The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Part 73

That, sir, which serves and seeks for gain, And follows but for form, Will pack when it begins to rain, And leave thee in the storm.

Page 402, second and third quotations. "_The Nut-Brown Maid._" This poem is given in the _Percy Reliques_. The oldest form of it is in Arnolde's _Chronicle_, 1502. Lamb quotes from the penultimate stanza. Matthew Prior (1664-1721), who wrote a version under the t.i.tle "Henry and Emma,"

was a favourite with Lamb. In Miss Isola's Extract Book he copied Prior's "Female Phaeton." In this connection a pa.s.sage from the obituary notice of Lamb, written by Barren Field in the _Annual Biography and Obituary_, 1836, has peculiar interest. The doctrine referred to is "suppression in writing":--

We remember, at the very last supper we ate with him (Mr. Serjeant Talfourd will recollect it too), he quoted a pa.s.sage from Prior's "Henry and Emma," in ill.u.s.tration of this doctrine and discipline; and yet he said he loved Prior as much as any man, but that his "Henry and Emma" was a vapid paraphrase of the old poem of "The Nutbrowne Mayde." For example, at the _denouement_ of the ballad, Prior made Henry rant out to his devoted Emma:--

"In me behold the potent Edgar's heir, Ill.u.s.trious earl; him terrible in war Let Loire confess, for she has felt his sword, And trembling fled before the British Lord,"

and so on for a dozen couplets, heroic, as they are called. And then Mr. Lamb made us mark the modest simplicity with which the n.o.ble youth disclosed himself to his mistress in the old poem:--

"Now understand, To Westmoreland, _Which is my heritage_, (in a parenthesis, as it were,) I will you bring; And with a ring, By way of marriage, I will you take And lady make As shortly as I can: Thus have ye won _An earle's son_ And not a banish'd man."

Page 403, line 14 from foot. _M---- sent to his friend L----._ M---- probably stands for Basil Montagu, Lamb's friend, and the editor of the volume in which "Confessions of a Drunkard" appeared. L---- was probably Lamb himself.

Page 403, line 11 from foot. _Penotier._ The friend disguised under this name has not been identified. Nor has Parson W---- or F---- in a later paragraph. Mr. B. B. MacGeorge tells me that he has a copy of _John Woodvil_ inscribed in Lamb's hand to the Rev. J. Walton (or Watson).

Page 404, line 19. _39th of Exodus._ Lamb meant 39th of Genesis--the story of Joseph.

Page 405, line 12. _C----._ See Allsop's _Letters and Conversations of S. T. Coleridge_, 1836, Vol. I., page 206, or where Allsop quotes Lamb as saying, "I made that joke first (the _Scotch_ corner in h.e.l.l, _fire without brimstone_), though Coleridge somewhat licked it into shape."

Page 405, line 7 from foot. _Chapman's Homer._ It would have been quite possible for Shakespeare to have read part of Chapman's Homer before he wrote "Troilus and Cressida." That play was probably written in 1603, and seven books of Chapman's _Iliad_ came out in 1598, and the whole edition somewhere about 1609. Mr. Lee thinks that Shakespeare had read Chapman. The whole of the _Odyssey_ was published in 1614. It was from this version that Lamb prepared his _Adventures of Ulysses_, 1808.

Page 406. THE DEATH OF COLERIDGE.

Not printed by Lamb. These reflections were copied from the alb.u.m of Mr.

Keymer by John Forster, and quoted in the memorial article upon Lamb written by him in the _New Monthly Magazine_ for February, 1835, which he then edited. "Lamb never fairly recovered from the death of Coleridge," said Forster.

He thought of little else (his sister was but another portion of himself) until his own great spirit joined his friend. He had a habit of venting his melancholy in a sort of mirth. He would, with nothing graver than a pun, "cleanse his bosom of the perilous stuff that weighed" upon it. In a jest, or a few light phrases, he would lay open the last recesses of his heart. So in respect of the death of Coleridge. Some old friends of his saw him two or three weeks ago, and remarked the constant turning and reference of his mind.

He interrupted himself and them almost every instant with some play of affected wonder, or astonishment, or humorous melancholy, on the words, "_Coleridge is dead._" Nothing could divert him from that, for the thought of it never left him.

It was then that Forster asked Lamb to inscribe something in Mr.

Keymer's alb.u.m: the pa.s.sage on Coleridge was the result. Keymer was a London bookseller--the same to whom Bernard Barton, after Lamb's death, sent a character sketch of Lamb (see _Bernard Barton and His Friends_, page 113). Lamb, I might add, was much offended, as he told Mr. Fuller Russell, by a request from _The Athenaeum_, immediately after Coleridge's death, for an article upon him.

Coleridge died in the house of James Gillman, in the Grove, Highgate, July 25, 1834, five months before Lamb's death. On his deathbed Coleridge had written, in pencil, in a copy of his _Poetical Works_, against the poem "This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison," the words: "_Ch. and Mary Lamb--dear to my heart, yea, as it were, my heart. S. T. C. Aet.

