DEAR Manning,—I sent you a long letter by the ships which sailed the beginning of last month, accompanied with books, &c. Since I last wrote, Holcroft is dead. He died on Thursday last.1
1 [See Appendix II., page 970. |
| 396 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | March |
| 1809 | LAMB’S WEDNESDAYS | 397 |
[Thomas Holcroft died on March 23, 1809, aged sixty-three.
Mitre Court Buildings, Southampton Buildings and Inner Temple Lane (Lamb’s homes) have all been rebuilt since Lamb’s day.
“That word ‘moving.’” Lamb later elaborated and condensed this passage, in the Elia essay “New Year’s Eve”: “Any alteration, on this earth of mine, in diet or in lodging, puzzles and discomposes me. My household-gods plant a terrible fixed foot, and are not rooted up without blood.”
“Mrs. Clarke.” Mary Anne Clarke (1776-1852), mistress of the Duke of York, Commander-in-Chief, whose reception of money from officers as a return for procuring them preferment or promising to, by her influence with the Duke, had just been exposed in Parliament, and was causing immense excitement.
“Godwin’s little book.” This may have been the Essay on Sepulchres. Godwin’s Lives of Edward and John Phillips, Milton’s nephews, appeared also at this time.
“Mrs. ——.” Most probably Mrs. Godwin once more.
“Not the Sheriff.” Alluding to Sir Richard Phillips, the publisher, who was elected Sheriff of London in 1807, and was knighted in 1808.]
| 398 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | June |
DEAR Sir,—Would you be so kind as, when you go to the Times office, to see about an Advertisement which My Landlady’s Daughter left for insertion about ten days since and has not appeared, for a Governesses Place? The references are to Thorpe & Graves 18 Lower Holborn, and to M. B. 115 Oxford St. Though not anxious about attitudes, she pines for a situation. I got home tolerably well, as I hear, the other evening. It may be a warning to any one in future to ask me to a dinner party. I always disgrace myself. I floated up stairs on the Coachman’s back, like Ariel; “On a bat’s back I do fly, After sunset merrily.”
[Lamb used the simile of Ariel at least twice afterwards: at the close of the Elia essay “Rejoicings on the New Year’s Coming-of-Age,” and in Letter 489, on page 844, to J. V. Asbury of Enfield, the Lambs’ doctor.]
“YOU may write to Hazlitt, that I will certainly go to Winterslough, as my Father has agreed to give me 5l. to bear my expences, and has given leave that I may stop till that is spent, leaving enough to defray my Carriage on the 14th July.”
So far Martin has written, and further than that I can give you no intelligence, for I do not yet know Phillips’s intentions; nor can I tell you the exact time when we can come; nor can I positively say we shall come at all; for we have scruples of conscience about there being so many of us.
Martin says, if you can borrow a blanket
or two, he can sleep on the floor, without either bed or mattress, which would
save his
| 1809 | PLANS FOR WINTERSLOW | 399 |
We can spare you also just five pounds. You are not to say this to Hazlitt, lest his delicacy should be alarmed; but I tell you what Martin and I have planned, that, if you happen to be empty pursed at this time, you may think it as well to make him up a bed in the best kitchen.
I think it very probable that Phillips will come; and, if you do not like such a croud of us, for they both talk of staying a whole month, tell me so, and we will put off our visit till next summer.
The 14th July is the day Martin has fixed for coming. I should have written before, if I could have got a positive answer from them.
Thank you very much for the good work you have done for me. Mrs. Stoddart also thanks you for the gloves. How often must I tell you never to do any needle work for any body but me?
Martin Burney has been very ill, and still is very weak and pale. Mrs. Holcroft and all her children, and all her scholars, have had the measles. Your old friend, Mrs. Fenwick, is in town.
We are going to see Mrs. Martin and her daughter, Mrs. Fulton (Sarah Martin), and I expect to see there the future husband of Louisa. It will be a charming evening, doubtless.
I cannot write any more, for we have got a noble Life of Lord Nelson lent us for a short time by my poor relation the book binder, and I want to read as much of it as I can.
On reading Martin’s note over again, we guess the Captain means him to stay only a fortnight. It is most likely we shall come the beginning of July.
