DEAR Mary Betham—I received the Bill, and when it is payable, some ten or twelve days hence, will punctually do with the overplus as you direct: I thought you would like to know it came to hand, so I have not waited for the uncertainty of when your nephew sets out. I suppose my receipt will serve, for poor Mary is not in a capacity to sign it. After being well from the end of July to the end of December, she was taken ill almost on the first day of the New Year, and is as bad as poor creature can be. I expect her fever to last 14 or 15 weeks—it she gets well at all, which every successive illness puts me in fear of. She has less and less strength to throw it off, and they leave a dreadful depression after them. She was quite comfortable a few weeks since, when Matilda came down here to see us.

I MET with a man at my half way house, who told me many anecdotes of Kean’s younger life. He knew him thoroughly. His name is Wyatt, living near the Bell, Edmonton. Also he

928

LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB

Feb.

referred me to West, a publican, opposite St. Georges Church, Southwark, who knew him more intimately. Is it worth Forster’s while to enquire after them?

DEAR Miss Fryer,—Your letter found me just returned from keeping my birthday (pretty innocent!) at Dover-street. I see them pretty often. I have since had letters of business to write, or should have replied earlier. In one word, be less uneasy about me; I bear my privations very well; I am not in the depths of desolation, as heretofore. Your admonitions are not lost upon me. Your kindness has sunk into my heart. Have faith in me! It is no new thing for me to be left to my sister. When she is not violent, her rambling chat is better to me than the sense and sanity of this world. Her heart is obscured, not buried; it breaks out occasionally; and one can discern a strong mind struggling with the billows that have gone over it. I could be nowhere happier than under the same roof with her. Her memory is unnaturally strong; and from ages past, if we may so call the earliest records of our poor life, she fetches thousands of names and things that never would have dawned upon me again, and thousands from the ten years she lived before me. What took place from early girlhood to her coming of age principally lives again (every important thing and every trifle) in her brain with the vividness of real presence. For twelve hours incessantly she will pour out without intermission all her past life, forgetting nothing, pouring out name after name to the Waldens as a dream; sense and nonsense; truths and errors

1834

WOOLMAN AND WALTON

929

huddled together; a medley between inspiration and possession. What things we are! I know you will bear with me, talking of these things. It seems to ease me; for I have nobody to tell these things to now. Emma, I see, has got a harp! and is learning to play. She has framed her three Walton pictures, and pretty they look. That is a book you should read; such sweet religion in it—next to Woolman’s! though the subject be baits and hooks, and worms, and fishes. She has my copy at present to do two more from.

Very, very tired, I began this epistle, having been epistolising all the morning, and very kindly would I end it, could I find adequate expressions to your kindness. We did set our minds on seeing you in spring. One of us will indubitably. But I am not skilled in almanac learning, to know when spring precisely begins and ends. Pardon my blots; I am glad you like your book. I wish it had been half as worthy of your acceptance as “John Woolman.” But ’tis a good-natured book.

MY dear Miss Fryer, By desire of Emma I have attempted new words to the old nonsense of Tartar Drum; but with the nonsense the sound and spirit of the tune are unaccountably gone, and we have agreed to discard the new version altogether. As you may be more fastidious in singing mere silliness, and a string of well-sounding images without sense or coherence—Drums of Tartars, who use none, and Tulip trees ten foot high, not to mention Spirits in Sunbeams &c,—than we are, so you are at liberty to sacrifice an enspiriting movement to a little sense, tho’ I like Little-sense less than his vagarying younger sister No-Sense—so I send them——

Emma is looking weller and handsomer (as you say) than ever. Really, if she goes on thus improving, by the time she is nine and thirty she will be a tolerable comely person. But I may not live

930

LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB

Feb.

to see it.—I take Beauty to be catching—a Cholera sort of thing—Now, whether the constant presence of a handsome object—for there’s only two of us—may not have the effect — — — but the subject is delicate, and as my old great Ant1 used to say— “Andsome is as andsome duzz”—that was my great Ant’s way of spelling——

Most and best kind things say to yourself and dear Mother for all your kindnesses to our Em., tho’ in truth I am a little tired with her everlasting repetition of ’em. Yours very Truly,

I Guard thy feelings, pretty Vestal, From the smooth Intruder free; Cage thine heart in bars of chrystal, Lock it with a golden key: Thro’ the bars demurely stealing— Noiseless footstep, accent dumb, His approach to none revealing— Watch, or watch not, Love will come.

