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Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Letters: 1828
THIS EDITION—INDEXES
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Preface
Contents vol. VI
Letters: 1796
Letters: 1797
Letters: 1798
Letters: 1799
Letters: 1800
Letters: 1801
Letters: 1802
Letters: 1803
Letters: 1804
Letters: 1805
Letters: 1806
Letters: 1807
Letters: 1808
Letters: 1809
Letters: 1810
Letters: 1811
Letters: 1812
Letters: 1814
Letters: 1815
Letters: 1816
Letters: 1817
Letters: 1818
Letters: 1819
Letters: 1820
Letters: 1821
Contents vol. VII
Letters: 1821
Letters: 1822
Letters: 1823
Letters: 1824
Letters: 1825
Letters: 1826
Letters: 1827
‣ Letters: 1828
Letters: 1829
Letters: 1830
Letters: 1831
Letters: 1832
Letters: 1833
Letters: 1834
Appendix I
Appendix II
Appendix III
List of Letters
Index
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1828 LAMB IN POOR HEALTH 767
LETTER 426
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP
[January 9, 1828.]

DEAR Allsop—I have been very poorly and nervous lately, but am recovering sleep, &c. I do not invite or make engagements for particular days; but I need not say how pleasant your dropping in any Sunday morng would be. Perhaps Jameson would accompany you. Pray beg him to keep an accurate record of the warning I sent by him to old Pan, for I dread lest he should at the 12 months’ end deny the warning. The house is his daughter’s, but we took it through him, and have paid the rent to his receipts for his daughter’s. Consult J. if he thinks the warning sufficient. I am very nervous, or have been, about the house; lost my sleep, & expected to be ill; but slumbered gloriously last night golden slumbers. I shall not relapse. You fright me with your inserted slips in the most welcome Atlas. They begin to charge double for it, & call it two sheets. How can I confute them by opening it, when a note of yours might slip out, & we get in a hobble? When you write, write real letters. Mary’s best love & mine to Mrs. A. Yours ever,

C. Lamb.
Note

[I cannot explain the business part of this letter.

“Golden slumbers.” From Dekker’s superb poem “Content”:—
Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers.]

LETTER 427
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[p.m. (? January, Sunday) 1828.]

DEAR Moxon I have to thank you for despatching so much business for me. I am uneasy respecting the enclosed receipts which you sent me and are dated Jan. 1827. Pray get them chang’d by Mr. Henshall to 1825. I have been in a very nervous way since I saw you. Pray excuse me to the Hoods for not answering his very pleasant letter. I am very poorly. The “Keepsake” I hope is return’d. I sent it back by Mrs. Hazlitt on Thursday. ’Twas blotted outside when it came. The rest I think are mine. My heart bleeds about poor Hone, that such an agreeable
768 LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB Jan.
book, and a Book there seem’d no reason should not go on for ever, should be given up, and a thing substituted which in its Nature cannot last. Don’t send me any more “
Companions,” for it only vexes me about the Table Book. This is not weather to hope to see any body to day, but without any particular invitations, pray consider that we are at any time most glad to see you, You (with Hunt’sLord Byron” or Hazlitt’s “Napoleon “in your hand) or You simply with your switch &c. The night was damnable and the morning is not too bless-able. If you get my dates changed, I will not trouble you with business for some time. Best of all remembces to the Hoods, with a malicious congratulation on their friend Rice’s advancemt.

Yours truly

C. Lamb.
Note

[“The rest I think are mine.” The rest of the blots?

Hone’s Table Book ceased with 1827: it was succeeded by a reprint, in monthly parts, of Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes.

The Companion would be the periodical started by Leigh Hunt in 1828.

Hazlitt’s ‘Napoleon.’” Of this work the first two volumes appeared in 1828, and the next two in 1830.

“Their friend Rice’s advancement.” I cannot say to what this would refer. Rice was Edward Rice.]

LETTER 428
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[p.m. Feb. 18, 1828.]

DEAR M. I had rather thought to have seen you yesterday, or I should have written to thank you for your attentions in the Book way &c. Hone’s address is, 22 Belvidere Place, Southward ’Tis near the Obelisk. I can only say we shall be most glad to see you, when weather suits, and that it will be a joyful surprisal to see the Hoods. I should write to them, but am poorly and nervous. Emma is very proud of her Valentine. Mary does not immediately want Books, having a damn’d consignment of Novels in MS. from Malta: which I wish the Mediterranean had in its guts. Believe me yours truly

C. L.
Monday.
1828 LEIGH HUNT’S BOOK 769
Note

[Emma’s valentine probably came from Moxon, who, I feel sure, in spite of Lamb’s utterance in Letter 400, had not yet told his love, if it had really budded.

“Novels in MS.”—Lady Stoddart’s, we may suppose (see Letter 403).]

LETTER 429
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE
Enfield, 25 Feb. [1828].

MY dear Clarke,—You have been accumulating on me such a heap of pleasant obligations that I feel uneasy in writing as to a Benefactor. Your smaller contributions, the little weekly rills, are refreshments in the Desart, but your large books were feasts. I hope Mrs. Hazlitt, to whom I encharged it, has taken Hunt’s Lord B. to the Novellos. His picture of Literary Lordship is as pleasant as a disagreeable subject can be made, his own poor man’s Education at dear Christ’s is as good and hearty as the subject. Hazlitt’s speculative episodes are capital; I skip the Battles. But how did I deserve to have the Book? The Companion has too much of Madam Pasta. Theatricals have ceased to be popular attractions. His walk home after the Play is as good as the best of the old Indicators. The watchmen are emboxed in a niche of fame, save the skaiting one that must be still fugitive. I wish I could send a scrap for good will. But I have been most seriously unwell and nervous a long long time. I have scarce mustered courage to begin this short note, but conscience duns me.

I had a pleasant letter from your sister, greatly over-acknowledging my poor sonnet. I think I should have replied to it, but tell her I think so. Alas for sonnetting, ’tis as the nerves are; all the summer I was dawdling among green lanes, and verses came as thick as fancies. I am sunk winterly below prose and zero.

But I trust the vital principle is only as under snow. That I shall yet laugh again.

I suppose the great change of place affects me, but I could not have lived in Town, I could not bear company.

I see Novello flourishes in the Del Capo line, and dedications are not forgotten. I read the Atlas. When I pitched on the Dedn I looked for the Broom of “Cowden knows” to be harmonized, but ’twas summat of Rossini’s.

I want to hear about Hone, does he stand above water, how is
770 LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB Feb.
his son? I have delay’d writing to him, till it seems impossible. Break the ice for me.

