Act 2 — Scene changes to a bed-room. John sitting alone: a lamp burning by him.

"Infinite torments for finite offences." I will never believe it. How divines can reconcile this monstrous tenet with the spirit of their Theology! They have palpably failed in the proof, for to put the question thus:—If he being infinite—have a care, Woodvil, the latitude of doubting suits not with the humility of thy condition. What good men have believed, may be true, and what they profess to find set down clearly in their scriptures, must have probability in its defence[40]. Touching that other question the Casuists with one consent have pronounced the sober man accountable for the deeds by him in a state of drunkenness committed, because tho' the action indeed be such as he, sober, would never have committed, yet the drunkenness being an act of the will, by a moral fiction, the issues are accounted voluntary also. I lose my sleep in attending to these intricacies of the schoolmen. I lay till daybreak the other morning endeavouring to draw a line of distinction between sin of direct malice and sin of malice indirect, or imputable only by the sequence. My brain is overwrought by these labours, and my faculties will shortly decline into impotence. [Throws himself on a bed.]

End of the Fourth Act.

[Footnote 40: Lamb had crossed out this passage from "Infinite torments," and written at "touching" "begin here."]

In the fifth act of the printed play [page 192] we have simply "Margaret enters." In the MS. Sandford prepares his master for her advent, and announces her thus:—

Sandford. Wilt please you to see company to-day, Sir?

John. Who thinks me worth the visiting?

Sandford. One that traveled hard last night to see you, She waits to know your pleasure.

John. A lady too! pray send her to me— Some curiosity, I suppose.

[Sandford goes out and returns with Margaret.]

Margaret. Woodvil![41]

[Footnote 41: "Woodvil!" and some illegible words struck out, and nothing substituted.]

John. Comes Margaret here, etc.

When, a page further on [page 194], John has declared to Margaret that

This earth holds not alive so poor a thing as I am— I was not always thus,

the MS. went on (but the passage is struck out as "bad"):—

You must bear with me, Margaret, as a child, For I am weak as tender Infancy And cannot bear rebuke— Would'st think it, Love! They hoot and spit upon me as I pass In the public streets: one shows me to his neighbour, Who shakes his head and turns away with horror— I was not always thus—

Margaret. Thou noble nature, etc.

The next scene—the last [page l95]—is much cut about. The long speech of Margaret beginning,

To give you in your stead a better self,

and John's reply [both printed at pages 196-7], are struck out, and "Nimis" written by Lamb's pen in large characters in the margin; but after that all goes on in harmony with the print, to the end:—

It seem'd the guilt of blood was passing from me Even in the act and agony of tears And all my sins forgiven. At this point in the MS. Simon arrives:—

[A noise is heard as of one without, clamorous to come in.]

Margaret. 'Tis your brother Simon, John.

Enter Simon, with his sword in a menacing posture, John staggers towards him and falls at his feet, Margaret standing over him.

Simon. Is this the man I came so far to see— The perfect Cavalier, the finish'd courtier Whom Ladies lov'd, the gallant curled Woodvil, Whom brave men fear'd, the valiant, fighting Woodvil, The haughty high-ambitioned Parricide— The same that sold his father's secret in his cups, And held it but an after-dinner's trick?— So humble and in tears, a crestfallen penitent, And crawling at a younger brother's feet! The sinews of my [stiff] revenge grow slack. My brother, speak to me, my brother John. (Aside) Now this is better than the beastly deed Which I did meditate.

John (rising and resuming his old dignity). You come to take my life, I know it well. You come to fight with me—[Laying his hand upon his sword.] This arm was busy on the day of Naseby: 'Tis paralytic now, and knows no use of weapons. The luck is yours, Sir. [Surrenders his sword.]

Simon. My errand is of peace: A dying father's blessing and lost prayers For his misguided son. Sir Walter sends it with his parting breath. He bade me with my brother live in peace, He bade me fall upon his neck and weep, (As I now do) and love my brother John; For we are only left in the wide world The poor survivors of the Woodvil name. [They embrace.]

Simon. And Margaret here shall witness our atonement— (For Margaret still hath followed all your fortunes). And she shall dry thy tears and teach thee pray. So we'll together seek some foreign land, Where our sad story, John, shall never reach.

End of "Pride's Cure" and Charles Lamb's Dramatic Works!!

