It was while Lamb was residing in Mitre Court Buildings that those Wednesday evenings of his were in their glory. Mr. Hazlitt has made himself their historiographer, and if he had not left upon record some account of these meetings of some of the choicest spirits of the day, all trace of them must have perished with those, who had the honour to be guests. In two of my grandfather’s papers, I find graphic pictures of these Wednesdays and Wednesday-men. There is a curious sketch in one of a little tilt between Coleridge and Holcroft, which must not be omitted, because my grandfather was, to a very slight degree, mixed up in it. It was thus, in Mr. Hazlitt’s own words:—“Coleridge was riding the high German horse, and demonstrating the ‘Categories of the Transcendental Philosophy’ to the author of the ‘Road to Ruin,’ who insisted on his knowledge of German and German metaphysics, having read the ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ in the original. ‘My dear Mr. Holcroft,’ said Coleridge, in a tone of infinitely-

272

AN ANECDOTE OF COLERIDGE.

provoking conciliation, ‘you really put me in mind of a sweet pretty German girl, about fifteen, that I met with in the Hartz Forest in Germany—and who one day, as I was reading the “Limits of the Knowable and the Unknowable,” the profoundest of all his works, with great attention, came behind my chair, and leaning over, said, “What, you read Kant? Why, I that am a German born, don’t understand him!”’ This was too much to bear, and Holcroft, starting up, called out in no measured tone, ‘Mr. Coleridge, you are the most eloquent man I ever met with, and the most troublesome with your eloquence.’ Phillips* held the cribbage-peg, that was to mark him game, suspended in his hand; and the whist table was silent for a moment. I saw Holcroft downstairs, and on coming to the landing-place in Mitre Court, he stopped me to observe that he thought Mr. Coleridge a very clever man, with a great command of language, but that he feared he did not always affix very precise ideas to the words he used. After he was gone, we had our laugh out, and went on with the argument on the nature of Reason, the Imagination, and the Will. . . . . . It would make a supplement to the ‘Biographia Literaria,’ in a volume and a half, octavo.”

It was at one of these Wednesdays that Lamb started a question as to persons “one would wish to have seen.” It was a suggestive topic, and proved a fruitful one. Mr. Hazlitt, who was there, has left an account behind him of the kind of talk which arose out of this hint so

* Colonel Phillips, mentioned before.

A WEDNESDAY AT LAMB’S.

273

lightly thrown out by the author of ‘Elia,’ and it is worth giving in his own words:*—

“On the question being started, Ayrton said, ‘I suppose the two first persons you would choose to see would be the two greatest names in English literature, Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Locke?’ In this Ayrton, as usual, reckoned without his host. Every one burst out a laughing at the expression of Lamb’s face, in which impatience was restrained by courtesy. ‘Yes, the greatest names,’ he stammered out hastily, ‘but they were not persons—not persons.’—‘Not persons?’ said Ayrton, looking wise and foolish at the same time, afraid his triumph might be premature. ‘That is,’ rejoined Lamb, ‘not characters, you know. By Mr. Locke and Sir Isaac Newton, you mean the “Essay on the Human Understanding” and the “Principia,” which we have to this day. Beyond their contents there is nothing personally interesting in the men. But what we want to see any one bodily for, is when there is something peculiar, striking in the individuals, more than we can learn from their writings, and yet are curious to know. I dare say Locke and Newton were very like Kneller’s portraits of them. But who could paint Shakspeare?’—‘Ay,’ retorted Ayrton, ‘there it is; then I suppose you would prefer seeing him and Milton instead?’ ‘No,’ said Lamb, ‘neither. I have

* It forms the essay ‘On Persons one would have Wished to have Seen,’ in the ‘New Monthly Magazine’ for 1826. But I give here only such portions as are quasi-autobiographical; the omissions are entirely of unessentials.

