I HAVE a proof from Dilke. That serves for next Saturday.
What Forster had, will serve a second. I
sent you a third concluding article for him and us (a capital hit, I
think, about Cervantes) of which I leave you
to judge whether we shall not want it to print before a
third or even second week. In that case beg D. to clap
them in all at once; and keep the Atheneums to print from. What I send is the concluding Article of the painters.
Soften down the Title in the Book to
“Defect of the Imaginative Faculty in
Artists.”
Consult Dilke.
1833 | BRIEF NOTES | 895 |
[Lamb’s Elia essay “Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty in the Production of Modern Art,” intended originally for The Englishman’s Magazine (see Letter 515), was partly printed by Forster in The Reflector and finally printed in full in The Athenæum in January and February, 1833. The reference to Don Quixote is at the end. Moxon was already printing the Last Essays of Elia.
“Consult Dilke” was a favourite phrase with Lamb and Hood and, long before, with Keats.]
BE sure and let me have the Atheneum—or, if they don’t appear, the Copy back again. I have no other.
I am glad you are introduced to Rickman, cultivate the introduction. I will not forget to write to him.
I want to see Blackwood, but not without you.
We are yet Emma-less.
And so that is all I can remember.
This is a corkscrew.
[Here is a florid corkscrew.]
C. L. Fecit.—
[Lamb refers still to the “Barrenness of Imagination” series.
There are several scraps addressed by Lamb to Forster in the South Kensington Museum; but they are undated and of little importance. I append one or two here:—]
GO to Dilke’s, or Let Mockson, and ax him to add this to what I sent him a few days since, or to continue it the week after. The Plantas &c. are capital.
Come down with M. and Dante and L. E. L. on Sunday.
896 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Jan. |
I dont mean at his House, but the Atheneum office. Send it there. Hand shakes.
[The Plantas sound like cigars. If so, we must suppose that Lamb still smoked. M. and Dante and L. E. L. would be Moxon, Cary and Letitia Landon, the poetess, to whom Forster was for a while engaged.
This letter, up to a certain point, was repeated as follows. It also is at South Kensington:—]
I WISH youd go to Dilke’s, or let Mockson, and ax him to add this to what I sent him a few days since, or to continue it the week after. The Plantas &c. are capital. Come down with Procter and Dante on Sunday. I send you the last proof—not of my friendship. I knew you would like the title. I do thoroughly. The Last Essays of Elia keeps out any notion of its being a second volume.
THERE was a talk of Richmond on Sunday but we were hampered with an unavoidable engagement that day, besides that I wish to show it you when the woods are in full leaf. Can you have a quiet evening here to night or to-morrow night? We are certainly at home.
DEAR Murray! Moxon I mean.—I am not to be making you pay postage every day, but cannot let pass the congratulations of sister, brother, and “Silk Cloak,” all most cordial on your change of place. Rogers approving, who can demur? Tell me when you get into Dover St. and what the No. is—that I may change foolscap for gilt, and plain Mr. for Esqr. I shall Mister you while you stay—
If you are not too great to attend to it, I wish us to do without the Sonnets of Sydney; 12 will take up as many pages, and be too palpable a fill up. Perhaps we may leave them out, retaining the
1833 | THE LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA | 897 |
Not an inapt quotation, for your fallen predecessor in Albemarle Street, to whom you must give the coup du main—
Murray, long enough his country’s pride. Pope.
|
[Then, written at the bottom of the page] there’s [and written on the next page] there’s nothing over here.
[Moxon was moving from 64 New Bond Street to 33 Dover Street. “Silk Cloak” would, I imagine, probably be a name for Emma Isola.
“The Sonnets of Sydney”—Lamb’s Elia essay on this subject. It was not omitted from the Last Essays, which Moxon was to publish, and eleven sonnets were quoted.
“Your fallen predecessor.” It is hardly needful to say that Moxon made very little difference to Murray’s business. The line is from Pope’s Sixth Epistle of the First Book of Horace. To Mr. Murray, who afterwards was Earl of Mansfield.]
I WISH you would omit “by the author of Elia,” now, in advertising that damn’d “Devil’s Wedding.” I had sneaking hopes you would have dropt in today—tis my poor birthday. Don’t stay away so. Give Forster a hint—you are to bring your brother some day—sisters in better weather.
Pray give me one line to say if you receiv’d and
forwarded Emma’s pacquet to
Miss Adams,
and how Dover St. looks.
Is there no Blackwood this month?
[Added on cover:—]
What separation will there be between the friend’s preface, and the Essays? Should not “Last Essays &c.” head them? If ’tis too late, don’t mind. I don’t care a farthing about it.
[“Devil’s Wedding”—Satan in Search of a Wife. “What separation”—the Last Essays of Elia were preceded by “A Character of the Late Elia.”
898 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Feb. |
Here should come a letter from Lamb to Louisa Badams, dated February 15, 1833. Lamb begins with a further reference to the Enfield murder (see note to Letter 529). He says that his sister and himself have got through the Inferno with the help of Cary, and Mary is beginning Tasso.]
MY dear M.—I send you the last proof—not of my friendship—pray see to the finish. I think you will see the necessity of adding those words after “Preface”—and “Preface” should be in the “contents-table”—I take for granted you approve the title. I do thoroughly—Perhaps if you advertise it in full, as it now stands, the title page might have simply the Last Essays of Elia, to keep out any notion of its being a second vol.—
Well, I wish us luck heartily for your sake who have smarted by me.—
MY dear T.,—Now cannot I call him Serjeant; what is there in a coif? Those canvas-sleeves protective from ink, when he was a law-chit—a Chittyling, (let the leathern apron be apocryphal) do more ’specially plead to the Jury Court of old memory. The costume (will he agnize it?) was as of a desk-fellow or Socius Plutei. Methought I spied a brother!