[The Lambs were proposing to spend their holidays with the Hazlitts, in July, and to take Colonel Phillips and his nephew Martin Burney with them. (Or possibly it was the other Phillips.) As it happened, however, Mary Lamb was taken ill almost immediately after writing this letter, and the visit had to be postponed until September and October.
The Hut was the Winterslow inn.
“My poor relation the book binder.” See Letter 415.]
| 400 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | June |
DEAR Coleridge,—I congratulate you on the appearance of “The Friend.” Your first number promises well, and I have no doubt the succeeding numbers will fulfil the promise. I had a kind letter from you some time since, which I have left unanswered. I am also obliged to you, I believe, for a review in the “Annual,” am I not? The “Monthly Review” sneers at me, and asks “if ‘Comus’ is not good enough for Mr. Lamb?” because I have said no good serious dramas have been written since the death of Charles the First, except “Samson Agonistes”; so because they do not know, or won’t remember, that “Comus” was written long before, I am to be set down as an undervaluer of Milton! O Coleridge, do kill those reviews, or they will kill us—kill all we like! Be a friend to all else, but their foe. I have been turned out of my chambers in the Temple by a landlord who wanted them for himself; but I have got other at No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, far more commodious and roomy. I have two rooms on third floor and five rooms above, with an inner staircase to myself, and all new painted, &c., and all for £30 a year! I came into them on Saturday week; and on Monday following, Mary was taken ill with fatigue of moving, and affected, I believe, by the novelty of the home; she could not sleep, and I am left alone with a maid quite a stranger to me, and she has a month or two’s sad distraction to go through. What sad large pieces it cuts out of life—out of her life, who is getting rather old; and we may not have many years to live together! I am weaker, and bear it worse than I ever did. But I hope we shall be comfortable by and bye. The rooms are delicious, and the best look backwards into Hare Court, where there is a pump always going. Just now it is dry. Hare Court trees come in at the window, so that it’s like living in a garden. I try to persuade myself it is much pleasanter than Mitre Court; but, alas! the household gods are slow to come in a new mansion. They are in their infancy to me; I do not feel them yet; no hearth has blazed to them yet. How I hate and dread new places!
I was very glad to see Wordsworth’s book advertised; I am to have it to-morrow
lent me, and if Wordsworth don’t send me an order
for one upon Longman, I will buy it. It
is greatly extolled and liked by all who have seen it. Let me hear from some of
you, for I am desolate. I shall have to send you, in a week or two, two volumes
of Juvenile Poetry, done by
Mary and me within the last
| 1809 | “IF EVER I MARRY A WIFE” | 401 |
Nevertheless, do not understand by this that I have not quite enough for my occasions for a year or two to come. While I think on it, Coleridge, I fetch’d away my books which you had at the “Courier” Office, and found all but a third volume of the old plays, containing “The White Devil,” “Green’s Tu Quoque,” and the “Honest Whore,”—perhaps the most valuable volume of them all—that I could not find. Pray, if you can, remember what you did with it, or where you took it out with you a walking perhaps; send me word; for, to use the old plea, it spoils a set. I found two other volumes (you had three), the “Arcadia,” and “Daniel,” enriched with manuscript notes. I wish every book I have were so noted. They have thoroughly converted me to relish Daniel, or to say I relish him, for, after all, I believe I did relish him. You well call him sober-minded. Your notes are excellent. Perhaps you’ve forgot them. I have read a review in the “Quarterly,” by Southey, on the Missionaries, which is most masterly. I only grudge it being there. It is quite beautiful. Do remember my Dodsley; and pray do write, or let some of you write. Clarkson tells me you are in a smoky house. Have you cured it? It is hard to cure anything of smoking. Our little poems are but humble, but they have no name. You must read them, remembering they were task-work; and perhaps you will admire the number of subjects, all of children, picked out by an old Bachelor and an old Maid. Many parents would not have found so many. Have you read “Cœlebs?” It has reached eight editions in so many weeks; yet literally it is one of the very poorest sort of common novels, with the draw-back of dull religion in it. Had the religion been high and flavoured, it would have been something. I borrowed this “Cœlebs in Search of a Wife” of a very careful, neat lady, and returned it with this stuff written in the beginning:—
“If ever I marry a wife I’d marry a landlord’s daughter, For then I may sit in the bar. And drink cold brandy-and-water.” |
| 402 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | June |
I don’t expect you can find time from your “Friend” to write to me much, but write something, for there has been a long silence. You know Holcroft is dead. Godwin is well. He has written a very pretty, absurd book about sepulchres. He was affronted because I told him it was better than Hervey, but not so good as Sir T. Browne. This letter is all about books; but my head aches, and I hardly know what I write; but I could not let “The Friend” pass without a congratulatory epistle. I won’t criticise till it comes to a volume. Tell me how I shall send my packet to you?—by what conveyance?—by Longman, Short-man, or how? Give my Kindest remembrances to Wordsworth. Tell him he must give me a book. My kind love to Mrs. W. and to Dorothy separately and conjointly. I wish you could all come and see me in my new rooms. God bless you all.
