The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume V Part 88

N.B. Nothing said above to the contrary but that I hold the personal presence of the two mentioned potent spirits at a rate as high as any, but I pay dearer, what amuses others robs me of myself, my mind is positively discharged into their greater currents, but flows with a willing violence. As to your question about work, it is far less oppressive to me than it was, from circ.u.mstances; it takes all the golden part of the day away, a solid lump from ten to four, but it does not kill my peace as before. Some day or other I shall be in a taking again. My head akes and you have had enough. G.o.d bless you.

C. LAMB.

[Lamb had been correcting the proofs of Wordsworth's _Letter to a Friend of Burns_ and his _Thanksgiving Ode, with other short Pieces_, both published in 1816. In the _Letter to a Friend of Robert Burns_, which was called forth by the intended republication of Burns' life by Dr.

Currie, Wordsworth incidentally compares Burns and Cotton. The phrase which Lamb commends is in the description of "Tam o' Shanter" (page 22)--"This reprobate sits down to his cups, while the storm is roaring, and heaven and earth are in confusion;--the night is driven on by song and tumultuous noise--laughter and jest thicken as the beverage improves upon the palate--conjugal fidelity archly bends to the service of general benevolence--selfishness is not absent, but wearing the mask of social cordiality...."

Coleridge's _Christabel_ (with _Kubla Khan_ and _The Pains of Sleep_) was published by Murray in 1816. It ran into a second edition quickly, but was not too well received. The _Edinburgh_ indeed described it as dest.i.tute of one ray of genius. In a letter from f.a.n.n.y G.o.dwin to Mary Sh.e.l.ley, July 20, 1816, in Dowden's _Life of Sh.e.l.ley_, we read that "Lamb says _Christabel_ ought never to have been published; and that no one understood it, and _Kubla Khan_ is nonsense." But this was probably idle gossip. Lamb had admired _Christabel_ to the full, but he may have thought its publication in an incomplete state an error.

Coleridge was introduced to Mr. James Gillman of the Grove, Highgate, by Dr. Adams of Hatton Garden, to whom he had applied for medical aid.

Adams suggested that Gillman should take Coleridge into his house.

Gillman arranged on April 11 that Adams should bring Coleridge on the following day. Coleridge went alone and conquered. He promised to begin domestication on the next day, and "I looked with impatience," wrote Gillman in his _Life of Coleridge_, "for the morrow ... I felt indeed almost spellbound, without the desire of release." Coleridge did not come on the morrow, but two days later. He remained with the Gillmans for the rest of his life.

_The Pleasures of Hope_, by Thomas Campbell; _The Beggar's Pet.i.tion_--"Pity the sorrows of a poor old man"--by Thomas Moss (1740-1808), a ditty in all the recitation books. Lamb alluded to it in the _London Magazine_ version of his _Elia_ essay, "A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars."

Here should come a brief note from Lamb to Leigh Hunt, dated May 13, 1816, accompanying _Falstaff's Letters_, etc., and a gift of "John Woodvil." This is Lamb's first letter to James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) that has been preserved. He had known Hunt (an old Christ's Hospitaller, but later than Lamb's day) for some years. To his _Reflector_ he contributed a number of essays and humorous letters in 1810-1811; and he had written also for _The Examiner_ in 1812 and during Hunt's imprisonment in 1813-1815. The Lambs visited him regularly at the Surrey Jail. One of Lamb's most charming poems is inscribed "To T. L.

H."--Thornton Leigh Hunt, whom he called his "favourite child."]

LETTER 231

CHARLES LAMB TO MATILDA BETHAM [Dated at end: June 1, 1816.]

Dear Miss Betham,--I have sent your _very pretty lines_ to Southey in a frank as you requested. Poor S. what a grievous loss he must have had!

Mary and I rejoice in the prospect of seeing you soon in town. Let _us_ be among the very first persons you come to see. Believe me that you can have no friends who respect and love you more than ourselves. Pray present our kind remembrances to Barbara, and to all to whom you may think they will be acceptable.

Yours very sincerely, C. LAMB.

Have you seen _Christabel_ since its publication?

E. I. H. June 1 1816.

[Southey's eldest son, Herbert, had died in April of this year. Here should come a letter from Lamb to H. Dodwell, of the India House, dated August, 1816, not available for this edition. Lamb writes from Calne, in Wiltshire, where he and his sister were making holiday, staying with the Morgans. He states that he has lost all sense of time, and recollected that he must return to work some day only through the accident of playing _Commerce_ instead of whist.]

LETTER 232

CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH [P.M. September 23, 1816.]

