desks, were the refinements of this old torturer a thousand years after, under pretence of Commerce allying distant shores, promoting and diffusing knowledge, good, &c.–
A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO
May the Babylonish curse
Strait confound my stammering verse, If I can a passage see
In this word-perplexity,
Or a fit expression find,
Or a language to my mind,
(Still the phrase is wide an acre)
To take leave of thee, Tobacco;
Or in any terms relate
Half my Love, or half my Hate,
For I hate yet love thee so,
That, whichever Thing I shew,
The plain truth will seem to be
A constrain’d hyperbole,
And the passion to proceed
More from a Mistress than a Weed.
Sooty retainer to the vine,
Bacchus’ black servant, negro fine, Sorcerer that mak’st us doat upon
Thy begrim’d complexion,
And, for thy pernicious sake
More and greater oaths to break
Than reclaimed Lovers take
‘Gainst women: Thou thy siege dost lay Much too in the female way,
While thou suck’st the labouring breath Faster than kisses; or than Death.
Thou in such a cloud dost bind us,
That our worst foes cannot find us, And Ill Fortune (that would thwart us)
Shoots at rovers, shooting at us;
While each man thro’ thy heightening steam, Does like a smoking Etna seem,
And all about us does express
(Fancy and Wit in richest dress)
A Sicilian Fruitfulness.
Thou through such a mist does shew us, That our best friends do not know us;
And, for those allowed features,
Due to reasonable creatures,
Liken’st us to fell Chimeras,
Monsters, that, who see us, fear us, Worse than Cerberus, or Geryon,
Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion.
Bacchus we know, and we allow
His tipsy rites. But what art thou? That but by reflex canst shew
What his deity can do,
As the false Egyptian spell
Aped the true Hebrew miracle–
Some few vapours thou may’st raise, The weak brain may serve to amaze,
But to the reins and nobler heart
Canst nor life nor heat impart.
Brother of Bacchus, later born,
The old world was sure forlorn,
Wanting thee; that aidest more
The God’s victories than before
All his panthers, and the brawls
Of his piping Bacchanals;
These, as stale, we disallow,
Or judge of _thee meant_: only thou His true Indian Conquest art;
And, for Ivy round his dart,
The reformed God now weaves
A finer Thyrsus of thy leaves.
Scent to match thy rich perfume
Chymic art did ne’er presume
Through her quaint alembic strain;
None so sovran to the brain.
Nature, that did in thee excell,
Framed again no second smell.
Roses, violets, but toys
For the smaller sort of boys,
Or for greener damsels meant,
Thou’rt the only manly scent.
Stinking’st of the stinking kind,
Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind, Africa that brags her foyson,
Breeds no such prodigious poison,
Henbane, nightshade, both together, Hemlock, aconite——–
Nay rather,
Plant divine, of rarest virtue,
Blisters on the tongue would hurt you; ‘Twas but in a sort I blamed thee,
None e’er prosper’d who defamed thee: Irony all, and feign’d abuse,
Such as perplext Lovers use
At a need, when in despair
To paint forth their fairest fair,
Or in part but to express
That exceeding comeliness
Which their fancies does so strike, They borrow language of Dislike,
And instead of Dearest Miss,
Honey, Jewel, Sweetheart, Bliss,
And, those forms of old admiring,
Call her Cockatrice and Syren,
Basilisk and all that’s evil,
Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil,
Ethiop wench, and Blackamoor,
Monkey, Ape, and twenty more,
Friendly Traitress, Loving Foe:
Not that she is truly so,
But no other way they know
A contentment to express,
Borders so upon excess,
That they do not rightly wot,
Whether it be pain or not.
Or, as men, constrain’d to part
With what’s nearest to their heart, While their sorrow’s at the height,
Lose discrimination quite,
And their hasty wrath let fall,
To appease their frantic gall,
On the darling thing whatever,
Whence they feel it death to sever, Though it be, as they, perforce,
Guiltless of the sad divorce,
For I must (nor let it grieve thee,
Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee– For thy sake, _TOBACCO_, I
Would do anything but die;
And but seek to extend my days
Long enough to sing thy praise.
But, as She, who once has been
A King’s consort, is a Queen
Ever after; nor will bate
Any tittle of her state,
Though a widow, or divorced,
So I, from thy converse forced,
The old name and style retain,
(A right Katherine of Spain;)
And a seat too ‘mongst the joys
Of the blest Tobacco Boys:
Where, though I by sour physician
Am debarr’d the full fruition
Of thy favours, I may catch
Some collateral sweets, and snatch
Sidelong odours, that give life
Like glances from a neighbour’s wife; And still dwell in the by-places,
And the suburbs of thy graces,
And in thy borders take delight,
An unconquer’d Canaanite.
I wish you may think this a handsome farewell to my “Friendly Traitress.” Tobacco has been my evening comfort and my morning curse for these five years: and you know how difficult it is from refraining to pick one’s lips even, when it has become a habit. This Poem is the only one which I have finished since so long as when I wrote “Hester Savory.” I have had it in my head to do it these two years, but Tobacco stood in its own light when it gave me head aches that prevented my singing its praises. Now you have got it, you have got all my store, for I have absolutely not another line. No more has Mary. We have nobody about us that cares for Poetry, and who will rear grapes when he shall be the sole eater? Perhaps if you encourage us to shew you what we may write, we may do something now and then before we absolutely forget the quantity of an English line for want of practice. The “Tobacco,” being a little in the way of Withers (whom Southey so much likes) perhaps you will somehow convey it to him with my kind remembrances. Then, everybody will have seen it that I wish to see it: I have sent it to Malta.
I remain Dear W. and D–yours truly,
C. LAMB.
28th Sep., 1805.
[“Hang Work.” This paragraph is the germ of the sonnet entitled “Work” which Lamb wrote fourteen years later (see the letter to Bernard Barton, Sept. 11, 1822). He seems always to have kept his thoughts in sight.
The “Farewell to Tobacco” was printed in the _Reflector_, No. IV., 1811 or 1812, and then in the Works, 1818 (see Notes to Vol. IV. of this edition). Lamb’s farewell was frequently repeated; but it is a question whether he ever entirely left off smoking. Talfourd says that he did; but the late Mrs. Coe, who remembered Lamb at Widford about 1827-1830, credited him with the company of a black clay pipe. It was Lamb who, when Dr. Parr asked him how he managed to emit so much smoke, replied that he had toiled after it as other men after virtue. And Macready relates that he remarked in his presence that he wished to draw his last breath through a pipe and exhale it in a pun. Coleridge writing to Rickman (see _The Life and Letters of John Rickman_, 1912) says of Lamb and smoking: “Were it possible to win C.L. from the pipe, other things would follow with comparative ease, for till he gets a pipe I have regularly observed that he is contented with porter–and that the unconquerable appetite for spirit comes in with the tobacco–the oil of which, especially in the gluttonous manner in which he _volcanizes_ it, acts as an instant poison on his stomach or lungs”.
“Hestor Savory.” See above.]
LETTER 139
MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART
[Early November, 1805.]
My dear Sarah,–Certainly you are the best letter-writer (besides writing the best hand) in the world. I have just been reading over again your two long letters, and I perceive they make me very envious. I have taken a brand new pen, and put on my _spectacles_, and am peering with all my might to see the lines in the paper, which the sight of your even lines had well nigh tempted me to rule: and I have moreover taken two pinches of snuff extraordinary, to clear my head, which feels more cloudy than common this fine, chearful morning.
All I can gather from your clear and, I have no doubt, faithful history of Maltese politics is, that the good Doctor, though a firm friend, an excellent fancier of brooches, a good husband, an upright Advocate, and, in short, all that they say upon tomb stones (for I do not recollect that they celebrate any fraternal virtues there) yet is but a _moody_ brother, that your sister in law is pretty much like what all sisters in law have been since the first happy invention of the happy marriage state; that friend Coleridge has undergone no alteration by crossing the Atlantic,–for his friendliness to you, as well as all the oddities you mention, are just what one ought to look for from him; and that you, my dear Sarah, have proved yourself just as unfit to flourish in a little, proud Garrison Town as I did shrewdly suspect you were before you went there.
If I possibly can, I will prevail upon Charles to write to your brother by the conveyance you mention; but he is so unwell, I almost fear the fortnight will slip away before I can get him in the right vein. Indeed, it has been sad and heavy times with us lately: when I am pretty well, his low spirits throws me back again; and when he begins to get a little chearful, then I do the same kind office for him. I heartily wish for the arrival of Coleridge; a few such evenings as we have sometimes passed with him would wind us up, and set us a going again.
Do not say any thing, when you write, of our low spirits–it will vex Charles. You would laugh, or you would cry, perhaps both, to see us sit together, looking at each other with long and rueful faces, and saying, “how do you do?” and “how do you do?” and then we fall a-crying, and say we will be better on the morrow. He says we are like toothach and his friend gum bile–which, though a kind of ease, is but an uneasy kind of ease, a comfort of rather an uncomfortable sort.
I rejoice to hear of your Mother’s amendment; when you can leave her with any satisfaction to yourself–which, as her sister, I think I understand by your letters, is with her, I hope you may soon be able to do–let me know upon what plan you mean to come to Town. Your brother proposed your being six months in Town, and six with your Mother; but he did not then know of your poor Mother’s illness. By his desire, I enquired for a respectable family for you, to board with; and from Capt’n. Burney I heard of one I thought would suit you at that time. He particularly desires I would not think of your being with us, not thinking, I conjecture, the home of a single man _respectable_ enough. Your brother gave me most unlimited orders to domineer over you, to be the inspector of all your actions, and to direct and govern you with a stern voice and a high hand, to be, in short, a very elder brother over you–does not the hearing of this, my meek pupil, make you long to come to London? I am making all the proper enquiries against the time of the newest and most approved modes (being myself mainly ignorant in these points) of etiquette, and nicely correct maidenly manners.
But to speak seriously. I mean, when we mean [? meet], that we will lay our heads together, and consult and contrive the best way of making the best girl in the world the fine Lady her brother wishes to see her; and believe me, Sarah, it is not so difficult a matter as one is sometimes apt to imagine. I have observed many a demure Lady, who passes muster admirably well, who, I think, we could easily learn to imitate in a week or two. We will talk of these things when we meet. In the mean time, I give you free license to be happy and merry at Salisbury in any way you can. Has the partridge-season opened any communication between you and William–as I allow you to be imprudent till I see you, I shall expect to hear you have invited him to taste his own birds. Have you scratched him out of your will yet? Rickman is married, and that is all the news I have to send you.