That familiarity is extinct for ever. Curse me if I can call him Mr. Serjeant—except, mark me, in company. Honour where honour is due; but should he ever visit us, (do you think he ever will, Mary?) what a distinction should I keep up between him and our less fortunate friend, H. C. R.! Decent respect shall always be the Crabb’s—but, somehow, short of reverence.
Well, of my old friends, I have lived to see two knighted: one made a judge, another in a fair way to it, Why am I restive? why stands my sun upon Gibeah?
1833 | TALFOURD A SERJEANT | 899 |
Variously, my dear Mrs. Talfourd, (I can be more familiar with her!) Mrs. Serjeant Talfourd,—my sister prompts me—(these ladies stand upon ceremonies)—has the congratulable news affected the members of our small community. Mary comprehended it at once, and entered into it heartily. Mrs. W—— was, as usual, perverse—wouldn’t, or couldn’t, understand it. A Serjeant? She thought Mr. T. was in the law. Didn’t know that he ever ’listed.
Emma alone truly sympathised. She had a silk gown come home that very day, and has precedence before her learned sisters accordingly.
We are going to drink the health of Mr. and Mrs. Serjeant, with all the young serjeantry—and that is all that I can see that I shall get by the promotion.
Valete, et mementote amici quondam vestri humillimi.
[Talfourd, who had been pupil of Joseph Chitty, had just become a Serjeant.
“Socius Plutei.” Companion of the book-shelf. “H. C. R.”—Crabb Robinson.
“My old friends.” Stoddart and Tuthill were knighted; Barron Field was a judge; Talfourd was to become both a knight and a judge.
“Why stands my sun.” See Joshua x.
“Mrs. W——.” Mrs. Westwood, I suppose.
“Valete, et mementote . . .” Farewell, and remember once more your humble friend.]
DR M. let us see you & your Brother on Sunday—The Elias are beautifully got up. Be cautious how you name the probability of bringing ’em ever out complete—till these are gone off. Everybody’d say “O I’ll wait then.”
An’t we to have a copy of the Sonnets—
Mind, I shall insist upon having no more copies: only I shall take 3 or 4 more of you at trade price. I am resolute about this.
900 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | 1833 |
In Christian world Mary the
garland wears!
Rebecca sweetens on a Hebrew’s ear;
Quakers for pure Priscilla are
more clear;
And the light Gaul by amorous
Ninon swears.
Among the lesser lights how Lucy
shines!
What air of fragrance Rosamund
throws round!
How like a hymn doth sweet Cecilia
sound!
Of Marthas, and of
Abigails, few lines
Have bragg’d in verse. Of coarsest household
stuff
Should homely Joan be fashioned.
But can
You Barbara resist, or
Marian?
And is not Clare for love excuse
enough?
Yet, by my faith in numbers, I profess,
These all, than Saxon Edith, please me less.
|
MANY thanks for the life you have given us—I am perfectly satisfied. But if you advert to it again, I give you a delicate hint. Barbara S—— shadows under that name Miss Kelly’s early life, and I had the Anecdote beautifully from her.
[The sonnet, addressed to Edith Southey, was printed in The Athenæum for March 9, 1833.
For “Barbara S——” see Vol. II. of the present edition, page 202.]
NO writing, and no word, ever passed between Taylor, or Hessey, and me, respecting copy right. This I can swear. They made a volume at their own will, and volunteerd me a third of profits, which came to £30, which came to Bilk, and never came back to me. Proctor has acted a friendly part—when did he otherwise? I am very sorry to hear Mrs. P—— as I suppose is not so well. I meditated a rallying epistle to him on his Gemini—his two Sosias, accusing him of having acted a notable piece of duplicity. But if his partner in the double dealing suffers—it
1833 | PRESENTATION COPIES | 901 |
The weather is so queer that I will not say I expect you &c.—but am prepared for the pleasure of seeing you when you can come.
We had given you up (the post man being late) and Emma and I have 20 times this morning been to the door in the rain to spy for him coming.
Well, I know it is not all settled, but your letter is chearful and cheer-making.
We join in triple love to you.
I am settled in any case to take at Bookseller’s price any copies I have more. Therefore oblige me by sending a copy of Elia to Coleridge and B. Barton, and enquire (at your leisure of course) how I can send one, with a letter, to Walter Savage Landor. These 3 put in your next bill on me. I am peremptory that it shall be so. These are all I can want.
1 Is it the Western? he goes to Reading &c.
[John Taylor, representing the firm of Taylor & Hessey, seems to have set up a claim of copyright in those essays in the Last Essays of Elia that were printed in the London Magazine.
For Procter’s part, see next letter.
Piozziana; or, Recollections of the late Mrs. Piozzi (Johnson’s Mrs. Thrale), was published in 1833. It was by the Rev. E. Mangin.
Mad. Darblay would be The Memoirs of Dr. Burney, 1832, by his daughter Madame d’Arblay (Admiral Burney’s niece). The book was severely handled in the Quarterly for April, 1833.
The following letter, which is undated, seems to refer to the difficulty mentioned above:—]
DEAR P——, I have more than £30 in my house, and am independent of quarter-day, not having received my pension.
902 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | March |
Pray settle, I beg of you, the matter with Mr. Taylor. I know nothing of bills, but most gladly will I forward to you that sum for him, for Mary is very anxious that M[oxon] may not get into any litigation. The money is literally rotting in my desk for want of use. I should not interfere with M——, tell M—— when you see him, but Mary is really uneasy; so lay it to that account, not mine.
Yours ever and two evers,
Do it smack at once, and I will explain to M—— why I did it. It is simply done to ease her mind. When you have settled, write, and I’ll send the bank notes to you twice, in halves.
Deduct from it your share in broken bottles, which, you being capital in your lists, I take to be two shillings. Do it as you love Mary and me. Then Elia’s himself again.
