The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume V Part 39

[The point of signing this letter with G.o.dwin's name and adding his address (Lamb, it will be noticed, was then at Margate) is not clear.

I place here the following letter, not having any clue as to date, which is immaterial:--]

LETTER 92

CHARLES LAMB TO MRS. WILLIAM G.o.dWIN

Dear Mrs. G.,--Having observed with some concern that Mr. G.o.dwin is a little fastidious in what he eats for supper, I herewith beg to present his palate with a piece of dried salmon. I am a.s.sured it is the best that swims in Trent. If you do not know how to dress it, allow me to add that it should be cut in thin slices and boiled in paper _previously prepared in b.u.t.ter_. Wishing it exquisite, I remain,--Much as before, yours sincerely,

C. LAMB.

Some add _mashed potatoes_.

[Following this letter should come a letter from Lamb to John Rickman, describing the state of their two George friends: George the First (George Dyer) and George the Second (George Burnett). Burnett, he says, as ill becomes adversity as Dyer would prosperity. He tells also of another poor acquaintance of Rickman's--one Simonds with a slit lip, who has been to Lamb to borrow money. "Saving his dirty shirt and his physiognomy and his 'bacco box, together with a certain kiddy air in his walk, a man w'd have gone near to have mistaken him for a gentleman. He has a sort of ambition to be so misunderstood."]

LETTER 93

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN RICKMAN

To John Rickman, Esqr., Dublin Castle.

[No date. ? November, 1801.]

A letter from G. Dyer will probably accompany this. I wish I could convey to you any notion of the whimsical scenes I have been witness to in this fortnight past. 'Twas on Tuesday week the poor heathen scrambled up to my door about breakfast time. He came thro' a violent rain with no neckcloth on, and a _beard_ that made him a spectacle to men and angels, and tap'd at the door. Mary open'd it, and he stood stark still and held a paper in his hand importing that he had been ill with a fever. He either wouldn't or couldn't speak except by signs. When you went to comfort him he put his hand upon his heart and shook his head and told us his complaint lay where no medicines could reach it. I was dispatch'd for Dr. Dale, Mr. Phillips of St. Paul's Church yard, and Mr. Frend, who is to be his executor. George solemnly delivered into Mr. Frend's hands and mine an old burnt preface that had been in the fire, with injunctions which we solemnly vow'd to obey that it should be printed after his death with his last corrections, and that some account should be given to the world why he had not fulfill'd his engagement with subscribers. Having done this and borrow'd two guineas of his bookseller (to whom he imparted in confidence that he should leave a great many loose papers behind him which would only want methodizing and arranging to prove very lucrative to any bookseller after his death), he laid himself down on my bed in a mood of complacent resignation. By the aid of meat and drink put into him (for I all along suspected a vacuum) he was enabled to sit up in the evening, but he had not got the better of his intolerable fear of dying; he expressed such philosophic indifference in his speech and such frightened apprehensions in his physiognomy that if he had truly been dying, and I had known it, I could not have kept my countenance. In particular, when the doctor came and ordered him to take little white powders (I suppose of chalk or alum, to humour him), he ey'd him with a _suspicion_ which I could not account for; he has since explain'd that he took it for granted Dr. Dale knew his situation and had ordered him these powders to hasten his departure that he might suffer as little pain as possible. Think what an aspect the heathen put on with these fears upon a dirty face. To recount all his freaks for two or three days while he thought he was going, and how the fit operated, and sometimes the man got uppermost and sometimes the author, and he had this excellent person to serve, and he must correct some proof sheets for Phillips, and he could not bear to leave his subscribers unsatisfy'd, but he must not think of these things now, he was going to a place where he should satisfy all his debts--and when he got a little better he began to discourse what a happy thing it would be if there was a place where all the good men and women in the world might meet, meaning heav'n, and I really believe for a time he had doubts about his soul, for he was very near, if not quite, light-headed. The fact was he had not had a good meal for some days and his little dirty Niece (whom he sent for with a still dirtier Nephew, and hugg'd him, and bid them farewell) told us that unless he dines out he subsists on tea and gruels. And he corroborated this tale by ever and anon complaining of sensations of gnawing which he felt about his heart, which he mistook his stomach to be, and sure enough these gnawings were dissipated after a meal or two, and he surely thinks that he has been rescued from the jaws of death by Dr. Dale's white powders. He is got quite well again by nursing, and chirps of odes and lyric poetry the day long--he is to go out of town on Monday, and with him goes the dirty train of his papers and books which follow'd him to our house. I shall not be sorry when he takes his nipt carcase out of my bed, which it has occupied, and vanishes with all his Lyric lumber, but I will endeavour to bring him in future into a method of dining at least once a day. I have proposed to him to dine with me (and he has nearly come into it) whenever he does not go out; and pay me. I will take his money beforehand and he shall eat it out. If I don't it will go all over the world. Some worthless relations, of which the dirty little devil that looks after him and a still more dirty nephew are component particles, I have reason to think divide all his gains with some lazy worthless authors that are his constant satellites. The Literary Fund has voted him seasonably 20 and if I can help it he shall spend it on his own carcase. I have a.s.sisted him in arranging the remainder of what he calls Poems and he will get rid of 'em I hope in another. [_Here three lines are torn away at the foot of the page, wherein Lamb makes the transition from George Dyer to another poor author, George Burnett._]

