The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 40

"A pleasant party." Reynolds, the dramatist, would be Frederic Reynolds (1764-1841); Bloxam we have just met; and Wyat of the Wells was a comic singer and utility actor at Sadler's Wells.

Canon Ainger remarks that as a matter of fact Dibdin was a religious youth.]

LETTER 402

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[P.M. September 26, 1826.]

Dear B.B.--I don't know why I have delay'd so long writing. 'Twas a fault. The under current of excuse to my mind was that I had heard of the Vessel in which Mitford's jars were to come; that it had been obliged to put into Batavia to refit (which accounts for its delay) but was daily expectated. Days are past, and it comes not, and the mermaids may be drinking their Tea out of his China for ought I know; but let's hope not. In the meantime I have paid 28, etc., for the freight and prime cost, (which I a little expected he would have settled in London.) But do not mention it. I was enabled to do it by a receipt of 30 from Colburn, with whom however I have done. I should else have run short.

For I just make ends meet. We will wait the arrival of the Trinkets, and to ascertain their full expence, and then bring in the bill. (Don't mention it, for I daresay 'twas mere thoughtlessness.)

I am sorry you and yours have any plagues about dross matters. I have been sadly puzzled at the defalcation of more than one third of my income, out of which when entire I saved nothing. But cropping off wine, old books, &c. and in short all that can be call'd pocket money, I hope to be able to go on at the Cottage. Remember, I beg you not to say anything to Mitford, for if he be honest it will vex him: if not, which I as little expect as that you should [not] be, I have a hank still upon the JARS.

Colburn had something of mine in last month, which he has had in hand these 7 months, and had lost, or cou'dnt find room for: I was used to different treatment in the London, and have forsworn Periodicals.

I am going thro' a course of reading at the Museum: the Garrick plays, out of part of which I formed my Specimens: I have Two Thousand to go thro'; and in a few weeks have despatch'd the tythe of 'em. It is a sort of Office to me; hours, 10 to 4, the same. It does me good. Man must have regular occupation, that has been used to it. So A.K. keeps a School! She teaches nothing wrong, I'll answer for't. I have a Dutch print of a Schoolmistress; little old-fashioned Fleminglings, with only one face among them. She a Princess of Schoolmistress, wielding a rod for form more than use; the scene an old monastic chapel, with a Madonna over her head, looking just as serious, as thoughtful, as pure, as gentle, as herself. Tis a type of thy friend.

Will you pardon my neglect? Mind, again I say, don't shew this to M.; let me wait a little longer to know the event of his Luxuries. (I am sure he is a good fellow, tho' I made a serious Yorkshire Lad, who met him, stare when I said he was a Clergyman. He is a pleasant Layman spoiled.) Heaven send him his jars uncrack'd, and me my---- Yours with kindest wishes to your daughter and friend, in which Mary joins

C.L.

["I saved nothing." Lamb, however, according to Procter, left 2000 at his death eight years later. He must have saved 200 a year from his pension of 441, living at the rate of 241 per annum, plus small earnings, for the rest of his life, and investing the 200 at 5 per cent, compound interest.

"Colburn had something of mine." The Popular Fallacy "That a Deformed Person is a Lord," not included by Lamb with the others when he reprinted them. Printed in Vol. I. of this edition.

"Reading at the Museum." Lamb had begun to visit the Museum every day to collect extracts from the Garrick plays for Hone's _Table Book_, 1827.

"A.K."--Anne Knight again.

The pleasant Yorkshire lad whom Mitford's secular air surprised was probably Moxon.

Here might come a business letter, from Lamb to Barton, preserved in the British Museum, relating to Mitford's jars.]

LETTER 403

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[No date. ? Sept., 1826.]

I have had much trouble to find Field to-day. No matter. He was packing up for out of town. He has writ a handsomest letter, which you will transmit to Murry with your proof-sheets. Seal it.--

Yours C. L----.

Mrs. Hood will drink tea with us on Thursday at 1/2 past 5 _at Latest_.

