i rf^* «A #«>!fr^ Milli Ml 1 GATE siir«. M^M I'MSM L/^ ■ ^Rh' ^^^^nll i 3 - 5-Vi \N DYl Vr ^ 3"S * >ELEC .YS i OFEIJ A rRNl. ING Glass 1^^^. A I b \ Book .n(k(k^ Copyright )J^ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. OF ENGLISH TEXTS GENERAL EDITOR HENRY VAN DYKE Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. Professor C. T. Winchester, Wesleyan University. 40 cents. Burke's Speech on Conciliation. Professor William Mac- Donald, Brown University. 35 cents. Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Browning. Pro- fessor C. T. Copeland, Harvard University, and Henry Milner Rideout. 40 cents. Carlyle's Essay on Burns. Professor Edwin Mims, Trinity Col- lege, North Carolina. 35 cents. Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner, Professor George E. Wood- berry, Columbia University. 30 cents. Emerson's Essays. Henry van Dyke. 35 cents. Franklin's Autobiography. Professor Albert Henry Smyth, Cen- tral High School, Philadelphia. 40 cents. Gaskell's Cranford. Professor Charles E. Rhodes, Lafayette High School, Buffalo. 40 cents. George Eliot's Silas Marner. Professor W. L. Cross, Yale University. 40 cents. Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield and Deserted Village. Pro- fessor James A. Tufts, Phillips Exeter Academy. 45 cents. Irving's Sketch-Book. Professor Martin W. Sampson, formerly of Indiana University. 45 cents. Lamb's Essays of Elia. Professor John F. Genung, Amherst College. Macaulay's Addison. Professor Charles F. McClumpha, University of Minnesota. 35 cents. Gateway Series Macaulay's Life of Johnson. Professor J. S. Clark, Northwestern University. 35 cents. Macaulay's Addison and Johnson. In one volume. (McClumpha and Clark.) 45 cents. Macaulay's Milton. Rev. E. L. Gulick, Lawrenceville School. 35 cents. Milton's Minor Poems. Professor Mary A. Jordan, Smith College. 35 cents. Scott's Ivanhoe. Professor Francis H. Stoddard, Nev^^ York Uni- versity. 50 cents. Scott's Lady of the Lake. Professor R. M. Alden, Leland Stan- ford Jr. University. 40 cents. Shakespeare's As You Like It. Professor Isaac N. Demmon, University of Michigan. 35 cents. Shakespeare's Julius C^sar. Dr. Hamilton W. Mabie, " The Outlook." 35 cents. Shakespeare's Macbeth. Professor T. M. Parrott, Princeton Uni- versity. 40 cents. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Professor Felix E. Schel- ling, University of Pennsylvania. 35 cents. Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, Lancelot and Elaine, and The Passing of Arthur. Henry van Dyke. 35 cents. Tennyson's Princess. Professor Katharine Lee Bates, Wellesley College. 40 cents. Washington's Farewell Address, and Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration. Professor Charles W. Kent, University of Virginia. SKETCH OF CHARLES LAMB BY MACLISE " The sketch of him in Eraser's Magazine gives a true idea of his figure, but no portrait, I am sure, could do justice to his splendid countenance." — J. Fuller Russell. GATEWAY SERIES SELECT ESSAYS OF ELIA BY CHARLES LAMB EDITED BY JOHN F. GENUNG PROFESSOR IN AMHERST COLLEGE " NEW YORK •:• CINCINNATI •:• CHICAGO AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY Copyright, 1909, by AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY. Entered at Stationers' Hall, London. select essays of elia. W. P.I. ©CI.A253224 GENERAL EDITOR'S NOTE This series of books aims, first, to give the English texts required for entrance to college in a form which shall make them clear, interesting, and helpful to those who are beginning the study of literature ; and, second, to supply the knowledge which the student needs to pass the entrance examination. For these two reasons it is called The Gatezvay Sej'ies. The poems, plays, essays, and stories in these small vol- umes are treated, first of all, as works of literature, which were written to be read and enjoyed, not to be parsed and scanned and pulled to pieces. A short life of the author is given, and a portrait, in order to help the student to know the real person who wrote the book. The introduction tells what it is about, and how it was written, and where the author got the idea, and what it means. The notes at the foot of the page are simply to give the sense of the hard words so that the student can read straight on without turning to a dictionary. The other notes, at the end of the book, explain difficulties and allusions and fine points. The editors are chosen because of their thorough training and special fitness to deal with the books committed to them, and because they agree with this idea of what a Gateway Series ought to be. They express, in each case, their own views of the books which they edit. Simphcity, thorough- ness, shortness, and clearness, — > these, we hope, will be the marks of the series. HENRY VAN DYKE. CONTENTS PAGE Preface 7 Introduction : I. Life and Livelihood 10 II. Where his Life's Real Interests Lay . , .11 III. Some Traits of his Personality .... 13 IV. The Essays of Elia . . . . . .18 List of Select Essays: I. Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago {London Magazine, Nov. 1820) . . .21 — II. Mackery End, in Hertfordshire (Z. M., July 1821) 42 III. My First Play (Z. M., Dec. 1821) . . .50 IV. Barbara S (Z. AT., Apr. 1825. From Last Essays) ........ 57 V. The South-Sea House (Z. M., Aug. 1820) . . 65 VI. Oxford in the Vacation (Z. M., Oct. 1820) . . 77 ^1\. Poor Relations (Z. M., May 1823. From Last Essays) .... . . . . '^'] VIII. Imperfect Sympathies (Z. M,, Aug. 1 821) . . 97 IX. Old China (Z. /!Z, Mar. 1823. From Last Essays) 109 —_ _^^ Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading (Z. M., July 1822. From Last Essays) . .118 XI. Grace Before Meat (Z. M., Nov. 1821) . . 127 XII. A Dissertation upon Roast Pig (Z. M., Sept. 1822) 138 XIII. The Praise of Chimney-Svi'eepers (/.. M., May 1822) 149 XIV. Dream-Children; A Reverie (Z. A/., Jan. 1822) . 160 — XV. The Superannuated Man (Z. M.^ May 1825. From Last Essays) . . . . . . . 166 Notes '177 6 PREFACE Charles Lamb's distinction as the best-loved of Eng- lish authors may fitly suggest the chief aim of the edi- torial work that has been done for this edition of his select Essays. It is with Charles Lamb himself, his personality, as represented in his sympathies, his friend- liness and charity, his odd yet winning tastes, his deli- cate and kindly humour, that we become acquainted as we read. He did not write these essays to convey circumstantial information ; if we look for this, indeed, we find ourselves, as likely as not, quite at sea about such factual things as names, places, and dates. We do not read him for information or didactic instruction, but for something finer and better, something that, beyond the reading, inspires in us a love for the man himself. Accordingly, the object of the appended notes is, first, to promote the student's interest in the essay itself, and in what the author has at heart, rather than in something extraneous — grammar or philology or items of history — which may serve to make the reading not a pleasure but a task-work set for eventual examination. Secondly, the notes, as means to this end, shall aim to bring out, for students of the grade contemplated in this series, such literary ways as serve to mirror the spirit of the text ; for the writer's mood finds its fitting manner of expression, in which every word and phrase has its value. Charles Lamb is a delightful man to know ; and 7 8 Preface it is hoped that this edition may, while it helps the reader to know him better, inspire the wish to continue the acquaintance. The text here followed is the text of the first col- lected edition: Essays of Elia, 1823, Last Essays of Elia, 1833. The spelling has been for the most part conformed to the general usage of the Gateway Series ; Lamb's peculiarities of punctuation, however, have been followed, because they are so truly a part of his style. In the preparation of the notes, special acknowledg- ment is due to the definitive edition of Mr. E. V. Lucas, who has laid all succeeding editors of Lamb under obli- gation for the research work he has saved them, — work which, while it had to be done, in the nature of the case needed only once doing. The editor is in- debted also to the kindness of Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons, publishers of the Lucas edition of Lamb's works and of Lucas's Life of Charles Lamb^ for permission to use as frontispiece Machse's sketch portrait. INTRODUCTION It is not by eminence of style or passion or thought that Charles Lamb's writings, and especially his Essays of EHa, make their distinctive impress on English litera- ture. It is rather by what they reveal of a very peculiar yet, with all untoward traits, a very sterling and lovable personality. We seem as we read to be in the presence, not of an author concerned to give his ideas a good lit- erary showing, but of a very companionable man whose words frankly reflect his personal likes and dislikes, his individual tastes, whims, fancies, oddities, nay his very weaknesses and faults ; and all with such geniality and charm as to have earned for their author the distinction of being the best-loved man in English letters. This love is accorded to Charles Lamb ; and yet the personality whose thoughts and sentiments are so freely uttered masks itself under an assumed name. It pro- fesses to speak, not as Charles Lamb, but as James Elia ; and thus the author holds himself free to take liberties with literal fact and with actualities of persons and places. More than this. While James Elia is ac- curately Charles Lamb and not in any artistic sense a dramatized person speaking in character, yet he is not lo Essays of Elia all of Charles Lamb ; he is only so much as his author chooses to reveal. And of Charles Lamb's real Hfe he hides as much as he reveals ; hides, for a cardinal in- stance, a constant experience which made his whole life a tragedy. Of this, as he is reticent about it or passes it off in jest, our introduction must speak, because its effects in the tone of Ella's style are subtle and profound. Other characteristic things, too, in the life of Charles Lamb as distinguished from James Elia naust come up for mention before the Essays are left to speak for them- selves. Life and Livelihood. — The external facts and condi- tions of Charles Lamb's life are soon told. The son of John Lamb, a clerk or private secretary to a bencher of the Inner Temple, he was born in Crown Office Rov/, London, February lo, 1775. In his eighth year he became a blue-coat boy in the famous charity-school of Christ's Hospital, and remained there for seven years, during which time his most intimate friendship, a friend- ship terminated only by death, was with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the " inspired charity-boy," afterwards the famous poet and philosopher. Precluded by an impedi- ment of speech, and perhaps by temperament, from promise of success in the church or the learned profes- sions, Lamb gave up the idea of going to the university. After leaving school in 1789, he in his turn, though not till nearly two years had passed, became a clerk ; work- Introduction ii ing first in the South-Sea House under his elder brother John for six months; then, through the influence of his father's kind employer Samuel Salt, obtaining a clerk- ship in the accountant's office of the East India Com- pany. Here he worked, advancing through various grades of promotion, until at fifty years of age he was retired on a pension, and became — as he described it — a " superannuated man." He lived nine years after this, years not so happy as those of his clerkship, and died December 27, 1834. II Where his Life's Real Interests Lay. — There is no occasion here to detail the circumstances of the modest life that as a London clerk he had to live : the changes of lodging, the cares and shifts of narrow means, the round of routine in which the best hours of his working years were spent. All these we could sufficiently imag- ine if they counted for our purpose ; they were the conditions of a life in which most men would be content, or necessitated by personal limitation, to be clerks and nothing more. And his clerkship, at least, supplying him a steady income, freed him from the necessity of writing for a living, a thing not suited to his genius. It was, however, the reaction from the routine of the desk, the reaction of native resource and genius, which brought Lamb to his true caUing. The world in which we become acquainted with him was larger : that inner world of the 12 Essays of Elia heart and the imagination which has no bounds and no poverty. The realm of thought and sentiment, to which he had been introduced by native taste and the associa- tions of school life, remained the sphere of his real inter- ests ; he was not a clerk at heart, but a companion of literary men, a lover of art, poetry, drama, and a sharer in the finest literary values of the ages. From his early years he was conversant with books, especially books of classic poetry and of the seventeenth century literature. His tastes were notably keen for works to which age or some eccentricity of the writer had given a flavor of quaintness, works like those of . Robert Burton, Sir Thomas Browne, Jeremy Taylor, and Thomas Fuller ; his mind seemed to be formed, indeed, much after their pattern. Shakespeare and the Jacobean dramatists, also, were great favorites of his. For books of history or philosophy or science, or for the current movements of thought and event, he had little care. " When a new book comes out, I read an old one," was the humorous remark by which he defined his literary hkings. Of the prosaic and uncoloured facts of life he had enough, doubtless, in the dull associations of his accountant's office ; and of constant famiharity with irksome endurance and domestic anxiety he had, as we shall see, more than enough. His literary activi- ties were in part a wise recourse and refuge from these, an escape to the inner world of the spirit. He wrote as he could command time and occasion : some poetry, but mostly prose, for which his genius was Introduction 13 better adapted ; a story of quiet and somewhat sombre sentiment, Rosamund Gray ; two or tliree unsuccessful plays, better fitted for reading than for the stage ; tales from the Odyssey re-told for children, tales from Shake- speare also for children, written in collaboration with his sister ; and some very penetrative critical estimates of the Elizabethan dramatists, which won him an eminent place among critics for his power to interpret the finer spirit of literature. The work, however, by which he is best known and for which he is most loved is the Essays of Elia, and Later Essays of Elia, contributed to the London Magazine from 1820 to 1825, and later collected in two volumes. In these his peculiar genius, coming late to flower, found its true and inimitable expression ; a genius in the free play of which one of the most charming personalities of Enghsh literature is revealed. Ill Some Traits of his Personality. — We do not come to these Essays of Elia for the sake of any precise and for- mal information, nor for didactic precepts of life and conduct ; and yet we find ourselves gaining from them direction of a finer and more vital kind ; we find our- selves also, we hardly know how, on better terms with life. The secret lies in the fact that they are the mirror of a personality which, with all its lightness, its whimsey, its sly humour, has the sw^eetest and finest elements of 14 Essays of Elia life at heart. , He weaves these essays together out of the simplest materials : his childhood experiences, his school-days, his old-time friends, l;is chance acquaint- ances, casual happenings of his life, quaint fancies, odd scraps of reading and quotation ; yet out of these all the main effect is that of a kindly personality in whose tastes and sentiments we share with delight. It will be the task, or rather pleasure, of our reading to enter pro- gressively into the spirit of these traits as they appear in essay after essay ; so they need not be analysed or enlarged upon here. In order, however, to understand the man better as we read, we may bear in mind some circumstances of his literary and domestic life. I . And first, as to why and in what sort he turned to the literary life at all ; he, to outward seeming, merely an accountant with a bent that way. Spending his best hours every day in the routine of his clerkship, he must needs make his literary pursuits a by-labour, an avoca- tion. They had not the system or absorbing strenuous- ness of a principal motive, like, for instance. Gibbon's devotion to a historic theme or Tennyson's single-minded consecration to the great values of poetry ; nor, on the other hand, were they work for a living. They dealt rather with the incidents and sentiments that come into daily life by the way, and come unforced. Lamb's mind turned naturally to the quaint old writers of the past ; not, however, as an investigator or as a critic ; rather in a real affection, in which he dwelt and com- Introduction 15 muned with them as with famihar friends. His relation to his books was almost a personal one. Just so with his writings, whose personal quality is their chief strain, much hke confessions : sentiments of the gentler and more delicate kind, in which his humours, his likings, and dis- likings, in a word, his personal sympathies, were freely reflected. His sympathies, but not in such degree his antipathies. It was not in him to be a good hater ; at most he could confess to imperfect sympathies. He could indeed see keenly into men's weaknesses and fail- ings ; but the redeeming traits or the extenuating con- ditions were also so sympathetically realized that his judgments of human nature w^ere never severe. It was not with the great passions of life that he was concerned, nor with the romantic sentiments ; rather with the com- mon affections, and with the gentle gusts of humour and pathos in which the whole world can smile and weep together. 2. As his relation to books was one of affection, so also his relation to his personal acquaintances. Noth- ing is more salient in Lamb's life than his rare talent for friendship. We get a fair idea of the range and quality of this from his letters, which, as collected and published, are among the not too numerous classics of English epistolary literature. A better idea, however, is obtained from his famous Wednesday evenings ; an institution, if a thing so informal may be thus termed, comparable to the well-known Dr. Johnson Club of an earlier time. The modest lodgings of Charles and 1 6 Essays of Elia Mary Lamb, wherever they were, were a kind of rally- ing place for friends and admirers who lived or happened to be stopping in London. There were artists, men of thought, and men of letters among them ; such leading spirits as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Hazlitt, Godwin, Manning, Barton, Leigh Hunt, Carey; also a goodly proportion of odd or eccentric characters, for whom Lamb had an especial fondness and attraction. Here all spoke their minds with utmost freedom, and all could agree to differ. The things new and old that belonged to the prevailing literary spirit of the time were here exploited. Nor were these gatherings merely a clearing-house of literary ideas. According to the free custom of those days, the " plain living and high thinking " of the occasion included a strongly convivial element, of which Lamb's genial personality was the heart and soul. Here we have to mention Lamb's chief failing. It must be owned that his love of good-fellowship was rather too much for temperate habits ; he was too fond of drink. His wit also, and his tricksey spirit of reaction against whatever was stupid or pretentious, sometimes carried him away, so that he was betrayed, especially when mellowed with an evening's conviviality, into remarks or conduct which belied his real seriousness of mind and kindness of heart. None of this, however, was laid up against him, or ever alienated a friend. He was his own worst enemy, and his very weaknesses were in a w^ay charm- ing and lovable. Introduction 17 3. If his manner of speech and his buoyancy of humour seemed to indicate, to a superficial or unsym- pathetic observer, a certain shallowness or levity of character, there was that in his daily life, unspoken yet well known to his friends, which disproved all this. Here we come to the tragic event which largely deter- mined the conditions of Charles Lamb's life, and which must be reckoned with in estimating the vital elements of his writings. On September 22, 1796, when he was in his twenty-second year, his sister Mary, ten years older, in a sudden fit of mania killed her mother. She recovered her reason, but all her life long (and she lived to survive him) was subject to recurrent attacks of insanity, which gradually increased in length and frequency. To keep her from permanent detention in a hospital, Charles gave " his solemn engagement that he would take her under his care for life." He found her a home in a private family, and after the death of his parents brother and sister lived together, he giving up the thought of marrying. She is the Bridget Elia of his essays, of whom he says, " we house together, old bachelor and maid, in a sort of double singleness." A congenial domestic life it was, in which the two were quite atone in literary and social interests; yet in thinking of it we remember what a Hfelong sacrifice he cheerfully and silently underwent for it; we think also how often and sadly it was interrupted for months at a time by her periods of insanity, when she must needs be removed from home. We cannot tax with ESSAYS OF ELIA — 2 1 8 Essays of Elia levity or frivolity the character of one whose life, under the perpetual tension of anxiety, was so nobly lived. As we look for the effects of this tragic undercurrent of Lamb's life in his works, we find it manifested in very peculiar ways, yet psychologically true to human nature. His prevaihng lightness, humour, oddity, M^ere in effect a reaction, an escape. The criticism has been made that he evaded serious things and ignored the deep issues of life. There is some colour of truth in the charge. But for a man of his temperament — for he him- self once had a period of madness — to have brooded on his experience, or to have drawn it out into literature, would have been his ruin. Doubtless his safety and sanity lay in the farthest possible escape from the thought and anguish of it. And the escape was made, not merely toward eccentricity, nor does the charm of his works lie in that ; it was made more truly toward the kindliness, the tenderness, the delicate regard for the unfortunate, the loving sympathy, which pervade his writings. To Carlyle, the strenuous Puritan, he might seem almost an imbecile ; to Thackeray, who himself knew a similar sorrow, he was " Saint Charles." IV The Essays of Elia. — The Essays of Elia were con- tributed to the London Magazijie; the first one, entitled The South-Sea House, appearing in the number for August, 1820. Later they were gathered and published Introduction 19 in book form, the first series in 1823, the second in 1833. As periodical articles they were a very popular feature of the Magazine. Only one edition of them in book form, however, appeared in the remaining twelve years of Lamb's life ; though the editions that have been pubhshed since his death are ''practically uncount- able." For the name Elia (which it seems he pronounced Ellia), Lamb took the name of a clerk at the South-Sea House, an Italian, whom he had known there. Visiting the place afterward in order to laugh with the original EHa over his unasked use of the name. Lamb found that the clerk had been dead eleven months ; " so," he says, " the name has fairly devolved to me, I think ; and 'tis all he has left me." The essays here selected from Essays of Elia and Last Essays of Elia do not follow the order in which they were first published in the London Magazine and later collected in two volumes. Rather, as they are largely in the nature of reminiscence, they will be found to follow roughly the course of Lamb's life, from mem- ories of school, childhood, and youth, to his retiring from his position as clerk in the East India House ; so, first seeing him as a boy in Christ's Hospital, w^e leave him as he becomes a " Superannuated Man. " Besides these papers so charged with autobiographical matter, selec- tions VII to XIII form a somewhat like-minded group, giving a kind of description of Lamb's ruling tastes and sympathies. 20 Essays of Elia In leaving now the essays to speak for themselves, we may close this Introduction with a few words from E. V. Lucas's Life of Chaises Lamb : ^ — " The life of Charles Lamb ... is the narrative of one who was a man and brother first, an East India clerk next, and a writer afterwards. Hence . . . the story is that rather of a private individual who chanced to have literary genius than of a man of letters in the ordinary sense of the term." Of the Essays of Elia Lucas says : — " Their ' facts ' are not of the utilitarian order ; their humour leads rarely to loud laughter, rather to the quiet smile ; they are not stories, they are not poems ; they are not difficult enough to suggest ' mental im- provement ' to those who count it loss unless they are^ puzzled, nor simple enough for those who demand of their authors no confounded nonsense. — /At the same time English literature has nothing that in its way is better than Elia^s best. The blend of sanity, sweet reasonableness, tender fancy, high imagination, sym- pathetic understanding of human nature, and humour, now wistful, now frolicsome, with literary skill of un- surpassed delicacy, makes Elia unique." 1 Lucas, The Life of Charles Lamb, Vol. II, p. 60. CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE-AND-THIRTY YEARS AGO In Mr. Lamb's " Works," published a year or two since, I find a magnificent eulogy on my old school/ such as it was, or now appears to him to have been, between the years 1782 and 1789. It happens, very oddly, that my own standing at Christ's was nearly corresponding with 5 his ; and, with all gratitude to him for his enthusiasm for the cloisters, I think he has contrived to bring together whatever can be said in praise of them, dropping all the other side of the argument most ingeniously. I remember L. at school ; and can well recollect that he 10 had some peculiar advantages, which I and others of his school-fellows had not. His friends lived in town, and were near at hand ; and he had the privilege of going to see them, almost as often as he wished, through some invidious distinction, which was denied to us. The pres- 15 ent worthy sub-treasurer to the Inner Temple can explain how that happened. He had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening upon our quarter of a ^ Recollections of Christ's Hospital. [C. L. ] The notes which Lamb himself appended to the text, which are here numbered continuously with the rest, are marked by the letters C. L. in brackets. 22 Essays of Elia penny loaf — our crug^ — moistened with attenuated small beer, in wooden piggins, smacking of the pitched leathern jack it was poured from. Our Monday's milk porridge, blue and tasteless, and the pease soup of Saturday, coarse 5 and choking, were enriched for him with a slice of "extraordinary bread and butter" from the hot-loaf of the Temple. The Wednesday's mess of millet, some- what less repugnant — (we had three banyan^ to four meat days in the week) — was endeared to his palate with a lump lo of double-refined,^ and a smack of ginger (to make it go down the more glibly) or the fragrant cinnamon. In lieu of our half-pickled Sundays, or quite fresh boiled beef on Thursdays (strong as caro equina) j"^ With, detestable mari- golds floating in the pail to poison the broth — our scanty 15 mutton crags on Fridays — and rather more savoury, but grudging, portions of the same flesh, rotten-roasted^ or rare, on the Tuesdays (the only dish which excited our appetites, and disappointed our stomachs, in almost equal proportion) — he had his hot plate of roast veal, or the 20 more tempting griskin^ (exotics unknown to our palates), cooked in the paternal kitchen (a great thing), and brought him daily by his maid or aunt ! I remember the good old relative (in whom love forbade pride) squatting down 1 This word, which the context defines, is local slang, still in use at the school. 2 Vegetarian. Name of a British navy regulation. ^ I.e. sugar. * Horse-flesh. ^ I.e. overdone. 6 "The small bones taken out of the flitch of a bacon-pig." Century Dictionary. A provincial English word. Christ's Hospital 23 upon some odd stone in a by-nook of the cloisters, dis- closing the viands (of higher regale than those cates which the ravens ministered to the Tishbite); and the contending passions of L. at the unfolding. There was love for the bringer, shame for the thing brought, and the 5 manner of its bringing ; sympathy for those who were too many to share in it ; and, at top of all, hunger (eldest, strongest of the passions !) predominant, breaking down the stony fences of shame, and awkwardness, and a troubling over-consciousness. 10 I was a poor friendless boy. My parents, and those who should care for me, were far away. Those few ac- quaintances of theirs, which they could reckon upon being kind to me in the great city, after a little forced notice, which they had the grace to take of me on my 15 first arrival in town, soon grew tired of my holiday visits. They seemed to them to recur too often, though I thought them few enough ; and, one after another, they all failed me, and I felt myself alone among six hundred playmates. O the cruelty of separating a poor lad from his early 20 homestead ! The yearnings which I used to have towards it in those unfledged years ! How, in my dreams, would my native town (far in the west) come back, with its church, and trees, and faces ! How I would wake weep- ing, and in the anguish of my heart exclaim upon sweet 25 Calne in Wiltshire ! To this late hour of my life, I trace impressions left by the recollection of those friendless hoHdays. The long warm days of summer never return but they bring with 24 Essays of Elia them a gloom from the haunting memory of those whole- day-leaves, when, by some strange arrangement, we were turned out, for the livelong day, upon our own hands, whether we had friends to go to, or none. I remember 5 those bathing-excursions to the New River, which L. recalls with such rehsh, better, I think, than he can — for he was a home-seeking lad, and did not much care for such water- pastimes : — How merrily we would sally forth into the fields ; and strip under the first warmth of the sun ; and lo wanton^ like young dace in the streams ; getting us appe- tites for noon, which those of us that were pennyless (our scanty morning crust long since exhausted) had not the means of allaying — while the cattle, and the birds, and the fishes, were at feed about us, and we had nothing to sat- isisfy our cravings — the very beauty of the day, and the exercise of the pastime, and the sense of liberty, setting a keener edge upon them ! — How faint and languid, finally, we would return, towards nightfall, to our desired morsel, half-rejoicing, half- reluctant, that the hours of our uneasy 20 liberty had expired ! It was worse in the days of winter, to go prowling about the streets objectless — shivering at cold windows of print- shops, to extract a little amusement; or haply, as a last resort, in the hope of a Httle novelty, to pay a fifty-times 25 repeated visit (where our individual faces should be as well known to the warden as those of his own charges) to the Lions in the Tower — to whose lev^e, by courtesy im- memorial, we had a prescriptive title to admission. 1 Note that the word wanton is here used as a verb. Christ's Hospital 25 L.'s governor^ (so we called the patron who presented us to the foundation) lived in a manner under his pater- nal roof. Any complaint which he had to make was sure of being attended to. This was understood at Christ's, and was an effectual screen to him against the severity of 5 masters, or worse tyranny of the monitors. The oppres- sions of these young brutes are heart-sickening to call to recollection. I have been called out of my bed, and waked for the purpose, in the coldest winter nights — and this not once, but night after night — in my shirt, to 10 receive the disciphne of a leathern thong, with eleven other sufferers, because it pleased my callow overseer, when there has been any talking heard after we were gone to bed, to make the six last beds in the dormitory, where the youngest children of us slept, answerable for 15 an offence they neither dared to commit, nor had the power to hinder. — The same execrable tyranny drove the younger part of us from the fires, when our feet were per- ishing with snow ; and, under the crudest penalties, for- bade the indulgence of a drink of water, when we lay in 20 sleepless summer nights, fevered with the season, and the day's sports. There was one H ^ who, I learned, in after days^ was seen expiating some maturer offence in the hulks. ^ 1 Samuel Salt, under whose roof Lamb's father lived; a member of Parliament, and a governor of the South-Sea House. ^ According to a Key v^hich Lamb furnished to some of his essays, the name was Hodges. ^ Old or dismasted ships, formerly used in England for prisons. 26 Essays of Elia (Do I flatter myself in fancying that this might be the planter of that name, who suffered — at Nevis, I think, or St. Kitts, — some few years since? My friend Tobin^ was the benevolent instrument of bringing him to the 5 gallows.) This petty Nero actually bra^ided a boy, who had offended him, with a red-hot iron ; and nearly starved forty of us, with exacting contributions, to the one half of our bread, to pamper a young ass, which, incredible as it may seem, with the connivance of the nurse's daughter lo (a young flame of his) he had contrived to smuggle in, and keep upon the leads of the wai^d, as they called our dormitories. This game went on for better than a week, tin the foolish beast, not able to fare well but he must cry roast meat — happier than Caligula's minion, could he have IS kept his own counsel — but, foolisher, alas ! than any of his species in the fables — waxing fat, and kicking, in the fullness of bread, one unlucky minute would needs pro- claim his good fortune to the world below ; and, laying out his simple throat, blew such a ram's horn blast, as (top- 20 pling down the walls of his own Jericho) set concealment any longer at defiance. The chent was dismissed, with certain attentions, to Smithfield ; but I never understood that the patron underwent any censure on the occasion. This was in the stewardship of L.'s admired Perry. 25 Under the same/^r//*? administration, can L. have for- gotten the cool impunity with which the nurses used to carry away openly, in open platters, for their own tables, 1 James Webbe Tobin, of Nevis, died 1814. Christ's Hospital 27 one out of two of every hot joint, which the careful matron had been seeing scrupulously weighed out for our dinners ? These things were daily practised in that magnificent apart- ment, which L. (grown connoisseur since, we presume) praises so highly for the grand paintings " by Verrio, and 5 others," with which it is " hung round and adorned." But the sight of sleek well-fed blue-coat boys in pictures was, at that time, I believe, little consolatory to him, or us, the living ones, who saw the better part of our provisions car- ried away before our faces by harpies ; and ourselves re- 10 duced (with the Trojan in the hall of Dido) To feed our mind with idle portraiture. L. has recorded the repugnance of the school to gags, ^ or the fat of fresh beef boiled ; and sets it down to some superstition. But these unctuous morsels are never grate- 15 ful to young palates (children are universally fat-haters) and in strong, coarse, boiled meats, unsalted, are detest- able. A gag-eater in our time was equivalent to a goul, and held in equal detestation. ^ suffered under the imputation. 20 'Twas said He ate strange flesh. He was observed, after dinner, carefully to gather up the ■ remnants left at his table (not many, nor very choice frag- ments, you may credit me) — and, in an especial manner, 25 these disreputable morsels, which he would convey away, 1 A slang word, still current. 2 Lamb's Key does not supply this name. 2 8 Essays of Elia and secretly stow in the settle that stood at his bedside. None saw when he ate them. It was rumoured that he privately devoured them in the night. He was watched, but no traces of such midnight practices were discover- 5 able. Some reported, that, on leave-days, he had been seen to carry out of the bounds a large blue check hand- kerchief, full of something. This then must be the ac- cursed thing. Conjecture next was at work to imagine how he could dispose of it. Some said he sold it to the lo beggars. This belief generally prevailed. He went about moping. None spake to him. No one would play with him. He was excommunicated ; put out of the pale of the school. He was too powerful a boy to be beaten, but he underwent every mode of that negative punishment which 15 is more grievous than many stripes. Still he persevered. At length he was observed by two of his school-fellows, who were determined to get at the secret, and had traced him one leave-day for that purpose, to enter a large worn- out building, such as there exist specimens of in Chancery 20 Lane, which are let out to various scales of pauperism with open door, and a common staircase. After him they silently slunk in, and followed by stealth up four flights, and saw him tap at a poor wicket, which was opened by an aged woman, meanly clad. Suspicion was now 25 ripened into certainty. The informers had secured their victim. They had him in their toils. Accusation was formally preferred and retribution most signal was looked for. Mr. Hathaway, the then steward (for this happened a little after my time), with that patient sagacity which Christ's Hospital 29 tempered all his conduct, determined to investigate the matter before he proceeded to sentence. The result was, that the supposed mendicants, the receivers or purchasers of the mysterious scraps, turned out to be the parents of , an honest couple come to decay, — whom this sea- 5 sonable supply had, in all probability, saved from mendi- cancy ; and that this young stork, at the expense of his own good name, had all this while been only feeding the old birds ! — The governors on this occasion, much to their honour, voted a present relief to the family of , and 10 presented him with a silver medal. The lesson which the steward read upon rash judgment, on the occasion of publicly delivering the medal to , I believC;, would not be lost upon his auditory. — I had left school then, but I well remember . He was a tall, shambHng youth, 15 with a cast in his eye, not at all calculated to conciliate hos- tile prejudices. I have since seen him carrying a baker's basket. I think I heard he did not do quite so well by himself, as he had done by the old folks. I was a hypochondriac lad ; and the sight of a boy in 20 fetters, upon the day of my first putting on the blue clothes, was not exactly fitted to assuage the natural terrors of initia- tion. I was of tender years, barely turned of seven ; and had only read of such things in books, or seen them but in dreams. I was told he had run away. This was the pun- 25 ishment for the first offence. — As a novice I was soon after taken to see the dungeons. These were little, square. Bed- lam cells, where a boy could just lie at his length upon straw and a blanket — a mattress, I think, was afterwards JO Essays of Elia substituted — with a peep of light, let in askance, from a prison-orifice at top,' barely enough to read by. Here the poor boy was locked in by himself all day, without sight of any but the porter who brought him his bread and water -7- 5 who might not speak to him; — or of the beadle ; who came twice a week to call him out to receive his periodical chas- tisement, which was almost welcome, because it separated him for a brief interval from solitude : — and here he was shut up by himself of nights, out of the reach of any sound, 10 to suffer whatever horrors the weak nerves, and supersti- tion incident to his time of Hfe, might subject him to.^ This was the penalty for the second offence. — Wouldst thou like. Reader, to see what became of him in the next degree ? 