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A WEDNESDAY EVENING

seen so much of Shakspeare on the stage and on bookstalls, in frontispieces and on mantelpieces, that I am quite tired of the everlasting repetition; and as to Milton’s face, the impressions that have come down to us of it I do not like; it is too starched and puritanical; and I should be afraid of losing some of the manna of his poetry in the leaven of his countenance, and the precisian’s band and gown.’—‘I shall guess no more,’ said Ayrton. ‘Who is it, then, you would like to see “in his habit as he lived,” if you had your choice of the whole range of English literature?’ Lamb then named Sir Thomas Brown and Fulke Greville, the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, as the two worthies whom he should feel the greatest pleasure to encounter on the floor of his apartment in their nightgown and slippers, and to exchange friendly greeting with them. At this Ayrton laughed outright, and conceived Lamb was jesting with him; but as no one followed his example, he thought there might be something in it, and waited for an explanation in a state of whimsical suspense. Lamb then (as well as I can remember a conversation that passed twenty years ago—how time slips!) went on as follows. ‘The reason why I pitch upon these two authors is, that their writings are riddles, and they themselves the most mysterious of personages. They resemble the soothsayers of old, who dealt in dark hints and doubtful oracles; and I should like to ask them the meaning of what no mortal but themselves, I should suppose, can fathom. There is Dr. Johnson: I have no curiosity, no

AT MITRE-COURT BUILDINGS.

275

strange uncertainty about him: he and Boswell together have pretty well let me into the secret of what passed through his mind. He and other writers like him are sufficiently explicit: my friends, whose repose I should be tempted to disturb (were it in my power), are implicit, inextricable, inscrutable.

“‘When I look at that obscure but gorgeous prose composition, the “Urn-burial,” I seem to myself to look into a deep abyss, at the bottom of which are hid pearls and rich treasure; or it is like a stately labyrinth of doubt and withering speculation, and I would invoke the spirit of the author to lead me through it. Besides, who would not be curious to see the lineaments of a man who, having himself been twice married, wished that mankind were propagated like trees! As to Fulke Greville, he is like nothing but one of his own “Prologues spoken by the ghost of an old king of Orinus,” a truly formidable and inviting personage: his style is apocalyptical, cabalistical, a knot worthy of such an apparition to untie; and for the unravelling a passage or two I would stand the brunt of an encounter with so portentous a commentator!’—‘I am afraid in that case,’ said Ayrton, ‘that if the mystery were once cleared up, the merit might be lost;’ and turning to me, whispered a friendly apprehension, that while Lamb continued to admire these old crabbed authors, he would never become a popular writer. Dr. Donne was mentioned as a writer of the same period, with a very interesting countenance, whose history was singular, and whose meaning was often quite as uncome-at-able,

276

CHAUCER PROPOSED.

without a personal citation from the dead, as that of any of his contemporaries. The volume was produced;* and while some one was expatiating on the exquisite simplicity and beauty of the portrait prefixed to the old edition, Ayrton got hold of the poetry, and exclaiming ‘What have we here?’ read the following:—

Here lies a She-Sun and a He-Moon there, She gives the best light to his sphere, Or each is both and all, and so They unto one another nothing owe.

“There was no resisting this, till Lamb seizing the volume, turned to the beautiful ‘Lines to his Mistress,’ dissuading her from accompanying him abroad, and read them with suffused features and a faltering tongue.

“Some one then inquired of Lamb if we could not see from the window the Temple walk in which Chaucer† used to take his exercise; and on his name being put to the vote, I was pleased to find that there was a general sensation in his favour in all but Ayrton, who said something about the ruggedness of the metre, and even objected to the quaintness of the orthography. I was vexed at this superficial gloss, pertinaciously reducing everything to its own trite level, and asked ‘if he did not think it would be worth while to scan the eye that had first greeted the Muse in that dim twilight and

* It was probably the edition of 1669, 12mo; at least, that was the one Lamb had. There were in it many notes by Coleridge, and this memorandum: “I shall die soon, my dear Charles Lamb, and then you will not be vexed that I have be-scribbled your book.”—S. T. C., 2nd May, 1811. † Lamb had a very fair copy of Chaucer.

MR. HAZLITT THE SPEAKER.

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early dawn of English literature; to see the head round which the visions of fancy must have played like gleams of inspiration or a sudden glory; to watch those lips that ‘lisped in numbers, for the numbers came’—as by a miracle, or as if the dumb should speak? Nor was it alone that he had been the first to tune his native tongue (however imperfectly to modern ears); but he was himself a noble, manly character, standing before his age and striving to advance it; a pleasant humourist withal, who has not only handed down to us the living manners of his time, but had, no doubt, store of curious and quaint devices, and would make as hearty a companion as Mine Host of the Tabard. His interview with Petrarch is fraught with interest. Yet I would rather have seen Chaucer in company with the author of the ‘Decameron,’ and have heard them exchange their best stories together,—‘The Squire’s Tale’ against ‘The Story of the Falcon,’ ‘The Wife of Bath’s Prologue’ against the ‘Adventures of Friar Albert.’ How fine to see the high mysterious brow which learning then wore, relieved by the gay, familiar tone of men of the world, and by the courtesies of genius! Surely, the thoughts and feelings which passed through the minds of these great revivers of learning, these Cadmuses who sowed the teeth of letters, must have stamped an expression on their features, as different from the moderns as their books, and well worth the perusal.

