Charles Lamb: A Memoir Part 10

We should like to see this remarkable friendship (remarkable in all respects and in all its circ.u.mstances) between two of the most original geniuses in an age of no common genius, worthily recorded. It would outvalue, in the view of posterity, many centuries of literary quarrels.

Lamb never fairly recovered the death of Coleridge. He thought of little else (his sister was but another portion of himself) until his own great spirit joined his friend's. He had a habit of venting his melancholy in a sort of mirth. He would, with nothing graver than a pun, "cleanse his bosom of the perilous stuff that weighed" upon it. In a jest, or a few light phrases, he would lay open the recesses of his heart. So in respect of the death of Coleridge. Some old friends of his saw him two or three weeks ago, and remarked the constant turning and reference of his mind. He interrupted himself and them almost every instant with some play of affected wonder or humorous melancholy on the words "_Coleridge is dead_."

Nothing could divert him from that, for the thought of it never left him.

About the same time, we had written to him to request a few lines for the literary alb.u.m of a gentleman who entertained a fitting admiration of his genius. It was the last request we were to make, and the last kindness we were to receive. He wrote in Mr. ----'s volume, and wrote of Coleridge.

This, we believe, was the last production of his pen. A strange and not unenviable chance, which saw him at the end of his literary pilgrimage, as he had been at the beginning,--in that immortal company. We are indebted, with the reader, to the kindness of our friend for permission to print the whole of what was written. It would be impertinence to offer a remark on it. Once read, its n.o.ble and affectionate tenderness will be remembered forever.

"When I heard of the death of Coleridge, it was without grief. It seemed to me that he long had been on the confines of the next world,--that he had a hunger for eternity. I grieved then that I could not grieve. But since, I feel how great a part he was of me. His great and dear spirit haunts me. I cannot think a thought, I cannot make a criticism on men or books, without an ineffectual turning and reference to him. He was the proof and touchstone of all my cogitations. He was a Grecian (or in the first form) at Christ's Hospital, where I was deputy Grecian; and the same subordination and deference to him I have preserved through a life-long acquaintance. Great in his writings, he was greatest in his conversation.

In him was disproved that old maxim, that we should allow every one his share of talk. He would talk from morn to dewy eve, nor cease till far midnight; yet who ever would interrupt him,--who would obstruct that continuous flow of converse, fetched from Helicon or Zion? He had the tact of making the unintelligible seem plain. Many who read the abstruser parts of his "Friend" would complain that his works did not answer to his spoken wisdom. They were identical. But he had a tone in oral delivery, which seemed to convey sense to those who were otherwise imperfect recipients.

He was my fifty years old friend without a dissension. Never saw I his likeness, nor probably the world can see again. I seem to love the house he died at more pa.s.sionately than when he lived. I love the faithful Gilmans more than while they exercised their virtues towards him living.

What was his mansion is consecrated to me a chapel.

"CHAS. LAMB.

"EDMONTON, November 21, 1834."

Within five weeks of this date Charles Lamb died. A slight accident brought on an attack of erysipelas, which proved fatal; his system was not strong enough for resistance. It is some consolation to add, that, during his illness, which lasted four days, he suffered no pain, and that his faculties remained with him to the last. A few words spoken by him the day before he died showed with what quiet collectedness he was prepared to meet death.

As an Essayist, Charles Lamb will be remembered, in years to come, with Rabelais and Montaigne, with Sir Thomas Browne, with Steele, and with Addison. He unites many of the finest characteristics of these several writers. He has wisdom and wit of the highest order, exquisite humor, a genuine and cordial vein of pleasantry, and the most heart-touching pathos. In the largest acceptation of the word he is a humanist. No one of the great family of authors past or present has shown in matters the most important or the most trivial so delicate and extreme a sense of all that is human. It is the prevalence of this characteristic in his writings which has subjected him to occasional charges of want of imagination.

This, however, is but half-criticism; for the matter of reproach may in fact be said to be his triumph. It was with a deep relish of Mr. Lamb's faculty that a friend of his once said, "He makes the majesties of imagination seem familiar." It is precisely thus with his own imagination.