DEAR Friend—Thee hast sent a Christian epistle to me, and I should not feel clear if I neglected to reply to it, which would have been sooner if that vain young man, to whom thou didst intrust it, had not kept it back. We should rejoice to see thy outward man here, especially on a day which should not be a first day, being liable to worldly callers in on that day. Our little book is delayed by a heathenish injunction, threatened by the man Taylor. Canst thou copy and send, or bring with thee, a vanity in verse which in my younger days I wrote on friend Aders’ pictures? Thou wilt find it in the book called the Table Book.
Tryphena and Tryphosa, whom the world calleth Mary and Emma, greet you with me.
[On this letter is written by Hone in pencil: “This acknowledges a note from me to C. L. written in January preceding and sent by young Will Hazlitt. Received in my paralysis. March, 1833.”]
I SHALL expect Forster and two Moxons on Sunday, and hope for Procter.
I am obliged to be in town next Monday. Could we contrive to
1833 | THE VICAR AND THE TAILOR | 903 |
N.B. I can sleep at a public house.
Send an Elia (mind, I insist on buying it) to T. Manning Esq. at Sir G. Tuthill’s Cavendish Square.
do write.
[Miss Kelly was then giving an entertainment called “Dramatic Recollections” at the Strand Theatre.]
THIS instant receiv’d, this instant I answer your’s—Dr. Cresswell has one copy, which I cannot just now re-demand, because at his desire I have sent a “Satan” to him, which when he ask’d for, I frankly told him, was imputed a lampoon on Him!!! I have sent it him, and cannot, till we come to explanation, go to him or send—
But on the faith of a Gentleman, you shall have it back some day for another. The 3 I send. I think 2 of the blunders perfectly immaterial. But your feelings, and I fear pocket, is every thing. I have just time to pack this off by the 2 o Clock stage. Yours till we meet
At all events I behave more gentlemanlike than Emma did, in returning the copies.
Yours till we meet—do come.
Bring the Sonnets—
Why not publish ’em?—or let another
Bookseller?
[Dr. Cresswell was vicar of Edmonton. Having married the daughter of a tailor—or so Mr. Fuller Russell states in his account of a conversation with Lamb in Notes and Queries—he was in danger of being ribaldly associated with Satan’s matrimonial adventures in Lamb’s ballad. I cannot explain to what book Lamb refers: possibly to the Last Essays of Elia, which Moxon, having found errors in, wished to withdraw, substituting another. The point probably cannot be cleared up. The sonnets would be Moxon’s own, which he had printed privately (see Letter 566).]
904 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | March |
DR M. Emma and we are delighted with the Sonnets, and she with her nice Walton. Mary is deep in the novel. Come as early as you can. I stupidly overlookd your proposal to meet you in Green Lanes, for in some strange way I burnt my leg, shin-quarter, at Forster’s;* it is laid up on a stool, and Asbury attends. You’ll see us all as usual, about Taylor, when you come.
* Or the night I came home, for I felt it not bad till yesterday. But I scarce can hobble across the room.
I have secured 4 places for night: in haste.
[I fancy that the. last sentence refers to an offer for Miss Isola’s hand which Moxon had just made to Lamb.]
DEAR M. many thanks for the Books; the Faust I will acknowledge to the Author. But most thanks for one immortal sentence, “If I do not cheat him, never trust me again.” I do not know whether to admire most, the wit or justness of the sentiment. It has my cordial approbation. My sense of meum and tuum applauds it. I maintain it, the eighth commandment hath a secret special reservation, by which the reptile is exempt from any protection from it; as a dog, or a nigger, he is not a holder of property. Not a ninth of what he detains from the world is his own. Keep your hands from picking and stealing is no ways referable to his acquists. I doubt whether bearing false witness against thy neighbor at all contemplated this possible scrub. Could Moses have seen the speck in vision? An ex post facto law alone could relieve him, and we are taught to expect no eleventh commandment. The out-law to the Mosaic dispensation!—unworthy to have seen Moses’ behind—to lay his desecrating
1833 | TAYLOR SUMMARISED | 905 |
Mind, you’ll come, two of you—and couldn’t you go off in the morning, that we may have a daylong curse at him, if curses are not dis-hallowed by descending so low? Amen. Maledicatur in extremis.
[Abraham Hayward’s translation of Faust was published by Moxon in February, 1833. Lamb’s letter of thanks was said by the late Edmund Yates to be a very odd one. I have not seen it.
We may perhaps assume that Moxon’s reply to Lamb’s letter stating that Taylor’s claim had been paid contained the “immortal sentence.”
“Not a ninth.” A tailor (Taylor) is only a ninth of a man.
“The less flea.” Remembering Swift’s lines in “On Poetry, a Rhapsody”:—
So, naturalists observe, a flea Has smaller fleas that on him prey; And these have smaller still to bite ’em, And so proceed ad
infinitum.] |
SWALLOW your damn’d dinner and your brandy and
water fast—
& come immediately
I want to take Knowles in to Emma’s only female friend for 5 minutes only, and we are free for the eveng.
I’ll do a Prologue.
[The prologue was for Sheridan Knowles’ play “The Wife.” Lamb wrote both prologue and epilogue (see Vol. V., pages 129, 130 and 349).]
906 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | April |
DEAR M. The first Oak sonnet, and the Nightingale, may show their faces in any Annual unblushing. Some of the others are very good.
The Sabbath too much what you have written before. You are destined to shine in Sonnets, I tell you. Shall we look for you Sunday, we did in vain Good Friday [April 5].