I promised Burnet to write when his parcel went. He wants me to certify that he is more awake than you think him. I believe he may be by this time, but he is so full of self-opinion that I fear whether he and Phillips will ever do together. What he is to do for Phillips he whimsically seems to consider more as a favor done _to_ P. than a job _from_ P. He still persists to call employment _dependence_, and prates about the insolence of booksellers and the tax upon geniuses. Poor devil! he is not launched upon the ocean and is sea-sick with aforethought. I write plainly about him, and he would stare and frown finely if he read this treacherous epistle, but I really am anxious about him, and that [? it] nettles me to see him so proud and so helpless. If he is not serv'd he will never serve himself. I read his long letter to Southey, which I suppose you have seen. He had better have been furnishing copy for Phillips than luxuriating in tracing the causes of his imbecillity. I believe he is a little wrong in not ascribing more to the structure of his own mind. He had his yawns from nature, his pride from education.

I hope to see Southey soon, so I need only send my remembrance to him now. Doubtless I need not tell him that Burnett is not to be foster'd in self-opinion. His eyes want opening, to see himself a man of middling stature. I am not oculist enough to do this. The booksellers may one day remove the film. I am all this time on the most cordial supping terms of amity with G. Burnett and really love him at times: but I must speak freely of people behind their backs and not think it back-biting. It is better than G.o.dwin's way of telling a man he is a fool to his face.

I think if you could do any thing for George in the way of an office (G.o.d knows whether you can in any haste [? case], but you did talk of it) it is my firm belief that it would be his _only chance_ of settlement; he will never live by his _literary exertions_, as he calls them--he is too proud to go the usual way to work and he has no talents to make that way unnecessary. I know he talks big in his letter to Southey that his mind is undergoing an alteration and that the die is now casting that shall consign him to honor or dishonour, but these expressions are the convulsions of a fever, not the sober workings of health. Translated into plain English, he now and then perceives he must work or starve, and then he thinks he'll work; but when he goes about it there's a lion in the way. He came dawdling to me for an Encyclopaedia yesterday. I recommended him to Norris' library and he said if he could not get it there, Phillips was bound to furnish him with one; it was Phillips' interest to do so, and all that. This was true with some restrictions--but as to Phillips' interests to oblige G.B.! Lord help his simple head! P. could by a _whistle_ call together a host of such authors as G. B. like Robin Hood's merry men in green. P. has regular regiments in pay. Poor writers are his crab-lice and suck at him for nutriment. His round pudding chops are their _idea_ of plenty when _in their idle fancies they aspire to be rich_.

What do you think of a life of G. Dyer? I can scarcely conceive a more amusing novel. He has been connected with all sects in the world and he will faithfully tell all he knows. Every body will read it; and if it is not done according to my fancy I promise to put him in a novel when he dies. Nothing shall escape _me_. If you think it feasible, whenever you write you may encourage him. Since he has been so close with me I have perceiv'd the workings of his inordinate vanity, his gigantic attention to particles and to prevent open vowels in his odes, his solicitude that the public may not lose any t.i.ttle of his poems by his death, and all the while his utter ignorance that the world don't care a pin about his odes and his criticisms, a fact which every body knows but himself--he _is a rum genius_.