His approach to none revealing— Watch, or watch not, Love will come—Love, Watch, or watch not, Love will come.

II Scornful Beauty may deny him— He hath spells to charm disdain; Homely Features may defy him— Both at length must wear the chain. Haughty Youth in Courts of Princes— Hermit poor with age oercome— His soft plea at last convinces; Sooner, later, Love will come—

His soft plea at length convinces; Sooner, later, Love will come—Love, Sooner, later, Love will come.

1Emma’s way of spelling Miss Umfris, as I spell her Aunt.

[Wordsworth has written on the wrapper, “Lamb’s last letter.”

We met the Martins in the early correspondence. It was Louisa whom, many years before, Lamb used to call “Monkey” (see particularly Letter 138 to Hazlitt, on page 323).

Here should come Lamb’s last letter to Thomas Manning, dated May 10, 1834, not available for this edition (printed by Canon Ainger). Mary has, he says, been ill for nigh twenty weeks; “she is, I hope, recovering.” “I struggle to town rarely, and then to see London, with little other motive—for what is left there hardly? The streets and shops entertaining ever, else I feel as in a desert, and get me home to my cave.” Once a month, he adds, he passes a day with Cary at the Museum. When Mary was getting better in the previous year she would read all the auctioneers’ advertisements on the walk. “These are my Play-bills,” she said. “I walk 9 or 10 miles a day, always up the road, dear Londonwards.” Addressed to Manning at Puckeridge.

Manning lived on, an eccentric recluse, until 1840.]

932

LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB

June

LETTER 577

(Fragment)

CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE

[The letter refers to the performance of Handel’s “Creation” at the Musical Festival in Westminster Abbey on June 24, 1834, when Novello and Atwood were the organists, and Clara Novello (now Countess Gigliucci) was one of the singers.]

[Summer, 1834.]

MR Lamb’s compts and shall be happy to look over the lines as soon as ever Mr. Russell shall send them. He is at Mr. Walden’s, Church, not Bury—St. Edmd.

1834

VERBAL CRITICISMS

933

Line 10. “Ween,” and “wist,” and “wot,” and “eke” are antiquated frippery, and unmodernize a poem rather than give it an antique air, as some strong old words may do. “I guess,” “I know,” “I knew,” are quite as significant.

81. Why “ee”—barbarous Scoticism!—when “eye” is much better and chimes to “cavalry”? A sprinkling of disused words where all the style else is after the approved recent fashion teases and puzzles.

37.

[Anon the storm begins to slake, The sullen clouds to melt away, The moon becalmed in a blue lake Looks down with melancholy ray.]

The moon becalmed in a blue lake would be more apt to look up. I see my error—the sky is the lake—and beg you to laugh at it.

59. What is a maiden’s “een,” south of the Tweed? You may as well call her prettily turned ears her “lugs.”

“On the maiden’s lugs they fall “(verse 79).

144. “A coy young Miss” will never do. For though you are presumed to be a modern, writing only of days of old, yet you should not write a word purely unintelligible to your heroine. Some understanding should be kept up between you. “Miss” is a nickname not two centuries old; came in at about the Restoration. The “King’s Misses” is the oldest use of it I can remember. It is Mistress Anne Page, not Miss Page. Modern names and usages should be kept out of sight in an old subject. W. Scott was sadly faulty in this respect.

