The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 11

LETTER 302

CHARLES LAMB TO WALTER WILSON

E.I.H. 16 dec. 22.

Dear Wilson

_Lightening_ I was going to call you--

You must have thought me negligent in not answering your letter sooner.

But I have a habit of never writing letters, but at the office--'tis so much time cribbed out of the Company--and I am but just got out of the thick of a Tea Sale, in which most of the Entry of Notes, deposits &c.

usually falls to my share. Dodwell is willing, but alas! slow. To compare a pile of my notes with his little hillock (which has been as long a building), what is it but to compare Olympus with a mole-hill.

Then Wadd is a sad shuffler.--

I have nothing of Defoe's but two or three Novels, and the Plague History. I can give you no information about him. As a slight general character of what I remember of them (for I have not look'd into them latterly) I would say that "in the appearance of _truth_ in all the incidents and conversations that occur in them they exceed any works of fiction I am acquainted with. It is perfect illusion. The _Author_ never appears in these self-narratives (for so they ought to be called or rather Autobiographies) but the _narrator_ chains us down to an implicet belief in every thing he says. There is all the minute detail of a log-book in it. Dates are painfully pressed upon the memory. Facts are repeated over and over in varying phrases, till you cannot chuse but believe them. It is like reading Evidence given in a Court of Justice.

So anxious the story-teller seems, that the truth should be clearly comprehended, that when he has told us a matter of fact, or a motive, in a line or two farther down he _repeats_ it with his favorite figure of speech, 'I say' so and so,--though he had made it abundantly plain before. This is in imitation of the common people's way of speaking, or rather of the way in which they are addressed by a master or mistress, who wishes to impress something upon their memories; and has a wonderful effect upon matter-of-fact readers. Indeed it is to such princ.i.p.ally that he writes. His style is elsewhere beautiful, but plain _& homely_.

Robinson Crusoe is delightful to all ranks and cla.s.ses, but it is easy to see that it is written in phraseology peculiarly adapted to the lower conditions of readers: hence it is an especial favorite with seafaring men, poor boys, servant maids &c. His novels are capital kitchen-reading, while they are worthy from their deep interest to find a shelf in the Libraries of the wealthiest, and the most learned. His pa.s.sion for _matter of fact narrative_ sometimes betrayed him into a long relation of common incidents which might happen to any man, and have no interest but the intense appearance of truth in them, to recommend them. The whole latter half, or two thirds, of Colonel Jack is of this description. The beginning of Colonel Jack is the most affecting natural picture of a young thief that was ever drawn. His losing the stolen money in the hollow of a tree, and finding it again when he was in despair, and then being in equal distress at not knowing how to dispose of it, and several similar touches in the early history of the Colonel, evince a deep knowledge of human nature; and, putting out of question the superior _romantic_ interest of the latter, in my mind very much exceed Crusoe. Roxana (1st Edition) is the next in Interest, though he left out the best part of it**in** subsequent Editions from a foolish hypercriticism of his friend, Southerne. But Moll Flanders, the account of the Plague &c. &c. are all of one family, and have the same stamp of character."--

[_At the top of the first page is added:--_]

_Omitted at the end_ ... believe me with friendly recollections, _Brother_ (as I used to call you) Yours C. LAMB.

[_Below the "Dear Wilson" is added in smaller writing:--_]

The review was not mine, nor have I seen it.

[Lamb's friend Walter Wilson was beginning his _Memoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel Defoe_, 1830. The pa.s.sage sent to him in this letter by Lamb he printed in Vol. III., page 428. Some years later Lamb sent Wilson a further criticism. See also letter below for the reference to _Roxana_.

Dodwell we have met. Of Wadd we have no information, except, according to Crabb Robinson's _Diary_, that he once accidentally discharged a pen full of ink into Lamb's eye and that Lamb wrote this epigram upon him:--

What Wadd knows, G.o.d knows, But G.o.d knows _what_ Wadd knows.]

LETTER 303

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[Dated at end: 23 December 1822.]

Dear Sir--I have been so distracted with business and one thing or other, I have not had a quiet quarter of an hour for epistolary purposes. Christmas too is come, which always puts a rattle into my morning scull. It is a visiting unquiet un-Quakerish season. I get more and more in love with solitude, and proportionately hampered with company. I hope you have some holydays at this period. I have one day, Christmas day, alas! too few to commemorate the season. All work and no play dulls me. Company is not play, but many times hard work. To play, is for a man to do what he pleases, or to do nothing--to go about soothing his particular fancies. I have lived to a time of life, to have outlived the good hours, the nine o'Clock suppers, with a bright hour or two to clear up in afterwards. Now you cannot get tea before that hour, and then sit gaping, music-bothered perhaps, till half-past 12 brings up the tray, and what you steal of convivial enjoyment after, is heavily paid for in the disquiet of to-morrow's head.

I am pleased with your liking John Woodvil, and amused with your knowledge of our drama being confined to Shakspeare and Miss Bailly.

What a world of fine territory between Land's End and Johnny Grots have you missed traversing. I almost envy you to have so much to read. I feel as if I had read all the Books I want to read. O to forget Fielding, Steele, &c., and read 'em new.

Can you tell me a likely place where I could pick up, cheap, Fox's Journal? There are no Quaker Circulating Libraries? Ellwood, too, I must have. I rather grudge that S[outhe]y has taken up the history of your People. I am afraid he will put in some Levity. I am afraid I am not quite exempt from that fault in certain magazine Articles, where I have introduced mention of them. Were they to do again, I would reform them.