N.B. I have lost my Museum reading today: a day with t.i.tus: owing to your dam'd bisness.--I am the last to reproach anybody. I scorn it.

If you shall have the whole book ready soon, it will be best for Murry to see.

[I am not clear as to what proof-sheets of Moxon's Lamb refers. His second book, _Christmas_, 1829, was issued through Hurst, Chance & Co.

Barton Field and John Murray were friends.

"A day with t.i.tus." Can this (a friend suggests) have any connection with the phrase _Amici! diem perdidi?_ There is no t.i.tus play among the Garrick Extracts.]

LETTER 404

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[No postmark or date. Soon after preceding letter to Barton. 1826.]

Dear B.B.--the _Busy Bee_, as Hood after Dr. Watts apostrophises thee, and well dost thou deserve it for thy labors in the Muses' gardens, wandering over parterres of Think-on-me's and Forget-me-nots, to a total impossibility of forgetting thee,--thy letter was acceptable, thy scruples may be dismissed, thou art Rectus in Curia, not a word more to be said, Verb.u.m Sapienti and so forth, the matter is decided with a white stone, Cla.s.sically, mark me, and the apparitions vanishd which haunted me, only the Cramp, Caliban's distemper, clawing me in the calvish part of my nature, makes me ever and anon roar Bullishly, squeak cowardishly, and limp cripple-ishly. Do I write quakerly and simply, 'tis my most Master Mathew-like intention to do it. See Ben Jonson.--I think you told me your acquaint'ce with the Drama was confin'd to Shakspeare and Miss Bailly: some read only Milton and Croly. The gap is as from an ananas to a Turnip. I have fighting in my head the plots characters situations and sentiments of 400 old Plays (bran new to me) which I have been digesting at the Museum, and my appet.i.te sharpens to twice as many more, which I mean to course over this winter. I can scarce avoid Dialogue fashion in this letter. I soliloquise my meditations, and habitually speak dramatic blank verse without meaning it. Do you see Mitford? he will tell you something of my labors. Tell him I am sorry to have mist seeing him, to have talk'd over those OLD TREASURES. I am still more sorry for his missing Pots. But I shall be sure of the earliest intelligence of the Lost Tribes. His Sacred Specimens are a thankful addition to my shelves. Marry, I could wish he had been more careful of corrigenda. I have discover'd certain which have slipt his Errata. I put 'em in the next page, as perhaps thou canst transmit them to him. For what purpose, but to grieve him (which yet I should be sorry to do), but then it shews my learning, and the excuse is complimentary, as it implies their correction in a future Edition. His own things in the book are magnificent, and as an old Christ's Hospitaller I was particularly refreshd with his eulogy on our Edward.

Many of the choice excerpta were new to me. Old Christmas is a coming, to the confusion of Puritans, Muggletonians, Anabaptists, Quakers, and that Unwa.s.sailing Crew. He cometh not with his wonted gait, he is shrunk 9 inches in the girth, but is yet a l.u.s.ty fellow. Hood's book is mighty clever, and went off 600 copies the 1st day. Sion's Songs do not disperse so quickly. The next leaf is for Rev'd J.M. In this ADIEU thine briefly in a tall friendship C. LAMB.

[Barton's letter, to which this is an answer, not being preserved, we do not know what his scruples were. B.B. was a great contributor to annuals.

"With a white stone." In trials at law a white stone was cast as a vote for acquittal, a black stone for condemnation (see Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, 15, 41).

"Master Mathew"--in Ben Jonson's "Every Man in His Humour."

"Croly"--the Rev. George Croly (1780-1860), of the _Literary Gazette_, author of _The Angel of the World_ and other pretentious poems.

"Mitford's Sacred Specimens"--_Sacred Specimens Selected from the Early English Poets_, 1827. The last poem, by Mitford himself, was "Lines Written under the Portrait of Edward VI."

"Hood's book"--_Whims and Oddities_, second series, 1827.

Here should come a note to Allsop stating that Lamb is "near killed with Christma.s.sing."]

LETTER 405

CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON

Colebrooke Row, Islington,

Sat.u.r.day, 20th Jan., 1827.