. I will tell you honestly, B. B., that it has 
 been long my deliberate judgment that all bankrupts, of 
 what denomination, civil or religious, soever, ought to be 
 hanged. The pity of mankind has for ages run in a wi'ong 
 channel, and has been diverted from poor creditors — (how 
 many have I known sufferers! Hazlitt has just been 
 defrauded of lOOL by his bookseller- friend s breaking) — to 
 scoundrel debtors. I know all the topics, — that distress 
 may come upon an honest man without his fault ; that the 
 failure of one that he trusted was his calamity, &c. Then 
 let both be hanged. how careful this would make traders ! 
 These are my deliberate thoughts, after many years' expe- 
 rience in matters of trade. What a world of trouble it 
 would save you, if Friend >i<t^t^toi: had been immediately 
 hanged, without benefit of clergy, which (being a Quaker I 
 presume) he could not reasonably insist upon. Why, after 
 slaving twelve months in your assign-business, you will be 
 enabled to declare Id. in the pound in all human probability. 
 B. B. he should be hanged. Trade will never reflourish in 
 this land till such a law is established. I write big, not to 
 save ink but eyes, mine having been troubled with reading 
 through three folios of old Fuller in almost as few days, and 
 I went to bed last night in agony, and am writing with a 
 vial of eyewater before me, alternately dipping in vial and 
 inkstand. This may inflame my zeal against bankrupts, 
 but it was my speculation when I could see better. Half 
 the world s misery (Eden else) is owing to want of money, 
 and all that want is owing to bankrupts. I declare I would, 
 if the state wanted practitioners, turn hangman myself, and 
 should have great pleasure in hanging the first after my 
 salutary law should be established. I have seen no annuals, 
 and wish to see none. I like your fun upon them, and was 
 quite pleased with Bowles's sonnet. Hood is, or was, at 
 
LETTER TO WORDSWORTH. 363 
 
 Brighton ; but a note (prose or rhyme) to him, Robert-street, 
 Adelphi, I am sm^e, would extract a copy of Jds, which also 
 I have not seen. Wishing you and yours all health, I 
 conclude while these frail glasses are to me — eyes, 
 
 '' C. L." 
 
 The following letter, written in the beginning of 1830, 
 describes his landlord and landlady, and expresses, with a 
 fine solemnity, the feeUngs which still held him at Enfield. 
 
 TO MR. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 "Jan. 22nd, 1830. 
 
 '' And is it a year since we parted from you at the steps 
 of Edmonton stage ? There are not now the years that 
 there used to be. The tale of the dwindled age of men, 
 reported of successional mankind, is true of the same man 
 only. We do not live a year in a year now. 'Tis a 
 punctitm stans. The seasons pass us with indifference. 
 Spring cheers not, nor winter heightens our gloom ; autumn 
 hath foregone its moralities, — they are ' hey-pass repass,' as 
 in a show-box. Yet, as far as last year, occurs back, — for 
 they scarce show a reflex now, they make no memory as 
 heretofore, — 'twas sufl&ciently gloomy. Let the sullen 
 nothing pass. Suffice it, that after sad spirits, prolonged 
 through many of its months, as it called them, we have cast 
 our skins ; have taken a farewell of the pompous, trouble- 
 some trifle, called housekeeping, and are settled down into 
 poor boarders and lodgers at next door with an old couple, 
 the Baucis and Baucida of dull Enfield. Here we have 
 nothing to do with our victuals but to eat them ; with the 
 garden but to see it grow ; with the tax-gatherer but to hear 
 him knock ; with the maid but to hear her scolded. Scot 
 and lot, butcher, baker, are things unknown to us, save as 
 spectators of the pageant. We are fed we know not how ; 
 quietists, — confiding ravens. We have the otmm pro digni- 
 tate, a respectable insignificance. Yet in the self-condemned 
 obliviousness, in the stagnation, some molesting yearnings 
 
364 
 
 LETTEE TO WORDSWOETH. 
 
 of life, not quite killed, rise, prompting me that there was 
 a London, and that I was of that old Jerusalem. In 
 dreams I am in Fleet Market, but I wake and cry to sleep 
 again. I die hard, a stubborn Eloisa in this detestable 
 Paraclete. What have I gained by health ? Intolerable 
 dullness. What by early hours and moderate meals ? A 
 total blank. O ! never let the lying poets be believed, who 
 'tice men from the cheerful haunts of streets, or think they 
 mean it not of a country village. In the ruins of Palmyra 
 I could gird myself up to solitude, or muse to the snorings 
 of the Seven Sleepers ; but to have a little teaziDg image 
 of a town about one ; country folks that do not look like 
 country folks ; shops two yards square, half a dozen apples 
 and two penn'orth of overlooked ginger-bread for the lofty 
 fruiterers of Oxford-street ; and, for the immortal book and 
 print stalls, a circulating library that stands still, where the 
 show-picture is a last year's Valentine, and whither the fame 
 of the last ten Scotch novels has not yet travelled, — (marry^ 
 they just begin to be conscious of the Piedgauntlet :) — to 
 have a new plastered flat church, and to be wishing that it 
 was but a cathedral ! The very blackguards here are dege- 
 nerate ; the topping gentiy stock-brokers ; the passengers 
 too many to insure your quiet, or let you go about whistling 
 or gaping, too few to be the fine indifferent pageants of 
 Fleet-street. Confining, room-keeping, thickest winter, is 
 yet more bearable here than the gaudy months. Among 
 one's books at one's fire by candle, one is soothed into an 
 oblivion that one is not in the country ; but with the light 
 the green fields return, till I gaze, and in a calenture can 
 plunge myself into St. Giles's. ! let no native Londoner 
 imagine that health, and rest, and innocent occupation, 
 interchange of converse sweet, and recreative study, can 
 make the country anything better than altogether odious 
 and detestable. A garden was the primitive prison, till 
 man, wdth Promethean felicity and boldness, luckily sinned 
 himself out of it. Thence followed Babylon, Nineveh, 
 Venice, London, haberdashers, goldsmiths, taverns, play- 
 
LETTER TO WORDSWORTH. 365 
 
 houses, satires, epigrams, puns, — these all came in on the 
 town part, and the thither side of innocence. Man found 
 out inventions. From my den I return you condolence for 
 your decaying sight ; not for anything there is to see in the 
 country, but for the miss of the pleasure of reading a 
 London newspaper. The poets are as well to listen to ; 
 anything high may, nay must, be read out ; you read it to 
 yourself with an imaginary auditor; but the light para- 
 graphs must be glid over by the proper eye ; mouthing 
 mumbles their gossamery substance. 'Tis these trifles I 
 should mourn in fading sight. A newspaper is the single 
 gleam of comfort I receive here ; it comes from rich Cathay 
 with tidings of mankind. Yet I could not attend to it, 
 read out by the most beloved voice. But your eyes do not 
 get worse, I gather. O for the collyrium of Tobias inclosed 
 in a whiting's liver, to send you with no apocryphal good 
 wishes ! The last long time I heard from you, you had 
 knocked your head against something. Do not do so ; for 
 your head (I do not flatter) is not a knob, or the top of a 
 brass nail, or the end of a nine-pin, — unless a Vulcanian 
 hammer could fairly batter a ' Recluse ' out of it ; then 
 would I bid the smirched god knock and knock lustily, the 
 two-handed skinker. Mary must squeeze out a line propria 
 manu, but indeed her fingers have been incorrigibly nervous 
 to letter writing for a long interval. 'Twill please you all 
 to hear, that though I fret like a lion in a net, her present 
 health and spirits are better than they have been for some 
 time past ; she is absolutely three years and a half younger, 
 as I tell her, since we have adopted this boarding plan. 
 
 '' Our providers are an honest pair. Dame W and 
 
 her husband ; he, when the light of prosperity shined on 
 them, a moderately thriving haberdasher within Bow bells, 
 retired since with something under a competence ; writes 
 himself parcel gentleman ; hath borne parish offices ; sings 
 fine old sea songs at threescore and ten ; sighs only now 
 and then when he thinks that he has a son on his hands 
 about fifteen, whom he finds a difficulty in getting out into 
 
366 LETTEB TO WOKDSWOETH. 
 
 the world, and then checks a sigh with muttering, as I once 
 heard him prettily, not meaning to be heard, ' I have mar- 
 ried my daughter, however; ' takes the weather as it comes; 
 outsides it to town in severest season ; and o'winter nights 
 tells old stories not tending to literature, (how comfortable 
 to author-rid folks !) and has one anecdote, upon which and 
 about forty pounds a year he seems to have retired in green 
 old age. It was how he was a rider in his youth, travelling 
 for shops, and once (not to balk his employer's bargain) on 
 a swelteriDg day in August, rode foaming into Dunstable 
 upon a mad horse, to the dismay and expostulatory wonder- 
 ment of inn-keepers, ostlers, &c., who declared they would 
 not have bestrid the beast to win the Derby. Understand, 
 the creature galled to death and desperation by gad-flies, 
 cormorant- winged, worse than beset Inachus' daughter. 
 This he tells, this he brindles and burnishes on a winter s 
 eve ; 'tis his star of set glory, his rejuvenescence, to descant 
 upon. Far from me be it (dii avertant) to look a gift story 
 in the mouth, or cruelly to surmise (as those who doubt the 
 plunge of Curtius) that the inseparate conjuncture of man 
 and beast, the centaur-phenomenon that staggered all Dun- 
 stable, might have been the eff'ect of unromantic necessity ; 
 that the horse-part carried the reasoning, wally nilly ; that 
 needs must when such a devil drove ; that certain spiral 
 
 configurations in the frame of T W unfriendly to 
 
 alighting, made the alliance more forcible than voluntary. 
 Let him enjoy his fame for me, nor let me hint a whisper 
 that shall dismount Bellerophon. But in case he was an 
 involuntary martyr, yet if in the fiery conflict he buckled 
 the soul of a constant haberdasher to him, and adopted his 
 flames, let accident and him share the glory. You would 
 all like T AV . * [ ] How weak is paint- 
 
 ing to describe a man ! Say that he stands four feet and a 
 nail high by his own yard measure, which, like the sceptre 
 of Agamemnon, shall never sprout again, still you have no 
 
 * Here was a rude sketch of a gentleman answering to the description. 
 
LETTER TO WOEJDSWORTH. 367 
 
 adequate idea; nor when I tell you that his dear hump, which 
 T have favoured in the picture, seems to me of the buffalo — 
 indicative and repositoiy of mild qualities, a budget of kind- 
 nesses — still you have not the man. Knew you old Norris of 
 the Temple ? sixty years ours and our fathers' friend ? He 
 was not more natural to us than this old W., the acquaintance 
 of scai'ce more weeks. Under his roof now ought I to take 
 my rest, but that back-looking ambition tells me I might 
 yet be a Londoner ! Well, if we ever do move, we have 
 incumbrances the less to impede us ; all our furniture has 
 faded under the auctioneer's hammer, going for nothing, like 
 the tarnished frippery of the prodigal, and we have only a 
 spoon or two left to bless us. Clothed we came into 
 Enfield, and naked we must go out of it. I would live in 
 London shirtless, booldess. Henry Crabb is at Rome ; 
 advices to that effect have reached Bury. But by solemn 
 legacy he bequeathed at parting (whether he should live or 
 die) a turkey of Suffolk to be sent every succeeding Christ- 
 mas to us and divers other friends. What a genuine old 
 bachelor's action ! I fear he will find the air of Italy too 
 classic. His station is in the Harz forest ; his soul is be- 
 Goethed. Miss Kelly we never see ; Talfourd not this half 
 year : the latter flourishes, but the exact number of his 
 children, God forgive me, I have utterly forgotten ; we 
 single people are often out in our count there. Shall I say 
 two ? We see scarce anybody. Can I cram loves enough 
 to you all in this little ? Excuse particularising. 
 
 ''C. L." 
 
 A letter which, addressed to Mr. Gilman, was intended 
 both for him and his great guest Coleridge, gives another 
 
 version of the same character. " One anecdote" of T 
 
 W is repeated in it, with the substitution of Devizes 
 
 for Dunstable. Which is the veritable place must remain 
 a curious question for future descant, as the hero is dead, 
 and his anecdote survives aloue in these pages. It seems 
 that Miss Lamb had accompanied his landlord on a little 
 excursion. 
 
368 LETTEES TO OILMAN. 
 
 TO MR. OILMAN. 
 
 '' Dear G., — The excursionists reached home, and the 
 good town of Enfield, a little after four, without slip or dis- 
 location. Little has transpired concerning the events of 
 the back-journey, save that on passing the house of 'Squire 
 MelHsh, situate a stone bow s cast from the hamlet. Father 
 
 W , with a good-natured wonderment, exclaimed, 
 
 ' I cannot think what is gone of Mr. Mellish's rooks. I 
 fancy they have taken flight somewhere, but I have missed 
 them two or three years past.' All this while, according to 
 his fellow-traveller's report, the rookery was darkening the 
 air above with midiminished population, and deafening all 
 ears but his with their cawings. But nature has been gently 
 
 withdravmig such phenomena from the notice of T 
 
 W 's senses, from the time he began to miss the rooks. 
 
