| CHARLES LAMB. | 29 |
Just before the Lambs quitted the
metropolis for the voluntary banishment of Enfield Chace, they came to spend a day with me
at Fulham, and brought with them a companion, who, “dumb animal” though it was,
had for some time past been in the habit of giving play to one of Charles Lamb’s most amiable characteristics—that of
sacrificing his own feelings and inclinations to those of others. This was a large and very
handsome dog, of a rather curious and singularly sagacious breed, which had belonged to
Thomas Hood, and at the time I speak of, and to
oblige both dog and master, had been transferred to the Lambs,—who
made a great pet of him, to the entire disturbance and discomfiture, as it appeared, of all
Lamb’s habits of life, but especially of that most favourite
and salutary
| 30 | CHARLES LAMB. |
| CHARLES LAMB. | 31 |
The performance of the Pig-driver that Leigh Hunt describes so capitally in the “Companion,” must have been an easy and straightforward thing compared with this enterprise of the dear couple in conducting Dash from Islington to Fulham. It appeared, however, that they had not undertaken it this time purely for Dash’s gratification; but (as I had often admired the dog) to ask me if I would accept him,—“if only out of charity,” said Miss Lamb, “for if we keep him much longer, he’ll be the death of Charles.”
I readily took charge of the unruly favourite, and soon found, as I suspected, that his wild and wilful ways were a pure imposition upon the easy temper of Lamb; for as soon as he found himself in the keeping of one who knew what dog-decorum was, he subsided into the best bred and best behaved of his species.
A few weeks after I had taken charge of
| 32 | CHARLES LAMB. |
“Dear Patmore—Excuse my anxiety—but how is Dash? (I should have asked if Mrs. Patmore kept her rules and was improving—but Dash came uppermost. The order of our thoughts should be the order of our writing.) Goes he muzzled, or aperto ore? Are his intellects sound, or does he wander a little in his conversation?* You cannot be too careful to watch the first symptoms of incoherence. The first illogical snarl he makes, to St. Luke’s with him. All the dogs here are going mad, if you believe the overseers; but I protest they seem to me very rational and collected. But nothing is
* A sly hint, I suspect, to one who did—and does. |
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“What I scratch out is a German quotation from Lessing on the bite of rabid animals; but, I remember, you don’t read German. But Mrs. Patmore may, so I wish I had let it stand. The meaning in English is—‘Avoid to approach an animal suspected of madness, as you would avoid a fire or a precipice:’—which I think is a sensible observation. The Germans are certainly profounder than we.
“If the slightest suspicion arises in your breast, that
all is not right with him (Dash), muzzle him, and
lead him in a string (common packthread will do; he don’t care for twist)
to Hood’s, his quondam master, and
he’ll take him in at any time. You may mention your suspicion or not, as
you like, or as you think it may wound or not Mr.
H.’s feelings. Hood, I know, will
wink at a few follies in Dash, in consideration of
his former sense. Besides, Hood is deaf, and if you hinted
anything, ten to one he would not hear you. Besides, you will have discharged
your con-
| CHARLES LAMB. | 35 |
“We are dawdling our time away very idly and pleasantly, at a Mrs Leishman’s, Chace, Enfield, where, if you come a-hunting, we can give you cold meat and a tankard. Her husband is a tailor; but that, you know, does not make her one. I knew a jailor (which rhymes), but his wife was a fine lady.
“Let us hear from you respecting Mrs. Patmore’s regimen. I send my love in a —— to Dash.
On the outside of the letter (a letter sent by the public post) is written—“Seriously, I wish you would call on Hood when you are that way. He’s a capital fellow. I sent him a couple of poems—one ordered by his wife, and written to order; and ’tis a week since, and I’ve not heard from him. I fear something is the matter.
“Omitted within:
“Our kindest remembrance to Mrs. P.”
Is the reader acquainted with anything in its way more exquisite than this
letter, in the whole circle of our epistolary literature—
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| CHARLES LAMB. | 37 |
As Dash was one of the very few objects of Lamb’s “Hero-worship,” the reader may like to learn a little more about him from my reply to the foregoing letter:—
“Dear Lamb,—Dash is very mad indeed. As I knew you would be
shocked to hear it, I did not volunteer to trouble your peaceful retreat by the
sad information, thinking it could do no good, either to you, to Dash, to us, or to the innocent creature that he has
already bitten, or to those he may (please God) bite hereafter. But when you
ask it of me as a friend, I cannot withhold the truth from you. The poor little
patient has resolutely refused to touch water (either
hot or cold) ever since, and if we attempt to force it down her throat, she
scratches, grins, fights, makes faces, and utters strange noises, showing every
recognised symptom of being very mad indeed. . . . As for your panacea (of
shooting the bitten one), we utterly set our faces against it, not thinking
death ‘a happy release’ under any given circumstances, and being
specially averse to
| 38 | CHARLES LAMB. |
“By the bye, it has just occurred to me, that the fact of the poor little sufferer making a noise more like a cat’s than a dog’s, may possibly indicate that she is not quite so mad as we at first feared. Still there is no saying but the symptom may be one of aggravation. Indeed I shouldn’t wonder if the ‘faculty’ preferred the bark, as that (under the queer name of quinine) has been getting very fashionable among them of late.
“I wish you could have seen the poor little patient before we got rid of her—how she scoured round the kitchen among the pots and pans, scampered about the garden, and clambered up to the tops of the highest trees. (No symptoms of high-drophobia, you will say, in that). . . .
“By the bye again, I have entirely forgotten to tell
you, that the injured innocent is not one of our
children, but of the cat’s; and this reminds me to tell you that, putting
cats out of the question (to which, like some of his so-called
‘betters,’ Dash has evidently a
‘natural antipathy’), he comports himself
| CHARLES LAMB. | 39 |
“With respect to the second subject of your kind inquiries—the lady, and the success of her prescribed regimen—I will not say that she absolutely barks at the sight of water when proffered to her, but she shakes her head, and sighs piteously, which are bad symptoms. In sober seriousness, her watery regimen does not yet show any signs of doing her good, and we have now finally determined on going to France for the summer, and shall leave North End, with that purpose, in about three weeks.
“I was going up to Colnbrook Cottage on the very Monday
that you left; but (for a wonder) I took the precaution of calling on your
ancient friend at the factory in my way, and learned that you had left. . . .
| 40 | CHARLES LAMB. |
“Talking of being stopped on the King’s Highway, reminds me of Dash’s last exploit. He was out at near dusk, down the lane, a few nights ago, with his mistress (who is as fond of him as his master—please to be careful how you construe this last equivocally expressed phrase, and don’t make the ‘master’ an accusative case), when Dash attacked a carpenter, armed with a large saw—not Dash, but the carpenter—and a ‘wise saw’ it turned out, for its teeth protected him from Dash’s, and a battle royal ensued, worthy the Surrey Theatre. Mrs. Patmore says that it was really frightful to see the saw, and the way in which it and Dash gnashed their teeth at each other.” . . . .
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