After all this [Mr. Campbell adds finally] is the reader prepared to think Manning altogether wrong and Lamb altogether right as to what was done in the process of transforming Pride's Cure into John Woodvil?

The version of 1818 here printed differs practically only in minor matters of typography and punctuation from that of 1802. There are, however, a few alterations which should be noted. On page 176, in John's first speech, "fermentations" was, in 1802, "stimuli." On page 178, in the speech of the Third Gentleman, there is a change. In 1802 he said "(dashing his glass down) Pshaw, damn these acorn cups, they would not drench a fairy. Who shall pledge," &c. And at the end of Act III, one line is omitted. In 1802 John was made to say, after disarming Lovel (page 186):—

Still have the will without the power to execute, As unfear'd Eunuchs meditate a rape.

This simile, which one reviewer fell upon with some violence, was not reprinted.

Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, writing in The Athenceum, December 28, 1901, remarks: "The truth is that in Lamb's imitations of the elder writers 'anachronistic improprieties' (as Thomas Warton would say) are exceedingly rare. In John Woodvil it would not, I think, be easy to discover more than two: caprice, which, in the sense of 'a capricious disposition,' seems to belong to the eighteenth century, and anecdotes (i.e., 'secret Court history'), which, in its English form at least, probably does not occur much before 1686."

This note is already too long, or I should like to say something of the reception of John Woodvil, which was not cordial. The Annual Review was particularly severe, and the Edinburgh caustic.

* * * * *

Page 109. "THE WITCH."

In the Works, 1818, this dramatic sketch followed John Woodvil.

Lamb sent "The Witch" to Robert Lloyd in November, 1798 (see Charles Lamb and the Lloyds, page 91), in a version differing widely from that of the Works here given. The speakers are Sir Walter Woodvil's steward and Margaret. The principal variation is this, after the curse:—

Margaret. A terrible curse!

Old Steward. O Lady! such bad things are said of that old woman, You would be loth to hear them! Namely, that the milk she gave was sour, And the babe, who suck'd her, shrivell'd like a mandrake, And things besides, with a bigger horror in them, Almost, I think, unlawful to be told!

In the penultimate line "The mystery of God" was "Creation's beauteous workmanship."

* * * * *

Page 202. "MR. H——."

Lamb composed this farce in the winter 1805-1806. Writing to Hazlitt on February 19, 1806, he says: "Have taken a room at 3s. a week to be in between 5 and 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." Mary Lamb, writing to Sarah Stoddart at about the same time, says: "Charles is gone [to the lodging] 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." The next day or so, February 21, she says that she liked the farce "very much, and cannot help having great hopes of its success"—stating that she has carried it to Mr. Wroughton at Drury Lane.

The reply came on June n, 1806, saying that the farce was accepted, subject to a few alterations, and would be produced in due course (see Lamb's letter to Wordsworth, written in "wantonness of triumph," of June 26). Mary Lamb, writing to Sarah Stoddart, probably in October, 1806, says that

Charles took an emendated copy of his farce to Mr. Wroughton, the Manager, yesterday. Mr. Wroughton was very friendly to him, and expressed high approbation of the farce; but there are two, he tells him, to come out before it…. We are pretty well, and in fresh hopes about this farce.

Lamb tells Manning about it, on December 5, adding after an outline of the plot:—"That's the idea—how flat it is here—but how whimsical in the farce!" Later he says: "I shall get £200 from the theatre if 'Mr. H——' has a good run, and, I hope, £100 for the copyright. Nothing if it fails; and there never was a more ticklish thing. The whole depends on the manner in which the name is brought out, which I value myself on, as a chef-d'oeuvre." And a little later still: "N.B. If my little thing don't succeed, I shall easily survive."

"Mr. H——" was produced on December 10, 1806. The play-bill for the night ran thus:—

Theatre Royal, Drury-Lane This present Wednesday, December 10, 1806 Their Majesties Servants will act the Operatic Drama of The Travellers; Or, Music's Fascination [&c. &c.] After which will be produced (Never Acted) a new Farce, in Two acts, called, Mr. H—— The Characters by Mr. Elliston Mr. Wewitzer, Mr. Hartley, Mr. Penley, Mr. Purser Mr. Carles, Mr. Cooke, Mr. Fisher, Mr. Placide, Mr. Webb Miss Mellon, Mrs. Sparks Miss Tidswell, Mrs. Harlowe Mrs. Scott, Mrs. Maddocks, Miss Sanders The Prologue to be spoken by Mr. Elliston [&c., &c.]