Your Wigs were sent by Mr. Varvell about five months ago; therefore, he could have arrived when you came away.
I seem, upon looking over my letter again, to have written too lightly of your distresses at Malta; but, however I may have written, believe me, I enter very feelingly into all your troubles. I love you, and I love your brother; and between you, both of whom I think have been to blame, I know not what to say–only this I say, try to think as little as possible of past miscarriages; it was, perhaps, so ordered by Providence, that you might return home to be a comfort to your poor Mother. And do not, I conjure you, let her unhappy malady afflict you too deeply. I speak from experience, and from the opportunity I have had of much observation in such cases, that insane people, in the fancy’s they take into their heads, do not feel as one in a sane state of mind does under the real evil of poverty, the perception of having done wrong, or any such thing that runs in their heads.
Think as little as you can, and let your whole care be to be certain that she is treated with _tenderness_. I lay a stress upon this, because it is a thing of which people in her state are uncommonly susceptible, and which hardly any one is at all aware of: a hired nurse never, even though in all other respects they are good kind of people. I do not think your own presence necessary, unless she _takes to you very much_, except for the purpose of seeing with your own eyes that she is very kindly treated.
I do so long to see you! God bless and comfort you! Yours affectionately,
M. LAMB.
[Miss Stoddart had now returned to England, to her mother at Salisbury, who had been and was very ill. Coleridge meanwhile had had coolnesses with Stoddart and had transferred himself to the roof of the Governor.
Rickman married, on October 30, 1805, Susanna Postlethwaite of Harting, in Sussex.]
LETTER 140
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HAZLITT
November 10, 1805.
Dear Hazlitt,–I was very glad to hear from you, and that your journey was so _picturesque_. We miss you, as we foretold we should. One or two things have happened, which are beneath the dignity of epistolary communication, but which, seated about our fire at night, (the winter hands of pork have begun) gesture and emphasis might have talked into some importance. Something about Rickman’s wife, for instance: how tall she is and that she visits prank’d out like a Queen of the May with green streamers–a good-natured woman though, which is as much as you can expect from a friend’s wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor. Some things too about MONKEY, which can’t so well be written–how it set up for a fine Lady, and thought it had got Lovers, and was obliged to be convinc’d of its age from the parish register, where it was proved to be only twelve; and an edict issued that it should not give itself airs yet these four years; and how it got leave to be called Miss, by grace;–these and such like Hows were in my head to tell you, but who can write? Also how Manning’s come to town in spectacles, and studies physic; is melancholy and seems to have something in his head, which he don’t impart. Then, how I am going to leave off smoking. O la! your Leonardos of Oxford made my mouth water. I was hurried thro’ the gallery, and they escaped me. What do I say? I was a Goth then, and should not have noticed them. I had not settled my notions of Beauty. I have now for ever!–the small head, the [_here is drawn a long narrow eye_] long Eye,–that sort of peering curve, the wicked Italian mischief! the stick-at-nothing, Herodias’-daughter kind of grace. You understand me. But you disappoint me, in passing over in absolute silence the Blenheim Leonardo. Didn’t you see it? Excuse a Lover’s curiosity. I have seen no pictures of note since, except Mr. Dawe’s gallery. It is curious to see how differently two great men treat the same subject, yet both excellent in their way: for instance, Milton and Mr. Dawe. Mr. Dawe has chosen to illustrate the story of Sampson exactly in the point of view in which Milton has been most happy: the interview between the Jewish Hero, blind and captive, and Dalilah. Milton has imagined his Locks grown again, strong as horse-hair or porcupine’s bristles; doubtless shaggy and black, as being hairs “which of a nation armed contained the strength.” I don’t remember, he _says_ black: but could Milton imagine them to be yellow? Do you? Mr. Dawe with striking originality of conception has crowned him with a thin yellow wig, in colour precisely like Dyson’s, in curl and quantity resembling Mrs. Professor’s, his Limbs rather stout, about such a man as my Brother or Rickman–but no Atlas nor Hercules, nor yet so bony as Dubois, the Clown of Sadler’s Wells. This was judicious, taking the spirit of the story rather than the fact: for doubtless God could communicate national salvation to the trust of flax and tow as well as hemp and cordage, and could draw down a Temple with a golden tress as soon as with all the cables of the British Navy.–Miss Dawe is about a portrait of sulky Fanny Imlay, alias Godwin: but Miss Dawe is of opinion that her subject is neither reserved nor sullen, and doubtless she will persuade the picture to be of the same opinion. However, the features are tolerably like–Too much of Dawes! Wasn’t you sorry for Lord Nelson? I have followed him in fancy ever since I saw him walking in Pall Mall (I was prejudiced against him before) looking just as a Hero should look; and I have been very much cut about it indeed. He was the only pretence of a Great Man we had. Nobody is left of any Name at all. His Secretary died by his side. I imagined him, a Mr. Scott, to be the man you met at Hume’s; but I learn from Mrs. Hume that it is not the same. I met Mrs. H. one day, and agreed to go on the Sunday to Tea, but the rain prevented us, and the distance. I have been to apologise, and we are to dine there the first fine Sunday. Strange perverseness! I never went while you staid here, and now I _go to find you_! What other news is there, Mary?–What puns have I made in the last fortnight? You never remember them. You have no relish for the Comic. “O! tell Hazlitt not to forget to send the American Farmer. I dare say it isn’t so good as he fancies; but a Book’s a Book.” I have not heard from Wordsworth or from Malta since. Charles Kemble, it seems, enters into possession to-morrow. We sup at 109 Russell St. this evening. I wish your brother wouldn’t drink. It’s a blemish in the greatest characters. You send me a modern quotation poetical. How do you like this in an old play? Vittoria Corombona, a spunky Italian Lady, a Leonardo one, nick-named the White Devil, being on her trial for murder, &c.–and questioned about seducing a Duke from his wife and the State, makes answer:
“Condemn you me for that the Duke did love me? So may you blame some fair and chrystal river, For that some melancholic distracted man Hath drown’d himself in it.”–
Our ticket was a L20. Alas!! are both yours blanks?
P.S.–Godwin has asked after you several times.
N.B.–I shall expect a Line from you, if but a bare Line, whenever you write to Russell St., and a Letter often when you do not. I pay no postage; but I will have consideration for you until parliament time and franks. Luck to Ned Search and the new art of colouring. Monkey sends her Love, and Mary especially.
Yours truly,
C. LAMB.
[Addressed to Hazlitt at Wem. This is the first letter from Lamb to Hazlitt that has been preserved. The two men first met at Godwin’s. Holcroft and Coleridge were disputing which was best–man as he is, or man as he ought to be. Lamb broke in with, “Give me man as he ought _not_ to be.”
Hazlitt at this date was twenty-six, some three years younger than Lamb. He had just abandoned his project of being a painter and was settling down to literary work.
“Rickman’s wife.” This passage holds the germ of Lamb’s essay on “The Behaviour of Married Persons,” first printed in the _Reflector_, No. IV., in 1811 or 1812, and afterwards included with the _Elia_ essays.
“Monkey” was Louisa Martin, a little girl of whom Lamb was fond and whom he knew to the end of his life.
Manning studied medicine at the Westminster Hospital for six months previous to May, 1806.
“The Oxford Leonardos … the Blenheim Leonardo.” The only Leonardos at Oxford are the drawings at Christ Church. The Blenheim Leonardo was probably Boltraffio’s “Virgin and Child” which used to be ascribed to Da Vinci, as indeed were many pictures he never painted. Hazlitt subsequently wrote a work on the Picture Galleries of England, but he mentions none of these works.
“Mr. Dawe’s gallery.” George Dawe (1781-1829), afterwards R.A., of whom Lamb wrote his essay “Recollections of a Late Royal Academician,” where he alludes again to the picture of Samson (see Vol. I. of this edition).
“Dyson’s.” Dyson was a friend of Godwin. Mrs. Professor was Mrs. Godwin.
“Miss Dawe.” I know nothing further of George Dawe’s sister. Fanny Imlay was the unfortunate daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (by Gilbert Imlay the author). She committed suicide in 1816.
Nelson was killed on October 21, 1805. Scott was his chaplain, and he was not killed.
Hume was Joseph Hume, an official at Somerset House, whom we shall meet again directly.
The _American Farmer_ was very likely Gilbert Imlay’s novel _The Emigrants_, 1793, or possibly his _Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America_, 1792.
Charles Kemble, brother of John Philip Kemble and father of Fanny Kemble.
John Hazlitt, the miniature painter, lived at 109 Russell Street. Lamb’s quotation, afterwards included in his _Dramatic Specimens_, 1808, is from Webster’s “The White Devil,” Act III., Scene I.
The L20 ticket was presumably in the Lottery. Lamb’s essay “The Illustrious Defunct” (see Vol. I.) shows him to have been interested in Lotteries; and in Letter No. 184 Mary Lamb states that he wrote Lottery puffs.
“Ned Search.” Hazlitt was engaged on an abridgment of _The Light of Nature Pursued_, in seven volumes, 1768-1778, nominally by Edward Search, but really by Abraham Tucker.
“The new art of colouring” is a reference, I fancy, to Tingry, mentioned again below.]
LETTER 141
MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART
[November 9 and 14, 1805.]
My dear Sarah,–After a very feverish night, I writ a letter to you; and I have been distressed about it ever since. In the first place, I have thought I treated too lightly your differences with your brother–which I freely enter into and feel for, but which I rather wished to defer saying much about till we meet. But that which gives me most concern is the way in which I talked about your Mother’s illness, and which I have since feared you might construe into my having a doubt of your showing her proper attention without my impertinent interference. God knows, nothing of this kind was ever in my thoughts; but I have entered very deeply into your affliction with regard to your Mother; and while I was wishing, the many poor souls in the kind of desponding way she is in, whom I have seen, came afresh into my mind; and all the mismanagement with which I have seen them treated was strong in my mind, and I wrote under a forcible impulse, which I could not at that time resist, but I have fretted so much about it since, that I think it is the last time I will ever let my pen run away with me.
Your kind heart will, I know, even if you have been a little displeased, forgive me, when I assure you my spirits have been so much hurt by my last illness, that at times I hardly know what I do. I do not mean to alarm you about myself, or to plead an excuse; but I am very much otherwise than you have always known me. I do not think any one perceives me altered, but I have lost all self-confidence in my own actions, and one cause of my low spirits is, that I never feel satisfied with any thing I do–a perception of not being in a sane state perpetually haunts me. I am ashamed to confess this weakness to you; which, as I am so sensible of, I ought to strive to conquer. But I tell you, that you may excuse any part of my letter that has given offence: for your not answering it, when you are such a punctual correspondent, has made me very uneasy.