It eludes the observation of the ordinary reader in the modesty of its truth, in its social and familiar air. His fancy as an Essayist is distinguished by singular delicacy and tenderness; and even his conceits will generally be found to be, as those of his favorite Fuller often are, steeped in human feeling and pa.s.sion. The fondness he entertained for Fuller, for the author of the "Anatomy of Melancholy," and for other writers of that cla.s.s, was a pure matter of temperament. His thoughts were always his own. Even when his words seem cast in the very mould of others, the perfect originality of his thinking is felt and acknowledged; we may add, in its superior wisdom, manliness, and unaffected sweetness. Every sentence in those Essays may be proved to be crammed full of thinking. The two volumes will be multiplied, we have no doubt, in the course of a few years, into as many hundreds; for they contain a stock of matter which must be ever suggestive to more active minds, and will surely revisit the world in new shapes--an everlasting succession and variety of ideas. The past to him was not mere dry antiquity; it involved a most extensive and touching a.s.sociation of feelings and thoughts, reminding him of what we have been and may be, and seeming to afford a surer ground for resting on than the things which are here to-day and may be gone to-morrow. We know of no inquisition more curious, no speculation more lofty, than may be found in the Essays of Charles Lamb. We know no place where conventional absurdities receive so little quarter; where stale evasions are so plainly exposed; where the barriers between names and things are at times so completely flung down. And how, indeed, could it be otherwise? For it is truth that plays upon his writings like a genial and divine atmosphere. No need for them to prove what they would be at by any formal or logical a.n.a.lysis; no need for him to tell the world that this inst.i.tution is wrong and that doctrine right; the world may gather from those writings their surest guide to judgment in these and all other cases--a general and honest appreciation of the humane and true.

Mr. Lamb's personal appearance was remarkable. It quite realized the expectations of those who think that an author and a wit should have a distinct air, a separate costume, a particular cloth, something positive and singular about him. Such unquestionably had Mr. Lamb. Once he rejoiced in snuff-color, but latterly his costume was inveterately black--with gaiters which seemed longing for something more substantial to close in.

His legs were remarkably slight; so indeed was his whole body, which was of short stature, but surmounted by a head of amazing fineness. His face was deeply marked and full of n.o.ble lines--traces of sensibility, imagination, suffering, and much thought. His wit was in his eye, luminous, quick, and restless. The smile that played about his mouth was ever cordial and good-humored; and the most cordial and delightful of its smiles were those with which he accompanied his affectionate talk with his sister, or his jokes against her.

TALFOURD.

[_From Talfourd's "Memorials of C. Lamb,"_ pp. 337-8, 342-3.]

Except to the few who were acquainted with the tragical occurrences of Lamb's early life, some of his peculiarities seemed strange,--to be forgiven, indeed, to the excellences of his nature and the delicacy of his genius,--but still, in themselves, as much to be wondered at as deplored.

The sweetness of his character, breathed through his writings, was felt even by strangers; but its heroic aspect was unguessed even by many of his friends. Let them now consider it, and ask if the annals of self-sacrifice can show anything in human action and endurance more lovely than its self- devotion exhibits! It was not merely that he saw through the ensanguined cloud of misfortune which had fallen upon his family, the unstained excellence of his sister, whose madness had caused it; that he was ready to take her to his own home with reverential affection, and cherish her through life; that he gave up, for her sake, all meaner and more selfish love, and all the hopes which youth blends with the pa.s.sion which disturbs and enn.o.bles it; not even that he did all this cheerfully, and without pluming himself upon his brotherly n.o.bleness as a virtue, or seeking to repay himself (as some uneasy martyrs do) by small instalments of long repining,--but that he carried the spirit of the hour in which he first knew and took his course, to his last. So far from thinking that his sacrifice of youth and love to his sister gave him a license to follow his own caprice at the expense of her feelings, even in the lightest matters, he always wrote and spoke of her as his wiser self, his generous benefactress, of whose protecting care he was scarcely worthy. How his pen almost grew wanton in her praise, even when she was a prisoner in the Asylum after the fatal attack of lunacy, his letters of the time to Coleridge show; but that might have been a mere temporary exaltation--the attendant fervor of a great exigency and a great resolution. It was not so.