According to Mrs. Baron-Wilson's Memoirs of (Miss Mellon) Harriet, Duchess of St. Albans, Lamb was allowed to cast "Mr. H——" himself. Miss Mellon played the heroine.

The Lambs sat near the orchestra with Hazlitt and Crabb Robinson, and the house was well salted with friendly clerks from the East India House and the South-Sea House. The prologue went capitally; and all was well with the play until the name of Hogsflesh was pronounced. Then disapproval set in in a storm of hisses, in which, Crabb Robinson tells us, Lamb joined heartily, standing on his seat to do so.

In a report of the first night of "Mr. H——" in Monthly Literary Recreations for December, 1806, we read that on the secret of the name being made public "all interest vanished, the audience were disgusted, and the farce went on to its very conclusion almost unheard, amidst the contending clamours of 'Silence,' 'Hear! hear!' and 'Off! off! off!'"

Writing to Wordsworth on the next day Lamb told the story:—"Mr. H—— came out last night and failed. I had many fears; the subject was not substantial enough. John Bull must have solider fare than a Letter. We are pretty stout about it, have had plenty of condoling friends, but after all, we had rather it should have succeeded. You will see the Prologue in most of the Morning Papers. It was received with such shouts as I never witness'd to a Prologue. It was attempted to be encored. How hard! a thing I did merely as a task, because it was wanted—and set no great store by; and Mr. H.!! The quantity of friends we had in the house my brother and I being in Public Offices &c. was astonishing—but they yielded at length to a few hisses—"a hundred hisses—damn the word, I write it like kisses—how different—a hundred hisses outweigh 1000 claps. The former come more directly from the Heart. Well, 'tis withdrawn and there is an end. Better Luck to us."

Writing to Sarah Stoddart, Lamb put the case thus:—"Mary is a little cut at the ill success of 'Mr. H.,' which came out last night, and failed. I know you'll be sorry, but never mind. We are determined not to be cast down. I am going to leave off tobacco, and then we must thrive. A smoking man must write smoky farces." Thereafter Lamb's attitude to "Mr. H——" was always one of humorous resignation.

Lamb should have chosen a better, by which I mean a worse, name than Hogsflesh. As a matter of fact a great number of persons had become quite accustomed to the asperities of Hogsflesh, not only from the famous cricketer of that name, one of the pioneers of the game, but also from the innkeeper at Worthing. Indeed an old rhyme current at the end of the eighteenth century anticipated some of Lamb's humour, for the two principal landlords of Worthing, which was just then beginning to be a fashionable resort, were named Hogsflesh and Bacon, leading to the quatrain:—

Brighton is a pretty street, Worthing is much taken; If you can't get any other meat There's Hogsflesh and Bacon.

The Drury Lane authorities do not seem to have considered the failure as absolute as did Lamb, for on the next day—December 11—the bills announced:—

*** The New Farce of Mr. H——, performed for the first time last night, was received by an overflowing audience with universal applause, and will be repeated for the second time to-morrow.

But the next evening's bill—December 12, 1806—stated that "The New Farce of Mr. H—— is withdrawn at the request of the author."

"Mr. H——" did not then disappear altogether from the stage. A correspondent of Notes and Queries, May 26, 1855, remembered seeing it at Philadelphia when he was a boy. The last scene, he says, particularly amused the audience. And in William B. Wood's Personal Recollections of the Stage, 1855, it is recorded of the Philadelphia Theatre, of which he was manager, that in 1812, "Charles Lamb's excellent farce of 'Mr. H——' met with extraordinary success, and was played an unusual number of nights." Lamb, however, did not profit thereby.

The little play was published in Philadelphia in 1813 under the title Mr. H——, or Beware a Bad Name. A farce in two acts, as performed at the Philadelphia Theatre—Lamb's name not figuring in any way in connection with it.

In England "Mr. H——" was not revived until 1885, when, as a curiosity, it was played by the Dramatic Students' Society. The performance was held at the Gaiety on October 27, 1885, the prologue being spoken by a gentleman made up to resemble Lamb. At the Cheadle Town Hall on October 19 and 20, 1910, "Mr. H——" was given again, with the difference that the secret of the name was disclosed from the start.

