The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 3

I am sorry the London Magazine is going to be given up.

[I a.s.sume the date of this note to be summer, 1821, because it was then that Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, the _London Magazine's_ first publishers, gave it up. The reason was the death of John Scott, the editor, and probably to a large extent the originator, of the magazine. It was sold to Taylor & Hessey, their first number being dated July, 1821.

Scott had become involved in a quarrel with _Blackwood_, which reached such a pitch that a duel was fought, between Scott and Christie, a friend of Lockhart's. The whole story, which is involved, and indeed not wholly clear, need not be told here: it will be found in Mr. Lang's memoir of Lockhart. The meeting was held at Chalk Farm on February 16, 1821. Peter George Patmore, sub-editor of the _London_, was Scott's second. Scott fell, wounded by a shot which Christie fired purely in self-defence. He died on February 27.

Mr. Cary. Henry Francis Cary the translator of Dante and a contributor to the _London Magazine_.

The _London Magazine_ had four periods. From 1820 to the middle of 1821, when it was Baldwin, Cradock & Joy's. From 1821 to the end of 1824, when it was Taylor & Hessey's at a shilling. From January, 1825, to August of that year, when it was Taylor & Hessey's at half-a-crown; and from September, l825, to the end, when it was Henry Southern's, and was published by Hunt & Clarke.]

LETTER 276

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN TAYLOR

Margate, June 8, 1821.

Dear Sir,--I am extremely sorry to be obliged to decline the article proposed, as I should have been flattered with a Plate accompanying it.

In the first place, Midsummer day is not a topic I could make anything of--I am so pure a c.o.c.kney, and little read, besides, in May games and antiquities; and, in the second, I am here at Margate, spoiling my holydays with a Review I have undertaken for a friend, which I shall barely get through before my return; for that sort of work is a hard task to me. If you will excuse the shortness of my first contribution-and I _know_ I can promise nothing more for July--I will endeavour a longer article for _our next_. Will you permit me to say that I think Leigh Hunt would do the article you propose in a masterly manner, if he has not outwrit himself already upon the subject. I do not return the proof--to save postage--because it is correct, with ONE EXCEPTION. In the stanza from Wordsworth, you have changed DAY into AIR for rhyme-sake: DAY is the right reading, and I IMPLORE you to restore it.

The other pa.s.sage, which you have queried, is to my ear correct. Pray let it stand.

D'r S'r, yours truly, C. LAMB.

On second consideration, I do enclose the proof.

[John Taylor (1781-1864), the publisher, with Hessey, of the _London Magazine_ was, in 1813, the first publicly to identify Sir Philip Francis with Junius. Taylor acted as editor of the _London Magazine_ from 1821 to 1824, a.s.sisted by Thomas Hood. Later his interests were centred in currency questions.

"I am here at Margate." I do not know what review Lamb was writing. If written and published it has not been reprinted. It was on this visit to Margate that Lamb met Charles Cowden Clarke.

"My first contribution." The first number to bear Taylor & Hessey's name was dated July, but they had presumably acquired the rights in the magazine before then. Lamb's first contribution to the _London Magazine_ had been in August, 1820, "The South-Sea House."

The proof which Lamb returned was that of the _Elia_, essay on "Mackery End in Hertfordshire," printed in the July number of the _London Magazine_, in which he quoted a stanza from Wordsworth's "Yarrow Visited":--

But thou, that didst appear so fair To fond imagination, Dost rival in the light of day Her delicate creation.

Here should come a sc.r.a.p from Lamb to Ayrton, dated July 17, 1821, referring to the Coronation. Lamb says that in consequence of this event he is postponing his Wednesday evening to Friday.]

LETTER 277

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN TAYLOR

July 21, 1821.