“‘Dante,’ I continued, ‘is as interesting a person as his own Ugolino, one whose lineaments curiosity would as eagerly devour in order to penetrate his spirit, and the

278

LAMB MENTIONS SPENSER.

only one of the Italian poets I should care much to see. There is a fine portrait of Ariosto by no less a hand than Titian’s; light, Moorish, spirited, but not answering our idea. The same artist’s large colossal profile of Peter Aretine is the only likeness of the kind that has the effect of conversing with “the mighty dead,” and this is truly spectral, ghastly, necromantic.’

“Lamb put it to me if I should like to see Spenser as well as Chaucer; and I answered without hesitation, ‘No; for that his beauties were ideal, visionary; not palpable or personal, and therefore connected with less curiosity about the man. His poetry was the essence of romance, a very halo round the bright orb of fancy; and the bringing in the individual might dissolve the charm. No tones of voice could come up to the mellifluous cadence of his verse; no form but of a winged angel could vie with the airy shapes he has described. He was (to our apprehensions) rather “a creature of the element, that lived in the rainbow and played in the plighted clouds,” than an ordinary mortal. Or if he did appear, I should wish it to be as a mere vision, like one of his own pageants, and that he should pass by unquestioned, like a dream or sound—

——that was Arion crown’d: So went he playing on the wat’ry plain!’

“Captain Burney muttered something about Columbus, and Martin Burney hinted at the Wandering Jew; but the last was set aside as spurious, and the first made over to the New World.

DR. JOHNSON—POPE.

279

“‘I should like,’ said Mrs. Reynolds, ‘to have seen Pope talking with Patty Blount; and I have seen Goldsmith.’ Every one turned round to look at Mrs. Reynolds, as if by so doing they too could get a sight of Goldsmith.

“‘Where,’ asked a harsh croaking voice, ‘was Dr. Johnson in the years 1745-6? He did not write anything that we know of, nor is there any account of him in Boswell during those two years. Was he in Scotland with the Pretender? He seems to have passed through the scenes in the Highlands in company with Boswell many years after “with lack-lustre eye,” yet as if they were familiar to him, or associated in his mind with interests that he durst not explain. If so, it would be an additional reason for my liking him; and I would give something to have seen him seated in the tent with the youthful Majesty of Britain, and penning the proclamation to all true subjects and adherents of the legitimate Government.’

“‘I thought,’ said Ayrton, turning short round upon Lamb, ‘that you of the Lake School did not like Pope?’—‘Not like Pope! My dear sir, you must be under a mistake—I can read him over and over for ever!’—‘Why certainly, the “Essay on Man” must be allowed to be a masterpiece.’—‘It may be so, but I seldom look into it.’—‘Oh! then it’s his Satires you admire?’—‘No, not his Satires, but his friendly epistles and his compliments.’—‘Compliments! I did not know he ever made any.’—‘The finest,’ said Lamb, ‘that were ever paid by the wit of man. Each of them

280

DRYDEN—LADY WORTLEY MONTAGU.

is worth an estate for life—nay, is an immortality. There is that superb one to Lord Cornbury. Was there ever more artful insinuation of idolatrous praise? And then that noble apotheosis of his friend Lord Mansfield. And with what a fine turn of indignant flattery he addresses Lord Bolingbroke—

Why rail they then, if but one wreath of mine, Oh! all accomplish’d St. John, deck thy shrine?

Or turn,’ continued Lamb, with a slight hectic on his cheek, and his eye glistening, ‘to his list of early friends:—

But why then publish? Granville the polite, And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write; Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise, And Congreve loved and Swift endured my lays: The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read, Ev’n mitred Rochester* would nod the head; And St. John’s self (great Dryden’s friend before) Received with open arms one poet more. Happy my studies, if by these approved! Happier their author, if by these beloved! . From these the world will judge of men and books, Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks.’

Here his voice totally failed him, and throwing down the book, he said, ‘Do you think I would not wish to have been friends with such a man as this?’

