Memoirs of William Hazlitt
Ch. XII 1808
Mary Lamb to Sarah Stoddart Hazlitt, [30 March 1810]
[Nov. 30, 1810.]
“My dear Sarah,
“I have taken a large sheet of paper, as if I were
going to write a long letter; but that is by no means my intention, for I only
have time to write three lines to notify what I ought to have done the moment I
received your welcome letter, namely, that I shall be very much joyed to see
you. Every morning lately I have been expecting to see you drop in, even before
your letter came; and I have been setting my wits to work how to make you as
comfortable as the nature of our inhospitable habits will admit. I must work
while you are here, and I have been trying very hard to get through with
something before you come, that I may be quite in the way of it, and not tease
you with complaints all day that I do not know what to do.
“I am very sorry to hear of your mischance. . . . The
alternating Wednesdays will chop off one day in the week from your jollydays,
and I do not know how I ![]()
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shall make it
up to you. But I will contrive the best I can. Phillips comes again pretty regularly, to the great joy of
Mrs. Reynolds. Once more she hears
the well-loved sounds of ‘How do you do, Mrs.
Reynolds? How does Miss Chambers
do?’
“I have drawn out my three lines amazingly. Now for
family news. Your brother’s little twins are not dead; but Mrs. John Hazlitt and her baby may be for
anything I know to the contrary, for I have not been there for a prodigious
long time. Mrs. Holcroft still goes
about from Nicholson to Tuthill, from
Tuthill to Godwin, and from Godwin
to Tuthill, and from Tuthill to
Nicholson, to consult on the publication or no
publication of the life of
the good man her husband. It is called the ‘Life
Everlasting.’ How does that same Life go on in your parts?
“Good-bye. God bless you. I shall be glad to see you
when you come this way.
“Yours most affectionately,
“M. Lamb.
* * *
* * *
“Mrs. Hazlitt, at Mr.
Hazlitt’s,
“Winterslow, near Salisbury.”
William Godwin (1756-1836)
English novelist and political philosopher; author of
An Inquiry
concerning the Principles of Political Justice (1793) and
Caleb
Williams (1794); in 1797 he married Mary Wollstonecraft.
Louisa Kenney [née Mercier] (1780 c.-1853)
The daughter of the French writer Louis-Sébastien Mercier and former (fourth) wife of
Thomas Holcroft; in 1812 she married the Irish playwright James Kenney.
William John Godolphin Nicholls (1789 c.-1815)
Of Trereife in Cornwall, the son of William Nicholls; he was tutored by Charles Valentine
Le Grice, who in 1799 married his mother (née Mary Ustick) who would inherit the estate
upon the death of her son.
William Nicholson (1753-1815)
Originally an agent for Josiah Wedgwood, he pursued a career as a chemist, writer on
science, and projector; he was a friend of Thomas Holcroft and William Godwin.
Edward Phillips (1771-1844)
He was clerk to John Rickman whom he succeeded as secretary to the speaker of the House
of Commons (1814-33); he was also a friend of Charles Lamb.
Elizabeth Reynolds [née Chambers] (d. 1832)
The daughter of Charles Chambers (d. 1777); she was an older friend of Charles Lamb who
had once been his schoolmistress.
Sir George Leman Tuthill (1772-1835)
Educated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, he was detained in France before
completing his medical education; he was physician to Westminster, Bridewell and Bethlem
hospitals. He was a friend of Thomas Manning and Charles Lamb; Mary Lamb was among his
patients.