 T. W has passed a retired life in this hamlet, of thirty 
 
 or forty years, living upon the minimum which is con- 
 sistent with gentility, yet a star among the minor gentr}% 
 receiving the bows of the tradespeople, and courtesies of 
 the alms' women, daily. Children venerate him not less for 
 his external show of gentry, than they wonder at him for a 
 gentle rising endorsation of the person, not amounting to 
 a hump, or if a hump, innocuous as the hump of the buffalo, 
 and coronative of as mild qualities. 'Tis a throne on which 
 patience seems to sit — the proud perch of a self-respecting 
 humility, stooping with condescension. Thereupon the 
 cares of life have sate, and rid him easilv. For he has 
 thrid the angustlo) domus with dexterity. Life opened upon 
 him with comparative brilliancy. He set out as a rider or 
 traveller for a wholesale house, in which capacity he tells of 
 many hair-breadth escapes that befel him ; one especially, 
 how he rode a mad horse into the town of Devizes ; how 
 horse and rider arrived in a foam, to the utter consternation 
 of the expostulating hostlers, innkeepers, &c. It seems it 
 
LETTERS TO GILMAN. 369 
 
 was sultry weather, piping hot ; the steed tormented into 
 frenzy with gad-flies, long past being roadworthy ; but safety 
 and the interest of the house he rode for were incompatible 
 things ; a fall in serge cloth was expected, and a mad 
 entrance they made of it. Whether the exploit was purely 
 voluntary, or partially ; or whetlier a certain personal de- 
 figuration in the man part of this extraordinary centaur 
 (non-assistive to partition of natures) might not enforce the 
 conjunction, I stand not to inquire. I look not with 'skew 
 eyes into the deeds of heroes. The hosier that was burnt 
 with his shop in Field-lane, on Tuesday night, shall have 
 past to heaven for me like a Marian Martyr, provided 
 always, that he consecrated the fortuitous incremation with 
 a short ejaculation in the exit, as much as if he had taken 
 his state degrees of martyrdom in forma in the market 
 vicinage. There is adoptive as well as acquisitive sacrifice. 
 Be the animus what it might, the fact is indisputable, that 
 this composition was seen flying all abroad, and mine host 
 of Daintry may yet remember its passing through his town, 
 if his scores are not more faithful than his memory. After 
 
 this exploit (enough for one man), T W seems to 
 
 have subsided into a less hazardous occupation ; and in the 
 twenty-fifth year of his age, we find him a haberdasher in 
 Bow-lane ; yet still retentive of his early riding (though 
 leaving it to rawer stomachs), and Christmasly at night 
 sithence to this last, and shall to his latest Christmas, hath 
 he, doth he, and shall he, tell after supper the story of the 
 insane steed and the desperate rider. Save for Bedlam or 
 Luke's no eye could have guessed that melting day what 
 house he rid for. But he reposes on his bridles, and after 
 the ups and downs (metaphoric only) of a life behind the 
 counter — hard riding sometimes, I fear, for poor T. W. — 
 with the scrapings together of the shop, and one anecdote^ 
 he hath finally settled at Enfield; by hard economising, 
 gardening, building for himself, hath reared a mansion; 
 married a daughter ; qualified a son for a counting-house ; 
 gotten the respect of high and low; served for self or 
 
 B B 
 
370 LETTERS TO GILMAN. 
 
 substitute the greater parish offices ; hath a special voice at 
 vestries; and, domiciliating us, hath reflected a portion 
 of his house-keeping respectability upon your humble 
 servants. We are greater, being his lodgers, than when 
 we were substantial renters. His name is a passport 
 to take off the sneers of the native Enfielders against 
 obnoxious foreigners. We are endenizened. Thus much 
 
 of T. W have I thought fit to acquaint you, that you 
 
 may see the exemplary reliance upon Providence with 
 which I entrusted so dear a charge as my own sister to the 
 guidance of the man that rode the mad horse into Devizes. 
 To come from his heroic character, all the amiable qualities 
 of domestic life concentre in this tamed Bellerophon. He 
 is excellent over a glass of grog ; just as pleasant without it; 
 laughs when he hears a joke, and when (which is much 
 oftener) he hears it not; sings glorious old sea songs on 
 festival nights ; and but upon a slight acquaintance of two 
 years, Coleridge, is as dear a deaf old man to us, as old 
 Norris, rest his soul ! was after fifty. To him and his 
 scanty literature (what there is of it, sound) have we flown 
 from the metropolis and its cursed annualists, reviewers, 
 authors, and the whole muddy ink press of that stagnant 
 pool. 
 
 " Now, Oilman again, you do not know the treasure of 
 the Fullers. I calculate on having massy reading till 
 Christmas. All I want here, is books of the true sort, not 
 those things in boards that moderns mistake for books, 
 what they club for at book clubs. 
 
 "I did not mean to cheat you with a blank side, but my 
 eye smarts, for which I am taking medicine, and abstain, 
 this day at least, from any aliments but milk-porridge, tbe 
 innocent taste of which I am anxious to renew after a half- 
 century's disacquaintance. If a blot fall here like a tear, it 
 is not pathos, but an angry eye. 
 
 " Farewell, while my specilla are sound. 
 
 '* Yours and yours, C. Lamb " 
 
LETTERS TO GILMAN. 371 
 
 t 
 
 The next letter to Coleridge's excellent host, is a reply to 
 a request from an importunate friend of his correspondent, 
 that he would write something on behalf of the Spitalfields' 
 weavers. Alien as such a task would have been to his 
 habits of thought or composition, if Lamb had been 
 acquainted with that singular race, living in their high, 
 narrow, over-peopled houses, in the thickest part of London, 
 yet almost apart from the great throng of its dwellers ; 
 indulging their straitened sympathies in the fostering of 
 the more tender animals, as rabbits and pigeons, nurtured 
 in their garrets or cellars; or cultivating some stunted 
 plants with an intuitive love of nature, unfed by any know- 
 ledge of verdure beyond Hoxton; their painful industry, 
 their uneducated morals, their eager snatches of pleasure 
 from the only quickening of their intellect, by liquors which 
 make glad the heart of man ; he would scarcely have refused 
 the offered retainer for them. 
 
 TO MR, OILMAN. 
 
 ^^ March 8th, 1830. 
 
 *' My dear G., — Your friend B (for I knew him 
 
 immediately by the smooth satinity of his style) must 
 excuse me for advocating the cause of his friends in Spital- 
 j&elds. The fact is, I am retained by the Norwich people, 
 and have already appeared in their paper under the signa- 
 tures of 'Lucius Sergius,' 'Bluff,' 'Broad-Cloth,' ' No- 
 Trade- to-the- Woollen-Trade,' 'Anti-Plush,' &c., in defence 
 of druggets and long camblets. And without this pre- 
 engagement, I feel I should naturally have chosen a side 
 
 opposite to , for in the silken seemingness of his 
 
 nature there is that which offends me. My flesh tingles at 
 such catei^illars. He shall not crawl me over. Let him 
 and his workmen sing the old burthen, 
 
 * Heigh ho, yo weavers ! * 
 
 for any aid I shall offer them in this emergency. I was 
 
 bb2 
 
372 
 
 LETTEKS TO OILMAN. 
 
 over Saint Luke's the other day with my friend Tuthill, 
 and mightily pleased with one of his contrivances for the 
 comfort and amelioration of the students. They have 
 double cells, in which a pair may lie feet to feet horizontally, 
 and chat the time away as rationally as they can. It must 
 certainly be more sociable for them these warm raving 
 nights. The right-hand truckle in one of these friendly 
 recesses, at present vacant, was preparing, I understood, for 
 Mr. Irving. Poor fellow ! it is time he removed from Pen- 
 tonville. I followed him as far as to Highbury the other 
 day, with a mob at his heels, calling out upon Ermigiddon, 
 who I suppose is some Scotch moderator. He squinted out 
 his favourite eye last Friday, in the fury of possession, upon 
 a poor woman's shoulders that was crying matches, and has 
 not missed it. The companion truck, as far as I could 
 measure it with my eye, would conveniently fit a person about 
 the length of Coleridge, allowing for a reasonable drawing 
 up of the feet, not at all painful. Does he talk of moving 
 this quarter ? You and I have too much sense to trouble 
 ourselves with revelations ; marry, to the same in Greek, 
 you may have something professionally to say. Tell C. 
 that he was to come and see us some fine day. Let it be 
 before he moves, for in his new quarters he will necessarily 
 be confined in his conversation to his brother prophet. 
 Conceive the two Ptabbis foot to foot, for there are no 
 Gamaliels there to affect a humbler postm^e ! All are 
 masters in that Patmos, where the law is perfect equality ; 
 Latmos, I should rather say, for they will be Luna's twin 
 darlings ; her affection will be ever at the full. Well ; 
 keep your brains moist with gooseberry this mad March, 
 for the devil of exposition seeketh dry places. 
 
 - C. L." 
 
 Here is a brief reply to the questioning of Lamb's true- 
 hearted correspondent. Barton, who doubted of the personal 
 verity of Lambs "Joseph Paice," the most polite of mer- 
 chants. This friend's personal acquaintance with Lamb 
 
LETTEE TO BAETON. 373 
 
 had not been frequent enough to teach him, that if Lamb 
 could innocently " lie like truth," he made up for this free- 
 dom, by sometimes making truth look hke a lie. His 
 account of Mr. Paice s politeness, could be attested to the 
 letter by living witnesses. 
 
 TO BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 '* Dear B. B., — To reply to you by return of post, I must 
 gobble up my dinner, and despatch this in propria persona 
 to the ofhce, to be in time. So take it from me hastily, 
 that you are perfectly welcome to furnish A. C. with the 
 scrap, which I had almost forgotten writing. The more 
 my character comes to be known, the less my veracity will 
 come to be suspected. Time every day clears up some sus- 
 pected narrative of Herodotus, Bruce, and others of us great 
 travellers. Why, that Joseph Paice was as real a person 
 as Joseph Hume, and a great deal pleasanter. A careful 
 observer of life, Bernard, has no need to invent. Nature 
 romances it for him. Dinner plates rattle, and I positively 
 shall incur indigestion by carrying it half concocted to the 
 post-house. Let me congratulate you on the spring coming 
 in, and do you in return condole with me on the winter 
 going out. When the old one goes, seldom comes a better. 
 I dread the prospect of summer, with his all-day-long days. 
 No need of his assistance to make country places dulL 
 With fire and candle-light, I can dream myself in Holborn, 
 With lightsome skies shining in to bed-time I cannot. 
 This Meschek, and these tents of Kedar — I would dwell in 
 the skirts of Jericho rather, and think every blast of the 
 coming in mail a ram's horn. Give me old London at fire 
 and plague times, rather than these tepid gales, healthy 
 country air, and purposeless exercise. 
 
 " Leg of mutton absolutely on the table. 
 
 *' Take our hasty loves and short farewell. C. L." 
 
374 
 
 LETTER TO SOUTHEY. 
 
 Lamb s kindness to Hone was not confined to his contri- 
 butions to the " Every-day Book," and the *' Table Book." 
 Those pleasant and blameless works had failed to supply an 
 adequate income for a numerous family, and Lamb was 
 desirous of interesting his influential friends in a new 
 project of Hone's, to establish himself in a coffee-house 
 conducted in a superior style. With this view, he wrote 
 to Southey, who, nobly forgetting Hone's old heresies in 
 politics or parodies, had made a genial reference to his late 
 work in his '' Life of Bunyan." 
 
 TO MR. SOUTHEY. 
 
 "May 10th, 1830. 
 
 ** Dear Southey, — My friend Hone, whom you would like 
 for a friend, I found deeply impressed with your generous 
 notice of him in your beautiful ' Life of Bunyan,' which I 
 am just now full of. He has written to you for leave to 
 publish a certain good-natured letter. I write not this to 
 enforce his request, for we are fully aware that the refusal 
 of such publication would be quite consistent with all that 
 is good in your character. Neither he nor I expect it from 
 you, nor exact it ; but if you would consent to it, you would 
 have me obliged by it, as well as him. He is just now in a 
 critical situation : kind friends have opened a coffee-house 
 for him in the Citv, but their means have not extended to 
 the purchase of coffee-pots, credit for Reviews, newspapers, 
 and other paraphernalia. So I am sitting in the skeleton 
 of a possible divan. What right I have to interfere, you 
 best know. Look on me as a dog who went once tempo- 
 rarily insane, and bit you, and now begs for a crust. Will 
 you set your wits to a dog ? 
 
 " Our object is to open a subscription, which my friends 
 
 of the are most willing to forward for him, but 
 
 think that a leave from you to publish would aid it. 
 
 ''But not an atom of respect or kindness will or shall it 
 abate in either of us, if you decline it. Have this strongly 
 in your mind. 
 
LETTER TO SOUTHEY. 375 
 
 *' Those ' Every-day ' and ' Table ' Books will be a treasure 
 a hundred years hence, but they have failed to make Hone s 
 fortune. 
 
 " Here his wife and all his children are about me, gaping 
 for coffee customers ; but how should they come in, seeing 
 no pot boiling ! 
 
