Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to Sarah James, [16 April? 1829]
[No date. ? April, 1829.]
WE have just got your letter. I think Mother Reynolds will go on quietly,
Mrs. Scrimpshaw having kittened. The name of the late
Laureat was Henry James Pye, and when his
1st Birthday Ode came out, which was very poor, somebody being asked his
opinion of it, said:—
And when the Pye was open’d The birds began to sing, And was not this a dainty dish To set before the King! |
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Pye was brother to old Major
Pye, and father to Mrs.
Arnold, and uncle to a General
Pye, all friends of Miss
Kelly. Pye succeeded Thos. Warton, Warton
succeeded Wm. Whitehead,
Whitehead succeeded Colley
Cibber, Cibber succeeded Eusden, Eusden succeeded
Thos. Shadwell,
Shadwell succeeded Dryden, Dryden succeeded Davenant, Davenant God
knows whom. There never was a Rogers a Poet Laureat; there
is an old living Poet of that name, a
Banker as you know, Author of the “Pleasures of Memory,” where
Moxon goes to breakfast in a fine
house in the green Park, but he was never Laureat. Southey is the present one, and for anything I know or care,
Moxon may succeed him. We have a copy of “Xmas” for you, so you
may give your own to Mary as soon as you please. We think
you need not have exhibited your mountain shyness before M. B. He is neither shy himself, nor
patronizes it in others.—So with many thanks, good-bye. Emma comes on Thursday.
The Poet Laureat, whom Davenant succeeded was Rare ‘Ben Jonson,’ who I believe was the
first regular Laureat with the appointment of £100 a year and a Butt of
Sack or Canary—so add that to my little list.—C. L.
Matilda Arnold [née Pye] (d. 1851)
The daughter of the laureate Henry James Pye; in 1802 she married the playwright Samuel
James Arnold.
Martin Charles Burney (1788-1852)
The son of Admiral James Burney and nephew of Fanny Burney; he was a lawyer on the
western circuit, and a friend of Leigh Hunt, the Lambs, and Hazlitts.
Colley Cibber (1671-1757)
English actor, playwright, and much-ridiculed poet-laureate; he was the author of
The Careless Husband (1704) and
An Apology for the
Life of Mr. Colley Cibber (1740).
Sir William Davenant (1606-1668)
English poet and playwright; he was poet laureate (1638) and founder of the Duke's
Company (1660).
John Dryden (1631-1700)
English poet laureate, dramatist, and critic; author of
Of Dramatick
Poesie (1667),
Absalom and Achitophel (1681),
Alexander's Feast; or the Power of Musique (1697),
The Works of Virgil translated into English Verse (1697), and
Fables (1700).
Laurence Eusden (1688-1730)
Whig poet who contributed to the
Spectator; in 1718 he succeeded
Nicholas Rowe as poet laureate.
Ben Jonson (1572-1637)
English dramatist, critic, and epigrammatist, friend of William Shakespeare and John
Donne.
Frances Maria Kelly (1790-1882)
English actress and singer at Drury Lane and elsewhere; Charles Lamb proposed marriage
and later wrote an essay about her (“Barbara S”) in the
London
Magazine (1825).
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.
Aleyne Hampden Pye (d. 1833)
The son of Robert Hampden Pye and the poet Jael Henriett Pye; he served in Canada during
the war of 1812-15 and was promoted to major general in 1820.
Henry James Pye (1745-1813)
Succeeded William Whitehead as Poet Laureate in 1790; Pye first attracted attention with
Elegies on Different Occasions (1768); author of
The Progress of Refinement: a Poem (1783).
Robert Hampden Pye (1746 c.-1786 fl.)
English military officer who served in the American war; he was the younger brother of
the laureate who in 1766 became the second husband of the poet Jael Henriett Pye (d. 1782).
Charles Lamb reports that he and his brother were friends of the actress Fanny
Kelly.
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.
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).
Thomas Shadwell (1640 c.-1692)
English poet who succeeded John Dryden as poet laureate; Dryden mocked him in
MacFleckno (1682).
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).
Thomas Warton (1728-1790)
English scholar and poet; author of
The Pleasures of Melancholy
(1747),
Observations on the Fairy Queen of Spenser (1754),
The History of English Poetry, 3 vols (1774-78). He succeeded
William Whitehead as poet laureate in 1785.
William Whitehead (1715-1785)
English poet and playwright; educated at Winchester and Clare Hall, Cambridge, he was
appointed poet laureate in 1757.