My dear Wordsworth, It seems an age since we have corresponded, but indeed the interim has been stuffd out with more variety than usually checquers my same-seeming existence.--Mercy on me, what a traveller have I been since I wrote you last! what foreign wonders have been explored!

I have seen Bath, King Bladud's ancient well, fair Bristol, seed-plot of suicidal Chatterton, Marlbro', Chippenham, Calne, famous for nothing in particular that I know of--but such a vertigo of locomotion has not seized us for years. We spent a month with the Morgans at the last named Borough--August--and such a change has the change wrought in us that we could not stomach wholesome Temple air, but are absolutely rusticating (O the gentility of it) at Dalston, about one mischievous boy's stone's throw off Kingsland Turnpike, one mile from Sh.o.r.editch church,--thence we emanate in various directions to Hackney, Clapton, Totnam, and such like romantic country. That my lungs should ever prove so dainty as to fancy they perceive differences of air! but so it is, tho' I am almost ashamed of it, like Milton's devil (turn'd truant to his old Brimstone) I am purging off the foul air of my once darling tobacco in this Eden, absolutely snuffing up pure gales, like old worn out Sin playing at being innocent, which never comes again, for in spite of good books and good thoughts there is something in a Pipe that virtue cannot give tho'

she give her unendowed person for a dowry. Have you read the review of Coleridge's character, person, physiognomy &c. in the Examiner--his features even to his _nose_--O horrible license beyond the old Comedy.

He is himself gone to the sea side with his favorite Apothecary, having left for publication as I hear a prodigious ma.s.s of composition for a Sermon to the middling ranks of people to persuade them they are not so distressed as is commonly supposed. Methinks he should recite it to a congregation of Bilston Colliers,--the fate of Cinna the Poet would instantaneously be his. G.o.d bless him, but certain that rogue Examiner has beset him in most unmannerly strains. Yet there is a kind of respect shines thro' the disrespect that to those who know the rare compound (that is the subject of it) almost balances the reproof, but then those who know him but partially or at a distance are so extremely apt to drop the qualifying part thro' their fingers. The "after all, Mr. Wordsworth is a man of great talents, if he did not abuse them" comes so dim upon the eyes of an Edinbro' review reader, that have been gloating-open chuckle-wide upon the preceding detail of abuses, it scarce strikes the pupil with any consciousness of the letters being there, like letters writ in lemon. There was a cut at me a few months back by the same hand, but my agnomen or agni-nomen not being calculated to strike the popular ear, it dropt anonymous, but it was a pretty compendium of observation, which the author has collected in my disparagement, from some hundreds of social evenings which we had spent together,--however in spite of all, there is something tough in my attachment to H---- which these violent strainings cannot quite dislocate or sever asunder. I get no conversation in London that is absolutely worth attending to but his.

There is monstrous little sense in the world, or I am monstrous clever, or squeamish or something, but there is n.o.body to talk to--to talk _with_ I should say--and to go talking to one's self all day long is too much of a good thing, besides subjecting one to the imputation of being out of one's senses, which does no good to one's temporal interest at all. By the way, I have seen Coler'ge but once this 3 or 4 months. He is an odd person, when he first comes to town he is quite hot upon visiting, and then he turns off and absolutely never comes at all, but seems to forget there are any such people in the world. I made one attempt to visit him (a morning call) at Highgate, but there was something in him or his apothecary which I found so unattractively-repulsing-from any temptation to call again, that I stay away as naturally as a Lover visits. The rogue gives you Love Powders, and then a strong horse drench to bring 'em off your stomach that they mayn't hurt you. I was very sorry the printing of your Letter was not quite to your mind, but I surely did not think but you had arranged the manner of breaking the paragraphs from some principle known to your own mind, and for some of the Errors, I am confident that Note of Admiration in the middle of two words did not stand so when I had it, it must have dropt out and been replaced wrong, so odious a blotch could not have escaped me. Gifford (whom G.o.d curse) has persuaded squinting Murray (whom may G.o.d not bless) not to accede to an offer Field made for me to print 2 vols. of Essays, to include the one on Hog'rth and 1 or 2 more, but most of the matter to be new, but I dare say I should never have found time to make them; M. would have had 'em, but shewed specimens from the Reflector to G---, as he acknowleged to Field, and Crispin did for me. "Not on his soal but on his soul, d.a.m.n'd Jew" may the malediction of my eternal antipathy light--We desire much to hear from you, and of you all, including Miss Hutchinson, for not writing to whom Mary feels a weekly (and did for a long time feel a daily) Pang. How is Southey?--I hope his pen will continue to move many years smoothly and continuously for all the rubs of the rogue Examiner. A pertinacious foul-mouthed villain it is!