 *' Enough of Hone. I saw Coleridge a day or two since. 
 He has had some severe attack, not paralytic ; but, if I had 
 not heard of it, I should not have found it out. He looks, 
 and especially speaks, strong. How are all the Wordsworths, 
 and all the Southeys, whom I am obliged to you if you 
 have not brought up haters of the name of 
 
 " C. Lamb? 
 
 *' P.S. — I have gone lately into the acrostic line. I find 
 genius (such as I had) declines with me, but I get clever. 
 Do you know anybody that wants charades, or such things, 
 for Albums ? I do 'em at so much a sheet. Perhaps an 
 epigram (not a very happy-gram) I did for a school-boy 
 yesterday may amuse. I pray Jove he may not get a 
 flogging for any false quantity ; but 'tis, with one exception, 
 the only Latin verses I have made for forty years, and I did 
 it * to order.' 
 
 CUIQUE SUUM, 
 
 Adsciscit sibi divitias et opes alienas 
 
 Fur, rapiens, spolians^ quod mihi, quod-que tibi, 
 
 Proprium erat, temnens haec verba, meum-que, tuum-que 
 Omne suum est: tandem Cui-que Suum tribuit. 
 
 Dat resti collum ; restes, vah ! carnifici dat ; 
 Sese Diabolo, sic bene ; Cuique Suum. 
 
 '' I write from Hone's, therefore Mary cannot send her 
 love to Mrs. Southey, but I do. 
 
 *' Yours ever, C. L." 
 
 A rural conflagration at this time kindled the noblest 
 ran^e of Lamb's thoughts, which he expressed in the fol- 
 
 ■■ 
 
376 
 
 LETTEE TO DYER. 
 
 lowing letter. The light he flashes on the strange power 
 exerted by the half-witted incendiary shows in it something 
 of a fearful grandeur. It is addressed 
 
 TO MR. DYER. 
 
 Dee. 20tb, 1830. 
 
 ''Dear Dyer, — I should have written before to thank you 
 for your kind letter, written with your own hand. It glads 
 us to see your writing. It will give you pleasure to hear 
 that after so much illness we are in tolerable health and 
 spirits once more. Poor Enfield, that has been so peace- 
 able hitherto, has caught the inflammatory fever ; the tokens 
 are upon her ; and a great fire was blazing last night in the 
 barns and haystacks of a farmer, about half a mile from us. 
 Where will these things end ? There is no doubt of its 
 being the work of some ill-disposed rustic, but how is he to 
 be discovered ? They go to work in the dark with strange 
 chemical preparations, unknown to our forefathers. There 
 is not even a dark lantern, to have a chance of detecting 
 these Guy Fauxes. We are past the iron age, and are got 
 into the fiery age, undreamed of by Ovid. You are lucky 
 in Clifford's Inn, where I think you have few ricks or stacks 
 worth the burning. Pray, keep as little com by you as you 
 can, for fear of the worst. It was never good times in 
 England since the poor began to speculate upon their con- 
 dition. Formerly they jogged on with as little reflection as 
 horses. The whistling ploughman went cheek by jowl 
 with his brother that neighed. Now the biped carries a 
 box of phosphorus in his leather breeches, and in the dead 
 of night the half-illuminated beast steals his magic potion 
 into a cleft in a barn, and half the country is grinning with 
 new fires. Farmer Graystock said something to the touchy 
 rustic, that he did not relish, and he writes his distaste in 
 flames. What a power to intoxicate his crude brains, just 
 muddlingly awake to perceive that something is wrong in 
 the social system, — what a hellish faculty above gmipowder! 
 
LETTER TO DYER. 377 
 
 Now the rich and poor are fairly pitted. We shall see who 
 can hang or burn fastest. It is not always revenge that 
 stimulates these kindhngs. There is a love of exerting 
 mischief ! Think of a disrespected clod, that was trod into 
 earth; that was nothing; on a sudden by damned arts 
 refined into an exterminating angel, devouring the fruits of 
 the earth, and their growers, in a mass of tire ; what a new 
 existence ! What a temptation above Lucifer's ! Would 
 clod be anything but a clod, if he could resist it ? Why, 
 here was a spectacle last night for a whole country, a bon- 
 fire visible to London, alarming her guilty tow^ers, and 
 shaking the Monument with an ague fit, all done by a little 
 vial of phosphor in a clown's fob. How he must grin, and 
 shake his empty noddle in clouds ! The Vulcanian epicure ! 
 Alas I can we ring the bells backward ? Can we unlearn 
 the arts that pretend to civilise, and then burn the world? 
 There is a march of science ; but who shall beat the drums 
 for its retreat ? Who shall persuade the boor that phos- 
 phor w^ill not ignite ? Seven goodly stacks of hay, with 
 corn-barns proportionable, lie smoking ashes and chaff, 
 which man and beast would sputter out and reject like 
 those apples of asphaltes and bitumen. The food for the 
 inhabitants of earth will quickly disappear. Hot rolls may 
 say, ' Fuimus panes, fuit quartern-loaf, et ingens gloria 
 apple-pasty-orum.' That the good old munching system 
 may last thy time and mine, good un-incendiary George ! is 
 the devout prayer of thine, 
 
 " To the last crust, C. Lamb." 
 
 In 1830, Lamb took a journey to Bury St. Edmund's, to 
 fetch Miss Isola to her adopted home, from a visit which 
 had been broken by her illness. It was on his return that 
 Lamb's repartee to the query of the statistical gentleman as 
 to the prospects of the turnip crop, which has been repeatedly 
 published, was made. The following is his own version of it, 
 contained in a letter addressed to Miss Isola's hostess, on 
 their arrival. 
 
378 
 
 LETTERS TO MKS. WILLIAMS. 
 
 ^' A rather talkative gentleman, but very civil, engaged 
 me in a discourse for full twenty miles, on the probable 
 advantages of steam carriages, which, being merely pro- 
 blematical, I bore my part in with some credit, in spite 
 of my totally un- engineer-like faculties. But when, some- 
 where about Stanstead, he put an unfortunate question to 
 me, as to the ' probability of its turning out a good turnip 
 season,' and when I, who am still less of an agriculturist 
 than a steam philosopher, not knowing a turnip from a 
 potato ground, innocently made answer, that ' I believed it 
 depended very much upon boiled legs of mutton,' my 
 unlucky reply set Miss Isola a laughing to a degree that 
 disturbed her tranquillity for the only moment in our 
 journey. I am afraid my credit sank very low with my 
 other fellow-traveller, who had thought he had met with a 
 well-informed passenger, which is an accident so desirable 
 in a stage-coach. We were rather less communicative, but 
 still friendly, the rest of the way." 
 
 To the same lady, having sent him an acrostic on his 
 sister s name, he replied with a letter which contained one 
 on hers, and the following notice of his own talent in the 
 acrostic line. 
 
 '' Dear Madam, — I do assure you that your verses grati- 
 fied me very much, and my sister is quite proud of them. 
 For the first time in my life I congratulated myself upon 
 the shortness and meanness of my name. Had it been 
 Schwartzenberg or Esterhazy, it would have put you to 
 some puzzle. I am afraid I shall sicken you of acrostics, 
 but this last was written to order. I beg you to have 
 inserted in your county paper, something like this advertise- 
 ment. ' To the nobility, gentry, and others, about Bury. — 
 C. Lamb respectfully informs his friends and the public in 
 general, that he is leaving off* business in the acrostic line, 
 as he is going into an entirely new line. Rebuses and 
 charades done as usual, and upon the old terms. Also, 
 epitaphs to suit the memory of any person deceased. ' 
 
ALBUM VEBSES. 379 
 
 " I thought I had adroitly escaped the rather unphable 
 name of ' Williams,' curtailing your poor daughters to their 
 proper surnames, but it seems you would not let me off so 
 easily. If these trifles amuse you, I am paid. Though 
 really 'tis an operation too much like — ' A, apple-pie ; B, 
 bit it.' To make amends, I request leave to lend you the 
 * Excursion,' and to recommend, in particular, the ' Church- 
 yard Stories ; ' in the seventh book, I think. They will 
 strengthen the tone of your mind after its weak diet on 
 acrostics." 
 
 ^ ^ *i^ ^ "^ 
 
 n* T* «t* ^ ^ , 
 
 In 1830, a small volume of poems, the gleanings of 
 some years, during which Lamb had devoted himself to 
 prose, under his name of "Elia," was published by Mr, 
 Moxon, under the title of ''Album Verses," and which 
 Lamb, in token of his strong regard, dedicated to the 
 Publisher. An unfavourable review of them in the Literary 
 Gazette produced some verses from Southey, which were 
 inserted in the Times, and of which the following, as 
 evincing his unchanged friendship, may not unfitly be 
 inserted here. The residue, being more severe on Lamb s 
 critics than Lamb himself would have wished, may now be 
 spared. 
 
 Charles Lamb, to tbose who know thee justly dear 
 For rarest genius, and for sterling worth, 
 Unchanging friendship, warmth of heart sincere, 
 And wit that never gave an ill thought birth, 
 Nor ever in its sport infixM a sting ; 
 To us who have admired and loved thee long, 
 It is a proud as well as pleasant thing 
 To hear thy good report, now borne along 
 Upon the honest breath of public praise : 
 We know that with the elder sons of song. 
 In honouring whom thou hast delighted still, 
 Thy name shall keep its course to after days. 
 
 This year closed upon the grave of Hazlitt. Lamb 
 visited him frequently during his last illness, and attended 
 his funeral. They had taken great delight in each other's 
 
380 
 
 LAST LETTERS. 
 
 conversation for many years ; and though the indifference 
 of Lamb to the objects of Hazlitt s passionate love or 
 hatred, as a politician, at one time produced a coolness, the 
 warmth of the defence of Hazlitt in "Elia's Letter to 
 Southey '' renewed the old regard of the philosopher, and 
 set all to rights. Hazlitt, in his turn, as an Edinburgh 
 Reviewer, had opportunities which he delighted to use, of 
 alluding to Lamb s Specimens and Essays, and making him 
 amends for the severity of ancient criticism, which the 
 editor, who could well afford the genial inconsistency, was 
 too generous to exclude. The conduct, indeed, of that dis- 
 tinguished person to Hazlitt, especially in his last illness, 
 won Lamb's admiration, and wholly effaced the recollection 
 of the time when, thirty years before, his play had been 
 denied critical mercy under his rule. Hazlitt's death did 
 not so much shock Lamb at the time, as it weighed down 
 his spirits afterwards, when he felt the want of those essays 
 which he had used periodically to look for with eagerness in 
 the magazines and reviews which they alone made tolerable 
 to him ; and when he realised the dismal certainty that he 
 should never again enjoy that rich discourse of old poets 
 and painters with which so many a long winter's night had 
 heen gladdened, or taste life with an additional relish in 
 the keen sense of enjoyment which endeared it to his 
 companion. 
 
 CHAPTER XYIIL 
 
 [1830 to 1834.] 
 lamb's last letters and death. 
 
 After the year 1830, Lamb's verses and essays were 
 chiefly given to his friends ; the former consisting of album 
 contributions, the latter of little essences of observation and 
 criticism. Mr. Moxon, having established a new magazine, 
 called the " Englishman's Magazine," induced him to write 
 a series of papers, some of which were not inferior to his 
 
LETTER TO DYER. 381 
 
 happiest essays. At this time, his old and excellent friend. 
 Dyer, was much annoyed by some of his witticisms, — which, 
 in truth, were only Lamb's modes of expressing his deep- 
 seated regard ; and at the quotation of a couplet in one of 
 his early poems, which he had suppressed as liable to be 
 misconstrued by Mr. Eogers. Mr. Barker had unfortu- 
 nately met with the unexpurgated edition which contained 
 this dubious couplet, and in his " Memorials of Dr. Parr " 
 quoted the passage ; which, to Mr. Dyers delicate feelings ^-5^, 
 conveyed the apprehension that Mr. Rogers would treat the 
 suppression as colourable, and refer the revival of the lines 
 to bis sanction. The following letter was written to dispel 
 those fears from his mind. 
 
 TO MR. DYER. 
 
 "Feb. 22nd, 1831. 
 
 " Dear Dyer, — Mr. Rogers, and Mr. Rogers' friends, are 
 perfectly assured, that you never intended any harm by an 
 innocent couplet, and that in the revivication of it by 
 blundering Barker you had no hand whatever. To imagine 
 that, at this time of day, Rogers broods over a fantastic 
 
 * Mr. Dyer also complained to Mr. Lamb of some suggestions in Elia, 
 "which annoyed him^ not so much for his own sake as for the sake of others, 
 who, in the delicacy of his apprehensiveness, he thought might feel 
 aggrieved by imputations which were certainly not intended, and which 
 they did not deserve. One passage in Elia, hinting that he had been 
 hardly dealt with by schoolmasters, under whom he had been a teacher in 
 his younger days, hurt him ; as, in fact, he was treated by them with the 
 most considerate generosity and kindness. Another passage which he 
 regarded as implying that he had been underpaid by booksellers also 
 vexed him ; as his labours have always been highly esteemed, and have, 
 according to the rate of remuneration of learned men, been well compen- 
 sated by Mr. Valpy and others. The truth is that Lamb wrote from a 
 vague recollection, without intending any personal reference at all to 
 Mr. Dyer himself, and only seeking to illustrate the pure, simple, and 
 elevated character of a man of letters "unspotted from the world." 
 Probably no one has ever applied these suggestions to the parties for 
 whose reputation Mr. Dyer has been so honourably anxious but himself ; 
 but it ie due to his feelings to state that they are founded in error. 
 