15 The culprit, who had been a third time an offender, and whose expulsion was at this time deemed irreversible, was brought forth, as at some solemn auto-da-fe^ arrayed in uncouth and most appalling attire — all trace of his late " watchet^ weeds " carefully effaced, he was exposed in a 20 jacket, resembhng those which London lamplighters for- merly dehghted in, with a cap of the same. The effect 1 One or two instances of lunacy, or attempted suicide, accord- ingly, at length convinced the governors of the impolicy of this part of the sentence, and the midnight torture to the spirits was dis- pensed with. — This fancy of dungeons for children was a sprout of Howard's brain; for which (saving the reverence due to Holy Paul) methinks, I could willingly spit upon his statue. [C. L.] 2 Lit. act of faith. The Spanish term for an execution of heretics under the Inquisition. ^ Blue. The phrase taken from an ode by Collins. Christ's Hospital ,31 of this divestiture was such as the ingenious devisers of it could have anticipated. With his pale and frighted fea- tures, it was as if some of those disfigurements in Dante had seized upon him. In this disguisement he was brought into the hall (^L.^ s favourite state-roovi)^ where awaited him 5 the whole number of his school-fellows, whose joint les- sons and sports he was thenceforth to share no more ; the awful presence of the steward, to be seen for the last time ; of the executioner beadle, clad in his state robe for the occasion ; and of two faces more, of direr import, be- 10 cause never but in these extremities visible. These were governors ; two of whom, by choice, or charter, were always accustomed to officiate at these Ultima Supplicia;'^ not to mitigate (so at least we understood it), but to enforce the uttermost stripe. Old Bamber Gascoigne, and Peter 15 Aubert, I remember, were colleagues on one occasion, when the beadle turning rather pale, a glass of brandy was ordered to prepare him for the mysteries. The scourging was, after the old Roman fashion, long and stately. The lictor accompanied the criminal quite round 20 the hall. We were generally too faint with attending to the previous disgusting circumstances, to make accurate report with our eyes of the degree of corporal suffering infficted. Report, of course, gave out the back knotty and livid. After scourging, he was made over, in his 25 San Benito^ to his friends, if he had any (but commonly 1 I.e. room of state. 2 Extreme penalties. ^ The yellow robe worn by victims at an atito-da-fe ; lit. "St. Benedict," from the cut of the Benedictine robe. 32 Essays of Elia such poor runagates were friendless), or to his parish officer, who, to enhance the effect of the scene, had his station allotted to him on the outside of the hall gate. These solemn pageantries were not played off so often 5 as to spoil the general mirth of the community. We had plenty of exercise and recreation after school hours ; and, for myself, I must confess, that I was never happier, than in them. The Upper and the Lower Grammar Schools were held in the same room ; and an imaginary line only lo divided their bounds. Their character was as different as that of the inhabitants on the two sides of the Pyre- nees. The Rev. James Boyer was the Upper Master ; but the Rev. Matthew Field presided over that portion of the apartment, of which I had the good fortune to be a mem- 15 ber. We hved a life as careless as birds. We talked and did just what we pleased, and nobody molested us. We carried an accidence,^ or a grammar, for form ; but, for any trouble it gave us, we might take two years in getting through the verbs deponent, and another two in forget- 2o ting all that we had learned about them. There was now and then the formality of saying a lesson, but if you had not learned it, a brush across the shoulders (just enough to disturb a fly) was the sole remonstrance. Field never used the rod ; and in truth he wielded the cane with no 25 great goodwill — holding it "like a dancer." It looked in his hands rather like an emblem than an instrument of authority ; and an emblem, too, he was ashamed of He 1 A small book containing the rudiments (formerly called acci- dents) of grammar. Christ's Hospital 23 was a good easy man, that did not care to ruffle his own • peace, nor perhaps set any great consideration upon the value of juvenile time. He came among us, now and then, but often stayed away whole days from us ; and when he came, it made no difference to us — he had his private 5 room to retire to, the short time he staid, to be out of the sound of our noise. Our mirth and uproar went on. We had classics of our own, without being beholden to " insolent Greece or haughty Rome," that passed current among us — Peter Wilkins — The Adventures of the 10 Hon. Captain Robert Boyle — The Fortunate Blue- coat Boy — and the like. Or we cultivated a turn for mechanic or scientific operations ; making little sun-dials of paper ; or weaving those ingenious parentheses, called cat-c7'adles ; or making dry peas to dance upon the end of 15 a tin pipe ; or studying the art military over that laudable game *' French and English," and a hundred other such devices to pass away the time — mixing the useful with the agreeable — as would have made the souls of Rousseau and John Locke chuckle to have seen us. 20 Matthew Field belonged to that class of modest divines who affect to mix in equal proportion the gentleman, the scholar^ and the Christian; but, I know not how, the first ingredient is generally found to be the predominating dose in the composition. He was engaged in gay parties, 25 or with his courtly bow at some episcopal levee, when he should have been attending upon us. He had for many years the classical charge of a hundred children, during the four or five first years of their education ; and his very ESSAYS OF ELIA — 3 34 Essays of Elia highest form^ seldom proceeded further than two or three of the introductory fables of Phsedrus. How things were suffered to go on thus, I cannot guess. Boyer, who was the proper person to have remedied these abuses, 5 always affected, perhaps felt, a delicacy in interfering in a province not strictly his own. I have not been without my suspicions, that he was not altogether displeased at the contrast we presented to his end of the school. We were a sort of Helots to his young Spartans. He would some- lo times, with ironic deference, send to borrow a rod of the Under Master, and then, with sardonic grin, observe to one of his upper boys, " how neat and fresh the twigs looked." While his pale students were battering their brains over Xenophon and Plato, with a silence as deep 15 as that enjoyed by the Samite, we were enjoying ourselves at our ease in our Httle Goshen. We saw a little into the secrets of his discipHne, and the prospect did but the more reconcile us to our lot. His thunders rolled innoc- uous for us ; his storms came near, but never touched us ; 20 contrary to Gideon's miracle, while all around were drenched, our fleece was dry.^ His boys turned out the better scholars ; we, I suspect, have the advantage in temper. His pupils cannot speak of him without some- thing of terror allaying their gratitude ; the remembrance 25 of Field comes back with all the soothing images of indo- lence, and summer slumbers, and work Hke play, and inno- 1 Bench. The English term equivalent to our "grade" or " class." ^ Cowley. [C. L.] Christ's Hospital 35 cent idleness, and Elysian exemptions, and life itself a " playing holiday." Though sufficiently removed from the jurisdiction of Boyer, we were near enough (as I have said) to under- stand a little of his system. We occasionally heard 5 sounds of the Ululantes} and caught glances of Tartarus. B. was a rabid pedant. His English style was cramped to barbarism. His Easter anthems (for his duty obliged him to those periodical flights) were grating as scrannel ^ pipes.^ — He would laugh, ay, and heartily, but then it 10 must be at Flaccus's quibble about Rex^ — or at the tristis severitas in vultu^ or inspicere in patinas,^ of Terence — thin jests, which at their first broaching could hardly have had z;/j- '^ enough to move a Roman muscle. — He had two 1 Howling ones. The idea is from Virgil, yEjteid, vi. 557. 2 Thin, squeaking. Milton's term, see Lycidas, 124. ^ In this and everything B. was the antipodes of his coadjutor. While the former was digging his brains for crude anthems, worth a pig-nut, F. would be recreating his gentlemanly fancy in the more flowery walks of the Muses. A little dramatic effusion of his, under the name of Vertumnus and Pomona, is not yet forgotten by the chroniclers of that sort of literature. It was accepted by Garrick, but the town did not give it their sanction. — B.used to say of it, in a way of half-compliment, half- irony, that it was too classical for representation. [C. L.] * In the original, the quibble turns on the double meaning of rex as a private surname, and rex, a king. ^ Puritanic rigour in his countenance, — used by Terence, And. 5. 2. 16. to describe a hypocritical liar. 6 To look into stew-pans, as in a mirror, — a counsel given to scullions. '^ Force, or point. ^6 Essays of Elia wigs, both pedantic, but of differing omen. The one serene, smiling, fresh powdered, betokening a mild day. The other, an old, discoloured, unkempt, angry caxon,^ denoting frequent and bloody execution. Woe to the 5 school, when he made his morning appearance in his passy OT passionate wig. No comet expounded surer. — J. B. had a heavy hand. I have known him double his knotty fist at a poor trembling child (the maternal milk hardly dry upon its lips) with a " Sirrah, do you presume loto set your wits at me ?" — Nothing was more common than to see him make a headlong entry into the school- room, from his inner recess, or library, and, with turbulent eye, singling out a lad, roar out, " Od's my life, Sirrah," (his favourite adjuration) " I have a great mind to whip 15 you," — then, with as sudden a retracting impulse, fling back into his lair — and, after a cooling lapse of some min- utes (during which all but the culprit had totally forgotten the context) drive headlong out again, piecing out his im- perfect sense, as if it had been some Devil's Litany, with 20 the expletory yell — '^ and I^niia., too^ — In his gentler moods, when the rabidus fiiror'^ was assuaged, he had resort to an ingenious method, peculiar, for what I have heard, to himself, of whipping the boy, and reading the Debates,^ at the same time ; a paragraph, and a lash be- 25 tween ; which in those times, when parliamentary oratory was most at a height and flourishing in these realms, was 1 An old cant term for a wig; origin unknown. 2 Rabid rage. Probably from Catullus 63. 38. 3 That is, the reports of speeches in Parliament. Christ's Hospital 37 not calculated to impress the patient with a veneration for the diffuser graces of rhetoric. Once, and but once, the uplifted rod was known to fall ineffectual from his hand — when droll-squinting W ^ having been caught putting the inside of the master's 5 desk to a use for which the architect had clearly not de- signed it, to justify himself, with great sim;~licity averred, that he did not know that the thing had been forewarned. This exquisite irrecognition of any law antecedent to the oral or declaratory, struck so irresistibly upon the fancy iq of all who heard it (the pedagogue himself not excepted) that remission was unavoidable. L. has given credit to B.'s great merits as an instructor. Coleridge, in his hterary life, has pronounced a more in- telligible and ample encomium on them. The author of 15 the Country Spectator doubts not to compare him with the ablest teachers of antiquity. Perhaps we cannot dismiss him better than with the pious ejaculation of Q? — when he heard that his old master was on his death- bed — " Poor J. B. ! — may all his faults be forgiven ; and 20 may he be wafted to bhss by little cherub boys, all head and wings, with no bottoms to reproach his sublunary infirmities." Under him were many good and sound scholars bred. — First Grecian of my time was Lancelot Pepys Stevens, 25 kindest of boys and men, since co- grammar master (and inseparable companion) with Dr. T e.^ What an 1 Not identifiable. ^ That is, Coleridge. 3 Arthur William Trollope (1768-1827). 38 Essays of Elia edifying spectacle did this brace of friends present to those who remembered the anti-sociaUties of their prede- cessors ! — You never met the one by chance in the street without a wonder, which was quickly dissipated by the 5 almost immediate sub-appearance of the other. Gener- ally arm-in-arm, these kindly coadjutors lightened for each other the toilsome duties of their profession, and when, in advanced age, one found it convenient to retire, the other was not long in discovering that it suited him 10 to lay down the fasces ^ also. Oh, it is pleasant, as it is rare, to find the same arm linked in yours at forty, which at thirteen helped it to turn over the Cicero De A??iicitia or some tale of Antique Friendship, which the young heart even then was burning to anticipate ! — Co-Grecian 15 with S. was Th / who has since executed with ability various diplomatic functions at the Northern Courts. Th was a tall, dark, saturnine youth, sparing of speech, with raven locks. — Thomas Fanshaw Middleton followed him (now Bishop of Calcutta), a scholar and a 20 gentleman in his teens. He has the reputation of an ex- cellent critic ; and is author (besides the Country Spec- tator) of a treatise on the Greek Article, against Sharpe. — M. is said to bear his mitre high in India, where the regni novitas ^ (I dare say) sufficiently justifies the bear- 1 Here the birch rod. The word designates the bundle of rods, carried by the lictor before a Roman magistrate. 2 Sir Edward Thornton (i 766-1852), a diplomatist. 3 Novelty of dominion ; an allusion to his being theyfrj/ Bishop of Calcutta. The phrase from Virgil, /Eneid, i. 563. Christ's Hospital 39 ing. A humility quite as primitive as that of Jewel or Hooker might not be exactly fitted to impress the minds of those Anglo-Asiatic diocesans with a reverence for home institutions, and the church which those fathers watered. The manners of M. at school, though firm, 5 were mild, and unassuming. — Next to M. (if not senior to him) was Richards, author of the Aboriginal Britons, the most spirited of the Oxford Prize Poems ; a pale, studious Grecian. — Then followed poor S , ill-fated M ! ^ of these the Muse is silent. 10 Finding some of Edward's race Unhappy, pass their annals by. Come back into memory, Hke as thou wert in the day- spring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee — the dark pillar not yet turned — Samuel Taylor 15 Coleridge — Logician, Metaphysician, Bard ! — How have I seen the casual passer through the Cloisters stand still, entranced with admiration (while he weighed the dispro- portion between the speech and the garb of the young Mirandula), to hear thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet 20 intonations, the mysteries of Jamblichus, or Plotinus (for even in those years thou waxedst not pale at such philo- sophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek, or Pindar — while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed to the accents of the inspired charity-boy ! — Many were 25 the " wit-combats," (to dally awhile with the words of old 1 Of these the Key says, " Scott, died in Bedlam," and " Maunde, dismiss'd school." 40 Essays of Elia Fuller,) between him and C. V. Le G ,^ " which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon, and an English man- of-war ; Master Coleridge, like the former, was built far higher in learning, solid, but slow in his performances. 5 C. V. L., with the EngHsh man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in saihng, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention." Nor shalt thou, their compeer, be quickly forgotten, lo Allen, with the cordial smile, and still more cordial laugh, with which thou wert wont to make the old Cloisters shake, in thy cognition^ of some poignant jest of theirs; or the anticipation of some more material, and, peradven- ture, practical one, of thine own. Extinct are those smiles, IS with that beautiful countenance, with which (for thou wert the Nireus formosus^ of the school), in the days of thy maturer waggery, thou didst disarm the wrath of infuriated town-damsel, who, incensed by provoking pinch, turning tigress-like round, suddenly converted 20 by thy angel look, exchanged the half-formed terrible "<^/ ,"^ for a gentler greeting — ^^ bless thy handsome face! " Next follow two, who ought to be now alive, and the 1 Charles Valentine Le Grice (i 773-1 858). An anecdote is re- lated of him in the essay Grace before Meat, p. 136. ^ I.e. appreciation. One of Lamb's quaintnesses in the use of words. 3 Handsome Nireus; Homer, Iliad, ii. 673, Latinized. * Perhaps she started to say "blast. " Christ's Hospital 41 friends of Elia — the junior Le G ^ and F ^ ; who impelled, the former by a roving temper, the latter by too quick a sense of neglect — ill capable of enduring the slights poor Sizars are sometimes subject to in our seats of learning — exchanged their Alma Mater for the camp ; 5 perishing, one by climate, and one on the plains of Sala- manca : — Le G , sanguine, volatile, sweet-natured ; F dogged, faithful, anticipative of insult, warm- hearted, with something of the old Roman height about him. ' . 10 Fine, frank-hearted Fr ,^ the present master of Hertford, with Marmaduke T ,* mildest of Mission- aries — and both my good friends still — close the cata- logue of Grecians in my time. 1 Samuel Le Grice, who became a soldier and died in the West Indies. 2 Joseph Favell, afterwards Captain, and killed at Salamanca, in the Peninsula. In the essay on Poo^ Relations he figures as " W"; see p. 91. 3 Frederick William Franklin, afterwards Master of one branch of the school. * Marmaduke Thompson, to whom Lamb dedicated Rosamtmd Gray. MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE Bridget Elia has been my housekeeper for many a long year. I have obHgations to Bridget, extending beyond the period of memory. We house together, old bachelor and maid, in a sort of double singleness ; ^ with 5 such tolerable comfort, upon the whole, that I, for one, find in myself no sort of disposition to go out upon the mountains, with the rash king's offspring, to bewail my celibacy. We agree pretty well in our tastes and habits — yet so, as "with a difference." We are generally in har- lo mony, with occasional bickerings — as it should be among near relations. Our sympathies are rather understood, than expressed ; and once, upon my dissembhng a tone in my voice more kind* than ordinary, my cousin burst into tears, and complained that I was altered. We are both IS great readers in different directions. While I am hang- ing over (for the thousandth time) some passage in old Burton, or one of his- strange contemporaries, she is abstracted in some modern tale, or adventure, whereof our common reading-table is daily fed with assiduously fresh 20 supplies. Narrative teases me. I have little concern in the progress of events. She must have a story — well, ill, or indifferently told — so there be life stirring in it, and 1 A play on the familiar phrase " double blessedness," used of marriage. 42 Mackery End, in Hertfordshire 43 plenty of good or evil accidents.^ The fluctuations of for- tune in fiction — and almost in real life — have ceased to interest, or operate but dully upon me. Out-of-the-way humours and opinions — heads with some diverting twist in them — the oddities of authorship please me most. My 5 cousin has a native disrehsh of anything that sounds odd or bizarre. Nothing goes down with her, that is quaint, irregular, or out of the road of common sympathy. She "holds Nature more clever." I can pardon her blind- ness to the beautiful obliquities of the Religio Medici ; 10 but she must apologize to me for certain disrespectful insinuations, which she has been pleased to throw out latterly, touching the intellectuals ^ of a dear favourite of mine, of the last century but one — the thrice noble, chaste, and virtuous, — but again somewhat fantastical, 15 and original-brain 'd, generous Margaret Newcastle. It has been the lot of my cousin, oftener perhaps than I could have wished, to have had for her associates and mine, free-thinkers — leaders, and disciples, of novel philosophies and systems ; but she neither wrangles with, nor accepts, 20 their opinions. That which was good and venerable to her, when a child, retains its authority over her mind still. She never juggles or plays tricks with her understanding. We are both of us inclined to be a little too positive; and I have observed the result of our disputes to be 25 almost uniformly this — that in matters of fact, dates, 1 An older use of the word, meaning nearly the same as incidents. 2 A self-explaining quaintness of Lamb's, perhaps from an old- fashioned usage; we should now say good sense. 44 Essays of Ella and circumstances, it turns out, that I was in the right, and my cousin in the wrong. But where we have differed upon moral points ; upon something proper to be done, or let alone ; whatever heat of opposition, or steadiness of 5 conviction, I set out with, I am sure always, in the long run, to be brought over to her way of thinking. I must touch upon the foibles of my kinswoman with a gentle hand, for Bridget does not like to be told of her faults. She hath^ an awkward trick (to say no worse of lo it) of reading in company : at which times she will answer yes or ?zo to a question, without fully understanding its purport — which is provoking, and derogatory in the high- est degree to the dignity of the putter of the said ques- tion. Her presence of mind is equal to the most pressing IS trials of life, but will sometimes desert her upon trifling occasions. When the purpose requires it, and is a thing of moment, she can speak to it greatly ; but in matters which are not stuff of the conscience, she hath been known sometimes to let slip a word less seasonably. 20 Her education in youth was not much attended to ; and she happily missed all that train of female garniture, which passeth by the name of accomplishments. She was tum- bled early, by accident or design, into a spacious closet of good old English reading, without much selection or 1 It suited Lamb's taste for the older forms of style occasionally to use the older form of the verb. Doubtless he had in mind an effect to produce by it; in this and the next two paragraphs he seems to use it half-playfuUy, as helping to soften a little the gentle spirit of blame in which he speaks. Mackery End^ in Hertfordshire 45 prohibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and whole- some pasturage. Had I twenty girls, they should be brought up exactly in this fashion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock might not be diminished by it ; but I can answer for it, that it makes (if the worst come 5 to the worst) most incomparable old maids. In a season of distress, she is the truest comforter; but in the teasing accidents,^ and minor perplexities, which do not call out the will to meet them, she sometimes maketh matters worse by an excess of participation. If 10 she does not always divide your trouble, upon the pleas- anter occasions of life she is sure always to treble your satisfaction. She is excellent to be at a play with, or upon a visit ; but best, when she goes a journey with you. We made an excursion together a few summers since, 15 into Hertfordshire, to beat up the quarters of some of our less-known relations in that fine corn^ country. The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End ; or Mackarel End, as it is spelt, perhaps more properly, in some old m ips of Hertfordshire ; a farm-house, — de- 2c lightfully situated within a gentle walk from Wheathamp- stead. I can just remember having been there, on a visit to a great-aunt, when I was a child, under the care of Bridget ; who, as I have said, is older than myself by some ten years. I wish that I could throw into a heap 25 the remainder of our joint existences, that we might share them in equal division. But that is impossible. The 1 See p. 43, note i. 2 We should say wheat country in America. 46 Essays of Elia house was at that time in the occupation of a substantial yeoman, who had married my grandmother's sister. His name was Gladman. My grandmother was a Bruton, married to a Field. The Gladmans and the Brutons are 5 still flourishing in that part of the county, but the Fields are ahuost extinct. More than forty years had elapsed since the visit I speak of; and, for the greater portion of that period, we had lost sight of the other two branches also. Who or what sort of persons inherited Mackery 10 End — kindred or strange folk — we were afraid almost to conjecture, but determined some day to explore. By somewhat a circuitous route, taking the noble park at Luton in our way from St. Albans, we arrived at the spot of our anxious curiosity about noon. The sight of IS the old farm-house, though every trace of it was effaced from my recollection, affected me with a pleasure which I had not experienced for many a year. For though / had forgotten it, we had never forgotten being there to- gether, and we had been talking about Mackery End all 20 our lives, till memory on my part became mocked with a phantom of itself, and I thought I knew the aspect of a place, which, when present, O how unlike it was to that, which I had conjured up so many times instead of it ! Still the air breathed balmily about it ; the season was £5 in the " heart of June," and I could say with the poet. But thou, that didst appear so fair To fond imagination, Dost rival in the light of day Her delicate creation ! Mackery End, in Hertfordshire 47 Bridget's was more a waking bliss than mine, for she easily remembered her old acquaintance again — some al- tered features, of course, a little grudged at. At first, in- deed, she was ready to disbeheve for joy ; but the scene soon reconfirmed itself in her affections — and she trav- s ersed every outpost of the old mansion, to the wood- house, the orchard, the place where the pigeon-house had stood (house and birds were ahke flown) — with a breathless impatience of recognition, which was more par- donable perhaps than decorous at the age of fifty odd. 10 But Bridget in some things is behind her years. The only thing left was to get into the house — and that was a difficulty which to me singly would have been insur- mountable ; for I am terribly shy in making myself known to strangers and out-of-date kinsfolk. Love, stronger than 15 scruple, winged my cousin in without me : but she soon re- turned with a creature that might have sat to a sculptor for the image of Welcome. It was the youngest of the Gladmans ; who, by marriage with a Bruton, had become mistress of the old mansion. A comely brood are the Bru- 20 tons. Six of them, females, were noted as the handsomest young women in the county. But this adopted Bruton, in my mind, was better than they all — more comely. She was born too late to have remembered me. She just recollected in early life to have had her cousin Bridget once pointed 25 out to her, climbing a stile. But the name of kindred, and of cousinship, was enough. Those slender ties, that prove slight as gossamer in the rending atmosphere of a metropolis, bind faster, as we found it, in hearty, homely, 48 Essays of Elia loving Hertfordshire. In five minutes we were as thor- oughly acquainted as if we had been born and bred up to- gether ; were familiar, even to the calling each other by our Christian names. So Christians should call one an- 5 other. To have seen Bridget, and her — it was like the meeting of the two scriptural cousins ! There was a grace and dignity, an amphtude of form and stature, answering to her mind, in this farmer's wife, which would have shined^ in a palace — or so we thought it. We were made wel- 10 come by husband and wife equally — we, and our friend that was with us — I had almost forgotten him — but B. F. will not so soon forget that meeting, if peradventure he shall read this on the far distant shores where the Kangaroo haunts. The fatted calf was made ready, or 15 rather was already so, as if in anticipation of our coming; and, after an appropriate glass of native wine, never let me forget with what honest pride this hospitable cousin made us proceed to VVheathampstead, to introduce us (as some new-found rarity) to her mother and sister Glad- 20 mans, who did indeed know something more of us, at a time when she almost knew nothing. — With what corre- sponding kindness we were received by them also — how Bridget's memory, exalted by the occasion, warmed into a thousand half-obliterated recollections of things and per- 25 sons, to my utter astonishment, and her own — and to the astoundment of B. F. who sat by, almost the only thing that was not a cousin there, — old effaced images of more than half-forgotten names and circumstances still crowd- 1 Lamb uses this obsolete form by preference. Mackery End, in Hertfordshire 49 ing back upon her^ as words written in lemon come out upon exposure to a friendly warmth, — when I forget all this, then may my country cousins forget me ; and Bridget no more remember, that in the days of weakling infancy I was her tender charge — as I have been her care in 5 foolish manhood since — in those pretty pastoral walks, long ago, about Mackery End, in Hertfordshire, ESSAYS OF ELIA- MY FIRST PLAY At the north end of Cross Court there yet stands a portal, of some architectural pretensions, though reduced to humble use, serving at present for an entrance to a printing-office. This old doorway, if you are young, 5 Reader, you may not know was the identical pit entrance to old Drury — Garrick's Drury — all of it that is left. I never pass it without shaking some forty years from off my shoulders, recurring to the evening when I passed through it to see my first play . The afternoon had been wet, and 10 the condition of our going (the elder folks and myself) was, that the rain should cease. With what a beating heart did I watch from the window the puddles, from the stillness of which I was taught to prognosticate the desired cessation ! I seem to remember the last spurt, and the 15 glee with which I ran to announce it. We went with orders, which my godfather F. had sent us. He kept the oil shop (now Davies's) at the corner of Featherstone Building, in Holborn. F. was a tall grave person, lofty in speech, and had pretensions above his 20 rank. He associated in those days with John Palmer, the comedian, whose gait and bearing he seemed to copy ; if John (which is quite as hkely) did not rather borrow somewhat of his manner from my godfather. He was also known to, and visited by, Sheridan. It was to his 50 My First Play 51 house in Holborn that young Brinsley brought his first wife on her elopement with hitn from a boarding-school at Bath — the beautiful Maria Linley. My parents were present (over a quadrille table) when he arrived in the evening with his harmonious ^ charge. — From either of 5 these connexions it may be inferred that my godfather could command an order for the then Drury Lane Theatre at pleasure — and, indeed, a pretty liberal issue of those cheap billets, in Brinsley 's easy autograph, I have heard him say was the sole remuneration which he had received 10 for many years' nightly illumination of the orchestra and various avenues of that theatre — and he was content it should be so. The honour of Sheridan's familiarity — or supposed famiharity — was better to my godfather than money. 15 F. was the most gentlemanly of oilmen ; grandiloquent, yet courteous. His delivery of the commonest matters of fact was Ciceronian. He had two Latin words almost constantly in his mouth (how odd sounds Latin from an oilman's Hps !), which my better knowledge since has 20 enabled me to correct. In strict pronunciation they should have been sounded vice versa — but in those young years they impressed me with more awe than they would now do, read aright from Seneca or Varro — in his own pecuhar pronunciation, monosyllabically elaborated, or 25 Anglicised, into something like verse verse. By an im- posing manner, and the help of these distorted syllables, 1 This word is Lamb's allusive way of intimating that the lady was a singer. 52 Essays of Elia he climbed (but that was little) to the highest parochial honours which St. Andrew's has to bestow. He is dead — and thus much I thought due to his memory, both for my first orders^ (little wondrous tahs- 5 mans ! — slight keys, and insignificant to outward sight, but opening to me more than Arabian paradises !) and moreover, that by his testamentary beneficence I came into possession of the only landed property which I could ever call my own — situate near the roadway village of lo pleasant Puckeridge, in Hertfordshire. When I jour- neyed down to take possession, and planted foot on my own ground, the stately habits of the donor descended upon me, and I strode (shall I confess the vanity?) with larger paces over my allotment of three quarters of an 15 acre, with its commodious mansion in the midst, with the feeling of an English freeholder that all betwixt sky and centre^ was my own. The estate has passed into more pru- dent hands, and nothing but an agrarian ^ can restore it. In those days were pit orders. Beshrew^ the uncom- 20 fortable manager who abolished them ! — with one of these we went. I remember the waiting at the door — not that which is left — but between that and an inner door in shelter — O when shall I be such an expectant again ! — 1 That is, theatre tickets ; the significance of which, to a child, is enlarged on in the parenthesis. '^ That is, centre of the earth. ^ That is, one who favours, or who could bring about, a legal change in the tenure of land; the word is used of agitators for an equable distribution of property. * An old-fashioned, here meant to be half-playful, imprecation. My First Play S3 with the cry of nonpareils/ an indispensable playhouse accompaniment in those days. As near as I can recol- lect, the fashionable pronunciation of the theatrical fruit- eresses then was, " Chase some oranges, chase some numparels, chase a bill of the play ; " — chase pro chuse.^ 5 But when we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be disclosed — the breathless anticipations I endured ! I had seen something like it in the plate prefixed to Troilus and Cressida, in Rovve's Shakespeare — the tent scene lo with Diomede — and a sight of that plate can always bring back in a measure the feehng of that evening. — The boxes at that time, full of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit ; and the pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know 15 not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling — a homely fancy — but I judged it to be sugar-candy — yet, to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier quali- ties, it appeared a glorified candy ! — The orchestra lights at length arose, those "fair Auroras!" Once the bell 20 sounded. It was to ring out yet once again — and, inca- pable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in a sort of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the second time. The curtain drew up — I was not past six years old — and the play was Artaxerxes ! 25 1 Apparently some fruit or sweetmeat. ^ An older spelling for choose, which Lamb retains partly be- cause it is old, partly perhaps because in this form it is less different from chase. 54 Essays of Elia I had dabbled a little in the Universal History — the ancient part of it — and here was the court of Persia. It was being admitted to a sight of the past. I took no proper interest in the action going on, for I understood 5 not its import — but I heard the word Darius, and I was in the midst of Daniel.-^ All feeling was absorbed in vision. Gorgeous vests, gardens, palaces, princesses, passed before me. I knew not players. I was in Persepo- lis for the time ; and the burning idol of their devotion lo almost converted me into a worshipper. I was awe- struck, and beheved those significations to be something more than elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream. No such pleasure has since visited me but in dreams. — Harlequin's Invasion followed; where, I re- 15 member, the transformation of the magistrates into rever- end beldams seemed to me a piece of grave historic justice, and the tailor carrying his own head to be as sober a verity as the legend of St. Denys. The next play to which I was taken was the Lady of 20 the Manor, of which, with the exception of some scenery, very faint traces are left in my memory. It was followed by a pantomime, called Lun's Ghost — a satiric touch, I apprehend, upon Rich, not long since dead- — but to my apprehension (too sincere for satire), Lun was as remote 25 a piece of antiquity as Lud — the father of a line of Harle- quins — transmitting his dagger of lath (the wooden scep- 1 I.e. the Book of Daniel, in which Darius is a personage, and there are gorgeous scenes of the ancient Persian court. 2 Vests, that is, vestments. So also (in singular) p. 55, 1. 2. My First Play ^^ tre) through countless ages. I saw the primeval Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly vest of white patchwork, like the apparition of a dead rainbow. So Harlequins (thought I) look when they are dead. My third play followed in quick succession. It was 5 The Way of the World. I think I must have sat at it as grave as a judge ; for, I remember, the hysteric affectations of good Lady Wishfort affected me like some solemn tragic passion. Robinson Crusoe followed ; in which Crusoe, man Friday, and the parrot, were as good and authentic 10 as in the story. — The clownery and pantaloonery of these pantomimes have clean passed out of my head. I be- lieve, I no more laughed at them, than at the same age I should have been disposed to laugh at the grotesque Gothic heads (seeming to me then replete with devout 15 meaning) that gape, and grin, in stone around the inside of the old Round Church (my church) of the Templars. I saw these plays in the season 178 1-2, when I was from six to seven years old. After the intervention of six or seven other years (for at school all play-going was 20 inhibited) I again entered the doors of a theatre. That old Artaxerxes evening had never done ringing in my fancy. I expected the same feelings to come again with the same occasion. But we differ from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, than the latter does from six. In that 25 interval what had I not lost ! At the first period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated nothing. I felt all, loved all, wondered all — Was nourished, I could not tell how — ^6 Essays of Elia I had left the temple a devotee, and was returned a rationalist. The same things were there materially; but the emblem, the reference, was gone ! — The green curtain was no longer a veil, drawn between two worlds, the 5 unfolding of which was to bring back past ages, to present a "royal ghost," — but a certain quantity of green baize, which was to separate the audience for a given time from certain of their fellow-men who were to come forward and pretend those parts. The lights — the orchestra hghts — 10 came up a clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter's bell — which had been, like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a voice, no hand seen or guessed at which ministered to its warning. The actors were men and women painted. 