The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume IV Part 81

Mrs. Williams probably then suggested that Lamb should write her epitaph, for in his next letter he says:--"I have ventured upon some lines, which combine my old acrostic talent (which you first found out) with my new profession of epitaphmonger. As you did not please to say, when you would die, I have left a blank s.p.a.ce for the date. May kind heaven be a long time in filling it up."

On page 48 will be found some lines to one of Mrs. Williams' daughters.

The acrostic on page 65 is to another. These would both be Emma Isola's pupils.

TRANSLATIONS

Page 66. _Translations from Vincent Bourne_.

Vincent Bourne (1695-1747), the English Latin poet, entered Westminster School on the foundation in 1710, and, on leaving Cambridge, returned to Westminster as a master. He was so indolent a teacher and disciplinarian that Cowper, one of his pupils, says: "He seemed determined, as he was the best, so to be the last, Latin poet of the Westminster line."

Bourne's _Poemata_ appeared in 1734. It is mainly owing to Cowper's translations (particularly "The Jackdaw") that he is known, except to Latinists. Lamb first read Bourne in 1815. Writing to Wordsworth in April of that year he says:--"Since I saw you I have had a treat in the reading way which comes not every day. The Latin Poems of V. Bourne which were quite new to me. What a heart that man had, all laid out upon town and scenes, a proper counterpoise to _some people's_ rural extravaganzas. Why I mention him is that your Power of Music reminded me of his poem of the ballad singer in the Seven Dials. Do you remember his epigram on the old woman who taught Newton the A B C, which after all he says he hesitates not to call Newton's _Principia_? I was lately fatiguing myself with going through a volume of fine words by L'd Thurlow, excellent words, and if the heart could live by words alone, it could desire no better regale, but what an aching vacuum of matter--I don't stick at the madness of it, for that is only a consequence of shutting his eyes and thinking he is in the age of the old Elisabeth poets--from thence I turned to V. Bourne--what a sweet unpretending pretty-mannered _matter-ful_ creature, sucking from every flower, making a flower of every thing--his diction all Latin, and his thoughts all English. Bless him, Latin wasn't good enough for him--why wasn't he content with the language which Gay and Prior wrote in."

On the publication of _Alb.u.m Verses_, wherein these nine poems from Vincent Bourne were printed, Lamb reviewed the book in Moxon's _Englishman's Magazine_ for September, 1831, under the t.i.tle "The Latin Poems of Vincent Bourne" (see Vol. I.). There he quoted "The Ballad Singers," and the "Epitaph on an Infant Sleeping"--remarking of Bourne:--"He is 'so Latin,' and yet 'so English' all the while. In diction worthy of the Augustan age, he presents us with no images that are not familiar to his countrymen. His topics are even closelier drawn; they are not so properly English, as _Londonish_. From the streets, and from the alleys, of his beloved metropolis, he culled his objects, which he has invested with an Hogarthian richness of colouring. No town picture by that artist can go beyond his BALLAD-SINGERS; Gay's TRIVIA alone, in verse, comes up to the life and humour of it."

Page 72. _Pindaric Ode to the Tread Mill_.

First printed in _The New Times_, October 24, 1825. The version there given differed considerably from that preserved by Lamb. It had no divisions. At the end of what is now the first strophe qame these lines:--

Now, by Saint Hilary, (A Saint I love to swear by, Though I should forfeit thereby Five ill-spared shillings to your well-warm'd seat, Worshipful Justices of Worship-street; Or pay my crown At great Sir Richard's still more awful mandate down:) They raise my gorge-- Those Ministers of Ann, or the First George, (Which was it?

For history is silent, and my closet-- Reading affords no clue; I have the story, Pope, alone from you;) In such a place, &c.

Lamb offered the Ode to his friend Walter Wilson, for his work on Defoe, to which Lamb contributed prose criticisms (see Vol. I.), but Wilson did not use it. The letter making this offer, together with the poem, differing very slightly in one or two places, is preserved in the Bodleian.

Page 75. _Going or Gone_.

First printed in Hone's _Table Book_, 1827, signed Elia, under the t.i.tle "Gone or Going." It was there longer, after stanza 6 coming the following:--

Had he mended in right time, He need not in night time, (That black hour, and fright-time,) Till s.e.xton interr'd him, Have groan'd in his coffin, While demons stood scoffing-- You'd ha' thought him a-coughing-- My own father[28] heard him!

Could gain so importune, With occasion opportune, That for a poor Fortune, That should have been ours[29], In soul he should venture To pierce the dim center, Where will-forgers enter Amid the dark Powers?--

And in the _Table Book_ the last stanza ended thus:--

And flaunting Miss Waller-- _That_ soon must befal her, Which makes folks seem taller[30],-- Though proud, once, as Juno!