The wet ground here is intolerable, the sky above clear and delusive, but under foot quagmires from night showers, and I am cold-footed and moisture-abhorring as a cat; nevertheless I yesterday tramped to Waltham Cross; perhaps the poor bit of exertion necessary to scribble this was owing to that unusual bracing.

If I get out, I shall get stout, and then something will out—I mean for the Companion—you see I rhyme insensibly.

Traditions are rife here of one Clarke a schoolmaster, and a runaway pickle named Holmes, but much obscurity hangs over it. Is it possible they can be any relations?

T?is worth the research, when you can find a sunny day, with ground firm, &c. Master Sexton is intelligent, and for half-a-crown he’ll pick you up a Father.

In truth we shall be most glad to see any of the Novellian circle, middle of the week such as can come, or Sunday, as can’t. But Spring will burgeon out quickly, and then, we’ll talk more.

You’d like to see the improvements on the Chase, the new Cross in the market-place, the Chandler’s shop from whence the rods were fetch’d. They are raised a farthing since the spread of Education. But perhaps you don’t care to be reminded of the Holofernes’ days, and nothing remains of the old laudable profession, but the clear, firm, impossible-to-be-mistaken schoolmaster text hand with which is subscribed the ever-welcome name of Chas. Cowden C. Let me crowd in both our loves to all.

C. L.

Let me never be forgotten to include in my remembces my good friend and whilom correspondent Master Stephen.

How, especially, is Victoria?

I try to remember all I used to meet at Shacklewell. The little household, cake-producing, wine-bringing out Emma—the old servant, that didn’t stay, and ought to have staid, and was always very dirty and friendly, and Miss H., the counter-tenor with a fine voice, whose sister married Thurtell. They all live in my mind’s eye, and Mr. N.’s and Holmes’s walks with us half back after supper. Troja fuit!

Note

[“The Companion.Leigh Hunt’s paper lasted only for seven months. Madame Pasta, of whom too much was written, was Giudetta Pasta (1798-1865), a singer of unusual compass for whom Bellini wrote “La Somnambula.”

The following is the account of the Sliding Watchman in the essay, “Walks Home by Night in Bad Weather. Watchmen”;—

1828 THE SLIDING WATCHMAN 771

But the oddest of all was the Sliding Watchman. Think of walking up a street in the depth of a frosty winter, with long ice in the gutters, and sleet over head, and then figure to yourself a sort of bale of a man in white, coming towards you with a lantern in one hand, and an umbrella over his head. It was the oddest mixture of luxury and hardship, of juvenility and old age! But this looked agreeable. Animal spirits carry everything before them; and our invincible friend seemed a watchman for Rabelais. Time was run at and butted by him like a goat. The slide seemed to bear him half through the night at once; he slipped from out of his box and his common-places at one rush of a merry thought, and seemed to say, “Everything’s in imagination;—here goes the whole weight of my office.”

“Your sister”—Mrs. Isabella Jane Towers, author of The Children’s Fireside, 1828, and other books for children, to whom Lamb had sent the following sonnet:—
Lady Unknown, who crav’st from me Unknown
The trifle of a verse these leaves to grace,
How shall I find fit matter? with what face
Address a face that ne’er to me was shown?
Thy looks, tones, gesture, manners, and what not,
Conjecturing, I wander in the dark.
I know thee only Sister to Charles Clarke!
But at that name my cold Muse waxes hot,
And swears that thou art such a one as he,
Warm, laughter-loving, with a touch of madness,
Wild, glee-provoking, pouring oil of gladness
From frank heart without guile. And, if thou be
The pure reverse of this, and I mistake—
Demure one, I will like thee for his sake.

“Novello . . . dedications ... I read the Atlas.” In The Atlas for February 17 was reviewed Select Airs from Spohr’s celebrated Opera of Faust, arranged as duetts for the Pianoforte and inscribed to his friend, Charles Cowden Clarke by Vincent Novello. Holmes was musical critic for The Atlas.

“Broom of Cowden-knows”—the old Scotch ballad—
O the broom, an the broom, an the bonny, bonny broom,
The broom o’ the Cowden-knowes.

“One Clarke a schoolmaster.” See note on page 559.

“Holofernes’ days”—Holofernes, the schoolmaster, in “Love’s Labour’s Lost.” Cowden Clarke had assisted his father.

“Master Stephen.” I do not identify Stephen.

“Victoria”—Mary Victoria Novello, afterwards Mrs. Charles Cowden Clarke.

“At Shacklewell”—the Novellos’ old home. They now lived in Bedford Street, Covent Garden.

“Whose sister married Thurtell.” Thurtell, the murderer of Mr. Weare, I suppose.

Troja fuit!” See note on page 456.]

772 LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB March
LETTER 430
CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON
[p.m. Feb. 26, 1828.]

MY dear Robinson, It will be a very painful thing to us indeed, if you give up coming to see us, as we fear, on account of the nearness of the poor Lady you inquire after. It is true that on the occasion she mentions, which was on her return from last seeing her daughter, she was very heated and feverish, but there seems to be a great amendment in her since, and she has within a day or two passed a quiet evening with us. At the same time I dare not advise any thing one way or another respecting her daughter coming to live with her. I entirely disclaim the least opinion about it. If we named any thing before her, it was erroneously, on the notion that she was the obstacle to the plan which had been suggested of placing her daughter in a Private Family, which seem’d your wish. But I have quite done with the subject. If we can be of any amusement to the poor Lady, without self disturbance, we will. But come and see us after Circuit, as if she were not. You have no more affectte friends than

C. and M. Lamb.
Note

[“The poor Lady” was, I imagine, the widow of Antony Robinson.]

LETTER 431
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
March 19th, 1828.

MY dear M.—It is my firm determination to have nothing to do with “Forget-me-Nots”—pray excuse me as civilly as you can to Mr. Hurst. I will take care to refuse any other applications. The things which Pickering has, if to be had again, I have promised absolutely, you know, to poor Hood, from whom I had a melancholy epistle yesterday; besides that, Emma has decided objections to her own and her friend’s Album verses being published; but if she gets over that, they are decidedly Hood’s.

Till we meet, farewell. Loves to Dash.

C. L.
1828 NO MONEY FOR BOOKS 773
Note

[Moxon seems to have asked Lamb for a contribution for one of Hurst’s annuals, probably the Keepsake.

Hood was to edit The Gem for 1829.

“Dash.”—Moxon seems to have been the present master of the dog.

Here should come a letter from Lamb to Edward Irving, not available for this edition, introducing Hone, who in later life became devout and preached at the Weigh House Chapel in Eastcheap.]

LETTER 432
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[p.m. April 21, 1828.]

