The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Part 57

In _The Champion_ for December 11, 1814, was printed a letter defending tailors against Lamb.

Page 204. ON NEEDLE-WORK.

_The British Lady's Magazine and Monthly Miscellany_, April 1, 1815. By Mary Lamb.

The authority for attributing this paper to Mary Lamb is Crabb Robinson.

In his Diary for December 11, 1814, he writes: "I called on Miss Lamb, and chatted with her. She was not unwell, but she had undergone great fatigue from writing an article about needle-work for the new _Ladies'

British Magazine_. She spoke of writing as a most painful occupation, which only necessity could make her attempt."

We know that Mary Lamb's needle was required to help keep the Lamb family, not only after Samuel Salt's death in 1792, when they had to move from the Temple, but very likely while they were there also. In one of the newspaper accounts of the tragedy of September, 1796, she is described as "a mantua-maker." Possibly she continued to sew for a while after she joined her brother, in 1799, but she would hardly call that "early life," being thirty-five in that year.

Page 210. ON THE POETICAL WORKS OF GEORGE WITHER.

This is the one prose article that, to the best of our knowledge, made its first and only appearance in the _Works_ (1818). It was inspired by John Mathew Gutch (1776-1861), Lamb's schoolfellow at Christ's Hospital, with whom he shared rooms in Southampton Buildings in 1800. Later, when Gutch had become proprietor, at Bristol, of _Felix Farley's Bristol Journal_ (in which many of Chatterton's poems had appeared), he took advantage of his press to set up a private edition of selections from Wither, a poet then little known and not easily accessible, an interleaved copy of which, in two volumes, was sent to Lamb in 1809 or 1810. Gutch told the story in an Appendix to his _Lytell Geste of Robin Hoode_ (1847), wherein he printed a letter from Lamb dated April 9, 1810, concerning the edition, in the course of which Lamb remarks: "I never saw _Philarete_ before--judge of my pleasure. I could not forbear scribbling certain critiques in pencil on the blank leaves.... Perhaps I could digest the few critiques prefixed to the 'Satires,' 'Shepherd's Hunting,' etc., into a short abstract of Wither's character and works...."

Lamb returned the book with this letter; and Gutch seems to have then sent it to Dr. John Nott (1751-1825), of the Hot Wells, Bristol, a medical man with literary tastes, and the author of a number of translations, medical treatises, and subsequently of an edition of Herrick; who added comments of his own both upon Wither and upon Lamb.

Lamb, Gutch tells us, subsequently asked for the book again, with the intention of preparing from it the present essay on Wither, and coming then upon Nott's criticisms of himself, superimposed sarcastic criticisms of Nott. Thus the volumes contain first Wither, then Gutch and Lamb on Wither, then Nott on Wither and Lamb, and then Lamb on Nott again and incidentally on Wither again, too, for some of his earlier opinions were slightly modified.

Lamb gave the volume to his friend John Brook Pulham of the East India House, and the treasure pa.s.sed to the fitting possession of the late Mr.

Swinburne, who described it in a paper in the _Nineteenth Century_ for January, 1885, afterwards republished in his _Miscellanies_, 1886. Mr.

Swinburne permitted me to quote from his very entertaining a.n.a.lysis:--

The second fly-leaf of the first volume bears the inscription, "Jas Pulham Esqr. from Charles Lamb." A proof impression of the well-known profile sketch of Lamb by Pulham has been inserted between this and the preceding fly-leaf. The same place is occupied in the second volume by the original pencil drawing, to which is attached an engraving of it "Scratched on Copper by his Friend Brook Pulham;" and on the fly-leaf following is a second inscription--"James Pulham Esq. from his friend Chas Lamb." On the reverse of the leaf inscribed with these names in the first volume begins the commentary afterwards republished, with slight alterations and transpositions, as an essay "on the poetical works of George Wither...."