[Footnote 28: Who sat up with him.]

[Footnote 29: I have this fact from Parental tradition only.]

[Footnote 30: Death lengthens people to the eye.]

To annotate this curious tale of old friendships, dating back, as I suppose, in some cases to Lamb's earliest memories, both of London and Hertfordshire, is a task that is probably beyond completion. The day is too distant. But a search in the Widford register and churchyard reveals a little information and oral tradition a little more.

Stanza 2. _Rich Kitty Wheatley_. The Rev. Joseph Whately, vicar of Widford in the latter half of the eighteenth century, married Jane Plumer, sister of William Plumer, of Blakesware, the employer of Mrs.

Field, Lamb's grandmother. Archbishop Whately was their son. Kitty Wheatley may have been a relative.

Stanza 2. _Polly Perkin_. On June 1, 1770, according to the Widford register, Samuel Perkins married Mary Lanham. This may have been Polly.

Stanza 3. _Carter ... Lily_. The late Mrs. Tween, a daughter of Randal Norris, Lamb's friend, and a resident in Widford, told Canon Ainger that Carter and Lily were servants at Blakesware. Lily had noticeably red cheeks. Lamb would have seen them often when he stayed there as a boy.

In Cussan's _Hertfordshire_ is an entertaining account of William Plumer's widow's adhesion to the old custom of taking the air. She rode out always--from Gilston, only a few miles from Widford and Blakesware--in the family chariot, with outriders and postilion (a successor to Lily), and so vast was the equipage that "turn outs" had to be cut in the hedges (visible to this day), like sidings on a single-line railway, to permit others to pa.s.s. The Widford register gives John Lilley, died October 18, 1812, aged 85, and Johanna Lilley, died January 1, 1823, aged 90. It also gives Benjamin Carter's marriage, in 1781, but not his death.

Stanza 4. _Clemitson's widow_. Mrs. Tween told Canon Ainger that Clemitson was the farmer of Blakesware farm. I do not find the name in the Widford register. An Elizabeth Clemenson is there.

Stanza 4. _Good Master Clapton_. There are several Claptons in Widford churchyard. Thirty years from 1827, the date of the poem, takes us to 1797: the Clapton whose death occurred nearest that time is John Game Clapton, May 5, 1802.

Stanza 5. _Tom Dockwra_. I cannot find definite information either concerning this Dockwra or the William Dockwray, of Ware, of whom Lamb wrote in his "Table Talk" in _The Athenaeum_, 1834 (see Vol. I.). There was, however, a Joseph Docwray, of Ware, a Quaker maltster; and the late Mrs. Coe, _nee_ Hunt, the daughter of the tenant of the water-mill at Widford in Lamb's day, where Lamb often spent a night, told me that a poor family named Docwray lived in the neighbourhood.

Stanza 6. _Worral ... Dorrell_. I find neither Worral nor Dorrell in the Widford archives, but Morrils and Morrells in plenty, and one Horrel.

Lamb alludes to old Dorrell again in the _Elia_ essay "New Year's Eve,"

where he is accused of swindling the family out of money. Particulars of his fraud have perished with him, but I have no doubt it is the same William Dorrell who witnessed John Lamb's will in 1761. In the _Table Book_ this stanza ended thus:--

With cuckoldy Worral, And wicked old Dorrel, 'Gainst whom I've a quarrel-- His end might affright us.

Stanzas 8 and 9. _f.a.n.n.y Hutton ... Betsy Chambers ... Miss Wither ...

Miss Waller_. f.a.n.n.y Hutton, Betsy Chambers, Miss Wither and Miss Waller elude one altogether. Lamb's schoolmistress, Mrs. Reynolds, was a Miss Chambers.

Page 78. NEW POEMS IN LAMB'S _POETICAL WORKS_, 1836.

In 1836 Moxon issued a new edition of Lamb's poems, consisting of those in the _Works_, 1818, and those in _Alb.u.m Verses_--with a few exceptions and several additions--under the embracive t.i.tle _The Poetical Works of Charles Lamb_. Whether Moxon himself made up this volume, or whether Mary Lamb or Talfourd a.s.sisted, I do not know. The dedication to Coleridge stood at the beginning, and that to Moxon half way through.

Page 78. _In the Alb.u.m of Edith S----_.

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, March 9, 1833, under the t.i.tle "Christian Names of Women." Edith S---- was Edith May Southey, the poet's daughter, who married the Rev. John Wood Warter.

Page 78. _To Dora W----_.

Dora, _i.e._, Dorothy Wordsworth, the poet's daughter, who married Edward Quillinan, and thus became stepmother of Rotha Q---- of the next sonnet.