Nervous, tremulous, as he seemed--so light of frame that he looked only fit for the most placid fortune--when the dismal emergencies which checkered his life arose, he acted with as much prompt.i.tude and vigor as if he had never penned a stanza nor taken a gla.s.s too much, or was strung with herculean sinews. None of those temptations, in which misery is the most potent, to hazard a lavish expenditure for an enjoyment to be secured against fate and fortune, ever tempted him to exceed his income, when scantiest, by a shilling. He had always a reserve for poor Mary's periods of seclusion, and something in hand besides for a friend in need; and on his retirement from the India House, he had ama.s.sed, by annual savings, a sufficient sum (invested, after the prudent and cla.s.sical taste of Lord Stowell, in "the elegant simplicity of the Three per Cents.") to secure comfort to Miss Lamb, when his pension should cease with him, even if the India Company, his great employers, had not acted n.o.bly by the memory of their inspired clerk--as they did--and gave her the annuity to which a wife would have been ent.i.tled--but of which he could not feel a.s.sured.

Living among literary men, some less distinguished and less discreet than those whom we have mentioned, he was constantly importuned to relieve distresses which an improvident speculation in literature produces, and which the recklessness attendant on the empty vanity of self-exaggerated talent renders desperate and merciless--and to the importunities of such hopeless pet.i.tioners he gave too largely--though he used sometimes to express a painful sense that he was diminishing his own store without conferring any real benefit. "Heaven," he used to say, "does not owe me sixpence for all I have given, or lent (as they call it) to such importunity; I only gave it because I could not bear to refuse it; and I have done good by my weakness."

[_B. W. P. "Athenaeum," January 24, 1835_.]

I was acquainted with Mr. Lamb for about seventeen or eighteen years. I saw him first (I _think_, for my recollection is here imperfect) at one of Hazlitt's lectures, or at one of Coleridge's dissertations on Shakespeare, where the metaphysician sucked oranges and said a hundred wonderful things. They were all three extraordinary men. Hazlitt had more of the speculative and philosophical faculty, and more observation (_circ.u.m_spection) than Lamb; whilst Coleridge was more subtle and ingenious than either. Lamb's qualities were a sincere, generous, and tender nature, wit (at command), humor, fancy, and--if the creation of character be a test of imagination, as I apprehend it is--imagination also. Some of his phantasms--the people of the South Sea House, Mrs.

Battle, the Benchers of the Middle Temple, &c. (all of them ideal), might be grouped into comedies. His sketches are always (to quote his own eulogy on Marvell) full of "a witty delicacy," and, if properly brought out and marshalled, would do honor to the stage.

When I first became acquainted with Mr. Lamb, he lived, I think, in the Temple; but I did not visit him then, and could scarcely, therefore, be said to _know_ him, until he took up his residence in Russell Street, Covent Garden. He had a first floor there, over a brazier's shop,--since converted into a bookseller's,--wherein he frequently entertained his friends. On certain evenings (Thursdays) one might reckon upon encountering at his rooms from six to a dozen unaffected people, including two or three men of letters. A game at whist and a cold supper, followed by a cheerful gla.s.s (gla.s.ses!) and "good talk," were the standing dishes upon those occasions. If you came late, you encountered a perfume of the "GREAT PLANT." The pipe, hid in smoke (the violet amongst its leaves),--a squadron of tumblers, fuming with various odors, and a score of quick intelligent glances, saluted you. There you might see G.o.dwin, Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, Coleridge (though rarely), Mr. Robinson, Serjeant Talfourd, Mr. Ayrton, Mr. Alsager, Mr. Manning,--sometimes Miss Kelly, or Liston,-- Admiral Burney, Charles Lloyd, Mr. Alsop, and various others; and if Wordsworth was in town, you might stumble upon him also. Our friend's brother, John Lamb, was occasionally there; and his sister (his excellent sister) invariably presided.

The room in which he lived was plainly and almost carelessly furnished.

Let us enter it for a moment. Its ornaments, you see, are princ.i.p.ally several long shelves of ancient books; (those are his "ragged veterans.") Some of Hogarth's prints, two after Leonardo da Vinci and t.i.tian, and a portrait of Pope, enrich the walls. At the table sits an elderly lady (in spectacles) reading; whilst from an old-fashioned chair by the fire springs up a little spare man in black, with a countenance pregnant with expression, deep lines in his forehead, quick, luminous, restless eyes, and a smile as sweet as ever threw sunshine upon the human face. You see that you are welcome. He speaks: "Well, boys, how are you? What's the news with you? What will you take?" You are comfortable in a moment. Reader! it is Charles Lamb who is before you--the critic, the essayist, the poet, the wit, the large-minded _human_ being, whose apprehension could grasp, without effort, the loftiest subject, and descend in gentleness upon the humblest; who sympathized with all cla.s.ses and conditions of men, as readily with the sufferings of the tattered beggar and the poor chimney- sweeper's boy as with the starry contemplations of Hamlet "the Dane," or the eagle-flighted madness of Lear.

