Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to Sarah Hutchinson, 25 November 1824
MY dear Miss
Hutchinson, Mary bids me
thank you for your kind letter. We are a little puzzled about your whereabouts:
Miss Wordsworth writes Torkay, and
you have queerly made it Torquay. Now Tokay we have heard of, and Torbay, which
we take to be the true male spelling of the place, but somewhere we fancy it to
be on “Devon’s leafy shores,” where we heartily wish
the kindly breezes may restore all that is invalid among you. Robinson is returned, and speaks much of you
all. We shall be most glad to hear good news from you from time to time. The
best is, Proctor is at last married. We
have made sundry attempts to see the Bride, but have accidentally failed, she being gone out a
gadding.
We had promised our dear friends the Monkhouses, promised ourselves rather, a visit
to them at Ramsgate, but I thought it best, and Mary seemed to have it at heart too, not to go far from home
these last holy days. It is connected with a sense of unsettlement, and
secretly I know she hoped that such abstinence would be friendly to her health.
She certainly has escaped her sad yearly visitation, whether in consequence of
it, or of faith in it, and we have to be thankful for a good 1824. To get such
a notion into our heads may go a great way another year. Not that we quite
confined ourselves; but assuming Islington to be head quarters, we made timid
flights to Ware, Watford &c. to try how the trouts tasted, for a night out
or so, not long enough to make the sense of change oppressive, but sufficient
to scour the rust of home.
Coleridge is not returned from the Sea.
As a little scandal may divert you recluses—we were in the Summer dining at a
Clergyman of Southey’s “Church of
England,” at Hertford, the same who officiated to Thurtell’s last moments, and indeed an
old contemporary Blue of C.’s and mine at School.
After dinner we talked of C., and F.
who is a mighty good fellow in the main, but hath his cassock prejudices,
inveighed against the moral character of C. I endeavoured
to enlighten him on the subject, till having driven him out of some ![]()
| 1824 | SCANDAL ABOUT COLERIDGE | 659 |
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of his holds, he stopt my
mouth at once by appealing to me whether it was not very well known that C.
“at that very moment was living in a state of open a———y with
Mrs. * * * * * * at
Highgate?” Nothing I could say serious or bantering after that
could remove the deep inrooted conviction of the whole company assembled that
such was the case! Of course you will keep this quite close, for I would not
involve my poor blundering friend, who I dare say believed it all thoroughly.
My interference of course was imputed to the goodness of my heart, that could
imagine nothing wrong &c. Such it is if Ladies will go gadding about with
other people’s husbands at watering places. How careful we should be to
avoid the appearance of Evil. I thought this Anecdote might amuse you. It is
not worth resenting seriously; only I give it as a specimen of orthodox
candour. O Southey, Southey, how long
would it be before you would find one of us Unitarians propagating such
unwarrantable Scandal! Providence keep you all from the foul fiend Scandal, and
send you back well and happy to dear Gloster Place.
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.
Frederick William Franklin (1774-1836)
Educated at Christ's Hospital and Pembroke College, Cambridge, he was assistant master at
the Hertford branch of Christ's Hospital (1801-27), and was vicar of Ugley (1817-27),
perpetual curate of Bergden (1817-27), and vicar of Albrighton (1827-36).
Anne Gillman [née Harding] (1779 c.-1860)
Of Highgate, the daughter of James Harding; in 1807 she married the surgeon James
Gillman, afterwards Coleridge's friend and patron.
Sara Hutchinson (1775-1835)
The daughter of John Hutchinson of Penrith (d. 1785) and sister of Mary Hutchinson
Wordsworth.
Mary Anne Lamb (1764-1847)
Sister of Charles Lamb with whom she wrote Tales from Shakespeare (1807). She lived with
her brother, having killed their mother in a temporary fit of insanity.
Thomas Monkhouse (1783-1825)
A London merchant and cousin of Mary and Sarah Hutchinson; he was a friend of William
Wordsworth and Charles Lamb.
Ann Benson Procter [née Skepper] (1799-1888)
The daughter of Thomas Skepper of York; in 1824 she married the poet Bryan Waller
Procter, with whom she maintained a literary salon.
Bryan Waller Procter [Barry Cornwall] (1787-1874)
English poet; a contemporary of Byron at Harrow, and friend of Leigh Hunt and Charles
Lamb. He was the author of several volumes of poem and
Mirandola, a
tragedy (1821).
Dora Quillinan [née Wordsworth] (1804-1847)
The daughter of William Wordsworth who in 1841 married the poet Edward Quillinan despite
her father's concerns about his debts.
Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867)
Attorney, diarist, and journalist for
The Times; he was a founder
of the Athenaeum Club.
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose
works, among them the
Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813),
History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and
The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).
John Thurtell (1794-1824)
Amateur pugilist who brutally murdered the gambler William Weare; the lurid crime
attracted national attention and figured in broadsides and later fiction.