15 1 thought the fault was in them ; but it was in myself, and the alteration which those many centuries — of six short twelvemonths — had wrought in me. — Perhaps it was for- tunate for me that the play of the evening was but an indifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some 20 unreasonable expectations, which might have interfered with the genuine emotions with which I was soon after enabled to enter upon the first appearance to me of Mrs. Siddons in Isabella. Comparison and retrospection soon yielded to the present attraction of the scene ; and the 25 theatre became to me, upon a new stock, the most de- hghtful of recreations. BARBARA S On the noon of the 14th of November, 1743 or 4, I forget which it was, just as the clock had struck one, Barbara S , with her accustomed punctuahty as- cended the long rambling staircase, with awkward inter- posed landing-places, which led to the office, or rather a s sort of box with a desk in it, whereat sat the then Treas- urer of (what few of our readers may remember) the old Bath Theatre. All over the island it was the custom, and remains so I believe to this day, for the players to receive their weekly stipend on the Saturday. It was not much 10 that Barbara had to claim. This little maid had just entered her eleventh year; but her important station at the theatre, as it seemed to her, with the benefits which she felt to accrue from her pious application of her small earnings, had given an air 15 of womanhood to her steps and to her behaviour. You would have taken her to have been at least five years older. Till latterly she had merely been employed in choruses, or where children were wanted to fill up the scene. But 20 the manager, observing a diligence and adroitness in her above her age, had for some few months past entrusted to her the performance of whole parts. You may guess the self-consequence of the promoted Barbara. She had already drawn tears in young Arthur ; had rallied Richard 25 with infantine petulance in the Duke of York ; and in her 57 58 Essays of Elia turn had rebuked that petulance when she was Prince of Wales. She would have done the elder child in Morton's pathetic afterpiece to the hfe ; but as yet the Children in the Wood was not. 5 Long after this Httle girl was grown an aged woman, I have seen some of these small parts, each making two or three pages at most, copied out in the rudest hand of the then prompter, who doubtless transcribed a little more carefully and fairly for the grown-up tragedy ladies of the 10 establishment. But such as they were, blotted and scrawled, as for a child's use, she kept them all ; and in the zenith of her after reputation it was a delightful sight to behold them bound up in costhest Morocco, each sin- gle — each small part making a book — with fine clasps, 15 gilt-splashed, &c. She had conscientiously kept them as they had been delivered to her ; not a blot had been effaced or tampered with. They were precious to her for their affecting remembrancings. They were her princi- pia,^ her rudiments ; the elementary atoms ; the htde 20 steps by which she pressed forward to perfection. " What," she would say, " could Indian rubber, or a pumice-stone, have done for these darlings ?" I am in no hurry to begin my story — indeed I have little or none to tell — so I will just mention an observa- 25 tion of hers connected with that interesting time. Not long before she died I had been discoursing with 1 This term, which the next phrase defines, used to be applied to books containing the elements of a study, such as were put into the hands of young learners. Barbara S 59 her on the quantity of real present emotion which a great tragic performer experiences during acting. I ventured to think, that though in the first instance such players must have possessed the feelings which they so powerfully called up in others, yet by frequent repetition those feel- 5 ings must become deadened in great measure, and the performer trust to the memory of past emotion, rather than express a present one. She indignantly repelled the notion, that with a truly great tragedian the operation, by which such effects were produced upon an audience, ic could ever degrade itself into what was purely mechani- cal. With much deHcacy, avoiding to instance in her i-^^-experience, she told me, that so long ago as when she used to play the part of the Little Son to Mrs. Porter's Isabella, (I think it was) when that impressive actress has 15 been bending over her in some heart-rending colloquy, she has felt real hot tears come trickling from her, which (to use her powerful expression) have perfectly scalded her back. I am not quite so sure that it was Mrs. Porter ; but it 20 was some great actress of that day. The name is indif- ferent ; but the fact of the scalding tears I most distinctly remember. I was always fond of the society of players, and am not sure that an impediment in my speech (which certainly 25 kept me out of the pulpit) even more than certain per- sonal disqualifications, which are often got over in that profession, did not prevent me at one time of life from adopting it. I have had the honour (I must ever call it) 6o Essays of Elia once to have been admitted to the tea-table of Miss Kelly. I have played at serious whist with Mr. Liston. I have chatted with ever good-humoured Mrs. Charles Kemble. I have conversed as friend to friend with her 5 accomplished husband. I have been indulged with a classical conference with Macready ; and with a sight of the Player-picture gallery, at Mr. Matthews's, when the kind owner, to remunerate me for my love of the old actors (whom he loves so much) went over it with me, lo supplying to his capital collection, what alone the artist could not give them — voice; and their living motion. Old tones, half-faded, of Dodd and Parsons, and Badde- ley, have lived again for me at his bidding. Only Edwin he could not restore to me. I have supped with ; 15 but I am growing a coxcomb. As I was about to say — at the desk of the then treasurer of the old Bath Theatre — not Diamond's — presented herself the little Barbara S . The parents of Barbara had been in reputable circum- 23 stances. The father had practised, I believe, as an apothecary in the town. But his practice from causes which I feel my own infirmity too sensibly that way to arraign — or perhaps from that pure infehcity which ac- companies some people in their walk through life, and 25 which it is impossible to lay at the door of imprudence — was now reduced to nothing. They were in fact in the very teeth of starvation, when the manager, who knew and respected them in better days, took the Httle Bar-- bara into his company. Barbara S 6i At the period I commenced with, her slender earnings were the sole support of the family, including two younger sisters. I must throw a veil over some mortifying circum- stances. Enough to say, that her Saturday's pittance was the only chance of a Sunday's (generally their only) meal 5 of meat. One thing I will only mention, that in some child's part, where in her theatrical character she was to sup ofif a roast fowl (O joy to Barbara !) some comic actor, who was for the night caterer for this dainty — in the mis- lo guided humour of his part, threw over the dish such a quantity of salt (O grief and pain of heart to Barbara !) that when he crammed a portion of it into her mouth, she was obliged splutteringly to reject it ; and what with shame of her ill-acted part, and pain of real appetite at missing ^^. such a dainty, her little heart sobbed almost to breaking, till a flood of tears, which the well-fed spectators were totally unable to comprehend, mercifully reheved her. This was the Httle starved, meritorious maid, who stood before old Ravenscroft, the treasurer, for her Saturday's 20 payment. Ravenscroft was a man, I have heard many old theat- rical people besides herself say, of all men least calculated for a treasurer. He had no head for accounts, paid away at random, kept scarce any books, and summing up at 25 the week's end, if he found himself a pound or so defi- cient, blessed himself that it was no worse. Now Barbara's weekly stipend was a bare half-guinea. — By mistake he popped into her hand a — whole one. 62 Essays of Elia Barbara tripped away. She was entirely unconscious at first of the mistake : God knows, Ravenscroft would never have discovered it. But when she had got down to the first of those un- 5 couth landing-places, she became sensible of an unusual weight of metal pressing her httle hand. Now mark the dilemma.^ She was by nature a good child. From her parents and those about her she had imbibed no contrary influ- lo ence. But then they had taught her nothing. Poor men's smoky cabins are not always porticoes of moral philosophy. This little maid had no instinct to evil, but then she might be said to have no fixed principle. She had heard honesty commended, but never dreamed of 15 its application to herself. She thought of it as something which concerned grown-up people — men and women. She had never known temptation, or thought of prepar- ing resistance against it. Her first impulse was to go back to the old treasurer, 20 and explain to him his blunder. He was already so con- fused with age, besides a natural want of punctuahty, that she would have had some difficulty in making him understand it. She saw that in an instant. And then it was such a bit of money ! and then the image of a 25 larger allowance of butcher's meat on their table next day came across her, till her little eyes glistened, and her mouth moistened. But then Mr. Ravenscroft had always 1 A perplexity, which, however, it is decided, produces a result in some way bad or undesirable. Barbara S 6^ been so good-natured, had stood her friend behind the scenes, and even recommended her promotion to some of her Httle parts. But again the old man was reputed to be worth a world of money. He was supposed to have fifty pounds a year clear of the theatre. And then s came staring upon her the figures of her little stocking- less and shoeless sisters. And when she looked at her own neat white cotton stockings, which her situation at the theatre had made it indispensable for her mother to provide for her, with hard straining and pinching from lo the family stock, and thought how glad she should be to cover their poor feet with the same — and how then they could accompany her to rehearsals, which they had hith- erto been precluded from doing, by reason of their un- fashionable attire — in these thoughts she reached the is second landing-place — the second, I mean from the top — for there was still another left to traverse. Now virtue support Barbara ! And that never-faihng friend did step in — for at that moment a strength not her own, I have heard her say, 20 was revealed to her — a reason above reasoning — and without her own agency, as it seemed (for she never felt her feet to move) she found herself transported back to the individual desk she had just quitted, and her hand in the. old hand of Ravenscroft, who in silence took back the 25 refunded treasure, and who had been sitting (good man) insensible to the lapse of minutes, which to her were anx- ious ages ; and from that moment a deep peace fell upon her heart, and she knew the quaHty of honesty. 64 Essays of Elia A year or two's unrepining application to her profession brightened up the feet, and the prospects, of her little sis- ters, set the whole family upon their legs again, and re- leased her from the difficulty of discussing moral dogmas 5 upon a landing-place. I have heard her say, that it was a surprise, not much short of mortification to her, to see the coolness with which the old man pocketed the difference, which had caused her such mortal throes. 10 This anecdote of herself I had in the year 1800, from the mouth of the late Mrs. Crawford,^ then sixty-seven years of age (she died soon after) ; and to her struggles upon this childish occasion I have sometimes ventured . to think her indebted for that power of rending the heart 15 in the representation of conflicting emotions, for which in after years she was considered as little inferior (if at all so in the part of Lady Randolph) even to Mrs. Siddons. 1 The maiden name of this lady was Street, which she changed, by successive marriages, for those of Dancer, Barry, and Crawford, She was Mrs. Crawford, and a third time a widow, when I knew her. [C. L.] THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE Reader, in thy passage from the Bank — where thou hast been receiving thy half-yearly dividends (supposing thou art a lean annuitant Hke myself) — to the Flower Pot; to secure a place for Dalston, or Shacklewell, or some other thy suburban retreat northerly, — didst thou 5 never observe a melancholy looking, handsome, brick and stone edifice, to the left — where Threadneedle Street abuts upon Bishopsgate? I dare say thou hast often admired its magnificent portals ever gaping wide, and dis- closing to view a grave court, with cloisters and pillars, 10 with few or no traces of goers-in or comers-out — a deso- lation something like Balclutha's.-^ This was once a house of trade, — a centre of busy inter- ests. The throng of merchants was here — the quick pulse of gain — and here some forms of business are still 15 kept up, though the soul be long since fled. Here are still to be seen stately porticoes ; imposing staircases ; offices roomy as the state apartments in palaces — deserted, or thinly peopled with a few straggling clerks ; the still more sacred interiors of court and com- 20 mittee rooms, with venerable faces of beadles, door- keepers — directors seated in form on solemn days (to proclaim a dead dividend,) at long worm-eaten tables, that have been mahogany, with tarnished gilt-leather 1 I passed by the walls of Balclutha, and they were desolate. — Ossian. [C. L.] ESSAYS OF ELIA — 5 65 66 Essays of Elia coverings, supporting massy silver inkstands long since dry ; — the oaken wainscots hung with pictures of deceased governors and sub-governors, of Queen Anne, and the two first monarchs of the Brunswick dynasty; — huge 5 charts, which subsequent discoveries have antiquated ; — dusty maps of Mexico, dim as dreams, — and soundings of the Bay of Panama ! — The long passages hung with buck- ets, appended, in idle row, to walls, whose substance might defy any, short of the last, conflagration : — with vast lo ranges of cellarage under all, where dollars and pieces of eight once lay, an '' unsunned heap," for Mammon to have solaced his solitary heart withal, — long since dissi- pated, of scattered into air at the blast of the breaking of that famous Bubble. — 15 Such is the South-Sea House. At least, such it was forty years ago, when I knew it, — a magnificent relic ! What alterations may have been made in it since, I have had no opportunities of verifying. Time, I take for granted, has not freshened it. No wind has resuscitated 20 the face of the sleeping waters. A thicker crust by this time stagnates upon it. The moths, that were then bat- tening upon its obsolete ledgers and daybooks, have rested from their depredations, but other light genera- tions have succeeded, making fine fretwork among their 25 single and double entries. Layers of dust have accu- mulated (a superfoetation ^ of dirt ! ) upon the old layers, 1 An instance of a usage, later much cultivated by such writers as Emerson and Holmes, of taking a scientific or technical term and applying it, like a figure, to an ordinary subject ; here, accord- The South-Sea House 67 that seldom used to be disturbed, save by some curious finger, now and then, inquisitive to explore the mode of book-keeping in Queen Anne's reign ; or, with less hal- lowed curiosity, seeking to unveil some of the mysteries of that tremendous hoax, whose extent the petty pecula- 5 tors of our day look back upon with the same expression of incredulous admiration, and hopeless ambition of rivalry, as would become the puny face of modern con- spiracy contemplating the Titan size of Vaux's^ super- human plot. 10 Peace to the manes of the Bubble ! Silence and des- titution are upon thy walls, proud house, for a memorial ! Situated as thou art, in the very heart of stirring and living commerce, — amid the fret and fever of specula- tion — with the Bank, and the 'Change, and the India 15 House about thee, in the hey-day of present prosperity, with their important faces, as it were, insulting thee, their poor neighbour out of business — to the idle and merely contemplative, — to such as me, old house ! there is a charm in thy quiet : — a cessation — a coolness from busi- 20 ness — an indolence almost cloistral — which is delightful ! With what reverence have I paced thy great bare rooms and courts at eventide ! They spoke of the past : — the shade of some dead accountant, with visionary pen in ear, would flit by me, stiff as in life. Living accounts and ac- 2-, countants puzzle me. I have no skill in figuring. But thy great dead tomes, which scarce three degenerate clerks ing to Lamb's quaintness of sentiment, used somewhat whimsically or playfully. i Guy Fawkes. 68 Essays of Elia of the present day could lift from their enshrining shelves — with their old fantastic flourishes, and decorative rubric interlacings — their sums in triple columniations/ set down with formal superfluity of ciphers — with pious sentences 5 at the beginning, without which our religious ancestors never ventured to open a book of business, or bill of lad- ing — the costly vellum covers of some of them almost persuading us that we are got into some better library, — are very agreeable and edifying spectacles. I can look loupon these defunct dragons^ with complacency. Thy heavy odd-shaped ivory-handled penknives (our ancestors had everything on a larger scale than we have hearts for) are as good as anything from Herculaneum. The pounce- boxes ^ of our days have gone retrograde. 15 The very clerks which I remember in the South-Sea House — I speak of forty years back — had an air very different from those in the pubUc offices that I have had to do with since. They partook of the genius of the place ! They were mostly (for the establishment did not admit 20 of superfluous salaries) bachelors. Generally (for they had not much to do) persons of a curious and speculative turn of mind. Old-fashioned, for a reason mentioned before. 1 It is thought that Lamb was the originator of this usage of the word. 2 This name perhaps implies that the big books were things to be conquered, like the dragons that ancient knights fought with; but in this case no longer formidable foes. ^ Pounce was a resinous powder used before blotters for drying ink, or when a word was erased, for sizing the spot again for writ- ing over. The South-Sea House 69 Humorists/ for they were of all descriptions ; and, not having been brought together in early Hfe (which has a tendency to assimilate the members of corporate bodies to each other), but, for the most part, placed in this house in ripe or middle age, they necessarily carried into 5 it their separate habits and oddities, unqualified, if I may so speak, as into a common stock. Hence they formed a sort of Noah's ark. Odd fishes. A lay-monastery. Domestic retainers in a great house, kept more for show than use. Yet pleasant fellows, full of chat — and 10 not a few among them had arrived at considerable profi- ciency on the German flute. The cashier at that time was one Evans, a Cambro- Briton. He had something of the choleric complexion of his countrymen stamped on his visage, but was a 15 worthy sensible man at bottom. He wore his hair, to the last, powdered and frizzed out, in the fashion which I remember to have seen in. caricatures of what were termed, in my young days, Maccaronies? He was the last of that race of beaux. Melancholy as a gib-cat 20 over his counter all the forenoon, I think I see him, mak- ing up his cash (as they call it) with tremulous fingers, as if he feared every one about him was a defaulter ; in his hypochondry ready to imagine himself one ; haunted, at least, with the idea of the possibility of his becoming 25 one : his tristful visage clearing up a little over his roast 1 That is, men who indulged their oddities or eccentricities; not as we use the word, funny men. ^ The former name for dandies or dudes. yo Essays of Elia neck of veal at Anderton's at two (where his picture still hangs, taken a little before his death by desire of the master of the coffee-house, which he had frequented for the last five-and-twenty years), but not attaining the 5 meridian of its animation till evening brought on the hour of tea and visiting. The simultaneous sound of his well-known rap at the door with the stroke of the clock announcing six, was a topic of never-faihng mirth in the families which this dear old bachelor gladdened with his lo presence. Then was hi?, forte, his glorified hour ! How would he chirp, and expand, over a muffin ! How would he dilate into secret history ! His countryman. Pennant himself, in particular, co.uld not be more eloquent than he in relation to old and new London — the site of old 15 theatres, churches, streets gone to decay — where Rosa- mond's pond stood — the Mulberry Gardens — and the , Conduit in Cheap — with many a pleasant anecdote, de- rived from paternal tradition, of those grotesque figures which Hogarth has immortalized in his picture oi Noon, — 20 the worthy descendants of those heroic confessors, who, flying to this country, from the wrath of Louis the Four- teenth and his dragoons, kept alive the flame of pure religion in the sheltering obscurities of Hog Lane, and the vicinity of the Seven Dials ! 25 Deputy, under Evans, was Thomas Tame. He had the air and stoop of a nobleman. You would have taken him for one, had you met him in one of the passages leading to Westminster Hall. By stoop, I mean that gentle bending of the body forwards, which, in great The South-Sea House 71 men, must be supposed to be the effect of an habitual condescendmg attention to the appHcations of their in- feriors. While he held you in converse, you felt strained to the height in the colloquy. The conference over, you were at leisure to smile at the comparative insignificance 5 of the pretensions which had just awed you. His intel- lect was of the shallowest order. It did not reach to a saw or a proverb. His mind was in its original state of white paper. A sucking babe might have posed him. What was it then? Was he rich? Alas, no! Thomas 10 Tame was very poor. Both he and his wife looked out- wardly gentlefolks, when I fear all was not well at all times within. She had a neat meagre person, which it was evident she had not sinned in over-pampering; but in its veins was noble blood. She traced her descent, by 15 some labyrinth of relationship, which I never thoroughly understood, — much less can explain with any heraldic cer- tainty at this time of day, — to the illustrious, but un- fortunate house of Derwentwater. This was the secret of Thomas's stoop. This was the thought — the sentiment — 20 the bright solitary star of your lives, — ye mild and happy pair, — which cheered you in the night of intellect, and in the obscurity of your station ! This was to you instead of riches, instead of rank, instead of glittering attain- ments : and it was worth them all together. You in- 25 suited none with it ; but, while you wore it as a piece of defensive armour only, no insult likewise could reach you through it. Decus et solamen} 1 Glory and consolation. See Virgil, Aineid, x. 859. 72 Essays of Elia Of quite another stamp was the then accountant, John Tipp. He neither pretended to high blood, nor in good truth cared one fig about the matter. He " thought an accountant the greatest character in the world, and himself 5 the greatest accountant in it." Yet John was not with- out his hobby. The fiddle relieved his vacant hours. He sang, certainly, with other notes than to the Orphean lyre. He did, indeed, scream and scrape most abominably. His fine suite of official rooms in Threadneedle Street, lo which, without anything very substantial appended to them, were enough to enlarge a man's notions of him- self that lived in them, (I know not who is the occupier of them now)^ resounded fortnightly to the notes of a concert of " sweet breasts," as our ancestors would have 15 called them, culled from club rooms and orchestras — chorus singers — first and second violoncellos — double basses — and clarionets — who ate his cold mutton, and drank his punch, and praised his ear. He sat like Lord Midas among them. But at the desk Tipp was quite an- 20 other sort of creature. Thence all ideas, that were purely ornamental, were banished. You could not speak of any- thing romantic without rebuke. Politics were excluded. ^ I have since been informed that the present tenant of them is a Mr. Lamb, a gentleman who is happy in the possession of some choice pictures, and among them a rare portrait of Milton, which I mean to do myself the pleasure of going to see, and at the same time to refresh my memory with the sight of old scenes. Mr. Lamb has the character of a right courteous and communicative collector. [Foot-note appended instead of parenthesis in London Magazine. '\ The South-Sea House 73 A newspaper was thought too refined and abstracted. The whole duty of man consisted in writing off dividend warrants. The striking of the annual balance in the company's books (which, perhaps, differed from the bal- ance of last year in the sum of 25/. is. 6d.) occupied s his days and nights for a month previous. Not that Tipp was bhnd to the deadness of things (as they called them in the city) in his beloved house, or did not sigh for a return of the old stirring days when South- Sea hopes were young — (he was indeed equal to the wielding 10 of any the most intricate accounts of the most flourish- ing company in these or those days) : — but to a genuine accountant the difference of proceeds is as nothing. The fractional farthing is as dear to his heart as the thousands which stand before it. He is the true actor, 15 who, whether his part be a prince or a peasant, must act it with hke intensity. With Tipp form was everything. His life was formal. His actions seemed ruled with a ruler. His pen was not less erring than his heart. He made the best executor in the world : he was plagued 20 with incessant executorships accordingly, which excited his spleen and soothed his vanity in equal ratios. He would swear (for Tipp swore) at the little orphans, whose rights he would guard with a tenacity like the grasp of the dying hand, that commended their interests to his 25 protection. With all this there was about him a sort of timidity — (his few enemies used to give it a worse name) — a something which, in reverence to the dead, we will place, if you please, a litUe on this side of the heroic. 74 Essays of Elia Nature certainly had been pleased to endow John Tipp with a sufficient measure of the principle of self-preser- vation. There is a cowardice which we do not despise, because it has nothing base or treacherous in its ele- 5 ments ; it betrays itself, not you : it is mere tempera- ment ; the absence of the romantic and the enterprising; it sees a lion in the way, and will not, with Fortinbras, " greatly find quarrel in a straw," when some supposed honour is at stake. Tipp never mounted the box of a lo stage-coach in his life ; or leaned against the rails of a bal- cony ; or walked upon the ridge of a parapet ; or looked down a precipice ; or let off a gun ; or went upon a water party; or would wiUingly let you go if he could have helped it : neither was it recorded of him, that for lucre, 15 or for intimidation, he ever forsook friend or principle. Whom next shall we summon from the dusty dead, in whom common qualities become uncommon ? Can I forget thee, Henry Man, the wit, the polished man of letters, the author, o{ the South-Sea House? who never enteredst thy 20 office in a morning, or quittedst it in midday — (what didst thoti- in an office?) — without some quirk that left a sting ! Thy gibes and thy jokes are now extinct, or survive but in two forgotten volumes, which I had the good fortune to rescue from a stall in Barbican, not three 25 days ago, and found thee terse, fresh, epigrammatic, as alive. Thy wit is a Httle gone by in these fastidious days — thy topics are staled by the "new-born gauds" of the time : — but great thou used to be in Public Ledgers, and in Chronicles, upon Chatham, and Shelburne, and Rock- The South-Sea House 75 ingham, and Howe, and Burgoyne, and Clinton, and the war which ended in the tearing from Great Britain her re- belhous colonies, — and Keppel, and Wilkes, and Saw- bridge, and Bull, and Dunning, and Pratt, and Richmond, — and such small politics. — ! A little less facetious, and a great deal more obstreper- ous, was fine ratthng, rattle-headed Plumer. He was descended, — not in a right line. Reader, (for his lineal pretensions, like his personal, favoured a little of the sin- ister bend) from the Plumers of Hertfordshire. So tradi- i tion gave him out ; and certain family features not a little sanctioned the opinion. Certainly old Walter Plumer (his reputed author) had been a rake in his days, and visited much in Italy, and had seen the world. He was uncle, bachelor-uncle, to the fine old whig still living, who has i represented the county in so many successive parliaments, and has a fine old mansion near Ware. Walter flourished in George the Second's days, and was the same who was summoned before the House of Commons about a business of franks, with the old Duchess of Marlborough. You may 2 read of it in Johnson's Life of Cave. Cave came off clev- erly in that business. It is certain our Plumer did noth- ing to discountenance the rumour. He rather seemed pleased whenever it was, with all gentleness, insinuated. But besides his family pretensions, Plumer was an engag- 2 ing fellow, and sang gloriously. — Not so sweetly sang Plumer, as thou sangest, mild, child- like, pastoral M ;^ a flute's breathing less divinely 1 "Maynard — hang'd himst-lf," Lamb's Key. 76 Essays of Elia whispering than thy Arcadian melodies, when, in tones worthy of Arden, thou didst chant that song sung by Amiens to the banished Duke, which proclaims the winter wind more lenient than for a man to be ungrateful. Thy 5 sire was old surly M , the unapproachable churchwar- den of Bishopsgate. He knew not what he did, when he begat thee, hke spring, gentle offspring of blustering win- ter : — only unfortunate in thy ending, which should have been mild, conciliatory, swan-like. — 10 Much remains to sing. Many fantastic shapes rise up, but they must be mine in private : ■ — already I have fooled the reader to the top of his bent ; — else could I omit that strange creature Woollett, who existed in trying the ques- tion, and bought litigations ? — and still stranger, inimitable, 15 solemn Hepworth, from whose gravity Newton might have deduced the law of gravitation.^ How profoundly would he nib a pen — with what deliberation would he wet a wafer ! — But it is time to close — night's wheels are ratthng fast 20 over me — it is proper to have done with this solemn mockery. Reader, what if I have been playing with thee all this while — peradventure the very names, which I have sum- moned up before thee^ are fantastic — insubstantial — 25 hke Henry Pimpernel, and old John Naps of Greece : — Be satisfied that something answering to them has had a being. Their importance is from the past. 1 A whimsical change in the meaning of the word from its impli- cation in gravity. OXFORD IN THE VACATION Casting a preparatory glance at the bottom of this ar- ticle — as the wary connoisseur in prints, with cursory eye (which, while it reads, seems as though it read not,) never fails to consult the quis sculpsit^ in the corner, before he pronounces some rare piece to be a Vivares, or a Woollet s — methinks I hear you exclaim, Reader, Who is Elia ? Because in my last I tried to divert thee with some half- forgotten humours of some old clerks defunct, in an old house of business, long since gone to decay, doubt- less you have already set me down in your mind as one of lo the self-same college — a votary of the desk — a notched and cropped scrivener — one that sucks his sustenance, as certain sick people are said to do, through a quill. Well, I do agnize^ something of the sort. I confess that it is my humour, my fancy — in the fore-part of the 15 day, when the mind of your man of letters requires some relaxation — (and none better than such as at first sight seems most abhorrent from his beloved studies) — to while away some good hours of my time in the contemplation of indigos, cottons, raw silks, piece-goods, flowered or 20 otherwise. In the first place . . . and then it sends you 1 Who engraved ; referring to the label put upon works of art to name the artist. 2 Acknowledge. A Shakespearean word, somewhat quaint and obsolete, of which Lamb was fond. 77 78 Essays of Elia home with such increased appetite to your books . . . not to say, that your outside sheets, and waste wrappers of foolscap, do receive into them, most kindly and natu- rally, the impression of sonnets, epigrams, essays — so 5 that the very parings of a counting-house are, in some- sort, the settings up of an author. The enfranchised quill, that has plodded all the morning among the cart- rucks of figures and ciphers, frisks and curvets so at its ease over the flowery carpet-ground of a midnight disser- 10 tation. — It feels its promotion. ... So that you see, upon the whole, the literary dignity of B/ia is very little, if at all, compromised in the condescension. Not that, in my anxious detail of the many commodities incidental to the life of a public office, I would be thought 15 blind to certain flaws, which a cunning carper might be able to pick in this Joseph's vest. And here I must have leave, in the fullness of my soul, to regret the abolition, and doing-avvay-with altogether, of those consolatory inter- stices, and sprinkhngs of freedom, through the four seasons, 20 — the 7'ed-Ietter days, now become, to all intents and pur- poses, dead letter days* There was Paul, and Stephen, and Barnabas — ■ Andrew and John, men famous in old times — -we were used to keep all their days holy, as long back 25 as I was at school at Christ's. I remember t.heir effigies, by the same token, in the old Baskett Prayer Book. There hung Peter in his uneasy posture — holy Bartlemy^ in the troublesome act of flaying, after the famous Marsyas by 1 Old-fashioned way of writing Bartholomew. Oxford in the Vacation 79 Spagnoletti. — I honoured them all, and could almost have wept the defalcation of Iscariot — so much did we love to keep holy memories sacred : — only methought I a little grudged at the coahtion of the better Jude with Simon — clubbing (as it were) their sanctities together, to make up 5 one poor gaudy-day between them — as an economy un- worthy of the dispensation. These were bright visitations in a scholar's and a clerk's life — • " far off their coming shone." — I was as good as an almanac m those days. I could have told you such a 10 saint's day falls out next week, or the week after. Per- adventure the Epiphany, by some periodical infelicity, would, once in six years, merge in a Sabbath. Now am I little better than one of the profane. Let me not be thought to arraign the wisdom of my civil superiors, who 15 have judged the further observation of these holy tides to be papistical, superstitious. Only in a custom of such long standing, methinks, if their Holinesses the Bishops had, in decency, been first sounded — but I am wading out of my depths. I am not the man to decide the limits of 20 civil and ecclesiastical authority — I am plain Elia — no Selden, nor Archbishop Usher — though at present in the thick of their books, here in the heart of learning, under the shadow of the mighty Bodley. I can here play the gentleman, enact the student. To 25 such a one as myself, who has been defrauded in his young years of the sweet food of academic institution, nowhere is so pleasant, to while away a few idle weeks at, as one or other of the Universities. Their vacation, too, at this time of 8o Essays of Elia the year, falls in so pat with ours. Here I can take my walks unmolested, and fancy myself of what degree or standing I please. I seem admitted ad eH?idej?i} I fetch up past opportunities. I can rise at the chapel- 5 bell, and dream that it rings for me. In moods of humil- ity I can be a Sizar, or a Servitor. When the peacock vein rises, I strut a Gentleman Commoner. In graver moments, I proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think I am much unhke that respectable character. I lo have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bed-makers in spec- tacles, drop a bow or curtsy, as I pass, wisely mistak- ing me for something of the sort. I go about in black, which favours the notion. Only in Christ Church rev- erend quadrangle, I can be content to pass for nothing IS short of a Seraphic Doctor. The walks at these times are so much one's own, — the tall trees of Christ's, the groves of Magdalen ! The halls deserted, and with open doors, inviting one to slip in un- perceived, and pay a devoir to some Founder, or noble or 20 royal Benefactress (that should have been ours) whose portrait seems to smile upon their overlooked beadsman,^ and to adopt me for their own. Then, to take a peep in by the way at the butteries, and sculleries, redolent of an- tique hospitahty : the immense caves of kitchens, kitchen 1 To the same [degree] ; a term used of the admission of a man from one university to corresponding standing in another without examination. ^ A man employed to pray for another, dropping a bead with each prayer. Oxford ill the Vacation 8i fire-places, cordial recesses ; ovens whose first pies were baked four centuries ago ; and spits which have cooked for Chaucer ! Not the meanest minister^ among the dishes but is hallowed to me through his imagination, and the Cook goes forth a Manciple.- 5 Antiquity ! thou wondrous charm, what art thou ? that, being nothing, art everything ! When thou wert, thou wert not antiquity — then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, as thou called st it, to look back to with blind veneration ; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, lo modern ! What mystery lurks in this retroversion ? or what half Januses ^ are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we forever revert ! The mighty future is as nothing, being everything ! the past is every- thing, being nothing ! 15 What were thy dark ages ? Surely the sun rose as brightly then as now, and man got him to his work in the morning. Why is it that we can never hear mention of them without an accompanying feeling, as though a palpable obscure had dimmed the face of things, and that our ancestors wandered 20 to and fro groping ! Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, what do most arride^ and solace me, are thy repositories of mouldering learning, thy shelves — What a place to be in is an old library ! It seems as 25 1 Note that this word has its primitive meaning of servant. 2 Chief of a college commissariat. Lamb uses the word, perhaps, because one of Chaucer's characters, just referred to, was a Manciple. ^Januses of one face. — Sir Thomas Broivne. \_C. Z.] * To gratify laughingly ; one of Lamb's favourite old words. ESSAYS OF ELIA — 6 82 Essays of Elia though all the souls of all the writers, that have bequeathed their labours to these Bodleians, were reposing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do not want to han- dle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. I could 5 as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage ; and the odour of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard. Still less have I curiosity to disturb the elder repose of lo MSS. Those vaj-ice lectiones} so tempting to the more erudite palates, do but disturb and unsettle my faith. I am no Herculanean raker. The credit of the three wit- nesses might have slept unimpeached for me. I leave these curiosities to Porson, and to G. D. — whom, by the 15 way, I found busy as a moth over some rotten archive, rummaged out of some seldom-explored press, in a nook at Oriel. With long poring, he is grown almost into a book. He stood as passive as one by the side of the old shelves. I longed to new-coat him in Russia, and assign him his 20 place. He might have mustered for a tall Scapula. D. is assiduous in his visits to these seats of learning. No inconsiderable portion of his moderate fortune, I ap- prehend, is consumed in journeys between them and Clifford's Inn — where, like a dove on the asp's nest, he 25 has long taken up his unconscious abode, amid an incon- gruous assembly of attorneys, attorneys' clerks, apparitors, promoters, vermin of the law, among whom he sits, " in calm and sinless peace." The fangs of the law pierce 1 Different readings. Oxford in the Vacation 83 him not — the winds of litigation blow over his humble chambers — the hard sheriff's officer moves his hat as he passes — legal nor illegal discourtesy touches him — none thinks of offering violence or injustice to him — you would as soon " strike an abstract idea." 5 D. has been engaged, he tells me, through a course of laborious years, in an investigation into all curious matter connected with the two Universities ; and has lately lit upon a MS. collection of charters, relative to C , by which he hopes to settle some disputed points — particu- 10 larly that long controversy between them as to priority of foundation. The ardour with which he engages in these liberal pursuits, I am afraid, has not met with all the en- couragement it deserved, either here, or at C . Your caputs,^ and heads of colleges, care less than anybody else 15 about these questions. — Contented to suck the milky fountains of their Alma Maters, without inquiring into the venerable gentlewomen's years, they rather hold such curiosities to be impertinent — unreverend. They have their good glebe lands in manu^ and care not much to 20 rake into the title-deeds. I gather at least so much from other sources, for D. is not a man to complain. D. started hke an unbroke heifer, when I interrupted him. y^/r/fS";-/^ it was not very probable that we should have met in Oriel. But D. would have done the same, 25 had I accosted him on the sudden in his own walks in 1 Heads. An abbreviation of the term caput senatus, " head of the senate"; an English University official. ^ In hand. ^ From [what is] before = judging beforehand. 