DEAR B. B.—You must excuse my silence. I have been in very poor health and spirits, and cannot write letters. I only write to assure you, as you wish’d, of my existence. All that which Mitford tells you of H.’s book is rhodomontade, only H. has written unguardedly about me, and nothing makes a man more foolish than his own foolish panegyric. But I am pretty well cased to flattery, or its contrary. Neither affect[s] me a turnip’s worth. Do you see the Author of May you Like it? Do you write to him? Will you give my present plea to him of ill health for not acknowledge a pretty Book with a pretty frontispiece he sent me. He is most esteem’d by me. As for subscribing to Books, in plain truth I am a man of reduced income, and don’t allow myself 12 shillings a-year to buy Old Books with, which must be my Excuse. I am truly sorry for Murray’s demur, but I wash my hands of all booksellers, and hope to know them no more. I am sick and poorly and must leave off, with our joint kind remembces to your daughter and friend A. K.

C. L.
Note

[“H.’s book.” In Hunt’s Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries Lamb was praised very warmly.

“The Author of May you Like it”—the Rev. C. B. Tayler (see note on page 636). The book with a pretty frontispiece was A Fireside Book, 1828, with a frontispiece by George Cruikshank.

Murray’s demur”—an unfavourable reply, possibly to a suggestion of Barton’s concerning a new volume.]

774 LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB May
LETTER 433
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS ALLSOP
[May 1st, 1828.]

DEAR A.—I am better. Mary quite well. We expected to see you before. I can’t write long letters. So a friendly love to you all.

Yours ever,
C. L.
Enfield.

This sunshine is healing.

LETTER 434
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[p.m. May 3rd, 1828.]

DEAR M.,—My friend Patmore, author of the “Months,” a very pretty publication, [and] of sundry Essays in the “London,” “New Monthly,” &c., wants to dispose of a volume or two of “Tales.” Perhaps they might Chance to suit Hurst; but be that as it may, he will call upon you, under favor of my recommendation; and as he is returning to France, where he lives, if you can do anything for him in the Treaty line, to save him dancing over the Channel every week, I am sure you will. I said I’d never trouble you again; but how vain are the resolves of mortal man! P. is a very hearty friendly fellow, and was poor John Scott’s second, as I will be yours when you want one. May you never be mine!

Yours truly,

C. L.
Enfield.
Note

[Patmore was the author of The Mirror of the Months, 1826.

John Scott’s second.” See note on page 434.]

LETTER 435
CHARLES LAMB TO WALTER WILSON
[Dated at end: 17 May [1828].]

DEAR Walter, The sight of your old name again was like a resurrection. It had passed away into the dimness of a dead friend. We shall be most joyful to see you here next week,—if I
1828THE WORDSWORTHS IN TOWN775
understand you right—for your note dated the 10th arrived only yesterday, Friday the 16th. Suppose I name Thursday next. If that don’t suit, write to say so. A morning coach comes from the Bell or Bell & Crown by Leather Lane Holborn, and sets you down at our house on the Chase Side, next door to Mr. Westwood’s, whom all the coachmen know—

I have four more notes to write, so dispatch this with again assuring you how happy we shall be to see you, & to discuss Defoe & old matters.

Yours truly
C. Lamb.
Enfd. Saturdy. 17th May.
Note

[The last letter to Wilson will be found on page 600. Lamb wrote to Hone a few days later: “Valter Vilson dines with us tomorrow. Vell! How I should like to see Hone!”]

LETTER 436
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS NOON TALFOURD
[p.m. May 20, 1828.]

MY dear Talfourd, we propose being with you on Wednesday not unearly, Mary to take a bed with you, and I with Crabbe, if, as I understand, he be of the party. Yours ever,

Ch. Lamb.
Note

[This is the first letter to Talfourd, Lamb’s future biographer. He was then living at 26 Henrietta Street, Brunswick Square. He had married in 1822. Crabb Robinson’s Diary for May 21 tells us that Talfourd’s party consisted of the Lambs, Wordsworth, Miss Anne Rutt, three barristers and himself. Lamb was in excellent spirits. He slept at Robinson’s that night.]

LETTER 437
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
[No date. May, 1828.]

DEAR Wordsworth, we had meant to have tried to see Mrs. Wordsworth and Dora next Wednesday, but we are intercepted by a violent toothache which Mary has got by getting up
776 LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB 1828
next morning after parting with you, to be with my going off at ½ past 8 Holborn. We are poor travellers, and moreover we have company (damn ’em) good people,
Mr. Hone and an old crony not seen for 20 years, coming here on Tuesday, one stays night with us, and Mary doubts my power to get up time enough, and comfort enough, to be so far as you are. Will you name a day in the same or coming week that we can come to you in the morning, for it would plague us not to see the other two of you, whom we cannot individualize from you, before you go. It is bad enough not to see your Sister Dorothy.

God bless you sincerely
C. Lamb.
Note

[Robinson dates this letter 1810, but this is clearly wrong. It was obviously written after Lamb’s liberation from the India House. If, as I suppose, the old crony is Walter Wilson, we get the date from Lamb’s letters to him and to Hone, mentioned above.

By “the other two of you” Lamb means Dora Wordsworth and Johnny Wordsworth. Lamb had already seen William, as Letter 242 tells. The address of the present letter is W. Wordsworth, Esq., 12 Bryanstone Street, Portman Square.

Here should come a letter from Lamb to Cary, dated June 10, 1828, declining on account of ill-health an invitation to dinner, to meet Wordsworth. Instead he asks Cary to Enfield with Darley and Procter.]

LETTER 438
MARY LAMB TO THE THOMAS HOODS
[No date. ? Summer, 1828.]

MY dear Friends,—My brother and Emma are to send you a partnership letter, but as I have a great dislike to my stupid scrap at the fag end of a dull letter, and, as I am left alone, I will say my say first; and in the first place thank you for your kind letter; it was a mighty comfort to me. Ever since you left me, I have been thinking I know not what, but every possible thing that I could invent, why you should be angry with me for something I had done or left undone during your uncomfortable sojourn with us, and now I read your letter and think and feel all is well again. Emma and her sister Harriet are gone to Theobalds Park, and Charles is gone to Barnet to cure his headache, which a good
1828EMMA ISOLA777
old lady has talked him into. She came on Thursday and left us yesterday evening. I mean she was
Mrs. Paris, with whom Emma’s aunt lived at Cambridge, and she had so much to [tell] her about Cambridge friends, and to [tell] us about London ditto, that her tongue was never at rest through the whole day, and at night she took Hood’s Whims and Oddities to bed with her and laught all night. Bless her spirits! I wish I had them and she were as mopey as I am. Emma came on Monday, and the week has passed away I know not how. But we have promised all the week that we should go and see the Picture friday or Saturday, and stay a night or so with you. Friday came and we could not turn Mrs. Paris out so soon, and on friday evening the thing was wholly given up. Saturday morning brought fresh hopes; Mrs. Paris agreed to go to see the picture with us, and we were to walk to Edmonton. My Hat and my new gown were put on in great haste, and his honor, who decides all things here, would have it that we could not get to Edmonton in time; and there was an end of all things. Expecting to see you, I did not write.