Write immediately, my dear Sarah, but do not notice this letter, nor do not mention any thing I said relative to your poor Mother. Your handwriting will convince me you are friends with me; and if Charles, who must see my letter, was to know I had first written foolishly, and then fretted about the event of my folly, he would both ways be angry with me.
I would desire you to direct to me at home, but your hand is so well known to Charles, that that would not do. Therefore, take no notice of my megrums till we meet, which I most ardently long to do. An hour spent in your company would be a cordial to my drooping heart.
Pray write directly, and believe me, ever Your affectionate friend,
M. LAMB.
Nov. l4.–I have kept this by me till to-day, hoping every day to hear from you. If you found the seal a clumsy one, it is because I opened the wafer.
Write, I beg, by the return of the post; and as I am very anxious to hear whether you are, as I fear, dissatisfied with me, you shall, if you please, direct my letter to Nurse. Her direction is, Mrs. Grant, at Mr. Smith’s, _Maidenhead_, Ram Court, Fleet Street.
I was not able, you know, to notice, when I writ to Malta, your letter concerning an insult you received from a vile wretch there; and as I mostly show my letters to Charles, I have never named it since. Did it ever come to your brother’s knowledge? Charles and I were very uneasy at your account of it. I wish I could see you.
Yours ever,
M. LAMB.
I do not mean to continue a secret correspondence, but you must oblige me with this one letter. In future I will always show my letters before they go, which will be a proper check upon my wayward pen.
LETTER 142
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING
[P.M. Nov. 15, 1805.]
Dear Manning,–Certainly you could not have called at all hours from two till ten, for we have been only out of an evening Monday and Tuesday in this week. But if you think you have, your thought shall go for the deed. We did pray for you on Wednesday night. Oysters unusually luscious–pearls of extraordinary magnitude found in them. I have made bracelets of them–given them in clusters to ladies. Last night we went out in despite, because you were not come at your hour.
This night we shall be at home, so shall we certainly both Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Take your choice, mind I don’t say of one, but choose which evening you will not, and come the other four. Doors open at five o’clock. Shells forced about nine. Every gentleman smokes or not as he pleases. O! I forgot, bring the L10, for fear you should lose it.
C. L.
[Here should come a letter from Mary Lamb to Mrs. Clarkson, dated December 25, 1805, printed by Mr. Macdonald. It states that Lamb has been latterly in indifferent health, and is unimportant.]
LETTER 143
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HAZLITT
Thursday, 15th Jan., 1806.
Dear Hazlitt,–Godwin went to Johnson’s yesterday about your business. Johnson would not come down, or give any answer, but has promised to open the manuscript, and to give you an answer in one month. Godwin will punctually go again (Wednesday is Johnson’s open day) yesterday four weeks next: i.e. in one lunar month from this time. Till when Johnson positively declines giving any answer. I wish you joy on ending your Search. Mrs. H. was naming something about a Life of Fawcett, to be by you undertaken: the great Fawcett, as she explain’d to Manning, when he ask’d, _What Fawcett_? He innocently thought _Fawcett the player_. But Fawcett the Divine is known to many people, albeit unknown to the Chinese Enquirer. I should think, if you liked it, and Johnson declined it, that Phillips is the man. He is perpetually bringing out Biographies, Richardson, Wilkes, Foot, Lee Lewis, without number: little trim things in two easy volumes price 12s. the two, made up of letters to and from, scraps, posthumous trifles, anecdotes, and about forty pages of hard biography. You might dish up a Fawcetiad in 3 months, and ask 60 or 80 Pounds for it. I should dare say that Phillips would catch at it–I wrote to you the other day in a great hurry. Did you get it? This is merely a Letter of business at Godwin’s request.
Lord Nelson is quiet at last. His ghost only keeps a slight fluttering in odes and elegies in newspapers, and impromptus, which could not be got ready before the funeral.
As for news–We have Miss Stoddart in our house, she has been with us a fortnight and will stay a week or so longer. She is one of the few people who are not in the way when they are with you. No tidings of Coleridge. Fenwick is coming to town on Monday (if no kind angel intervene) to surrender himself to prison. He hopes to get the Rules of the Fleet. On the same, or nearly the same, day, Fell, my other quondam co-friend and drinker, will go to Newgate, and his wife and 4 children, I suppose, to the Parish. Plenty of reflection and motives of gratitude to the wise disposer of all things in us, whose prudent conduct has hitherto ensured us a warm fire and snug roof over our heads. _Nullum numen abest si sit Prudentia_.
Alas! Prudentia is in the last quarter of her tutelary shining over me. A little time and I–
But may be I may, at last, hit upon some mode of collecting some of the vast superfluities of this money-voiding town. Much is to be got, and I don’t want much. All I ask is time and leisure; and I am cruelly off for them.
When you have the inclination, I shall be very glad to have a letter from you.–Your brother and Mrs. H., I am afraid, think hardly of us for not coming oftener to see them, but we are distracted beyond what they can conceive with visitors and visitings. I never have an hour for my head to work quietly its own workings; which you know is as necessary to the human system as sleep.
Sleep, too, I can’t get for these damn’d winds of a night: and without sleep and rest what should ensue? Lunacy. But I trust it won’t.
Yours, dear H., mad or sober,
C. LAMB.
[Hazlitt’s business was finding a publisher for his abridgment of Search (see page 340). Johnson was Priestley’s publisher. A letter to Godwin from Coleridge in June, 1803 (see Kegan Paul’s _Life of Godwin_, ii., 96), had suggested such an abridgment, Coleridge adding that a friend of his would make it, and that he would write a preface and see the proofs through the press. Hence Godwin’s share in the matter. Coleridge’s part of the transaction was not carried out.
Hazlitt’s Life of Joseph Fawcett (?1758-1804), the poet and dissenting preacher of Walthamstow and Old Jewry, whom he had known intimately, was not written. The Fawcett of whom Manning, the Chinese Enquirer, was thinking was John Fawcett, famous as Dr. Pangloss and Caleb Quotem.
“The Fleet”–the prison for debtors in Farringdon Street. Closed in 1844. The Rules of the Fleet were the limits within which prisoners for debt were under certain conditions permitted to live: the north side of Ludgate Hill, the Old Bailey up to Fleet Lane, Fleet Lane to Fleet Market, and then back to Ludgate Hill. The Rules cost money: L10 for the first L100 of the debt and for every additional L100, L4. Later, Fenwick seems to have settled in America.
Here should come an undated letter to Hazlitt, accompanied by Tingry’s _Painter’s and Varnisher’s Guide_, 1804. Hazlitt, who was then painting, seems to have wanted prints of trees, probably for a background. Lamb says that he has been hunting in shop windows for him. He adds: “To supply poetry and wildness, you may read the _American Farmer_ over again.” The postscript runs, “Johnson shall not be forgot at his month’s end.”]
LETTER 144
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN RICKMAN
Jan. 25th, 1806.
Dear Rickman,–You do not happen to have any place at your disposal which would suit a decayed Literatus? I do not much expect that you have, or that you will go much out of the way to serve the object, when you hear it is Fenwick. But the case is, by a _mistaking_ of his _turn_, as they call it, he is reduced, I am afraid, to extremities, and would be extremely glad of a place in an office. Now it does sometimes happen, that just as a man wants a place, a place wants him; and though this is a lottery to which none but G.B. would choose to trust his all, there is no harm just to call in at Despair’s office for a friend, and see if _his_ number is come up (B.’s further case I enclose by way of episode). Now, if you should happen, or anybody you know, to want a _hand_, here is a young man of solid but not brilliant genius, who would turn his hand to the making out dockets, penning a manifesto, or scoring a tally, not the worse (I hope) for knowing Latin and Greek, and having in youth conversed with the philosophers. But from these follies I believe he is thoroughly awakened, and would bind himself by a terrible oath never to imagine himself an extraordinary genius again.
Yours, &.,
C. LAMB.
[Mr. Hazlitt’s text, which I follow here, makes Lamb appeal for Fenwick; but other editors say Fell–except Talfourd, who says F. If, as Lamb says in his previous letter, Fell was bound for Newgate and Fenwick only for the Fleet, probably it was Fenwick. But the matter is not very important. Fenwick and Fell both came into Lamb’s life through Godwin and at this point they drop out. The enclosure concerning George Burnett is missing.]
LETTER 145
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
[Dated at end: February 1st, 1806.]
Dear Wordsworth–I have seen the Books which you ordered, booked at the White Horse Inn, Cripplegate, by the Kendal waggon this day 1st Feb’y. 1806; you will not fail to see after them in time. They are directed to you at Grasmere. We have made some alteration in the Editions since your sister’s directions. The handsome quarto Spencer which she authorized Mary to buy for L2. 12. 6, when she brought it home in triumph proved to be _only the Fairy Queen_: so we got them to take it again and I have procured instead a Folio, which luckily contains, besides all the Poems, the view of the State of Ireland, which is difficult to meet with. The Spencer, and the Chaucer, being noble old books, we did not think Stockdale’s modern volumes would look so well beside them; added to which I don’t know whether you are aware that the Print is _excessive_ small, same as Eleg. Extracts, or smaller, not calculated for eyes in age; and Shakespear is one of the last books one should like to give up, perhaps the one just before the Dying Service in a large Prayer book. So we have used our own discretion in purchasing Pope’s fine Quarto in six volumes, which may be read ad ultimam horam vitae. It is bound like Law Books (rather, half bound) and the Law Robe I have ever thought as comely and gentlemanly a garb as a Book would wish to wear. The state of the purchase then stands thus,
Urry’s Chaucer L1. 16 —
Pope’s Shakespeare 2. 2 —
Spenser 14 —
Milton 1. 5 —
Packing Case &c. 3. 6
____________
6. –. 6
Which your Brother immediately repaid us. He has the Bills for all (by his desire) except the Spenser, which we took no bill with (not looking to have our accounts audited): so for that and the Case he took a separate receipt for 17/6. N.B. there is writing in the Shakespear: but it is only variae lectiones which some careful gentleman, the former owner, was at the pains to insert in a very neat hand from 5 Commentators. It is no defacement. The fault of Pope’s edition is, that he has comically and coxcombically marked the Beauties: which is vile, as if you were to chalk up the cheek and across the nose of a handsome woman in red chalk to shew where the comeliest parts lay. But I hope the noble type and Library-appearance of the Books will atone for that. With the Books come certain Books and Pamphlets of G. Dyer, Presents or rather Decoy-ducks of the Poet to take in his thus-far obliged friends to buy his other works; as he takes care to inform them in M.S. notes to the Title Pages, “G. Dyer, Author of other Books printed for Longman &c.” The books have lain at your dispatchful brother’s a 12 months, to the great staling of most of the subjects. The three Letters and what is else written at the beginning of the respective _Presents_ will ascertain the division of the Property. If not, none of the Donees, I dare say, will grudge a community of property in this case. We were constrained to pack ’em how we could, for room. Also there comes W. Hazlitt’s book about Human Action, for Coleridge; a little song book for Sarah Coleridge; a Box for Hartley which your Brother was to have sent, but now devolved on us–I don’t know from whom it came, but the things altogether were too much for Mr. (I’ve forgot his name) to take charge of; a Paraphrase on the King and Queen of Hearts, of which I being the Author beg Mr. Johnny Wordsworth’s acceptance and opinion. _Liberal Criticism_, as G. Dyer declares, I am always ready to attend to!–And that’s all, I believe. N.B. I must remain Debtor to Dorothy for 200 pens: but really Miss Stoddart (women are great gulfs of Stationery), who is going home to Salisbury and has been with us some weeks, has drained us to the very last pen: by the time S.T.C. passes thro’ London I reckon I shall be in full feather. No more news has transpired of that Wanderer. I suppose he has found his way to some of his German friends.