After the quotation from Drayton, with which the printed essay concludes, the ma.n.u.script proceeds thus:--

"The whole poem, for the delicacy of the thoughts, and height of the pa.s.sion, is equal to the best of Spenser's, Daniel's or Drayton's love verses; with the advantage of comprising in a whole all the fine things which lie scatter'd in their works, in sonnets, and smaller addresses--The happy chearful spirit of the author goes with it all the way; that _sanguine temperament_, which gives to all Wither's lines (in his most loved metre especially, where chiefly he is a Poet) an elasticity, like a dancing measure; it [is] as full of joy, and confidence, and high and happy thoughts, as if it were his own Epithalamium which, like Spenser, he were singing, and not a piece of perambulary, probationary flattery...."[67]

[67] Lamb subsequently altered the conclusion of this paragraph to: "as if, like Spenser, he were singing his own Epithalamium, and not a strain of probationary courtship."

On page 70 Lamb has proposed a new reading which speaks for itself--"Jove's endeared Ganimed," for the meaningless "endured" of the text before him. Against a couplet now made famous by his enthusiastic citation of it--

"Thoughts too deep to be expressed And too strong to be suppressed--"

he has written--"Two eminently beautiful lines." Opposite the couplet in which Wither mentions the poets

"whose verse set forth Rosalind and Stella's worth"

Gutch (as I suppose) has written the names of Lodge and Sidney; under which Lamb has pencilled the words "Qu. Spenser and Sidney;"

perhaps the more plausible conjecture, as the date of Lodge's popularity was out, or nearly so, before Wither began to write.

The next verses [_The Shepherd's Hunting_] are worth transcription on their own account no less than on account of Lamb's annotation.

"It is known what thou canst do, For it is not long ago When that Cuddy, thou, and I, Each the other's skill to try, At St. Dunstan's charmed well, (As some present there can tell) Sang upon a sudden theme, Sitting by the crimson stream; Where if thou didst well or no Yet remains the song to show."

To the fifth of these verses the following note is appended:--

"The Devil Tavern, Fleet Street, where Child's Place now stands, and where a sign hung in my memory within 18" (subst.i.tuted for 16) "years, of the Devil and St. Dunstan--Ben Jonson made this a famous place of resort for poets by drawing up a set of Leges Convivales which were engraven in marble on the chimney piece in the room called Apollo. One of Drayton's poems is called The Sacrifice to Apollo; it is addrest to the priests or Wits of Apollo, and is a kind of poetical paraphrase upon the Leges Convivales--This tavern to the very last kept up a room with that name. C. L."--who might have added point and freshness to this brief account by citing the splendid description of a revel held there under the jovial old Master's auspices, given by Careless to Aurelia [Carlesse to aemilia] in Shakerley Marmion's admirable comedy, _A Fine Companion_. But it is remarkable that Lamb--if I mistake not--has never quoted or mentioned that brilliant young dramatist and poet who divided with Randolph the best part of Jonson's mantle....

At the close of Wither's high-spirited and manly postscript to the poem on which, as he tells us, his publisher had bestowed the name of _The Shepherd's Hunting_, a pa.s.sage occurs which has provoked one of the most characteristic outbreaks of wrath and mirth to be found among all Lamb's notes on Nott's notes on Lamb's notes on the text of Wither. "Neither am I so _cynical_ but that I think a modest expression of such amorous conceits as suit with reason, will yet very well become my years; in which not to have feeling of the power of _love_, were as great an argument of much stupidity, as an over-sottish affection were of extreme folly." In ill.u.s.tration of this simple and dignified sentence Lamb cites the following most apt and admirable parallel.

"'Nor blame it, readers, in those years to propose to themselves such a reward, as the n.o.blest dispositions above other things in this life have sometimes preferred; whereof not to be sensible, when good and fair in one person meet, argues both a gross and shallow judgment, and withall an ungentle and swainish breast.'

"_Milton_--Apology for Smectymn[u]us."

"Why is this quoted?" demands the too inquisitive Nott; "I see little similarity." "It was quoted for those who _can_ see,"

rejoins Lamb, with three thick strokes of his contemptuous pencil under the luckless Doctor's poor personal p.r.o.noun; on which this special note of indignation is added beneath.

