Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to Samuel Rogers, [21 December 1833?]
[No date. Probably Saturday, December 21, 1833.]
MY dear Sir,—Your book, by the unremitting punctuality of
your publisher, has reached me thus early. I have not opened it, nor will till
to-morrow, when I promise myself a thorough reading of it. “The Pleasures of
Memory” was the first school present I made to Mrs. Moxon, it had those nice wood-cuts; and I
believe she keeps it still. Believe me, that all the kindness you have shown to
the husband of that excellent person
seems done unto myself. I have tried my hand at a sonnet in “The Times.” But the turn I gave it, though I
hoped it would not displease you, I thought might not be equally agreeable to
your artist. I met that dear old man at poor Henry’s—with you—and again at Cary’s—and it was sublime to see him sit deaf and enjoy
all that was going on in mirth with the company. He reposed upon the many
graceful, many fantastic images he had created; with them he dined and took
wine.
I have ventured at an antagonist copy of verses in
“The Athenæum” to
him, in which he is as everything and you as nothing. He is no lawyer who
cannot take two sides. But I am jealous of the combination of the sister arts.
Let them sparkle apart. What injury (short of the theatres) did not Boydell’s “Shakespeare
Gallery” do me with Shakespeare?—to have Opie’s Shakespeare, Northcote’s Shakespeare, light-headed
Fuseli’s Shakespeare,
heavy-headed Romney’s Shakespeare,
wooden-headed West’s
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| 924 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Dec. |
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Shakespeare (though he did the best in “Lear”), deaf-headed
Reynolds’s Shakespeare, instead
of my, and everybody’s Shakespeare. To be tied down
to an authentic face of Juliet! To have
Imogen’s portrait! To confine the
illimitable! I like you and Stothard
(you best), but “out upon this half-faced fellowship.” Sir,
when I have read the book I may trouble you, through Moxon, with some faint criticisms. It is not
the flatteringest compliment, in a letter to an author, to say you have not
read his book yet. But the devil of a reader he must be who prances through it
in five minutes, and no longer have I received the parcel. It was a little
tantalizing to me to receive a letter from Landor, Gebir Landor, from
Florence, to say he was just sitting down to read my “Elia,” just received, but the letter was
to go out before the reading. There are calamities in authorship which only
authors know. I am going to call on Moxon on Monday, if
the throng of carriages in Dover Street on the morn of publication do not
barricade me out.
With many thanks, and most respectful remembrances to your
sister,
Have you seen Coleridge’s happy exemplification in English of the
Ovidian elegiac metre?—
In the Hexameter rises the fountain’s silvery current, In the Pentameter aye falling in melody down. |
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My sister is papering up the book—careful soul!
John Boydell (1720-1804)
Engraver, print-seller, and lord mayor of London (1790); in 1786 he commissioned his
famous series of Shakespeare illustrations which he exhibited in a gallery in Pall
Mall.
Henry Francis Cary (1772-1844)
English poet; he was assistant-keeper of printed books at the British Museum (1826) and
translator of Dante (1805-19).
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
English poet and philosopher who projected
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
with William Wordsworth; author of
Biographia Literaria (1817),
On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other
works.
Henry Fuseli (1741-1825)
Anglo-Swiss painter who settled in England in 1764 and became the friend of William
Blake.
Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)
English poet and man of letters, author of the epic
Gebir (1798)
and
Imaginary Conversations (1824-29). He resided in Italy from 1815
to 1835.
Edward Moxon (1801-1858)
Poet and bookseller; after employment at Longman and Company he set up in 1830 with
financial assistance from Samuel Rogers and became the leading publisher of literary
poetry.
Emma Lamb Moxon [née Isola] (1809-1891)
The orphaned daughter of Charles Isola adopted by Charles and Mary Lamb; after working as
a governess she married Edward Moxon in 1833.
James Northcote (1746-1831)
English portrait-painter and writer who exhibited at the Royal Academy; he wrote a
Life of Titian (1830).
John Opie (1761-1807)
English painter brought to attention by John Wolcot; he was a member of the Royal Academy
and the husband of the writer Amelia Opie whom he married in 1798.
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792)
English portrait-painter and writer on art; he was the first president of the Royal
Academy (1768).
Henry Rogers (1774-1832)
Son of Thomas Rogers (1735-93) and youngest brother of the poet Thomas Rogers; he was the
head of the family bank, Rogers, Towgood, and Co. until 1824, and a friend of Charles
Lamb.
Samuel Rogers (1763-1855)
English poet, banker, and aesthete, author of the ever-popular
Pleasures of Memory (1792),
Columbus (1810),
Jaqueline (1814), and
Italy (1822-28).
Sarah Rogers (1772-1855)
Of Regent's Park. the younger sister of the poet Samuel Rogers; she lived with her
brother Henry in Highbury Terrace.
George Romney (1734-1802)
English painter, the rival of Joshua Reynolds and friend of the poet William Hayley; he
contributed three paintings to Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery (1791).
Thomas Stothard (1755-1834)
English painter and book-illustrator, a friend of John Flaxman and Samuel Rogers.
Benjamin West (1738-1820)
American-born historical painter who traveled to Europe in 1760 and was one of the
founders of the Royal Academy in London.
The Athenaeum. London Literary and Critical
Journal. (1828-1921). The
Athenaeum was founded by James Silk Buckingham; editors
included Frederick Denison Maurice (July 1828-May 1829) John Sterling (May 1829-June 1830),
Charles Wentworth Dilke (June 1830-1846), and Thomas Kibble Hervey (1846-1853).
The Times. (1785-). Founded by John Walter, The Times was edited by Thomas Barnes from 1817 to 1841. In the
romantic era it published much less literary material than its rival dailies, the
Morning Chronicle and the
Morning
Post.