208. [Tear of sympathy.] Pity’s sacred dew. Sympathy is a young lady’s word, rife in modern novels, and is almost always wrongly applied. To sympathize is to feel with, not simply for another. I write verses and sympathize with you. You have the tooth ache, I have not; I feel for you, I cannot sympathize.

243. What is “sheen”? Has it more significance than “bright”? Richmond in its old name was Shene. Would you call an omnibus to take you to Shene? How the “all’s right” man would stare!

363.

[The violet nestled in the shade, Which fills with perfume all the glade, Yet bashful as a timid maid Thinks to elude the searching eye Of every stranger passing by, Might well compare with Emily.]

A strangely involved simile. The maiden is likend [sic] to a violet which has been just before likened to a maid. Yet it reads prettily, and I would not have it alter’d.

934

LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB

1834

420. “Een “come again? In line 407 you speak it out “eye,” bravely like an Englishman.

468. Sorceresses do not entice by wrinkles, but, being essentially aged, appear in assumed beauty.

[This communication and that which follows (with trifling omissions) were sent to Notes and Queries by the late Mr. J. Fuller Russell, F.S.A., with this explanation: “I was residing at Enfield in the Cambridge Long Vacation, 1834, and—perhaps to the neglect of more improving pursuits—composed a metrical novel, named ‘Emily de Wilton,’ in three parts. When the first of them was completed, I ventured to introduce myself to Charles Lamb (who was living at Edmonton at the time), and telling him what I had done, and that I had ‘scarcely heart to proceed until I had obtained the opinion of a competent judge respecting my verses,’ I asked him to ‘while away an idle hour in their perusal,’ adding, ‘I fear you will think me very rude and very intrusive, but I am one of the most nervous souls in Christendom.’ Moved, possibly, by this diffident (not to say unusual) confession, Elia speedily gave his consent.”

The poem was never printed. Lamb’s pains in this matter serve to show how kindly disposed he was in these later years to all young men; and how exact a sense of words he had.

In the British Museum is preserved a sheet of similar comments made by Lamb upon a manuscript of P. G. Patmore’s, from which I have quoted a few passages on page 737. In Charles Lamb and the Lloyds will also be found a number of interesting criticisms on a translation of Homer, to which reference is made on pages 402 and 413.]

[Summer, 1834.]

SIR,—I hope you will finish “Emily.” The story I cannot at this stage anticipate. Some looseness of diction I have taken liberty to advert to. It wants a little more severity of style. There are too many prettinesses, but parts of the Poem are better than pretty, and I thank you for the perusal.

Your humble Servt.

C. Lamb.

Perhaps you will favour me with a call while you stay.

1834

FURTHER CRITICISMS

935

Line 42. “The old abbaye” (if abbey was so spelt) I do not object to, because it does not seem your own language, but humoursomely adapted to the “how folks called it in those times.”

82. “Flares”! Think of the vulgarism “flare up;” let it be “burns.”

112.

[In her pale countenance is blent The majesty of high intent With meekness by devotion lent, And when she bends in prayer Before the Virgin’s awful shrine,— The rapt enthusiast might deem The seraph of his brightest dream, Were meekly kneeling there.]

“Was “decidedly, not “were.” The deeming or supposition, is of a reality, not a contingency. The enthusiast does not deem that a thing may be, but that it is.

118.

[When first young Vernon’s flight she knew, The lady deemed the tale untrue.]

“Deemed”! This word is just repeated above; say “thought” or “held.” “Deem” is half-cousin to “ween “and “wot.”

143.

[By pure intent and soul sincere Sustained and nerved, I will not fear Reproach, shame, scorn, the taunting jeer, And worse than all, a father’s sneer.]

A father’s “sneer”? Would a high-born man in those days sneer at a daughter’s disgrace—would he only sneer?

Reproach, and biting shame, and—worse Than all—the estranged father’s curse.

I only throw this hint out in a hurry.

177. “Stern and sear”? I see a meaning in it, but no word is good that startles one at first, and then you have to make it out: “drear,” perhaps. Then why “to minstrel’s glance”? “To fancy’s eye,” you would say, not “to fiddler’s eye.”