Monday evening.

Charles and Emma are taking a second walk. Harriet is gone home. Charles wishes to know more about the Widow. Is it to be made to match a drawing? If you could throw a little more light on the subject, I think he would do it, when Emma is gone; but his time will be quite taken up with her; for, besides refreshing her Latin, he gives her long lessons in arithmetic, which she is sadly deficient in. She leaves in a week, unless she receives a renewal of her holydays, which Mrs. Williams has half promised to send her. I do verily believe that I may hope to pass the last one, or two, or three nights with you, as she is to go from London to Bury. We will write to you the instant we receive Mrs. W.’s letter. As to my poor sonnet—and it is a very poor sonnet, only [it] answered very well the purpose it was written for—Emma left it behind her, and nobody remembers more than one line of it, which is, I think, sufficient to convince you it would make no great impression in an Annual. So pray let it rest in peace, and I will make Charles write a better one instead.

This shall go to the Post to-night. If any [one] chooses to add anything to it they may. It will glad my heart to see you again. Yours (both yours) truly and affectionately,

M. Lamb.

Becky is going by the Post office, so I will send it away. I mean to commence letter-writer to the family.

778 LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB August
Note

[Mr. Hazlitt dates this letter April, 1828. The reference to the Widow, towards the end, shows that Hood was preparing The Gem, and, what is not generally known, that Lamb had been asked to write on that subject. As it happened, Hood wrote the essay for him and signed it Elia (see note on page 785). Mrs. Paris we have met (see note on page 547). Harriet, Emma Isola’s sister, we do not hear of again. I was recently shown a copy of Lamb’s Works, 1818, inscribed in his hand to Miss Isola: this would be Harriet Isola. Emma had just begun her duties at Fornham, in Suffolk, where she taught the children of a Mr. Williams, a clergyman. I cannot say what the Picture was. The sonnet was probably that printed in the note on page 740. Charles Lamb’s and Emma’s joint letter has not been preserved.]

LETTER 439
CHARLES LAMB TO B. R. HAYDON
August, 1828.

DEAR Haydon,—I have been tardy in telling you that your Chairing the Member gave me great pleasure;—’tis true broad Hogarthian fun, the High Sheriff capital. Considering, too, that you had the materials imposed upon you, and that you did not select them from the rude world as H. did, I hope to see many more such from your hand. If the former picture went beyond this I have had a loss, and the King a bargain. I longed to rub the back of my hand across the hearty canvas that two senses might be gratified. Perhaps the subject is a little discordantly placed opposite to another act of Chairing, where the huzzas were Hosannahs,—but I was pleased to see so many of my old acquaintances brought together notwithstanding.

Believe me, yours truly,
C. Lamb.
Note

[Haydon’s “Chairing the Member” was exhibited in Bond Street this year, together with “Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem,” and other of his works. “The former picture” was his “Mock Election,” which the King had bought for 500 guineas. For “Chairing the Member” Haydon received only half that price.

See Appendix II., page 975, for three other letters.]

1828 JOHN BUNYAN 779
LETTER 440
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[p.m. October 11 1828.]

A SPLENDID edition of Bunyan’s Pilgrim—why, the thought is enough to turn one’s moral stomach. His cockle hat and staff transformed to a smart cockd beaver and a jemmy cane, his amice gray to the last Regent Street cut, and his painful Palmer’s pace to the modern swagger. Stop thy friend’s sacriligious hand. Nothing can be done for B. but to reprint the old cuts in as homely but good a style as possible. The Vanity Fair, and the pilgrims there—the silly soothness in his setting out countenance—the Christian idiocy (in a good sense) of his admiration of the Shepherds on the Delectable Mountains—the Lions so truly Allegorical and remote from any similitude to Pidcock’s. The great head (the author’s) capacious of dreams and similitudes dreaming in the dungeon. Perhaps you don’t know my edition, what I had when a child: if you do, can you bear new designs from—Martin, enameld into copper or silver plate by—Heath, accompanied with verses from Mrs. Heman’s pen O how unlike his own—
Wouldst thou divert thyself from melancholy?
Wouldst thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly?
Wouldst thou read riddles and their explanation?
Or else be drowned in thy contemplation?
Dost thou love picking meat? or wouldst thou see
A man i’ th’ clouds, and hear him speak to thee?
Wouldst thou be in a dream, and yet not sleep?
Or wouldst thou in a moment laugh and weep?
Or wouldst thou lose thyself, and catch no harm,
And find thyself again without a charm?
Wouldst read thyself, and read thou knowst not what,
And yet know whether thou art blest or not
By reading the same lines? O then come hither,
And lay my book, thy head and heart together.
Shew me such poetry in any of the 15 forthcoming combinations of show and emptiness, yclept Annuals. Let me whisper in your ear that wholesome sacramental bread is not more nutritious than papistical wafer stuff, than these (to head and heart) exceed the visual frippery of
Mitford’s Salamander God, baking himself up to the work of creation in a solar oven, not yet by the terms of the context itself existing. Blake’s ravings made genteel. So there’s verses for thy verses; and now let me tell you that the sight of your hand gladdend me. I have been daily trying to write to you, but paralysed. You have spurd me on this tiny effort, and at
780 LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB Oct.
intervals I hope to hear from and talk to you. But my spirits have been in a deprest way for a long long time, and they are things which must be to you of faith, for who can explain depression? Yes I am hooked into the
Gem, but only for some lines written on a dead infant of the Editor’s, which being as it were his property, I could not refuse their appearing, but I hate the paper, the type, the gloss, the dandy plates, the names of contributors poked up into your eyes in 1st page, and whistled thro’ all the covers of magazines, the barefaced sort of emulation, the unmodest candidateship, brot into so little space—in those old Londons a signature was lost in the wood of matter—the paper coarse (till latterly, which spoil’d them)—in short I detest to appear in an Annual. What a fertile genius (an[d] a quiet good soul withal) is Hood. He has 50 things in hand, farces to supply the Adelphi for the season, a comedy for one of the great theatres, just ready, a whole entertainment by himself for Mathews and Yates to figure in, a meditated Comic Annual for next year, to be nearly done by himself.—You’d like him very much. Wordsworth I see has a good many pieces announced in one of em, not our Gem. W. Scott has distributed himself like a bribe haunch among ’em. Of all the poets, Cary has had the good sense to keep quite clear of ’em, with Clergy-gentle-manly right notions. Don’t think I set up for being proud in this point, I like a bit of flattery tickling my vanity as well as any one. But these pompous masquerades without masks (naked names or faces) I hate. So there’s a bit of my mind. Besides they infallibly cheat you, I mean the booksellers. If I get but a copy, I only expect it from Hood’s being my friend. Coleridge has lately been here. He too is deep among the Prophets—the Year-servers—the mob of Gentlemen Annuals. But they’ll cheat him, I know.