[A signature was added by Mrs. Moxon for Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson, evidently from another letter:—]
[I quote Moxon’s first oak sonnet:—
Gigantic time-worn Tree, what moons have fled Since thou wert planted first by warlike hand! Nigh twice four hundred years have swept the land; And yet, defying time, thou lift’st thy head Still green, nor fear’st the storms that round have spread Thy weak compeers. They scatter’d lie, and rent, Ev’n as that Chieftain old, whose monument Thou art. In him pleas’d Fancy fain would trace A knight of high emprise and good intent; Within whose breast wrong’d orphans’ woes found place, Ever in rightful cause the Champion free, Of his proud times the ornament and grace; A wight well worthy to recorded be, In fairest archives of bright chivalry.] |
DR Sir, I read your note in a moment of great perturbation with my Landlady and chuck’d it in the fire, as I should have done an epistle of Paul, but as far as my Sister recalls the
1833 | A REVIEW OF MOXON | 907 |
1 The proof sheets only were in my hand about a fortnight ago.
[Moxon’s sonnets were reviewed, probably by Lamb, in The Athenæum for April 13, 1833. The sonnet to the nightingale (see page 852) was quoted. This review will be found on page 384 of Vol. I. of the present edition.]
DEAR Mrs. Ayrton, I do not know which to admire most, your kindness, or your patience, in copying out that intolerable rabble of panegryc from over the Atlantic. By the way, now your hand is in, I wish you would copy out for me the 13th 17th and 24th of Barrow’s sermons in folio, and all of Tillotson’s (folio also) except the first, which I have in Manuscript, and which, you know, is Ayrton’s favorite. Then—but I won’t trouble you any farther just now. Why does not A come and see me? Can’t he and Henry Crabbe concert it? ’Tis as easy as lying is to me. Mary’s kindest love to you both.
[The letter is accompanied by a note in the writing of William Scrope Ayrton, the son of William Ayrton, copied from Mrs. Ayrton’s Diary:—
“March 17, 1833.—Copied a critique upon Elia’s works from the Mirror of America a sort of news paper.”]
908 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | April |
MY dear Moxon, We perfectly agree in your arrangement. It
has quite set my sister’s mind at rest. She will come with you
on Sunday, and return at eve, and I will make comfortable arrangemts with the Buffams. We desire to have you here dining unWestwooded, and I
will try and get you a bottle of choice port. I have transferr’d the
stock I told you to Emma. The plan of
the Buffams steers admirably between two niceties. Tell
Emma we thoroughly approve it. As our damnd Times is a day after the fair, I am
setting off to Enfield Highway to see in a morning paper (alas! the
Publican’s) how the play
ran. Pray, bring 4 orders for Mr.
Asbury—undated.
In haste (not for neglect)
[Lamb evidently refers to Moxon’s engagement to Miss Isola being now settled.
The play was Sheridan Knowles’ “The Wife,” produced on April 24.
The Buffams were the landladies of the house in Southampton Buildings, where Lamb lodged in town.]
DEAR M. Mary and I are very poorly. Asbury says tis nothing but influenza. Mr. W. appears all but dying, he is delirious. Mrs. W. was taken so last night, that Mary was obliged at midnight to knock up Mrs. Waller to come and sit up with her. We have had a sick child, who sleeping, or not sleeping, next me with a pasteboard partition between, killed my sleep. The little bastard is gone. My bedfellows are Cough and cramp, we sleep 3 in a bed. Domestic arrangemts (Blue Butcher and all) devolve on Mary. Don’t come yet to this house of pest and age. We propose when E. and you agree on the time, to come up and
1833 | THE MOVE TO EDMONTON | 909 |
I do sadly want those 2 last Hogarths—and an’t I to have the Play?
Mind our spirits are good and we are happy in your happinesses.
Our old and ever loves to dear Em.
[“Mr. W.” was Mr. Westwood.—I know nothing of the Lachlans.—The Play would be “The Wife” probably.—Miss Isola was, I imagine, staying with the Moxons.]
BY a strange occurrence we have quitted Enfield for ever. Oh! the happy eternity! Who is Vicar or Lecturer for that detestable place concerns us not. But Asbury, surgeon and a good fellow, has offered to get you a Mover and Seconder, and you may use my name freely to him. Except him and Dr. Creswell, I have no respectable acquaintance in the dreary village. At least my friends are all in the public line, and it might not suit to have it moved at a special vestry by John Gage at the Crown and Horseshoe, licensed victualler, and seconded by Joseph Horner of the Green Dragon, ditto, that the Rev. J. G. is a fit person to be Lecturer, &c.
My dear James, I wish you all success, but am too full of my own emancipation almost to congratulate anyone else. With both our loves to your father and mother and glorious S. T. C.,
[The Rev. James Gillman was the eldest son of Coleridge’s physician and friend. He was born in 1808 and ordained in 1831. He thought in 1833 of standing as candidate for the vicarship of Enfield, but did not obtain it. After acting as Under Master of Highgate Grammar School he became in 1836 Rector of Barfreystone, in Kent. In 1847 he became Vicar of Holy Trinity, Lambeth. He died in 1877.
Mary Lamb having become ill again had been moved to Edmonton, to a private home for mental patients. Lamb followed her
910 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | May |
DR F. Can you oblige me by sending 4 Box orders undated for the Olympic Theatre? I suppose Knowles can get ’em. It is for the Waldens, with whom I live. The sooner, the better, that they may not miss the “Wife”—I meet you at the Talfourds’ Saturday week, and if they can’t, perhaps you can, give me a bed.
Or write immediately to say if you can’t get em.
[Knowles’ play “The Wife,” produced at Covent Garden, was moved to the Olympic on May 9.]
1833 | THE NEWS TO WORDSWORTH | 911 |
DEAR Boy, I send you the original Elias, complete.
When I am a little composed, I shall hope to see you and Proctor here; may be, may see you first in London.
[In the Dyce and Forster collection, at South Kensington, are preserved some of these MSS.]