"I. I. I. I. I. in Capitals!-- for shame, write _your_ Ego thus little i with a dot stupid Nott!"

At the opening of the second we find the notes on _Abuses stript and whipt_ which in their revised condition as part of the essay on Wither are familiar to all lovers of English letters. They begin with the second paragraph of that essay, in which sundry slight and delicate touches of improvement have fortified or simplified the original form of expression. After the sentence which describes the vehemence of Wither's love for goodness and hatred of baseness, the ma.n.u.script proceeds thus: "His moral feeling is work'd up into a sort of pa.s.sion, something as Milton describes himself at a like early age, that night and day he laboured to attain to a certain idea which he had of perfection." Another cancelled pa.s.sage is one which originally followed on the reflection that "perhaps his premature defiance often exposed him" (altered in the published essay to "sometimes made him obnoxious") "to censures, which he would otherwise have slipped by." The ma.n.u.script continues: "But in this he is as faulty as some of the primitive Christians are described to have been, who were ever ready to outrun the executioner...."

This not immoderate satire on clerical ambition seems to have ruffled the spiritual plumage of Dr. Nott, who brands it as a "very dull essay indeed." To whom, in place of exculpation or apology, Lamb returns this question by way of answer:--"Why double-dull it with thy dull commentary? have you nothing to cry out but 'very dull,' 'a little better,' 'this has some spirit,' 'this is prosaic,' foh!

"If the sun of Wither withdraw a while, Clamour not for joy, Owl, it will out again, and blear thy envious Eyes!..."

The commentary on 'Wither's Motto' will be remembered by all students of the most exquisite critical essays in any language.

They will not be surprised to learn that neither the style nor the matter of it found any favour in the judicial eye of Nott. "There is some tautology in this, and some of the sentences are harsh--These repet.i.tions are very awkward; but the whole sentence is obscure and far-fetched in sentiment;" such is the fashion in which this unlucky particle of a pedant has bescribbled the margin of Lamb's beautiful ma.n.u.script. But those for whom alone I write will share my pleasure in reading the original paragraph as it came fresh from the spontaneous hand of the writer, not as yet adapted or accommodated by any process of revision to the eye of the general reader.

"Wither's Motto.

"The poem which Wither calls his _Motto_ is a continued self-eulogy" (originally written "self-eulogium") "of two thousand lines: yet one reads it to the end without feeling any distaste, or being hardly conscious of having listen'd so long to a man praising himself. There are none of the cold particles of vanity in it; no hardness or self-ends" (altered to "no want of feeling, no selfishness;" but restored in the published text), "which are the qualities that make Egotism hateful--The writer's mind was continually glowing with images of virtue, and a n.o.ble scorn of vice: what it felt, it honestly believed it possessed, and as honestly avowed it; yet so little is this consciousness mixed up with any alloy of selfishness, that the writer seems to be praising qualities in another person rather than in himself; or, to speak more properly, we feel that it was indifferent to him, where he found the virtues; but that being best acquainted with himself, he chose to celebrate himself as their best known receptacle. We feel that he would give to goodness its praise, wherever found; that it is not a quality which he loves for his own low self which possesses it; but himself that he respects for the qualities which he imagines he finds in himself. With these feelings, and without them, it is impossible to read it, it is as beautiful a piece of _self_-confession as the _Religio Medici_ of Browne.

"It will lose nothing also if we contrast it" (or, as previously written, "It may be worth while also to contrast it") "with the Confessions of Rousseau." ("How is Rousseau a.n.a.logous?" queries the interrogatory Nott: on whom Lamb retorts--"a.n.a.logous?!! why, this note was written to show the _difference_ not the _a.n.a.logy_ between them. C. L.") "In every page of the latter we are disgusted with the vanity, which brings forth faults, and begs us to take them (or at least the acknowledgment of them) for virtue. But in Wither we listen to a downright confession of unambiguous virtues; and love the heart which has the confidence to pour itself out." Here, at a later period, Lamb has written--"C. L. thus far." On the phrase "confession of unambiguous virtues" Dr. Nott has obliged us with the remark--"this seems an odd a.s.sociation:" and has received this answer:--"It was _meant_ to be an odd one, to puzzle a certain sort of people. C. L."--whose words should be borne in mind by every reader of his essays or letters who may chance to take exception to some pa.s.sing turn of speech intended, or at least not wholly undesigned, to give occasion for that same "certain sort of people"

to stumble or to trip.