A propos of Spencer (you will find him mentioned a page or two before, near enough for an a propos), I was discoursing on Poetry (as one’s apt to deceive onesself, and when a person is willing to _talk_ of what one likes, to believe that he also likes the same: as Lovers do) with a Young Gentleman of my office who is deep read in Anacreon Moore, Lord Strangford, and the principal Modern Poets, and I happen’d to mention Epithalamiums and that I could shew him a very fine one of Spencer’s. At the mention of this, my Gentleman, who is a very fine Gentleman, and is brother to the Miss Evans who Coleridge so narrowly escaped marrying, pricked up his ears and exprest great pleasure, and begged that I would give him leave to copy it: he did not care how long it was (for I objected the length), he should be very happy to see _any thing by him_. Then pausing, and looking sad, he ejaculated POOR SPENCER! I begged to know the reason of his ejaculation, thinking that Time had by this time softened down any calamities which the Bard might have endured–“Why, poor fellow!” said he “he has lost his Wife!” “Lost his Wife?” said I, “Who are you talking of?” “Why, Spencer,” said he. “I’ve read the Monody he wrote on the occasion, and _a very pretty thing it is_.” This led to an explanation (it could be delay’d no longer) that the sound Spencer, which when Poetry is talk’d of generally excites an image of an old Bard in a Ruff, and sometimes with it dim notions of Sir P. Sydney and perhaps Lord Burleigh, had raised in my Gentleman a quite contrary image of The Honourable William Spencer, who has translated some things from the German very prettily, which are publish’d with Lady Di. Beauclerk’s Designs.
Nothing like defining of Terms when we talk. What blunders might I have fallen into of quite inapplicable Criticism, but for this timely explanation.
N.B. At the beginning of _Edm._ Spencer (to prevent mistakes) I have copied from my own copy, and primarily from a book of Chalmers on Shakspear, a Sonnet of Spenser’s never printed among his poems. It is curious as being manly and rather Miltonic, and as a Sonnet of Spenser’s with nothing in it about Love or Knighthood. I have no room for remembrances; but I hope our doing your commission will prove we do not quite forget you.
C. L.
1 Feb., 1806.
[“Hazlitt’s book about Human Action for Coleridge”–_An Essay on the Principles of Human Action_, 1805.
“A Paraphrase of the King and Queen of Hearts.” This was a little book for children by Lamb, illustrated by Mulready and published by T. Hodgkins (for the Godwins) in 1806. It was discovered through this passage in this letter and is reprinted in facsimile in Vol. III. of my large edition. The title ran _The King and Queen of Hearts, with the Rogueries of the Knave who stole away the Queen’s Pies_.
Coleridge had left Malta on September 21, 1805. He went to Naples, and from there to Rome in January, 1806, where he stayed until May 18.
“A propos of Spencer.” This portion of the letter, owing to a mistake of Talfourd’s, is usually tacked on to one dated June, 1806. “Miss Evans.” See note to Letter 3.
“Poor Spencer.” William Robert Spencer (1769-1834) was the author of _jeux d’esprit_ and poems. He is now known, if at all, by his ballad of “Bed Gellert.” He married the widow of Count Spreti, and in 1804 published a book of elegies entitled “The Year of Sorrow.” Spencer was among the translators of Buerger’s “Leonore,” his version being illustrated by Lady Diana Beauclerk (his great-aunt) in 1796. Lamb used this anecdote as a little article in the _Reflector_, No. II., 1811, entitled “On the Ambiguities arising from Proper Names” (see Vol. I. of this edition). Lamb, however, by always spelling the real poet with a “c,” did nothing towards avoiding the ambiguity!
This is the sonnet which Lamb copied into Wordsworth’s Spenser from George Chalmers’ _Supplemental Apology for the Believers in the Shakespeare-Papers_ (1799), page 94:–
To the Right worshipful, my singular good _friend_, Mr. Gabriel Harvey, Doctor of the Laws:–
“Harvey, the happy above happiest men I read: that sitting like a looker on
Of this world’s stage, doest note with critique pen The sharp dislikes of each condition:
And as one careless of suspition,
Ne fawnest for the favour of the great: Ne fearest foolish reprehension
Of faulty men, which danger to thee threat. But freely doest, of what thee list, entreat, Like a great Lord of peerless liberty:
Lifting the good up to high honours seat, And the Evil damning ever more to dy.
For life, _and_ death is [are] in thy doomful writing: So thy renowne lives ever by endighting.”
Dublin: this xviij of July, 1586;
Your devoted _friend_, during life, EDMUND SPENSER.]
LETTER 146
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HAZLITT
[Dated at end: Feb. 19, 1806.]
Dear H.–Godwin has just been here in his way from Johnson’s. Johnson has had a fire in his house; this happened about five weeks ago; it was in the daytime, so it did not burn the house down, but did so much damage that the house must come down, to be repaired: his nephew that we met on Hampstead Hill put it out: well, this fire has put him so back, that he craves one more month before he gives you an answer.
I will certainly goad Godwin (if necessary) to go again this very day four weeks; but I am confident he will want no goading.
Three or four most capital auctions of Pictures advertised. In May, Welbore Ellis Agar’s, the first private collection in England, so Holcroft says. In March, Sir George Young’s in Stratford-place (where Cosway lives), and a Mr. Hulse’s at Blackheath, both very capital collections, and have been announc’d for some months. Also the Marquis of Lansdowne’s Pictures in March; and though inferior to mention, lastly, the Tructhsessian gallery. Don’t your mouth water to be here?
T’other night Loftus called, whom we have not seen since you went before. We meditate a stroll next Wednesday, Fast-day. He happened to light upon Mr. Holcroft’s Wife, and Daughter, their first visit at our house.
Your brother called last night. We keep up our intimacy. He is going to begin a large Madona and child from Mrs. H. and baby, I fear he goes astray after ignes fatui. He is a clever man. By the bye, I saw a miniature of his as far excelling any in his shew cupboard (that of your sister not excepted) as that shew cupboard excells the shew things you see in windows–an old woman–damn her name–but most superlative; he has it to clean–I’ll ask him the name–but the best miniature I ever saw, equal to Cooper and them fellows. But for oil pictures!–what has he [to] do with Madonas? if the Virgin Mary were alive and visitable, he would not hazard himself in a Covent-Garden-pit-door crowd to see her. It ain’t his style of beauty, is it?–But he will go on painting things he ought not to paint, and not painting things he ought to paint.
Manning is not gone to China, but talks of going this Spring. God forbid!
Coleridge not heard of.
I, going to leave off smoke. In mean time am so smoky with last night’s 10 Pipes, that I must leave off.
Mary begs her kind remembrances.
Pray write to us–
This is no Letter, but I supposed you grew anxious about Johnson.
N.B.–Have taken a room at 3/- a week, to be in between 5 & 8 at night, to avoid my _nocturnal_ alias _knock-eternal_ visitors. The first-fruits of my retirement has been a farce which goes to manager tomorrow. _Wish my ticket luck._ God bless you, and do write,–Yours, _fumosissimus_,
C. LAMB.
Wednesday, 19 Feb., 1806.
[Johnson was the publisher whom we have already seen considering Hazlitt’s abridgment of the _Light of Nature Revealed_.
Lamb was always interested in sales of pictures: the on-view days gave him some of his best opportunities of seeing good painting. The Truchsessian Picture Gallery was in New Road, opposite Portland Place. Exhibitions were held annually, the pictures being for sale.
Loftus was Tom Loftus of Wisbech, a cousin of Hazlitt.
Holcroft’s wife at that time, his fourth, was Louisa Mercier, who afterwards married Lamb’s friend, James Kenney, the dramatist. The daughter referred to was probably Fanny Holcroft, who subsequently wrote novels and translations.
Cooper, the miniature painter, was Samuel Cooper (1609-1672), a connection by marriage of Pope’s mother, and the painter of Cromwell and other interesting men.
Lamb’s _N.B._ contains his first mention of his farce “Mr. H.” We are not told where the 3s. room was situated. Possibly in the Temple.]
LETTER 147
MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART
[? Feb. 20, 21 and 22, 1806.]
My dear Sarah,–I have heard that Coleridge was lately going through Sicily to Rome with a party, but that, being unwell, he returned back to Naples. We think there is some mistake in this account, and that his intended journey to Rome was in his former jaunt to Naples. If you know that at that time he had any such intention, will you write instantly? for I do not know whether I ought to write to Mrs. Coleridge or not.
I am going to make a sort of promise to myself and to you, that I will write you kind of journal-like letters of the daily what-we-do matters, as they occur. This day seems to me a kind of new era in our time. It is not a birthday, nor a new-year’s day, nor a leave-off-smoking day; but it is about an hour after the time of leaving you, our poor Phoenix, in the Salisbury Stage; and Charles has just left me for the first time to go to his lodgings; and I am holding a solitary consultation with myself as to the how I shall employ myself.
Writing plays, novels, poems, and all manner of such-like vapouring and vapourish schemes are floating in my head, which at the same time aches with the thought of parting from you, and is perplext at the idea of I-cannot-tell-what-about notion that I have not made you half so comfortable as I ought to have done, and a melancholy sense of the dull prospect you have before you on your return home. Then I think I will make my new gown; and now I consider the white petticoat will be better candle-light worth; and then I look at the fire, and think, if the irons was but down, I would iron my Gowns–you having put me out of conceit of mangling.