DEAR Wordsworth, Your letter, save in what respects your dear Sister’s health, chear’d me in my new solitude. Mary is ill again. Her illnesses encroach yearly. The last was three months, followed by two of depression most dreadful. I look back upon her earlier attacks with longing. Nice little durations of six weeks or so, followed by complete restoration—shocking as they were to me then. In short, half her life she is dead to me, and the other half is made anxious with fears and lookings forward to the next shock. With such prospects, it seem’d to me necessary that she should no longer live with me, and be fluttered with continual removals, so I am come to live with her, at a Mr. Walden’s and his wife, who take in patients, and have arranged to lodge and board us only. They have had the care of her before. I see little of her; alas! I too often hear her. Sunt lachrymæ rerum—and you and I must bear it—
To lay a little more load on it, a circumstance has happen’d, cujus pars magna fui, and which at another crisis I should have more rejoiced in. I am about to lose my old and only walk-companion, whose mirthful spirits were the “youth of our house,” Emma Isola. I have her here now for a little while, but she is too nervous properly to be under such a roof, so she will make short visits, be no more an inmate. With my perfect approval, and more than concurrence, she is to be wedded to Moxon at the end of Augst. So “perish the roses and the flowers”—how is it?
Now to the brighter side, I am emancipated from most hated and detestable people, the Westwoods. I am with attentive people, and
912 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Sept. |
Thank you for your cordial reception of Elia. Inter nos the Ariadne is not a darling with me, several incongruous things are in it, but in the composition it served me as illustrative
I want you in the popular fallacies to like the “Home that is no home” and “rising with the lark.”
I am feeble, but chearful in this my genial hot weather,—walk’d 16 miles yesterdy. I can’t read much in Summer time.
With very kindest love to all and prayers for dear Dorothy,
Moxon has introduced Emma to Rogers, and he smiles upon the project. I have given E. my Milton—will you pardon me?—in part of a portion. It hangs famously in his Murray-like shop.
[On the wrapper is written:—]
Dr M[oxon], inclose this in a better-looking paper, and get it frank’d, and good by’e till Sundy. Come early—
[“Sunt lachrymce rerum.” From the Æneid, I., 462. “Here are tears. . . .”
“Youth of our house.” I do not find this.
“Perish the roses and the flowers.” See The Excursion, Book VII., line 980.
“The Ariadne.” See the essay on “Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty,” where Titian’s “Bacchus and Ariadne” in the National Gallery is highly praised (see Vol. II., pages 226 and 446). Wordsworth’s favourite essays in this volume were “The Wedding” and “Old China.”
“My Milton.” Against the reference to the portrait of Milton, in the postscript, some one, possibly Wordsworth, has pencilled a note, now only partially legible. It runs thus: “It had been proposed by L. that W. W. should be the Possessor of [? this picture] his friend and that afterwards it was to be bequeathed to Christ’s Coll. Cambridge.”
Lamb had given Wordsworth in 1820 a copy of Paradise Regained, 1671, with this inscription: “C. Lamb to the best Knower of Milton, and therefore the worthiest occupant of this pleasant Edition. June 2d 1820.”
See Appendix II., page 978, for a letter to Miss Rickman.]
1833 | MARY LAMB STILL ILL | 913 |
DEAR Mrs. Hazlitt,—I will assuredly come, and find you out, when I am better. I am driven from house and home by Mary’s illness. I took a sudden resolution to take my sister to Edmonton, where she was under medical treatment last time, and have arranged to board and lodge with the people. Thank God, I have repudiated Enfield. I have got out of hell, despair of heaven, and must sit down contented in a half-way purgatory. Thus ends this strange eventful history—
But I am nearer town, and will get up to you somehow before long—
I repent not of my resolution.
’Tis late, and my hand unsteady, so good b’ye till we meet.
[“Thus ends this strange eventful history” (“As You Like It,” II, 7, 164).]
DEAR Miss Betham,—I sit down, very poorly, to write to you, being come to Mr. Walden’s, Church Street, Edmonton, to be altogether with poor Mary, who is very ill, as usual, only that her illnesses are now as many months as they used to be weeks in duration—the reason your letter only just found me. I am saddened with the havoc death has made in your family. I do not know how to appreciate the kind regard of dear Anne; Mary will understand it two months hence, I hope; but neither she nor I would rob you, if the legacy will be of use to, or comfort to you. My hand shakes so I can hardly write. On Saturday week I must come to town, and will call on you in the morning before one o’clock. Till when I take kindest leave.
914 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | July |
[Miss Betham’s sister, Anne, who had just died, had left thirty pounds to Mary Lamb.
Here should come a note from Lamb to Mrs. Randal Norris, postmarked July 10, 1833, which encloses a note from Joseph Jekyll, the Old Bencher, thanking Lamb for a presentation copy of the Last Essays of Elia (“I hope not the last Essays of Elia”) and asking him to accompany Mrs. Norris and her daughters on a visit to him. Jekyll adds that “poor George Dyer, blind, but as usual chearful and content, often gives . . . good accounts of you.”]
DEAR M. the Hogarths are delicate. Perhaps it will amuse Emma to tell her, that, a day or two since, Miss Norris (Betsy) call’d to me on the road from London from a gig conveying her to Widford, and engaged me to come down this afternoon. I think I shall stay only one night; she would have been glad of E.’s accompaniment, but I would not disturb her, and Mrs. N. is coming to town on Monday, so it would not have suited. Also, C. V. Le Grice gave me a dinner at Johnny Gilpin’s yesterday, where we talk’d of what old friends were taken or left in the 30 years since we had met.
I shall hope to see her on Tuesdy.
[For Le Grice see note on page 34. “Johnny Gilpin’s” was The Bell at Edmonton.
Here should come another note from Lamb to Mrs. Randal Norris, in which Lamb says that he reached home safely and thanks her for three agreeable days. Also he sends some little books, which were, I take it, copies of Moxon’s private reissue of Poetry for Children (see note to Letter 503, page 863).
Mr. W. C. Hazlitt records that a letter from Lamb to Miss Norris was in existence in which the writer gave “minute and humorous instructions for his own funeral, even specifying the number of nails which he desired to be inserted in his coffin.”]
