The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 14

Are there more Last words of him? Pray, how may I venture to return it to Mr. Shewell at Ipswich? I fear to send such a Treasure by a Stage Coach. Not that I am afraid of the Coachman or the Guard _reading_ it.

But it might be lost. Can you put me in a way of sending it in safety?

The kind hearted owner trusted it to me for six months. I think I was about as many days in getting through it, and I do not think that I skipt a word of it. I have quoted G.F. in my Quaker's meeting, as having said he was "lifted up in spirit" (which I felt at the time to be not a Quaker phrase), "and the Judge and Jury were as dead men under his feet." I find no such words in his Journal, and I did not get them from Sewell, and the latter sentence I am sure I did not mean to invent. I must have put some other Quaker's words into his mouth. Is it a fatality in me, that every thing I touch turns into a Lye? I once quoted two Lines from a translation of Dante, which Hazlitt very greatly admired, and quoted in a Book as proof of the stupendous power of that poet, but no such lines are to be found in the translation, which has been searched for the purpose. I must have dreamed them, for I am quite certain I did not forge them knowingly. What a misfortune to have a Lying memory.--Yes, I have seen Miss Coleridge, and wish I had just such a--daughter. G.o.d love her--to think that she should have had to toil thro' five octavos of that cursed (I forget I write to a Quaker) Abbeypony History, and then to abridge them to 3, and all for 113. At her years, to be doing stupid Jesuits' Latin into English, when she should be reading or writing Romances. Heaven send her Uncle do not breed her up a Quarterly Reviewer!--which reminds me, that he has spoken very respectfully of you in the last number, which is the next thing to having a Review all to one's self. Your description of Mr. Mitford's place makes me long for a pippin and some carraways and a cup of sack in his orchard, when the sweets of the night come in.

Farewell.

C. LAMB.

[In the 1694 folio of George Fox's _Journal_ the revelation of the names of creatures occurs twice, once under Notts in 1647 and again under Mansfield in 1648.

"Sewell." _The History of the Rise, Increase and Progress of the Christian People called Quakers_, 1722. By William Sewell (1654-1720).

"In my Quaker's meeting"--the _Elia_ essay (see Vol. II.).

"I once quoted two Lines." Possibly, Mr. A.R. Waller suggests to me, the lines:--

Because on earth their names In Fame's eternal volume shine for aye,

quoted by Hazlitt in his _Round Table_ essay "On Posthumous Fame," and again in one of his _Edinburgh Review_ articles. They are presumably based upon the _Inferno_, Canto IV. (see Haselfoot's translation, second edition, 1899, page 21, lines 74-78). But the "manufacturer" of them must have had Spenser's line in his mind, "On Fame's eternall bead-roll worthie to be fyled" (_Faerie Queene_, Bk. IV., Canto II., Stanza 32).

They have not yet been found in any translation of Dante. This explanation would satisfy Lamb's words "quoted in a book," i.e., _The Round Table_, published in 1817.

"Miss Coleridge"--Coleridge's daughter Sara, born in 1802, who had been brought up by her uncle, Southey. She had translated Martin Dobrizhoffer's Latin history of the Abipones in order to gain funds for her brother Derwent's college expenses. Her father considered the translation "unsurpa.s.sed for pure mother English by anything I have read for a long time." Sara Coleridge married her cousin, Henry Nelson Coleridge, in 1829. She edited her father's works and died in 1852. At the present time she and her mother were visiting the Gillmans.

Mr. Mitford was John Mitford (1781-1859), rector of Benhall, in Suffolk, and editor of old poets. Later he became editor of the _Gentleman's Magazine_. He was a cousin of Mary Russell Mitford. In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for May, 1838, is a review of Talfourd's edition of Lamb's _Letters_, probably from his pen, in which he records a visit to the Lambs in 1827.]

LETTER 312

CHARLES LAMB TO WALTER WILSON

[Dated at end: February 24, 1823.]