[The first number of The Friend was dated June 1, 1809.
Lamb’s Dramatic Specimens had been reviewed in the Annual Review for 1808, with discrimination and approval (see Vol. IV. of this edition, page 600), but whether or not by Coleridge I do not know.
Wordsworth’s book was his pamphlet on the “Convention of Cintra.”
The Juvenile Poetry was Poetry for Children. Entirely Original. By the author of Mrs. Leicester’s School. In two volumes. 1809. Mrs. Leicester’s School, 1809, had been published a little before. Wordsworth’s favourite tale was Arabella Hardy’s “The Sea Voyage.”
I know nothing of the annotated copy of Sidney’s Arcadia. Daniel’s Poetical Works, 12mo, 1718, two volumes, with marginalia by Lamb and Coleridge, is still preserved. The copy of Hannah More’s Cœlebs in Search of a Wife, 1809, with Lamb’s verses, is not, I think, now known.
Southey’s missionary article was in the first number of the Quarterly, February, 1809.
Hervey wrote Meditations among the Tombs; Sir Thomas Browne, Urn Burial.
Here should come four letters from Lamb to Charles Lloyd, Senior, not available for this edition. They are all printed in Charles Lamb and the Lloyds. The first, dated June 13, 1809, contains an interesting criticism of a translation of the twenty-fourth book of the Iliad, which Charles Lloyd, the father of Robert Lloyd, had made. Lamb says that what he misses, and misses also in Pope, is a savage-like plainness of speaking.
| 1809 | TRANSLATIONS OF HOMER | 403 |
“The heroes in Homer are not half civilized—they utter all the cruel, all the selfish, all the mean thoughts even of their nature, which it is the fashion of our great men to keep in.”
Mr. Lloyd had translated άοιδούς (line 720) “minstrels.” Lamb says “minstrels I suspect to be a word bringing merely English or English ballad feelings to the Mind. It expresses the thing and something more, as to say Sarpedon was a Gentleman, or as somebody translated Paul’s address, ‘Ye men of Athens,’ ‘Gentlemen of Athens.’”
The second letter, dated June 19, 1809, continues the subject. Lamb writes: “I am glad to see you venture made and maid for rhymes. ’Tis true their sound is the same. But the mind occupied in revolving the different meaning of two words so literally the same, is diverted from the objection which the mere Ear would make, and to the mind it is rhyme enough.”
In the third letter, dated July 31, 1809, Lamb remarks of translators of Homer, that Cowper delays one as much, walking over a Bowling Green, as Milton does, travelling over steep Alpine heights.
The fourth letter, undated, accompanies criticisms of Mr. Lloyd’s translation of the Odyssey, Books 1 and 2. Mr. Lloyd had translated βους Ήελίοιο (Book 1, line 8) “Bullocks of the Sun.” Lamb wrote: “Oxen of the Sun, I conjure. Bullocks is too Smithfield and sublunary a Word. Oxen of the Sun, or of Apollo, but in any case not Bullocks.”
With a letter to Robert Lloyd, belonging to this year, Lamb sends Poetry for Children, and states that the poem “The Beggar Man” is by his brother, John Lamb.]
DEAR Coleridge,—I have but this moment received your letter, dated
the 9th instant, having just come off a journey from Wiltshire, where I have
been with Mary on a visit to Hazlitt. The journey has been of infinite
service to her. We have had nothing but sunshiny days and daily walks from
eight to twenty miles a-day; have seen Wilton, Salisbury, Stonehenge, &c.
