The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume IV Part 84

Page 94. _Lines for a Monument_....

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, November 5, 1831, and again in _The Tatler_, Hunt's paper, December 31, 1831. In August, 1830, four sons and two daughters of John and Ann Rigg, of York, were drowned in the Ouse.

Several literary persons were asked for inscriptions for the monument, erected at York in 1831, and that by James Montgomery, of Sheffield, was chosen. Lamb sent his verses to Vincent Novello, through whom he seems to have been approached in the matter, on November 8, 1830, adding: "Will these lines do? I despair of better. Poor Mary is in a deplorable state here at Enfield."

Page 94. _To C. Aders, Esq_.

First printed in Hone's _Year Book_ (March 19), 1831 (see note to "Angel Help," above).

Page 95. _Hercules Pacificatus_.

First printed in the _Englishman's Magazine_, August, 1831. Suidas is supposed to have lived in the tenth or eleventh century, and to have compiled a _Lexicon_--a blend of biographical dictionary.

Page 98. _The Parting Speech of the Celestial Messenger to the Poet_.

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, February 25, 1832.

Palingenius was an Italian poet of the sixteenth century, whose real name was Pietro Angelo Mazolli, but who wrote in Latin under the name of Marcellus Palingenius Stollatus. His _Zodiacus Vitae_, a philosophical poem, was published in 1536.

Page 99. _Existence, considered in itself, no Blessing_. First printed in _The Athenaeum_, July 7, 1832.

Page 100. _To Samuel Rogers, Esq., on the New Edition of his "Pleasures of Memory."_

First printed in _The Times_, December 13, 1833. Signed C. Lamb. This is the sonnet mentioned in the letter which is quoted on page 344, in the note to the sonnet to Stothard. The new edition of _Pleasures of Memory_ was published by Moxon in 1833, dated 1834.

Page 101. _To Clara N---- _.

First printed in _The Athenaeum_, July 26, 1834. Clara N---- was, of course, Clara Anastasia Novello, daughter of Lamb's friend, Vincent Novello (1781-1861), the organist, and herself a fine soprano singer (see also the poem "The Sisters," on the same page). Miss Novello, who was born on June 10, 1818, became the Countess Gigliucci, and survived until March 12, 1908. _Clara Novella's Reminiscences_, compiled by her daughter, the Contessa Valeria Gigliucci, with a memoir by Arthur Duke Coleridge, were published in 1910. In them is this charming pa.s.sage:--

How I loved dear Charles Lamb! I once hid--to avoid the ignominy of going to bed--in the upright (cabinet) pianoforte, which in its lowest part had a sort of tiny cupboard. In this I fell asleep, awakening only when the party was supping. My appearance from beneath the pianoforte was hailed with surprise by all, and with anger from my mother; but Charles Lamb not only took me under his protection, but obtained that henceforth I should never again be sent to bed _when he came_, but--glory and delight!--always sit up to supper. Later, in Frith Street days, my Father made me sing to him one day; but [Lamb]

stopped me, saying, "Clara, don't make that d--d noise!" for which, I think, I loved him as much as for all the rest. Some verses he sent me were addressed to "St. Clara."

In spite of Lamb's declaration about himself and want of musical sense, both Crabb Robinson and Barron Field tell us that he was capable of humming tunes.

Page 101. _The Sisters_.

These verses, printed in Mr. W.C. Hazlitt's _Lamb and Hazlitt_, 1900, were addressed:--

"_For_ SAINT CECILIA, At Sign'r Vincenzo Novello's Music Repository, No. 67 Frith Street.

Soho."

They were signed C. Lamb. One might imagine Emma, the nut-brown maid, to be Emma Isola, as that was a phrase Lamb was fond of applying to her--a.s.suming the t.i.tle "The Sisters" to be a pleasantry; but the late Miss Mary Sabilia Novello a.s.sured me that the sisters were herself, Emma Aloysia Novello and Clara Anastasia Novello (see above).

Page 102. _Love will Come_.

"Love will Come" was included by Lamb in a letter to Miss Fryer, a school-fellow of Emma Isola. Lamb writes:--"By desire of Emma I have attempted new words to the old nonsense of Tartar Drum; but _with_ the nonsense the sound and spirit of the tune are unaccountably gone, and _we_ have agreed to discard the new version altogether. As _you_ may be more fastidious in singing mere silliness, and a string of well-sounding images without sense or coherence--Drums of Tartars, who use _none_, and Tulip trees ten foot high, not to mention Spirits in Sunbeams, &c.,--than _we_ are, so you are at liberty to sacrifice an enspiriting movement to a little sense, tho' I like LITTLE SENSE less than his vagarying younger sister NO SENSE--so I send them.--The 4th line of 1st stanza is from an old Ballad."

The old ballad is, I imagine, "Waly, Waly," of which Lamb was very fond.

Page 102. _To Margaret W----_.

This poem, believed to be the last that Lamb wrote, was printed in _The Athenaeum_ for March 14, 1835. I have not been able to ascertain who Margaret W---- was.

ALb.u.m VERSES AND ACROSTICS

Page 104. _What is an Alb.u.m?_

These lines were probably written for Emma Isola's Alb.u.m, which must not be confounded with her Extract Book. The Alb.u.m was the volume for which Lamb, in his letters, occasionally solicited contributions. It was sold some years ago to Mr. Quaritch, and is now, I believe, in a private collection, although in a mutilated state, several of the poems having been cut out. These particular lines of Lamb's were probably written by him also in other alb.u.ms, for John Mathew Gutch, his old school-fellow, discovered them on the fly-leaf of a copy of _John Woodvil_, and sent them to _Notes and Queries_, Oct. 11, 1856. In that version the twenty-first line ran:--

There you have, Madelina, an alb.u.m complete.

Lamb quoted from the lines in his review of his _Alb.u.m Verses_, under the t.i.tle "The Latin Poems of Vincent Bourne," in the _Englishman's Magazine_ (see Vol. I.). Two versions of the lines are copied by Lamb into one of his Commonplace Books.

Line 6. _Sweet L.E.L.'s_. L.E.L. was, of course, Let.i.tia Elizabeth Landon, afterwards Mrs. Maclean (1802-1838), famous as an Alb.u.m-and Annual-poetess. Lamb, if an entry in P.G. Patmore's diary is correct, did not admire her, or indeed any female author. He said, "If she belonged to me I would lock her up and feed her on bread and water till she left off writing poetry."