382 
 
 LETTER TO DYER. 
 
 expression of more than thirty years' standing, would be to 
 suppose him indulging his ' pleasures of memory ' with a 
 vengeance. You never penned a line which for its own 
 sake you need, dying, wish to blot. You mistake your 
 heart if you think you can write a lampoon. Your whips 
 are rods of roses. Your spleen has ever had for its objects 
 vices, not the vicious ; abstract offences, not the concrete 
 sinner. But you are sensitive, and wince as much at the 
 consciousness of having commited a compliment, as another 
 man would at the perpetration of an affront. But do not 
 lug me into the same soreness of conscience with yourself. 
 I maintain, and will to the last hour, that I never writ of 
 you but con amove. That if any allusion was made to your 
 near-sightedness, it was not for the purpose of mocking an 
 infirmity, but of connecting it with scholar- like habits ; for, 
 is it not erudite and scholarly to be somewhat near of sight, 
 before age naturally brings on the malady ? You could not 
 then plead the obrepens senectus. Did I not moreover 
 make it an apology for a certain absence, which some of 
 your friends may have experienced, when you have not on 
 a sudden made recognition of them in a casual street-meet- 
 ing ? and did I not strengthen your excuse for this slow- 
 ness of recognition, by further accounting morally for the 
 present engagement of your mind in worthy objects ? Did 
 I not, in your person, make the handsomest apology for 
 absent-of-mind people that was ever made ? If these things 
 be not so, I never knew what I wrote, or meant by my 
 writing, and have been penning libels all my life without 
 being aware of it. Does it follow that I should have 
 exprest myself exactly in the same way of those dear old 
 eyes of yours noiv, now that Father Time has conspired 
 with a hard task-master to put a last extinguisher upon 
 them. I should as soon have insulted the Answerer of 
 Salmasius, when he awoke up from his ended task, and saw 
 no more with mortal vision. But you are many films 
 removed yet from Milton's calamity. You write perfectly 
 intelligibly. Marry, the letters are not all of the same size 
 
LETTER TO DYER. 383 
 
 or tallness; but that only shows your proficiency in the 
 hands, text, german-hand, court-hand, sometimes law-hand, 
 and affords variety. You pen better than you did a twelve- 
 month ago ; and if you continue to improve, you bid fair to 
 win the golden pen which is the prize at your young gentle- 
 men's academy. But you must be aware of Valpy, and his 
 printing-house, that hazy cave of Trophonius, out of which 
 it was a mercy that yoa escaped with a glimmer. Beware 
 of MSS. and Varise Lectiones. Settle the text for once in 
 your mind, and stick to it. You have some years' good 
 sight in you yet, if you do not tamper with it. It is ngt 
 for you (for its I should say), to go poring into Greek con- 
 tractions, and star-gazing upon slim Hebrew points. We 
 have yet the sight 
 
 Of sun, and moon, and star, throughout the year, 
 And man and woman.' 
 
 You have vision enough to discern Mrs. Dyer from the 
 other comely gentlewoman who lives up at stair-case No. 5 ; 
 or, if you should make a blunder in the twiHght, Mrs. Dyer 
 has too much good sense to be jealous for a mere effect of 
 imperfect optics. But don't try to write the Lord s Prayer, 
 Creed, and Ten Commandments, in the compass of a half- 
 penny ; nor run after a midge, or a mote, to catch it ; and 
 leave off hunting for needles in bushels of hay, for all these 
 things strain the eyes. The snow is six feet deep in some 
 parts here. I must put on jack-boots to get at the post- 
 oflBce with this. It is not good for weak eyes to pore upon 
 snow too much. It lies in drifts. I wonder what its drift 
 is ; only that it makes good pancakes, remind Mrs. Dyer. 
 It turns a pretty green world into a white one. It glares 
 too much for an innocent colour methinks. I wonder why 
 you think I dislike gilt edges. They set off a letter mar- 
 vellously. Yours, for instance, looks for all the world like 
 a tablet of curious hieroglyphics in a gold frame. But don't 
 go and lay this to your eyes. You always wrote hierogly- 
 
3R4 
 
 LETTER TO DYEE. 
 
 phically, yet not to come up to the mystical notations and 
 conjuring characters of Dr. Parr. You never wrote what I 
 
 call a schoolmaster's hand, like C ; nor a woman's 
 
 hand, like S ; nor a missal hand, like Person ; nor an 
 
 ali-of-the-wrong-side sloping hand, like Miss H ; nor a 
 
 dogmatic, Mede-and-Persian, peremptory hand, like Pt ; 
 
 but you ever wrote what I call a Grecian's hand ; what the 
 Grecians write (or used) at Christ's Hospital ; such as 
 Whalley would have admired, and Boyer have applauded, 
 hut Smith or Atwood (writing-masters) would have horsed 
 you for. Your boy-of-genius hand and your mercantile 
 hand are various. By your flourishes, I should think you 
 never learned to make eagles or cork-screws, or flourish the 
 governors' names in the writing-school; and by the tenor 
 and cut of your letters, I suspect you were never in it at 
 all. By the length of this scrawl you will think I have a 
 design upon your optics ; but I have writ as large as I 
 could, out of respect to them ; too large, indeed, for beauty. 
 Mine is a sort of deputy Grecian's hand ; a little better, 
 and more of a worldly hand, than a Grecian s, but still 
 remote from the mercantile. I don't know how it is, but I 
 keep my rank in fancy still since school-days. I can never 
 forget I was a deputy Grecian ! And writing to you, or to 
 Coleridge, besides affection, I feel a reverential deference 
 as to Grecians still. I keep my soaring way above the 
 Great Erasmians, yet far beneath the other. Alas ! what 
 am I now ? what is a Leadenhall clerk, or India pensioner, 
 to a deputy Grecian? How art thou fallen, Lucifer! 
 Just room for our loves to Mrs. D., &c. 
 
 - C. Lamb." 
 
 The death of IMunden reviving his recollections of " the 
 veteran comedian," called forth the following letter of the 
 11th Februar3% 1832, to the editor of the AthencBitm, whom 
 Lamb had, for a long time, numbered among his friends. 
 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE " ATHEN^UM." 385 
 
 TO THE EDITOR OF THE ' ATHEN^UM.' 
 
 " Dear Sir, — Your communication to me of the death of 
 Munden made me weep. Now, Sir, I am not of the melt- 
 ing mood. But, in these serious times, the loss of half the 
 world's fun is no trivial deprivation. It was my loss (or 
 gain shall I call it) in the early time of my play-going, 
 to have missed all Munden's acting. There was only he 
 and Lewis at Covent Garden, while Drury Lane was 
 exuberant with Parsons, Dodd, &c., such a comic company 
 as, I suppose, the stage never showed. Thence, in the 
 evening of my life I had Munden all to myself, more 
 mellowed, richer, perhaps, than ever. I cannot say what 
 his change of faces produced in me. It was not acting. 
 He was not one of my 'old actors.' It might be better. 
 His power was extravagant. I saw him one evening in 
 three drunken characters. Three farces were played. One 
 part was Dosey — I forget the rest ; but they were so discri- 
 minated that a stranger might have seen them all, and not 
 have dreamed that he was seeing the same actor. I am 
 jealous for the actors who pleased my youth. He was not 
 a Parsons or a Dodd, but he was more wonderful. He 
 seemed as if he could do any thing. He was not an actor, 
 but something letter, if you please. Shall I instance Old 
 Foresight, in ' Love for Love,' in which Parsons was at 
 once the old man, the astrologer, &c. Munden dropped 
 the old man, the doater — which makes the character — but 
 he substituted for it a moon-struck character, a perfect 
 abstraction from this earth, that looked as if he had newly 
 come down from the planets. Now, that is not what I call 
 acting. It might be better. He was imaginative ; he 
 could impress upon an audience an idea — the low one, 
 perhaps, of a leg of mutton and turnips ; but such was the 
 grandeur and singleness of his expressions, that that single 
 
 c c 
 
386 TO THE EDITOK OF THE '* ATHENiEUM.'' 
 
 expression would convey to all his auditory a notion of all the 
 pleasures they had all received from all the legs of mutton 
 and turnips they had ever eaten in their lives. Now, this 
 is not acting, nor do I set down Munden amongst my old 
 actors. He was only a wonderful man, exerting his vivid 
 impressions through the agency of the stage. In one only 
 thing did I see him act — that is, support a character; 
 it was in a wretched farce, called ' Johnny Gilpin,' for 
 Dowton s benefit, in which he did a cockney. The thing 
 ran but one night ; but when I say that Listen s Liibin Log 
 was nothing to it, I say little ; it was transcendent. And 
 here let me say of actors, envious actors, that of Munden, 
 Listen was used to speak, almost with the enthusiasm due 
 to the dead, in terms of such allowed superiority to every 
 actor on the stage, and this at a time when Munden was 
 gone by in the world s estimation, that it convinced me 
 that artists (in which term I include poets, painters, &c.), 
 are not so envious as the world think. I have little time, 
 and therefore enclose a criticism on Munden 's Old Dosey 
 and his general acting,* by a friend. 
 
 " C. Lamb." 
 
 '' Mr. Munden appears to us to be the most classical of 
 actors. He is that in high farce, which Kemble was in 
 high tragedy. The lines of these great artists are, it must 
 be admitted, sufficiently distinct; but the same elements 
 are in both, — the same directness of pm'pose, the same 
 singleness of aim, the same concentration of power, the 
 same iron-casing of inflexible manner, the same statue-like 
 precision of gesture, movement, and attitude. The hero of 
 farce is as little affected with impulses from without, as the 
 retired Prince of Tragedians. There is something solid, 
 sterling, almost adamantine, in the building up of his most 
 
 * A little article inserted in ^^The Champion" before Lamb wrote 
 his essay on the Acting of Munden. Lamb's repetition may cast on it 
 sufficient interest to excuse its repetition here. 
 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE '' ATHENiEUM." 387 
 
 grotesque characters. When he fixes his woncler-worliing 
 face in any of its most amazing varieties, it looks as if the 
 picture were carved out from a rock b}'- Nature in a sportive 
 vein, and might last for ever. It is like what we can 
 imagine a mask of the old Grecian Comedy to have been, 
 only that it lives, and breathes, and changes. His most 
 fantastical gestures are the grand ideal of farce. He seems 
 as though he belonged to the earliest and the stateliest age 
 of Comedy, when instead of superficial foibles and the airy 
 varieties of fashion, she had the grand asperities of man to 
 work on, when her grotesque images had something romantic 
 about them, and when humour and parody were themselves 
 heroic. His expressions of feeling and bursts of enthusiasm 
 are among the most genuine w4iich we have ever felt. 
 They seem to come up from a depth of emotion in the 
 heart, and burst through the sturdy casing of manner with 
 a strength which seems increased ten-fold by its real and 
 hearty obstacle. The workings of his spirit seem to expand 
 his frame, till we can scarcely believe that by measure it is 
 small ; for the space which he fills in the imagination is so 
 real, that w^e almost mistake it for that of corporeal dimen- 
 sions. His Old Dosey, in the excellent farce of ' Past Ten 
 o'clock,' is his grandest effort of this kind, and we know of 
 nothing finer. He seems to have a ' heart of oak ' indeed. 
 His description of a sea-fight is the most noble and triumph- 
 ant piece of enthusiasm which we remember. It is as if 
 the spirits of a whole crew of nameless heroes ' were swell- 
 ing in his bosom.' We never felt so ardent and proud a 
 sympathy with the valour of England as when we heard it. 
 May health long be his, thus to do our hearts good — for we 
 never saw any actor whose merits have the least resemblance 
 to his even in species ; and when his genius is withdrawn 
 from the stage, we shall not have left even a term by which 
 we can fitly describe it." 
 
 cc2 
 
388 LETTEPw TO CAEY. 
 
 The following letter is 
 
 TO MR. GARY. 
 
 *' Assidens est mihi bona soror, Euripiden evolvens, 
 donum vestrum, carissime Gary, pro quo gratias agimus, 
 lecturi atque iterum lecturi idem. Pergratus est liber am- 
 bobus, nempe 'Sacerdotis Commiserationis,' sacrum opus a 
 te ipso Humanissimse Religionis Sacerdote dono datum. 
 Lachrymantes gavisuri sumus ; est ubi dolor fiat voluptas ; 
 nee semper dulce mihi est ridere ; aliquando commutandum 
 est he ! he ! he ! cum heu ! heu ! heu ! 
 
 " A Musis Tragicis me non penitus abhorruisse testis sit 
 Carmen Calamitosum, nescio quo autore lingua prius ver- 
 nacula scriptum, et nuperrime a me ipso Latine versum, 
 scilicet, ' Tom Tom of Islington.' Tenuistine ? 
 
