The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 38

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Very deaf indeed."]

"Unmeaning joy around appears..." I have not found this.]

LETTER 395

CHARLES LAMB TO S.T. COLERIDGE

June 1st, 1826.

Dear Coleridge,--If I know myself, n.o.body more detests the display of personal vanity which is implied in the act of sitting for one's picture than myself. But the fact is, that the likeness which accompanies this letter was stolen from my person at one of my unguarded moments by some too partial artist, and my friends are pleased to think that he has not much flattered me. Whatever its merits may be, you, who have so great an interest in the original, will have a satisfaction in tracing the features of one that has so long esteemed you. There are times when in a friend's absence these graphic representations of him almost seem to bring back the man himself. The painter, whoever he was, seems to have taken me in one of those disengaged moments, if I may so term them, when the native character is so much more honestly displayed than can be possible in the restraints of an enforced sitting att.i.tude. Perhaps it rather describes me as a thinking man than a man in the act of thought.

Whatever its pretensions, I know it will be dear to you, towards whom I should wish my thoughts to flow in a sort of an undress rather than in the more studied graces of diction.

I am, dear Coleridge, yours sincerely, C. LAMB.

[The portrait to which Lamb refers will be found opposite page 706 in my large edition. It was etched by Brook Pulham of the India House. It was this picture which so enraged Procter when he saw it in a printshop (probably that referred to by Lamb in a later letter) that he reprimanded the dealer.

Here should come a charming letter to Louisa Holcroft dated June, offering her a room at Enfield "pretty cheap, only two smiles a week."]

LETTER 396

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN

Friday, someday in June, 1826. [P.M. June 30, 1826.]

Dear D.--My first impulse upon opening your letter was pleasure at seeing your old neat hand, nine parts gentlemanly, with a modest dash of the clerical: my second a Thought, natural enough this hot weather, Am I to answer all this? why 'tis as long as those to the Ephesians and Galatians put together--I have counted the words for curiosity. But then Paul has nothing like the fun which is ebullient all over yours. I don't remember a good thing (good like yours) from the 1st Romans to the last of the Hebrews. I remember but one Pun in all the Evangely, and that was made by his and our master: Thou art Peter (that is Doctor Rock) and upon this rock will I build &c.; which sanctifies Punning with me against all gainsayers. I never knew an enemy to puns, who was not an ill-natured man.

Your fair critic in the coach reminds me of a Scotchman who a.s.sured me that he did not see much in Shakspeare. I replied, I dare say _not_. He felt the equivoke, lookd awkward, and reddish, but soon returnd to the attack, by saying that he thought Burns was as good as Shakspeare: I said that I had no doubt he was--to a _Scotchman_. We exchangd no more words that day.--Your account of the fierce faces in the Hanging, with the presumed interlocution of the Eagle and the Tyger, amused us greatly. You cannot be so very bad, while you can pick mirth off from rotten walls. But let me hear you have escaped out of your oven. May the Form of the Fourth Person who clapt invisible wet blankets about the shoulders of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego, be with you in the fiery Trial. But get out of the frying pan. Your business, I take it, is bathing, not baking.

Let me hear that you have clamber'd up to Lover's Seat; it is as fine in that neighbourhood as Juan Fernandez, as lonely too, when the Fishing boats are not out; I have sat for hours, staring upon a shipless sea.

The salt sea is never so grand as when it is left to itself. One c.o.c.k-boat spoils it. A sea-mew or two improves it. And go to the little church, which is a very protestant Loretto, and seems dropt by some angel for the use of a hermit, who was at once parishioner and a whole parish. It is not too big. Go in the night, bring it away in your portmanteau, and I will plant it in my garden. It must have been erected in the very infancy of British Christianity, for the two or three first converts; yet hath it all the appertenances of a church of the first magnitude, its pulpit, its pews, its baptismal font; a cathedral in a nutsh.e.l.l. Seven people would crowd it like a Caledonian Chapel. The minister that divides the word there, must give lumping penny-worths. It is built to the text of two or three a.s.sembled in my name. It reminds me of the grain of mustard seed. If the glebe land is proportionate, it may yield two potatoes. Tythes out of it could be no more split than a hair.

Its First fruits must be its Last, for 'twould never produce a couple.

It is truly the strait and narrow way, and few there be (of London visitants) that find it. The still small voice is surely to be found there, if any where. A sounding board is merely there for ceremony. It is secure from earthquakes, not more from sanct.i.ty than size, for 'twould feel a mountain thrown upon it no more than a taper-worm would.

Go and see, but not without your spectacles. By the way, there's a capital farm house two thirds of the way to the Lover's Seat, with incomparable plum cake, ginger beer, etc. Mary bids me warn you not to read the Anatomy of Melancholy in your present _low way_. You'll fancy yourself a pipkin, or a headless bear, as Burton speaks of. You'll be lost in a maze of remedies for a labyrinth of diseas.e.m.e.nts, a plethora of cures. Read Fletcher; above all the Spanish Curate, the Thief or Little Nightwalker, the Wit Without Money, and the Lover's Pilgrimage.

