The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 13

Yours truly

C. LAMB.

8 Jan. '23.

[This note is sent to me by Mr. G. Dunlop of Kilmarnock. It is the only note to Aders, a friend of Crabb Robinson, to whose house Lamb often went for talk and whist. Aders had a fine collection of German pictures.

See the verses to him in Vol. IV. The cunning in the address consisted apparently in obtaining the signature of an India House colleague to certify that it was "official."]

LETTER 308

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

9 Jan., 1823.

"Throw yourself on the world without any rational plan of support, beyond what the chance employ of Booksellers would afford you"!!!

Throw yourself rather, my dear Sir, from the steep Tarpeian rock, slap-dash headlong upon iron spikes. If you had but five consolatory minutes between the desk and the bed, make much of them, and live a century in them, rather than turn slave to the Booksellers. They are Turks and Tartars, when they have poor Authors at their beck. Hitherto you have been at arm's length from them. Come not within their grasp. I have known many authors for bread, some repining, others envying the blessed security of a Counting House, all agreeing they had rather have been Taylors, Weavers, what not? rather than the things they were. I have known some starved, some to go mad, one clear friend literally dying in a workhouse. You know not what a rapacious, dishonest set those booksellers are. Ask even Southey, who (a single case almost) has made a fortune by book drudgery, what he has found them. O you know not, may you never know! the miseries of subsisting by authorship. 'Tis a pretty appendage to a situation like yours or mine, but a slavery worse than all slavery to be a book-seller's dependent, to drudge your brains for pots of ale and b.r.e.a.s.t.s of mutton, to change your free thoughts and voluntary numbers for ungracious TASK-WORK. Those fellows hate _us_. The reason I take to be, that, contrary to other trades, in which the Master gets all the credit (a Jeweller or Silversmith for instance), and the Journeyman, who really does the fine work, is in the background, in _our_ work the world gives all the credit to Us, whom _they_ consider as _their_ Journeymen, and therefore do they hate us, and cheat us, and oppress us, and would wring the blood of us out, to put another sixpence in their mechanic pouches. I contend, that a Bookseller has a _relative honesty_ towards Authors, not like his honesty to the rest of the world.

B[aldwin], who first engag'd me as Elia, has not paid me up yet (nor any of us without repeated mortifying applials), yet how the Knave fawned while I was of service to him! Yet I dare say the fellow is punctual in settling his milk-score, &c. Keep to your Bank, and the Bank will keep you. Trust not to the Public, you may hang, starve, drown yourself, for anything that worthy _Personage_ cares. I bless every star that Providence, not seeing good to make me independent, has seen it next good to settle me upon the stable foundation of Leadenhall. Sit down, good B.B., in the Banking Office; what, is there not from six to Eleven P.M. 6 days in the week, and is there not all Sunday? Fie, what a superfluity of man's time,--if you could think so! Enough for relaxation, mirth, converse, poetry, good thoughts, quiet thoughts. O the corroding torturing tormenting thoughts, that disturb the Brain of the unlucky wight, who must draw upon it for daily sustenance.

Henceforth I retract all my fond complaints of mercantile employment, look upon them as Lovers' quarrels. I was but half in earnest. Welcome, dead timber of a desk, that makes me live. A little grumbling is a wholesome medicine for the spleen; but in my inner heart do I approve and embrace this our close but unhara.s.sing way of life. I am quite serious. If you can send me Fox, I will not keep it six _weeks_, and will return it, with warm thanks to yourself and friend, without blot or dog's ear. You much oblige me by this kindness.

Yours truly,

C. LAMB.

Please to direct to me at India Ho. in future. [? I am] not always at Russell St.

[Barton had long been meditating the advisability of giving up his place in the bank at Woodbridge and depending upon his pen. Lamb's letter of dissuasion is not the only one which he received. Byron had written to him in 1812: "You deserve success; but we knew, before Addison wrote his Cato, that desert does not always command it. But suppose it attained--

'You know what ills the author's life a.s.sail-- Toil, envy, want, the _patron_, and the jail.'

Do not renounce writing, but never trust entirely to authorship. If you have a profession, retain it; it will be like Prior's fellowship, a last and sure resource." Barton had now broken again into dissatisfaction with his life. He did not, however, leave the bank.

Southey made no "fortune" by his pen. He almost always had to forestall his new works.]