C. L.

[Dr. Dale would probably be Thomas Dale of Devonshire Square, Bishopsgate, who had a large city practice in those days. He died in 1816.

"An old burnt preface." See note on page 210.

George Burnett we have already met. He was born probably in 1776. He went to Balliol, met Southey and Coleridge and became a Pantisocratist.

Subsequently he became a dissenting minister at Yarmouth, and then a medical student at Edinburgh; and later he succeeded George Dyer as tutor in the family of Lord Stanhope. He became one of Phillips' hacks, as Lamb's letter tells us. His princ.i.p.al work was the _Specimens of English Prose Writers_, 1807, in three volumes, in which it has been stated that Lamb had a hand. He died in want in 1811.

The reference to Southey being in Dublin is explained by the fact that, through Rickman, he had been appointed private secretary to Mr. Corry, Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland, at a salary of 400. He did not long retain the post, as it was vexatious and the duties very irregular.

Lamb's next letter to Rickman, dated November 24, 1801, contains better news of Dyer and returns to the subject of _John Woodvil_. "Dyer regularly dines with me when he does not go a visiting, and brings his shilling." Also, says Lamb, he talks of marrying. "He has not forgiven me for betraying to you his purpose of writing his own Life. He says, that if it once spreads, so many people will expect and wish to have a place in it, that he is sure he shall disoblige all his friends."

Another, undated, letter to Rickman should probably come here-abouts, saying that Dyer has been lent a house at Enfield full of books, where he is at work on his Poems.

Here perhaps should come a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, returning to Jeremy Taylor, and deprecating a selection from his works, which Robert Lloyd had suggested that Lamb should make. (In 1805 Basil Montagu, afterwards, if not now, a friend of Lamb's, published a volume of _Selections from the Works of Taylor, Etc_.) Lamb says that Manning and Coleridge are in town, and he is making a thorough alteration in the structure of his play (_John Woodvil_) for publication.

Here perhaps should come a further undated letter to Rickman in which Lamb says that the receipt of 50 for an old debt has made it possible to print _John Woodvil_. Dyer, he says, is "the most unmanageable of G.o.d's creatures." Burnett is in a very bad way again. Fenwick's paper _The Plough_ has become a weekly. G.o.dwin is not yet married. Fell, G.o.dwin's shadow, is writing a comedy: "An Owl making a Pun would be no bad emblem of the unnatural attempt." In a postscript Lamb says that he has since read the play and it is not bad: "Who knows, but Owls do make Puns when they hoot by moonshine." The best news is that Lamb hopes to be a theatrical critic for the _Morning Post_.

Here should come a letter to Rickman dated January 9, 1802, the princ.i.p.al news in which is that George Dyer is consorting with the Earl of Buchan, the "eccentric biographer of Fletcher of Saltoun," and has brought him to see Lamb. "I wan't at home, but Mary was washing--a pretty pickle to receive an Earl in! Lord have mercy upon us! a Lord in my garret! My utmost ambition was some time or other to receive a Secretary. Well, I am to breakfast with this mad Lord on Sunday." Lamb refers to his article in the _Post_ on Cooke's "Richard III."

Here should come a letter to Rickman dated January 14, 1802, in which Lamb confesses to the authorship of "d.i.c.k Strype" in the _Morning Post_ of January 6 (see Vol. IV.); also of a whimsical account of the Lord Mayor's State Bed (see Vol. I.); and of some of the Twelfth Night Epigrams (see Vol. IV.). He includes two epigrams which the editor rejected.

Here should come a note to Rickman dated January 18, 1802, relating to a joint subscription with Rickman's father for certain newspapers.

Here should come a letter to Rickman dated February 1, 1802, giving the first draft of the epitaph for Mary Druitt (see Vol. IV.). He also says that George Burnett, who had just been appointed tutor to the sons of Lord ("Citizen") Stanhope, is perplexed because his pupils have run away.

Here should come a note to Rickman, dated February 4, 1802, accompanying three copies of _John Woodvil_ and saying that an annuity is to be bought for George Dyer by certain friends.

Here should come a letter to Rickman, dated February 14, 1802, which contains the news that Lamb has given up the _Post_. He feels much relieved in consequence, in spite of the loss of money. George Dyer's dinner money is now paid from his friends' fund, and Burnett is happy in doing nothing for Lord Stanhope's salary. Mary Lamb does not want Rickman to know that "Helen," in the _John Woodvil_ volume, is of her writing.]