And now, dear B. B., the Sun shining out merrily, and the dirty clouds we had yesterday having washd their own faces clean with their own rain, tempts me to wander up Winchmore Hill, or into some of the delightful vicinages of Enfield, which I hope to show you at some time when you can get a few days up to the great Town. Believe me it would give both of us great pleasure to show you all three (we can lodge you) our pleasant farms and villages.—

We both join in kindest loves to you and yours.—

Ch. Lamb redivivus.
Saturday.
Note

[The edition of Bunyan was that published for Barton’s friend, John Major, and John Murray in 1830, with a life of Bunyan by Southey, and illustrations by John Martin and W. Harvey, and a
1828THE COWDEN CLARKES’ HONEYMOON781
prefatory poem not by
Mrs. Hemans but by Bernard Barton immediately before Bunyan’s “Author’s Apology for his Book,” from which Lamb quotes.

“Pidcock’s.” Pidcock showed his lions at Bartholomew Fair; he was succeeded by Polito of Exeter Change.

“Heath.” This was Charles Heath (1785-1848), son of James Heath, a great engraver of steel plates for the Annuals.

Mitford’s Salamander God.” I cannot explain this, except by Mr. Macdonald’s supposition that Lamb meant to write “Martin’s.”

The Gem.” See note on page 785.

Hood’s entertainment for Mathews and Frederick Yates, then joint-managers of the Adelphi, I have not identified. Authors’ names on play-bills were, in those days, unimportant. The play was the thing.

“Like a bribe haunch.” “Divide me like a bribe-buck, each a haunch,” says Falstaff to Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page (“Merry Wives,” V., 5, 27).

Coleridge and the Annuals. For example, Coleridge’s “Names” was in the Keepsake for 1829; his “Lines written in the Album at Elbingerode” in part in the Amulet for 1829. He had also contributed previously to the Literary Souvenir, the Amulet and the Bijou.

Here should come an unprinted note from Lamb to Charles Mathews, dated October 27, 1828, not available for this edition, referring to the farce “The Pawnbroker’s Daughter,” which Lamb offered to Mathews for the Adelphi. As I have said, this farce was never acted.]

LETTER 441
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE
[Enfield, October, 1828.]

DEAR Clarke,—We did expect to see you with Victoria and the Novellos before this, and do not quite understand why we have not. Mrs. N. and V. [Vincent] promised us after the York expedition; a day being named before, which fail’d. ’Tis not too late. The autumn leaves drop gold, and Enfield is beautifuller—to a common eye—than when you lurked at the Greyhound. Benedicks are close, but how I so totally missed you at that time, going for my morning cup of ale duly, is a mystery. ’Twas stealing a match before one’s face in earnest. But certainly we had not a dream of your appropinquity. I instantly prepared an Epithala-
782 LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB Nov.
mium, in the form of a
Sonata—which I was sending to Novello to compose—but Mary forbid it me, as too light for the occasion—as if the subject required anything heavy—so in a tiff with her I sent no congratulation at all. Tho’ I promise you the wedding was very pleasant news to me indeed. Let your reply name a day this next week, when you will come as many as a coach will hold; such a day as we had at Dulwich. My very kindest love and Mary’s to Victoria and the Novellos. The enclosed is from a friend nameless, but highish in office, and a man whose accuracy of statement may be relied on with implicit confidence. He wants the exposé to appear in a newspaper as the “greatest piece of legal and Parliamentary villainy he ever remembd,” and he has had experience in both; and thinks it would answer afterwards in a cheap pamphlet printed at Lambeth in 8o sheet, as 16,000 families in that parish are interested. I know not whether the present Examiner keeps up the character of exposing abuses, for I scarce see a paper now. If so, you may ascertain Mr. Hunt of the strictest truth of the statement, at the peril of my head. But if this won’t do, transmit it me back, I beg, per coach, or better, bring it with you. Yours unaltered,

C. Lamb.
Note

[Clarke had married Mary Victoria Novello on July 5, 1828, and they had spent their honeymoon at the Greyhound, Enfield, unknown to the Lambs. See the next letter.

“The enclosed.” This has vanished. Hunt was Leigh Hunt.]

LETTER 442
CHARLES LAMB TO VINCENT NOVELLO
[Enfield, November 6, 1828.]

MY dear Novello,—I am afraid I shall appear rather tardy in offering my congratulations, however sincere, upon your daughter’s marriage. The truth is, I had put together a little Serenata upon the occasion, but was prevented from sending it by my sister, to whose judgment I am apt to defer too much in these kind of things; so that, now I have her consent, the offering, I am afraid, will have lost the grace of seasonableness. Such as it is, I send it. She thinks it a little too old-fashioned in the manner, too much like what they wrote a century back. But I cannot write in the modern style, if I try ever so hard. I have attended to the proper divisions for the music, and you will have
1828THE SERENATA783
little difficulty in composing it. If I may advise, make
Pepusch your model, or Blow. It will be necessary to have a good second voice, as the stress of the melody lies there:—

SERENATA, FOR TWO VOICES,
On the Marriage of Charles Cowden Clarke, Esqre., to Victoria, eldest daughter of Vincent Novello, Esqre.
Duetto
Wake th’ harmonious voice and string,
Love and Hymen’s triumph sing,
Sounds with secret charms combining,
In melodious union joining,
Best the wondrous joys can tell,
That in hearts united dwell.
Recitative
First Voice.—To young Victoria’s happy fame
Well may the Arts a trophy raise,
Music grows sweeter in her praise,
And, own’d by her, with rapture speaks her name.
To touch the brave Cowdenio’s heart,
The Graces all in her conspire;
Love arms her with his surest dart,
Apollo with his lyre.
Air
The list’ning Muses all around her
Think ’tis Phœbus’ strain they hear;
And Cupid, drawing near to wound her,
Drops his bow, and stands to hear.
Recitative
Second Voice. While crowds of rivals with despair
Silent admire, or vainly court the Fair,
Behold the happy conquest of her eyes,
A Hero is the glorious prize!
In courts, in camps, thro’ distant realms renown’d,
Cowdenio comes!—Victoria, see,
He comes with British honour crown’d,
Love leads his eager steps to thee.
Air
In tender sighs he silence breaks,
The Fair his flame approves,
Consenting blushes warm her cheeks,
She smiles, she yields, she loves.
Recitative
First Voice.—Now Hymen at the altar stands,
And while he joins their faithful hands,
Behold! by ardent vows brought down,
Immortal Concord, heavenly bright,
Array’d in robes of purest light,
Descends, th’ auspicious rites to crown.
784 LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB Nov.
Her golden harp the goddess brings;
Its magic sound
Commands a sudden silence all around,
And strains prophetic thus attune the strings.
Duetto
First Voice.—The Swain his Nymph possessing,
Second Voice.—The Nymph her swain caressing,
First and Second—Shall still improve the blessing,
For ever kind and true.
Both.—While rolling years are flying,
Love, Hymen’s lamp supplying,
With fuel never dying,
Shall still the flame renew.