1833 | EMMA ISOLA’S WATCH | 915 |
FOR god’s sake, give Emma no more watches. One has turn’d her head. She is arrogant, and insulting. She said something very unpleasant to our old Clock in the passage, as if he did not keep time, and yet he had made her no appointment. She takes it out every instant to look at the moment-hand. She lugs us out into the fields, because there the bird-boys ask you “Pray, Sir, can you tell us what’s a Clock,” and she answers them punctually. She loses all her time looking “what the time is.” I overheard her whispering, “Just so many hours, minutes, &c. to Tuesday—I think St. George’s goes too slow”—This little present of Time, why, ’tis Eternity to her—
What can make her so fond of a gingerbread watch? She has spoil’d some of the movements. Between ourselves, she has kissed away “half past 12,” which I suppose to be the canonical hour in Hanover Sq.
Well, if “love me, love my watch,” answers, she will keep time to you—
It goes right by the Horse Guards—
[On the next page:—]
Emma hast kist this yellow wafer—a hint.
Dearest M.
Never mind opposite nonsense. She does not love you
for the watch, but the watch for you.
I will be at the wedding, and keep the 30 July as long as my poor months last me, as a festival gloriously.
We have not heard from Cambridge. I will write the moment we do.
Edmonton, 24th July, 3.20 post mer. minutes 4 instants by Emma’s watch.
[There is preserved at Rowfant a letter from Lamb to Moxon, postmarked July 28, 1833, mentioning Lamb’s anxiety about Martin Burney. It is unnecessary to print this.]
916 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | July |
DEAR Mr. and Mrs. Moxon—Time very short. I wrote to Miss Fryer, and had the sweetest letter about you, Emma, that ever friendship dictated. “I am full of good wishes, I am crying with good wishes,” she says; but you shall see it.—
Dear Moxon, I take your writing most kindly and shall most kindly your writing from Paris—
I want to crowd another letter to Miss Fry into the little time after dinner before Post time. So with 20000 congratulations,
Yours,
I am calm, sober, happy. Turn over for the reason. I got home from Dover St., by Evens, half as sober as a judge. I am turning over a new leaf, as I hope you will now.
[On the next leaf Mary Lamb wrote:—]
My dear Emma and Edward Moxon,
Accept my sincere congratulations, and imagine more good wishes than my weak nerves will let me put into good set words. The dreary blank of unanswered questions which I ventured to ask in vain was cleared up on the wedding-day by Mrs. W. taking a glass of wine, and, with a total change of countenance, begged leave to drink Mr. and Mrs. Moxon’s health. It restored me, from that moment: as if by an electrical stroke: to the entire possession of my senses—I never felt so calm and quiet after a similar illness as I do now. I feel as if all tears were wiped from my eyes, and all care from my heart.
[At the foot of this letter Charles Lamb added:—]
Your letter interrupted a seventh game at Picquet which we were having, after walking to Wright’s and purchasing shoes. We pass our time in cards, walks, and reading. We attack Tasso soon.
Never was such a calm, or such a recovery. ’Tis her own words, undictated.
1833 | SCRAMBLING THROUGH THE INFERNO | 917 |
[The marriage of Edward Moxon and Emma Isola was celebrated on July 30. They afterwards went to Paris. “Mrs. W.”—Mrs. Walden, I imagine.
Here should come an amusing but brief account of the wedding sent by Lamb to Louisa Badams on August 20 (printed by Canon Ainger). “I am not fit for weddings or burials. Both incite a chuckle:” a sentiment which Lamb more than once expresses.
Here should come a note thanking Matilda Betham for some bridal verses written for the wedding of Edward Moxon and Emma Isola. “In haste and headake.”]
DEAR Sir,—Your packet I have only just received, owing, I suppose, to the absence of Moxon, who is flaunting it about à la Parisienne with his new bride, our Emma, much to his satisfaction and not a little to our dulness. We shall be quite well by the time you return from Worcestershire and most most (observe the repetition) glad to see you here or anywhere.
I will take my time with Darley’s act. I wish poets would write a little plainer; he begins some of his words with a letter which is unknown co the English typography.
Yours, most truly,
P.S.—Pray let me know when you return. We are at Mr. Walden’s, Church-street, Edmonton; no longer at Enfield. You will be amused to hear that my sister and I have, with the aid of Emma, scrambled through the “Inferno” by the blessed furtherance of your polar-star translation. I think we scarce left anything unmadeout. But our partner has left us, and we have not yet resumed. Mary’s chief pride in it was that she should some day brag of it to you. Your Dante and Sandys’ Ovid are the only helpmates of translations. Neither of you shirk a word.
Fairfax’s Tasso is no translation at all. It’s better in some places; but it merely observes the number of stanzas; as for images, similes, &c., he finds ’em himself, and never “troubles Peter for the matter.”
In haste, dear Cary, yours ever,
Has Moxon sent you “Elia,” second volume? if not, he shall. Taylor and we are at law about it.
918 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Sept. |
[“Darley’s act.” Not now identifiable, I think.
“Taylor and we.” The case had apparently not been settled by Procter. I have not found any report of a law-suit.]
WE shall be most happy to see Emma, dear to every body. Mary’s spirits are much better, and she longs to see again our twelve years’ friend. You shall afternoon sip with me a bottle of superexcellent Port, after deducting a dinner-glass for them. We rejoyce to have E. come, the first Visit, without Miss ——, who, I trust, will yet behave well; but she might perplex Mary with questions. Pindar sadly wants Preface and notes. Pray, E., get to Snow Hill before 12, for we dine before 2. We will make it 2. By mistake I gave you Miss Betham’s letter, with the exquisite verses, which pray return to me, or if it be an improved copy, give me the other, and Albumize mine, keeping the signature. It is too pretty a family portrait, for you not to cherish.
