The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 90

By a strange occurrence we have quitted Enfield for ever. Oh! the happy eternity! Who is Vicar or Lecturer for that detestable place concerns us not. But Asbury, surgeon and a good fellow, has offered to get you a Mover and Seconder, and you may use my name freely to him. Except him and Dr. Creswell, I have no respectable acquaintance in the dreary village. At least my friends are all in the _public_ line, and it might not suit to have it moved at a special vestry by John Gage at the Crown and Horseshoe, licensed victualler, and seconded by Joseph Horner of the Green Dragon, ditto, that the Rev. J.G. is a fit person to be Lecturer, &c.

My dear James, I wish you all success, but am too full of my own emanc.i.p.ation almost to congratulate anyone else. With both our loves to your father and mother and glorious S.T.C.

Yours,

C. LAMB.

[The Rev. James Gillman was the eldest son of Coleridge's physician and friend. He was born in 1808 and ordained in 1831. He thought in 1833 of standing as candidate for the vicarship of Enfield, but did not obtain it. After acting as Under Master of Highgate Grammar School he became in 1836 Rector of Barfreystone, in Kent. In 1847 he became Vicar of Holy Trinity, Lambeth. He died in 1877.

Mary Lamb having become ill again had been moved to Edmonton, to a private home for mental patients. Lamb followed her soon after, and settled in the same house. It still stands (1912) almost exactly as in the Lambs' day.]

LETTER 579

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN FORSTER

[No date. May, 1833.]

D'r F. Can you oblige me by sending 4 Box orders undated for the Olympic Theatre? I suppose Knowles can get 'em. It is for the Waldens, with whom I live. The sooner, the better, that they may not miss the "Wife"--I meet you at the Talfourds' Sat.u.r.day week, and if they can't, perhaps you can, give me a bed.

Yours ratherish unwell

C. LAMB.

Mr. Walden's, Church Street, Edmonton.

Or write immediately to say if you can't get em.

[Knowles' play "The Wife," produced at Covent Garden, was moved to the Olympic on May 9.]

LETTER 580

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN FORSTER

[P.M. May 12, 1833.]

Dear Boy, I send you the original Elias, complete. When I am a little composed, I shall hope to see you and Proctor here; may be, may see you first in London.

C.L.

[In the Dyce and Forster collection, at South Kensington, are preserved some of these MSS.

Here should come a letter to Miss Rickman, dated May 23, 1833. "Perhaps, as Miss Kelly is just now in notoriety, it may amuse you to know that 'Barbara S.' is _all_ of it true of _her_, being all communicated to me from her own mouth. The 'wedding' you of course found out to be Sally Burney's."]

LETTER 581

CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

End of May nearly, [1833].

Dear Wordsworth, Your letter, save in what respects your dear Sister's health, chear'd me in my new solitude. Mary is ill again. Her illnesses encroach yearly. The last was three months, followed by two of depression most dreadful. I look back upon her earlier attacks with longing. Nice little durations of six weeks or so, followed by complete restoration--shocking as they were to me then. In short, half her life she is dead to me, and the other half is made anxious with fears and lookings forward to the next shock. With such prospects, it seem'd to me necessary that she should no longer live with me, and be fluttered with continual removals, so I am come to live with her, at a Mr. Walden's and his wife, who take in patients, and have arranged to lodge and board us only. They have had the care of her before. I see little of her; alas! I too often hear her. Sunt lachrymae rerum--and you and I must bear it--

To lay a little more load on it, a circ.u.mstance has happen'd, _cujus pars magna fui_, and which at another crisis I should have more rejoiced in. I am about to lose my old and only walk-companion, whose mirthful spirits were the "youth of our house," Emma Isola. I have her here now for a little while, but she is too nervous properly to be under such a roof, so she will make short visits, be no more an inmate. With my perfect approval, and more than concurrence, she is to be wedded to Moxon at the end of Aug'st. So "perish the roses and the flowers"--how is it?

Now to the brighter side, I am emanc.i.p.ated from most _hated_ and _detestable_ people, the Westwoods. I am with attentive people, and younger--I am 3 or 4 miles nearer the Great City, Coaches half-price less, and going always, of which I will avail myself. I have few friends left there, one or two tho' most beloved. But London Streets and faces cheer me inexpressibly, tho' of the latter not one known one were remaining.

Thank you for your cordial reception of Elia. Inter nos the Ariadne is not a darling with me, several incongruous things are in it, but in the composition it served me as ill.u.s.trative

I want you in the popular fallacies to like the "Home that is no home"

and "rising with the lark."

I am feeble, but chearful in this my genial hot weather,--walk'd 16 miles yesterd'y. I can't read much in Summer time. With very kindest love to all and prayers for dear Dorothy,

I remain

most attachedly yours

C. LAMB.

at mr. walden's, church street, _edmonton_, middles.e.x.

Moxon has introduced Emma to Rogers, and he smiles upon the project. I have given E. my MILTON--will you pardon me?--in part of a _portion_. It hangs famously in his Murray-like shop.

[_On the wrapper is written_:--]

D'r M[oxon], inclose this in a better-looking paper, and get it frank'd, and good by'e till Sund'y. Come early--

C.L.

["The Ariadne." See the essay on "Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty," where t.i.tian's "Bacchus and Ariadne" in the National Gallery is highly praised (see Vol. II.). Wordsworth's favourite essays in this volume were "The Wedding" and "Old China."

"My Milton." Against the reference to the portrait of Milton, in the postscript, some one, possibly Wordsworth, has pencilled a note, now only partially legible. It runs thus: "It had been proposed by L. that W.W. should be the Possessor of [? this picture] his friend and that afterwards it was to be bequeathed to Christ's Coll. Cambridge."

Lamb had given Wordsworth in 1820 a copy of _Paradise Regained_, 1671, with this inscription: "C. Lamb to the best Knower of Milton, and therefore the worthiest occupant of this pleasant Edition. June 2'd 1820."]

LETTER 582

CHARLES LAMB TO SARAH HAZLITT