63, 1834. 1797-1834--37 years!_"

Coleridge's will contained this clause:--

And further, as a relief to my own feelings by the opportunity of mentioning their names, that I request of my executor, that a small plain gold mourning ring, with my hair, may be presented to the following persons, namely: To my close friend and ever-beloved schoolfellow, Charles Lamb--and in the deep and almost life-long affection of which this is the slender record; his equally-beloved sister, Mary Lamb, will know herself to be included ...

The names of five other friends followed.

Page 407. CUPID'S REVENGE.

This paraphrase of Beaumont and Fletcher's play of the same name is placed here on account of the mystery of its date. Probably it belongs to a stage in Lamb's career some years earlier. It was printed first in _Harper's Magazine_, December, 1858, with the following prefatory note:--

The autograph MS. of this unpublished Tale by Charles Lamb came into our hands in the following manner: Thomas Allsop, Esq., who came to this country a few months since in consequence of his alleged complicity in the attempt made upon the life of Louis Napoleon by Orsini, was for many years an intimate friend and correspondent of Coleridge and Lamb. He is known as the author of the _Recollections, etc., of Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, published nearly a quarter of a century ago. He brought with him in his flight to America a number of ma.n.u.scripts of his friends. Among these were a volume of "Marginalia" by Coleridge; a series of notes by Lamb, nearly a hundred in all, many of them highly characteristic of the writer; and the tale of "Cupid's Revenge"

which appears to have remained unpublished in consequence of the cessation of the magazine for which it was written. These MSS. have all been placed in our hands. In an early number we propose to publish a selection from the letters of Lamb, and the "Marginalia"

of Coleridge.

(_Editors of Harper's Magazine._)

A large number of the notes from Lamb to Allsop were published, as promised, under the editorship of George William Curtis. Allsop died in 1880.

APPENDIX

Page 425. Sc.r.a.pS OF CRITICISM.

_London Magazine_, December, 1822. Not signed.

In December, 1822, the editor of the _London Magazine_ inaugurated a new department to be called "The Miscellany"--a place of refuge for small ingenious productions. To ask Lamb's a.s.sistance would be the most natural thing in the world, and though no signature is attached, there is, I think, enough internal evidence for us to consider his the contribution to the first instalment which has the sub-t.i.tle, "Sc.r.a.ps of Criticism."

The first two notes, on Gray, may be taken as companions to that in _The Examiner_ Table-Talk (page 181), on the beard of Gray's Bard. The note on Richard III. is of a part with Lamb's Shakespearian criticisms, and it comes here as a kind of postscript to his examination of Cooke's impersonation (see page 41 and note to the same).

Page 425, second quotation. This pa.s.sage describing Milton is in Gray's _Progress of Poesy_, III., 2, and not, as Lamb inadvertently says, in _The Bard_.

Page 425, foot. _Salmasius._ Salmasius, Claude de Saumaise (1588-1653), a professor at Leyden who wrote a defence of Charles I. in Latin, 1649, to which Milton replied, 1650, also in Latin. It was while engaged in this work that Milton lost his sight.

Page 426, second paragraph. _Howell's Letters. Epistolae Ho-Elianae: Familiar Letters, Domestic and Foreign, divided into Sundry Sections, partly Historical, Political and Philosophical, 1645-1655._ By James Howell (1594?-1666). It was James Russell Lowell's theory (shared by other critics) that Lamb borrowed the name Elia from _Ho-Elianae_. But this was not the case. The letter referred to in line 22 is to Captain Thomas Porter, July 10, 1623; and the fourth letter from which Lamb quotes is to Sir James Crofts, August 21, 1623. I have restored Howell's capitals. The italics are Lamb's.

Page 427, at the end. _The Salutation._ Lamb was probably wrong in this theory. According to Larwood and Hotten's _History of Signboards_, 1867, the sign originally represented an angel saluting the Virgin Mary. In the time of the Commonwealth this was changed to a soldier saluting a civilian; and later it became the salutation of two citizens: the form of the old sign of the Salutation in Newgate Street, where Coleridge lived a while, and where Lamb and he talked into the night over egg-hot.

Ben Jonson's Salutation, referred to in "Bartholomew Fair," was in Billingsgate. Salutation and Cat was a blend of two signs.

Page 427. THE CHOICE OF A GRAVE. _London Magazine_, January, 1823. Not signed.

There is a pa.s.sage in the _Elia_ essay on "Distant Correspondents,"

concerning Lord Camelford's fantastic instructions concerning the burial of his body, which bears upon this same subject.

Page 428. WILKS. _London Magazine_, January, 1823. Not signed.

John Wilkes (1727-1797) of _The North Briton_. Barry Cornwall writes in his Memoir of Lamb: "I remember that, at one of the monthly magazine dinners, when John Wilkes was too roughly handled, Lamb quoted the story (not generally known) of his replying, when the blackbirds were reported to have stolen all his cherries, 'Poor birds, they are welcome.' He said that those impulsive words showed the inner nature of the man more truly that all his political speeches."

Page 428. MILTON. _London Magazine_, February, 1823. Not signed.

Page 428, foot. _Mr. Todd._ Henry John Todd (1763-1845), whose edition of Milton in six volumes, for long the standard, was first published in 1801. The lines in question are crossed out in the original ma.n.u.script of _Comus_, now preserved at Trinity College, Cambridge, and are not printed in ordinary editions of Milton. Todd was the first to print them, in his edition of _Comus_, 1798.