[Pindar was Cary’s edition, which Moxon had just published. Miss Betham’s verses I am sorry not to be able to give; but the following poem was addressed to Moxon by Lamb and printed in The Athenæum for December 7, 1833:—
What makes a happy wedlock? What has fate Not given to thee in thy well-chosen mate? Good sense—good humour;—these are trivial things, Dear M——, that each trite encomiast
sings. But she hath these, and more. A mind exempt From every low-bred passion, where contempt, Nor envy, nor detraction, ever found A harbour yet; an understanding sound; Just views of right and wrong; perception full Of the deformed, and of the beautiful, In life and manners; wit above her sex, Which, as a gem, her sprightly converse decks; |
1833 | “WE ARE LONELY” | 919 |
Exuberant fancies, prodigal of mirth, To gladden woodland walk, or winter hearth; A noble nature, conqueror in the strife Of conflict with a hard discouraging life, Strengthening the veins of virtue, past the power Of those whose days have been one silken hour, Spoil’d fortune’s pamper’d offspring; a keen sense Alike of benefit, and of offence, With reconcilement quick, that instant springs From the charged heart with nimble angel wings; While grateful feelings, like a signet sign’d By a strong hand, seem burnt into her mind. If these, dear friend, a dowry can confer Richer than land, thou hast them all in her; And beauty, which some hold the chiefest boon, Is in thy bargain for a make-weight thrown.] |
DEAR M.—Get me Shirley (there’s a dear fellow) and send it soon. We sadly want books, and this will be readable again and again, and pay itself. Tell Emma I grieve for the poor self-punishing self-baffling Lady; with all our hearts we grieve for the pain and vexation she has encounterd; but we do not swerve a pin’s-thought from the propriety of your measures. God comfort her, and there’s an end of a painful necessity. But I am glad she goes to see her. Let her keep up all the kindness she can between them. In a week or two I hope Mary will be stout enough to come among ye, but she is not now, and I have scruples of coming alone, as she has no pleasant friend to sit with her in my absence. We are lonely. I fear the visits must be mostly from you. By the way omnibuses are 1s/3d and coach insides sunk to 1/6—a hint. Without disturbance to yourselves, or upsetting the economy of the dear new mistress of a family, come and see us as often as ever you can. We are so out of the world, that a letter from either of you now and then, detailing any thing, Book or Town news, is as good as a newspaper. I have desperate colds, cramps, megrims &c., but do not despond. My fingers are numb’d, as you see by my writing. Tell E. I am very good also. But we are poor devils, that’s the truth of it. I won’t apply to Dilke—just now at least—I sincerely hope the pastoral air of Dover St. will recruit poor Harriet. With best loves to all.
Ryle and Lowe dined here on Sunday; the manners of the latter, so gentlemanly! have attracted the special admiration of our Land-
920 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Nov. |
[Shirley would be Dyce’s edition of James Shirley, the dramatist, in six volumes, 1833.
Harriet was Harriet Isola.
“Ryle and Lowe.” Ryle we have met, but I do not identify Lowe.
I have omitted some lines about family matters at the end of the letter.]
MARY is of opinion with me, that two of these Sonnets are of a higher grade than any poetry you have done yet. The one to Emma is so pretty! I have only allowed myself to transpose a word in the third line. Sacred shall it be for any intermeddling of mine. But we jointly beg that you will make four lines in the room of the four last. Read “Darby and Joan,” in Mrs. Moxon’s first album. There you’ll see how beautiful in age the looking back to youthful years in an old couple is. But it is a violence to the feelings to anticipate that time in youth. I hope you and Emma will have many a quarrel and many a make-up (and she is beautiful in reconciliation!) before the dark days shall come, in which ye shall say “there is small comfort in them.” You have begun a sort of character of Emma in them very sweetly; carry it on, if you can, through the last lines.
I love the sonnet to my heart, and you shall finish it, and FU be damn’d if I furnish a line towards it. So much for that. The next best is
“Ye gallant winds, if e’er your lusty cheeks
Blew longing lover to his mistress’ side, O, puff your loudest, spread the canvas wide,” |
1833 | A LONDON HOLIDAY | 921 |
Perhaps “O Ocean” (though I like it) is too much of the open vowels, which Pope objects to. “Great Ocean!” is obvious. “To save sad thoughts” I think is better (though not good) than for the mind to save herself. But ’tis a noble Sonnet. “St. Cloud” I have no fault to find with.
If I return the Sonnets, think it no disrespect; for I look for a printed copy. You have done better than ever. And now for a reason I did not notice ’em earlier. On Wednesday they came, and on Wednesday I was a-gadding. Mary gave me a holiday, and I set off to Snow Hill. From Snow Hill I deliberately was marching down, with noble Holborn before me, framing in mental cogitation a map of the dear London in prospect, thinking to traverse Wardour-street, &c., when diabolically I was interrupted by
Heigh-ho! Little Barrow!— |
“Fair art thou as the morning, my young bride,” |
“May your fame And fortune, Frances, Whiten with your name!” |
922 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Nov. |
[Moxon subsequently published his Sonnets, in two parts, one of which was dedicated to his brother and one to Wordsworth. There are several to his wife, so that it is difficult to identify that in which the last lines were to be altered. Mrs. Moxon’s first album was an extract book in which Lamb had copied a number of old ballads and other poems.
I quote two of Moxon’s sonnets. This is to the Ocean:—
Four days, wild Ocean, on thy troubled breast A wanderer I have been! Swift cloud and wave Have occupied my thoughts, intent to save From pain my soul so far from its own rest. Ye gallant winds, if e’er your lusty cheeks Blew longing lover to his mistress’ side, O puff your loudest, spread the canvas wide Of our too tardy bark! My whole heart speaks In thus invoking you. Sweet Maid, with thee Seated once more within my beechen grove, The bower of graceful Emma and of love, Glad I shall be, as he who from the sea New lands beheld, or he of old who sat And his bark saw rest safe on Ararat! |
Fair art thou as the morning, my young Bride! Her freshness is about thee; like a river To the sea gliding with sweet murmur ever Thou sportest; and, wherever thou dost glide, Humanity a livelier aspect wears. Fair art thou as the morning of that land Where Tuscan breezes in his youth have fanned Thy grandsire oft. Thou hast not many tears, Save such as pity from the heart will wring, And then there is a smile in thy distress! Meeker thou art than lily of the spring, Yet is thy nature full of nobleness! And gentle ways, that soothe and raise me so, That henceforth I no worldly sorrow know! |
“Heigh-ho! Little Barrow!” I cannot identify this acquaintance.