So far Mr. Swinburne. After his death the Wither was sold to America by Mr. Watts-Dunton and is now in the library of Mr. John A. Spoor of Chicago. Mr. Swinburne's description was supplemented by the American bibliophile Mr. Luther S. Livingston in the _New York Evening Post_, April 30, 1910.

Gutch, it seems, was sufficiently interested in Wither to undertake a really representative edition, the editorship of which was entrusted to Nott. The work was issued in 1820, without either date or publisher's name. There is a copy in the British Museum which is in four volumes, the fourth incomplete. On the fly-leaf is written: "This selection of the Poems of Wither was printed by Gutch, of Bristol, about twenty years since, and was edited by Dr. Nott. The work remained unfinished, and was sold for waste-paper; a few copies only were preserved. 1839."

Mr. Livingston says that there is another copy of this work, in New York. "It is in four volumes, with the t.i.tle, 'Selections from the Juvenilia and Other Poems of George Wither, with a prefatory Essay by John Matthew Gutch, F.S.A., and His Life, by Robert Aris Wilmott, Esq., Vol. I. [etc.] Typ. Felix Farley: Bristol.' In addition, the first volume has another t.i.tle-page, 'Poems by George Wither, in four volumes.

Vol. I. London: 1839.' On the verso of this is the following Preface:--

"These Poems were many years ago edited and printed at Bristol by Mr. Gutch: Proof sheets being submitted to Dr. Nott, and the celebrated Charles Lamb, who wrote some very pithy comments on the Notes of the Doctor, which have not been printed. The work was never completed, and the whole impression was consigned to the 'Tomb of the Capulets' and supposed to be effectually destroyed.

Now, however, by the resuscitating powers of sundry Bristol Book Chapmen, 'Monsieur Tonson's come again!' etc.

Signed 'J. R. S.' and dated 'London, 1839'."

Gutch himself prepared a life of Wither, but it was not printed in this edition and is still unpublished. The amusing feature of the edition is that Nott, sometimes with slight and deteriorating changes, and sometimes without alteration, uses, in addition to his own comments, many of Lamb's notes also as his own; which, if 1820 is really the date, is the more curious, since a comparison with Lamb's essay in the _Works_, 1818, would expose the conveyance. Probably the edition was in type some time before it was issued. We know at any rate that it was prepared before 1818, because Lamb had his notes back again in time to use them in writing his essay published early in that year, and finished probably some time earlier. If Lamb ever saw Nott's edition--which is more than probable--it is a pity that in his correspondence is preserved no letter containing his opinion on the matter.

Nott, for example, lifted the whole of the pa.s.sage in praise of "Fair Virtue or the Mistress of Philarete," beginning "There is a singular beauty," and ending with "probationary courtship," as described above by Mr. Swinburne, and signed it "Editor." He also annexed the reminiscence of the Devil Tavern, making it "within the memory of the Editor," and adapted the criticisms beginning "Wither's prison notes" (fifth paragraph of the present essay) and "Wither's motto" (first paragraph) to his own uses. As a specimen of Nott's treatment of his predecessor's notes we may take that on long lines, which stands as a note at the end of the essay. This is Nott's version:--

_If thy verse do bravely tower._ A _long_ line is a line _we are long in repeating_. Mark the time which it takes to repeat these lines properly! What slow movements could Alexandrines express more than these? "_As she makes wing, she gets power._" One makes a foot of every syllable. Wither was certainly a perfect master of this species of verse.