 * Thomas Thomas de Islington, 
 Uxorem duxit Die quadam Solis, 
 Abduxit domum sequenti die, 
 Emit baculnm subsequenti, 
 Vapulat ilia postera, 
 jEgrotat succedenti, Mortua fit crastina.' 
 
 Et miro gaudio afficitur Thomas luce postera quod subse- 
 quenti (nempe, Dominica) uxor sit efferenda. 
 
 ^ En Iliades Domesticas ! 
 En circulum calami tatum ! 
 Plane hebdomadalem tracrcediam.' 
 
 "O 
 
 I nunc et confer Euripiden vestrum liis luctibus, hac morte 
 uxoria ; confer A Ices ten ! Hecuben ! quas non antiquas 
 Heroinas Dolorosas. 
 
 " Suffundor genas lachrymis tantas strages revolvens. 
 Quid restat nisi quod Tecum Tuam Caram salutamus 
 ambosque valere jubeamus, nosmet ipsi bene valentes. 
 
 '' Elia. 
 
 " Datum ab agro Enfeldiensi, Mail die sexta, 1831.*" 
 
LETTER TO COLERIDGE. 389 
 
 Coleridge, now in declining health, seems to have feared, 
 from a long intermission of Lamb's visits to Highgate, that 
 there was some estrangement between them, and to have 
 written to Lamb under that fear. The following note 
 shows how much he was mistaken. 
 
 TO MR. COLERIDGE. 
 
 *^ April 14th, 1832. 
 
 '' My dear Coleridge, — Not an unkind thought has 
 passed in my brain about you. But I have been woefully 
 neglectful of you, so that I do not deserve to announce to 
 you, that if I do not hear from you before then, I will set 
 out on Wednesday morning to take you by the hand. I 
 would do it this moment, but an unexpected visit might 
 flurry you. I shall take silence for acquiescence ; and come. 
 I am glad you could write so long a letter. Old loves to, 
 and hope of kind looks from, the Gilmans when I come. 
 
 " Yours, semper idem, 
 
 "G. L, 
 
 " If you ever thought an offence, much more wrote it, 
 against me, it must have been in the times of Noah, and 
 the great waters swept it away. Mary s most kind love, 
 and maybe a wrong prophet of your bodings ! — here she is 
 crying for mere love over your letter. I wring out less, 
 but not sincerer showers. 
 
 " My direction is simply, Enfield." 
 
 Lamb's regard for Mr. Cary had now ripened into a fast 
 friendship; and by agreement he dined every third 
 Wednesday in the month at the Museum. In general, 
 these were occasions on which Lamb observed the strictest 
 rules of temperance ; but once accident of stomach or of 
 sentiment caused a woful deviation, which Lamb deplored 
 in the following letter 
 
390 
 
 LETTEES TO GARY. 
 
 TO MR. GARY. 
 
 '* I protest I know not in what words to invest my sense 
 of the shameful violation of hospitality, which I was guilty 
 of on that fatal Wednesday. Let it be blotted from the 
 calendar. Had it been committed at a layman's house, 
 say a merchant's, or a manufacturer's, a cheesemonger's, or 
 green-grocer's, or, to go higher, a barrister's, a member of 
 Parhament's, a rich banker's, I should have felt alleviation, 
 a drop of self-pity. But to be seen deliberately to go out 
 of the house of a clergyman drunk ! a clergyman of the 
 Church of England too ! not that alone, but of an expounder 
 of that dark Italian Hierophant, an exposition little short 
 of his who dared unfold the Apocalypse : divine riddles 
 both ; and, without supernal grace vouchsafed, Arks not 
 to be fingered without present blasting to the touchers. 
 And then, from what house ! Not a common glebe, or 
 vicarage (which yet had been shameful), but from a kingly 
 repository of sciences, human and divine, with the Primate 
 of England for its guardian, arrayed in public majesty, from 
 which the profane vulgar are bid fly. Could all those 
 volumes have taught me nothing better ! With feverish 
 eyes on the succeeding dawn I opened upon the faint light, 
 enough to distinguish, in a strange chamber, not immediately 
 to be recognised, garters, hose, waistcoat, neckerchief, 
 arranged in dreadful order and proportion, which I knew 
 was not mine own. 'Tis the common symptom, on awaking, 
 I judge my last night's condition from. A tolerable scat- 
 tering on the floor I hail as being too probably my own, and 
 if the candlestick be not removed, I assoil myself. But 
 this finical arrangement, this finding everything in the 
 morning in exact diametrical rectitude, torments me. By 
 whom was I divested ? Burning blushes ! not by the fair 
 hands of nymphs, the Buffam Graces ? Eemote whispers 
 suggested that I coached it home in triumph. Far be that 
 
LETTERS TO GARY. 391 
 
 from working pride in me, for I was unconscious of the 
 locomotion. That a young Mentor accompanied a repro- 
 bate old Telemachus ; that, the Trojan like, he bore his 
 charge upon his shoulders, while the wretched incubus, in 
 glimmering sense, hiccuped drunken snatches of flying on 
 the bats' wings after sunset. An aged servitor was also 
 hinted at, to make disgrace more complete, one, to whom 
 my ignominy may offer further occasions of revolt (to 
 which he was before too fondly inclining) from the true 
 faith ; for, at a sight of my helplessness, what more was 
 needed to drive him to the advocacy of independency ? 
 Occasion led me through Great Russell Street yesterday, 
 I gazed at the great knocker. My feeble hands in vain 
 essayed to lift it. I dreaded that Argus Portitor, who 
 doubtless lanterned me out on that prodigious night. I 
 called the Elginian marbles. They were cold to my suit. 
 I shall never again, I said, on the wide gates unfolding, say, 
 without fear of thrusting back, in a light but a peremptory 
 air, ' I am gomg to Mr. Gary's.' I passed by the walls of 
 Balclutha. I had imaged to myself a zodiac of third 
 Wednesdays irradiating by glimpses the Edmonton dulness. 
 I dreamed of Highmore ! I am de-vited to come on Wed- 
 nesdays. Villanous old age, that, with second childhood, 
 brings linked hand in hand her inseparable twin, new 
 inexperience, which knows not effects of liquor. Where I 
 was to have sate for a sober, middle-aged-and-a-half gentle- 
 man, literary too, the neat fingered artist can educe no 
 notions but of a dissoluted Silenus, lecturing natural philo- 
 sophy to a jeering Chromius, or a Mnasilus. Pudet. From 
 the context gather the lost name of ." 
 
 In 1833 the choicest prose essays, which Lamb had 
 written since the publication of Elia, were collected and 
 published — as with a melancholy foreboding — under the 
 title of ''The Last Essays of Elia;" by Mr. Moxon. 
 The work contains ample proof that the powers of the 
 author had ripened rather than declined; for the paper 
 
 mmmmm 
 
392 LETTEES TO GARY. 
 
 called ''Blakesmoor in H — shire," which embodies his 
 recollection of the old mansion in which his grandmother 
 lived as housekeeper ; those on Elliston, ''Captain Jack- 
 son," and " The Old Margate Hoy," are among the most 
 original, the least constrained, and the most richly coloured 
 of his works. It was favourably noticed by almost all the 
 principal critics — by many enthusiastically and sincerely 
 j)raised — and an admirable notice in ''The Quarterly" 
 was published just after the foreboding of 'the title was 
 fulfilled. His indisposition to write, however, increased ; 
 but in creath]g so much, excellent in its kind, so com- 
 plete in itself, and so little tinged with alloy, he had, 
 in truth, done enough, and had earned in literature, as 
 in the drudgery of the desk, a right to repose. Yet, still 
 ready to obey the call of friendship, he wrote both prologue 
 and epilogue to Knowles's play of " The Wife ;" the com- 
 position of which must have been mere labom% as they are 
 only decently suited to the occasion, and have no mark or 
 likelihood to repay the vanity of the poet. 
 
 Miss Isola's marriage, which left Lamb and his sister 
 once more alone, induced them to draw a little nearer to 
 their friends ; and they fixed their abode in Church-street, 
 Edmonton, within reach of the Enfield walks which custom 
 had endeared to them. There with his sister he continued, 
 regularly visiting London and dining with Mr. Cary on 
 every third Wednesday. The following notelet is in answer 
 to a letter inclosing a list of candidates for a widows' fund 
 society, for which he was entitled to vote. 
 
 TO MR. OAKY. 
 
 " Dear Sir, — The unbounded range of munificence pre- 
 sented to my choice, staggers me. What can twenty votes 
 do for one hundred and two widows ? I cast my eyes hope- 
 less among the viduage, N,B. Southey* might be 
 
 * A Mrs. Southev headed the inclosed list. 
 
u 
 
 LETTEES TO CARY. 393 
 
 ashamed of himself to let his aged mother stand at the 
 top of the list, with his 100?. a year and butt of sack. 
 Sometimes I sigh over No. 12, Mrs. Carve-ill, some poor 
 relation of mine, no doubt. No. 15 has my wishes, but 
 then she is a Welsh one. I have Ruth upon No. 21. 
 I 'd tug hard for No. 24. No. 25 is an anomaly, there can be 
 no Mrs. Hog. No. 34 ensnares me. No. 73 should not 
 have met so foolish a person. No. 92 may bob it as she 
 likes, but she catches no cherry of me. So I have even 
 fixed at bap-hazard, as you'll see. 
 
 " Yours, every third Wednesday, 
 
 '' C. L." 
 
 Lamb was entirely destitute of what is commonly called 
 *'a taste for music." A few old tunes ran in his head; 
 now and then the expression of a sentiment, though never 
 of song, touched him with rare and exquisite delight ; and 
 Braham in his youth. Miss Rennell, who died too soon, and 
 who used to sing the charming air, " In infancy our hopes 
 and fears," and Miss Burrell, won his ear and his heart. 
 But usually music only confused him, and an opera — to 
 which he once or twice tried to accompany Miss Isola — 
 was to him a maze of sound in which he almost lost his 
 wits. But he did not, therefore, take less pleasure in the 
 success of Miss Clara Novello, — whose family he had 
 known for many years, — and to whom he addressed the 
 following lines, which were inserted in the " Athenaeum " 
 of July 26, in this his last year. 
 
 TO CLARA N . 
 
 The Gods have made me most unmusical. 
 With feelings that respond not to the call 
 Of stringed harp, or voice — obtuse and mute 
 To hautboy, sackbut, dulcimer, and flute ; 
 King David's lyre, that made the madness flee 
 From Saul, had been but a jew's-harp to me : 
 Theorbos, violins, French horns, guitars, 
 Leave in my wounded ears inflicted scars ; 
 
394 LETTER TO GILMAN. 
 
 I hate those trills, and shakes, and sounds that floa 
 Upon the captive air ; I know no note, 
 Nor ever shall, whatever folks may say, 
 Of the strange mysteries of Sol and Fa ; 
 I sit at oratorios like a fish, 
 Incapable of sound, and only wish 
 The thing was over. Yet do I admire, 
 O tuneful daughter of a tuneful sire, 
 Thy painful labours in a science, which 
 To your deserts I pray may make you rich 
 ^s much as you are loved, and add a grace 
 To the most musical Novello race. 
 Women lead men by the nose, some cynics say ; 
 You draw them by the ear — a delicater w^ay. 
 
 C. Lamb. 
 
 He had now to sustain the severest of his losses. After 
 a long and painful illness — borne with an heroic patience 
 which concealed the intensity of his sufferings from the 
 bystanders, Coleridge died. As in the instance of Hazlitt, 
 Lamb did not feel the immediate blow so acutely as he 
 himself expected — but the calamity sank deep into his 
 mind, and was, I believe, seldom far from his thoughts. 
 It had been arranged that the attendance at the funeral 
 should be confined to the family of the dejoarted poet and 
 philosopher, and Lamb, therefore, was spared the misery 
 of going through the dismal ceremony of mourning. For 
 the first week he forbore to wiite ; but at its close he 
 addressed the following short letter to one of the family of 
 him whom he once so justly denominated Coleridge's 
 *' more than friend." Like most of Lamb's letters, it is 
 undated, but the postmark is Aug. 5, 1834. 
 
 TO THE KEY. JAMES OILMAN. 
 
 *' My dear Sir, — The sad week being over, I must write 
 to you to say, that I was glad of being spared from attend- 
 ing ; I have no words to express my feeling with you all. 
 I can only say that when you think a short visit from me 
 
LETTER TO OILMAN. 395 
 
 would be acceptable, when your father and mother shall be 
 able to see me with comfort, I will come to the bereaved 
 house. Express to them my tenderest regards, and hopes 
 that they will continue our friends still. We both love and 
 respect them as much as a human being can, and finally 
 thank them with our hearts for what they have been to the 
 poor departed. " God bless you all. 
 
 *' C. Lamb." 
 
 " Mr. Walden's, Churcli-street, Edmonton.'' 
 