422. A knight thinks, he don’t “trow.”

424. “Mayhap” is vulgarish. Perchance.

464. “Sensation” is a philosophic prose word. Feeling.

27.

[The hill, where ne’er rang woodman’s stroke, Was clothed with elm and spreading oak, Through whose black boughs the moon’s mild ray As hardly strove to win a way, As pity to a miser’s heart.]

Natural illustrations come more naturally when by them we expound mental operations than when we deduce from natural objects similes of the mind’s workings. The miser’s struggle thus com-

936

LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB

July

pared is a beautiful image. But the storm and clouds do not inversely so readily suggest the miser.

160.

[Havock and Wrath, his maniac bride, Wheel o’er the conflict, &c]

These personified gentry I think are not in taste. Besides, Fear has been pallid any time these 2,000 years. It is mixing the style of Æschylus and the Last Minstrel.

175. Bracy is a good rough vocative. No better suggests itself, unless Grim, Baron Grimm, or Grimoald, which is Saxon, or Grimbald! Tracy would obviate your objection [that the name Bracy occurs in Ivanhoe] but Bracy is stronger.

231.

[The frown of night Conceals him, and bewrays their sight.]

Betrays. The other has an unlucky association.

243.

[The glinting moon’s half-shrouded ray.]

Why “glinting,” Scotch, when “glancing” is English?

421.

[Then solemnly the monk did say, (The Abbot of Saint Mary’s gray,) The leman of a wanton youth Perhaps may gain her father’s ruth, But never on his injured breast May lie, caressing and caressed. Bethink you of the vow you made When your light daughter, all distraught, From yonder slaughter-plain was brought, That if in some secluded cell She might till death securely dwell, The house of God should share her wealth.]

Holy abbots surely never so undisguisedly blurted out their secular aims.

I think there is so much of this kind of poetry, that it would not be very taking, but it is well worthy of pleasing a private circle. One blemish runs thro’, the perpetual accompaniment of natural images. Seasons of the year, times of day, phases of the moon, phenomena of flowers, are quite as much your dramatis personæ as the warriors and the ladies. This last part is as good as what precedes.

[Coleridge’s death had occurred on July 25, in his sixty-second year; and Dilke had written to Lamb asking for some words on that event, for The Athenæum. A little while later a request was made by John Forster that Lamb would write something for the album of a Mr. Keymer. It was then that Lamb wrote the few words that stand under the title “On the Death of Coleridge” (see Vol. I., page 351). Forster wrote thus of the effect of Coleridge’s death upon Lamb:—

He thought of little else (his sister was but another portion of himself) until his own great spirit joined his friend. He had a habit of venting his melancholy in a sort of mirth. He would, with nothing graver than a pun, “cleanse his bosom of the perilous stuff that weighed” upon it. In a jest, or a few light phrases, he would lay open the last recesses of his heart. So in respect of the death of Coleridge. Some old friends of his saw him two or three weeks ago, and remarked the constant turning and reference of his mind. He interrupted himself and them almost every instant with some play of affected wonder, or astonishment, or humorous melancholy, on the words, “Coleridge is dead.” Nothing could divert him from that, for the thought of it never left him.

Wordsworth said that Coleridge’s death hastened Lamb’s.]

938

LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB

Oct.

Note

[Talfourd writes: “Shortly after, assured that his presence would be welcome, Lamb went to Highgate. There he asked leave to see the nurse who had attended upon Coleridge; and being struck and affected by the feeling she manifested towards his friend, insisted on her receiving five guineas from him.”]

[“By Cot’s plessing . . .”—Sir Hugh Evans, in “The Merry Wives of Windsor.”

Charles and Mary Lamb at this time were supposed to dine at Cary’s on the third Wednesday in every month. When the plan was suggested by Cary Lamb was for declining, but Mary Lamb said, “Ah, when we went to Edmonton, I told Charles that something would turn up, and so it did, you see.”

