Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to Bryan Waller Procter, 22 January 1829
DON’T trouble yourself about the verses. Take
’em coolly as they come. Any day between this and Midsummer will do. Ten
lines the extreme. There is no mystery in my incognita. She has often seen you,
though you may not have observed a silent brown girl, who for the last twelve
years has run wild about our house in her Christmas holidays. She is Italian by
name and extraction. Ten lines about the blue sky of her country will do, as
it’s her foible to be proud of it. But they must not be over courtly or
Lady-fied as she is with a Lady who says to her “go and she goeth;
come and she cometh”. Item, I have made her a tolerable Latinist.
The verses should be moral too, as for a Clergyman’s family. She is
called Emma Isola. I approve heartily of
your turning your four vols, into a lesser compass. ’Twill Sybillise the
gold left. I shall, I think, be in town in a few weeks, when I will assuredly
see you. I will put in here loves to Mrs.
Procter and the Anti-Capulets, because Mary tells me I omitted them in my last. I like
to see my friends here. I have put my lawsuit into the hands of an Enfield
practitioner—a plain man, who seems perfectly to understand it, and gives me
hopes of a favourable result.
Rumour tells us that Miss
Holcroft is married; though the varlet has not had the grace to
make any communication to us on the subject. Who is Badman, or Bed’em? Have I seen him
at Montacute’s? I hear he is a
great chymist. I am sometimes chymical myself. A thought strikes me with
horror. Pray heaven he may not have done it for the sake of trying chymical
experiments upon her,—young female subjects are so scarce!
Louisa would make a capital shot. An’t you glad
about Burke’s case? We may set off
the Scotch murders against the Scotch novels—Hare, the Great
Un-hanged.
Martin Burney is richly worth your
knowing. He is on the top scale of my friendship ladder, on which an angel or
two is still climbing, and some, alas! descending. I am out of the literary
world at present. Pray, is there anything new from the admired pen of the
author of the Pleasures of
Hope? Has Mrs. He-mans
(double masculine) done anything pretty lately? Why sleeps the lyre of
Hervey, and of Alaric Watts? Is the muse of L. E. L. silent? Did you see a sonnet of mine in Blackwood’s last? Curious
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struction! Elaborata facilitas! And now I’ll
tell. ’Twas written for the “Gem;” but the editors declined it, on the plea that it would
shock all mothers; so they published “The Widow” instead. I am
born out of time. I have no conjecture about what the present world calls
delicacy. I thought “Rosamund Gray” was a pretty modest thing. Hessey assures me that the world would not
bear it. I have lived to grow into an indecent character. When my sonnet was
rejected, I exclaimed, “Damn the age; I will write for
Antiquity!”
Erratum in sonnet:—Last line but something, for tender,
read tend. The Scotch do not know our law terms; but I find some remains of
honest, plain, old writing lurking there still. They were not so mealy-mouthed
as to refuse my verses. Maybe, ’tis their oatmeal.
Blackwood sent me £20 for the drama. Somebody cheated me out
of it next day; and my new pair of breeches, just sent home, cracking at first
putting on, I exclaimed, in my wrath, “All tailors are cheats, and all
men are tailors.” Then I was better. [Rest
lost.]
John Badams (d. 1833)
Educated at Edinburgh University, he was a Birmingham chemist and friend of Thomas
Carlyle. He married Louisa, daughter of Thomas Holcroft, in 1828.
Louisa Badams [née Holcroft] (1806-1855 fl.)
The daughter of Thomas Holcroft and his fourth wife, Louisa Mercier; in 1828 she married
John Badams (d. 1833) a Birmingham chemist, and afterwards a Baron de Merger. Her birth
date is also given as 24 June 1801.
William Burke (1792-1829)
Irish-born cobbler who with his accomplice William Hare murdered Edinburgh paupers and
sold their bodies for dissection.
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.
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844)
Scottish poet and man of letters; author of
The Pleasures of Hope
(1799),
Gertrude of Wyoming (1808) and lyric odes. He edited the
New Monthly Magazine (1821-30).
William Hare (1792 c.-1829 fl.)
With his accomplice William Burke he murdered Edinburgh paupers and sold their bodies for
dissection; he was released after turning king's evidence.
Felicia Dorothea Hemans [née Browne] (1793-1835)
English poet; author of
Tales, and Historic Scenes (1819),
Records of Woman (1828), and other volumes. She was much in demand
as a contributor to the literary annuals.
Thomas Kibble Hervey (1799-1859)
Educated at Manchester grammar school and Trinity College, Cambridge, he published poems,
edited
Friendship's Offering, and reviewed for the
Athenaeum.
James Augustus Hessey (1785-1870)
London publisher in partnership with John Taylor; they published the London Magazine from
1821 to 1825.
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.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon [L. E. L.] (1802-1838)
English poet who came to attention through the
Literary Gazette;
she published three volumes in 1825. She was the object of unflattering gossip prior to her
marriage to George Maclean in 1838.
Basil Montagu (1770-1851)
An illegitimate son of the fourth earl of Sandwich, he was educated at Charterhouse and
Christ's College, Cambridge, and afterwards was a lawyer, editor, and friend of Samuel
Romilly, William Godwin, and William Wordsworth.
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.
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.
Alaric Alexander Watts (1797-1864)
English poet and journalist who as editor of the
Literary Souvenir
(1824-35) was the prime mover behind the literary annual.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. (1817-1980). Begun as the
Edinburgh Monthly Magazine,
Blackwood's assumed the name of its proprietor, William Blackwood after the sixth
number. Blackwood was the nominal editor until 1834.