To so great a master as yourself I have no need to suggest that the peculiar tone of the composition demands sprightliness, occasionally checked by tenderness, as in the second air,—
She smiles,—she yields,—she loves.

Again, you need not be told that each fifth line of the two first recitatives requires a crescendo.

And your exquisite taste will prevent your falling into the error of Purcell, who at a passage similar to that in my first air,
Drops his bow, and stands to hear,
directed the first violin thus:—
Here the first violin must drop his bow.

But, besides the absurdity of disarming his principal performer of so necessary an adjunct to his instrument, in such an emphatic part of the composition too, which must have had a droll effect at the time, all such minutiae of adaptation are at this time of day very properly exploded, and Jackson of Exeter very fairly ranks them under the head of puns.

Should you succeed in the setting of it, we propose having it performed (we have one very tolerable second voice here, and Mr. Holmes, I dare say, would supply the minor parts) at the Greyhound. But it must be a secret to the young couple till we can get the band in readiness.

Believe me, dear Novello,
Yours truly,
C. Lamb.
Enfield, 6 Nov., ‘28.
Note

[Mrs. Cowden Clarke remarks in her notes on this letter that the references to Purcell and to Jackson of Exeter are inventions. For Mr. Holmes see note on page 661.

1828 HOOD’S JOKE 785

Here should come a letter from Lamb to Laman Blanchard, dated Enfield, November 9, 1828, not available for this edition, thanking him for a book and dedication. Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804-1845), afterwards known as a journalist, had just published, through Harrison Ainsworth, a little volume entitled Lyric Offerings, which was dedicated to Lamb. After Lamb’s death Blanchard contributed to the New Monthly Magazine some additional Popular Fallacies.]

LETTER 443
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS HOOD
Late autumn, 1828.
Enfield.

DEAR Lamb—You are an impudent varlet; but I will keep your secret. We dine at Ayrton’s on Thursday, and shall try to find Sarah and her two spare beds for that night only. Miss M. and her tragedy may be dished: so may not you and your rib. Health attend you.

Yours,

T. Hood, Esq.

Miss Bridget Hood sends love.

Note

[In The Gem, 1829, in addition to his poem, “On an Infant Dying as Soon as Born,” Lamb was credited with the following piece of prose, entitled “A Widow,” which was really the work of Hood (see Letter 438):—

A WIDOW

Hath always been a mark for mockery:—a standing butt for wit to level at. Jest after jest hath been huddled upon her close cap, and stuck, like burrs, upon her weeds. Her sables are a perpetual “Black Joke.”

Satirists—prose and verse—have made merry with her bereavements. She is a stock character on the stage. Farce bottleth up her crocodile tears, or labelleth her empty lachrymatories. Comedy mocketh her precocious flirtations—Tragedy even girdeth at her frailty, and twitteth her with “the funeral baked meats coldly furnishing forth the marriage tables.”

I confess when I called the other day on my kinswoman G.—then in the second week of her widowhood—and saw her sitting, her young boy by her side, in her recent sables, I felt unable to reconcile her estate with any risible associations. The Lady with a skeleton moiety—in the old print, in Bowles’ old shop window—seemed but a type of her condition. Her husband,—a whole hemisphere in love’s world—was deficient. One complete side—her left—was death-stricken. It was a matrimonial paralysis, unprovocative of laughter. I could as soon have tittered at one of those melancholy objects that drag their poor dead-alive bodies about the streets.

It seems difficult to account for the popular prejudice against lone women. There is a majority, I trust, of such honest, decorous mourners as my kinswoman:
786 LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB Dec.
yet are Widows, like the Hebrew, a proverb and a byeword amongst nations. From the first putting on of the sooty garments, they become a stock joke—chimneysweep or blackamoor is not surer—by mere virtue of their nigritude.

Are the wanton amatory glances of a few pairs of graceless eyes, twinkling through their cunning waters, to reflect so evil a light on a whole community? Verily the sad benighted orbs of that noble relict—the Lady Rachel Russell—blinded through unserene drops for her dead Lord,—might atone for such oglings!

Are the traditional freaks of a Dame of Ephesus, or a Wife of Bath, or a Queen of Denmark, to cast so broad a shadow over a whole sisterhood. There must be, methinks, some more general infirmity—common, probably, to all Eve-kind—to justify so sweeping a stigma.

Does the satiric spirit, perhaps, institute splenetic comparisons between the lofty poetical pretensions of posthumous tenderness and their fulfilment? The sentiments of Love especially affect a high heroical pitch, of which the human performance can present, at best, but a burlesque parody. A widow, that hath lived only for her husband, should die with him. She is flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone; and it is not seemly for a mere rib to be his survivor. The prose of her practice accords not with the poetry of her professions. She hath done with the world,—and you meet her in Regent Street. Earth hath now nothing left for her—but she swears and administers. She cannot survive him—and invests in the Long Annuities.

The romantic fancy resents, and the satiric spirit records, these discrepancies. By the conjugal theory itself there ought to be no Widows; and, accordingly, a class, that by our milder manners is merely ridiculed, on the ruder banks of the Ganges is literally roasted. C. Lamb.

“Miss M. and her tragedy.” I fancy Miss M. would be Miss Mitford, and her tragedy “Rienzi,” produced at Drury Lane October 9, 1828. It was a success. Hood’s rib would probably be the play I have not identified. See Letter 440.

Here, a little out of its order, might come a letter from Lamb to Hood, December 17, 1828, which is facsimiled in a privately-printed American bibliography of Lamb, the owner of which declines to let me include it with the correspondence. In it Lamb expresses regret, not so much that Hood had signed “The Widow” with Lamb’s name, but that an unfortunately ambiguous jest, pointed out to him by certain friends, had crept into it. He asks that the subject may never be referred to again.]