Dear W.--I write that you may not think me neglectful, not that I have any thing to say. In answer to your questions, it was at _your_ house I saw an edition of Roxana, the preface to which stated that the author had left out that part of it which related to Roxana's daughter persisting in imagining herself to be so, in spite of the mother's denial, from certain hints she had picked up, and throwing herself continually in her mother's way (as Savage is said to have done in _his_, prying in at windows to get a glimpse of her), and that it was by advice of Southern, who objected to the circ.u.mstances as being untrue, when the rest of the story was founded on fact; which shows S. to have been a stupid-ish fellow. The incidents so resemble Savage's story, that I taxed G.o.dwin with taking Falconer from his life by Dr. Johnson. You should have the edition (if you have not parted with it), for I saw it never but at your place at the Mews' Gate, nor did I then read it to compare it with my own; only I know the daughter's curiosity is the best part of _my_ Roxana. The prologue you speak of was mine, so named, but not worth much. You ask me for 2 or 3 pages of verse. I have not written so much since you knew me. I am altogether prosaic. May be I may touch off a sonnet in time. I do not prefer Col. Jack to either Rob. Cr. or Roxana. I only spoke of the beginning of it, his childish history. The rest is poor. I do not know anywhere any good character of De Foe besides what you mention. I do not know that Swift mentions him. Pope does. I forget if D'Israeli has. Dunlop I think has nothing of him. He is quite new ground, and scarce known beyond Crusoe. I do not know who wrote Quarll. I never thought of Quarll as having an author. It is a poor imitation; the monkey is the best in it, and his pretty dishes made of sh.e.l.ls. Do you know the Paper in the Englishman by Sir Rd. Steele, giving an account of Selkirk? It is admirable, and has all the germs of Crusoe. You must quote it entire. Captain G. Carleton wrote his own Memoirs; they are about Lord Peterborough's campaign in Spain, & a good Book. Puzzelli puzzles me, and I am in a cloud about Donald M'Leod. I never heard of them; so you see, my dear Wilson, what poor a.s.sistances I can give in the way of information. I wish your Book out, for I shall like to see any thing about De Foe or from you.

Your old friend,

C. LAMB.

From my and your old compound. 24 Feb. '23.

[With this letter compare the letter on September 9, 1801, to G.o.dwin, and the letter on December 16, 1822, to Wilson.

Defoe's _Roxana_, first edition, does not, as a matter of fact, contain the episode of the daughter which Lamb so much admired. Later editions have it. G.o.dwin says in his Preface to "Faulkener," 1807, the play to which Lamb wrote a prologue in praise of Defoe (see Vol. IV.), that the only accessible edition of _Roxana_ in which the story of Susannah is fully told is that of 1745.

Richard Savage was considered to be the natural son of the Countess of Macclesfield and Earl Rivers. His mother at first disowned him, but afterwards, when this became impossible, repulsed him. Johnson says in his "Life of Savage," that it was his hero's "practice to walk in the dark evenings for several hours before her door in hopes of seeing her as she might come by accident to the window or cross her apartment with a candle in her hand."

Swift and Defoe were steady enemies, although I do not find that either mentions the other by name. But Swift in _The Examiner_ often had Defoe in mind, and Defoe in one of his political writings refers to Swift, _apropos_ Wood's halfpence, as "the copper farthing author."

Pope referred to Defoe twice in the _Dunciad_: once as standing high, fearless and unabashed in the pillory, and once, libellously, as the father of Norton, of the _Flying Post_.

_Philip Quarll_ was the first imitation of _Robinson Crusoe_. It was published in 1727, purporting to be the narrative of one Dorrington, a merchant, and Quarll's discoverer. The t.i.tle begins, _The Hermit; or, The Unparalleled Sufferings and Surprising Adventures of Mr. Philip Quarll, an Englishman_ ... Lamb says in his essay on Christ's Hospital that the Blue-Coat boys used to read the book. The authorship of the book is still unknown.

Steele's account of Selkirk is in _The Englishman_, No. 26, Dec. 1, 1713. Wilson quoted it.

Defoe's fict.i.tious _Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton_ was published in 1728.

I cannot explain Puzzelli or Donald M'Leod. Later Lamb sent Wilson, who seems to have asked for some verse about Defoe, the "Ode to the Treadmill," but Wilson did not use it.

"My old compound." Robinson's _Diary_ (Vol. I., page 333) has this: "The large room in the accountant's office at the East India House is divided into boxes or compartments, in each of which sit six clerks, Charles Lamb himself in one. They are called Compounds. The meaning of the word was asked one day, and Lamb said it was 'a collection of simples.'"]