 Shortly after, assured that his presence would be wel- 
 come, Lamb went to Highgate. There he asked leave to 
 see the nurse who had attended upon Coleridge ; and being 
 struck and affected by the feeling she manifested towards 
 his friend, insisted on her receiving five guineas from him, 
 — a gratuity which seemed almost incomprehensible to the 
 poor woman, but which Lamb could not help giving as an 
 immediate expression of his own gratitude. From her he 
 learned the effort by which Coleridge had suppressed the 
 expression of his sufferings, and the discovery affected him 
 even more than the news of his death. He would startle his 
 friends sometimes by suddenly exclaiming, " Coleridge is 
 dead ! " and then pass on to common themes, having 
 obtained the momentary relief of oppressed spirits. He 
 still continued, however, his monthly visits to Mr. Cary ; 
 and was ready to write an acrostic, or a complimentary 
 epigram, at the suggestion of any friend. The following is 
 the last of his effusions in verse. 
 
 TO MARGARET W . 
 
 Margaret, in happy hour 
 ChristenM from that humble flower 
 
 Which we a daisy * call ! 
 May thy pretty namesake be 
 In all things a type of thee, 
 
 And image thee in all. 
 
 ^ Marguerite, in French, signifies a daisy. 
 
396 PRESENT OF GAME. 
 
 Like it you show a modest face, 
 An unpretending native grace ; — 
 
 The tulip, and the pink, 
 The china and the damask rose, 
 And every flaunting flower that blows, 
 
 In the comparing shrink. 
 
 Of lowly fields you think no scorn ; 
 Yet gayest gardens would adorn. 
 
 And grace wherever set. 
 Home-seated in your lonely bower. 
 Or wedded — a transplanted flower — 
 I bless you, Margaret ! 
 
 Charles Lamb. 
 Edmonton, Oct. 8th, 1834. 
 
 A present of game, from an unknown admirer, produced 
 the following acknowledgment, in the Athenaeum of 30th 
 November, destined to be, in sad verity, the last essay of 
 Elia 
 
 THOUGHTS ON PEESEXTS OF GAME, &G. 
 
 " We love to have our friend in the country sitting thus 
 at our table by proxy ; to apprehend his presence (though 
 a hundred miles may be between us) by a turkey, whose 
 goodly aspect reflects to us his ' plump corpusculum ; ' to 
 taste him in grouse or woodcock; to feel him gliding down 
 in the toast peculiar to the latter ; to concorporate him in 
 a slice of Canterbury brawn. This is indeed to have him 
 within ourselves ; to know him intimately ; such participa- 
 tion is methinks unitive, as the old theologians phrase it." 
 — Last Essays of Elia. 
 
 "Elia presents his acknowledgments to his * Correspon- 
 dent unknown,' for a basket of prodigiously fine game. 
 He takes for granted that so amiable a character must be 
 a reader of the Athenccum, else he had meditated a notice 
 in The Times. Now if this friend had consulted the 
 Delphic oracle for a present suited to the palate of Elia, 
 be could not have hit upon a morsel so acceptable. The 
 
PEESE^sT OF GAME. 397 
 
 birds he is barely thankful for : pheasants are poor fowls 
 disguised in fine feathers. But a hare roasted hard and 
 brown, with gravy and melted butter ! —old Mr. Chambers, 
 the sensible clergyman in Warwickshire, whose son's 
 acquaintance has made many hours happy in the life of 
 Elia, used to allow a pound of Epping to every hare. Per- 
 haps that was over-doing it. But, in spite of the note of 
 Philomel, who, like some fine poets, that think no scorn to 
 adopt plagiarisms from a humble brother, reiterates every 
 spring her cuckoo cry of 'Jug, Jug, Jug,' Elia pronounces 
 that a hare, to be truly palated, must be roasted. Jugging 
 sophisticates her. In our way it eats so ' crips,' as Mrs. 
 Minikin says. Time was, when Elia was not arrived at 
 his taste, that he preferred to all luxuries a roasted pig. 
 But he disclaims all such green-sickness appetites in future, 
 though he hath to acknowledge the receipt of many a deli- 
 cacy in that kind from correspondents — good, but mistaken 
 men— in consequence of their erroneous supposition, that 
 he had carried up into mature life the prepossessions of 
 childhood. From the worthy Vicar of Enfield he acknow- 
 ledges a tithe contribution of extraordinary sapor. The 
 ancients must have loved hares. Else why adopt the word 
 lepores (obviously from lepus) but for some subtle analogy 
 between the delicate flavour of the latter, and the finer 
 relishes of wit in what we most poorly translate pleasantries. 
 The fine madnesses of the poet are the very decoction of 
 his diet. Thence is he hare-brained. Harum-scarum is a 
 libellous unfounded phrase, of modern usage. 'Tis true 
 the hare is the most circumspect of animals, sleeping with 
 her eye open. Her ears, ever erect, keep them in that 
 wholesome exercise, which conduces them to form the very 
 tit-bit of the admirers of this noble animal. Noble will I 
 call her, in spite of her detractors, who from occasional 
 demonstrations of the principle of self-preservation (common 
 to all animals), infer in her a defect of heroism. Half a 
 hundred horsemen, with thrice the number of dogs, scour 
 the country in pursuit of puss across three counties ; and 
 
398 PRESENT OF GAME. 
 
 because the well-flavoured beast, weighing the odds, is 
 willing to evade the hue and cry, with her delicate ears 
 shrinking perchance from discord — comes the grave natu- 
 ralist, Linnaeus perchance, or Buffon, and gravely sets 
 down the hare as a — timid animal. Why Achilles, or 
 Bully Dawson, would have declined the preposterous 
 combat. 
 
 " In fact, how light of digestion we feel after a hare ! 
 How tender its processes after swallowing ! What chyle it 
 promotes ! How ethereal ! as if its living celerity were a 
 type of its nimble coursing through the animal juices. The 
 notice might be longer. It is intended less as a Natural 
 History of the Hare, than a cursory thanks to the country 
 ' good Unknown.' The hare has many friends, but none 
 sincerer than " Elia." 
 
 A short time only before Lamb s fatal illness, he yielded 
 to my urgent importunity, and met a small party of his 
 friends at dinner at my house, where we had provided for 
 him some of the few articles of food which now seemed to 
 hit his fancy, and among them the hare, which had sup- 
 planted pig in his just esteem, with the hope of exciting his 
 very delicate appetite. We were not disappointed ; he ate 
 with a relish not usual with him of late years, and passed 
 the evening in his happiest mood. Among the four or five 
 who met him on this occasion, the last on which I saw him 
 in health, were his old friends Mr. Barron Field, Mr. Procter, 
 and Mr. Forster, the author of the *' Lives of Eminent 
 English Statesmen," a friend of comparatively recent date, 
 but one with whom Lamb found himself as much at home 
 as if he had known him for years. Mr. Field, in a short 
 but excellent memoir of Lamb, in the "Annual Biography 
 and Obituary" of 1836, has brought this evening vividly to 
 recollection ; and I have a melancholy satisfaction in quoting 
 a passage from it as he has recorded it. After justly eulo- 
 gising Lambs sense of "The Virtue of Suppression in 
 Writing," Mr. Field proceeds : — 
 
PKESENT OF GAME. 399 
 
 *' We remember, at the very last supper we ate with him, 
 he quoted a passage from Prior's ' Henry and Emma/ 
 illustrative of this disciphne ; and yet he said that he loved 
 Prior as much as any man, but that his ' Henry and Emma' 
 was a vapid paraphrase of the old poem of ' The Nutbrowne 
 Mayde.' For example, at the denouement of the ballad 
 Prior makes Henry rant out to his devoted Emma — 
 
 * In me behold the potent Edgar's heir, 
 Illustrious Earl ; him terrible in war. 
 Let Loire confess, for she has felt his sword, 
 And trembling fled before the British lord.' 
 
 And so on for a dozen couplets, heroic, as they are called. 
 And then Mr. Lamb made us mark the modest simplicity 
 with which the noble youth discloses himself to his mistress 
 in the old poem : — 
 
 ^ Now, understand, 
 
 To Westmoreland, 
 
 Which is my heritage^ 
 
 (in a parenthesis, as it were,) 
 
 I will you bring. 
 
 And with a ring, 
 Bj way of marriage, 
 
 I will you take, 
 
 And lady make, 
 As shortly as I can. 
 
 So have you M^on 
 
 An Earle's son^ 
 And not a banish'd man.' 
 
 '' How he loved these old rhymes, and with what justice ! '' 
 
 P. 14, 15. 
 
 In December Mr. Lamb received a letter from a gentle- 
 man, a stranger to him, — Mr. Childs, of Bungay, whose 
 copy of " Elia " had been sent on an oriental voyage, and 
 who, in order to replace it, applied to Mr. Lamb. The 
 following is his reply : — 
 
400 
 
 LETTER TO CHILDS. 
 
 TO MR. CHILDS. 
 
 " Monday. Church-street, Edmonton, (not Enfield, 
 as you erroneously direct yours.) 
 
 '' Dear Sir, — The volume which you seem to want, is not 
 to be had for love or money. I with difficulty procured a 
 copy for myself. Yours is gone to enlighten the tawny 
 Hindoos. What a supreme felicity to the author (only he 
 is no traveller) on the Ganges or Hydaspes (Indian streams) 
 to meet a smutty Gentoo ready to burst with laughing at 
 the tale of Bo-Bo ! for doubtless it hath been translated 
 into all the dialects of the East. I grieve the less, that 
 Europe should want it. I cannot gather from your letter, 
 whether you are aware that a second series of the Essays is 
 published by Moxon, in Dover-street, Piccadilly, called 
 ' The Last Essays of Elia,' and, I am told, is not inferior 
 to the former. Shall I order a copy for you, and will you 
 accept it? Shall I lei^d you, at the same time, my sole 
 copy of the former volume (Oh ! return it) for a month or 
 two ? In return, you shall favom' me with the loan of one 
 of those Norfolk-bred grunters that you laud so highly ; I 
 promise not to keep it above a day. What a funny name 
 Bungay is ! I never dreamt of a correspondent thence. I 
 used to think of it as some Utopian town, or borough in 
 Gotham land. I now believe in its existence, as part of 
 merry England. 
 
 [Here are some lines scratched out.] 
 The part I have scratched out is the best of the letter. Let 
 me have your commands. 
 
 " Ch. Lamb, alias Elia." 
 
 A few days after this letter was written, an accident 
 befel Mr. Lamb, which seemed trifling at first, but which 
 terminated in a fatal issue. In taking his daily morning 
 walk on the London road as far as the inn where John 
 
DEATH OF IAMB. 401 
 
 Gilpin s ride is pictured, he stumbled against a stone, fell, 
 
 and slightly injured his face. The w'ounds seemed healing, 
 
 when erysipelas in the head came on, and he sunk beneath 
 
 the disease, happily without pain. On Friday evening 
 
 Mr. Ryle, of the India House, who had been appointed 
 
 co-executor with me of his will some years before, called on 
 
 me, and informed me tliat he was in danger. I went over 
 
 to Edmonton on the following morning, and found him 
 
 very weak, and nearly insensible to things passing around 
 
 him. Now and then a few words were audible, from which 
 
 it seemed that his mind, in its feebleness, was intent on 
 
 kind and hospitable thoughts. His last correspondent, 
 
 Mr. Childs, had sent a present of a turkey, instead of the 
 
 suggested pig; and the broken sentences which could be 
 
 heard, were of some meeting of friends to partake of it. I 
 
 do not think he knew me ; and having vainly tried to 
 
 engage his attention, I quitted him, not believing his death 
 
 so near at hand. In less than an hour afterwards, his voice 
 
 gradually grew fainter, as he still murmured the names of 
 
 Moxon, Procter, and some other old friends, and he sank 
 
 into death as placidly as into sleep. On the following 
 
 Saturday his remains were laid in a deep grave in Edmonton 
 
 churchyard, made in a spot which, about a fortnight before, 
 
 he had pointed out to his sister, on an afternoon wintry 
 
 walk, as the place where he wished to be buried. 
 
 So died, in the sixtieth year of his age, one of the most 
 remarkable and amiable men who have ever lived. Few of 
 his numerous friends were aware of his illness before they 
 heard of his death ; and, until that illness seized him, he 
 had appeared so little changed by time, so likely to continue 
 for several years^ and he was so intimately associated with 
 eveiy-day engagements and feelings, that the news was as 
 strange as it was mournful. When the first sad surprise 
 was over, several of his friends strove to do justice to their 
 own recollections of him ; and articles upon his character 
 and writings, all written out of the heart, appeared from 
 Mr. Procter in the '' Athenaeum,'' from Mr. Forster in the 
 
 D D 
 
409 CHAEACTER OF LAMB. 
 
 '' New Monthly Magazine," from Mr. Patmore in the 
 " Court Magazine," and from Mr. Moxon in Leigh Hunt's 
 London Journal, besides others whose authors are unknown 
 to me ; and subsequently many affectionate allusions, from 
 pens which his own had inspired, have been gleaned out in 
 various passages of "Blackwood," " Fraser," '' Tait," and 
 almost every periodical work of reputation. The " Recol- 
 lections of Coleridge" by Mr. Allsop, also breathed the 
 spirit of admiration for his elevated genius, which the author 
 — one whom Lamb held in the highest esteem for himself, 
 and for his devotion to Coleridge — had for years expressed 
 both in his words and in deeds. But it is not possible for the 
 subtlest characteristic power, even when animated by the 
 warmest personal regard, to give to those who never had the 
 privilege of his companionship an idea of what Lamb was. 
 There was an apparent contradiction in him, which seemed 
 an inconsistency between thoughts closely associated, and 
 which was in reality nothing but the contradiction of his 
 genius and his fortune, fantastically exhibiting itself in 
 different aspects, which close intimacy could alone appre- 
 ciate. He would startle you with the finest perception of 
 truth, separating, by a phrase, the real from a tissue of 
 conventional falsehoods, and the next moment, by some 
 whimsical invention, make you '' doubt truth to be a liar." 
 He would touch the inmost pulse of profound affection, and 
 then break off in some jest, which would seem profane " to 
 ears polite," but carry as profound a meaning to those who 
 had the right key, as his most pathetic suggestions ; and 
 where he loved and doted most, he would vent the over- 
 flowing of his feelings in words that looked like rudeness. 
 He touches on this strange resource of love in his *' Fare- 
 well to Tobacco," in a passage w^hich may explain some 
 startling freedoms with those he himself loved most dearly. 
 