So much for an account of my own confused head; and now for yours. Returning home from the Inn, we took that to pieces, and ca[n]vassed you, as you know is our usual custom. We agreed we should miss you sadly, and that you had been, what you yourself discovered, _not at all in our way_; and although, if the Post Master should happen to open this, it would appear to him to be no great compliment, yet you, who enter so warmly into the interior of our affairs, will understand and value it, as well as what we likewise asserted, that since you have been with us you have done but one foolish thing, _vide_ Pinckhorn (excuse my bad Latin, if it should chance to mean exactly contrary to what I intend). We praised you for the very friendly way in which you regarded all our whimsies, and, to use a phrase of Coleridge’s, _understood us_. We had, in short, no drawback on our eulogy on your merit, except lamenting the want of respect you have to yourself–the want of a certain dignity of action, you know what I mean, which–though it only broke out in the acceptance of the old Justice’s book, and was, as it were, smothered and almost extinct, while you were here–yet is so native a feeling in your mind, that you will do whatever the present moment prompts you to do, that I wish you would take that one slight offence seriously to heart, and make it a part of your daily consideration to drive this unlucky propensity, root and branch, out of your character.–Then, mercy on us, what a perfect little gentlewoman you will be!!!–
You are not yet arrived at the first stage of your journey; yet have I the sense of your absence so strong upon me, that I was really thinking what news I had to send you, and what had happened since you had left us. Truly nothing, except that Martin Burney met us in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, and borrowed four-pence, of the repayment of which sum I will send you due notice.
Friday [Feb. 21, 1806].–Last night I told Charles of your matrimonial overtures from Mr. White, and of the cause of that business being at a _stand-still_. Your generous conduct in acquainting Mr. White with the vexatious affair at Malta highly pleased him. He entirely approves of it. You would be quite comforted to hear what he said on the subject.
He wishes you success, and, when Coleridge comes, will consult with him about what is best to be done. But I charge you, be most strictly cautious how you proceed yourself. Do not give Mr. W. any reason to think you indiscreet; let him return of his own accord, and keep the probability of his doing so full in your mind; so, I mean, as to regulate your whole conduct by that expectation. Do not allow yourself to see, or in any way renew your acquaintance with, William, nor do not do any other silly thing of that kind; for, you may depend upon it, he will be a kind of spy upon you, and, if he observes nothing that he disapproves of, you will certainly hear of him again in time.
Charles is gone to finish the farce, and I am to hear it read this night. I am so uneasy between my hopes and fears of how I shall like it, that I do not know what I am doing. I need not tell you so, for before I send this I shall be able to tell you all about it. If I think it will amuse you, I will send you a copy. _The bed was very cold last night._
Feb. 21 [?22]. I have received your letter, and am happy to hear that your mother has been so well in your absence, which I wish had been prolonged a little, for you have been wanted to copy out the Farce, in the writing of which I made many an unlucky blunder.
The said Farce I carried (after many consultations of who was the most proper person to perform so important an office) to Wroughton, the Manager of Drury Lane. He was very civil to me; said it did not depend upon himself, but that he would put it into the Proprietors’ hands, and that we should certainly have an answer from them.
I have been unable to finish this sheet before, for Charles has taken a week’s holidays [from his] lodging, to rest himself after his labour, and we have talked to-night of nothing but the Farce night and day; but yesterday [I carri]ed it to Wroughton; and since it has been out of the [way, our] minds have been a little easier. I wish you had [been with] us, to have given your opinion. I have half a mind to sc[ribble] another copy, and send it you. I like it very much, and cannot help having great hopes of its success.
I would say I was very sorry for the death of Mr. White’s father; but not knowing the good old gentleman, I cannot help being as well satisfied that he is gone–for his son will feel rather lonely, and so perhaps he may chance to visit again Winterslow. You so well describe your brother’s grave lecturing letter, that you make me ashamed of part of mine. I would fain rewrite it, leaving out my ‘_sage advice_;’ but if I begin another letter, something may fall out to prevent me from finishing it,–and, therefore, skip over it as well as you can; it shall be the last I ever send you.
It is well enough, when one is talking to a friend, to hedge in an odd word by way of counsel now and then; but there is something mighty irksome in its staring upon one in a letter, where one ought only to see kind words and friendly remembrances.
I have heard a vague report from the _Dawes_ (the pleasant-looking young lady we called upon was Miss Daw), that Coleridge returned back to Naples: they are to make further enquiries, and let me know the particulars. We have seen little or nothing of Manning since you went. Your friend [George] Burnett calls as usual, for Charles to _point out something for him_. I miss you sadly, and but for the fidget I have been in about the Farce, I should have missed you still more. I am sorry you cannot get your money. Continue to tell us all your perplexities, and do not mind being called Widow Blackacre.
Say all in your mind about your _Lover_, now Charles knows of it; he will be as anxious to hear as me. All the time we can spare from talking of the characters and plot of the Farce, we talk of you. I have got a fresh bottle of Brandy to-day: if you were here, you should have a glass, _three parts brandy_–so you should. I bought a pound of bacon to-day, not so good as yours. I wish the little caps were finished. I am glad the Medicines and the Cordials bore the fatigue of their journey so well. I promise you I will write often, and _not mind the postage_. God bless you. Charles does _not_ send his love, because he is not here.
Yours affectionately,
M. LAMB.
_Write as often as ever you can_. Do not work too hard.
[Mr. Hazlitt dates this letter April, thinking that Mary Lamb’s pen slipped when she wrote February 21 half-way through. But I think February must be right; because (1) Miss Stoddart has only just left, and Lamb tells Hazlitt in January that she is staying a week or so longer: April would make this time three months; and (2) Lamb has told Hazlitt on February 19 that his farce is finished.
Coleridge left Malta for Rome on September 21, 1805. He was probably at Naples from October, 1805, to the end of January, 1806, when he went to Rome, remaining there until May 18. Writing to Mrs. Clarkson on March 2, 1806, Dorothy Wordsworth quotes from a letter written on February 25 by Mary Lamb to Mrs. S.T. Coleridge and containing this passage: “My Brother has received a letter from Stoddart dated December 26, in which he tells him that Coleridge was then at Naples. We have also heard from a Mr. Dawe that a friend of his had received a letter of the same date, which mentioned Coleridge having been lately travelling towards Rome with a party of gentlemen; but that he changed his mind and returned back to Naples. Stoddart says nothing more than that he was driven to Naples in consequence of the French having taken possession of Trieste.” (See the _Athenaeum_, January 23, 1904.)
“_Vide_ Pinckhorn.” I cannot explain this, unless a Justice Pinckhorn had ogled Sarah Stoddart and offered her a present of a book. Mary Lamb, by the way, some years later taught Latin to William Hazlitt, Junior, Sarah’s son.
Martin Charles Burney, the son of Captain Burney, born in 1788, a devoted admirer of the Lambs to the end. He was now only eighteen. We shall often meet him again.
Mr. White was not Lamb’s friend James White.
Winterslow, in Wiltshire, about six miles from Salisbury, was a small property belonging to Sarah Stoddart.
“Widow Blackacre.” In Wycherley’s “Plain Dealer:” a busy-body and persistent litigant.]
LETTER 148
MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART
[March, 1806.]
My dear Sarah,–No intention of forfeiting my promise, but mere want of time, has prevented me from continuing my _journal_. You seem pleased with the long, stupid one I sent, and, therefore, I shall certainly continue to write at every opportunity. The reason why I have not had any time to spare, is because Charles has given himself some holidays after the hard labour of finishing his farce, and, therefore, I have had none of the evening leisure I promised myself. Next week he promises to go to work again. I wish he may happen to hit upon some new plan, to his mind, for another farce: when once begun, I do not fear his perseverance, but the holidays he has allowed himself, I fear, will unsettle him. I look forward to next week with the same kind of anxiety I did to the first entrance at the new lodging. We have had, as you know, so many teasing anxieties of late, that I have got a kind of habit of foreboding that we shall never be comfortable, and that he will never settle to work: which I know is wrong, and which I will try with all my might to overcome–for certainly, if I could but see things as they really are, our prospects are considerably improved since the memorable day of Mrs. Fenwick’s last visit. I have heard nothing of that good lady, or of the Fells, since you left us.
We have been visiting a little–to Norris’s, to Godwin’s; and last night we did not come home from Captain Burney’s till two o’clock: the _Saturday night_ was changed to _Friday_, because Rickman could not be there to-night. We had the best _tea things_, and the litter all cleared away, and every thing as handsome as possible–Mrs. Rickman being of the party. Mrs. Rickman is much _increased in size_ since we saw her last, and the alteration in her strait shape wonderfully improves her. Phillips was there, and Charles had a long batch of Cribbage with him: and, upon the whole, we had the most chearful evening I have known there a long time. To-morrow, we dine at Holcroft’s. These things rather fatigue me; but I look for a quiet week next week, and hope for better times. We have had Mrs. Brooks and all the Martins, and we have likewise been there; so that I seem to have been in a continual bustle lately. I do not think Charles cares so much for the Martins as he did, which is a fact you will be glad to hear–though you must not name them when you write: always remember, when I tell you any thing about them, not to mention their names in return.
We have had a letter from your brother, by the same mail as yours, I suppose; he says he does not mean to return till summer, and that is all he says about himself; his letter being entirely filled with a long story about Lord Nelson–but nothing more than what the newspapers have been full of, such as his last words, &c. Why does he tease you with so much _good advice_? is it merely to fill up his letters as he filled ours with Lord Nelson’s exploits? or has any new thing come out against you? has he discovered Mr. Curse-a-rat’s correspondence? I hope you will not write to that _news-sending_ gentleman any more. I promised never more to give my _advice_, but one may be allowed to _hope_ a little; and I also hope you will have something to tell me soon about Mr. W[hite]: have you seen him yet? I am sorry to hear your Mother is not better, but I am in a hoping humour just now, and I cannot help hoping that we shall all see happier days. The bells are just now ringing for the taking of the _Cape of Good Hope_.
I have written to Mrs. Coleridge to tell her that her husband is at Naples; your brother slightly named his being there, but he did not say that he had heard from him himself. Charles is very busy at the Office; he will be kept there to-day till seven or eight o’clock: and he came home very _smoky and drinky_ last night; so that I am afraid a hard day’s work will not agree very well with him.