84 Essays of Elia Clifford's Inn, or in the Temple. In addition to a pro- voking short-sightedness (the effect of late studies and watchings at the midnight oil) D. is the most absent of men. He made a call the other morning at our friend sM.'s in Bedford Square; and, finding nobody at home, was ushered into the hall, where, asking for pen and ink, with great exactitude of purpose he enters me ^ his name in the book — which ordinarily lies about in such places, to record the failures of the untimely or unfortunate visitor — 10 and takes his leave with many ceremonies, and professions of regret. Some two or three hours after, his walking des- tinies returned him into the same neighbourhood again, and again the quiet image of the fireside circle at J/.'s — Mrs. M. presiding at it like a Queen Lar, with pretty 15^. S. at her side — striking irresistibly on his fancy, he makes another call (forgetting that they were " certainly not to return from the country before that day week ") and disappointed a second time, inquires for pen and paper as before : again the book is brought, and in the line just 20 above that in which he is about to print his second name (his re-script) — his first name (scarce dry) looks out upon him like another Sosia, or as if a man should suddenly en- counter his own duplicate ! — The effect may be conceived. D. made many a good resolution against any such lapses 25 in future. I hope he will not keep them too rigorously. For with G. D. — to be absent from the body, is some- times (not to speak it profanely) to be present with the Lord. At the very time when, personally, encountering 1 A redundant pronoun imitative of old usage. Oxford in the Vacation 85 thee, he passes on with no recognition — or, being stopped, starts Hke a thing surprised — at that moment, Reader, he is on Mount Tabor — or Parnassus — or co-sphered with Plato — or, with Harrington, framing " immortal common- wealths" — devising some plan of amelioration to thy 5 country, or thy species — peradventure meditating some individual kindness or courtesy, to be done to thee thyself, ■ the returning consciousness of which made him to start so guiltily at thy obtruded personal presence. D. commenced hfe, after a course of hard study in the 10 " House of pure Emanuel," as usher to a knavish fanatic schoolmaster at , at a salary of eight pounds per annum, with board and lodging. Of this poor stipend, he never received above half in all the laborious years he served this man. He tells a pleasant anecdote, that when 15 poverty, staring out at his ragged knees, has sometimes compelled him, against the modesty of his nature, to hint at arrears. Dr. would take no immediate notice, but, after supper, when the school was called together to even- song, he would never fail to introduce some instructive 20 homily againSt riches, and the corruption of the heart oc- casioned through the desire of them — ending with "Lord, keep thy servants, above all things from the heinous sin of avarice. Having food and raiment, let us therewithal be content. Give me Agar's wish," — and the like; — 25 which to the little auditory, sounded like a doctrine full of Christian prudence and simplicity, — but to poor D. was a receipt in full for that quarter's demands at least. And D. has been under- working for himself ever since ; 86 Essays of Elia — drudging at low rates for unappreciating booksellers, — wasting his fine erudition in silent corrections of the classics, and in those unostentatious but solid services to learning, which commonly fall to the lot of laborious 5 scholars, who have not the art to sell themselves to the best advantage. He has published poems, which do not • sell, because their character is inobtrusive hke his own, — and because he has been too much absorbed in ancient literature, to know what the popular mark in poetry is, lo even if he could have hit it. And, therefore, his verses are properly, what he terms them, crotchets ; voluntaries; odes to Liberty, and Spring ; effusions ; little tributes, and offerings, left behind him, upon tables and window- seats, at parting from friends' houses ; and from all the inns 15 of hospitality, where he has been courteously (or but toler- ably) received in his pilgrimage. If his muse of kind- ness halt a little behind the strong lines, in fashion in this excitement-craving age, his prose is the best of the sort in the world, and exhibits a faithful transcript of his own healthy 20 natural mind, and cheerful innocent tone of conversation. D. is delightful anywhere, but he is at the best in such places as these. He cares not much for Bath. He is out of his element at Buxton, at Scarborough, or Harrow- gate. The Cam and the Isis are to him " better than all 25 the waters of Damascus." On the Muses' hill he is happy, and good, as one of the Shepherds on the Delectable Mountains ; and when he goes about with you to show you the halls and colleges, you think you have with you the Interpreter at the House Beautiful. POOR RELATIONS A Poor Relation — is the most irrelevant thing in na- ture, — a piece of impertinent correspondency, — an odious approximation, — a haunting conscience, — a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of your prosperity, — an unwelcome remembrancer, — a perpetually recurring 5 mortification, — a drain on your purse, — a more intoler- able dun upon your pride, — • a drawback upon success, — a rebuke to your rising, — a stain in your blood, — a blot on your scutcheon, — a rent in your garment, — a death's head at your banquet, — Agathocles' pot, — a Mordecai in your 10 gate, — a Lazarus at your door, — a lion in your path, — a frog in your chamber, — a fly in your ointment, — a mote in your eye, — a triumph to your enemy, an apology to your friends, — the one thing not needful, — the hail in harvest, — the ounce of sour in a pound of sweet. 15 He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you " That is Mr. ." A rap, between familiarity and respect ; that demands, and, at the same time, seems to despair of, entertainment. He entereth smiling, and — embarrassed. He holdeth out his hand to you to shake, 20 and — draweth it back again. He casually looketh in about dinner-time — when the table is full. He offereth to go away, seeing you have company — but is induced to stay. He filleth a chair, and your visitor's two children are ac- 87 88 Essays of Elia commodated at a side-table. He never cometh .upon open days, when your wife says with some complacency, " My dear, perhaps Mr. will drop in to-day." He remembereth birthdays — and professeth he is fortunate to 5 have stumbled upon one. He declareth against fish, the turbot being small — yet suffereth himself to be importuned into a slice against his first resolution. He sticketh by the port — yet will be prevailed upon to empty the remainder glass of claret, if a stranger press it upon him. He is a lo puzzle to the servants, who are fearful of being too obsequi- ous, or not civil enough, to him. The guests think " they have seen him before." Every one speculateth upon his condition ; and the most part take him to be — a tide- waiter.^ He calleth you by your Christian name, to imply IS that his other is the same with your own. He is too famihar by half, yet you wish he had less diffidence. With half the familiarity he might pass for a casual dependent ; with more boldness he would be in no danger of being taken for what he is. He is too humble for a friend, yet taketh 20 on him more state than befits a cHent. He is a worse guest than a country tenant, inasmuch as he bringeth up no rent — yet 'tis odds, from his garb and demeanour, that your guests take him for one. He is asked to make one at the whist table ; refuseth on the score of poverty, and 25 — resents being left out. When the company break up, he proffereth to go for a coach — and lets the servant go. He recollects your grandfather ; and will thrust in some mean, and quite unimportant anecdote of — the family. 1 A custom-house officer who boards incoming vessels. Poor Relations 89 He knew it when it was not quite so flourishing as " he is blest in seeing it now." He reviveth past situations, to institute what he calleth — favourable comparisons. With a reflecting sort of congratulation, he will inquire the price of your furniture ; and insults you with a special commen- 5 dation of your window- curtains. He is of opinion that the urn is the more elegant shape, but, after all, there was some- thing more comfortable about the old tea-kettle — which you must remember. He dare say you must find a great convenience in having a carriage of your own, and ap- 10 pealeth to your lady if it is not so. Inquireth if you have had your arms done on vellum yet ; and did not know till lately, that such and such had been the crest of the family. His memory is unseasonable ; his compliments perverse ; his talk a trouble ; his stay pertinacious ; and 15 when he goeth away, you dismiss his chair into a corner, as precipitately as possible, and feel fairly rid of two nui- sances. There is a worse evil under the sun, and that is — a female Poor Relation. You may do something with the 20 other ; you may pass him off tolerably well ; but your indi- gent she-relative is hopeless. " He is an old humorist," ^ you may say, " and affects to go threadbare. His circum- stances are better than folks would take them to be. You are fond of having a Character at your table, and truly he is 25 one." But in the indications of female poverty there can be no disguise. No woman dresses below herself from caprice. The truth must out without shuffling. "She is plainly 1 See note i,p. 69. 90 Essays of Elia related to the L s ; or what does she at their house ? " She is, in all probabihty, your wife's cousin. Nine times out of ten, at least, this is the case. Her garb is something between a gentlewoman and a beggar, yet the former 5 evidently predominates. She is most provokingly humble, and ostentatiously sensible to her inferiority. He may require to be repressed sometimes — aliquando sufflami- nandus erat^ — but there is no raising her. You send her soup at dinner, and she begs to be helped — after the 10 gentlemen. Mr. requests the honour of taking wine with her ; she hesitates between Port and Madeira, and chooses the former — because he does. She calls the ser- vant Sir; and insists on not troubling him to hold her plate. The housekeeper patronizes her. The children's governess 15 takes upon her to correct her, when she has mistaken the piano for a harpsichord. Richard Amlet, Esq., in the play, is a notable instance of the disadvantages, to which this chimerical notion of affijiity constituting a clai7n to acquaintance ^ may subject 20 the spirit of a gentleman. A little foolish blood is all that is betwixt him and a lady of great estate. His stars are perpetually crossed by the mahgnant maternity of an old woman, who persists in calHng him "her son Dick." But she has wherewithal in the end to recompense his 25 indignities, and float him again upon the brilliant surface, under which it had been her seeming business and pleasure all along to sink him. All men, besides, are not of Dick's 1 " It was necessary to put the drag on sometimes ;" a quotation from Seneca, adapted. Poor Relations 91 temperament. I knew an Amlet in real life, who, wanting Dick's buoyancy, sank indeed. Poor W ^ was of my own standing at Christ's, a fine classic, and a youth of promise. If he had a blemish, it was too much pride ; but its quality was inoffensive ; it was not of that sort which s hardens the heart, and serves to keep inferiors at a dis- tance ; it only sought to ward off derogation from itself. It was the principle of self-respect carried as far as it could go, without infringing upon that respect, which he would have every one else equally maintain for himself. He 10 would have you to think alike with him on this topic. Many a quarrel have I had with him, when we were rather older boys, and our tallness made us more obnoxious to observation in the blue clothes, because I would not thread ths alleys and blind ways of the town with him to elude 15 notice, when we have been out together on a hoHday in the streets of this sneering and prying metropolis. W went, sore with these notions, to Oxford, where the dignity and sweetness of a scholar's life, meeting with the alloy of a humble introduction, wrought in him a passionate devo- 20 tion to the place, with a profound aversion from the society. The servitor's gown (worse than his school array) clung to him with Nessian venom. He thought himself ridiculous in a garb, under which Latimer must have walked erect ; and in which Hooker, in his young days, possibly flaunted in a 25 vein of no discommendable vanity. In the depth of college shades, or in his lonely chamber, the poor student shrunk from observation. He found shelter among books, which 1 Lamb identifies W — — with Favell; see p. 41. 92 Essays of Elia insult not ; and studies, that ask no questions of a youth's finances. He was lord of his library, and seldom cared for looking out beyond his domains. The healing influence of studious pursuits was upon him, to soothe and to abstract. 5 He was almost a healthy man ; when the waywardness of his fate broke out against him with a second and worse malig- nity. The father of W had hitherto exercised the humble profession of house-painter at N , near Oxford. A supposed interest with some of the heads of the colleges lo had now induced him to take up his abode in that city, with the hope of being employed upon some public works which were talked of From that moment I read in the counte- nance of the young man, the determination which at length tore him from academical pursuits forever. To a person 15 unacquainted with our Universities, the distance between the gownsmen and the townsmen, as they are called — the trading part of the latter especially — is carried to an excess that would appear harsh and incredible. The tempera- ment of W 's father was diametrically the reverse of 20 his own. Old W was a Httle, busy, cringing trades- man, who, with his son upon his arm, would stand bowing and scraping, cap in hand, to anything that wore the sem- blance of a gown — insensible to the winks and opener remonstrances of the young man, to whose chamber- fellow, 25 or equal in standing, perhaps, he was thus obsequiously and gratuitously ducking. Such a state of things could not last. W must change the air of Oxford or be suffocated. He chose the former; and let the sturdy morahst, who strains the point of the filial duties as high as they can bear, Poor Relations 93 censure the dereliction ; he cannot estimate the struggle. I stood with W , the last afternoon I ever saw him, under the eaves of his paternal dwelling. It was in the fine lane leading from the High Street to the back of College, where W kept his rooms. He seemed 5 thoughtful, and more reconciled. I ventured to rally him — finding him in a better mood — upon a represen- tation of the Artist Evangelist, which the old man, whose affairs were beginning to flourish, had caused to be set up in a splendid sort of frame over his really handsome shop, 10 either as a token of prosperity, or badge of gratitude to his saint. W looked up at the Luke, and, like Satan, ''knew his mounted sign — and fled." A letter on his father's table the next morning, announced that he had accepted a commission in a regiment about to embark for 15 Portugal. He was among the first who perished before the walls of St. Sebastian. I do not know how, upon a subject which I began with treating half seriously, I should have fallen upon a recital so eminently painful ; but this theme of poor relationship 20 is replete with so much matter for tragic as well as comic associations, that it is difficult to keep the account distinct without blending. The earliest impressions which I re- ceived on this matter, are certainly not attended with any- thing painful, or very humiliating, in the recalling. At 25 my father's table (no very splendid one) was to be found, every Saturday, the mysterious figure of an aged gentleman, clothed in neat black, of a sad yet comely appearance. His deportment was of the essence of gravity; his words 94 Essays of Elia few or none j and I was not to make a noise in his pres- ence. I had httle inclination to have done so — for my cue was to admire in silence. A particular elbow- chair was appropriated to him, which was in no case to 5 be violated. A pecuHar sort of sweet pudding, which ap- peared on no other occasion, distinguished the days of his coming. I used to think him a prodigiously rich man. All I could make out of him was, that he and my father had been school-fellows a world ago at Lincoln, and that he locame from the Mint. The Mint I knew to be a place where all the money was coined — and I thought he was the owner of all that money. Awful ideas of the Tower twined themselves about his presence. He seemed above human infirmities and passions. A sort of melancholy 15 grandeur invested him. From some inexplicable doom I fancied him obliged to go about in an eternal suit of mourning ; a captive — a stately being, let out of the Tower on Saturdays. Often have I wondered at the temerity of my father, who, in spite of an habitual gen- 20 eral respect which we all in common manifested towards him, would venture now and then to stand up against him in some argument, touching their youthful days. The houses of the ancient city of Lincoln are divided (as most of my readers know) between the dwellers on the hill, and 25 in the valley. This marked distinction formed an ob- vious division between the boys who lived above (how- ever brought together in a common school) and the boys whose paternal residence was on the plain ; a sufficient cause of hostility in the code of these young Grotiuses. Poor Relations 95 My father had been a leading Mountaineer ; and would still maintain the general superiority, in skill and hardi- hood, of the Above Boys (his own faction) over the Below Boys (so were they called), of which party his contemporary had been a chieftain. Many and hot were the skirmishes 5 on this topic — the only one upon which the old gentle- man was ever brought out — and bad blood bred; even sometimes almost to the recommencement (so I expected) * of actual hostilities. But my father, who scorned to in- sist upon advantages, generally contrived to turn the 10 conversation upon some adroit by-commendation of the old Minster ; in the general preference of which, before all other cathedrals in the island, the dweller on the hill, and the plain-born, could meet on a conciliating level, and lay down their less important differences. Once 15 only I saw the old gentleman really ruffled, and I re- membered with anguish the thought that came over me : " Perhaps he will never come here again." He had been pressed to take another plate of the viand, which I have already mentioned as the indispensable concomitant of 20 his visits. He had refused, with a resistance amounting to rigour — when my aunt, an old Lincolnian, but who had something of this, in common with my cousin Bridget, that she would sometimes press civility out of season — uttered the following memorable application — " Do take 25 another slice, Mr. Billet, for you do not get pudding every day." The old gentleman said nothing at the time — but he took occasion in the course of the evening, when some argument had intervened between them, to g6 Essays of Elia utter with an emphasis which chilled the company, and which chills me now as I write it — " Woman, you are superannuated ! " John Billet did not survive long, after the digesting of this affront ; but he survived long enough 5 to assure me that peace was actually restored ! and, if I remember aright, another pudding was discreetly substituted in the place of that which had occasioned the offence. He died at the Mint (Anno T781), where he had long held, what he accounted, a comfortable indepen- 10 dence ; and with five pounds, fourteen shilhngs, and a penny, which were found in his escritoire after his decease, left the world, blessing God that he had enough to bury him, and that he had never been obliged to any man for a sixpence. This was — a Poor Relation. IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES I am of a constitution so general, that it consorts and sympathiz- eth with all things, I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncrasy in anything. Those national repugnancies do not touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch. — Religio Medici. i^ That the author of the Religio Medici, mounted upon the airy stilts of abstraction, conversant about notional and conjectural essences ; in whose categories of Being the possible took the upper hand of the actual ; should have overlooked the impertinent individualities of such lo poor concretions as mankind, is not much to be admired. It is rather to be wondered at, that in the genus of ani- mals he should have condescended to distinguish that species at all. For myself — earth-bound and fettered to the scene of my activities, — 15 Standing on earth, not rapt above the sky, I confess that I do feel the differences of mankind, na- tional or individual, to an unhealthy excess. I can look with no indifferent eye upon things or persons. What- ever is, is to me a matter of taste or distaste ; or when 20 once it becomes indifferent, it begins to be disrelishing. I am, in plainer words, a bundle of prejudices — made up of likings and dislikings — the veriest thrall to sympathies, apathies, antipathies.^ In a certain sense, I hope it may iNote hovi^, in choosing these words derived from the same Greek original, Lamb runs the scale from liking, through indifference, to dislike. ESSAYS OF ELIA — 7 97 98 Essays of Elia be said of me that I am a lover of my species. I can feel for all indifferently, but I cannot feel towards all equally. The more purely English word that expresses sympathy will better explain my meaning. I can be a 5 friend to a worthy man, who upon another account can- not be my mate ox fellow. I cannot like all people alike.^ I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair. They cannot like me — and in truth, I never knew one of I I would be understood as confining myself to the subject of im- perfect sy?npathies. To nations or classes of men there can be no direct antipathy. There may be individuals born and constellated so opposite to another individual nature, that the same sphere can- not hold them. I have met with my moral antipodes, and can be- lieve the story of two persons meeting (who never saw one another before in their lives) and instantly fighting. We by proof find there should be 'Twixt man and man such an antipathy, That though he can show no just reason why For any former wrong or injury, Can neither find a blemish in his fame, Nor aught in face or feature justly blame, Can challenge or accuse him of no evil. Yet notwithstanding hates him as a devil. The lines are from old Hey wood's " Hierarchic of Angels," and he subjoins a curious story in confirmation, of a Spaniard who attempted to assassinate a King Ferdinand of Spain, and being put to the rack could give no other reason for the deed but an inveterate antipathy which he had taken to the first sight of the King. The cause which to that act compell'd him Was, he ne'er loved him since he first beheld him. [C. L,] Imperfect Sympathies 99 that nation who attempted to do it. There is something more plain and ingenuous in their mode of proceeding. We know one another at first sight. There is an order of imperfect intellects (under which mine must be con- tent to rank) which in its constitution is essentially anti- 5 Caledonian.^ The owners of the sort of faculties I allude to, have minds rather suggestive than comprehensive. They have no pretences to much clearness or precision in their ideas, or in their manner of expressing them. Their intellectual wardrobe (to confess fairly) has few whole 10 pieces in it. They are content with fragments and scattered pieces of Truth. She presents no full front to them — a feature or side face at the most. Hints and glimpses, germs and crude essays at a system, is the ut- most they pretend to. They beat up a little game per- 15 adventure — and leave it to knottier heads, more robust constitutions, to run it down. The light that lights them is not steady and polar, but mutable and shifting : waxing, and again waning. Their conversation is accordingly. They will throw out a random word in or out of season, 20 and be content to let it pass for what it is worth. They cannot speak always as if they were upon their oath — but must be understood, speaking or writing, with some abatement. They seldom wait to mature a proposition, but e'en^ bring it to market in the green ear. They de- 25 light to impart their defective discoveries as they arise, without waiting for their full development. They are no 1 Caledonia is the poetic name of Scotland. 2 Lamb uses this poetic abbreviation as a kind of archaism. loo Essays of Elia systematizers, and would bat err more by attempting it. Their minds, as I said before, are suggestive merely. The brain of a true Caledonian (if I am not mistaken) is con- stituted upon quite a different plan. His Minerva is born S in panoply. You are never admitted to see his ideas in their growth — if, indeed, they do grow, and are not rather put together upon principles of clock-work. You never catch his mind in an undress. He never hints or suggests anything, but unlades his stock of ideas in perfect lo order and completeness. He brings his total wealth into company, and gravely unpacks it. His riches are always about him. He never stoops to catch a glittering some- thing in your presence, to share it with you, before he quite knows whether it be true touch or not. You can- is not cry halves to anything that he finds. He does not find, but bring. You never witness his first apprehension of a thing. His understanding is always at its meridian — you never see the first dawn, the early streaks. — He has no falterings of self-suspicion. Surmises, guesses, 20 misgivings, half-intuitions, semi-consciousnesses, partial illuminations, dim instincts, embryo conceptions, have no place in his brain, or vocabulary. The twilight of dubiety never falls upon him. Is he orthodox — he has no doubts. Is he an infidel — he has none either. Between 25 the affirmative and the negative there is no border-land with him. You cannot hover with him upon the confines of truth, or wander in the maze of a probable argument. He always keeps the path. You cannot make excursions with him — for he sets you right. His taste never fluctu- Imperfect Sympathies loi ates. His morality never abates. He cannot compro- mise, or understand middle actions. There can be but a right and a wrong. His conversation is as a book. His affirmations have the sanctity of an oath. You must speak upon the square with him. He stops a metaphor 5 like a suspected person in an enemy's country. "A healthy book ! " — said one of his countrymen to me, who had ventured to give that appellation to John Buncle, — " did I catch rightly what you said ? I have heard of a man in health, and of a healthy state of body, but I do 10 not see how that epithet can be properly applied to a book." Above all, you must beware of indirect expres- sions before a Caledonian. Clap an extinguisher upon your irony, if you are unhappily blest with a vein of it. Remember you are upon your oath. I have a print of 15 a graceful female after Leonardo da Vinci, which I was showing off to Mr. . After he had examined it mi- nutely, I ventured to ask him how he liked my beauty (a foolish name it goes by among my friends) — when he very gravely assured me, that " he had considerable respect 20 for my character and talents " (so he was pleased to say), " but had not given himself much thought about the degree of my personal pretensions." The misconception stag- gered me, but did not seem much to disconcert him. — Persons of this nation are particularly fond of affirming a 25 truth — which nobody doubts. They do not so properly affirm, as annunciate it. They do indeed appear to have such a love of truth (as if, like^ virtue, it were valuable for itself) that all truth becomes equally valuable, whether I02 Essays of Elia the proposition that contains it be new or old, disputed, or such as is impossible become a subject of disputa- tion. I was present not long since at a party of North Britons, where a son of Burns was expected ; and hap- 5 pened to drop a silly expression (in my South British way), that I wished it were the father instead of the son — when four of them started up at once to inform me, that "that was impossible, because he was dead." An impracticable wish, it seems, was more than they could lo conceive. Swift has hit off this part of theii character, namely their love of truth, in his biting way, but with an illiberality that necessarily confines the passage to the margin.^ The tediousness of these people is certainly provoking. I wonder if they ever tire one another ! — In 15 my early life I had a passionate fondness for the poetry of Burns. I have sometimes foohshly hoped to ingratiate myself with his countrymen by expressing it. But I have always found that a true Scot resents your admiration of his compatriot, even more than he would your con- 20 tempt of him. The latter he imputes to your "imper- fect acquaintance with many of the words which he 1 There are some people who think they sufficiently acquit them- selves, and entertain their company, with relating facts of no conse- quence, not at all out of the road of such common incidents as hap- pen everyday; and this I have observed more frequently among the Scots than any other nation, who are very careful not to omit the minutest circumstances of time or place; which kind of discourse, if it were not a little relieved by the uncouth terms and phrases, as well as accent and gesture peculiar to that country, would be hardly tol- erable. — Hints towards an Essay on Conversation. [C. L.] Imperfect Sympathies 103 uses; " and the same objection makes it a presumption in you to suppose that you can admire him. — Thomson they seem to have forgotten. Smollett they have neither forgotten nor forgiven for his delineation of Rory and his companion, upon their first introduction to our metrop- 5 olis. — Speak of Smollett as a great genius, and they will retort upon you Hume's History compared with his Continuation of it. What if the historian had continued Humphrey CHnker? I have, in the abstract, no disrespect for Jews. They 10 are a piece of stubborn antiquity, compared with which Stonehenge is in its nonage. They date beyond the pyra- mids. But I should not care to be in habits of familiar intercourse with any of that nation. I confess that I have not the nerves to enter their synagogues. Old prejudices 15 cling about me. I cannot shake off the story of Hugh of Lincoln. Centuries of injury, contempt, and hate, on the one side, — of cloaked revenge, dissimulation, and hate, on the other, between our and their fathers, must, and ought, to affect the blood of the children. I cannot beheve it 20 can run clear and kindly yet ; or that a few fine words, such as candour, hberality, the hght of a nineteenth cen- tury, can close up the breaches of so deadly a disunion. A Hebrew is nowhere congenial to me. He is least dis- tasteful on 'Change — for the mercantile spirit levels all dis- 25 tinctions, as all are beauties in the dark. I boldly confess that I do not relish the approximation of Jew and Chris- tian, which has become so fashionable. The reciprocal endearments have, to me, something hypocritical and I04 Essays of EHa unnatural in them. I do not like to see the Church and Synagogue kissing and congeeing ^ in awkward postures of an affected civility. If they are converted, why do they not come over to us altogether ? Why keep up a form 5 of separation, when the life of it is fled ? If they can sit with us at table, why do they keck ^ at our cookery? I do not understand these half convertites. Jews chris- tianizing — Christians judaizing — puzzle me. I like fish or flesh. A moderate Jew is a more confounding piece of 10 anomaly than a wet Quaker. The spirit of the synagogue is essentially separative. B ^ would have been more in keeping if he had abided by the faith of his forefathers. There is a fine scorn in his face, which nature meant to be of — Christians. The Hebrew spirit is strong in him, 15 in spite of his proselytism. He cannot conquer the Shibboleth. How it breaks out, when he sings, " The Children of Israel passed through the Red Sea ! " The auditors, for the moment, are as Egyptians to him, and he rides over our necks in triumph. There is no mis- 20 taking him. — B has a strong expression of sense in his countenance, and it is confirmed by his singing. The foundation of his vocal excellence is sense. He sings with understanding, as Kemble delivered dialogue. He would sing the Commandments, and give an appropriate charac- 25 ter to each prohibition. His nation, in general, have not ever-sensible countenances. How should they ? — but you seldom see a silly expression among them. Gain, and the pursuit of gain, sharpen a man's visage. I never heard 1 Bowing ceremoniously. 2 Retch. ^Braham, the tenor. Imperfect Sympathies 105 of an idiot being born among them. — Some admire the Jewish female physiognomy. I admire it — but with trembling. Jael had those full dark inscrutable eyes. In the Negro countenance you will often meet with strong traits of benignity. I have felt yearnings of ten- s derness towards some of these faces — or rather masks — that have looked out kindly upon one in casual encoun- ters in the streets and highways. 1 love what Fuller beauti- fully calls — these " images of God cut in ebony." But I should not like to associate with them, to share my meals 10 and my good-nights with them — because they are black. I love Quaker ways, and Quaker worship. I venerate the Quaker principles. It does me good for the rest of the day when I meet any of their people in my path. When I am ruffled or disturbed by any occurrence, the 15 sight, or quiet voice of a Quaker, acts upon me as a ven- tilator, Hghtening the air, and taking off a load from the bosom. But I cannot hke the Quakers (as Desdemona would say) "to Hve with them." I am all over sophis- ticated — with humours, fancies, craving hourly sympathy. 20 I must have books, pictures, theatres, chit-chat, scandal, jokes, ambiguities, and a thousand whim-whams, which their simpler taste can do without. I should starve at their primitive banquet. My appetites are too high for the salads which (according to Evelyn) Eve dressed for 25 the angel, my gusto too excited To sit a guest with Daniel at his pulse. The indirect answers which Quakers are often found to return to a question put to them may be explained, I io6 Essays of Elia think, without the vulgar assumption, that they are more given to evasion and equivocating than other people. They naturally look to their words more carefully, and are more cautious of committing themselves. They have 5 a pecuhar character to keep up on this head. They stand in a manner upon their veracity. A Quaker is by law exempted from taking an oath. The custom of resorting to an oath in extreme cases, sanctified as it is by all re- ligious antiquity, is apt (it must be confessed) to intro- lo duce into the laxer sort of minds the notion of two kinds of truth — the one appHcable to the solemn affairs of justice, and the other to the common proceedings of daily intercourse. As truth bound upon the conscience by an oath can be but truth, so in the common affirma- istions of the shop and the market-place a latitude is ex- pected, and conceded upon questions wanting this solemn covenant. Something less than truth satisfies. It is common to hear a person say, " You do not expect me to speak as if I were upon my oath." Hence a great 20 deal of incorrectness and inadvertency, short of falsehood, creeps into ordinary conversation ; and a kind of second- ary or laic-truth is tolerated, where clergy-truth — oath- truth, by the nature of the circumstances, is not required. A Quaker knows none of this distinction. His simple af- 25 firmation being received, upon the most sacred occasions, without any further test, stamps a value upon the words which he is to use upon the most indifferent topics of life. He looks to them, naturally, with more severity. You can have of him no more than his word. He knows, Imperfect Sympathies 107 if he is caught tripping in a casual expression, he forfeits, for himself, at least, his claim to the invidious exemption. He knows that his syllables are weighed — and how far a consciousness of this particular watchfulness, exerted against a person, has a tendency to produce indirect 5 answers, and a diverting of the question by honest means, might be illustrated, and the practice justified, by a more sacred example than is proper to be adduced upon this occasion. The admirable presence of mind, which is notorious in Quakers upon all contingencies, might be 10 traced to this imposed self-watchfulness — if it did not seem rather an humble and secular scion of that old stock of religious constancy, which never bent or faltered, in the Primitive Friends, or gave way to the winds of persecution, to the violence of judge or accuser, under trials and rack^ 15 ing examinations. " You will never be the wiser, if I sit here answering your questions till midnight," said one of those upright Justicers to Penn, who had been putting law-cases with a puzzling subtlety. " Thereafter as the answers may be," retorted the Quaker. The astonishing 20 composure of this people is sometimes ludicrously dis- played in lighter instances. — I was travelling in a stage- coach with three male Quakers, buttoned up in the straitest ^ nonconformity of their sect. We stopped to bait at Andover, where a meal, partly tea apparatus, partly 25 supper, was set before us. My friends confined them- selves to the tea-table. I in my way took supper. When the landlady brought in the bill, the eldest of my com- ^That is, strictest; cf. Acts xxvi. 5. io8 Essays of Ella panions discovered that she had charged for both meals. This was resisted. Mine hostess was very clamorous and positive. Some mild arguments were used on the part of the Quakers, for which the heated mind of the good S lady seemed by no means a fit recipient. The guard came in with his usual peremptory notice. The Quakers pulled out their money, and formally tendered it — so much for tea — I, in humble imitation, tendering mine — for the supper which I had taken. She would not relax in loher demand. So they all three quietly put up their silver, as did myself, and marched out of the room, the eldest and gravest going first, with myself closing up the rear, who thought I could not do better than follow the example of such grave and warrantable personages. We got in. 15 The steps went up. The coach drove off. The murmurs of mine hostess, not very indistinctly or ambiguously pro- nounced, became after a time inaudible — and now my conscience, which the whimsical scene had for a while suspended, beginning to give some twitches, I waited, in 20 the hope that some justification would be offered by these serious persons for the seeming injustice of their conduct. To my great surprise, not a syllable was dropped on the subject. They sat as mute as at a meeting. At length the eldest of them broke silence, by inquiring of his next 25 neighbour, *' Hast thee heard how indigos go at the India House ? " and the question operated as a soporific on my moral feeling as far as Exeter. OLD CHINA I HAVE an almost feminine partiality for old china. When I go to see any great house, I inquire for the china- closet, and next for the picture gallery. I cannot de- fend the order of preference, but by saying, that we have all some taste or other, of too ancient a date to ad- 5 mit of our remembering distinctly that it was an acquired one. I can call to mind the first play, and the first exhi- bition, that I was taken to ; but I am not conscious of a time when china jars and saucers were introduced into my imagination. 10 I had no repugnance then — why should I now have? — to those little, lawless, azure-tinctured grotesques, that under the notion of men and women, float about, uncir- cumscribed by any element, in that world before perspec- tive — a china tea-cup. 15 I like to see my old friends — whom distance cannot diminish — figuring up in the air (so they appear to our optics), yet on terra firm a still — for so we must in cour- tesy interpret that speck of deeper blue, which the deco- rous artist, to prevent absurdity, has made to spring up 20 beneath their sandals. I love the men with women's faces, and the women, if possible, with still more womanish expressions. Here is a young, and courtly Mandarin, handing tea to a lady from a salver — two miles off. See how distance 25 109 I lo Essays of Elia seems to set off respect ! And here the same lady, or an- other — for likeness is identity on tea-cups — is stepping into a little fairy boat, moored on the hither side of this calm garden river, with a dainty mincing foot, which in a S right angle of incidence (as angles go in our world) must infallibly land her in the midst of a flowery mead — a furlong off on the other side of the same strange stream ! Farther on — if far or near can be predicated of their world — see horses, trees, pagodas, dancing the hays.^ . lo Here — a cow and rabbit couchant,^ and coextensive — so objects show, seen through the lucid atmosphere of fine Cathay.