Her illness lasted but six weeks; it left her weak, but the country has made us
whole. We came back to our Hogarth
Room—I have made several acquisitions since you saw them,—and found Nos. 8, 9,
10 of “The
Friend.” The account of Luther in the Warteburg
| 404 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Oct. |
I am so tired with my journey, being up all night, I have neither things nor words in my power. I believe I expressed my admiration of the pamphlet. Its power over me was like that which Milton’s pamphlets must have had on his contemporaries, who were tuned to them. What a piece of prose! Do you hear if it is read at all? I am out of the world of readers. I hate all that do read, for they read nothing but reviews and new books. I gather myself up unto the old things.
I have put up shelves. You never saw a book-case in more true harmony with the contents, than what I’ve nailed up in a room, which, though new, has more aptitudes for growing old than you shall often see—as one sometimes gets a friend in the middle of life, who becomes an old friend in a short time. My rooms are luxurious; one is for prints and one for books; a Summer and a Winter parlour. When shall I ever see you in them?
[Hazlitt has given some account of the Lambs’ visit to Winterslow, but the passage belongs probably to the year following. In his essay “On the Conversation of Authors” he likens Lamb in the country to “the most capricious poet Ovid among the Goths.” “The country people thought him an oddity, and did not understand his jokes. It would be strange if they had, for he did not make any, while he stayed. But when he crossed the country to Oxford, then he spoke a little. He and the old colleges were hail-fellow well met; and in the quadrangles he ‘walked gowned.’“Again, in “A Farewell to Essay-writing,” Hazlitt says: “I used to walk out at this time with Mr. and Miss Lamb of an evening, to look at the Claude Lorraine skies over our heads melting from azure into purple and gold, and to gather mushrooms, that sprang up at our feet, to throw into our hashed mutton.”
Lamb’s Hogarths were framed in black. It must have been about this time that he began his essay “On the Genius of Hogarth,” which was printed in The Reflector in 1811 (see Vol. I., page 70).
The Friend lasted
until No. XXVII., March 15, 1810. The account of Luther was in No. VIII., October 5, 1809. Coleridge
| 1809 | LAMB’S BOOKS | 405 |
Sir George Howland Beaumont (1753-1827), of Coleorton, the friend and patron of men of genius, had helped, with Sotheby, in the establishment of The Friend, and was instrumental subsequently in procuring a pension for Coleridge. William Sotheby (1757-1833), the translator and author, had received subscriptions for Coleridge’s lectures.
“The rich Auditors in Albemarle Street”—those who had listened to Coleridge’s lectures at the Royal Institution.
“The pamphlet.” Presumably Wordsworth’s “Convention of Cintra.”
“You never saw a book-case.” Leigh Hunt wrote of Lamb’s books in the essay “My Books,” in The Literary Examiner:—
It looks like what it is, a selection made at precious intervals from the book-stalls;—now a Chaucer at nine and twopence; now a Montaigne or a Sir Thomas Browne at two shillings; now a Jeremy Taylor, a Spinoza; an old English Dramatist, Prior, and Sir Philip Sidney; and the books are “neat as imported.” The very perusal of the backs is a “discipline of humanity.” There Mr. Southey takes his place again with an old Radical friend: there Jeremy Collier is at peace with Dryden: there the lion, Martin Luther, lies down with the Quaker lamb, Sewel: there Guzman d’Alfarache thinks himself fit company for Sir Charles Grandison, and has his claims admitted. Even the “high fantastical” Duchess of Newcastle, with her laurel on her head, is received with grave honours, and not the less for declining to trouble herself with the constitutions of her maids.]
MY dear Sarah—The dear, quiet, lazy, delicious month we spent with you is remembered by me with such regret, that I feel quite discontent & Winterslow-sick. I assure you, I never passed such a pleasant time in the country in my life, both in the house & out of it, the card playing quarrels, and a few gaspings for breath after your swift footsteps up the high hills excepted, and those drawbacks are not unpleasant in the recollection. We have got some salt butter to make our toast seem like yours, and we have tried to eat meat suppers, but that would not do, for we left our appetites behind us; and the dry loaf, which offended you, now comes in at night unaccompanied; but, sorry am I to add, it is soon followed by the pipe and the gin bottle. We smoked the very first night of our arrival.
| 406 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Nov. |
Great news! I have just been interrupted by Mr. Daw, who comes to tell me he was yesterday elected a Royal Academician. He said none of his own friends voted for him; he got it by strangers, who were pleased with his picture of Mrs. White. Charles says he does not believe Northcote ever voted for the admission of any one. Though a very cold day, Daw was in a prodigious sweat, for joy at his good fortune.