0 dear! what shall I say next? Why this I will say next, that I wish you was with me; I have been eating a mutton chop all alone, and I have been just looking in the pint porter pot, which I find quite empty, and yet I am still very dry. If you was with me, we would have a glass of brandy and water; but it is quite impossible to drink brandy and water by oneself; therefore, I must wait with patience till the kettle boils. I hate to drink tea alone, it is worse than dining alone, We have got a fresh cargo of biscuits from Captain Burney’s. I have–
_March l4._–Here I was interrupted; and a long, tedious interval has intervened, during which I have had neither time nor inclination to write a word. The Lodging–that pride and pleasure of your heart and mine–is given up, _and here he is again_–Charles, I mean–as unsettled and as undetermined as ever. When he went to the poor lodging, after the hollidays I told you he had taken, he could not endure the solitariness of them, and I had no rest for the sole of my foot till I promised to believe his solemn protestations that he could and would write as well at home as there. Do you believe this?
I have no power over Charles: he will do–what he will do. But I ought to have some little influence over myself. And therefore I am most manfully resolving to turn over a new leaf with my own mind. Your visit to us, though not a very comfortable one to yourself, has been of great use to me. I set you up in my fancy as a kind of _thing_ that takes an interest in my concerns; and I hear you talking to me, and arguing the matter very learnedly, when I give way to despondency. You shall hear a good account of me, and the progress I make in altering my fretful temper to a calm and quiet one. It is but being once thorowly convinced one is wrong, to make one resolve to do so no more; and I know my dismal faces have been almost as great a drawback upon Charles’s comfort, as his feverish, teazing ways have been upon mine. Our love for each other has been the torment of our lives hitherto. I am most seriously intending to bend the whole force of my mind to counteract this, and I think I see some prospect of success.
Of Charles ever bringing any work to pass at home, I am very doubtful; and of the farce succeeding, I have little or no hope; but if I could once get into the way of being chearful myself, I should see an easy remedy in leaving town and living cheaply, almost wholly alone; but till I do find we really are comfortable alone, and by ourselves, it seems a dangerous experiment. We shall certainly stay where we are till after next Christmas; and in the mean time, as I told you before, all my whole thoughts shall be to _change_ myself into just such a chearful soul as you would be in a lone house, with no companion but your brother, if you had nothing to vex you–nor no means of wandering after _Curse-a-rats_.
Do write soon: though I write all about myself, I am thinking all the while of you, and I am uneasy at the length of time it seems since I heard from you. Your Mother, and Mr. White, is running continually in my head; and this _second winter_ makes me think how cold, damp, and forlorn your solitary house will feel to you. I would your feet were perched up again on our fender.
Manning is not yet gone. Mrs. Holcroft is brought to bed. Mrs. Reynolds has been confined at home with illness, but is recovering. God bless you.
Yours affectionately,
M. LAMB.
[“Norris’s”–Randal Norris, sub-treasurer of the Inner Temple, whose wife, _nee_ Faint, came from Widford, where she had known Lamb’s grandmother, Mary Field.
Captain Burney’s whist parties, in Little James Street, Pimlico, were, as a rule, on Saturdays. Later Lamb established a Wednesday party.
Of Mrs. Brooks I have no knowledge; nor of him whom Mary Lamb called Mr. Curse-a-rat.
“The _Cape of Good Hope_.” The Cape of Good Hope, having been taken by the English in 1795 from the Dutch, and restored to them at the Peace of Amiens in 1802, had just been retaken by the English.
“Mrs. Holcroft is brought to bed.” The child was Louisa, afterwards Mrs. Badams, one of Lamb’s correspondents late in life.]
LETTER 149
CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN RICKMAN
March, 1806.
Dear Rickman,–I send you some papers about a salt-water soap, for which the inventor is desirous of getting a parliamentary reward, like Dr. Jenner. Whether such a project be feasible, I mainly doubt, taking for granted the equal utility. I should suppose the usual way of paying such projectors is by patents and contracts. The patent, you see, he has got. A contract he is about with the Navy Board. Meantime, the projector is hungry. Will you answer me two questions, and return them with the papers as soon as you can? Imprimis, is there any chance of success in application to Parliament for a reward? Did you ever hear of the invention? You see its benefits and saving to the nation (always the first motive with a true projector) are feelingly set forth: the last paragraph but one of the estimate, in enumerating the shifts poor seamen are put to, even approaches to the pathetic. But, agreeing to all he says, is there the remotest chance of Parliament giving the projector anything; and _when_ should application be made, now or after a report (if he can get it) from the navy board? Secondly, let the infeasibility be as great as you will, you will oblige me by telling me the way of introducing such an application to Parliament, without buying over a majority of members, which is totally out of projector’s power. I vouch nothing for the soap myself; for I always wash in _fresh water_, and find it answer tolerably well for all purposes of cleanliness; nor do I know the projector; but a relation of mine has put me on writing to you, for whose parliamentary knowledge he has great veneration.
P.S. The Capt. and Mrs. Burney and Phillips take their chance at cribbage here on Wednesday. Will you and Mrs. R. join the party? Mary desires her compliments to Mrs. R., and joins in the invitation.
Yours truly,
C. LAMB.
[Rickman now held the post of private secretary to the Speaker, Charles Abbot, afterwards Lord Colchester.
Captain Burney we have already met. His wife, Sarah Burney, was, there is good reason to suppose, in Lamb’s mind when he wrote the Elia essay “Mrs. Battle’s Opinions on Whist.” Phillips was either Colonel Phillips, a retired officer of marines, who had sailed with Burney and Captain Cook, had known Dr. Johnson, and had married Burney’s sister; or Ned Phillips (Rickman’s Secretary).]
LETTER 150
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HAZLITT
March 15, 1806.
Dear H.–I am a little surprised at no letter from you. This day week, to wit, Saturday, the 8th of March, 1806, I booked off by the Wem coach, Bull and Mouth Inn, directed to _you_, at the Rev. Mr. Hazlitt’s, Wem, Shropshire, a parcel containing, besides a book, &c., a rare print, which I take to be a Titian; begging the said W.H. to acknowledge the receipt thereof; which he not having done, I conclude the said parcel to be lying at the inn, and may be lost; for which reason, lest you may be a Wales-hunting at this instant, I have authorised any of your family, whosoever first gets this, to open it, that so precious a parcel may not moulder away for want of looking after. What do you in Shropshire when so many fine pictures are a-going, a-going every day in London? Monday I visit the Marquis of Lansdowne’s, in Berkeley Square. Catalogue 2s. 6d. Leonardos in plenty. Some other day this week I go to see Sir Wm. Young’s, in Stratford Place. Hulse’s, of Blackheath, are also to be sold this month; and in May, the first private collection in Europe, Welbore Ellis Agar’s. And there are you, perverting Nature in lying landscapes, filched from old rusty Titians, such as I can scrape up here to send you, with an additament from Shropshire Nature thrown in to make the whole look unnatural. I am afraid of your mouth watering when I tell you that Manning and I got into Angerstein’s on Wednesday. _Mon Dieu_! Such Claudes! Four Claudes bought for more than L10,000 (those who talk of Wilson being equal to Claude are either mainly ignorant or stupid); one of these was perfectly miraculous. What colours short of _bona fide_ sunbeams it could be painted in, I am not earthly colourman enough to say; but I did not think it had been in the possibility of things. Then, a music-piece by Titian–a thousand-pound picture–five figures standing behind a piano, the sixth playing; none of the heads, as M. observed, indicating great men, or affecting it, but so sweetly disposed; all leaning separate ways, but so easy–like a flock of some divine shepherd; the colouring, like the economy of the picture, so sweet and harmonious–as good as Shakspeare’s “Twelfth Night,”–_almost_, that is. It will give you a love of order, and cure you of restless, fidgetty passions for a week after–more musical than the music which it would, but cannot, yet in a manner _does_, show. I have no room for the rest. Let me say, Angerstein sits in a room–his study (only that and the library are shown)–when he writes a common letter, as I am doing, surrounded with twenty pictures worth L60,000. What a luxury! Apicius and Heliogabalus, hide your diminished heads!
Yours, my dear painter,
C. LAMB.
[Angerstein’s was the house of John Julius Angerstein (1735-1823) the financier, in Pall Mall. He had a magnificent collection of pictures, L60,000 worth of which were bought on his death by the nation, to form the nucleus of our National Gallery. A portrait of Angerstein by Lawrence hangs there. The Titian of which Lamb speaks is now attributed to the School of Titian. It is called “A Concert.” Angerstein’s Claudes are also in the National Gallery.]
LETTER 151
CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING
May 10, 1806.
My dear Manning–I didn’t know what your going was till I shook a last fist with you, and then ’twas just like having shaken hands with a wretch on the fatal scaffold, and when you are down the ladder, you can never stretch out to him again. Mary says you are dead, and there’s nothing to do but to leave it to time to do for us in the end what it always does for those who mourn for people in such a case. But she’ll see by your letter you are not quite dead. A little kicking and agony, and then–. Martin Burney _took me out_ a walking that evening, and we talked of Mister Manning; and then I came home and smoked for you; and at twelve o’Clock came home Mary and Monkey Louisa from the play, and there was more talk and more smoking, and they all seemed first-rate characters, because they knew a certain person. But what’s the use of talking about ’em? By the time you’ll have made your escape from the Kalmuks, you’ll have staid so long I shall never be able to bring to your mind who Mary was, who will have died about a year before, nor who the Holcrofts were! Me perhaps you will mistake for Phillips, or confound me with Mr. Daw, because you saw us together. Mary (whom you seem to remember yet) is not quite easy that she had not a formal parting from you. I wish it had so happened. But you must bring her a token, a shawl or something, and remember a sprightly little Mandarin for our mantle-piece, as a companion to the Child I am going to purchase at the Museum. She says you saw her writings about the other day, and she wishes you should know what they are. She is doing for Godwin’s bookseller twenty of Shakspear’s plays, to be made into Children’s tales. Six are already done by her, to wit, ‘The Tempest,’ ‘Winter’s Tale,’ ‘Midsummer Night,’ ‘Much Ado,’ ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona,’ and ‘Cymbeline:’ ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is in forwardness. I have done ‘Othello’ and ‘Macbeth,’ and mean to do all the tragedies. I think it will be popular among the little people. Besides money. It is to bring in 60 guineas. Mary has done them capitally, I think you’d think. These are the humble amusements we propose, while you are gone to plant the cross of Christ among barbarous Pagan anthropophagi. Quam homo homini praestat! but then, perhaps, you’ll get murder’d, and we shall die in our beds with a fair literary reputation. Be sure, if you see any of those people whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, that you make a draught of them. It will be very curious. O Manning, I am serious to sinking almost, when I think that all those evenings, which you have made so pleasant, are gone perhaps for ever. Four years you talk of, maybe ten, and you may come back and find such alterations! Some circumstance may grow up to you or to me, that may be a bar to the return of any such intimacy. I daresay all this is Hum, and that all will come back; but indeed we die many deaths before we die, and I am almost sick when I think that such a hold as I had of you is gone. I have friends, but some of ’em are changed. Marriage, or some circumstance, rises up to make them not the same. But I felt sure of you. And that last token you gave me of expressing a wish to have my name joined with yours, you know not how it affected me: like a legacy.