“Per negligentiam . . .” Owing to the neglect of the most unrighteous Moxon.]

[“The Buffam Graces.” Lamb’s landladies at Southampton Buildings.

“I passed by the walls of Balclutha.” From Ossian. Lamb uses this quotation in his Elia essay on the South-Sea House.

“Silenus . . .” In Virgil’s sixth eclogue Silenus, found in a drunken sleep by Chromius and Mnasylos, is bound by them. He sang to them of the creation of the world.

Not long before Mrs. Procter’s death a letter from Charles Lamb to Mrs. Basil Montagu was sold, in which Lamb apologised for having become intoxicated while visiting her the night before. Some one mentioned the letter in Mrs. Procter’s presence. “Ah,” she said, “but they haven’t seen the second letter, which I have upstairs, written next day, in which he said that my mother might ask him again with safety as he never got drunk twice in the same house.” Unhappily, a large number of Lamb’s and other letters were burned by Mrs. Procter.]

[Talfourd states that the note is in answer to a letter enclosing a list of candidates for a Widow’s Fund Society, for which he was entitled to vote. A Mrs. Southey headed the list.

Here, according to Mr. Hazlitt’s dating, should come a note from Lamb to Mrs. Randal Norris, belonging to November, not available for this edition (printed in The Lambs), in which Lamb says that he found Mary on his return no worse and she is now no better. He sends all his nonsense that he can scrape together and hopes the young ladies will like “Amwell” (Mrs. Leicester’s School).]

942

LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB

Dec.

Note

[Talfourd thus explains this letter: “In December, 1834, Mr. Lamb received a letter from a gentleman, a stranger to him—Mr. Childs of Bungay, whose copy of Elia had been sent on an Oriental voyage, and who, in order to replace it, applied to Mr. Lamb.” Mr. Childs was a printer. His business subsequently became that of Messrs. R. & R. Clark, which still flourishes. See Appendix II., page 978, for a further note to Mr. Childs.

This letter practically disposes of the statement made by more than one bibliographer that a second edition of Elia was published in 1833. The tale of Bo-Bo is in the “Dissertation on Roast Pig.”

“Ganges or Hydaspes.” Milton’s line, Paradise Lost, III., 436.]

[This is the last letter of Charles Lamb, who tripped and fell in Church Street, Edmonton, on December 22, and died of erysipelas on December 27.

In the life of H. F. Cary by his son we read: “He [Lamb] had borrowed of my father Phillips’s Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum, which was returned by Lamb’s friend, Mr. Moxon, with the leaf folded down at the account of Sir Philip Sydney.” Mr. Cary acknowledged the receipt of the book by the following

1834

CARY’S VERSES

943

LINES TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES LAMB

So should it be, my gentle friend; Thy leaf last closed at Sydney’s end. Thou too, like Sydney, wouldst have given The water, thirsting and near heaven; Nay were it wine, fill’d to the brim, Thou hadst look’d hard, but given, like him.

And art thou mingled then among Those famous sons of ancient song? And do they gather round, and praise Thy relish of their nobler lays? Waxing in mirth to hear thee tell With what strange mortals thou didst dwell! At thy quaint sallies more delighted, Than any’s long among them lighted!

’Tis done: and thou hast join’d a crew, To whom thy soul was justly due; And yet I think, where’er thou be, They’ll scarcely love thee more than we.

At the time of his death Lamb was sixty, all but a few weeks.

Mary Lamb, with occasional lapses into sound health, survived him until May 20, 1847. At first she continued to live at Edmonton, but a few years later moved to the house of Mrs. Parsons, sister of her old nurse, Miss James, in St. John’s Wood. I append three letters, two written, and one inspired, by her, to Miss Jane Norris, one of the daughters of Randal Norris. Of the friends mentioned therein I might add that Edward Moxon lived until 1858; Mrs. Edward Moxon until 1891; James Kenney until 1849; Thomas Hood until 1845; and Barron Field until 1846.]