More great news! my beautiful green curtains were put up yesterday, and all the doors listed with green baize, and four new boards put to the coal-hole, and fastening hasps put to the window, and my died Manning silk cut out.
Yesterday was an eventful day: for yesterday too Martin Burney was to be examined by Lord Eldon, previous to his being admitted as an Attorney; but he has not yet been here to announce his success.
I carried the baby-caps to Mrs. [John] Hazlitt; she was much pleased, and vastly thankful. Mr. [John] H. got fifty-four guineas at Rochester, and has now several pictures in hand.
I am going to tell you a secret, for —— says she would be sorry to have it talked of. One night —— came home from the ale-house, bringing with him a great, rough, ill-looking fellow, whom he introduced to —— as Mr. Brown, a gentleman he had hired as a mad keeper, to take care of him, at forty pounds a year, being ten pounds under the usual price for keepers, which sum Mr. Brown had agreed to remit out of pure friendship. It was with great difficulty, and by threatening to call in the aid of watchmen and constables, that —— could prevail on Mr. Brown to leave the house.
We had a good chearful meeting on Wednesday: much talk of Winterslow, its woods & its nice sun flowers. I did not so much like Phillips at Winterslow, as I now like him for having been with us at Winterslow. We roasted the last of his ‘beach, of oily nut prolific,’ on Friday, at the Captain’s. Nurse is now established in Paradise, alias the Incurable Ward [of Westminster Hospital]. I have seen her sitting in most superb state, surrounded by her seven incurable companions. They call each other ladies. Nurse looks as if she would be considered as the first lady in the ward: only one seemed at [all] like to rival her in dignity.
A man in the India House has resigned, by which Charles will get twenty pounds a year; and White has prevailed on him to write some more lottery-puffs. If that ends in smoke, the twenty pounds is a sure card, and has made us very joyful.
I continue very well, & return you very sincere thanks
for my good health and improved looks, which have almost made Mrs. Godwin die with envy; she longs to come
to Winterslow as much
| 1809 | THE MEMOIRS OF HOLCROFT | 407 |
Jane and I have agreed to boil a round of beef for your suppers, when you come to town again. She, Jane, broke two of the Hogarth glasses while we were away—whereat I made a great noise.
Farewel. Love to William, and Charles’s love and good wishes for the speedy arrival of the Life of Holcroft, & the bearer thereof.
Charles told Mrs. Godwin, Hazlitt had found a well in his garden, which, water being scarce in your country, would bring him in two hundred a year; and she came in great haste the next morning to ask me if it were true. Your brother and his &c. are quite well.
[George Dawe had just been elected not Royal Academician but Associate. He became full R.A. in 1814.
Mrs. White was the wife of Anthony White, the surgeon, who had been apprenticed to Sir Anthony Carlisle.
Northcote was James Northcote, R.A., whose Conversations Hazlitt recorded some years later.
Martin Burney never made a successful lawyer. His life was destined to be unhappy and unprofitable, as we shall see later.
“I am going to tell you a secret.” In the absence of the original these blanks cannot be filled in, nor are they important.
“Beach, of oily nut prolific.” From Cowper’s Task, “The Sofa,” lines 315, 316.
“Lottery puffs.” See note on page 326.
“The spiteful elder sister.” This story is in Grimm, I think.
“The Life of Holcroft.” The Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft, begun by Holcroft and finished by Hazlitt, although completed in 1810, was not published until 1816.
Here should come a letter from Lamb to Robert Lloyd, dated January 1, 1810, thanking him for a turkey. Lamb mentions that his 1809 holiday had been spent in Wiltshire, where he saw Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge. He adds that Coleridge’s Friend is occasionally sublime.
This was the last letter of the correspondence. Robert Lloyd died on October 26, 1811. Lamb wrote in the Gentleman’s Magazine a memoir of him, which will be found in Vol. I. of this edition, page 132.]
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