Why should not you write a poetical Account of your old Worthies, deducing them from Fox to Woolman?--but I remember you did talk of something in that kind, as a counterpart to the Ecclesiastical Sketches.

But would not a Poem be more consecutive than a string of Sonnets? You have no Martyrs _quite to the Fire_, I think, among you. But plenty of Heroic Confessors, Spirit-Martyrs--Lamb-Lions.--Think of it.

It would be better than a series of Sonnets on "Eminent Bankers."--I like a hit at our way of life, tho' it does well for me, better than anything short of _all one's time to one's self_, for which alone I rankle with envy at the rich. Books are good, and Pictures are good, and Money to buy them therefore good, but to buy _TIME!_ in other words, LIFE--

The "compliments of the time to you" should end my letter; to a Friend I suppose I must say the "sincerity of the season;" I hope they both mean the same. With excuses for this hastily penn'd note, believe me with great respect--

C. LAMB.

23 dec. 22.

[Miss Bailly would be Joanna Baillie (1762-1851), author of _Plays on the Pa.s.sions_.

The copy of Fox's _Journal_, 1694, which was lent to Lamb is now in the possession of the Society of Friends. In it is written:

"This copy of George Fox's Journal, being the earliest edition of that work, the property of John T. Shewell of Ipswich, is lent for six months to Charles Lamb, at the request of Sam'l Alexander of Needham, Ipswich, 1st mo. 4 1823." Lamb has added: "Returned by Charles Lamb, within the period, with many thanks to the Lender for the very great satisfaction which he has derived from the perusal of it."

Southey was meditating a Life of George Fox and corresponded with Barton on the subject. He did not write the book.

Barton had a plan to provide Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Sonnets with a Quaker pendant. He did not carry it out.

Here might come an undated and unpublished letter from Lamb to Basil Montagu, which is of little interest except as referring to Miss James, Mary Lamb's nurse. Lamb says that she was one of four sisters, daughters of a Welsh clergyman, who all became nurses at Mrs. Warburton's, Hoxton, whither, I imagine, Mary Lamb had often retired. Mrs. Parsons, one of the sisters, became Mary Lamb's nurse when, some time after Lamb's death, she moved to 41 Alpha Road, Mrs. Parsons' house. The late John Hollingshead, great-nephew of these ladies, says in his interesting book, _My Lifetime_, that their father was rector of Beguildy, in Shropshire.]

LETTER 304

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN HOWARD PAYNE

[January, 1823.]

Dear Payne--Your little books are most acceptable. 'Tis a delicate edition. They are gone to the binder's. When they come home I shall have two--the "Camp" and "Patrick's Day"--to read for the first time. I may say three, for I never read the "School for Scandal." "_Seen_ it I have, and in its happier days." With the books Harwood left a truncheon or mathematical instrument, of which we have not yet ascertained the use.

It is like a telescope, but unglazed. Or a ruler, but not smooth enough.

It opens like a fan, and discovers a frame such as they weave lace upon at Lyons and Chambery. Possibly it is from those parts. I do not value the present the less, for not being quite able to detect its purport.

When I can find any one coming your way I have a volume for you, my Elias collected. Tell Poole, his c.o.c.kney in the Lon. Mag. tickled me exceedingly. Harwood is to be with us this evening with f.a.n.n.y, who comes to introduce a literary lady, who wants to see me,--and whose portentous name is _Plura_, in English "many things." Now, of all G.o.d's creatures, I detest letters-affecting, authors-hunting ladies. But f.a.n.n.y "will have it so." So Miss Many Things and I are to have a conference, of which you shall have the result. I dare say she does not play at whist. Treasurer Robertson, whose coffers are absolutely swelling with pantomimic receipts, called on me yesterday to say he is going to write to you, but if I were also, I might as well say that your last bill is at the Banker's, and will be honored on the instant receipt of the third Piece, which you have stipulated for. If you have any such in readiness, strike while the iron is hot, before the Clown cools. Tell Mrs. Kenney, that the Miss F.H. (or H.F.) Kelly, who has begun so splendidly in Juliet, is the identical little f.a.n.n.y Kelly who used to play on their green before their great Lying-Inn Lodgings at Bayswater. Her career has stopt short by the injudicious bringing her out in a vile new Tragedy, and for a third character in a stupid old one,--the Earl of Ess.e.x. This is Macready's doing, who taught her. Her recitation, &c. (_not her voice or person_), is masculine. It is so clever, it seemed a male _Debut_. But cleverness is the bane of Female Tragedy especially. Pa.s.sions uttered logically, &c. It is bad enough in men-actors. Could you do nothing for little Clara Fisher? Are there no French Pieces with a Child in them? By Pieces I mean here dramas, to prevent male-constructions. Did not the Blue Girl remind you of some of Congreve's women? Angelica or Millamant?

To me she was a vision of Genteel Comedy realized. Those kind of people never come to see one. _N'import_--havn't I Miss Many Things coming?

Will you ask Horace Smith to----[_The remainder of this letter has been lost_.]

[Payne seems to have sent Lamb an edition of Sheridan. "The Camp" and "St. Patrick's Day" are among Sheridan's less known plays.

Poole was writing articles on France in the _London Magazine_. Lamb refers to "A c.o.c.kney's Rural Sports," in the number for December, 1822.

f.a.n.n.y was f.a.n.n.y Holcroft. Plura I do not identify.

The new tragedy in which Miss Kelly had to play was probably "The Huguenot," produced December 11, 1822. "The Earl of Ess.e.x" was revived December 30, 1822. Macready played in both.