LETTER 94

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING

[No date. ? Feb. 15, 1802.]

Not a sentence, not a syllable of Trismegistus, shall be lost through my neglect. I am his word-banker, his storekeeper of puns and syllogisms.

You cannot conceive (and if Trismegistus cannot, no man can) the strange joy which I felt at the receipt of a letter from Paris. It seemed to give me a learned importance, which placed me above all who had not Parisian correspondents. Believe that I shall carefully husband every sc.r.a.p, which will save you the trouble of memory, when you come back.

You cannot write things so trifling, let them only be about Paris, which I shall not treasure. In particular, I must have parallels of actors and actresses. I must be told if any building in Paris is at all comparable to St. Paul's, which, contrary to the usual mode of that part of our nature called admiration, I have looked up to with unfading wonder every morning at ten o'clock, ever since it has lain in my way to business. At noon I casually glance upon it, being hungry; and hunger has not much taste for the fine arts. Is any night-walk comparable to a walk from St.

Paul's to Charing Cross, for lighting and paving, crowds going and coming without respite, the rattle of coaches and the cheerfulness of shops? Have you seen a man guillotined yet? is it as good as hanging?

are the women _all_ painted, and the men _all_ monkeys? or are there not a _few_ that look like _rational_ of _both s.e.xes_? Are you and the First Consul _thick_? All this expense of ink I may fairly put you to, as your letters will not be solely for my proper pleasure, but are to serve as memoranda and notices, helps for short memory, a kind of Rumfordising recollection, for yourself on your return. Your letter was just what a letter should be, crammed and very funny. Every part of it pleased me till you came to Paris; and your d.a.m.n'd philosophical indolence or indifference stung me. You cannot stir from your rooms till you know the language! What the devil!--are men nothing but word-trumpets? are men all tongue and ear? have these creatures, that you and I profess to know _something about_, no faces, gestures, gabble: no folly, no absurdity, no induction of French education upon the abstract idea of men and women, no similitude nor dis-similitude to English! Why! thou d.a.m.n'd Smell-fungus! your account of your landing and reception, and Bullen (I forget how you spell it--it was spelt my way in Harry the Eighth's time,) was exactly in that minute style which strong impressions INSPIRE (writing to a Frenchman, I write as a Frenchman would). It appears to me as if I should die with joy at the first landing in a foreign country.

It is the nearest pleasure, which a grown man can subst.i.tute for that unknown one, which he can never know--the pleasure of the first entrance into life from the womb. I dare say, in a short time, my habits would come back like a "stronger man" armed, and drive out that new pleasure; and I should soon sicken for known objects. Nothing has transpired here that seems to me of sufficient importance to send dry-shod over the water: but I suppose you will want to be told some news. The best and the worst to me is, that I have given up two guineas a week at the "Post," and regained my health and spirits, which were upon the wane. I grew sick, and Stuart unsatisfied. _Ludisti satis, tempus abire est_; I must cut closer, that's all.

In all this time I have done but one thing, which I reckon tolerable, and that I will transcribe, because it may give you pleasure, being a picture of _my_ humours. You will find it in my last page. It absurdly is a first Number of a series, thus strangled in its birth.

More news! The Professor's Rib has come out to be a d.a.m.n'd disagreeable woman, so much so as to drive me and some more old cronies from his house. If a man will keep snakes in his house, he must not wonder if people are shy of coming to see him because of the _snakes_.

C. L.

Mister Fell--or as you, with your usual facetiousness and drollery, call him, Mr. F + II--has stopped short in the middle of his play. Some _friend_ has told him that it has not the least merit in it. Oh! that I had the rectifying of the Litany! I would put in a _libera nos (Scriptores videlicet) ab amicis_! That's all the news. _A propos_ (is it pedantry, writing to a Frenchman, to express myself sometimes by a French word, when an English one would not do as well? methinks, my thoughts fall naturally into it).

_Apropos_, I think you wrong about my play. All the omissions are right.

And the supplementary scene, in which Sandford narrates the manner in which his master is affected, is the best in the book. It stands where a hodge-podge of German puerilities used to stand. I insist upon it that you like that scene. Love me, love that scene.