“‘What say you to Dryden?’—‘He rather made a show of himself, and courted popularity in that lowest temple of fame, a coffee-house, so as in some measure to vulgarize one’s idea of him. Pope, on the contrary, reached the very beau-idéal of what a poet’s life should

* Atterbury.

RICHARDSON—FIELDING.

281

be; and his fame while living seemed to be an emanation from that which was to circle his name after death. He was so far enviable (and one would feel proud to have witnessed the rare spectacle in him) that he was almost the only poet and man of genius who met with his reward on this side of the tomb; who realized in friends, fortune, the esteem of the world, the almost sanguine hopes of a youthful ambition; and who found that sort of patronage from the great during his lifetime which they would be thought anxious to bestow upon him after his death. Read Gay’s verses to him on his supposed return from Greece, after his translation of Homer was finished, and say if you would not gladly join the bright procession that welcomed him home, or see it once more land at Whitehall stairs.’—‘Still,’ said Mrs. Reynolds, ‘I would rather have seen him talking with Patty Blount, or riding by in a coronet-coach with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu!’

“Erasmus Phillips, who was deep in a game of piquet at the other end of the room, whispered to Martin Burney to ask if Junius would not be a fit person to invoke from the dead. ‘Yes,’ said Lamb, ‘provided he would agree to lay aside his mask.’

“We were now at a stand for a short time, when Fielding was mentioned as a candidate: only one, however, seconded the proposition. ‘Richardson?’—‘By all means; but only to look at him through the glass door of his back-shop, hard at work upon one of his novels (the most extraordinary contrast that ever was presented between an author and his works), but

282

CROMWELL—BUNYAN.

not to let him come behind his counter, lest he should want you to turn customer; nor to go upstairs with him, lest he should offer to read the first manuscript of Sir Charles Grandison, which was originally written in eight-and-twenty volumes octavo; or get out the letters of his female correspondents, to prove that Joseph Andrews was low.”

“There was but one statesman in the whole of English history that any one expressed the least desire to see—Oliver Cromwell, with his fine, frank, rough, pimply face, and wily policy—and one enthusiast, John Bunyan, the immortal author of the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’ It seemed that if he came into the room dreams would follow him, and that each person would nod under his golden cloud, ‘night-sphered in Heaven,’ a canopy as strange and stately as any in Homer.

“Of all persons near our own time, Garrick’s name was received with the greatest enthusiasm, who was proposed by Barron Field. He presently superseded both Hogarth and Handel, who had been talked of, but then it was on condition that he should act in tragedy and comedy, in the play and the farce, ‘Lear’ and ‘Wildair’ and ‘Abel Drugger.’ What a sight for sore eyes that would be! Who would not part with a year’s income at least, almost with a year of his natural life, to be present at it? Besides, as he could not act alone, and recitations are unsatisfactory things, what a troop he must bring with him—the silver-tongued Barry and Quin, and Shuter and Weston, and Mrs. Clive and

GARRICK.

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Mrs. Pritchard, of whom I have heard my father* speak as so great a favourite when he was young! This would indeed be a revival of the dead, the restoring of art; and so much the more desirable, as such is the lurking scepticism mingled with our overstrained admiration of past excellence, that though we have the speeches of Burke, the portraits of Reynolds, the writings of Goldsmith, and the conversation of Johnson, to show what people could do at that period, and to confirm the universal testimony to the merits of Garrick; yet, as it was before our time, we have our misgivings, as if he was probably after all little better than a Bartlemy-fair actor, dressed out to play Macbeth in a scarlet coat and laced cocked-hat. For one, I should like to have seen and heard him with my own eyes and ears. Certainly, by all accounts, if any one was ever moved by the true histrionic æstus, it was Garrick. When he followed the Ghost in ‘Hamlet,’ he did not drop the sword, as most actors do, behind the scenes, but kept the point raised the whole way round, so fully was he possessed with the idea, or so anxious not to lose sight of his part for a moment. Once, at a splendid dinner-party at Lord ——’s, they suddenly missed Garrick, and could not imagine what was become of him, till they were drawn to the window by the convulsive screams and peals of laughter of a young negro boy, who was rolling on the ground in an ecstacy of delight to see Garrick mimicking a turkey-cock in the courtyard, with his coat-tail stuck out behind, and in a

* The Rev. Mr. Hazlitt.

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MARLOWE—WEBSTER—JONSON, ETC.

seeming flutter of feathered rage and pride. Of our party only two persons present had seen the British Roscius;* and they seemed as willing as the rest to renew their acquaintance with their old favourite.