LETTER 444
CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON
[No date. Dec., 1828.]

DEAR M.,—As I see no blood-marks on the Green Lanes Road, I conclude you got in safe skins home. Have you thought of inquiring Miss Wilson’s change of abode? Of the 2 copies of my drama I want one sent to Wordsworth, together with a complete copy of Hone’sTable Book,” for which I shall be your debtor till we meet. Perhaps Longman will take charge of this parcel.
1828“A WIFE’S TRIAL”787
The other is for
Coleridge at Mr. Gilman’s, Grove, Highgate, which may be sent, or, if you have a curiosity to see him you will make an errand with it to him, & tell him we mean very soon to come & see him, if the Gilmans can give or get us a bed. I am ashamed to be so troublesome. Pray let Hood see the “Ecclectic Review”—a rogue! The 2d parts of the Blackwood you may make waste paper of.

Yours truly,
C. L.
Note

[I do not identify Miss Wilson. Lamb’s drama was “A Wife’s Trial” in Blackwood for December, 1828. The same number of the Eclectic Review referred to Hood’s parody of Lamb, “The Widow,” as profaning Leslie’s picture of the widow by its “heartless ribaldry.” By the 2d parts of Blackwood Lamb referred, I imagine, to the pages on which his play was not printed.]

LETTER 445
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[p.m. December 5, 1828.]

DEAR B. B.—I am ashamed to receive so many nice Books from you, and to have none to send you in return; You are always sending me some fruits or wholesome potherbs, and mine is the garden of the Sluggard, nothing but weeds or scarce they. Nevertheless if I knew how to transmit it, I would send you Blackwood’s of this month, which contains a little Drama, to have your opinion of it, and how far I have improved, or otherwise, upon its prototype. Thank you for your kind Sonnet. It does me good to see the Dedication to a Christian Bishop. I am for a Comprehension, as Divines call it, but so as that the Church shall go a good deal more than halfway over to the Silent Meeting house. I have ever said that the Quakers are the only Professors of Christianity as I read it in the Evangiles; I say Professors—marry, as to practice, with their gaudy hot types and poetical vanities, they are much at one with the sinful. Martin’s frontispiece is a very fine thing, let C. L. say what he please to the contrary. Of the Poems, I like them as a volume better than any one of the preceding; particularly, Power and Gentleness; The Present; Lady Russell—with the exception that I do not like the noble act of Curtius, true or false, one of the grand foundations of old Roman patriotism, to be sacrificed to Lady R.’s taking notes on her husband’s trial.
788 LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB Dec.
If a thing is good, why invidiously bring it into light with something better? There are too few heroic things in this world to admit of our marshalling them in anxious etiquettes of precedence. Would you make a poem on the Story of Ruth (pretty Story!) and then say, Aye, but how much better is the story of Joseph and his Brethren! To go on, the Stanzas to “
Chalon” want the name of Clarkson in the body of them; it is left to inference. The Battle of Gibeon is spirited again—but you sacrifice it in last stanza to the Song at Bethlehem. Is it quite orthodox to do so. The first was good, you suppose, for that dispensation. Why set the word against the word? It puzzles a weak Christian. So Watts’s Psalms are an implied censure on David’s. But as long as the Bible is supposed to be an equally divine Emanation with the Testament, so long it will stagger weaklings to have them set in opposition. Godiva is delicately touch’d. I have always thought it a beautiful story characteristic of old English times. But I could not help amusing myself with the thought—if Martin had chosen this subject for a frontispiece, there would have been in some dark corner a white Lady, white as the Walker on the waves—riding upon some mystical quadruped—and high above would have risen “tower above tower a massy structure high” the Tenterden steeples of Coventry, till the poor Cross would scarce have known itself among the clouds, and far above them all, the distant Clint hills peering over chimney pots, piled up, Ossa-on-Olympus fashion, till the admiring Spectator (admirer of a noble deed) might have gone look for the Lady, as you must hunt for the other in the Lobster. But M. should be made Royal Architect. What palaces he would pile—but then what parliamentary grants to make them good! ne’ertheless I like the frontispiece. The Elephant is pleasant; and I am glad you are getting into a wider scope of subjects. There may be too much, not religion, but too many good words into a book, till it becomes, as Sh. says of religion, a rhapsody of words. I will just name that you have brought in the Song to the Shepherds in four or five if not six places. Now this is not good economy. The Enoch is fine; and here I can sacrifice Elijah to it, because ’tis illustrative only, and not disparaging of the latter prophet’s departure. I like this best in the Book. Lastly, I much like the Heron, ’tis exquisite: know you Lord Thurlow’s Sonnet to a Bird of that sort on Lacken water? If not, ’tis indispensable I send it you, with my Blackwood, if you tell me how best to send them. Fludyer is pleasant. You are getting gay and Hood-ish. What is the Enigma? money—if not, I fairly confess I am foiled—and sphynx must [here are words crossed through] 4 times I’ve tried to write eat—eat me—and the blotting pen turns it into cat me. And now I will take my leave with saying I esteem thy verses, like thy present, honour thy frontis-
1828A SONNET TO LAMB789
picer, and right-reverence thy Patron and Dedicatee, and am, dear B. B.

Yours heartily,

C. L.

Our joint kindest Loves to A. K. and your Daughter.

Note

[Barton’s new book was A New Year’s Eve and other Poems, 1828, dedicated to Charles Richard Sumner, Bishop of Winchester. This volume contains Barton’s “Fireside Quatrains to Charles Lamb” (quoted in Vol. V., page 308) and also the following “Sonnet to a Nameless Friend,” whom I take to be Lamb:—

SONNET TO A NAMELESS FRIEND
In each successive tome that bears my name
Hast thou, though veiled thy own from public eyes,
Won from my muse that willing sacrifice
Which worth and talents such as thine should claim:
And I should close my minstrel task with shame,
Could I forget the indissoluble ties
Which every grateful thought of thee supplies
To one who deems thy friendship more than fame.
Accept then, thus imperfectly, once more,
The homage of thy poet and thy friend;
And should thy partial praise my lays commend,
Versed as thou art in all the gentle lore
Of English poesy’s exhaustless store,
Whom I most love they never can offend.

Martin’s frontispiece represented Christ walking on the water. Lamb recalls his remarks on page 731 about this painter, who though he never became Royal Architect was the originator of the present Thames Embankment. Macaulay, in his essay on Southey’s edition of the Pilgrim’s Progress, in the Edinburgh for December, 1831, makes some very similar remarks about Martin and the way in which he would probably paint Lear.

In the poem “Lady Rachel Russell; or, A Roman Hero and an English Heroine Compared,” Barton compared the act of Curtius, who leaped into the gulf in the Forum, with Lady Russell standing beside her lord.