^ I was pointing out to my cousin last evening, over our Hyson ^ (which we are old-fashioned enough to drink un- 15 mixed still of an afternoon) some of these speciosa mira- cula ^ upon a set of extraordinary old blue china (a recent purchase) which we were now for the first time using ; and could not help remarking, how favourable circum- stances had been to us of late years, that we could afford 20 to please the eye sometimes with trifles of this sort — when a passing sentiment seemed to overshade the brows 1 The name of an old English dance. 2 Lying down ; a heraldic term. ^ This name, which was applied by Marco Polo the explorer to the vaguely conjectured regions of the far East, came to be the poetic name for China. * A variety of tea. ^ ^hining wonders ; phrase quoted from Horace. — Ars Poetica, 144. Old China iii of my companion. I am quick at detecting these sum- mer clouds in Bridget. " I wish the good old times would come again," she said, " when we were not quite so rich. I do not mean, that I want to be poor ; but there was a middle state ; " 5 — so she was pleased to ramble on, — " in which I am sure we were a great deal happier. A purchase is but a' purchase, now that you have money enough and to spare. Formerly it used to be a triumph. When we coveted a cheap luxury (and, O ! how much ado I had to get you 10 to consent in those times !) we w^ere used to have a de- bate two or three days before, and to weigh the for and against, and think what we might spare it out of, and what saving we could hit upon, that should be an equiva- lent. A thing was worth buying then, when we felt the 15 money that we paid for it. " Do you remember the brown suit, which you made to hang upon you, till all your friends cried shame upon you, it grew so threadbare — and all because of that folio Beaumont and Fletcher, which you dragged home late at 20 night from Barker's in Covent Garden ? Do you remem- ber how we eyed it for weeks before we could make up our minds to the purchase, and had not come to a deter- mination till it was near ten o'clock of the Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing you should be too 25 late — and when the old bookseller with some grumbling opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper (for he was ■ setting bedwards) Hghted out the rehc from his dusty treasures — and when you lugged it home, wishing it were 112 Essays of Elia twice as cumbersome — and when you presented it to me — and when we were exploring the perfectness of it {col- lating ^ you called it) — and while I was repairing some of the loose leaves with paste, which your impatience would 5 not suffer to be left till daybreak — was there no pleasure in being a poor man? or can those neat black clothes which you w^ear now, and are so careful to keep brushed, since w^e have become rich and finical, give you half the honest vanity, with which you flaunted it about in that lo overworn suit — your old corbeau^ — for four or five weeks longer than you should have done, to pacify your conscience for the mighty sum of fifteen — or sixteen shilhngs was it ? — a great affair we thought it then — which you had lavished on the old folio. Now you can 15 afford to buy any book that pleases you, but I do not see that you ever bring me home any nice old purchases now. " When you came home with twenty apologies for lay- ing out a less number of shillings upon that print after Leonardo, which we christened the * Lady Blanch ; ' when 20 you looked at the purchase, and thought of the money — and thought of the money, and looked again at the pic- ture — was there no pleasure in being a poor man ? Now, you have nothing to do but to walk into Colnaghi's, and buy a wilderness of Leonardos, Yet do you ? 25 " Then, do you remember our pleasant walks to Enfield, and Potter's Bar, and Waltham, when we had a holiday 1 A critic's term for comparing passages in books; also a print- er's or librarian's term for verifying sheets and signatures in books. 2 A draper's term; from corbeati, a raven. Old China 113 — holidays, and all other fun, are gone, now we are rich — and the little handbasket in which I used to deposit our day's fare of savoury cold lamb and salad — and how you would pry about at noontide for some decent house, where we might go in, and produce our store — only pay- 5 ing for the ale that you must call for — and speculate upon the looks of the landlady, and whether she was likely to allow us a table-cloth — and wish for such an- other honest hostess, as Izaak Walton has described many a one on the pleasant banks of the Lea, when he went 10 a fishing — and sometimes they would prove obliging enough, and sometimes they would look grudgingly upon us — but we had cheerful looks still for one another, and would eat our plain food savourily, scarcely grudging Pis- cator his Trout Hall ? Now, when we go out a day's 15 pleasuring, which is seldom moreover, we ride part of the way — and go into a fine inn, and order the best of dinners, never debating the expense — which, after all, never has half the relish of those chance country snaps,^ when we were at the mercy of uncertain usage, and a pre- 20 carious welcome. " You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but in the pit. Do you remember where it was we used to sit, when we saw the Battle of Hexham, and the Surrender of Calais, and Bannister and Mrs. Bland in the Chil-2s dren in the Wood — -when we squeezed out our shil- lings apiece to sit three or four times in a season in the one-shilling gallery — where you felt all the time that you 1 The term used now-a-days is snacks. ESSAYS OF ELIA — 8 1 14 Essays of Elia ought not to have brought me — and more strongly I felt obligation to you for having brought me — and the pleasure was the better for a little shame — and when the curtain drew up, what cared we for our place in the 5 house, or what mattered it where we were sitting, when our thoughts were with Rosalind in Arden, or with Viola at the Court of Illyria? You used to say, that the gallery was the best place of all for enjoying a play socially — that the relish of such exhibitions must be in proportion to the lo infrequency of going — that the company we met there, not being in general readers of plays, were obliged to attend the more, and did attend, to what was going on, on the stage — because a word lost would have been a chasm, which it was impossible for them to fill up. With such 15 reflections we consoled our pride then — ^and I appeal to you, whether, as a woman, I met generally with less atten- tion and accommodation, than I have done since in more expensive situations in the house ? The getting in indeed, and the crowding up those inconvenient staircases, was 20 bad enough, — but there was still a law of civility to women recognized to quite as great an extent as we ever found in the other passages — and how a little difficulty overcome heightened the snug seat, and the play, afterwards ! Now we can only pay our money, and walk in. You cannot see, 25 you say, in the galleries now. I am sure we saw, and heard too, well enough then — but sight, and all, I think, is gone with our poverty. " There was pleasure in eating strawberries, before they became quite common — in the first dish of peas, while Old China 115 they were yet dear — to have them for a nice supper, a treat. What treat can we have now? If we were to treat ourselves now — that is, to have dainties a little above our means — ^it would be selfish and wicked. It is the very little more that we allow ourselves beyond what the actual 5 poor can get at, that makes what I call a treat — when two people living together, as we have done, now and then in- dulge themselves in a cheap luxury, which both like ; while each apologizes, and is willing to take both halves of the blame to his single share. I see no harm in people mak- 10 ing much of themselves in that sense of the word. It may give them a hint how to make much of others. But now — what I mean by the word — we never do make much of ourselves. None but the poor can do it. I do not mean the veriest ^ poor of all, but persons as we were, just above 15 poverty. " I know what you were going to say, that it is mighty pleasant at the end of the year to make all meet — and much ado we used to have every Thirty- first Night of De- cember to account for our exceedings — many a long face 20 did you make over your puzzled accounts, and in contriv- ing to make it out how we had spent so much — or that we had not spent so much — or that it was impossible we should spend so much next year — and still we found our slender capital decreasing — but then, betwixt ways, and 25 projects, and compromises of one sort or another, and talk of curtailing this charge, and doing without that for the ^Note the superlative sign on the adverb instead of the adjec- tive, making a delicate distinction in sense. 1 1 6 Essays of Elia future — and the hope that youth brings, and laughing spirits (in which you were never poor till now,) we pocketed up our loss, and in conclusion, with ' lusty brimmers ' (as you used to quote it out of hearty cheerful Mr. Cotton, as 5 you called him), we used to welcome in the ' coming guest.' Now we have no reckoning at all at the end of the old year — no flattering promises about the new year doing better for us." Bridget is so sparing of her speech on most occasions, lo that when she gets into a rhetorical vein, I am careful how I interrupt it. I could not help,. however, smiling at the phantom of wealth which her dear imagination had conjured up out of a clear income of poor hundred pounds a year. "It is true we were happier when we 15 were poorer, but we were also younger, my cousin. I am afraid we must put up with the excess, for if we were to shake the superflux into the sea, we should not much mend ourselves. That we had much to struggle with, as we grew up together, we have reason to be most thankful. 20 It strengthened, and knit our compact closer. We could never have been what we have been to each other, if we had always had the sufficiency which you now complain of. The resisting power — those natural dilations of the youthful spirit, which circumstances cannot straiten ^ — 25 with us are long since passed away. Competence to age is supplementary youth ; a sorry supplement indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had. We must ride, where we 1 Note that this is not the same as straighten ; this means " to make narrow." Compare note on straitest, page 107, Old China 117 formerly walked : live better, and lie softer — and shall be wise to do so — than we had means to do in those good old days you speak of. Yet could those days return — could you and I once more walk our thirty miles aday — could Bannister and Mrs. Bland again be young, and you 5 and I be young to see them — could the good old one- shilling gallery days return — they are dreams, my cousin, now — but could you and I at this moment, instead of this quiet argument, by our well-carpeted fireside, sitting on this luxurious sofa — be once more struggHngup those 10 inconvenient staircases, pushed about, and squeezed, and elbowed by the poorest rabble of poor gallery scramblers — could I once more hear those anxious shrieks of yours — and the delicious Thank God, we are safe, which always followed when the topmost stair, conquered, let in the 15 first light of the whole cheerful theatre down beneath us — I know not the fathom Hne that ever touched a de- scent so deep as I would be willing to bury more wealth in than Croesus had, or the great Jew R ^ is supposed to have, to purchase it. And now do just look at that 20 merry little Chinese waiter holding an umbrella, big enough for a bed tester, over the head of that pretty in- sipid half-Madonnaish chit of a lady in that very blue summer-house." 1 Nathan Mayer Rothschild, the eminent financier. DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING To mind the inside of a book is to entertain one's self with the forced product of another man's brain. Now I think a man of quahty and breeding may be much amused with the natural sprouts of his own. — Lord Foppington in The Relapse. 5 An ingenious acquaintance of my own was so much struck with this bright sally of his Lordship, that he has left off reading altogether, to the great improvement of his originality. At the hazard of losing some credit on this head, I must confess that I dedicate no inconsider- ro able portion of my time to other people's thoughts. I dream away my life in others' speculations. I love to lose myself in other men's minds. When I am not walk- ing, I am reading ; I cannot sit and think. Books think for me. 15 I have no repugnances. Shaftesbury is not too genteel for me, nor Jonathan Wild too low. I can read any- thing which I call a book.^ There are things in that shape which I cannot allow for such. In this catalogue of books which are no books — biblia 20 a-biblia ^ — I reckon Court Calendars, Directories, Pocket Books, Draught Boards bound and lettered at the back, Scientific Treatises, Almanacs, Statutes at Large ; the works of Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, Beattie, Soame Jenyns, ^ A Greek derivative = books that are not books. Note that from this word biblia comes our word bible. Thoughts on Books and Reading 119 and, generally, all those volumes which " no gentleman's library should be without : " the Histories of Flavius Josephus (that learned Jew), and Paley's Moral Philoso- phy. With these exceptions, I can read almost any- thing. I bless my stars for a taste so catholic, so-s unexcluding. I confess that it moves my spleen to see these things in books^ clothing perched upon shelves, like false saints, usurpers of true shrines, intruders into the sanctuary, thrusting out the legitimate occupants. To reach down 10 a well-bound semblance of a volume, and hope it is some kind-hearted play-book, then, opening what " seem its leaves," to come bolt upon a withering Population Essay. To expect a Steele, or a Farquhar, and find — Adam Smith. To view a well-arranged assortment of block- 15 headed Encyclopaedias (Anglicanas or MetropoHtanas) set out in an array of Russia, or Morocco, when a tithe of that good leather would comfortably reclothe my shivering folios ; would renovate Paracelsus himself, and enable old Raymund Lully to look like himself again in the world. 20 I never see these impostors, but I long to strip them, to warm my ragged veterans in their spoils. To be strong-backed and neat-bound is the desideratum of a volume. Magnificence comes after. This, when it can be afforded, is not to be lavished upon all kinds of 25 books indiscriminately. I would not dress a set of Maga- zines, for instance, in full suit. The dishabille, or half- binding (with Russia backs ever) is oicr costume. A Shakespeare, or a Milton (unless the first editions), it I20 Essays of Elia were mere foppery to trick out in gay apparel. The pos- session of them confers no distinction. The exterior of them (the things themselves being so common), strange to say, raises no sweet emotions, no tickling sense of 5 property in the owner. Thomson's Seasons, again, looks best (I maintain it) a little torn, and dog's eared. How beautiful to a genuine lover of reading are the sul- lied leaves, and worn-out appearance, nay, the very odour (beyond Russia), if we would not forget kind feelings in lo fastidiousness, of an old " Circulating Library " Tom Jones, or Vicar of Wakefield ! How they speak of the thousand thumbs, that have turned over their pages with delight ! — of the lone sempstress, whom they may have cheered (milliner, or harder-workirg mantua-maker) 15 after her long day's needle-toil, running far into midnight, when she has snatched an hour, ill spared from sleep, to steep her cares, as in some Lethean cup, in spelling out their enchanting contents ! Who would have them a whit less soiled ? What better condition could we desire 20 to see them in ? In some respects the better a book is, the less it demands from binding. Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, and all that class of perpetually self-reproductive volumes — Great Nature's Stereotypes — we see them individually perish with less re- 25 gret, because we know the copies of them to be " eterne." ^ But where a book is at once both good and rare — where the individual is almost the species, and when that perishes, iLamb borrows this form of the word from Macbeth. Thoughts on Books and Reading 1 2 1 We know not where is that Promethean torch That can its hght relumine — such a book, for instance, as the Life of the Duke of Newcastle, by his Duchess — no casket is rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, to honour and keep safe such 5 a jewel. Not only rare volumes of this description, which seem hopeless ever to be reprinted ; but old editions of writers, such as Sir Philip Sydney, Bishop Taylor, Milton in his prose-works, Fuller — of whom we have reprints, yet the 10 books themselves, though they go about, and are talked of here and there, we know, have not endenizened ^ them- selves (nor possibly ever will) in the national heart, so as to become stock books — it is good to possess these in du- rable and costly covers. I do not care for a First Folio 15 of Shakespeare. (You cannot make a pet book of an author whom everybody reads.)^ I rather prefer the com- mon editions of Rowe and Tonson, without notes, and ^\\}a.plates, which, being so execrably bad, serve as maps, or modest remembrancers, to the text ; and without pre- 20 tending to any supposable emulation with it, are so much better than the Shakespeare gallery engravings, which did. I have a community of feehng with my countrymen about his Plays, and I like those editions of him best, which have been oftenest tumbled about and handled. — On the con- 25 trary, I cannot read Beaumont and Fletcher but in Folio. 1 Lamb's quaint preference for our term naturalize. 2 The sentence in parenthesis was omitted in the collected edition. 122 Essays of Elia The Octavo editions are painful to look at. I have no sympathy with them. If they were as much read as the current editions of the other poet, I should prefer them in that shape to the older one. I do not know a more 5 heartless sight than the reprint of the Anatomy of Melan- choly. What need was there of unearthing the bones of that fantastic old great man, to expose them in a winding-sheet of the newest fashion to modern censure ? what hapless stationer could dream of Burton ever be- lo coming popular? — The wretched Malone could not do worse, when he bribed the sexton of Stratford church to let him whitewash the painted effigy of old Shakespeare, which stood there, in rude but lively fashion depicted, to the very colour of the cheek, the eye, the eyebrow, hair, 15 the very dress he used to wear — the only authentic testi- mony we had, however imperfect, of these curious parts and parcels of him. They covered him over with a coat of white paint. By , if I had been a justice of peace for Warwickshire, I would have clapped both commentator 20 and sexton fast in the stocks, for a pair of meddling sac- rilegious varlets. I think I see them at their work — these sapient trouble- tombs. Shall I be thought fantastical, if I confess, that the names 25 of some of our poets sound sweeter, and have a finer relish to the ear — to mine, at least — than that of Milton or of Shakespeare ? It may be, that the latter are more staled and rung upon in common discourse. The sweet- • est names, and which carry a perfume in the mention, Thoughts on Books and Reading 123 are Kit Marlowe, Drayton, Drummond of Hawthornden, and Cowley. Much depends upon when and where you read a book. In the five or six impatient minutes, before the dinner is quite ready, who would think of taking up the Fairy 5 Queen for a stop-gap, or a volume of Bishop Andrewes' sermons ? Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played before you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which, who listens, had need bring docile 10 thoughts, and purged ears. Winter evenings — the world shut out — with less of ceremony the gentle Shakespeare enters. At such a season, the Tempest, or his own Winter's Tale — These two poets you cannot avoid reading aloud — to 15 yourself, or (as it chances) to some single person listen- ing. More than one — and it degenerates into an audi- ence. Books of quick interest, that hurry on for incidents, are for the eye to gKde over only. It will not do to read 20 them out. I could never listen to even the better kind of modern novels without extreme irksomeness. A newspaper, read out, is intolerable. In some of the Bank offices it is the custom (to save so much individual time) for one of the clerks — who is the best scholar — 25 to commence upon the Times, or the Chronicle, and recite its entire contents aloud pro bono publico} With every advantage of lungs and elocution, the effect is singularly 1 For public good. 124 Essays of Elia vapid. In barbers' shops and public-houses a fellow will get up, and spell out a paragraph, which he communicates as some discovery. Another follows with his selection. So the entire journal transpires at length by piecemeal. 5 Seldom-readers are slow readers, and, without this expedi- ent no one in the company would probably ever travel through the contents of a whole paper. Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a- feeling of disappointment. 10 What an eternal time that gentleman in black, at Nando's, keeps the paper ! I am sick of hearing the waiter bawling out incessantly, "The Chronicle is in hand, Sir." Coming into an inn at night — having ordered your supper — what can be more dehghtful than to find lying 15 in the window-seat, left there time out of mind by the carelessness of some former guest — two or three num- bers of the old Town and Country Magazine, with its amus- ing tete-a-tete pictures — "The Royal Lover and Lady G ;" "The Melting Platonic and the old Beau," — 20 and such like antiquated scandal ? Would you exchange it — at that time, and in that place — for a better book ? Poor Tobin, who latterly fell blind, did not regret it so much for the weightier kinds of reading — the Paradise Lost, or Comus, he could have I'ead to him — but he 25 missed the pleasure of skimming over with his own eye a magazine, or a light pamphlet. I should not care to be caught in the serious avenues of some cathedral alone, and reading Candide. I do not remember a more whimsical surprise than Thoughts on Books and Reading 125 having been once detected — by a familiar damsel — re- clined at my ease upon the grass, on Primrose Hill (her Cythera), reading — Pamela. There was nothing in the book to make a man seriously ashamed at the exposure ; but as she seated herself down by me, and seemed de- 5 termined to read in company, I could have wished it had been — any other book. We read on very sociably for a few pages ; and, not finding the author much to her taste, she got up, and — went away. Gentle casuist, I leave it to thee to conjecture, whether the blush (for there was one 10 between us) was the property of the nymph or the swain in this dilemma. From me you shall never get the secret. I am not much a friend to out-of-doors reading. I cannot settle my spirits to it. I knew a Unitarian minis- ter, who was generally to be seen upon Snow Hill (as yet 15 Skinner's Street ivas not) , between the hours of ten and eleven in the morning, studying a volume of Lardner. I own this to have been a strain of abstraction beyond my reach. I used to admire how he sidled along, keep- ing clear of secular contacts. An illiterate encounter 20 with a porter's knot, or a bread-basket, would have quickly put to flight all the theology I am master of, and have left me worse than indifferent to the five points. There is a class of street-readers, whom I can never contemplate without affection — the poor gentry, who, not 25 having wherewithal to buy or hire a book, filch a little learning at the open stalls — the owner, with his hard eye, casting envious looks at them all the while, and thinking when they will have done. Venturing tenderly. 126 Essays of Elia page after page, expecting every moment when he shall interpose his interdict, and yet unable to deny themselves the gratification, they *' snatch a fearful joy." Martin B , in this way, by daily fragments, got through two 5 volumes of Clarissa, when the stall-keeper damped his laudable ambition, by asking him (it was in his younger days) whether he meant to purchase the work. M. de- clares, that under no circumstances of his life did he ever peruse a book with half the satisfaction which he took in lo those uneasy snatches. A quaint poetess of our day has moralized upon this subject in two very touching but homely stanzas. I saw a boy with eager eye Open a book upon a stall, 15 And read, as he'd devour it all ; Which when the stallman did espy. Soon to the boy T heard him call, " You, Sir, you never buy a book, Therefore in one you shall not look." 20 The boy pass'd slowly on, and with a sigh He wish'd he never had been taught to read. Then of the old churl's books he should have had no need. Of sufferings the poor have many, Which never can the rich annoy : 25 I soon perceiv'd another boy, Who look'd as if he'd not had any Food, for that day at least — enjoy The sight of cold meat in a tavern larder. This boy's case, then thought I, is surely harder, 30 Thus hungry, longing, thus without a penny. Beholding choice of dainty-dressed meat : No v^onder if he wish he ne'er had learn'd to eat. GRACE BEFORE MEAT The custom of saying grace at meals had, probably, its origin in the early times of the world, and the hunter- state of man, when dinners were precarious things, and a full meal was something more than a common blessing ; when a belly-ful was a windfall, and looked like a special 5 providence. In the shouts and triumphal songs with which, after a season of sharp abstinence, a lucky booty of deer's or goat's flesh would naturally be ushered home, existed, perhaps, the germ of the modern grace. It is not otherwise easy to be understood, why the blessing of 10 food — the act of eating — should have had a particular expression of thanksgiving annexed to it, distinct from that implied and silent gratitude with which we are expected to enter upon the enjoyment of the many other various gifts and good things of existence. 15 I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in the course of the day besides my din- ner. I want a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, those spiritual 20 repasts — a grace before Milton — a grace before Shake- speare — a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading the Fairy Queen? — but, the received ritual having prescribed these forms to the solitary ceremony of man- 127 128 Essays of Elia ducation,^ I shall confine my observations to the experi- ence which I have had of the grace, properly so called ; commending ray new scheme for extension to a niche in the grand philosophical, poetical, and perchance in part 5 heretical, Hturgy, now compiling by my friend Homo Humanus, for the use of a certain snug congregation of Utopian Rabelaesian Christians, no matter where as- sembled. The form then of the benediction before eating has lo its beauty at a poor man's table, or at the simple and unprovocative repasts of children. It is here that the grace becomes exceedingly graceful. The indigent man, who hardly knows whether he shall have a meal the next day or not, sits down to his fare with a present sense of 15 the blessing, which can be but feebly acted by the rich, into whose minds the conception of wanting a dinner could never, but by some extreme theory, have entered. The proper end of food — the animal sustenance — is barely contemplated by them. The poor man's bread is 20 his daily bread,^ literally his bread for the day. Their courses are perennial. Again, the plainest diet seems the fittest to be preceded by the grace. That which is least stimulative to appe- tite, leaves the mind most free for foreign considerations. 25 A man may feel thankful, heartily thankful, over a dish ^ A good example of Lamb's love of quaintness, — using an un- familiar word for a very common and familiar thing. Cf. p. 66, note I. 2 An allusion to the petition for daily bread in the Lord''s Prayer'. Grace before Meat 129 of plain mutton with turnips, and have leisure to reflect upon the ordinance and institution of eating ; when he shall confess a perturbation of mind, inconsistent with the purposes of the grace, at the presence of venison or turtle. When I have sat (a varus hospesY at rich men's 5 tables, with the savoury soup and messes steaming up the nostrils, and moistening the hps of the guests with desire and a distracted choice, I have felt the introduction of that ceremony to be unseasonable. With the ravenous orgasm ^ upon you, it seems impertinent to interpose a 10 religious sentiment. It is a confusion of purpose to mutter out praises from a mouth that waters. The heats of epicurism put out the gentle flame of devotion. The incense which rises round is pagan, and the belly- god intercepts it for his own. The very excess of the 15 provision beyond the needs, takes away all sense of pro- portion between the end and means. The giver is veiled by his gifts. You are startled at the injustice of return- ing thanks — for what? — for having too much, while so many starve. It is to praise the Gods amiss. 20 1 have observed this awkwardness felt, scarce ^ con- sciously perhaps, by the good man who says the grace. lAn uncommon guest. 2 Moment of immoderate excitement; the word is an intention- ally exaggerated description. ^The -ly of the adverbial form is omitted, perhaps, because to use it would make two consecutive words end in -ly ; but the omission is a frequent poetic license, and quite suitable to Lamb's usage in language. Cf. p. 6i, 1. 25. ESSAYS OF EI lA — Q ijo Essays of Elia I have seen it in clergymen and others — a sort of shame — a sense of the co-presence of circumstances which un- hallow the blessing. After a devotional tone put on for a few seconds, how rapidly the speaker will fall into his com- S mon voice, helping himself or his neighbour, as if to get rid of some uneasy sensation of hypocrisy. Not that the good man was a hypocrite, or was not most conscientious in the discharge of the duty ; but he felt in his inmost mind the incompatibility of the scene and the viands be- lo fore him with the exercise of a calm and rational gratitude. I hear somebody exclaim, — Would you have Christians sit down at table, like hogs to their troughs, without remembering the Giver? — no — I would have them sit down as Christians, remembering the Giver, and less like 15 hogs. Or if their appetites must run riot, and they must pamper themselves with delicacies for which east and west are ransacked, I would have them postpone their benediction to a fitter season, when appetite is laid ; when the still small voice can be heard, and the reason of 20 the grace returns — with temperate diet and restricted dishes. Gluttony and surfeiting are no proper occasions for thanksgiving. When Jeshurun waxed fat, we read that he kicked. Virgil knew the harpy-nature better, when he put into the mouth of Celaeno anything but a 25 blessing. We may be gratefully sensible of the delicious- ness of some kinds of food beyond others, though that is a meaner and inferior gratitude : but the proper object of the grace is sustenance, not relishes ; daily bread, not delicacies ; the means of life, and not the means of pam- Grace before Meat 131 pering the carcass. With what frame or composure, I wonder, can a city chaplain pronounce his benediction at some great Hall feast, when he knows that his last con- cluding pious word — and that, in all probability, the sacred name which he preaches — is but the signal for 5 so many impatient harpies to commence their foul orgies, with as Httle sense of true thankfulness (which is temper- ance) as those Virgilian fowl ! It is well if the good man himself does not feel his devotions a little clouded, those foggy sensuous steams mingUng with and polluting the 10 pure altar sacrifice. The severest satire upon full tables and surfeits is the banquet which Satan, in the Paradise Regained, pro- vides for a temptation in the wilderness : A table richly spread in regal mode, 15 With dishes piled, and meats of noblest sort And savour; beasts of chase, or fowl of game, In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled, Gris-amber-steamed; all fish from sea or shore. Freshet or purling brook, for wliich was drained 20 Pontus, and Lucrine bay, and Afric coast. The Tempter, I warrant you, thought these cates would go down without the recommendatory preface of a bene- diction. They are like to be short graces where the devil plays the host. — I am afraid the poet wants his usual 25 decorum in this place. Was he thinking of the old Ro- man luxury, or of a gaudy-day at Cambridge ? This was a temptation fitter for a Heliogabalus. The whole banquet 13*2 Essays of Elia is too civic and culinary, and the accompaniments alto- gether a profanation of that deep, abstracted, holy scene. The mighty artillery of sauces, which the cook-fiend con- jures up, is out of proportion to the simple wants and plain hunger of the guest. He that disturbed him in his dreams, from his dreams might have been taught better. To the temperate fantasies of the famished Son of God, what sort of feasts presented themselves? — He dreamed indeed, 3 — As appetite is wont to dream, Of meats and drinks, nature's refreshment sweet. But what meats ? — Him thought, he by the brook of Cherith stood, And saw the ravens with their horny beaks 5 Food to Ehjah bringing, even and morn ; Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what thej^ brought: He saw the prophet also how he fled Into the desert, and how there he slept Under a juniper ; then how awaked 3 He found his supper on the coals prepared, And by the angel was bid rise and eat, And ate the second time after repose. The strength whereof sufficed him forty days : Sometimes, that with Elijah he partook, 5 Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse. Nothing in Milton is finelier fancied than these temperate dreams of the divine Hungerer. To which of these two visionary banquets, think you, would the introduction of Grace before Meat 133 what is called the grace have been the most fitting and pertinent ? Theoretically I am no enemy to graces ; but practically I own that (before meat especially) they seem to in- volve something awkward and unseasonable. Our appe- 5 tites, of one or another kind, are excellent spurs to our reason, which might otherwise but feebly set about the great ends of preserving and continuing the species. They are fit blessings to be contemplated at a distance with a becoming gratitude ; but the moment of appetite 10 (the judicious reader will apprehend me) is, perhaps, the least fit season for that exercise. The Quakers who go about their business, Of every description, with more calmness than we, have more title to the use of these benedictory prefaces. I have always admired their silent 15 grace, and the more because I have observed their appli- cations to the meat and drink following to be less pas- sionate and sensual than ours. They are neither gluttons nor wine-bibbers as a people. They eat, as a horse bolts his chopped hay, with indifference, calmness, and cleanly 20 circumstances. They neither grease nor slop themselves. When I see a citizen in his bib and tucker, I cannot imagine it a surplice. I am no Quaker at my food. I confess I am not in- different to the kinds of it. Those unctuous morsels of 25 deer's flesh were not made to be received with dispas- sionate services. I hate a man who swallows it, affecting not to know what he is eating. I suspect his taste in higher matters. I shrink instinctively from one who pro- 134 Essays of Ella fesses to like minced veal. There is a physiognomical character in the tastes for food. C ' holds that a man cannot have a pure mind who refuses apple-dumplings. I am not certain but he is right. With the decay of my 5 first innocence, I confess a less and less relish daily for those innocuous cates. The whole vegetable tribe have lost their gust with me. Only I stick to asparagus, which still seems to inspire gentle thoughts. I am impatient and querulous under culinary disappointments, as to come lo home at the dinner hour, for instance, expecting some savoury mess, and to find one quite tasteless and sapidless. Butter ill melted — that commonest of kitchen failures — • puts me beside my tenor. — The author of the Rambler used to make inarticulate animal noises over a favourite 15 food. Was this the music quite proper to be preceded by the grace ? or would the pious man have done better to postpone his devotions to a season when the bless- ing might be contemplated with less perturbation? I quarrel with no man's tastes, nor would set my thin face 20 against those excellent things, in their way, jollity and feasting. But as these exercises, however laudable, have little in them of grace or gracefulness, a man should be sure, before he ventures so to grace them, that while he is pretending his devotions otherwhere, he is n6t secretly 25 kissing his hand to some great fish — his Dagon — with a special consecration of no ark but the fat tureen before him. Graces are the sweet preluding strains to the banquets of angels and children ; to the roots and severer 1 Coleridge : but it sounds more like Lamb himself. Grace before Meat 135 repasts of the Chartreuse ; to the slender, but not slen- derly acknowledged, refection of the poor and humble man : but at the heaped-up boards of the pampered and the luxurious they become of dissonant mood, less timed and tuned to the occasion, methinks, than the noise of s those better befitting organs would be, which children hear tales of, at Hog's Norton. We sit too long at our meals, or are too curious in the study of them, or too disordered in our application to them, or engross too great a portion of those good things (which should be 10 common) to our share, to be able with any grace to say grace.^ To be thankful for what we grasp exceeding our proportion is to add hypocrisy to injustice. A lurking sense of this truth is what makes the performance of this duty so cold and spiritless a service at most tables. In 15 houses where the grace is as indispensable as the napkin, who has not seen that never settled question arise, as to who shall say it; while the good man of the house and the visitor clergyman, or some other guest behke of next authority from years or gravity, shall be bandying about 20 the office between them as a matter of compliment, each of them not unwilling to shift the awkward burden of an equivocal duty from his own shoulders ? I once drank tea in company with two Methodist divines of different persuasions, whom it was my fortune 25 1 The double sense in which Lamb here uses the word grace will remind the reader that throughout the essay he has had in mind the needed congruity between grace and gracefulness (see line 22 on preceding page, and p. 128, 1. 12). 136 Essays of Elia to introduce to each other for the first time that evening. Before the first cup was handed round, one of these reverend gentlemen put it to the other, with all due solemnity, whether he choose to say anything. It seems 5 it is the custom with some sectaries to put up a short prayer before this meal also. His reverend brother did not at first quite apprehend him, but upon an explana- tion, with little less importance he made answer, that it was not a custom known in his church : in which cour- 10 teous evasion the other acquiescing for good manner's sake, or in compliance with a weak brother, the supple- mentary or tea-grace was waived altogether. With what spirit might not Lucian have painted two priests, of his religion, playing into each other's hands the compliment 15 of performing or omitting a sacrifice, — the hungry God meantime, doubtful of his incense, with expectant nos- trils hovering over the two flamens, and (as between two stools) going away in the end without his supper. A short form upon these occasions is felt to want rev- 20 erence \ a long one, I am afraid, cannot escape the charge of impertinence. I do not quite approve of the epigram- matic conciseness with which that equivocal wag (but my pleasant school-fellow) C. V. L.,^ when importuned for a grace, used to inquire, first slyly leering down the table, 25 " Is there no clergyman here?" — significantly adding, " Thank G ." Nor do I think our old form at school quite pertinent, where we were used to preface our bald bread and cheese suppers with a preamble, connecting 1 Charles Valentine Le Grice ; see p. 40, 1. i. Grace before Meat 137 with that humble blessing a recognition of benefits the most awful and overwhelming to the imagination which religion has to offer. Non tunc illis erat locus} I re- member we were put to it to reconcile the phrase " good creatures," upon which the blessing rested, with the fare 5 set before us, wilfully understanding that expression in a low and animal sense, — till some one recalled a legend, which told how in the golden days of Christ's,^ the young ♦ Hospitallers were wont to have smoking joints of roast meat upon their nightly boards, till some pious benefactor, 10 commiserating the decencies, rather than the palates, of the children, commuted our flesh for garments, and gave us — horresco referens^ — trousers instead of mutton. 