LETTER 313

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[Dated at end: March 11, 1823.]

Dear Sir--The approbation of my little book by your sister is very pleasing to me. The Quaker incident did not happen to me, but to Carlisle the surgeon, from whose mouth I have twice heard it, at an interval of ten or twelve years, with little or no variation, and have given it as exactly as I could remember it. The gloss which your sister, or you, have put upon it does not strike me as correct. Carlisle drew no inference from it against the honesty of the Quakers, but only in favour of their surprising coolness--that they should be capable of committing a good joke, with an utter insensibility to its being any jest at all. I have reason to believe in the truth of it, because, as I have said, I heard him repeat it without variation at such an interval. The story loses sadly in print, for Carlisle is the best story teller I ever heard. The idea of the discovery of roasting pigs, I also borrowed, from my friend Manning, and am willing to confess both my plagiarisms.

Should fate ever so order it that you shall be in town with your sister, mine bids me say that she shall have great pleasure in being introduced to her. I think I must give up the cause of the Bank--from nine to nine is galley-slavery, but I hope it is but temporary. Your endeavour at explaining Fox's insight into the natures of animals must fail, as I shall transcribe the pa.s.sage. It appears to me that he stopt short in time, and was on the brink of falling with his friend Naylor, my favourite.--The book shall be forthcoming whenever your friend can make convenient to call for it.

They have dragged me again into the Magazine, but I feel the spirit of the thing in my own mind quite gone. "Some brains" (I think Ben Jonson says it) "will endure but one skimming." We are about to have an inundation of poetry from the Lakes, Wordsworth and Southey are coming up strong from the North. The she Coleridges have taken flight, to my regret. With Sara's own-made acquisitions, her unaffectedness and no-pretensions are beautiful. You might pa.s.s an age with her without suspecting that she knew any thing but her mother's tongue. I don't mean any reflection on Mrs. Coleridge here. I had better have said her vernacular idiom. Poor C. I wish he had a home to receive his daughter in. But he is but as a stranger or a visitor in this world. How did you like Hartley's sonnets? The first, at least, is vastly fine. Lloyd has been in town a day or two on business, and is perfectly well. I am ashamed of the shabby letters I send, but I am by nature anything but neat. Therein my mother bore me no Quaker. I never could seal a letter without dropping the wax on one side, besides scalding my fingers. I never had a seal too of my own. Writing to a great man lately, who is moreover very Heraldic, I borrowed a seal of a friend, who by the female side quarters the Protectorial Arms of Cromwell. How they must have puzzled my correspondent!--My letters are generally charged as double at the Post office, from their inveterate clumsiness of foldure. So you must not take it disrespectful to your self if I send you such ungainly sc.r.a.ps. I think I lose 100 a year at the India House, owing solely to my want of neatness in making up Accounts. How I puzzle 'em out at last is the wonder. I have to do with millions. _I?_

It is time to have done my incoherences.

Believe me Yours Truly

C. LAMB.

Tuesd 11 Ma 23.

[Lamb had sent _Elia_ to Woodbridge. Bernard Barton's sister was Maria Hack, author of many books for children. The Quaker incident is in the essay "Imperfect Sympathies." Carlisle was Sir Anthony Carlisle.

"Your endeavour at explaining Fox's insight." See letter above. James Nayler (1617?-1660), an early Quaker who permitted his admirers to look upon him as a new Christ. He went to extremes totally foreign to the spirit of the Society. Barton made a paraphrase of Nayler's "Last Testimony."

"They have dragged me again." Lamb had been quite ready to give up _Elia_ with the first essays. "Old China," one of his most charming papers, was in the March _London Magazine_.

"Some brains ..." I had to give this up in my large edition. I now find that Swift says it, not Ben Jonson. "There is a brain that will endure but one sc.u.mming." Preface to _Battle of the Books_.

"Hartley's sonnets." Four sonnets by Hartley Coleridge were printed in the _London Magazine_ for February, 1823, addressed to R.S. Jameson.

"Writing to a great man lately." This was Sir Walter Scott (see page 626). Barron Field would be the friend with the seal.

Here should come a letter from Lamb to Ayrton saying that there will be cards and cold mutton in Russell St. from 8 to 9 and gin and jokes from 9.30 to 12.]