 ^^ Irony all, and feign'd abube, 
 
 Such as perplext lovers use. 
 At a need, when in despair, 
 To paint forth the fairest fair ; 
 
CHARACTER OF LAMB. 403 
 
 Or in part but to express 
 That exceeding comeliness 
 Which their fancies doth so strike, 
 They borrow language of dislike ; 
 And, instead of ^ dearest Miss,' 
 Jewel, honey, sweetheart, bliss, 
 And those forms of old admiring, 
 Call her cockatrice and siren, 
 Basilisk, and all that 's evil, 
 Witch, hyena, mermaid, devil, 
 Ethiop, wench, and blackamoor. 
 Monkey, ape, and twenty more ; 
 Friendly traitress, loving foe, — 
 Not that she is truly so. 
 But no other way they know 
 A contentment to express, 
 Borders so upon excess, 
 That they do not rightly wot 
 Whether it be pain or not." 
 
 Thus, in the very excess of affection to his sister, whom 
 he loved above all else on earth, he would sometimes 
 address to her some words of seeming reproach, yet so 
 tinged with a humorous irony that none but an entire 
 stranger could mistake his drift. His anxiety for her 
 health, even in his most convivial moments, was unceasing. 
 If, in company, he perceived she looked languid, he would 
 repeatedly ask her, '' Mary, does your head ache?" " Don't 
 you feel unwell?" and would be satisfied by none of her 
 gentle assurances, that his fears were groundless. He was 
 always afraid of her sensibilities being too deeply engaged, 
 and if in her presence any painful accident or history 
 was discussed, he would turn the conversation with some 
 desperate joke. Miss Beetham, the author of the " Lay of 
 Marie," wliich Lamb esteemed one of the most graceful 
 and truly feminine w^orks in a literature rich in female 
 genius, who has reminded me of the trait in some recollec- 
 tions of Lamb, with which she has furnished me, relates, 
 that once when she was speaking to Miss Lamb of Charles, 
 and in her earnestness Miss Lamb had laid her hand 
 kindly on the eulogist s shoulder, he came up hastily and 
 interrupted them, saying, " Come, come, we must not talk 
 
 DD 2 
 
404 CHAEACTER OF LAMB. 
 
 sentimentally/' and took up the conversal^on in his gayest 
 strain. 
 
 Many of Lamb's witty and curious sayings have been 
 repeated since his death, which are worthy to be held in 
 undying remembrance ; but they give no idea of the general 
 tenor of his conversation, which was far more singular and 
 delightful in the traits, which could never be recalled, than 
 in the epigrammatic turns which it is possible to quote. 
 It was fretted into perpetual eddies of verbal felicity and 
 happy thought, with little tranquil intervals reflecting 
 images of exceeding elegance and grace. He sometimes 
 poured out puns in startling succession; sometimes curiously 
 contrived a train of sentences to introduce the catastrophe 
 of a pun, which, in that case, was often startling from its 
 own demerit. At Mr. Gary's one dav, he introduced and 
 kept up an elaborate dissertation on the various uses and 
 abuses of the word nice; and when its variations were 
 exhausted, showed what he had been driving at by exclaim- 
 ing, '' Well ! now we have held a Council of Nice." 
 '' A pun," said he in a letter to Coleridge, in which he 
 eulogised the Odes and Addresses of his friends Hood and 
 Reynolds, " is a thing of too much consequence to be 
 thrown in as a make-weight. You shall read one of the 
 Addresses twice over and miss the puns, and it shall be 
 quite as good, or better, than when you discover them. 
 A pun is a noble thing j:)^r se. never bring it in as an 
 accessary ! A pun is a sole digest of reflection (vide my 
 ' Aids ' to that awaking from a savage state) ; it is entire ; 
 it fills the mind ; it is as 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 which it 
 was." Indeed, Lamb's choicest puns and humorous ex- 
 pressions could not be recollected. They were born of the 
 evanescent feeling, and died with it ; " one moment hriglit, 
 then gone for ever." The shocks of pleasurable surprise 
 were so rapid in succession, and the thoughts suggested so 
 
CHARACTER OF LA.MB. 405 
 
 new, that one destroyed the other, and left only the sense ^ 
 of delight behhid. Frequently as I had the happmess of 
 seeing him during twenty years, I can add nothing from my 
 own store of recollection to those which have been collected 
 by others, and those I will abstain from repeating, so vapid 
 would be their effect when printed compared to that w^hich 
 they produced when, stammered out, they gave to the 
 moment its victory. 
 
 It cannot be denied or concealed that Lamb's excellences, 
 moral and intellectual, were blended with a single frailty ; 
 so intimately associating itself with all that was most 
 charming in the one, and sweetest in the other, that, even 
 if it were right to withdraw it wholly from notice, it would 
 be impossible without it to do justice to his virtues. The 
 eagerness with which he would quaff exciting liquors, from 
 an early period of life, proved that to a physical peculiarity 
 of constitution was to be ascribed, in the first instance, the 
 strength of the temptation with which he was assailed. 
 This kind of corporeal need ; the struggles of deep thought 
 to overcome the bashfulness and the impediment of speech 
 which obstructed its utterance ; the dull, heavy, irksome 
 labours which hung heavy on his mornings, and dried up 
 his spirits ; and still more, the sorrows which had environed 
 him, and which prompted him to snatch a fearful joy ; and 
 the unbounded craving after sympathy with human feelings, 
 conspired to disarm his power of resisting when the means 
 of indulgence were actually before him. Great exaggera- 
 tions have been prevalent on this subject, countenanced, no 
 doubt, by the " Confessions" which, in the prodigality of 
 his kindness, he contributed to his friend s collection of 
 essays and authorities against the use of spirituous liquors ; 
 for, although he had rarely the power to overcome the 
 temptation when presented, he made heroic sacrifices in 
 flight. His final abandonment of tobacco, after many in- 
 effectual attempts, was one of these— a princely sacrifice. 
 He had loved smoking, '' not wisely, but too well," for he had 
 been content to use the coarsest varieties of the ''great plant." 
 
406 CHABACTER OF LAMB. 
 
 When Dr. Parr, — who took only the finest tobacco, used 
 to half fill his pipe with salt, and smoked with a philosophic 
 calmness, — saw Lamb smoking the strongest preparation of 
 the weed, puffing out smoke like some furious Enchanter, 
 he gently laid down his pipe, and asked him, how he had 
 acquired his power of smoking at such a rate? Lamb 
 replied, " I toiled after it, sir, as some men toil after 
 virtue." Partly to shun the temptations of society, and 
 partly to preserve his sister s health, he fled from London, 
 where his pleasures and his heart were, and buried him- 
 self in the solitude of the country, to him always dismal. 
 He would even deny himself the gratification of meeting 
 Wordsworth or Southey, or use it very sparingly during 
 their visits to London, in order that the accompaniments of 
 the table might not entice him to excess. And if some- 
 times, after miles of solitary communing with his own sad 
 thoughts, the village inn did invite him to quaff a glass of 
 sparkling ale ; and if when his retreat was lighted up with 
 the presence of some old friend, he was unable to refrain 
 from the small portion which was too much for his feeble 
 frame, let not the stout-limbed and the happy exult over 
 the consequence ! Drinking with him, except so far as it 
 cooled a feverish thirst, was not a sensual, but an intellectual 
 pleasure ; it lighted up his fading fancy, enriched his 
 humour, and impelled the struggling thought or beautiful 
 image into day ; and perhaps by requiring for him some 
 portion of that allowance which he extended to all human 
 frailties, endeared him the more to those who so often 
 received, and were delighted to bestow it. 
 
 Lamb s indulgence to the failings of others could hardly 
 indeed be termed allowance ; the name of charity is too 
 cold to suit it. He did not merely love his friends in spite 
 of their errors, but he loved them errors and all ; so near 
 to him was everything human. He numbered among his 
 associates, men of all varieties of opinion — philosophical, 
 religious, and political — and found something to like, not 
 only in the men themselves, but in themselves as associated 
 
CHARACTER OF LAMB. 407 
 
 with their theories and their schemes. In the high and 
 calm, but devious speculations of Godwin; in the fierce 
 hatreds of Hazlitt ; in the gentle and glorious mysticism of 
 Coleridge ; in the sturdy opposition of Thelwall to the 
 government ; in Leigh Hunt's softened and fancy-streaked 
 patriotism ; in the gallant toryism of Stoddart ; he found 
 traits which made the individuals more dear to him. When 
 Leigh Hunt was imprisoned in Cold Bath Fields for a libel, 
 Lamb was one of his most constant visitors — and when 
 Thelwall was striving to bring the *' Champion" into notice, 
 Lamb was ready to assist him with his pen, and to fancy 
 himself, for the time, a jacobin*. In this large intellectual 
 tolerance, he resembled Professor Wilson, who, notwith- 
 standing his own decided opinions, has a compass of mind 
 
 *■ The following little poem — quite out of Lamb's usual style — was 
 written for that journal. 
 
 THE THREE GRAVES. 
 
 Close by the ever-burning brimstone beds, 
 Where Bedloe, Gates, and Judas hide their heads, 
 I saw great Satan like a sexton stand, 
 With his intolerable spade in hand, 
 Digging three graves. Gf coflBn-shape they were, 
 For those who, coffinless, must enter there. 
 With unblest rites. The shrouds were of that cloth 
 Which Clotho weaved in her blackest wrath ; 
 The dismal tint oppressed the eye, that dwelt 
 Upon it long, like darkness to be felt. 
 The pillows to these baleful beds were toads. 
 Large, living, livid, melancholy loads. 
 Whose softness shock'd. Worms of all monstrous size 
 CrawTd round ; and one upcoil'd, which never dies, 
 A doleful bell, inculcating despair. 
 Was always ringing in the heavy air. 
 And all around the detestable pit 
 Strange headless ghosts and quarter'd forms did flit ; 
 Rivers of blood from living traitors spilt. 
 By treachery stung from poverty to guilt. 
 I ask'd the fiend, for whom those rites were meant? 
 ^' These graves," quoth he, " when life's brief oil is spent. 
 When the dark night comes, and they're sinking bedwards, 
 I mean for Castles, Gliver, and Edwards." 
 
408 CHARACTER OF LAMB. 
 
 large enough to embrace all others which have noble alli- 
 ances within its range^. But not only to opposite opinions, 
 and devious habits of thought, was Lamb indulgent ; he 
 discovered '' the soul of goodness in things evil" so vividly, 
 that the surrounding evil disappeared from his mental vision. 
 Nothing — no discovery of error or of crime — could divorce 
 his sympathy from a man who had once engaged it. He 
 saw in the spendthrift, the outcast, only the innocent com- 
 panion of his school-days or the joyous associate of his con- 
 vivial hours, and he did not even make penitence or reform 
 a condition of his regard. Perhaps he had less sympathy 
 v/ith philanthropic schemers for the improvement of the 
 world than with any other class of men ; but of these he 
 numbered two of the greatest, Clarkson the destroyer of the 
 slave-trade, and Basil Montague the constant opponent of 
 the judicial infliction of death; and the labours of neither 
 have been in vain ! 
 
 To those who were not intimately acquainted with Lamb, 
 the strong disinclination to contemplate another state of 
 being, which he sometimes expressed in his serious con- 
 versation, and wliich he has solemnly confessed in his 
 " New Year's Eve," might cast a doubt on feelings which 
 were essentially pious. The same peculiarity of nature 
 which attached him to the narrow and crowded streets, in 
 preference to the mountain and the glen — which made 
 him loth to quit even painful circumstances and unpleasant 
 or ill-timed company ; the desire to seize and grasp all 
 that was nearest, bound him to earth, and prompted his 
 sympathies to revolve within a narrow circle. Yet in that 
 very power of adhesion to outward things, might be dis- 
 
 * Lamb only once met that remarkable person^ — who has probably 
 more points of resemblance to him than any other living poet, — and was 
 quite charmed with him. They walked out from Enfield together, and 
 strolled happily a long summer's day, not omitting, however, a call for a 
 refreshing draught. Lamb called for a pot of ale or porter — half of 
 which would have been his own usual allowance ; and was delighted to 
 hear the Professor, on the appearance of the foaming tankard, say reproach- 
 fully to the waiter, '^ And one for me ! " 
 
CHAEACTER OF LAMB. 409 
 
 cerned the strength of a spirit destined to live beyond 
 them. Within the contracted sphere of his habits and 
 desires, he detected the subtlest essences of Christian 
 kindliness, shed over it a light from heaven, and peopled it 
 with divine fancies and 
 
 " Thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof 
 That they were bom for immortality." 
 