LETTER 309

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN HOWARD PAYNE

23 January, '23.

Dear Payne--I have no mornings (my day begins at 5 P.M.) to transact business in, or talents for it, so I employ Mary, who has seen Robertson, who says that the Piece which is to be Operafied was sent to you six weeks since by a Mr. Hunter, whose journey has been delayed, but he supposes you have it by this time. On receiving it back properly done, the rest of your dues will be forthcoming. You have received 30 from Harwood, I hope? Bishop was at the theatre when Mary called, and he has put your other piece into C. Kemble's hands (the piece you talk of offering Elliston) and C.K. sent down word that he had not yet had time to read it. So stand your affairs at present. Glossop has got the Murderer. Will you address him on the subject, or shall I--that is, Mary? She says you must write more _showable_ letters about these matters, for, with all our trouble of crossing out this word, and giving a cleaner turn to th' other, and folding down at this part, and squeezing an obnoxious epithet into a corner, she can hardly communicate their contents without offence. What, man, put less gall in your ink, or write me a biting tragedy!

C. LAMB.

[Here should come a letter from Lamb to Ayrton asking him to meet the Burneys and Paynes on Wednesday at half-past four.]

LETTER 310

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN HOWARD PAYNE

February [9], 1823.

My dear Miss Lamb--I have enclosed for you Mr. Payne's piece called Grandpapa, which I regret to say is not thought to be of the nature that will suit this theatre; but as there appears to be much merit in it, Mr.

Kemble strongly recommends that you should send it to the English Opera House, for which it seems to be excellently adapted. As you have already been kind enough to be our medium of communication with Mr. Payne, I have imposed this trouble upon you; but if you do not like to act for Mr. Payne in the business, and have no means of disposing of the piece, I will forward it to Paris or elsewhere as you think he may prefer.

Very truly yours,

HENRY ROBERTSON.

T.R.C.G., 8 Feb. 1823.

Dear P---- We have just received the above, and want your instructions.

It strikes me as a very merry little piece, that should be played by _very young actors_. It strikes me that Miss Clara Fisher would play the _boy_ exactly. She is just such a forward chit. No young _man_ would do it without its appearing absurd, but in a girl's hands it would have just all the reality that a short dream of an act requires. Then for the sister, if Miss Stevenson that was, were Miss Stevenson and younger, they two would carry it off. I do not know who they have got in that young line, besides Miss C.F., at Drury, nor how you would like Elliston to have it--has he not had it? I am thick with Arnold, but I have always heard that the very slender profits of the English Opera House do not admit of his giving above a trifle, or next to none, for a piece of this kind. Write me what I should do, what you would ask, &c. The music (printed) is returned with the piece, and the French original. Tell Mr.

Grattan I thank him for his book, which as far as I have read it is a very _companionable one_. I have but just received it. It came the same hour with your packet from Cov. Gar., i.e. yester-night late, to my summer residence, where, tell Kenney, the cow is quiet. Love to all at Versailles. Write quickly.

C.L.

I have no acquaintance with Kemble at all, having only met him once or twice; but any information, &c., I can get from R., who is a good fellow, you may command. I am sorry the rogues are so dilitory, but I distinctly believe they mean to fulfill their engagement. I am sorry you are not here to see to these things. I am a poor man of business, but command me to the short extent of my tether. My sister's kind remembrance ever.

C.L.

[The "Grandpapa" was eventually produced at Drury Lane, May 25, 1825, and played thrice. Miss Stevenson was an actress praised by Lamb in _The Examiner_ (see Vol. I. of this edition). C.F. was Clara Fisher, mentioned above.

Samuel James Arnold was manager of the Lyceum, then known as the English Opera House; he was the brother of Mrs. William Ayrton, Lamb's friend.

Mr. Grattan was Thomas Colley Grattan (1792-1864), who was then living in Paris. His book would be _Highways and Byways_, first series, 1823.

There is one other note to Payne in the _Century Magazine_, unimportant and undated, suggesting a walk one Sunday.]

LETTER 311

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[P.M. February 17, 1823.]

My dear Sir--I have read quite through the ponderous folio of G.F. I think Sewell has been judicious in omitting certain parts, as for instance where G.F. _has_ revealed to him the natures of all the creatures in their names, as Adam had. He luckily turns aside from that compendious study of natural history, which might have superseded Buffon, to his proper spiritual pursuits, only just hinting what a philosopher he might have been. The ominous pa.s.sage is near the beginning of the Book. It is clear he means a physical knowledge, without trope or figure. Also, pretences to miraculous healing and the like are more frequent than I should have suspected from the epitome in Sewell. He is nevertheless a great spiritual man, and I feel very much obliged by your procuring me the Loan of it. How I like the Quaker phrases--though I think they were hardly completed till Woolman. A pretty little manual of Quaker language (with an endeavour to explain them) might be gathered out of his Book. Could not you do it? I have read through G.F. without finding any explanation of the term _first volume_ in the t.i.tle page. It takes in all, both his life and his death.