God bless you in every way you can form a wish. May He give you health, and safety, and the accomplishment of all your objects, and return you again to us, to gladden some fireside or other (I suppose we shall be moved from the Temple). I will nurse the remembrance of your steadiness and quiet, which used to infuse something like itself into our nervous minds. Mary called you our ventilator. Farewell, and take her best wishes and mine.
One thing more. When you get to Canton, you will most likely see a young friend of mine, Inspector of Teas, named Ball. He is a very good fellow and I should like to have my name talked of in China. Give my kind remembrances to the same Ball. Good bye.
C. L.
I have made strict inquiries through my friend Thompson as to your affairs with the Comp’y. If there had been a committee yesterday an order would have been sent to the captain to draw on them for your passage money, but there was no Committee. But in the secretary’s orders to receive you on board, it was specified that the Company would defray your passage, all the orders about you to the supercargoes are certainly in your ship. Here I will manage anything you may want done. What can I add but take care of yourself. We drink tea with the Holcrofts to-morrow.
[Addressed to “Mr. Manning, Passenger on Board the _Thames_, East Indiaman, Portsmouth.”
Manning sailed for China this month. He did not return to England until 1817. His nominal purpose was to practise medicine there, not to spread Christianity, as Lamb suggests–probably in fun.
This is Manning’s reply to Lamb’s letter:–
“Dear Lamb–As we are not sailed yet, and I have a few minutes, why should not I give you a line to say that I received your kind letter yesterday, and shall read it again before I have done with it. I am sorry I had not time to call on Mary, but I did not even call on my own Father, and he’s 70 and loves me like a Father. I don’t know that you can do any thing for me at the India House: if you hear any thing there about me, communicate it to Mr. Crabtree, 13, Newgate Street. I am not dead, nor dying–some people go into Yorkshire for four [years], and I have no currant jelly aboard. Tell Holcroft I received his kind letter.”
“T. MANNING for ever.”]
LETTER 152
MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART
[Mr. W.C. Hazlitt dates: June 2, 1806.]
My dear Sarah,–You say truly that I have sent you too many make-believe letters. I do not mean to serve you so again, if I can help it. I have been very ill for some days past with the toothache. Yesterday, I had it drawn; and I feel myself greatly relieved, but far from easy, for my head and my jaws still ache; and, being unable to do any business, I would wish to write you a long letter, to atone for my former offences; but I feel so languid, that I am afraid wishing is all I can do.
I am sorry you are so worried with business; and I am still more sorry for your sprained ancle. You ought not to walk upon it. What is the matter between you and your good-natured maid you used to boast of? and what the devil is the matter with your Aunt? You say she is discontented. You must bear with them as well as you can; for, doubtless, it is you[r] poor Mother’s teazing that puts you all out of sorts. I pity you from my heart.
We cannot come to see you this summer, nor do I think it advisable to come and incommode you, when you for the same expence could come to us. Whenever you feel yourself disposed to run away from your troubles, come up to us again. I wish it was not such a long, expensive journey, then you could run backwards and forwards every month or two.
I am very sorry you still hear nothing from Mr. White. I am afraid that is all at an end. What do you intend to do about Mr. Turner?
I believe Mr. Rickman is well again, but I have not been able to get out lately to enquire, because of my toothache. Louisa Martin is quite well again.
William Hazlitt, the brother of him you know, is in town. I believe you have heard us say we like him? He came in good time; for the loss of Manning made Charles very dull, and he likes Hazlitt better than any body, except Manning.
My toothache has moped Charles to death: you know how he hates to see people ill.
Mrs. Reynolds has been this month past at Deptford, so that I never know when Monday comes. I am glad you have got your Mother’s pension.
My _Tales_ are to be published in separate story-books; I mean, in single stories, like the children’s little shilling books. I cannot send you them in Manuscript, because they are all in the Godwins’ hands; but one will be published very soon, and then you shall have it _all in print_. I go on very well, and have no doubt but I shall always be able to hit upon some such kind of job to keep going on. I think I shall get fifty pounds a year at the lowest calculation; but as I have not yet seen any _money_ of my own earning, for we do not expect to be paid till Christmas, I do not feel the good fortune, that has so unexpectedly befallen me, half so much as I ought to do. But another year, no doubt, I shall perceive it.
When I write again, you will hear tidings of the farce, for Charles is to go in a few days to the Managers to enquire about it. But that must now be a next-year’s business too, even if it does succeed; so it’s all looking forward, and no prospect of present gain. But that’s better than no hopes at all, either for present or future times.
Charles has written Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, and has begun Hamlet; you would like to see us, as we often sit, writing on one table (but not on one cushion sitting), like Hermia and Helena in the Midsummer’s Night’s Dream; or, rather, like an old literary Darby and Joan: I taking snuff, and he groaning all the while, and saying he can make nothing of it, which he always says till he has finished, and then he finds out he has made something of it.
If I tell you that you Widow-Blackacreise, you must tell me I Tale-ise, for my _Tales_ seem to be all the subject matter I write about; and when you see them, you will think them poor little baby-stories to make such a talk about; but I have no news to send, nor nothing, in short, to say, that is worth paying two pence for. I wish I could get franks, then I should not care how short or stupidly I wrote.
Charles smokes still, and will smoke to the end of the chapter.
Martin [Burney] has just been here. My Tales (_again_) and Charles’s Farce has made the boy mad to turn Author; and he has written a Farce, and he has made the Winter’s Tale into a story; but what Charles says of himself is really true of Martin, for _he can make nothing at all of it_: and I have been talking very eloquently this morning, to convince him that nobody can write farces, &c., under thirty years of age. And so I suppose he will go home and new model his farce.
What is Mr. Turner? and what is likely to come of him? and how do you like him? and what do you intend to do about it? I almost wish you to remain single till your Mother dies, and then come and live with us; and we would either get you a husband, or teach you how to live comfortably without. I think I should like to have you always to the end of our lives living with us; and I do not know any reason why that should not be, except for the great fancy you seem to have for marrying, which after all is but a hazardous kind of an affair: but, however, do as you like; every man knows best what pleases himself best.
I have known many single men I should have liked in my life (_if it had suited them_) for a husband: but very few husbands have I ever wished was mine, which is rather against the state in general; but one never is disposed to envy wives their good husbands. So much for marrying–but however, get married, if you can.
I say we shall not come and see you, and I feel sure we shall not: but, if some sudden freak was to come into our wayward heads, could you at all manage?–Your Mother we should not mind, but I think still it would be so vastly inconvenient.–I am certain we shall not come, and yet _you_ may tell me, when you write, if it would be horribly inconvenient if we did; and do not tell me any lies, but say truly whether you would rather we did or not.
God bless you, my dearest Sarah! I wish, for your sake, I could have written a very amusing letter; but do not scold, for my head aches sadly. Don’t mind my headach, for before you get this it will be well, being only from the pains of my jaws and teeth. Farewell.
Yours affectionately,
M. LAMB.
[This letter contains the first mention to Sarah Stoddart of William Hazlitt, who was shortly to put an end to the claims both of Mr. White and Mr. Turner.
The _Tales from Shakespear_, although mainly Mary Lamb’s book, did not bear her name for many years, not until after her brother’s death. Her connection with it was, however, made public in more than one literary year-book of her day. Originally they were to be unsigned, but Godwin “cheated” Lamb into putting a name to them (see letter of Jan. 29, 1807). The single stories, which Mrs. Godwin issued at sixpence each, are now excessively rare. The ordinary first edition in two volumes is a valuable possession, much desired by collectors.]
LETTER 153
CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
[P.M. June 26, 1806.]
Dear Wordsworth–We got the six pounds safe in your sister’s letters–are pleased, you may be sure, with the good news of Mrs. W.–hope all is well over by this time. “A fine boy!–have you any more? one more and a girl–poor copies of me” vide MR. H. a farce which the Proprietors have done me the honor–but I will set down Mr. Wroughton’s own words. N.B. the ensuing letter was sent in answer to one which I wrote begging to know if my piece had any chance, as I might make alterations, &c. I writing on the Monday, there comes this letter on the Wednesday. Attend.
(_Copy of a Letter from Mr. R’d. Wroughton_)
Sir, Your Piece of Mr. H–I am desired to say, is accepted at Drury Lane Theatre, by the Proprietors, and, if agreeable to you, will be brought forwards when the proper opportunity serves–the Piece shall be sent to you for your Alterations in the course of a few days, as the same is not in my Hands but with the Proprietors.
(dated) I am Sir,
66 Gower St., Your obedient ser’t., Wednesday R’d. WROUGHTON. June 11, 1806.
On the following Sunday Mr. Tobin comes. The scent of a manager’s letter brought him. He would have gone further any day on such a business. I read the letter to him. He deems it authentic and peremptory. Our conversation naturally fell upon pieces–different sorts of pieces–what is the best way of offering a piece–how far the caprice of managers is an obstacle in the way of a piece–how to judge of the merits of a piece–how long a piece may remain in the hands of the managers before it is acted–and my piece–and your piece–and my poor brother’s piece–my poor brother was all his life endeavouring to get a piece accepted–
I am not sure that when _my poor Brother_ bequeathed the care of his pieces to Mr. James Tobin he did not therein convey a legacy which in some measure mollified the otherwise first stupefactions of grief. It can’t be expected that the present Earl Nelson passes all his time in watering the laurels of the Admiral with Right Reverend Tears. Certainly he steals a fine day now and then to plot how to lay out the grounds and mansion at Burnham most suitably to the late Earl’s taste, if he had lived, and how to spend the hundred thousand pound parliament has given him in erecting some little neat monument to his memory.
MR. H. I wrote that in mere wantonness of triumph. Have nothing more to say about it. The Managers I thank my stars have decided its merits for ever. They are the best judges of pieces, and it would be insensible in me to affect a false modesty after the very flattering letter which I have received and the ample–
I think this will be as good a pattern for Orders as I can think on. A little thin flowery border round, neat not gaudy, and the Drury Lane Apollo with the harp at the top. Or shall I have no Apollo?–simply nothing? Or perhaps the Comic Muse?