1 " That was not the occasion for such things." — Quotation (somewhat changed) from Horace's Ars Poetica, 19. 2 That is, Christ's Hospital, his old school. ^"I tremble at the recollection." — Virgil's ^neid^ II, 204. A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which ray friend M. -^ was obHging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, claw- ing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in 5 Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the Cooks' holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of lo roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother) was accidentally discovered in the manner fol- lowing. The swineherd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woo'ds one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast ^ for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son 15 Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together 20 with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian makeshift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more im- portance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have been es- teemed a luxury all over the East from the remotest 25 periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost con- 1 Manning. 2 Beech-nuts or acorns. 138 A Dissertation upon Roast Pig 139 sternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a {ew dry branches, and the labour of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, 5 and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odour assailed his nos- trils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from? — not from the burnt cot- tage — he had smelt that smell before — indeed this was 10 by no means the first accident of the kind which had oc- curred through the negligence of this unlucky young fire- brand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to 15 think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had comis away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the 20 world's life indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted — crackling ! ^ Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding, that it was the pig that 25 smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious ; and, sur- 1 A name common in England for the browned skin of a roast pig; in the plural it is used in America to name the scraps left after the fat has been tried out, in making lard. 140 Essays of Ella rendering himself up to the new-born pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking 5 rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick as hailstones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure, which he experienced in his lower regions, had 10 rendered him quite caUous to any inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it, wben, becoming a little more sensible of his situation, something like the following 15 dialogue ensued. " You graceless whelp, what have you got there devour- ing? Is it not enough that you have burnt me down three houses with your dog's tricks, and be hanged to you, but you must be eating fire, and I know not what — what have 20 you got there, I say ? " " O father, the pig, the pig, do come and taste how nice the burnt pig eats."^ The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he cursed himself that ever he should beget a 25 son that should eat burnt pig. Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the 1 Colloquial usage, in the sense of taste, relish. A Dissertation upon Roast Pig 14 1 fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out " Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig, father, only taste — O Lord," — with such Hke bar- barous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke. Ho-ti trembled in every joint while he grasped the 5 abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavour, which, make what sour 10 mouths he would for a pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion (for the manuscript here is a little tedious) both father and son fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had dis- patched all that remained of the litter. 15 Bo- bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for the neighbours would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abominable wretches, who could think of im- proving upon the good meat which God had sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It was observed 20 that Ho-ti's cottage was burnt down now more frequently than ever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break out in broad day, others in the night- time. As often as the sow farrowed, so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be in a blaze ; and Ho-ti himself, which 25 was the more remarkable, instead of chastising his son, seemed to grow more indulgent to him than ever. At length they were watched, the terrible mystery discovered, and father and son summoned to take their trial at Pekin, 142 Essays of Elia then an inconsiderable assize town. Evidence was given, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and verdict about to be pronounced, when the foreman of the jury begged that some of the burnt pig, of which the culprits 5 stood accused, • might be handed into the box. He handled it, and they all handled it, and burning their fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature prompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all the facts, and the clearest charge 10 which judge had ever given, — to the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all present — without leaving the box, or any manner of consultation whatever, they brought in a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty. 15 The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity of the decision : and, when the court was dismissed, went privily, and bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few days his Lordship's town-house was observed to be on fire. The 20 thing took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enor- mously dear all over the district. The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighter and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very 25 science of architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, says my manuscript, a sage arose, Hke our Locke, who made a discovery, that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked A Dissertation upon Roast Pig 143 {burnt, as they called it) without the necessity of con- suming a whole house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a gridiron. Roasting by the string, or spit, came in a century or two later, I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the manuscript, do the 5 most useful, and seemingly the most obvious arts, make their way among mankind. — Without placing too implicit faith in the account above given, it must be agreed, that if a worthy pretext for so dangerous an experiment as setting houses on fire (es- 10 pecially in these days) could be assigned in favour of any culinary object, that pretext and excuse might be found in ROAST PIG. Of all the delicacies in the whole mundus edibilis, I will maintain it to be the most delicate — princeps^s ohsoniorum} I speak not of your grown porkers — things between pig and pork — those hobbledehoys ^ — but a young and tender suckhng — under a moon old — guiltless as yet of the sty — with no original speck of the amor immundiHae,^ 20 the hereditary failing of the- first parent, yet manifest — his voice as yet not broken, but something between a 1 The Latin words are so incorporated with the English that it will be best to write the whole sentence : " Of all the delicacies in the whole zvorld of things to eat, I will maintain it to be the most delicate, — the chief of tidbits.^'' 2 A name usually given to one in the raw, unformed, awkward age between youth and manhood. ^ Love of dirt. Lamb here speaks playfully as if pigs were fallen " beings like mankind, and as if their original sin were love of dirt. 144 Essays of Elia childish treble, and a grumble — the mild forerunner, or praeludium, ^ of a grunt. He must be roasted. I am not ignorant that our ancestors ate them seethed/ or boiled — but what a 5 sacrifice of the exterior tegument! There is no flavour comparable, I will contend, to that of the crisp, tawny, well-watched, not over-roasted, crack- ling, as it is well called — the very teeth are invited to their share of the pleasure at this banquet in overcoming the lo coy, brittle resistance — with the adhesive oleaginous — O call it not fat — but an indefinable sweetness growing up to it — the tender blossoming of fat — fat cropped in the bud — taken in the shoot — in the first innocence — the cream and quintessence of the child-pig's yet pure food — 15 the lean, no lean, but a kind of animal manna — or, rather, fat and lean (if it must be so) so blended and running into each other, that both together make but one ambrosian result, or common substance. Behold him, while he is doing — it seemeth^ rather 20 a refreshing warmth, than a scorching heat, that he is so passive to. How equably he twirleth round the string ! — Now he is just done. To see the extreme sensibility of that tender age, he hath wept out his pretty eyes — radi- ant jellies — shooting-stars — 1 Prelude, or first element. 2 Lamb uses here first the old word, such as the ancestors used; then defines it in a modern term. 3 Observe how, in the descriptive passage succeeding. Lamb lapses into the old form of the verbs; it is his whimsical way of decking out a commonplace subject with elaborate language. A Dissertation upon Roast Pig 145 See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he heth ! — wouldst thou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness and indocility which too often accompany maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable animal — 5 wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation — from these sins he is happily snatched away — Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade, Death came with timely care — his memory is odoriferous — no clown curseth, while his 10 stomach half rejecteth, the rank bacon — no coal-heaver bolteth him in reeking sausages — he hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomachof the judicious epicure — and for such a tomb might be content to die. He is the best of Sapors. Pine-apple is great. She is 15 indeed almost too transcendent — -a delight, if not sinful, yet so like to sinning, that really a tender-conscienced person would do well to pause — too ravishing for mortal taste, she woundeth and excoriateth the lips that approach her — like lovers' kisses, she biteth — she is a pleasure 20 bordering on pain from the fierceness and insanity of her relish — but she stoppeth at the palate — she meddleth not with the appetite — and the coarsest hunger might barter her consistently for a mutton-chop. Pig — let me speak his praise — is no less provocative of 25 the appetite, than he is satisfactory to the criticalness of the censorious palate. The strong man may batten on him, and the weakling refuseth not his mild juices. ESSAYS OF ELIA — lO 146 Essays of Elia Unlike to mankind's mixed characters, a bundle of vir- tues and vices, inexplicably intertwisted, and not to be unravelled without hazard, he is — good throughout. No part of him is better or worse than another. He helpeth, 5 as far as his little means extend, all around. He is the least envious of banquets. He is all neighbours' fare. I am one of those, who freely and ungrudgingly impart a share of the good things of this life which fall to their lot (few as mine are in this kind) to a friend. I protest I 10 take as great an interest in my friend's pleasures, his relishes, and proper satisfactions, as in mine own. *' Presents," I often say, ^' endear Absents." Hares, pheasants, partridges, snipes, barn-door chicken (those "tame villatic fowl "), capons, plovers, brawn, barrels of 15 oysters, I dispense as freely as I receive them. I love to taste them, as it were, upon the tongue of my friend. But a stop must be put somewhere. One would not, like Lear, " give everything." I make my stand upon pig. Methinks it is an ingratitude to the Giver of all good 20 flavours, to extra-domiciliate, or send out of the house, slightingly, (under pretext of friendship, or I know not what) a blessing so particularly adapted, predestined, I may say, to my individual palate — It argues an in- sensibility. 25 I remember a touch of conscience in this kind at school. My good old aunt, who never parted from me at the end of a holiday without stuffing a sweetmeat, or some nice thing, into my pocket, had dismissed me one evening with a smoking plum-cake, fresh from the oven. In my way A Dissertation upon Roast Pig 147 to school (it was over London Bridge) a grey-headed old beggar saluted me (I have no doubt at this time of day that he was a counterfeit). I had no pence to con- sole him with, and in the vanity of self-denial, and the very coxcombry of charity, school-boy-like, I made him a 5 present of — the whole cake ! I walked on a Httle, buoyed up, as one is on such occasions, with a sweet soothing of self-satisfaction ; but before I had got to the end of the bridge, my better feelings returned, and I burst into tears, thinking how ungrateful I had been to my good aunt, to 10.- go and give her good gift away to a stranger, that I had never seen before, and who might be a bad man for aught I knew ; and then I thought of the pleasure my aunt would be taking in thinking that I — I myself, and not an- other — • would eat her nice cake — and what should I say 15 to her the next time I saw her — how naughty I was to part with her pretty present — and the odour of that spicy cake came back upon my recollection, and the pleasure and the curiosity I had taken in seeing her make it, and her joy when she sent it to the oven, and how disappointed 20 she would feel that I had never had a bit of it in my mouth at last — and I blamed my impertinent spirit of alms-giving, and out-of-place hypocrisy of goodness, and above all I wished never to see the face again of that insidious, good-for-nothing, old grey impostor. 25 Our ancestors were nice in their method of sacrificing these tender victims. We read of pigs whipped to death with something of a shock, as we hear of any other obso- lete custom. The age of disciphne is gone by, or it 148 Essays of Elia would be curious to inquire (in a philosophical light merely) what effect this process might have towards inten- erating and dulcifying^ a substance, naturally so mild and dulcet as the flesh of young pigs. It looks like refining a 5 violet. Yet we should be cautious, while we condemn the inhumanity, how we censure the wisdom of the practice. It might impart a gusto — ^ I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young students, when I was at St. Omer's, and maintained with 10 much learning and pleasantry on both sides, " Whether, supposing that the flavour of a pig who obtained his death by whipping {per fiageliationem ex^rema?^) ^ supersidded SL pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any possible suffering we can conceive in the animal, is 15 man justified in using that method of putting the animal to death ?" I forget the decision. His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few bread-crumbs, done up with his liver and brains, and a dash of mild sage. But, banish, dear Mrs. Cook, I be- 20 seech you, the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your whole hogs to your palate, steep them in shalots, stuff them out with plantations of the rank and guilty garlic ; you cannot poison them, or make them stronger than they are — but consider, he is a weakUng — a flower. 1 These two quaint words are virtually defined by the words Pii/d and dulcet m the following line, making more tender and sweet. ^ That is, a delicate refinement of taste. 3 Lamb uses the Latin equivalent o{ death by xvhipping to intimate that the debate was conducted in Latin. THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS I LIKE to meet a sweep — understand me — not a grown sweeper — old chimney-sweepers are by no means attrac- tive — but one of those tender novices, blooming through their first nigritude, the maternal washings not quite effaced from the cheek — such as come forth with the 5 dawn, or somewhat earher, with their little professional notes sounding like the peep peep of a young sparrow ; or liker to the matin lark should I pronounce them, in their aerial ascents not seldom anticipating the sunrise ? I have a kindly yearning towards these dim specks — lo poor blots — innocent blacknesses — I reverence these young Africans of our own growth^ — these almost clergy imps, who sport their cloth without assumption; and from their little pulpits (the tops of chimneys), in the nipping air of a December morning, 15 preach a lesson of patience to mankind. When a child, what a mysterious pleasure it was to wit- ness their operation ! to see a chit no bigger than one's . self enter, one knew not by what process, into what seemed \k\^ fauces Averni'^ — to pursue him in imagina-20 tion, as he went sounding on through so many dark sti- fling caverns, horrid shades ! — to shudder with the idea 1 Here Lamb seems to use the word growth, in his quaint fashion, as almost equivalent to race or species. 2 " The jaws of hell," phrase from Virgil's ^neid^ VI, 201. 149 150 Essays of Elia that " now, surely, he must be lost forever ! " — to revive at hearing his feeble shout of discovered daylight — and then (O fullness of delight) running out of doors, to come just in time to see the sable phenomenon emerge 5 in safety, the brandished weapon of his art victorious like some flag waved over a conquered citadel ! I seem to remember having been told, that a bad sweep was once left in a stack with his brush, to indicate which way the wind blew. It was an awful spectacle, certainly ; not 10 much unhke the old stage direction in . Macbeth, where the " Apparition of a child crowned with a tree in his hand rises." Reader, if thou meetest one of these small gentry in thy early rambles, it is good to give him a penny. It is IS better to give him twopence. If it be starving weather, and to the proper troubles of his hard occupation, a pair of kibed ^ heels (no unusual accompaniment) be super- added, the demand on thy humanity will surely rise to a tester.^ 2 3 There is a composition, the groundwork of which I have understood to be the sweet wood yclept sassafras. This wood boiled down to a kind of tea, and tempered with an infusion of milk and sugar, hath to some tastes a delicacy beyond the China luxury. I know not how thy 25 palate may relish it ; for myself, with every deference to the judicious Mr. Read, who hath time out of mind kept open a shop (the only one he avers in London) for the vending of this " wholesome and pleasant beverage," on 1 Chapped or chilblained. ^ jn modern slang a sixpence. The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers 151 the south side of Fleet Street, as thou approachest Bridge Street — the only Salopian'^ house, — I have never yet adventured to dip my own particular lip in a basin of his commended ingredients — a cautious premonition to the olfactories constantly whispering to me, that my stomach 5 must infallibly, with all due courtesy, decline it. Yet I have seen palates, otherwise not uninstructed in dieteti- cal elegancies, sup it up with avidity. I know not by what particular conformation of the organ it happens, but I have always found that this com- 10 position is surprisingly gratifying to the palate of a young chimney-sweeper — whether the oily particles (sassafras is shghtly oleaginous) do attenuate and soften the fuliginous concretions, which are sometimes found (in dissections) to adhere to the roof of the mouth in these 15 unfledged practitioners ; or whether Nature, sensible that she had mingled too much of bitter wood in the lot of these raw victims, caused to grow out of the earth her sassafras for a sweet lenitive — but so it is, that no pos- sible taste or odour to the senses of a young chimney- 20 sweeper can convey a dehcate excitement comparable to this mixture. Being penniless, they will yet hang their black heads over the ascending steam, to gratify one sense if possible, seemingly no less pleased than those do- mestic animals — cats — when they purr over a new-found 25 sprig of valerian. There is something more in these sympathies than philosophy can inculcate. Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, not without reason, that 1 The name given to sassafras tea was saloop, or salop. 152 Essays of Elia his is the only Salopia7i house ; yet be it known to thee, Reader — if thou art one who keepest what are called good hours, thou art haply ignorant of the fact — he hath a race of industrious imitators, who from stalls, and under 5 open sky, dispense the same savoury mess to humbler cus- tomers, at that dead time of the dawn, when (as extremes meet) the rake, reeling home from his midnight cups, and the hard-handed artisan leaving his bed to resume the premature labours of the day, jostle, not unfrequently 10 to the manifest disconcerting of the former, for the honours of the pavement. It is the time when, in summer, between the expired and the not yet relumined kitchen-fires, the kennels of our fair metropolis give forth their least satis- factory odours. The rake, who wisheth to dissipate his 15 o'ernight vapours in more grateful coffee, curses the un- genial fume, as he passeth ; but the artisan stops to taste, and blesses the fragrant breakfast. This is Saloop — the precocious herb-woman's darling — the delight of the early gardener, who transports his smok- 20 ing cabbages by break of day from Hammersmith to Covent Garden's famed piazzas — the dehght, and, oh I fear, too often the envy, of the unpennied sweep. Him shouldest thou haply encounter, with his dim visage pendent over the grateful steam, regale him with a sumptuous basin (it 25 will cost thee but three halfpennies) and a slice of deli- cate bread and butter (an added halfpenny) — so may thy culinary fires, eased of the o'ercharged secretions from thy worse-placed hospitahties, curl up a lighter volume to the welkin — so may the descending soot never taint thy The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers 153 costly well-ingredienced soups — nor the odious cry, quick- reaching from street to street, of \hQ fired chimney, invite the ratthng engines from ten adjacent parishes, to disturb for a casual scintillation thy peace and pocket ! I am by nature extremely suspectible of street affronts ; s the jeers and taunts of the populace ; the low-bred triumph they display over the casual trip, or splashed stocking, of a gentleman. Yet can I endure the jocularity of a young sweep with something more than forgiveness. — In the last winter but one, pacing along Cheapside with my accus- 10 tomed precipitation when I walk westward, a treacherous slide brought me upon my back in an instant. I scrambled up with pain and shame enough — yet outwardly trying to face it down, as if nothing had happened — when the roguish grin of one of these young wits encountered me. 15 There he stood, pointing me out with his dusky finger to the mob, and to a poor woman (I suppose his mother) in particular, till the tears for the exquisiteness of the fun (so he thought it) worked themselves out at the corners of his poor red eyes, red from many a previous weeping, 20 and soot-inflamed, yet twinkHng through all with such a joy, snatched out of desolation, that Hogarth — but Hogarth has got him already (how could he miss him ?) in the March to Finchley, grinning at the pieman — there he stood, as he stands in the picture, irremovable, as if the 25 jest was to last forever — with such a maximum of glee, and minimum of mischief, in his mirth — for the grin of a genuine sweep hath absolutely no malice in it — that I could have been content, if the honour of a gentleman 154 Essays of Elia might endure it, to have remained his butt and his mockery till midnight. I am by theory obdurate to the seductiveness of what are called a fine set of teeth. Every pair of rosy Hps (the 5 ladies must pardon me) is a casket, presumably holding such jewels ; but, methinks, they should take leave to " air " them as frugally as possible. The fine lady, or fine gentleman, who show me their teeth, show me bones. Yet must I confess, that from the mouth of a true sweep lo a display (even to ostentation) of those white and shiny ossifications, strikes me as an agreeable anomaly in man- ners, and an allowable piece of foppery. It is, as when A sable cloud Turns forth her silver lining on the night. 15 It is like some remnant of gentry not quite extinct; a badge of better days ; a hint of nobility : — and, doubtless, under the obscuring darkness and double night of their forlorn disguisement, oftentimes lurketh good blood, and gentle conditions, derived from lost ancestry, and a lapsed 20 pedigree. The premature apprenticements of these ten- der victims give but too much encouragement, I fear, to clandestine, and almost infantile abductions ; the seeds of civility and true courtesy, so often discernible in these young grafts (not otherwise to be accounted for) plainly 25 hint at some forced adoptions ; many noble Rachels mourning for their children, even in our days, countenance the fact ; the tales of fairy-spiriting may shadow a lament- able verity, and the recovery of the young Montagu be The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers 155 but a solitary instance of good fortune, out of many irreparable and hopeless defiliations} In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, a few years since — under a ducal canopy — (that seat of the Howards is an object of curiosity to visitors, chiefly for its beds, in s which the late duke was especially a connoisseur) — en- circled with curtains of delicatest crimson, with starry coronets inwoven — folded between a pair of sheets whiter and softer than the lap where Venus lulled Ascanius — was discovered by chance, after all methods of search had 10 failed, at noonday, fast asleep, a lost chimney-sweeper. The little creature, having somehow confounded his pas- sage among the intricacies of those lordly chimneys, by some unknown aperture had alighted upon this magnifi- cent chamber; and, tired with his tedious explorations, 15 was unable to resist the delicious invitement to repose, which he there saw exhibited ; so, creeping between the sheets very quietly, laid his black head upon the pillow, and slept like a young Howard. Such is the account given to the visitors at the Castle. — 20 But I cannot help seeming to perceive a confirmation of what I have just hinted at in this story. A high instinct was at work in the case, or I am mistaken. Is it probable that a poor child of that description, with whatever weari- ness he might be visited, would have ventured, under 25 such a penalty, as he would be taught to expect, to un- cover the sheets of a Duke's bed, and deliberately to lay 1 It is not unlikely that Lamb coined this rare word himself, meaning, the abstraction of a child from its parent. 156 Essays of Elia himself down between them, when the rug, or the carpet, presented an obvious couch, still far above his pretensions — is this probable, I would ask, if the great power of nature, which I contend for, had not been manifested 5 within him, prompting to the adventure? Doubtless this young nobleman (for such my mind misgives me that he must be) was allured by some memory, not amounting to full consciousness, of his condition in infancy, when he was used to be lapped by his mother, or his nurse, in just 10 such sheets as he there found, into which he was now but creeping back as into his proper incunabula, ^ and resting-place. — By no other theory, than by this sentiment of a pre-existent state (as I may call it), can I explain a deed so venturous, and, indeed, upon any other system, so 15 indecorous, in this tender, but unseasonable, sleeper. My pleasant friend Jem White was so impressed with a belief of metamorphoses like this frequently taking place, that in some sort to reverse the wrongs of fortune in these poor changehngs, he instituted an annual feast of 20 chimney-sweepers, at which it was his pleasure to officiate as host and waiter. It was a solemn supper held in Smithfield, upon the yearly return of the fair of St. Bartholomew. Cards were issued a week before to the master-sweeps in and about the metropolis, confining the 25 invitation to their younger fry. Now and then an elderly striphng would get in among us, and be good-naturedly winked at ; but our main body were infantry.^ One un- 1 Cradle. Originally a neuter plural, meaning swaddling-clothes. 2 A play on the word infant, to fit the military term main body. The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers 157 fortunate wight, indeed, who, relying upon his dusky suit, had intruded himself into our party, but by tokens was providentially discovered in time to be no chimney- sweeper (all is not soot which looks so),^ was quoited ^ oat of the presence with universal indignation, as not 5 having on the wedding garment ; but in general the great- est harmony prevailed. The place chosen was a conven- ient spot among the pens, at the north side of the fair, not so far distant as to be impervious to the agreeable hubbub of that vanity;^ but remote enough not to be obvious to the 10 interruption of every gaping spectator in it. The guests assembled about seven. In those little temporary parlours three tables were spread with napery, not so fine as sub- stantial, and at every board a comely hostess presided with her pan of hissing sausages. The nostrils of the 15 young rogues dilated at the savour. James White, as head waiter, had charge of the first table ; and myself, with our trusty companion Bigod, ordinarily ministered to the other two. There was clambering and jostling, you may be sure, who should get at the first table — for Rochester in his 20 maddest days could not have done the humours of the scene with more spirit than my friend. After some general ex- pression of thanks for the honour the company had done him, his inaugural ceremony was to clasp the greasy 1 A similar parody of the proverb, " All is not gold that glitters." 2 Thrown as a quoit; the word used to connote the rough and unceremonious nature of the act. ^ This word is used in allusion to Bunyan's Vanity Fair (in The Pil- grim'' s Progress), to connote the insignificance of things in the fair. 158 Essays of Elia waist of old dame Ursula (the fattest of the three), that stood frying and fretting, half-blessing, half-cursing " the gentleman," and imprint upon her chaste lips a tender salute, whereat the universal host would set up a shout 5 that tore the concave, while hundreds of grinning teeth startled the night with their brightness. O it was a pleas- ure to see the sable younkers lick in the unctuous meat, with his more unctuous sayings — how he would fit the tid- bits to the puny mouths, reserving the lengthier Hnks for 10 the seniors — how he would intercept a morsel even in the jaws of some young desperado, declaring it " must to the pan again to be browned, for it was not fit for a gentleman's eating " — how he would recommend this slice of white bread, or that piece of kissing-crust, to a tender IS juvenile, advising them all to have a care of cracking their teeth, which were their best patrimony, — how genteelly he would deal about the small ale, as if it were wine, naming the brewer, and protesting, if it were not good, he should lose their custom ; with a special recommendation to 20 wipe the lip before drinking. Then we had our toasts — " The King," — the " Cloth," — which, whether they un- derstood or not, was equally diverting and flattering ; — and for a crowning sentiment, which never failed, " May the Brush supersede the Laurel!" x\ll these, and fifty other 25 fancies, which were rather felt than comprehended by his guests, would he utter, standing upon tables, and prefacing every sentiment with a " Gentlemen, give me leave to pro- pose so and so," which was a prodigious comfort to those young orphans ; every now and then stuffing into his mouth The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers 159 (for it did not do to be squeamish on these occasions) indiscriminate pieces of those reeking sausages, which pleased them mightily, and was the savouriest part, you may believe, of the entertainment. Golden lads and lasses must, 5 As chimney-sweepers, come to dust — James White is extinct, and with him these suppers have long ceased. He carried away with him half the fun of the world when he died — of my world at least. His old clients look for him among the pens ; and, missing i him, reproach the altered feast of St. Bartholomew, and the glory of Smithfield departed forever. DREAM-CHILDREN; A REVERIE Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when they were children ; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in this spirit that my little 5 ones crept about me the other evening to hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa lived) which had been the scene — so at least it was generally believed in that part of the country lo — of the tragic incidents which they had lately become fa- mihar with from the ballad of the Children in the Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down IS to the Robin Redbreasts, till a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it. Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be called upbraiding. Then I went on to say, how religious and how good their 20 great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by everybody, though she was not indeed the mistress of this great house, but had only the charge of it (and yet in some respects she might be said to be the mistress of it too) committed to her by the owner, who preferred 25 living in a newer and more fashionable mansion which 160 Dream-Children; A Reverie i6i he had purchased somewhere in the adjoining county ; but still she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the great house in a sort while she lived, which afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped s and carried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they had seen lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt draw- ing-room. Here John smiled, as much as to say, " that lo would be foolish indeed." And then I told how, when she came to dife, her funeral was attended by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the gentry too, of the neighbourhood for many miles round, to show their respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and 15 religious woman ; so good indeed that she knew all the Psaltery ^ by heart, ay, and a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their great- grandmother Field once was ; and how in her youth she 20 was esteemed the best dancer — here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement, till, upon my look- ing grave, it desisted — the best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel disease, called a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain ; but it could never bend 25 her good spirits, or make them stoop, but they were still upright, because she was so good and religious. Then I 1 The more usual form is psalter. The word psaltery, in the Bible, designates a musical instrument. ESSAYS OF ELIA — II 1 62 Essays of Elia told how she was used to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house ; and how she believed that an ap- parition of two infants was to be seen at midnight gliding up and down the great staircase near where she slept, 5 but she said " those innocents would do her no harm ; " and how frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep with me, because I was never half so good or religious as she — and yet I never saw the in- fants. Here John expanded all his eyebrows and tried lo to look courageous. Then I told how good she was to all her grandchildren, having us to the great house in the holidays, where I in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the Twelve Caesars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till the old 15 marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them ; how I never could be tired .with roaming about that huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken panels, with the gilding almost rubbed 20 out — sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless when now and then a sohtary gardening man would cross me — and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were forbidden 25 fruit, unless now and then, — and because I had more pleasure in strolling about among the old melancholy- looking yew trees, or the firs, and picking up the red ber- ries, and the fir apples, which were good for nothing but to look at — or in lying about upon the fresh grass, with Dream-Children, A Reverie 163 all the fine garden smells around me — or basking in the orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening too along with the oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth — ' or in watching the dace that darted to and fro in the fish- pond, at the bottom of the garden, with here and there 5 a great sulky pike hanging midway down the water in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings, — I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet flavours of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such like common baits of children. Here John slyly 10 deposited back upon the plate a bunch of grapes, which, not unobserved by Ahce, he had meditated dividing with her, and both seemed willing to relinquish them for the present as irrelevant. Then in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, though their great-grand- 15 mother Field loved all her grandchildren, yet in an espe- cial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John L , because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us ; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, like some of us, he would mount the 20 most mettlesome horse he could get, when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any out — and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had too much spirit toss be always pent up within their boundaries — and how their uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to the admiration of everybody, but of their great-grandmother Field most especially ; and 164 Essays of Elia how he used to carry me upon his back when I was a lame-footed boy — for he was a good bit older than me — • many a mile when I could not walk for pain ; — and how in after Hfe he became lame-footed too, and I did not al- 5 ways (I fear) make allowances enough for him when he was impatient, and in pain, nor remember sufficiently how considerate he had been to me when I was lame-footed ; and how when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he had died a great while ago, such 10 a distance there is betwixt life and death ; and how I bore his death as I thought pretty well at first, but afterwards it haunted and haunted me ; and though I did not cry or take it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I had died, yet I missed him all day long, 15 and knew not till then how much I had loved him. I missed his kindness, and I missed his crossness, and wished him to be alive again, to be quarreUing with him (for we quarrelled sometimes), rather than not have him again, and was as uneasy without him, as he their poor 20 uncle must have been when the doctor took off his limb. Here the children fell a crying, and asked if their little mourning which they had on was not for Uncle John, and they looked up, and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell them some stories about their 25 pretty dead mother. Then I told how for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, yet per- sisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W n ^ ; and, as much as children could understand, I explained to them ^This name, according to Lamb, was feigned. Dream-Children; A Reverie 165 what coyness, and difficulty, and denial meant in maidens — when suddenly, turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a reality of re-pre- sentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or whose that bright hair was ; and 5 while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech : " We are not 10 of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing ; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe milHons of ages before we have existence, and a 15 name" — and immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget unchanged by my side — but John L. (or James Elia) was gone forever. THE SUPERANNUATED MAN Sera tamen respexit Libertas. virgil.i A Clerk I was in London gay. o'keefe. If peradventure, Reader, it has been thy lot to waste the golden years of thy life — thy shining youth — in the irksome confinement of an office ; to have thy prison days prolonged through middle age down to decreptitude 5 and silver hairs, without hope of release or respite ; to have lived to forget that there are such things as hoHdays, or to remember them but as the prerogatives of child- hood ; then, and then only, will you be able to appreciate my deliverance. lo It is now six and thirty years since I took my seat at the desk in Mincing Lane. Melancholy was the transi- tion at fourteen from the abundant playtime, and the fre- quently-intervening vacations of school-days, to the eight, nine, and sometimes ten hours' a day attendance at a 15 counting-house. But time partially reconciles us to any- thing. I gradually became content — doggedly con- tented, as wild animals in cages. It is true I had my Sundays to myself; but Sundays, admirable as the institution of them is for purposes of 20 worship, are for that very reason the very worst adapted 1 " Freedom though belated thought [on me]." Quotation, some- what changed round, from Eclogues, i. 27. 