Laugh and come home fat. Neither do we think Sir T. Browne quite the thing for you just at present. Fletcher is as light as Soda water.

Browne and Burton are too strong potions for an Invalid. And don't thumb or dirt the books. Take care of the bindings. Lay a leaf of silver paper under 'em, as you read them. And don't smoke tobacco over 'em, the leaves will fall in and burn or dirty their namesakes. If you find any dusty atoms of the Indian Weed crumbled up in the Beaum't and Fletcher, they are _mine_. But then, you know, so is the Folio also. A pipe and a comedy of Fletcher's the last thing of a night is the best recipe for light dreams and to scatter away Nightmares. Probatum est. But do as you like about the former. Only cut the Baker's. You will come home else all crust; Rankings must chip you before you can appear in his counting house. And my dear Peter Fin Junr., do contrive to see the sea at least once before you return. You'll be ask'd about it in the Old Jewry. It will appear singular not to have seen it. And rub up your Muse, the family Muse, and send us a rhyme or so. Don't waste your wit upon that d.a.m.n'd Dry Salter. I never knew but one Dry Salter, who could relish those mellow effusions, and he broke. You knew Tommy Hill, the wettest of dry salters. Dry Salters, what a word for this thirsty weather! I must drink after it. Here's to thee, my dear Dibdin, and to our having you again snug and well at Colebrooke. But our nearest hopes are to hear again from you shortly. An epistle only a quarter as agreeable as your last, would be a treat.

Yours most truly C. LAMB

Timothy B. Dibdin, Esq., No. 9, Blucher Row, Priory, Hastings.

[Dibdin, who was in delicate health, had gone to Hastings to recruit, with a parcel of Lamb's books for company. He seems to have been lodged above the oven at a baker's. This letter contains Lamb's crowning description of Hollingdon Rural church.

"A Caledonian Chapel." Referring to the crowds that listened to Irving.

"Peter Fin." A character in Jones' "Peter Finn's Trip to Brighton,"

1822, as played by Liston.

"Tommy Hill." In the British Museum is preserved the following brief note addressed to Mr. Thomas Hill--probably the same. The date is between 1809 and 1817:--]

LETTER 397

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS HILL

D'r Sir It is necessary _I see you sign_, can you step up to me 4 Inner Temple Lane this evening. I shall wait at home.

Yours,

C. LAMB.

[I have no notion to what the note refers. It is quite likely, Mr. J.A.

Rutter suggests, that Hill the drysalter, a famous busy-body, and a friend of Theodore Hook, stood for the portrait of Tom Pry in Lamb's "Lepus Papers" (see Vol. I.). S.C. Hall, in his _Book of Memories_, says of Hill that "his peculiar faculty was to find out what everybody did, from a minister of state to a stableboy."]

LETTER 398

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN BATES DIBDIN

[P.M. July 14, 1826.]

Because you boast poetic Grandsire, And rhyming kin, both Uncle and Sire, Dost think that none but _their_ Descendings Can tickle folks with double endings?

I had a Dad, that would for half a bet Have put down thine thro' half the Alphabet.

Thou, who would be Dan Prior the second, For Dan Posterior must be reckon'd.

In faith, dear Tim, your rhymes are slovenly, As a man may say, dough-baked and ovenly; Tedious and long as two Long Acres, And smell most vilely of the Baker's.

(I have been cursing every limb o' thee, Because I could not hitch in _Timothy_.

Jack, Will, Tom, d.i.c.k's, a serious evil, But Tim, plain Tim's--the very devil.) Thou most incorrigible scribbler, Right Watering place and c.o.c.kney dribbler, What _child_, that barely understands _A, B, C_, would ever dream that Stanza Would tinkle into rhyme with "Plan, Sir"?

Go, go, you are not worth an answer.

I had a Sire, that at plain Crambo Had hit you o'er the pate a d.a.m.n'd blow.

How now? may I die game, and you die bra.s.s, But I have stol'n a quip from Hudibras.

'Twas thinking on that fine old Suttler, } That was in faith a second Butler; } Mad as queer rhymes as he, and subtler. } He would have put you to 't this weather For rattling syllables together; Rhym'd you to death, like "rats in Ireland,"

Except that he was born in High'r Land.

His chimes, not crampt like thine, and rung ill, Had made Job split his sides on dunghill.

There was no limit to his merryings At christ'nings, weddings, nay at buryings.

No undertaker would live near him, Those grave pract.i.tioners did fear him; Mutes, at his merry mops, turned "vocal."

And fellows, hired for silence, "spoke all."

No _body_ could be laid in cavity, Long as he lived, with proper gravity.

His mirth-fraught eye had but to glitter, And every mourner round must t.i.tter.

The Parson, prating of Mount Hermon, Stood still to laugh, in midst of sermon.

The final s.e.xton (smile he _must_ for him) Could hardly get to "dust to dust" for him.