“Knowles’s play”—“The Wife.” Prologued by Lamb too.
“At Chatteris.” I cannot say who were the teetotal, or abstinent, Philistines.
“Mary’s birthday.” Mary Lamb would be sixty-nine on December 3, 1833.
Lamb’s verses to Miss Brown seem to be no longer preserved. Mr. Hazlitt in his Bohn edition prints a letter to a Miss Frances Brown, which is not available for the present volume, wherein Lamb offers the verses, adding “I hope your sweetheart’s name is White. Else it would spoil all. May be ’tis Black. Then we must alter it. And may your fortunes Blacken with your name.”]
1833 | ROGERS AND STOTHARD | 923 |
I HOPED R. would like his Sonnet, but I fear’d S. that fine old man, might not quite like the turn of it. This last was penn’d almost literally extempore.
Is S.’s Christian name Thomas? if not, correct it.
[“R.”—Rogers; “S.”—Stothard. See next letter.]
MY dear Sir,—Your book, by the unremitting punctuality of your publisher, has reached me thus early. I have not opened it, nor will till to-morrow, when I promise myself a thorough reading of it. “The Pleasures of Memory” was the first school present I made to Mrs. Moxon, it had those nice wood-cuts; and I believe she keeps it still. Believe me, that all the kindness you have shown to the husband of that excellent person seems done unto myself. I have tried my hand at a sonnet in “The Times.” But the turn I gave it, though I hoped it would not displease you, I thought might not be equally agreeable to your artist. I met that dear old man at poor Henry’s—with you—and again at Cary’s—and it was sublime to see him sit deaf and enjoy all that was going on in mirth with the company. He reposed upon the many graceful, many fantastic images he had created; with them he dined and took wine.
I have ventured at an antagonist copy of verses in “The Athenæum” to him, in which he is as everything and you as nothing. He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides. But I am jealous of the combination of the sister arts. Let them sparkle apart. What injury (short of the theatres) did not Boydell’s “Shakespeare Gallery” do me with Shakespeare?—to have Opie’s Shakespeare, Northcote’s Shakespeare, light-headed Fuseli’s Shakespeare, heavy-headed Romney’s Shakespeare, wooden-headed West’s
924 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Dec. |
With many thanks, and most respectful remembrances to your sister,
Have you seen Coleridge’s happy exemplification in English of the Ovidian elegiac metre?—
In the Hexameter rises the fountain’s silvery current, In the Pentameter aye falling in melody down. |
My sister is papering up the book—careful soul!
[Moxon published a superb edition of Rogers’ Poems illustrated by Turner and Stothard. Lamb had received an advance copy. The sonnet to Rogers in The Times was printed on December 13, 1833. It ran thus:—
When thy gay book hath paid its proud devoirs, Poetic friend, and fed with luxury The eye of pampered aristocracy In glittering drawing-rooms and gilt boudoirs, O’erlaid with comments of pictorial art, However rich and rare, yet nothing leaving Of healthful action to the soul-conceiving Of the true reader—yet a nobler part Awaits thy work, already classic styled. Cheap-clad, accessible, in homeliest show The modest beauty through the land shall go From year to year, and render life more mild; Refinement to the poor man’s hearth shall give, And in the moral heart of England live. C. Lamb. |
1833 | LINES TO STOTHARD | 925 |
Thomas Stothard, then in his seventy-ninth year, Lamb had met at Henry Rogers’, who had died at Christmas, 1832. The following was the copy of verses printed in The Athenæum, December 21, 1833 (“that most romantic tale” was Peter Wilkins):—
Consummate Artist, whose undying name With classic Rogers shall go down to
fame, Be this thy crowning work! In my young days How often have I with a child’s fond gaze Pored on the pictured wonders thou hadst done: Clarissa mournful, and prim Grandison! All Fielding’s, Smollett’s heroes, rose to view; I saw, and I believed the phantoms true. But, above all, that most romantic tale Did o’er my raw credulity prevail, Where Glums and Gawries wear mysterious things, That serve at once for jackets and for wings. Age, that enfeebles other men’s designs, But heightens thine, and thy free draught refines. In several ways distinct you make us feel— Your lights and shades, as Titianesque, we praise; And warmly wish you Titian’s length
of days. |
“Short of the theatres.” The injury done by the theatres is of course the subject of Lamb’s Reflector essay on Shakespeare’s Tragedies (see Vol. I., page 97).
“Boydell’s ‘Shakespeare Gallery’”—the series of 170 illustrations to Shakespeare by leading artists of the day projected by Alderman Boydell in 1786.
“Out upon this half-faced fellowship.” Hotspur’s phrase in 1 “Henry IV.,” I, 3, 208.
“Coleridge’s . . . exemplification.” Lamb quoted incorrectly. The lines had just appeared in Friendship’s Offering for 1834:—
In the hexameter rises the fountain’s silvery column; In the pentameter aye falling in melody back. |
At Dr. Williams’ Library is a note from Thos. Robinson to Crabb Robinson, dated December 22, 1833, concerning Lamb’s Christmas turkey, which went first to Crabb Robinson at the Temple and was then sent on to Lamb, presumably with the note in the hamper. Lamb adds at the foot of the note:—
“The parcel coming thro’ you, I open’d this note, but find no treason in it.
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