The same form, only I think without the Apollo, will serve for the pit and galleries. I think it will be best to write my name at full length; but then if I give away a great many, that will be tedious. Perhaps _Ch. Lamb_ will do. BOXES now I think on it I’ll have in Capitals. The rest in a neat Italian hand. Or better perhaps, BOXES, in old English character, like Madoc or Thalaba?
I suppose you know poor Mountague has lost his wife. That has been the reason for my sending off all we have got of yours separately. I thought it a bad time to trouble him. The Tea 25 lb. in 5 5 lb. Papers, two sheets to each, with the chocolate which we were afraid Mrs. W. would want, comes in one Box and the Hats in a small one. I booked them off last night by the Kendal waggon. There comes with this letter (no, it comes a day or two earlier) a Letter for you from the Doctor at Malta, about Coleridge, just received. Nothing of certainty, you see, only that he is not at Malta. We supt with the Clarksons one night–Mrs. Clarkson pretty well. Mr. C. somewhat fidgety, but a good man. The Baby has been on a visit to Mrs. Charlotte Smith, Novellist and morals-trainer, but is returned. [_A short passage omitted here._]
Mary is just stuck fast in All’s Well that Ends Well. She complains of having to set forth so many female characters in boy’s clothes. She begins to think Shakspear must have wanted Imagination. I to encourage her, for she often faints in the prosecution of her great work, flatter her with telling her how well such a play and such a play is done. But she is stuck fast and I have been obliged to promise to assist her. To do this it will be necessary to leave off Tobacco. But I had some thoughts of doing that before, for I sometimes think it does not agree with me. W. Hazlitt is in Town. I took him to see a very pretty girl professedly, where there were two young girls–the very head and sum of the Girlery was two young girls–they neither laughed nor sneered nor giggled nor whispered–but they were young girls–and he sat and frowned blacker and blacker, indignant that there should be such a thing as Youth and Beauty, till he tore me away before supper in perfect misery and owned he could not bear young girls. They drove him mad. So I took him home to my old Nurse, where he recover’d perfect tranquillity. Independent of this, and as I am not a young girl myself, he is a great acquisition to us. He is, rather imprudently, I think, printing a political pamphlet on his own account, and will have to pay for the paper, &c. The first duty of an Author, I take it, is never to pay anything. But non cuivis attigit adire Corinthum. The Managers I thank my stars have settled that question for me.
Yours truly,
C. LAMB.
[Wordsworth’s third child, Thomas, who did not grow up, was born June 16, 1806.
“A fine boy!” The quotation is from Mr. H.’s soliloquy after the discovery of his name:–“No son of mine shall exist, to bear my ill-fated name. No nurse come chuckling, to tell me it is a boy. No midwife, leering at me from under the lids of professional gravity. I dreamed of caudle. (_Sings in a melancholy tone_) Lullaby, Lullaby,– hush-a-by-baby–how like its papa it is!–(_makes motions as if he was nursing_). And then, when grown up, ‘Is this your son, sir?’ ‘Yes, sir, a poor copy of me,–a sad young dog!–just what his father was at his age,–I have four more at home.’ Oh! oh! oh!”
Tobin was James Tobin, whom we have already met, brother of the late dramatist, John Tobin.
Poor Mountague would be Basil Montagu, whose second wife had just died. He married afterwards Anne Skepper, whom Lamb came to know well, and of whom he speaks in his _Elia_ essay “Oxford in the Vacation.”
The Doctor was Dr. Stoddart. Coleridge had left Malta some months before, as we have seen. He had also left Rome and was in some foreign town unknown, probably not far from Leghorn, whence he sailed for England in the following month, reaching Portsmouth in August.
The Baby was Mrs. Godwin, and Charlotte Smith was the poetess (of great fame in her day, but now forgotten), who was then living at Tilford, near Farnham, in Surrey. She died in the following October. The passage which I have, with extreme reluctance, omitted, refers to the physical development of the two ladies. Lamb was writing just then less for Wordsworth than Antiquity.
Hazlitt’s political pamphlet was his _Free Thoughts on Public Affairs_, 1806.]
LETTER 154
MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART
[No date. ? Begun on Friday, July 4, 1806.]
Charles and Hazlitt are going to Sadler’s Wells, and I am amusing myself in their absence with reading a manuscript of Hazlitt’s; but have laid it down to write a few lines, to tell you how we are going on. Charles has begged a month’s hollidays, of which this is the first day, and they are all to be spent at home. We thank you for your kind invitations, and were half-inclined to come down to you; but after mature deliberation, and many wise consultations, such as you know we often hold, we came to the resolution of staying quietly at home: and during the hollidays we are both of us to set stoutly to work and finish the Tales, six of them being yet to do. We thought, if we went anywhere and left them undone, they would lay upon our minds; and that when we returned, we should feel unsettled, and our money all spent besides: and next summer we are to be very rich, and then we can afford a long journey some where, I will not say to Salisbury, because I really think it is better for you to come to us; but of that we will talk another time.
The best news I have to send you is, that the Farce is accepted. That is to say, the manager has written to say it shall be brought out when an opportunity serves. I hope that it may come out by next Christmas: you must come and see it the first night; for if it succeeds, it will be a great pleasure to you, and if it should not, we shall want your consolation. So you must come.
I shall soon have done my work, and know not what to begin next. Now, will you set your brains to work and invent a story, either for a short child’s story, or a long one that would make a kind of Novel, or a Story that would make a play. Charles wants me to write a play, but I am not over anxious to set about it; but seriously will you draw me out a skeleton of a story, either from memory of any thing that you have read, or from your own invention, and I will fill it up in some way or other.
The reason I have not written so long is, that I worked, and worked, in hopes to get through my task before the hollidays began; but at last I was not able, for Charles was forced to get them now, or he could not have had any at all: and having picked out the best stories first, these latter ones take more time, being more perplext and unmanageable. But however I hope soon to tell you that they are quite completed. I have finished one to-day which teazed me more than all the rest put together. The[y] sometimes plague me as bad as your _Lovers_ do you. How do you go on, and how many new ones have you had lately?
I met Mrs. Fenwick at Mrs. Holcroft’s the other day; she loo[ked very] placid and smiling, but I was so disconcerted that I hardly knew how to sit upon my chair. She invited us to come and see her, but we did not invite her in return; and nothing at all was said in an explanatory sort: so that matter rests at present.
Mrs. Rickman continues very ill–so ill, that there are no hopes of her recovery–for which I am very sorry indeed.
I am sorry you are altogether so uncomfortable; I shall be glad to hear you are settled at Salisbury: that must be better than living in a lone house, companionless as you are. I wish you could afford to bring your Mother up to London; but that is quite impossible.
Your brother wrote a letter a week ago (which passed through our hands) to Wordsworth, to tell him all he knew of Coleridge; but as he had not heard from C. for some time, there was nothing in the letter we did not know before.
Thanks for your brother’s letters. I preserve them very carefully, and you shall have them (as the Manager says) when opportunity serves.
Mrs. Wordsworth is brought to bed; and I ought to write to Miss Wordsworth to thank her for the information, but I suppose I shall defer it till another child is coming. I do so hate writing letters. I wish all my friends would come and live in town. Charles has been telling me even it is better [than] two months that he ought to write to your brother. [It is not] my dislike to writing letters that prevents my [writing] to you, but sheer want of time, I assure you, because [I know] you care not how stupidly I write, so as you do but [hear at the] time what we are about.
Let me hear from you soon, and do let me hear some [good news,] and don’t let me hear of your walking with sprained ancles again; no business is an excuse for making yourself lame.
I hope your poor Mother is better, and Aunty and Maid jog on pretty well; remember me to them all in due form and order. Charles’s love, and our best wishes that all your little busy affairs may come to a prosperous conclusion.
Yours affectionately,
M. LAMB.
Friday evening.
[_Added later:_–]
They (Hazlitt and Charles) came home from Sadler’s Wells so dismal and dreary dull on Friday, that I gave them both a good scolding–_quite a setting to rights_; and I think it has done some good, for Charles has been very chearful ever since. I begin to hope the _home hollidays_ will go on very well. Mrs. Rickman is better. Rickman we saw at Captain Burney’s for the first time since her illness last night.
Write directly, for I am uneasy about your _Lovers_; I wish something was settled. God bless you.
Once more, yours affectionately,
M. LAMB.
_Sunday morning [July 6, or more probably 13]_.–I did not put this in the post, hoping to be able to write a less dull letter to you this morning; but I have been prevented, so it shall go as it is. I am in good spirits just at this present time, for Charles has been reading over the _Tale_ I told you plagued me so much, and he thinks it one of the very best: it is All’s Well that Ends Well. You must not mind the many wretchedly dull letters I have sent you; for, indeed, I cannot help it, my mind is so _dry_ always after poring over my work all day. But it will soon be over.
I am cooking a shoulder of Lamb (Hazlitt dines with us); it will be ready at two o’Clock, if you can pop in and eat a bit with us.
[The programme at Sadler’s Wells on July 4, 1806, was: “Aquatic Theatre, Sadler’s Wells. A new dance called Grist and Puff, or the Highland Fling. The admired comic pantomime, Harlequin and the Water Kelpe. New melodramatic Romance, The Invisible Ring; or, The Water Monstre and Fire Spectre.” The author of both was Mr. C. Dibdin, Jun. “Real water.”
Mary Lamb’s next work, after the _Tales from Shakespear_, was _Mrs. Leicester’s School_. Charles Lamb meanwhile was preparing his _Dramatic Specimens_ and _Adventures of Ulysses_.
Mrs. Rickman did not die then, She lived until 1836.]
LETTER 155
MARY LAMB TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH
[P.M. August 29, 1806.]
My dear Miss Wordsworth–After I had put my letter in the post yesterday I was uneasy all the night because of some few expressions relative to poor Coleridge–I mean, in saying I wished your brother would come to town and that I wished your brother would consult Mr. Southey. I am very sure your brother will take no step in consequence of any foolish advice that I can give him, so far I am easy, but the painful reflections I have had during a sleepless night has induced me to write merely to quiet myself, because I have felt ever since, that in the present situation of Coleridge, returned after an absence of two years, and feeling a reluctance to return to his family, I ought not to throw in the weight of a hair in advising you or your Brother, and that I ought not to have so much as named to you his reluctance to return to Keswick, for so little is it in my power to calculate on his actions that perhaps in a few days he may be on his return home.
You, my dear friend, will perfectly understand me that I do not mean that I might not freely say to you anything that is upon my mind–but [the] truth is, my poor mind is so weak that I never dare trust my own judgement in anything: what I think one hour a fit of low spirits makes me unthink the next. Yesterday I wrote, anxiously longing for Mr.