 Although he numbered among his associates freethinkers 
 and sceptics, he had a great dislike to any profane handling 
 of sacred subjects, and always discouraged polemical dis- 
 cussion. One evenuig, when Irving and Coleridge were 
 in company, and a young gentleman had spoken slightingly of 
 rehgion, Lamb remained silent ; but when the party broke 
 up, he said to the youth who had thus annoyed his guests, 
 " Pray, did you come here in a hat, sir, or in a turban ?" 
 
 The range of Lamb s reading was varied, but yet pecu- 
 liar. He rejoiced in all old English authors, but cared 
 little for the moderns, except one or two ; and those vv^hom 
 he loved as authors because they were his friends. Attached 
 always to things of flesh aad blood rather than to " the 
 bare earth and mountains bare, and grass in the green 
 field," he chiefly loved the great dramatists, whose beauties 
 he supported, and sometimes heightened, in his suggestive 
 criticisms. While he enjoyed Wordsworth's poetry, espe- 
 cially ''The Excursion," with a love which grew upon him 
 from liis youth, he would repeat some of Pope's divine 
 compliments, or Drydens lines, weighty with sterling 
 sense or tremendous force of satke, with eyes trembling 
 into tears. The comedies of Wycheiiey, and Congreve, 
 and Farquhar, were not to him gross and sensual, but airy, 
 delicate creations, framed out of coarse materials it might 
 be, but evaporating in wit and grace, harmless effusions of 
 the intellect and the fancy. The ponderous dulness of 
 old controversialists, the dead weight of volumes of once 
 fierce dispute, of which time had exhausted the venom, did 
 not appal him. He liked the massive reading of the old 
 
410 CHARACTER OF LAMB. 
 
 Quaker records, the huge density of old schoolmen, better 
 than the flippancy of modern criticism. If you spoke of 
 Lord Byron, he would turn the subject by quoting the lines 
 descriptive of his namesake in Love's Labour Lost — " Oft 
 have I heard of you, my Lord Byron," &c. — for he could 
 find nothing to revere or love in the poetry of that extra- 
 ordinary but most uncomfortable poet; except the apo- 
 strophe to Parnassus, in which he exults in the sight of the 
 real mountain instead of the mere poetic image. All the 
 Laras, and Giaours, and Childe Harolds, were to him but 
 " unreal mockeries," — the phantasms of a feverish dream, — 
 forms which did not appeal to the sympathies of mankind, 
 and never can find root among them. Shelley's poetry, 
 too, was icy cold to him ; except one or tw^o of the minor 
 poems, in which he could not help admiring the exquisite 
 beauty of the expression ; and the '' Cenci," in which, 
 notwithstanding the painful nature of the subject, there is 
 a warmth and passion, and a correspondent simplicity of 
 diction, which prove how mighty a poet the author would 
 have become had he lived long enough for his feelings to 
 have free discourse with his creative power. Responding 
 only to the touch of human affection, he could not bear 
 poetry which, instead of making the whole world kin, 
 renders our own passions and frailties and viitues strange 
 to us ; presents them at a distance in splendid masquerade; 
 exalts them into new and unauthorised mythology, and 
 crystallises all our freshest loves and mantling joys into 
 clusters of radiant fancies. He made some amends for his 
 indijfference to Shelley, by his admiration of Mrs. Shelley's 
 "Frankenstein," which he thought the most extraordinary 
 realisation of the idea of a being out of nature which had 
 ever been effected. For the Scotch novels he cared very 
 little, not caring to be puzzled with new plots, and pre- 
 ferring to read Fielding, and Smollett, and Richardson, 
 whose stories were familiar, over and over again, to being 
 worried with the task of threading the maze of fresh adven- 
 ture. But the good-naturedness of Sir Walter to all his 
 
CHAEACTER OF LAMB. 411 
 
 contemporaries won his admiration, and he heartily rejoiced 
 in the greatness of his fame, and the rich rewards showered 
 upon him, and desired they might accumulate for the glory 
 of literature and the triumph of kindness. He was never 
 introduced to Sir Walter ; but he used to speak with gra- 
 titude and pleasm^e of the circumstances under which he 
 saw him once in Fleet-street. A man, in the dress of a 
 mechanic, stopped him just at Inner Temple-gate, and 
 said, touching his hat, " I beg your pardon, sir, but 
 perhaps you would like to see Sir Walter Scott; that is lie 
 just crossing the road;" and Lamb stammered out his 
 hearty thanks to his truly humane informer. 
 
 Of his own writings it is now superfluous to speak ; for, 
 after having encountered long derision and neglect, they 
 have taken their place among the classics of his language. 
 They stand alone, at once singular and delightful. They 
 are all carefully elaborated ; yet never were works written 
 in a higher defiance to the conventional pomp of style. 
 A sly hit, a happy pun, a humorous combination, lets the 
 light into the intricacies of the subject, and supplies the 
 place of ponderous sentences. As his serious conversation 
 was his best, so his serious writing is far preferable to his 
 fantastical humours, — cheering as they are, and suggestive 
 ever as they are of high and invigorating thoughts. Seek- 
 ing his materials, for the most part, in the common paths 
 of life, — often in the humblest, — he gives an importance to 
 everything, and sheds a grace over all. The spirit of 
 gentility seems to breathe around all his persons ; he 
 detects the venerable and the excellent in the narrowest 
 circumstances and humblest conditions, with the same 
 subtilty which reveals the hidden soul of the greatest 
 works of genius. In all things he is most human. Of all 
 modem writers, his works are most immediately directed 
 to give us heart-ease and to make us happy. 
 
 Among the felicities of Lamb's chequered life, that which 
 he esteemed most, was his intimate friendship with some 
 
412 CHARACTER OF LAMB* 
 
 of the greatest of our poets, — Coleridge, Southey, and 
 Wordsworth; the last and greatest of whom has paid a 
 tribute to his memory, which may fitly close this memoir. 
 
 '^ To a good Man of most dear memory 
 
 This Stone is sacred. Here he lies apart 
 
 From the great city where he first drew breath. 
 
 Was reared and taught ; and humbly earned his bread, 
 
 To the strict labours of the merchant's desk 
 
 By duty chained. Not seldom did those tasks 
 
 Tease, and the thought of time so spent depress 
 
 His spirit, but the recompense was high ; 
 
 Firm Independence, Bounty^s rightful sire ; 
 
 Affections, warm as sunshine, free as air ; 
 
 And when the precious hours of leisure came, 
 
 ^ Knowledge and wisdom, gained from converse sweet 
 
 With books, or while he ranged the crowded streets 
 
 With a keen eye, and overflowing heart : 
 
 So genius triumphed over seeming wrong, 
 
 And poured out truth in works by thoughtful love 
 
 Inspired — works potent over smiles and tears. 
 
 And as round mountain-tops the lightning plays, 
 
 Thus innocently sported, breaking forth 
 
 As from a cloud of some grave sympathy, 
 
 Humour and wdld instinctive wit, and all 
 
 The vivid flashes of his spoken words. 
 
 From the most gentle creature nursed in fields 
 
 Had been derived the name he bore — a name. 
 
 Wherever Christian altars have been raised, 
 
 Hallowed to meekness and to innocence ; 
 
 And if in him meekness at times gave way, 
 
 Provoked out of herself by troubles strange. 
 
 Many and strange, that hung about his life ; 
 
 Still, at the centre of his being, lodged 
 
 A soul by resignation sanctified : 
 
 And if too often, self-reproached, he felt 
 
 That innocence belongs not to our kind, 
 
 A power that never ceased to abide in him, 
 
 Charity, 'mid the multitude of sins 
 
 That she can cover, left not his exposed 
 
 To an unforgiving judgment from just Heaven. 
 
 O, he was good, if e'er a good man lived ! 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 From a reflecting mind and sorrowing heart 
 
 Those simple lines flowed with an earnest wish. 
 
 Though but a doubting hope, that they might serve 
 
 Fitly to guard the precious dust of him 
 
 Whose virtues called them forth. That aim is missed : 
 
CHAEACTER OF LAMB. 413 
 
 For much that truth most urgently required 
 Had from a faltering pen been asked in vain : 
 Yet^ haply, on the printed page received, 
 The imperfect record, there, may stand unblamed 
 As long as verse of mine shall breathe the air 
 Of memor}^, or see the light of love. 
 
 Thou wert a scorner of the fields, my Friend, 
 But more in show than truth ; and from the fields. 
 And from the mountains, to thy rural grave 
 Transported, my soothed spirit hovers o'er 
 Its green untrodden turf, and blowing flowers ; 
 And taking up a voice shall speak (though still 
 Awed by the theme's peculiar sanctity, 
 Which words less free presumed not even to touch) 
 Of that fraternal love, whose heaven-lit lamp 
 From infancy, through manhood, to the last 
 Of threescore years, and to thy latest hour, 
 Burnt on with ever-strengthening light, enshrined 
 Within thy bosom. 
 
 ' Wonderful ' hath been 
 The love established between man and man, 
 ' Passing the love of women ;' and between 
 Man and his help-mate in fast wedlock joined 
 Through God, is raised a spirit and soul of love 
 Without whose blissful influence Paradise 
 Had been no Paradise ; and earth were now 
 A waste where creatures bearing human form, 
 Direst of savage beasts, would roam in fear, 
 Joyless and comfortless. Our days glide on ; 
 And let him grieve who cannot choose but grieve 
 That he hath been an Elm without his Vine, 
 And her bright dower of clustering charities, 
 That, round his trunk and branches, might have clung 
 Enriching and adorning. Unto thee. 
 Not so enriched, not so adorned, to thee 
 Was given (say rather thou of later birth 
 Wert given to her) a Sister — 'tis a word 
 Timidly uttered, for she lives^ the meek, 
 The self-restraining, and the ever-kind ; 
 In whom thy reason and intelligent heart 
 Found — for all interests, hopes, and tender cares, 
 All softening, humanising, hallowing powers, 
 Whether withheld, or for her sake unsought- 
 More than sufficient recompense ! 
 
 Her love 
 
 (What weakness prompts the voice to tell it here ?) 
 Was as the love of mothers; and when years. 
 Lifting the boy to man's estate, had called 
 
414 CHARACTER OF IAMB. 
 
 The long-protected to assume the part 
 
 Of a protector, the first filial tie 
 
 Was undissolved ; and, in or out of sight, 
 
 Remained imperishably interwoven 
 
 With life itself. Thus, 'mid a shifting world, 
 
 Did they together testify of time 
 
 And seasons' difference — a double tree 
 
 With two collateral stems sprung from one root ; 
 
 Such were they — and such through life they might have been 
 
 In union, in partition only such ; 
 
 Otherwise wrought the will of the Most High ; 
 
 Yet, through all visitations and all trials. 
 
 Still they were faithful ; like two vessels launched 
 
 From the same beach one ocean to explore 
 
 With mutual help, and sailing — to their league 
 
 True, as inexorable winds, or bars 
 
 Floating or fixed of polar ice, allow. 
 
 But turn we rather, let my spirit turn 
 With thine, silent and invisible Friend ! 
 To those dear intervals, nor rare nor brief, 
 When reunited, and by choice withdrawn 
 From miscellaneous converse, ye were taught 
 That the remembrance of foregone distress. 
 And the worse fear of future ill (which oft 
 Doth hang around it, as a sickly child 
 Upon its mother) may be both alike 
 Disarmed of power to unsettle present good 
 So prized, and things inward and outward held 
 In such an even balance, that the heart 
 Acknowledges God's grace, his mercy feels, 
 And in its depth of gratitude is still. 
 
 O gift divine of quiet sequestration ! 
 The hermit, exercised in prayer and praise. 
 And feeding daily on the hope of heaven. 
 Is happy in his vow, and fondly cleaves 
 To life-long singleness ; but happier far 
 Was to your souls, and, to the thoughts of others, 
 A thousand times more beautiful appeared. 
 Your dual loneliness. The sacred tie 
 Is broken ; yet why grieve ? for Time but holds 
 His moiety in trust, till Joy shall lead 
 To the blest world where parting is unknown." 
 
 LONDON : 
 BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITKFItlAKS, 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 In one Vol., 6s. cloth, 
 
 THE ESSAYS OF ELIA. 
 
 In one Vol., 6s. cloth, 
 
 ROSAMOND GRAY, ESSAYS, AND POEMS. 
 
 In one Vol., 6s, cloth, 
 
 FINAL MEMORIALS OF CHARLES LAMB; 
 
 CONSISTING CHIEFLY OF HIS 
 
 LETTERS NOT BEFORE PUBLISHED, WITH SKETCHES OF SOME OF HIS 
 
 COMPANIONS. 
 
 By T. N. TALFOURD, 
 
 One of his Executors. 
 
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