166 The Superannuated Man 167 for days of unbending and recreation. In particular, there is a gloom for me attendant upon a city Sunday, a weight in the air. I miss the cheerful cries of London, the music, and the ballad-singers — the buzz and stirring murmur of the streets. Those eternal bells depress me. 5 The closed shops repel me. Prints, pictures, all the glit- tering and endless succession of knacks and gewgaws, and ostentatiously displayed wares of tradesmen, which make a week-day saunter through the less busy parts of the metropolis so delightful — are shut out. No book 10 stalls dehciously to idle over — No busy faces to recreate the idle man who contemplates them ever passing by — the very face of business a charm by contrast to his tem- porary relaxation from it. Nothing to be seen but unhappy countenances — or half-happy at best — of eman- 15 cipated 'prentices and little tradesfolks, with here and there a servant-maid that has got leave to go out, who, slaving all the week, with the habit has lost almost the capacity of enjoying a free hour ; and livelily expressing the hollowness of a day's pleasuring. The very strollers 20 in the fields on that day look anything but comfortable. But besides Sundays I had a day at Easter, and a day at Christmas, with a full week in the summer to go and air myself in my native fields of Hertfordshire. This last was a great indulgence ; and the prospect of its recur- 25 rence, I believe, alone kept me up through the year, and made my durance tolerable. But when the week came round, did the glittering phantom of the distance keep touch with me ? or rather was it not a series of seven uii- 1 68 Essays of Elia easy days, spent in restless pursuit of pleasure, and a wearisome anxiety to find out how to make the most of them? Where was the quiet, where the promised rest? Before I had a taste of it, it was vanished. I was at the 5 desk again, counting upon the fifty-one tedious weeks that must intervene before such another snatch would come. Still the prospect of its coming threw something of an illumination upon the darker side of my captivity. Without it, as I have said, I could scarcely have sustained lo my thraldom. Independently of the rigours of attendance, I have ever been haunted with a sense (perhaps a mere caprice) of ' incapacity for business. This, during my latter years, had increased to such a degree, that it was visible in all IS the lines of my countenance. My health and my good spirits flagged. I had perpetually a dread of some crisis, to which I should be found unequal. Besides my day- light servitude, I served over again all night in my sleep, and would awake with terrors of imaginary false entries, 20 errors in my accounts, and the like. I was fifty years of age, and no prospect of emancipation presented itself. I had grown to my desk, as it were ; and the wood had entered into my soul. My fellows in the office would sometimes rally me upon 25 the trouble legible in my countenance ; but I did not know that it had raised the suspicions of any of my em- ployers, when, on the fifth of last month, a day ever to be remembered by me, L , the junior partner in the firm, calling me on one side, directly taxed me with my The Superannuated Man 169 bad looks, and frankly inquired the cause of them. So taxed, I honestly made confession of my infirmity, and added that I was afraid I should eventually be obliged to resign his service. He spoke some words of course to hearten me, and there the matter rested. A whole 5 week I remained labouring under the impression that I had acted imprudently in my disclosure ; that I had fool- ishly given a handle against myself, and had been antici- pating my own dismissal. A week passed in this manner, the most anxious one, I verily believe, in my whole 10 life, when on the evening of the 12th of 'April, just as I was about quitting my desk to go home (it might be about eight o'clock) I received an awful summons to attend the presence of the whole assembled firm in the formidable back parlour. I thought, now my time is surely 15 come, I have done for myself, I am going to be told that they have no longer occasion for me. L , I could see, smiled at the terror I was in, which was a little relief tome, — when to my utter astonishment B , the eldest partner, began a formal harangue to me on the length 20 of my services, my very meritorious conduct during the whole of the time (the deuce, thought I, how did he find out that? I protest I never had the confidence to think as much). He went on to descant on the expediency of retiring at a certain time of life (how my heart panted !) 25 and asking me a few questions as to the amount of my own property, of which I have a little, ended with a pro- posal, to which his three partners nodded a grave assent, that I should accept from the house, which I had served lyo Essays of Elia so well, a pension for life to the amount of two-thirds of my accustomed salary — a magnificent offer ! I do not know what I answered between surprise and gratitude, but it was understood that I accepted their proposal, and 5 1 was told that I was free from that hour to leave their service. I stammered out a bow, and at just ten minutes after eight I went home — forever. This noble benefit — gratitude forbids me to conceal their names — - 1 owe to the kindness of the most munificent firm in the world — lothe house of Boldero, Merry weather, Bosanquet, and Lacy. Esto perpetua I ^ For the first day or two I felt stunned, overwhelmed. I could only apprehend my felicity ; I was too confused IS to taste it sincerely. I wandered about, thinking 1 was happy, and knowing that I was not. I was in the condi- tion of a prisoner in the old Bastile, suddenly let loose after a forty years' confinement. I could scarce trust my- self with myself. It was like passing out of Time into 20 Eternity — for it is a sort of Eternity for a man to have his Time all to himself. It seemed to me that I had more time on my hands than I could ever manage. From a poor man, poor in Time, I was suddenly hfted up into a vast revenue ; I could see no end of my possessions ; 25 1 wanted some steward, or judicious bailiff, to manage my estates in Time for me. And here let me caution persons grown old in active business, not lightly, nor without weighing their own resources, to forego their customary 1 Be thou continual. The Superannuated Man 171 employment all at once, for there may be danger in it. I feel it by myself, but I know that my resources are sufficient ; and now that those first giddy raptures have subsided, I have a quiet home feeling of the blessedness of my condition. I am in no hurry. Having all holi- s days, I am as though I had none. If Time hung heavy upon me, I could walk it away ; but I do not walk all day long, as I used to do in those old transient holidays, thirty miles a day, to make the most of them. If Time were troublesome, I could read it away ; but I do not read in 10 that violent measure, with which, having no Time my own but candlelight Time, I used to weary out my 'head and eyesight in bygone winters. I walk, read or scribble (as now) just when the fit seizes me. I no longer hunt after pleasure ; I let it come to me. I am like the man 15 that's born, and has his years come to him, In some green desert. "Years," you will say! "what is this superannuated simpleton calculating upon? He has already told us, he is past fifty." 20 I have indeed lived nominally fifty years, but deduct out of them the hours which I have lived to other people, and not to myself, and you will find me still a young fellow. For that is the only true Time, which a man can properly call his own, that which he has all to himself; 25 the rest, though in some sense he may be said to live it, is other people's time, not his. The remnant of ray poor days, long or short, is at least multiplied for me three- 172 Essays of Elia ' fold. My ten next years, if I stretch so far, will be as long as any preceding thirty. 'Tis a fair rule-of-three sura. Among the strange fantasies which beset me at the commencement of my freedom, and of which all traces 5 are not yet gone, one was, that a vast tract of time had intervened since I quitted the Counting House. I could not conceive of it as an affair of yesterday. The part- ners, and the clerks, with whom I had for so many years, and for so many hours in each day of the year, been 10 closely associated — being suddenly removed from them — they seemed as dead to me. There is a fine passage, which may serve to illustrate this fancy, in a Tragedy by Sir Robert Howard, speaking of a friend's death : 'Twas but just now he went away; 15 I have not since had time to shed a tear; And yet the distance does the same appear As if he had been a thousand years from me. Time takes no measure in Eternity. To dissipate this awkward feeling, I have been fain to 20 go among them once or twice since ; to visit my old desk- fellows — my co-brethren of the quill — that I had left below in the state militant. Not all the kindness with which they received me could quite restore to me that pleasant familiarity, which I had heretofore enjoyed 25 among them. We cracked some of our old jokes, but methought they went off but faintly. My old desk ; the peg where I hung my hat, were appropriated to another. I knew it must be, but I could not take it kindly. D 1 take me, if 1 did not feel some remorse — beast, The Superannuated Man 173 if I had not, — at quitting my old compeers, the faithful partners of my toils for six and thirty years, that smoothed for me with their jokes and conundrums the ruggedness of my professional road. Had it been so rugged then after all? or was I a coward simply? Well, it is too late 5 to repent ; and I also know, that these suggestions are a common fallacy of the mind on such occasions. But my heart smote me. I had violently broken the bands be- twixt us. It was at least not courteous. I shall be some time before I get quite reconciled to the separa- 10 tion. Farewell, old cronies, yet not for long, for again and again I will come among ye, if I shall have your leave. Farewell Ch ,^ dry, sarcastic, and friendly ! Do ^ mild, slow to move, and gentlemanly ! PI ^ officious to do, and to volunteer, good services! — and 15 thou, thou dreary pile, fit mansion for a Gresham or a Whittington of old, stately House of Merchants ; with thy labyrinthine passages, and light- excluding, pent up offices, where candles for one half the year supplied the place of the sun's light ; unhealthy contributor to my weal, stern 20 fosterer of my living, farewell ! In thee remain, and not in the obscure collection of some wandering bookseller, my " works ! " There let them rest, as I do from my labours, piled on thy massy shelves, more MSS. in folio than ever Aquinas left, and full as useful ! My mantle 1 25 bequeath among ye. A fortnight has passed since the date of my first communication. At that period I was approaching to 1 John Chambers. ^ Henry Dodwell. ^ W. D. Plumley. 174 Essays of Elia tranquillity, but had not reached it. I boasted of a calm indeed, but it was comparative only. Something of the first flutter was left; an unsettling sense of novelty ; the dazzle to weak eyes of unaccustomed light. I missed my old 5 chains, forsooth, as if they had been some necessary pan of my apparel. I was a poor Carthusian, from strict cel- lular discipline suddenly by some revolution returned upon the world. I am now as if I had never been other than my own master. It is natural to me to go where I please, 10 to do what I please. I find myself at eleven o'clock in the day in Bond Street, and it seems to me that I have been sauntering there at that very hour for years past. I digress into Soho, to explore a book stall. Methinks I have been thirty years a collector. There is nothing 15 strange nor new in it. I find myself before a fine picture in the morning. Was it ever otherwise ? What is become of Fish Street Hill ? Where is Fenchurch Street ? Stones of old Mincing Lane, which I have worn with my daily pilgrimage for six and thirty years, to the footsteps of what 20 toil-worn clerk are your everlasting flints^ now vocal? I indent the gayer flags of Pall Mall. It is Change time, and I am strangely among the Elgin marbles. It was no hyperbole when I ventured to compare the change in my condition to a passinginto another world. Time stands still 25 in a manner to me. I have lost all distinction of season. I do not know the day of the week, or of the month. Each day used to be individually felt by me in its reference to 1 Reference to the paving-stones, which in England are flint; but the phrase is Shakespearean. See Romeo and Juliet, II, 6, 17. The Superannuated Man 175 the foreign post-days ; in its distance from, or propinquity to, the next Sunday. I had my Wednesday feelings, my Saturday nights' sensations. The genius of each day was upon me distinctly during the whole of it, affecting my ap- petite, spirits, &c. The phantom of the next day, with the 5 dreary five to follow, sat as a load upon my poor Sabbath recreations. What charm has washed that Ethiop white? What is gone of Black Monday? All days are the same. Sunday itself — that unfortunate failure of a holiday as it too often proved, what with my sense of its fugitiveness, 10 and over-care to get the greatest quantity of pleasure out of it — is melted down into a week-day. I can spare to go to church now, without grudging the huge cantle^ which it used to seem to cut out of the hohday. I have Time for everything. I can visit a sick friend. I can interrupt 15 the man of much occupation when he is busiest. I can insult^ over him with an invitation to take a day's pleas- ure with me to Windsor this fine May morning. It is Lu- cretian pleasure to behold the poor drudges, whom I have left behind in the world, carking and caring ; like horses 20 in a mill, drudging on in the same eternal round — and what is it all for ? A man can never have too much Time to himself, nor too little to do. Had I a little son, I would christen him Nothing-to-do ; he should do nothing. Man, I verily beheve, is out of his element as long as he is op- 25 erative. I am altogether for the life contemplative. Will 1 A piece, fragment. 2 An unusual and somewhat archaic employment of the word in- sult as an intransitive verb. 176 Essays of Elia no kindly earthquake come and swallow up those accursed cotton-mills? Take me that lumber of a desk there, and bowl it down As low as to the fiends. 5 I am no longer ******j clerk to the Firm of &c. I am Retired Leisure. I am to be met with in trim gardens. I am already come to be known by my vacant face and care- less gesture, perambulating at no fixed pace, nor with any settled purpose. I walk about ; not to and from. They 10 tell me, a certain cum dignitate^ air, that has been buried so long with my other good parts, has begun to shoot forth in my person. I grow into gentility perceptibly. When I take up a newspaper, it is to read the state of the opera. Opus operatum esi.'^ I have done all that I came 15 into this world to do. I have worked task-work, and have the rest of the day to myself. 1 From the phrase otium cum dignitate, ease with dignity. 2 The play (or ceremony) has been performed. NOTES The heavy marginal figures stand for page, and the lighter ones for line. As intimated in the Introduction^ the essays here chosen for reading are largely autobiographical ; not however in the factual sense. They are rather in the nature of what are sometimes called Confessions ; being the record of the writer's {i.e. James Elia's) tastes, sympathies, and sentiments, given not at all in a didactic way, but conversationally, as if friend were talking with friend. CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE-AND-THIRTY YEARS AGO Pages 21-41 To enter rightly into the feeling of this essay, one needs to put one's self into the position indicated in the title. The writer, with the experience and judgement of an elderly man, is recalling his school-days across a chasm of thirty-five years ; bringing up again not m regret but in keen realization the school-boy fare, the juve- nile trials and joys, the teachers as seen through the eyes both of boy and man, and the schoolmates who long ago left school for the world of success and failure. If you are attentive, two things will grow upon you as you read : how intimately Lamb enters into a boy's life and feelings ; and how much more he makes them mean than the boy himself realized in the time of boyhood, though now that it is told it will be recognized as true. 21 : I. Mr. Lamb's "Works." It must be borne in mind that Lamb published these essays not under his own name but under the assumed signature of Elia ; hence his reference to another paper of his own, as if it were the work of some one else. In ESSAYS OF ELIA — 12 1 7 7 178 Notes Recollections of ChrisVs Hospital, to which he refers, he gives a eulogistic account of his old school, much after the manner of a commendatory circular, but designed in part to defend it against certain charges of favouritism which had been brought against the directors of it. The present essay, which is written less in the business-like and more in the literary style, is designed in part to give another side of the picture, not shunning what would seem to make against the school life or the instructors. Lamb's earlier writings, in prose and verse, now little read by the side of the Elia essays, were gathered into two volumes of Lamb's Works, in 1818. — 2. My old school. Christ's Hospital, which the names of its two eminent pupils, Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, have perhaps done more than any other names to make famous, otherwise called the Blue-coat school, was a charity-school founded in 1552 by Edward VI. in generous response to a sermon on charity by Bishop Ridley. His object was "to take out of the streets all the fatherless children and other men's children that were not able to keep them, and to bring them to the late dissolved house of the Grey Friars, which they devised to be a hospital for them, where they should have meat, drink, and clothes, lodging and learning, and officers to attend upon them." Its scope was afterward some- what enlarged so as to take in not only the children of the very poor but the children of reduced or embarrassed parents of what- ever class. Formerly in Newgate Street, the school is now removed to Sussex, near the village of Horsham. — 7. The cloisters. The school building, as the foregoing note shows, was "the late dis- solved house of the Grey Friars," that is, a cloister or monastery. 21: II. Advantages, which I . . . had not. Though speak- ing of himself. Lamb is of course assuming the personality of Elia. Apart from this natural literary device, however, this may perhaps be taken as the occasion for speaking of a trait of Lamb's for which the reader must always be prepared, namely, a kind of Puckish delight in mystifying his reader about literal facts. He holds him- self free to attribute sayings or experiences to whatever person it Notes 179 best suits him to; changes names of places and persons; mingles his own impressions with those of ethers as he will. Some instances of these things will be pointed out ; it would, however, serve no practical purpose to trace them minutely. The trait is clue partly to Lamb's whimsey and sly humour, but more truly, I think, to his fine literary sense of the value he would impart to the reader. For first, if we should study the instances carefully we should doubtless find that he has thereby created in each case the situation adapted to produce the best effect; and secondly, he does not want his reader to take his description as a piece of cold information, to be believed and verified like history, but rather to take it according to the sentiment or impression which conslitutes its real inner value. — 12. His friends lived in town. Lamb's family lived in apart- ments in the Inner Temple, where his father, a man of sterling character and considerable culture, was a kind of upper servant or private secretary to one of the benchers, Samuel Salt. Lamb has described the character and occupation of his father, under the name of Lovel, in his essay on The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple. — 17. His tea and hot rolls. If it seems odd that Lamb should, in describing his old school after thirty-five years, be so particular to describe the fare, it should be remembered that Lamb was only seven and a half years on entering (in 1782), and left the school when he was less than fourteen; hence the impressions he retains are those of a young boy, to whom eating and holidays and play and punishments are the vivid events of life. And from this point on we are to realize how truly Lamb speaks as it were through a boy's con- sciousness, and of boys' affairs, while as a man he can look back and get the meanings of these as boys in the time of them could not. — 22: 22. By his maid or aunt. His father's sister, Aunt Hetty (more properly Sarah) Lamb, who regarded him as her special favourite. She is described in his essay on My Relations. 23 : 2. Those cates which the ravens ministered. A reference to the story of Elijah "the Tishbite " fed by ravens, i Kings xvii; but he gets his imagination of the food, probably, from Paradise i8o Notes Regained, ii. 266-270. See Grace before Meat, 132 : 13-16, where the same story is again referred to and Milton's lines quoted. — 3. The contending passions of L. Note these carefully as he enumerates them in the next sentence, — the feelings of a sensitive, shy, yet sympathetic boy. Note how a tender regard for others' feeHngs dominates, and a shrinking from being favoured above his mates. It was this character which endeared him, not only in school but throughout his life, to his friends; it is the constant and spontaneous expression of this character which, as an undertone to every subject he writes about, makes him the best-loved writer of English hterature. 23 : 1 1. I was a poor friendless boy. Having spoken of Lamb, he now describes himself (writing as Elia) ; but the one whom he is really describing here is his schoolmate, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (i 772-1834), who entered the school on the same day with him (July 17, 1782), coming from Ottery St. Mary in Devonshire, how- ever, not "Calne in Wiltshire" (1. 26), as Elia intimates of himself. 23 : 20. the cruelty. It is characteristic of Lamb to feel deeply the homesickness and loneliness of his schoolmate. Coleridge him- self has described how unhappy he was in his early days at school. 24: I. Whole-day-leaves. Days (saints' days, king's birthdays, and others), on which the pupils could be absent from the Hospital the entire day. Though the vacations were short, there was, as compensation, a generous allowance of these whole-day-leaves. — 5. Which L. recalls with such relish. In Recollections of Christ's Hospital, the description is : " our delightful excursions in the summer holidays to the New River near Newington, where, like others, we would live the long day in the water, never caring for dressing ourselves when we had once stripped." — ii. Pennyless. Note that this word has a somewhat different shade of meaning from the commonly spelled word penniless; for which latter see 151 : 22. 25 : I. L.'s governor was Mr. Samuel Salt, a bencher- of the Inner Temple and the employer of Lamb's father; see note on Notes n 21 : 12. More strictly, then, Lamb's father lived under the gov- ernor's roof. — 8. I have been called out of my bed. As this is Elia speaking, the indignity might have happened of any one; the cruelty of it, like the homesickness mentioned on 23, 20-26 is made more vivid by being told of a " poor friendless boy." 26 : II. Leads of the ward. Sheets of lead roofing. — 12. Better than a week. An old-fashioned way of saying ??iore than, with a somewhat diminished stress, like rather more than a week. — 13. Cry roast meat. A colloquial expression for betraying one's good fortune; it is defined four lines below. — 16. Waxing fat, and kicking. Like Jeshurun in Deuteronomy xxxii. 15; a re- proach brought against the people of Israel in Moses' song. Re- ferred to again in Grace before Meat, 130 : 22. — 19. A ram's horn blast, etc. Lamb draws his allusion from the account of the tak- ing of Jericho in Joshua vi, adapting it to a somewhat modified ap- plication. — 21. The client, i.e. the ass, was sent to Smithfield market. It is Lamb's whimsical way to speak of the ass and the boy as client and patron. — 24. L.'s admired Perry. In the former article this steward is represented as much loved by the boys; here, by one who writes with a sense of the mischief that could be perpetrated, it is intimated that he was lax in duty, and another instance of his negligence is given in the next paragraph. 26 : 25. Facile administration. Explain how this is a euphe- mism with a touch of irony. Note how the magnificence of the room is made to intensify the contrast, as presented by the half-starved youngsters. — 27: 11. In the hall of Dido. The line here given is adapted, not quoted, from Virgil's j^neid, i. 464. 27 : 19. suffered. In the key of names which Lamb drew up to explain these blanks, he leaves this person unidentified, per- haps from unwillingness to wound the sensibilities of persons still living. — 21. 'Twas said, etc. This also is not a quotation but an adaptation of Antony and Cleopatra, i. 4, 67, 68. 28 : 7. The accursed thing. Scripture phraseology, taken from the story of Achan,/i3^/^z^^ vii. 13. — 29 : 18. Did not do quite so 1 82 Notes well by himself. The whole foregoing story of his classmate is an example of Lamb's characteristic kindness of judgement. He contrives to make the self-sacrifice of the boy stand out beyond anything else; and when he traces his after life of poverty and perhaps shiftlessness he intimates it in the softest terms. 29 : 20. I was a hypochondriac lad. This trait helps us to realize more vividly what he is about to describe, and adds to the poignancy of the described suffering. The choice of details, the implied contrasts and likenesses, make together a powerful appeal to the sympathetic imagination. — 27. Bedlam cells. The English name for an insane asylum is Bedlam; a name said to be corrupted from Bethlehem. 31 : 3. Disfigurements in Dante. The imprisoned souls in Dante's Inferno are represented as bodies in various distorted and disfigured guises, and some of thtm endeavoured to lay hold on the poet as he passed. — 5. L.'s favourite state-room. Lamb, as Elia, takes perverse delight in throwing despite on the sentiments, or tastes, shown by Lamb in his proper person, in the former article. In 11. 3-12 on p. 27, he has made the splendour of the room accentu- ate by contrast the famine of the boys; now similarly he makes it enhance the sense of the iniquity and cruelty of the punishment; and this by extreme lightness of touch. — 15. The uttermost stripe. Lamb here imitates scripture phraseology; see Matthew v. 26, which speaks of "the uttermost farthing." 32 : 7. Never happier, than in them. By this remark Lamb prepares his reader for the description of the idle and careless school life which was led under Matthew Field; a description probably somewhat exaggerated for effect. — 25. " Like a dancer." This phrase, the meaning of which explains itself, is quoted from Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 11. 36. Lamb quotes it again in his essay, Mrs. Battle'' s Opinions on Whist. — 33: 19. Rousseau and John Locke. Mentioned here because both were authors of treatises on education, and would have been amused to see these occupations of the juvenile mind. Notes 183 34 : 9. Helots to his young Spartans. Helots, in Greece, were drunken slaves, who were exhibited by Spartan parents to their children as a warning. The boys on Lamb's side of the school were regarded as a similar "awful example" to Mr. Boyer's rigor- ously disciplined boys. — 15. By the Samite. Pythagoras the philosopher, a native of Samos, who compelled his pupils to listen to his lectures five years before speaking in response. The silence that he enjoyed, then, was like that of Boyer's rigidly disciplined classes. — 16. Our little Goshen. In Exodus viii. 22, the land of Goshen, in which the children of Israel dwelt, was set apart as a place where they were clear of the plagues that troubled the land of Egypt. — 21. Our fleece was dry. For this allusion Lamb refers to Cowley {llie Complaint, stanza 7), but in the Bible story. Judges vi. 36-40, the miracle was wrought successively both ways; first the ground dry and the fleece wet, and the second time as indicated here. 36 : 16. Into his lair. Note how the use of this word fits with the description of Boyer as a sort of wild beast. 37 : 9. This exquisite irrecognition, etc. A good sentence to study for its choice of words to convey a subtle and delicate thought. 37: 13. L. has given credit, etc. The reference is to Lamb's ^2s\\tK ^■~,%2iy, Recollections of Chrisfs Hospital ; ^ee note 21 : I. In this summarizing paragraph, Coleridge's " literary life " is his work entitled Biographia Literaria. " The author of the Country Spec- tator " was Thomas Fanshawe Middleton ; see next paragraph. One sentence from Lamb's former essay may illustrate, as do all the coming paragraphs of this essay, his kindly habit, in passing judgement on persons, of making the good overbalance the bad : " He was a disciplinarian, indeed, of a different stamp from him whom I have just described; but, now the terrors of the rod, and of a temper a little too hasty to leave the more nervous of us quite at our ease to do justice to his merits in those days, are long since over, ungrateful were we if we should refuse our testimony to that 184 Notes unwearied assiduity with which he attended to the particular im- provement of each of us." 38 : 23. To bear his mitre high. The mitre is the symbol of the bishop's office, as is the crown of the king's. Lamb takes oc- casion to point the contrast between the bishop's official conduct and his real character. 39 : 13. Come back into memory. By the apostrophe and the impassioned style of the address Lamb conveys the impression of his special love for his friend Coleridge, v^'ho indeed remained Lamb's intimate friend and correspondent until his death. — 15. The dark pillar not yet turned. An allusion to the melan- cholia that for a large part of Coleridge's life rendered him unfit for effective work; a state owing largely to his intemperate use of opium. The allusion is put in a scriptural image taken from the pillar of cloud and fire, and especially from the incident noted in Exodus xiv. 20, where the pillar at once gave light to the Israelites and was dark to the Egyptians; that is, it had in that historical case a light and a dark side. — 26. Old Fuller. Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), who in his Worthies of England, under Warwick- shire, makes this comparison between Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. See note, 105 : 8. 40 : 9. Nor shalt thou ... be quickly forgotten. Apostrophe again. If Lamb responded so fervently to Coleridge's genius and personal friendship, it was also in him to recall with almost equal fervour a sunny humorous nature, like that of Allen. 41 : 4. Poor Sizars. Students who, on account of extreme pov- erty, have free commons. It is to be noted how, in the case of both these partial failures, Lamb leaves the reader with the sense of the nobler and redeeming qualities. If he could not record some good thing of a man, he passed him by in silence ; see 39 : 9-12. Notes 185 MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE Pages 42-49 The caption of this essay is more truly an almost casual note of place than a real title. What Lamb set out to write about is indi- cated iu the concluding paragraph of the essay on My Relations^ which in the complete edition stood just before this. In that essay he mentioned his two cousins, James and Bridget Elia; and then, having under the first name given a description of his brother, John Lamb, thus proceeds : " In my next. Reader, I may perhaps give you some account of my cousin Bridget — if you are not already surfeited with cousins — and take you by the hand, if you are willing to go with us, on an excursion which we made a sum- mer or two since, in search of more cousins — " Through the green fields of pleasant Hertfordshire." This essay thus, availing itself of its informal type of discourse, is virtually two essays in one. 42 : I. Bridget Elia, whom Elia calls his cousin, is Charles Lamb's sister Mary, of whom, as an occasional invalid, he is taking care for life ; see Introduction, p. 1 7. We shall find her mentioned again, and traits of hers described, in the essay on Old China, p. no ff. In the essay on Mrs. Battlers Opinions on Whist, too, he remarks : " When I am in sickness, or not in the best spirits, I some- times call for the cards, and play a game at piquet for love with my cousin Bridget — Bridget Elia." There is no mistaking the tone of affection, and perhaps admiration, with which she is described. — 6. To go out upon the mountains, an allusion to Jephthah's daughter ; see Judges xi. 37. There is perhaps a touch of the whimsical in Ella's making himself, an old bachelor rather than a maid, bewail his celibacy. — 9. " With a difference." This quo- tation from Ophelia's speech, Hamlet, iv. 5. 166, and the quotation 43 : 9, "holds Nature more clever," from Gay's Epitaph of Byewords, illustrate Lamb's use of quotations, which generally 1 86 Notes was not so much to point a moral as to preserve a happy turn of phrase. For this trait of them his quotations are well worth study ; but also his own skill in delicate and felicitous phrasing is very characteristic of his style. Note, fur instance, how delightfully, in the next two sentences, he carries out the suggestion expressed in "with a difference." — 16. Old Burton. Robert Burton (1577- 1640), author of The Anatomy of Melancholy, published in 1621 ; a quaint storehouse of odd facts, fancies, and quotations, illustrative especially of the sad and moody humours of the mind. The "strange contemporaries" (1. 17) here mentioned were representa- tive of the age in English literature when authors were especially given to curious conceits of thought and wording, such "out-of- the-way humours and opinions " (43 : 3) as attracted Lamb's fancy and moulded the "self pleasing quaintness " of his style. — 43 : 10. Religio Medici, by Sir Thomas Browne (i 605-1 682), a Norwich physician, written about 1635, ^^^ containing weighty and tolerant religious thought, but in the quaint vein, with its " beauti- ful obliquities," so congenial to Lamb. — 13. The intellectuals of . . . Margaret Newcastle. That Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, who in 1667 published a life of her husband, was a prime favourite with Lamb, is evident from the fact that he mentions her in terms of praise no fewer than four times in his essays ; but it is equally evident that he liked her for her eccentricities, or possibly for the untutored oddities of her language. In his essay on the Decay of Beggars he refers to her in order to quote from her the word ro- mancical. She might strike others very differently, as he intimates here, from the way she strikes him ; Pepys, in his Diary for March 18, 1668, writes : "Stayed at home, reading the ridiculous History of my Lord Nexvcastle, wrote by his wife, which shows her to be a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman, and he an asse to suffer her to write what she writes to him, and of him." With this contrast what Lamb says of the book in Detached Thoughts 07i Books and Read- ing ; see 121 : 3-6. 44 : 7. With a gentle hand. Note how Lamb softens his Ian- Notes 187 guage when he has anything derogatory or satirical to say; touch- ing the foible as lightly as he can, and supplying extenuations. Query : may not his use of the old-fashioned endings to his verbs Q' hafh an awkward trick," 1. 9; '■'■ passeth by the name," 1. 22; " niaketh matters worse," 45 : 10) be a means of softening his lan- guage and making it to a degree playful ? — "To let slip a word less seasonably," 1. 19, is a good example of his stating a fault delicately. 44 : 22. Tumbled early . . . browsed at will. Do not miss the felicitous use of these metaphors. The "spacious closet" was the library of Samuel Salt, the employer of Charles Lamb's father, who gave the children the freedom of his library. 45 : II. Divide your trouble. Probably a kind of play on Bacon's idea in his essay On Friendship, that friendship " redoubleth joys, and cutteth grief in halfs." — Note how, by the distinction suggested, this is made the occasion of making transition to the second half of the essay, the subject on which Lamb set out to write. 45 : 18. Mackery End, and the occupants whom Lamb visited, are sufficiently described in the text. It was the name given to the several buildings of an estate, a mansion and outlying farm-houses. It was in the farm-house and among the common working people that Lamb visited. In this paragraph, with the exception of Bridget, Lamb uses real names and relationships. 46 : 18. We had never forgotten. Lamb dwells with character- istic fondness on that period of childhood where memory begins, and on the later imagination which blends with memory. 46:25. " Heart of June." Quoted from Ben Jonson. See above, note on 42:9. — 26. The stanza is from Wordsworth's Yarrow Visited. Of this stanza Lamb wrote to Wordsworth in 1815, — "than which I think no lovelier stanza can be found in the wide world of poetry." 47 : I. Waking bliss, as contrasted with the half dreamy illusion of her brother, as described 46 : 20. The phrase is from Milton's 1 88 Notes Comus. — 9. More pardonable . . . than decorous. Another instance of dehcate statement; compare note 44: 7. 47 : 27. Those slender ties, etc. Note how well-worded and clean-cut is the contrast expressed in this sentence. — 48: 6. The two scriptural cousins. An allusion to Mary and EHzabeth; see Zz/i^ i. 36, 39, 40. — 25. Astonishment . . . astoundment. Does Lamb use these two words for different shades of meaning (and if so what difference can you make?), or merely for variety of wording? — 26. B. F. Barron Field, a friend of Lamb's, a man of letters, who, as the text intimates, removed from England to reside in Australia. He made this journey to Mackery End along with the Lambs, possibly cousin-hunting like them (compare the name Field, 46:4), though here he is spoken of as "almost the only thing that was not a cousin there." The last sentence of the essay may profitably be studied both for its very accurate description of a mental process, and for the skilful way in which it works up to a cadence, and ends with the title of the essay. MY FIRST PLAY Pages 50-56 Like many of Lamb's essays, this is rambling and discursive in getting at its main point of interest; but it is rightly named, for evidently his main impulse to write the essay was to describe the interest and wonder of a child's mind, and its contrast with the more sophisticated mind of later life. In a less weighty and philo- sophical treatment the subject is similar to that of Wordsworth's well-known ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. Both describe the disillusion that comes in after years to dispel the glamour and pure imagination of childhood. It was a matter on which Lamb felt keenly; deprecating especially the dispelling of childhood illusions by prematurely explaining them away. In an early sketch on Play-House Memoranda, which is a Notes 189 kind of preliminary sketch for this essay, he says : " We crush the faculty of delight and wonder in children, by explaining everything. We take them to the source of the Nile, and show them the scanty runnings, instead of letting the beginnings of that sevenfold stream remain in impenetrable darkness, a mysterious question of wonder- ment and delight to ages." 50: I. A portal. Note how Lamb uses this solitary surviving relic of a long-demolished building to transport his reader into the thought and atmosphere of long ago, which then he concentrates on the event of his first visit to the theatre. So in the first short paragraph he sends the imagination back through forty years, and by one or two details sets it to thinking like a child. — 6. Old Drury — Garrick's Drury. Drury Lane theatre in its day was so prominent in London life that it is almost historic, and especially as connected with one of the most renowned of actors, David Gar- rick (17 1 6-1 779), whose career came in the times of the great eighteenth-century men of letters, Johnson, Burke, and Gold- smith. 