This is written for a rarity at the seat of business: it is but little time I can generally command from secular calligraphy--the pen seems to know as much and makes letters like figures--an obstinate clerkish thing. It shall make a couplet in spite of its nib before I have done with it,

"and so I end Commending me to your love, my dearest friend."

from Leaden Hall, Septem'r something, 1816 C. LAMB.

[The Lambs had taken summer lodgings--at 14 Kingsland Row, Dalston--which they retained for some years.

Hazlitt's article on Coleridge was in _The Examiner_ for September 8.

Among other things Hazlitt said: "Mr. Shandy would have settled the question at once: 'You have little or no nose, Sir.'"

One pa.s.sage in the article gives colour to the theory that Hazlitt occasionally borrowed from Lamb's conversation. In Lamb's letter to Wordsworth of April 20, 1816, he has the celebrated description of Coleridge, "an archangel a little damaged." Hazlitt in this article writes: "If he had had but common moral principle, that is, sincerity, he would have been a great man; nor hardly, as it is, appears to us--

"'Less than arch-angel ruined, and the excess Of glory obscur'd.'"

Hazlitt may have heard Lamb's epithet, backed probably by the same pa.s.sage from_ Paradise Lost_.

Crabb Robinson tells us, in his _Diary_, that Coleridge was less hurt by the article than he antic.i.p.ated. "He denies H., however, originality, and ascribes to L. [Lamb] the best ideas in H.'s articles. He was not displeased to hear of his being knocked down by John Lamb lately."

Coleridge's new work was _The Statesman's Manual; or, the Bible the best Guide to Political Skill and Foresight: A Lay Sermon_, 1816. It had been first announced as "A Lay Sermon on the Distresses of the Country, addressed to the Middle and Higher Orders," and Hazlitt's article had been in the nature of an antic.i.p.atory review.

I do not find anywhere the "cut" at Lamb from Hazlitt's hand, or indeed any one's hand, to which Lamb refers. Hazlitt at this time was living at No. 19 York Street, Westminster, in Milton's old house.

"Agni-nomen." From _agnus_, a lamb.

"After all, Mr. Wordsworth ..."--the _Edinburgh Review_ article on _The Excursion_, in November, 1814, beginning, "This will never do," had at least two lapses into fairness: "But the truth is, that Mr. Wordsworth, with all his perversities, is a person of great powers"; and "n.o.body can be more disposed to do justice to the great powers of Mr. Wordsworth than we are."

"The printing of your Letter." _The Letter to a Friend of Burns_ (see above).

"2 vols. of Essays." These were printed with poems as _The Works of Charles Lamb_ by the Olliers in 1818 (see later).

"Crispin"--Gifford (see note to the letter to Wordsworth, early January, 1815).

"Southey." Hazlitt's attacks on the Laureate were continuous.]

LETTER 233

MARY LAMB TO SARAH HUTCHINSON

[No date. Middle of November, 1816.]

Inner Temple.

My dear friend, I have procured a frank for this day, and having been hindered all the morning have no time left to frame excuses for my long and inexcusable silence, and can only thank you for the very kind way in which you overlook it. I should certainly have written on the receipt of yours but I had not a frank, and also I wished to date my letter from my own home where you expressed so cordial a wish to hear we had arrived.

We have pa.s.sed ten, I may call them very good weeks, at Dalston, for they completely answered the purpose for which we went. Reckoning our happy month at Calne, we have had quite a rural summer, and have obtained a very clear idea of the great benefit of quiet--of early hours and time intirely at one's own disposal, and no small advantages these things are; but the return to old friends--the sight of old familiar faces round me has almost reconciled me to occasional headachs and fits of peevish weariness--even London streets, which I sometimes used to think it hard to be eternally doomed to walk through before I could see a green field, seem quite delightful.

Charles smoked but one pipe while we were at Dalston and he has not transgressed much since his return. I hope he will only smoke now with his fellow-smokers, which will give him five or six clear days in the week. Shame on me, I did not even write to thank you for the bacon, upon which, and some excellent eggs your sister added to her kind present, we had so many nice feasts. I have seen Henry Robinson, who speaks in raptures of the days he pa.s.sed with you. He says he never saw a man so happy in _three wives_ as Mr. Wordsworth is. I long to join you and make a fourth, and we cannot help talking of the possibility in some future fortunate summer of venturing to come so far, but we generally end in thinking the possibility impossible, for I dare not come but by post chaises, and the expence would be enormous, yet it was very pleasing to read Mrs. Wordsworth's kind invitation and to feel a kind of latent hope of what might one day happen.