Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries
Charles Lamb to Samuel Rogers, [21 December, 1833]
‘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
1 Talfourd’s Final Memorials
of Charles Lamb, vol. ii., p. 107; and Canon Ainger’s Letters of Charles Lamb, vol. ii., p. 291. |
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| LAMB ON EDITIONS OF SHAKESPEARE | 85 |
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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, woodenheaded West’s Shakespeare (though he
did the best in “Lear”),
deaf-headed Reynolds’s
Shakespeare, instead of my, and everybody’s
Shakespeare. To be tied down to an authentic face of
Juliet! To have Imogen’s portrait! To confine the
illimitable! I like you and Stothard
(you best), but “out upon this half-faced fellowship.” Sir, when I
have read the book I may trouble you, through Moxon, with some faint criticisms. It is not the flatteringest
compliment in a letter to an author to say you have not read his book yet. But
the devil of a reader ![]()
| 86 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES | |
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he must be who prances through it in
five minutes, and no longer have I received the parcel. It was a little
tantalizing to me to receive a letter from Landor, Gebir
Landor, from Florence, to say he was just sitting down to
read my “Elia,”
just received, but the letter was to go out before the reading. There are
calamities in authorship which only authors know. I am going to call on
Moxon on Monday, if the throng of carriages in Dover
Street on the morn of publication do not barricade me out.
‘With many thanks, and most respectful remembrances to
your sister,
‘Yours,
‘Have you seen Coleridge’s happy exemplification in English of the
Ovidian elegiac metre?—
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‘In the Hexameter rises the fountain’s silvery current,
In the Pentameter aye falling in melody down.
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‘My sister is
papering up the book—careful soul!’
Alfred Ainger (1837-1904)
Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was reader at the Temple (1865-93) and a
contributor to
Macmillan's Magazine; he wrote a biography of Charles
Lamb and edited his essays (1883) poems (1884) and letters (1888).
John Boydell (1720-1804)
Engraver, print-seller, and lord mayor of London (1790); in 1786 he commissioned his
famous series of Shakespeare illustrations which he exhibited in a gallery in Pall
Mall.
Henry Francis Cary (1772-1844)
English poet; he was assistant-keeper of printed books at the British Museum (1826) and
translator of Dante (1805-19).
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
English poet and philosopher who projected
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
with William Wordsworth; author of
Biographia Literaria (1817),
On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other
works.
Henry Fuseli (1741-1825)
Anglo-Swiss painter who settled in England in 1764 and became the friend of William
Blake.
Charles Lamb [Elia] (1775-1834)
English essayist and boyhood friend of Coleridge at Christ's Hospital; author of
Essays of Elia published in the
London
Magazine (collected 1823, 1833) and other works.
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.
Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)
English poet and man of letters, author of the epic
Gebir (1798)
and
Imaginary Conversations (1824-29). He resided in Italy from 1815
to 1835.
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.
James Northcote (1746-1831)
English portrait-painter and writer who exhibited at the Royal Academy; he wrote a
Life of Titian (1830).
John Opie (1761-1807)
English painter brought to attention by John Wolcot; he was a member of the Royal Academy
and the husband of the writer Amelia Opie whom he married in 1798.
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792)
English portrait-painter and writer on art; he was the first president of the Royal
Academy (1768).
Henry Rogers (1774-1832)
Son of Thomas Rogers (1735-93) and youngest brother of the poet Thomas Rogers; he was the
head of the family bank, Rogers, Towgood, and Co. until 1824, and a friend of Charles
Lamb.
George Romney (1734-1802)
English painter, the rival of Joshua Reynolds and friend of the poet William Hayley; he
contributed three paintings to Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery (1791).
Thomas Stothard (1755-1834)
English painter and book-illustrator, a friend of John Flaxman and Samuel Rogers.
Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854)
English judge, dramatist, and friend of Charles Lamb who contributed articles to the
London Magazine and
New Monthly
Magazine.
The Athenaeum. London Literary and Critical
Journal. (1828-1921). The
Athenaeum was founded by James Silk Buckingham; editors
included Frederick Denison Maurice (July 1828-May 1829) John Sterling (May 1829-June 1830),
Charles Wentworth Dilke (June 1830-1846), and Thomas Kibble Hervey (1846-1853).
The Times. (1785-). Founded by John Walter, The Times was edited by Thomas Barnes from 1817 to 1841. In the
romantic era it published much less literary material than its rival dailies, the
Morning Chronicle and the
Morning
Post.