50: 21. Whose gait and bearing. The gait and bearing of these imitators of each other would be the most vivid memory in a child's mind. In his essay on Some of the Old Actors he says of this John Palmer : " In sock or buskin there was an air of swagger- ing gentility about Jack Palmer. He was z. gentleman with a slight vciivAxow oi the footman" — 51: I. Young Brinsley. /.,?. Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), the celebrated dramatist and man- ager, known to us as the author, among others, of two plays that still hold the stage. The Rivals and The School for Scandal. Of his matrimonial escapade, which occurred in 1773, sufficient is told here. — 9, Brinsley's easy autograph. An allusion to his debt- incurring proclivity, though in this case, by the facile way of paying his oil bills by theatre orders, he satisfied one admirer, who was willing thus to take his pay. 51 : 18. Ciceronian. The word has become a synonym for a sonorous and some\^ hat artificial style of enunciation. Browning, 190 Notes in The Bishop Orders His Tomb, uses Cicero (or rather his middle name, Tullius) as the norm of elegant and classical language — " Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word," — 52: I. The highest parochial honours, perhaps a church- warden of St. Andrew's, Holborn, a church still standing near Hol- born Viaduct. 52 : 4. Little wondrous talismans ! Note how keenly Lamb enters, in every detail, into the remembered wonder and delight of the child mind. — 8. The only landed property, etc. Lamb is using real names and an authentic event of his life here, though it seems he inherited it rather from the widow than from Mr. Field himself. The " commodious mansion," on its three-quarters of an acre, was a thatched cottage; and the name which the property still bears, " Button Snap," is thought to have been bestowed by Lamb himself. 53 : 6. But when we got in. From this phrase to the end of the paragraph is a kind of climax; note detail by detail the little things which add to the intensity of childish anticipation, until with the last sentence the culmination is reached. Note how the paren- thetical " I was not past six years old " is put in where it best en- hances the effect of the mental state he is describing. — 8. Endured. Note the choice of a word which intimates that the intense interest was almost pain; compare an expression of Wordsworth's, " aching joys." — 20. "Fair Auroras!" The phrase is quoted from one of the songs of this play of Artaxerxes. — 23. The maternal lap. This is said to be the only allusion to his mother that Lamb makes in his essays. It will be remembered that his sister Mary, who lived with him, had killed her mother in an attack of mania, and perhaps Lamb refrained from mentioning the mother out of regard for her feelings. — 25. Artaxerxes was an English opera by a distinguished English composer, Thomas Augustine Arne (i 710-1778). The only time when this opera and Garrick's pantomime of Harlequin'' s Notes 191 Invasion were given together was December I, 1 780, which does not quite agree with the date given, 55 : 18. 54 : 9. The burning idol, or perhaps illuminated idol, an as- sumed accompaniment of the ancient sun-worship of Persia — 18. St. Denys, the patron saint of France, in the legend carried his head two miles after his decapitation. 55 : 10. As good and authentic. Lamb probably refers here to what is the most powerful feature of Robinson Crusoe, its intense realism and verisimihtude, — 14. Grotesque Gothic heads. Lamb's interest is of course not in these but in that trait of young child- hood in which the wonder and novelty of the scene quite effaces the sense of the ridiculous. In a story which he wrote for Mrs. Leicester's School on First Going to Chtirch, Lamb mentions these same grotesque heads in the Temple church and the fact that in his childhood, as he saw them in a sacred edifice, he was not disposed to laugh at them. " I somehow fancied," he says, " they were the representation of wicked people set up as a warning." 56 : 16. The alteration. Note the elaborate paradox in "those many centuries — of six short twelvemonths." This last paragraph is Lamb's way of describing the same change in mind and feelings, between youth and age, which Wordsworth describes in stanzas iv and v of his Immortality ode : — " Whither is fled the visionary gleam ? Where is it now, the glory and the dream ? At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day." Lamb, however, who puts this disillusion somewhat early in youth, notes a third stage (lines 21-26), in which something of the old enjoyment of the drama comes back, but so that reason and im- agination are in wholesome balance. Throughout his life the theatre remained to Lamb "the most delightful of recreations." 192 Notes BARBARA S Pages 57-64 In May, 1825, Lamb wrote to Wordsworth : " In the London which is just out are 2 papers entitled The Superanmcated Man, which I wish you to see, and also ist Apr., a little thing called Barbara S , a story gleaned from Miss Kelly." The Miss Kelly here mentioned was Frances Maria Kelly, or Fanny Kelly as she was called, a favourite actress of Lamb's time; and the main incident of the story was an experience of her own childhood. In a letter M'ritten in 1875 •'^''^^ Kelly retells the story, and re- ferring to Lamb's version of it, speaks of " the extraordinary skill with which he has, in the construction of his story, desired and contrived so to mystify and characterize the events, as to keep me out of sight, and render it utterly impossible for any one to guess at me as the original heroine." Lamb indeed takes liberties with some details; not, however, to mystify but to heighten the effect of his reading of the case. It was as a study in the innocence and trueheartedness of child character that the incident interested him, and it is to enhance these traits that he colours and modifies it. In other words (speaking in literary terms), it was for its de- scriptive value rather than for its narrative, that he wrote the story as he did. A special interest attaches to Miss Kelly, the original of Barbara S , from the fact that in 181 9, when Lamb was forty-four and she fifteen years younger, he offered her his hand in marriage; but when she, on the ground of " an early and deeply rooted attach- ment," refused the offer, he relinquished his one dream of wedded life, and their relations, which were always friendly, continued as before. She died unmarried at the age of ninety-two ; he at the age of fifty-nine. For his lifelong relinquishment of marriage (except for this one day's romance), and its cause, see Introduc- tion, p. 17. Notes 193 It is to be noted, however, that Lamb (or rather James Elia) does not use real names in this essay; and in fact attributes the source of the story to quite another person; see 64 : 10. 57 : 3. Ascended the long rambling staircase. It will be well to note the very leisurely way in which Lamb tells what story there is ("Indeed I have little or none to tell" — he says, 58:23). We can hardly call his manner, however, spinning it out, because the numerous details and digressions are put in to enhance the effect he really has at heart. Note how in this first paragraph he begins with a single narrative act, the rest serving merely to sketch what we may call the situation; then all is digression (the reader being once definitely put off, 58 : 23) until the same act is repeated, 60:16, and yet again, after more digression, 61:19. Yet these loiterings are pertinent to the writer's object; a profitable study would be to inquire how. 57 : 15. Pious application of her small earnings. The word pious is used in the older sense, like the classical {Q.g. pitis yEneas, Virgil), i.e. due reverence or respect to others. This trait of Bar- bara's plays a prominent part in Lamb's portrayal of her character; see 60 : 19-61 : 6. Here it is used to bring out another trait; note what it is. 57 : 24. She had already, etc. Some standard child's parts, from Shakespeare's King John and Richard III,, are mentioned here, in the order in which they would be taken by a child gradu- ally growing to older roles. 58 : 21. Indian rubber, or a pumice-stone, as eraser or cleanser; referring to what has been said in 1, 16. 59 : 14. The part of the Little Son. This will do for a remark in which Elia, according to his wont, is free to disguise things at his will; as a matter of fact, however. Miss Kelly, as related in Crabb Robinson's Diary, tells the incident of herself, when, as a child, she was acting the part of Arthur in King John, to Mrs. Sid- dons's Constance. 59 : 25. An impediment in my speech. This, which was a fact ESSAYS OF ELIA — 1 3 194 Notes of Lamb's life, has been mentioned in the Introduction as a dis- qualification which in his school life kept Lamb from being a Gre- cian, and so virtually a candidate for the university and a learned profession. — 60 :i. Miss Kelly. Lamb's skilful mystification of facts is notevi^orthy here, as this person is the very original of Barbara S . Socially, he and his sister Mary M^ere much more intimate with her than these words would indicate, and as dramatic critic Lamb wrote much in praise of her acting, and addressed two sonnets to her. In one of his letters he speaks of her " divine plain face." — 15. But I am growing a coxcomb. Why ? Note that in the foregoing paragraph it is Elia speaking ; Charles Lamb, though fond of the society of actors, would not make it so much a matter of pride to be admitted to their distinguished attentions. 60 : 16. As I was about to say. Lamb comes for a moment within hailing distance of his story again ; compare note on 57 : 3. Has his long digression contributed anything to our better apprecia- tion of Barbara S ? 60 : 21. From causes which, etc. Read the sentence carefully and see if you can tell what the causes were which he would not "arraign." Does he slyly reveal a hint of them in 1. 25? 61 : 7. Some child's part. The part in which the roast fowl incident occurs is in the play. The Children in the Wood, in which Miss Kelly played, though at the time of this story Morton's play of that name "as yet . . . was not"; see 58: 4. — 7-18. Note, from the two contrasted parentheses in this paragraph how keen is Lamb's sympathy with the nature of a child's mind. 61 : 19. The little starved, meritorious maid. Are the two adjectives that Lamb uses here his way of summarizing the effect of the three previous paragraphs, so that we may have it in mind and appreciate the main incident more keenly ? Note how they cor- respond to the paragraphs respectively. 62 : 5. An unusual weight of metal. This detail of the story is Lamb's invention, put in apparently to emphasize the small experi- ence she had had with coin, so that anything unusual was the more Notes 195 perceptible. In the version that Miss Kelly gives, she receives a bank-note ; and, as she represents, was not so " untaught or innocent " as Lamb makes out Barbara S to be, but, taking nothing for granted, unfolded it and discovered the mistake at the first convenient stopping-place. 62 : 7. Mark the dilemma. The best way to mark the dilemma, that is, as Lamb means it, the conflict of emotions between being honest and keeping the money, is, to note how this next paragraph prepares for and accentuates it, and then, in the long paragraph following, the considerations back and forth, like a kind of inner dialogue, until virtue, " that never-failing friend did ste^ in." 62 : II. Porticoes of moral philosophy. The moral philosophy of Athens, especially of the Stoics, was taught in an open air porch or portico, hence the association of a portico with philosophy. 63 : 29. She knew the quality of honesty. For this phrase Lamb is probably thinking of Shakespeare's "the quality of mercy," in The Merchant of Venice iv. i. 184. — At this point think back over the whole story, and see if these words do not mark the lesson or truth for which the writer has throughout been accumu- lating interest. It is all the skilful portrayal of a state of mind, and of a type of character, in which evidently he has intense interest. 64 : II. The late Mrs. Crawford. In the opening note we have seen, from Lamb's own words, that he had the story from Miss Kelly ; but we may remind ourselves again that, writing as James Elia, he can make his names and facts as fictitious as is his own assumed name. The Mrs. Crawford here mentioned was, indeed, a well-known actress of the day, and the facts he gives in the foot-note are true ; but choosing to ascribe the story to her instead of to Miss Kelly, he speaks of one who is no longer living to prove or disprove it, or to have her personal experiences exposed. 196 Notes THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE Pages 65-76 Though not actually the first written, this was the first essay published under the name Elia, and designed to head the series. One feels the writer's sense of this fact to some extent in the style of it. Not that the style is exactly stiff; but it reads a little self-conscious, as if the writer were minded to impress a definite stamp of style and treatment on a new venture in literature. Perhaps his ostentatious use of the thou style adds to this effect; and his remark about how he has been using names, 76 : 23, is in the same vein, hinting at the treatment of facts he is adopting. After leaving school. Lamb, in 1 791, was a clerk for a while in the South-Sea House (see Introduction) ; so in this essay, which professes to date from forty years after (68 : 16) — though as a matter of fact it was only thirty-one — Lamb is giving impressions received in his seventeenth year and recorded in his forty-fourth. These remembered impressions, however, are not boyish; they , give such things as a matured man would observe and put into delicate and masterly description. It is this descriptive effect that he is seeking to convey. The business of the South-Sea House was just the feeble survival of a financial scheme started in 1711; which scheme became prodigiously popular, investors speculating in its stocks and forcing them upward, until when they had reached the quotation of 1000, in 1720, the chairman and principal directors sold out, and suddenly the whole enterprise collapsed. The thing has become historic under the name of the South-Sea Bubble, sometimes the South-Sea Hoax. Macaulay, in his essay on William Pitt, has some sentences describing vividly the height of the craze and the frenzy produced by the crash. What Lamb is describing in our essay is the state of the business as it was seventy years after the failure; it is a description therefore of hopeless decay and increasing desolation, with which the whole aspect of the building Notes 197 and the character of the clerks are in keeping. The atmosphere of ruin, we may say, pervades the essay; this was Lamb's design. At the opening of the next essay (see p. 77), Lamb thus gives it : " In my last I tried to divert thee with some half- forgotten humours of some old clerks defunct, in an old house of business, long since gone to decay." 65 : I. Thy . . . thou. In this his first Elia essay. Lamb seems to adopt this older style of address as a delicate intimation to his reader that this is a friendly and intimate conversational essay, rather than a piece of formal information; the old form of the pronoun like the address to familiar friends, as the Germans use the pronoun dti. — 3. The Flower Pot. An inn in Bishopsgate Street, from which stages for the north of London started. — 6. A melancholy looking, etc. Note how this compendious description of the building strikes the key-note, as it were, of the essay; suggesting for it a kind of atmosphere of desolation; com- pare the opening note. Note how all the details of the succeeding paragraph are evidently chosen to enhance this feeling of deserted- ness and decay. 66: II. An "unsunned heap," etc. The connection of these hidden hoards with Mammon is a suggestion from Spenser, but the phrase is from Milton's Conius, 1. 398 : — " You may as well spread out the unsimned heaps Of miser's treasure by an outlaw's den." — 14. Of that famous Bubble. The South-Sea Bubble, and the South-Sea Hoax (see the word in capitals, 67:5), are the names by which the celebrated South-Sea scheme, which is typical of wild financial speculation, has passed into history; compare the opening note. 66 : 21. Stagnates upon it. From this and the preceding sen- tences reproduce in your mind the figure that makes this word fitting. — 67: 9. Vaux's superhuman plot. Lamb here uses the spelling Vaux, as if the man were French, though Guy Fawkes, the igS Notes originator of the famous Gunpowder Plot, was an Englishman. It was a plot to stow powder under the Houses of Parliament and blow them up while King, Ministers, Lords, and Commons were there, and by that means secure occasion to restore Roman Catholicism in England. This was in the time of James I., and the date set for it was November 5, 1605. The plot was discovered just in time; and in gratitude for their providential escape Parliament set apart November 5 as a day of national thanksgiving. This tremendous plot ranks in history by the side of the South-Sea craze, as an event of "Titan size." 67 : 25. Living accounts and accountants puzzle me. Speak- ing as Elia, in this and the succeeding sentence. Lamb can repre- sent himself as he will; as Charles Lamb, however, he was an ac- countant all his days, and presumably had an accountant's skill in figuring. But these remarks of his are not false, for they are his indirect way of intimating that his life's interests are not in prosaic details of business, but in something else; see Introduction, pp. II, 12. Lamb's choice of subject for this first Elia essay is very significant. He has to live among the dry routines of accounts, perhaps irksome and distasteful to him; and yet he chooses for subject a noted house of business, as if he were going to write its history. Instead of this, however, he transmutes its dull associations into imagination and poetry. He uses the suggestiveness of history and age and decay to give a poetic glamour to it. Read this para- graph through and note that every detail is in keeping not with an informational, but with an essentially poetic realization of his sub- ject. Lamb's love of the past, too, with its power on the imagina- tion, is very palpable here. — 68 : 8. Some better library. Has Lamb the thought of a library belonging to a higher state of existence, as it were in Elysium? 68 : 18. They partook of the genius of the place ! This re- mark furnishes a key to the exquisite descriptions of personal character which follow, and should be borne in mind in reading them. These clerks present various phases of a kind of left-over, Notes 199 derelict type of man, stranded as it were in this decayed place of business. 69 : 7. Hence they formed, etc. Note that the succeeding sentences are without verbs, and yet separated from each other by periods. This manner of punctuating is a delicate aid to the de- scription, giving as it does details each of which is complete in itself. A contrasted way of describing, by the use of the dash, may be noted in the opening paragraph of Poor Relations, p. 87. — II. Not a few among them, etc. What is the effect of this last detail, in its relation to those that precede? Name the figure it exemplifies. 69 : 13. A Cambro-Briton, that is, a Welshman. Cambria was the Latin name, which survived as the poetic name, of Wales. — The names of clerks which Lamb gives in this essay are real ; whether their characters are to life or invented we do not know. — 20. As a gib-cat, or as we should say, a tom-cat. Lamb gets his phrase from Falstaff ; see First Henry IV., i. 2. 76. — 24. Haunted, . . . with the idea, etc It will be noted that Lamb's chief interest is in describing minutely individualized character, and especially delicate, as it were instinctive, states of mind. In an earlier essay, entitled. The Last Peach, he describes the morbid impulse of kleptomania, and it is this at M'hich he hints here. In The Superannuated Man (see p. 168) he describes in a similar way the accountant's dread of making false entries or errors in computing. — 70 : lo. Then was his forte. It will help our study of these descriptions of character to note that nearly all are represented as living a kind of double life, as if they were one man in relation to business and another in their inner selves. These sides of their character were contrasted but not incompatible ; they blend in one personality. — 12. His countryman, Pennant. Thomas Pennant (1726 -1798), a somewhat noted Welsh anti- quary. — 20. The worthy descendants, etc. The reference is to the Huguenot refugees, mostly artisans of various trades, who were expelled from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 200 Notes 1.685, ^^^ who, though so sterling a folk, were forced from extreme poverty to live in squalid conditions, 70 : 26. The air and stoop of a nobleman. The succeeding paragraph, down to " the secret of Thomas's stoop," 71 : 19, is worth careful study as a delicate analysis of a trait of character, its inner cause and its external effect in manner. — 71 : 8. Original state of white paper. The Latin phrase tabula rasa, which was perhaps in Lamb's mind, is often used to describe this kind of in- nocent vacuity, intellectual or moral. — 23. To you instead of riches, etc. Note here, as you will have occasion to note fre- quently, how tolerant and sympathetic are Lamb's judgements of people ; he always leaves us with a good feeling towards them. In this he was unconsciously portraying himself; see Introduction^ p. 18. 72: 3. Thought an accountant, etc. Lamb here adapts a passage from Fielding's Joseph Andrexvs ; the original remarks being applied to schoolmasters. In quite similar way he has adapted a passage from Thomas Fuller in the essay on Christ^s Hospital; see 39:25. — 12. I know not who, etc. Lamb's fondness for a little harmless mystification comes out here and in the foot-note, which was appended to the magazine article instead of the parenthesis. The "Mr. Lamb" here mentioned was his brother, John Lamb, who succeeded Tipp as accountant about 1806. He is spoken of by Elia as if he were a stranger. — 16. First and second violoncellos, etc. Lamb's list of instruments may be ac- cumulated whimsically, or it may reflect the absurd idea of the make-up of an orchestra which most literary men seem to have. — 18, Like Lord Midas. It was Midas, King of Phrygia, whose ears were changed to those of an ass for passing a musical judge- ment that displeased Apollo. — 73 : 18. His life was formal. In Tipp Lamb is portraying a man whose congenial element was the counting-room and its occupations ; on the others the clerkship seems to sit less naturally. Music was merely his hobby, 72 : 5, not, as was Lamb's literature, his relief from prosaism. — 27. Used Notes 20I to give it a worse name. What this name was Lamb divulges, 74 : 3, but characteristically of his tolerant heart, only to describe the justifiable side of the quality. The whole description of this untoward trait of Tipp's, beginning with " a sort of timidity," 1. 26, is a good example of softened statement ; compare note on 44 : 7. — 74 : 14. Neither was it recorded of him, etc. To put this as the last detail, after such a list as is given in the preceding part of the sentence, and thus in one sudden turn to give a grandly re- deeming feature by which we are to remember Tipp, — is it not a' masterly stroke? He has left the hint open for it in 1. 4. 75 : 5. Such small politics. A fair summary of the essentially light-minded, not to say frivolous character of the man's literary work : *' terse, fresh, epigrammatic, as alive," — " some quirk that left a sting"; and yet occupied with the small-talk of thought and events. 75 : 9. A little of the sinister bend. The heraldic indication of illegitimacy. Though this is expressed in softened terms. Lamb seemed to have been mistaken both about this (Richard) Plumer and " his reputed author," old Walter Plumer. It was in the Plumer mansion in Blakesware that Lamb's grandmother Field was housekeeper; see Dream-Children ; A Reverie, p. 160. The mansion is described in the essay on Blakesj?ioor in H — shire. — 21. Johnson's Life of Cave. A memoir of Edward Cave, pub- lisher of the Gentleman'' s Magazine, which Dr. Johnson wrote on the occasion of his death in 1754. Lamb, it may be noted, quotes this case inaccurately, not as a wilful error, but in mere mistake. 76 : 2. That song sung by Amiens. As You Like it, ii. 7. 174. The sentiment of the song is reported instead of quoted : — " Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude." — 9. Mild, conciliatory, swan-like, this last epithet, which alludes to the proverbial swan's singing at its death, is fitted to the thought of his untimely ending; Lamb's memorandum is, " Maynard, hang'd himself." 202 Notes 76: 22. What if I have been playing with thee. In this final address to his reader warning the latter not to take him too seriously, Lucas thinks that " Lamb may suddenly have felt the misgiving that he had told too much, and therefore invented this sudden cross trail." I think rather that here at the close of his first Elia essay Lamb is taking occasion to hint at his literary procedure. The essay is not a piece of information, from v^hich the reader may know the lives of Evans and Tame and Tipp and the rest, or the history of the South-Sea House; it is a literary study of types of character and a scene of melancholy decay, — a poetic inven- tion, from which the reader must not expect to extract a certifiable residuum of fact. He has used real names; but he seeks to throw uncertainty even upon these, by comparing them to the names of old comrades which Christopher Sly recalled, in the Induction to the Taming of the Shrew, 2. 95, 96, when his companions are trying to persuade him that his drunken sleep has lasted fifteen years, and that no such persons ever existed. Something answering to these reminiscences has existed in actual fact; but the past has thrown its glamour over them; and their real value is in what they have for the soul. OXFORD IN THE VACATION Pages 77-86. In the previous essay, which is the first of the Elia papers, we read between the lines some hints of the kind of treatment we might expect in the series, — a treatment not matter of fact and in- formative, but discursive, imaginative, essentially poetical. In the present essay. Lamb hints at the character we are to think of in their creator: who this Elia is, through whose mind we are to look at life, and in whose tastes and sympathies we are to share. Thus the two essays together, like a kind of introduction to the Elia series, reveal in Lamb's delicate literary idiom, what we have noted in the first two sections of the /«/r^£/2^<:^/e Rerum Natura, II, which have given a stock expression to the language. The lines are : — "Suave, marl magno turbantibus aequora ventis, E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem ; Non quia vexari quemquam est iucunda voluptas, Set quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est ; " or in Mallock's translation : " It is sweet when winds are troubling the waters on the great deep, to watch from land the great labours of another ; not because there is any light-hearted pleasure in knowing that another is suffering, but because it is pleasant to realize from what sufferings you yourself are free." Lucretian pleasure this ; pagan, not Christian. — 23. Nor tOO little to do. Here Lamb strikes perversely, and only half sincerely, into his vein of ironical eulogy of idleness. It reads, as has been intimated above, like whistling to keep his courage up. In the London Magazine, however, after the words " what is it all for ? " 1. 22, Lamb supports the sentiment by citing some verses from Cowley, and also the following lines of his own, " written in my Clerk state " : — "Who first invented work — and bound the free And holiday-rejoicing spirit down Notes 263 To the ever-haunting importunity Of business, in the green fields, and the town — To plough, loom, anvil, spade — and oh! most sad, To this dry drudgery of the desk's dead wood ? Who but the Being unblest, alien from good, Sabbathless Satan ! he who his unglad Task ever plies 'mid rotatory burnings, That round and round incalculably reel — For wrath divine hath made him like a wheel — In that red realm from whence are no returnings , Where toiling, and turmoiling, ever and aye He, and his thoughts, keep pensive workyday ! " He refers also, under another attribution, to an earlier sonnet of his own, to which, as he says, " I subscribe . . . toto corde^'' of which a few lines are : — They talk of time, and of time's galling yoke, That like a millstone on man's mind doth press, Which only works and business can redress : Of divine Leisure such foul lies are spoke, Wounding her fair gifts with calumnious stroke." Lamb lived to find such sentiments only half true. — 24. NOTHING- TO DO. " Positively the best thing a man can have to do, is nothing, and next to that perhaps — good works." (From a letter of Lamb's to Bernard Barton.) — 26. I am altogether for the life contem- plative. " But might I, fed with silent meditation, Assoiled live from that fiend Occupation — Improbus labor, which my spirits hath broke — I'd drink of time's rich cup, and never surfeit." A further quotation from the Sonnet given above. — 176 : I. Those accursed cotton-mills. An anticipation, but in entirely different motive and spirit, of Ruskin's antipathy to modern commercialism. — 4. As low as to the fiends. Quotation from Hamlet, ii. 2. 519. 264 Notes 176 : 5. I am no longer * * *. In the original form of the essay he had "J — s D — n," and signed the essay "J. D.," giving his address as " Beaufort Terrace, Regent Street; late of Ironmonger Court, Fenchurch Street." — 6. Retired Leisure. The phrase is quoted from Milton, // Penseroso, 1. 49. — 7. Known by my vacant face and careless gesture. With this sentence and the succeeding Lamb begins to reveal the fact that he is not vi^holly serious in his praise of unhmited leisure; he is paying for it in some disadvantages which give the thought a sad connotation. — i8. Nor with any settled purpose. This describes his appearance and feelings after a fortnight had passed (173 : 27), and will do for a literary description of Elia. Of Lamb himself, however, Mr. Dykes Campbell writes : "When the summer of 1826 came round, Lamb, having had a full year's experience of freedom from the 'drudgery of the desk's dead wood,' felt that some kind of regular employment was a necessity." Accordingly he engaged in the work on the Garrick plays mentioned in note 172 : 12. Of this work he wrote to Barton: "It is a sort of office to me; hours ten to four, the same." — 13. The state of the opera. This furnishes occasion for his Latin quotation immediately succeeding; the word opera, it will be observed, is merely the plural of opus, and from the same root as operatum. — So with these words, to an unrealized degree prophetic. Lamb concludes his memorial of his retirement from task- work. TEACHERS' OUTLINES FOR STUDIES IN ENGLISH Based on the Requirements for Admission to College By GILBERT SYKES BLAKELY, A.M., Instructor in English in the Morris High School, New York City. $0.50 THIS little book is intended to present to teachers plans for the study of the English texts required for admission to college. These Outlines are full of inspiration and suggestion, and wiU be welcomed by every Hve teacher who hitherto, in order to avoid ruts, has been obHged to compare notes with other teachers, .visit classes, and note methods. The volume aims not at a discussion of the principles of teaching, but at an application of certain principles to the teaching of some of the books most generally read in schools. ^ The references by page and line to the book under discussion are to the texts of the Gateway Series; but the Outlines can be used with any series of English classics. ^ Certain brief plans of study are developed for the general teaching of the novel, narrative poetry, lyric poetry, the drama, and the essay. The suggestions are those of a practical teacher, and follow a definite scheme in each work to be studied. There are discussions of methods, topics for compositions, and questions for review. The lists of questions are by no means exhaustive, but those that are given are suggestive and typical. •[[ The appendix contains twenty examinations in English, for admission to college, recently set by different colleges in both the East and the West. AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY (S.87) COMPOSITION-RHETORIC By STRATTON D. BROOKS, Superintendent of Schools, Boston, Mass., and MARIETTA HUB- BARD, formerly English Department, High School, La Salle, 111. Price, ^i.oo THE fundamental aim of this volume is to enable pupils to express their thoughts freely, clearly, and forcibly. At the same time it is designed to cultivate literary appreciation, and to develop some knowledge of rhetorical theory. The work follows closely the requirements of the College Entrance Examination Board, and of the New York State Education Department. ^ In Part One are given the elements of description, narra- tion, exposition, and argument; also special chapters on let- ter-writing and poetry. A more complete and comprehensive treatment of the four forms of discourse already discussed is furnished in Part Two. In each partis presented a series of themes covering these subjects, the purpose being to give the pupil inspiration, and that confidence in himself which comes from the frequent repetition of an act. A single new princi- ple is introduced into each theme, and this is developed in the text, and illustrated by carefully selected examples. ^ The pupils are taught how to correct their own errors, and also how to get the main thought in preparing their lessons. Careful coordination with the study of literature and with other school studies is made throughout the book. ^ The modern character of the illustrative extracts can not fail to interest every boy and girl. Concise summaries are given followingthe treatment ofthe various forms of discourse, and toward the end ofthe book there is a very comprehensive and compact summary of grammaticalprinciples. More than usual attention is devoted to the treatment of argument. AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY CS. 88~) A PUNCTUATION PRIMER By FRANCES M. 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AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY (S.84) A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE By REUBEN POST HALLECK, M.A. (Yale), Louisville Male High School. Price, ^1.25 HALLECK'S HISTORY OF ENGLISH LIT- ERATURE traces the development of that litera- ture from the earliest times to the present in a concise, interesting, and stimulating manner. Although the subject is presented so clearly that it can be readily com- prehended by high school pupils, the treatment is sufficiently philosophic and suggestive for any student beginning the study. ^ The book is a history of literature, and not a mere col- lection of biographical sketches. Only enough of the facts of an author's life are given to make students interested in him as a personality, and to shov\^ how his environment affected his w^ork. 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Price, ^i.oo EX-PRESIDENT ROObEVELT, in a most ap- preciative review in The Bookman y says: **The book is a piece of work as good of its kind as any American scholar has ever had in his hands. It is just the kind of book that should be given to a beginner, be- cause it will give him a clear idea of what to read, and of the relative importance of the authors he is to read ; yet it is much more than merely a book for beginners. 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AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY (S. 90 THE MASTERY OF BOOKS By HARRY LYMAN KOOPMAN, A.M., Librarian of Brown University. Price, 90 cents IN this book Mr. Koopman, whose experience and reputation as a hbrarian give him unusual qualifications as an adviser, presents to the student at the outset the advantages of reading, and the great field of hterature open to the reader's choice. He takes counsel with the student as to his purpose, capacities, and opportunities in reading, and aims to assist him in following such methods and in turning to such classes of books as will fiirther the attainment of his object. •|y Pains are taken to provide the young student from the beginning with a knowledge, often lacking in older readers, of the simplest literary tools — reference books and cata- logues. An entire chapter is given to the discussion of the nature and value of that form of printed matter which forms the chief reading of the modern world — periodical Hterature. 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By AUGUSTUS WHITE LONG, Preceptor in English, Princeton University, Joint Editor of Poems from Chaucer to Kipling THIS book is intended to serve as an introduction to the systematic study of American poetry, and, therefore, does not pretend to exhaustiveness. All the poets from 1 776 to 1900 who are worthy of recognition are here treated simply, yet suggestively, and in such a manner as to illustrate the growth and spirit of American life, as ex- pressed in its verse. Each writer is represented by an appropriate number of poems, which are preceded by brief biographical sketches, designed to entertain and awaken interest. The explanatory notes and the brief critical comments give much useful and interesting information. MANUAL OF AMERICAN LITERATURE, ^0.60 By JAMES B. SMILEY, A.M., Assistant Principal of Lincoln High School, Cleveland, Ohio THE aim of this little manual is simply to open the way to a study of the masterpieces of American literature. The treatment is biographical rather than critical, as the intention is to interest beginners in the lives of the great writers. Although the greatest space has been devoted to the most celebrated writers, attention is also directed to authors prominent in the early history of our country, and to a few writers whose books are enjoying the popularity of the moment. Suggestions for reading appear at the end of the chapters. AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY (S. 98) INTRODUCTORY COURSE . IN EXPOSITION By FRANCES M. PERRY, Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Composition, Wellesley College. $i.oo EXPOSITION is generally admitted to be the most commonly used form of discourse, and its successful practice develops keen observation, deliberation, sound critical judgment, and clear and concise expression. Unfortunately, hov^ever, expository courses often fail to justify the prevailing estimate of the value of exposition, because the subject has been presented in an unsystem- atized manner without variety or movement. ^ The aim of this book is to provide a systematized course in the theory and practice of expository v^riting. The student w^ill acquire from its study a clear under- standing of exposition — its nature ; its two processes, definition and analysis ; its three functions^ impersonal presentation or transcript, interpretation, and interpretative presentation ; and the special application of exposition in literary criticism. He will also gain, through the practice required by the course, facility in writing in a clear and attractive way the various types of exposition. The volume includes an interesting section on literary criticism. ^ The method used is direct exposition, amply reinforced by examples and exercises. The illustrative matter is taken from many and varied sources, but much of it is necessarily modern. The book meets the needs of students in the final years of secondary schools, or the first years of college. AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY (S.93) 1909 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: April 2009 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 (724)779-2111 -rr^ TAT D'V.