D'r Sir,--The _Lond. Mag._ is chiefly pleasant to me, because some of my friends write in it. I hope Hazlitt intends to go on with it, we cannot spare Table Talk. For myself I feel almost exhausted, but I will try my hand a little longer, and shall not at all events be written out of it by newspaper paragraphs. Your proofs do not seem to want my helping hand, they are quite correct always. For G.o.d's sake change _Sisera_ to _Jael_. This last paper will be a choke-pear I fear to some people, but as you do not object to it, I can be under little apprehension of your exerting your Censorship too rigidly.

Thanking you for your extract from M'r. E.'s letter,

I remain, D'r Sir,

Your obliged,

C. LAMB.

[Hazlitt continued his Table Talk in the _London Magazine_ until December, 1821.

Lamb seems to have been treated foolishly by some newspaper critic; but I have not traced the paragraphs in question.

The proof was that of the _Elia_ essay "Imperfect Sympathies," which was printed (with a fuller t.i.tle) in the number for August, 1821. The reference to Jael is in the pa.s.sage on Braham and the Jewish character.

I do not identify Mr. E. Possibly Elton. See next letter.

Here should come a further letter to Taylor, dated July 30, 1821, in which Lamb refers to some verses addressed to him by "Olen" (Charles Abraham Elton: see note to next letter) in the _London Magazine_ for August, remonstrating with him for the pessimism of the _Elia_ essay "New Year's Eve" (see Vol. II. of this edition).

Lamb also remarks that he borrowed the name Elia (p.r.o.nounced Ellia) from an old South-Sea House clerk who is now dead.

Elia has recently been identified by Mr. R.W. Goulding, the librarian at Welbeck Abbey, as F. Augustus Elia, author of a French tract ent.i.tled _Consideration sur l'etat actuel de la France au mois de Juin 1815. Par une anglais_. It is privately reprinted in _Letters from the originals at Welbeck Abbey_, 1909.]

LETTER 278

CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES ABRAHAM ELTON

India House

to which place all letters addressed to C.L. commonly come.

[August 17, 1821 (?).]

My dear Sir, You have overwhelmed me with your favours. I have received positively a little library from Baldwyn's. I do not know how I have deserved such a bounty. We have been up to the ear in the cla.s.sics ever since it came. I have been greatly pleased, but most, I think, with the Hesiod,--the t.i.tan battle quite amazed me. Gad, it was no child's play--and then the homely aphorisms at the end of the works--how adroitly you have turned them! Can he be the same Hesiod who did the t.i.tans? the latter is--

"-----wine Which to madness does incline."

But to read the Days and Works, is like eating nice brown bread, homely sweet and nutritive. Apollonius was new to me. I had confounded him with the conjuror of that name. Medea is glorious; but I cannot give up Dido.

She positively is the only Fine Lady of Antiquity: her courtesy to the Trojans is altogether queen-like. Eneas is a most disagreeable person.

Ascanius a pretty young master. Mezentius for my money. His dying speech shames Turpin--not the Archbishop I mean, but the roadster of that name.

I have been ashamed to find how many names of cla.s.sics (and more than their names) you have introduced me to, that before I was ignorant of.

Your commendation of Master Chapman arrideth me. Can any one read the pert modern Frenchify'd notes, &c., in Pope's translation, and contrast them with solemn weighty prefaces of Chapman, writing in full faith, as he evidently does, of the plenary inspiration of his author--worshipping his meanest sc.r.a.ps and relics as divine--without one sceptical misgiving of their authenticity, and doubt which was the properest to expound Homer to their countrymen. Reverend Chapman! you have read his hymn to Pan (the Homeric)--why, it is Milton's blank verse clothed with rhyme.

Paradise Lost could scarce lose, could it be so accoutred.

I shall die in the belief that he has improved upon Homer, in the Odyssey in particular--the disclosure of Ulysses of himself, to Alcinous, his previous behaviour at the song of the stern strife arising between Achilles and himself (how it raises him above the _Iliad_ Ulysses!) but you know all these things quite as well as I do. But what a deaf ear old C. would have turned to the doubters in Homer's real personality! They might as well have denied the appearance of J.C. in the flesh.--He apparently believed all the fables of H.'s birth, &c.