The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume V Part 47

LETTER 109

CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE 27th May, 1803.

My dear Coleridge,--The date of my last was one day prior to the receipt of your letter, full of foul omens. I explain, lest you should have thought mine too light a reply to such sad matter. I seriously hope by this time you have given up all thoughts of journeying to the green islands of the Blest--voyages in time of war are very precarious--or at least, that you will take them in your way to the Azores. Pray be careful of this letter till it has done its duty, for it is to inform you that I have booked off your watch (laid in cotton like an untimely fruit), and with it Condillac and all other books of yours which were left here. These will set out on Monday next, the 29th May, by Kendal waggon, from White Horse, Cripplegate. You will make seasonable inquiries, for a watch mayn't come your way again in a hurry. I have been repeatedly after Tobin, and now hear that he is in the country, not to return till middle of June. I will take care and see him with the earliest. But cannot you write pathetically to him, enforcing a speedy mission of your books for literary purposes? He is too good a retainer to Literature, to let her interests suffer through his default. And why, in the name of Beelzebub, are your books to travel from Barnard's Inn to the Temple, and then circuitously to Cripplegate, when their business is to take a short cut down Holborn-hill, up Snow do., on to Woodstreet, &c.? The former mode seems a sad superst.i.tious subdivision of labour.

Well! the "Man of Ross" is to stand; Longman begs for it; the printer stands with a wet sheet in one hand and a useless Pica in the other, in tears, pleading for it; I relent. Besides, it was a Salutation poem, and has the mark of the beast "Tobacco" upon it. Thus much I have done; I have swept off the lines about _widows_ and _orphans_ in second edition, which (if you remember) you most awkwardly and illogically caused to be inserted between two _Ifs_, to the great breach and disunion of said _Ifs_, which now meet again (as in first edition), like two clever lawyers arguing a case. Another reason for subtracting the pathos was, that the "Man of Ross" is too familiar to need telling what he did, especially in worse lines than Pope told it; and it now stands simply as "Reflections at an Inn about a known Character," and sucking an old story into an accommodation with present feelings. Here is no breaking spears with Pope, but a new, independent, and really a very pretty poem.

In fact, 'tis as I used to admire it in the first volume, and I have even dared to restore

"If 'neath this roof thy _wine-cheer'd_ moments pa.s.s,"

for

"Beneath this roof if thy cheer'd moments pa.s.s."

"Cheer'd" is a sad general word; "_wine-cheer'd_" I'm sure you'd give me, if I had a speaking-trumpet to sound to you 300 miles. But I am your _factotum_, and that (save in this instance, which is a single case, and I can't get at you) shall be next to a _fac-nihil_--at most, a _fac-simile_. I have ordered "Imitation of Spenser" to be restored on Wordsworth's authority; and now, all that you will miss will be "Flicker and Flicker's Wife," "The Thimble," "Breathe, _dear harmonist_" and, _I believe_, "The Child that was fed with Manna." Another volume will clear off all your Anthologic Morning-Postian Epistolary Miscellanies; but pray don't put "Christabel" therein; don't let that sweet maid come forth attended with Lady Holland's mob at her heels. Let there be a separate volume of Tales, Choice Tales, "Ancient Mariners," &c.

C. LAMB.

[Coleridge, who was getting more and more nervous about his health, had long been on the point of starting on some southern travels with Thomas Wedgwood, but Wedgwood had gone alone; his friend James Webbe Tobin, mentioned later in the letter, lived at Nevis, in the West Indies: possibly Coleridge had thoughts of returning with him. The Malta experiment, of which we are to hear later, had not, I think, yet been mooted.

"The Man of Ross." In the 1797 edition the poem had run thus, partly by Lamb's advice (see the letters of June 10, 1796, and February 5, 1797):--

LINES WRITTEN AT THE KING'S-ARMS, ROSS, FORMERLY THE HOUSE OF THE "MAN OF ROSS"

Richer than MISER o'er his countless h.o.a.rds, n.o.bler than KINGS, or king-polluted LORDS, Here dwelt the MAN OF ROSS! O Trav'ller, hear!

Departed Merit claims a reverent tear.

Friend to the friendless, to the sick man health, With generous joy he view'd his modest wealth; He hears the widow's heaven-breath'd prayer of praise, He marks the shelter'd orphan's tearful gaze, Or where the sorrow-shrivel'd captive lay, Pours the bright blaze of Freedom's noon-tide ray.

Beneath this roof if thy cheer'd moments pa.s.s, Fill to the good man's name one grateful gla.s.s; To higher zest shall MEM'RY wake thy soul, And VIRTUE mingle in th' enn.o.bled bowl.

But if, like me, thro' life's distressful scene Lonely and sad thy pilgrimage hath been; And if, thy breast with heart-sick anguish fraught, Thou journeyest onward tempest-tost in thought; Here cheat thy cares! in generous visions melt, And dream of Goodness, thou hast never felt!

Lamb changed it by omitting lines 9 to 14, Coleridge agreeing. The poet would not, however, restore "wine-cheer'd" as in his earliest version, 1794. In the edition of 1828 the six lines were put back. "Breathe, dear Harmonist" was the poem "To the Rev. W. J. H.," and "The Child that was fed with Manna" was "On the Christening of a Friend's Child."

"Lady Holland's mob." Elizabeth Va.s.sall Fox, third Lady Holland (1770-1845), was beginning her reign as a Muse. Lamb by his phrase means occasional and political verse generally. The reference to "Christabel"

helps to controvert f.a.n.n.y G.o.dwin's remark in a letter to Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, on July 20, 1816, that Lamb "says _Christabel_ ought never to have been published; that no one understood it."