“We were interrupted in the hey-day and mid-career of this fanciful speculation by a grumbler in a corner, who declared it was a shame to make all this rout about a mere player and farce-writer, to the neglect and exclusion of the fine old dramatists, the contemporaries and rivals of Shakspeare. Lamb said he had anticipated this objection when he had named the author of ‘Mustapha and Alaham;’ and out of caprice insisted upon keeping him to represent the set, in preference to the wild hair-brained enthusiast Kit Marlowe; to the sexton of St. Ann’s, Webster, with his melancholy yewtrees and death’s-heads; to Deckar, who was but a garrulous proser; to the voluminous Heywood; and even to Beaumont and Fletcher, whom we might offend by complimenting the wrong author on their joint productions. Lord Brook, on the contrary, stood quite by himself, or in Cowley’s words, was ‘a vast species alone.’ Some one hinted at the circumstance of his being a lord, which rather startled Lamb, but he said a ghost would perhaps dispense with strict etiquette, on being regularly addressed by his title. Ben Jonson divided our suffrages pretty equally. Some were afraid he would begin to traduce Shakspeare, who was not present to defend himself. ‘If he grows disagreeable,’ it was whispered aloud, ‘there is Godwin can match

* W. H. was not one of the two.

EUGENE ARAM—THE METAPHYSICIANS.

285

him.’ At length his romantic visit to Drummond of Hawthornden was mentioned, and turned the scale in his favour.

“Lamb inquired if there was any one that was hanged* that I would choose to mention? And I answered, Eugene Aram. The name of the ‘Admirable Crichton’ was suddenly started as a splendid example of waste talents, so different from the generality of his countrymen. This choice was mightily approved by a North Briton present, who declared himself descended from that prodigy of learning and accomplishment, and said he had family plate in his possession as vouchers for the fact, with the initials A. C.—Admirable Crichton! Hunt laughed, or rather roared as heartily at this as I should think he has done for many years.

“The last-named Mitre-courtier then wished to know whether there were any metaphysicians to whom one might be tempted to apply the wizard spell? I replied, there were only six in modern times deserving the name—Hobbes, Berkeley, Butler, Hartley, Hume, Leibnitz, and perhaps Jonathan Edwards, a Massachusetts man. As to the French, who talked fluently of having created this science, there was not a tittle in any of their writings that was not to be found literally in the authors I had mentioned. [Horne Tooke, who might have a claim to come in under the head of Grammar, was still living.] None of these names seemed to excite much interest, and I did not plead for the reappearance of those who might be thought

* Fulke Greville.

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SEVERAL GHOSTS DECLINE TO APPEAR.

best fitted by the abstracted nature of their studies for their present spiritual and disembodied state, and who, even while on this living stage, were nearly divested of common flesh and blood. As Ayrton, with an uneasy fidgety face, was about to put some question about Mr. Locke and Dugald Stewart, he was prevented by Martin Burney, who observed, ‘If I was here, he would undoubtedly be for having up those profound and redoubted scholiasts, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus.’ I said this might be fair enough in him who had read or fancied he had read the original works; but I did not see how we could have any right to call up these authors to give an account of themselves in person, till we had looked into their writings.

“By this time it should seem that some rumour of our whimsical deliberation had got wind, and had disturbed the irritabile genus in their shadowy abodes, for we received messages from several candidates that we had just been thinking of. Gray declined our invitation, though he had not yet been asked: Gay offered to come, and bring in his hand the Duchess of Bolton, the original Polly: Steele and Addison left their cards as Captain Sentry and Sir Roger de Coverley: Swift came in and sat down without speaking a word, and quitted the room as abruptly: Otway and Chatterton were seen lingering on the opposite side of the Styx, but could not muster enough between them to pay Charon his fare: Thomson fell asleep in the boat, and was rowed back again: and Burns sent a low fellow, one

THE PAINTERS.

287

John Barleycorn, an old companion of his, who had conducted him to the other world, to say that he had during his life-time been drawn out of his retirement as a show, only to be made an exciseman of, and that he would rather remain where he was. He desired, however, to shake hands by his representative: the hand thus held out was in a burning fever, and shook prodigiously.