The books that I have adverted to, as filling his shelves, were mainly English books--the poets, dramatists, divines, essayists, &c.,--ranging from the commencement of the Elizabeth period down to the time of Addison and Steele. Besides these, of the earliest writers, Chaucer was there; and, amongst the moderns, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and a few others, whom he loved.

He had more real knowledge of old English literature than any man whom I ever knew. He was not an antiquarian. He neither hunted after commas, nor scribbled notes which confounded his text. The _Spirit_ of the author descended upon him; and he felt it! With Burton and Fuller, Jeremy Taylor and Sir Thomas Browne, he was an intimate. The ancient poets--chiefly the dramatic poets--were his especial friends. He knew every point and turn of their wit, all the beauty of their characters; loving each for some one distinguishing particular, and despising none. For absolute contempt is a quality of youth and ignorance--a foppery which a wise man rejects, and _he_ rejected it accordingly. If he contemned anything, it was contempt itself. He saw that every one bore some sign or mark (G.o.d's gift) for which he ought to be valued by his fellows, and esteemed a man. He could pick out a merit from each author in his turn. He liked Heywood for his simplicity and pathos; Webster for his deep insight into the heart; Ben Jonson for his humor; Marlow for his "mighty line;" Fletcher for his wit and flowing sweetness; and Shakespeare for his combination of wonders. He loved Donne too, and Quarles, and Marvell, and Sir Philip Sidney, and a long list besides.

No one will love the old English writers again as _he_ did. Others may have a leaning towards them--a respect--an admiration--a sort of _young_ man's love: but the true relishing is over; the close familiar friendship is dissolved. He who went back into dim antiquity, and sought them out, and proclaimed their worth to the world--abandoning the gaudy rhetoric of popular authors for their sake, is now translated into the shadowy regions of the friends he worshipped. He who was once separated from them by a hundred l.u.s.tres, hath surmounted that great interval of time and s.p.a.ce, and is now, in a manner, THEIR CONTEMPORARY!

The wit of Mr. Lamb was known to most persons conversant with existing literature. It was said that his friends bestowed more than due praise upon it. It is clear that his enemies did it injustice. Such as it was, it was at all events _his own_. He did not "get up" his conversations, nor explore the h.o.a.rds of other wits, nor rake up the ashes of former fires.

Right or wrong, he set to work una.s.sisted; and by dint of his own strong capacity and fine apprehension, he struck out as many substantially new ideas as any man of his time. The quality of his humor was essentially different from that of other men. It was not simply a tissue of jests or conceits, broad, far-fetched, or elaborate; but it was a combination of humor with pathos--a sweet stream of thought, bubbling and sparkling with witty fancies; such as I do not remember to have elsewhere met with, except in Shakespeare. There is occasionally a mingling of the serious and the comic in "Don Juan," and in other writers; but they differ, after all, materially from Lamb in humor:--whether they are better or worse, is unimportant. His delicate and irritable genius, influenced by his early studies, and fettered by old a.s.sociations, moved within a limited circle.

Yet this was not without its advantages; for, whilst it stopped him from many bold (and many idle) speculations and theories, it gave to his writings their peculiar charm, their individuality, their sincerity, their pure, gentle original character. Wit, which is "impersonal," and, for that very reason perhaps, is nine times out of ten a mere heartless matter, in him a.s.sumed a new shape and texture. It was no longer simply malicious, but was colored by a hundred gentle feelings. It bore the rose as well as the thorn. His heart warmed the jests and conceits with which his brain was busy, and turned them into flowers.

Every one who knew Mr. Lamb, knew that his humor was not affected. It was a style--a habit; generated by reading and loving the ancient writers, but adopted in perfect sincerity, and used towards all persons and upon all occasions. He was the same in 1810 as in 1834--when he died. A man cannot go on "affecting" for five and twenty years. He must be sometimes sincere.

Now, Lamb was always the same. I never knew a man upon whom Time wrought so little.