Chalon was the painter of a portrait of Thomas Clarkson.

The “Battle of Gibeon” is a poem inspired by Martin’s picture of Joshua (see page 731); the last stanza runs thus:—
Made known by marvels awfully sublime!
Yet far more glorious in the Christian’s sight
Than these stern terrors of the olden time,
The gentler splendours of that peaceful night,
790 LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB Dec.
When opening clouds displayed, in vision bright,
The heavenly host to Bethlehem’s shepherd train,
Shedding around them more than cloudless light!
“Glory to God on high!” their opening strain,
Its chorus, “Peace on Earth!” its theme Messiah’s reign!

“Tower above tower . . .” I have not found this.

“In the Lobster.” Referring to that part of a lobster which is called Eve.

“The Elephant.” Some mildly humorous verses “To an Elephant.”

“As Sh. says of religion”—Shakespeare, I assume, in “Hamlet,” III., 4, 47, 48:—
And sweet Religion makes
A rhapsody of words.

I quote in the Appendix, page 957, the poem which Lamb liked best.

Barton had written a poem called “Syr Heron.” This is Lord Thurlow’s sonnet, of which Lamb was very fond. He quoted it in a note to his Elia essay on the sonnets of Sidney in the London Magazine, and copied it into his album:—

TO A BIRD, THAT HAUNTED THE WATERS OF LACKEN, IN THE WINTER
O melancholy Bird, a winter’s day,
Thou standest by the margin of the pool,
And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school
To Patience, which all evil can allay.
God has appointed thee the fish thy prey;
And giv’n thyself a lesson to the fool
Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule,
And his unthinking course by thee to weigh.
There need not schools, nor the professor’s chair,
Though these be good, true wisdom to impart:
He, who has not enough, for these, to spare,
Of time, or gold, may yet amend his heart,
And teach his soul, by brooks, and rivers fair:
Nature is always wise in every part.

“Fludyer” was a poem to Sir Charles Fludyer on the devastation effected on his marine villa at Felixstowe by the encroachments of the sea. The answer to the enigma, Mrs. FitzGerald (Lucy Barton) told Canon Ainger, was not money but an auctioneer’s hammer.

Here should come a letter from Lamb to Louisa Holcroft, dated December 5, 1828, not available for this edition. Louisa Holcroft was a daughter of Thomas Holcroft, Lamb’s friend, whose widow married Kenney. A good letter with some excellent nonsense about measles in it.]

1828 ENFIELD RAMBLES 791
LETTER 446
CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE
[December, 1828.]

MY dear three C.’s—The way from Southgate to Colney Hatch thro’ the unfrequentedest Blackberry paths that ever concealed their coy bunches from a truant Citizen, we have accidentally fallen upon—the giant Tree by Cheshunt we have missed, but keep your chart to go by, unless you will be our conduct—at present I am disabled from further flights than just to skirt round Clay Hill, with a peep at the fine back woods, by strained tendons, got by skipping a skipping-rope at 53—heu mihi non sum qualis. But do you know, now you come to talk of walks, a ramble of four hours or so—there and back—to the willow and lavender plantations at the south corner of Northaw Church by a well dedicated to Saint Claridge, with the clumps of finest moss rising hillock fashion, which I counted to the number of two hundred and sixty, and are called “Claridge’s covers”—the tradition being that that saint entertained so many angels or hermits there, upon occasion of blessing the waters? The legends have set down the fruits spread upon that occasion, and in the Black Book of St. Albans some are named which are not supposed to have been introduced into this island till a century later. But waiving the miracle, a sweeter spot is not in ten counties round; you are knee deep in clover, that is to say, if you are not above a middling man’s height; from this paradise, making a day of it, you go to see the ruins of an old convent at March Hall, where some of the painted glass is yet whole and fresh.

If you do not know this, you do not know the capabilities of this country, you may be said to be a stranger to Enfield. I found it out one morning in October, and so delighted was I that I did not get home before dark, well a-paid.

I shall long to show you the clump meadows, as they are called; we might do that, without reaching March Hall. When the days are longer, we might take both, and come home by Forest Cross, so skirt over Pennington and the cheerful little village of Churchley to Forty Hill.

But these are dreams till summer; meanwhile we should be most glad to see you for a lesser excursion—say, Sunday next, you and another, or if more, best on a weekday with a notice, but o’ Sundays, as far as a leg of mutton goes, most welcome. We can squeeze out a bed. Edmonton coaches run every hour, and my pen has run out its quarter. Heartily farewell.

792 LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB 1828
Note

[Much of the “Lamb country” touched upon in this letter is now built on. On the opposite page I give a map, kindly drawn for me by Miss M. C. G. Jackson, of Lamb’s favourite walking region

“The giant Tree by Cheshunt” is Goff’s Oak.

Heu mihi non sum qualis”—“Woe is me! I am not what I was.”

“The Black Book of St. Albans.” The Black Books exposed abuses in the church. “Well a-paid.” See Shakespeare’sLucrece,” line 914.]

LETTER 447
CHARLES LAMB TO T. N. TALFOURD
[No date. End of 1828.]

DEAR Talfourd,—You could hot have told me of a more friendly thing than you have been doing. I am proud of my namesake. I shall take care never to do any dirty action, pick pockets, or anyhow get myself hanged, for fear of reflecting ignominy upon your young Chrisom. I have now a motive to be good. I shall not omnis moriar;—my name borne down the black gulf of oblivion.

I shall survive in eleven letters, five more than Cæsar. Possibly I shall come to be knighted, or more! Sir C. L. Talfourd, Bart.!

Yet hath it an authorish twang with it, which will wear out my name for poetry. Give him a smile from me till I see him. If you do not drop down before, some day in the week after next I will come and take one night’s lodging with you, if convenient, before you go hence. You shall name it. We are in town to-morrow speciali gratia, but by no arrangement can get up near you.

Believe us both, with greatest regards, yours and Mrs. Talfourd’s.

Charles Lamb-Philo-Talfourd.

I come as near it as I can.

Note

[This may be incorrectly dated, but I place it here because in that to Hood of December 17, summarised above, Lamb speaks of his godson at Brighton.

Talfourd (who himself dates this letter 1829) had named his latest child Charles Lamb Talfourd. The boy lived only until 1835. I quote in the Appendix the verses which Talfourd wrote on his death (see page 958). Another of Lamb’s name children,
1828“A SICK CAT”793
Charles Lamb Kenney, grew to man’s estate and became a ready writer.

“I shall not omnis moriar” (see Horace, Odes, III., xxx., 6)—“I shall not wholly die.”]

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