“The room was hung round with several portraits of eminent painters. While we were debating, whether we should demand speech with these masters of mute eloquence, whose features were so familiar to us, it seemed that all at once they glided from their frames, and seated themselves at some little distance from us. There was Leonardo with his majestic beard and watchful eye, having a bust of Archimedes before him; next him was Raphael’s graceful head turned round to the Fornarina; and on his other side was Lucretia Borgia, with calm, golden locks; Michael Angelo had placed the model of St. Peter’s on the table before him; Correggio had an angel at his side; Titian was seated, with his Mistress between himself and Giorgione; Guido was accompanied by his own Aurora, who took a dice-box from him; Claude held a mirror in his hand; Rubens patted a beautiful panther (led in by a satyr) on the head; Vandyke appeared as his own Paris, and Rembrandt was hid under furs, gold chains, and jewels, which Sir Joshua eyed closely, holding his hand so as to shade his forehead. Not a word was spoken; and as we rose to do them homage,

288

FRENCH GHOSTS.

they still presented the same surface to the view. Not being bonâ fide representations of living people, we got rid of the splendid apparitions by signs and dumb show. As soon as they had melted into thin air, there was a loud noise at the outer door, and we found it was Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandaio, who had been raised from the dead by their earnest desire to see their illustrious successors—

Whose names on earth In Fame’s eternal records live for aye!

Finding them gone, they had no ambition to be seen after them, and mournfully withdrew. ‘Egad!’ said Lamb, ‘those are the very fellows I should like to have had some talk with, to know how they could see to paint, when all was dark around them?’

“‘But shall we have nothing to say,’ interrogated G. J——, ‘to the Legend of Good Women?’ ‘Name, name, Mr. J——,’ cried Hunt, in a boisterous tone of friendly exultation; ‘name as many as you please, without reserve or fear of molestation!’ J—— was perplexed between so many amiable recollections, that the name of the lady of his choice expired in a pensive whiff of his pipe; and Lamb impatiently declared for the Duchess of Newcastle. Mrs. Hutchinson was no sooner mentioned, than she carried the day from the Duchess. We were the less solicitous on this subject of filling up the posthumous lists of Good Women, as there was already one in the room as good, as sensible, and in all respects as exemplary, as the best of them

VOLTAIRE—ROUSSEAU—RABELAIS, ETC.

289

could be for their lives! ‘I should like vastly to have seen Ninon de l’Enclos,’ said that incomparable person; and this immediately put us in mind that we had neglected to pay honour due to our friends on the other side of the Channel—Voltaire, the patriarch of levity, and Rousseau, the father of sentiment; Montaigne and Rabelais (great in wisdom and in wit), Moliere and that illustrious group that are collected round him (in the print of that subject) to hear him read his comedy of the ‘Tartuffe’ at the house of Ninon; Racine, La Fontaine, Rochefoucault, St. Evremont, &c.

“‘Come, come!’ said Hunt; ‘I thought we should have no heroes, real or fabulous. What say you, Mr. Lamb? Are you for eking out your shadowy list with such names as Alexander, Julius Cæsar, Tamerlane, or Ghengis Khan?’—‘Excuse me,’ said Lamb; “on the subject of characters in active life, plotters and disturbers of the world, I have a crotchet of my own, which I beg leave to reserve.’—‘No, no! come, out with your worthies!’—‘What do you think of Guy Fawkes and Judas Iscariot?’ Hunt turned an eye upon him like a wild Indian, but cordial and full of smothered glee. ‘Your most exquisite reason!’ was echoed on all sides; and Ayrton thought that Lamb had now fairly entangled himself. ‘Why, I cannot but think,’ retorted he of the wistful countenance, ‘that Guy Fawkes, that poor, fluttering, annual scarecrow of straw and rags, is an ill-used gentleman. I

290

JUDAS ISCARIOT—AND ONE OTHER.

would give something to see him sitting, pale and emaciated, surrounded by his matches and his barrels of gunpowder, and expecting the moment that was to transport him to Paradise for his heroic self-devotion; but if I say any more, there is that fellow Godwin will make something of it. And as to Judas Iscariot, my reason is different. I would fain see the face of him, who, having dipped his hand in the same dish with the Son of Man, could afterwards betray him. I have no conception of such a thing; nor have I ever seen any picture (not even Leonardo’s very fine one) that gave me the least idea of it.’—‘You have said enough, Mr. Lamb, to justify your choice.’

“‘There is only one other person I can ever think of after this,’ continued Lamb; but without mentioning a name that once put on a semblance of mortality. ‘If Shakspeare was to come into the room we should all rise up to meet him; but if that person was to come into it, we should all fall down and try to kiss the hem of his garment!’”