In Notes and Queries, August 3, 1889, the following amusing play-bill was printed, contributed by Mr. Bertram Dobell:—

Theatre Royal, English Opera House, Strand. Particularly Private. This present FRIDAY, April 26, 1822, Will be presented a FARCE called Mr. H…. (N.B. This piece was damned at Drury Lane Theatre.) [Caste follows.] Previous to which a PROLOGUE will be spoken by Mrs. EDWIN. After the Farce (for the first Time in this country, and now performing with immense success in Paris) A French Petite Comedie, called Le Comedien D'Etampes. (N.B. This piece was never acted in London, and may very probably be damned HERE.) [Caste follows.] Immediately after which A LOVER'S CONFESSION, in the shape of a SONG, by M. EMILE (From the Theatre de la Poste St. Martin, at Paris.) To conclude with a Pathetic Drama, in One Act, called The Sorrows of Werther. (N.B. This Piece was damned at Covent Garden Theatre.) [Caste follows.] Brothers and Sisters of Charlotte, by six Cherubims got for the occasion. Orchestra. Leader of the Band, Mr. Knight, Conductor, Mr. E. Knight. Piano Forte, Mr. Knight, Jun. Harpsichord, Master Knight (that was). Clavecin, by the Father of the Knights, to come. Vivat Rex! No Money returned (because none will be taken). On account of the above surprising Novelty, not an ORDER can possibly be admitted:— But it is requested, that if such a thing finds its way into the front of the house, IT WILL BE KEPT. Doors open at Half past Six, begin at Half past Seven precisely. The Entrance for all parts of the House at the Private Box Door in Exeter Street. Lowndes, Printer, Marquis Court, Drury Lane, London.

Mr. Dobell wonders if Lamb had any knowledge of this performance, and he suggests that possibly he had a hand in the bill. Certainly the interpolations concerning damnation are in his manner.

I add a few notes:—

Page 208. The man with the great nose. See Slawkenbergius's tale in Tristram Shandy, Vol. IV.

Page 212. The feeling Hurley. Harley was the hero of Henry Mackenzie's novel, The Man of Feeling.

Page 217. Jeremiah Pry. John Poole may have taken a hint here for his farce "Paul Pry," produced in September, 1825. Lamb and he knew each other slightly. Lamb analysed the prying nature again in The New Times early in 1825, in two papers on "Tom Pry" and "Tom Pry's Wife" which will be found in Vol. I. of this edition.

Page 220. Old Q——. William Douglas, fourth Duke of Queensberry (1724-1810), the most notorious libertine of his later days.

Page 224. John, my valet. This is a very similar incident to that described in the Elia essay on the "Old Benchers," where Lovel (John Lamb) warns Samuel Salt, when dressing him, not to allude, at the party to which he is going, to the unfortunate Miss Blandy.

Page 228, line 1. Mother Damnable. There was at Kentish Town a notorious old shrew who bore this nickname in the 17th century.

* * * * *

Page 238. "THE PAWNBROKER'S DAUGHTER."

Printed in Blackwood, January, 1830, and not reprinted by Lamb.

This little play was never acted. Lamb refers to it in a letter to Bernard Barton—in July, 1829—as "an old rejected farce"; and Canon Ainger mentions a note of Lamb's to Charles Mathews, in October, 1828, offering the farce for production at the Adelphi. The theme is one that seems always to have interested Lamb (see his essay on the "Inconveniences of Being Hanged," Vol. I.).

Page 243, line 3. "An Argument against the Use of Animal Food." Joseph Ritson, 1752-1803, the antiquarian, was converted to vegetarianism by Mandeville's Fable of the Bees. The work from which Cutlet quotes was published in 1802. Pope's motto is from the Essay on Man, I., lines 81-84.

Page 243, last line. Mr. Molyneux … in training to fight Cribb. Cutlet's rump steak did not avail in either of the great struggles between Tom Cribb and Tom Molineaux. At their first meeting, on December 18, 1810, Molineaux went under at the thirty-third round; and in the return match, on September 28, 1811, Molineaux's jaw was broken at the ninth and he gave in at the eleventh, to the great disappointment of the 20,000 spectators. Mr. Molineaux was a negro.