Canon Ainger's transcript adds: "A word of your health will be richly acceptable."]

LETTER 110

MARY LAMB TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH

[Dated at end: July 9. P.M. July 11, 1803.]

My dear Miss Wordsworth--We rejoice with exceeding great joy to hear the delightful tidings you were so _very_ kind to remember to send us--I hope your dear sister is perfectly well, and makes an excellent nurse.

Are you not now the happiest family in the world?

I have been in better health and spirits this week past than since my last illness--I continued so long so very weak & dejected I began to fear I should never be at all comfortable again. I strive against low spirits all I can, but it is a very hard thing to get the better of.

I am very uneasy about poor Coleridge, his last letters are very melancholy ones. Remember me affectionately to him and Sara. I hope you often see him.

Southey is in town. He seems as proud of his little girl as I suppose your brother is of his boy; he says his home is now quite a different place to what it used to be. I was glad to hear him say this--it used to look rather chearless.

We went last week with Southey and Rickman and his sister to Sadlers Wells, the lowest and most London-like of all our London amus.e.m.e.nts--the entertainments were Goody Two Shoes, Jack the Giant Killer, and _Mary of b.u.t.termere_! Poor Mary was very happily married at the end of the piece, to a sailor her former sweetheart. We had a prodigious fine view of her father's house in the vale of b.u.t.termere--mountains very like large hayc.o.c.ks, and a lake like nothing at all. If you had been with us, would you have laughed the whole time like Charles and Miss Rickman or gone to sleep as Southey and Rickman did?

Stoddart is in expectation of going soon to Malta as Judge Advocate; it is likely to be a profitable situation, fifteen hundred a year or more.

If he goes he takes with him his sister, and, as I hear from her as a very great secret, a _wife_; you must not mention this because if he stays in England he may not be rich enough to marry for some years. I do not know why I should trouble you with a secret which it seems I am unable to keep myself and which is of no importance to you to hear; if he succeeds in this appointment he will be in a great bustle, for he must set out to Malta in a month. In the mean time he must go to Scotland to marry and fetch his wife, and it is a match against her parents' consent, and they as yet know nothing of the Malta expedition; so that he expects many difficulties, but the young lady and he are determined to conquer them. He then must go to Salisbury to take leave of his father and mother, who I pity very much, for they are old people and therefore are not very likely ever to see their children again.

Charles is very well and very _good_--I mean very sober, but he is very good in every sense of the word, for he has been very kind and patient with me and I have been a sad trouble to him lately. He has shut out all his friends because he thought company hurt me, and done every thing in his power to comfort and amuse me. We are to go out of town soon for a few weeks, when I hope I shall get quite stout and lively.

You saw Fenwick when you was with us--perhaps you remember his wife and children were with his brother, a tradesman at Penzance. He (the brother), who was supposed to be in a great way of business, has become a bankrupt; they are now at Penzance without a home and without money; and poor Fenwick, who has been Editor of a country newspaper lately, is likely soon to be quite out of employ; I am distressed for them, for I have a great affection for Mrs. Fenwick.

How pleasant your little house and orchard must be now. I almost wish I had never seen it. I am always wishing to be with you. I could sit upon that little bench in idleness day long. When you have a leisure hour, a letter from [you], kind friend, will give me the greatest pleasure.

We have money of yours and I want you to send me some commission to lay it out. Are you not in want of anything? I believe when we go out of town it will be to Margate--I love the seaside and expect much benefit from it, but your mountain scenery has spoiled us. We shall find the flat country of the Isle of Thanet very dull.

Charles joins me in love to your brother and sister and the little John.

I hope you are building more rooms. Charles said I was so long answering your letter Mrs. Wordsworth would have another little one before you received it. Our love and compliments to our kind Molly, I hope she grows younger and happier every day. When, and where, shall I ever see you again? Not I fear for a very long time, you are too happy ever to wish to come to London. When you write tell me how poor Mrs. Clarkson does.

G.o.d bless you and yours.

I am your affectionate friend,

M. LAMB.

July 9th.

[Wordsworth's eldest child, John, was born on June 18, 1803. Southey's little girl was Edith, born in September of the preceding year. It was Southey who made the charming remark that no house was complete unless it had in it a child rising six years, and a kitten rising six months.

Coleridge had been ill for some weeks after his visit to London. He was about to visit Scotland with the Wordsworths.

Mary of b.u.t.termere was Mary Robinson, the Beauty of b.u.t.termere, whom the swindler John Hatfield had married in October, 1802, under the false name of Hope. Mary was the daughter of the landlord of the Fish Inn at b.u.t.termere, and was famous in the Lake Country for her charm. Coleridge sent to the _Morning Post_ in October some letters on the imposture, and Mary's name became a household word. Hatfield was hanged in September, 1803. Funds were meanwhile raised for Mary, and she ultimately married a farmer, after being the subject of dramas, ballads and novels.

The play which the Lambs saw was by Charles Dibdin the Younger, produced on April 11, 1803. Its t.i.tle was "Edward and Susan; or, The Beauty of b.u.t.termere." A benefit performance for the real Beauty of b.u.t.termere was promised. Both Grimaldi and Belzoni were among the evening's entertainers.

Stoddart was the King's and the Admiralty's Advocate at Malta from 1803 to 1807. He married Isabella Moncrieff in 1803. His sister was Sarah Stoddart, of whom we are about to hear much.

According to the next letter the Lambs went not to Margate, but to the Isle of Wight--to Cowes, with the Burneys.

Molly was an old cottager at Grasmere whom the Lambs had been friendly with on their northern visit.

Mrs. Clarkson, the wife of Thomas Clarkson, was Catherine Buck. She survived her husband, who died in 1846.]